Critical Mass Thanksgiving Spectacular: Jurassic Park

 

Hopefully it wasn’t lost on at least a few of you that we’re a bit late with this week’s review. There’s very good reason for that. See, for the last few months, I’ve been reading Michael Crichton’s smash hit Jurassic Park. My intention had always been to read the book and then do a compare and contrast of the book with the film, which is also a smash hit and a classic in its own rite. The problem is, I read really slowly. I was within 100 pages of the end as of Wednesday, and then there was Thanksgiving, and it’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s all I’ve got. At any rate, I redoubled my efforts and made a concerted push to finish and now, fresh off of a read through of the novel that launched a franchise, here’s my review of Jurassic Park, the books, and the movie.

Let me start by saying that this read through of the book was the first time that I had read this book. I’ve read The Lost World a couple of times, and so when people would smirk and shake their heads, I just didn’t fully understand, but that’s a conversation for later. I will try to keep on track. I had a few ideas of what to expect going into reading this book, but I have to say that I was pretty surprised by the differences in what went into the film of the same name, what was left out, and what was used later. I’m going to cover all of that in pretty high detail so if you haven’t actually read the novel for some reason, and you don’t want things spoiled, then read no further.

So the basic story between Jurassic Park the book and Jurassic Park the movie are more or less the same. Ingen, owned by John Hammond, has created a means of cloning dinosaurs and has used that knowledge to design a theme park attraction that they intend to open to the public in order to make all of the money. But there are problems. The investors are worried about never-ending delays, and some really inconsequential people affiliated with the Costa Rican government are worried about attacks that have taken place along the coast of the country. An odd looking leg is found and sent to a museum in New York City. In the meantime, the EPA is looking into Ingen’s activities in Costa Rica, and consult Grant and Sattler about their roles in the operation. Grant admits to consulting, but tells the investigator that it was all in the realm of the hypothetical. As a result of the investigation, and to assuage the concerns of the investors, Hammond asks Grant and Sattler to travel to the island in Costa Rica and take a look and then give their stamp of approval if they like what they see.

This set up, minus the overt concerns of the Costa Rican government, is pretty much the same as the film. It obviously plays out a little more intricately, but it’s basically the same stuff. We do find out a bit more about Gennaro in this set up. In the film, he’s just the corporate lawyer punching bag that Hollywood uses to ‘connect with the little guy’ by beating up on tired stereotypes. In the book, he’s a devoted family man who’s legitimately put out by the burden of taking this trip. We find out that he’s going to miss one of his kid’s birthdays as a result. It’s actually kind of nice to see him handled as a more dynamic character. Along for the ride are Ian Malcolm, and Tim and Lex as well, although they’re each handled slightly differently as well.

It’s when we get to the island that everything starts to diverge a great deal. For time reasons, the story and action of the film move at a pretty quick pace, but in the book, it all gets teased out a bit more. The arrival is pretty much the same, but very quickly, we diverge as the group are immediately treated to a more in depth tour of the main visitor’s facility. We get to see the lab where the genes are sequenced for the cloning process, but there’s a bit more explanation as to the how of things, and then the group gets to see the nursery where the animals are matured to a point where they can be released to the park. They also get to see the control room where the entire park is monitored, and it’s at this point that Hammond and some of the crew show off all of the safety mechanisms that are in place to keep everything under control. We’re presented with quite a bit more of the minutiae areas of the park, like the hotel, and Crichton takes great care to reiterate how unfinished a lot of it all looks. We’re meant to feel, and rightly so, that the park is still in the finishing stages of construction. It’s some subtle foreshadowing, but it really adds to the ambiance of the read.

It’s between the initial tour and the tour by truck that we’re introduced to the kids. The relationship is quite a bit different than in the film. In the book, the kids’ parents are getting divorced, a detail that was reappropriated in Jurassic World, and Hammond has only invited them to play the heartstrings of Gennaro so that Gennaro might make a more lenient judgement against the park to the investors. In actuality, Hammond sees the kids as quite the nuisance. The guided tour plays out a lot like the film. There are dinosaurs on the tour, however, and the group get to help Harding, the vet on the island, examine a Stegosaur, not a Triceratops. Also slightly different, Gennaro stays with Sattler and Harding when the rest of the party leaves. Actually, Gennaro acts pretty cool throughout. It isn’t until the end that he becomes a sniveling weiner. But we’ll get to that.

The book answered a question that I had always had. I always thought that the trucks had returned to the Tyrannosaur paddock because the tech, Arnold, had just run the trucks in reverse, but in the book, and much more logically, the tour runs by the paddock twice from two different sides. The power still goes out while the trucks are outside the Tyrannosaur paddock, and it’s still raining sheets. The attack is much more drawn out and suspenseful, but the results are about the same with a few exceptions. Lex, who is the younger sibling, gets thrown by the T-Rex. Malcolm gets bitten up by the creature instead of Gennaro. One of the trucks does get thrown off the road, and Tim still pukes in the vehicle before it falls out of a tree, an incident in which Grant plays no part. At the end of it all, Grant, Lex and Tim all end up together. Tim is also pretty cool throughout. He is the computer loving, dinosaur loving nerd, and Lex is a sports loving tomboy. She plays a useful role in being the youngest person in the party with the most accute senses. But Tim does quite a bit of problem solving throughout the experience, and he does a great job taking care of his sister. It’s actually pretty touching.

Nedry does shut everything down, but unlike the film, he doesn’t cover his tracks so well that Arnold isn’t able to reverse everything with a total shutdown of the system. Arnold does have to purge the memory of the commands before doing so though, and he’s able to track that down fairly quick. Actually, I think it’s interesting that with more leeway on the amount of time that the audience might devote to the experience, a lot of the intense elements of the story that get rushed in the film actually end up being solved in rather mundane ways in the book. Arnold tracks down the command that reverses the command that Nedry used to shut down all of the systems in the park. He does have to do a hard reset of the system to purge it from the RAM, but the reset is not as involved as in the film. Where the movie focuses, and for the better, the survival horror aspect of what the book offers, the characters in the book aren’t in a struggle for life until the last 100 pages or so. For the most part, they all think that they’re successfully working towards getting the park back to 100% under control. Arnold, Hammond, Wu, and even Muldoon all think that they’re just routinely reasserting their dominance over the park.

