Note from Scott: I have asked fellow blogger/anime fan Little Red Reviewer to write up a short piece for a bonus edition of our Anime Wednesday feature this month and she graciously obliged, and wrote the following piece. So, without further adieu our first proper guest post!
it’s not just another anime. . .
Due to health problems, Kouichi Sakakibara has transferred to a new Middle School out in the country. His father is travelling for business, so Kouichi stays with his grandparents and his Aunt. This is the town his mother grew up in, maybe his aunt can tell him more about the mother who died when he was born. His first few days in town are spent at the hospital, where he befriends a nurse and a quiet girl named Mei Misaki who wears an eyepatch and claims to be visiting someone in the morgue.
When Kouichi starts school a few days later he immediately notices Mei Misaki is in his class! She sits in the back row at an old beat up desk, and everyone ignores her. Sometimes she doesn’t even show up to class, or disappears half way through. Kouichi’s first few attempts at speaking to Mei are sabotaged in one way or another, and his classmates begin acting strangely towards him, telling him not to speak to people who don’t exist.
Don’t exist? Is Mei a ghost? can anyone else see her? If she is a ghost, what’s the harm in speaking to her? And if she isn’t a ghost, what is she?
The more Kouichi tries to find out about what is going on, the more dangerous his life becomes. He witnesses a fellow student tripping down the stairs and falling to her death, is on the phone with a friend when there is a fatal elevator crash, and classmates keep hinting about the curse of their class. A curse that’s been going on for nearly thirty years. Kouichi does his best to get information about what’s going on, he even asks his aunt if she remembers anything about when she was at that high school. But the only person who seems to know anything is Mei.
There is a curse, and Mei is at the center of it. As Kouichi spends more time with her, he finds himself isolated and ostracized by the rest of the class. This curse is a deadly phenomenon, how long can Kouichi survive? If his life is in danger, can he count on anyone beside Mei to save him?
A suspenseful horror thriller, Another will keep you on the edge of your seat. The first few episodes do a wonderful job of introducing important characters and setting the atmosphere of the show. Complete with horror movie music, the end of each episode comes way too soon. If at first the storyline seems a little confusing, give it a few more episodes. The curse is eventually completely explained, yet knowing what’s going on does soften the blows of the horrific things that happen.
Typical of horror thrillers that focus around teenagers, the adults are conspicuously missing. Teachers at the school don’t seem to care that there are many deaths involved with a specific class of students, and parents do not seem involved in their children’s lives. This is completely atypical of what life is really like in Japan, but I’ve seen a lot of horror shows that seem to have this dynamic.
If you enjoy suspense, Another is a show for you! There is very little in the way of “in jokes” that reference other shows or Japanese otaku culture, so the show is highly accessible to viewers new to anime.
With a lack of DOCTOR WHO on the air (and no sign of it till next Fall) and all three SHERLOCK episodes for Series 2 having already aired, I think I may have needed a new obsession TV show. Sure, I watch a bunch of the current staples of Prime Time North American TV…but let’s face facts and accept that if Scott is going to really get fanboyish about a TV show, it will more than likely be a British one.
So, in a perfect storm/confluence: my British co-worker gushing about it, and the first three Series being available for $19.99 each (13 episodes a piece) on iTunes, I decided to finally give BBC’s MERLIN a go.
Not only was I pleasantly surprised by the quality of it, but also it seemingly fits snugly between the ensemble genius of BUFFY and the writing and charm combo of DOCTOR WHO. If there was ever a show for me to get excited about, I think it was bound to be MERLIN…I just didn’t know it until I sat down with it.
I have had the entire last week (and weekend) on my own as my girlfriend has been away on vacation with her family. Somewhere around Thursday evening of last week I bought and downloaded Series 1. I watched two episodes that night and although the first episode leaned a little into the “cheesy” area, the second episode showed me that there might be a heart and a quality here to see. So Friday night I watched a few more and got up to episode 6 and probably somewhere in the 5th episode (one that focuses on Merlin helping Lancelot who’s newly come to Camelot join the Knights by forging documents that made him nobility, which he wasn’t) that I knew I was watching something great. Here is a show that was apparently the creator’s attempt (according to them) to make a SMALLVILLE-style show about a well known heroic personage, but tell the story of that person’s youth. What’s funny is that SMALLVILLE never got out from under its cheesy premise, and instead got mired in it. MERLIN only takes a few episodes before rising above the cheese and becoming something altogether more endearing and certainly more watchable.
The actor’s portraying the leads are really great across the board. Colin Morgan and Bradley James play young Merlin and Arthur respectively and both actors do so with the right balance of youthful exuberance with hints at future greatness…without beating you round the head with that. Angel Coulby plays a very understated (at least in Series 1) Guinevere and what’s truly lovely about her performance is when we get to Series 2 (which I have begun to watch) and see her start to blossom into a person we can see as future queen. Speaking of BUFFY, Anthony Stewart Head plays Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father and king of Camelot. He plays the role to the hilt, and gives Uther such an unrepentant personality that you can’t help but hate him from episode to episode for A. Being so against magic that he has outlawed it and kills anyone associated with it and B. Being a stubborn ass about most things. Where that really strikes home though is on the odd episodes where he shows compassion or has to reign himself in as king, and showcases how the way Head is playing him is perfection. Probably my favourite main character is Morgana played by Irish actor Katie McGrath. Apart from being quite stunningly gorgeous, she also plays the role with the best balance between brooding, simmering upset and loving, friendly ward. For in this version of the tale she is the Ward of Uther and quasi-love interest for Arthur…but she begins to have magic-induced seer-like dreams/nightmares and slowly begins to realize that she can use magic…and ward or not Uther would have her put to death if he knew. She is, for lack of a better word, mesmerizing when she is on screen. I can’t wait to see where they take her story, as I know it can’t turn out well…but I flat out LOVE the dynamic that they’ve brought her onto the side of good, at least right now as it makes a tale that’s been told a hundred times, much more interesting. Scottish thespian Richard Wilson plays court physician (and Merlin guardian) Gaius and does so with a respectable verve and graveness…though he is one character I didn’t get truly involved with until the end of the Series, at which point he becomes much better. We should also mention that there is a great dragon who has been imprisoned deep below the keep by Uther (who feared its magic), whom Merlin befriends and who is voiced by the always amazing John Hurt. That’s another character that starts out as a very basic portrait (prophetic dragon who helps Merlin realize his destiny), but as the episodes go on he develops layers and depth I wholly wasn’t expecting. As a last but not least mention, though she only appears in four episodes, Michelle Ryan’s turn as old magic priestess/sorceress Nimueh is stunningly realized and she works really well as the chief antagonist for Series 1. I truly think that though the narrative, charm and execution of MERLIN is what will get you watching, the characters and the actors who portray them are what will make you stick around.
