Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
I’ve always loved Star Trek. Not the diabolical new shit. They’ve been a long-running series of abominations – from JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot in 2009 to the two sequels (Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond), to each series: Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and most recently, Starfleet Academy. (I can’t comment on the animated slop, Lower Decks; I’ve only seen the pilot, and that was awful. Maybe it improved. Maybe. Maybe we’ll have world peace tomorrow.) The people in charge of the franchise – JJ Abrams originally, and then Alex Kurtzman – just don’t understand the property. JJ acknowledged that in an interview, where he proclaimed he…
A Look Back: Star Trek III – The Search for Spock
Every movie enjoys the same conceit: that the good guys might not win. But it’s a fallacy. In most stories, the good guys do wins. There might be twists and all that, but the bulk of stories end with the unspoken fairy tale climax of, And they lived happily ever after. But for the sake of our enjoyment, we entertain the prospect that they might not. After all, a predictable plot where we know what’s going to happen isn’t going to compel, excite, and tantalise us. We’ll grow disinterested – just as we would seeing the same repeat for the umpteenth time. Now the problem arises that some stories are…