Star Trek. Greatest Film Franchise Ever? (Part III)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - 1991




This was the first Star Trek movie I got to watch in the theaters when I was a kid. You have nooooo idea how excited I was to see this movie on a huge screen in front of me. My previously mentioned Grandma took me right after school the day it came out. It was incredible. I loved every second of it. It had a shit ton of crazy space action and plot filled with twists and intrigue. I was aware of the press at the time which said it would be the last original cast movie, and even then I thought it was a good farewell. It wasn't until later I came to find that although it was still a great movie and an excellent entry into the Star Trek film series, it was not without it's flaws.
The whole movie is a huge allegory for the Cold War and it's demise. The Klingons (the Russians) are out of financing and a terrible industrial disaster (Chernobyl) requires them to call on the assistance of the Federation (America). What follows is a two hour morality play in which characters have to deal with their own paranoid prejudices in order to work together to achieve a common goal: the end of political fighting and distrust between the two sides (the film was made soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall). That's where the film takes it's surprising turn.
Look, I don't mean to get all "fanboy” about this, but I do have a major quarrel with some character choices in this movie. Specifically in the case of James Kirk. For the sake of the story, he is turned into a highly prejudiced bigot which is literally the exact opposite of everything this character has ever been. Kirk, ever since the original television show, has always been strongly portrayed as a person of empathy, intelligence, and humanitarianism. He fought many times against prejudices and hatreds on the show. Granted, I understand his son was killed by Klingons in the third movie, but Kirk always seemed better than that, more enlightened than to just suddenly take on harsh prejudices. And that's the thing. He doesn't possess this attitude in ANY other episode of the show or movie. He's just suddenly given this view to assist the story. It's kind of weak. Sadly, the movie was released right after the death of Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry, but he was reportedly very displeased with Kirk's sudden latent bigotry, even though he learns the right lesson in the end.
I could complain about minor things here and there, including a few “not so great” performances from new cast members, but all in all: not a bad film. Great suspense, Great action sequences. It simply has a few gaping flaws.

Star Trek: Generations - 1994



The first unnumbered Trek flick, and the first one that focuses on the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew. I loved that show when I was younger, but man. The older I get, the lamer that show seems. Every episode is long and drawn out and there's almost none of the rich social commentary the original series possessed. Its RRREEEAAALY bland. Total "ho hum", an hour at a time. Sure, there are a handful of standout episodes, but blegh. It has nothing on the original. As a bonus, the film starts in the original crew time setting and transitions into the next Generation era. Due to crazy time shenanigans, Kirk manages to make it into a lot of the movie, only to suffer a hero's death. Also, Malcolm McDowell plays the villain so you know you're getting a solid, quality movie.
Not a bad movie at all. Very enjoyable, decent action, and a shitload of Kirk, how can I complain? Parts of it sort of drag on, but the complaints are outweighed by the enjoyment. Not bad at all, for a fucking "Next Generation" movie.

Star Trek: First Contact - 1996




This movie OF COURSE features the ultra popular, way over used Star Trek villainous species, The Borg. The Borg are the “Venom” of Star Trek. Much like Venom, the inexplicably popular Spider-Man villain, The Borg are unnecessarily popular given how lame they are, and this movie is chock full of them.
All in all, it's not terrible, but it is waaaay forgettable. It has more lame ass Borg than you can shake a stick at, and it featured the shitty looking new Enterprise, The NCC 1701-E. James Cromwell is great as always as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive (yea, more time travel shenanigans), and his inclusion in the film is a nice shout out to a great episode of The Original Series, "Metamorphosis", where Cochrane originally appears. Again, it's not a bad movie, but its pretty forgettable as soon as you finish watching it.

Star Trek: Insurrection - 1998

Not enough happens in this movie. It sucks sooooo bad. Skip it. Not even worthy of a neat picture to go with this write up.

Star Trek: Nemesis - 2002

Too much happens in this movie. It sucks sooooo bad. Skip it. Not even worthy of a neat picture to go with this write up.