The expedition that Grant and the kids take is quite a bit different in places. They do nearly get trampled by stampeding dinosaurs that are getting chased by the T-Rex, but interestingly, the T-Rex is stalking them for most of their journey. There’s a sequence where they use a raft to travel by river towards the visitor’s center. During this time, they happen across the aviary, which features prominently in Jurassic Park III. It’s a different type of pteranodon that is used, but the principle is the same. This is a tense time in the book as they’re constantly stalked by the T-Rex. They also have a tense run in with the dilophosaurs, and it all climaxes with a plunge off of a waterfall. This part was borrowed somewhat in The Lost World. It’s at this part that they finally find a way to get back to the visitor’s center. The stakes are somewhat high as, unlike the film, Velociraptors have managed to sneak aboard the ship that ferries supplies to the island. And so Grant needs to let someone know to recall the ship so that the raptors don’t get onto the mainland.

As the book moves into the climax, it is quite a bit different. Hammond, who never really deals with the peril in the film, finds himself in the middle of the action. However, he’s in denial for most of the experience so I don’t think that that detail makes a lot of difference. The power is out during the climax, but it’s due to the reset draining the auxiliary generators as opposed to simply having to turn the main power on at the maintenance shed. The raptors do get out, and they do storm the visitor’s center, and one does get locked in a freezer, but several raptors also storm the hotel. Sattler gets to show off her athletic prowess as she runs as a distraction for the raptors. She climbs trees, and takes a plunge off of the hotel into a swimming pool. It’s quite impressive. It ends up that Arnold does go to the maintenance shed to get the power back on before someone else has to go, but in this case, it’s to get the second auxiliary generator on so that he can get the mains back online. Gennaro also takes a stab at it, unsuccessfully due to a raptor attack. In the end, it’s Grant that gets the aux generator on, and Tim uses that to get the main power back on.

On their end, Tim and Lex are chased through the restricted areas of the visitor’s center. Grant and Gennaro end up saving them, and Grant uses highly toxic chemicals to kill the raptors. The T-Rex does not save the day. Tim has to restore power under pressure because the raptors at the hotel are eating through the bars that cover the skylights at said hotel. I do have a problem with this part. While I have no doubt that a raptor could probably produce enough pressure to gnaw through a steel bar in theory, in practice, the steel is more dense than the raptor tooth, and I have to believe that the whole exercise would end with a toothless raptor as the steel would break the teeth, not the other way around. But whatever. Tim saves the day, and the raptors die horribly.

There’s a brief lull after this as Grant pushes to see how many raptors have hatched since the creatures had been introduced to the park because the wild breeding is totally a subplot, and an enjoyable one. It’s nice because the T-Rex is kind of the main villain leading up to the climax, but then the raptors become the main villains to everyone during the climax and the film uses this setup really effectively as well. But as a result, Grant, Sattler, and Gennaro have to go to where they believe a raptor nest has been built in order to count how many eggs have been successfully hatched. This is a sort of anticlimactic bit leading up to one of the main differences that I had been aware of for quite some time, and that is that the Costa Rican military napalms the crap out of the island to kill all of the dinosaurs. That element actually gets borrowed in Jurassic Park III as well.

I want to talk about one of the major differences that ends up being a pretty big problem later. Malcolm totally dies by the end. So does Hammond for that matter, but the Malcolm death is particularly troublesome because he’s a main character in The Lost World, both the film and the novel. We’ll talk about this a bit more when I finally get around to reviewing that book/film combination. However, at this juncture, it’s important to acknowledge that Malcolm ends up being one of the most popular characters in both the book and the film. I have to admit that I’m a little frustrated by this, not because I think he wasn’t a great character, but because I really feel like those who have read it and sing his praises fail to understand what Crichton was using this character to say. We’re all a bunch of Hammonds with our fingers in our ears. We refuse to admit that science inherently has no moral compass, and that our current scientific practices don’t require the development of the kind of discipline necessary to wield science safely and constructively. We just have a bunch of scientists out there trying to make a name for themselves, and become rock stars like Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson so that they can be famous and rich. It’s an arrogant and juvenile way to do science and until we’re willing to admit to our own lack of humility as a species, we’re going to make some major blunders I think. I feel like those who praise Malcolm might have a drastically different opinion of him if they actually thought about what he was preaching the entire time. Just saying.

As far as the film goes, this movie holds a special place in my heart. My grandmother took me to see it in theaters the summer that it came out. I was 10 so I felt like it was a rite of passage experience for me as I got to see this PG-13 film at such a young age. That whole summer was filled with JP toys, and seeing the film and getting to talk with the grownups about the film. It was a great experience for me. I love pretty much everything about this movie. I really think that Spielberg made the best decisions possible in considering what to include in the film adaptation, and what to leave out. What remains captures the spirit of the narrative exceptionally well, and what was left out would probably either have been cost prohibitive, or detrimental to the pace of the film. I think all of the roles were well cast. Each actor just did a bang up job portraying their literary counterpart, and it’s delightful to watch them on screen! The action is nail biting! Everything about this movie plays into the tension and serves to build that tension all the way up until the resolution of the climax. The special effects are just amazing, guys! The practical effects look so real! Even under the scrutiny of high definition, the effects draw you into the film. You really believe that you’re seeing an actual T-Rex, and a living triceratops as you watch this movie. The story and the plot move at a rate that allows you to soak everything in, but it doesn’t move so slow as to bore you. You’re given all of the information that you need, either exposition, or being shown things so that you never feel lost. There’s a perfect blend of horror and humor that make that building tension bearable. Of course, John Williams wrote some great themes for this movie. His theme for this film is iconic. I think one of the things that I find particularly poignant about this movie is that it was released right at the end of the practical effects era. Jurassic Park was one of the first films to really look at using computer generated effects. Spielberg used this tool sparingly, which I think was wise, but due to its success, a lot of films that came after started to over use CGI. I can’t say that this was necessarily all bad, but it definitely had a profound impact on how we watch movies, and it’s been used clumsily in a lot of cases. For that reason, this movie really stands as a testament to the type of ingenuity and brilliance that can make a great film without the crutch of using a ton of CGI.

I love this film! It’s been a huge part of my life since my childhood, and I’m thankful for the role that it played in my personal development into adolescence and eventually adulthood. It’s the type of film that will fill you with awe during each viewing. It’s definitely one that deserves to be passed down from generation to generation, and I can’t recommend it enough! If it’s been a while, give it a watch. Even if it hasn’t, give it another watch anyway! It’s absolutely worth the time, and you won’t ever be disappointed! Happy Thanksgiving! Stay tuned as we move into the season of that other holiday as I start looking at some holiday appropriate stuff that will hopefully light up your life!

