The Terminator (1984) Movie Review

The Terminator is a movie that I've never been interested in seeing. I'm not a big action movie guy and I'm not really a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact if I hadn't found the 1995 VHS release for a cheap price at a private geek sale, I wouldn't've bought it.

Growing up, movies like The Terminator were not ones that I was allowed to watch. Especially when I was a kid because they're R-rated and my parents rightfully decided that R-rated movies were not suitable for kids to be watching. In fact I didn't even see it during my stays in the hospital unlike Batman Returns, Super Mario Bros., and the few Disney movies that we didn't own on VHS when I was a kid. Even as a teenager I didn't have much interest in seeing the Terminator movies. They always seemed to be more style over substance and while they were technical pieces of art, they held no appeal for me.

Sitting down and watching the movie on VHS last night was a bizarre experience. Despite the movie being part of our collective consciousness, I didn't know a thing about the movie aside from the general plot of killer robot going back in time to kill the mother of Humanity's saviour and a soldier going back in time to protect her from said killer robot. I also knew two lines from the movie. "I'll be back", which is probably Arnold's most iconic line ever, and "Come with me if you want to live" spoken by Michael Biehn when he meets Linda Hamilton for the first time. That's about it.

It's a good movie, though the special effects don't hold up well after 36 years. There's just something missing. I'm not sure I can really articulate what's missing, only that there's something missing. The story is decent enough, and the character of Sarah Connor is iconic. But the movie feels rather emotionless with nothing for me to grab onto as cool or necessary. Like did we really need the scenes of Arnold killing the other Sarah Connor characters or Sarah's roommate, Ginger and her boyfriend Matt? I guess it shows that he is dangerous and can't be reasoned with, even though nobody from 1984 actually tries to reason with him, but it does nothing to further any of the characters. Like Sarah should be angry that Ginger is dead. Instead, it gets glossed over after Paul Winfield's character, Lieutenant Traxler, informs her of their deaths.

The cast is phenomenal in this movie. Aside from Arnold, Paul Winfield, Dick Miller, Bill Paxton, and Brian Thompson are the only actors I have any familiarity with. I've seen Arnold in Batman & Robin, Winfield in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Dick Miller in Small Soldiers, Bill Paxton in Thunderbirds (2004) and season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Brian Thompson in a second season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where he plays a Klingon, and the pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But of I am completely unfamiliar with Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. They do a really good job of playing their characters, Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, and I love the chemistry between the two of them.

As I mentioned before, the special effects do not hold up very well in 2020. Before I sat down to watch the movie I was warned that the special effects don't hold up, but I don't think I was prepared for just how much they don't hold up. They don't make the movie unwatchable, but they are pretty bad in comparison to other movies that came out in 1984 like Ghostbusters, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I've also heard that the effects in Terminator 2: Judgment Day are a lot better, but that's almost an unfair comparison to make because of course special effects are going to be better in 1991 than they were in 1984. That's a given.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Objectively The Terminator is an iconic movie that has a lot of cool scenes. Subjectively though, this movie isn't for me. It's good and I'll probably watch it again at some point, just because I enjoyed watching it despite my problems with it. It's never going to be my favourite movie of all time though and it didn't make me want to rush out and buy the second movie any time soon. I'm giving The Terminator 6/10 stars. The action was fine, but the movie felt emotionless to me and there just wasn't enough for me to really latch onto. I totally understand why people love the movie though and who knows, maybe one day I'll watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day and it'll make me appreciate this movie just a little bit more.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Star Trek: Picard (2020) Season 1 TV Show Review

Note: There will be some spoilers for the first season of Star Trek: Picard in this review as well as some minor spoilers for the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. If you're not caught up on either show, you might want to do so before you read it.

I've been a Star Trek fan ever since I can remember. Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted when I was only nine months old, reruns of the original series have been on my entire life and I grew up with DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. I read the books, played with the toys, watched original Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager on VHS and DVD, and I got to visit the set of Next Generation when I was six years old. 1987-2005 was my era for Star Trek. Because of this the Kelvin timeline movies, the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and the first season of Star Trek: Picard have been sources of conflicted feelings for me. Mainly because they aren't really Star Trek, and each has been a mixed bag, with both Discovery and Picard having episodes that I just didn't care for.

