Review

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men is an interesting phenomenon. It’s a fan-made film, but one done with at least the tacit acceptance of the powers that be. I picked this up after watching and enjoying another fan0-made Trek film, World Enough and Time.

Of Gods and Men is set about twelve years after the “death” of Captain Kirk on board the Enterprise B (in Star Trek: Generations). Starfleet has built a replica of the original USS Enterprise, a kind of museum and tribute. Captains Nyota Uhura and Pavel Chekov are in attendance, along with Captain John Harriman (captain of the Enterprise B). A time disturbance leads them to the planet of the Guardian of Forever, where Charlie X (from the original episodes, now 40 years older) is seeking revenge on Kirk. He escapes into the guardian and changes history…

The result is a mirror universe-like empire, the “Galactic Order,” made up of humans, Klingons, and more. Uhura is married to Stonn on Vulcan, which has remained neutral in the face of the Galactic Order’s oppression. Chekov is now a ruthless freedom fighter. And Harriman is still captain of the Enterprise, but he now serves the Galactic Order. Thus the film’s tagline, “Legends come together one last time…to destroy each other.”

While it opened kind of slowly, and the special effects were a bit uneven, I loved seeing some of the classic actors again. Nichelle Nichols will always be awesome, and while Walter Koenig sometimes seemed a bit tired, I really liked him as Kittrick the freedom fighter. We also got Trek alumni like Tim Russ as Tuvok, Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand, Chase Masterson, Ethan Phillips, and many more.

I’m having a hard time trying to evaluate this thing. Some of the plot elements were familiar, particularly after the J. J. Abrams Star Trek reboot. On the other hand, Of Gods and Men came out two years before the Abrams movie, which raises a few questions in the back of my mind… But even aside from that, the broken timeline isn’t exactly a new approach in Star Trek or science fiction in general. But it worked. It gave us a plausible story, and allowed the creators to bring back a number of characters from the old series. The tension didn’t exactly have me gripping my seats, but I stayed to watch the whole thing when I should have been working.

Familiarity with the old series will help. Otherwise, there are a lot of characters and references that probably won’t make a lot of sense. But as someone who grew up on original Trek, it was fun to see everyone coming together again.

My only other two comments are that the final battle dragged on a bit, and the Uhura/Stonn thing didn’t make sense to me, particularly given Stonn’s character in the original series. That said, it was a lot of fun to revisit Star Trek, and this had more of the original Star Trek feel than the Abrams reboot.

Also recommended: Star Trek: World Enough and Time. I believe both this and Of Gods and Men can be viewed online for free, as well as ordered on DVD from their respective websites.

I remember seeing an ad last year for the Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who crossover from IDW. So when I found myself with a B&N gift card (courtesy of my mother-in-law — thank you!), I hopped online and ordered volumes 1 and 2 of Assimilation, which reprint the entire eight-issue run.

• Assimilation 1 [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]
• Assimilation 2 [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]

The cover tells you everything you need to know. The Doctor and his companions (Amy and Rory) hop over to the universe of the Enterprise D. There, they find that the Cybermen have forged an alliance with the Borg. Voila: instant profit story.

It’s a fun idea, right up there with “Enterprise vs. Death Star” and “Buffy & Scoobies vs. The Smurfs.” But while the story tried to go beyond that fannish “What if?” it only partially succeeded.

There’s a convenient side plot about an oceanic mining operation that doesn’t really add anything. We do get a flashback to a former incarnation of the Doctor meeting up with the original Enterprise crew, which was rather fun. And we see Picard struggling to overcome his trauma with the Borg. While that’s a powerful, painful thing to watch, it’s also something we’ve seen before in the series and in First Contact.

The Borg/Cyberman vs. the Doctor/Federation is the big conflict here, but I think the conflict between Picard and the Doctor was far more interesting. Both are good, strong, stubbornly determined characters whose style couldn’t be more different. I wish we had seen more of their struggle to stop butting heads and finding a way to work together.

Also, more of Rory and Worf teaming up, please. I would read an entire comic about that duo. Guinan and the Doctor were fun too.

The artwork…okay, I’m not a comics reader, but the art did not impress me. Some of it was decent, but mostly it felt rushed.

Is this great literature? Not so much. On the other hand, I didn’t order them expecting great literature. I ordered them because it was an idea that hit me right in my inner fanboy. Could it have been better? Absolutely. But the toy inside gives you exactly what it promises on the box.

