I'm not the world's biggest comics fanboy. I have a respectable collection of graphic novels, enjoyed the X-Men arcade game back in its heyday, and still have a few Batman toys from when I was a kid, but I'm only casually interested in comics. I am, however, a big fan of continuity. When books and games and movies sow seeds for future plotlines and make references to previous events, I am a happy camper. Fictional universes seem larger than they really are when nothing happens in a vacuum, and it's rewarding for diehard fans to notice little details that everyone else might overlook. That's why I got hooked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), despite having only a mild passion for superhero stories.

Iron Man, at the time, was a cool-looking action movie that happened to be based on a comic I'd never read. The film was funny, engaging, and explosive enough to convince me to sit through The Incredible Hulk, which was rumored to connect with Iron Man somehow, despite my complete lack of desire to see what I (more or less accurately) predicted would be 90 minutes or so of either a green guy punching things or a wimpy guy not punching things. I looked forward to Iron Man 2, which cemented my interest in this Avengers movie that these new Marvel films were working toward. Fantasy and mythology generally aren't my cup of tea (or mug of ale, as it were), so Thor was a strictly perfunctory viewing that left me no more excited about the character and his world than before. Captain America was the last obligatory piece of the puzzle; WWII is an interesting time period but overdone in the entertainment world, and Cap fell into the "mostly just punches guys" category of superhero that doesn't usually interest me. Fortunately, the film exceeded my expectations and got me genuinely invested in its characters. So that was two Avengers out of four to get me psyched for the team-up movie.

The first half of The Avengers is everything I'm tired of seeing in movies: origin stories (in the form of assembling the team), heroes spending more time fighting each other than the villains, and mind control making the good guys either ineffective or subservient to the bad guys. The second half is everything I want out of an action movie: eye-popping visual spectacle, great one-liners, and heroes being awesome. I was more excited than ever to see the continuing adventures of Tony Stark in Iron Man 3, but Thor 2 still couldn't get me to care about the Norse god of gratuitous shirtlessness. Captain America had proven himself worthy of my interest (I say that like it means anything), so I was curious to see Winter Soldier. Guardians of the Galaxy probably would've had my money regardless of its affiliation with the MCU, because I've never been one to turn down comedy and action in space. Phase 2 of this huge film endeavor was in full swing, and with the connections getting stronger and the movies looking more up my alley, I was officially hooked.

To gear up for Avengers: Age of Ultron, my wife and I started getting caught up on the MCU TV series, starting with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Everyone loves Agent Phil "Everyone's Favorite Character" Coulson, but I had trouble connecting with the other characters at first. I quickly warmed up to the show as those connections I love kept working their way into the story, and as the show kept subverting my expectations. There were several times where my wife and I would go, "Noooo! Don't tell us you're going to do that to us!" and then they didn't. AoS was different from your average monster-of-the-week espionage show (assuming those exist), and it had both humor and heart, so I was willing to forgive a few of the less-desirable plot points along the way. The first season ended on a very high note, which made the second season's incongruously serious tone, loss of focus on external connections and character development, overemphasis on the generically evil main villains (to the point where we started calling it Agents of Hydra), and insistence on doing exactly what you expect all the more unpleasant.

Agent Carter proved to be a more evenly enjoyable experience. My wife raves about how they nailed the time period and how Peggy Carter is a wonderful example of how to write good female characters. While I agree, I also found myself missing the superpowers and high-tech gadgetry that are so integral to the rest of the MCU, despite the best efforts of Howard Stark. I also don't feel like I have as deep of a sense of the characters as I'd like, but there's always next season.

As for Age of Ultron? Well. There's a story behind that one. It's called the Ultimate Marvel Marathon.

Previously, my longest movie event was approximately 20 hours of Harry Potter, eight films in all. Similarly, the longest I'd ever stayed awake continuously was 36 hours—rising early to sing at a summer church service, hopping a plane to France, not sleeping on the plane because I was a fool, and sightseeing for an entire day before hitting another pillow. I knew I had it in me to do this.

This, of course, being two days at the movie theater to see Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor 2: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron, one after the other, with a break of 20 minutes or so between films. I lost track of how long I'd been there after the 30-hour mark. Between striking up conversations with strangers in line next to me, packing a change of clothes and a stick of deodorant in lieu of showering, and not sleeping until my body shut down on me during Snore 2: The Dark Theater, it was just like being at a comic book convention.

My brother-in-law and I got there a good five hours before the start of the marathon. You might think that's excessive, but when you're also reserving seating for your wife and your father, and when the alternative to waiting is risking front-row neck strain for 11 straight movies, queuing up early sounds downright sagely. The challenge here was that the marathon didn't start until the evening; despite my best efforts to sleep in, I had already been awake for several hours before arriving at the theater.

Every other crazy marathon I've done has started in the morning. Wake up, roll out of bed, Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Extended Edition. You don't start a marathon, let alone one of this magnitude, around the time most people are getting home from a full day of work. I can trick my body into thinking I'm staying up extra late if an all-day marathon spills over into the next day, but there's no way to disguise a 20-hour extension to the part of the evening reserved for warm milk and pajamas.

The odds were against me staying up the whole time, but smart planning and a lot of unexpected support kept me going.

What worked: Sleeping in beforehand. A trunk full of outside snacks, including muffins, Pop-Tarts, Clif bars, fruit snacks (shaped like sharks, because that's important), apple juice, assorted chips, and snack cakes. Meals from the snack bar at meal times, and snacks from the snack bar only when nothing else would do, and never the same thing twice. Drinking caffeine-free root beer throughout Day 1 and water throughout Day 2. Between movies, stepping outside for fresh air and sunshine (when available) and enforcing a mandatory bathroom break. Chatting with people. Cheering with the rest of the theater when something satisfyingly cool happened, or when Agent Phil "Everyone's Favorite Character" Coulson showed up. Having the theater manager and a local YouTube comedian interact with the audience every other movie, asking trivia questions and giving away posters.

What didn't work: This wasn't my living room.

I think about all the marathons I've done at home, from the aforementioned Harry Potter one to the 2012 Mega Man Megathon, and they were successful in large part because of the venue and structure. You can stand up, walk around, grab hot food or a drink refill, make a pit stop, change seats, and crack wise at the screen without worrying about bothering the people around you, tripping over things in the dark, getting caught waiting in line, or having to wait for the fryer to heat up. You can cut the break time between movies down to however long it takes you to swap out the discs after the credits are over (which would have trimmed entire hours off of this marathon). You can plan a proper breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert at the times you need them the most. There's something to be said about the energy of a movie theater crowd and the spectacle of seeing these films on the big screen, but the Ultimate Marvel Marathon almost felt like more of an endurance test than a marathon.

The entire first half of the marathon, I was fine. I was excited, well fed, making notes between films, and asking my family for a critical assessment after each film. (Age of Ultron notwithstanding, we'd seen them all before; amusingly, one of the other people in the theater was seeing all of these films for the first time!) There was a stretch during the wee hours of the morning, somewhere between Thor and Captain America, where I began to question how I was going to make it through another day after this, but when I stepped outside during the break to find that the sun had returned, simply knowing that it was time to wake up and start the day was good enough to keep me going.

Eating nothing but packaged snacks and concession stand food for two days has a way of making you reevaluate any aversion you ever had to vegetables. When everything available is fried, salty, sweet, or some combination thereof, you need to be a tactical genius to eat well enough to stay awake and feel good about it. On the plus side, I have now tried everything on the concession stand menu that ever piqued my interest, except (regrettably) the Oreo churros, so I need never gamble on untested movie food again. Spicy chicken is delicious.

As a side note, if you ever do a marathon like this one, plan your budget like you're spending the day at an amusement park.

In addition to food and drink, the concession stand was selling Marvel figurines; the largest drink cups had a lid with a divot on top where the figurine base would plug right in. As we waited in line, people were trading figurines like they were pogs on a playground. Iron Man, Thor, and Ultron were common sights, with the occasional Cap and Hulk, but there were rumors of the elusive Black Widow. The figurine packages were unmarked, but it wasn't long before people started realizing they could tell which figurine they had in their hands by pressing against the bag to determine the shape of the figurine inside. Those poor cashiers spent the next couple hours being asked to feel their packages.

I was less discriminating and took the first figurine I was given...which turned out to be none other than Black Widow. Very cool. Plugging her into my drink lid was a mistake; her glowy blue nightsticks almost poked my eye out every time I leaned in to take a sip from the straw.

