Holy Halloween Batman!: Oculus

It’s been a short month of recollection as we’ve celebrated one of my favorite holidays of the year. Last week was totally my bad. Sometimes life throws a little more at you than you’re able to get done in a timely manner, but we’re back this week looking at one of my newest favorite Halloween films, Oculus. If Friday the 13th was a great scare, Oculus will terrify you! It’s one of the most unsettling, and mind-game-playing movies that I’ve ever seen and I love it for that! There are a lot of twists and turns that happen, and I feel that if I were to reveal all of them to you, I’d spoil the entire potential experience so I’ll try to be spoiler light. However, it can’t be done without spoiling at least a little bit so consider yourself warned…

Oculus is a truly interesting movie. On its surface, it sounds like the kind of film that would really be a stinker, especially if you use a really condensed summary to describe it. If I were doing that sort of thing, I’d probably say something like, Oculus is a psychological horror film about a woman fighting against a sentient mirror. Sounds pretty silly, huh?! See, this is a movie that lives below the surface. It’s a nuanced film that requires quite a bit of attention from the viewer, and one that rewards that attention with all kinds of unnerving, and downright disturbing rewards. It’s also a film with an extremely interesting structure. That’s a little hard to describe in detail without spoiling the film, but let’s recap and see what I can squeeze in!

The movie opens with a tense game of cat and mouse between children Kaylie and Tim, whose father, under the influence of hallucination, has gone on a murderous rampage. Or does it? Actually, Tim is in therapy, and we’re given the impression that he’s been serving a therapeutic jail sentence for something. Next we see Kaylie, played by Karen Gillan, is at an auction, where she meets with the villain of the film, the mirror. I know it probably still sounds silly, but the jist is that the mirror is possessed, and it uses hallucinations to cause paranoia, and rage, and fear, which it feeds off of. The tale takes place in present day, but also we get snippets of the past, eleven years in the past to be exact. That’s where the structure of the film really shines in my opinion. If you read the Wikipedia article about the movie, it will tell you that we’re given the backstory via flashbacks, but in reality, those ‘flashbacks’ are directly tied to the present, and have just as much of an impact on said present as the things that are actually happening in present day.

In present day, Tim has just been released from his state mandated stay at the funny farm, and his sister has used her connections through her auction house to get her hands on the mirror. Her intention is to document what the mirror can do in order to clear her brother’s name, and then she intends to destroy the mirror. Tim becomes an unwilling participant in this exercise, and throughout the film, tries to serve as the voice of reason. As we shift between past and present, we find out that Kaylie’s dad, Alan, bought the mirror for his office when they moved into their new home. We also find out that Kaylie and Tim’s mom is played by Katee Sackhoff. We also see that both Kaylie and Tim are perpetually haunted by this mirror and the destruction that it wrought upon their family.

The movie only takes about 20 minutes to get us up to speed, and then the real fun begins. Kaylie ‘borrows’ the mirror, which has been sold, and is being held for shipping, and she takes it to their childhood home. There, she’s set up a veritable petri dish of ‘scientific’ toys, as well as a ‘kill switch’ in the form of an anchor should she find herself powerless to tell between reality and fantasy. This is where the movie takes the opportunity to get all up inside your head and play. The transitions between reality, and fantasy, past and present are so seamless that the viewer is never quite sure if what’s being presented is actually happening to the characters, or to what end the events are being portrayed. Sometimes we’re just getting some necessary backstory, and sometimes we’re being set up for some really disturbing gag.

As we witness the parents’ descent into madness in the past, in the present, Kaylie and Tim find themselves at the mercy of whatever malicious force inhabits the mirror. They find themselves slipping in and out of sanity. Things that seem perfectly harmless turn out to be harmful. Or do they?! It’s really hard to keep a handle on what is real and what is not as the ‘heroes’ battle this demented force. I really feel that this is an area where this film really excels. As the players descend into madness, and fear, our inability to keep track of what’s actually going on carries us along for a similar sort of ride. As I said, there are a ton of twists and turns along the way, and it makes for an extremely fun ride. Another area where I feel like this movie is just superb is in its subtlety. The gags are at times pretty overt, but usually, they’re flashes of movement, or an object that doesn’t quite fit in the scene. In a world where most horror films rely on cheap jump scares that are poorly set up ,and clumsily executed, this movie keeps its methods tight, and innovative.