Now, when are we getting the crossover where Torchwood goes up against Q?

I’ve wanted to talk about How to Train Your Dragon for a while now, and last week’s review of Merrie Haskell’s Handbook for Dragon Slayers and the resulting comments about disability in fiction made me finally sit my butt down to do it.

I love this movie. I love the story, I love the message and themes, I love the humor … there’s very little it gets wrong, in my opinion. I would have appreciated more female characters, but even there, as I understand it, the movie improves on the source material.

The story is pretty straightforward. Hiccup is basically a nerd among Vikings. He works as an apprentice to the village blacksmith, but he lacks the physical strength and battle prowess of his fellow Vikings, and is more interested in gadgets and inventions that don’t always work. Oh, and his village is constantly fighting off dragons.

I’m rather fond of Jay Baruchel, the actor who voices Hiccup. He’s got a very distinctive voice, and his sardonic and often self-deprecating tone works for me.

During one dragon raid, Hiccup manages to shoot down a Night Fury, the deadliest breed of dragons. The Night Fury’s tail is crippled, leaving it unable to fly. Hiccup tracks where the dragon fell, planning to finish it off and prove himself, but he can’t do it. Instead, he studies and slowly befriends the dragon, which he names Toothless (because Night Furies have retractable teeth).

Toothless is awesome. The expressiveness and humor the animators capture in every scene is amazing. This dragon, who never says a word, is a better actor and character than most humans. I love the details, whether it’s watching him scorch a circle and turn around before settling down to sleep, or the obvious love and loyalty he develops for Hiccup. (Love and loyalty which are returned in full.)

Some of what follows is predictable, of course. Hiccup uses his secret dragon knowledge to impress the other Vikings and improve his standing, only to fall when the truth comes out. There’s a low-key romantic thing between Hiccup and Astrid. The dragons turn out to be more than simple livestock thieves, and there’s a big old battle at the end. While the twists aren’t entirely original, they’re well done and engaging.

But one of the things I most respect about this movie is how it handles disability.

SPOILERS AHEAD

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We saw The Hobbit on New Year’s Day, and overall, I enjoyed it. It did feel occasionally bloated, but there were other additions I appreciated and enjoyed. “Riddles in the Dark” was, as many have said already, one of the best parts of the film. While I don’t think it was as strong as Lord of the Rings, that would be a pretty high bar to reach.

That said, the movie did have some problems. I have no taste for fat jokes, which felt like pretty much all they did with the character of Bombur. The stone giants seemed completely random and unnecessary to the story. But my biggest complaint, which will probably come as no surprise, was the way the story treated the goblins.

In Lord of the Rings, our heroes slaughtered an awful lot of orcs. Orcs were the stormtroopers of Middle Earth, generic villains who could be killed with little to no remorse, because they’re all Evil. On the other hand, Lord of the Rings took place in a time of war. The orcs we saw were generally soldiers sent out to hunt and kill humans and other races. The Uruk-hai were specifically created to be evil killing machines.

But then we get to The Hobbit. The dwarves take shelter in a cave, and find themselves tumbling into the goblin kingdom under the mountain. They’re taken prisoner and brought to the goblin king, and oversized and grotesque creature. The dwarves, with Gandalf’s help, eventually break free and fight their way out. In the process, they pretty much Kill All The Goblins.

This scene drags on and on. Goblins are smashed with rocks, stabbed with swords, chopped with axes, knocked into the abyss, and generally massacred left and right.

As a mental exercise, how do you think a party of goblins would have been treated had they stumbled into a dwarf kingdom? They’d have been taken prisoner, hauled in front of the authorities, and probably sentenced to death for the crime of being goblins. How is what the goblins did any different? Yet we’re supposed to sympathize and cheer as the heroes kill every goblin they come across?

Exercise the second: remember toward the beginning of the movie, when they’re talking about how most of these dwarves aren’t really warriors? Yet they killed all of those goblins without a single casualty. What does that tell you about the goblins they were fighting? Those goblins weren’t trained or experienced fighters. They couldn’t have been. Most of them were probably just minding their own business and got caught up in the chaos.

Yeah, I have a soft spot for goblins, but this was just thoughtless storytelling. It felt almost pornographic in a way. Instead of Debbie Does Dallas, we get Gandalf Guts Goblins.

I can appreciate a good fight scene. This wasn’t one. This was empty hack and slash, and I want better.