Favourite YouTube Channels and Blogs (Part 2)

Hey guys! How's everyone's week going? Mine is going okay. The weather's been really weird this week, but temperature wise it's been a lot cooler than it has been over the last month or so. Basically it's been a very hot summer this year, but it's finally cooling off a little bit. A few months ago I did a post about my favourite YouTube channels and blogs. Seen as how I watch a lot of YouTube channels, I decided this post merited a sequel. Yeah, I know, sequels aren't always as good, or better than the originals, but I do have a few more YouTube channels to talk about as well as one more blog to talk about too. So settle in with whatever beverage you're currently favouring and read my ranting and raving about more YouTube channels that I absolutely love. Oh and like last time, I'll provide links to the channels and blogs that I talk about in this post.

1. Squirmy and Grubs

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdomP1JqhnyBQGaBmfDl4KQ

So the first channel I'd like to talk about is called Squirmy and Grubs. It's run by an inter-abled couple, named Shane and Hannah, and it's about their lives as a couple and Shane's life as a disabled person who uses a wheelchair. They don't do anything extravagant or anything, but they're both extremely entertaining. Katie introduced me to this channel two weeks ago and I ended up subscribing after watching only one of their videos. They use the channel to educate people about the disabled community at large, because, unfortunately, there is a lot of ignorance out there. As someone who has faced that ignorance a few times in my life, remind me to tell you a particular story about that sometime, I see the merit in educating people in a fun, and funny way. 

Shane has also written two books called Laughing at My Nightmare, which is also the name of his blog as well as his non-profit organization, and Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is My Nurse. Both are a collection of stories and essays detailing Shane's life with a disability. I ended up buying a copy of each book because I like the channel a lot, and judging from Shane's humour on the YouTube channel, I knew I was going to like his books. I won't be reviewing them on the blog, but I might talk about them more in another blog post when I've finished reading both them because I suspect that Shane and I had similar experiences being men who use wheelchairs even though I'm five and a half years older than he is. He's told at least one story on Squirmy and Grubs that I immediately thought to myself, "Yup, that's happened to me before!". I would definitely recommend checking out this channel.

2. Laughing at My Nightmare

https://laughingatmynightmare.tumblr.com/

This is Shane's blog. He started it back in 2011 and wrote stories about his childhood and his life, much like he would end up doing with his two books. In fact his blog was the source for much of his first book, Laughing at My Nightmare, as well as providing the title for the book. I haven't read his early posts, but nowadays he has a section where he talks about the things that makes him smile and he also shares links to his and Hannah's Squirmy and Grubs videos. It's amazing to think about this is where Shane started as a writer. Mainly because I have my blog and while we blog about different things, if I wanted to I could probably write a book. Which is something I've wanted to do since college, but have never had the courage to do so. So that's pretty cool. 

3. YOU ME & YTV

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRi-8AqWlwkrMcK2T1uyOhQ

The next YouTube channel that I would like to talk about is called YOU ME & YTV, hosted by Ryan Stick. The channel is exactly what the name says it is. A channel about YTV in the '90s. Ryan interviews the actors and producers of TV shows that aired on YTV between 1990 and 2000. For example he interviewed the cast of the teen sitcom Radio Active!, which is a show I loved when I was in my early teens. Ryan has also interviewed the cast of the original English dub of Sailor Moon as well as one of the cast members from the English dub of an Anime called Samurai Pizza Cats which was one of the first Animes that I ever watched when I was a kid. Watching YTV was my childhood so to be able to watch an entire YouTube channel dedicated to that TV station, and that era is awesome. Also I saw Ryan in person one time. I was with Kelly at Ottawa Comiccon last year and I was waiting in line to meet Tom Welling and Ryan came out of the cast area. I was gonna go say hi to him, but he was busy talking to someone else and I didn't want to interrupt him. I follow the Facebook page for the channel though and he's a cool dude to talk to.

