TOY STORY 3

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see this.

Trivia for Today

Before Jim Henson settled on FRAGGLE ROCK the series was tentatively titled WOOZLE WORLD.

The groove between your nose and your upper lip is called the philtrum.

About the new STAR TREK & alternate timelines

I was excited to see STAR TREK. Even though I am much more of a Star Wars fan, I have become a fan of Star Trek and that franchise has been a part of the pop culture background for much of my life. The new STAR TREK is a great movie. It's got some fairly well developed characters, lots of action, vivid imagery, superb special effects, etc. Movie-goers seem to love it and many have been introduced to the characters of Kirk, Spock, etc for the first time. The studio, Paramount, loves it because the film will now allow them to "re-energize" their tent-pole franchise from the ground-up and they will make huge bank. I'll admit that as a movie, I enjoyed it. Yet, overall, I was severely disappointed because as a piece of storymaking, STAR TREK is a complete cop-out.

If you haven't seen the movie, beware that what might be considered spoilers are coming.

Almost the entire new STAR TREK film is set within an alternative timeline. Writers and actors like alternate timelines because it allows them to do things with characters that they normally couldn't do. In all honesty, alternate timelines are a complete cop-out and hugely dishonest. I can understand why actors enjoy it because if they've been acting in a series for several years a change of pace might allow them to display talent that they couldn't before. However, there's no excuse for writers. Alternate timelines are something that poor writers fall back upon because they're either too lazy or uncreative enough to stay true to a character's personality while keeping it interesting. It shows a complete and utter disregard for characters and the fictional universes they inhabit.

Basically, because of the new STAR TREK movie, nothing (and I mean nothing, no Next Generation, no Deep Space Nine, no Q, no Borg, nothing) exists from before. Five different television shows, ten movies, and a series of pseudo-canon novels have been completely eradicated. I mean, the entire planet Vulcan, which played huge part in the original series and movies has been destroyed. Everything Star Trek related for the next several years, perhaps decades, will be set within the new "alaternative timeline" of the new movie. That's not to say that Paramount won't go back to the original timeline at some point in the future, but the new Star Trek is all the rage and that's what will make them the most amount of money right now in the short term. The future has been postponed for a "new past". And there won't be going back to the original format for a very long time. In my opinion what J.J. Abrams and company have done is the equivalancy of what George Lucas did with Indiana Jones and the entire alien encounter in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

April 2009: Media Consumed

Books Read
*F-Minus: This Can't Be Legal Tony Carrillo
Liberty and Tyranny Mark Levin
*The Saturday Evening Pearls Stephan Pastis
#Twilight Zone: The After Hours Mark Kneece, et al
Star Trek: Best Destiny Diane Carey
*Suture Self Leo Cullum
The Cuckoo's Haiku and Other Birding Poems Michael Rosen & Stan Fellows
*My Bad: A Zits Treasury Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman

* = denotes a collection of comic strips
# = denotes a graphic novel

Of the books read in April, the only two I can recommend anyone looking at are F-Minus: This Can't Be Legal and The Saturday Evening Pearls. I had never heard of the comic strip "F-Minus" before, but it was hilarious. It's usually a one-panel strip that has the same type of humor that Farside used to have. The Saturday Evening Pearls is the latest collection of "Pearls Before Swine" strips and as everyone knows it's the best comic strip currently in circulation. If you like birds, check out The Cuckoo's Haiku which though is a collection of bird poems has some spectacular illustrations and is really a field guide in disguise. Also, if you're a fan of the original Star Trek series (the original--not the new timeline version), you might enjoy Star Trek: Best Destiny which tells how Jim Kirk became interested in Starfleet and also gives a few details following the events of the movie, Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country.

Movies Viewed for the First Time
The Death of a President
The Watcher in the Woods
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Beyond Narnia
Once Upon a Mattress
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Observe and Report
Hannah Montana: The Movie
America Zombie
The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines
Bolt

Out of the movies I saw for the first time, there's only a few I will comment on. Monsters Vs. Aliens was so much better than what I had expected. It's full of all kinds of surprises for people who grew up reading sci-fi, watching movies, or who have ever listened to Stephen Colbert. Bolt was also another movie I was surprised by, but shouldn't have been because the producer is the guy who basically started Pixar. American Zombie was a hilarious movie, but only if you enjoy zombies and if you have seen enough documentary films to know the cliches of the genre. There's actually some extraordinary acting in this film, but since it was a low budget indie and has a narrow focus, it will take some time before people begin "discovering" it.

The Actor

Last weekend I had my first paying job as an actor. It was $20 for a 10-minute shoot for a corporate training video. I've wanted to be a professional actor since I was about five and even at that young of an age I defined "professional" as getting paid to act. So, I can finally say that I'm a professional actor. It feels good, real good.