There are plenty more stories to tell from the marathon, but two things I took away from the event were a greater appreciation of Tony Stark's character arc, and a sense of wonder at how so many movies from so many different directors and writers and actors could not only have such seamless continuity, but also maintain a consistently high standard of quality. Each and every one of those movies is at least a 3 out of 5 in my book, with even the weakest entries being no worse than "merely average." Eh, I suppose The Incredible Hulk is really more of a 2.5, but still. The MCU is a vast, rich place with some superbly developed characters and an ever-complexening (is that a word?) history. I was psyched to come back for more.

Then there was Ant-Man. Like practically everyone else who said, "...Ant-Man?", I was not terribly excited (and besides, if we're talking shrinky people, I prefer The Atom). I've read a bit of the earliest Avengers comics, so I had an idea of what I was in for...but I didn't expect to like it so much. A few story flaws, sure, but overall a very funny and exciting addition to the MCU.

Daredevil was a bit of a departure from...well, everything else in the MCU, not to mention everything I normally watch. Dark, both visually and tonally. Violent. Normal. In a world of superheroes, it's a show about lawyers and thugs and corruption. Well done? Most definitely. My wife and I are only five or six episodes in, but so far it's an intriguing and engrossing show. It's also emotionally exhausting to watch. And this is where I see my dedication to the MCU beginning to waver.

I watched a trailer for Jessica Jones. It looks great. It looks like something I won't enjoy. I think back to The Dark Knight, what an incredible piece of cinema it is, what great performances and cinematography it has, and how I really don't like it. I can recognize when something of good quality is not my style, and as the MCU continues to diversify, I'm going to see more and more films and TV shows I wouldn't choose to watch under normal circumstances. And considering it's taken more than a year to get through those few episodes of Daredevil, I predict it's the TV tie-ins that are going to be my downfall. I can sit through two hours of another Thor movie, but I don't know if I can commit to 17 more hours of AoS if it's anything like the second season (which, based on the trailer I saw, seems all too likely).

Beyond that, the MCU has competition. Star Wars is back in full swing with the first installment in a new trilogy, two spinoff movies in the works, and countless more to come—and my wife and I are barely through the first season of The Clone Wars and haven't even started on Rebels. Star Trek has a new movie and TV series coming out next year; my expectations are low, but if the latter ends up being any good, it'll likely take priority over anything else I'm watching. At least I've given up on staying current with the DC Comics film and television universe, which strikes me as disorganized and unattached to the source material.

Still, I'm excited for what will be in theaters during Phase 3 of the MCU. Even if I can't keep up with the universe at home on the small screen, any excuse to get out to the big screen is usually a good one. And who knows? Maybe I'll have trained my body to go without sleep for three days straight the next time an Ultimate Marvel Marathon rolls around.

You're going to laugh when I tell you I'm looking forward to this movie:

Let me get this obligatory link out of the way, which should explain to anyone new to this blog why they're inexplicably laughing right now. In short: I've been opposed to rebooting the Star Trek franchise from the beginning, and the last two movies in the new continuity have done nothing to convince me that this was a good idea. What I like about the trailer for Star Trek Beyond is that it doesn't even pretend to be Star Trek anymore, and that's really all it takes to get me to like this reboot.

At this point, I'm a little numb to the flaws of the reboot universe, because I've moved past trying to rationalize it as canon. It isn't canon. If you claim your reboot is an alternate timeline, then I expect to see an identical universe up to the point where the timelines divide, and I expect an alternate version of events that follows logically from whatever changed history. Star Trek 2009 failed to deliver on both those points. Star Trek Into Darkness added insult to injury by remaking Wrath of Khan, as though the whole point of throwing away 50 years of continuity was to try to improve on the one movie that basically any Trek fan will tell you doesn't need any improvement. On their own, these two films are flawed but highly enjoyable sci-fi action flicks, but they have no business masquerading as an alternate timeline. Paying lip service to the Star Trek name does not make one worthy of it.

Star Trek Beyond seems to acknowledge that, or at least the trailer does. Advertisements for the last two movies seemed to hint at the kinds of philosophical questions and moral choices that characterize Star Trek, providing a false hope that these films would be as thought-provoking and introspective amidst all the action as you would expect of Star Trek. This new trailer does no such thing. The transporter looks cool. The aliens look weird. Stuff blows up real good. There's action and comedy and suspense, but nothing too emotional or thinky, and the characters just happen to wear Starfleet uniforms. The music is loud and raucous with vocals, in contrast with the dynamic orchestral music that usually accompanies a Star Trek trailer. Heck, you'd think the movie's name was Beyond if it weren't for the tiny Star Trek logo fading in above it at the very end.

At the same time, there are little signs that this film might be a step in the right direction for the reboot. The uniforms have been updated and appear more like uniforms than costumes; the actors look the part even more than before. There are aliens we've never seen before, meaning we may finally get to watch the crew make first contact and develop relationships with a new species or two. Character interactions seem organic, like these characters have real personalities and aren't simply there to move the plot forward. The dialogue sounds like some artistic thought went into it, a refreshing change from the platitudes and clumsy references of the last two movies. It appears that the female alien may be one of the main characters, and she goes the entire trailer without screaming or disrobing. I'm pretty sure they're going to destroy the Enterprise in this one, if the swarms of whatevers smashing through the hull are any indication, which hopefully means the next movie will feature a ship that doesn't look like a balloon animal. The fact that there are swarms of whatevers instead of another huge warship gives me hope that the primary conflict of this film won't revolve around trying to outgun yet another impossibly strong opponent.

It's nice to look forward to Star Trek again, even—or especially—if the chances of it being actual Star Trek are slim to none.

I grew up watching Star Trek. My first love was The Next Generation, but after seeing nearly every episode of every series and being old enough to examine them more objectively, I've also found a great love or appreciation for The Original Series, The Animated Series, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise—in other words, all of them. Each show has its ups and downs, but the one constant is an exploration of the human condition that makes Star Trek unlike any other franchise. The compelling characters and cool technology alone would have been enough to win me over, but it's that penchant for raising questions with no easy answer, and that optimism that humanity's future can be as bright as we choose to make it, that makes Star Trek as close to my heart as you can get without causing a medical emergency.

Recently, it was announced that a new Star Trek series will be coming to television in a little more than a year. I want to be excited, but I'm wary of the involvement of so many people responsible for the 2009 franchise reboot. I've written extensively about how J.J. Abrams' vision of the final frontier eschews so much of what makes Star Trek Star Trek, so I'm not sure what my worst-case scenario is here: an awful new series in the Prime timeline that makes me angry for all the same reasons the reboot does, or an awesome new series in the Abramsverse that's better than any other Trek. So, with basically no details available other than "there will be a new Star Trek series," my imagination is running wild with best-case scenarios instead.

As much as I enjoy space battles and fight sequences, I feel like Star Trek was already starting to put action ahead of introspection by the time J.J. Abrams took over. Archer defended Earth from annihilation. Picard did the same in two of the movies. Sisko went to war against the Dominion. Janeway made enemies with practically everyone in the Delta quadrant. The Star Trek universe has been on red alert for most of the last 20 years. Let's scale back on the armed conflicts for a while. Mortal peril on a huge scale is fine from time to time, but drama can come from so many more places.

I'd like to see the next Trek return to the franchise's exploratory roots. I'm not necessarily talking about seeking out new life and new civilizations; the universe is already plenty full of strange new worlds we've barely explored. In fact, I'd rather see more of the one-off aliens from previous series and flesh them out the way DS9 fleshed out the Cardassians and Bajorans. What are the Bynars up to? Is the Federation still getting a piece of the action from Sigma Iota II? What about the more established races that only appeared in one series, such as the Breen, the Talaxians, and the Denobulans? Star Trek doesn't need to visit the uncharted reaches of space to find new territory to explore.

How about this: We set the next Trek in the Prime timeline sometime after the events of Nemesis, and (spoiler) after Romulus has been destroyed for the 2009 reboot. No continuity headaches like you'd have with a prequel or interquel, and we could acknowledge NuTrek without trying to build a new Trek empire upon its slapdash foundation. The show would follow the exploits of the crew of a midsize courier ship—a change of pace from the warships and deep-space exploration vessels we're used to. There'd definitely be room for space combat and encounters with the unknown, but the ship's primary mission would be to ferry cargo and people from place to place within known space. That might sound dull on paper, but so does spending 75 years getting home from the Delta Quadrant or hanging out on the same space station for seven years. Limitations give a story more focus, and it's the story you tell within the framework you have that counts.

