R-SPEC Movie Night: Saturday, May 25 @ 3:15 p.m.

[Alan]

Hello!

I thought I had already posted this. Apparently, my time this week has been sucked into a traveling black hole! Darned those rogue singularities.

Here is the movie and time for this Saturday...

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Cinemark Tinseltown (Gates), 2291 Buffalo Rd, Rochester, NY 14624

Saturday, May 25

3:15 p.m.

2 hours 12 minutes run time

(Regular movie version @ $7.25 per person; not the IMAX 3D or real D 3D version!)

We'll decide as a group if / where dinner is after the movie.

Regards,
Alan

Alan Vincent Michaels
R-SPEC Program Officer

585-729-6167

alan.vincent.michaels@gmail.com

[Eric Scoles]

I'm out of the pool on this -- where did folks go the last couple of times, & what did they think? 

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[Eric Scoles]

I'll be there, most likely with Brad. Janice may sit this one out. 

Anybody else planning to go? Any thoughts on after? 

[Alan Vincent Michaels]

Eric,

Michele and I will be there, probably a half-hour or little more early. I don't think the crowds will be big, but it is the second weekend of the movie and a holiday weekend, too.

Alicia may join us for dinner and discussion afterwards.

I haven't receive any feedback from others.

Dinner and discussion afterwards is always a possibility. Near the theater are Jeremiah's II, Quaker Steak & Lube, and Pixley's Restaurant. I've had good food in all three restaurants.

Alan

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[Dave Henn]

I have to work. As Alan said Alicia might join at the restaurant. I might too. Though in both our cases only for drinks or a light snack since Lydia is cooking us dinner tonight. 

Dave Henn
Dave...@Gmail.com

[Eric Scoles]

See y'all there. Alan, I probably won't be there quite that early but I'll try not to leave you hanging out alone for too long. 

[Alan Vincent Michaels]

Sounds like a plan! Hope to you see you and Alicia after the flick.

On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Dave Henn <dave...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Alan Vincent Michaels]

No worries. At the rate I'm going today, getting there by 3 might be a challenge. :)

[Sally Caves]

Hey, too bad! Chris and I saw it. Benedict Cumberbatch is awesome.  LOL (but I like him already)  Hope you enjoy it.... Did you go see Oblivion? We really enjoyed that. Sarah

[Eric Scoles]

Benny chewed the scenery very well. 

We all agreed it was fun, but I don't personally care much if I ever see it again. 

(I will say Sisto makes a great Spock.)

I'm very much looking forward to The World's End, myself, which we have on our calendar for August. 

[Sally Caves]

We didn't much care for this Star Trek either... seemed one long big car chase, and the jokes were forced. The first one was superior, and had they really been thinking they'd have turned this into a series like Mad Men. That way, they could have had subtler plots and character development, multiple adventures, and a longer time to develop them. They wouldn't have been forced to push so much into a two hour time slot. Think how Kahn might have developed over time. Spock and Uhura's unlikely romance could have seemed more likely. Plus, you forget the characters. You love them at the time, but three years later they look just a little older and... thicker.

Looking forward to World's End.  What did people think of Oblivion?

Sarah

[Eric Scoles]

I haven't seen Oblivion; I thought I remembered talking with someone about it at the last meeting, but I'm mixing up a lot in my head lately. 

[Robert Tyler]

Hi gang,
I saw Into Darkness a few weeks ago and was also disappointed, for a number of reasons. It felt recycled. We've all seen Kahn before, we know he's a badass, and we saw Spock die from radiation just like Kirk did in this one. And really - if the fuel injector can get so easily knocked out of alignment, you'd think they'd have some kind of remote re-alignment gizmo so someone wouldn't have to get a deadly dose of radiation kicking it  back into place. And remind me...why did the admiral hide the bodies in the torpedoes? And since they replaced the fuel cells, how could they be fired? Or were they never mean to be? And...why did they need to capture Kahn alive to make the life-saving serum...when they had a bunch of other bodies onboard that had the same superhuman blood in their veins? And at the end, why did it have to come down to a fist fight between the good guy and bad guy, like soooo many other cheesy movies.
Ok, I've vented. Otherwise I liked it!
Cheers,
Rob

Rob Tyler
mobile: 585-727-6125
robw...@yahoo.com

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From: Eric Scoles <erics...@gmail.com>
To: r-spec <r-s...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2013 6:32 AM
Subject: Re: [R-SPEC] R-SPEC Movie Night: Saturday, May 25 @ 3:15 p.m.

