Star Trek: Early Voyages (1997) #1 Comic Book Review

Star Trek: Early Voyages #1 is such a unique Star Trek comic because it expands upon what we were given in the first Star Trek: The Original Series pilot "The Cage" in terms of Captain Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, or D) but it's also what the second TOS pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" might've been like if Jeffrey Hunter had been available to play Pike going forward. It's also very well written. I love the Star Trek comics that DC Comics put out from 1984 until 1995 or 1996, as well as Marvel's early Star Trek comics from 1981 until 1984, but none of the comics from either of those runs can hold a candle to how good this issue is.

The issue opens with the Enterprise investigating the disappearance of several smaller ships which then turned up undamaged, but their crews missing as if they'd been yanked off the ships in the middle of doing whatever they were doing. Then this organic starship attacks the Enterprise, disabling it's primary systems and captures Captain Pike. Throughout the issue, flashbacks of Pike getting command of the Enterprise from Robert April, the first captain of the ship, who was still non-canon at the time this issue came out because Star Trek: The Animated Series was still considered to be non-canon and April had never been mentioned in an episode of the live action shows or in any of the movies. There are also flashbacks to how Pike recruited some of his officers such as Spock, Number One, and some of the other members of the bridge crew. Which is cool, since the only ones who are canon are Lieutenant Tyler, Chief Pitcairn and Doctor Boyce. 

This issue is so solidly written. I'm not familiar with Ian Edginton's work but Dan Abnett helped to revamp the Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel in 2008, and has written some well known runs on various Marvel books since then. While I've never read any of Abnett's work before, I have heard people talking about it positively, so to find out that he cowrote a Star Trek series for Marvel is weird, but makes so much sense given what he would do for Marvel ten years later. Reading it feels like an episode of Star Trek if it was written and produced in 1997. To be clear it doesn't feel like an episode of Star Trek: Voyager or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine it does feel like an episode of TOS if TOS had been produced in the late '90s instead of the mid to late '60s. Or if a Captain Pike TV series was made in the late '90s. The organic ship actually looks like it could've been from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation though, just because that show did have a lot of large space traveling sentient lifeforms that couldnt've been done on TOS in the '60s. 

Speaking of the alien creatures, using organic ships, they're almost like an organic version of the Borg. Which is kind of lazy writing, but also a good way for it to be the Borg without trying to incorporate the Borg into the 23rd Century. Not that it matters since this comic isn't canon so if they did use the Borg it wouldn't wreck continuity like having the Ferengi show up on Star Trek: Enterprise did in 2002, even with their lame attempts at covering it up so that the first appearance of the Ferengi in the season 1 TNG episode, "The Last Outpost" remained intact. It's weird because it works, but at the same time it's also something that I would cry foul on in comics like this.

Unlike on the TV show and the Kelvin timeline movies, the Spock of this time period, in this comic anyway, is much more confident and sure of himself than we would see him in any other novel or comic set during this period. It's not quite how we got him in "The Cage" but it also isn't how we got him in TOS proper either. Especially since he was still a cadet when Pike recruited him to be an intern in the science department on the Enterprise. I also love how Pike referred to him as Acting Ensign Spock, similar to how Picard gave Wesley Crusher the rank of Acting Ensign on TNG. Though, unlike with Spock in this comic, Wesley was an Acting Ensign BEFORE he was even a cadet, so maybe not QUITE like that. 

My favourite part is at the beginning of the issue where the crew is on the Bridge and Number One issues an order that Pike was trying to issue as well, and became embarrassed, because it was a reminder that she wasn't in command of a ship yet, though she would've been had she not taken Pike's offer to become the first officer of the Enterprise. And then later when Pike is kidnapped directly from the Bridge, Doctor Boyce informs her that until they find Pike, she's the captain. Which is similar to how every officer to take over on the Bridge became the captain in the 2009 Star Trek movie. But it works here, because Number One is the first officer and would end up becoming the captain if Pike wasn't recovered. 

The artwork in this issue is so much better than it ever was in the Star Trek comics published by DC. It's fully detailed without any panels feeling like they're blank or difficult to figure out where a particular character is supposed to be. These aren't artists that I'm familiar with or that I've ever heard of but according to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, Patrick Zircher, the penciler has worked for both DC and Marvel while the inker, Greg Adams is an artist who worked for Marvel. So that's cool. Neither of them have done art on books that I've read, but they're really good and fit perfectly with Star Trek. The way they draw the Enterprise is absolutely gorgeous.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this was an excellent start to a Star Trek comic book series that I don't know very much about. Aside from two issues of the Star Trek: Voyager comic book series that was being published at this point, I missed out on the entire line of Marvel Star Trek comics published in the late '90s. But when I came across this issue at a comic book store that Brad and I went to back in March, right before the pandemic shut everything down, I bought it, because I never come across it at the comic book sales or comic book/geek conventions and events that Brad and I were going to all the time. So of course I pounced on it. This issue has the tone and character development that I'm really hoping Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Captain Pike series, has. But, even though they've said they're returning to Star Trek's roots, which this issue is pulling from, they're probably going to continue with their modern interpretation of Star Trek. Either way, this issue is awesome and if you can track it down at a convention or the back issue bins of a comic book store, do so, because it's amazing. I'm giving Star Trek: Early Voyages #1 10/10 stars.

Memory Alpha Links: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Flesh_of_My_Flesh

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Early_Voyages  

The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 8: The Faded Fobs (1988) VHS Review

The Faded Fobs is the first Teddy Ruxpin VHS tape where there's no live action Teddy at all and no bonus gift included either. It's also the third in succession of tapes I didn't own or rent when I was a kid. But unlike The Treasure of Grundo and Teddy Outsmarts M.A.V.O. this tape has only two episodes, neither episode is the start of a new arc, and neither form an arc with each other. They're just two standalone episodes that just happen to be in sequence with each other being that "The Faded Fobs" is episode 11 and "The Medicine Wagon" is episode 12.

I don't remember seeing these two episodes when I was a kid because they weren't ones I watched on VHS, since I didn't have this tape and my dad never taped either of these episodes on the two blank tapes that he filled with Teddy Ruxpin episodes for me when I was really little. But when I did my watch through of the series when I got the Complete Series DVD box set, I discovered these episodes and they're among some of my favourite episodes of the series. "The Story of the Faded Fobs" as this episode is called in the book and tape set for the toy, is one I owned as a child and listened to all the time back then, but I never owned "The Medicine Wagon". But I have an MP3 of the story. So when I got the DVD set and watched the episode, I was actually amazed at how little they changed when adapting the book into the TV show. Just because Tweeg is in almost the entire story and interacts with Teddy, Grubby, and Gimmick. Whereas "The Story of the Faded Fobs" was such a small scale story that they needed to not only add scenes with Tweeg and L.B., but also expand upon Teddy and Grubby going to pick Strawberries. And even then, the story itself wasn't changed all that much.

I do want to point out that the TV episode makes Teddy and Grubby look completely incompetent when they're trying to figure out why Rainbow Falls dried up, while the book at least makes them smart enough to know that they need Wooly right away rather than trying to figure it out on their own. Here though, they do one thing, but it makes them dizzy and so they decide to go get Wooly. Which is great, but definitely isn't up to Teddy and Grubby's usual quality of quick thinking and decision making. Especially since in numerous episodes before this, they had great ideas that worked pretty well, including getting the crystals back from M.A.V.O. in the episode right before this one.