Then something strange happened to me yesterday afternoon while I awaited the season finale of Picard to come on. I went on StarTrek.com and watched the first episode of The Ready Room, the aftershow hosted by Wil Wheaton. In the episode there's an interview with the show's producers, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Michael Chabon, and in it they said something very interesting. They said they weren't interested in fan service. They wanted to tell a story. Now I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes at that statement because you probably feel that they're actually saying they don't respect Star Trek. Right? Here's the thing though. They are absolutely right. If Star Trek: Picard and even Star Trek: Discovery and the Kelvin timeline movies, were exactly the way classic Star Trek is then what would be the point? We could just watch the classic shows and movies again and save ourselves a lot of time. So when people say that the Kelvin timeline movies, Discovery and Picard aren't Star Trek, in a way they're right.

Star Trek has always been a progressive franchise. The movies starring the original cast from the '60s show are completely different from the original series, because they were made in the '70s and '80s instead of the '60s. Next Generation is completely different from the original show just like Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise are different from Next Generation. And that was done on purpose because if you just did the same thing each time, why bother making new shows or movies? Why tell new stories in that universe if you're just going to do the same thing again and again?

Star Trek: Picard season 1 has been a real roller coaster for me. While I felt that the F-bombs and the heavier violence were unnecessary and could've been toned down a little bit, since it's Star Trek, I enjoyed the overall story of the season. It feels like one ten hour movie split up into sections, and that's never really been done on Star Trek before. Both Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Discovery were all serialized, but you could watch an individual episode and not be completely lost. With Picard it was one continuous story and I really appreciated that. It was slow in the beginning, with them taking three episodes for Picard to get on the new ship, the La Sirena, and gather his new crew, who I will get around to talking about shortly, but the pacing is appropriate for the story they were telling and they gave me enough material that I was hooked even though it took forever to get onto the new ship.

It was difficult at the beginning to see Picard as a broken, old man. Especially since my grandfather was really sick at the time and passed away a week and a half after the series premiere of Picard aired. But to see him come out of that and get back to being the man he was when we last saw him at the end of Star Trek Nemesis in 2002 is what this show was about for the first season. It was also a redemption arc for Seven of Nine, who was wracked with guilt over the brutal murder of Icheb and, while I didn't appreciate them actually showing the brutal murder of Icheb on the show, seeing Seven grow for the first time ever was compelling and drew me into the show every time Jeri Ryan was on screen.

The show wasn't just about those two legacy characters though. It was also about Soji, the Android built by Dr. Bruce Maddox using Data's neural pathways learning to accept that while she isn't made of flesh and blood, she's as real as any organic being is, and then learning to maintain her Humanity despite her older sister's manipulation to wipe out all organic life in the universe. Her journey throughout this season has been one of the most compelling things about it for me. And to see her smash the beacon constucted by the Synths that would bring out the destruction of organic life was gratifying and worth waiting for. Isa Briones did such a fantastic job at playing Soji, as well as balancing the differences between Dahj, Soji and Sutra that they really felt like distinct characters. Which is harder to do in live action than it is in animation.

The rest of the cast is pretty great. I wasn't too sure about Raffi or Rios at first given they're rougher characters than we've had on Star Trek previously. But they grew on me as the season went on. Especially Raffi once she overcame her difficulties. Rios grew on me once we found out his tragic backstory and how it related to Soji and everything else going on in the season. So that was cool.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall the first season of Star Trek: Picard is pretty great and had an awesome ending. There are some rough spots in the season, mostly in episodes 5 and 6, and the constant use of F-bombs in dialogue, which I feel is completely unnecessary on a Star Trek series. But the story is compelling and the characters all develop in a way we've never seen in a Star Trek series before. And visually it is a gorgeous show. Like Discovery, Picard has a very cinematic look and feel to it that I love. I'm giving the first season of Star Trek: Picard an 8/10 stars simply because the harsher language does detract from the show slightly as it's in just about every episode of the season.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8806524/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Planet Pop 2000 (1999) CD Overview