The special effects are another thing I’d like to make note of. Where North American shows seem to skimp the most when it comes to genre material it is definitely in the special effects department. Basically anything on Syfy or any other channel that shows genre titles is treated with less respect than is due and those seemingly are given less funds with which to produce special effects, or they companies they are hiring are just doing a poor job. Here, special effects company THE MILL (the astonishing people behind GLADIATOR, DOCTOR WHO, TORCHWOOD) were given the ticket and the BBC has paid close attention to making sure the effects look almost film-quality. Magic spells, creature’s and even creature’s shadows are dealt with in a lovingly detailed way that just helps the show. North American channels and producers could (as is usual) learn something from the BBC and showrunners here. If you are going to make a genre show, then spare no expense and the audience will appreciate it.
I think the BBC initially underestimated the fanbase for MERLIN since after Series 1 they gave Series 2 only a 10 episode order (as opposed to the normal 13)…but eventually overturned that idea and extended it to the full 13. They commissioned Series 3 and then 4…but somewhere in there we’d heard rumors of cancellation. Those rumors were likely again a complete false window into fandom since MERLIN fans have slowly become as rabid as DOCTOR WHO fans are. The 5th Series begins shooting in the next two weeks (in Pierrefonds, France which doubles for Camelot), and at San Diego Comic Con this past year the showrunner’s mentioned that if fandom stayed at this high level then a 6th Series would likely be a certainty.
The music is the last thing I wanted to note. In today's TV line-up there is a LOT to be said for really good television scores. With GAME OF THRONES, DOCTOR WHO, DOWNTON ABBEY and the like getting high, high marks and attracting film composer quality work, MERLIN is no different. Veteran TV and Film composer Robert Lane has approached MERLIN with a cinematic ear and has crafted a score that is both quiet and introspective (when the opening theme music tinkles quietly as an emotional heart-string pull) and boisterous and glorious (showcased biggest in a scene of the LANCELOT episode) you can't help but love the music across the board. I'd even go so far as to say it is worth purchasing, if you enjoy scores.
When I was halfway through the 1st Series I fell in love with this show and immediately bought and downloaded Series 2 & 3, for further consumption. I think Series 4 is almost completely up on iTunes as well and I will be buying that. It’s nice to know that I have so much ahead of me to catch up, but I feel I should also slow down since once I catch all the way up I’ll have to wait till fall for new episodes.
If you aren’t watching this show, you should be. It is a genre show, done right and without a huge budget. It is charming, action packed, approachable and at times can be quite emotionally resonant. The BBC have outdone themselves and given themselves another flagship show for its audiences…but moreover they have given us fanboys and fangirls something to truly sink our teeth into.
This month (if all goes according to plan) you will be treated to more than one Anime Wednesday post. Today’s post will concentrate entirely on the anime I’ve been watching religiously for weeks, but next week there will be a Bonus Anime Wednesday post by fellow blogger and anime fan Little Red Reviewer, so stay tuned for that. Above and beyond all that, ARRIETTY has been released to theatre’s in North America and I will be getting out to see it hopefully this week. You will subsequently see a proper movie review on that one as well. So this month is going to go down as the most chock full for the genre we’ve done yet. The numbers on the monthly posts do quite well, so you can expect I’ll continue to keep my finger on the pulse and bring you what’s important, and what you should be watching.
Today’s post is going to concentrate on the anime known as ONE PIECE. This had been a little known show to me up till now, but seemingly occupies a space in fandom that can only be described as a “force of nature”. It is exceedingly popular and sits alongside other such shows like NARUTO, BLEACH, and FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST for long-running, multi-arc-ed, complexly character-driven narratives. I’ve heard that both NARUTO and BLEACH run out of steam and begin to be a bit repetitive (Ala DRAGONBALL) and all about the next “power up” to defeat the next random boss, but having not sat down with them I cannot comment. Strangely, this is apparently not at all true about ONE PIECE. The people I’ve talked to that are up to date with the series actually tell me it simply gets more and more complex as things go along and the world continues to open up into larger storylines and characters. This is especially telling when you consider that the series is 500+ episodes deep already, of a projected 1000! Add to that the fact that the manga, written and drawn by Eiichiro Oda, that it is based on which began in 1997 (in Japan) is still going strong today and is at something like 65 volumes. Add all that up and what you get it a extraordinary manga and anime series that has not only lasted for 10+ years, but apparently continues to be fresh.
Now, if you would have told me that a series that had crappy, late 90’s DBZ-style animation would be written very well and find itself compelling and interesting to a discerning anime-fan such as myself, I’d have called you nuts. I recall the first time it was mentioned to me and I checked out the first episode I was put right off by the animation immediately. I locked it away in the back of my head as “Don’t watch – Ridiculous” and forgot about it.
Until about a month ago.
I had been planning to watch FMA: BROTHERHOOD since I needed some fresh anime to watch and I was ready to get properly stuck into a full series. Sadly, looking it up on iTunes it looked to be $50 for 24 eps (which isn’t bad at all), but that ended up being too pricey for me at the moment. So I pondered giving ONE PIECE a go anew, since people I trust seemed to have such strong positive reactions to the show. Above and beyond this, Funimation (who are currently doing a proper and decent English dub of the series…which isn’t the butchered 4Kids version that came out a number of years back) has set up the episodes to stream (in both dubbed and subbed versions) on their official website for free. All that is required of me is to sit through 3 15-25 second commercials per episode, a fee I don’t mind paying at all!
So I sat down one Saturday morning and watched the first 6 eps, pushing my brain past the stigma about how crappy I thought the animation was and watched for story instead. And I was pleasantly surprised. Here was a show with a seemingly simple premise:
It follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year-old boy who gains elastic abilities after inadvertently eating a supernatural fruit, and his diverse crew of pirates, named the Straw Hat Pirates. Luffy explores the ocean in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as the One Piece and to become the next Pirate King. Along his journey, Luffy makes several friends and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom try to capture the Straw Hats.
It’s very simple, but rather early on (while Luffy is still gathering his initial pirate crew) I found that the show has a lot more depth than you could assume on the surface. The best way I can explain it is with the backstories of the various pirates Luffy gathers. I’ll use Usopp’s story for my example (though all the back stories are this well constructed). Usopp is from a small village where he seemingly is a nutter who tells wild tales about all the pirate adventures he’s been on to a local depressed noble girl who’s parents are dead to cheer her up. He also runs through the village everyday and shouts that “pirates are coming!” even though they clearly aren’t. He is the quintessential “boy who cried wolf” and the village mostly ignores him. As Luffy and Co. arrive and end up having to battle to save the same noble girl from her vicious guardian, Usopp (who considers himself Captain Usopp, and even has children play-acting as his pirate minions) joins in the fight to help save her to his own detriment as he is revealed as a teller of tales and not at all honest. Where this all came full circle and hit me in the chest was after the day is saved and Usopp is considering his future we get a flashback to his childhood. We find out that his mother was sick and dying, his father actually WAS a famous pirate who left with Captain Shanks (for the dangerous Grand Line) when he was little, and that his stories were a way of connecting himself with the father he never saw again…and running through the village shouting that pirates were coming was his way of HOPING that they would, and that his father would return and his mother would get well. Sadly, she dies and Usopp’s father never returns. I was floored by that. Here was a show that for all intents and purposes is about a band of heroes using special attacks to defeat various bosses while they look for treasure and infamy. And in a quiet moment Usopp’s story nearly reduced me to tears.