[Eric Scoles]

you just pretty neatly summarized our post-movie dinner conversation ;-). 

I used to really enjoy J. J. Abrams, back when Alias was first getting started. But the way Sydney could travel 20,000 air-miles and have four pitched fights in the space of a weekend while being fresh as a daisy for her seminar on monday a.m., along with the shamless Maguffinism (can anybody say what all that mystical stuff was ever actually about, anyway?) soured me on it by sometime in the 2nd season. (Plus, how do you just *move* an entire EEEEEVIL terrorist spy organization into the CIA whole-hog?)

I gave Lost two solid seasons and just lost interest in the third, for similar reasons. 

My general conclusion about Abrams has been that there's not much there, there. He's in it for the chase, and just about everything else is maguffin: relationships, technology, characters, you name it, they're all just excuses for situations, preferably involving either metaphorical or literal combat. (I long ago reached similar conclusions about David E. Kelley: that he was more than willing to sacrifice character-realism for an exciting plot development. And having said that I'll dial back on Abrams a little bit on character, and concede that [unlike kelley] when he changes up a character he usually finds some kind of force majeur to explain it away.)

So while I'm not very invested in Star Wars, I sympathize with Wars fans who are worried about what Abrams will do to their world. The cinematic SW universe is fragile and doesn't make a lot of sense, but Wars fans and Extended Universe (term?) writers have worked hard to shore it up; I can readily envision abrams waltzing in and recycling a faster-paced, sexier pastiche of Ep. 4-6 tropes with a little Extended Universe stuff thrown in to get the fanbase on board with promotions. 

[Sally Caves]

Eric: Oblivion is the one about the two people left on earth to man the bots that kill the remaining aliens after they had destroyed their earth... they are due to migrate along with the rest of the human race to Titan as soon as they can get as many of the hostiles as possible. Strange things develop.  It was superior to Star Trek by thiiiiiiiiiiiis much.

Robert: you nailed it for me as well.  Just exactly why WERE Kahn's people put in the torpedoes? Never could figure that out. Along with you: why just Kahn (for the superior life-giving blood)?  The fight on the truck as it moved... God, how trite. Chris said it was like being at a continuous display of fireworks for two hours. 

It would have made such an awesome series. Yet another Star Trek series, yes, but full of promise. They got greedy, though, and turned it into a second-rate blockbuster.

[Eric Scoles]

yeh, except the Abrams version of Kirk is much more irritating than the Roddenberry version. And as cliched as Shatner's moves seem in retrospect, I think he was probably a better actor at that time than Pine is, today. So I would liked to see someone else doing Kirk if it were to have been made a series. (but by all means keep simon pegg.) 

oblivion: maybe i'll buy it from the discount bin or watch it on amazon. I have to suspect the 'strange stuff'' ends up mostly fairly obvious (avoiding potential spoilers), but it did look like there was some potential. 

[Ral...@aol.com]

I saw it.

 

Why with the whole new universe they made in the first movie, do they then re-create one of the best movies from the last universe?

 

I'm sure there is a science fiction writer out there that could have created a GREAT story.

 

Why did they need Khans blood?  They had 72 Khan-sickles!! 

 

Why the call to Spock I?  Is that going to be the out all the time?

 

Loved all the fan service!!  But they could have had a better story.

 

Wayne

[Sally Caves]

William Shatner had far more time to just ACT than Chris Pine. And the stories were outstanding, many of them. Yeah, the sets were cheesy, but I remember so many episodes that  stuck with me viscerally and intellectually back when I was a teenager.  In a series, there is more time to write reflective pieces that stretch an actor's abilities, that present one issue at a time, that keep us riveted each week, that unfold a story slowly. Boy, did they miss the mark.  I guess they were afraid of the failure of ST: Voyager and Enterprise. And TNG was, IMO, the best and most successful Star Trek series. (Who could do better than "Measure of a Man" or "Darmok" or "The Inner Light"? )I think the subsequent series failed because they lost their fan base and television series were going in a new direction: just look at the expensive and brilliant HBO series. If they had joined that genre, hired the right writers who took more risks, Star Trek could have been up there with Spartacus, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones. HOWEVER: what they did is capitulate to the fan expectation of a wholesome, starched, PG, universe where everyone is on their best behavior, no one says anything stronger than "shit," and the plots are predictable as hell.