Planet Pop 2000 was the soundtrack of my life from November 1999 until probably January or February 2001. I was in middle school at the time and the CD came out probably in the summer of 1999 because the reverse side of the liner notes booklet is a calendar for the 1999/2000 school year, which started in September 1999 for me. I got the CD in November 1999. From 1999 until 2003, my grandmother used to take me out shopping for my birthday and for Christmas so that I could pick out what I wanted rather than provide her with a list and her trying to figure out exactly what it was that I wanted. Usually it was books. Specifically Star Trek or Star Wars books. Back then Chapters, a chain of bookstores, also sold CDs, audio cassette tapes, and VHS tapes in their stores (this stopped in the mid-2000's), and I happened to see this CD on a shelf as we were heading towards the cash to pay for the books I had picked out. I only picked out two books that day. One was the novelization of the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, "Caretaker", and the other was the Voyager novel, Seven of Nine.

The songs on this CD are very 1998/1999/2000 in the way they sound. You couldn't get these songs at any other time in the '90s or the 2000s. That's how much they are of those three years. And they're all popular artists of the time too. You have Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Lyte Funkie Ones (LFO), Brandy, Sky, as well as many others. Most of them you don't hear from anymore. There is one artist on this album who is now more famous for the other thing that she did only six years after this album came out. Track 16 of Planet Pop 2000 is a song called "Girlfriend" and the artist is Billie Piper, who is well known for playing Rose, the Companion to the Ninth Doctor and the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who. She is just listed as Billie on the track listing on the back cover of the CD as well as inside the booklet, but she was a pop singer in the U.K. before she was cast on Doctor Who. Billie Piper probably wasn't well known outside of the U.K. though as I don't remember hearing "Girlfriend" on the radio, or any of her other songs. Though I'm sure this CD made Canadian kids aware of her because of "Girlfriend".

Like I said, Planet Pop 2000 was the soundtrack to my life for about a year or year and a half after I got the CD.  I listened to it with my younger brother and sister all the time and I also listened to it by myself as well. It was also popular with my classmates at school too. I was in grade seven at the time I got the album and this was the music that my classmates were listening to, even though some of them were starting to listen to the more hardcore rap that was becoming popular at the time. I remember there was this one day at school where there was a special event going on. I think it was the last day of school before the Christmas holidays. One of my classmates had brought the CD to school with her and our teacher let her pop it into the CD player and play it while we did whatever it is we were doing. Thinking back on it, it had to have been the last day before the Christmas holidays because I remember we had a classroom Christmas party in the afternoon and that was the only time we got to listen to music outside of music class, unless it was an indoor recess or something like that.

My favourite song on the CD is "Summer Girls" by LFO with "Girlfriend" by Billie Piper being my second favourite. I listened to "Summer Girls" so many times. I think I also taped it onto an audio cassette along with my favourite songs from other CDs we had in the house. Just because I could.

To this day I'll still pop the CD into the player and listen to it all the way through every once in a while or listen to the album on my iPod. Every time I do I think about the turn of the century when this CD was the soundtrack to my life and some of the people I went to school with at the time. And I always smile because these songs made me feel good, even if some of my classmates went out of their way to make my life hell at school, there were still a few that I was glad to see at school five days a week for eight months. Plus as a kid of the '90s and a teenager of the 2000s, these songs are the best musical representation of that period of 1999-2004 when these bands and musicians were at the height of popularity.

Cool World: The Official Comic Adaptation (1992) Comic Book Review

Cool World: The Official Comic Adaptation is almost indecipherable. I've never seen the movie that the comic is based on, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's probably as much of a mess as this comic is. The artwork is actually pretty good, but the story itself is pretty crappy.

The reason I have this comic is because I got it, along with the fourth issue of the Cool World mini-series, as gifts from the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I visited the set in January, 1993. I remember being in the ready room just off the Bridge set, and being presented the comics. There were a few Star Trek ones with this one as well, but I remember that my parents wouldn't let me read it as it's slightly more adult in content, though probably not as much as the movie itself is. Anyway, I got this comic in Los Angeles at Paramount Studios, on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So I thought that was pretty cool.

