Well, I did it. I finally sat down with a Pepsi in my hand, an open mind and a good few hours and I watched the movie Avatar.

Why is this such a big deal? For starters, I have heard about the hype surrounding this movie, and it was intense. It had multiple Academy Award nominations (and a few wins on top of it) and it is one of the top-grossing movies of all time, if not the top one. According to Wikipedia, it is the top-grossing movie of all time, but that will change eventually.

I am a little late in delivering this review, because I was not interested in this film in the least. In fact, to be honest, out of the top ten on the aforementioned list of top-grossing movies, with the exception of the two Lord of the Rings movies on there, I do not go to theatres to see the first-run of these movies. Titanic, I first caught on DVD almost six months after it was first released, just before it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Hey James, what are you the king of, again?

So… what is so special about this one? That should be painfully obvious, if you know me, and has to do with how my brain is wired. See, I am a very big science fiction fan. There is no real denying it; most people that know me know that I am heavily involved in Star Trek stuff online; Hell, this blog has a category named “Star Trek Geeky Stuff” (which I got to remember to update more than once a year). My first TV show review had to do with Stargate Universe, another sci-fi franchise which has a large following.

Avatar, at its heart, is a sci-fi movie that people can get lost in. I can see why; right away, you are hit up with a virtual orgasm of very prettily-rendered 3D environments that really try to bring the story together. I have got to admit, just like everyone else, that the visuals are mind-blowing, and that basically makes or breaks most science fiction movies; why Avatar is so successful is because specifically of the visuals and how they integrate the show and make the storyline possible.

However, this is precisely what the problem is.

Avatar may be a beauty to the eye and a decent movie to boot, but a science fiction film is something that should be about the story as well as the visuals. Take, for example, a science fiction book. That does not have the luxury of giving you an intense visual experience; a book must create its world in your mind. A movie should be using its visuals in the way of bringing the word to life. To me, though, Avatar seemed like it was created in the opposite in mind, using the amazing visuals to tie the story together.

Is there anything necessarily wrong with that? Not really, but it did give the movie a perspective I did not anticipate, and I am not entirely sure that I am comfortable with.

See, back in the day, the visuals were sparse and far between. Tell me what kind of visuals you saw in Star Wars: A New Hope. Did they define the movie?

Then take a look at the visuals in Avatar.

See the difference?

Hokey religions are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

Be that as it may, I found myself immersed in the world anyway. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy Avatar at all. I saw it as an impressive visual masterpiece, and almost every scene featuring landscapes would be impressive landscapes and watercolors to paint. I would not mind getting my hands on screenshots for exactly that reason. A Photoshop filter here and there, and then instant artistic visuals.

The story… the story was OK. As other, more eloquent people have pointed out, the story draws a lot on a same moral principle as a lot of other forced relocation movies. Hell, District 9 has the same principle. Star Trek Insurrection. Dances With Wolves. Actually, that last one, Avatar resembles a lot, now that I think of it. Well, thankfully Kevin Costner steered clear of this one.

I would like to point out that there is a thing floating around on the Internet which compares Avatar with another James Cameron movie, The Abyss. I say there are some parallels: scientists versus military is a big theme in a lot of productions, and to use this comparison is a little unfair. Hell, I could draw parallels with Doom as well for the same reason. If we really want to nitpick, we could start by saying that the flying creature the Na’vi used are stolen from pterodactyls. The gunships the humans use looks a lot like a vehicle from Unreal Tournament 2004. The six-legged horse creatures are stolen from… horses.

Wow. She looks like a Na'vi. They must have stolen the design of Trance Gemini!

Here is my list of things I like:

• Complete visual orgasm. My eyes need a cigarette now.
• The details behind the story were well fleshed out, I can not deny that. James Cameron has a history of doing well at this particular point.
• The visuals were amazing!
• Two words: Zoe Saldana
• The visuals were amazing!

On the con side, here is what I did not like:

• The story in general seems to have been done before, a little too much. Original concepts, people!
• Why are humans always the destructive ones?
• The subplot with the foreman or head guy or whatever. That seemed like it was going to go somewhere, but it never did… and it just felt incomplete.
• …the visuals were amazing!

Anyway, it is still a fun movie. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. Will it become parodied? Probably. Will a porno be made with blue aliens? Inevitably. Will I watch it?

…I am exercising my right to remain silent.

I am a Star Trek fan.

No one is surprised by this, of course. If you know me, you will know that I have been involved with Star Trek ever since I was a little kid. I remember sitting on the floor, watching this bald guy say “Engage!” on the screen and being absolutely thrilled by the series. And then the original series, one that I still hold dear to my heart, where Kirk would give his famous “Risk is our business” speech, and always get the girl (and get the girl killed, usually). Shatner is the MAN!