There are numerous possibilities for a courier ship. Strange cargo. Intriguing guests. Rendezvous with other ships. Time spent on a planet's surface at the beginning or end of a trip. Bizarre anomalies along the way. And let's not forget the places we can go with the holodeck. Really, it'd be like any other Trek, just with a different how or why driving the story.

I'd also like to see an exceptionally diverse cast. The original Star Trek pushed cultural and racial boundaries with the inclusion of such characters as Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu, allowing them to be positive role models for groups of people who had too often been villainized or stereotyped on American television. Each subsequent Star Trek, with the arguable exception of ENT, has found new ways to be inclusive with its uniquely diverse cast. It's not only a tradition to shake things up; it's almost an obligation. The makeup of your main cast says as much about your show as the individual episodes do, and any show that calls itself Star Trek needs characters that challenge viewers to look at the world in a different way.

If it were up to me, the captain would be a woman. And, equally importantly, she would be an alien. Bolian or Andorian, maybe; somebody blue. The Federation consists of more than humans and dudes, but it's not often enough that you see that reinforced on screen. TOS notwithstanding, the average ratio is 1 woman for every 3 men in the main cast of any given Star Trek, and I'd like to change it to a 50/50 split. That's not feminism; that's equality.

From a narrative perspective, aliens are a great way to explore controversial issues without outright offending viewers who feel strongly about those issues in a real-world context. One of the biggest social conflicts in this country today is about how sexual preference ties in with politics and morality. It's been established that Bolians are polyamorous, with co-husbands and co-wives, and that Andorians are passionate about a great many things; I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that the captain could be bisexual. Star Trek doesn't need to take sides to make an impact on society; posing a question or presenting a situation that solicits a reaction from the viewer is all it takes to start a conversation, and there's a divide in this country that won't end until we stop yelling at each other and start talking about it.

In my mind, this next Star Trek needs to stay culturally relevant to survive, and it needs to ruffle a few feathers. People who never used to care about Star Trek flocked to see the 2009 reboot as well as Into Darkness, and now the franchise is poised to reach a broader audience than ever before. Listen to people's water-cooler conversations and make episodes that relate to what people are already talking about, but get people thinking critically about those things. Don't play it safe; challenge the norm and get people to think critically about things they aren't talking about, too.

Consider the incredible buzz generated by Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. Gender identity is in the news, but it's often sensationalized and still widely misunderstood. What kind of impact would a well-written transgender character have on the viewer? Especially if the character were to transition a few seasons into the show, after the viewer has gotten to know them. All too often we pass judgment on a whole person because of a single label, before knowing anything else about that person. You can love a person and hate one of their labels, or you could love the label and hate the person. People are complex, and I want this new Trek to make people think about whether they're reacting to the person or the label.

Of course, racial diversity would be important. We've never had a fully Hispanic main character on Star Trek. We've also never had an overtly Middle-Eastern main character (Julian Bashir's heritage is merely implied) or a Korean character—and given that Star Trek started out as a bright vision of what the future might look like, I would love to see someone from North Korea or Iran on the bridge as an equal, their country's political conflicts far behind them. We've also been short on Canadians and Australians, and I would be totally fine if the next Star Trek launched without a single American on the bridge. That's not anti-American sentiment; that's the kind of diversity I expect from an intergalactic organization that recruits people from all over the planet, let alone from the 150+ other planets in the Federation. Maybe the one American could be Hawaiian.

There should be plenty of aliens as well. A Tellarite engineer, perhaps, or a Caitan science officer. A Xindi-Humanoid doctor or a Ba'ku first officer. A quartermaster from one of the countless unnamed races we've seen walking around in the background. There's a range of possibilities. I'd like to see a mix of ugly and beautiful aliens, aggressive and passive species—aliens whose cultures and traditions compliment and clash with the rest of the crew in interesting ways.

Other characters I'd like to see:

• Someone with a physical or developmental disability who is every bit as valuable a crew member as anyone else. If Starfleet can have a blind engineer, there's certainly room for a deaf navigator or a transporter chief with high-functioning autism. The 2010 US census reported that 19% of the population had a disability of some kind; that's almost 1 in 5. How many television characters can you name who have a disability?
• Someone age 60 or older (in Earth years, anyhow) who, again, is every bit as valuable a crew member as anyone else. I've noticed a trend in movies especially that the actors keep getting younger (compare the original Star Wars trilogy with the prequels, for example), and that anything featuring older actors puts a big focus on their characters being old (Last Vegas, Rocky Balboa, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and so forth). Humans on Star Trek have been shown to live well into their second century, and some alien races have mind-boggling longevity. Let's see a ship's counselor whose wisdom and experience matter more than the number of arthritis jokes he can make.
• A traditional conservative, preferably one of the younger crew members. I remember a time when social, political, and religious issues were a matter of debate, where you could disagree with someone but still be friends. That's changed over the last few years, at least as far as I can tell. Conservatism has become synonymous with ignorance and bigotry; either you keep your opinions to yourself, or you open your mouth and be labeled an idiot or a monster. No middle ground. Just as people with disabilities and transgender people need good role models and positive representation on television, so too do people who believe in returning to ways that worked well before or maintaining the stability of what we have. And on a personal note, I'm tired of seeing every. character. on. television. jump right into the sack with their romantic interest du jour after the first date; it would be incredibly refreshing to see someone cultivate a close personal relationship without immediate physical intimacy—and because they choose to, not because it builds romantic tension.

The next Trek stands to be as pivotal a series as The Original Series if it can tap into the zeitgeist, do things that no other show on television is doing, and transform the way we look at our world. Do an episode that speaks to the current refugee crisis, but with Romulans escaping the destruction of Romulus. Explore the climate change debate with an episode about a planet being terraformed. Encounter a species whose government has adopted educational policies not unlike Common Core, and have the crew work through a crisis situation with aliens who, for better or for worse, all have identical training.

At the same time, make meaningful connections with the rest of the Star Trek universe, and take every opportunity to fix mistakes and develop ideas and plot threads left dangling in other series. I want a resolution to the TNG episode "Conspiracy" that brings back the parasites we suspiciously never heard anything about again. I want a holodeck episode where we get to see some of the Romulan War that was teased in the last season of Enterprise. I also want a line from one of the characters about how a lot of the holoprograms of that era are notorious for getting the details wrong, placing events farther in the future than they really were, and having historical figures die or break up with their loved ones who actually lived long, prosperous lives and settled down to raise a family—subtly correcting some of the biggest problems with the final episode of Enterprise. I want to meet a very old Joanna McCoy, daughter of Dr. Leonard McCoy, and have her spin some yarns that shed some light on her father's backstory. I want an episode that makes it abundantly clear that NuTrek is actually an alternate universe, and not an altered timeline that's inconsistent with so much of established Star Trek history. Heck, if you really want to fix continuity problems, establish that Enterprise and NuTrek are in one universe, and all the rest of Star Trek is in another.

No matter what this next Trek looks like, I'll give it a shot. I only hope the people making it have the kind of passion for the franchise and thoughtful approach that will do justice to Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future.

So wait. You're telling me that Star Wars: Episode VII, Ghostbusters III, Indiana Jones 5, and Beetlejuice 2 are all real movies that are happening or likely to happen in the next few years? Look, I'm all for a sequel if there's a good story to be told, but I think everybody missed the boat here. If we've learned anything from the likes of Star Wars: Episode I, Indiana Jones 4, and Terminator III, it's that sequels made 10+ years after the last installment consistently fail to resemble the movies they're following (which is occasionally advantageous; just ask Men in Black III or Rocky Balboa). More to the point, I'm concerned about this apparent resurgence of interest in continuing film franchises where half the people involved in the original film are either dead or of retirement age.

You had all of the '90s, guys. This isn't some long-lost parent you reconnected with in the twilight years of their life; these are properties that have happily been in the public consciousness for decades, enjoying continuous merchandising and no end to the books and comics and video games that have continued the story you could've been telling on film this whole time. I don't pretend to know how long these filmmakers have been trying to make sequels to these films, but I have to imagine at least one of these planning sessions went something like, "Jeez, Harrison Ford's getting up there, isn't he? Guess we'd better start making sequels again before he's too old to lift a whip or a blaster. You know, I'd completely forgotten he was still acting until I saw a few minutes of Air Force One on TV last night. That was only from a couple years ago, right? He looks great!"

There might be hope for Star Wars: Episode VII, which is being brought to us by the very same director who brought us the last two Star Wars movies (Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness). Otherwise, I'm skeptical. Unless the people involved—new and old—profoundly understand both what makes the originals good and how to effectively pick up with a story some 10, 20, even 30 years later, I think I'd rather save my money and catch Joe Dirt 2 whenever it arrives on Netflix.