That was the moment I KNEW I was watching something special.
As the show goes on and Luffy picks up more people – the initial 4 are master swordsman Roronoa Zoro, Slingshot sniper Usopp, thief and navigator Nami, and lastly famed cook, cigarette smoking, martial arts master Sanji – and a ship called the Going Merry, the Straw Hat crew begin to experience more and more of the East Blue ocean before heading properly off to the insanely dangerous Grand Line. What I notice is that little portions of the narrative are seemingly innocuous points, but come into play later on in bigger ways. Bafflingly enough (with a story that is going to be 1000 episodes deep), Oda apparently has a plan. How on earth he can keep everything straight is a dedication you absolutely have to admire in the man.
Now I am about to utter some big words. Last night I rounded the 45th episode of the show (the tail end of the Arlong Arc) and even only being this far into the show I can say without much worry that ONE PIECE has fast become one of my favourite anime shows ever, if not THE best. Now, you might ask me why and I’ll simply say this. Story. Yes, the animation improves somewhere after the 30th episode, but the thing that keeps me coming back time and again is the story. There is a heart where I wasn’t expecting one, there is bravery of a blatant kind, bravery of a learning kind. There is heavy backstory that never intrudes too much on the pacing. The best way to describe this show is that it is inexorable. They will continue to tell this story to its conclusion and once you get stuck in, you won’t stop either. The introduction of new characters and how they fit into the narrative, the attention paid to older characters that I thought we were done with who show up with fresh story points, all add to the weave of the show and make the quilt larger, more complex and simply more impressive. And they haven’t even gotten to the Grand Line yet!
I’m on board. I don’t care how many episodes I have to catch up with; I will keep watching the show as long as it is made. I am fearful (like I was once I realized I liked Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN FILES books) that once I catch up I’ll salivate for the wait from week to week to see new episodes, but that’s a long way off as I still have about 500 eps to go before I am caught up, plus there have been 8 movies. This ought to keep me in deep for months and months.
Get past the lackluster animation you will initially see and probably dislike (trust me that it not only grows on you, but becomes an endearing facet of the show as well), and get through the first 10-15 eps where the main story is still building…for after you pass that section the show gets better, the ramp starts to tilt up, and the narrative will suck you right in and not let you go.
A note on the dubbing: After the 4Kids fiasco (see link above for explanation), FUNIMATION stepped in and bought the license, and have been really faithful to the actual Japanese scripts and (as far as I know) have not touched the animation or cuts scenes. The voice actors that are portraying the characters do a really good job, Colleen Clinkenbeard (Luffy) and Christopher Sabbat (Zoro) being the standouts, and even the lyrics to the opening theme song for Season 1, sung by Vic Mignogna, are a faithful English translation of the Japanese. If you wish to watch the English dub (It’s where I started) then you won’t be disappointed as it’s well crafted and executed. That said, I watch the show streaming on the Funimation Official ONE PIECE site and they rotate which eps are up in English dubs on a seemingly monthly basis, so one month the dubs for Ep1-29 might be up and the next month they might not. This is so that Funimation doesn’t lose the revenue from people buying the DVD’s (something I have since ordered) by streaming it all at once free. Instead they offer it up piecemeal as a taster. Have no fear though, they have a HUGE selection of the original Japanese subbed eps up as well. Now, after I caught up with the existing show order English dubs (they were up to roughly Ep 32 last I checked) I decided to wait until I had the DVD’s or the dubs for the next eps rotated up on the site.
I’m not made of stone. I could not wait.
After taking about 2 eps to re-adjust to the Japanese voice actors (they are quite different in some cases, like Luffy is more of a stoic crazy than a all-shouty crazy as played by Clinkenbeard in English, though both are good portrayals), I fell utterly in love with the original Japanese actors. The other note being that for some strange reason the dialogue and sequences that are emotional simply seem to resonate at a deeper level with the Japanese cast. I’m not sure why, but it seems that is the case with a lot of English dubs. I don’t want to take away from the English cast though as they do as stellar a job as I think I’ve seen on any Anime, it’s just something small I noticed and thought it warranted mentioning.
Oh, and the theme songs (opening and ending) are catchy as hell and you will find yourself either singing them (badly in Japanese if you are like me) or humming them at random. It’s just a fact you will have to accept.
I am so pleased I got over my initial first reaction of the show, and got into it properly. It makes for compelling watching, and fast moved up in my list of things to watch. I can now fully understand the ridiculously huge following the show seems to have garnered over the years, and I now count myself among them.
Ravenously funny, heartfelt, action-packed, and even quite thought-provoking ONE PIECE is (as I mentioned above) a literal force of nature that sweeps down from lofty pirate ship masts and grabs you by the scruff of the neck to whisk you away on an adventure the likes of which you weren’t expecting.
I leave you with the 2nd ending song that I can't get out of my head: Run! Run! Run!
SCOTT Chris and I have had many, many discussions about the DC New 52. We discussed it before it happened, after it happened, and since it happened. I was initially impressed that they were being brave enough to relaunch 52 titles from #1, but after the shine wore off I actually began to wonder how hard the whole thing might fall on its face. As the titles launched in September following the FLASHPOINT event, I recall actually saying to Chris that the New 52 was bound to fail and we’d go back to classic numbering and stories soon enough.
Well, we are nearly 6 full months on from that now, and I’m glad to see that the New 52 hasn’t failed. In fact, it has flourished. They company has sorted out which titles weren’t working and will cancel them, and have even announced a few more new titles earmarked for spring launches. So Chris and I are going to post today about what we are reading and what you should be reading, and a bit about why.
BATMAN – Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo This one came at me like a freight train. I picked it up late, and read from issue 3 onwards. The story is compelling, clever and is exploring a notion I don’t think has been done before. It’s almost a deconstructing of Batman, and so far it includes absolutely none of the typical Batman gallery of rogues. Scott Snyder's writing comes across throughout as utterly amazing. At times it is heartbreaking, at others it is brutal, and at others it can be triumphant, but it never loses what Batman IS. Snyder is definitely a voice/force to be reckoned with in the New 52. Capullo’s art is gorgeous and brutal at the same time and never fails to impress. The notion of attempting to make the layout of the panels interesting (as well as the story) is something that both FLASH and BATWOMAN are also achieving. Capullo is doing the same and this is most evident in issue #5. There is also an attention to the side characters that I wasn't expecting, and is as compelling as the main Bats story. If I had to recommend only one of the New 52, it would be BATMAN.
