Movie Remakes: Star Trek and Jane Austen

I've been a Star Trek fan since I was in middle school. Equal blame falls on my mom and my best friend: my mom bought a boxed set of the movies on VHS, and my best friend was a big The Next Generation fan. I thought TNG was silly (I still do, at times). But The Original Series (TOS)? That was a different story! It was so... cheesy. I liked the special effects that had once been cutting edge. I liked that it was pushing an agenda before the age of political correctness. By the time of TNG--well, I can thank Wil Wheaton for his rather snotty Wesley Crusher in the episode "The Final Mission"--I eventually came to dislike the pushy PC agenda of the show as well as the cruise ship design. The Enterprise-D looked like a space-worthy Caribbean cruise-liner.

As a result of watching TNG and the movies, I got back into watching TOS. To this day it is my favorite of the series, and that's probably due to my background in history. I was excited over the first TNG movie, Star Trek Generations, until I saw it. Since the movie came out years ago, SPOILER ALERT is all you will get, but the movie lost me when they killed Kirk. I was done with the creators of this movie, and I was correct in thinking that because, with the exception of Star Trek: First Contact, the other movies were weak. I was sick of the action around Data and Picard. Ooh, Geordie has new eyes. Riker and Troi? Yep, still taking bubble baths together--and I wish I was making that up.

Imagine my excitement when I heard a new Star Trek movie was being made in 2009, a reboot of TOS! Everything was so secretive, like who was going to make a cameo appearance (Nimoy) and who wasn't (Shatner) because JJ Abrams was directing it. Of course, die-hard Trekkers (I considered myself a Trekkie, which seems to be a less-serious fan) were aghast. Since I never understood the techno-babble and the science, all I required was a good story and a good Doctor McCoy.

And this is what we got. A younger crew, younger even then the characters were when TOS first aired.  And how do we explain away the canon? A rift in the time-space continuum, and they didn't even have to sling themselves around the Sun! And Karl Urban's Dr. McCoy? Yes, please. (He's a doctor, not a physicist.)

The characters are slightly different due to that time rift in the 2009 movie, Starfleet is slightly different, and I find that to be perfectly fine. In fact, this summer's Star Trek: Into Darkness pays the perfect homage to an earlier, classic Trek movie. (Spoilers!)

So, where does Jane Austen come into this? Well, Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books, and the 1995 adaption with Colin Firth is my favorite production. It's perfect in every way, from the language, to the costuming, to Colin Firth in a wet shirt... so I was not too thrilled when I found out Keiera Knightly was going to play Lizzie Bennet. No! She was all wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

I couldn't help but compare it to the 1995 version, which was a mini-series. It's hard to pack that entire book into roughly two hours, but I was appalled when I saw that Bingley was allowed into Jane's sick-room. That would NOT have been tolerated in Jane Austen's time, and I didn't tolerate it, either.

And this is where Trek comes in. My feelings for this inferior Pride and Prejudice is similar to some people's distaste for the Star Trek reboot. I can more easily understand their intransigence at accepting it, much like I have difficulty in accepting how Matthew MacFadyen's wooden Mr. Darcy could fall for a toothpick with hair.

[You can check out Wil Wheaton at his blog, WIL WHEATON dot NET.  I look forward to each of his appearances on The Big Bang Theory and have forgiven him for looking like Wynona Ryder in one of those Tiger Beat magazines from when I was in ninth grade. We all make mistakes. ]

Things I Learned From the Movies: Pearl Harbor

I remember when this movie first came out and I was SO EXCITED. I thought this was going to be the Pacific theater's version of Saving Private Ryan. Man, was I wrong. SPR was an Historical Epic; Pearl Harbor is a Historical Action movie.

Lesson #6: Southern Accents are not difficult to master.

From the kids at the beginning of the movie to the less-than-stellar acting of Hartnett and Affleck, the accents are horrible in this movie. Hollywood underestimates the difficulty of both the Southern American and English accents. Drew Barrymore in Everafter? Not an English accent. It was just an accent. Affleck manages to speak in the hickest, dumbest redneck accent of no particular area in the land. This goes for Scottish accents as well--as long as their unintelligible and unlike Mel Gibson's, then they must be fine. Right?

And where is Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s accent? His character was from Texas.

Lesson #7: Nothing emphasizes the tragedy of war like some slapstick comedy.