Shat happens, baby!

Earlier this year, Paramount decided to release a reboot-style movie about Star Trek. I have got to admire Paramount for having the guts to release this after a very unspectacular Star Trek: Nemesis and the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise television show, especially to a fan base such as the ones that follow Star Trek. I was a little skeptical, but I tried to keep an open mind. I mean, some reboots are fairly good critically and financially, and I expected that one of the most well-known franchises in the world would at least break even.

Of course, we all know how the box office numbers went this summer. Star Trek completely destroyed everything in the box office at the time – even the latest in the X-Men movies, and the movie adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel. It is the only movie that I have gone out of my way to see in theaters this year, and I loved it. I loved its quirks, its humor… and most of all, its story. So did a lot of the world.

(On a side note, the three Valley Girl wannabes sitting behind me in the theater really made me want to hang myself. I am just glad I could not hear them when the movie’s good action scenes started. “Like, oh my gosh, that pointy ear guy is cute!” But I digress.)

As can be expected, I was pretty excited when the movie came out on DVD and Blu-Ray – I would be more excited about the latter if my PS3 was working and not a paperweight right now – and as such, I picked up a copy yesterday and eagerly came home to watch it. I picked up just the basic movie, no extras or special cases, and I am sorry to say that I can not tell you about what I thought about the features that came on the discs. I kind of regret that now, but I also can not afford to spend money on special edition DVDs. Hell, I scrimped just for this regular DVD.

Maybe later, when I get a job, there will be a few bucks around that I can purchase it.

Anyway, the basic DVD actually only comes with one DVD. In it, you get the movie, director’s commentary, a behind the scenes featurette and a gag reel. Pretty standard DVD fanfare. I could not find any Easter Eggs, but truth be told, I was not looking that hard. I was kind of disappointed that the deleted scenes didn’t make it to the basic DVD and I got the gag reel. I would have expected the gag reel to go on the two-disc one and the deleted scenes to go on the basic… or have I missed something about DVD packaging?

I am just really glad I do not make signs

The movie itself? Well, it is good quality, and it is a fun movie.

• All the actors seemed like they actually WERE the characters, to me. This is a BIG thing within this movie that is extremely important, and I think neutralized the concerns about the movie in a big way.
• The Romulan ship. The internals, externals… just how it flowed was so neat. Only thing I really did not get was how it mined things.
• The uniforms. SO glad they stuck to a close to the original series style as possible.
• The storyline. Some may call this movie intellectually lacking, but… that is what I think works for this one. The ones that are looking for a moral just really have to look a little closer than normal to find it, because it is more of a subtext than an in-your-face moral dilemma. See my previous post on morals just to be more sure. Making this movie more accessible to the public is a good thing.

There is really just a couple of issues I have with the thing:

• Lens flares. What the Hell? I do not remember that many in the movie theater. I found myself squinting because of it at times. It seemed to detract from the image of the film, which
• I still think the bridge of the Enterprise either looks like an Apple store or a manufacturing clean room. It does not seem to be a place where people can expect to work without someone with OCD cleaning every surface every 30 seconds.
• Female uniforms. I know this was a nitpick, but pick one, JJ: sleeveless or sleeved.
• This:

Anyway… I would still rate this movie very strongly, despite the above video, considering it does draw parallels in between the two biggest sci-fi franchises. (SHUT UP STARGATE AND BATTLESTAR LALALALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!!) Sure, I can draw similarities in between anything I want too… except Obama and Bush.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with my DVD player.

…what? Just because I do not have cable means I can not step in and say what I thought about a TV show’s series premiere?

Moving on…

If no one knows what the Stargate franchise is, allow me to summarize. It’s all based off of the 1994 movie named Stargate, starring Val Kilmer and James Spader. Basically, the movie was about this device found in the Egyptian deserts called a stargate that can create stable wormholes in between two of these gates. Blah blah blah, big talk about Egyptian symbols, the pyramids were really landing platforms for spaceships, yadda yadda yadda, BAM they go through the gate and find a tribe of humans that worship the sun-god Ra. Basically after that, it turns into a sci-fi action film. At the end, they blow up the bad guy, the geeky guy gets the hot girl and stays behind, and the military guys go home. Roll credits.