Also I had to rewind the tape and rewatch a scene when the tape was over. During the episode, Grubby and Teddy had put Strawberry juice on the Fobs to try and get their colour back until they find a way to make it permanent. Well the juice is sticky and a Fob gets stuck to Grubby's hand, so when he tries to get the Fob off, the Fob is tossed out of frame, and I had to make sure that Grubby hadn't just punted a Fob out of the story. But, there were five Fobs before that scene and five after that scene, so there was no cruelty towards Fobs in this episode.

The only thing that really ties these two episodes together is the ongoing storyline of Tweeg reading the M.A.V.O. handbook and trying to complete his Evil Deeds Checklist. Which is funny because he really isn't that good at being evil. Like in the first few episodes it just seems like he's an incompetent villain, but still a villain. But as the series progresses, you find out that he's just REALLY bad at being evil, probably because the Grunge side of him is inherently good and so it's struggling with the evil nature of Tweeg's Troll side. Besides I love scenes between Tweeg and L.B. because they're so sarcastic and play off of each other so well. In fact I'd say they play off each other better than most villains did in the '80s and '90s. 

Overall, this was a pretty good tape. The episodes on it are both filler episodes, but as I've said before, even the filler episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin are great because they open up the World of Teddy Ruxpin pretty well. Also, I was wrong and we do see the Reducing Machine again in "The Faded Fobs". I had forgotten that Gimmick used the Reducing Machine instead of the Portable Reducing Machine to enlarge the Strawberry that ended up rolling out of Gimmick's House and across the valley only to roll off a cliff and right onto Tweeg's head. 

As I said, there's nothing to say about the tape as there's no live action Teddy intro and outro, and no bonus gift included to talk about either. It's just the two episodes, though "The Medicine Wagon" has it's title card removed even though it's just the two episodes. I almost prefer having the title cards just because people weren't necessarily always going to look at the back of the VHS box to see what episodes are on the tape. That's just me though.

That's it for today folks. Next week I'll be reviewing Volume 9, Tweeg Gets the Tweezles, which is the final Teddy Ruxpin VHS tape that I owned when I was a kid and then I'll be going into uncharted territory for the final three volumes of the series. I've also got a comic book review coming your way probably tomorrow, and then a movie review for you on Saturday, where I will be watching another Netflix Original Movie. So long for now!

When We First Met (2018) Movie Review

When We First Met is one of those weird movies where it doesn't fit into a single genre. Most websites classify it as a romantic comedy, which it is, but it also has a Fantasy or Sci-Fi element to it, which I find really fascinating. It also has a cast made up of actors that I actually know even if I've never seen anything they've been in, or have only seen one other thing they've been in.

The movie is about Noah (Adam DeVine) who is in love with Avery (Alexandra Daddario). However, Avery is engaged to Ethan (Robbie Amell). Following the engagement party, Noah, who is completely drunk, goes into an old photo booth at the piano bar he works at, and somehow gets transported back three years to Halloween 2014, the night he met Avery. Things don't work out the way he hoped they would, so once this timeline works itself back to 2017, Noah goes back to 2014 to try again. He goes back at least four times and every time the one element he encounters is Avery's friend, Carrie (Shelley Hennig) and slowly he begins to realize that Avery and Ethan are always meant to be together, and that he's supposed to be with someone else.

I'm not a big fan of time travel in fiction. It was used so much in the various Star Trek shows in the '90s and early 2000s and got so convoluted and dumb that I got sick of it pretty quickly. But there are occasions where it works, like on Doctor Who (mostly) and in this movie. And the reason that it works in this movie is because it moves the plot along while not being the focus of the story. We never find out why the photo booth can transport Noah back in time and we don't need to, because it's not important. It doesn't take the viewer out of the story by not explaining the science or magic behind the photo booth time machine. Which I appreciate because so often these movies and TV shows get so bogged down in the explanation of how a scientific concept is possible or of how the technology works, or how the magic works that it gets in the way of the story, which is one of the things that I don't like about Science Fiction and Fantasy.

The cast in this movie is awesome. Adam Devine is hilarious as Noah. I haven't seen a whole lot of the stuff he's in, but I recently saw him in a season 4 episode of Community where he played Jeff's step brother, Willy, and he voiced the Flash in The Lego Batman Movie which I haven't watched since I saw it in theatres back in 2017, oddly enough when parts of this movie take place. He apparently also appeared on Modern Family, but I've only seen a few episodes of that show and I don't remember if I saw him in any of the ones I've watched. And I've still never seen the Pitch Perfect movies, and he's in those as well. 

I know that Alexandra Daddario was in both Percy Jackson movies, but I've never seen them. I also haven't seen her in any other TV show or movie before, so this was my first encounter with her. She was pretty decent in the movie. Despite being on the movie poster, she isn't in the movie all that much. Most of the times that Avery appears it's the exact same scene, where she and Noah have their first meeting at the Halloween party and depending on how each timeline goes, she shows up more or less during that cycle. The most screen time Avery has in the movie is during the second cycle where Noah acts like a jerk and he and Avery end up in a purely sexual relationship, and Noah goes running with Avery, Carrie and Ethan. 

Robbie Amell is probably the actor I've seen in the most things out of the entire cast. I mean he played Ronnie Raymond on The Flash, he played the lead role of Stephen Jameson on The Tomorrow People, and he played Mae Whitman's love interest/Bella Thorne's boyfriend in The DUFF as well. He's also been in other movies like the Scooby-Doo prequel movie, Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins as Fred, and in American Pie Presents: Beta House but I haven't seen either of those movies, so I don't know if they're any good or not. Oh and despite also being on the movie poster, Robbie is in even less of this movie than Alexandra Daddario is. 

The final cast member I wanna talk about is Shelley Hennig, who plays Avery's best friend, Carrie. Shelley Hennig is probably the actress I'm least familiar with as the only thing I know off the top of my head that she's in is Teen Wolf. And the only thing I know about her character on that show, Malia, is that she doesn't show up until season 3 and then is there until the show ended in 2017 and this is basically the first movie she did after that show ended. Unlike the other members of the movie's main cast, she's the one I've never seen in anything besides this and that I know the least about in terms of her filmography. She's really good in this movie though. In fact, Carrie is probably my favourite character in the entire movie as she's the one that gets Noah to realize that he and Avery were never going to happen over the course of the movie. Their chemistry is absolutely amazing in the movie too. Like there's this one scene they have together, in the cycle where Noah and Avery are engaged, he's rich and super busy with work, and Avery is still in love with Ethan, and Noah is with Carrie in the kitchen and he asks her why Avery doesn't love him, and she is at a loss for words because she has no way of explaining it to him. And the way they play off each other is great.