I don't have anything to say about the characters. They're one dimensional, and not especially interesting. Having never seen the movie, I don't know if they're more interesting there than they are here or not. I haven't heard a lot of good things about the movie, so maybe there isn't anything there and this comic is accurate to the movie in that way.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall Cool World: The Official Comic Adaptation isn't worth anyone's time. The artwork is decent but that's about it. The story is dumb, the characters are lame and there's no logic to the cartoon world in the comic. I'm giving this comic 1/10 stars just because the artwork is pretty great, even if the Human characters look weird.

Blog Update

Hey guys! How are all of you doing? I'm doing pretty well under the circumstances. I decided to do a weekly blog update for you to let you know what I'm doing on the blog as well as what's going on with me. Earlier today I put out my review of The Magician King by Lev Grossman. I hope you enjoyed that review because I enjoyed writing it. I also got my first VHS movie review out there on Sunday with Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. I loved going back and reliving my childhood with that tape. I spent the better part of Sunday going through all of my VHS tapes and rewinding the tapes that needed to be rewound and checking them out to make sure they work because that's going to be my source for movie reviews for the next little while. Some of the tapes I don't have much connection to because I didn't own them when I was a kid, but other tapes I own I do have a connection to. So that was a fun day.

As for other reviews that I've got planned for this week, I've got several that I'm going to do. Tomorrow I'll be reviewing another comic book from the remnants of my childhood collection. And that book is the comic book adaptation of 1992 animated/live action hybrid film, Cool World. I've never seen the movie before and I haven't actually read the comic before either. How I got it though was actually a special occasion, so I'll talk a little bit about that when I review the book tomorrow. I'm not going to have a review for you on Thursday, but Thursday is when the season 1 finale of Star Trek: Picard airs, so I'm going to do a season 1 review on Friday morning to get my thoughts out now that the season is finished. Finally, on Saturday I'm going to put out a review of The Terminator (1984). I've never seen this movie before and for my first viewing I'm going to be watching it on VHS so I'm looking forward to that. I'm hoping that the movie is just as good as everyone says it is and that I actually like it.

Aside from blog stuff, there's not a whole lot going on with me this week. I'm still in protective isolation so I'm at home doing my usual thing. Which honestly isn't that different from what I was doing before the Coronavirus hit us. The only real difference is that I can't have people over to hang out or go out with Brad or Katie. That's about it really.

Before I go I would like to mention something that I haven't talked about on the blogs before. Spoilers. Generally I don't like to give away very much in my reviews because I want you to experience these books, movies and comics for yourselves. But, for The Magicians and The Magician King I felt I had to give certain things away in order to talk about the characters. But I won't be doing spoilers in any of my other reviews except for some minor ones in my Star Trek: Picard review on Friday.

I think that's all I wanted to talk to you about today. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of Cool World: The Official Comic Book Adaptation. Take care.

The Magician King (2011) Book Review

In my review of The Magicians (2009) I said that it's better to read that book if you're reading the entire trilogy as this book and it's sequel The Magician's Land (2014) adds to and enhances The Magicians. However, I said that before I'd even finished The Magician King. And now that I have finished it, I actually have proof that The Magician King adds to and enhances The Magicians particularly when it comes to the character of Julia. Grossman does it in a way that not only enhances the previous book, but strengthens the overall story in this one. Which is something that not a lot of writers can do well. So it's not just useless background information that has no connection to the rest of the book.

While I liked the character of Julia in the previous book, she wasn't prominent in it because she didn't go to Brakebills with Quentin and because that book spent so much time focusing on Quentin, Julia just ended up disappearing, aside from a brief scene, until the very end of the book where she's this powerful goddess. In The Magician King though, Julia really does become the dual protagonist along with Quentin. And her journey to becoming a magician is honestly much more exciting and more true to how a person's journey towards anything actually is in the real world. Yes, Quentin has lost people, and has sacrificed a lot, but his sacrifices are more fantastical and fictional throughout the first book. With Julia though her struggle is more relatable in a way as sometimes we have to leave people behind in order to become the best versions of ourselves. Particularly when those people are toxic in our lives. It's not until the end of the book when her and her group of Hedge Witches start performing their ceremony to summon Our Lady Underground that her sacrifices become more fantastical in nature.

