Book thirty-seven of 2018: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night, by David Mack. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
TV And Films
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
“Yakko’s World” — the Animaniacs song with all the countries of the world — just got a brand new verse with all the countries added since the song was written!
Report: Disney re-animating parts of Wreck-It-Ralph sequel after Princess and the Frog criticism. I’m impressed that Disney is doing this. Good for them for listening and actually taking action.
E.T. phone home! E.T. phone home!
If you ever get the chance to see E.T. in the theater, with a crowd full of kids who have never seen it before, I highly recommend it. I’ll admit that I got kinda choked up at the resurrection scene, and I think a large part of that wasn’t even the movie itself, but from being in the crowd and hearing the gasps, cheers, and claps of the kids (a few of whom we’d heard sniffling or outright sobbing in the preceding few minutes). A good audience can make a huge difference when watching a film, and today’s was definitely a good one.
Aah, the 80s. When “Nazis are bad and should have their faces melted off” wasn’t a controversial statement.
Re-watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and wondered if the “archaeological booby traps” trope had any basis in reality. Turns out, the answer is “yes”! Neat!
Book thirty-three of 2018: Star Trek: The Classic Episodes Vol. 2, by James Blish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
‘Jaws’ mystery: Did long unknown ‘Lady of the Dunes’ Cape Cod murder victim appear in movie scene? Very cool theory — and even if it’s far-fetched, how neat would it be if this panned out?
Gloria Would Probably Laugh Too
So we’re watching a really neat documentary on PBS (Wonders of Mexico), and not terribly surprisingly, there are parts of it that are spoken in another language and subtitled. Well, most people understand that translation is sometimes as much art as science, with a lot of room for the interpreter in choosing the exact words and phrasing.
So when a Mayan farmer is discussing feeling nervous and apprehensive about his first childhood climb down into a cave and underground lake, what do the subtitles say?
“At first, I was afraid. I was petrified.”
And both Prairie and I snicker. I hope whoever did the translation or programmed the subtitles got a bonus for that.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, he did survive.
“There is a phrase in vulcan for ‘the particular moment you understand what the word ‘fuck’ is for’.”
This thread about the ridiculousness of humans in the Star Trek universe (“…to everyone else in the galaxy, all humans are basically Doc Brown.”) always makes me laugh. 🖖