My favourite scene in this movie is during the first time travel cycle where Noah doesn't realize what's happening so he walks up to 2014 Carrie, who he won't meet until later that day, and treats her like they've known each other for three years, creeping her out. My favourite scenes come after that though where Noah is about to succeed with Avery when Carrie comes home and starts freaking out because she recognizes him as the dude who approached her earlier that day and then she and Avery start freaking out and then Carrie picks up a potted tree and hits him over the head with it. And then later, when he gets back to 2017, not realizing that anything has changed, he goes back to Avery's place to apologize to her and Ethan for his behaviour at their engagement party, and Avery recognizes him, screams for Carrie, who comes out and attacks him again, and then Ethan gets in on the action and Noah gets them to back off by saying he has a bomb. So then, as Noah escapes Ethan yells out to him, "Yeah, next time you'd better come back with more than a bomb!" and Avery is like, "No babe, no" and then Ethan is like, "I mean less than a bomb!" like an idiot. That entire chain of events had me laughing so hard because it's so ridiculous that Noah has no clue about what's going on even though he looked at the date on the newspaper at the convenience store before he runs into Carrie. 

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, When We First Met is not the greatest film ever, but it's an entertaining movie that had me laughing the entire time. The cast is brilliant, the story isn't great, but the premise is pretty good and I had a great time watching it. I probably would've liked it a bit better if we'd gotten to see Noah and Avery's friendship a little more. We know why Avery would want to be friends with Noah, but we don't really get to see why Noah would fall in love with Avery let alone be friends with her. And that's mostly due to the fact that they spend so little screen time together that we don't really see their relationship develop. Especially when we find out that most of Avery's interests actually came from Carrie, similar to how Rachel Bilson's interests in the yellow umbrella episode of How I Met Your Mother turned out to be Tracy's interests, revealing that Ted was dating the wrong woman. Except it works better on the show than it does in the movie, just because it's a forgettable thing until we meet Tracy near the end of the series, and it works as a satisfying pay off. Here it just makes us wonder why Noah is in love with Avery in the first place. For that I'm giving When We First Met 8/10 stars.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5783956/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1994) #1 Comic Book Review

Comic book adaptations of movies and TV shows are weird entities. Especially ones from the '90s. If you take a look at the Star Trek comics put out by DC Comics from 1989 until 1996, or the early comics based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that were put out by Hamilton Comics and Marvel from 1994 until 1996, they are just those TV shows with no real depth to them. There's some creativity to the stories, because they don't have to worry about the limitations in filmmaking technology in the '90s or figuring out a budget for the episode, but it still follows the formulas of their respective shows.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 is probably the most formulaic Power Rangers comic ever published by any comic book publisher who has ever held the comic book license for the franchise. It sticks so close to the formula of the TV show, which was just starting it's second season when the issue came out, IF they followed the usual comic book practice of publishing an issue a few months before the date shown on the cover, or if they didn't do that, then it would've been just after the two part episode, "The Power Transfer" aired. Either way, the show's second season was in production for sure when this issue came out, even if the episodes hadn't started airing yet. As a result, we've got Lord Zedd in this issue as well as the Thunderzords, but no Tommy, though he is mentioned as still being the Green Ranger in this issue.

The story is that Billy has an insect display at the Angel Grove High School Science Fair and Lord Zedd sends Squatt and Baboo to steal Billy's rare Dracula Moth, though it's in it's Caterpillar state for some reason, and turns it into a monster. After the Rangers deal with the Putties that Zedd had sent down, they morph and attempt to take out the monster, though it incapacitates the Red Ranger, Black Ranger, and Yellow Ranger, which the TV show did a lot of during that period where Tommy was the White Ranger but Rocky, Adam, and Aisha hadn't replaced Jason, Zack, and Trini yet, to hide the fact that Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and Thuy Trang had already left the show. So this leaves Kimberly and Billy to try and obtain some venom from a giant spider in another dimension that can dissolve the coccoons their three friends are trapped in. Though I guess their Blade Blasters wouldn't work on them like they did on the coccoon that Scorpina's giant pet worm monster trapped them in in the season 1 episode "A Star Is Born". Of course by this time the Caterpillar monster has transformed into the full Dracula Moth, and then Lord Zedd makes it grow. The Rangers form the Thunder Megazord, and destroy the monster, saving the day. Pretty standard for an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back in 1994. 

I wouldn't normally give away the whole story in this review, but like I said, it conforms to the standard Power Rangers formula well enough that there aren't any real surprises in the issue. Which is fine. However I do have to wonder if this issue was supposed to take place during the first season of the TV show. Throughout the entire issue Lord Zedd acts like Rita Repulsa instead of himself. For example, instead of throwing the growth grenades that Zedd always threw to the monster when he wanted to grow it, Zedd throws his staff like Rita did on the show. Also, when the Rangers blow the monster up, Zedd claims that he has a headache, which is another Rita-ism that was a staple of the show during the first season. But the script feels like it was written with Lord Zedd in mind because there aren't any discrepancies between the artwork and the script and none within the script itself. 

I think what likely happened is because the comics have to be written so far in advance and the artwork done as well, I think what happened is that the people working on this issue didn't have very much to go on since it's likely that season 1 was still airing when they started writing the issue, but the Thunderzord suits and models, and Lord Zedd's design were available and that's all they had to go on since there wasn't any filmed footage of Lord Zedd available yet. They also probably watched an episode of the show, saw Rita, and not knowing how Lord Zedd would behave since he hadn't appeared on the show yet, figured that he would behave in a similar fashion to Rita. Which is fair and I'm certainly not going to dock points off my final rating for it, because this happens in comics all the time. It's why the crew acted weirdly in the first six issues of the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic by DC Comics. The comic was written so far in advance that the show hadn't aired yet and all they had to go on were promo images and the show's bible to get an idea of what Data or Worf would look like and how Riker might interact with Picard.

The art in this issue is pretty good. I mean it's not as solid as the artwork would be in the later issues, but it's still pretty good. Though I do have to wonder what they used in terms of reference for how Billy would look. There's a couple of shots in the issue where Billy looks a bit on the chunky side and his face looks like the way I imagined Bilbo Baggins to look in the The Lord of the Rings books and how he looks on the front cover of the VHS of the animated The Hobbit movie. Which sounds stupid and completely insane, but that's how Billy looks.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall there definitely better Power Rangers comics out there, including issues within this particular series, but this issue is pretty decent. Yeah, sure, it's the standard MMPR TV show formula and the story goes the way you would expect it to go, but it does it well. I didn't have any Power Rangers comics when I was a kid, but if I did, this is what I would expect a comic based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to be like reading it in 1994 when the TV show was still in it's early seasons. Reading it as an adult I appreciate it for it's simplicity especially since 1994 was a really weird year for comics. Superman had just come back from the dead sporting his super mullet, Dick Grayson had just become Batman, the Clone Saga was just starting for Spider-Man and Hal Jordan had just tried to destroy the universe as Parallax during the Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! event and I'm sure the X-Men were going through some things at the time too. I'm giving Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 8/10 stars because some of that artwork is just ridiculous.

