"The birth of the Neosapien order is a thing of beauty. It would be unthinkable to not witness the most important event in history...the moment the Neosapiens seize their destiny. The reign of the old humanity ends this day. We, the stepchildren of mankind, are now its rulers. Think, Typhonus, what the rule of the Neosapiens means. Justice, at last. Logic, at last. Order, at last. Our laws will prevail. What glories the Homeworlds will see, governed by our even hand!" - Phaeton
Even though Season 2 suffers from a bit of a sophomore slump after the incredibly well paced Season 1, there are still some outstanding episodes that I love.
2x11 The First Step: A somewhat new take on the old fighter ace duel. Thrax gets the best lines out of all the Neo Sapiens, besides Phaeton.
2x17 Under the Skin: This episode was just heartbreaking. They take an obscure extra from the first season who was KIA and actually make us care about her. It really changes how we look at that photo JT always keeps in his cockpit.
2x31 The Price of Courage: The Battle of the Bulge of ExoSquad, as far as I can tell. Shiva goes from being a villainous enemy general to an actual warrior who goes down fighting even though he knows it's futile. Downer of an ending.
2x34 One Small Step: The episode where someone dies.
2x38 Abandon Hope: The penultimate episode of Season 2, but pretty much the finale as far as I'm concerned, because it completely wraps up the Neo Sapien War. The last shot really sums it all up.
As a kid I missed the episode of Under the Skin and always just sorta assumed that photo JT had was of his wife or girlfriend. But after watching that episode, it's just so much more meaningful whenever you see it on his windshield. If it had been just a photo of his wife, it would've been completely ordinary and a throwaway detail. But him choosing to remind himself of the loss of Alice Noretti, someone he didn't even know all that well... just tells you what kind of a man he is.
Just received the first season of ExoSquad on DVD and boy oh boy, this brings back so many fond memories. The show really holds up well, except for a few slight elements. The greatest sci-fi war epic of all time, in saturday morning cartoon format. ExoSquad was not a funny series of hijinks and misunderstandings. Nor a treasure trove of pop culture references randomly inserted throughout. It was simply a dramatic and at times brutal account of the Second Neo Sapien War. For a saturday morning cartoon, this show took risks. Characters you'd grown to know and love could and would die. Entire populations were brought to starvation and slavery in concentration camps. And the most frightening aspect of all... mankind had pretty much brought this on itself. We were responsible for creating our own conquerors, the genetically engineered Neo Sapiens. Slaves who were now our slavemasters.
The show basically took World War II and transported it into the 22nd century, with sci-fi exoskeletons known as Exo-Frames. Basically, all the cool aspects of Starship Troopers, but with a much more relatable conflict. Instead of just blowing away anonymous bugs, we were fighting our own bitter creations, who were politically ruled by a megalomaniacal tyrant named Phaeton. I'll never forget the first season episode "The Brood" in which the ExoFleet, returning to Earth to liberate it from the occupying Neo Sapiens, ended up being overwhelmed by two Neo Sapien fleets. The flagship Resolute going down in flames as its lifeboats shot out and were blown apart by hostile fire is probably one of the most traumatic images of my childhood. Sure, I'd seen the Reliant get blown apart by the Enterprise in "Wrath of Khan" before then, but that was a ship full of escaped criminals and villains. They were trash. Seeing the Resolute, flagship of the entire Exofleet, the pride and joy of Admiral Winfield, slowly get ripped apart by laser fire and then explode with the traitorous Captain Marcus aboard invoked a curious mixture of horror, despair, and wonderment.
Now that I've grown up, I actually find that I can appreciate the series more, which is rarely the case with these saturday morning cartoons. But it's only now in my adult life that I find myself recognizing the subtle touches of the writers, like the state of the Neo Sapien people in the first few episodes resembling the state of Germany before World War 2. Or the problem of human collaborators working with the Neo Sapien occupation, just like the Vichy regime of France.
Here's a quote that I've found especially memorable. Only a mere taste of the excellence embued in this animated masterpiece.
Thrax: "I used to worry how I would face the end. Would I go bravely like a soldier? But let me tell you something, Neo Mega, it's life itself that matters, not how it ends. Each moment is a precious gift, if only we have the courage to accept it. That is where our duty lies, not in taking life, but in living it."
You can find the entire series on Hulu to watch.