Last month I resolved to release Part 1 of my Mega Man 7 playthrough for YouTube, play Mega Man X: Command Mission to 100% completion, and ignore GOG.com and its dirt-cheap game bundle sales. I'm pleased to report a smashing success on two of those resolutions, and a good deal of progress toward the third. Indeed, July brought a renewed focus on the continuation and completion of projects, from working through my Backloggery and my back room to finishing off video series and anime series. I'm very satisfied with how July turned out, especially where my online projects are concerned.

This Blog:

Since realizing last month just how bitter my posts had become, I've been striving to write about the good at least as often as the bad. There's a fair amount of criticism expressed in these posts, but there's also a real sense of accomplishment as I work through the things that have kept me locked in a disgruntled holding pattern. The last two posts are particularly important to me—during the course of writing them, I made peace with something that's bedeviled me for four years, rediscovered the joy of writing about the things I love, and tried my hand at Star Trek fanfiction for the first time (that I recall).

- Retrospective: June 2013
- A Comfortable Rut
- Loser's Circle
- Winner's Circle
- From the Stars, Knowledge
- The Compatible Wife

GameCola:

Switching things up from my regular fare of podcast video posts, games I've recently played, and columns I swear I still write, I took on the Editor-in-Chief's behind-the-scenes challenge to review a game from his "how have we never covered this" list, and extended the challenge to include a huge batch of videos we'd somehow never plugged.

Reviews:
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master (NES)

Videos:
- Mega Man Madness!

YouTube:

This is really where I was spending all my time for GameCola: jumping into someone else's video series (some of the most fun I've had recording for the GameCola channel), and finishing off my easiest video project yet (placing prerecorded audio over still-frame images). At the same time, I was hard at work with the last of the video footage and first of the audio commentary for my Mega Man 7 playthrough. The Megathon moved one step closer to completion on YouTube, concluding the segment that made me swear to swap out Mega Man 8 for Mega Man & Bass the next time I do a marathon. To borrow an expression I've often heard from the livestreaming community, "Dat Astro Man."

GCDotNet:
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 7: Burning Down the House...Every House
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 8: Moving with Porpoise
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 9: Smote on the Water
- Crystalis D&Dcast - Part 10: The Final Countdown
- Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Part 8: Bombs and Bombshells
- Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Part 9: Sexy Toaster Waffles

DashJumpTV:
- Megathon 2012: Mega Man 8 (PlayStation) - Part II

The Backloggery:

An unexpected gift, some seriously dedicated secret-searching, and an educational expedition into a new (old) series were the basis for these updates to my video game backlog. Completing two games—one of them fairly substantial, and one of them quite substantial—was immensely gratifying. Maintaining a steady diet of adventure games has been rewarding as well: the pacing and skill set required lend themselves to a more relaxing experience than I usually have with, say, action-packed platformers. Oh, and I beat Mega Man ZX Advent, which is the series' epitome of great ideas executed terribly.

New:
- The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse  (SNES)

Started:
- Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (VGA)  (PC)
- Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)  (PC)

Beat:
- Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (VGA)  (PC)
- Mega Man ZX Advent  (NDS)

Completed:
- Mega Man X: Command Mission  (GCN)
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii  (Wii)

All across the board, this was an enjoyable and productive month. Here's to many more like it.

There's a fascinating website called Ex Astris Scientia (EAS), which is a Brobdingnagian compendium of Star Trek data—everything from starship galleries to timelines to forgotten alien emblems across every flavor of Trek. In contrast to Memory Alpha, a straightforward wiki with minimal commentary on the facts discussed therein, Bernd Schneider's Star Trek site picks apart the littlest details of the long-running franchise and presents some thought-provoking observations and arguments about how everything we know about Star Trek fits together (or doesn't fit together, for that matter). While the rest of us are watching cool action sequences with ships blowing up everywhere, Bernd is trying to figure out why the USS Defiant can't decide whether it's 50 or 200 meters long when compared to the sizes of the other ships it's flying alongside.

This absurd attention to detail is right up my alley.

Yes, EAS points out countless inconsistencies with everything from warp travel to Klingon physiology, but you'd be hard-pressed to create an airtight continuity with five decades of writers, directors, set designers, prop masters, actors, and so forth making their various contributions to the canon. Of course there will be issues—and with this level of scrutiny, practically anything can be shown to contain some degree of human error. After reading through the exhaustive lists of definite and probable continuity mistakes in J.J. Abrams' reboot universe as well as the preceding ten TOS and TNG films, and after digesting two refreshingly longwinded and nitpicky reviews of the latest films, I think I've finally come to terms with the Abramsverse...and it's thanks to the mistakes of the old Trek.

When you look at the inconsistencies with the Prime Timeline movies, you find some unexplained extra scorch marks on the Enterprise hull between STII and STIII, a turboshaft that reaches Deck 78 on a starship with no more than 23 decks, and some confusion about whether the Son'a are a whole race of people or merely a merry little family of face-stretching misfits. Logic and precedent are occasionally flexible for dramatic effect, minor historical details are sometimes fudged or overlooked, and the writers don't always consider the ramifications of introducing big new ideas, such as a sub-culture of Romulans who we swear have been here the whole time. Still, the majority of glaring continuity issues from ST:TMP to Nemesis can technically be explained away if we're creative enough, or swept under the rug as an obvious but essentially harmless goof.

When you look at the reboot, you see the USS Kelvin firing phasers mere seconds after the weapons are reported to be offline, an astoundingly massive starship (the Vengeance) being constructed in utter secrecy in less than a year (it took 20 years to build the Enterprise-D!), and the only time travel story in Star Trek history where the time-traveler (Spock) makes no effort whatsoever to restore the timeline to its original state. It's not free will, but rather destiny that guides these characters. The Abramsverse disengages itself from all the wrong parts of Star Trek, abandoning a fidelity to canon and an attentiveness to the logic of any given situation. Freed from these shackles, it can boldly go absolutely anywhere it wants...which, ironically, is back to Nemesis and Wrath of Khan, but in a format more accessible to youngsters who've never seen Star Trek but will watch it if it looks like what they had wanted the Star Wars prequels to be.

As summer action flicks based on a popular sci-fi property, these new movies are a great success...but as a reboot of the Star Trek franchise, they are an abject failure. One, they aren't really a reboot; two, they aren't really Star Trek. They are half-remakes more influenced by Star Wars than the show they're based on, and from my own observations and from what I've read on EAS, it's clear to me that the new movies fall spectacularly short of meeting the standards laid out by every other Star Trek. Even the worst of Star Trek—"Plato's Stepchildren," "Genesis," "Threshold," and "These Are the Voyages...", for my money—has its heart in the right place, even if the execution is uncomfortable, ridiculous, or downright awful. Whereas old Trek tries to tell a good sci-fi story and does't always succeed, nuTrek uses somebody else's universe as a playground for gonzo action sequences and tells a story that isn't even internally consistent, let alone in relation to the rest of the universe.

Yes, it's fun to watch these new movies, but I can get fun anywhere. I would've loved the Abramsverse as pure remakes, a pure reboot, or something that didn't claim to be Star Trek but was otherwise identical--I don't hate these movies. But when I order a bacon cheeseburger with onion and lettuce, I expect a bacon cheeseburger with onion and lettuce, not a turkey burger topped with blue cheese, vegetarian bacon, scallions, and cabbage. It might look the same from a distance, and it might even taste great, but it's not what I ordered.

Was it possible to reboot Star Trek without incurring the ire of curmudgeonly fans such as myself? Absolutely—though I think Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future is a big enough place that we could've had another 50 years in the same continuity before even starting to consider the need for a reboot. After all, there's plenty of the Beta and Gamma Quadrants left to explore, there's a lot of history to fill between ENT and TOS, I hear the USS Titan is a fine ship, there's no telling what the universe might be like a century after Nemesis, we've never had a TV series at Starfleet Academy or centered around anyone non-Starfleet, and a Eugenics Wars movie could be interesting...but nah, let's do Kirk again.

Tell me how this sounds instead:

EARTH, 2385: Scene opens in a classroom at Starfleet Academy. Camera pans across a sea of diverse students—humans, primarily, but the likes of a Denobulan, Edosian, Caitian, Bolian, Vulcan, Klingon, Tellarite, Trill, and a Benzite or two make up a fair portion of the class. The instructor begins to speak. "Suppose..." At that moment, one last student attempts, unsuccessfully, to slip into the room without detection. "Suppose you're late for class," the familiar accented voice continues. "Again." Chuckles from the class. We see the instructor is none other than Miles O'Brien.

