Five decade Mission

Fifty years ago today, an Asian, a Scotsman, a Russian and a Vulcan warped into the stars…

As I’ve mentioned before, my Mum loved Star Trek, so the original enterprise crew became the first family outside my own who I spent time with with. 

In my pre- teens I spent a period in hospital and Mum bought me a book to read, called The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold, the follow-up to his better known ‘Making of…’ book. Reading this marked the point where I left merely being an appreciative viewer behind, and became a fan.  I got to peek behind the ‘Savage Curtain’, and suddenly I knew stuff about the actors and production crew, not just the characters they played and the stories they wrote.  

I didn’t become a Trekker until I went to Nepal many years later, but this is when I became a Trekkie.

With the greatest respect to you children of the 90s, Star Trek is only Kirk and Co for me. 

I’ll always prefer to boldly, not baldly, go and tend to regard the subsequent TV spin-offs as inessential adjuncts.   

It’s been many years since I’ve seen it, but even the animated series felt more like Trek to me than the self-important, emotionally-disconnected procedurals which followed in later decades.  Lets move on before I say anything nasty, though it may already be too late...

I love the first six films, to varying degrees, and honestly believe the second transcends it’s parent franchise to become a true classic in it’s own right. And I’ve yet to see the latest, but have thoroughly enjoyed the first two ‘rebooted’ films.

Almost 40 years of cinematic Trek

So when I got an email two years ago asking if I wanted to contribute to a collection of essays marking the golden anniversary of golden Trek, called Outside In: To Boldly Go, I hesitated for only as long As it took me to push the reply button.

Outside In: To Boldly Go is a collection of essays written by 116 learned, witty people.  And me. Available now for pre-order at ATBpublishing.com

The premise was simple:

With the 50th anniversary of Star Trek on the horizon, it’s time to do something different. Over the decades, we’ve all heard the standard opinions on these episodes. With Outside In: TBG, the aim is simple: say something different. Something interesting. Or something completely gonzo.

My love of Wrath of Khan made me go straight to the story which introduced that character, and incredibly Space Seed was free. But as the editor, Robert, said “loving something too much doesn't always lead to the most innovative article :-)”

So I chose a third season episode which has always stayed in my memory.  It’s not generally regarded as one of the best, or most loved, and I doubt it was one of the better budgeted, either. But love is blind and I’ve always loved the Day of the Dove - the one where a disembodied entity smuggles aboard the Enterprise and incites the crew to battle a group of Klingons at liberty on the ship. The creature amplifies and feeds on violent emotions but eventually Kirk and Klingon commander Kang realise they have to overcome their differences to avoid mutually assured destruction.

There’s even a Khan connection - Michael Ansara’s performance as Kirk’s Klingon ‘opposite number’ is so charismatic that he was almost chosen as the returning “Big Bad’ for Star Trek II, before being edged out by Ricardo Montalban’s genetically modified Indian Prince.

From what I’ve gathered from the proof reader’s remarks my contribution has divided opinion, and I certainly didn’t chose an expected route in looking back at The Day of the Dove.  I won’t say anything more about it  until To Boldly Go is officially released, so for now lets raise a glass of Romulan ale and wish the original crew of the Enterprise, and absent friends, a very happy fiftieth anniversary. 

In the (final) words of a certain starship captain, which also define why this is my Star Trek: “It’s been fun.”

This fantastically detailed Anniversary poster by artist Dusty Abell
features every single original series episode.

Listening Post

The best things in life are free

I imagine I was pretty late in discovering podcasts: regular, largely non-professional downloadable audio episodes in a themed series.

 Thanks to the generosity of of friends, I've been listening to audio books and dramas for many years but was suspicious the first time I was offered a podcast episode.  Why would I want to listen to the opinions of some fan with a microphone, who did he think he was packaging his own views up into an episode and apparently expect the same attention as a professional product?

