I was able to attend a pre-screening of the new Star Trek movie last night (opens everywhere Friday, May 8th) with a few friends. It’s been known for some time that this particular Trek film — the 11th in the franchise — was going to be substantially different from all the others in several ways. First, it’s a “prequel”; second, it’s directed by J.J. Abrams, who has no prior history with Star Trek and in fact wasn’t even a fan before he was handed the script; and third, it introduces an entirely new cast. To say that die hard fans were apprehensive would be an understatement.

As for me, although I was a fan of Star Trek — I grew up with The Next Generation series with Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, but I watched a good portion of the later series as well — I approached this one with an open mind. I knew it would be different, but I figured that it needed to stand apart, to attract a new audience and inject some life into a franchise that’s more than 40 years old and has been through ten movies and five television series. Still, I was unsure to what degree I was comfortable with Abrams and co. messing with what makes Star Trek…Star Trek. So when I sat down last night, it was definitely with mixed feelings, but I had high hopes.

Simply put: it was excellent. So far, everyone I’ve spoken to that saw it loved it, even the non-Star Trek fans. Lots of colorful performances, lots of action, lots of comedy, lots of pretty special effects…in short, a lot of bang for your buck. It’s a vastly different flavor from the other films — very little technobabble, far less nerdy, far more action, sex, and explosions. The story focuses on how the crew of the original series (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty) got started and how they wound up on the same ship together. You actually begin with Kirk’s birth, which gives some backstory on his father, and then jump forward to when Kirk is in his early twenties. Kirk, being a miscreant (surprise, surprise) needs some convincing to join Starfleet, but the memory and legend of his father, combined with some prodding from then-captain of the Enterprise Christopher Pike, pushes him to go for it. Some famous Trek lore is finally put on screen here (like Kirk “beating” the Kobayashi Maru test at the academy — a story referred to in at least one of the other movies and more than one TV episode of later series), and it’s all executed in a way that makes it entertaining and amusing to new viewers as well as satisfying to those who are familiar with the backstory.

As I said, the performances were great. Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock), having the lion’s share of the screen time, really shine and slide into their well-established characters quite well, staying faithful to their personalities while layering on their own take on what these guys must have been like when they were young. One point that seems to ring loud and true: Kirk and Spock were total badasses. The way they (and most of Starfleet) just go to town on their enemies and dive into dangerous situations with little regard for personal safety in this film makes the Starfleet officers of past films sort of look wimpy in comparison. The rest of the cast is very entertaining as well, although Karl Urban (Dr. “Bones” McCoy) might have overplayed the famously irascible doctor just a bit — but it was funny enough to let that slide.

Although we only got backstories on about half of the main cast, the only thing I really missed in terms of character development was that of the bad guy — Nero. You don’t find out why he’s doing what he’s doing until too far into the movie, in my opinion, which I can understand from a storytelling perspective but if you’re going string the audience along without knowing his motives then you at least need to make him a more three-dimensional character. Nero just didn’t get the screen time for you to feel how threatening he was. Still, it’s a minor quibble because the rest of the movie is executed so well.

However…(minor spoiler alert) it’s actually an alternate reality, giving the writers tons of room to explore the Star Trek universe in new and interesting ways. When I first realized this was happening (if you know even the slightest bit about “history” in the Star Trek universe, you’ll figure this out pretty early on), I was pissed off because I thought that the movie was just going to end with a massive “timeline reset” and none of it will have actually happened — a plot device that’s been used so often on the TV series that if it were a horse I’d take it out and shoot it.

Thankfully, they didn’t do that — this Trek movie stands now in its own universe, similar to but not the same as the one we’ve known for the last 40 years. That means that the producers and writers are free to create any new fantastic adventures they like without being locked into Trek historical continuity — which, after hundreds and hundreds of TV episodes, all the movies, not to mention hundreds (if not thousands) of books, has been pretty well hashed and rehashed into oblivion. If you were stuck in the “normal” Star Trek timeline, there’s almost nothing left to make a story out of without running the risk of messing something up.

