TV Talk - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Well, it’s been a while. It’s been pretty busy over here in the House of Williams. We’ve been preparing for a wedding (September, y’all!), raising a son, and doing a lot of work in general. Writing here isn’t the big priority it once was. Heck, it wasn’t that much of a priority to begin with, but I somehow found time to get something out. I still haven’t finished Discovery or even got past the first episode of Picard Season 2. So, how did I skip all of that and watch all ten episodes of Strange New Worlds? I guess the power of Anson Mount’s hair has no bounds. Also, it was pretty dang good!

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds pretty much carries off from where Season 2 of Discovery left it. Folk were so enamored with Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike that CBS made a show around him. One of the best things about Season 2 were Pike and Bearded Spock, so I can’t blame them. It would be a bit of a long wait, but we finally got to see the Enterprise return in all its glory in Spring of 2022. We not only got the return of the original Enterprise crew (Pike, Spock, Number One), but we also got to see younger versions of characters from TOS. I’ll get to them later.

Strange New Worlds (SNW?) takes place about a year after Season 2 of Discovery. Even though he’s reeling from some the events of Discovery Season 2, Pike is tasked by Uncle Phil—I mean, Admiral Robert April, to command the Enterprise again. After the Enterprise saves one of their crew members on a pre-warp world, they start their adventure into the unknown. They face a variety of new worlds as well as some familiar races.

Quick Thoughts #2 - Legendary's Monsterverse Kinda Rocks!

Who knew that Japan would let Hollywood take another crack at Godzilla? I wasn’t totally clamoring for it back in the day, and this is coming from someone who thought 1998’s Godzilla was alright. Yeah, it really lacked the “GOD” part, but it was a fun monster movie at least. It even had a cool animated series.

Unlike what we got before, Legendary brought the might and power of the monster to the big screen in a cool way. I’ve seen both Godzilla films in theaters and would’ve seen GVK in theaters if COVID wasn’t a problem at the time. I held off on Kong: Skull Island though. While I like King Kong, I’m not as much a fan of the gorilla. So, here are some quick thoughts on Legendary’s Monsterverse movies. I just realized that I haven’t really talked about them here. I’m always been like that with Godzilla though, so it fits.

 

TV Talk - Star Trek: Discovery Season 3

We are definitely in another era of Star Trek right now. Star Trek Discovery has ended its fourth season, Star Trek: Picard just finished its second season, Star Trek: Prodigy is out there somewhere on Nickelodeon, and Strange New Worlds has been released. While I can’t say that I’m a big fan of everything Paramount is doing, I can say that they’re at least trying to do new things with Trek. So, how about I pick up where I left off with Discovery here? Previously, Commander Burnham and friends were trying to save the everything from a futuristic evil A.I. Things get wild on DISCO, folks. In order to do that, the crew had to take the Discovery through time to the 32^st century, and it would be a one-way trip. Season 2 concluded with them saving the day and taking the trip into the unknown.

Season 3 starts off with the crew making it to the 32^st century (3188) with some complications. After things are settled, they find out that an event from the century before ravaged the Alpha Quadrant. The Burn, as its called,  basically caused all dilithium in the galaxy to explode in the quadrant. This ravaged Starfleet and other major races. Starfleet has gone silent, and a new power called the Emerald Chain has risen in the Quadrant. Discovery then sets out to find where Starfleet may and what’s happened to the galaxy as a whole. During their adventures, they have some internal shifts and get new crew members.

 

Quick Thoughts #1 - ABC Family was interesting in the 2000's!

I haven’t found a lot of time to blog here much. Between work, family life, and other interests, writing here’s been put in the background. It doesn’t mean I done with some random thoughts, though. There have been stuff I’ve wanted to at least mention somewhere, but I haven’t had the time to do so. So, here’s a bit of a new thing. These will just be quick thoughts on media I’ve recently watched. Somehow, ABC Family (or Freeform now) became the subject since Liz and I have been watching a lot of shows that used to air on there.

The Favorites - 13 Favorite Batman Movies

Well, it’s 2022, and we have yet another live-action Batman film. Yeah, we had Ben Affleck in the previous DCEU movies, but this is the first solo film in about a decade. Not only are we getting Rob Pattisson in the role, Michael Keaton (along with Affleck) is supposed to be returning to the role in the Flash movie. By the way, why is this movie constantly pushed back? Maybe that slo-mo from the Snyder Cut carried over onto that movie’s production.

This did get me thinking about what my favorite Batman films are. I mean, the Dark Knight has had a crapton of films released in over the years, live-action and animated. He’s been on his own, hanging with teams, fighting Joker, flirting with Wonder Woman, teaming up with reptiles, fighting Superman, fighting Joker, sleeping with Batgirl, fighting Joker, in Victorian era Gotham, and last but not least, FIGHTING THE JOKER. I think I sense a bit of a pattern. So, here are my favorite Batman movies. Even though he has a lot, I’m stopping at 13-ish. I’m mainly including primarily solo Batman films here, but I do have a couple of exceptions. First, here are some honorable mentions:

• The Dark Knight Rises – Yeah, this didn’t make it to the main list, so take that, Nolanites! Now, this isn’t a bad movie, but I can’t throw it on the list. While it was the ending of Nolan’s trilogy and had good things with it, I couldn’t vibe with it. Heck, it took me almost eight years to see it again! I’ve seen the other two many more times than that! It just felt phoned in at times. Whatever spark those first two movies had wasn’t here. I also wasn’t a fan of some plot points and other things (those dang hilarious voices). Overall, it’s not bad, but it’s not that good.
• Batman and Robin – This one goes without saying. It was the first Batman film I saw in theaters. While I can find a lotta joy in Batman Forever, I can’t with this one. While I do like a little camp with Batman, this one took things too far for me. It’s not one of the worst movies ever though. It has a couple of good things like the subplot with Alfred. Also, Alicia Silverstone looked nice in that costume… hey, it’s true! As for everything else, meh. I can accept it as a comedy, but nothing more.
• Batman (1966) – I wanted to at least mention the original 1966 Adam West movie. It’s one that I honestly haven’t seen a lot of. I do need to see it in its entirety one day, but even if I did,  it would probably still be in the mentions.