The 90s Reevaluated

Sorry, still sick so here’s another phoned in post.

Pierce Brosnan has been blowing up my news feed for whatever reason. I guess he’s playing some superhero or whatever, but I don’t watch that stuff. Unfortunately this has created a lot of (likely clickbait) opinion pieces that reevaluate his James Bond tenure.

I’ve always placed Goldeneye in the top 5 Bond films, which is where most 007 fans have historically placed it. But there’s a massive drop off with Brosnan’s other three films. The consensus is that while Brosnan could have been a great James Bond, his movies were either mediocre or terrible.

Or, I should say, this WAS the consensus during the Daniel Craig era.

Now that Craig’s moody and brooding Bond is dead and gone, perceptions on Brosnan’s portrayal have shifted. Craig’s 007 matched the times while Brosnan’s seemed clownish by comparison.

But after two years of a pandemic, record high inflation, and superhero movies flooding the theaters, audiences seem primed for a more tongue in cheek James Bond. So the Daniel Craig era is looking more passé by the second.

People are looking to return to a simpler time. And the most (relatively) simpler times in recent memory is the 1990s. At least this is my best explanation for why Pierce Brosnan is undergoing a micro-renaissance.

As a side note, the Star Trek: Next Generation films (which were also released in 90s) are being reevaluated. This is probably due to the cast returning for the final season of Picard. So Generations, released in 1994 and which infamously killed the original Captain Kirk, is being discussed again.

Why I bring this up is because a fourth “Kelvin era” Trek film, starring Chris Pine as nu-Captain Kirk, has stalled for probably the 10,000th time (thank god). While that (hopefully) means we won’t ever see Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as McCoy again, that does NOT mean we won’t see Pine as Kirk again.

Why?

Because as any Trek fan can tell you, while Shatner’s Kirk was killed in Generations, technically his existence is preserved in some “ribbon” that floats around in space where time doesn’t mean anything blah blah blah. And this “ribbon” hasn’t been mentioned in Star Trek since.

So you can see where I’m going with this: when another Trek film makes it to the streaming services sometime this decade, the original Captain Kirk will be pulled out of this ribbon to be played not by William Shatner but by, you guessed it, Chris Pine.

Anyways, enjoy the 2020s, aka the 90s Reloaded.

All good things…

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. -Paul of Tarsus

In all sincerity, in his review of Picard Season 2, Mike Stoklasa nearly moved me to tears when he discussed his realization that Star Trek really was dead, comparing his journey to the that of the boys in Stand By Me (which coincidentally starred Wil Wheaton). His journey of grief led him to face the realities of life, put away childish things, and blossom into a man (who subjects his friends to shitty movies and laughs at old people for a living).

After the disaster that was Season 1 of Picard, I figured that the powers that be…the writers, producers, Paramount+…would have corrected course and made a proper send off for the legendary cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Then the trailer above dropped.

And I’ll admit: my heart absolutely sank to my feet. Patrick Stewart will no longer be alone in his debasement for the upcoming season. Now the entire cast of TNG will be along for this pitiful, disgusting ride.

I could go on ripping this trailer to shreds, but I won’t. You know why? Because someone…a LOT of someones…LOVE this show. When the Star Wars prequels arrived, they were derided by the entire fan base. But they made a FUCK TON of money. So I knew in my heart, despite me hating the SHIT out of the prequels, there’s gonna be a whole generation that will love them.

And honestly, good for them. It’s the next generation of fans that these long-established franchises are aiming at. I could spend the rest of my life being angry at what these new producers have done to my beloved Star Trek. But I’ve been on the ride long enough.

It’s not the way I would have liked to have seen my favorite character go out, but he was a hero of my childhood. And it’s time to put childish things away.

***

But you know what I WON’T put away…or even put DOWN:

That’s right: the works of Joseph D Newcomer and Dead Star Press!

And I have GREAT fucking news: I went BACK to the airport to harass that guy from last week. And to get me OFF his ass, he told me something that BLEW my mind:

I said “31% off for the entire month of October! You gotta be shittin me!”

And HE said, “why would I be shitting you? I’m AFRAID of you?!”

So after the police and the Los Angeles Superior Court banned me permanently from the airport, I immediately saved 31% off my next purchase at Dead Star Press!

Look at what I bought:

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Dead Star Press: It’s okay to be a weirdo, but at least be a LITERATE weirdo!

rip David Warner and Henry Kissinger

David Warner was a Star Trek legend.

My favorite role of his was when he played the Cardassian commander that tortures Picard for two episodes. Honestly, that’s my favorite two-parter in TNG. Yes, I like it better than The Best of Both Worlds.

Go cry about it, nerds!

Paul Sorvino was another TNG alum that passed away. But my favorite role of his was in Oliver Stone’s Nixon as Henry Kissinger. The ending was incredible. I’ll admit, I teared up a bit when Nixon and Kissinger bawled as they realized the end was near. But Sorvino aced the part.

It’s just sad that Henry Kissinger somehow outlived Paul Sorvino 😔

RIP legends

ranking starfleet uniforms

I’m not gonna rank every fucking uniform that Starfleet produced. Some were designed to simply be shown once. So I’m only evaluating the uniforms that were created to be the full-time outfits for a particular series or film.

