#alex kurtzman is an asshole

[frasier-crane-style]

Some random musings on Picard season 3

-I’m not trying to be an asshole, but in the very first scene, Beverly Crusher is operating a pump-action phaser rifle. I really don’t mean to be a pedant, but it’s a laser gun! what exactly is she pumping?

-I assumed... and according to Wikipedia, this is the case... that time had progressed in real-time for both the Trekverse and the real world. So 21 years have passed since Star Trek: Nemesis was released--21 years have passed for Picard and co since the events of Nemesis. Then we’re introduced to characters who... seem unlikely to have existed during Nemesis. Crusher has a secret love-child that is said to be about 23 years old and Geordi has a daughter who is at least old enough to be a bridge officer on the Titan. (The actors are both in their early thirties.) The notion that all the characters, immediately after Nemesis, got down to making babies is pretty silly.

-As for Jack Crusher himself... I really wish Star Trek would stop throwing in characters that are meant to be their version of Han Solo. We tried it with the Outrageous Okana, he banged Teri Hatcher--if it didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now...

And like... I’m sure this bunch of Hollywood nepo baby commies loves the idea that Star Trek is socialist and evil late-stage capitalism and shit and like... you do realize you keep introducing these grizzled captain rogue tramp freighter characters, they undermine that completely? You’re literally characterizing the socialists as lame dweebs and the capitalists as cool, sexy badasses. Which is valid, but I don’t think you intended to do that, Alex Kurtzman, I think you’re just lousy at your job.

-The circumstances of Baby Crusher’s existence are particularly silly. I’m going to get into spoiler territory, but apparently after Nemesis, Picard and Bev started dating, had unprotected sex, and conceived a child. But this Picard is a sort of workaholic Spider-Man and Beverly realized her new son would never be safe because of all Jean-Luc’s enemies. So she cut off contact with everyone from the Enterprise and started raising young Jack with Picard having no knowledge of her existence (I’m really tired of this trope, which I think no rational human being would ever actually do, but at least Picard chews Beverly out for this psychotic and incredibly uncharacteristic decision).

-This is where the TNG characters and the Picard characters feel like two separate entities that happen to be played by the same actors and share the same names. It’s not just that as they’ve aged, their ‘character development’ has led to Stewart and co. essentially playing themselves more than anything else (at one point, Picard calls someone “a dipshit from Chicago.”). It’s also that they’re treated as action heroes who are always going rogue and getting into crazy adventures; this season even introduces a mean, by-the-book Starfleet officer who acts as something of a pissed off police commission trying to rein these loose cannons in!

That’s just not my recollection of the characters. It’s the pop culture perception of Kirk, sure, and not a particularly accurate perception. But Picard was never really a cowboy. Yet they have these dumb moments like in the first season where he shows up at Riker’s house like “I’m in trouble” and Riker turns on a forcefield and busts out the phasers like the two of them are Murtaugh and Riggs. Picard had his moments of bucking the system, but they act like he was constantly riding around on a motorcycle in a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette--it’s even retroactive! They have Jean-Luc tell this anecdote about him and Jack Crusher Sr. stealing a shuttle from the Stargazer to go get laid. I really don’t think these writers have actually watched TNG--they just assume Picard is an older version of Shepherd from Mass Effect.

-Speaking of video games, the requisite superweapon this time around is portal technology. Yes, like in Portal. And the big obligatory terrorist attack is the bad guys opening a portal under a Starfleet recruitment center and then dropping it on top of a few city blocks. It’s a cool visual and all, but as a weapon, this seems to rate way behind good old-fashioned 20th-century nukes, much less all the phasers and torpedoes that are commonplace in Star Trek.

-And I know the last two seasons sucked, but it’d be nice to have some consistency. In Season 1, Picard was a contentedly retired old coot, not daredevil workaholic Spider-Man. In Season 1, Riker and Troi were happily married, albeit dealing with the grief of losing a child. Here, they’re estranged because Riker suddenly can’t take the grief we’d previously seen him work through.