In this case that fan with a microphone was Jim Moon of the Hypnogoria (formerly Hypnobobs) podcast, and I was extremely fortunate to have had the chance to begin with one of the very best available.  His in-depth analysis and sheer love of the two Doctor Phibes films hooked me straight away and I've listened to a huge part of his output since.  Moon has a perfect voice for radio, a bottomless knowledge of genre fiction of every kind and, best of all, seems to always strive to take as positive a view as possible of the material he's looking at.

http://www.hypnogoria.com/html/podcast.html

One thing Hypnogoria has done for me is re-ignite my love of all things Hammer, and that was how I stumbled upon another first-class podcast, pretty much by mistake.  Searching under the name of that studio, I came across Hammered Horror, a show consisting of the two British hosts discussing a more obscure and perhaps unloved genre film - usually in a pub, (hence the 'hammered').  This podcast is a delight, ranging from comprehensive analysis to gleefully immature (and always hilarious) commentary which conjures many happy memories for me watching similar (and sometimes the same) films with friends.

http://www.hammeredhorror.net/?cat=3

In terms of another life-long interest of mine, I enjoy the Verity podcast, a revolving round-table discussion about Doctor Who by a group of women (who'd ever have imagined?) from Canada, the US, Australia and Scotland. Verity unsurprisingly has a feminist approach to its analysis which I generally enjoy, and works best when agent provocateur Liz Barr from Kirkcudbrightshire is onboard. Verity is smart, positive and creative, but the multiple contributor format can result in an uneven airing of views at times, despite Deborah Stanish's excellent moderating.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/VerityPodcast

Hearing that one of the Verity contributors also hosted a Babylon 5 podcast, I went looking for it. I failed to find hers but did stumble across the Babylon Podcast, one of the earlier ventures into this internet medium and surely the definitive cast about the legendary mid-nineties programme.  This is due to one of the co-hosts having been a regular character on the series itself, and able to get all of the Babylon 5 cast and crew members as guests in lengthy, entertaining and very candid interviews. On top of this co-host Summer Brookes has one of the loveliest voices online.

http://www.babylonpodcast.com/

For more mainstream science fiction cinema, the Science Fiction Film Podcast has been a delight.  It is irreverent, and borderline tourettes-syndrome in its language at times, but co-host Dean has an astonishing talent for mimickry. Effortlessly able to impersonate the entire cast of The Wrath of Khan, for example, his gift immeasureably enhances enjoyment of this cast which mixes well-researched commentary with exuberant enthusiasm for the subject.

http://www.libertystreetgeek.net/

Not every punt on a new podcast has paid off, unfortunately.  One particular cast which is an adjunct to a magazine I loved in my younger years proved to be a huge disappointment. Venal, vulgar and sanctimonious, it was a waste of data useage which I will not be repeating.

I'm happy to be able to end on a happy note though. In terms of Hammer films I have finally achieved Nirvana with 1951 Downplace. Perhaps surprisingly, it is hosted by three Americans, but their depth of knowledge and love for this most British of institutions is peerless. This podcast has covered a Hammer production each month since, and doesn't just confine itself to their horror films, but the studio's entire output. This cast is painstakingly edited, themes of any other film touched upon swimming up in the background, along with the running gag of the Captain Kronos theme sting blaring every time that production is mentioned in passing. A hilarious discussion proprosing a title sequence for the 'Hammer A-Team' of Professors Van Helsing and Quatermass, Captain Kronos and Father Sandor with the entire A-Team theme playing in the background had me gasping for breath with laughter when I listened to it while out for a run.

http://1951downplace.com/

Say what you like about genre film and TV fans, their boundless creativity does at least allow them to share enthusiasm in lovingly crafted, skilfully produced and entertaining ways, which the rest of us can enjoy, for free!

One to beam up

Leonard Nimoy lived well and prospered

Leonard Nimoy: 1931 - 2015

Created the same year I was, I literally can't recall a time before Star Trek. It was another show we watched as a family and at my earliest age I suppose, like Doctor Who, it was the monsters and aliens which appealed to me.  But here's the thing: Star Trek had an alien who wasn't just another marauding invader, he was part of the crew.  He was one of the good guys.

It is so taken for granted now but this single concept defined and elevated Star Trek beyond anything which had gone before.  Network executives were rattled and demanded the character be removed, but creator Gene Roddenberry put his job on the line.  He knew what he was doing (this time, at least). His show was to (sometimes rather earnestly) address the issues facing multi-racial America in the 1960s through the lens of a more-advanced future. And what better way to do that than to have an inter-dependent community which featured an Asian, an Afro-american woman and , to really drive the point home: someone who wasn't even from Earth?