That entire scene where Julia and the Murs group attempt to summon Our Lady Underground, but get Reynard the Fox, a Trickster God, instead is probably one of the most horrifying scenes in the book. And while it's more descriptive being words on the pages of a book, that moment Julia realizes what's going on is a vital turning point in the series overall. Especially because she realizes it too late and most of her friends are killed while she is assaulted by Reynard. But before that, it was more like struggles of every day life even though she was in search of magic, something that doesn't actually exist in the real world. Grossman did such a great job writing those scenes.

Of course, Janet is the one who disappears in this book. Eliot does too for a while when Quentin and Julia are on Earth, looking for a way back to Fillory since the Neitherlands are messed up at this point. But in a way that's okay because they aren't main characters in the books the way Eliot and Margo are in the TV series. They're supporting characters to Quentin and Julia and that's it.

Speaking of Quentin, this book still doesn't make him all that interesting of a character. Not just in comparison to Julia, who has become my favourite character in the books, but to any other character that I've read about in other books. There's just something super ordinary about him and it kind of clashes with the fantastical elements in the series. Don't get me wrong, Quentin is a very good character, it's just he's not as interesting as some of the other characters in the books. It's almost like Grossman stagnated Quentin in the last book so that something awesome will happen with him in the next one. Hopefully that's true.

The Magician King is very much the second act of a three act story. It's dark, it's gripping and the ending is sort of depressing. Like The Empire Strikes Back (1980) The Magician King ends with everything having gone to hell. They saved magic, which the Old Gods were going to take away thanks to Julia and the Murs people having summoned Reynard previously as apparently nobody had summoned the Old Gods in over 2000 years, but Quentin was banished from Fillory as he'd assumed the burden of what Julia had done, due to the fact that she did it because Quentin didn't succeed in getting her into Brakebills in the last book. So because of that, the sacrifice Quentin had to make was giving up being a King of Fillory and going back to Earth.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall The Magician King is an excellent sequel to The Magicians. It doesn't feel forced or unnecessary, which many sequels can feel like. A lot of the problems that I had with the first book were fixed with this one. There's still not a ton of dialogue, but there's a lot more in this book than there was in the last one. I do still have an issue with Quentin being the main character just because he's not quite as interesting as the other characters. But, like I said, maybe the third book will justify him being the main character of the series. I'm going to give The Magician King 9.7/10 stars since the problems I had with The Magicians were mostly fixed here, but Quentin is still posing a problem as the protagonist of the series.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) Movie Review

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day is probably my favourite Winnie the Pooh featurette out of the four from the '60s, '70s, and the '80s. It introduced both Piglet and Tigger, who are my two favourite characters in the entire Winnie the Pooh franchise. The animation itself is also pretty awesome for 1968. Then again I love Disney animation from every era, even when the movie it's part of isn't one of my favourites.

Along with Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and later, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day is something I watched all the time on VHS when I was a kid. In fact I probably watched it the most out of all three of the Winnie the Pooh films. In case you've never seen it, a windstorm blows through the Hundred Acre Wood and Gopher explains to Pooh that it's Windsday (a play on Wednesday) and during Pooh and Piglet's visit to Owl, Owl's house is blown over by the wind and destroyed. Eeyore then takes it upon himself to find Owl a new house. That night Pooh hears a strange noise coming from outside his house and meets Tigger. After Tigger leaves, the blustery day becomes a rainstorm that floods the entire Hundred Acre Wood, sending Pooh floating in an empty honey pot and Piglet floating on a chair. Once they get to Christopher Robin's house the flood is done and Eeyore finds a new house for Owl. Except it's Piglet's house, but Piglet gives the house to Owl and moves in with Pooh Bear.

Like I said, I watched this movie all the time when I was a kid. Sometimes I would watch it five or six times a day. I absolutely loved it. And I still love it today. I mean I've watched it recently as it's part of the feature film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, but to watch it on it's own again all these years later was an awesome experience. I remember one day I watched it while I was eating lunch at home. I was still eating baby food at the time. I don't remember what I had that day, but it might've been chicken or something like. Anyway regardless, I watched it during lunch, and even during breakfast sometimes. Yes, I watched it that much.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall I love this movie. Objectively I don't think it's as good as Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. Subjectively though I absolutely love it. If you haven't seen it before, I would highly recommend tracking down a VHS copy of it and a VCR, and watching it. Though if you can't find a VHS copy, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day is on the DVD for Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin as a bonus feature. I'm giving Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day 10/10 stars.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063819/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989) #31 Comic Book Review