FLASH – Francis Manpul & Brian Buccelletto FLASH is a title I only got into as a result of the Flashpoint event, and I really began to enjoy the character, so to have the relaunch focus on an early Flash was really exciting to me. Manapul’s pencils are stunning, and as I said above his approach to the panels is nothing short of unique and phenomenal. The first arc is quite an interesting one and you won’t find yourself bored. The narrative is told in such a way that accompanies the art and panels in a weave that is quite perfect. Manapul is pure visual storyteller, and the pages of FLASH are probably the best that DC puts out currently. This book is a revelation!
SUPERGIRL – Michael Green & Mike Johnson
Wow, this one came out of left field for me. I had heard whispers of SUPERGIRL being good after the re-launch. They’d given Kara Zor-El back her dignity (she no longer sports a mini-skirt and half-top thank the gods!) with a new costume that actually covers more skin than it reveals, and a completely new take on her origin. The story starts with Kara waking up on earth not knowing where she is, and continues as she travels back home to destroyed Krypton, but finds that her home of Argo City survived (thanks to her father), on a chunk of asteroid. Things rocket off from there as Kara begins to have to deal with the Worldkillers who were created in Krypton’s antiquity and are searching for their genesis. For me the story sucked me RIGHT in from page one. The lost girl, who instead of bemoaning it takes matters into her own hands and goes to get to the bottom of things is a compelling take. There is a beat of story, a moment, in the 6th issue where Kara is on Argo City and is essentially impaled through a piece of wall with a huge sword. The spirit of her dead father that exists only in her mind gives her the strength to remove it (since she is so far from earth’s yellow sun and has little power). That floored me. It was perfectly executed in art and writing. I am SO glad that after all this time Kara has been given back her dignity. After years of watching her parade around in her mini-skirt and half top so pervy guys had something to look at, I find it utterly refreshing to see her get to look, and act like a real superhero again…worthy of the House of El.
CHRIS I took five minutes yesterday to sit down and peruse through all the comic titles I’m currently collecting. When I blew past 30 I knew that I had a problem. That’s one of the problems with digital comics isn’t it? When I come home from my LCS with a bag bursting to the seams with my weekly haul I’ve got a very noticeable visual and physical reminder that maybe I should cut back a little. (Kinda like the guy who tries to do up his pants after spending a week sampling the all you can eat option at the local buffet.) But with digital comics a couple stabs of your finger and you can buy everything on sale that week and not realize you’ve overindulged until the bill has come in at the end of the month. It says a lot about the quality of the nu52 that when I tried to pare away the lesser lights I found it exceedingly difficult to make the tough calls. On the whole, DC has done an admirable job in putting out high quality books on a consistent, timely basis. Sure there have been some missteps and some of the books have stumbled, but I don’t think anyone seriously expected every book was going to be around for the long haul.
With that in mind, here are my recommendations for what you should be reading in the nu52.
AQUAMAN by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis In recent years it’s been a bit of a comic meme to dismiss Aquaman as nothing more than a guy who talks to fishes. To be honest, I’ve never really understood why he was an object of so much snark and derision. Because, with some rare exceptions, I’ve found something to enjoy about nearly every incarnation of Aquaman (and there have been a lot) in recent years.
And when no less than Geoff Johns, DC’s Chief Creative Officer, takes it onto himself to reinvigorate a character as part of the nu52 you know you’ve got yourself some pretty fertile ground in which to work. Johns has cemented his career in reviving some of DC’s failing flagship characters including Green Lantern and Flash. For Pete’s sake the guy made Booster Gold relevant again, a JLI throwback who’d been a legitimate laughing stock for nearly his entire existence.
Anyway, with only six issues under his belt it’s far too early for Johns to reveal the scope of what he has planned for Aquaman, but there have been enough dropped hints to fire up my imagination nonethelss. In the meantime Johns has done to Aquaman what he does best in all his character makeovers, stripped him down to his essential traits, jettisoned some of the baggage he’s picked up in recent years and created a rich backstory in which to set new tales. Backed by his BLACKEST NIGHT partner, the incredibly gifted Ivan Reis, AQUAMN is a bit of a sleeper hit for me. It’s doing everything right so far but it doesn’t seem to have garnered the fan reaction that say SWAMP THING or ANIMAL MAN have. Maybe it’s because we expect a higher calibre of work from Johns while ST and AM were legitimate surprises.
BATMAN AND ROBIN by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason If Batman is your thing then you’ll find a seemingly endless panoply of flavours in the nu52 to satisfy your cravings. With so many Bat-offerings the casual reader might not want to venture to far of the beaten path for fear of losing their way. Well, gentle snowflakes, let me point you in the direction of BATMAN AND ROBIN. Written by the talented Peter Tomasi and drawn beautifully by Pat Gleason BAR isn’t just another ‘Batman solves crimes because he is smart and punches bad guys in the face’ book, this is a comic that thrives on examining the father\son dynamic of Bruce Wayne and his son Damian. (If a book about a familial relationships sounds boring to you why don’t you fight crime with one of your parents for a year or two and then come back to me with what you’ve learnt.)
We’ve all seen the Batman and Robin back and forth in the comics before. But Damian is still such a new character that his presence can’t help but add a new dimension to the makeup of both individuals. Unlike previous Robins, who tend to die messily when they push back against Batman or otherwise get their crimefighting licence revoked, Damian is Bruce’s actual pre-teen son and kicking him to the curb isn’t really an option if he starts to mouth off a little. Instead of blindly following Batman he questions, probes, resists and adds new depth to a legacy character who had seemingly done it all.
BATWOMAN by J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman There is no more beautiful looking comic book currently being published than BATWOMAN. artist and co-writer J.H. Williams III simply blows his competition out of the water.
Frequently choosing to tell the story in elaborate double page spreads, each issue is a gorgeous work of art and sets a new standard when it comes to the craft of sequential storytelling. It’s not enough to read an issue once. The detail and layout demand repeated readings, with each subsequent consumption harvesting a greater appreciation of the finished product in the heart of the reader.
My only complaint is that the frequent double page layouts makes for cramped reading on the smaller iPad screen. But if publishers were ever looking for a way to keep enticing readers to purchase physical copies this is the way to do it. It’s also a little disappointing that Williams is alternating art duties between story arcs with Amy Reeder. It’s not that Reeder is a bad artist, far from it, it’s just that Williams is so good that he can’t help but make anyone who follows him seem flat by comparison. It’s kind of like putting the warm up act on after the headliner, as good as they are you paid your hard earned dineros to see the big names.
