• Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    Respecting Property

    Two of my favourite recent movies placed in long-running franchises are Logan (2017) and Joker (2019). Logan tells the story of an older Wolverine, now struggling with health, and trying to take care of Professor Xavier, who’s suffering from dementia. Joker is a possible origin story for arguably the most recognisable comic-book villain there is. Both stories sit in well-defined, well-populated franchises. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has appeared in six X-Men movies, cameoed in one other, and appeared in three Wolverine-only movies. Although X-Men has been (softly) rebooted, the universe largely remains the same: same characters (just with younger actors), same feel, and the same type of adventures. Writer/director James Mangold…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Reviews

    Star Trekking: Part 1 of 3

    I’m a Trekker. Reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series captured my imagination when I was just a kid in the 1970s. Space, aliens, adventure – what isn’t there to love? The effects are obviously dated now, but the storytelling was paramount. I had an argument with somebody once about Star Trek: The Original Series versus JJ Abrams’s reboot; what the other person highlighted – as an intended detractor from TOS – was the terrible special effects TOS incorporated. But the storytelling itself holds up. While there’s some stories typical of that era, overall the storytelling is logical, causal, and makes sense within its own universe. Even at its worst,…