Supplemental

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Picked up the Star Trek Countdown graphic novel at work the other day,* and pleased I was to discover that it's official canon that Nemesis Never Happened. It was an excellent handwave: two panels of "It's good to see you're not dead after all!" "Yeah, I get that a lot." And then they go on with explaining How Real Spock Got His ROFLcopter and Why Nero's Simple Mining Ship Is A God Damn Death Star.

This is the correct approach for Nemesis.**

It's also nice to see that the reboot was ushered in with a demonstration of the Worf Effect. Gotta love the fanservice in this franchise.

So, yeah, enjoyable graphic novel. Now, allow me to rant about supplemental materials in general!

Here is my thought: I like 'em a lot, but dammit they're supposed to be supplemental. I hate it when the answers to big gaping plot holes get buried in deleted scenes or the comics or whatever. Avatar would've been a better movie with that HOUR of cut stuff that explains pretty much everyone's motivation, the theatrical cut of Aliens leaves out some very useful information, and upon a rewatch I discovered that the theatrical cuts of LotR make NO GODDAMN SENSE. Aragorn has an actual character arc in the extended editions. Also, did you know there's an explanation for why the District 9 aliens have no idea how to pilot their own ship? Yeah, neither did I.*** Which, you know, would be nice to know in the movie itself.

I guess what I'm saying is, dangit, give me the infodumps. You can never have too much information, by god!


*God DAMN it's good working in a library.

**The most correct outlook is that none of the the TNG movies happened, on account of they were stupid. TNG's my favorite series, but the movies are not so much.

***Because they're the lowest caste of a eusocial society, is why. Apparently there was a big old epidemic on the ship that killed off all the smarter castes, and the ship itself limped to Earth on autopilot. Now they've got to start producing those smarter castes again.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The director implied he second possibility--Christopher (and, importantly, Junior) are changing to fill the vacant roles left by the upper castes. Which is a thing that happens in the animal kingdom, but the director's explanation is a bit garbled about how it works.

I do hate it when you leave a theater wondering where the rest of the movie went. We have multiplexes, dangit! just make the movies longer and include short intermissions.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

If they make movies any longer I think my bladder will detonate. They're already pushing 3 hours.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Which is why I also advocate bringing back intermission.

Or, even better, just watching it on the home theater system, where you can lounge in your own chairs, pause it when you feel like it, enjoy real food while watching, and yell at it to your heart's content. The only real advantages theaters have nowadays are that you can see the movie sooner, and the audience might be fun.

Oh, and, y'know, something about box office measurements. I think they're going to have to figure out another way to do it.

[shadesofmauve]

I may be in the minority, here, but I've found myself thinking more and more that I could do with a few less action scenes and a few more scenes that actually explain things/develop characters/further the plot. I mean, I like action movies, and I like swashbuckling adventure, but not every movie needs to be three hours long.

For instance -- and I'm picking a bad movie, I know! -- E and I just watched Cowboys and Aliens, with full understanding that we were watching something silly and fun. And... it was twenty minutes too long. It would have been nice ridiculous entertainment, a romp, but it need more to be shorter. Some movies have a lot more going on, obviously, but frequently they could stand to kill some of their cinematic digital-effects darlings and put in some actual plot relevance instead.

[fenmere.livejournal.com]

I am part of this "minority."

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That was exactly my problem with Avatar. It took out all sorts of great plot/character moments and left in a lot of VROOM VROOM BUDDOW. Now, I like me some VROOM VROOM BUDDOW, but I like to know WHY it's going on, and I like to care about the people doing it. My attention span is not so short that I will wander away if there isn't constant yelling and exploding.

I am firmly convinced that Daniel Craig took all his cues for how to act in Cowboys & Aliens from the Silent Video Game Protagonist. Which is a really nice character to have in video games where you can supply your own characteristics, but not so much in action movies.