FLASH by Francis Manapul & Brian Buccelletto What can I say about FLASH that Scott hasn’t already alluded too? Part of DC’s push to entice big name artists onto their books by getting them to write as well, FLASH proves that, when done right, this is a creative model that has serious legs. I’ve always enjoyed Manapul’s work, but by giving him input into the creative process at the earliest stages he’s showing me untapped depths that I had never suspected. FLASH is a textbook example of how the seamless integration between story and art can elevate the comics beyond rote dialogue and chunky boxes.
It’s not all sunshine and laser swords though, sometimes the dialogue can be a little bit clunky and not all the story beats work perfectly. But those are problems that can be fixed with time and experience. And believe you me, if Manapul and Buccelletto keep putting out a finished product like this, I don’t see getting more work under their collective belts to be a problem.
On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs boarded a
transport plane for a sightseeing trip over “Shangri-La,” a beautiful
and mysterious valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch
New Guinea. Unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton’s
bestselling novel Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to
spear-carrying tribesmen, warriors rumored to be cannibals.
But
the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for survival when the
plane crashed. Miraculously, three passengers pulled through. Margaret
Hastings, barefoot and burned, had no choice but to wear her dead best
friend’s shoes. John McCollom, grieving the death of his twin brother
also aboard the plane, masked his grief with stoicism. Kenneth Decker,
too, was severely burned and suffered a gaping head wound.
Emotionally devastated, badly injured, and vulnerable to the hidden
dangers of the jungle, the trio faced certain death unless they left the
crash site. Caught between man-eating headhunters and enemy Japanese,
the wounded passengers endured a harrowing hike down the mountainside—a
journey into the unknown that would lead them straight into a primitive
tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white man—or
woman.
Drawn from interviews, declassified U.S. Army documents,
personal photos and mementos, a survivor’s diary, a rescuer’s journal,
and original film footage, Lost in Shangri-La recounts this incredible
true-life adventure for the first time. Mitchell Zuckoff reveals how the
determined trio—dehydrated, sick, and in pain—traversed the dense
jungle to find help; how a brave band of paratroopers risked their own
lives to save the survivors; and how a cowboy colonel attempted a
previously untested rescue mission to get them out.
Non-Fiction books have always acted as palate-cleanser’s for me. In amongst the glut of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Thriller and Historical Fiction books I read are always scattered a few Non-Fiction reads with which to clear my head out of all the fiction. I’ve done this for a number of years now, and more often than not the NF books that tickle my fancy are usually historical, mystery, or adventurous in some way. For example last year I read the phenomenal LOST CITY OF Z: A TALE OF DEADLY OBSESSION IN THE AMAZON by David Grann, which was a thrilling and fascinating story of missing Victorian explorer Percy Fawcett, his search for a lost city in the middle of the inhospitable Amazon jungle, and the subsequent searches for him after he went missing.
This time I chose one of 2011’s most talked about books, Mitchell Zuckoff’s LOST IN SHANGRI-LA, which is the story of a military plane in WWII that went down in a hidden (and previously unknown) valley in the mountainous region in the middle of Dutch New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea) with twenty-four people aboard. The story is about the eventual survivors of the crash, their meeting of the natives that populate the valley (whom haven’t progressed much past the Stone Age), and the subsequent attempts by the military to retrieve them from this mountain-locked valley.
First and foremost Zuckoff’s prose is easy, and fast. The book is written like a magazine article and as such you can lap it up at a fairly quick pace. The story is REALLY interesting and lends itself very well to the narrative style Zuckoff employs. This type of story with survivors, mysterious peoples, military bravery and social hierarchies is very much my bag and so I was not found wanting while I read it. I got sucked into it pretty early on.
The main stumbling block the book suffers from is length. Where he can, Zuckoff inserts narrative chunks that will (in some way) work as supplemental to the main story and while sometimes this works very well (A story about the actual first Western discoverer of the valley and the bloodshed that encounter resulted in), at other times (long-winded back stories for people we don’t need back stories for) it simply pulls you out of the story and the pacing drops to near zero. Zuckoff seems to have some need to put in a lot of superfluous info that doesn’t pertain to the main story in any way that is important to the tale told. It’s basically padding to make a 150 pages worth of story fit 300 pages worth of space. So while I didn’t need to know the names, occupations, and familial history for every person on the Gremlin Special (the name of the plane that crashes) since the majority don’t survive the crash, I totally understand why Zuckoff put them in. That doesn’t make them any less superfluous.
The main story (that of the three survivors, their experiences in the valley with the natives, and the subsequent rescue) is riveting, well executed and charming. There is a 1940’s sensibility to the dialogue (probably because survivor Margaret Hasting’s diary could be quoted verbatim) and that I found wonderful and helped place me into the time frame. The addition of black and white photo’s taken at the time, before the crash and after (once a photographer, and even a Hollywood director were dropped into the valley) are a nice thing to come across every few pages as well since we are lucky enough to have them to go along to place faces with characters.
The books' ending is an epilogue basically rounding up what happened to everyone involved after the fact, some of that is decidedly emotional and bittersweet and some of that is quite lovely and happy. Zuckoff does his most admirable work in the whole book in that epilogue, while the story of the crash and rescue is thrilling, what happens after (on Dutch New Guinea and off back at home) is much more compelling on the humanity note and makes a few very good points about our values and directions as western society. Most especially what our influence did to the people of Papua New Guinea, and even what it did to some of the survivors lives. Parts of it almost come across as a cautionary tale, resulting from an event and aftermath that time nearly forgot.
I really enjoyed my time with LOST IN SHANGRI-LA and though the book could have benefited from a bit of editing to get it down to a slimmer volume that might have been more exciting throughout, it was still quite a worthy read and a tale I was not aware had even happened.
The 12th episode, being the first part of the two-part finale for Series 1 is a bit of an odd duck if you watch it standalone. It’s basically the lead up to the penny dropping about the who the main villain of Series 1 is, and what exactly the plot thread of Bad Wolf (a phrase that has shown up somehow in almost every episode) means.
Title BAD WOLF, the episode finds The Doctor, Rose and Jack on a space station that broadcasts game shows. Each in their respective shows: Doctor is on Big Brother, Rose is on The Weakest Link, and Jack is on What Not To Wear (even though that’s technically not a game show). Each quickly find that the penalty on each of the shows for losing is disintegration. While the Doctor, joined by Big Brother contestant Lynda, steps out of the “house” to find a root to the issue of what exactly is going on, Rose gets closer and closer to disintegration on the fast-paced Weakest Link show.