Critical Mass Thanksgiving Spectacular: Back to the Future

Hopefully, it’s still a closely guarded secret that sometimes inspiration doesn’t hit me until pretty late in the game as far as this rag is concerned. What’s that? You guys have known that for quite a while? Okay then, moving on… Well it’s true. And often times, it hits me in some weird ways. I love doing this little series because it really gives me an opportunity to dig down deep into the nostalgia of my childhood and adolescence and reminisce about some of the highlights that made that period in my life wondrous and fun. I find that a few decades of life living has left me feeling somewhat jaded and hollow in terms of emotion, and I definitely have a harder time seeing the wonders of the world around me with the same kind of excitement that I felt as a kid. Don’t worry too much, I’ve mostly just become more difficult to impress. So these walks down memory lane are a fantastic opportunity for me to relive all of that to an extent.

To that end, I was listening to the score to Back to the Future on my way to school earlier this week, and I realized that it appears to have had a pretty profound effect on my upbringing. I found myself recognizing musical cues and instantly remembering what what happening in the film as I had heard that particular piece of music during viewings of the movie. If you exclude Star Trek movies, this is a pretty rare thing for my brain to do. I love film scores, but usually I get hung up on how the actual music makes me feel, and what it makes me think. I don’t usually find myself drawn back to the actual film and doing those things so that says a lot about how highly I regard this particular movie, and the franchise in general. Most kids had Star Wars growing up. I had Back to the Future. It’s not a film that made an impression on me during my adolescent years, but it did have an impact so let’s take a look at this marvelous piece of cinematic treasure!

Back to the Future starts out a bit on the abstract side. I like it, but we’re seeing a bunch of stuff that relates directly to Doc Brown, who is one of our main characters. In the background, and almost imperceptibly, there’s a news report going on about a plutonium theft. Right around the time that the news report mentions it, we see a case of plutonium. This really is a benchmark scene in my opinion because everything that we need to know about Doc Brown going forward is relayed here, but we don’t have to slog through boring exposition to get all of that information. It’s presented in a subtle way that may require a few watchings to really catch, but it’s done in an imaginative and fun kind of way. The door opens and we see someone walk in. Then we see them plug a cable into an amplifier, a really big one. A hand adjusts a bunch of knobs, and the hum of the amp can be heard quite easily, and you know that whatever is about to happen, it’s going to be loud. Finally, we see Marty McFly, our other main character, as he prepares to strum on, quite frankly, one of the weirdest guitars that I’ve ever seen. He does so, and the amp just explodes. It tosses Marty like a rag doll into some refuse behind him, and it takes a few moments for him to shake off the shock.

The phone rings, and it’s the Doc. Marty asks Doc what happened to Doc’s dog, the dog is safe, and oh yeah, don’t use the amp, there might be a short in it that needs to be fixed first. The irony just seethes, and then the clocks all start going nuts. The Doc says something about an experiment, and the clocks are all 20 minutes slow and Marty realizes that he’s late for school. It’s at that point that he hurries out the door, slams down a skateboard and hitches a ride on a freakin’ sweet Jeep. I like a few things about this few minutes of the film. One, it establishes the relationship between Marty and the Doc. It doesn’t really explain how or why a 50 year old man would befriend a teenager, but it does at least give us a clue as to why the teenager would want to hang out with the fifty year old man. Two, it creates the illusion that the two men have been friends for a while before we jump into the story. But we don’t really need an entire prequel movie establishing all of the particulars for us. There’s enough given that the audience is able to draw some pretty accurate conclusions based on the information given. Last, I like that we’re establishing character traits for our two heroes, but they’re not having to simply explain what they’re like to the audience. I really feel like that’s a lost art these days. Movies have a tendency to spoon feed everything to the viewer, and they take the path of least resistance in deciding what a character is going to be. It’s all very shallow, and boring. But BttF takes interesting characters and uses the runtime of the film to allow us to get to know those characters is a fairly organic way. This has the fringe benefit of letting audience members grow stronger emotional bonds to the characters, which it turn, gets that audience more invested in the narrative stakes that the film brings to table. It’s really good is what I’m saying.

After Marty reaches school, we’re introduced to his girlfriend, Jennifer. She too is late, and trying to find a way into the school that doesn’t get her caught by Principal Strickland, who is the king of hard nosed people. She mentions that Marty is on his last tardy before getting detention, establishing that this is a pattern of behavior for Marty, and further building that character for us. They unfortunately get caught, and Strickland gives them a stern lecture. Next, we’re treated to auditions for a battle of the bands concert. Marty and his gang are gonna make it big and this is their big break. They do a fantastic instrumental rendition of “The Power of Love”, but Huey Lewis himself tells them that they’re just too loud. This leads into probably the most pandering scene that you’ll get out of this movie. Marty and Jennifer are sitting in the park, and Marty is fretting over never being able to get signed to a record label. The catch phrase here is, “I’m just not sure that I could handle that kind of rejection.” It may be pandering a little, but it is pretty crucial to the story, as you’ll see. Also, Marty sees this also freakin’ sweet Toyota pickup that, honestly, I would absolutely drive even today because it is amazing, and he vows that someday he’s going to be able to afford the finer things in life. Also, a woman harrasses them for a donation to save the clock tower, which tells us exactly when a bolt of lightning broke it thirty years ago.

Marty goes home to see a tow truck dropping off what’s left of the family car. Marty rushes in to see what’s going on, and we’re somewhat chaotically introduced to Marty’s family, as well as Biff, who will become the antagonist of the film. Marty’s dad, George, is meekly trying to explain that he’d never noticed that the car had a blind spot before as Biff is railing him for not giving warning about that ‘blind spot’. Through the dialog, we get that Biff is just a grade A douche who has bullied his way through life, and most of that has apparently been directed towards George, which is further reinforced by a conversation they have about George writing work reports for Biff. Marty’s mom Lorraine, sits at the kitchen table after dropping a cake that she had made for a brother that was in jail. She’s probably drinking. There’s a lot going on here, but the jist is that Lorraine has been a little disappointed by the way life has turned out, and she’s crawled into the bottle to forget some of that. You can tell that she absolutely loves George, she just also seems to long for a slightly better life.