Update: This issue came out on November 30th, 1994, which was less than a month after "The Power Transfer" originally aired, which is probably why Tommy showed up as the White Ranger and Jason, Zack and Trini were replaced with Rocky, Adam, and Aisha after only two issues. I also tried to look information up on why Lord Zedd acts like Rita in this issue, but RangerWiki doesn't have anything on it and there isn't any information anywhere else online either. Also, I did look at the reproduction of final artwork of Lord Zedd from season 2 in Power Rangers: The Ultimate Visual History and the way Lord Zedd looks in this issue is exactly how he looks in that drawing. So that's likely what the artist for this issue used as reference for the character since he hadn't appeared on the show yet when the issue was written and drawn.

RangerWiki: https://powerrangers.fandom.com/wiki/Mighty_Morphin_Power_Rangers_(Hamilton)_Vol._1_Issue_1 

The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 7: Come Dream With Me Tonight (1987) VHS Review

Come Dream With Me Tonight, the seventh volume in the Teddy Ruxpin VHS series from Hi-Tops Video is unique because it's a live-action/animated special instead of an episode or multiple episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. Normally these live action specials aren't included in the numbering if the TV show episode tapes in a series, and are their own separate things. But, in this case they just threw it into the main series lineup, making it the seventh volume of the series.

This tape actually sort of reminds me of the early Barney & The Backyard Gang videos in that there are two kids, in this case Josh and Shannon, who have a problem and they use their imaginations to bring a toy to life, in this case the original Teddy Ruxpin, to help them resolve their problems through songs. This makes sense because this tape was released on October 27th, 1987, only ten months before The Backyard Show, the first tape in the Barney & The Backyard Gang series, was released. Which is interesting that two different franchises were doing the exact same thing around the same time.

Come Dream With Me Tonight is actually the video version of the thirteenth book in the The World of Teddy Ruxpin audio series, "Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies". The only difference between the book and the VHS tape is there's an extra song after "This Lovely Night" on the VHS tape and the framing story of Josh having trouble going to sleep and when they turn Teddy Ruxpin on to tell them a story, I guess they fall asleep or something and they enter a dream where Teddy is alive. Like the Barney videos, it's not exactly clear that they've fallen asleep, though Shannon speculates that they're simply dreaming and that Teddy isn't actually alive. Whatever the case may be, all of the songs from the original audiocassette are included in this video. Even the box for the VHS includes the same cover art from the book, the difference being that the book is yellow while the VHS box is blue.

The Teddy Ruxpin costume is actually pretty weird in this tape. It's almost a cross between the original TV movie version and the one used in the live action intro and outro segments on the first six volumes of this VHS series. Teddy's tunic sports the Teddy Ruxpin logo that was on the tunic in the live action segments on the previous VHS releases, but the head has the more pronounced eyebrows and tuft of hair that the live action TV movie version had. I'll leave comparison images at the end of this review so that you guys know what I'm talking about.

This video is the last time we see a live action Teddy Ruxpin both on these tapes and in the franchise as a whole. Sort of. I mean we see the version in this video in previews for this video on Tweeg Gets the Tweezles and Teddy and the Mudblups, but this is the last time where the live-action Teddy appears with new dialogue. It's also the final tape to have a pack in bonus gift included with the tape. This time it's a Teddy Ruxpin song sheet, probably with the lyrics for the songs sung in this video. Though aside from the final song on this tape, "In My Lullabye", if you have the book "Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies" then the lyrics are included there as well, so the song sheet isn't quite as exclusive as the bonus gifts from the previous VHS volumes were. It's still pretty cool though, especially for the kids who didn't own that particular book and tape set.

Going forward with these reviews, aside from Tweeg Gets the Tweezles, these are all tapes I never owned when I was a kid. So it'll be interesting to see what they're like. This one was interesting to watch because I have seen it on YouTube when I first discovered it's existence about ten years ago. Like the live action TV movie, Come Dream With Me Tonight was never released on any home video formats aside from VHS. It wasn't even included as a bonus feature on the various DVD releases for The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin animated series. 

That's it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with this week's comic book review and then Wednesday will be my overview of the first ever Star Wars novel that wasn't a movie novelization, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and Saturday will be this week's movie review. Before I go, I'll leave you with the three images of the live-action Teddy Ruxpin. They're all screen captures that I have personally taken from the video files sent to me by Vincent. Later.

Here's Teddy from the opening sequence of the 1985 live action TV movie, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin. As you can see, he's got eyebrows and a tuft of hair between his ears in this movie.

Here's Teddy in the opening of Volume 2 Guests of the Grunges. As you can see, he has no eyebrows here, and the hair between his ears looks like it was combed down and looks less wild.

Finally, here's Teddy in Come Dream With Me Tonight. His eyebrows are back as is the more wild looking tuft of hair. The head is also more pear shaped like it is in the intros and outros of the early VHS releases, whereas it's more round in the TV movie. 

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8559636/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_5

Small Soldiers (1998) Movie Review

Small Soldiers is a movie that I hadn't watched in about 15 years before I sat down to watch it last night for this review. I've only ever owned it on VHS and of course until three months ago, I didn't have a VCR to play the movie on. I also don't think it's ever been on Netflix. At least not here in Canada. I really struggled to pick a movie for this week's movie review. But then I saw the VHS case sitting on my shelf and decided to go ahead and review this movie.

I loved this movie when I was a kid. Like most of the movies I saw as a kid, I didn't see Small Soldiers in theatres. I did see it on VHS though. The movie came out in the summer of 1998 so it was probably my 12th birthday or Christmas of 1998 that I got this movie on VHS. This was my first exposure to a lot of actors. It was my first time seeing Gregory Smith, who I would later watch on the WB series Everwood, which was created by Greg Berlanti, and the ABC series Rookie Blue, Kevin Dunn, who played Shia LaBeouf's dad in the first three Transformers movies, Dick Miller, David Cross, and Denis Leary. This wasn't my first encounter with Kirsten Dunst though as she'd been in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation during the show's seventh season, and I'm pretty sure I'd already seen Jumanji by the time I saw Small Soldiers.

Small Soldiers is such a '90s movie. By that I mean this movie could not have been made in any other decade except for the '90s. Not because it's too cheesy to have been made in any other decade, but also with today's technology, there's no way Larry could've gotten his hands on the munitions chip without anyone knowing about it right away. It just wouldn't work. Also Major Chip Hazard and the Commando Elite would not have been able to sneak around so easily.

I love Alan and Christy. Apart from Archer and the other Gorgonites, they're probably my favourite characters in the entire movie. They're the most '90s teens that you could have in this movie, but they're likeable and they aren't annoying as they would be if the movie was being made today. Though Christy's turn from being with her boyfriend, Brad, who shows up for like two scenes with only a few lines of dialogue, to being with Alan is pretty weak, even if Alan did rescue her from the Commando Elite and the Gwendy Dolls while Brad gets knocked out and then mysteriously disappears by the time Alan and Christy get back to their houses after defeating the original set of Commando Elite figures. Though I guess Christy was attracted to Alan throughout the movie and it was his actions that made her make that final turn. It's just most movies would've made a big deal out of the turn, but surprisingly this one doesn't.

It turns out that Sarah Michelle Gellar voices one of Christy's Gwendy Dolls after the Commando Elite bring them to life. Christina Ricci voices another one. I never actually knew that because we didn't watch through the credits at the end. We'd turn off the tape as soon as the closing credits started rolling. Even when I watched this movie fifteen years ago, I'd never watch the closing credits. So that was a cool tidbit to find out during this viewing.

