I'm exhausted from our department's Super Media Bowl, but at the same time glad to have gone. The panelists all had great things to say that I can now relay to my non-extra-credit-getting students who didn't go depsite classes being cancelled. I understand not being able to show up to the whole thing (some students had legit excuses like test review in another class or doc appointment), but when an event meant to help you network and prepare for your career goes on from 9:30am to 4pm, you're excused from classes (I actually gave academic affairs a list of all my students to excuse them from EVERY class they had today) and given extra credit to go, why in the hell do you not at least attend the sessions happening during your now nonexistent class time? It's mind boggling how lazy that is.
But attendance wasn't THAT bad, and I got to see someone who graduated after I did come back as an executive producer for a radio station in a large, metropolitan market among other interesting personalities so it's all good.
Anyway, since I had no planning to do last nightand Red Box had a discount for the Super Bowl Hangover Day yesterday, I rented a couple Blu Rays.
"It's ok, son. You're in the resurgence era of this series. I promise it won't be like V."
The reason I rented Blu Rays and not DVDs is cause last time I rented a DVD of this movie, it skipped halfway through and I couldn't finish it. I will admit, I noticed the difference between that DVD and this in Blu Ray as far as image quality, which I usually don't notice enough to care.
I rewatched the whole thing, but was on my phone for most of the first half emailing other professors to excuse students just in case they didn't see the Academic Affairs list. Since I'd already seen that half of the movie, I just looked up ocassionally. Unfortunately, it didn't have the emotional impact it would have if I had been able to see it all the first time, but it's still a damn good entry in the series. Much more in line with the first two and Balboa than III-V, though personally I liked those movies for the goof fests they were.
"Kaaaaaahhhhhn you dig it!"
I'll admit, I was on my phone for too much of this one too, just in case I got more emails. I'll rewatch it tonight, but I have to say I seem to be in disagreement with the reviews I watched last night after finishing it. I ... wasn't as big a fan of this as the first two.
Now, don't get me wrong, Into Darkness was too much of a rehash of Star Trek II and did some stupid things storywise, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. Critics were praising this one for its lighter tone and the fact it felt more like a good adaptation of the 60s original show (with apparently a bunch of references for Enterprise fans according to What the Flick?!). That's all well and good, and I definitely loved the extra Bones scenes (Simon Pegg helped write this one, so the jokes were punched up), but the story just felt flat to me.
Again, I may change my mind when I watch it again, but Double Toasted's main critiques were what I liked most in this. That could be due to my love of "Sabatoge" by the Beastie Boys (was really surprised to see people hating on that song to be honest) and the fact the Jayla character was my favorite part where they just though she was a "typical native." I 100% get where they're coming from, but I at least really liked her design.
But the light tone (which I can appreciate) comes at the cost of a story I just could not give a shit about. To be fair, this is a common critique I agreed with. The villain's motivations were unclear and weird to me, and I honestly expected the Klingons would be the baddies in this one based on some light teasing in the previous film. To be fair, I know nothing about the Klingons other than they have their own language and Star Trek fans think they're a good villainous race apparently. But the villain here is boring. Soooo boring. And it took some of the fun out of it for me that I really didn't care about the plot. Some of the makeup and stage effects also felt a bit too close to the cheesy 60s show and I can't recall feeling like they explored too much philosophy in this one, which I wouldn't mind to see in these reboots but I know isn't likely to happen.
What was focused on was the crew as a created family, which many people have said is due to Justin Lin taking the director's chair. The Fast and Furious director definitely has that theme in the F&F titles he produced.
One good thing about Justin Lin directing was that while I couldn't be bothered to care about the stakes, the action scenes did seem pretty cool.
I'll report back tomorrow with whether my mind changes when I'm paying enough attention to hear all the one-liners and not just ocassionally looking up at Bones, Scotty, the main crew, or Chekov getting into their antics.
No gaming was done last night as I used my PS4 for these Blu Rays. I did wonder while watching Creed if in the future sports movies won't have game tie-ins, but instead promote themselves by having the movie characters be playable or available via DLC. Would be cool to have Rocky and Creed playable in a now-gen boxing game. Or has all of this already happened and I just haven't noticed?
Star Trek could also make a cool Mass Effect-style game I think ... I say without having played any ME title for more than a demo (of ME2).
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