4. Grundo Gazette

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwe3AP0-SyUoGb-w06odCbg

Of course I couldn't do this list without mentioning my friends at Grundo Gazette. I've talked about the website before as it's run by my buddy Vincent, who sent me the digitized copies of all of the Teddy Ruxpin VHS tapes for me to watch for my Teddy Ruxpin VHS reviews, but they also have a YouTube channel. Basically Vincent makes videos about things that might not be done justice in an article on the website. For example, his most recent video was on the Teddy Ruxpin Electronic Telephone. This was a toy that Worlds of Wonder put out in the '80s when Teddy was in his heyday, but it was never re-issued by any other toy company that held the Teddy Ruxpin license, so it's an artifact from Teddy's early days. What's awesome about Vincent doing a video on it is that I still have my Teddy Ruxpin phone, which sits in my bedroom along with my original Teddy Ruxpin and the Tweeg figurine that I've had since I was a small child. The phone doesn't have batteries in it, so I don't know if it still works, but it's something I've kept my whole life and have never lost it, even through several moves from one house to another. If you're a Teddy Ruxpin fan, and haven't checked it out yet, this is the channel for you.

5. Tapcaf Transmissions

Corey's Datapad: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkvuBMvwa1d2TkJki3E_B8Q

EckhartsLadder: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp6F1mQGuaXiDj5otWBmIjg 

This isn't a YouTube channel per se, but is actually hosted on two different YouTube channels, so I thought I'd discuss it here anyway. Tapcaf Transmissions is a Canadian Star Wars book club style podcast where the hosts, Corey (of Corey's Datapad) and Justin (from EckhartsLadder) have discussions and review Star Wars novels. Primarily. They've done episodes on the 2003 Cartoon Network Clone Wars series, as well as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and other Star Wars related things, but they mostly talk about the novels. They started out reviewing only the Star Wars Legends novels, meaning the books that came out from 1976 to 2014, but they've recently started doing episodes on novels set in the current Disney Star Wars continuity as well. I've included the links to both Corey and Justin's channels as both channels host the podcast.

6. Schuster at the Movies

 http://schusteratthemovies.blogspot.com/

The last thing I want to talk about today is a blog called Schuster at the Movies. Again, this blog's title tells you exactly what it is. The author, Eli Schuster, writes movie reviews. Many of the movie reviews are of movies that are on VHS and DVD, though primarily VHS. But they are specifically movies that he owns on VHS or DVD. Eli doesn't post very often, but he posts once a month and does like three or four reviews at a time. Which is an interesting way to do things. The thing I like about this blog is that Eli has reviewed a lot of movies that I actually own on either DVD or VHS or at the very least have seen or heard of them. When he can he uses the VHS or DVD cover for the movie he's reviewing.

And that's it for this installment of My Favourite YouTube Channels and Blogs. I might have enough material for a third post later on down the line, but these are the ones I wanted to talk about this time because I either didn't know about them before I did the previous post or just didn't have room to include them. Hopefully I've given you some more YouTube channels to watch or blogs to read. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of Casper (1995). Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later.  

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 (2016) Comic Book Review

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from BOOM! Studios is what the TV show would've been if it had been made for teenagers, and made any time between 1997 when The WB started to now when it's successor, The CW, is prominent. This volume, and the subsequent volumes, reads like a WB/CW superhero show. All of the drama is there, and Rita's plan, while as incomprehensible as any of her plans from the TV show, is more complex and way more undetectable than anything she came up with on the show, aside from the Evil Green Ranger plot from "Green with Evil". 

The comic book series starts right after "Green with Evil" and the Rangers just broke Rita's spell on Tommy. He's joined the team, but unlike on the show, the Rangers are having doubts about him. Not all the Rangers mind you, just Zack for some unknown reason. I guess Jason to a limited extent, but I think that's just because Jason is the team leader and Tommy is largely an unknown quantity, with Rita giving them almost no time to get Tommy used to being part of a team or used to using his powers and the Dragonzord. Kimberly, Billy and Trini don't seem to have a problem with Tommy joining the team though.