Although it’s going to undoubtedly anger some really hardcore fans that there’s now this “alternate reality,” it’s really the only way they could create totally fresh adventures. I don’t know much about comic books, but I suppose it’s roughly analogous to all these newer comic book movies (like the new Batman ones) that have sort of pushed the “reset” button on their respective universes in order to give the producers some artistic freedom. In this case, it was done admirably — and this is coming, remember, from an old fan. The new Star Trek is a great ride, and is pretty much guaranteed to be enjoyed by Star Trek veterans and neophytes alike. Go see it!

Check out my favorite of the trailers embedded below, or go check it out in HD (it’s Trailer #3):

“Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives. Including yours. I dare you to do better.” Don’t you just love that line?

On Friday, January 16, the first of the final ten episodes of BattleStar Galactica aired on SciFi. As some of you may know, this is one of my favorite shows of all time. Considering the cliffhanger that the last episode left us on back in June of 2008, and how SciFi feels the need to split these “mid-season breaks” into huge 6-month gaps, the anticipation was high. This is going to just be some quick impressions, not a detailed review.

Overall, I thought the episode was very good. Yes, we find out what’s up with Earth and why it’s so desolate (not a huge mystery), as well as who used to be there (that was more surprising). There were lots of new twists in this episode, good ones I think, that will be explored through the final nine shows I’m sure. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell are amazing dramatic actors, and they really carry the emotional weight of this show. The Adama/Roslyn scenes were always so powerful. In contrast, the scenes with Lee and Dualla, in which they’re rediscovering their romantic attraction to each other, were less enjoyable. They felt forced and campy. I never liked that matchup.

Although the mix-in of the newly discovered cylon allies with the regular colonial crew — and the members of the crew who were just outed as cylons — provided a different and quirky “elephant in the room” kind of atmosphere, this show did in some ways represent a return to roots for several characters. Baltar was being a scientist again — no more creepy followers and weird religious rants. Laura was being herself — a strong presence around others yet emotional and fragile in private. Even Tigh seemed to have gotten over the fact that he’s a cylon and tried to be his old self again — his old self when he wasn’t drunk, that is. In that respect, one of the most powerful scenes was when Adama was the raging drunk and Tigh had to talk him down. For all the times that Adama was there for Tigh, now the roles became reversed. It was a very interesting reflection.

Among the many new pieces of information and surprising twists and turns, the most shocking was the sudden — and graphic — loss of a major character that has been with the show from the very beginning. We don’t even yet know why this character died.

Most important of all: we now know who the 5th cylon is.

Battlestar remains excellent television and, I think, one of the best stories ever told on the small screen. If you haven’t watched it and you like human drama, give it a shot. Start with the 2003 miniseries, then move to season one and watch it in order. The DVDs can be had from Netflix or any other video rental store.

The greatest change to hit our living room since HDTV arrived came last month in the form of the November Xbox 360 system update — known as the New Xbox Experience — which included the much-anticipated Netflix Watch Instantly feature. The whole idea of this on-demand streaming service is that you don’t have to wait for DVDs to arrive in the mail — you just pick the movies on the web site, then fire up your Watch Instantly device. Throughout 2008, Netflix has been rolling out Watch Instantly to various platforms — first to PCs, then through a $99 dedicated box you attach to your TV, and then to the Xbox. The past two weeks have seen the service added to two more devices — Samsung Blu-Ray players and the TiVo HD. I have both the TiVo HD and an Xbox 360, and have tried out Watch Instantly on both.

I haven’t done extensive testing, so I’ll make this quick: it’s better on the Xbox. Movies seem to be a notch lower on the quality scale when viewed through the TiVo, as if my internet connection is slower than it really is. Even my wife noticed the lesser quality immediately, and she’s not nearly as much of a HD nut as I am. In addition to being so obviously pixelated, the TiVo variant of the Netflix software stretches 4:3 aspect movies for some reason; I checked Eraser the other night, and the TiVo stretched it while the Xbox’s Netflix program played it in its proper ratio (with black bars on the sides — I hate stretchovision, I’d rather have the bars than fat faces).