Larry and Irwin are probably the weirdest characters in this movie. I mean there's nothing unique about Irwin as he's just a nervous geek who works for a toy company, but Larry confuses me. Mainly because he's the one who decides to put the munitions chip in the Commando Elite and Gorgonites and that kind of says something about the guy's personality. 

Also, why would a firm like Globotech want to buy a toy company? I mean Globotech is like Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries, which had contracts with the Department of Defense in the DC and Marvel universes, before Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark changed their policies about that, so it seems like a pretty arbitrary decision for Mars to buy a toy company. I guess it had to happen for the plot of the movie to start.

One thing I am confused about is the timeline of the movie when it comes to Alan and his family. It's heavily implied that the Abernathys had just recently moved into the house behind the Fimples's house because of Alan being kicked out of the school he used to go to. But, it also seems like that Alan's dad, Stuart had owned the toy store for a while, since Alan seems to have known Joe the delivery guy for a while and a kid mentions that they never have anything good in the store. So the way I took it is that the store had been around for a while, it's just the Abernathys just moved into a house that ended up being in biking distance for Alan, since he doesn't seem to be able to drive a car. The movie doesn't make any of this really clear, but I guess it doesn't need to in order for the plot to work.

I also think there should've been more scenes between Alan and his parents. Not only because Kevin Dunn is a great actor and plays the father of a troubled teenager really well, as we would later see in Transformers, but their whole conflict feels like it could be fleshed out more than it actually was. It's pretty much the inciting element for Alan to buy the Commando Elite and Gorgonite toys from Joe in the first place. There just isn't really anything there. I've never owned the movie on DVD so I don't know what deleted scenes are on the DVD releases. So maybe the conflict between Alan and his parents is more fleshed out in the deleted scenes. That's really my only real complaint about the movie.

Before I get to my final thoughts on the movie, I would like to talk about the soundtrack for the movie. Jerry Goldsmith, who composed the score for many blockbuster films in the '70s, '80s and '90s, including a few of the Star Trek films, did the score for this movie and it is actually pretty great. However, the songs selected for the movie are pretty '90s. While it's not on the soundtrack album, "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls is included in the movie when Christy's father tries to surrender to the Commando Elite and for some reason the stereo goes on, with that song playing. Again, a moment like that could only be in a movie made in the '90s. There are other iconic songs in the movie like "War" by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, and "Love Is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall I actually think that Small Soldiers holds up surprisingly well for a movie that was released almost 22 years ago. It's fun, it's cheesy and like I said, it is such a '90s movie. Aside from like Men in Black and Space Jam I don't think you could get a movie that is more '90s than this. It's great and I love it. It was definitely one of my favourite movies when I was 12 years old and I went back to it pretty frequently when I was a teenager in the 2000s. Especially after I got the TV/VCR combo set from my uncle for my 16th birthday and could watch the movie in my bedroom. I'm giving Small Soldiers 9.9/10 stars because I thought the conflict between Alan and his parents was fairly flimsy and even Christy's relationship with her parents isn't actually shown at all in the movie. While it's not a masterpiece film, it's still a really good movie despite the fact that it's a cheesy '90s kids action flick.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122718/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Wikipedia Article for the Soundtrack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Soldiers_(soundtrack) 

Animorphs Is Going To Be A Movie And I'm Of Two Minds About It

Hey guys. How's it going? I hope you're all having an awesome week. It's been a good week for me. So I don't normally talk about this sort of thing on my blog, as I'm very much nostalgia focused and this, just being an early announcement with no cast or director attached yet, isn't a whole lot to go on. But I had to talk about this because it's something that I'm very excited about on one hand, but also very cautious about on the other. Animorphs is being adapted into a movie and I'm of two minds about it.

So last night I was on Facebook, as per usual and one of the pages that I follow, Growing Up in the 90s, posted the link to an article from The Hollywood Reporter. I tend to believe this website more than others because they're the ones that tend to break the news when a movie has been announced as being in the works. Especially when it comes franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and things like that. So I clicked on the link because it had me curious since it's about Animorphs. I read the article and according to this article, which I will link at the end of this post, Scholastic Entertainment is teaming up with Picturestart, which is a production company that just started last year, to produce the first film in a series of Animorphs movies. And honestly, I don't know how I feel about that.

I was a huge fan of Animorphs when I was a kid. I had most of the books, though there was a good chunk of them from the latter portion of the series that I ended up not getting for whatever reason. I was late to the party when it comes to Animorphs though. So the first book The Invasion, was published in June, 1996, however I didn't get into the series until somewhere between November 1998 and February 1999, when I was in the sixth grade.

The first Animorphs book I ever read was Book #23 The Pretender as that was the only one available from the school library at the time. I borrowed it one week because our assignment was to pick a book we wouldn't normally read for our reading time. At that point I'd been borrowing the Star Wars novels from my best friend Garrett since the beginning of the school year and I'd burned through all the ones he owned at the time and was looking for something to read. Despite 22 books, plus two Megamorphs books having been out prior to this one, I jumped right into the series, not even caring that there were books that came before it. By the time I finished the book and took it back to the library the following week, the first three books were there so I borrowed those ones and I was hooked. There were like three or four of us in my class who got into Animorphs at that time. I'd never heard of the series, until a friend of mine at the time, Jessica mentioned it at recess one day.

Around the same time Scholastic Productions had teamed up with Protocol Entertainment to produce a half hour, live action Television series for YTV here in Canada, and Nickelodeon in the U.S. I think Jessica told me about the show as well, but I don't remember because this was almost 22 years ago now that this happened. I do remember that the first episode I ever saw was actually "My Name is Jake Part 2" the second episode of the series, though I think it was a repeat of that episode, because I didn't see part 1 until after I'd seen pretty much the rest of the series. I thought it was pretty cool. Go check out my overview style review of the series that I did back in April to see my thoughts on the TV series from an adult in 2020 perspective.

Not long after I started watching the show, I got the first volume of the Animorphs: The Invasion Series VHS series for my birthday or Christmas and that's how I saw the pilot episode "My Name is Jake Part 1". I watched this tape all the time. Particularly during the summer when the show was on hiatus between seasons and there weren't any new episodes airing. Then I watched it even more when I was in high school after I got a TV/VCR combo set from my uncle for my 16th birthday. 

I mentioned all this because when I read this article from The Hollywood Reporter about an Animorphs movie being in development, I was immediately excited and cautious all at the same time. I'd love to see the Animorphs series get re-adapted into a live-action property. However, I think a movie or a series of movies would be the wrong way to go about it.

In addition to the 54 books in the main series, there are three different companion series. The first is the Animorphs: Megamorphs series which chronicle side adventures the Animorphs have that wouldn't necessarily fit well into the main series. Most of these adventures are time travel or universe altering events that wouldn't fit into a singular book in the main series.

The second series of companion books is the Chronicles series, which are all prequels to the main series, expanding upon concepts and elements introduced in the books themselves. One of them is how Elfangor came to be the warrior he was when he crashed on Earth and met Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco and Tobias in the first book. Another is how the war between the Yeerks and the Andalites began, based on elements introduced in the eighth book. The other two are about the Yeerk who became Visser Three and the Ellimist. 