Marty starts to whine about the car, and the big camping trip with Jennifer, and Lorraine starts talking about how when she was his age, she didn’t do all of that hinky stuff. She talks about meeting George, and how her dad had hit George with his car and Lorraine had nursed him back to health. She briefly mentions a school dance where they kissed for the first time, and in this 90 seconds or so, she’s given us all of the information we’re going to need for the rest of the film. It’s not super elegant, but it gets the job done. Marty goes to sulk in his room, and the Doc calls to ask him if he would meet the Doc at the mall at 1 am. Marty agrees. Next we see, Marty is rudely awakened by his alarm clock and he heads over to the mall.

At the mall, Doc is rambling, and it can be a little incoherent as he’s fiddling with things, and prepping things, but it all builds to the revelation that the Doc has built a bonafide time machine, and what’s more, he’s put it in a DeLorean. He pulls it out of a trailer, and Marty drools over it before the Doc starts prattling on about how the thing works. It’s actually somewhat important information, at least for Marty, but it’s done in a pretty nonchalant way that attempts to minimize and misdirect the audience a bit. I really like that we’re presented the information in much the same way as Marty would process it because it really helps me at least to better connect with that character. The big takeaway that Marty actually latches on to is that the car is powered by plutonium, which he understandably is curious about, specifically how the Doc managed to procure some of it. The Doc tells him about screwing over some Libyan nationalists and boasts about how they’ll never find out. The two then do, presumably, that universe’s first time travel experiment. They put the dog in the car, the set the time circuits for one minute into the future, and then they send the dog one minute into the future. Once he returns, they compare stopwatches that had been precisely calibrated in order to verify their findings.

After a bit of fanfare, the Libyans come to collect on the debt that the Doc has incurred. There’s a bit of a fire fight, but the Doc is killed. Marty jumps in the car and takes off, unaware that the fuel has been replenished, and as he’s driving, he arms the time circuits. The destination point is set for the day that the Doc invented time travel, which is 30 years in the past. Marty participates in a chase with the Libyans, and then decides that since he’s in a ‘sports car’, he’ll just smoke them with the speed of the car. He punches the gas, and it’s at this point that I start to wonder how the Doc made a remote controllable car out of a vehicle with a manual transmission. But I get over that pretty quickly as Marty reaches that fabled, and indelibly ingrained 88 MPH. The time circuits trip, and he rockets into the past. When he reaches said past, he crashes into a barn. There’s a family there, and the dad has a shotgun. Marty is trying to diffuse the situation, but the son has a comic with an alien on the cover that looks an awful lot like Marty at the moment. So Marty gets back in the car, takes off and runs over a pine tree in the process. He drives to where home should be, but finds that it’s just barely in the beginning stages of development.

He decides to park the car in a hiding place, and huff it into town. I really enjoy this sequence because the town square set is just so quaint, and “Mr. Sandman” is a great song. It all establishes everything so well. It’s definitely a pleasant slice of Americana. Marty is just in shock, and Michael J Fox does an incredible job acting the part. He fumbles around as he tries to make sense of what he’s seeing, and eventually ends up in the diner. The diner owner gives him a pretty hard time as they play a game of “Who’s on first?”. Once that’s sorted out, we’re introduced to Biff and George. Our assumptions are confirmed as we see Biff bullying George, and demanding that George write out a school report for him. George pretends to take it in stride, and Biff finally leaves, leaving an opportunity for a  somewhat awkward exchange between Marty and George. After that, Marty tries to follow George as George takes off. In the next scene, we see George watching Lorraine change through her window. He’s got binoculars and he’s perched in a tree. You do the math. But George falls just as Lorraine’s dad is driving by the tree. Marty instinctively pushes George out of the way, and gets hit by Lorraine’s dad’s car.

Marty wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a pretty good looking young woman doting over him. He starts asking questions to figure out what’s going on, and learns that the rather attractive young woman by his bedside is Lorraine. He then starts to get out of bed, only to realize that his teenaged mom has stripped him down to his underpants. Geez, Marty’s parents were sexually repressed pervs! Lorraine has concluded that Marty’s name is actually Calvin Klein on account of that’s what’s written on his underwear. Marty rolls with it, a pretty smart decision considering the circumstances. Lorraine then tries to get fresh with Marty, but she’s interrupted by the dinner call. At dinner, Zemeckis, the director, decides to reiterate everything that just happened by showing Lorraine playing footsie with Marty. There’s some awkward banter about reruns on TV, and Marty abruptly excuses himself to ‘head home’ very shortly after said footsie starts. Marty goes to the Doc’s house, and tries to convince him that he’s actually from the future. There are some great obscure foreshadowing lines here, and I think that it’s absolutely wonderful that they worked in. In the end, Marty has to show Doc the video that he took after they’ve retrieved the car.

Doc suggests that Marty just lay low until they can figure out how to get him home, but then Marty remembers that he screwed up his parents meeting for the first time. Doc expresses extreme concern over this unfortunate circumstance, and it’s decided that Marty needs to repair things. And so, the next day, Marty and the Doc show up at the school, and not surprisingly, Strickland is the principal. During lunch, Marty tries to talk George up to Lorraine, and get on board with the idea of going to the dance with George, but there’s a verbal altercation between Marty and Biff, and this just ingratiates Marty onto Lorraine even more. Sensing that he’s lost Lorraine, he goes to try and convince George to ask Lorraine to the dance. George is pretty adamant that he just can’t do it. We find out eventually that the reason is that George is a huge sci-fi nut, and his favorite radio, or TV program comes on at the same exact time as the dance happens. I have a buddy who uses this excuse a lot, and all I can say is that that is self-defeating quitter talk. Marty knows this, and finally is able to talk George into going, but the plan is that Marty is going to take Lorraine, and provide a way for George to be the hero. And, dammit, George has to swear! It’s just great! Also around this time of the film, the Doc concocts a plan that they can run a metal pole into the fuel chamber of the DeLorean, and use the lightning strike on the clock tower to give the time circuits the juice to get Marty back to the future! It’s pretty brilliant sounding in context.