Finally, I found the Netflix interface on the Xbox more pleasant to use — the new sliding panel interface of the NXE plays well with browsing movies, while the TiVo’s Netflix interface — like the rest of the TiVo interface — seems dated and clunky. I love my TiVo, but they really need to get moving on that rumored interface overhaul.

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical fiction by Ken Follett first published in 1989. Its genre deviates greatly from the novels by which Follett had become successful up to that point, and he was in fact — if not exactly discouraged — not encouraged to write it by his publisher and some friends. Most of the time, when a novelist tries to radically break out of their mold, it apparently doesn’t go so well. In the case of Pillars, nothing could have been further from the truth.

When I first stumbled across this book on Audible.com (I tend to listen to audiobooks more than actually read them, since I spend so much time commuting each day), the basic premise puzzled me: a story about the building of a cathedral in 12th century England. How could a giant, nearly 1000-page novel/40-plus hour audiobook be about building a church? However, the reviews were extremely positive and the ratings were ridiculously high, so I decided to give it a shot. It turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Pillars is all about the people. Follett weaves together the lives of several generations of people over the three decades it takes to build this cathedral in (fictional) Kingsbridge, England. The span of time the story encompasses helps immerse you, as in some cases you follow the characters from their childhood through most of their adult lives. The skill with which the characters and their environment are built is, in my opinion, nearly unparalleled. The texture of 12th century England is everywhere; I was repeatedly struck by the rarity in their world of things we take for granted — being able to read, for example, or having a house with more than one room — and the things they accept as part of life that we never would have imagined.

You come to know, intimately, all the major characters. Their daily struggles, their long-term ambitions, their joy, their heartbreak — it’s all there, it’s all so perfectly painted that you can’t help but identify with them. The world swirls around them as so many different factors conspire over the decades to impede the ultimate vision of the grand Kingsbridge Cathedral. The politics of the time are just as complex, strange, and dangerous — perhaps even more so — as modern day, and the various threads of the story keep your rapt attention until the very end.

I’m not sure I can say anything else without launching into enthusiastic rants that might give away parts of the book. Suffice to say, this is not the kind of novel I normally read — but I was fascinated. When it was finished, I felt a sense of sadness that I would no longer be able to follow these characters’ lives. The sequel World Without End just came out, however (18 years after Pillars was first published!), and I immediately bought it and read it. Although it’s not the same people (it is set 200 years later in Kingsbridge), it is just as intriguing and masterfully written as the first. My only complaint about both books — and it’s a minor one — is that at times he tends to repeat things, almost like a serial TV series where they do the “Last time, on xxxxx…” bit at the beginning. They’re typically just a few sentences to catch up a reader that might be going kind of slow and not recall something that happened 700 pages ago. That gripe, however, is easily overlooked.

Pillars of the Earth is one of the best books I have ever had the pleasure of spending my free time on, and I strongly recommend it. If you’re into audiobooks, as I am, the unabridged recording from Audible is excellent. The narrator captures the characters well. If you’ve read Pillars, comment here and let everyone know what you think!

Phaser II detector

The first was for the automotive Phaser II radar/laser/whatever speed trap detector. The commercial began in that typical loud, excited announcer voice, and immediately said this:

“The Phaser II! The only detector you’ll ever need! Banned in eight states!”

They were clearly excited about how it was so good it was — literally — illegal in some places. Oh, and they repeatedly offered:

“If you do get a ticket, we’ll pay for it!”

OK, so…I’m just going to go ahead and speed, as long as I don’t have too many points on my license. Great, thanks.