Affleck's character, Rafe, is a mess. He somehow manages to get Evelyn through a comedy of errors while getting inoculated. Their first date is also a mess, with his nose getting broken (again), and then nearly plunges the two of them into an icy ocean. This is highlighted by some of his pilot buddies using all kinds of means to get a girl, like stuttering and tears. And the sad thing? It works.

Lesson #8: Revolving doors are dangerous.

Did you see how fast that door was moving when Rafe was saying good-bye to Evelyn? I can't see how anyone could leave that building without losing a limb.

Lesson #9: Want to elevate your film to be art-house worthy? Put in subtitles!

Bonus points if it's in a non-European language. Double bonus points if it's a little known dialect. Points will be taken away if it's Affleck's southern accent.

Lesson # 10: When you are being chased by the enemy, have a video camera handy.

You'll get money for it later on--that is, if you survive.

Lesson # 11: When attempting to run from one air field to another, wait until the planes are not about to attack you.

Overall, apart from fifteen minutes at the middle which should be the heart of the movie, Pearl Harbor was a dud. Instead of focusing on the attack of Pearl Harbor, the movie veers into Titanic territory, with the tragedy sandwiched in between the love triangle of the main characters. The best part of the movie was the section of the attack. The movie would have been more powerful had they focused on the build-up to the attack from the point of view of the military alongside the Japanese preparations. Everything got lost on the focus of the love story.

It could have been so much better.

Things I Learned From the Movies: U-571

As a history student and teacher, I find movies with a historical bend to them difficult to watch. I cringe at Braveheart and hate how a totally awesome story like the Duchess of Devonshire's was made boring in The Duchess. (The reality is always better.) But over the years I have started to make a distinction between two types of historical movies: The Epic Historical and The Action Historical. The former is more serious and based more closely to reality, whereas the former may have occurred in a historical time frame as long as it was in a Parallel Universe.

Braveheart and The Duchess are Epic Historicals.

U-571 is not.

Sometimes, but not always, the cast can be the clue as to which type of movie that I am watching, but this is highly flawed. For example, Mel Gibson was in Braveheart, but he was also in Patriot, which is an Action Historical.

In the case of U-571, Matthew McConnaughy and Jon Bon Jovi are the clues. These are not actors who show up in Epic Historicals. The movie is loosely based on the Allies attaining the Enigma code machine from the Germans during WW2. With the capture of one of these machines, the Allies could break the German code and save the world from annihilation. The vast majority of the work on the Enigma decoding was done by the British at Bletchley Park. Which leads to:

Lesson #1: No one is interested in watching the Brits save the day.

To be fair, the movie came out in 2000, which was before Clive Owen and Gerard Butler came into the action movie ranks. Orlando Bloom was still cavorting about in his elf gear. That's not to say that there were no good British actors working in the States at that time. I just can't think of any. Also, everyone knows that the Americans won the war and saved the world from Hitler. (Cue eye roll.) Unfortunately, because of this attitude in Hollywood, we don't seem to really get how good the Brits were doing at holding off. Yes, things were dark, but comparatively, we had it easy. Everyone was getting bombed. We weren't.

Lesson #2: Watch how you contain the prisoner.

Just because someone doesn't speak the same language as you doesn't make that person stupid. It just makes you unable to understand them. The German U-Boat commander was a smart guy--if he weren't, he wouldn't have been commander. He wouldn't have the suitable amount of stubble, and he wouldn't have that plaid shirt under an awesome cabled sweater. He was smart enough to act like he's an electrician, so let's go with that for a moment. If he were a sub's electrician, he probably knows the sub very well. So, when handcuffing him to a part of the sub, make sure he has more than one guard. And that said guard isn't a fresh-fashed sailor.

Lesson #3: It's okay to wildly shoot a gun in a submarine.

Jon Bon Jovi did it, and nothing happened. It didn't hit anything--those bullets just disappeared. Not one pierced the hull.

Lesson #4: When pretending to be Germans in order to infiltrate a German sub, make sure more than two people speak German.

So, our boy McConnaughy goes over to the sub with two boats full of sailors. Only two can speak German. This is not a good idea. They would be discovered fast. And they were. See Lesson #3.

And what if those two people were shot? Non-German Speaking Germans are suspicious to Germans. And we're supposed to believe America won the war? No wonder the rest of the world thinks we are stupid.

Lesson #5: Diversity on a submarine is a good idea. Especially if it's cliched and stereotypical.