Star Trek - 2009



Hooooooly shit! Who saw this coming? After how awful the last few Star Trek movies were, Paramount took a shot at rebooting the series with a film set in the Original series time setting. The movie is the supposed story of how Kirk meets Spock and the original crew, and how Kirk becomes Captain of the Enterprise.
The movie ,while staying faithful to the source material, does create a continuity separate from the Original show and film series so at first I was a bit nervous about that. Know why this shit rules? Because it acknowledges the previously established continuity, recognizes that it exists, and then starts a new, similar but different and updated time line. It's brilliant! This way, we get all new exciting Trek, with out any of the “hey, that changes continuity!” hang ups from fanboys like me. It's a perfect solution. They took away my only complaint with the movie, which was just nit-picky problems with the continuity. Having old Spock and Nero from the old continuity create a new time line by traveling back in time was a great way for the movie to create its own Star Trek universe while satisfying scrutinizing die hard fans.
The directing is sharp as well, and the performances? SPECTACULAR! Everyone does a great job of being inspired by their character's original performer, but no one mimics or entirely copies them. Some of the changes made in this department are even for the better, such as the updates made to Captain Christopher Pike, the Captain of the Enterprise before Kirk. Pike was a mopey baby in his only episode of the show, “The Cage” (the show's first pilot episode , most of which was cut into the two part episode “The Menagerie” later in the series).
All in all, what was made here is a perfect Trek film, similar to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It's completely accessible for non-Trek fans, and gives plenty to viewers who are fans. It's impressive to look at and action packed, and it never skips a beat or lags. I was hesitant at first, but this truly has become one of the greats of the Star Trek film series, and with everyone signed on for another one, I can only hope they create their very own astounding piece of the film franchise that lasts for a long time.

Until next time!

Can you fly, Bobby?

Robocop - 1987

It's the film my Blog's name comes from, so it seems like just as good a place to start as any. (Although, that line was also used in the endlessly entertaining arcade/console video game “Smash T.V.”)

To fully understand my appreciation of this film, we should go back to the first time I saw it. When I was about eight years old, I was already deeply in love with Science Fiction. Anything that had anything to do with space, aliens, robots, or the future, I was deeply in love with, and made curious by. Therefore, when I saw an ad on TV for that night's prime time movie, and it had a police officer walking around in a fucking robot body, the concept was so incredible to me, I could barely stand it. I asked my Mom to record it for me (it was airing on a school night, past my bed time) so I could watch it the next day. When my parents saw the kind of shit that happens in Robocop (and keep in mind, this was an already edited for TV version of the ultra violent film), they decided there was no way my eight year old ass was going to see this movie. They didn't want to disappoint me either, so they came up with a novel idea. They edited down an already edited for TV version of a rated R movie so that I could see it without all that adult content. There was a problem, they weren't too great at manually controlling the record feature of the VCR. What I was left with, was literally an approximately 25 minute, poorly edited version of Robocop. It made almost no sense as virtually every major plot point in that movie is riddled with violence and was therefore cut out. The narrative was all cut up and crazy and Robocop only ever fired his gun at a lifeless practice target, a huge bi-pedal robot, and baby food bottles, never people. It would jump around and show people a little bloodied up, but it wouldn't show HOW they got bloodied up. It was just confusing.... and one of the greatest things I had ever seen. Who cares if it didn't make sense!? It was a huge badass robot walking around and saying cool shit. Luckily, I managed to get the kid-friendly movie adaption comic book of the film and that helped me understand some of the key plot points that my movie version skipped over for twenty whole fucking minutes at a time.

