A Look Back: Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home
If you wanted movies news in the 1980s, you had limited avenues. There was no internet. I’m sure there were magazines, but as a teenager I had no idea what they were. I – and so many others – had to rely on Entertainment Tonight (1981), a television magazine about movies and TV series. I’d watch Entertainment Tonight for three things: interviews with actors I liked stories on movies I was interested in, and any clips. Back then, there wasn’t simultaneous release of movies. Often, they would open in Australia months and months after they’d opened in the US. So Entertainment Tonight was a valuable tool for a nerd such…
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…