You have to have the guy who doesn't want to be in charge but ends up being in charge.

An Italian with a chip on his shoulder.

A gunner named Trigger.

A mechanic named Tank.

The best friend who dies.

The chief engineer who is wise and gives advice to the first guy. And is played by Harvey Keitel. The token black guy who is the cook and miraculously knows how to pilot a sub.

And thus finishes the Inaugural Post of "Lessons Learned".

Liveblogging New Moon

Yesterday was my friend's kid's seventh birthday, and it was Twilight themed. Now, if you read my review of Twilight, I didn't care for it. It took me three months to read. But yesterday I watched the movie, quite willingly, for the second time. The hilarious part was when the kid kept taking her Twilight Barbie dolls and manipulating them along with the movie. She did slack off about half-way through, in which I was resorted to drastic measures by throwing things at the dolls to make them leave the scene.

2:00 Dream Sequence: Uh, Bella, that's not your gran. That's YOU. I got it way before you did. And I know what scares you.... not that you'll age and Edward won't, but that you'll look like that.

3:15 Romeo and Juliet: You're a senior in high school and you're just now reading this? What is Forks High School, severe remediation?

5:00 The color is WAY better in this movie. Bella must have been out in the sun because she's not as pale, and neither is Edward. What is that? Edward cracked a smile? Still needs a haircut, though. But, considering he's dead, his hair shouldn't grow, right? And I can see that the tangerine lip stain has been replaced by coral.

8:10 Jasper still has the broody "Humans are tasty" look.

8:40 Forget the vampires. Who cries when watching Romeo and Juliet? And that teacher who quotes along with the movie is Lame. I'm not saying that I don't quote along with movies, because I do. But I quote cool movies, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Oh, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. For example:

"I thought you were the Scarlet Pimpernel. "
"I could never presume to fill those shoes. I lack sufficient courage."
"I have yet to meet a more courageous, or a more handsome, cavalier."

I wonder how many times Edward has watched/read this story.

10:00 Tangerine lip stain is back. Thanks, Edward. And how cliched to quote the movie.

12:00 Edward, you have told the vampire secret and killed another vampire. I'm thinking the Voltari are going to come after you and rip your head off. Oh, if wishes were dollars....

Predictably, like a nut, Bella wants to be changed.

13:45 The vampires have discovered bronzer! They're not so pale! Emmett seems to be so human with the purchase of a good car radio. Oh, and nothing like a good vampire fight! No, it's a LOT of blood, Alice. Oh, and I know what's going to happen now. Edward will think it's his fault, go all passive aggressive and think that it's better off that he leaves, and Bella will be mooning about most of the rest of the movie.

And to think: I could be writing lesson plans!

18:00 Cue the regrets.

20:00 .... And he's not at school. Instead, he's at Bella's house, rooting around in her room for something. Oh, this can't be good. He wants them to take a walk! Oh, that's the death knell of the relationship right there. Walks never bring good news. Edward is obviously using the "Carlisle looks too young" excuse to break up with her. In the world of plastic surgery, Carlisle can botox those wrinkles away. I'd be more worried about Esme's looks staying the same.

23:30 And this is where Bella stars moping for the next hour. Edward, you can't break up with someone, ask them not to be reckless, and then say you'll never see her again, for her own sake. She's 18, Edward, she won't understand. This is the end of her world. She's going to listen to today's version of Alanis Morisette for hours in her room, stop washing her hair, and start to physically resemble the zombie she feels like inside. Better off faking your own death, dude. Or actually do it. you know you're bored with high school. You've graduated 20 times. At best, you're an illegal alien because you have no social security number, and you died in 1918 of the flu.

27:00 Shirtless Indian finds Bella. Brings her home. Jacob looks pissed off. Hey, but at least Edward's gone, mate. Now you have a chance. It's Halloween and Bella is dressed up as a zombie.... oh, wait. Nope. She's just depressed. And she's been sitting in her room, in the same spot for months. Time passes by, and it's December, and she's still sitting in the same chair. Now she's back at school. Now she's having nightmares. And receiving Undeliverable Mail notices from Alice's e-mail account.

30:45 Charlie wants her to go to Jacksonville to be with her mother because she's going through vampire withdrawal. So she's goes to a movie with a friend about zombies, and the friend wonders if it's a parallel for leprosy or consumerism or man's need to fit in or about the zombie apocalypse? Because we need to be worried about those zombies. And now Bella's going to do something reckless because Edward told her not to in her head, and she wants to see Edward, so she's going to do reckless things just to see his face. There's got to be a pill for that.