The third companion series is a Choose Your Own Adventure series called Alternamorphs. These two books are just sort of there and don't add anything new to the universe created by K.A. Applegate. Even leaving out the two Alternamorphs books and the four Chronicles books, you still have 58 books worth of material to pull from for an adaptation. Which would work better if it was adapted into a TV series. Say what you will about the '90s live action show, but whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit that they adapted it pretty well considering they had no budget and had to change things around in order to fit into the TV medium. 

Scholastic Entertainment co-produced the two movies based on Goosebumps by R.L. Stine and instead of directly adapting a book from the series, they took the spirit of Goosebumps and made that into a movie. Which was a good move on their part since Goosebumps is an anthology series and you can tell any kind of story you want without adapting a single book. Animorphs has a singular continuity with an entire universe to work with. But, with 54 books plus eight companion books (including Chronicles), it's much harder to adapt the series into a movie franchise the way Harry Potter and other Young Adult series have been in the past.

Animorphs also has a lot of mature themes in the books. For example in Book #33 The Illusion, Tobias, in Andalite morph, is captured by a Yeerk named Taylor and tortured because the Yeerks' Anti-Morphing Ray didn't work since the Yeerks didn't know that Tobias's Hawk form is his actual body since he was stuck as a Hawk back in the first book. Would you have that in a movie later on down the line? You could, but the movie could be considered to be R-rated depending on how extremely they take Taylor torturing Tobias. Whereas you could do that in a Netflix series without a problem.

As the article says, this upcoming movie will be the first film based on the books. So from that we know that they're not just going to make an Animorphs movie and that's it. Which I'm happy about because I don't think you can do Animorphs in a singular movie without taking out a lot of the elements that make the series what it is. I also think it would just be preferrable to make a film series rather than a single film since you stay with the characters for however many movies you want to make. Plus, how cool would it be to have an Animorphs movie come out every year or two for ten years or more and instead of adapting a particular book for each movie, you could just tell stories about Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco and Ax and maybe throw in David, the evil Animorph at some point too? 

All in all I think this is pretty exciting news. It's been 20 years since the TV show ended and 19 years since the book series ended. In that time, nobody has done anything with this franchise. Scholastic attempted to re-release the books back in 2011, but stopped with the eighth book, The Alien because sales weren't great, probably because the people who originally read the books in the '90s and early 2000s didn't like the way they'd tried to update the books and the kids of the early 2010s probably didn't care for the books the way my generation did. But the first Goosebumps movie did really well back in 2015 so I'd say that an Animorphs movie would probably do business somewhere between Power Rangers and Goosebumps since it's more of a niche franchise like Power Rangers, but it's also a popular book series from the '90s like Goosebumps is, so it could go either way.

What do you guys think of this announcement? Are you excited? Are you upset about it? Do you not care either way? Please let me know in the comments below. Also please tell me if you read Animorphs when you were a kid. I'll be back tomorrow with this week's movie review. Later.

Article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/animorphs-movie-works-scholastic-picturestart-1299013

Superman: The Man of Steel (1986) Comic Book Review

Superman is one of those characters that I was aware of when I was a kid, but I really didn't have much interaction with him the way I did Batman, the crew of the Enterprise-D, and the Power Rangers. I didn't have anything against the character, I just didn't know very much about him. I didn't see the Christopher Reeve Superman movies until I was a teenager, there weren't reruns of the 1950s Superman TV series starring George Reeves like there was for the 1960s Batman TV series starring Adam West, and there wasn't a Superman cartoon on TV either. Heck when Superman was killed in the comics in 1993 we didn't get the news reports about Superman #75 here in Canada like people in the U.S. did. So my knowledge of Superman came from ads I saw with him in them in the issues of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation I had, the Super Powers Team Superman action figure from the '80s and of course from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman starring Dean Cain as Clark Kent/Superman and Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. That show took inspiration from the comics of the late '80s and early '90s, which began with The Man of Steel by John Byrne, a former Marvel Comics writer and artist.

The Man of Steel is probably my favourite version of Superman's origin of all time. It's simple, it's timeless and it doesn't get so convoluted trying to incorporate every single version of the origin into a single story. Superman's actual origin is told in the first issue and the rest of the series is just Superman starting out in Metropolis and meeting people like Lois Lane, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, and even Batman. Which I appreciate, because in more recent times, the people writing Superman's origins are so obsessed with every single version of the story, from the movies, TV shows, and comics that it ends up becoming jumbled and the story isn't as enjoyable. Especially since it's an origin that has been told and retold so many times over the years that anyone who has ever read a Superman comic, even if they've never read this book or an issue that covers the origin, knows what Superman's origin is.

I also like that while this is a mini-series, you could pick up any issue of it and read it as it's own standalone issue, without having read the previous one or without reading the next one. Though the only real callbacks are in the final two issues, where Superman is continually foiling Luthor's assassination plans against him in issue #5 and then in issue #6 where Clark and Lana have their conversation, where we find out that that's who Clark goes to see before he leaves Smallville after discovering that Ma and Pa had kept his true origin from him, including the Kryptonian pod that had brought Kal-El to Earth in issue #1. 

I'm not a fan of the Krypton stuff and so the fact that it was limited to the very beginning and didn't play much of a factor again until the final issue is something I appreciated. I don't understand what everyone's fascination with Krypton is when the planet was destroyed and it was just used as an element to get Superman to Earth and that's it. Maybe it's because Superman: The Movie spent a lot of time with Jor-El and Lara on Krypton before sending Clark to Earth is why people care so much. Because I didn't grow up with Superman the way other people did, I don't care about that stuff very much and it doesn't fascinate me at all, so when I'm not having to read Superman stories about Krypton, particularly modern day Krypton, the way it's been portrayed since this series, I'm happy.

My favourite issue in this entire book is issue #3, which is an entire issue about Batman and Superman meeting for the first time in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe. While I generally don't like how antagonistic Superman and Batman are toward each other ever since The Dark Knight Returns came out, it works here because Superman and Batman haven't met before, and have only read about one another in the newspaper. Because of this, they don't really understand each other's operational methods and they don't know what each other's city is truly like. This is one of the elements that I felt Zack Snyder tried too hard with in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. But it works here, because John Byrne knows these characters and gets them working together pretty easily. 

As I mentioned earlier, Lois & Clark took the inspiration for their version of Superman from these comics. As I was reading the book for this review, I could definitely see the similarities in the book's tone. Lois and Lex's relationship was similar to how it was on the show, and Clark's personality as Clark Kent was pretty much the same as well. In fact issue #4 where Lois and Clark go to a party on Lex's boat and Lex tests Superman's abilities, deliberately placing everyone's lives in jeopardy actually felt like an episode of Lois & Clark even though the show wouldn't be in production for another seven years after this book was published. Which I thought was pretty cool as Lois & Clark was basically my introduction to the Man of Steel outside of ads in Star Trek comics that DC used to publish.