Which actually leads me into the worst part of this volume. Zack and his attitude. Normally Zack is one of the coolest characters to ever be created in any medium. He's kind, funny, charming and an all around good guy. Here though, he's a jerk. Like, okay, I understand being cautious since they don't really know anything about Tommy aside from that he was new to Angel Grove and Rita picked him specifically to be her Evil Green Ranger. But Zack is outright hostile towards Tommy for absolutely no reason. Even what we learn about Zack in Volume 2, Chapter 1 doesn't explain or justify Zack's attitude towards Tommy. There was also potential for some really good drama with Zack because at the beginning of the volume, he says he's been having problems sleeping and whenever Jason tries to talk to him about it he evades and just says that there's just stuff going on at home. Which is cool, but then they never do anything with it, even in volume 2.

My favourite scene from issue #2 is where Jason and Kimberly are having a conversation at the Youth Center, after Jason's martial arts class is over and at one point Jason asks Kim if she and Tommy are dating now, and when Kim replies that, no, they aren't, there's a panel where Jason has a look of relief on his face. As Power Rangers fans know, there's been this fan theory, that was sort of supported by the 2017 movie, that Jason and Kimberly were either together before Tommy showed up, or they at least had romantic feelings towards each other that were never acted upon, even before Tommy arrived in Angel Grove. So it appears that it's kind of like that here too, though later on in the series, as with the TV show, we do see Kimberly and Tommy out on dates.

Probably my absolute favourite thing about this book, and the series in general, is that Bulk and Skull got updated for 2016. Instead of being your stereotypical '90s bullies, Bulk and Skull are YouTubers who run Ranger Station, which is a Power Rangers centric channel. They get people's opinions on the Rangers and whether or not they're actually doing some good or if their presence just makes things worse. You know, the kind of stuff we'd get in the DC and Marvel universes about those superheroes. They also give viewers the latest news about Ranger sightings and activity as well as speculate about things like the Green Ranger suddenly joining the team despite having been fighting the Rangers only a short while ago. Things we never got to see on the TV show.

I'm glad they made it Bulk and Skull because it shows that those characters have more to them than meets the eye. Even on the TV show they were only actual bullies for maybe the first half of season 1. By the end of the first season they were just goofballs who didn't actually hurt anyone. Then by season 2 they were just fans of the Power Rangers who wanted to get famous by discovering the Rangers's identities, and by season 3 they became cops for the rest of the original series and through Power Rangers Zeo into Power Rangers Turbo. So they went a long way from being the bullies that were first introduced in the pilot episode, "Day of the Dumpster".

While the art style is more inspired by Manga and Anime than anything else, the thing I like about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers being an ongoing comic book series is that we get more dynamic Megazord battles. Even with the CGI technology used in modern day Megazord battles, I find that the ones we see on TV are so limiting. Not only because they don't film their own, and rely heavily on the Sentai footage, but also because TV shows only have a certain amount of money that can go into Mech battles, and doing one every episode can be taxing on that budget. With comic books though the only limitation you have is what the artist can draw, so the Megazord battles, and just the Zord battles in general, feel so much bigger than they ever did on TV or even in the movies and much bigger than they ever could on TV and in the movies. I mean during the first Megazord battle of the series, Kimberly teleports out of the Megazord's cockpit, into the Pterodactyl's cockpit and then detaches the Pterodactyl Dinozord from the Megazord and uses it to rescue a group of people from a destroyed bridge. They could never have done that on the TV show, even in the Sentai footage.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 is a cool comic, but it very quickly falls into the drama tropes that I'm so used to seeing on shows like Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl. Not to mention any other show that airs on The CW or other shows that are aimed at teens on other networks. Part of that is that it's just weird seeing the Rangers not getting along without being under the influence of an evil spell. Plus in real life people generally aren't at each other's throats for no reason. At least not in person. And the level of drama in these types of books, comics, shows and movies is ridiculous. Which is funny coming from me since I had to deal with a ridiculous level of drama when I was a teenager in high school. But that's a story for another time. The Rangers are a bit out of character. Especially Zack and Jason. Zack is a jerk to Tommy for no reason and even Jason's turn from being completely chill about Tommy joining the team to him basically telling Tommy he's out makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm giving Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 7/10 stars. 