Staples

The second commercial was less amusing and more offensive. It began with that old recording of Neil Armstrong’s famous words from the moon:

“That’s one small step for man…one giant leap–”

Which gets cut off by something along the lines of:

“We interrupt this broadcast for some important news you can really get excited about…”, etc, said in a very condescending way. You want to know what this “important” and “exciting” news is? That Staples now carries Dell print toner and ink cartridges. How…exciting. It then ends with “And now, back to that other thing…”

Talk about insulting. I understand the whole “interrupt this broadcast” ad premise — it’s been done many times before. But Staples picked the moon landing, a monumental scientific and technological achievement for which thousands of people worked incredibly hard and sacrificed much…in some cases — and here’s what really rubs me the wrong way about Staples using this — they sacrificed their lives. As if there isn’t too little appreciation for the space program already, Staples just trivialized one of the greatest human success stories of all time and made it the punchline of a stupid commercial.

It’s incredibly poor taste. I’ll never buy from Staples again; from a cursory search on Google I found, to my relief, that I’m far from the only one with this reaction to the ad.

I’ve been holding this post in for awhile, but I think we just hit an important milestone in the next-generation high-definition disc format war. Blu-Ray (henceforth “BRD”, or Blu-Ray Disc) and HD-DVD are two formats both vying to be the replacement for regular old DVDs. Why do we need to replace DVDs? It seems a lot of casual consumers don’t know this, but DVDs are not high definition. They’re really good looking standard-definition (SD), but they’re not HD; BRD and HD-DVD are HD, and once you see them you’ll immediately notice the difference.

Background

BRD was developed primarily by Sony, while Toshiba did HD-DVD. They are both physically the same size as CDs and DVDs, and they both are capable of displaying the same quality HD video. The difference is that BRDs have a higher capacity, but are more expensive to produce. Their players are more expensive to make as well, requiring a blue (imagine that) laser. HD-DVD has a lower initial storage capacity — meaning long movies or movies with lots of special features will need a second disc — but is supposedly going to be upgraded in the future with higher storage densities. HD-DVDs are much cheaper to make, since they can be stamped with the same equipment that makes regular DVDs with only minor changes, and HD-DVD players are much cheaper as well. In fact, Toshiba HD-DVD players were on sale for as low as $99 this past holiday season — the cheapest Blu-Ray players are still over $400 even on their best day; a year ago, all this stuff was about $1000 a pop.

So why is there a war and why should you care?

Since a big chunk of American homes now own an HDTV — almost a third of them now — demand for HD movies is increasing. Both formats are still alive and kicking because of big players on both sides; there’s a consortium of major electronics companies behind each format. Sony, Apple, Dell, Disney, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, and Sharp all support Blu-Ray, just to name a few, while Toshiba, Microsoft, the International DVD Forum, HP, and Intel are in the HD-DVD camp. As you may know, Sony made the PlayStation 3 a Blu-Ray device, and Microsoft released an HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, so the war is proliferated by two popular gaming platforms and their fans.

Why not just have a player that plays both? Since they’re both the same size disc, it should just be a matter of putting the right lasers and chips in the same box. As it turns out, LG has recently released a player that does that…but it’s currently $1000. However, seeing that prices on the HD-DVD and BRD players dropped by hundreds and hundreds of dollars in 2007, I don’t think it’s out of the question for combo players to be available for $300 or $400 in another year. I personally think this would ultimately be the best for the consumer — because who wants to check for a compatibility logo when they’re buying their movies? Or when someone’s buying one as a gift for you? If these combo players get cheap, it’ll be a win for the consumer because whatever disc we stick in it will work.

The beginning of the end?

Those combo players might not have much life in them though. Earlier this week, Warner (as in Warner Brothers Studios), which is one of the few major studios that has been releasing movies in both HD formats, announced that as of May 2008 they will exclusively release in Blu-Ray. Before this announcement, things were pretty much split down the middle as far as what big-studio movies were available in which format. But as you can see in the chart, HD-DVD’s future is not looking so good. Paramount and Universal are huge movie studios, to be sure, but what’s just happened is that Blu-Ray’s future has been ensured. It is not going away. Whether or not HD-DVD will continue to live alongside beyond the next year remains to be seen.