And another thing: I found it risible in S1 that the technology existed to cure Riker’s son, but it was illegal, so Riker and Troi just shrugged their shoulders and said “Well, nice knowing ya, kid.” That’s the time they’d get the old gang together and steal a starship. And that’s the by-the-book, competent, dutiful officers we saw in TNG. The bunch of renegades and outlaws they’re characterized as in Picard just laid down and buried a kid? It’s so stupid!

-I know remaking The Wrath of Khan is the ol’ reliable of the Trek franchise, but this has to be the most bald-faced redo yet (with bits of Treks 3 and 4 The Force Awakens into the mix). I think Picard suffers in comparison.

-Speaking of comparisons, that “these Enterprise crew members have no respect for the law!” guy I mentioned before has a mad-on for Picard due to his time as Locutus. Obviously, that’s recycled from Sisko’s anger at Picard.

Now the DS9 example is pushing it a little far as the melodrama goes--Sisko’s being blatantly disrespectful, but still, he acknowledges the tension between them, Picard feels awkward, then they move on to official business and try to ignore the past. They actually get more heated about current events: Sisko’s reassignment and his possible departure from Starfleet.

In Picard, the character in Sisko’s shoes is far more unprofessional and emotional (we’ve given the excuse that he’s on painkillers, but you’d think that they’d have pain meds that would leave people entirely rational in the future--he certainly acts rational enough for the remainder of the episode). In front of his demoralized crew, he goes on a lengthy tirade about how much he hates Picard and all I could think by the end is that this is a guy who’s lost all respect of the people under his command. He’s more pissed off at Picard thirty years after the fact than Sisko was just a couple years after his wife died!

-They’re also doing... what I think is a dead name metaphor where the captain, because he’s a jerk, refers to Seven as Annika Hansen instead of Seven, since he hates Borg? But all it does is make it seem odd that Seven is still going by Seven long after she’s reclaimed her humanity and even joined Starfleet, given that the Borg are the ultimate evil of this universe. It’d be like if someone left a Neo-Nazi organization and decried everything they stood for, but still insisted on being referred to by their SS rank or something. What a weirdo!

-Wait, Seven joined Starfleet in Season 2, which was last year... and this year, she’s already first officer of an entire ship? Shouldn’t she still be in the Academy? And you thought it was silly when Kirk became captain of the flagship at the end of Star Trek 09!

-Raffi is awful, as usual, always either acting like a crackhead or ‘acting’ like a crackhead. She’s Space Jack Bauer now, so every scene she’s in is acted like she’s on the verge of tears, about to fly into a homicidal rage, or both. She has a scene with Special Guest Character The Audience Cares About Worf (’member Worf? I MEMBER!) where they’re both interrogating a bad guy and Worf is trying to build a rapport with the guy and Raffi is threatening to cut his dick off and shit. Raffi’s method works, because why should Star Trek be about communication and diplomacy working out when violence and aggression fails??

-My least favorite moment, though, is this bit where Riker is in command and Picard is giving him advice. Riker decides to listen to his advice, it goes to shit, and Riker turns to Picard and literally goes “You’ve just killed us all!”

You’d think a veteran starship commander would take some responsibility for his own actions instead of going “He told me to do it!” like a fucking little kid.

[lostanarchymagazine]

Joker Jahns, the Critical Drinker, Dictor Von Doomcock, Dave Cullen, Froyo, and our fearless leader discuss CBS All Access' Star Trek Picard Season 1. #getwokegobroke #startrekpicard #alexkurtzmanfired

[lucyreviewcy]

The Mummy (2017) Dir. Alex Kurtzman

What can I really say about this movie?

I wasn’t allowed to watch the original Mummy movies as a kid, so when I eventually came to watch these forbidden films I was vaguely disappointed that they weren’t spooky enough. As a result, I was pretty excited for the much spookier looking Tom Cruise reboot (even though it had Tom Cruise in it - usually something that drives me away from the movie). 

There were a few alarm bells in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. For starters, we have a love interest who is a solid 23 years younger than our protagonist. She’s also definitely a love interest: she doesn’t do very much apart from get injured and be sad. 