The movie’s climax delivers in spades, but you’re going to have to see for yourself in order to find out what happens. Besides a great story, the movie has some great acting. All of the actors put in sterling performances. The pace is fantastic. It takes its time, but isn’t too slow. Also, the score is 100% the most effective part of the movie, mostly due to the fact that there’s hardly any of it in there. The lack of score, or any other music makes the moments where there is some score more impactful, and it really adds to the experience. It’s one of those films where nothing is wasted, and everything lends itself to great storytelling. I’ve seen very few films in the past that I’ve felt this way about, but this is one of my favorites to watch over and over again!

Oculus is a wild ride that leaves you guessing at every turn. It unsettling at its weakest, and disturbing at its best. It’s a great watch any time of the year, but especially in light of the holiday! I can’t say much more about it without completely spoiling it, but without that limitation, there’s so much good to say about this movie! It’s a real treat to behold, and it’ll leave you wanting more! I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up! Give it a watch, and see what a great psychological horror movie can deliver! And stick around for next week! We’re getting into that abstract ‘holiday season’ and I’ve got some great things planned!

Holy Halloween, Batman!: Happy Friday the 13th!

Well, we’re flying through 2017 like Luke Skywalker through the Death Star trench, and here it is already Halloween time again! I LOVE Halloween y’all! It’s one of my favorite times of the year. I hate the fall and winter, but Halloween serves as an exceptional consolation for all of the cold weather and short days. I love horror films, and candy, and costumes… It’s just my sweet spot of holidays, pun absolutely intended. So imagine my excitement when I realized that I’d get a friday the 13th in October! Not only do we get to start looking at some great Halloween movies, but I get to review Friday the 13th on friday the 13th! And let me tell you, I’m stoked. We’ve got some great stuff to reminisce about today. That said, let’s get down to it! (You’re welcome.)

For any of you who may not be aware, Friday the 13th was released in 1980. I could be wrong on this count, but to me, this film along with classics like Halloween, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre really played a big part in defining the modern slasher film as we know it today. And you can see that in all of the imitation films that followed shortly after, and even into today. However, in my opinion, these original films really set the bar for fun slashers. Friday the 13th tells the tale of Camp Crystal Lake, where in 1957, Jason Voorhees died as a young boy from drowning. The assumption, at least from Mrs. Voorhees perspective, is that a couple of counselors who were too busy coupling at the time were the cause of his death with their inattentiveness. So in 1958, two counselors who were also in the middle of coupling are murdered, and the camp closed. However, in 1980, a man named Steve Christy sets out to reopen the camp. To that end, he’s hired a handful of teenage camp counselors to help him finish some last-minute refurbishing in preparation for opening day.

That’s the stage upon which this film is set. From the very beginning of the movie, the locals are warning the camp affiliated folks that the camp is cursed, and telling them that their best course of action would be to go home. Sure enough, the one adult associated with the camp goes on a hardware store run, and pretty much immediately, everything starts going to pot. The teens all start dropping like flies, and some in some pretty spectacular ways. By the end of the film, seven of the eight people who worked at the camp are dead. It’s just a delight to watch! I’m going to focus more on the abstract feely aspect of this movie, and my observations of the technical aspects of the film because if you don’t know the story by now, there’s a good chance that you’ve been living under a rock the last 40 years. The story is pretty straightforward is what I’m sayin’. Teenage camp counselors start gettin’ frisky, and then they start dyin’. Pretty cut and dry. We will look at the end of the movie once it become prevalent to the conversation though because that absolutely warrants attention.

