tv

Pick your poison: Star Wars or Star Trek

You can either be a Star Wars fan or a Star Trek fan. You can’t be both.

Well, you can, but I’ve found that people are particular to one of the franchises and know little about the other.

I’m a Star Wars guy. I grew up in the 1980s and was the perfect age for the original trilogy. Yes, Star Trek was around, and I dug The Wrath of Khan. (Who can forget William Shatner screaming “Khan!”)

It’s not that I dislike Star Trek, widely regarded as the thinking-man’s Star Wars. I never got into it. I’m vaguely aware of some of the lore, and I can do the Vulcan greeting. I even interviewed George Takei many moons ago.

So, I’m in no position to scrutinize the franchise’s newest offering, Starfleet Academy. I’ll leave that to others, and it seems there are plenty of people willing to do it.

Many Star Trek fans, I’m talking die-hard Trekkies, dislike it because, according to reviews, the show deviates from classic Star Trek storytelling (usually more on the scientific end of sci-fi, as opposed to the swashbuckling Star Wars adventures). They may have a point.

From what little I know about Star Trek, I’m positive that the Klingons of old were stand-ins for warmongering communists. Everyone knows that.

Starfleet Academy’s Klingon, Kraag (above), doesn’t seek an honorable death in battle, it seems. He seeks to discover beauty in life and enjoys watching birds. There’s not one thing wrong with this. I just queried an agent who likes bird-watching. There is, however, a teensy problem with Klingon warriors grabbing a pair of binoculars and squealing, “Ooh! There’s a fluffy-backed tit-babbler!” (Yes, that’s a real bird.)

That’s tantamount to Jabba the Hutt of Star Wars fame declaring, “You know, I really need to shed 500 pounds, eat more fruit, be less judgmental, and stop dropping innocent people into the rancor pit to be devoured for my amusement.”

It goes against everything we know about Jabba the same way prioritizing the spotting of a blue-billed cockatoo makes no sense for Klingons who pray for war and destruction.

And it appears whoever’s in charge of Star Trek is making the same mistake that Star Wars did under Kathleen Kennedy’s stewardship. Rather than stick with what works (Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine were wildly popular and adhered to the franchise’s sophisticated takes on political and social issues), Star Trek now cranks out sophomoric dialogue and cliched storytelling geared toward, well, I’m not sure. The younger crowd? If so, don’t treat them like they’re stupid or talk down to them. Assume the audience isn’t swarming with bigots who need lectures about modern sensibilities. Nothing turns off an audience faster.

But I’m not that audience. I haven’t watched anything Star Trek in decades. And I’ve watched fewer Star Wars shows over the years. Too much of something good eventually turns everything bad because of the pressure to keep producing quality. It runs out. Maybe that’s where Star Trek is at this point. I hope not.

Maybe Star Trek, and Star Wars, for that matter, simply need new writers.

Stranger Things Series Finale: The Neverending Story

Netflix’s now-concluded Stranger Things took many children of the 1980s on a nostalgic trip to a decade of ugly sweaters, big hair, and spider-like monsters. Born in 1975, I remember the first two but not the latter. I guess it’s a Hawkins, Indiana, thing.

Most of you reading know what the series is about, so I won’t get into it. Reviews about online about how good (or bad) the series finale was. Titled “The Rightside Up,” you didn’t watch the two-hour plus episode so much as endure it, inevitably leading to you asking to nobody in particular, “When is this going to end?” Much the way many people did while watching Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, leaving the theater with five-o’clock shadow when you entered it clean-shaven.

Now, I don’t take these TV shows seriously. None of Stranger Things made any particular sense to me, but it entertained and that’s all I ask. People much nerdier than are picking the episode, and series, apart becase it didn’t end the way they wanted it to end. Go out and make your own nonsensical show, if that’s the case. But here’s what bewildered me about the finale (spoilers ahead):

  1. The military just let everyone in the Hawkins crew go after several of them murdered US soldiers? That’s right, Hopper, especially, shot and killed multiple men in uniform. Eleven snapped a bunch of their necks, and Murray blew up a helicopter, presumably killing everyone on board. Linda Hamilton’s evil military character basically just vanishes. What happened to her beside smoking even more cigarettes? All of that went unanswered. Despite the Hawkins’s party heroically saving the world, I’m positive some of them committed a few felonies along the way. And, what, the US government says, eh, whatever, you can go home now? Maybe the military was like, “we did some bad stuff, too, like kidnapping children and using them as Mengele-esque test subjects, so it all evens out in the end.” I’m still scratching my head over that.
  2. The big scary spider monster was way too easy to defeat. Yes, the brave party fights and kills the proverbial dragon at the end of the show. This happens both inside the spider with Eleven battling Vecna, and outside with everyone else shooting up the spider-like vessel that’s linked to Vecna. Kill one, kill both, or something like that. Nancy points the party to the tippy-tops of nearby mountains and commands them to attack the best from above! And just like that, they’re on top of the rocks! You have to climb the mountain first! How the hell did they get up there so fast? Whatever the case may be, the spider–easily the size of several city blocks and as tall as Nakatomi Plaza–folded after a Nancy shoots it with a machine gun. We’re talking a kaiju-sized abomination with what would have to be a thick hide dying to bullets that would be the size of amoebas to it. Nancy had help with party members dousing it with flame-throwers and lobbing explosives at it, but if this is the end of the video game, the final boss should not collapse like a Jenga tower at the hands of an excited toddler.
  3. The four main boys–Dustin, Lucas, Will and Mike–graduate high school and are almost immediately invited to a party hosted by the hottest girl in the school. And they opt to play Dungeons & Dragons instead? Come on! I get it, that’s how we’re introduced to them in season one. But they’re all 18 now and have the opportunity to hang out with actual young women (and in Will’s case, young men). Nah, forget that, let’s hang out in a basement brimming with body odor and radon and throw a bunch of mishapen dice on the table while Mike makes up some nonsense about goblins.
  4. Eleven is alive? I don’t know. Mike gives a somewhat plausible explanation as to why. But let’s say she is alive. We’re talking about an emotionally unstable girl who never graduated high school and who massively distrusts authority after being expiremented upon in ghastly ways. How does she support herself? I sincerely doubt she’s wandering around a beautiful valley with roaring waterfalls, the way Mike imagines it. Can she even fill out a job application? I pray she’s not turning tricks in Indianapolis, or committing petty theft just to get by. We could use a little more clarity on that one.

So, those were a few things that stood out to me. The vaunted Duffer Brothers, who created the show, set up a possible sequel in that universe when Holly Wheeler and some of her young friends gather around the Dungeons & Dragon table and start playing. What, are we going back to the nostalgic 1990s now, with references to grunge bands, the Whitewater scandal (which nobody understands), and Newt Gingrich tussling with Bill Clinton? I got news for you: Dungeons & Dragons wasn’t a thing in the 1990s. Magic: The Gathering was. And the last thing I want is another group of kids warding off a stand-in for a Shivan Dragon or Two-Headed Giant while the government conducts more dastardly experiments on people. Gues what else started in the 1990s? Moveon.org. We can only hope.