craptastic

Which is diametrically opposite of mantastic, just so you know...

"There is more than one of everything..."

"This truck was never made..."

And the FBI agent who hasn't watched enough Law and Order to know that "Was it a mask, or bandages?" is a leading question...

Craptastical.

UPDATE: COMPLETE, UNADULTERATED, HACKERY! Fucking douche bag, un-talented, commercialists. Dickwaded cockfingering turdshits.
Fucking Sans-tastical.
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FAIL!

They should just change the show to FAIL- or better yet, EPIC FAIL. The cardinal rule of Vampire fiction: you don't use Bella Lugosi's Dead (especially, a shitty version of it). Otherwise you violate the Laws on Pretension Prevention, a little known subsection of the Geneva Convention.

Also, knew it was the girl as soon as she was on screen.
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I hate J J Abrams

Well, 9 times out of 10, anyway. I liked Transformers, but I hated Lost, Alias, and Fringe.

Remember my accurate predictions about Watchmen, right before I saw it? Star Trek gets the same treatment after the fold...



If you're interested in a no spoilers (so long as you've seen the trailers) story about the people who made Star Trek- which opens on May 8th- go read this NY Times.com article. (thanks Tom)

If not, I'm going to quote from it anyway, to illustrate my thoughts that the Star Trek movie isn't going to be nearly as good as so many people are saying/wanting/needing it is/to be.

First, it's J J Abrams, director of Mission Impossible: III (I will give him it was better than John Wu's; but that's like being less retarded than the most retarded retard) along with other shitty shit shitshit.

There's a LOT of qualifying in the article. They are desperately trying to ensure fans that their beloved show/series/movies/franchise isn't being ass-raped by drunken clowns:

For the “Trek” faithful there are plenty of nods to past television episodes and movies, familiar catchphrases and Kirk’s notorious solution to a supposedly unwinnable mission simulation. But there is also a conscious effort to inscribe this “Trek” in the storytelling traditions popularized by Joseph Campbell, in which heroes must suffer loss and abandonment before they rise to the occasion.

[...]

Though their revisions may be contentious, the filmmakers said they were necessary; the “Star Trek” empire entrusted to them has been in dire straits.

The one that swayed me the most was:

Mr. Abrams said that throughout the production process Mr. Orci and Mr. Lindelof, both acolytes of “Trek” history, were there to keep an eye on him. The filmmakers also received the blessing of Leonard Nimoy, who created the role of Spock and agreed to reprise the character in the film as a wizened old man.

“Any fan who would think that it’s not ‘Trek’ has to say that to Leonard Nimoy’s face,” Mr. Orci said. “Don’t talk to me, talk to Spock.”

But then I remembered Nimoy really hated being identified as Spock for years. Sure, he's accpeted it all now; but my impression of Nimoy is that he's a pompous jackass. Really, only Gene Roddenberry's opinion would sway me. Not his wife's, and certainly not Rick Berman's opinion. But Mr Roddenberry is dead, so: Fuck You, Abrams, no swaying for you!

That's not all, but it is a large portion, of the qualifying. However, that's as much as I care to share. (Read more qualification at the link already provided.) In general, that level of "But it won't suck because..." in an article sets off my Suck-o-Meter alarms, big time! If it didn't suck, would you really need to tell me it didn't suck that much? "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" {Hamlet, Act 3, scene 2; I looked it up to make sure I wrote it correctly.}

Now, here's why I think the movie is going to blow:

Mr. Abrams and his partners are guys with mainstream pop-culture aspirations; their forte is taking on genres with finite but dedicated fan bases — science fiction, fantasy and horror — and making them accessible to wider audiences. And what they had in mind for their “Star Trek” movie is a film that is consistent with 43 years of series history but not beholden to it.

Re-parse that into non-marketing-ese:

Mr. Abrams and his partners are people who want to make lots of money and have lots of people like them; thy are exceptional at taking sub-culture and bleaching it, dumbing it down, and scrubbing away it's filthy underground musk until it's stupid enough for any idiot to get moist over all the pretty people and colors/explosions. And what they had in mind for their "Star Trek" movie is a film that is not beholden to 43 years of series history, the intentions of Gene Rodenberry, or anything that won't increase their profits- principles, for instance.

A couple self-explanatory bits:
This:

there is also a conscious effort to inscribe this “Trek” in the storytelling traditions popularized by Joseph Campbell, in which heroes must suffer loss and abandonment before they rise to the occasion.

This:

Perhaps more audaciously, this “Star Trek” also has a time-travel story line that essentially gives those on its creative team license to amend internal “Trek” history as they need to, and they aren’t timid about exercising it. (For example the villains of the movie are Romulans, even though the Enterprise’s first encounter with this alien race occurs in a well-known original “Trek” episode.)