Okay, so having grown up several years removed from the release of this movie, I remember all of the tropes that it birthed even from a young age. However, hard as this may be to believe, I was far too naive and out of touch to put together what actually happened in the movie. I didn’t really get there until I watched the movie for the first time as an adult, ergo, it’s a little bit like I saw it spoiler free. I’m really impressed with the fact that I can rewatch this movie over and over again, and still jump during the jump scares. I realized when I was watching it for this review why that is. There’s a lot of mundane kind of ‘dead space’ filler action that happens throughout the film. Someone sets up archery targets, someone else is hanging a drain gutter on a building; things like that. They’re not exciting, they’re probably not entertaining in their own rite, and they may not do anything directly to move the plot, but the are a necessary component of the film, and here’s why: I realized that every aspect of the movie services the suspense. There’s an ebb and a flow to the how the movie unfolds, and that ebb and flow is the rhythmic rise and fall of the suspense that the film creates. The music serves the suspense, the pacing serves the suspense, the lighting serves the suspense, all of it serves the suspense. So when you’re watching and one of the characters is nonchalantly preparing for bed, and you’re wondering what point this scene serves, the point of the scene is that it’s psychologically providing your fight or flight response with a slight reprieve in preparation for the next thing that’s going to set you off. I saw it a ton as I watched, and I loved it! I’m not sure if the writer went in with that goal in mind, but I did an awful lot of slow clapping.

There’s another aspect of the film that helps to effectively scare the viewer, and that’s the fact that the thing doing the killing isn’t revealed until the very end of the film. This is something that I’ve been harping on for years! Modern horror films have an affinity for showing us everything! But think about the films that have left you feeling truly unsettled. I’m going to hazard a guess that those movies relied on what you couldn’t see as opposed to what they showed you to instill fear. In today’s CGI laden landscape of second-rate, soulless movies, Hollywood has forgotten that the reason we keep going back to the same things is that they work! This concept is no different. If you leave the terror unseen by the viewer, then the work of scaring the viewer falls on the viewer’s imagination, and that’s a really powerful tool. Once you show the viewer the thing that’s supposed to be scaring them, suddenly it can be identified, quantified and otherwise categorized, and once that happens, even if it’s a gnarly wall of teeth seething with blood and gore, the viewer has no reason to be scared because they can reconcile that threat and forget about it. It’s basic psychology, y’all. You’ll get a more effective scare out of the unknown than you ever will from the known. And this movie gets that! And that makes it a real treat to watch, again pun totally intended. Every death leaves you feeling a little more unsettled, and a little more unsettled, not just because the movie is building suspense in the background, but also because you don’t know what’s killing people. It’s extremely effective.

Famously, Joel Siskel just eviscerated this movie. He went so far as to publish the addresses of several individuals associated with the film with the suggestion that folks send hate mail. He hated it that much. I don’t know the context under which that all transpired, but one of his main complaints against the film is the ending. I gotta tell you, I love this ending, y’all! It just continues what the entire film has already done so well. You’re amped up because the bodies are stacking up. You’ve seen pretty much all of the teens get murdered, and you’ve seen the owner get shanked, but then a Jeep pulls up, and the last character standing, Alice, is supremely relieved because she thinks that Steve has returned to save her! Then she goes to meet him, but it’s not Steve. Oh no! Instead, it’s a kind looking middle-aged woman who has the sweetest, most disarming demeanor about her. You want instantly for her to be the savior of the film. Alice is rambling about all the other counselors being dead, and so the nice lady starts poking around and trying to get a bead on what’s happened. Then it starts… The lady starts acting a little… off… And this divergence in her demeanor just starts to snowball until you finally realize, THIS IS MRS. VOORHEES!!!!  RUN ALICE!!!! That realization sinks in, and your heart sinks just as quickly because you just know this is going to end badly. That transition from kindly to killer is quick, but again, really effective because you don’t know from the beginning who did the murders in 1958 so this nice looking woman isn’t even a potential suspect if you’re uninitiated, and even if you are, she sells the kind older woman bit so well.