Star Trek: The Next Generation #31 is the first comic I ever got as a kid. Sort of. My dad bought it for me along with Star Trek #31 but I don't remember which one I took out of the brown paper bag first. I'm pretty sure it was this one. I mean it had to have been because Commander Riker is on the front cover and he was, and still is, my favourite TNG character. Either way, this issue is the one that started my lifelong love of comic books in general and DC Comics in particular. Not that I have anything against Marvel, but I haven't been exposed to a lot of Marvel outside of Spider-Man, and so I don't connect to those characters as much as I do DC.

The story, titled "Kingdom of the Damned" is actually part 2 of a two part story that started in issue #30. Riker is onboard a research station, trapped in another dimension where he's slowly starting to lose his corporeal form. Meanwhile the crew of the Enterprise are trying to locate him with the assistance of Captain Thadiun Okona from the season 2 episode, "The Outrageous Okona" (played by William O. Campbell). They locate the research station inside the interdimensional rift and modify the ship's tractor beam to shear off the section of the station where Riker is located, pull it in, and beam him back to the ship. They succeed and after giving Riker a short pep talk, Okona returns to his ship, the Erstwhile.

One of the things that I like about this story is that you don't need to have read the previous issue in order to understand what's going on in this one. Which is nice because oftentimes, especially in 1992, you have to read like three other comic book series in order to get a complete story. Thankfully Star Trek doesn't lend itself to that format very well and stories end up being self-contained to a single series. That's helpful for those of us who started getting the book a little bit later.

While the artwork in this book isn't anywhere near as bad as Rob Liefeld's art in The New Mutants #98, it's pretty bad by Star Trek comic book standards. The regular artist, Peter Krause, was replaced for this issue and the previous one by Carlos Garzon and he likes to do a lot of closeup shots, so that you can't tell what's in the background. Or he likes to put characters in a panel like they're sitting or standing in nothingness. For example there's an entire scene that takes place in Engineering but it's all closeups of Geordi, Data and Okona, so you can't even really tell what Engineering looks like unless you're really paying attention to what little background there is here.

Also, both Carlos Garzon and the cover artist, Jerome Moore enjoy using comic book rendered shots of stills from the TV show. On the front cover is an almost full body shot of Riker that is reminiscent if a shot from the first season episode "The Last Outpost" where he's standing on a cliff looking for the other members of his away team, except on the comic book cover, Riker has a beard and is wearing the TNG season 3 to DS9 season 4 starship uniform, rather than being clean shaven and wearing the original TNG season 1 and season 2 uniform as he is in the still shot. Inside the book there's a shot of Data sitting at the Conn (helm) facing Troi, Picard and Geordi, sitting in the same position he's in from a still shot taken from "Encounter at Farpoint" that wasn't used in the episode, but was meant to be when Worf is arguing with Picard about being left to take command of the saucer section when they separate the ship. So that's interesting.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this was a decent comic book story and a great introduction into the world of comics based on Star Trek. I'd recommend it if you're wanting to get into the comics a little bit without trying to track down the 30 issues that came out before it. However the artwork is pretty bad, so only pick it up if you're getting other Star Trek comics or don't mind bad artwork. I'm giving this comic a 6.5/10 stars.

Blog Update and More About What the Review Basement is Doing

Hey guys! Not to worry, I am still alive. I'm also not sick. However, I am in protective isolation until further notice due to the Coronavirus pandemic that has taken out the world. Which means you'll be getting a lot of blog posts from me in the near future. I've got a few for you this week including a movie review and a few comic book reviews.

I also wanted to tell you a little bit more about what my plan for this new Review Basement is going to be. When I decided to shut down the original blog and move it over to Blogger, I honestly wasn't quite sure what exactly my plan was going to be for the blog. I hadn't really mapped anything out and really just wanted to get a few posts out there before I made any concrete decisions on what it is I wanted to do with this fresh start. I've landed on the perfect thing.