The artwork in this book is absolutely phenomenal. As the writer and artist on this book, John Byrne knew exactly how he wanted Superman and his supporting characters to look. He also knew how he wanted Krypton to look in the opening sequence in issue #1 where Jor-El sends Kal to Earth while the planet around them is dying. Byrne's art style is simple but detailed. There's not a lot of clutter on the panels, but there's also plenty for the reader to see on the page. No matter how you feel about the character, you have to admit that Superman's world is absolutely gorgeous to look at. From the alien landscape of Krypton to the sprawling cityscape of Metropolis with the tall building that houses The Daily Planet to the quietness of Smallville. I think that's why even though I'm a Batman fan, Metropolis is my favourite city in the DC Universe and Smallville is my favourite small town.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall The Man of Steel is the best Superman origin story ever written. At least for me. The only other one that holds a candle to it is Superman: Earth One, which I'll be reviewing in the very near future. The thing I like most about this book is that, despite having been published 34 years ago, it doesn't feel outdated or old. It feels like it was written last year. That's the thing I like most about a lot of comics from the '70s and '80s. They feel timeless enough that they never feel out of date. I'm giving The Man of Steel 10/10 stars.

DC Universe Wiki: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Man_of_Steel_Vol_1

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Man_of_Steel_1986_(Collected)

The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 6: Teddy Outsmarts M.A.V.O. (1987) VHS Review

Teddy Outsmarts M.A.V.O. is another one of the compilation tapes that has three episodes on it, edited together rather than a singular episode. It's also the first since The Treasure of Grundo that I didn't own or rent from the video store. And it's the final Teddy Ruxpin VHS tape to include an intro and outro featuring a live action Teddy Ruxpin as the host. Later tapes would simply go from the Hi-Tops Video logo to the opening theme of the animated series at the beginning, and then either a sneak preview of Volume 7 Come Dream with Me Tonight at the end of the tape or simply nothing at all. 

I admit that the three episodes that are on this tape, "Tweeg's Mom", "The Surf Grunges", and "The New M.A.V.O. Member", are ones that I don't remember watching when I was a kid. I probably did see them on TV at one point seen as how I used to watch The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin all the time when I was a kid. I just don't remember these particular episodes from back then as I didn't have this VHS tape and they weren't episodes that my dad had taped off the TV onto a blank VHS tape like he had other episodes of the series. So the first time I remember seeing these three episodes was when I first got the 2012 DVD box set and binged the entire series. 

These three episodes are pretty good. They're not my favourite set of episodes, but they're still really good. We get a lot about Tweeg's background in these three episodes. Not only do we meet Tweeg's mother, Eleanor, but we learn that his father, Elroy was a Grunge, and that his full name is Jack W. Tweeg. We don't actually see Elroy outside of the flashback in "The Surf Grunges" until the end of the series, but I'd actually forgotten that he was introduced this early in the series. I actually laughed when Teddy, Grubby and Gimmick reacted to finding out that Tweeg actually had a first name and a middle initial. 

Another element that was introduced in this block of episodes is the Surf Grunges, a group of Grunges who surf at Ben's Beach. The Surf Grunges are actually more prominent throughout the series than the regular Jungle Grunges that were introduced in "Guests of the Grunges". I think the Jungle Grunges only appear in a handful of episodes but the Surf Grunges show up a bit more frequently, even in episodes that take place during the winter and the Grundo Games arc in episodes 47 through 50 of the series. 

However the one element introduced in this block of episodes that has a lasting impact on the show until the very end of the series. That element is M.A.V.O., also known as the Monsters and Villains Organization, led by the Supreme Oppressor, Quellor. While M.A.V.O. was hinted at in "Grubby's Romance", this block of episodes was the group's full introduction, and the one that really opened up the Teddy Ruxpin mythos more than the book and tape series ever managed to do. Prior to the introduction of M.A.V.O. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin was just a simple, but decent, adventure show that was fun to watch. The introduction of M.A.V.O. though turned the series into a full fledged Fantasy series that has you invested in the world of the show, not just the characters from episode to episode. And it's because of this expansion that I feel this series really shined as the best example of what an '80s cartoon based off a toy could be. 

Oh sure you had G.I. Joe, The Transformers, The Care Bears, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but those shows, as enjoyable as they were, had a formula that they stuck to and they became predictable after a couple of seasons. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin was only 65 episodes long, but it provided a long term narrative from beginning to end. And while the standalone episodes that started or ended an arc were fairly predictable as you knew Tweeg and L.B. or the Mudblups would never actually succeed against Teddy and his friends, it was the arcs themselves that were unpredictable and you actually felt the danger that Teddy and his friends were in which automatically raises the quality of the show above the formulaic type of storytelling that the other cartoons from the '80s were doing at the time. Which isn't to say that those other shows were bad, in fact The Care Bears and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles complete the triangle of my favourite cartoons from the '80s, it's just they were all doing very similar things. 

If I had to nitpick anything about this tape, it's that the animation itself is slightly inconsistent. For example in "The New M.A.V.O. Member" the Portable Reducing Machine looks exactly like a miniature version of the Reducing Machine seen in "Take a Good Look", except in one scene where it looks like it does in every other episode that it appears in. Also the contrast is very inconsistent too. This is actually a problem with '80s and '90s animation in general, but some episodes are brighter than others are. Not necessarily in terms of what time of day the episode takes place during or whether an episode takes place inside or outside but the colours used in the animation itself end up varying in some places both in a particular episode and across multiple episodes. But again that's a problem with the show itself rather than the actual VHS release of the episodes. 

Overall while this isn't my favourite Teddy Ruxpin tape of the ones I've seen during this run through or even of the ones that I've seen overall, it's still a really good release. It's also an iconic bunch of episodes simply because it's the set that introduces a bunch of important characters and plotlines into the series. I also like how the episodes were edited together. Unlike on The Treasure of Grundo tape where the episodes were haphazardly edited together from three episodes that aren't even consecutive in one section, these were just three episodes in a row that were put together with only the title cards and end credits removed from two of the episodes. Which is pretty cool in my books. 

I'll be back next week with my review of the seventh volume of the Hi-Tops Video Teddy Ruxpin VHS releases, Come Dream with Me Tonight. Unlike the rest of the tapes in this run, this tape is a live action special based on the 13th book and tape set for the original Teddy Ruxpin talking toy, "Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies". There's a bit of a story to the tape though, but I'll mostly be focusing on the songs as it's basically just a collection of music videos so to speak. So join me for that next week. Until then have a great week and I'll see you tomorrow for this week's comic book review. Later.  

Schooled (2019) TV Review

Schooled is one of those shows that was really really good, but ended too soon. It's one of my favourite shows and, like The Goldbergs, has an amazing cast of characters. When the show was announced as a backdoor pilot during the fifth season of The Goldbergs and would focus on John Glascott, the guidance counselor played by Tim Meadows, I wasn't sure about it. Spin-offs rarely work, particularly with comedies, and as we saw with the Friends spin-off Joey, having a show about the one note comedy character doesn't work that well. However, the trio of Lainey, Glascott, and Mellor worked wonderfully on the show.

One of the things that I liked about Schooled is that not only did it focus on the teachers at the school, but it also focused on the kids in almost every episode. So while C.B. might have a subplot in an episode, Tom Scott, one of the kids that C.B. teaches, might have another subplot, and the two would converge, with the characters helping each other to realize something about whatever problem they're facing. Or one of the girls would have an issue and Lainey, or Lainey and Wilma in season 2, would step in to help them. 