The second alarm bell was something I hadn’t picked up on before seeing this movie, but which I believe to be generally true. Rule: if the main character in a movie is called Nick, the main character in the movie is usually the worst. The Mummy compounds this issue by layering the Nicks all over the place. The first two characters we are introduced to are Nick (Tom Cruise) and Sgt. Vail. Sgt. Vail is played by Jake Johnson, who most of us will know as Nick from new girl. This issue is then made even worse by the introduction of Russell Crowe’s character, Henry, who is essentially the Dark Universe version of Nick Fury. THAT IS TOO MANY NICKS. More Nicks than a well-used broadsword. More Nicks than a Santa vs Satan themed birthday party. More nicks than Adrian Dunbar in a room full of bent coppers.

Aside this sig-nick-ficant issue which probably only affected me. There are so many other problems with this movie, but before I list them I want to state that I found it a fun romp. I would probably watch this movie again as a spooky treat around Halloween. I am fully disappointed that the Dark Universe never took off, because if this were the first offering I would have been so ready for the rest of the franchise. Sadness abounds. 

That said, I can completely understand why audiences may have had trouble with this movie. Please see the following list of glaring flaws in The Mummy:

Tone. This movie has more trouble with tone than a dog trying to tastefully decorate a penthouse apartment. I don’t know much about its development, but it feels like an original version of the movie was shot and then producers said “Can’t you add a funny in every scene?” I don’t know if it was intentional, but even the big scary Pharoah-faced statue has something vaguely comical about it. As they lower the Mummy into her prison, past this big ol’ face, the face just looks really shocked and vaguely disgusted by her. I guess that’s a nice way of hammering home that the evil lady who just killed a baby really is evil. But also… She just killed a baby. We know she’s evil. We don’t need a statue to make an emoji-esque face to tell us that. This gets worse when later, as she’s lifted out of the prison, the same statue looks shocked and afraid. But we know that she’s bad. We don’t need to be told to be shocked and afraid by a big statue. Stop telling me what to feel, statue! This is typical of the film as a whole. Spooky fight scenes have comical sound effects and any brief emotional scene involving Nick is punctuated by a witty one-liner. I would have been happy with this in smaller doses, it works really well in Jurassic Park. In Jurassic Park we have lots of comical one-liners and witty banter from Jeff Goldblum in the early stages, but as the film darkens and characters start dying, Goldblum’s character is removed from the action and the gags are fewer and farther between. That doesn’t happen in this movie, we have jokes all the way through and a lot of them aren’t even funny. Especially this exchange: “You’re a good person Nick, I know that because you gave me the only parachute.” “I thought there was another one.” This doesn’t work for lots of reasons but it especially doesn’t work when it is referred back to as an emotional flashback in the final scene, sans punchline. The punchline of “I thought there was another one” is Nick’s way of brushing off this and indicating that actually he might just be an asshole through and through. You can’t use that compliment later on as proof that he’s a good person! You think you can do these things but you just can’t Nemo... sorry... I digress...

Gender. There’s a blonde female character who’s vaguely intellectual but actually clearly only there to roll her eyes at Nick and how he’s the worst. She earned her right to eye-rolling by having sex with him at some earlier point but now that’s all she’s allowed to do. She also provides the emotional core of the movie… What a shock, said no-one ever. Perhaps this is just because the last movie I saw that I loved this much was Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw which has Vanessa Kirby kicking ass and propelling the plot forward with sheer force of will, but I found the character of Jenny unnecessarily dull and cliche. She just screams a bunch to tell us about the threat that’s happening. In case we weren’t feeling threatened by the zombie mummies that are attacking her. But we were aware because we could see that happening. So… Thanks for trying, Jenny. Then there’s the Mummy herself. I swear no actress on the planet gets her talent squandered as frequently as Sofia Boutella. Equal parts terrifying and beautiful, Boutella is at her best when she gets to wreak havoc in Kingsman - but since then I’ve only ever seen her in limiting roles that don’t make the most of her delicate threat/allure balance. From almost bond-girl in Atomic Blonde to the-hit-woman-in-the-red-dress in Hotel Artemis (She’s a hitman = THREAT, but she’s in a red dress = ALLURE - delicate, subtle…), Boutella gets landed with characters that are tired stereotypes. Ahmamet is not much of an improvement. The parts of the film where the Mummy is less CGI and more makeup and physicality are really satisfying, allowing Boutella to be her spooky self. It’s disappointing that the mummy makes people into other mummies by kissing them, because of course the only way a woman can win a man over is by using her sexuality. FEMINISM. The Mummy could have pushed her much further, but if this movie proves anything it is that Sofia Boutella would have made a far better Enchantress than Cara Delavigne did in Suicide Squad. 

