I’m picky about movies, and you have to admit… almost every movie that’s been released lately has really, really sucked.  There have been some winners though… and when I find one that I think was good, I like to share it. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on new releases when I see them… and oldies you might have missed.

For now, let’s catch up (succinctly) on the movies SuperAwesomeBlog has missed!!

Watchmen

Most superhero movies are either thin and poorly developed commercial machines, or you-can-see-the-wires poorly made. Watchmen was an excellent homage to the graphic novel, which many (myself included) consider one of the best works in the genre.  While almost every scene felt like it was ripped out of the book’s pages, the characters in the movie sometimes felt thin and not well developed (but what do you expect when a book is turned into a movie?) Interestingly I found the most inhuman character, Dr. Manhattan, to be the character I sympathized with the most. Watchmen is a superhero movie done right.

Star Trek

SAB previously reviewed Star Trek and I stand by it – this is a great movie for non-trekkers, and a good movie for Star Trek fans.  Without this movie it would have been time to order a casket for the Star Trek franchise. Sadly the only thing spawned from Star Trek (2009) so far has been Star Trek Online. Gag.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

When I was reading the Harry Potter books, each sequel was better than the one that preceded it. With Half Blood Prince the same story holds true – this film is dark and brooding, with enough fun to be Harry Potter. Like any novel turned movie, the characters and story are somewhat thinner, but the feel of the books stays true.  I can’t wait for the next one two!

District 9

I think that Science Fiction is often at its best when it looks at a problem from the real world, puts it in a fantastical setting and then deals with it in a direct way that might be difficult if it wasn’t done with a Sci-Fi veil.  In this fashion, District 9 is a veiled examination of apartheid.  It is very disturbing at times, enough so that I don’t know if I’d really like to watch it again. I think everyone should watch District 9 (if only once!)

Avatar

Avatar got a lot of criticism for being, basically, Pocahontas in space.  Which it mostly is. But I liked Disney’s Pocahontas!  Avatar’s special effects were amazing… and really it doesn’t have all that going for it besides that. But the visuals really were amazing.  Don’t see this if floating mountains upset you – see this if 3D floating mounts are cool (they are.)

Up

What is it about Disney / Pixar movies that always make me cry?  Up is a very touching story about love and loss. You should definitely see it.

Well, that’s my succinct list of the greats from 2009!  There are certainly more, but in my opinion these are the gems that if you missed, you should see. Get out there and watch some movies!

UPDATE: Cryptic Clears Confusion Over Pre-Order Bonuses

I haven’t played an MMO in years. The last one I played was Star Wars Galaxies.  That game had a lot of potential… all of it squandered and wasted. After SWG I felt pretty indifferent about joining another MMO. For starters most had a pretty boring setting or looked like they might not be taken seriously by the developers – that or they appeared to be yet another grind-fest.  Sometimes I wonder how many random made-up Star Wars creatures did I kill? Thousands? Millions? Playing Star Wars Galaxies often seemed like the developers were searching for things to keep us busy with, and thought long travel time and repetitive missions would satisfy the demand for “content.”

Star Trek Online is the only MMO I’ve seen recently that seemed interesting, and I’ve been keeping a wary eye one it. The game nearly died after the previous developer dumped the game after going bankrupt, and with the near death of Star Trek I figured that this game was vaporware.

Not so!  A miracle befell all Trek-dom with the 2009 release of Star Trek. A fresh new look at Star Trek got people interested in the universe again and breathed new life into Star Trek Online.

Now it looks like nothing’s going to stop STO: it’s being nominated for “Most Anticipated for 2010″ by Massively (a mmorpg Webzine), new and interesting pictures, videos, and tidbits are being released every couple of days with new and juicy looks into the game.

You can even pre-order the game – but here’s the problem: FROM WHO!? There are no less than 8 American pre-order offers and 9 European pre-order offers… each with a different set of goodies!

I’m not even sure who I’m going to order from, mostly because I’ve had trouble finding a cnocise list of who offers what.  To solve that problem for myself and for you, please enjoy this helpful guide:

The List

This is a up to date listing of the various pre-order bonuses for Star Trek Online – if you find more details, a missing picture, etc., please let me know and I’ll include it here!

For physical copies, most retailers are offering a Collector’s Edition and a Standard Edition.

All Collector’s Editions include the same items:

• A very fancy box.
• “Deluxe” game manual.
• Replica communicator badge.
• 3 Guest Passes – give to your friends and they can play for 10 days for free!
• “Red Matter Capacitor” – a unique item that gives extra energy to your ship.
• TNG & DS9 Uniforms.

So if you’re buying a collectors edition from a site that also has a pre order bonus, you get both. Bully for you.

All pre-order retailers offer Head-Start access (allowing you to play the weekend before launch, before everyone else) and access to the Open Beta, which starts January 12.

Unless specified, assume a retailer only offers a physical edition (not a digital download.)