The film got itself a cult following, and eventually a group of people pitched a sci-fi TV show based upon this premise (with a few minor revisions to the details) and then Stargate SG-1 was born, which lasted a decade of (in my opinion) pretty decent storytelling. Sure, there was some weak points, but what show doesn’t? Show me someone who thinks that every episode of any show did not need any improvements that lasted that long, and I will show you every type of happy pill that’s in their medicine cabinet. Then there was another spin-off, Stargate Atlantis, that pushed it further, going into another galaxy.

But, well, what franchise doesn’t try to go that one more?

Stargate Universe logo - screencap for stargate.mgm.com trailer

Stargate Universe, unlike the previous outings, takes, in my opinion, so far what looks to be the grit of the original movie and try to bottle it up into a TV show. I am just going to come out and say it: I like it. I have been a fan of the series before this, and to be honest, the new direction was quite refreshing. 2009 is truly the time of the re-imagined old universes getting their day. We had Star Trek earlier, and now this.

Now, here’s what I like:

• The sets were not “chipper”. If you look at Atlantis, the main sets they needed every day were just so cheerful in comparisons – reds and light blues, lots of bright beauty shots of the base, abandoned for 10,000 years but still in pristine condition. SG-1 was looking to be somewhat hopeful with their sets as well, with the Cheyenne Mountain complex in bright lights and stuff. Stargate Universe tossed 80 people into a hundred thousand year old starship on a course to the edge of the Known Universe, and it felt like it. The sets were dirty, brown and black, there was grime everywhere… it looked old. It felt old.
• Colonel Young/Dr. Rush. No, I am not talking about slash-fic – now THAT is a mental image I want to erase. I am talking about the character dynamic in between the two. I liked the play in between the military and the brainy civilian know-it-all, and I believe the two actors carried the part well. I couldn’t even remember that Robert Carlyle was in any other movies… like The Full Monty.
• They killed Christopher MacDonald. I have seen him in enough asshole parts, and him playing a good guy Senator didn’t really fly with me that well. Thumbs up on that one.
• Desperation. You’re lost out in space, inconceivably far away from home… and you actually got the feeling that they were struggling. Only two sci-fi franchises have attempted something like this, and one failed so miserably with this premise it should be taken out back and shot, while still being a relatively okay series if you ignore that fact. The other was the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. SGU does this job very well so far, and I hope it keeps this momentum for the series.
• Eli. The gamer kid who ended up solving a mathematical proof embedded in a video game – which was Stargate Worlds, by the way – was beamed out of his home and onto a spaceship, and just gets thrown into situations all the time. I loved that.
• According to the literature on the series, Ming-Na’s character is a lesbian. Wow, the person that played Mulan is not so Disney-clean anymore, h-uh?
• There was no big bad guy forced down your throat within the first two hours of the series. The only enemy they really have is each other, and the fractures start to show.
• Small nitpick, but one that fueled online debates: they corrected an error from the Stargate Atlantis finale that really irked people. Thank you production design team on Stargate Universe for naming the George Hammond the RIGHT thing instead of the General Hammond. (For people unfamiliar, General Hammond was the first commander in Stargate SG-1 of the command center for the base. Don S. Davis, the man that played Hammond, died before the series finale of Atlantis, and they made the character die and named a battlecruiser after his character.)

And here is the things I did not like:

• The actors that play the Lieutenant and the Marine Sergeant. I did not like them. They just did not seem… right for the part. The Lieutenant I thought was more believable, but not by much. I wanted to get behind the Lieutenant, and I felt for the Lieutenant… but I could not fully get behind him as a character. The Marine Sergeant was worse; I wanted him pushed out of an airlock.
• Lou Diamond Phillips. Uh… where was he? He showed his face, what, once? I was promised some Lou Diamond Phillips time, now someone please get me some bad-ass Lou Diamond Phillips action time up in this series!
• The three-parter. That irritates the crap out of me. The two-hour series premiere is actually two of the three parts of the general arc of this storyline. That just makes me want to stab things with pointy objects because I have to wait another painstaking week in order to finish my unfinished business with this show.
• Man, the Ancients must be really conveniently seeding the way for this ship to make it this far with drone ships manufacturing stargates for them… it smells like plot convenience, and while I understand that you can not have a Stargate show without stargates… it just seemed to be a little off, and just too convenient.
• I want more! Stabbity-stab-stab-stab.

Well, another thing to add to the “things I would get cable back in my house for” list. Still is not enough, though.

Other reviewers give shows, movies or music thumbs up, stars, percentages… but me? I am just going to say I liked it, and that it drew me in for the next episode. Sure, it has its shortcomings, but hey, what new show doesn’t?

(Oh, and a side note for MGM: if you want to advertise a Stargate show like a movie, then make it a movie, dammit. The trailer was completely misleading.)