This movie doesn’t know the difference between Zombies and Mummies. As soon as she wakes up, the titular Mummy starts snog-converting all of the locals into mummies who then become her lackeys. But they just look like zombies. She’s made zombies. They shamble around like zombies. We have the “Zombie on the car” sequence that I’ve seen before in zombie movies. These are zombies. I didn’t come here for zombies. I came here for mummies, the risen dead. Not zombies, the undead. The thing that’s really irritating about the snog-mummification sequence is that she turns all the living people into zombies even though it is later established that she can cause corpses to rise from the dead. So why is she bothering to turn all these alive people into zombies when she is in a graveyard. That’s so much extra effort. Has she never mapped a process? Has she not considered she may need to conserve her resources? Have you ever heard of RECYCLING? I mean she’s from ancient history so I guess not. Eventually, we do end up with a significant number of mummies because of some very heavily established buried knights (SO MUCH EXPOSITION), but those are fine. I’m just mad about all the zombies. 

Tom Cruise. I regret to inform you that Tom Cruise is no-longer a bankable star. The Mission Impossible movies are a bankable franchise and that is a different thing. I am never tempted to go and see a movie because Tom Cruise is in it. I spent the last hour of this film listing actors who could have made this movie better. The list ended up with one name on it and that name was Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds’ typical cynicism in the face of a well-loved franchise might have resulted in a more consistent tone to the movie. We know from every other movie that he does that he can balance serious and silly in a way that keeps the audience laughing and crying. We know that he can make even the thinnest of storylines seem plausible. We know that he does well opposite another equally sarky character so the chemistry with Jake Johnson (one of the few commendable parts of this movie) would still work and maybe even be improved. 

I loved Russell Crowe in this movie and there won’t be any more Dark Universe movies and it is all Tom Cruise’s fault. This point doesn’t need much expansion. Russell Crowe is just really fun as Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde and I loved every second of his performance. The structure of the movie is weird because it introduces him and then drops him almost immediately for about an hour, but he’s just great. I don’t normally love Russell Crowe in anything and this really won me over. I would have watched all the Dark Universe movies for Russell Crowe alone. My boyfriend pointed out, from only hearing his voice emanating from my laptop, that Russell Crowe in this movie sounded like he was voicing the big fat posh tuxedo cat that used to live near us. I loved it. 

I didn’t know how many feelings I had about this movie until I started writing them down. I loved the idea and I felt like I was enjoying it but now that I look back there were so many problems. It’s like if I spent a few days knitting a scarf without looking at my work and then discovered that I’d dropped like half the stitches and it was just a mess. That’s how I felt. 

I hope you can look past the many problems I have highlighted with this movie next time you need a wild, undead but also risen dead romp. In a lot of ways, The Mummy is just like Sofia Boutella’s characters in everything: both alluring and threatening at the same time.

[discotreque]

Additional thoughts on 2x09

Now that I've stopped WEEPING.

We got confirmation of one of my very first theories from S1: that the difference between Airiam's cybernetics and Detmer's is just a matter of degree.

I had assumed Airiam's augments were voluntary, but... yikes, nope.

One of the coolest moments is when the first "blade mine" hits the ship and they cut to the bridge and you can HEAR the buzzsaw sound being conducted through the ship's hull.

This was the first episode written by Michelle Paradise, who is going to be co-showrunner with Alex Kurtzman next season. I say "co-," but Kurtzman is involved in the entire menagerie of upcoming CBS Star Trek shows, so I expect Paradise will be in charge of day-to-day stuff on Disco. And if this ep is a sneak peek of the direction she's taking the show, I am BEYOND hyped for S3.

