Kyle Brady: Blog » Movies

“An Open Letter to the Movie Industry” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:12:14 +0000

We love you - just to clarify, “we” is most of America and large portions of the world-at-large. But you’re quickly becoming prey to your own scheming and need to be saved before you collapse from the weight of your own self-indulgence.

We’re here for you.

Go check it out.

“Once Upon a Twilight Dream” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:20:17 +0000

New guest post at the Inquisitr:

Very simply, the fact that these sort of people would brave a highly judgmental and vocal crowd of thousands of nerds says volumes for their sanity, not to mention what they might consider devotion. Comic-Con is a place for geeks to enjoy themselves once a year and indulge in all of their favorite geek activities, which runs the gamut from comic book-based movies to science fiction TV shows, but definitely does not include the world of Twilight. A new (and not-yet-real) panel for the announcement of a new Blade movie? Sure. But a place for a bunch of screaming females to fawn over the upcoming release of slow-motion shirtless males? Not so much. If Blade is an example of nerd-acceptable vampirism, then Twilight is its antithesis.

Go check it out.

Why I Won’t Be Seeing the New “Star Trek” Movie(s) [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:49:45 +0000

First, let me say this: I am a Trekkie. I was born in '87, and grew up with TNG... between it and the original Star Wars movies, my nerddom was cemented for life.

Voyager was fun, and so were the bits of DS-9 that I watched on occasion, but neither matched the greatness of TNG. Until a few months ago, if someone were to say "ship's captain", I would automatically respond "Jean-Luc Picard". Nowadays, I might hesitate between Admiral Adama (the "captain" of Battlestar Galactica... a show I've recently fallen in love with) and Picard, but the point is that Picard was amazing in ways Kirk never will be. Not even Janeway (Voyager) could compete, and she was pretty cool in her own right.

Ok. Can we move forward now that I've verified my pedigree? Great.

JJ Abrams

If you watched the first two seasons of Lost, loved it, and then hated it as it slowly devolved into "how can we make this show more randomly complex for no real reason, since we make it up as we go", you know why I don't like Abrams. He's also responsibile for Alias (the crappy "OMG SHE CHANGED HER HAIRCOLOR!" spy show), Fringe (the "fake science so fake it's annoying" show), and Cloverfield (the overly hyped monster movie made for $3 and a candybar).

Oh, and Mission:Impossible III. Do I need to continue? The man's work is just plain annoying.

Casting

This should be a quick and easy point. We're really supposed to believe a psycho superhuman serial killer (Sylar) is now an intelligent, peaceful Vulcan (Spock)? That's really difficult since Zachary Quinto really only has one claim to fame prior to Star Trek. Also, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is a Zac Effron wannabe? Not to mention that porky British guy who only plays in bad comedies, or the guy from the "Whitecastle" movies.

Please.

Edit: I'm not saying we should judge the cast based on prior work, but that alot of them are already stereotyped in the minds of the viewers at the moment, for one reason or another... that makes for difficult believability.

Captain Kirk

Like I said before, I'm a Picard guy. Always have been, always will be. It's often been said that in the minds of many fans, Kirk has long since been dead... Why revive him?

I have no interest in his storyline, and I know I'm not alone.

Timeline

If you're going to do a "reboot" of Star Trek, why would you revisit one that already exists? There is a rich tradition of extending the universe with entirely new characters and plots, and it would have been better to create an entirely new branch than to wedge in some crappy prequel story.

They're talking about starting another TV show... which would make more sense if a new branch had been created, but as of now that's pretty dumb. Also keep in mind these are Trekkie fans you're dealing with - anything that changes the continuity/canon will piss off the people that root for you.

Which means a true "reboot" is impossible.

Edit: Abrams himself has called this a reboot, and has expressed his intentions for a sequel to this, and beyond. Look it up, it's a fact.

The Movie

I've read reviews, talked to people who saw it, and watched all the trailers, trying to decide if I was being too harsh. But no matter how much you may or may not have loved the movie, there is one inescapable fact: this is not a true Star Trek entity.

Star Trek is about social commentary, intergalactic politics, interspecies tensions, morality, humanity's future, imperialism, and a whole bunch of other concepts/values that tend to be rather high-brained. Every version of the show, and the movies, had this fact at its core, regardless of who they were trying to appeal to.

Abrams, on the other hand, took an action movie and wrapped it in Star Trek lore. Yes, all the characters are there, and there's "spaceships and stuff"... but what is the movie really about? Skydiving, rebellious teenagers, nonsense military decisions ("let's give teenagers a ship!"), Cloverfield monsters (more on this below), getting laid, and random in-fighting.

Does that sound similar? At all? I didn't think so. Because those are the makings of a generic action movie.

