Film

While I’m not nearly as much of a movie buff as many, I do like ’em and watch ’em when I can.

Ranking the Star Trek Films (Again)

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An update to my last attempt at doing this back in 2009. I originally posted this to Mastodon back in April after watching Star Trek: Section 31, and after realizing I hadn’t cross-posted it here, am doing that now. Also somewhat prompted by a friend sending me this ranking from Den of Geek, which is close, but not identical, to mine; I do broadly agree with their summaries of the various films.

I gave it some thought, and while the exact placement of any of these might vary slightly depending on time/mood/etc., I think this is a pretty good stab at my personal Star Trek film ranking, best/favorite to worst/least favorite:

  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
  • Star Trek: First Contact
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
  • Galaxy Quest
  • Star Trek (2009)
  • Star Trek Beyond
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
  • Star Trek: Generations
  • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
  • Star Trek: Section 31
  • Star Trek: Insurrection
  • Star Trek: Nemesis
  • Star Trek Into Darkness

A few more details:

The first three (TWoK, TVH, TUC) are essentially a three-way tie for first. At any given point, the order could be shuffled around and would probably be acceptable.

TMP remains in that place whether it’s the theatrical, TV extended, or directors cut, but of the three, the director’s cut is definitively the best.

Some purists might be surprised at the two Kelvinverse films ranking that high, but for all the faults, the casting was so good at embodying the characters without slavishly copying or parodying (intentionally or not) the original actors, and I think both films are a lot of fun.

Christopher Lloyd’s Kruge almost pushes TSfS higher, but…not quite. But it does mark the dividing line between “films I can put on at just about any time and enjoy” and “films I’ll watch when there’s a reason to” (chronological rewatch, someone else wants to watch one, etc.).

S31 is barely Star Trek. It’s a generic sci-fi spy film that someone spritzed with synthehol and Starfleet emblems; it ranks as high as it does because it’s an acceptable generic sci-fi spy film, entirely suitable for having on in the background and occasionally paying attention to. Michelle Yeoh (and Georgeau) deserved better.

Into Darkness…I just have so many issues with it. I will be quite unpleasantly surprised if they ever make a Trek film that knocks it out of the bottom spot on this list.

On Talented Hackery

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A few minor edits to this paragraph from John Scalzi’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Review and it very nicely sums up my attitude towards all of Zack Snyder’s films:

…that’s the real problem with [Zack Snyder’s] films. They look great [but] I find it hard to give a shit about any of them. I don’t hate them, but I don’t especially like them either…. They exist, and that’s about it. The problem with [Zack Snyder’s] films is not that they’re dour but that they’re empty. They’re not compellingly written, either in the larger plot sense or the smaller character sense, and when you’re done watching them, most of what you’re left with is a sense that you sure looked at something expensive.

I find Snyder to be a very talented hack. What he does, he does very well. Unfortunately, what he does holds very little appeal for me. And with his vision as the guiding force between most of the DC movie universe, it’s never been a particular surprise to me that I’ve not really enjoyed any of the ones I’ve seen, and haven’t been terribly motivated to watch those I’ve missed.

In Search of Tomorrow Watchlist

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This is a list of films planned (as of May 2020) to be referenced in the upcoming documentary In Search of Tomorrow. I got curious as to how many I’d seen.

Key:

☑️ = I’ve seen it at some point, though it’s been a while and impressions may be colored by time.
✅ = I’ve seen it recently or often enough to have a reasonably current impression of it.
📀 = I have a copy in my personal collection.

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The Brother Always Dies First

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The Brother Always Dies First: on sex, death, and cinematic depictions of race is an excellent essay by author Steven Barnes, exploring two propositions regarding race in American cinema:

Proposed: Black men cannot have sex in movies without it hurting the box office.

Evidence: No non-white male is able to have sex in a movie and have that film cross $100 million at the domestic box office.

Exception: After thirty years of observation, there are now actually THREE movies that contradict this! Huzzah! (Do you know what they are? Answers at the end.)

Proposition #2: It is NOT true that “the black guy always dies first.” This is easily proven as far back as Night of the Living Dead. The reality is rather more difficult to wrap minds around. It is this: there are countless films in which ALL the black characters die, or all the black males die. And there are NO American films in which all the white characters die, if anyone else at all survives. Not one.

I have compiled a list of over ONE HUNDRED such films, which appears at the end of this article.

Explanation: A “character” is someone with at least one line of dialogue.

Exception: On January 17, 2020, I finally saw a movie that contradicts this, the very first American film I’ve ever seen or heard of where black people survive while all the white people die. Not a bad movie, either. The name is in the footnotes.

Some of this I was semi-conscious of, at least in the “the black guy always dies first” sense. But I certainly hadn’t taken as deep a dive into it as Steven has (and, gee, I wonder why, as I look at my nearly-translucent white skin…).

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Baby Yoda and ‘The Dark Crystal’ Prove We Still Need Puppetry in the Age of CGI: “Frankly, I don’t always want my entertainment to look effortless. Instead, I want to stand in awe of these feats of creation: painstakingly crafted miniature worlds, marionettes that fire arrows, extraterrestrial tots that beg you to scoop them up and kiss them on the forehead. I want to shout, ‘How the hell did they do that?!’”