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Friday, June 28th, 2002

Y2kk Update: I just ran away from another mother-yelling, time-warping escapade. Call me a coward if you will, because that's what I like to think of myself as, but I really feel like I don't have any alternative but to leave the viscinity when my mother berates me how I don't know how to cook simple noodles... and yes, I do know how to cook instant noodles, believe it or not... Do I know how to cook anything else? Besides microwavable products, macarooni, and the occasional Campbell's soup, I don't know how to make a damn thing. But it really just gets to me that no matter how many times I cook those damn noodles, my mom simply refuses to remember any time that I did. And she just yelled at me again for being too lazy to ever learn how to cook Chinese noodles... just great... I may suck at cooking, but it'll be funny and ironic if one day, I'll cook Shark Fin Soup for my mother as a gift or something, only to be yelled at once again for not being able to prepare the simplest of instant noodles...

Anyhew, I caught a screening of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report last Saturday starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, and basically nobody else. Before I start my mini-no-name review, let me just point out my utter amusement at the fact that Steven Spielberg finally graduated from the arts and science course he never completed at that certain Carolina college of his... I just find it funny that he would rejoin a movie-making class that routinely analyzes Spielberg movies as group projects. And as a student, what exactly did Spielberg do? He handed in his own analysis for his academy award winning Amistad, he submitted his own script to Schindler's list as his own short film draft, and for all we know, he probably played around with his Jurassic Park creations as his computer animation project for the year... It just bemuses and amuses me to think of what his classmates thought of him whenever he walked through that front door. I mean, wouldn't it be strange to ask your classmate for an autograph, or classify him as a successful sell-out?.. I mean, here's a man who essentially has revolutionized film, taking a movie course that he himself essentially forged with his own work after leaving college prematurely... heh... Love him or hate him, you've just gotta... um, love Spielberg... I mean, he always seems to have a flair for the melodramatic.

Anyhew, getting back to my point, if I've ever had a point, what exactly did I think of Minority Report? It's been too long since I saw the movie to put forth any time of decent analysis. However, I will note that I left the theatre with a decently satisfied look on my face. Basically, I somewhat enjoyed the action sequences. The Lexus car factory battle was a little too mundane, and a little too Attack of the Clonesish in my opinion, but it did put a smile on my face when Anderton escaped in that newly built Lexus cruiser. I thought the scene where Cruise jumps from vertical car to car to be somewhat interesting, but it wasn't gripping, and it definitely didn't give me a head rush or anything.

And were there any problems with this movie? Absolutely. It suffered a bit from the same syndromes that AI did. Some scenes completely broke the mood of the rest of the movie, such as when Anderton meets Rufus in the holo-pleasure palace or whatever. The movie up to that point had been fast paced and what-have-you, but a lot of that feeling died after watching a self-delusional guy get praised by holograms all around him... Sure, I laughed when Rufus did the sign of the cross in front of Agatha, but even that felt strange since I don't think there were many moments to laugh beforehand in the movie... And actually, a lot of the final third of the movie left me wondering when will this movie finally end? After an absolutely heart-pumping, blood-humping, brilliant scene with Colin Farrell and the villain being exposed (God, I haven't shook like that from a movie sound since I first watced Gladiator in DTS), the movie lost most of its focus, with Anderton getting easily caught at his house, with his wife figuring out who the villain is after a cheesy slip of the tongue, and with Cruise again showing up at the end, all bald and ready to die...

And other problems with this film? Besides unnecessarily ridiculous evil performances by the jailor in the wheelchair and the doctor in the greenhouse, I can't really remember any other problem right now, but trust me, there is more. Some claim that the precogs seeing Anderton's killing of Leo Crowe so far in advance was a contradiction, since he couldn't have premeditated the attack without knowing who the guy is. Then again, some on the internet claim that since the villain was the one who planned out the murder, that the crime was somewhat premediatated to begin with. I, on the other hand, turn to my own theories of time displacement for a solution. I've always considered life to be in a linear timeframe. I don't see the relevance in having multiple universes allowing for the grandfather paradox to occur, so for now, I'll dismiss those claims. I've always believed that we don't see the future, but that we're given enough info to allow the future to happen. So technically, we never do change the future. We simply fulfill it, because the visions we get are only a means of allowing the course of history to remain unchanged. Because if a fourth dimension or higher exists looking down at us, wouldn't our timeline be already finished yet never started? I mean, we can't change the "timeframe" of the second dimension, now can we? Unless black-holes and gravastars actually do that, but, um, nevermind... Is this a stupid theory? Absolutely, since it requires the belief in a) time travel, b) quantum mechanics, c) my own competence, and d) destiny. But nevertheless, it works in all paradoxial situations I can think of, so am I right then? Absolutely not. But it's my way of making sense of something not quite yet reality. And as long as it works, why not use it until the real solution comes along?

