The fourth and latest novel in the expanded Firefly universe is the closest story fans will have encountered since the short-lived series’ first season. Tim Lebbon’s Firefly: Generations leans into its science fiction roots as Mal Reynolds and his crew find themselves balancing the life of a crew member and her desire to fulfill a destiny promised from the first episode. Two keys put them on their next adventure across the ‘verse: one key they’ve had all along, and the other is a bit of a treasure map that goes to the very heart of understanding the old Earth-That-Was. Only they may find it’s not treasure waiting, but a ship. And not just any ship, but a seemingly haunted ghost ship.
A new in-universe book finds that famous Star Trek Vulcan and #1 identifiable character of the franchise, the great Mr. Spock, providing a first-hand account as an elder statesman from his vantage after he became the ambassador to Romulus in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Unification” arc and just before he attempts to take his jellyfish-inspired ship with Red Matter to create a black hole in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 movie, Star Trek. The Autobiography of Mr. Spock: The Life of a Federation Legend is edited by (actually written by) frequent Star Trek in-universe writer Una McCormack, just released by Titan Books. Readers will learn Spock intended this as a memoir for Jean-Luc Picard, with whom he melded after Picard’s meld with Spock’s father just before his death in the episode, “Sarek.”
With the much anticipated ninth episode Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker here at last, writer/director J.J. Abrams has succeeded again at managing a major film franchise challenge and making the best of it. With Star Trek in 2009, he took a waning property and shot new life into it, but came up short four years later when he tried again and delivered Star Trek Into Darkness, heavily milking the nostalgia of the fan base with its retread of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. In 2015 Abrams was handed the keys to the other big space franchise, where he revitalized a left-for-dead movie saga and delivered Star Wars: The Force Awakens, notable for the introduction of Daisy Ridley’s curious and mysterious desert scavenger Rey, arguably one of the most fleshed out characters in the entire franchise with this final installment. Fortunately Abrams’s return to Star Wars will likely net better results for its fanbase with a movie that rises to become the best in the final trilogy, or at least as good as his The Force Awakens. Is this still George Lucas’s Star Wars? No, but that just shows the power and unique status of the original trilogy–even Lucas couldn’t capture the magic again with his prequels. The Rise of Skywalker is the kind of movie that could be judged on its merits as a J.J. Abrams movie and separately as a Star Wars sequel. Whether you as a viewer like this installment or not will depend on your own expectations.
Abrams may be at his best, with his unique style, lens flares and all, when he gives fans what they want. Abram’s success this holiday season is a bit of a salvage effort, bringing Rey back as the focal hero/heroine of the story, incorporating some of the saga’s best “Jedi being Jedi” sequences, and tapping into the nostalgia for the 1977 original in bite-sized bits instead of leaning on it like he did so unapologetically with Star Trek Into Darkness. If only Abrams had made all three Star Wars films, this third chapter could have been much tighter, and the whole trilogy would likely be better received by most of the fanbase. As a viewer if you don’t (or can’t) just sit back and enjoy the cameo performances, throwbacks, and Easter eggs, you’ll get the feeling that using two directors instead of one over the three films is the crux of any problems in The Rise of Skywalker. Upon its release, the previous installment The Last Jedi felt like it belonged to an entirely different story than The Force Awakens. Plot threads created by Abrams were summarily abandoned. Key characters were eliminated without explanation. New plot threads came from out of nowhere. In short, the director-flipping was the big mistake from a storytelling perspective. Abrams has the extensive portfolio behind him to demonstrate he would have been the right choice to direct all three films. So this time Abrams had a greater task than ever before, because he was stuck making major course corrections, all to get this tale back on track, re-focused again on Rey. The necessary patchwork aside, The Rise of Skywalker will go down as one of Abrams’ best works.