"Except this time it's not just a...a slap on the wrist, or a few points off your next test."

"Or being pulled out of recreation hour to practice Vulcan meditation with Professor Somak, who won't let you go until he's convinced you've learned the value of every minute," interjects one of the students. More chuckles.

"Or that," continues O'Brien with a half smile. "This time, the Academy wants to expel you. Off you go, back to your family farm in Kendra Province, or your old job shelving bottles of yamok sauce on Pelios Station. Of course, you don't want to go back. You want to stay here with your friends, attending Professor O'Brien's riveting lectures. So you do what any soon-to-be-expelled Starfleet Academy student would do: you find a way to travel back in time to fix your mistake before it happens."

O'Brien asks a few students in rapid succession about their preferred method of time travel. Chronitons and triolic waves. Time portals. The slingshot effect. Politely ask the nearest omnipotent being to send you back. Wait a few centuries and hitch a ride to the past on an Aeon-class vessel. The class grows more animated with each comment.

"What about you, Professor O'Brien?" asks one of the students, bringing a fleeting hush of curiosity to the room.

"The holodeck." Another round of chuckles. "I hate temporal mechanics. At least with a holodeck, the past is just a holographic simulation. You can make mistakes without worrying about how they'll affect the future you came from. No matter where the story takes you, no matter how much you change history, your home is still there, just beyond the doors, same as it was when you left it. And no one's going to stop you if you want to help the Texans win the Battle of the Alamo for once...well, no one except Santa Anna."

O'Brien smiles to himself for a moment. Clearing his throat, "But, somebody's got to watch the engine room when the captain orders a slingshot around the sun, and that's what we'll be talking about today."

Fast forward to the end of class. O'Brien steps out a little too quickly into a busy hallway, and Chakotay—now a professor of Anthropology at the Academy—slams right into O'Brien's bad shoulder. I haven't worked out the rest of it from there, but I figure they exchange dialogue as they walk, tying up a few loose ends from the TV shows in passing ("My family on Dorvan V says you'd almost never know the Cardassians had been there"), foreshadowing a little bit of what's to come, and hinting at the whereabouts of people we haven't heard from in forever ("Starfleet Medical is planning to expand next year; Katherine Pulaski asked me to look over some of the schematics"). They pass a group of students and teachers huddled around a viewscreen, and stop to take a look: it's a live news report of [insert situation that sets the plot in motion—the destruction of Romulus, for example].

TIME TRAVEL ensues! Doesn't need to be obvious time travel, either; whatever's featured on the news may simply vanish, for example, or appear to be sucked into a black hole, or what have you.

EARTH, 2159: Orbital shipyard—perhaps Copernicus, or San Francisco, or Utopia Planitia. A nice, long shot of a handful of starships in various stages of construction. Work Bees go about their business. All is pleasant. Then all heck breaks loose. Whatever it was that disappeared from the news broadcast in 2385—say, Nero's ship—suddenly appears, and begins firing on the shipyard. Widespread destruction, and half-built ships nearly fly themselves apart as they mobilize to defend the shipyard. NX-02, the Columbia, soon joins the fray. NX-01, the Enterprise, isn't far behind. The attacker, enraged at being unable to find what they were looking for, warps away (possibly in search of another means of time travel to get to when they want to be), leaving the shipyard in ruins and the ships—the ones that survived—in no condition to go anywhere.

EARTH, 2267 (or 2255, if we insist on having characters too young to plausibly run the ship): Oh, look. It's James T. Kirk.

There, J.J. I've set things up for you. An olive branch has been extended to the fans of TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT. Maybe it's not a gripping space battle right off the bat with heroic self-sacrifice and women dramatically going into labor IN SPAAAACE! But spending six or seven minutes in Starfleet Academy, or anywhere else in the Prime Universe, might be all it takes to get a curmudgeonly fan invested in the new direction of the franchise. We haven't forgotten about you, and we still care about this universe—we're just excited to put a new spin on it, and we hope you'll come with us. And blowing up a whole shipyard in the early days of Starfleet seems like it'd do a whole heap more to affect the timeline than blowing up just one, a ship whose only notable accomplishment was that it carried both of Kirk's parents, in a century when Earth has more ships to spare anyhow.

I'm sure Bernd would have a field day with my movie.

Back in college, I started a little project to watch Star Trek. What started out as a simple matter of borrowing the first season of Next Generation from the library soon turned into a mission that would make V'Ger proud: Buy all that is buyable; watch all that is watchable. I set out to own every film and season of every Star Trek, systematically watching them with my roommate, my family, my wife, and anyone else who would join me on this five-year mission. Which turned into two five-year missions. Which...very well may turn into three five-year missions if I get too distracted by Doctor Who.

But last night was a triumph, for my wife and I finished Deep Space Nine.

I'm no stranger to long, drawn-out projects. Look at any of my Mega Man videos for YouTube—this latest recording endeavor, a playthrough of Mega Man 7, had been on hold for over a year. But in the last two months, I went from having only the intro stage recorded to having everything but the final stage and end credits. Over the course of this past week, my wife and I marathoned the entire second half of DS9's seventh and final season. More than likely, tonight we'll be watching the Season 3 finale of Voyager or kicking off Enterprise with the double-length pilot episode. Things are picking up, and it's exciting.

There's something to be said for a leisurely pace—taking my time through The Original Series and The Next Generation was enjoyable, because I'd already seen many, if not most, of the episodes and savoring the continual presence of my favorite sci-fi franchise in my weekly routine. An episode here and there was fine by me.

Things were different by the time we got to Deep Space Nine—I'd watched most of the first two seasons (and a scant handful of episodes after that) when the show was first on the air, but lost interest when they didn't boldly go anywhere! Now, two decades later, I have a greater appreciation of the character interactions and darker themes explored by the show. Entranced by the compelling stories and recognizing the huge gap in my Star Trek education that demanded to be filled, I was eagerly watching two, three, even four episodes at a clip whenever we sat down to watch DS9. I was hooked.

As soon as I had my first special weapon for this playthrough of Mega Man 7, I started discovering and remembering all the ways I can show off and goof around in the game. I was having a blast—some of the most fun I've ever had recording videos for YouTube, in fact--and couldn't wait to (a) try my hand at the next stage, and (b) share my enthusiasm for this oft-derided game with the online community. I was hooked.

Having spent so much time with the same few projects in progress, it is supremely gratifying to reach a major milestone, an ending, or even a point where I can see a milestone or an ending. It's rejuvenating to actively feel the anticipation of starting the next phase of something. I've set aside my other side projects to concentrate on these two, but I think I've needed a break from all the short-term satisfactions of blog posts I write in an hour and chipping away at one of the random movies on our ponderous Netflix Instant Queue. It's become a fact of life that I always have two Star Trek series and a Mega Man game going at any given time...but turning the status quo into a temporary situation with a clear endpoint is what I needed—and what I suspect we all need, sometimes—to pull me out of a comfortable rut and place me on a fresh path that's even better.

My wife likes to sneak fun doodles into the lunches I take to work, and our recent adventure through some allegedly classic episodes of the British sci-fi series Doctor Who was the inspiration for this keeper:

Don't pretend like this isn't true. I can tolerate the occasional recycled plotline and I don't mind vintage science fiction, but toward the end of our adventure I was counting the minutes until some Mystery Monster showed up to terrorize a populace that had taken the Doctor and/or his companion(s) hostage. I excitedly looked forward to hearing the cool theme song, and did everything in my power to stay awake and engaged during the actual show. Yes, it's another terrifying green plastic bag monster, aaaahhh...zzzzzzz...

To be fair, we were at the mercy of Netflix, whose roster included a bizarre sampling of serials from 1963-1989. Instead of seeing complete story arcs and pivotal plotlines, we were exposed to a standalone bit of fluff here, the middle of a story arc there...and not a consistently random assortment, either, where each of the various Doctors was featured once or twice. There was a single serial each with the first, second, and seventh; two with the fifth; four with the third; nine with the fourth; and none with the sixth (unless you count any cameos they made in someone else's show). Confusing, to say the least, but varied enough that—statistically speaking—you'd think at least one episode in 25 years would pan out a little differently.