Now, via a picture that Marty keeps in his wallet, he knows that because of the change to the timeline, he and all of his siblings are starting disappear from future history. This is how the film ups the stakes for the viewer. If Marty fails, he and his siblings will simply never exist, and by this point, we’re pretty attached to Marty so we absolutely want him to succeed. To that end, we see Marty and Lorraine have ‘parked’ outside the school. Marty is still trying to talk George up to Lorraine in an act of futility. Lorraine lights up a cigarette and whips out a flask of alcohol and Marty suddenly realizes that all the remarks that Lorraine had made about being their age were total BS. Things at least appear to be going as planned, except that Lorraine kisses Marty, and then there’s the awkward conversation about kissing one’s brother. It’s cool though. Biff shows up to rape Lorraine so at least George is really going to be a hero, assuming that he can muster the courage to confront Biff. Marty is taken off by Biff’s goons to get beat up behind the gym, and Biff gets seriously rapey. It’s not easy to watch. However, George shows up just like he and Marty had rehearse, only now it’s Biff. Biff tells George that if he knew what was good for him, he’d leave. George starts to move off despite Lorraine’s plaintive cries, but at the last minute, he decides that he’s not going to take it from Biff anymore, and he turns back and with as much confidence as a sci-fi loving recluse can muster he says, “Get your damn hands off her!” I’m always so proud at this moment in the film!

Biff gets out of the car and starts twisting George’s arm in a way that I well and truly believe could have broken said arm. Biff also continues the taunting. This is the moment when George makes the I’m-done-being-the-doormat face, and somehow lays Biff out in one punch. It’s pretty stinking awesome! Lorraine is saved, and George gets to take her to the dance! It seems as if the day is saved, but the movie has one last wrench for this part of the works. Biff’s goons locked Marty in the trunk of a car. Well, to be more accurate, they did so after some gangster looking musicians piled out of said car in a billow of smoke. Unfortunately, the keys are in the trunk so one of the musicians has to jimmy the trunk open. In the process the guy slices his hand. Oh no! Now they can’t finish their set because that was their guitar player! But wait! Marty plays guitar! He offers to play as a thanks for the backup, and they take the stage, probably stoned. It’s pretty tense as we ride the will-they-kiss-won’t-they-kiss train. And George almost doesn’t because some jerk tries to steal Lorraine away from him, but George asserts himself, and in the end the kiss. Marty is understandably overjoyed as he was starting to dissolve from the timeline, and as a victory celebration, he introduces George’s classmates to proper rock and roll. It’s one of my favorite parts of the movie because Marty gets so off track on his genre types, that by the end, everyone is just staring in a stupor.

Anyway, the happy couple take time to thank their matchmaker, and Marty rushes off to meet the Doc. He arrives just in time to move the car back to start line that the Doc worked out to give Marty enough space to get the car up to 88 MPH. Marty does this as the Doc is trying to get the metal cabling strung up. The storm begins to build as the Doc realizes that a snag on a tree branch has left him without enough cable to make a connection to complete his circuit. He tinkers, and in the end, winds up pulling the cable out of its plug at the top of the clock tower. I guess that sort of stuff just wasn’t terribly reliable back in the day. So the Doc makes the perilous decision to fix things at the top of the clock tower. It’s all very intense as he’s trying to get everything back together, but in true Hollywood fashion, he succeeds at the very last moment! Marty is able to get the car started at the last minute as well, and hit the cable at just the right moment to activate time circuits and make the jump back to his time. He’s pretty devious though. He put enough time on the clock that he would be able to drive to the mall and save the Doc.

He makes the jump, but in true DeLorean fashion, the car dies, again. And so Marty is left to hot foot it to the mall. Alas, he gets there just in time to see the Doc murdered again! On no! Marty rushes to his side only to find that the Doc has equipped himself with a bullet resistant jacket. Turns out, Doc is a bigger fan of being alive than maintaining the timeline. Anyway, Marty heads home and gets a little sleep before seeing some of the changes that his meddling has made. For one, his parents are a lot younger looking than they were at the beginning. Two, his dad is now a successful sci-fi author. On a related note, Biff is now a bumbling, snivelling tool. Oh, and Marty is now the proud owner of that freakin’ sweet truck from the beginning of the movie. He heads over to check on Jennifer, and as they’re reuniting, the DeLorean appears! The Doc starts prattling on again, and tells Marty that they need to go to the future to fix some issues with Marty and Jennifer’s kids because they’ve turned into brats. Then we get the, “Where we’re going, we don’t need.... Roads…” line, and they fly off into the great beyond with the proudly displayed words, “To be continued…”

Man, where to start with this movie? It’s just an all around awesome classic! I don’t really have any complaints with this film, but I’m almost certain that there’s some nostalgia glasses clouding my judgement there. I grew up on this trilogy. BttF 2 is one of the first movies that I remember seeing in theaters. This movie is just a fun watch no matter what age you are. It’s chock full of imagination, and excitement, and wonder, and it just taps into a part of my soul that takes me back to that innocent age when the universe was limitless, and I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. The cinematography is interesting. The acting is great. The soundtrack is awesome, and iconic. And it just hits all of those technical marks so well. For what it's doing, it handles the non-linear aspect of time travel really well, which speaks volumes to the talent of the writers and director. Does it have its flaws? Probably, but it packages everything so well that you don’t really notice them. It captures your attention from the very start, and doesn’t let up until the very end. It’s a triumph of cinematic accomplishment in my opinion, and I love watching it no matter how short a time it’s been since my last viewing. I can’t recommend it enough and I strongly encourage you to give it a watch if you’ve never seen it! And stay tuned for our last week of thanksgiving to see what I’ve got up my sleeve to bring us home!

Critical Mass Thanksgiving Spectacular: Kelly's Heroes

We’re back this week looking at another film that I enjoyed a lot during the formative years of the development of my critiquing skills. It also happens to be Veteran’s Day weekend this weekend, and I would like to give a shout out to any veterans no matter where you may be to say thank you for your service and your sacrifice. Last year around this time, we looked at Memphis Belle, a fantastic WWII drama with huge star power, a great story, and some tense action. In keeping with that, now, tradition since I’m doing a similar thing again, I’d like to look at Kelly’s Heroes. As I’ve said before, growing up, we had a bunch of movies that we owned on VHS and there were a key few that I would watch over and over again because I enjoyed them so much. Kelly’s Heroes is one of those movies. It’s a little bit lighter take on war films, but only just a little bit so. It’s still got its serious tones, and its themes, but it also has a lighter side that I really enjoyed as a teen. Also, much like Memphis Belle, this film feels like it could have drawn from actual events, but it’s just a fun piece of fiction that excels at entertaining as far as I can tell. With that in mind, let’s take a look, shall we?