And actually, that's where the brilliance of this Minority Report movie comes in... The way Spielberg played with the idea of premeditation was absolutely incredible, and deserved a standing ovation with my hat taken off... not that I wear a hat, mind you, but that's besides the point... The precogs never once broke the rules of my arcane theory. When Agatha and the twins see the future, nobody really states that it will be the future. Anderton even rolls a ball, allows Farrell to catch it, and tells him we all knew the ball was going to fall, but we had the information needed to prevent it from falling. It will happen, but it didn't happen, because they stopped it. He never truly spoke of changing the future, and that's what I adored about this movie. And later on, when the precogs see murder, only to find it's suicide? Not only were the final moments between the villain and Anderton rather brilliant and thought-provoking, but once again my theory was never defiled. Something was going to happen, but the knowledge of having a choice allowed the real future to occur... Not only that, but the final scene also capped off a truly captivating, tragic hero performance by the villain that shall stall anonymous... although thanks to all the spoilers on this site, I'm sure you all know who the villain is already, not that anyone reads this website, though...

Sure, I can complain and brag that I knew he was going to be the villain. In movies hoping to leave the audience stunned, the big bad is always the guy in charge, or always the guy you least expect, but I honestly can't find this a real flaw in this movie because the villain had to be in charge to be that damn brilliant. Although some complain that at the end of the movie, Spielberg edited the message, "There were 161 deaths in the Distrinct of Columbia the following year", and thereby edited out a lot of the morality issues presented in the movie, I prefer to look at the morality through the eyes of the villain himself. What has he done wrong? Let's see here, he committed murder on at least two different occasions. He has kept three seemingly unwilling, sentient participants drugged up as slaves in the "Temple" of Precrime. However, how many lives has he really saved, and how many lives would he have saved had Precrime went national? The precogs never chose to tell us that... He was truly a tragic hero, juxataposed against Cruise who went from tragedy to being just another boyish hero by the end of the movie. A year ago, I may have stated that a real democracy would never have allowed a living, intelligent person to be used as a slave. However, we've arguably moved one step closer to that reality, by stricking the citizen rights from alleged terrorists in our own countries. Are the newly instigated laws necessary for our protection? Absolutely. But from a democratic point of view, they're also morally wrong...

But anyone who really knows me knows that as much as I think of morality, I tend not to, um, think of morality... The most brilliant things about Minority Report are the following three things: First of all, I loved the look on Colin Farrell's face when Anderton had a gun to his neck, and Colin smiled out, "You won't kill me. I don't see a red ball"... And, heh... In all honesty, how could I not smile with him? The look on his face when the Precrime sirens sounded off was simply Mastercard priceless... Secondly, the scene with Anderton pointing a gun at Leo Crowe's face was simply astonishing, and got my heart racing more than any other movie in recent times. And I absolutely loved how the precogs were not wrong, and yet not right. Somebody did die, and someone did commit murder, and the visions presented all did happen, yet the murder was not meant to be. The Leo Crowe setup was a brilliant scene because it was meant to be confusing, yet not over-the-top nor a completely unsuspected surprise like so many other recent movies have tried to do... And finally, the greatest scene of them all was the one between Colin Farrell and the villain of the story. Compared to this sequence, the Anderton stand-off at the end of the movie was just a pale, shaded, jaded, faded memory in compassion or, um, comparison... And it wasn't just a great scene because I knew somebody was going to die. I knew who the villain was, and that only made my goosebumps rise higher, and higher. I wonder if that's what Spielberg wanted, for us to know who the villain was at that point, because I was still shocked as hell when the bullet shot rang louder than I'ver ever heard before. What made it great was that I was outsmarted in a completely different way than I anticipated. Spielberg has made a masterpiece for one simple reason only: he found a new paradox to tinker with time. The villain was brilliant because he truly did understand the precog, Precrime system, and used this to his blatant advantage numerous times, this creating another morality issue and a new grandfather paradox to screw with minds. Sure, it would've been smarter if he simply hired a second person to commit the murder instead of doing it himself, but I never once thought of that during the movie. Instead, I just sat there, gawking in awe, at an absolutely brilliant murder scene, and an absolutely brilliant murder case. Sure, the movie had its flaws, but it had enough genius, genetic traits to make it the best movie I've seen in quite a while. It was an astonishing, coffee blend mix of New Ageism, Cubism, and Kubrickism, although no, I've never once tried a sip of coffee... It's a royal embarrassment, and no, I don't know how to cook the beans...

