– Royal monarch visits his childhood home regularly
– Connoisseur of insanely beautiful women
– Able to converse in half-a-dozen languages
– Hooligan of mediocre EPL team
– Frequent French casino patron
– Mythically talented actor
– Drinking buddy of Peter O’Toole
– Accomplished bridge player
– Called a swanky hotel one of his homes
– Human in greatest movie entrance of all time
I don’t always applaud legends. But when I do, I prefer Omar Sharif.
RIP my friends.
Let’s humbly acknowledge our role in paying for all of this. Our carefully appropriated research and development funds took 38 years to yield a functioning speeder bike. And 26 years for a hoverboard. So we should all expect a check in the mail in the next week or so.
Coming soon to a wooded National Park near you; a 700% increase in death by tree strikes
Coming soon from Lexus (ignore unrelated smoke-like appearance)
[lunatic wide eyes] Baaatttterrr Up!
But I want to know where the hell is the rest of our damn money. Our funds have led to a whole bunch of projects and I’m just sitting here, waiting, drinking beer, and tapping my finger on the table. I paid $4 a seat many years back, and I still don’t have:
– Skyways & Hover Conversion; 26 year delay
“I’m on it, I’m on it, [shifty eyed] I know I promised these by 2015, but I’ve been, a little backed up lately. I saw Breaking Bad, and decided to get into the meth business, so I’m running behind on the car.” [panting] [panting] [panting]
“Doc are you getting into your own stash? Doc? Doc?!”
– Upgraded Dialing Machine; 33 year delay
If this piece of shit could communicate between freaking stars, and all they did is upgrade it, I could harness the technology to solve minor problems like cold fusion. Also, does anybody remember TI Speak & Spell!?!?
– Self Driving SUV; 22 year delay
Google’s self-driving clown car is a joke. Where’s my autonomous SUV that’s so durable it can mostly survive a vicious assault from a deranged creature seven-hundred times it’s size?
Uh, he can probably see you even if you don’t move. You should run. Like, honest. “Go. Go now!” It worked out well for the other guy.
– Buildings on Sky Stilts; 52 year delay
It worked for Cloud City, it’ll work just fine in Frisco. What could go wrong? It must be done.
– Man Portable Death Ray; 29 year delay
If the machines took over tomorrow, what are we supposed to defend ourselves with? America’s existing 300 million carbon based firearms? Ordinary journeyman and teenaged-girl-stalker Kyle Reese made himself pretty clear that all those ordinary guns are ineffective against the machines. And so, …
Oh.
There’s very little I wouldn’t give up to see this vicious bout. What purpose would it serve? I don’t care. Why should you? It’d be senseless and fun. That’s good enough for me. I assure you, you’ll pay money to see it. Plus, for one thing it’d make a movie ten times better than the mess that’s about to appear on screen.
For I have seen into the future. My Guests facilitated my journey into the outer reaches of the cosmos where I had the opportunity to see through time, grab a beer, solve the unified field theory, speak with Hitler, and watch both Jurassic Actual Park and Terminator Misspelled Word.
In order to increase the hi-larity, Hitler insisted that we use the powers of the sixth dimension to summon the corporeal form of Richard Attenborough. We also used these powers to procure enough alcohol to overcome even the level of suffering that Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are likely to endure once they realize what these people did with two of their finest creations.
Of course, this is to assume Spielberg and Cameron actually bother to watch these movies. Which of course they won’t. Instead, we’ll get the glory of two hack directors who’ve never made a decent movie but do their best to prove just how much they’re exactly like Michael Bay. Because that’s where the money is.
About halfway through World, Richard started to chug uncontrollably from a bottle of gin and then blacked out mumbling, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.” A third of the way through Genesis (sic) Hitler remarked that the only thing worse than this film experience was when he watched Downfall and realized what a total asshole he actually was.
And now having seen both of these movies, I have thus proven my original two conclusions correct:
1) Both these movies are horrible
2) Each of these movies will make $1B minimum
Kindly observe the awfulness on display before you’ve even watched five minutes of these putrid creations known as their trailers:
Terminator Minor Sins:
a) Arnold fighting his younger self; one liner to young Arnold: “Don’t run for office you dirty fuck! Don’t do it! I know your fate!”