Though their revisions may be contentious, the filmmakers said they were necessary

And:

Despite their collective reverence for “Star Trek” — and “Star Wars,” and Indiana Jones, and X-Men, and other cultural artifacts of their awkward adolescence — none of them are total “Trek” completists (not even Mr. Orci, who once owned a telephone shaped like the Enterprise). They say that makes them the ideal candidates to upgrade Gene Roddenberry’s creation for 21st-century audiences.

Before having been associated with a movie he hopes will attract all the fans, plus the not-fans:

ENGAGE J. J. Abrams in conversation for even a few minutes and he will gladly confess the role that “Star Trek” played in his cultural coming of age. “I was not a fan,” he said recently.

And After:

“I now consider myself a Trekkie,” he declared, “which I literally could not have ever imagined saying to anyone.”

“which I literally could not have ever imagined saying to anyone."

Mr. Abrams said his responsibility was not to the “Trek” loyalists, but “to create a movie that would be for moviegoers who love an adventure, and movies that are funny and scary and exciting — not ‘Star Trek’ fans, necessarily, but not to exclude them either.”

I'm fucking glad we're not gonna get excluded! Especially since we're the after thought, and not the focus! Yay!

What remains to be seen is whether the patient, thoughtful and deeply philosophical tradition of “Star Trek” is compatible with a “Star Trek” movie that is variously flashy, frenetic, dirty, slapsticky and sufficiently steeped in popular culture to accommodate both the Beastie Boys song “Sabotage” and a cameo by Tyler Perry.

Look, there's an ass ton more of this crap over there, go read it. But I want to end with one more:

“We’ve become so familiar with the idea of space travel because of so many movies and TV shows that it’s lost its adventure and its possibility, its sense of wonder,” Mr. Abrams said. “Forty-three years ago it was not a boring idea.”

Let's take this out of marketing-ese again:

"The whole concept of Star Trek was how cool Space Travel was. It's not anymore, so we're gonna dump what I see as the main concept. Ha ha, fanboys, fuck me? FUCK YOU!"

Okay, so that last bit may not have actually been in there; but my translator assures me she doesn't want to be beaten with the rubber hose, and her work tends to be pretty damn accurate.

He doesn't get what Star Trek was about. It wasn't about Joseph Cambell and SPACE TRAVEL!; those were tricks to discuss things. That's when Star Trek is at it's best, when it's speculative fiction- when it's using these future star ships, technologies, and aliens to explore contemporary things (like race) in a way that people won't just close down and vigorously ignore. Putting it in the future with aliens makes it easier for people to think about. Instead of shutting down, they think; and Star Trek blossoms.

And we know Abrams is going to throw in some pandering god references. But look back at Star Trek: it was the most relevant and exciting in TOS (the Original Series) when Roddenberry made it rational and secular. It was worst in DS9 (Deep Space 9) and Voyager, where they were constantly dealing with god and their personal spiritualities. Except they weren't issues, except as things characters refused to give up.

So, no philosophy, no social commentary, no strict science-based rationality (even from Spock); but up the pretty visuals. Down on space travel, up on time travel; down on Trek canon, up on new, easy to grasp Campbell-ian backgrounds/plots.

It's going to be pretty and very very stupid- like Jenny McCarthy, but pretty.
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Your TV Shows

A while ago I talked about Fringe. I mentioned that The Psychic Olivia was a dropped plot point. It's been 3 episodes, and they've picked it back up- just like I mentioned they'd done before. And they invented a whole new bucket of bullshit for the viewer to choke down, thinly disguised as "creepy" and "dramatic".

What I'd like to add is two points:

First, in the big mystery of episode 17, the viewer easily makes the connections about 3-5 minutes before the characters in the show make them- which is stupid and bad writing, in my opinion. It's one thing to let the viewer in on it from the jump; or to let the viewer make the connection a few seconds before the characters. It's an entirely other matter for the characters to have no clue, get one more piece of information and then magically jump to the same conclusion the viewers- who haven't been made aware of anything other than what the characters know- have already surmised.

Second, the ending of episode 17 means one of two (I'll include a third just to cover my ass) things. Either, the good Crazy Doctor has had his memory messed with (which I think they've alluded to, and suggested he might have done it to himself); or the writers seriously think anyone is buying their tacked on bullshit. That second possibility isn't quite as remote as it may first seem. It could be the writers going "Oh, hey! Great idea, what if we add in all this stuff to kinda tie things in and make it creepy and mysterious?" And no one catching how/that it makes earlier episodes inconsistent. Or it could be there's an actual meta-plot and it's that ridiculous.
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Your TV Shows

Fringe is such a stupid show. There is nothing redeeming about it. It's not sci-fi, because science fiction would imply some sort of actual science. It's more like modern fantasy- wild conjectures with very loose, very badly strung together, science facts used to, I guess, try and explain things.