Will Star Wars, or more specifically, the Skywalker saga with this three-part conclusion, endure the test of time? If audiences continue to believe in its value as entertainment, there is no reason why studios can’t keep going back to this material repeatedly–think Shakespeare’s plays, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge. Recall how even more recent stories like the Terminator, Predator, and Halloween (and Star Trek) film series have continued to make sequels and wholesale reboots, disregarding a film that doesn’t do as well and continuing like it was never made. There’s no reason that can’t happen someday with Star Wars. So those fans who still want to see the Expanded Universe on the big screen–the complexities and triumphs of both Timothy Zahn’s sequel trilogy and Dark Horse Comics’ many stories like Dark Empire that did so much more with heroes Luke and Leia–just wait. Someday the right new visionary will step in and make it happen, but fans will need to accept new actors as their heroes, just like we saw with the latest Star Trek trilogy.
Saturday entertainment memorabilia collectors and diehard Star Trek fans lined up in person, and bid via telephone and online as auction house Prop Store auctioned off 400 lots of screen-used props and costumes for Paramount Pictures at Prop Store’s new location in Valencia, California. The auction included many key items used in the production of the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot film as well as the 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. Paramount retained many more items than were auctioned off, but this was the third–and the largest–public auction of items from what the franchise refers to as the “Kelvin timeline.” The Kelvin timeline resulted after the failure of Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock to prevent the destruction of the planet Romulus and the subsequent journey by the Romulan Nero back in time as revenge to destroy both the USS Kelvin, the ship where Captain Kirk’s father served, and subsequently the planet Vulcan. The Kelvin timeline includes the third film of the new series, Star Trek Beyond, but no items from that film were included in Saturday’s auction.
If high hammer prices are any indication of popularity, Star Trek shows no signs of slowing down. Most lots exceeded their auction estimates, and lots for key characters far surpassed those estimates. As you might expect, costumes from Chris Pine’s Captain James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Mr. Spock, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan led the way. Several Kirk costumes were at auction–examples of his standard gold tunic Starfleet uniform sold in lots of varying descriptions and completeness for $30,500, $14,640, and $8,540 (prices listed here include the added buyer’s premium fee charged to all buyers). Even a costume for a Kirk double actor (an actor who stood in for Pine during stage preparation) fetched $3,965 and a similar unlabeled captain costume sold for $6,710. Yet another Kirk uniform–a gray dress uniform for a double actor–sold for $12,200, and one of his Kronos (Qo’noS) disguises sold for $8,540. But the best-selling lot was a costume worn by Quinto as Spock that also included phaser, holster belt, and communicator props–that lot sold for $33,550. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan costumes were all big sellers, selling for $18,300, $9,150, $9,150, $8,540, $8,540, $6,710, $6,100, and $5,795, making him roughly tied with Kirk as the most popular of the characters with items represented at this auction. Other key characters represented included a Uhura Starfleet uniform for actress Zoe Saldana that sold for $17,080, a Dr. McCoy “Bones” uniform for actor Karl Urban that sold for $9,760, and similar costumes that sold at the same price for Simon Pegg’s Scotty and John Cho’s Sulu. No costumes were auctioned that were used by the late Anton Yelchin’s Chekov. The auction also included several recognizable production-made and screen-used Starfleet props. A rare Starfleet rifle sold for $15,860, and Kelvin timeline chrome Starfleet phasers sold for $3,355 to $11,590. Only a handful of Starfleet background/stunt communicators were available, selling for $1,342 to $2,745. Static/stunt tricorders sold for $2,318 to $3,355.
Well-known Star Trek aliens also invaded the Prop Store auction. Klingon uniforms from a deleted scene in the 2009 Star Trek that were re-used in Star Trek Into Darkness were auctioned off (selling between $600 and $1,110), plus new Klingon costumes from the sequel, some of which included helmets and light-up “working” phasers and rifles (selling for between $1,952 and $9,760). Four Vulcan uniforms sold, including one in the same style as that worn by Leonard Nimoy as Spock in one of his last performances as the character (these sold for $549 to $1,098). And nine Romulan costumes sold, including some labeled for Eric Bana’s character, the villain Nero (selling for as low as $732 to a lot of two costumes for $1,342).