At this point, you start thinking that you’ve got thing all figured out, but Friday the 13th has one last treat for you. There’s the obligatory struggle between the protagonist and the antagonist. At the end of that, things are left ambiguously unresolved, and we see Alice in the morning rays of the sun floating in the center of Crystal Lake in a canoe. There’s relieving music, with a slight twist, and police officers are moving to rescue Alice, and just when you think that everything is going to be okay, the most grotesque child I have ever seen emerges from the water and drags Alice under with him! It’s fantastic! And I jump at it every stinking time despite having seen the film quite a few times. After that, Alice awakens in the hospital, the sheriff and doctor are providing her with an after action report, and then it’s over…

It’s truly is a great ride, y’all. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this movie high brow, but it really does deserve its place in history as a classic. It really understands the psychology of fear really well and it uses all the tricks it knows to keep you off guard, and on high alert. I have seen a ton of horror films in my day, and I have to say, this one ranks among the best. I give it an enthusiastic endorsement! Oh! Kevin Bacon is in it! If that’s not reason enough to watch, I got nothing else, except to say, stick around for Holy Halloween, Batman! We’ve got a great line-up ahead!

Star Trek Discovery: Taking the Plunge and Sharing My Thoughts

I can confidently say that it’s been a pretty rough year to be a Trekkie for me. The year 2016 is a year that I had anticipated for some time knowing that it would mark the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. I had envisioned, at the time, a new movie, a continuation of whatever show was bound to be on the air at that point, and just so much merchandising. I had sincerely hoped that there would be a surge of off-the-wall never-before released stuff that I could add to my collection. There was quite a bit of that, but there was a dark cloud looming over all of the fanfare. We started off the year with a mediocre, and poorly received trailer for the upcoming film. Then, over the summer, CBS went after its own by suing the folks behind Axanar. Say what you will, I’m not here to take sides, or pass judgement as I wasn’t there and can’t accurately substantiate any claims pertaining to the event one way or the other. All I know is that the concept seemed really cool, and I would have like to have seen the project come to fruition. Next, we got the fan film guidelines. Again, say what you will. I’ve not seen where they’ve had that big of an effect on the fan film community, but it certainly doesn’t project an image of good will towards all of those loyal fans who have worked to keep your brand alive for you. It was a lot of negativity, but in the midst of all of that, there was the announcement of a new show! YAY! That got me pretty excited, and finally we’ve been able to see what the moderate hype has been all about.

Now, I opted out of reviewing Discovery last week because I wanted to have a more firm grasp on what the DNA of the show was going to look like before I started passing judgement. Also, there were a lot of opinions/reviews circulating, and I didn’t want to get lost in that. On top of that, I was kind of tired of all the in fighting amongst fans, and I didn’t want to lob yet another grenade into the tornado as it were. So here we are taking a look at the newest incarnation of Star Trek. Let’s just jump in shall we? And because it probably still needs to be said, this article could leave you feeling:

Disclaimer: I’m going to try as much as I can to not look through nostalgia glasses on this one so if I come across as a bit frank, I apologize. I’m just trying to look at the show for what it is right now. We’ll get to what it represents soon enough though. I have to admit, when I watched the first couple of episodes, I wasn’t terribly impressed. I can confidently say that the aesthetics are slick, and futuristic by comparison to our current technology, the makeup is done well, and the special effects have a cinematic quality that give the show a very grand appearance. However, much like the 1980 Corvette 305 California, which looked like this:

Regret and disappointment wrapped in a sexy candy shell...

But only managed to make 180 hp, I felt like the pilot episodes really rang hollow for me. Sure they kind of look like Star Trek, and yes, there are even a few of the elements that are cornerstones of the franchise, but nothing about the first two episodes seemed, to me, like those things had really clicked. They didn’t appear to firing on all cylinders. Wow, that was a clumsy analogy, but I think it works.