37:00 Yep. Stupid and reckless. And you're playing with Jacob, which upsets me. And his hair? Nicer than mine. I'm against that. Though I do love how Jacob turns everything into a Red/White issue. The repartee seems to be much more witty than in Twilight.

43:00 Bella finds something reckless to do--cliff-diving! Woot woot!

45:00 Here's where I'm having issues with Edward's "you'll never see me again"--it was a lie. Every time she's reckless, she sees him. What a crock! It's passive-aggressive behavior at its height! He's not helping her. As long as he keeps showing up when she's being reckless, she's going to continue being reckless. When you stop showing up, she's going to realize it's not going to help, being reckless to see you! Stop it!

50:00 Face Punch has to be the worst movie ever. After the one I'm watching , that is. (And don't hold Bella's hand.)

55:00 I bet Jacob's going through that change-of-werewolf time. It's a time that every young pup must go through on his way to becoming an adult werewolf-shapeshifter thing. When you have your "change", you cut your hair off, get an awesome tatt, and cut your jeans off so you have long shorts. Poor Bella, everyone is pushing her away! And stop e-mailing Alice!

1:01:00 That vampire dude is back. I don't know his name, the one with the dreds. He's right! He left you behind unprotected! At least it would be a better death than if Victoria killed her. Go ahead, let him kill you! Damn. The werewolves had to come out, ruin all my fun.

1:05:00 Werewolves are awesome.

1:10:00 who wants a vampire when werewolves are SO AWESOME? Vampires are all broody and depressed but werewolves get it done.

1:16:00 The truth is out about Victoria and that she's after Bella. Not missing Edward right about now. :) And stop e-mailing Alice! And just when I think Bella is getting over Edward, she cliff-dives.

1:26:00 I'm with Jacob. If James could totally trick Bella in Twilight, then Victoria could make her think the Cullens are back in town! Go with the hunky, brave, open werewolf, Bella! He's got a tan! Edward is too broody! And pale!

Alice finally got an e-mail. Maybe if she checked her email instead of relying on faulty psychic images, she'd know Bella didn't die.

1:32:00 Might I say that Jacob is brilliant? He's about to kiss Bella and guess who calls? Edward. Who is supposedly never going to go back to Bella but keeps warning her anyway, using his passive-aggressive personality to keep her tied to him. So, Jacob says that Charlie is too busy arranging a funeral and hangs up! Of course, Edward is going to think it's Bella's funeral. And it's not!

1:33:00 Edward wants to die now. Oh, I see. Romeo and Juliet. And Bella's not really dead. Wow. That's a subtle parallel.

1:37:30 The townspeople are chanting "Imhotep." I swear it! That's what all crowds chant! "Imhotep! Imhotep!"

Edward! Put that shirt on! Nasty! Where's Jacob when you need him?

1:44:00 The Volturi. Boring. Flashes of Cedric Diggory's death.

1:50:46 How stupid.

1:53:48 Sap sap sappy. Maple trees sappy. And WTH with the voting to become a vampire? I think they should go to couple's counseling. He's obviously against her decision, and to have this animosity around for the rest of forever isn't good for their relationship.

This ending sucked. A lot.

Miracle

As I've mentioned before, it's the end of the year, so I've had to come up with some new "strategery" to keep the sanity.  My Advanced Placement US History class has taken their exam, and as a reward, we are watching movies with a distinct historical bent to them. 

Like Miracle, one of my favorite movies. Now, it doesn't rank up there with Slapshot, the greatest hockey movie I've ever seen, but it is quite better than Mighty Ducks 3. It's vintage Disney in that one scene, the boys are talking to Coach Brooks about adding another player to the team and they say, "But we're family." Is there a Disney movie that doesn't have that as a theme somewhere? 

So, how can I justify watching this movie? Isn't it about sports? Yes, I say, but I can counter that with two things: Sports is a metaphor for war; The struggle between the hockey teams of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics was yet another facet of the Cold War struggle. 

And so one of my students, I'll call him.... Dave. Dave was watching it, saw the goalie doing his butterfly, and said, "I can do that!" before banging his knee on the floor. But he came up with a wicked awesome dance and lyrics. 

And now he knows what a puck is. I'm so proud.