You can update many aspects of Star Trek without changing it at the core: updating for modern times ("the Cold War is over!"), better special effects, more space battles, less cheesy acting, newer technology, less "all white people, all the time", etc. But you need to follow the basic, intrinsic values of the franchise.

I imagine Abrams (and the studios) said "let's do a Star Trek movie, but make huge amounts of money!", to which the obvious solution was to not actually make a Star Trek movie, and just pretend enough for the fanboys to drool.

The Cloverfield Monster

Let's compare...

Click for larger

It's a pretty obvious case of monster reuse, but in case you were still skeptical, they were "designed" by the same person - Neville Page.

More and More

There's probably a few more points I could get into, but these are the major ones. I wish this weren't the case, because I love Star Trek as much as the next guy, but what a crappy way to introduce the franchise to a new generation. A semi-popular-cancelled-after-a-few-seasons-because-it's-on-FOX TV show would have been a better choice, even if Abrams was involved and they named it Star Trek: The New Lost Alias of Khan's Felicitious Leather Fringe Jacket.

What we, as devoted fans, need is someone who actually cares about the franchise. If they want to actually do a TV show again, I'm all for it, as long as it's a branch that extends into the future (aka post-Voyager and post-DS-9 in the timeline), and they stick to the principles that make Star Trek, you know, Star Trek.

Make it so.

p.s. Lens flares.

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Update (5/18/2009 10:50am PST): Added clarification to the chasting and reboot remarks. Marked as edited.

Netflix Feature Request: “Follow” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:37:16 +0000

Netflix, oh Netflix. Will I ever stop loving thee?

As I've mentioned before, I not only love Netflix, but I also have what many would probably call an "obsession" with certain actors or directors... I'd prefer to call it "extreme favoritism for the individual in question's genius", but whatever. Because of this "obsession" I have a habit of adding all the movies from the actor/director's cinematic history, and brings me to the point...

If you're like me and love how Sylvester Stallone plays the same role in all his movies, and want to see every one... you've added all his movies to your Queue. But what if he comes out with a new movie, and you don't keep an ear close enough to the ground to hear about it?

Stallone is a bad example, because his modern movies tend to have astronomical amounts of marketing behind them, but the principle is the same. It can be very difficult to keep track of what movies your favorite actor, actress, or director is involved with, especially if they keep themselves very busy.

The idea comes from Hulu's "Subscribe" option, where you automatically get the newest releases from any given show added to your Hulu Queue. Programatically, it shouldn't be difficult. Either there's a nightly "oh crap, any new movies with [x]?" CRON Job that runs across the whole site, or a special script is run individually whenever new content is added.

For example, I only found out that Brad Pitt is in "Burn After Reading" a few days before it opened in theaters, and even then only because I keep an eye on a large number of blogs. Not having TV and not going to the movies very often make finding information like this difficult, and I feel that this feature would be very useful to a large part of the Netflix customer base, given my previous thoughts.

This could work for directors, like Guillermo del Toro, or anyone else who makes it in the "Netflix name box" (see below).

So, Netflix, please, pretty please, will you implement this feature?

I asked nicely!

Come Again, Netflix? [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:03:14 +0000

Apparently me wanting to investigate "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" isn't supposed to be easy. See if you can follow the logic on this one.

First, I get an email saying Disc 1 is going to ship from Phoenix, AZ. I didn't really give it much thought at the time.

Then I get this email today, saying it'll be here on Monday.

Monday? Really? What happened to "Next Day Shipping"? I didn't realize that your promises to your customers had a geography clause.

I had previously wondered what happened if a disc in the middle of a series is missing, like "Stargate: SG-1" has a few "long waits" at the moment. Here's what I had found.

So I have a question for you, Mr. Netflix. How can you be intelligent enough to not ship a series when it's not fully complete and waiting for me, but you're not intelligent enough to not ship something when it's "too far away" (geography clause!) to be here on the normal schedule?

Right. Because that makes alot of sense.

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Update (9/25/2008 3:15pm PST): I just got off the phone with Customer Service (no hold times or phone menus!), and they supposedly have a system in place that looks for these sort of things. They didn't comment on the "Next Day" geography clause, but instead said that they usually don't remote-ship things if it's approaching a weekend.

They apologized, and are supposedly shipping out a "Bonus Disk" from my Queue tomorrow.

Hopefully it's one that's local and won't be here next Wednesday.

Update (9/29/2008 9:00pm PST): The disc isn't here yet! Just kidding. I got it on Saturday, and was very surprised that it all went down so smoothly and properly.

Thanks, Netflix, for being awesome. This is why no-one goes to Block...who? anymore.