A Look Back: Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan
After Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s (1979) modest reception, Paramount handed the franchise’s reins to writer/director Nicholas Meyer. Among Meyer’s successes to that point had been the best-selling novel and screenplay adaptation The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), and writing/directing the time-travel thriller Time After Time (1979). Meyer had not seen any of Star Trek: The Original Series (1966 – 1969), and proceeded to watch it all. Imagine that! He watched it to familiarise himself with the universe, the characters, and the stories they were telling. I seriously can’t imagine that the brainstrust behind the current incarnations of Star Trek – Star Trek: Discovery (2017 – please let it end) and Star…
A Look Back: Raiders of the Lost Ark
I’ve been going through a lot of movies in lockdown – a sprinkling of newer movies, some older ones I’ve never seen or saw so long ago I can hardly remember them, as well as movies I love which I thought it would be time to re-watch. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is one of the re-watches. I first saw this in 1982 as part of a high school class trip to the city – this is when the city had an almost-exclusive monopoly on cinemas, whereas now you find them in every shopping plaza. The teacher had been looking for a movie based around some topic or other…