Pellaeon

I pulled the trigger on the $100 Complete Adventure/SLV. Grumpily but inevitably.

It was a great episode. Yeah, the thing about the pyramid seemed like a Chekhov’s gun that never went off, but it was nonetheless cool. All season I have been anticipating with dread a “Klyden” episode, but I liked it!

This fall there will be published a new book collection of many of Tolkien’s 2nd Age writings, entitled The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth. Trade + De Luxe eds. No new Tolkien texts in here. “This edition draws on ‘Akallabeth’, ‘Of Rings of Power’ and material from ‘Peoples of ME’, ‘Sauron Defeated’, ‘Nature of ME’, ‘The Lost Road’, ‘Letters’, ‘LOTR’ etc.” However, it appears editor Brian Sibley was given a rather free hand to “draw… together many of the threads from the tales of the Second Age into a single work.” “I hope that this opportunity to read, as a single narrative, an account of those years, will provide a new appreciation of … the monumental events of the Second Age.” Great idea!

Foreshadowed to be Lord of Winterfell, I’d say.

Hah hah! I figure worst case scenario they publish something after he dies. And I plan to outlive him.

I tried to listen to the Fire & Blood audiobook narrated by someone other than Dotrice (who had already passed away), and found it unlistenable. I think GRRM’s phony “historian” affectation that he writes the novel in is partially to blame, but the narrator really does a corny Ren Faire treatment on it. I’ll have to just read the book. Maybe next time I re-read the series, which will be after Winds of Winter is announced.

I figure, the Kaylon are the big bads now and have killed a lot of people, so it’s useful to have a surrogate representing the way most Union members are likely to view the Kaylon. You’ve got to have someone on the bridge who has an emotional stake in this war. The established characters are soft on Isaac thanks to their past history of rightfully trusting him. As for the actress, she’s cute but doesn’t convincingly pull off the competence and seriousness and hurt that supposedly define the character. My wife hisses whenever she sees her. Ha! So far she’s okay window dressing for me and I’m willing to give her a chance when it’s time for her to really be important. My main problem is Ed Mercer, honestly. He’s just along for the ride, and to me that’s a real weak point in the show. Han Solo, James Kirk, Jack O'Neill, Mal Reynolds, characters like that pull off both audience surrogate and protagonist driving the action. They are always in control of the situation.

Aww, I have to say I love Roy Dotrice’s work to death. Character voices aren’t everything. His narration was absolutely marvelous.

This review of The Voyage Home Ultra HD was the first thing to make me consider getting a 4K player. The SLV being only available on 4K is the second thing to make me consider getting a 4K player. I dunno, though, the thing about it being “gone forever” after this limited $100 release that’s going to sell out in preorder, that makes me not want to play ball.

Yeah, the Prime Directive according to TOS is simply, “…no identification of self or mission; no interference with the social development of said planet; no references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilizations” (Bread and Circuses). 1970s Star Trek fandom extrapolated that the first part of this is, “When contacting a planet making normal progress towards a technological civilization, an officer of Starfleet will make…” This seems to be a reasonable way to explain all the times Kirk intervened (killed a god or machine) in order to [i]restore[/i] normal progress. Either way, there’s nothing to contradict “The Paradise Syndrome.” The LUG TNG RPG formulates the Prime Directive thus: “No officer of Starfleet shall interfere in the natural evolution of a sapient species, nor shall any officer permit a Federation citizen to interfere in the natural course of development of a sapient species.” Is that more in-line with how it works in TNG? Anyway, yeah, TOS Season 3 is chock-full of cringey and/or forgettable episodes, with some great exceptions. Tholian Web, Day of the Dove, Enterprise Incident, Requiem for Methuselah, All Our Yesterdays, Spectre of the Gun are probably the must-haves for me, plus guilty pleasures Cloud Minders and World Is Hollow as guilty pleasures.

Isn't the Stromberg re-recording sufficient? Well that’s one checked off my list! Ahh it’s so great!!

The Ewoks Movies expanded 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood expanded and/or re-recording A Battlestar Galactica Stu Phillips reissue since the Intrada sold out way too fast From Russia With Love expanded Star Trek TOS re-recordings

First season is still my favorite, perhaps starting with episode 4. If you don’t like it after that, I wouldn’t stick with it expecting it to transform into something totally different.

They did use the Wookiee conceit in the 1978 Holiday Special (the family watching the Boba Fett cartoon, among other things), more or less, so it’s not far-fetched that George had that idea at one point. There’s also the whole framing device of the story being from the “Journal of the Whills” which of course survives in the original novelization.

The second episode was okay. I am not a big horror fan, but at least it was Sci-fi horror. I liked that it wasn't a character-driven episode, though of course there were character bits. But it was cool seeing so much of the main cast basically just doing their jobs. It was neat to see a bit of the old (the Krill—always a delight) and something new. Space exploration is always great. The score definitely stood out, especially something based on “The Cloud” from Star Trek TMP. The main drawbacks of this episode for me are that they are still flexing their budget so much as to be distracting, and the acting. I don’t know what it was about this episode, but most of the cast and especially Kelly and Claire were particularly stilted in their delivery in this episode. Also, there is still a distinct lack of humor. I hope that’s just due to the nature of this (and the previous) episode, and not the new overall direction.

It’s not irony at all, seeing as how the TV schlock deal did not happen till after Christopher Tolkien resigned as director of the Tolkien estate. Which was of course no coincidence at all.

Yeah. I also heard some definite TFA (I Can Fly Anything?) and, I thought, With Malice Toward None (trumpet version).

I do think this particular reboot was completely inept and alienating. They should have let the EU wind down with dignity and even celebration, rather than throw it in the trash bin with a sneer and a laugh. They mocked it and then proceeded to rip it off, poorly.

Hamill was a liar, too! Tell them, Chen!

Well, I’d say it’s mainly a problem for prequels. The problem with ignoring continuity is, well, these are universes which exist only in the imagination, so it helps to be able to imagine them. I’m all for reboots, because they say, go ahead and compartmentalize this.

There was a cue clearly modeled after The Adventures of Mutt. We watched half of it on Thursday and a bit more on Friday. Still have not finished. I'm afraid it keeps putting me to sleep. Nothing but overwrought character drama and WAY overwrought CGI showing-off so far.

It's so dense. Every single image has so many things going on.