Still, I imagine Star Trek would seem pretty tiresome if you had two episodes from TOS, one from TAS, four from TNG, one from DS9, nine from VOY, and one from ENT, with no context whatsoever, and they're basically all the one where somebody gets replaced by an evil android. Or an evil shapeshifter. Or an evil transporter clone. Or an evil alternate universe twin. Or an evil mind parasite that takes over their body. Actually, I think I'm just describing all of The Original Series. Oh, well.

My wife, who grew up watching Doctor Who, did some research and was able to fill in the massive gaps between serials for me. Hearing about the Daleks, the Time War, the Doctor's various regenerations, the Master, the history of the TARDIS, and the fates of a few of the Doctor's companions was intriguing—it sounded like a great show; when could I start watching? Oh, right. I'd already seen 18 serials—which translates out to something like 24 hours of television, or an entire season of any other show.

If it were just me, I would've simply skipped ahead to the next Doctor at the first sign of tedium. I'm enough of a sci-fi junkie that I'll subject myself briefly to things I don't like for the sake of self-education, but to power through 24 hours of questionably entertaining entertainment, and then agree to watch through the entire new series with the ninth Doctor and his successors...that takes the kind of insanity that only comes from being an in-law.

It wasn't just my wife, but her whole family who grew up on Doctor World Health Organization. Any time we go to visit, it's a guarantee there'll be at least one extended conversation about the show, which is typically where I bust out the Game Boy and they lose me for the rest of the weekend. Both for my own edification as a sci-fi fan, and as a son/brother/nephew-in-law who would like to be able to communicate with his extended family beyond what's for dinner and no I'm not playing Mega Man again, it's important to me to press on.

But oh, is it a challenge.

I liked Hartnell, the first Doctor, well enough. Despite the awkwardness of jumping right into a story ("The Aztecs") with no idea who these characters were, where they came from, or why they were gallivanting across space and time, the overall quality of the first serial was pretty good for its time. None of the characters left too much of an impression on me, but as I'd soon discover, that's not necessarily a bad thing—I'd rather have low-key heroes and villains than abrasively prominent ones.

Troughton, the second Doctor, struck me as a cartoon. Combined with his screamy companion What's-Her-Face, "The Mind Robber" was a bit painful to watch with how over-the-top some of the performances were, especially against such a mishmash of antagonists and supporting players—it felt less like a land of imagination and more like a land of, "Well, I guess we could throw this in." On the plus side, Upbeat Scottish Guy was the first Doctor Who character I liked, and not merely liked "well enough."

The third Doctor, Pertwee, remains my favorite. Intelligent, rational, and stern-yet-gentle in a fatherly sort of way. I liked the Brigadier he served with. I liked the woman who seemed to be shaping up to be his first companion. I liked that I finally got to see a first episode with a new doctor, "Spearhead from Space," so I had some context for a change. Things were looking up, I thought to myself.

Then the first companion was replaced by Jo, who aggravatingly caused more trouble than she resolved, constantly ignoring or countermanding the Doctor's orders and failing to exercise basic common sense. This made "The Three Doctors" and "The Carnival of Monsters" a little less enjoyable, but at least those episodes began to showcase some of the more interesting aspects of the Doctor Who universe (the diversity of creatures, for instance) and exercise more of the show's storytelling potential (finding an excuse to get Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee working together was brilliant).

Then came "The Green Death," and with it, a decade of shoddy writing. Pacing slowed to a crawl as the serials became less about telling a good story and more about keeping the Doctor detained or waiting for the Mystery Monster to bump off all the expendable characters before the Doctor takes any real action. So much padding for so little plot.

Thus began the reign of Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor, who I understand is a fan favorite. I must have missed all the fun episodes, because most of what I remember about him is how harshly he interacted with his inferiors, his distinctive scarf and hair, and that trademark grin that he flashed right before doing something needlessly reckless. I liked K-9, loved the tribal alien something-or-other companion, gradually warmed up to Romana I, frowned at how Romana II was starting to remind me of Jo, and was excited to see four consecutive serials pertaining to a single storyline—finding the pieces of the Key to Time. I grew weary of the Doctor's constant disregard for the people and situations around him, and had trouble getting to know him when his personality was so inconsistent—he'd go from angry to frightened to laughing in the face of death and back again.

It doesn't help that "The Ark in Space," "Horror of Fang Rock," and "The Power of Kroll," which all transpired during this era, were some of the most plodding, unproductive serials yet. I also admit to falling asleep more frequently during the second half of the Netflix roster; not sure if this is the cause or the symptom of my displeasure with these shows.

Credit where credit is due, however: "The Pirate Planet" was hands-down the best serial of the lot—and not simply better than the others, but legitimately good sci-fi in its own right. Good action, meaningful character interactions, great pacing, some humor, a few plot twists, many interesting locations, memorable villains, and plenty of creative situations and solutions. All around, a very well-told story and solidly entertaining television...which shouldn't be much of a surprise, because it was written by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy scribe Douglas Adams. If I can't call myself a Doctor Who fan, it's not because the ingredients aren't there; it's because the people behind the camera rely too heavily on, "Look! Weird stuff! And the characters are inherently likable!" to sell the story.

The fifth Doctor, Davison, was a refreshing amalgamation of Pertwee's controlled cleverness and Tom Baker's spontaneity—he might throw himself haphazardly into a situation, but at least he seemed to have an idea of how to get out of it. I'm inclined to say he's my second-favorite Doctor, though his companions were...tolerable. I was not completely enthralled by Snippy, Whiny, and Well-Meaning-But-Impetuous Boy-Child. I also wasn't too keen on either of the serials I saw him in, "The Visitation" and "The Caves of Androzani”; the former would've been more appealing to me as a straight-up "androids have invaded 17th-century England" story instead of some convoluted Terileptil plot to wipe out humanity with rats and bracelets, and the latter focused so much on political intrigue and military strategy that the Doctor and his companion were almost incidental characters up until the very end. Doctor...Who? Oh, the main character. If you say so.

Netflix thoughtfully left out any episodes starring the sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, so you're getting off the hook with a sentence instead of a paragraph.

By the time we got to the seventh Doctor, McCoy (I'm a Time Lord, not a doctor!), I was hoping for a departure from what I'd seen so far; a reinvention, if you will, or at least a storytelling style more in line with the better-paced, character-focused sci-fi I grew up with from the late '80s. Instead, I got "The Curse of Fenric": same ol', same ol', with better film quality. And oppressively bombastic music. It sounded like a bad Sega Genesis game. Like Hartnell, I didn't get much of an impression from McCoy, but that's also because I was too busy shaking my head at the parade of fools who chose to gaze in horror at the slowly approaching sea vampire zombie fish people instead of running away at quadruple their speed. Ace, his companion, was another obnoxiously independent tagalong; I don't mind tough guy/tough girl characters, but all I can think of is her yelling at the doctor about how he never tells her anything, and her flirting with a guard in the most incomprehensibly flirtatious way I've ever seen—like, using something to the effect of, "my, the sun is comprised of helium," as a pickup line. Odd, self-centered, and prone to emotional outbursts is not a character trait combination I find appealing.

Skipping over the eighth Doctor, McGann, due to his absence from Netflix, my wife and I proceeded to the new series of Doctor Who, watching the first two episodes with Eccleston, the ninth Doctor. Well, he wasn't in our living room with us; we were the ones watching him on the screen.

Anydigression.

This Doctor looks destined to be my third favorite, possibly slipping past Davison for second place. He's passionate, efficient, and mysterious (but not irritatingly so). Likewise, Rose is on track to become my favorite companion, or at least in my top three. A little rebellious, a little inquisitive, a little sentimental, a little overwhelmed...a little of everything, making her feel more like a well-rounded and real person than the previous companions, who took two or three character traits and ran with them.

What I like about this new series is that it takes the time to develop the characters, hints at things yet-to-be-revealed, pays tribute to previous shows, keeps a steady pace, and goes beyond the needs of the episode to consider the ramifications of an entire universe filled with weird aliens and time travel and whatnot. What I don't like about this new series is that the climax of each episode superficially creates drama by putting the characters in a tight spot and stretching out their inaction for far longer than necessary, too many people get needlessly killed off, and the aliens are way too weird for me. I appreciate that the aliens are far more diverse than the large, speechless beasts of Star Wars and the multitudinous ridgy humanoids of Star Trek, but...talking skin? Gross.

Overall, I'm liking the direction of this new series, but there's still something about the execution that's holding me back from professing I'm a Whovian, or a Whoite, or whatever fans are called. Who-heads? I suspect, once again, that the writers are responsible. Everything else—acting, costumes, makeup, lighting, set design, you name it—is just as good as it's ever been, if not better. I'm not sure yet about the storytelling; the body count of the innocent is already too high, and overreliance on manufactured tension makes for tedious viewing (see: The Hobbit).