The rest is well-trodden history - Mr Spock became one of the most recognisable figures of the late 20th century and continues to be so. Despite his obvious exotic pointed eared appeal the plot device of his mixed heritage and constant inner conflict between his logical Vulcan and emotional human sides was a stroke of genius.  A tormented hero who could potentially embody the best of humanity and most enigmatic of alien couldn't fail to appeal to every demographic.

I certainly took to Spock straight away. Despite not being remotely cerebral myself I've still always identified more with the controlled and learned Mr Spocks of fiction than the two-fisted Lothario Captain Kirks.  I quickly taught myself the Vulcan salute although my left hand, as Nimoy himself quipped, speaks it with a slight accent.  And I used to pedantically bristle when well-meaning adults used to confuse the character with then in-vogue childcare specialist Benjamin Spock - and refer to the Enterprise's First Officer as 'Doctor Spock'.

I think Spock taught me most of all that it's always best to keep your cool.  Infinitely harder, but ultimately better.

Leonard Nimoy was one of the first actors whose names I learnt - his surname, of Ukrainian Jewish origin, even sounded alien. When science fiction had it's global  Star Wars-propelled renaissance in 1977 Star Trek seemed to be never off TV, but I seem to recall while at school in New Zealand it was actually the animated series which was most broadcast.  And naturally, this placed more emphasis on the actors voices: Nimoy's sonorous tones gaining a stardom of their own.

The animated series: A two dimensional Enterprise crew
jog cross a very small planet

That instantly recognisable voice ruled the airwaves with Nimoy's long-running In Search of series, and I remember watching him in Mission Impossible as Paris, the disguise expert member of the IMF team.

Cravats are... illogical

A Star Trek film was inevitable, and perhaps just as inevitable was Nimoy's reluctance, (being perhaps the actor having most success after Trek) to return.  A replacement Vulcan was even cast but, despite having just written an autobiography entitled I am not Spock, Nimoy was once again - nine times again in fact, including an appearance on The Next Generation TV series and further films right up to 2013's Star Trek: Into Darkness.

'Spock Prime': "No Quinto, you do it like this..."

During this time he directed films (including two of the Treks), wrote poetry, published books of photography, performed and gave talks on stage, lent that voice to many different franchises including Transformers, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and , most notoriously, recorded songs.  Reuben Jane will never sound the same for me...
Leonard Nimoy died at his home on February 27, 2015 of pulmonary disease, at the age of 83.

"We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. 

And yet it should be noted, in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world; a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protect and nourish. He did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we will not debate his profound wisdom at these proceedings.
Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human."
(Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

Yearly projections

The medium of film seems an appropriate way for this blog to look back on the year that was.

2013 is almost over, and in terms of cinema entertainment it’s been a memorable year.

Marvel films continue their, until now, unchallenged domination of the big screen, but wait, up in the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane..?

Alas, this list is dominated by large, noisy 3-D blockbusters, but spectacle is best appreciated on a big screen, after all.

A couple of smaller films brought plenty of film magic of an altogether different kind and I only just managed to get tickets to duck Matt Smith’s chin in 3-D. 

It seems that I may have missed ‘the film of the year’ however, as Gravity continues to attract praise from pretty-much everyone.

Here are some of my highlights (and a notable low-point).

Skyfall
Although released in late 2012, we saw Skyfall at the beginning of this year, making Bond the first of three long-running fictional heroes celebrating an anniversary on-screen in 2013. And if this film put a foot wrong I certainly didn’t see it. I particularly loved the more personal, scaled-down resolution, with no large-scale assault on a super villain’s lair to stop a satellite-borne laser beam starting World War Three, this time.  Instead, Bond is desperately trying to get two elderly British thesps to safety through the besieged, fast disintegrating remnants of his family estate, and it’s riveting. 
Another highlight was young Ben Wilshaw as the new Q.  Making an instant impact with screen-presence well-beyond his age, some suggest him as a natural choice for the new Doctor when Matt Smith announces his departure.  By the year’s end Wilshaw has been cast as another icon instead: Freddie Mercury.