13. Star Trek Discovery

To my surprise, there are devoted fans to this show. I don’t get it, but to each their own. But we can all agree that these uniforms are just straight up shit. They are neither militaristic nor do they look comfortable. This is just reason #57482 of why I hate this show.

12. TOS- The Cage/Where No Man Has Gone Before

I’m sure there’s a difference between the uniforms in these two episodes, but whatever they are, they’re minor. Now these outfits do look comfortable, however they look a little too warm. Under a stressful situation, I’d burn the fuck up in those sweaters. Plus, in the early days, there were only TWO Starfleet divisions: Command Gold and Science Blue. Without the Engineering/Security/General pissant Red, these uniforms don’t pop as well.

11. The Motion Picture

A part of me likes these uniforms. I think it’s very important that you’re able to see the outline of a Starfleet Officer’s junk. But I understand people’s objections. They do lack the color that made the TOS uniforms so iconic.

10. TNG Films/DS9 Seasons 4-7

I thought these were cool when I was a kid. But now, they just lack the fun of their predecessors. The grey shoulders just seem pointless. I dunno, this is just ‘meh’ for me.

9. Voyager/DS9 Seasons 1-3/Generations

I like the idea of these uniforms. It’s supposed to make officers seem more “mechanically inclined”. Which is fine. DS9 teased out the idea that ship crews wear standard TNG uniforms while crews stationed everywhere else wore these. But they didn’t stick with that concept, which annoyed the shit out of me. That’s why they’re ranked this low.

8. Beyond

These are just cheap knockoffs of the TOS classics. They’re a clear downgrade from the next ones on the list.

7. ST09/Into Darkness

They took an iconic look and turned it into something fresh. That’s incredibly hard to do. They seem both practical and comfortable. The only knock is that the pattern looks cool from a distance, but upon closer inspection, it’s just a bunch of Starfleet emblems. Kinda lame, tbh.

6. Enterprise

Probably the most realistic of the bunch. There’s not much to say about it, other than it would make sense that these would be the first uniforms for a new space fleet.

5. TNG-Seasons 3-7

It feels wrong to put these down this low. These are great uniforms. But they simply got beat out by the last 4.

4. The Wrath of Khan

These uniforms come and go with me. God knows I love Nicholas Meyer, but sometimes I wish he didn’t take the uniforms in this direction. Starfleet *technically* isn’t a military organization. But these uniforms say otherwise.

As a former military man, I can tell you that these would be impractical for standard military operations (unless, I assume, you’re bridge crew in the Navy). For those purposes, the pajama-like outfits worn in TOS are far more suitable, and for that reason REALISTIC, which runs contrary to what most people think about the military. You gotta be comfortable, protected, and not constricted.

So that’s my main beef with these outfits. But aesthetically, they’re incredible! And since Strange New Worlds has updated their appearance, these uniforms look better than ever.

3. Strange New Worlds

The producers of Discovery fucked up when they reintroduced the iconic uniforms in Season 2. I don’t know what the fuck was up with that collar. But they remedied that mistake in SNW.

I’m glad that the designers trusted what came before and didn’t try to do too much to update it.

Which leads me to…

2. TOS

Gold, blue, and red. What else is there to say?

1. TNG- Seasons 1 and 2

“You’re fucking kidding right?”

Nope.

We all know how this uniform was taken away: Patrick Stewart’s chiropractor had a lot to say about them. Which kinda makes Stewart an important figure in Starfleet uniform history.

Prior to TNG, commanding officers wore the color gold…for example: Captain Kirk. Then Patrick Stewart was cast and the producers realized that he looked terrible in gold. So now the commanding ranks wear red. And that change has never been explained in Star Trek canon 👍

But I love these jumpsuits. If I ever decide to pay money for one of these uniforms, this is the one I would buy. Are they cheesy? Absolutely. To me, they’re the most sci-fi looking of the bunch.

And besides, yeah they might’ve been bad for his back, but Patrick Stewart looked DAMN good in this uniform.

tapping into the Roddenberry box

We can all agree: Kurtzman era Star Trek has been godawful. There was no reason to think that Strange New Worlds would be any different, but then the first episode became available on YouTube. So I thought: “fuck it, I’ll give it a shot.”

Whoever’s running SNW had the right idea: just tap the ball into the hole. Don’t try to do too much.

It’s common to assume that Trek fans are notoriously hard to please . This is false. In fact, they’re a little too easy to please. Furthermore, I’d say that Star Trek is stupidly easy to write: minimize drama between the main characters, the Federation humanistic…almost utopian…ideals always win out, the “alien of the week” is analogous to current events, and everything can be solved using science…even if the science is totally pulled out of your ass.

This is also called the (Gene) “Roddenberry Box.” TNG writers initially struggled with it until Michael Piller turned staying within it into an art. The Next Generation is now considered one of the best shows in the sci-fi genre. It’s also the benchmark for which all other Trek shows are evaluated.

Hollywood writers, especially ones that aren’t familiar with Star Trek, might think they have to do MORE to make the story interesting. But they really don’t. You can “challenge” the box every now and then, but the optimism and science MUST win out.

So using this criteria, based on the first episode, Strange New Worlds is Star Trek…which is more than I can say for Discovery and Picard. Yes, that’s a low bar to hurdle but I guess third time is a charm. Maybe the rest of it will be shit, but as long as the show runners don’t try to do too much, they might have a pretty good show.

Still not paying for Paramount+ tho.