Brother Odd (2006) Book Review

While Odd Thomas was a murder mystery and Forever Odd was a psychological thriller, Brother Odd is an odd mix of a religious murder mystery and a 1950's Sci-Fi Horror movie, complete with a mad scientist, a secret laboratory, and experiments that chills you to the bone. This is a perfectly weird combination that makes this book work so much better than it might've otherwise.

In my reviews of the previous two books in the Odd Thomas series I have continually said that these books exist in a genre that I am typically not a fan of. Horror and thrillers are not my cup of tea. They never have been due to my lack of exposure to them growing up. But the Odd Thomas series has made me appreciate both genres more than I had before I sat down to read Odd Thomas less than a month ago. 

To be honest Brother Odd actually reminds me a little bit of Frankenstein, both the original novel, and the 1931 movie, to a certain degree. Though in the book, Odd has referred to the villain of the story as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type character, I also see some similarities to Victor Frankenstein (Henry Frankenstein in the movie). A scientific genius who wanted to create life, but inadvertently created a monster that threatens society. In this case a monastery and it's inhabitants rather than a village in older days. Not only that but both characters gave up their fortunes to work on their experiments. So there are definitely some startling similarities between the two stories. I don't know if that was intentional or not as Dean Koontz doesn't say anything about it on his website, but given that he's written books about Frankenstein, I'd say it's likely that he created the villain of this book to be similar to Victor Frankenstein.

This book takes place seven months after the end of Forever Odd and since then Oddie has been a guest at St. Bartholomew's Abbey, using the time to not only deal with Stormy's death in the first book, but also with how wrong his mission to rescue Danny almost went during Forever Odd. While at the Abbey he meets the Russian librarian, Rodion Romanovich, who is more than what he appears to be, as well as the Brothers and Sisters of the Abbey, namely Brother Salvatore, who goes by Brother Knuckles because he'd been a tough guy for a mobster in New York City. Knuckles is Odd's closest friend and ally at the Abbey as he's the one person there who knows the full extent of Odd's special abilities. A few of the Sisters know about Odd's abilities, but he does his best to keep them hidden as he had in the outside world. It isn't long before Odd sees a bodach appear, signaling that something is afoot, requiring Odd to realize that running away from his problems isn't the answer and could just as easily get people killed as impulsively running into trouble can.

While this book doesn't feel as small and intimate as Forever Odd did, the strangest part about this book is that there's a different setting and different supporting characters than there were in the previous two books. While Wyatt Porter, Stormy, Terri and Ozzie are mentioned, but only Ozzie actually appears. So it's almost refreshing in a way, but at the same time a little on the strange side.

Unlike the previous book, I was pretty much at home with this one. Mainly because not only have I seen the 1931 Frankenstein movie but I've also read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley too. Plus I've seen tons of cartoons that homage Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde so when I got to the part where the mad scientist was revealed, I was like, "Yup, I like this". Even before that when the strange occurrences were happening, I'd already been through two really strange books with Odd Thomas and the movie adaptation of the first book, so I knew I was going to be in for a strange ride.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, I thought Brother Odd was a pretty great book. I think it's a lot better in terms of my own tastes and preferences than Forever Odd was. Also it isn't as introspective and melancholy as Forever Odd is either. There's more humour here than there was in that book too. Almost as if through being at the Abbey and helping them solve the mysterious murders that happened, Odd started to recover from the events of the previous two books. Which was kind of nice to see. I also loved seeing Odd's interactions with both Brother Knuckles and Romanovich. They were the most entertaining interactions between two characters that I've read since reading Odd's interactions with Stormy and Ozzie in the first book. As I continue to read through the Odd Thomas series, I am more and more convinced that the books should be adapted into a TV series or a Netflix series because each book could be a season of Television like how the books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire were adapted into Game of Thrones. I'm giving Brother Odd 10/10 stars.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Odd

https://www.deankoontz.com/book/brother-odd/

Blog Update (July 27th, 2020)

Hey guys. How's it going? I'm doing well. I just wanted to do this post to let you know what I'm going to be doing on the blog this week. I've got a comic book review, a movie review and probably a novel review coming out this week. I say probably, because I'm almost finished Brother Odd, the third book in the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, but I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to finish the book, so it might be Sunday before I get the review done or it could be Friday. 