Something else I liked about the show is the '90s references, since the series is set in 1990-something. While I appreciate the '80s references on The Goldbergs, there are a lot of them that I just don't really understand because I wasn't born until the end of 1986 and while I do know some '80s things, there's a lot more that I just wasn't around for. I grew up in the '90s though, so I was there for the big popular Pop bands like the Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys, and N'SYNC. I was there for movies like The Lion King, Titanic, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, and She's All That. I was also there for things like Friends, Pokemon, Beanie Babies, and Tamagotchi. Even the songs they play in the episodes are mostly songs that I'm familiar with because I heard them on the radio when I was a kid in the '90s. In fact more often than not I found myself singing along to those songs simply because I knew them. I'm just glad they never did an episode about Furbies.

The character dynamics are slightly on Schooled than they are on The Goldbergs. While Adam, Barry and Erica had their friends and romantic relationships the show focuses on the family as a whole so we don't really see Adam with Dave Kim and Emmy very often, especially in the earlier seasons of the series. But on Schooled the show focused on the school, so we saw Lainey, C.B. and Wilma together a lot same with Glascott and Mellor, or Mellor and his girlfriend Julie. Because of this, and because of the fact that friendships formed after high school tend to happen in the workplace, I felt that the relationships on Schooled were a lot more believable than they are on The Goldbergs. Not that the ones on The Goldbergs weren't believable, but I guess I related to them more on Schooled being that I've been out of high school for fourteen years now and my friendships are more like the ones on Schooled.

I actually felt that season 2 did a better job on dialing back on the '90s references. There were still a lot of them over the course of the season, but they tended to take more of a backseat to the characters and stories than they did in season 1. The Goldbergs actually had that same problem in it's first season, where the references were sometimes overshadow the story and characters, but it also got better as the show went into multiple seasons. Being that Schooled is only a two season series it didn't really get to stretch itself in that way.

One thing that I'm actually disappointed about is that Glascott's niece, Felicia, played by Rachel Crow, only ended up in seven episodes of the entire 34 episode run. Eight episodes if you count the backdoor pilot on The Goldbergs. Being that she was prominent in both the backdoor pilot and in the first episode of the series, I figured she'd be a more prominent character on the show. She wasn't though which might come from the fact that the show switched it's focus from Glascott to Lainey between the backdoor pilot and the first episode of the series. The character was cool though and I think it added an extra layer to Glascott as a character. Still though in the seven episodes she appeared in on the show proper, she was featured prominently since she was connected to Glascott. 

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall I thought Schooled was an awesome show. It was funny, smart, it had heart, and it had a great cast of characters that I enjoyed seeing every week as much as I enjoy seeing the characters on The Goldbergs every week. I do feel that ABC was wrong to cancel the series though. Especially since it's ratings in season 2 were on par with the ratings that The Goldbergs was getting in it's seventh season, which ran concurrently with season 2 of Schooled. Hopefully they'll bring it back at some point, maybe on a streaming platform. Either way, I'm going to miss the show and miss my Wednesday night hour of Goldberg created shows. While I don't like Schooled more than I like The Goldbergs, as they are two very different shows, I do think that Schooled was a slightly better written show simply because they didn't have to rely solely on stories from Adam's childhood as the framework for an episode and they could focus more on the characters. I'm giving Schooled 10/10 stars.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6546758/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0  

Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976) Book Review

Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, as the book was called until 1986, is unique in that it was the first Star Wars novel ever published and it was also the first time people were introduced to the Star Wars Universe, as it came out six months before the movie was released and five months before the first issue of the Marvel Comics series was published. So in a way, it's the beginning of the Star Wars Universe.

One of the things that I like about this book is that it sets up some of the backstory. In the prologue at the beginning it explains that Senator Palpatine caused himself to be declared president of the Republic with the help from powerful businessmen and then declared himself Emperor and eliminating the Jedi Knights. Obviously the movies would go into a lot more detail in the prequels, but this is the first time that Emperor Palpatine is referred to by name as it's never mentioned in the original trilogy and other novels wouldn't mention it until Timothy Zahn wrote it in Heir to the Empire. So that's interesting. 

Luke is also a lot more restless in the book than he is in the movie. I don't know if that's because we actually see him with his friends in a scene that was removed from the final film version, as well as a conversation that he has with Biggs on Tatooine, or if it's just because we're more in Luke's head in the book than we are in the movie. Whatever the case is, the fact that Luke feels a lot more restless here than he would in the movie is interesting. Related to that is that Uncle Owen is also more gruff with Luke here than he is in the movie. Especially when it comes to Luke's father and Ben Kenobi. 

During this reading of the book, I noticed something that I wanted to bring up in this review. So during the briefing that General Dodonna gives the pilots before the Death Star arrives, Dodonna mentions the plan where Red Squadron and Blue Squadron would be at the forefront of the assault on the Death Star with Yellow Squadron covering Red Squadron and Green Squadron covering Blue Squadron. In the book Blue Squadron is the X-Wing squadron and Red is the Y-Wing squadron while in the movie Red Squadron is the X-Wing squadron and Gold Squadron is the Y-Wing squadron. All that's fine. But when the book gets to the battle, Yellow Squadron and Green Squadron are nowhere to be found. They're not even mentioned in the narrative as keeping a certain distance from the battle or anything. It's just Blue and Red squadrons attacking with Blue Squadron keeping the TIE Fighters busy while Red Squadron flies down the trench like they do in the movie. I never actually noticed that before even though I've read this book hundreds of times over the years. 

Before I forget to mention, Obi-Wan is a bit more eccentric in the book than he is in the movie. For example, he mentions that even ducks have to learn how to swim and when Luke, who is from the World that Water Abandoned as Corran Horn would refer to Tatooine as in The Bacta War, asks him what a duck is, Obi-Wan tells him to never mind. But before that when Luke asks how Obi-Wan recreated the call of the Krayt Dragon, Obi-Wan replies that it takes a lot of wind and that if Luke was an Imperial bureaucrat, he could teach him right away. So I thought that was pretty funny.

My one problem with this book is the same problem I have with the movie beginning with the Special Edition in 1997. The Jabba the Hutt scene is pretty redundant. Both in the movie and the book, Han has a confrontation with Greedo, the Rodian Bounty Hunter, in the Mos Eisley Cantina and they have this dialogue between each other before Han shoots Greedo (shooting first I might add). But then, a little while later in Docking Bay 94 he and Jabba have the exact same conversation. The only difference is that Han convinces Jabba to give him more time to get the money that he owes Jabba. The rest of the scene is almost a line for line repeat of Han's earlier conversation with Greedo.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this is a pretty interesting start to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Being the very first Star Wars novel ever published, it establishes the universe a lot better than even the movie does. The characters are slightly different than they are in the movie, but that's to be expected given that the novel is based off the film's script rather than the final film itself. I'm giving Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker 9/10 stars because while it's good, there are things about it that are a little bit weird about it, like the mention of ducks and other more real life things that don't belong in Star Wars.

Wookieepedia Links: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope_(novel)