Like I said above, it’s an anomaly if you watch it by itself since it’s the prologue for the finale. It reveals Bad Wolf as the corporation that runs the space station, which turns out to be Satellite 5 from THE LONG GAME 100 years after the Doctor’s visit. As a result of that previous visit, the Earth stopped receiving transmissions, thus halting our worlds progress. It is also revealed that the villains behind the whole shebang are…dunh dunh dunh…the Daleks. More precisely a fleet of 400,000 Daleks. A New Dalek Empire. That’s about the size of it.
I think my point being that you should NOT watch this episode by itself. It will only make you yearn to watch the second half and the two really do work better as one 2 hour story.
With that said, I decided of course, on a double episode post to finish off the Series 1 Re-Watch.
So without further ado, I’ll talk about the final episode THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.
This episode begins with Rose, being threatened with extermination after having been transmatted (not killed as previously thought) to the Dalek Emperor’s ship. She is about to be exterminated when she shouts that they need her to give them info about the Doctor so they stop from killing her…info which she then proceeds to refuse to give them just as the Doctor materializes the TARDIS around her inside the Dalek bridge, saving her life. The Doctor, Jack and Rose step out onto the Dalek bridge, protected by the force field around the phone box to chat with the Dalek Emperor himself. It turns out that he escaped the Time War with his ship and has slowly been stealing human bodies and using their flesh and DNA to create his new race of Daleks. This is a notion that the Doctor finds laughable since the Dalek’s loathe anything remotely human as inferior. The Dalek Emperor revered as a god by his creations and the Doctor is secondly befuddled by a Dalek race that has apparently gotten “religion” after a fashion. This is a warped and twisted version of the Dalek race he has known his whole life, but it is no less dangerous. In fact, as the Doctor himself notes, they are all “quite mad” and a race of insane Dalek’s is not a good thing.
The first thing that jumps out at me here is that in the first half of the finale the Doctor was being helped by Lynda (with a Y) from his Big Brother house, and in the second half Rose meets her. It was hilarious to watch Rose (no less than 3 times) actually “sneer” at Lynda when she says she’ll help him do something. She reacts as jealously as she could and this is the first real indication that her motives towards the Doctor aren’t merely about adventure, time and space. This is the first time we see the inklings of “love” that will flourish as the series progresses. So in proper form she reacts to Lynda (and the Doctor’s admiration of her help) like a jealous lover would do, and it’s wonderful and realistic. One of RTD’s major skills is always the quiet, subtle beats in a script. The moments that you don’t really think about till later (or in this case on a re-watch), as they ring very true to Rose specifically.
After deciding that she’s not safe, the Doctor pulls a classic “Doctor trick” and sends her to the TARDIS to “get” something, the door locks and the TADRIS begins to dematerialize. While in transit back home a hologram plays where he tells her she’s not safe there and he had promised to keep her safe. He says let the TARDIS fade into memory on a street corner somewhere, and forget about it. This is one of those odd moments, that while it is entirely poetic, I often wonder if the Doctor assumed that strong-willed Rose Tyler was going to simply do as he asked.
Of course once Rose is home she begins to fret. Her mother and Mickey attempt to comfort her but to no avail. She feels useless and that the Doctor could be dying 200,00 years in the future and there is nothing she can do about it. It’s not until the words Bad Wolf are written in chalk and paint graffiti at a local playground that she begins to put it together as a sign that she needs to try to get back to him. Believing that if she can get a panel open she once saw open on the TARDIS console (which the Doctor previously told her was the heart of the TARDIS) then perhaps she could get it to home back to where it had come from. Of course once they get open the panel the light/heart of the TARDIS goes into her eyes, the door shuts and zips right back to Satellite 5 again…with a “changed” Rose in tow.
The Doctor established that he could create a wave that would destroy the Daleks, but it would also destroy everything in the vicinity including them. Jack, Lynda and Co. attempt to fight off the Daleks to buy the Doctor time to do his, during which Jack is exterminated. The Doctor cannot bring himself to use the wave since it will kill everyone…but also because he can’t even bring himself to do in the Daleks. This is a turning point in the PTSD-Doctor from the Time War. He is leaps and bounds from the self he was back in DALEK when he would have killed the thing without batting an eye. This is the first time we see him starting to accept that war is war and this is something else. That IF there is a chance to get out of this without the deaths of thousands, even if they ARE Dalek, then he needs to take that chance.
When Rose arrives the Doctor realizes what she has done, having looked into what is essentially the untempered schism (a right of passage that only Time Lords can do seeing into all of time and space at once) and that “no one is meant to do that” he wants to help her but before he can she basically “unmakes” the Dalek fleet, up to and including the Emperor himself. I love that part, her power is unmatched and she basically does something the Doctor could not bring himself to do a few moments earlier. She also “makes” life by bringing Jack Harkness back to life…which funnily enough makes him immortal, but that’s another story.
The episode ends with the Doctor kissing Rose to absorb the time energy into his body, and then sending it back into the TARDIS properly. Sadly, this has triggered the death of the 9th incarnation of the time lord. His body is going to regenerate and he explains this as quickly as he can to Rose, who doesn’t really understand. Then it’s all blasting yellow regeneration energy from arms and head…and Christopher Eccelstone bows out of the role he pioneered (in the new show anyways), leading the way for the 10th (and most popular) Doctor, David Tennant.
This episode has a number of emotional moments, I thin one of the top we all agree is Eccelstone’s final scene where he rather matter-of-factly tells Rose he is going to die. But to be entirely honest with you, it was earlier where my emotional heartstrings got plucked. There is a quiet scene during the part of the episode when Rose is stuck on earth when Jackie Tyler can’t understand why Rose wants to go back and help. Rose looks at her mother and says “Because HE would have.” And at first you assume she’s talking about The Doctor, but no…she’s talking about her father, Pete Tyler (the inventor, who died when she was just a baby). She says, “he took me there mum. I met him, on the day he died. The Doctor took me back to see him.” And Jackie is disbelieving at first “Stop it. Don’t be stupid. Stop talking like that.” And with tears streaming down her face Rose says to her mum “Remember when dad died? There was a blonde girl who stayed with him till the ambulance arrived? You remember. It was me mum, I was there with him!”. Oh god, I blubbered like a little kid during that scene. It’s also the lynch pin to Jackie deciding to help her daughter and help the Doctor. That it’s because Pete would have done. He would have TRIED, no matter how silly the idea was.
My second fave beat in the episode, is of course David Tennant’s first scene. I flat out love his line of dialogue. “Hello! Oo. New teeth. That's weird. So where was I? Oh that's right. Barcelona!” and he cracks his trademark grin. It’s probably the BEST entry of a Doctor ever, and is only really rivaled by his own exit 4 years later.
Now this is where things get interesting. The Re-Watch continues, but the next episode is a with a new Doctor in tow and new adventures. I start Series 2 with the next episode (and the first full ep to feature David Tennant) THE CHRISTMAS INVASION. So stay tuned!