The writers are doing a really good job of the Michael–Spock conflict. Sometimes kids make decisions that have life-long consequences. It's not fair, but that's how it is. Michael decided to hurt Spock, and Spock decided never to trust her again. Without getting into gory details, it rings very true with some of my own experiences. On one hand, family is family; on the other hand, some wounds are so deep they don't ever really heal.

On the other OTHER hand, Spock could easily be, like, 33% less of a total bitch to Michael. You're not wrong, Spocko, but you're being an asshole about it.

Cornwell is visibly both slightly confused and slightly charmed by Tilly's rambling, and it's adorable. Give THEM a scene together pls.

[tomfooleryprime]

Adding to canon is not the same thing as destroying canon

At San Diego Comic Con, we learned that Sonequa Martin-Green’s character, Michael Burnham, is Sarek’s adoptive daughter. The second I heard the news, all I could think was, “Let the hate begin.” And boy, did it ever.

I understand the disappointment, particularly with fan fic writers who invested a lot of time and effort into crafting stories that fit neatly into canon. Amazing how one sound bite can bulldoze right through decades of widely accepted fanon, huh?

Let’s be real, those little behind the scenes moments are almost the entire point of fan fiction: some of us like something so much, we like to imagine all the things the writers didn’t tell us, but now Michael Burnham has come along like a square peg in a round hole, rendering countless stories AU that previously adhered perfectly to canon. Some of mine included.

But fanon isn’t canon. One might say, “How come we’re just hearing about this now?�� Surely Spock would have mentioned having an adoptive sister? But would he? Would he though?

No one had any idea he was engaged to T’Pring until the Enterprise showed up to Vulcan on Spock’s impromptu wedding day in the TOS episode, “Amok Time.” What was it he said when Lieutenant Uhura asked who the lovely woman on the viewscreen was?

If you watch closely enough and get creative with your interpretation, I swear Christine Chapel mouths the word, “bullshit.”

And no one knew that Spock had a strained relationship with his father until that time dear old Sarek hopped on Enterprise for the Coridan admission debate in the TOS episode, “Journey to Babel.” Kirk urged Spock to go down to the planet and visit his family before they left orbit, and what was Spock’s reply?

I can’t think of a better example of where Spock made Kirk look like a total asshole.

I can maybe understand that he never brought his father up in typical conversation, but one would think once they received a mission to pick up Ambassador Sarek from Vulcan that Spock might have mentioned, "Yeah, it's no big deal or anything, but he's my dad." But of course not. Of course it would be "logical" to wait until the last possible moment just to amp up the cringeworthiness. And then there’s the fact that Kirk had known Spock for decades before finding out he had a half-brother named Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

You would think Kirk would be used to Spock family bombshells by now.

So if anything, the idea that Spock had a secret adoptive sister actually feels more in keeping with canon than going against it. Given the weight of the evidence, I wouldn’t be all that shocked to discover he had three step mothers, a couple of wives, a brother-in-law who worked in engineering, and a whole herd of secret love children drifting around out there. I mean, it happened often enough that even Saturday Night Live parodied it.

Spock-O could have been real and you know it. So yeah, there are worse things that could happen to the fandom than Michael Burnham.

The other thing is, as viewers, we tend to get into the habit of thinking that if a character doesn’t specifically address something on screen in front of other characters, other characters are in the dark along with the viewers. Like if a character didn’t explicitly announce some detail about their personal life to the world, not only did it never happen, it never could have happened. And that’s just silly. Think about this: Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew spent five years together on that mission, and we only got to view a little less than 66 hours of it. So imagine all the conversations in the mess hall we as viewers missed out on. Did anyone flip out when it was revealed that Dr. McCoy had a daughter in The Animated Series? You would think he would have mentioned her in The Original Series, no? Maybe he did, but the viewers just weren't invited to that conversation.

Going back and adding to canon is not the same thing as destroying canon. Star Trek, particularly The Original Series, was always more focused on exploring the galaxy and meeting new civilizations – its primary purpose wasn’t to flesh out complicated life stories for each of the main characters. When you think about it, there’s so much we don’t know about Spock’s upbringing or Sarek and Amanda's origins. Almost everything we do know about this family comes from two episodes – “Journey to Babel” in The Original Series and “Yesteryear” in The Animated Series.

