A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition (2001) Directed by Robert Wise Written by Harold Livingston, based on a story by Alan Dean Foster Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Stephen Collins, Persis Khambatta In December of 1979, more than a decade after NBC canceled Gene Roddenberry’s now-classic Star Trek television series, the crew of the Starship  Enterprise  set forth on its first big screen adventure, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. When a powerful living machine destroys three Klingon battle cruisers on the edge of the Neutral Zone and takes a direct course for Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the recently refit USS  Enterprise.  Along with his reluctant first officer, Commander Will Decker (Stephen Collins) and the veteran officers who served with him during the  Enterprise’s  legendary five-year mission (Leonard Nimoy, DeForest

On November 24, 2015,  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published cartoonist Randall Munroe’s “Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words,” a clever mix of science and humor in which the ex-NASA scientist behind the webcomic “xkcd” explains some of the most interesting topics in existence using only the “ten hundred” words that people use the most.   Munroe, who also wrote last year’s best-selling “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” explains over 40 things that range from the “shared space house” (International Space Station) to the “tree of life” using simple terms like “mouth water maker” (saliva gland) and “sky boat” (airplane). He even uses this style to describe parts of “Thing Explainer” itself; the Index becomes “Things in This Book Page By Page,” and the foreword is “Page Before the Book Starts.” Here are a few of the topics readers will find in “Thing Explainer”: ·   food-heating radio boxes (microwaves) ·   tall roads

In the original 1977 version of Star Wars , Han shoots first; Greedo seems to have an itchy trigger finger and has just told our favorite Corellian smuggler that he’s been looking forward to killing him for a long time. Han doesn’t want to end up as a smoking corpse on the Mos Eisley cantina floor, so he shoots the Rodian bounty hunter from under the table. Not exactly sportsmanlike, I admit, but for Han, it was a matter of survival. In the 1997 Special Edition re-release of  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope,  George Lucas tweaked this scene because, as much as fans love the original scene,  he  felt uncomfortable with how cold-blooded Solo seems. So, per Lucas's request, Special Edition editor T.M. Christopher fiddled with the shot so that Greedo fires a fraction of a second before Han does. The “they shoot at the same time” bit has been fiddled with for timing issues at least twice. Once for the 2004 DVD release, then in 2011 for the Blu-ray edition. As for my opinion

If you are an American that still supports Donald J. Trump and his inept Administration, you really need to re-evaluate your position, because the future is not looking too bright for the Twitterer-in-Chief. Consider these facts. Over the past eight weeks, the nation's Chief Executive has been the least Presidential occupant of the White House in American history. Even Gerald R. Ford, who was appointed  Vice President after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and replaced Richard Milhouse Nixon as President after the latter's resignation in August of 1974, had more character in his pinky finger than Mr. Trump has in his entire body. Seriously, Ford wasn't elected to his last two leadership posts, but he served his country with decency and honor during those dark, depressing post-Watergate years. Mr. Trump, in contrast, has outdone Nixon in paranoia, narcissism, and combativeness since his Inauguration on January 20. His first television interview , with ABC News' David M

There are several explanations for Palpatine’s non-inclusion in  Star Wars,  aka  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. First, George Lucas hadn’t quite fleshed out the Original Trilogy that early in the history of the franchise. In 1976, when Lucas completed the fourth revised draft of  Star Wars,  he had already created the Emperor as a Nixon-like politician who was, to some extent, controlled by his henchmen. But since there was no  logical  way to include him in the film without putting him in mortal danger, Lucas decided to make Grand Moff Tarkin  A New Hope’s  main villain and saving the introduction of the Emperor for the sequel…assuming that  Star Wars  would at least be successful enough for Lucasfilm to produce one. “There is a great disturbance in the Force……” Second, by not introducing Palpatine in  A New Hope,  Lucas was hoping to create an aura of mystery around the one being who could truly command Darth Vader. While it is true that Tarkin runs the show aboard the

Short version: No. More elaborate version: Even though I’m not an Elvis Presley fan, I respect his achievements as a singer and take my hat off to his popularity. Presley contributed greatly to the pop music world, and from what little I’ve seen, he was a passable actor in lightweight “musical” movies such as  Viva Las Vegas  and  Blue Hawaii. That having been said, Elvis was a singer. He was  not  a professional actor, nor could he have given George Lucas a credible performance as  any  of the  Star Wars  characters, much less as one of the three main leads. And even if he had been able to act decently, he was too old, too addicted to drugs, and way out of shape to have played the iconic smuggler-turned-Rebel. In a nutshell,  Star Wars  would have been a disaster if Presley had been cast as Han Solo.

Pros:  Five (yes, five) different versions of the film; nice mix of extras Cons:  None Blade Runner: 30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition   Reviewer’s Note:  This review covers the 2012 Blu-ray box set and  not  the 1982 feature film or any of its follow-on versions. I also don’t own the five-disc DVD set from which the ’12 30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is derived.    Although I’m a fan of both director Ridley Scott and actor Harrison Ford, I’ve inexplicably kept 1982’s  Blade Runner  at arm’s length. I didn’t rush to see the original theatrical cut when it premiered on June 25, 1982 nor for its run in theaters. I hadn’t yet seen director Scott’s  Alien  and wasn’t too enthused about “hard” science fiction movies. My idea of an enjoyable sci-fi flick at the time included such movies as  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan  and space fantasies along the lines of  Star Wars  and its sequels. I knew, thanks to  Entertainment Tonight  and various articles in sci-fi relate