As a side note, in the first episode of the new series, Mystery Monsters terrorize the neighborhood, and the Doctor gets captured by them. The more things change...

Four years. I've waited four years for this. Four years of inner turmoil. Four years of disappointment, denial, and anger.

Four years since J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot. If you couldn't tell, I was not entirely pleased.

After four years of discussing, debating, and speculating, I finally have the resolution I've so desperately craved—I finally have a sequel. It's called Star Trek Into Darkness, and it's allowed me to sort out these conflicting emotions and make peace with my beloved entertainment franchise.

If you're familiar with my work at Exfanding Your Horizons, you know I've written about this at length. No need to click on all of these, but they're here if you'd like a refresher or some background on the matter. Plus, I really like some of these titles.

- Star Trek RIP, Part 1
- Star Trek RIP, Part 2
- Reconnecting with the World
- Abandon Fandom!
- J.J. Abrams, Please Stop Killing People
- Star Trek by the Minute
- (Re)Star(t) Trek
- New York Comic-Con / Anime Festival 2011 Recap: Part Two (scroll down a ways)
- Star Trek Into Darkness of the Movie Theater Again
- Lastly, from this blog: A New Hopelessness

Now, brace for impact, kiddos; sensors are detecting spoilers on a collision course.

First off, let's review my predictions for Star Trek Into Darkness, based on what transpired in the first movie (discussed in the penultimate post above):

Things We'll Probably See:

Nurse Chapel, whose only function is to scream at scary things, and give McCoy somebody to talk to, 'cuz he really doesn't seem that tight with Kirk - Close! We got Carol Marcus, who screams at scary things and has her biggest scene together with McCoy. And she mentions Nurse Chapel, so there you go.

An impromptu Gorn battle that completely interrupts the flow of the story - There's a brief moment at the beginning where Kirk shoots a big animal that appears out of nowhere, and they do mention the Gorn...so I'd say that's close enough.

Vulcans behaving completely out of character - Actually, I think the writers understand Spock better than anyone else, and Spock's the only Vulcan I saw...so I guess I whiffed on this one. Blame it on the scuttlebutt I'd been hearing about the videogame tie-in.

A reference to a classic Trek scene or quote, which inadvertently devalues the scene or quote if you think about it too hard - "Reference" is putting it lightly. Half the film was a remake of Wrath of Khan, though that devalues this film, and not the one it's referencing. More on that later.

LENS FLARE - PROBABLY. MAYBE I MISSED IT.

An incredibly important plot point that's barely explained and/or makes absolutely no sense if you think about it too hard - If you want to avoid detection by the indigenous people of a planet, why fly your starship into their ocean instead of staying in high orbit and sending down a shuttle? Why did Kirk steal that scroll that got everybody chasing after him? And let's not even start on haphazardly promoting crew members (seriously, your tactical officer who has been shadowing the chief engineer is a better candidate for a replacement than anyone else who works in engineering?), Marcus loading cryofrozen war criminals into torpedoes, plotting to sabotage the Enterprise, and escalating to wanton murder of Kirk and his crew in a matter of moments.

Adults who are absolutely useless in crisis situations, leaving the young'uns to take matters into their own hands - I'm pretty sure Kirk was the only person at that staff meeting who didn't stand there and wait to get shot.

Petty bickering over a woman (I'm already blaming Uhura) - What? A lovers' quarrel between Spock and Uhura? Couldn't be!

Someone getting killed off for plot convenience and/or a cheap emotional response - We didn't need Pike anymore, right?

No Klingons, or worse yet, pointless Klingons - Or, worse yet...actual Klingons. But they all died like punks.

Really awesome action sequences that make you forget about everything I just mentioned - The Enterprise rose out of the ocean! Stuff blew up real good! Lots of punching! ...What were we talking about?

Needless to say, Star Trek Into Darkness was very much what I expected it to be. The original press release was a bit misleading, talking about someone "from within their own organization" (not really) who "has detonated the fleet" (not really), but I still laid my money on Khan as the villain well before the speculation took off. As a side note, the teaser trailers were misleading as well; try watching any of the later ones after seeing the movie, and note how cleverly they took scenes out of context and out of order, showing you just enough to make you think you know what will happen.

So I've gotten pretty good at figuring out how an Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman production is gonna pan out. The question is, how does Into Darkness compare with its predecessor?

Let me put it this way: I might be inclined to watch this one again. It's been four years, and I have yet to rewatch the first one.

I'll break this down the same way I did with Oblivion: by reviewing the lessons that subsequent films in this new Star Trek continuity could stand to learn from Into Darkness—and from any other Star Trek, for that matter.


Lesson #1: You've got 40+ years of continuity. Make references.

Carol Marcus. Christine Chapel. The Gorn. A tribble. The NX-01 amongst the model ships lined up in Admiral Marcus' office. Uniforms in the style of Star Trek: The Motion Picture's. Klingons. Adaptations of the main TOS and TNG themes in the end credits music. Section 31. The destruction of Vulcan. "The Mudd incident." Star Trek Into Darkness makes references of all sizes, some more obvious than others, and they help form meaningful connections with the franchise as a whole. A well-placed reference can be a rewarding treat for attentive viewers, and it's an acknowledgement that there's more to Star Trek than just this film.

However, some discretion is required, lest we forget the quotes and references that were ham-fistedly crammed into the first movie: the Kobayashi Maru scene trivialized one of Star Trek's best untold stories for cheap comedic effect, some random planet nowhere near Delta Vega was called Delta Vega just to reference "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and Spock Prime's first interaction with Kirk was peppered with familiar sayings that ring hollow without the emotional context originally associated with them. Simply dropping a reference isn't good enough; it needs to fit with the story, regardless of whether there's an audience watching.


Lesson #2: You've got 40+ years of continuity. Treat it with respect.

One of the reasons I got so angry at Star Trek (2009) was the lack of reverence for the source material. With such a long and rich history, you'd think there'd be no shortage of plot threads to follow and new aspects of the galaxy to explore...but instead of building on the foundation already in place, the film proceeded to destroy everything from Romulus to the core personalities of some of Star Trek's most memorable characters, merely to have a fresh slate to tell a (mediocre) story.

Uhura went from a strong, subtly sensual communications officer to a floozie who probably served some function on the ship (my guess: Flirts Officer. Ha ha.). Sarek, a true Vulcan of commanding presence and profound wisdom, was relegated to a generic fatherly role. McCoy's nickname of "Bones," previously derived from "sawbones" (old slang for a surgeon), lost its meaning when Kirk picked it up from McCoy's passing comment of being nothing but "a bag of bones" after his divorce. The list goes on. The names are the same, but they're not entirely the same people.

Perhaps because the film is only accountable to its predecessor, which did all the dirty work of introducing characters and severing almost all ties with the previous continuity, Into Darkness has some breathing room to (a) insert references without trying so hard to appease any dubious diehard fans, and (b) let these versions of the characters develop more naturally.

Scotty has gone from "happy comic relief Scotsman" to "friendly, expert engineer who cares deeply about his ship," for example. However, I still have no sense of this Uhura's personality other than that she's Spock's girlfriend, and that she speaks Klingon more fluently than she did in Undiscovered Country, where she was condemning food, things, and supplies. (That has to change.) There's certainly room for interpretation when a new actor or director is working with a character, but especially when dealing with an alternate timeline, that core personality should remain intact—after all, as far as the story's concerned, it's only the appearance and aftermath of Nero that should account for any differences in a character's character.

Into Darkness does a better job than its predecessor of respecting Star Trek continuity because it works within the boundaries of what the previous movie established. Instead of bulldozing the foundations and framework to make way for something new, it fleshes out what's already there—and because it pulls so much of the story from "Space Seed" and Wrath of Khan, Into Darkness naturally feels more like Star Trek than last time.

That's the kicker: It's not just adherence to canon, but embracing what it means to be Star Trek. It's the interplay between characters. It's the strange, new worlds. It's the new life and new civilizations. It's the thought-provoking questions about social issues and human nature that arise from combining all of the above. Into Darkness seems to get more of its details straight about who these characters are and what their universe is like, but it's still missing the heart—or the brain, if you will—that elevates Star Trek above any other sci-fi action movie. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.


Lesson #3: You've got 40+ years of continuity. Boldly go where no one has gone before, for cryin' out loud.