BTW, I also picked up the Space Above and Beyond DVD set along with this, and I've gotta tell ya... Fox can go eat a dick. It's fucking awful. No extras, and double-sided discs. Who the fuck still thinks double-sided discs are a good idea? Still a great show, but the DVD treatment is some kind of Special Olympics. 1 Comments
Kirstie Alley was the perfect Saavik. Then she *had* to let success to get to her head and ask for a bigger paycheck. I was rewatching ST2 today and it just occurred to me that Saavik actually was the only Vulcan female in the history of Star Trek to have a decent hairstyle. Robin Curtis had this really horrible do that kinda looked like a mullet. Valeris was just like every other Vulcan female, rocking that horrible bowl cut thing that Vulcans and Romulans love. Only it always looks awful. I dunno, I always had a serious crush on Saavik when I watched ST2 as a kid. Alley was really great at portraying a half-Vulcan/half-Romulan hybrid. Robin Curtis just acted really wooden, which isn't the same as acting Vulcan.
Do you think it should've been Saavik instead of Valeris in Undiscovered Country? I'm totally with Meyer on that. It would've been a great callback to TWOK. The only thing is, I would've wanted Kirstie Alley to do it. And she probably wouldn't, since she was so famous as Rebecca Howe over on Cheers. Meaning an even larger salary demand. Really really would not have wanted Kim Cattrall to play Saavik. That would've been awful.
Am I being too hard on Robin Curtis? Did you like her? She's probably a nice person in real life, but she butchered Saavik beyond recognition. Let's put it this way. At the end of Star Trek 2, you felt like Saavik was a part of the crew, as much as Chekov or Sulu. That's pretty impressive. She's standing right there with them at Spock's funeral. And I felt like she deserved to be there, she'd earned her place at the table. With all that she'd done at the conn throughout the film, I thought she was a pretty great character and definitely more then just a glorified extra. As opposed to, say... Wedge Antilles, a guy who has maybe two lines of dialogue in a film and then goes on to have about 15-20 novels devoted to his life for some reason. I'm not saying that Saavik's the main reason, but people consider TWOK to be the best, and I'd venture to say that Alley's portrayal of that character is one of many factors that lift that film above the others.
Aion, oh my god. This guy is SUCH a fucking prick. A complete douche nozzle. Where the fuck do wastes of human tissue like him crawl out of? Fuck you, you pompous JRPG asshat. You're bad, and you should feel bad!
Ya know what... I bet he likes anime too. Fucking otaku retard. With speed stripes, giant teardrops over the heads, weird kitten expressions... the whole kit and kaboodle. I bet he does. He probably loves shit like tentacle rape hentai. That's why he plays Persona 4, he probably wishes Yukiko or Chie are eventually gonna get sexually molested by giant alien tentacles... inside the goddamn television! It's so fucking obvious. A douchebag like him can't just thrive on one piece of shit, he needs several hobbies of dubious quality!
I really hope Aion realizes what a fucking goddamn waste of oxygen he is. He probably won't though. He's probably masturbating to the the thought that Vinny will wipe again in P4. That's probably what he's doing right now. Pretty good guesstimation.
If puns are the lowest form of humor, then Quick Time Events are the lowest form of gameplay. Seriously, who thought these would ever be a good idea? Pushing a button that flashes on screen at a certain point to watch a scripted cinematic? What is this bullshit? That's barely gameplay. Barely. The barest form.
When I want to play a PC game, I want to interact with the game more then simply pushing down a button when I'm given the fucking cue. That's just fucking Simon Says. If I want to play Simon Says, I'll go out and buy one of those lame ass pads with the four colored buttons on it that you set down on a coffee table and invite the whole family to play, like in one of those ridiculous commercials. I do not want that experience when playing a computer game. There is nothing fun about pressing a button every once in a while. If you're gonna show a cinematic, just fucking show it, without a giant red button in the center ruining it.
Gamers can handle cinematic gameplay, they really can. And it's been pulled off in lots of great ways without QTEs. Just look at Half-Life... very cinematic, very immersive. Or something like Knights of the Old Republic. Great gameplay and storytelling merged together. No fucking QTEs to be seen. It's possible, game developers. You just need to stop being lazy and actually work a little. Quick Time Events are inane, unsatisfying, and completely shallow. No. More. Fucking. Button. Cues.
AG Warrior nerf: Oh wow, Tyranids are definitely gonna be feeling this one. 52 to 40 is a huge 24% reduction.
Energy shield nerf: About what I expected. 4 to 1 efficiency ratio is still a potent defense. And the 8 second toggle cooldown means people aren't going to be microing the shields on and off in an inane manner.
Falcon regen nerf: Perfectly appropriate nerf. You can argue that the Eldar race in general is UP, and I wouldn't argue with you, but the T3 Falcon spam was getting pretty lame. Something's wrong when your T2 transport is invincible compared to your T3 main battle tank.
Ripper nerf: Still too durable.