It's remained one of my all time favorite movies since then, and it's evolved into something completely different than an awesome, super violent movie where a robot shoots people (I eventually saw the full version). The older I got, the more it stuck with me. There's something very human about that movie. The cyberpunk style extreme violence is the “Hollywood” aspect of that movie, but there are points that movie makes that have stuck with me since I was a kid. For example, consumerism and advertising will one day numb us and seem even more important and exciting then the actual world news. Also, corporations do not care about people, only what they can do make their business more financially successful. They are soulless, just as soulless as OCP's ED-209, terminating humanity without a concern. Poverty and crime rise in the streets as the rich get richer and a find a way to profit of the misery of the down-trodden.




What gets me about this movie, is that the main drive of it doesn't make it an action movie at all, which it constantly gets billed as. Robocop really is postmodern science-fiction at it's finest. Robocop's real struggle in this movie, is the retention of his “soul” and personality in a body that has transformed into a company's technological concept of the future. He is man literally fighting his own machine. There's something overwhelmingly human about it. Don't get me wrong, it works fine as an awesome, entertaining, violent Hollywood extravaganza with plenty of excitement and quotable lines out the ass (the overwhelmingly, and at times sickeningly, villainous Clarence Boddicker provides 80% of these, the Benny Hill inspired television personality Bixby Snyder provides the rest: “I'd buy that for a dollar!”), but Robocop packs a little more punch than that. A little substance to go with the style. I've always appreciated that, especially as it introduced tones to me as a kid that later made Philip K. Dick interesting to me, as well as stories like the Dick inspired “Blade Runner” or “Ghost in the Shell”. The futuristic, deeply philosophical (and admittedly leftist) writing of Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner and the awe-inspiring, stylized directing of Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall? Seen that shit? Just awesome. Yet another of my favorite 80's movies. Also based of a Philip K. Dick short story) provide a level to this movie that I think is often missed by a sizable portion of those who see it. It has remained one of my favorite movies since I was eight, and remains so as I get older due to it's philosophical take on the modern Sci-Fi story.

The sad part is, the point was lost even further when Robocop eventually became
something the movie strongly detested: a brand name. A product. A manufactured advertisement to sell goods to children, especially when that awful TV show re-imagining directed at kids came out where it totally missed the point and put Robocop in a show that felt like “NYPD Blue” meets “Alien Nation” meets Saturday morning cartoon. He fought ridiculous Batman Villain-esque oddities like “Boppo the Clown” and “Pudface”. Ugh. It was gross. Those toys were WAAAY badass when I was a kid though, holy shit. That much is undeniable. I had most of the figures and Robocop's sweet OCP cop car. Had Robocop comics coming out of my ass too. It was was awesome, even though looking back now, I feel abused and misguided given the original film's weight-y subtext. I guess everything becomes a product eventually...

Additional Points:
1. Robocop 2 is actually not as bad as you remember it being. Based off a script written by the used-to-be-talented comic book writer Frank Miller (before All-Star Batman fell out of his ass and he decided that publishing it was a good idea), the movie keeps the focus on the Detroit down-trodden, by getting them all addicted to a cheap, highly addictive drug called Nuke. It might not pack the same philosophical or emotional punch that the first one does (although scenes where Robo comes in contact with his former family are pretty heavy), but it's still a good sci-fi action flick with clever jabs at the media, corporation again, and a potential future culture. Frank Miller plays a bit role as a drug chemist, and later penned what was his original version of the Robocop 2 script for a totally bitchin' comic book series published by Avatar Press. Miller was always upset with the treatment of his script as it was cut down and re-edited, and he gave himself his own chance to present the story as he intended. If you get a chance, check it out. It's collected in a nice, convenient trade paperback form.
2. Robocop 3 is actually worse than you remember it being.
3. I met fucking Robocop. No lie. When Robocop 2 was coming out, the Blockbuster Video store near where I lived on Long Island cross promoted. They had a guy in a fully functional, 100% accurate, awe-inspiring Robocop suit. I was like, 9 or 10 years old and I got to meet fucking Robocop. I got to go up to him and shake his hand and no shit, he said “Stay out of trouble” to me. It was awesome. I totally have the pictures to prove it. If you're ever over my house, just ask and you'll see.