GameStop

GameStop is offering a Collector’s Edition as well as a Standard Edition. Both editions offer an in-game Constitution Class Starship, like the Original Enterprise.  GameStop offers In_Store pickup for this item, so you can pick it up the day of release. GameStop offers a physical edition as well as a downloadable edition.

Amazon

Amazon offers the Regular Edition as well as the Collector’s edition. Both come with an exclusive Borg Bridge Officer.  This NPC comes with some special skills: Nano Probes, Efficiency, and Borg Neural Blast.  It’s unclear what any of these do yet. Also unclear is how customizable this Borg NPC is: will it always be a woman? Will it always have that “freshly assimilated yet made sexy for nerdy fapping” look? We’ll have to wait to find out… Amazon offers a physical edition as well as a downloadable edition.

Best Buy

Best Buy offers In-Game Pets in the form of a Tribble or a Klingon Targ. It’s unclear what in game pets do, or if they can be killed by other players. We can hope.  By far this is the weakest of the pre-order offerings. Best Buy offers a physical edition as well as a downloadable edition.

Steam

The Star Trek Online site seems to indicate we’ll be able to order from Steam, however as of
this publishing it’s not actually available there. STO says that Steam will provide Chronodynamic Armor, which looks a lot like fetishy scuba-suits.

So far the Steam pre-order bonus is the most concrete of the pre-orders!  We have actual numbers:

• 6.1% Physical Resistance
• 6.1% Kinetic Resistance
• 2.6% Energy Resistance
• +15% Critical Damage
• +5% Critical Chance
• +3% Energy Damage

It’s unclear how much better any of these statistics is compared to items we can get in game, however. The Steam version of STO is only available as a download.

Wal Mart

Wal Mart is selling the Regular and Collector’s edition. The pre-order bonus is additional skill points for your character. It is unclear how many points you will receive or exactly what they do. Wal Mart offers a Standard and a Collectors, but no download.

Target

Similarly to Steam, the Star Trek Online site says we’ll be able to order this item, however the link on the Star Trek Online page does not work, nor does searching for “Star Trek Online” at Target’s website. STO says Target is offering a TR-116 Ground Rifle. No stats or other information is provided by either STO or Target, however this weapon was originally featured in the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode “Field of Fire.”  Memory Alpha suggests that the weapon might be particularly effective against the Borg, or anyone using a person shield, for its ability to fire a physical projectile which the Borg may be vulnerable to.  It has been shown in the DS9 episode to be able to shoot through (and see through) physical walls, however this ability has not been confirmed in-game.

Atari

Atari offers a “Digital Deluxe Edition.” This includes a number of items: Original Series Uniforms, a Joined Trill Class that provides a bonus to 5 skills (as usual, the details of this are unclear), Two Exclusive “Emotes”, “Khaaan!” and “Klingon Blood Wine Toast”, a Unique Registry for your ship; NX-1234 instead of NCC-1234, and an Automated Defense Battery for your ship that provides a passive 360 degree weapon arc at close range (no information on the power of this weapon, or its effectiveness.)

Curiously, Atari’s website is very ambiguous about which packages get the bonus content. In most cases we can assume that you get the bonus content with all the editions, however the Deluxe page is the only one that say anything about the bonus items! Assume that you only get Trill, Khan, etc, with the Digital Deluxe. You still get the Collector’s goodies in the Collectors Edition, you might not get the Deluxe stuff though. Strange, eh?

Direct2Drive

Direct2Drive, an online video game store, offers a Multi-Spatial Personal Shield. This item constantly recharges your personal shield as well as your health. The rate of recharge is not clear, nor is  the amount of protection it provides. Direct2Drive is only available as a download. Direct2Drive offers a Digital Deluxe Edition, just like Atari… only you get the shield with it. So not only do you get the Original Series Uniforms, the Joined Trill Class Two Exclusive “Emotes,” a Unique Registry and an  Automated Defense Battery, you also get the Multi-Spatial Shield.  Neato.

So if you’re getting the Deluxe Edition, get it from Direct2Drive, not Atari.

In The Final Analysis….

I made this guide in big part to help me decide which one to go with!  Each different pre-order bonus has its own ups and downs.  Personally, I’ll be going for one of the digital downloads. I’m guaranteed to get it in time. Currently I’m leaning toward Atari’s Deluxe edition.

A serious question to consider is wether or not these items are going to be available as micro-transactions – where you can buy them for a dollar or two at a later time. The as yet up in the air nature of the game makes the pre-order decision a tough one…

In other news… those lucky European’s ordering from Gamestation get a Starfleet Shuttle Craft.  Sadly I think this is my favorite pre-order bonus! Too bad for me.

Star Trek fans have a bad reputation of living up to the word fan, derived from “fanatic.”   So Star Trek films get a bad reputation as being something for the “crazies,” films that are outside the mainstream, though (thankfully for Paramamount) there are enough crazies to make feature length Star Trek films worth making.  I consider myself one of this lot, although “Trekker” or “Trekkie” is a more polite term.