The film primarily focuses on Private Kelly, played by Clint Eastwood. Kelly used to be a lieutenant, but got demoted after botching an operation in Nancy, France. He didn’t really do anything, he was just playing scapegoat for an incompetent superior who made some bad calls during the operation, and so he’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder. During his regular duties, Kelly and his crew capture a Nazi colonel who has a briefcase filled with gold bars. Kelly gets the colonel really drunk and uses that pliability to learn that in a village called Clermont, 30 miles behind German lines, the Nazis have stashed $16M worth of gold in a bank. This probably would have been an issue had someone more official been able to conduct a formal interrogation, but shortly after spilling these beans to Kelly, the colonel is killed when a Tiger I destroys the building where he’s being held.

Kelly, who remember is really jaded towards his army, decides that he wants to sneak behind enemy lines and steal the gold for himself so that he can have a substantial nest egg to retire on after the war. He realizes pretty quickly though that he’ll need help and resources if he’s going to pull it all off. This is where Supply Sergeant “Crapgame” comes into the picture. Crapgame is played by Don Rickles, and I gotta say, he does a great job in the role. I mean, he is hysterical at times, but also confrontational in his lack of optimism. It takes Kelly a minute to really win him over, and the hail mary play is Kelly actually showing him the gold, and explaining the exponential amount that awaits them in Clermont. Nearly ten years of playing RPGs has taught me that most men can be easily persuaded by money, and Crapgame is no different. He’s vital to the whole plan because he can get things, both over official channels, and more clandestinely. So it’s a good thing that he decides to play along.

Also vital to the success of Kelly’s plan is the support of a tank platoon. He knows from his previous experience that the Nazis love their mechanized support, and that in order to protect themselves from this threat, they’ll need to be able to respond in kind. Lucky for Kelly, a platoon of three Shermans, led by platoon commander “Oddball” just happen to be between gigs for maintenance and resupply. Oddball is played by Donald Sutherland, and hopefully, I don’t have to say anything more. If you’ve seen him in M*A*S*H, or more recently, the Hunger Games series, you should be well aware of his acting abilities. I think Oddball is probably my favorite part of this film. I’m kind of fuzzy on all of the context of the film’s production, but it came out in 1970 so counterculture was still kind of a thing at that point and Oddball represents in spectacular fashion. The decision is that Kelly and the group that he puts together will rendezvous with Oddball and his tanks closer to Clermont to avoid drawing unnecessary attention.

As far as Kelly’s group is concerned, he realizes that his own men have been getting shafted because their commander, Captain Maitland, has been working to enhance his own career to the detriment of everyone else under him. So convincing the crew to go along isn’t terribly difficult with the exception of one hold out. Master Sergeant “Big Joe”, played by Telly Savalas. I love Telly Savalas! He was in The Battle of the Bulge, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Bonanza, The Dirty Dozen, and he played Blofeld in One Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He was a great actor in his career, and it’s always a pleasure watching him on screen. Anyway, he finally agrees to join the operation and the caper begins!

As I said, Kelly and Oddball take different routes to Clermont. In the process, Oddball has to enlist the help of a bridging crew in order to keep momentum. That, of course, means more hands in the honeypot at the end of the day, which didn’t sit well with Kelly, but was an unavoidable measure. It’s okay though because during the trek, the bridging crew is lost. I can’t remember if they’re destroyed, or just put out of commission in other non-lethal ways. Kelly has taken his own losses along the way as well. He and his crew found themselves in a mine field and lost one of their privates. Geez! Get your head out of the gutter! I mean the rank, not the anatomical feature you silly person!

The finale is just great! The two forces fight their way the rest of the way to Clermont, and in the process of that, two of those Sherman tanks are lost. This really adds to the tension of the final act as Oddball’s remaining Sherman plays an intense game of cat and mouse with two Tiger I tanks that were left with infantry support to guard the town. I’m not an expert in such things per se, but I do know enough to know that the Sherman is extremely outclassed in this match up, especially with the numbers of the Tiger platoon. It’s absolutely wonderful watching all of the tanks  stalk around the narrow streets of the town, barely missing one another as Oddball sets himself up for an ambush that will allow him to get a shot on the Tiger tank’s side armor. I like this little detail, and that the director and writers chose to emphasize it because in reality, Sherman tanks didn’t have the firepower to really damage Tiger tanks head on. They had to score shots on either the side or the back of the Tigers where the armor was not as thick. In this case, Oddball’s patience pays off, and he’s able to disable the Tiger tanks with a well placed shots to the side and I believe he gets one in the rear, but his tank breaks down, leaving one more Tiger that remains parked right in front of the bank.

In the meantime, Kelly and his crew have eliminated the infantry. There’s still the German Grey Tiger left in the room though, and a stalemate results as Kelly tries to figure out how to finally reach his goal. It’s Crapgame who comes up with the most realistic solution in the end. He suggests that Kelly fall back on good old fashioned diplomacy… ...And bribery… To that end, Kelly asks the tank commander for a moment to chat. They discuss the nature of the loot that the tank is currently guarding, and Kelly makes absolutely certain that the commander understands the sheer immensity of the amount of gold being discussed. Kelly offers the commander a share if they’ll help break into the bank. After some personal deliberation, the tank commander agrees and blows the vault door off the bank vault. The look on this guy’s face when he sees the gold is just priceless! I seriously feel like the actor nailed the I-just-crapped-a brick look. But at any rate, the US guys, and the Germans split their spoils and skedaddle just before General Colt, played by Carroll O’Connor, rolls into town expecting a fanfare welcome. I suppose I did forget to mention that part, didn’t I? It wouldn’t be a great film if there wasn’t any tension, and the tension for the bulk of this film stems from General Colt, and his relationship with Kelly. He doesn’t trust Kelly at all, and he’s always on the lookout for a way to wash Kelly out of the Army. In the finale, Big Joe buys the guys some extra time by telling all of the French villagers that General Colt is General Charles de Gaulle who was the head of the French Provisional Government from 1944-46, and who was later elected to be President of France. He was a pretty important guy, and the welcome that the French give General Colt as a result of this farce is befitting someone of such stature.

In all, this is an extremely entertaining classic. It didn’t get a ton of fanfare when it was released, but it’s certainly become a cult classic over the years, at least it has if you belong to the Cult of KC. It’s got a great narrative structure as a caper film, and as such, it follows in the footsteps of films like Ocean’s Eleven, and such. It’s got great humor, but it balances well with the serious stuff so that it can be taken seriously as well. I enjoy watching these actors together as anyone who has seen films from the 60s through to the early 70s is going to know most of them, at least in passing. This film has always been a joy to watch for me, and huge source of entertainment for me. I can’t recommend it enough. Do yourself a favor and google the end credits song. It’s awesome, and you’re welcome for that. Give it watch, and stay tuned for next week to see what I’m thankful for this time of year!