Well, it’s been just over a year and this little blog Chris
and I started just rolled over the 100,000 hits mark. I’m fairly sure when we
started the site, neither Chris nor myself thought it would be read by that many
people. That we could say something and it would be read and enjoyed by folk
seemed a pipe dream by a couple of guys who simply assumed they had important
things to say. Meanwhile we think we are both full of hot air most of the time.
So over 350 posts, 6 podcasts and an unknown number of
DOCTOR WHO-oriented posts later, we have apparently entertained enough for folk
to come back on a daily basis. That’s a big deal to us, and we’d like to thank
you all for your patronage here, as if you weren’t reading we likely wouldn’t
be writing. In that same vein we hope you keep coming back for our particular
brand of wit (or lack thereof), silliness, opinionated reviews of TV shows and Movies,
Anime knowledge, argumentative podcasts and most of all our book reviews in
which we both attempt to sound smarter than we are and pretend that our opinion
truly matters.
At any rate, here is a pint raised to all our readers for clocking
us over the 100,000 mark, and here’s to another 100,000 down the line.
All over the world people are 'coming up latent' - developing new and
terrifying abilities. Untrained and pan-icked, they are summoning
storms, raising the dead, and setting every-thing they touch ablaze. US
Army Lieutenant Oscar Britton has always done his duty, even when it
means working alongside the feared Supernatural Operations Corps,
hunting down and taking out those with newfound magical talents. But
when he manifests a rare, startling power of his own and finds himself a
marked man, all bets are off. On the run from his former colleagues,
Britton is driven into an underground shadow world, where he is about to
learn that magic has changed all the rules he's ever known ...and that
his life isn't the only thing he's fighting for.
Have you ever sat down and thought, what would really happen if the world all of the sudden had magic? How would the people in the world deal with the revelation that magic started to exist across the world? More importantly, how would the world's various government’s deal with it?
In a book that echoes similar ideas brought forth with the U.S. Government and Mutant’s in the X-Men comics, Myke Cole’s debut novel SHADOW OPS: CONTROL POINT shows us exactly what would happen. The Government’s of the world would immediately tamp down, organize, and regulate the heck out of magic. Perhaps that stems from fear of what the average citizen can do with godlike powers, or perhaps it comes from the need to keep things organized, fair and safe in the country. The problem with that is that these sorts of things begin with the best of intentions and end up skewing into unfair and even inhuman territory.
In Cole’s work, the military arm that deals with magic (and uses it) has been factioned off into a something called the SOC which handles sanctioned magic elements (Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth). They hunt down Selfer’s (magic users who use their magic unregistered and can cause havoc) and Probes (Users of the prohibited magic schools, things like Portamancy, Necromancy, Negramancy ect.) because they are deemed a danger to themselves and society.
Protagonist Oscar Britton begins the book leading a Helicopter team that is assisting in the takedown of two high school students who have manifested and are wrecking the building and threatening those around them. The Aeromancer who is leading the op ends up soullessly murdering one of the two kids because she manifests a Probe school of magic and Oscar is horrified by the event. Then, of course, all hell breaks loose because just after that Oscar manifests himself, and it’s in a prohibited school …and having seen what the SOC does to Probes, he runs.
The novel rockets off after this moment and never stops, with Oscar on the run, then finding himself in the alternate dimension where magic seemingly originates from called The Source. A place populated by other worldly beatsies, like demon horses, goblin tribes and huge Roc’s. Oscar’s life turns completely upside down in the second half of the book, but I'd rather not spoil further plot points so I won't tell you why.
Cole has a distinct and deft hand in the pacing department. Not once in SHADOW OPS: CONTROL POINT did I feel that anything was tacked on for the sake of it. The prose is clean, and fluid skipping along for almost all the 400+ pages. It's not particularly descriptive and could be described as workmanlike, but that's not a bad thing. The story itself is entirely compelling and quite clever. Having been in the military (tours in Iraq I believe) himself and having worked as a civilian contractor Cole has a high level of knowledge of how things work within that organization. All the terms and many of the phrases used in the U.S. Military are represented, but it doesn’t overwhelm you which was nice. There is (if you require it) a glossary of those terms in the back of the book in case you feel flooded at all by them, but I wasn’t so I would be too worried.
I truly think that where Cole absolutely shines is in his characterization. Every last character in this book has a lot of depth, much more than you’d expect from a novel of this length. He spends a lot of time not only putting Oscar through his mental paces, but each of the side characters as well. Characters are put through a very realistic wringer that asks them what side they are on, if it’s the right side, then asks them again, and shows them it might not be. It was a quiet back and forth that goes on while the rest of the book is unfolding that I quite enjoyed. A very unique way of character building, and I gotta give Myke credit for that. Certain characters will pop out and immediately attach themselves to you by being endearing and brave. The novel brings up notions about racism between humans and the Source’s indigenous population (showcased in some folks treatment of goblins), and how even though humans are the invaders, they still feel superior.
The world building is fair and decent, as I walked away from the book with a good knowledge of what Cole set out to establish with the Source. I feel like we’ve only just scratched the surface of what there is to see in the world though. There is certainly a lot of room for exposition about the magic, where it comes from and how it manifests. About how the source ties into our own world as well. Is it an alternate dimension, reality, time? I’m very curious and I’ll be very interested to see how that plays out in the other two books.
The first of as trilogy, Myke Cole’s SHADOW OPS: CONTROL POINT is one of the better debuts so far in 2012. It’s fast, clever and endlessly entertaining. You will find yourself cheering for Britton and his friends as they race to save themselves and the planet. I really enjoyed this book a great deal and I feel that Cole has a distinct voice, and a wild imagination. I look forward to the rest of the trilogy with great interest!
What was originally meant to be a part of our Podcast THE GIGGLE LOOP - Iceberg Ink’s interview with Orbit author Michael J. Sullivan - ended up splintering off and becoming its own entity. We were actually pleased by that event simply because we realized that truly good interviews with good banter sort of have to exist on their own.
Our talk with Michael Sullivan has some of the hallmarks of normal interviews (where we ask him lots of questions he’s been asked before), but it also ends up being very pub chat style for the second half. Michael cleverly asks us questions and is able to dispense valuable advice on writing, getting published, and we even get into TV like BABYLON 5 and LOST.
So in an interesting mix of Interview and our Podcast we give you the interview in its entirety, which clocks in at not quite an hour and half. Chris and I had a blast talking to Michael and we hope he enjoyed it as well.
The Giggle Loop - Author Interview - Michael J. Sullivan
Running Time: 1:16:03 MP3 Download HERE
The lifespan of the alien cheela can be measured in the time it takes a human being to blink. To the naked eye the cheela are amorphous blobs barely the size of a sesame seed, but they pack the same mass as a human being does and they live on the surface of Dragon’s Egg, a neutron star with a gravity hundreds of times more powerful than Earth’s.