Iron Man 3

Two sequels and a last-chance reboot dominated the middle of the year, and I made it my business to organise group viewings of all of them with friends of varying enthusiasm.

First out of the gate was Tony Stark’s latest outing (which apparently could have been the original Iron Man 2 if the unexpected success of the first film hadn’t produced that ill-advisedly premature and hurried sequel a few years back.)

Downey delivers, as usual, and the idea of having Stark suffering from post-Avengers combat syndrome was a fascinating one.  Pairing him with the antithesis of a cute kid (Downey jnr, jnr?) lead to the film’s most charming scenes, Ben Kingsley is exceptional and Gwyneth Paltrow wears a vest top very well. But somehow this sequel fades from memory quite quickly after the climactic explosions die away.

Star Trek – Into Darkness

The biggest and perhaps only criticism I’ve heard of this film is that “It wasn’t as good as the first one”.  I suspect chances were it was never going to manage that particular feat, and I personally loved Abram’s second Trek.  An intriguing refracted image of the original Star Trek 2, on steroids, it also managed to tell an exciting, original story and the large cast were well-served.  Benedict Cumberbatch shows why he is everywhere at the moment.

Man of Steel

I’ve wrote plenty about this film here http://fasmatodea.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/steel-works.html
and it just might be my favourite cinema experience of 2013 due to the intense feeling of relief that this man can still make us believe he can fly.  Perhaps a little cold and nihilistic at times, this is none-the-less the best possible start for the ‘other’ comic superheroes’ advance on the big screen. Led - as is only right - by Superman. Watch out Marvel!

 Pacific Rim

Aargh. How could this come from the mind of the same man who made Pan’s Labyrinth? As clanking and colossally monstrous as its ‘stars’, but not in a good way.  Please redeem yourself with your Lovecraft film, Mr Del Toro.

Song for Marion

Not seen on the big screen, we enjoyed this, appropriately, in more intimate surroundings at home.  A lonely man struggles with the loss of his wife only to finally realise that good can come from any situation and it’s never to late to change.  This is the epitome of a well-made, modestly budgeted British film with several hundred times more heart than anything on offer at the multiplexes, as brilliant performances and plenty of humour take you through a spectrum of emotions before thankfully coming to rest on ‘life-affirming’.  It probably helped that the original General Zod: Terence Stamp, the ninth Doctor: Christopher Eccleston, and the gorgeous Gemma Arterton were in the lead roles, too.

The Magic of Belle Isle

Perhaps a state-side answer to Song for Marion, another loveable curmudgeon finds redemption and a second chance due to the irrepressible natures of those around him, and a dog called Spot.  Morgan Freeman brings even more charisma than usual to the role of disabled former-author Monte Wildhorn and the every-day eccentricity of Belle Isle, combined with priceless, and sometimes elaborate, dialogue helps make this lovely little film irresistible.

The Day of the Doctor

I saw the Doctor Who 50^th anniversary special with my wife and father, in a cinema packed with fans of all ages, in 3-D.  The audience was roughly 50% female, some wore Matt Smith costumes, some took their parents, even their Grandparents (or is that the other way-around?).  This alone would have been enough to burst my sad little fan-heart with joy, but impossibly, The Day of the Doctor actually lived up to its hype.  After a very patchy series earlier in the year, the programme-makers somehow got back in touch with the essence of ‘Who’ just in time, and literally gave us a celebration which had something for everyone.  Twelve (“No sir; thirteen!”) spinning little blue boxes felt like every Christmas present ever, arriving all at once.

Beyond the Edge

A late arrival (saw it yesterday!) and well-worth inclusion. I researched Hillary and Tenzing’s climb fairly exhaustively earlier this year (see infographic below), but this documentary finally conveyed what the climb was actually like, from the treacherous Khumbu icefall to the terrifying vertical Hillary’s Step. Superb research gives new insights to a story already familiar to many, while beautifully filmed recreations of key events convey the emotion and spectacle.  The achievement is humbling, yet stirs National pride at the same time, and our cat carries the name Ed with justified honour.

Where Noonian has gone before

Was it just me, or did the latest Trek film seem strangely familiar?