Bags of money

Several years ago, when most of the world’s HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs/players were still just prototypes in a lab somewhere, I read a white paper about both formats. At the time, I thought HD-DVD would be the prevailing format because it is so much cheaper to make than BRD, and that would spur adoption much more quickly among consumers. I mean, come on…if you’re given the choice of a $200 player or a $500 player, and the video they output both looks the same, what would you choose? What I forgot to consider was Sony’s tenacity when it comes to formats they created — they don’t give up, and they have bags of cash. Seriously, the reason most of the studios that have thrown in with Blu-Ray is that Sony paid them an enormous amount of money to join their “consortium.” Whether or not this is legal is a heinously complicated gray area, and of course all that information comes from “sources” because neither company would actually talk about such a payment. Anyone who’s followed this format war over the last couple years as definitely smelled Sony playing dirty.

So what should I buy?

Right now? Nothing. Blu-Ray players are still too expensive, and even if you bought one, you would be missing out on a ton of great movies that are only available in HD-DVD. You definitely don’t want to buy an HD-DVD player, because with Warner jumping over to Blu-Ray HD-DVD might be dead in another 18 months. On the other hand, if it’s not, and you want both formats, then you’ll have two boxes sitting under your TV. My recommendation is to wait it out until the end of this year. By then, we’ll have a better idea of whether or not HD-DVD is going to survive. If it looks like it won’t, then it will be a safe bet to just buy a Blu-Ray player (and it will be a lot cheaper by then too); if it looks like HD-DVD will live on, combo players should be much more palatable by the end of ’08. Despite really wanting HD movies on my new HDTV, I’m going to try and hold off until then.

We went to see I Am Legend this evening — braving ultra-sticky snow and consequently nasty roads to do so — and it was everything I had hoped it would be. My wife even called it one of the best movies she’s seen in a long time.

I’m not going to rehash the particulars in great detail, since I think everyone knows them by now, but basically humanity has suffered a catastrophic infection of a man-made virus and there is nearly no one left on the planet. Dr. Robert Nevill (Will Smith) is one of the rare ones who is immune, and as an army pathologist he was working on the cure before the outbreak became global. He is a survivor living in New York City, along with his dog Sam, and is still looking for the cure. The catch is…he’s not truly alone.

For at least 80% of this one hour and 40 minute movie, Will Smith was alone on the screen (excepting the German Shepherd). It takes an amazing actor to carry that many scenes completely alone, and although I’m not sure he could have done it in his younger days, he certainly has the knack now. I’ve always liked him a lot, but I can’t picture the amusing but somewhat flat Will Smith of Independence Day (circa 1996) pulling off what I just witnessed. He now brings a deeper, more textured performance that goes a long way in conveying how very, very lonely — and tortured — the life of Robert Nevill is. It brings to mind Tom Hanks’ performance in Castaway. Personally, I liked Smith even better.

The direction and production of the film was exceptional as well. Movies in which New York City is destroyed or suffers some calamity are a dime a dozen, but this abandoned and desolate look was well-done and unique. The way some shots were done with jerky handheld cams — following close to Smith during intense moments — and the way others were held a few beats longer than you would normally expect — to let the loneliness sink in — all contribute to getting you inside the world of Nevill. The suspense was palpable throughout — I greatly enjoyed the “enemy” in Legend.

I’m sure it won’t be for everyone (I saw at least two couples just get up and leave during the movie), because if you’re expecting some typical, shallow, cheap thriller you’d better look elsewhere. This movie is a little more complicated; it demands your attention (the detail in every scene is fantastic and offer a lot of clues), it plays hard on your emotions, and it likes to screw with your head by getting you inside Nevill’s. It’s a very entertaining piece, and we highly recommend it.

Overall, it was pretty good. A somewhat different feel than the episodes in terms of pacing (it felt like producer Ron Moore might not have gotten all the time he wanted in the editing bay), but very entertaining and a fascinating look at, for the most part, what made Admiral Cain tick. Great writing, of course, and cinema-level special effects, as always. The quick homage to the 1978-80 show’s very classical robotic Cylons (complete with the voices) was pretty cool. And of course the scene where Cain deals with her XO’s refusal to obey an order is every bit as chilling as you’ve imagined. Razor is disturbing, gritty, and intense — all the things we love about this show. Check it out.