Astronauts orbiting around Egg have watched the cheela civilization develop from a nation of feudal warring tribes to a mature space faring culture in less than 24 hours. But as the humans prepare to pull up stakes and head back to Earth a starquake rips across the face of Dragon’s Egg, killing almost all the cheela, sending the entire planet back into the stone age and stranding a small group of cheela on an orbiting space station with no way of returning home.
As the cheela on Egg begin to recover from the ‘quake the remnants of their once great culture quickly descend into barbarism and savagery. Now the human astronauts must figure out a way to reunite the spacebound cheela with their planetary cousins and rescue the alien culture from self-destruction before it’s too late.
STARQUAKE is the sequel to one of my favourite childhood books, DRAGON’S EGG. Given the little synopsis I just gave you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a straight science fiction book.
You’d also be 100 per cent wrong.
STARQUAKE is a science textbook about the make-up and properties of neutron stars where a valiant, but ultimately flawed, attempt was made to surgically graft a narrative plot line onto its academic bonafides. The Frankensteinesque result is a strange amalgamation of two very different genre into a final product that serves that needs of neither parent but somehow manages to be an interesting and pleasant read nonetheless.
The Characters and the Plot are paper thin, both elements clearly exist only as a Science Delivery Mechanism to ensure the reader gets their maximum recommended daily dose of book learnings in the sweetest manner possible. It can take a Herculean effort at times not to skip over the hard science info dumps and jump to the next dialogue exchange or story development.
There’s a kind of wholesome folksy blandness to all the characters. Despite humans and cheela living on vastly different time scales and having wildly dissimilar physiological, cultural and mental makeups most of the characters come across as overly friendly Mr. Rogers types, always willing to lend a neighbour a hand.
Even the one or two characters who manage to stand outside these broad archetypes don’t do so for very long or very well. At first glance distinctive cheela characters like Attila and Qui-Qui might show glimpses of a unique personality, but sadly glimpses are all we get. In STARQUAKE even sadistic despots and sultry cabaret singers come across as homely and personable when you spend enough time with them.
Before Forward started writing sci-fi he made his bank as a physicist. And, like any good scientist would, he tackles the job of writing in the most rational and clinical manner possible. STARQUAKE is a technically perfect excercise in how to structure a novel, a series of increasingly difficult obstacles that must be overcome in order for the story’s narrative to progress.
Unfortunately while the book might excel in its technical elements it is woefully lacking in its artistic implementation. STARQUAKE has no soul or personality. It’s a dry recitation of events that are presented to potential readers in the most straightforward manner possible. Don’t get me wrong, the book is never boring. It’s just that Forward lacks the writerly hutzpah to compel the reader’s complete attention and paper over the book’s deficiencies with a distinct authorial voice.
I’m glad to finally be getting around to closing out a story that brought me so much joy when I was younger. I have a real fondness for the cheela and the story of their life on Dragon’s Egg. But I doubt I’ll be rereading this book again anytime soon, if ever. If anything, it’s a cautionary tale that sometimes the things we loved so much in our childhood don’t always age well as we get older.
Starting later this year (Date not yet confirmed), CBS Home Entertainment will be re-releasing the entire STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION series on Blu Ray. The great part is that since the show was actually entirely shot on 35mm film and then mastered to video for TV release, this means we can get actual proper 1080P transfers from the film itself (as opposed to the tape masters). The challenge there is that the film was not edited, and is technically all still rough, so the team has had to go back and re-edit directly from the film exactly as the episodes were (when they aired between 1987 and 1994), and have also gone through and re-composited every special effect (as opposed to simply upconverting from the video masters), and the audio has also been transferred to HD 7.1 DTS Master Audio.
The result?
Astonishing.
I sat there like a rapt teenager again. Stunned.
I don’t have many other words to describe it. I had planned to watch maybe one or two of the three (technically four) episodes, and ended up watching all of them. Contained on the sampler disc are: ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT (S1 Pilot), SINS OF THE FATHER (S3), and THE INNER LIGHT (S5) to show what exactly this hard work has been for and just why you would want to re-buy the Series (in case you already owned it all on DVD). I’ve seen a few people say that there really isn’t much reason to re-buy the series, and I can understand that sentiment, since we’ve been subjected to some pointless re-releases of things in our time. We’ve been burned and the chances we would take on dropping this kind of coin a second time are slimmer than you’d think. So CBS had to not only impress with this project, but they basically have to blow us away. They have done this in spades.
The Picture quality is stunning. The colours are all punchy and bright, the blacks are clean and not murky, and there is a bit of film grain to add a realism to the process. The one worry I had going into a true 1080P HD transfer was that the special effect makeup. Could it hold up under the scrutiny of HD? Surprisingly, it does! Worf’s makeup, Picard’s old man makeup in THE INNER LIGHT, and even the rest of the Klingon’s on SINS OF THE father hold up perfectly. There are no visible seams and or other noticeable defects, which just shows the standard that the crew initially went to on the show for quality. The aspects of HD that will pop out at you are things like in the opening credit sequence when the Enterprise goes by the screen you can see people moving about through the tiny bridge windows. That is something I never noticed when it aired on TV, nor when I watched it on DVD. That really impressed me. I’m sure it’s always been there, but the clarity has just never been high enough for us to see it.
The sound is great as well. It’s not necessarily the quality of some recent films on Blu Ray, but it is far better than it’s ever been before and crystal clear. In fact, getting to watch and hear the opening sequence on this disc was a real treat and made me grin from ear to ear. The lossless audio made me appreciate that sequence far more than I ever had.
The special effects are bright, properly coloured and stand out well. Up to and including the lights on the Enterprise, it all looks like it would on a TV show today. Tractor beams, rotating space probes, and even tentacled aliens look amazing. If the rest of the series has this level of quality (and I expect it will), then we are all seeing the most definitive presentation of this show there has ever been.
Part of this is nostalgia for a show I grew up with, and part of it is wonder at the work that has clearly gone into this. This isn’t some cash grab on the part of CBS. This is a restoration, and presentation of a show that probably as close to what Gene Roddenberry envisioned as we can get. I think these are the releases I am most looking forward to this year, bar none. If you’ve got $18-20 to spare and want to check this out, I assure that you won’t be disappointed and you might curse me for getting you on board to re-buy this series. Personally I only ever owned one Season on DVD (3), and so this will be the definitive purchase for me regardless, but I urge owners of the series to give these a look as they are well worth it.
Cool Factor Sidenote: The menu screen was an actual fully functional Starfleet computer screen, which is swift, clean and nicely rendered. That was a small, but lovely touch.
Have a gander below at the commercial for the Blu Ray's to get a taste of what I speak.