The Review Basement is going to be a review blog only. No news, no articles, nothing like that, though I may occasionally do a special post where I do a best and worst of list of some sort, though that's something I'm still unsure of at this point. We'll see what happens. In terms of the reviews I'll be doing they will mostly be focused on the movies, TV shows, comics and novels of my childhood, as well as movies that came out on VHS during my childhood. I don't have all of those on VHS obviously, but I will be using the VHS covers for the reviews. I'm also including a few video game reviews, but more along the lines of the games that I played when I was growing up and only going up to the Nintendo 64.

One other thing that I'm considering talking about, even if I don't do full on reviews of them are albums. I love listening to music. Listening to music has helped me get through some rough times in my life and so I want to talk about specific albums that are the most significant to me. Things of that nature. But again, it's something I'm considering and it's not necessarily going to happen.

As for comics, I'm keeping it to the single issues from my childhood that I still have in my collection, which totals 77 out of my hundreds of single issues. 78 if you include the one trade paperback that I still have from when I was a kid. Which I will be doing. After that I'll be diving into more of the Facsimile Editions and reprints that I own of older comics, then who knows after that. With just the single issues I have from my childhood, including my teenage years, I have enough comics for over a year's worth of reviews, which is good. And I'll be reviewing them more or less in the order in which I got the issue when I was a kid.

So that's my plan for the blog. Reviews will come out when they come out. I'm not hold myself to any kind of schedule this time around. I'm just gonna come in, talk about the thing I'm reviewing and then get out again. And it will happen when it happens. I'll be back in a little while with the first comic book review of my childhood comic book collection.

The Magicians (2009) Book Review

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a great book to read when you're sitting out on your patio in the summertime, or when you're curled up in a blanket with some hot chocolate on the couch in the winter. In fact, it's pretty great to read it any time of the year. Many refer to The Magicians as Harry Potter goes to college by way of The Chronicles of Narnia. I don't think it's entirely true though. In fact, I'd say Lev Grossman took far more inspiration from The Chronicles of Narnia as well as The Once and Future King by T.H. White (the book the 1963 animated Disney movie, The Sword in the Stone is based on) than he did Harry Potter. Mostly because unlike Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Quentin and his friends don't really do anything at Brakebills before or after the Beast shows up and kills Amanda Orloff. They live there and learn magic there, but we don't spend very much time with them there.

The story doesn't really seem to start until everyone graduates from Brakebills and then discover that Fillory is real and not just a location in a book. It's almost as if the reader is just going through the motions of life with Quentin until the Quest starts more than halfway through the book. And it actually works in this case. A lot of the time with Fantasy fiction, particularly Sword and Sorcery is that you don't get to spend very much time with the characters, getting to know them, before they start on whatever Quest or Adventure the book is about. Here though, Grossman makes sure that we spend as much time with his characters, particularly Quentin and Alice, before they go to Fillory and embark on their journey to kill the Beast, a.k.a. Martin Chatwin, who ended up staying in Fillory even though he and his siblings were always returned to Earth by the realm's guardians, Ember and Umber, due to the psychological effects of being in a magical realm permanently that it has on people, depending on why they want to stay there.

While Quentin is the main character, and Alice is his companion/girlfriend for much of the book, neither of them are my favourite characters. My favourite characters are actually Eliot Waugh and Josh Hoberman. Both of whom have much larger roles in the TV adaptation of the series than they do in the books, particularly this one. There's just something about them that make them more endearing than Quentin and Alice are. Probably because Quentin is so dour that he isn't as much fun to be with. Janet and Julia are also pretty cool too, though Julia becomes more interesting in the second book in the trilogy, The Magician King.

I don't really have any serious problems with the book. I mean it does take them forever to get to Fillory and the vast majority of the book is just average life at a magical college, not to mention a lot of sex, alcoholism and drugs following graduation from Brakebills. You know, decisions a lot of people make in college and after they've graduated from college. However, I do wish that Grossman hadn't glossed over actual lessons at Brakebills and that there was more dialogue between characters.

One of the things that made Hogwarts come to life in the Harry Potter books is that we got to see every aspect of student life there over the course of six out of the seven books. With Brakebills, we get a few glimpses at what life at Brakebills is like, but most of the characters's lives happen outside of the school. Which is the reverse of Harry Potter, where everything happens at Hogwarts, while their lives outside of the school had nothing happening, outside of Dobby interfering with Harry in The Chamber of Secrets and the Dementers attacking Harry and Dudley in The Order of the Phoenix.