Critical Mass Thanksgiving Spectacular: Star Trek VI

I’ve done a number of Star Trek film reviews since starting up this modest gig, and one of my goals in beginning that journey was to eventually do a review of all of them. And there’s no guarantee that I won’t repeat as the years go on to try and tackle the material from new and interesting angles. For now though, we’re just going to try and get through each one once. To that end, and because we’re in that season when we consider things that we’re grateful for, we’re going to take a look at Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. This is another one of those movies that my family had on VHS when I was in high school, and as such, it got a lot of play time at my house, especially when I was home by myself and bored. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t start to accumulate Star Trek movies until I was out of high school, and so my scope was pretty limited. However, if you’re going to be limited, you might as well have access to some of the best, right?

Undiscovered Country is considered by many to be one of the ‘good’ Star Trek movies. I’m inclined to agree for the most part so we won’t harp there. Some do see it as being slightly heavy-handed, and still others feel like the presentation of the subject matter is a bit dark for Star Trek. This has maybe evolved into somewhat of an irony by this point, but whatever. This is probably also showing how long it’s been since I’ve been able to have a discussion on the matter with anyone, but those two points are what I tended to hear over the years as being the most prevalent criticisms. With those few points in mind, let’s take a look at Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

The movie opens with Hikaru Sulu finally getting a first name, and a command of his own via the USS Excelsior from the third film. He and his ship are mapping things in the Beta Quadrant, and all seems well until a giant wave of energy begins to violently harass the ship. As the ship bucks, and rocks, the crew struggle until finally restoring control. It’s at that point that the science guy pinpoints the origin of the wave, and identifies it as one of the moons that orbits the Klingon homeworld, Qo’nos. The ship picks up a brief distress signal from the moon where it appears that hell itself has taken hold, and then as the message ends abruptly, a PR message is transmitted directly to Excelsior warning them to mind their own dang business. Of course, Sulu is going to report things, and follow the regs because he’s generally speaking, an awesome guy who has a deep appreciation for protocol.

We cut to Kirk and crew settling into a classified briefing that is, surprisingly, led by Spock. We get the recap of the fact that a moon orbiting Qo'nos exploded, and now the Klingons are in huge trouble and as a result want to pursue diplomatic negotiations towards a potential peace treaty. This is actually a great place for the cast of TOS to end up as the Klingons had been the villains throughout the run of their many adventures, and so I feel like it sets up a good bookend to Kirk’s character arc regarding his regard for the Klingons. Also, if it wasn’t blatantly obvious to the more seasoned viewer, the events in the film closely resemble the events surrounding the accident at Chernobyl, and I happen to have a huge, and morbid interest in all things Chernobyl so that’s totally okay by me! Anyway, Kirk and crew are asked to do one last job and escort the diplomatic group from Qo’nos to Earth for peace talks. This doesn’t make Kirk terribly happy, nor anyone else for that matter, but duties is duties and so they’re going to do this thing anyway.

There’s a bit of pomp and circumstance as the trusty, and admittedly old, Enterprise is launched from the mushroom station. We get to meet a new character, Valeris, who Spock represented at Starfleet Academy. She’s played by Kim Catrall and she wears a uniform that doesn’t match, but if you can get past that, she seems okay. They start on their way to meet up with the Klingons, and we get some insight as to Kirk’s real feelings on the matters at hand. He’s upset by the prospect as he’s never trusted the Klingons, but he’s warily optimistic at the prospect of peace between the two powers. Again, this pretty closely mirrors the real-world situation that the US found itself in after the collapse of the USSR. How do you learn to trust an organization that’s been your enemy for so long?

It’s at this jumping off point that Kirk and crew meet up with the Klingons. As any good captain would do, Kirk invites everyone to dinner for some pre-diplomatic shenanigans. The dinner is… awkward… I mean, how do you expect a social function between mortal enemies to go? There’s some fine small talk in the beginning, but then the Romulan Ale kicks in, and everything goes to pot. There’s posturing, and finger pointing, and decrees of doom, and it’s actually morbidly funny to behold, which expertly balances the serious real-world implications of the events being portrayed. Needless to say, the evening goes pretty badly, and Kirk can’t wait to get the Klingons off the ship so he can slink beneath a rock and wallow in his faux pas. And that’s exactly what happens. The Klingons leave, and the senior crew go off to deal with the consequences of extreme inebriation.

Kirk lays down in bed to make a captain’s log, and then he’s called up to the bridge by Spock, who infuriatingly, is not intoxicated, and Spock points out a radiation surge. It’s so big that it could only be caused by another ship, but there are none within scanner range. It’s about at that moment that the unmistakable crimson flares of a photon torpedo streak through space and impact the Klingon ship. Mere moments later, a second torpedo also strikes the ship. Kirk is on the horn with Scotty, who is confused as they still register fully loaded, but Kirk has to do something. We cut to the Klingon ship where two people wearing Starfleet gear beam aboard and start shooting the place up. This is a pretty violent sequence as the phasers are cutting off limbs, and Klingon Pepto-Bismol blood is floating freely through the corridors. It’s violent, but visually stunning. The whole fiasco ends with Kirk and McCoy beaming over to the Klingon ship to help, but then getting arrested.

The movie breaks to some diplomatic political stuff, and you’d think that this would just be boring and that it would slow everything down, but it’s so sparse and focused that the contextual commentary that it lends is quite interesting and helpful. Depending on the version you’re watching, the Klingon ambassador gives an impassioned speech about how Kirk must be guilty, and that he will stand trial for his crimes. After he leaves, Sarek agrees with the ambassador’s position purely from a procedural standpoint. In the director’s edition, after we hear from Sarek, the Marines come in a brief the president on a rescue ploy that they’ve concocted, creatively named ‘Operation Retrieve’. This whirlwind of political activity keeps things fresh while providing that multi-faceted narrative that makes this such an interesting film.

There’s then a ‘trial’, but that’s mostly for show as the Klingon judge rules guilty, and sentences Kirk and McCoy to serve a life sentence mining minerals on an ice planet. After that, there’s some more diplomatic talk about renewing peace talks only this time we get to see it from the Klingon’s perspective, and they’re totally considering just blitzing the Federation in order to procure new sources of fuel, and new places to colonize. However, the chancellor’s daughter wants to stay the course. Oh, but she totally wants to revenge kill Kirk; don’t be fooled, she’s still a Klingon. Anyway, Kirk and McCoy get the pep talk on the ice planet that there’s not way to beam off, but if they misbehave, they’ll be thrown out on the surface where they’ll freeze to death pretty quickly. As they’re settling in, they’re harassed by an alien that wants Kirk’s coat. A fight ensues, which Kirk wins by the skin of his teeth, and then they officially meet Martia, who is totally going to help them escape.