Anyhew, since I'm starving now from not having yet eaten breakfast, I'll try to keep my Stargate review short. Short story short, the episode Descent was just about, um, decent. It suffered from an excess of hype on my behalf, though. It really sounded like it was going to be special, with Osiris' upgraded mothership sunken in frigid, arctic waters. However, the water scenes were rare and barely noticeable, although Jonas Quinn's scene with the underwater transport rings was rather cool for a FX techie guy like me. The action was rare as well, with only a short stint between Teal'c and Anubis' ninja jaffa. Basically, I half enjoyed this episode. It was good, but it paled in comparison to Redemption, or even to Revelations in which it was built upon. Carter and Jack really had no special lines, although I did enjoy O'Neill sitting in Osiris' chair, already envisioning himself as the captain of an advanced Ha'tek mothership. Davis was rather useless, and Jacob didn't really wasn't productive either. And don't get me started on Frieson, or whatever his name was. He was the victim of the sixth man syndrome, an overblown conundrum that has the extra man get killed for ratings before the first commercial ever get to air. I thought we had seen the last of that with the advent of Galaxy Quest, but I guess I thought wrong... And actually, that's reminds me of something that can either be considered a flaw or a gift. Descent probably had a tight budget to work with, so they kinda did the old school television thing and left most of the special effects to our own minds. Sure, the C4 explosion was cool (although it's kinda ridiculous how the jaffa had no weapons that could blow up a door), and sure the gliders gliding through the water was interesting, but we were never allowed to see the mothership crash into the ocean, nor did we see much of the destructiuon of the ship itself. And when Jacob claimed he couldn't open the water sealed door, only to have the show skip to a commercial? That was a kind of old school, television suspense thingy I haven't seen since the days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and X-Men, or even those old school episodes of Reboot I cherish and love...

Anyhew, the only two real stars of the episode were Teal'c and Quinn. Teal'c provided the humour for the episode, and I laughed so hard when he demanded to know if Jonas was suggesting an alien conspiracy... And as for Jonas? Sure, I like his character, but his great rescue of the team this week was a little too bland, early and cheesy for my tastes. I mean, the guy is simply too smart. I know that some people on earth really do have photographic memories, but on TV, you see these savants a little too often. And call me jealous if you will, but I found Jonas's memorization of the power systems of a Ha'tek mothership a little too quick and early for my tastes. But nevertheless, he has become a good member of the cast, and his scene with Teal'c in the Hummer was classic Stargate friendship (or "f-ship"...) building at its best...

Anyhew, I'm done for my mini-reviews for the week. I had an exam just yesterday, so that's why I didn't post Tuesday or Wednesday, although it's not like I studied or anything... Anyhew, I had a rather interesting week. I'll let you one or zero readers know about it with my other websites, for I'll try to update them all by the end of today or tomorrow. Afterall, I've got a hell of a lot of free time now, unless I'm actually willing to learn how to drive for once... or even worse, to cook instant noodles...

Tuesday, June 18th, 2002

Y2kk Update: Okay dokay, I've got my last exam of first year university in just over a week, and yet I've procrastinated all day long by shooting some mini-hoops, winning tournaments in Wrestlemania X8, and by writing this webpage that essentially garners no hits but my own? And yet here I stand, or sit, or whatever, haven chosen to waste my time through writing until I can think up some better way to procrastinate even longer... I know I was naive, but I really expected that I'd put at least some effort into university, and maybe I would've if I went into a course that I actually liked or some crap like that. I never said I wanted to be an engineer. I want to graduate from engineering school, but I don't think I ever once said I wanted to be an engineer, and I think it shows in this website. Hell, go ahead and check the articles section of this website, and you'll notice a new rant I wrote on Sunday about the upcoming Cel-Shaded Legend of Zelda. I had Sunday completely free, and yet I squandered the entire day until I wrote that rant late at night, just to make myself feel as if I did something productive during the day... That is, if you can count ranting and rambling to nobody but myself a productive endeavour...

Anyhew, this week's Stargate SG-1 episode was the second parter of Redemption, the season premiere of perhaps the final season of the series. And although I wasn't very pleased with part one of the cliffhanger, part 2 defied the odds and actually improved on the Stargate formula. First of all, let me drool over the X-302 once more. The suspensful scene where the X-302 didn't have enough fuel to lift itself and the attached Stargate into outer space? Sure, it's been done before, but I loved every second of it. Seeing the X-302 launch off a Boeing jet was an incredible sight as well for a techie like me, but I'll give props and kudos to every single scene in the air, even the cheesy one where satellites show Jack landing safely in the ocean. And even the light show, where the Stargate self-destructed three million miles away from earth, had me on the edge of my seat, and why? I don't know, but every single time I hear a pilot talking through those radio things of theirs, chills and tingles ripple up and down my spine. And it only served to highlight a lot of the great Jack lines in the episode, such as "I may have understated things - it feels like this thing is going to fall apart", and "in the meantime, I'll just keep on falling"... And although Jack was rather noticeably absent for the first half of the episode (he had hurt his knee from holding his daughter in real life or something), he more than made up for it with his smug comments to Carter at the halfway point, when he tells her he's not sure if he wants to hear the problems with the plan.