It will take fans of the earlier editions of The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future, Revised and Expanded Edition less than a dozen pages of browsing to realize the enormity of the material–and the effort–required to update the previous 1999 edition for this 50th anniversary boxed, hardcover, two-volume reference published this week. Enterprise–the series that has been virtually ignored in Star Trek reference publications, finally gets its due, as does the later seasons of Voyager, the last season of Deep Space Nine, and the films Star Trek Nemesis,Star Trek (2009), and Star Trek Into Darkness.
An invaluable reference until the creation of the online fan-run Memory Alpha, the original three editions of the The Star Trek Encyclopedia were the only place for fans to get quick Star Trek data with the last update in 1999. The advent of the Internet seemed to have spelled certain doom for any hope of a revised and updated edition. Memory Alpha has more than 40,000 pages of detailed Star Trek reference data. How could a 1,056 page two-volume edition compete? For one, long-time fans of all or many of the Star Trek series likely appreciate the ability to pull a reference book off the shelf. Memory Alpha’s recent updates make the website difficult to navigate and website TrekCore’s value is very much in its screen captures. Star Trek reference works have been very sporadically released in the past 20 years, so fans are always clamoring for a new book. The Star Trek Encyclopedia is very much an encyclopedia, and many may not remember the days of pulling a volume of an encyclopedia off the shelf and reading it through for entertainment. This is a great set of books to do just that. And the detailed content is what fans want.
Excluding this summer’s release Star Trek Beyond, original edition creators (and former Star Trek art department creative gurus) Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda craftily and seamlessly weaved the J.J. Abrams’s movies–called the Kelvin timeline now– into this work as explained in their foreword (only Star Trek (2009)’s villain Nero’s entry, for example, bridges both the Prime timeline and the Kelvin timeline in The Star Trek Encyclopedia). The Star Trek Encyclopedia is also the first publication that thoroughly addresses the nuts and bolts of Star Trek Into Darkness.
I came up with a list of my favorite items: references, characters, objects, and places that did not turn up in the past editions, to see if they all were now included. They were, except for entries and images of certain key alien weapons, uniforms, and artifacts from the Kelvin timeline (like John Eaves’ beautifully designed Klingon weapons, Romulan disruptors and rifles, or the new Klingon uniforms and helmets). These types of updates are present across the board for Enterprise, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Artist Ian Fullwood updates Doug Drexler’s artwork quite well, adding to his work updates with the same look and feel as Drexler’s original creations. Don’t expect past entries to be updated other than some have updated photographs–the research and preparation was clearly all about the new series and movies, also what the fans want and expect.
Did J.J. Abrams earn or reject his Jar Jar badge? Did we drown in re-hashed lines from the original trilogy? Did Disney make the same mistakes as George Lucas made with his prequels?
When you get right down to it, we all had a pretty low threshold by which we were going to judge the success of the highly anticipated, overly over-marketed Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We knew it couldn’t match the original Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back, but it was Abrams’s challenge to see how high he could position the result of his efforts among the other four films.
So how did he fare?
Is the movie better than the prequels?
Is the dialogue better than George Lucas’s in the past films?
Did he hand off the story from the old guard to the new guard successfully?
Is The Force Awakens a modern sci-fi fantasy classic, or among the best films ever made?
After the jump, I’ll walk though my spoiler-light reaction to what is going to go down as the biggest money-making film of all time.
Readying for next year’s 50th anniversary of the first episode of Star Trek, Insight Editions has revealed the cover and a new overview of a book about Star Trek costumes that we first discussed here at borg.com back in December. Veteran Star Trek writers Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann have completed a 256 page hardcover work titled Star Trek Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier.
This will be the first book to focus exclusively on Star Trek costumes, covering the Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the ten movies with the Original Series crew and Next Generation crew, Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness. It is also the first book to include a chronicle of photos and behind the scenes information on the Enterprise TV series and the most recent Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness.
This new book will add an eagerly awaited, missing piece to complete the science fiction and fantasy bookshelves of movie fans, adding to prior great movie costume books for genre properties including Dressing a Galaxy, focusing on the Star Wars prequel costumes (the finest photographic work on costumes to-date) reviewed here, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles–Cloaks and Daggers, reviewed here, and Brandon Alinger’s 2014 release Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy, reviewed here.