The purpose of a reboot, as I see it, is to do things differently—or better. To its credit, Into Darkness features some great action sequences, turns Spock's iconic death scene on its head with a clever role reversal, and utilizes the full potential of Khan's genetic enhancements (something I've always felt Wrath of Khan skimped on a bit—"Khan, I'm laughing at the superior intellect!"). There's a lot of good in this movie, and a lot we haven't seen before...but not enough.

For starters, it would've been brilliant to have Khan, defeated on the bridge of the USS Vengeance, shouting "KIIIRRRRKKK!!!" at the top of his lungs.

I wanted to see any other antagonist—Gary Mitchell, those mind-control parasites from "Conspiracy," the Suliban, Trelane, the Borg (Kirk versus a female foe, particularly the Borg Queen, would've been interesting...), even Gary Seven could've somehow been worked in as a villain in this alternate timeline. A reboot offers the freedom of choice, and they chose a bad guy and a situation that led to all the same major plot points that were hit before. Nemesis already rehashed Wrath of Khan to a certain degree; now we're doing it again?

How was it that Khan put it? "You should have let me sleep"?

Reuse villains. Recycle familiar plotlines. But do so in a way that's worthy of a reboot. Take the story in wildly unexpected directions; combine elements that couldn't possibly have been combined before; give the old stories and characters the kind of depth and complexity they've never had. Into Darkness offers some of that, but it squanders the opportunity to offer something truly novel to the Star Trek universe, opting instead to flesh out and fudge some of the details of an existing story.

There's an excellent comic miniseries called Star Trek: The Last Generation. It plays out a "What if?" scenario, wondering how TNG might've looked if, at the climax of The Undiscovered Country, Kirk and his crew had failed to foil the assassination attempt at the Khitomer conference. It's a rough-and-tumble, post-apocalyptic kind of setting in which the Klingons have conquered Earth, and the Federation looks more like the Rebel Alliance. Due to the situation, certain characters find themselves in very different roles, and interacting with very different people—Worf is a villain; Sulu is an almost mythical freedom fighter; Ro Laren and a decidedly not-dead Tasha Yar are a couple—yet they are the same people. Picard is Picard, Troi is Troi, and Data is Data, just in radically different circumstances. Their universe is almost unrecognizable, but it still feels like Star Trek because the characters, technology, and flow of history stay true to their roots.

Compare this to a bunch of irresponsible brats who get their own starship and redo Wrath of Khan.


Lesson #4: You are not Star Wars.

Lobot doesn't belong on the bridge. And only Imperial officers are allowed to wear those doofy hats. Knock it off.


Lesson #5: Separate your heroes from time to time.

One of my favorite seasons of Deep Space Nine allows something to happen that I'd never seen before on a television show: the heroes go off to war, and they don't immediately come back! For the majority of the season, half the main characters are on opposite sides of the quadrant, and it's fascinating to watch the story and character development when everyone is so far removed from each other, and from the space station they call home.

Into Darkness has the guts to kick Scotty off the ship before it leaves Earth, yet he remains as involved in the story as anyone else, ultimately being in a unique position to save the day because he was separated from the rest of the crew. Uhura faces a group of armed Klingons with no one beside her as backup. Spock finds himself trapped in an active volcano. Being alone is one thing; being separated is another entirely—there's dramatic potential that's difficult to tap any other way.


Lesson #6: Blend the comedy and action into the story.

Star Trek (2009), like most any Star Trek movie, has its moments of levity. Unlike any other Star Trek movie, the flow of the action grinds to a halt as neon signs light up, saying, "THIS IS THE FUNNY PART! TIME OUT FOR COMEDY!" and/or, "HERE'S THIS COOL THING WE WANTED TO DO! LOOK! HERE IT IS!" Scotty getting stuck in the tube in engineering. Random monster battles in the snow. Kirk's anatomy inflating. (Side note: I should probably be more specific; that could be misconstrued.) Into Darkness works the humor and whiz-bangery into the story, smoothing out the edges so there isn't an abrupt shift between storytelling and technically unnecessary digressions. The movie as a whole flows much better this way.


Lesson #7: Big ships are cool. Don't overdo them.

The Scimitar was a big ol' beastie of a ship. The Narada was a big ol' beastie of a ship. The Vengeance is a big ol' beastie of a ship. Impossible odds are easy enough to find; be careful not to fall into a rut, no matter how cool that rut may be.


Lesson #8: Make sense.

Look, we're talking about a science fiction franchise that once had Spock's brain telling McCoy how to do surgery on it. Suspension of disbelief is a necessity. But there's a fine line between "makes sense in Star Trek," and, "buh...WHA!?" With the first ten films, you were supposed to think about them long after the credits rolled—give those Big Ideas time to simmer. With these new films, the pacing is such that you don't have the chance to think about what's going on; consequently, the writers aren't held as accountable to craft a coherent plot. As long as it's entertaining, who cares whether anything gets a proper explanation?

I'm not saying the films are completely unintelligible; I'm saying they don't seem to stand up to scrutiny as well as most of the other films. "Because it's cool" is a better explanation for much of what happens than, "because it makes sense within the context of the story." Refer to any of the items mentioned in my one prediction above.

"Because it's cool" is not inherently a problem for me—after all, I've run plenty of D&D campaigns where logic was relegated to the corner just so I could drop an ethereal filcher on the party—but it's a concern when it becomes the primary explanation, especially in a Star Trek film. Deliberately masking incomplete or incoherent plot points with grand set pieces and special effects is tantamount to lying to the audience; inadvertently doing so is a demonstration of carelessness or incompetence. When a franchise is defined by the intelligence and integrity of its characters, it's not unreasonable to want the storytelling to share those traits.


Lesson #9: Get the dialogue right.

There's a Next Generation comic miniseries called Atonement. I don't remember much about the story—something having to do with the inventor of transporter technology being a man out of time—but I do remember the dialogue. At least, the style of the dialogue. Throughout the entire story, something felt "off," and I couldn't put my finger on it...until I realized the lines Picard and Data were saying were written for Kirk and Spock. Star Trek feels inauthentic when the dialogue doesn't fit with the characters; voice is just as crucial as plot when it comes to a character-driven story.

All throughout Into Darkness, I tried to imagine what these lines would sound like as spoken by Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan, Nichols, Takei, and Koenig. (I gave up with Besch and Montalban, as they themselves sound nothing like Eve and Cumberbatch.) Sometimes, the lines felt right. Sometimes, I had flashbacks to my high school English classes. The words got the point across in those cases, but the characters didn't own them.

Example: If memory serves, Scotty calls Kirk "Jim" at least twice in the film. I've heard Scotty refer to him as "Jim Kirk" when talking about him, but when talking to him, it's always been "Captain." It's that lack of nuance that's making it harder for me to buy into the assertion that these are the same characters I grew up watching. The preponderance of modern vernacular doesn't make these characters sound more relatable; it makes them sound like they've got script writers who planned out all the action sequences and a couple of quotable lines before realizing they needed more dialogue to pad the empty space between them.


That's all for now. I have no doubt I'll continue to ruminate on the new movie, and the old movie, and all the movies—this is merely my first stab at putting my thoughts down on virtual paper. Ultimately, I enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness. It's fun, it's a neat twist on a familiar story, it's a visual spectacle. It's almost Star Trek. I still have my misgivings about the film and the new continuity as a whole, but I've mellowed considerably since I first saw the trailer that heralded a new era of the franchise I hold so dear.

Having seen more of Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman's films in the past four years, I've come to understand how they operate. Abrams doesn't make the kinds of movies I like, plain and simple—but he keeps attaching his name to films that sound right up my alley until I find out he's involved. Orci and Kurtzman write movies like they're comic books; like George Lucas, they need somebody to act as a creative filter to translate their ideas into something more cinematically structured. I see Damon Lindelof's name in the writing credits; knowing absolutely nothing about him, I'm already attributing the more cohesive and Trek-like feel of Into Darkness to his influence.

As a side note, I'm noticing an alarming trend in the movie and TV previews I've seen in theaters recently. See if you can detect a theme here: Defiance. Olympus Has Fallen. White House Down. After Earth. Oblivion. Elysium. World War Z. There's only so much "fall of civilization as we know it" I can handle, you guys.

So anyhow. Star Trek Into Darkness. Better than the last one. Good enough to want to see the next one. Still hasn't convinced me this reboot was necessary, though. Kick off the training wheels, take off the parking brake, and make the next one the best one.

Boldly go, Star Trek. I'm looking forward to welcoming you back into the family next time.