As for Samantha Carter, this episode was truly a breakout for the character. Since when has Sam made jokes in such a plentiful, plethora of an array? Not only did I find her comment cute that the EMP generator should be pointed towards the Stargate, but her innocent kiss on McKay's cheek actually had me riled up there for a while... And that leads me to the true star of the episode. I hated Dr. McKay in 48 Hours, not because he was critical or annoying or anything, but because the writers refused to let him come up with any ideas of his own. However, right off the bat in Redemption 2, after telling two scientists that they're "horribly wrong - both of you", he gets the idea to fire an EMP pulse through the Stargate. Of course, the plan hideously back-fires, but at least he had more to do than complain for once... And actually, I ended up favouring McKay by the end of the episode, as much as I rooted for Doctor Jackson at the end of the original Stargate movie, and why? Because McKay, under that geeky, tough exterior, is exactly the same as me and almost every male nerd out there. He's funny (I loved his comment, about how if Anubis had foretold that nothing can stop the destruction of earth, only to find the Stargate shuts off, and is forced to mumble back, "oops, sorry - nevermind"... well, okay, so you had to be there...) and humourous, because he's always trying to hide his own inner insecurity. In his heart-warming speech where he declares he wanted to be a penis or "pianist" when he was young, his words rang very true with my own memoirs... not to mention the way Carter was rolling her eyes, not knowing what to say, as McKay was blabbing on and on about his life, happened to remind me so damn much of so many, well, gaggles of genius girls in my life... I've never been an artist, meaning I've never had to ability to truly be creative. Instead, I'm a bookworm. A fine clinical player, but I don't have the heart to achieve anything more. And that's why I was so jealous of the girl I thought I loved in high school, because she was creative and took her gift for granted. I was never bitchy around her I don't think, but jealousy did lead to attraction, and I couldn't help but laugh when McKay offered to hold Carter's clothes as she changed... And when he finally got a peck on the cheek from the girl he admired? All I could think about, was why was he so damn licky and lucky, and I'm not? Sure, Carter will never see him the way he wants, and sure I get get a first dance from the girl that pities me, but a kiss is a kiss nonetheless, and I for one have never been kissed...

And that leads me back to Samantha Carter, who tells McKay that she'll pretend as if their "physical attraction" was never there in the first place... Of course, the relation-"shippers" on the internet picked up on this right away, and demanded once again that she get together with Jack by the end of the season. But strangely enough, at times, I saw more of a dynamic between McKay and Carter than I ever did with O'Neil and Sam, or is that just personal wishful thinking on my behalf? Do I smell love triangle? Do I spell threesome?... um, nevermind... Anyhew, the Teal'c scenes with his son Rya'c have been done to death through Klingon Star Trek episodes, but it was still done exceptionally well in Redemption. I enjoyed the fact that Rya'c saved his father and proved his worth, although it was odd how few soldiers were guarding Anubis' Stargate destroying weapon... And for once, the simplicity of the Jaffa speeches didn't make me groan, and neither did the fact that they all speak English while spouting "Jaffa, Kree!" at times, simply because as soon as Teal'c admitted he was not ready for Rya'c to die, I was hooked on their father son relationship. It reminded me a lot of what was going on in my own house, with university and my brother moving out and all... and, well... I'm going to miss him. That's all I've got to say.

And finally, while I still consider McKay to be the star of the episode, the second place finish has got to go to Jonas Quinn, the little alien dude who has the coolest way of expressing his ideas. He never truly said out loud nor took the credit of sending the Stargate into space, or of using the hyperspace generator for less than a second, but you could see in his eyes that he knew exactly what he was doing. Instead of hogging the glory, he spoke in such an innocent and simplistic way that it actually allowed Carter and McKay to work together in tandem. Strangely, Jonas was the brains. The scientists were the brawn. In an episode about artists, who was really the Picasso on top?... and, well... I just wish I could be as diplomatic as Jonas is, who hides his intellect with a cup of tea. And as you can see, I had an overwhelming amount of positive things to say about this episode, simply because in its entirety, I truly did enjoy it. Was it the best episode I've ever seen? Not quite. But I can honestly and bashfully admit that thanks to McKay's wonderful redemption (and newfound hope for my love life), Redemption Part 2 is so far the best episode I've ever seen for the entire new season. And knowing me, that speaks a hell of a lot...

And just for the record, Darth Anubis now has shields that took out the Tollans, weapons that take out Asgard chariots, conniving tactics that wipe out the Tok'ra, Asgard hologram and energy dampening technology, the ability to see through cloaked vessels, the ability to download a victim's memories into computer systems, and the ability to use the Ancient's technology, and yet he still continues to use death gliders, transportation rings, and crappy Ha'taks that had trouble against Yu's forces in Revelations? And, um, as cool as Darth Anubis' half Asgard, half Gou'ald voice is, the fact that he was wrong about the destruction of earth, even after his cliche evil guy speech, has just got to bring his Jedi status down a notch or two... But don't worry, Anubis. We still love you. And in my opinion, you're still the coolest, brilliant, most comic book villain we've seen all season. Two thumbs up to you.