It’s throughout this second act that the plot gets pretty crunchy. You’ve got Kirk and McCoy dealing with being ‘criminals’, you’ve got the Pres trying to salvage peace talks, but then you have the Enterprise crew trying to figure out who really dunnit, and how they dunnit. In this process, Spock really shows some great blending of human and Vulcan traits. I really feel, again, like this is a fitting end to Spock’s arc as a character. All of the characters get their own time in the spotlight with the exception of Sulu, who is relegated to some short bits aboard Excelsior. I suppose that’s just one of the cons of command… At any rate, Spock and crew eventually figure everything must hinge on a Bird of Prey that can fire while it’s cloaking device is engaged. This is a huge and singular thing for the Trek universe because being able to be invisible and shoot things is God level technology that would break the universe straight in half, and I think that Nic Meyer handled things with the sort of restraint that the situation required.

Having figured everything out, and being the cunning Vulcan we came to love, Spock hauls tail to the Klingon ice ball. As it turns out, he had put a discrete tracking patch on Kirk’s uniform before Kirk and McCoy went to the Klingon’s ship. I’ve watched numerous times trying to see if they had set that part of the story up without any flubs, and they are super tight in making sure that that patch is where it is supposed to be when it’s supposed to be there. So Spock hauls tail to the Klingon ice ball to rescue Kirk and McCoy, who in the meantime, have managed to break out of the prison, but Kirk, being the cunning captain that we’ve all come to love, has figured out that their help was actually just luring them into a trap! This leads to some pretty entertaining shenanigans wherein Kirk fights himself, and McCoy finds himself caught helplessly in the middle of the scuffle. The help is killed by the Klingon who was supposed to be in charge of things, and just as he’s about to spill the beans on everything, Spock beams the two of them back up to the ship! Whew! That was a close one!

After beaming up, Kirk and Spock confront Valeris, who as it turns out, was in on the whole thing the whole time, and Spock brain rapes her to get the remainder the puzzle pieces that have been missing. It’s at this point that we learn that there’s only one Bird of Prey, but that the Klingon chancellor’s trusted general was in on things, the Romulan ambassador was in on it, and one of the top ranked admirals in Starfleet was in on it. The layers of complexity behind this conspiracy are staggering, and it’s ironic to see individuals from opposing organizations cooperating in order to perpetuate war. Unfortunately, for as well connected as Valeris apparently was, she doesn’t know the new location of the peace meetings. But you know who conveniently does don’t you? If you guessed Sulu, you’d be absolutely correct! It’s a wee bit of plot convenience being as Sulu was too far away to be of any use and so probably has no reason to know such things, but they gotta drive this thing home somehow, and of all the possibilities, this one works pretty well. Plus it’s nice to see Sulu saving Kirk’s bacon one last time.

Armed with the location of the peace meetings, Kirk and crew gallop off to save the day in true TOS form! They arrive and a harrowing battle ensues between the Enterprise and the Bird of Prey. The Enterprise is getting its butt kicked in the most elaborately painful ways. I mean, the set dressers must have had a field day destroying all of the those sets. Just when all seems lost, Sulu and Excelsior swoop in to save the day too! It’s all very tense and exciting. The added distraction gives Spock and McCoy an opportunity to rig up a one-off torpedo that can track the plasma discharges of a ship’s impulse drive. This seems like another deus ex machina as if I had access to that kind of brilliance, I’d be totally redesigning the way that Starfleet built torpedoes and cloaking devices would become more or less obsolete because I’d just be launching those bad boys off with reckless abandon. But what do I know..

Driving us the rest of the way home, Kirk and company, having blasted that blasted Bird of Prey out of the stars, beam down to the peace meeting, and Kirk immediately takes to saving the Pres. Scotty kills the imposter Klingon assassin, who was the Marine guy that presented the rescue mission earlier. Worf, but not Worf points out the obvious differences between human blood and Klingon blood. There’s some philosophical introspection, and some fanfare, and then Kirk and the gang get back on the ship. They find out that they’re headed home to get mothballed, but not before they take one last galavant around the cosmos. On the director’s edition, after all of the weepy stuff, there’s a great fanfare sequence where all main cast members sign their autographs, and it’s just amazing, and I cry every time because it feels so final. And I suppose that’s kind of the point. This was the last outing for the TOS cast in its entirety. Sure, a few show up to pass the torch to the TNG cast, but this was the last time that all of them were together on the same project.

Okay so what is there to say about this little gem. I think this is really Star Trek at some of its best. There’s a compelling, topically relevant story being presented in an allegorical fashion where players represent real-world counterparts, as well as abstractly representing groups’ perspective on a particular current issue. The acting is top notch. Every actor in this film appears to give 110% to the production. The story and directing are really tight. Meyer doesn’t let a lot by. He keeps everything simple and tight. The practical effects are amazing! I love the way the starship models look in this film! They’re just so alive, and extremely well lit, and you really notice. The music is phenomenal! I heard somewhere that Cliff Eidelman sent a synth demo reel to Nic Meyer, and that Meyer was so blown away that Eidelman was basically hired on the spot, but I also heard that Eidelman’s inspiration for the score was the Planets suite by Gustav Holst. Talk about some great inspiration! And speaking of, there are a lot of elements drawn from the drama of Shakespeare rolled into this movie. The movie doesn’t make much effort to hide that fact, it just rolls it in in creative ways that are played for both drama and comedy. There really are very few things that I don’t like about Undiscovered Country. It sets a pretty high bar in the Star Trek canon, and I really feel like this film represents some quintessential Trek. It’s about the journey of the characters coming to a natural close after 25 years of adventure, and it’s about examining the human condition in a way that instills hope, and a zeal for the future. There has been very little Trek since that has done this so effectively, and it’s really too bad because it shows that when Trek is firing on all thrusters, it can be awesome! I’m grateful that the TOS crew got such an appropriate, and thrilling send off, and I’m glad that we can all experience that over and over again. Anyway, give it a watch because it’s just a pleasure to watch and I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed! Stay tuned as we Trek through the season and look at some things that I’m grateful for as a film buff!