Here’s the new overview of Star Trek Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier from the publisher:
Well it’s been one long year, with plenty to do and see, plenty of good and not-so-good to read and watch, and we’re certain we read more and reviewed more content this year than ever before. And that in no less way was true for TV watching. At the same time we waded through all that Hollywood had to offer and honed in on the genre films we thought were worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our 25 picks for our annual Best of the Best list. Today we reveal the best content focusing on the moving image, and tomorrow we’ll run through our picks for the best in print and other media. We hope you agree with many of these great creations of the entertainment industries, and wish everyone a great 2014!
Year’s Best Fantasy Fix — The Wizard of Oz in Theaters. It’s a film that has been viewed on TV so many times you might take it for granted. It’s historically been on many movie reviewers’ Top 20 movies of all time. But when you watch The Wizard of Oz on the big screen in the middle of a year of modern blockbusters you realize how it can stand up against anything Hollywood has to offer today, even after 70 years. Remastering the print for a new generation to see it in theaters was a highlight for movie watchers this year.
Year’s Best Sci-Fi Fix — Almost Human, Fox. Like Continuum last year, the new series Almost Human created a future world that is believable and full of extraordinary technologies based in today’s science and touching on social issues of any day. And even putting aside its buddy cop and police procedural brilliance, every episode plunged us into future police grappling with incredible technologies–DNA bombs criminals use to contaminate a crime scene, identity masking technology to avoid facial recognition video monitors–it was the best dose of sci-fi in 2013.
Best TV Series — Orphan Black, BBC America. What rose above everything on TV or film this year was BBC America’s new series, the almost indescribable Orphan Black. From its initial trailers that piqued our interest, to the surprise series consisting of one actress playing multiple roles that dazzled from out of nowhere, magical special effects, and a unique story of clones and X-Files-inspired intrigue propelled Orphan Black to be our clear winner for Best TV Series of 2013.
If you love a roller coaster of a summer sci-fi action flick…
If you love watching awesome actors like Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Peter Weller doing some of their best work in crazy, fun, and exciting situations…
If you count yourself among the majority of Star Trek fans who liked Star Trek Into Darkness in theaters and who J.J. Abrams referred to this week in an interview…
If you really like lens flares and have a sense of humor…
And if you believe Star Trek is an ever-changing vision of the future that can never be “broken”…
Then now is the time to pick up your own copy of Star Trek Into Darkness on DVD or Blu-ray and watch it over and over again. From the opening scene on a red volcanic planet with Michael Giacchino’s most rousing score so far to the parallel universe reworking of past Star Trek films culminating in one of the most densely packed stories and cutting edge special effects-filled adventures in the Star Trek universe since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,Star Trek Into Darkness holds up on subsequent (at least three so far) home video viewings.
It’s interesting that the publicity folks for RED 2 have stressed in their latest movie trailer no Robots, Monsters, or Superheroes. Although we’re not so sure RED 2 isn’t chock full of its own breed of superhero, it’s true you’ll find no monsters or robots here. RED 2, previewed at borg.comhere, is definitely not like any other film creating waves this summer. But it is the most fun you’ll have at any movie this year.
You don’t need to ask, for example: Were too many people killed in the movie’s finale (as with Man of Steel)? Or lower your normal standards a bit to allow yourself to just plain have fun watching a giant robot take on a giant monster from the ocean’s depths (as with Pacific Rim). Or struggle with friends over whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch was cast appropriately as a sci-fi villain (as with Star Trek Into Darkness). With RED 2, you don’t have to think about all those things that distract you from just having a good time. Do the heroes kill a lot of people in RED 2? You bet, and we like it that way.
What RED 2 will make you do is think about where it stands in the line-up of the best of Bruce Willis’s movies. When was the last time you saw such a good Bruce Willis film that made you work through that analysis? The reality is that Bruce Willis’s performance as retired spy Frank Moses in RED 2 is up there with his first run as John McClane in the original Die Hard, and we haven’t seen him play a character this cool since Pulp Fiction. Pull up your Netflix queue and take a second look at him in Striking Distance, Twelve Monkeys, and The Fifth Element and you might just add RED 2 to your list of Best of Bruce keepers.