Tuesday, June 11th, 2002

Y2kk Update: Damn me. Damn me and my damn addiction to video games. I've just wasted three hours of study time on of all bloody hell games, NHL Hitz... uggh... and oh, by the way, I've talked to a few high school friends of mine over the course of the week, and you know what I noticed? They've fallen out of love with games. One of my friends used to talk about nothing but Baldur's Gate this, Diablo II that, blah blah blah, and now what has he become? All he cares about is his future and his macademia academics, and that's about it. I mean, what the hell happened to his electronic configuration priorities? Whatever happened to those fulfilling contemplations we had about the fate of the infamous vapourware, Duke Nukem Forever?... And my other friend, my best friend? I tried getting back in focus with him, talking about E3 this and Link's sister Arill that, but in the end, all he cared about what his precious biotech knowledge... I mean, yeah I admit that my best friend robbed me of my dignity by correcting my invalid definition of biotechnology, but it just strikes me as humourous how after taking just one semester in the business and ethics of biotech, my friend's now sounding as if he's a specialist in the field or some crap like that... but I guess bragging, embellishing, and inevitably embarrassing himself is his own, best personal forte. I've known him for 13 or something years, and trust me, he hasn't changed a bit...

And yeah, I noticed the number 13 there... It reminds of a discussion I had with a friend at my sister's apartment the other week. He noticed that the Chinese condo that we're in didn't have a 14th and a 4th floor, and I sort of went on a rampage, blissfully and smugly explaining to him how the Chinese are terrified of the superstitious number four, simply because in my native language of Cantonese, the word "die" sounds almost the same as "four"... and isn't that just the most swellish of avoiding the 44th floor like the plague? But anyhew, I digress...

Enterprise's first season is over and I've already written a massive review of the series' first year. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has finished its sixth season, I believe, or is it going onto its sixth? I have no clue... The NHL playoffs and the NBA finals are already over in my mind, and I've never been big on soccer, except for those times when Italy gets beaten down and I get the chance to really poke holes in my best friend's pride... So honestly, did I start this movie/TV review site too soon? It's summer, right? Is there really anything to watch and complain about?... besides WWE Wrestling and that Windtalkers movie I'll be seeing this Friday that is...

Well, the answer is both yes and no... The new and possibly last season of Stargate SG-1 has finally started, but not exactly here in Canada... You see, even though the show is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia (just west of where I, uh, sort of live), the new episodes air about a half a year earlier in Britain and Australia than it ever does in North America. While we poor saps still haven't received the season finale for season five, the United Kingdom is whooping it up on soccer victories and the sixth season of Stargate... So honestly, how do I get my fill of Stargate and eat it too? And you see, that's the problem... I've always been a sucker for soft spots, and for spoilers, and I've always been a real sucker for warez stealing as well... Certain fan sites on the internet convert the episodes they see in Australia into tiny, 30MB or less DivX files, and we North American saps get to watch the newest episodes just like that. And is this a perfect system? Hell no. I always complain how emulation ruins the intricate beauty of video games, and I'll definitely complain how tiny Stargate window screens in horrible resolution and colour depth ruin the beauty of the show as well... not to mention break copyright infringemnet laws, but I digress... However, despite the downloadable episodes' shortcomings, I just can't help but judge those new Stargate episodes I watch by what I do see and hear... but if it's any kind of solice, I do watch the new episodes about three or four times on my computer before I finally sit back and try to analyze what I couldn't see. If I can't see everything that's going on, at least I can make sure I hear it all... and, well...