I’m not going to go too far into specifics in order to preserve the experience for those who haven’t had a chance to watch, but the basic breakdown is that Michael Burnham is the XO aboard the USS Shenzhou. The ship finds an ancient Klingon ship that’s run by a guy with a Jesus complex. There’s an altercation with one of said Klingon’s underlings wherein said underling dies. The heads of the Klingon houses show up, there’s a standoff, CAPT Georgiou makes the fatal error of seeming a pushover in front of the Klingons, which leaves an opening for the Klingons to ‘take back’ their rightful place in the galaxy as marauding conquerors who constantly expand their territorial borders. In the midst of all of this, Burnham is trying to avoid conflict by bucking Starfleet’s traditions, and giving the Klingons a black eye, an action which leads to mutiny on her part. The Captain and Burnham use subterfuge to cripple the ancient ship, then beam over to abscond with the Jesus complex guy, but the Captain is killed, and Cult of Lack of Personality is killed as well, which precipitates the war that will be the backdrop for the rest of the show, probably.

Take another read of that last paragraph if you must, but there’s a blatantly obvious observation to made here. That’s a really short paragraph, and it explains the basic premise of two episodes. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. I just want to say that I gots so high expectations when it comes to narrative storytelling in film, y’all. Our species has been at it for over a century. I really feel like that at this point we should have a firm enough grasp on the art form that we can fairly consistently pump out great stuff. That said, a lot of the story in these first two episodes was just lazy guys. The premiere episodes are a ton of heavy-handed exposition, and backstory that I feel like we didn’t need 80 minutes to cover. By the end of the episodes, I honestly felt like a lot had been spoken but nothing had really been said. “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” -Plato. That’s a fantastic quote from one of the greatest minds of all time, and one that I personally try to adhere to as much as I am able. The writers of these episodes apparently did not. I also prefer storytelling that relies on what it can show over what it can say. With as much exposition as happened, there wasn’t as much context as could have been established had the production team chosen instead to show what they wanted to tell.

A lot of people have complained about the new look of the Klingons. I’m pretty indifferent personally. What I did not enjoy, however, was a combined 30 minutes of subtitles. I can appreciate the use of foreign languages in order to punctuate the introduction of new characters who happen to speak a language other than English. I can even support the use of foreign languages to slyly communicate really important information in a sort of blink and you’ll miss it moment. And obviously, I enjoy foreign films with their subtitles. However, the expectation going into a show made in an English-speaking nation is generally that the bulk of the spoken language is going to be English. Filming nearly half of the premiere episodes in Klingon was distracting, tiresome, and annoying after a point. I found myself constantly rewinding just to make sure that I read something correctly. This goes much deeper than just choosing subtitled Klingon though. Anyone who has dealt with computers on a professional basis, and in particular web design, will tell you that certain fonts work better in certain situations. As a generally accepted rule of thumb, serif fonts are best utilized via a physically printed format. When designing for a digital format that’s going to rely on a screen, most graphic designers will use a sans-serif font. To demonstrate the difference, the font that I use for this blog is Arial. That’s a sans-serif font. It’s really easy to read off of a screen, which is why I use it. This is Times New Roman. It is a serif font. Notice how there are little flags coming off the leading edge of all the vertical lines in letters? Those lines tend to run together on devices that are back-lit, and make reading these types of fonts on a screen very difficult. And just to preemptively put out any arguments that I purposely changed the size of the font in order to exaggerate things, I didn’t. All of the text has been typed at 11 point font size. So the big question that I’d have if I could speak to one of the production team is, if I, a second year computer major in college, know this handy rule of thumb, why did they decide to use a serif font on their TV show?! Lazy. Enjoy comparison pictures showing the settings behind each font just for fun:

Arial

Times New Roman

I think that we’ve said enough about that for now. I have to admit, my critique of the premiere episodes is pretty harsh, but hopefully, you can see where it’s justified so far. I certainly think that there were some redeeming qualities there. For one, I like that some of the background sound effects hearkened back to older stuff. I also noticed the TOS motion pictures ‘Red Alert’ graphics. Those were a nice touch. I also really enjoyed the bulk of the score during the episodes. The theme song may take a little getting used to because it feels a bit obtuse to me, but I think, just like the Enterprise theme, I'll eventually come around. I could see the history of the Star Trek woven into the physical aesthetic of this new show, albeit in probably an overly subtle way. However, where these two episodes really failed to grab me is in the fact that although some of the hallmarks of Star Trek were there, like moral quandaries, and highbrow ideals, they were wielded pretty clumsily, and as a result, failed to make any kind of positive impact on me. It just left me feeling kind of meh, and I did not expect that reaction from a franchise that I have enjoyed for over thirty years.