Over the last two decades I’ve watched Star Trek blossom into such amazing acheivements as The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, fade into Voyager and decay further into an ill conceived idea called “Enterprise.”  With “Star Trek: Nemesis” I was almost certain that it was all over for Star Trek – it seemed that all the creative juice had been sapped and the stories had become zombies of previous creative effort.

The folks at Paramount smelled death on a precious franchise. With only two options available, retire it forever or do a Galactica style reboot, the studio chose the easier option (after all, the last time Star Trek got cancelled a massive letter drive from die-hard fans resurrected the original series for a third and final season.

Because of the unique nature of Star Trek as a franchise it’s not really fair to give it only one review: the film is going to be something different to the action film loving movie-goer, which I consider myself,  than its’ going to be to the core of Star Trek fans, of which I’m also a member.  Thus I present you with my two reviews for Star Trek (2009):

WARNING: Contains Spoilers.

Star Trek (Everyone Besides Fans)

Rotten Tomatoes gives Star Trek 96%. That’s a fantastic rating, and it’s deserved.  Star Trek is everything you might want Summer Blockbuster to be: exciting, quick moving, interesting with good acting and a good story. If you want a fun movie to see this summer, this is it.  Star Trek has something for everybody, and the acting is excellent.

The techno-babble is at a minimum this time around, and plot devices are merely that: plot devices. No need to explain that the time distortion is a quantum fillament tear transiting subspace, etc. Probably the best Star Trek film for the masses ever made.  Seriously.

Star Trek (Fans)

Something feels wrong. It starts when the young James T. Kirk is driving in his car and you hear a very anachronistic sound: a Nokia phone ring.  The one that goes “do do do do do do do do do do do do doooooo.”   Kirk looks down at the digital display in the car, and sees a Nokia logo.  Later someone orders a Budweiser product at a bar.

The stickler would point out that after World War III (which happens in the Star Trek continuum) Nokia and Budweiser probably wouldn’t exist anymore, let alone currency of any kind (humans give it up in the future.) I don’t have a problem with a phone ring or a beer, I have a big problem with Nokia and Budweiser, and all the other horribly blatant advertisements starting out the movie. It put me in a bad frame of mind for the rest of the entire film. It does get better from there though.

The plot has a great number of issues in the form of plot holes, which I won’t go into. Simply put if you vested any feeling in what Star Trek was, you’re probably going to have some problems with this movie.

The Final Analysis

Star Trek 2009 isn’t old Star Trek, it’s new Star Trek. It’s a good movie, but it’s different. If you’re willing to let the past be the past you’ll like this movie even if you’re a Star Trek fan, everyone else should probable just like it from the start.  The “look” is also garish and jarring at times. I couldn’t count the number of Lens Flares, and the bridge of the Enterprise looks like an Apple Store, and the equipment like iTech.

In the final analysis however, it was either this or a tombstone.  Star Trek needs some fresh blood, and this is it.  I couldn’t help thinking that this isn’t the kind of Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry would like.  “But Super Awesome Blog Guy, Majel Barret Roddenberry liked it! She even did the computer voice!”

She also liked “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.” Shudder.

Also, the new Kirk (Chris Pine) is really hot, and you get to see him in his underwear. How could I complain that much? Go see Star Trek and enjoy the movie, and let’s hope the movies only get better from here!

For some time now Star Trek has been a ship lost at sea.  Fans have seen the franchise go from incredible heights in The Next Generation (TNG) and Deep Space Nine (DS9) to the gradual decline of Star Trek Voyager, to the missed opprotunity that was Star Trek: Enterprise.  It seemed that Star Trek: First Contact would keep the light alive, but the lackluster follow-up of Star Trek: Insurrection and the total disappointment of Star Trek: Nemesis looked like the end of Star Trek.  Indeed, at the end of Nemesis when Data dies in a sad, sad imitation of Spock’s much more meaningful death, I remember being more saddneed by what looked like the death of Star Trek as a whole than one iconic character.

Star Trek is like a phoenix, and its ashes are most certainly the dollars of longing fans, desperate to experience what Star Trek was again.  Hollywood knows this, and as long as fans are depserate enough to pay to see whatever has Star Trek plastered on it the franchise will survive.

Sadly, this phenomenom is not the ideal engine for creative vision.  Enter the pompously titled “Star Trek”.

Yep, that was Leonard Nemoy…what’s he doing there?  Good question.  The SciFi site IO9 has a scene-by-scene breakdown of the Star Trek trailer, if you’re interested in what the hell’s going on.

I found this trailer to be an ominous omen of what is to come for the Star Trek franchise.  The actors all look about right, but just about everything else looks wrong.  The Apple Store Enterprise Bridge, the goofy tentacle spaceships, and the Star Wars aliens all make me think that this, perhaps, will the the final nail.