Anyhew, enough with the morals and ethics of internet piracy. Short story short, I see Stargate episodes months before they ever air in North America. But before I start this week's episode review, let me backtrack and mention some stuff about the season that just finished a couple months ago... In all honesty, season five wasn't that great of a season, although watching it on little screens the size of my thumb probably didn't help that out... In terms of script writing, there were only a few episodes that I can even remember from the top of my head. I loved Between Two Fires, the episode where Tanith, working for the newly returned Gou'ald Anubis, uses some new shield technology to conquer and annihilate the advanced and cocky Tollan people. And who knows if any Tollan escaped, or if Anubis got his hands on the Tollan phase shift technology?... And although some critics on the internet blasted Proving Grounds for not exactly fitting in with the mood of the season, I personally loved the care and craftmanship that went into its script. I've watched the episode at least three times on TV here in North America, simply because I loved those two Jack O'Neill lines: "I give her high marks... for her high marks", and "Lieutenant Hailey? Oh yeah, the four foot nine fighting machine..." And how could I possibly forget the look on Lieutenant Elliot's face when he learned Hailey was playing him for a fool... or for a hero, for that matter... and somehow, that scene just gave me so many goosebumps about my non-existant love life past. She almost seemed like a blond seductress at that point, waiting to be rescued, but I digress... Wormhole Xtreme was a heart filled episode, but it just couldn't live up to my standards after I loved Galaxy Quest so damn much. Sure, I was cracking up the phase-shift-falling-through-floor comment, and of course I couldn't contain myself at the Steve Austin line (even though I interpreted the joke in the wrong, bionic man way...), but the episode just didn't make fun of enough Stargate cliches for me to get excited about (except for the Tok'ra Seven of Nine thing, which I never cared much about in the first place)... And I can't even remember the name of the two-parter episode dealing with Anubis taking out the Tok'ra, and with Osiris attending some Summit or something. I never liked the Tok'ra in the first place, and I just found it dumb how Lieutenant Elliot, my new hero, sacrified himself with a Gou'ald poison when Jack or anyone else could've done the job without hurting their own life, but once again, I digress... And finally? Menace had some moments, but the next and last great episode of the fifth season was Revelations, when "Darth Anubis" uses some new weapons technology to destroy Thor's Chariot and download the Asguard's knowledge into his computers. Although the action in this episode was lacking, Samantha Carter as a hologram was rather interesting to watch, and although it got boring after a while, it was good to see SG-1 mourning over Daniel Jackson's apparent "death" in Meridian... But alas, four or something decent episodes do not a decent season make, and as I was watching 48 Hours on TV the other night, I just couldn't help but hope that the final season of Stargate SG-1 lives up to its second and third season's legacy, before all the Tok'ra and conspiracy politics took away from the fun of all the archaeological killing... but then again, I'd better shut up now, before I sound like one of those Star Wars junkies who keep talking about the good ol' days...

Anyhew, since I've better get to homework soon, I'll just say here that the first episode of the new season, Redemption, may not be a match for such episodes as the one where Apophis takes two Ha'tek motherships and attacks earth, or even Nemesis (the introduction of the replicator threat) in my eyes, but it does serve its purpose: it shows that Stargate SG-1 is getting back to its roots, and then some... I may not have loved Tangent, the episode where the X-301 or whatever death glider traps Jack and Teal'c in outerspace, but I simply loved the X-302 talk in Redemption, simply because I've always been a warp engine techie at heart. In Tangent, I just couldn't get excited about the X-301, simply because it was just a death glider with a US Air Force sticker stamped on top, and had no real capabilities except fire some naquaada enriched mavericks at the enemy or something... But the X-302? Excuse me as I drool... Sure, I think it's weird that the US Airforce somehow learned how to control naquadria, reverse engineer all the parts of a Death Glider, and learn how to build a space jet from scratch with inertia dampeners and a hyperspace generator, but like I said, I'm a warp theorist junkie at heart, so please excuse me as I drool... The X-302 launch was exactly like I envisioned, as a plane that launches like a stealth bomber and then switches to alien engine technology when it reaches high enough in the atmosphere... And actually, the launch sequence was my favourite part of Redemption. When Jack said "cool" at the inertia damperners, I screamed at my monitor since the Stargate writers had just stolen some of Star Trek's uncanny techie vocabulary... But when O'Neill then asked Carter if there were phasers? Heh... After realizing my own stupidity for the sextillionth time in my life, I couldn't help but laugh, and completely miss the joke where Carter preps the ejection seats for space...

And you see, maybe it was because of the tiny screen I was watching, but either I missed a lot or there simply wasn't that much to this episode to keep my interest. Now, don't get me wrong, the humour was all there in full force. I loved how Jonas Quinn adores the weather channel, and I couldn't help but smile when he crossed his fingers wrong, but there really wasn't any sort of action in this episode whatsoever, and why? Because Stargate is going back to the basics. They've got a new villain, Darth Anubis, to introduce and explore, and I loved his cliche evil talk as a hologram as Jack griped and groaned in the background... They've got a new character to explore, Jonas Quinn, and I think they're doing a good job of slowly easing him into the grounp with the boxing scene with Teal'c and all... They've got a new interior threat to take care of. Instead of having to deal with Q and Maybourne and whoever else was trying to screw the US government from the inside, they've got the Russians on their asses and that nerdy, lemon-allergic Stargate complainer to babysit over, who oh-so reminds me all too well of myself and just about every techie whiner on the internet... So basically, I can't blame Redemption for not completely holding my interests. It was well written considering it was just an introduction to the new season and essentially new show, and my only real complaint was that the scene where the X-302 aborts the hyperdrive sequence was a bit too quick, short, and anti-climatic for my sour key tastes...