They take it right up to the edge, and let the viewer make the conclusions. The acting is good, sometimes, but mostly it's too "serious" to actually be serious. They're not trying to be as campy as they are. It's got all the great hallmarks of horror/thriller sci-fi, and I think that's why I watch it.

I wouldn't recommend anyone else attempt it. Fringe is truly crap-tastic. But years of less than B slasher flicks, zombie fests, and monster movies keep me viewing. Just like all those horrible examples of "entertainment" (read: train wrecks), the creators obvious intend one reaction, and miserably fail.

If they accepted that despite their big budgets, their great special effects, and their sleek look/marketing, they were just shitty camp horror, it would suck even more. But throwing the lady with the robotic arm in with the mad (read: crazy) scientist who was researching every single bit of the latest and greatest in cutting edge science, 30 years ago, doesn't make it sci-fi.

What irks me is, if someone tried to write this shit, they'd be laughed at. Not because it's stupid, which it is, not because it's childish and predictable, which it is; but because it glories in the dumbest, worst, most throw together hodge-podge of "plots" that ever got rejected- and it does it without the slightest bit of irony.

There's talent in the pool that creates each episode; but it still can't overcome being absolute shit.



Plot points that were about to happen, then completely dropped, ignored, and never mentioned again:

* The Psychic Olivia. Episode 14 revealed Olivia was a powerful psychic able to control electronic devices. Then there was a long break, and in two episodes it has never been mentioned again. Instead there's the romantic angle of who is Peter romantically interested in: Olivia or her sister? Hint: It will be Olivia, as was thoroughly demonstrated in episode 14. (That is, assuming consistency is in anyway important to the writers- a big assumption that has no evidence to support it in the 16 episodes so far.)

* The Cyborg Lady. Sure, she's been in other episodes, and has shown disturbing interest in Olivia- which we can assume has something to do with her Psychic abilities. But there's been no more about cybernetics, and we've gone two episodes without hide nor hair of her or her ominous megacorp.

* The Hairless Man. He's a gimmick ("See him in every episode!"), a shitty Where's Waldo where the camera tends to settle on the hidden person, to underline that he's "secret" or "important" or just because this is a prime example of stupidity and hodge-podge. More importantly, though he is in episode 14, and in a VERY unsurprising role, all the geniuses and investigators, who have all discussed/encountered him before never ONCE mention him when they meet a kid who is also hairless and "important". They've shot their wad with him, in a way, having had a full episode devoted to him; but that's bad planning, in my opinion, and so I consider him a dropped plot point.

* The Roguish Villian. Charming, star of City of Lost Children, and with an English accent, he was prominent in the episodes leading up to the break. Since then? Not even a mention of an off-camera hunt for him.

And that's the thing, innit:

1) No one is surprised, in the least bit, when they somehow try to tie a plot point back to something else- inventing a bunch of information that must be shoveled at the viewer like so much thought manure. Some of these plots are being PURPOSEFULLY ignored, at the moment, because hiding the obvious 4 episodes down the line makes it "smart", "savy", or in some other way, not obvious. (Uhm.... Hint: No it doesn't.)

2) All it would take, to force Olivia and Walter out of their Mary Sue status, and make the whole fucking show about a million times better, is to insert some throw-away lines about off-camera investigations. And guess what that would do? Allow the production staff to make web-based games, or text stories, or just blogs, for viewers (I hesitate to think anyone would actually be a "fan" of this drivel) to go exploring. In other words, it would allow them to move into the digital, interactive, internet age. (And you just KNOW the kind of people who like this shit are the weirdo internet conspiracy kooks who all think it's a fucking documentary- and all fo whom are avid members of ONLINE communities.)

Sense some hostility on my end? You might be a psychic- [insert irony here]- or it might be that I'm jealous people can write such sub-puerile bullshit and make a hella good living off it.

UPDATE: MEALWORMS ARE MEALWORMS, PUSHING THEM UP FROM A "CORPSE" AND CALLING THEM "MONSTER LARVAE" DOESN'T MAKE THEM NOT-MEALWORMS! (Technically, Mealworm Beetle Larvae.) Stupid, over-done, unsurprising, and shit-tastic. With as big a budget as they must have, you'd think they could use something other than standard horror staples as larvae for their "monster". Not to mention how stupid the whole concept is, scientifically speaking.
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