The primary reason I watched the pilot for Life was that the show’s star is Damian Lewis, who played Dick Winters in HBO’s epic Band of Brothers. I’ve never seen him in anything else (until now), but Band of Brothers was enough to make me watch anything that Lewis is in at least once, no questions asked.

In Life, Lewis plays Detective Charlie Crews who has just returned to the force after spending 12 years in a maximum-security prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit. The circumstances of Crews’ initial incrimination are kept mostly secret; it’s clear that this will be an ongoing, slowly unraveling thread as the show progresses (more on that later). Suffice to say, the 12 years he did in prison were 12 very hard years, with what seems an excessive amount of abuse. Obviously, he carries some deep scars, although he has apparently buried them enough to be allowed back on the force as a detective.

Charlie Crews appears to be a reasonably complex character. He used to be a by-the-book cop, but after spending so much time in the slammer he’s changed his outlook on life. He alternates between slightly quirky, genuinely nice, somewhat cynical, and just downright weird. Lewis plays it excellently, but the way it’s put together in this first episode makes the character feel slightly off balance; I think the writers still need time to “find” the character completely. To be fair, I have never, ever seen a show that nails a character completely before the end of the first season. These things take time. Fortunately, Life is pretty close. I like Crews; he has real issues and real potential, and his quirkiness — developed from his unique situation — makes him more interesting than most cut-and-paste Law and Order types.

The other characters, though, I really don’t care about. Which means that the writers need to do something more interesting with them. Crews’ partner, Dani Reese (played by actress Sarah Shahi, model and former NFL cheerleader), has issues with being partnered with Crews, but they get diluted when it is revealed that she has a history with drugs (yawn…we’ve never seen that before). Lt. Davis, the boss who wants Crews to screw up so she can get rid of him as soon as possible, just comes off as a typical conniving 1-dimensional bitch. Crews’ former partner, who turned him in back in ’95, wants to be buddy-buddy and pretend like nothing’s happened, but he comes off even shallower than he should. At least Crews’ lawyer who got him out of prison (a beautiful woman with whom he has a special relationship, despite her being married) and his live-in financial adviser/former cell mate, Ted, provide some interesting interactions for Crews’ personal life.

Speaking of his financial adviser, Crews has need for one because he received an enormous settlement from the city when he was exonerated and bought himself a mansion, some nice suits, and a Bentley. He lives the high life to good effect, clearly enjoying the Bentley and other niceties. This whole first episode is us being introduced to Charlie, with snippets of information about his incarceration thrown in to bait the hook. The real meat of the show, however, comes into play in the last few minutes: although he denies it, and does everything to hide it from everyone else, Crews is secretly trying to solve the mystery of why he wound up behind bars 12 years ago. It seems there is more to the story than just mistaken identity or wrong place/wrong time…he was framed, and people in the police department are involved. It provides the “story arc” that almost all shows have these days, and it looks like it could prove to be quite interesting.

Overall, I like the show. Damian Lewis does a fantastic job, and his character is fun to get to know (even if the writers still need to get to know him a little too). There’s nice texture to the show, little things thrown in here and there…like the fact that Crews is totally unfamiliar with cell phones, having been incarcerated since 1995. Those types of things and the way Lewis delivers his lines in certain situations are good for a chuckle. In some ways, this is another crime drama, but the important part is that it comes with a big twist: that Charlie Crews spent 12 years in prison, being punished brutally for a crime he didn’t commit, and now he’s back. That opens up a whole host of possibilities. It’s not going to redefine the genre, and it’s not going to singlehandedly bring NBC back to their glory days like during the first few seasons of The West Wing, but it’s a good start.

Life premieres Wednesday, September 26th, at 10/9c on NBC.

OVERALL: 8/10

Check out some videos of Life at NBC.com

Check out the article over at Cracked.