Zoan nerf: Uh... 3 seconds? That's... sort of a nerf I guess. Kinda.
Guardian equipment nerf: Not sure why this was needed. Guardians using grenades didn't strike me as OP.
Carnifex cost increased: 50 more req and 10 more power... meh. Was hoping for more, but I suppose the AG warrior nerf will work to magnify the significance of this change.
Tac sarge nerf: Oooooouch. 50 to 28... almost a 50% reduction in damage. I suppose it's a nice push to grab ASMs.
ATSKNF nerf: Reduced to 40% damage... alright. Knockback's unaffected, so it still serves its purpose. Again, just an incentive to invest in ASMs.
Spore Mines nerf: Awesome.
Warp Spider DPS buff: Pretty great, it's a 50% increase. Hope that's enough. If not, try try again.
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So, with all the buzz with the first Star Trek reviews pouring out, I figured I'd go and rewatch Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan. Ya know, just to revisit a classic. It's one of my favorite films of all time, so this rewatching business... something I do pretty often.
You have to know, Star Trek 2 was one of the first films I remember watching as a young lad. Back in the good ol days, channel 44, which would later go on to become UPN and then the CW, would rerun old movies all the time, and one of those would be Star Trek 2. This was my very first Star Trek film, and left an absolutely indelible impression on me. This film was what made me a Trekkie. It was pretty cool too, cause this was right around the time that TNG was starting up and I was able to watch that great show as it originally ran.
Then my family bought a VCR player and I recorded Star Trek 2. And rewatched it and rewatched it and rewatched it. Fuck all other films, I couldn't get sick of viewing this somewhat poor quality recording. It got to the point where I could pretty much recite the dialogue line for line as they said it onscreen. Ya know how it is, being a young kid and going all crazy trying to ape Ricardo Montalban with fun lines like "To the last... I will grapple with thee. From Hell's heart... I stab at thee! For HATE's SAKE... I spit... my last breath... at thee!" Just wonderful emotional lines that you could really rasp out. Of course, some of the dialogue made absolutely no sense back then. It took me years to figure out exactly what "Sauce for the goose" meant, for example. Still, great childhood memories.
So, that's just a bit of context to let you know how much I cherish this film. The best Star Trek film ever, and my favorite film until The Dark Knight last summer. What Nicholas Meyer pulled off was nothing short of a miracle, when you look back and see that it was following up on Star Trek The Motionless Picture. Who could have had the imagination, and force of persuasion to alter basically the entire Star Trek universe like that? Suddenly... awful pajama uniforms gave way to awesomely elegant red jacket uniforms. With that iconic clasp over the right shoulder? That feature's been copied for fucking decades now, in all kinds of scifi movies and video games. You've gotta give props, that was an amazing costume change. And the single best starship battle, STILL. You can show me all sorts of ship battles from DS9 or Nemesis, but I still hold that Mutara Nebula battle as the greatest ship to ship battle in Trek history. You cannot top that film finale. Which is strange, because it's two Federation starships battling one another.
Then you realize that's what made it great. What was great was how they made it two Federation starships fighting each other. It seems like that would be a weird dynamic, but they make it work. The Reliant is from Starfleet, but it looks totally different from the Enterprise. And I'm not just talking about the red lighting they used, which was blatant as all hell. It's got two low nacelles right under it, far apart, so it kinda looks like a mean pitbull. A pitbull in somewhat of a lean, crouched down. Small, but packing a punch. While the Enterprise is longer and much more graceful with two nacelle struts in a V, like an eagle. This really hits home when the Enterprise is cruising towards the Mutara Nebula with the Reliant hot on its heels.
The final battle is tense, just like the u-boat films which Nicholas Meyer referenced on his commentary of the DVD. But what's so important is how slow the ships move. This is what is great about Trek, they are these giant ships and they act like it. When the Reliant comes charging out of the static towards the Enterprise, we can see Kirk pivoting his chair, while ordering "Evasive starboard!" Yet the ship herself turns much more slowly then his chair pivot. We feel the engines straining for such a maneuver. Is it realistic? Oh hell no, of course not. Ships are weightless in space, yada yada yada. But it doesn't matter, because Trek ships need that sense of size and weight. After all, this is space... they have nothing but the Enterprise and an occasional alien planet. This ship is the workplace, and home, and overall landscape for 500 people. She's as much a character as any of the main characters. So to maintain the heft and importance, it is crucial that the ship not be pulling off all sorts of crazy loop-de-loops or whatnot.
So yea, Wrath of Khan still holds up. That's why it's a classic. I will always have a big goofy grin on my face while watching this film. Just can't help it. And yes, occasionally reciting a line like "Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. The odds will be even."
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