 I touched on Star Trek in my last post, and although I’m by no means a Trekkie/Trekker, the recent release of Into Darkness on disc prompts a look at this most recent reincarnation of what is commonly referred to as ‘Classic Trek’. That is, with a male, Caucasian Captain, sporting hair, in stories where the only character not displaying a full range of emotion is doing so on purpose.

A discussion of the various other programmes with Star Trek in their titles probably won’t occur on this blog.  Although The Next Generation had some great episodes, and one very good film, I just didn’t invest in anything which came afterwards. For my money, in the nineties the criminally under-rated Babylon 5 was where US science fiction TV was at, doing it all with so much more freshness and verve. (And there will be more about this show in later posts).

Having said this, the original television adventures of Kirk and Spock often don’t hold up terribly well these days either. It’s glaringly obvious that they were produced at a time when two-fisted westerns ruled the networks, and even if women were witches or genies, they had to be housewives first and foremost.

Of course, a handful of original Trek episodes do still truly deserve the label classic, transcending the limitations of their time to still entertain and challenge today.  You’ll have your own picks, and one of mine is Space Seed, a season 1 story famous for the thawing out of GM Indian Despot: Khan Noonian Singh.  This character had two things going for him to ensure his place in the pantheon of great science fiction villains –not evil simply for the sake of it, to him he was the betrayed hero of his own story, willing to make any sacrifice for his exiled followers.  And secondly, he is magnetically portrayed by Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban, casting which made as much sense as Sean Connery playing a Russian U Boat captain in Hunt for the Red October, but with an equally iconic result.

And referencing a submarine film is not as random as it might seem, because when all the Space Seed players returned for the cinematic sequel in 1982: Star Trek 2- the Wrath of Khan, we got exactly that – a tense, seek and destroy, U-boat drama in space.

The bloated and self-important first Star Trek film was a major disappointment to me (and apparently the studio).  Wrath of Khan paid for the ‘sins of the Father’ and was given a fraction of the budget - but impossibly turned this to its advantage.  With no location work and essentially the same set serving as the bridge of both duelling vessels, an already taut script was actually enhanced by the claustrophobic, and money-saving, settings.  The emphasis shifted from ponderous effects sequences to character interplay, delivering themes of retribution, responsibility, sacrifice and even love.

It’s a long-running point of difference between a couple of close friends and I, but I maintain this film knocked it so far out of the ball park that it not only still remains the best pre-2009 Trek film, but amply deserves it’s place in modern pop-culture.

At the risk of seeming smug, the fact that JJ Abrams, facing his Star Trek equivalent of the difficult second album, pulled out the biggest guns he could and brought back Khan seems further testimony to my conviction.  Indeed, not only does he bring back the franchise’s best ‘big bad’, but within this ingeniously skewed version of the classic universe, where previously-established continuity no longer applies, Abrams  also replays many of the beats, lines of dialogue and entire sequences from the first Star Trek 2.  This is an audacious move, not entirely dissimilar to Bryan Singer’s slavish 2008 Superman re-make/sequel, but unlike that film, Into Darkness also manages to give us an entirely new story.  A new Khan too: Benedict Cumberbatch’s icily-controlled human weapon has none of Montalban’s charm, perhaps showing more in common with the character’s original television debut than the deliciously unhinged, affably Leer-esque figure who helped steer big screen Trek in the right direction over 30 years ago.

There are many reviews of Star Trek: Into Darkness available on line, written by far more clever people than me.  What really fascinates me is that we live in very privileged times. Enormously talented new directors and writers are taking characters and stories which they loved as much as we did when they were young, and are dusting them off, polishing them with the very best contemporary technology and casting can offer, and launching them across the screen once again.  Myths and legends have always reinvented themselves for new generations and that is a good thing.  Even if the results sometimes fall a little short of our own expectations, seeing newer generations discover and enthuse about our childhood heroes is a pure delight and an unexpected bonus to no longer being that young ourselves. And if we occasionally tire of the frenetic pace and exhausting scale of contemporary interpretations, we can always wait till everyone else has gone to bed, put on the gloriously restored ‘originals’ and sit back to be transported to simpler times when the Kirby wire, matte painting and miniature model were king.