b) A flying yellow school bus action scene that puts the Los Angeles river motorcycle chase scene from Terminator 2 on par with the chariot race from Ben Hur (by the way, replace the word Terminator or Jurassic with Ben Hur; and you’ll also receive a perfectly accurate film review of the forthcoming Ben Hur remake)
c) Arnold flying through a functioning death saw known as an airborne helicopter; a situation that would completely destroy the character from Terminator 2 known as The Terminator
Terminator Heinous Sins of One’s Soul:
A) Turning John Connor’s character into a half-man / half-machine psycho
Jurassic Minor Sins:
a) genetically engineered super dinosaur that will make all humanity wonder why this movie isn’t called Godzilla 19
b) a body count higher in the trailer alone than all three previous movies combined thus proving the intent to make slasher porn rather than an actual movie
c) implication of a cinematic tone so devoid of adventure and excitement as to make one wonder if the desire was to make the audience depart the theater exhausted and convinced life is just a big meat grinder
Jurassic Heinous Sins of One’s Soul:
A) brain control of the velociraptors to the point they become either mind slaves or allies of Chris Pratt
Jurassic Park is in my top five of great movies. Terminator 2 is likely in my top ten. If you think I’m a lunatic for these assessments, then you’ve read too much of this blog post to begin with. But even if you disagree with my rankings, you cannot dispute that these two movies were at least, movies.
I’m not sure what Terminator 5 and Jurassic 4 are? But they’re not movies in the sense that I understand the term. At best they’re like loud theme park rides. Which I think is the new concept for the summer blockbuster.
Take a name the populace will recognize, make it a Bay style action movie, and shove it down everybody’s throats whether they like it or not. And when you make $1B? Nobody will care.
Well I care dammit! I care a great deal. Because I have no life, and my Guests won’t leave me alone. So I’m always out to distract myself. Such as with the advertising and marketing campaign for my new sixth dimension creation where the velociraptor and terminator will participate in a Dual of the Fates at Madison Square Garden on July 25th at 8pm. Live. Pay Per View! $100.
You will pay. I assure you. I bought Chris Pratt for one afternoon to use his sexy mind control powers on millions. I can’t lose. I’ll make $1B for sure!
Clever Girl over Cyberdyne in seven rounds
Life is not a dream. It’s really not. I know this because right now I’m drinking an awesome beer surrounded by my dogs. This is real. So are we. And so are the ideas that keep us going.
Leonard Nimoy knew this. Better than most I suspect. It bled through his art. And if Nimoy was anything, an artist in the old sense he was. He wrote books and poetry, he took photographs, he mastered the craft of the motion picture.
It is this reason, not just because people love Spock, that made him a household name. He had the power to tell us who we are. He made it seem like he wasn’t one of us, when he was actually among the best of us.
More than anybody else, Nimoy made Star Trek. Everybody thinks it was Priceline Senόr Bancό de Rόbber Bill Shatner. It wasn’t. In the beginning, nobody working on the show really liked Shatner or Gene Roddenberry. Although folks don’t talk about it openly, except perhaps George Takei, you get the idea that things tended to almost fall apart because Shatner and Roddenberry were arrogant jerks.
Later, Nimoy and Shatner would actually build respect and ultimately a deep friendship. When you read about how Nimoy tried to help Shatner with the troubles and ultimate tragic death of his wife, it brings tears to your eyes. It’s rather strange but poetic, that two men who were friends only on screen for so many decades would actually find friendship later in life when they needed each other the most.
Don’t get me wrong, Bill cleaned up his act and I really like the guy. A lot of people still call him a bad actor. Mostly those who have never watched all of Star Trek or one episode of The Practice. But it’s clear to me, that without Nimoy, Star Trek would have been an unknown bad hack science fiction nothing.
I have the idea that Nimoy kept everybody together. Everybody else on set showed up because Nimoy was there. And the idea that was Star Trek, it was his as much as Roddenberry’s. Nimoy’s view of what Star Trek was is best exemplified by his goal with The Voyage Home where he said:
“…no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy. I wanted people to really have a great time watching this film and if somewhere in the mix we lobbed a couple of big ideas at them, well, then that would be even better.”
This was Star Trek. A fun show the whole family could watch, but also riddled with big ideas that could melt the brain of any serious adult. When I was a young idiot, I couldn’t stand The Voyage Home. I’d be like, “what’s with these stupid whales, man, when is somebody going to get cut in half.” But when I rewatched it last year, I couldn’t believe what a joy it was. It’s a masterpiece. I breathed in the happiness.
In a modern storytelling age where the fog of doom is pervasive, it’s comforting to go back and watch a view of the future not owned by failure and bleached skeletons. Nimoy’s future of a still flawed but noble humanity with a bright existence remains inspiring, and a future worth fighting for.
So here’s to Nimoy and the hopes that he’s embarked aloft alongside DeForest Kelley and James Doohan and they’re off to Valhalla at whatever warp factor they prefer. Kelley’s chuckling, Doohan’s got a glass of scotch, and Nimoy comments offhand as they blast into the stars, “Life is but a dream.”
farewell shipmate, fair winds
The Arcturus Project 