This week I'm starting a new comic book review series where I'm going to be taking a look at the first six trade paperback volumes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Boom! Studios and all six trade paperback volumes of Mark Waid's run on Archie from Archie Comics. For both series I'm going to be looking at how modern teen shows influence these books because I was flipping through volume 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the other day and noticed that some of the Rangers's behaviours reminded me of the behaviour of certain characters in teen shows on The CW and on Netflix so I began wondering if Kyle Higgins, the writer on the series, was influenced by any of the teen shows or not when he wrote the first few arcs. 

As you may have noticed I posted my final Teddy Ruxpin VHS review this morning. I had a lot of fun doing those reviews and I'm looking forward to continuing the VHS reviews with Disney Sing-Along Songs. Before I do though, I'm taking a week off from the VHS reviews because doing twelve weeks of Teddy Ruxpin VHS reviews was fun, but it was a lot of work so I just wanna give myself a week to recharge and get ready to tackle the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes. But not to worry I'll have my review of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah posted on August 10th and then that series will go for however many weeks. I also decided that I am going to review Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie and The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin when I'm finished with the Sing-Along Songs tapes and after I've done the eight volumes of Barney & The Backyard Gang, which is the third VHS series I'm going to be tackling. 

So the movie I'm reviewing this week is Casper (1995) starring Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman. I have it on VHS and I haven't seen it in years. In fact probably the last time I saw Casper was sometime in the 2000s when it was on TV. I think. If not, then the last time I saw it was 25 years ago when we rented it from Rogers Video. So it's been a really long time since I've seen this movie and I'm kind of excited to revisit it after so many years because I don't remember much about it except for Dan Akroyd's cameo as Ray Stantz from Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989) and the Ghostly Trio, Stinkie, Stretch and Fatso. 

Okay, that's it for this blog update. I'll be back for this week's comic book review either tomorrow or Wednesday, this week's movie review on Saturday and then my review of Brother Odd at some point this week. Have a great week and I will see you next time. Later.

The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 12: Win One for the Twipper (1988) VHS Review

Win One for the Twipper is the final VHS release in this series and the episode that it contains, "Win One for the Twipper" is another filler type episode. There really isn't much to the episode at all even though it was connected to everything going on with Tweeg and L.B. during this arc of the series. Mainly because the majority of the episode was taken up by a Grungeball game. If you're wondering what Grungeball is, it's just Baseball if Baseball was invented by the Surf Grunges. I say that, because until episode 46 "Teddy Ruxpin's Birthday" you don't see any of the Grunges from the Jungle with No Name playing Grungeball, just the Surf Grunges, who are way more prominent in the TV series than they are in the book and tape series.

This is another tape that I didn't own when I was a kid, but still had the episode that is on this tape on VHS. My dad taped "Win One for the Twipper" off the TV when I was really little and I always watched it with "Teddy and the Mudblups" because this episode picks up where that one left off, so I always saw them as the same story. I don't know how many times I watched it, but it was probably a lot. Not as often as all the episodes that were on the first tape that was made for me though, since that tape contained episodes 2 through 6 as well as episode 64 "L.B.'s Wedding". The tape that "Teddy and the Mudblups" and "Win One for the Twipper" were on also contained episode 31 "The Mushroom Forest" and episode 54 "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos".

I've always thought it was odd that Tweeg would use Gimmick's appearance as the basis for his inventor's disguise that he uses in this episode. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised since Gimmick is the only inventor that Tweeg knows, since he's probably the only inventor in Grundo outside of King Nogburt's Castle, but still, wouldn't that be a little too obvious? Oh right, this is an '80s cartoon so naturally none of the good guys can see through Tweeg's disguises, even though L.B. is always with him, and his mother is here too in this episode. 

