Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
Book forty-nine of 2019: Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series, by Aaron Harvey and Rich Schepis. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
TAS finally gets its behind-the-scenes episode-by-episode review. Artwork, trivia, and memories from those involved make this a must for TAS fans. 🖖
Book forty-seven of 2019: Starfleet Academy, by Diane Carey ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A quick and simple bit of fluff, based on an early CD-ROM game. As such, not exactly the most complex or demanding of novels, even among Trek books, but that’s about what I expected, so no disappointment.
Aquaman: ⭐️⭐️
Completely ridiculous, and in the constant-eye-rolling sense, rather than the this-is-fun sense. Admittedly, it was nice to see a DC film that wasn’t as dark (thematically and literally) as most have been, there were occasional gorgeous images, and I did get an occasional laugh. But there were just so many things that didn’t work for me, from the weird underwater effects to the soundtrack — the first time a character gave a dire pronouncement and it was immediately followed by a literal “bom-bom-bommmmmm”, I laughed, but when it became a recurring theme, it went from a sly wink at the audience to simply annoying — that this just ended up continuing DC’s nearly uninterrupted streak of uninteresting and unsatisfying superhero films.
I love this remembrance of an old newspaper summary of Top Gun.
★★ TOP GUN
(Drama, 1986) Trivializes war by turning it into a music video. Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer. (1 hr. 50 min.)
Book forty-four of 2019: The Enterprise War, by John Jackson Miller. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Filling in the blanks of Pike’s Enterprise up to the start of season two of ST: DIS. Not a bad romp, and helps to flesh out some of the secondary characters we see in Pike’s crew.
Just (finally) watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and wow, does that film deserve every accolade it’s received. A great film, and absolutely gorgeous – that animation work was incredible, and just as groundbreaking as I’d heard. I’m a fan.
In memory of Mad magazine and Alfred E. Neuman, 1952-2019. What, me worry?
The one issue I keep is part of my Star Trek collection; the bust I inherited from my dad, and dates from around 1960.
🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E14 (Late, because I was at Norwescon.) So many explosions! I’m not exactly opposed to getting a little Star Wars in my Star Trek, but this may have been a bit much. Ending on the Enterprise was pretty, but odd. Overall: imperfect, but satisfactory.
🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E13 So many questions; quite glad there’s still one more episode. Enjoying the Short Treks tie-ins (maybe even Calypso?). But…wow. The Enterprise bridge! That was an incredible modernization that still obviously respected the original. I was blown away.
Happy Rex Manning Day!