I think because we spent more than five decades without any concrete ideas of how Sarek and Amanda met, what Spock’s formative years were really like, or how their family dynamics worked, we just filled in the blanks for ourselves. But fifty years is a long time for the lines between canon and fanon to start getting blurred.

So I’m actually tickled pink at the thought that Spock had an adoptive sister, not furious that they’re "corrupting" more than fifty years of canon. It would be tampering with canon to claim that Spock never existed, that Chekov was a flower child, or that Starship Troopers is actually some kind of prequel to Kirk and the starship Enterprise, but writing in a sister for Spock where one previously didn’t exist isn’t quite the same thing.

Would you like to know more?

The writers of the show are just doing what we as fan fic writers do all the time – filling in the gaps. You’re definitely allowed to feel however you want to feel about it. And I do understand a lot of the dismay and shock. It really sucks to pour your heart and soul into something, polishing it for months or even years until it’s perfect, and then have Michael Burnham thrown into the mix and it almost feels like a bad Photoshop job over your favorite family portrait, ruining your origins fics for Sarek/Amanda or Spuhura or Spirk or Spones or Spotty? (Is that actually what the Spock/Scotty ship is called?). It’s perfectly acceptable to say that Michael Burnham’s existence has ruined your perception of canon, but I don’t think it should be confused with ruining actual canon.  

And worst case scenario… fanfic writers will just do what they’ve always done: include disclaimers explaining how they hate certain aspects of canon so they just plan to completely ignore it. That’s their prerogative, but I often find it disappointing. I see it with Sybok in Sarek/Amanda fics all the time. Many people prefer to just write him out, and while it is tempting to pretend like The Final Frontier never happened, I’ve always included him. I think it does reality a huge disservice to cut him out, and I think it will be just as bad to do the same thing to Michael.

People get hung up on the idea that Spock was so lonely and misunderstood, but what about the loneliness that Sybok must have felt, having his mother die and going to live with a human step-mother, a half brother, and a father he barely knew, if he ever even knew him at all before his mother’s passing? I loved Sybok’s addition because he helps represent the complex reality of blended families. Between Sarek, Amanda, Spock, and Sybok, I think that family was rife with loneliness and misunderstanding long before Michael Burnham was written in.  

I think Michael, if I understand her story correctly that she’s an orphan who was taken in by Sarek and Amanda, only serves to add to the rich tapestry of Spock’s unique family, and it certainly seems as if she'll fit right in with the other misfits in Sarek's brood. A human wife, a moody Vulcan son from a previous relationship, a half-human son from his current marriage, and now an adoptive human daughter. I feel like that’s a true picture of a modern family in all its messy and complicated and beautiful glory.

People like to romanticize the idea of a “traditional” family, but I like the “messier” version so much more. I think it actually fits in better with Spock’s character. I’m sure there are some who will ask, “But then how can you explain why he would say he felt so lonely growing up if he had not one but two siblings?” I also imagine many of those people were raised as an only child.

We don’t really know how much of an age gap exists between Spock and Sybok (or between Spock and Michael Burnham), but just imagine for a second that you’re Spock, and you have an older brother who’s constantly disappointing your father with his talk about emotions and a human adoptive sister who’s constantly struggling to fit in on Vulcan too. It might be easy to feel like an afterthought at times, especially because Sybok is fully Vulcan like Sarek and Michael is fully human like Amanda and you almost feel like something “other.”

Not that Spock feels of course. No, he would “never” do that. But I look forward to seeing how this all plays out and I sincerely hope people give her a chance (canonwise and fanonwise) before dismissing her altogether because she “ruins” Spock’s “traditional” nuclear family.

During the Comic Con panel, producer Alex Kurtzman insisted they have a good canon explanation for why Spock never mentions Michael. He was quoted as saying, “We’re aware [of the situation]. You’ll see where it’s going, but we are staying consistent with canon.” So I’m inclined to keep an open mind and see where they take it before dismissing it outright for being “too ludicrous.” Spock always held his cards close to his chest where his family was concerned, and weirder things have happened within the Trek universe. Give Michael Burnham a chance.