This is the primary reason that I opted to wait a while to review Discovery. With as little as the premiere episodes actually said, I felt like I wouldn’t be giving the show a fair shake if I just reviewed what seemed to be, essentially, an extended trailer for the show that I had been anticipating all along. Hence, I dutifully waited, and then watched episode three, and I have to say, I was blown away! Why didn’t CBS just lead with this episode, guys?! Everything that the premiere episodes lacked, the third episode had in spades. There is a caveat here. I had been watching The Expanse in anticipation of writing this article because it’s shows like that that Discovery is apparently trying to emulate, and so I was in a mind space that left me fairly prepared for what I thought was coming in the first place. Anyway, after watching the third episode, I remarked to my friend that if CBS had just chopped all of the clunky, and unnecessary exposition out of the premiere episodes in order to combine them into one episode, and then followed that much more focused episode up with this, they would probably have had an even bigger response than they did. I know that everyone has been rejoicing that Discovery pulled in over 9 million viewers on premiere night, but in context, that’s not very good. In 1987, TNG managed 27 million viewers! That’s three times as many viewers, and I’m pretty sure that there were about two billion less people in the world so let’s just cool that jet okay?

However, episode three really had a lot to say, and I was listening in abject rapture the entire time. It was a lot easier to reconcile things like the design aesthetic seeming so futuristic by comparison to TOS, and all of the other differences the show has introduced when I was able to make the headcanon of USS Discovery being a covert experimental ship. It all feels very much in its proper frame when it’s in context of that ship, and that crew with whatever clandestine mission they’re on. The story was much more focused, and flowed much better. The atmosphere of mystery and intrigue is intoxicating. I was waiting on baited breath to find out what happened next as the episode unfolded. It was a nice change of pace. I found the bulk of the character more likeable, if not terribly relatable yet, but I’m willing to give quite a bit of leeway there because we’ve only had one episode to get to know the supporting cast of The Michael Burnham hour. Sorry about that dig. I’m just not seeing a strong ensemble approach to the show yet. I am hoping to see that improve over time though, and I’m willing to let it slide for now as the show tries to get its footing. I still don’t particularly like Saru, but he was way less annoying in episode three than in the previous episodes, and he graduated from merely being a McGuffin! SO happy!

Generally speaking, I enjoyed episode three way better than the first two. That’s not to say that there aren’t some minor fundamental complaints to be lodged. I’m sure that these are going to fall on apathetic ears, but I feel like they need to be said nevertheless. We’ll start with the rating. My wife is a pretty upstanding person, and she has a personal rule in life that she doesn’t watch R-rated films, or TV-MA rated shows. She was surprised and distressed to learn that Discovery had a TV-MA rating. One of those hallmarks of Star Trek that has helped it to endure for over 50 years is that it’s the type of show that can be passed from generation to generation, typically, at a pretty young age. My mom got me on it when I was three years old. And I started really getting hooked when TNG premiered, and I was four years old! The unfortunate thing about the rating that the creators chose is that I can’t in conscience justify showing it to my really young kids when I finally have some. Naturally, I want to expose them to Trek, and see if it takes if anything so that they can have the opportunity to enjoy it as much as I have. But, Discovery is going to be off limits for a very long time because some genius at CBS figured that it would be a great idea to push for a TV-MA rating. The next generation of Trekkies will probably have stories about watching Trek with mom or dad from a really young age, but Discovery might not be part of those childhood memories fondly recollected due to the more mature nature of the content. That makes me a little sad, personally. Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that there’s anything that anyone associated with the show wants to do that warrants anything more than a TV-14 rating. I’m of the opinion that opposition breeds better storytelling and creativity anyway so I’d be all for them trying to find more creative ways to tell that same story with a more family friendly rating.