But I won't end this mini-review on a bitter nor sour note. I'm sure that when this episode finally makes it to North America, I'll enjoy it that much more. But for now, all I can work with is the script, and although Jack and Jonas had some brilliant lines, Teal'c and Carter didn't seem to do that much, for we can't all have our cake and eat it to, now can we? And although as cheesy as it was, it was kind of weird and interesting how Sam finally decided to take Jack up on his offer... I mean, first cake, then fishing, and then what?... well, with the series coming to a finish, and with millions of female "shippers" around the world demanding "ship in a ship"... and, um, uggh... please excuse me as I gag and shiver in the cold, and drool over that X-302 model in General Hammond's office... Damn. I want a hyperspace generator...

Wednesday, June 5th, 2002

Y2kk Update: Since I procrastinated all weekend long and haven't even started my lab due in a few days, I'd better keep this update short... Then again, I guess procrastination isn't all bad. I finally found to urge and the free time to call my so-called best friend the other day, but I think I'll leave that update for a rainy day, or maybe for my download site if I've got nothing better to write on the weekend.

So has anything happened in the life of IvanF? Not at all, although I did catch Sum of All Fears with my friend on Saturday, so I might as well give a mini-review of it right here. Personally, the movie was better than I first anticipated, but that still didn't make it a movie I enjoyed. The pacing was far better than most other military movies I watched, and it didn't suffer from the same horrible script writing that plagued U-571. However, although I have to give kudos to Tom Clancy for making sure his novel had realistic weapons, realistic enemies, and a realistic CIA hierarchy, I think he went over the top just a little bit with the whole plot in the end. Although the nuclear explosion over Baltimore was a nice effect to watch, it really didn't help the movie very much in my opinion. First of all, it's Baltimore, so why the hell should we care? Second, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I thought that one of the ways that a military movie becomes a cult favourite was not just by convincing its audience that the premise could happen in reality, but that it's already happened in reality. Great military movies such as Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan all yield the same feeling that the events in the movie actually took place in real life, although the writers can't admit the classified truth or they'd be shot... And although I've never read a Tom Clancy book, I know that his computer games (Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear, and Ghost Recon) all have the feeling that these same missions could be happening elsewhere in the world at the very time you're playing them... However, as soon as Baltimore got nuked halfway through the movie, this feeling of reality completed shifted into becoming just another summer holiday blockbuster. I thought I was watching Armageddon all over again, because if memory serves me right, I don't think Paris was ever hit by an asteroid, and Baltimore was never nuked in real life... Now, call me nick-picky if you'd like, but I'm just calling the shots as I see them. Yes, it's very possible that a US city can be nuked by a terrorist sometime in the future, but because it hasn't happened yet (unless you count September 11th as a nuking), it loses a lot of credibility for the film... And although I found the scenes where the president was fleeing Baltimore to be rather provocative, his later scenes and those of the Russian President were too stereotypical for my tastes. Now, I've never worked for the highest level of the US government aboard Air Force One, so for all I know, maybe Tom Clancy got all the ICBM launch talk right. But from my point of view, and maybe this is what Tom Clancy wanted, both the US and Russian presidents were being complete MTV jackass idiots with their nuclear launch codes. I mean, neither of them really bothered to pause for a second and realize that they didn't have all the facts to the situation at hand, and after listening to recordings of JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't think this kind of stupidity can actually happen with all the Mutually Assured Destruction crap going around. The US nuked Japan because there was no fear of retaliation, but that's not true about its cold war enemy of Russia, and that's why I couldn't stand most of the last half of Sum of All Fears in comparison to Thirteen Days, whose only faults lied in its boring realism and the fact it had Kevin Costner with a bad accent in it... "Don't get shot at... Just don't get shot at"... heh... I had no clue what Costner was trying to say, and neither did the pilot, but I digress...

Anyhew, there was a couple things I really did enjoy in this Tom Clancy movie: two subtle scenes between Ben Affleck and his doctor of a girlfriend. The first time he told her he was CIA, her reaction was priceless. "That's so lame" she said, and hung up the phone, while poor Ben looked over his shoulder and saw Morgan Freeman laughing at him... And the other touching scene in the end, when the Russian informant somehow knew about Affleck's marital engagement, even though poor Been hadn't told anyone yet... It was these two subtle forms of humanity that saved this movie from being just another stereotypical shove in the government's face, although yes, I do realize Tom Clancy had the US government's full support for this movie... Anyhew, I've ranted enough for one day. I'll call it quits here, and I'll post below the first fifth or something of the Star Trek Enterprise: Season One Episode Review I've posted in the TV section of this website. Try to enjoy, although I doubt anyone will ever read this:

"Bare with me for a while, because this is the first time I've ever officially reviewed an Enterprise season, or even an Enterprise episode for that matter... I guess I can't be blamed for being nervous or anything. I mean, Star Trek is my life, and I'd hate myself if I didn't do its episodes justice in this year-end review. Short story short, I'm seeing real potential in Enterprise. When I first heard of a new Star Trek series going back to the roots, back to an era where the Federation didn't even exist, I was rather suspicious at first... Pardon the pun, but I had a serious lack of faith in the heart at the time, and it was quite a shocker to me half way through this first Enterprise season, when I finally realized that to me, this fifth Star Trek series has been the best series yet since I first fell in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I'm sure we know how and when my first love of Star Trek began. I used to hate the series with a passion. I was a nerd, and the worst thing I could possibly do to my self-esteem was get involved in that insane Trekkie cult I had been made fun of so damn much... But back in Grade 4 or Grade 5 or something, I remember being in mother's room, flipping through the channels like any good little man would do, and lo and behold, I saw this ridiculous show with a bald captain and a ship that looked like a swan... Not realizing what I was getting into, I decided to give this show the benefit of a doubt and watch it all the way through, and God, am I thankful enough to have been stupid enough to do that... The episode I was watching was Best of Both Worlds Part 1, and as any Trek fan would know, this first invasion by the Borg was arguably the best television any Star Trek series has ever made. It definitely ranks at the top of my list of episodes to date, and was it luck or what that the only day I was willing to put up with all that Star Trek crap, was the day the best episode ever was aired on TV?... there's probably a conspiracy around this... it was almost too convenient that my favourite cliffhanger of any show of all time, just happened to be on that one afternoon by the television... it was almost too easy...

Suffice to say, I've seen a lot of great Star Trek Episodes since then, and also a lot of letdowns as well. I loved Yesterday's Enterprise, where the Enterprise D had to send the Enterprise C back to the past, and I didn't even know who Tasha Yar was back then... Then again, I was thoroughly disappointed in Time's Arrow, the episode where Data's sent back in time and meets Mark Twain, and I just couldn't muster up the excitement to cheer when Beverly Crusher of all people destroyed the Borg ship in Part 2 of Descent... And then of course, there was a period of mourning after All Goods Things aired and I was left with that horrible show Deep Space 9. The first two seconds of that new series was simply horrendous, except for Emissary which I still haven't seen in full to this day... However, although I did get tired of many of the long running arcs on Deep Space 9, its personalities and characterization have yet to be matched in any Star Trek series since. And who could forget such timeless Trek classics as Way of the Warrior (the return of Worf) and the Sacrifice of Angels, the episode with an epic space battles that can rival a Star Wars movie anyday... I was rather let down by What You Leave Behind, the schizophrenic-like finale of Deep Space 9, and once again, I was sent into another morbid state of Trekdom when I was left with nothing but that horrible series of Star Trek Voyager... Things began to pick up for the series after a while, though. The Scorpion Cliffhanger, the brilliant episode where the Borg are being destroyed by Species 8472, ranks second on my list of favourite Star Trek Episodes of all time, right behind Best of Both Worlds. And although Voyager could never match the quality of that episode (especially after ruining the Borg with all those Seven episodes and Unimatrix Zero), I still did enjoy parts of Dark Frontier (although it was ridiculous how the Delta Flyer could take on the whole Borg Collective), and I did feel that Endgame was a rather decent finale (although the Queen's death was unnecessary), and by that logic, Voyager has been the only series with a final episode worthy of the rest of its own episodes... and, well... Short story short, my brief history of IvanF's Star Trek in time has now led me to the new series that's still finding its grounding: Star Trek Enterprise.

So let's run by history here... The Next Generation had an awful pilot episode, although the trial by Q all worked well in the end with All Good Things... Deep Space Nine had a killer introduction with Sisko losing his ship at Wolf 359 to Locutus of Borg, a sequence I still haven't been able to see, but I have seen the second half of that DS9 pilot, and it certainly did not do the Dominion Wars to follow justice... And as for Voyager? The pilot was absolutely atrocious! Besides some cool effects with the Caretaker's shockwave and everything, the whole plotline with the Ocampa and the non-threatening Kazon or whatever, was a horrible way to start off the new series in a new quadrant... So let's face facts here, that I wasn't exactly looking forward to the first episode of the new series Enterprise. I was sure that the series would pick up by its third season and everything, with the war with the Romulans finally beginning and the conflict with the Klingons finally brewing, but was I interested in the first season at all?... After watching Endgame and realizing how horrible of a series Voyager was as a whole, I almost felt like my love of Star Trek was gone...

But alas, even the hourglass is forced to follow the laws of something... or... um, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'll never lose faith in the heart again... I sadly missed the first five minutes of the Star Trek pilot. I wanted to concentrate on university and not on some Trek series that was going to flop as badly as Voyager did in the critics' eyes... However, I couldn't stop my brother from taunting me, and flipping to the new show the night of the pilot episode, Broken Bow. And, um... wow, I sure have a lot of will power... I just dropped my homework then and there, and sat in front of the TV the rest of the night as my brother just kept laughing at me for dumping all my morals... Because that's right, I have no scruples when it comes to Star Trek... and, well..."

Read the rest of the relatively long season review at: http://ivanf.150m.com/ivanf-editorials-enterpriseseason01.htm 

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