I also wish there was a lot more dialogue between characters as well. We spend a lot of time with Quentin and inside Quentin's head that we don't really know what other characters are thinking unless they actually tell Quentin what their thoughts are. Which doesn't happen a lot. Which is the problem I have with the book. Honestly though it's a minor problem.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall The Magicians is an excellent book. There's nothing too disturbing about it, though the Beast eating Amanda is pretty disturbing and the final battle between Alice, Quentin and the Beast is fairly bloody, but it's not overly so as the TV show can be. I honestly think that it's better to read The Magicians if you're reading it with the other two books in the trilogy, The Magician King and The Magician's Land as those books, particularly The Magician King, add to and enhance this book as well as some of the characters, such as Julia. I'm giving this book 9.5/10 stars.

The New Mutants (1983) #98 Comic Book Review

The New Mutants #98 is probably one of the weirdest comics I have ever read. It's from 1991 and contains the first appearances of Deadpool, Domino, and Gideon. I'm not really a fan of Deadpool. At least not the Deadpool that we've had since 1999 when Christopher Priest took over the ongoing series from Joe Kelly. The Deadpool that appears in this issue though is a smartass, but he's not off the wall goofy and non-sensical. Honestly, that's how I like him. He's not as crass for the sake of being crass. If that makes any sense.

The rest of the issue is pretty straight forward. There's a guy named Gideon who is some sort of rich dude (he's on the front cover next to Deadpool and Domino) who's apparently an immortal Mutant. Aside from being introduced in this issue, he has absolutely nothing to do with the story and is just kind of there. Unlike Domino and Deadpool, who actually interact with what's left of the New Mutants, led by Cable. And by what's left, I mean the four characters, Boom Boom, Rictor, Cannonball, and Sunspot, who appear in this issue and are members of the New Mutants. In fact Cannonball and Sunspot are the only members of the original New Mutants team who are still on the team at the time this issue was originally published. Everyone else had been written out when Rob Liefeld came on the book as co-writer with Louise Simonson.

Most of the issue is taken up by Cable training with Cannonball in the Danger Room at the X-Mansion and then Deadpool's fight with Cable. Which is a pretty awesome looking fight. That's it really. That's all this issue is. A training session and a slugfest between Deadpool and Cable, the first of many between the two characters. In other words there isn't really a story to talk about here. Though at the end Domino and Cable start looking at Mutants to recruit into the New Mutants so they can rebuild the team.

The artwork in this issue is absolutely horrible. For years I've heard about how bad Rob Liefeld's artwork is, but I've never had the opportunity to experience it for myself. Until I got this issue and read it for the first time a month ago. Liefeld puts the characters into poses that are more appropriate for Spider-Man and apparently has no concept of backgrounds or even the fact that people aren't just suspended in mid-air all the time. Or any time for that matter. Yeah, you'd have to see it to believe it. Also why does everyone have pointy feet and really skinny legs?

Overall, I can't really recommend you read this issue, except to see Deadpool's first appearance, because Gideon doesn't do anything, and Domino takes out Deadpool before he can kill Cable. And I suppose if you're a completist and are trying to collect all of the original The New Mutants series in single issues, then obviously you need this issue. It's also cheaper to get the Facsimile Edition, which I have, than an original 1991 copy of The New Mutants #98.

Rating: I didn't used to rate the things I was reviewing on the old blog, but I'm going to start doing so. I'm using the star system and it will be out of 10. There isn't a whole lot to this issue though the novelty of having the first appearance of Deadpool makes it worth it so I'm going to give this issue 3.5/10 stars.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/New_Mutants_Vol_1_98

Welcome to the New Review Basement

Welcome to the Review Basement! What is the Review Basement? Well to put it simply, it is my journey through the world of movies, TV shows, comic books and novels and reviewing them. For five years I had a blog on Word Press, but I was getting frustrated with it, so I chose to close down that blog and start fresh. So come follow me as I review movies, TV shows, comic books and novels and experience them with me. Let's get into it.