The second, and last thing that we need to come back to is the pay wall. This has been a hotly debated issue for the last couple of weeks, and again, I’m sure that what I say here will only fall on deaf ears for the most part, but there’s something that everyone really needs to understand about how CBS has chosen to distribute their new show: It’s embarrassingly greedy. Let’s break it down a bit. The average cost per episode of Discovery is roughly 8.25 million dollars, and we know that there will be 16 episodes in season one. That means that season one is going to cost roughly $132 million. That’s a big number! In order to ‘offset costs’ CBS has chosen an exclusive streaming model in order to distribute the show in the US, while using an established streaming service everywhere else. It seems reasonable when you’re under the impression that CBS actually paid for it, but they did not. They licensed the distribution to Netflix, and Netflix foot the bill… For the entire first season. That means that these 16 episodes cost CBS nothing! As if that weren’t enough, they cut Netflix out of 49% of the global market share for streaming. On top of all of that, they opted for a tiered service model wherein customers pay for either a service that includes commercials, or pay a bit more for a service that doesn’t. I’ve heard many say that it’s just a few bucks a month, but consider that for those who pay for the service with commercials, CBS is ‘covering the costs of the show’ with three different sources of income. They got Netflix to pay, they get companies to pay them for air time over the streaming service as viewers are watching, and they’re getting the monthly subscription fee from the customer! That’s beyond greedy. And caught in the crossfire is a show whose creator believed in a world where mankind would someday evolve past petty things like greed. It’s pretty oxymoronic if you ask me, and I, for one, refuse to support the business model. Fox, NBC, and ABC already jointly contribute to Hulu, which is a reliable and affordable streaming service that has an established reputation for delivering what it promises. Disney has already announced that they’re developing their own streaming services (plural) that customers will have to pay for a al carte. I can imagine that this is at least in part as a response to CBS All Access. Fox announced that X-Files would be coming back for an 11th season in 2019. I’d be more surprised if they didn’t announce that was going to be broadcast exclusively on a streaming service of their own making. Once Fox bails on Hulu, that leaves NBC holding the bag, and you can bet that they’ll just follow suit and try to get their own exclusive service up and running. They’ve already got a service that their XFinity customers can get so they already have the capability.

Now I realize that there are probably a lot of people out there who are fairly new to the streaming scene. Welcome to the party posers! A lot of people don’t seem to realize why the cord cutting movement started in the first place. It started as an alternative to paying between $60 and $120 per month for cable or satellite TV services. The what was not terribly important. What was important, was paying less to legally watch the shows and movies that people enjoy. Netflix was able to offer a vast library of great shows and movies at an affordable cost because studios agreed that having a conglomerated service for content distribution was an effective and mutually beneficial way to do business with the customer. However, the Internet, as it is wont to do had to go overboard with the new thing, and so a ton of different services started cropping up. Most notably, there’s Hulu, and there’s Amazon Prime. I don’t think anyone begrudge those two services because they offer a wide variety of very different content. But, you also have Crackle, VRV, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, Funimation, Cartoon Hangover, Shudder, Geek and Sundry, Nerdist, Tested, and YouTube Red, just to name a few. Hopefully, you’re starting to see the problem here. It’s no big deal if it’s just one service trying to muscle in on the industry, but when there are so many cropping up so quickly that Wikipedia doesn’t even bother to maintain a list of them all, then things might be out of control. And the fact is that the pie is only so big. If you’ve got all of these services trying to snatch a piece, eventually there just won’t be enough left for anyone to be successful. And if we’re being honest, none of us wants to see our franchise taken down by something so mundane, and silly as market oversaturation. To anyone who’s okay with this ongoing madness, I have only one response:

I made this!

Despite my rantings, and my tone, I really am hoping that this new Star Trek can be a successful venture for everyone. I’m excited to see what twists and turns await as we find out more about this drastically different, but still vaguely familiar universe. I think that the show holds potential, and I’m willing to get on board with that. If episode three is an indicator of the quality we can expect from subsequent episodes, then I can get behind it. I look forward to boldly going with this new, and interesting concept. There. Rant over. Stick around for next week because Halloween is right around the corner, and we’re going to look at some spooky movies to celebrate!