So I can't believe I've never picked this up before, but during the Grungeball song during the montage of Gimmick coming up with the Grungeball equipment, two more Grundo sports are mentioned but not elaborated on. One of them is Grundo Golf, which is pretty self-explanatory. However, the other one is Bounder Bowling. Um, what? What is Bounder Bowling? Do they use Bounders for bowling balls or something? Because I can't see the Bounders going bowling, since they face the same problem they face with anything else, they don't have any hands! Like I said, this is never elaborated on and is never mentioned anywhere in the Teddy Ruxpin franchise outside of this song. I just thought it was peculiar, especially since these things were mentioned by a Surf Grunge during the song. 

Also, I was wrong. At the end of this tape, after the DIC and Atkinson-Films logos at the end of the tape, but before the Hi-Tops Video logo appears again, there's another preview for Come Dream with Me Tonight. This time Teddy is singing "Sleeping Time" which is the third song that he sings on both the VHS tape and the original book and tape set "Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies". So there are three tapes in total which have previews for the VHS tape, and each preview is a different song. Which is nice, because the 1992 releases of the Barney & The Backyard Gang VHS tapes all have one of two of the same previews at the end as do the 1990 re-releases of the early Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes. 

With that we come to the end of my Teddy Ruxpin VHS Reviews series. I've had so much fun getting these reviews out to you on a weekly basis. There were no interruptions, no breaks, and I didn't give up halfway through. Unlike on Wordpress, on Blogger I can see the view numbers on each post and these reviews did just as well as any of my other posts, with a couple of the early installments actually doing better than any of my other reviews. So that's awesome! Especially since Teddy Ruxpin is such a niche fandom that can be hard to appreciate if you didn't grow up with it or have children or grandchildren who grew up with it.

Thank you again to Vincent Conroy of the Grundo Gazette fansite for providing me with digitized copies of the tapes and for the VHS covers, which have been invaluable to me during this series. I appreciate you taking the time to digitize all twelve tapes and sending them my way. He got so excited when I told him my plan for this series, which is actually something I've been thinking about doing for a few years now, even while I was still on Wordpress. So thank you Vince for everything you did to make this review series possible. And thank you to everyone who reads my blog, even if you don't comment on it. I'm doing this for you as much as I'm doing it for myself.

I'm going to take a break from the VHS reviews for a couple of weeks before I get started on the Disney Sing-Along Songs VHS reviews. But when when I start on that series, I'll be using the original VHS release covers for all of the tapes, and I'll be going in the original release order with Disney Sing-Along Songs: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah kicking it off as that was the first tape to come out in the series, even though it was switched with Heigh-Ho when they were re-released in 1990. So join me for that on August 10th. In the meantime though I've got lots of reviews coming your way this week, so stay tuned for those. I'll be back with a blog update post in a little while. Later.

Star Trek (2009) Movie Review

Star Trek is one of those weird movies that isn't quite a prequel, isn't quite a sequel, and isn't quite a reboot either. In fact, it's all of those things and none of them at the same time. Even when the movie was first coming out in theatres, the writers of the movie, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, were very vague as to what the movie was. It wasn't Batman Begins or Casino Royale and it also wasn't Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace either. It simply was it's own movie.

This movie was a huge gamble for Paramount Pictures because Star Trek wasn't as profitable for them as it had been in the early to mid-'90s when Star Trek: The Next Generation was on and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was starting, and the original characters were sacred. So to reboot them while still maintaining a connection to the source material by having Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as Spock, was risky. Somehow the risk paid off. While Trekkies were split on the movie, non-Star Trek fans gave the Star Trek franchise a boost at the box office and Star Trek made $385.7 million, which is the highest amount of money that a Star Trek movie had made since Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home had come out in 1986. 

Despite having been a Trekkie my whole life, this was the first Star Trek movie I'd ever seen in theatres. I'd seen the previous ten movies on VHS and DVD throughout my childhood and between my dad and I we owned all ten movies on VHS, but I never got see any of them on the big screen. I have to be honest that I was mixed on this movie, both before and after I saw it. On the one hand it was a really good movie, but on the other, it wasn't Star Trek. It was Star Trek trying to be Star Wars and that just doesn't work very well. Star Trek has always had a good mix of action thrown in, because it's primarily been a TV show franchise, and it'd make for pretty boring Television if there wasn't some sort of action included, but this movie was devoid of the introspection, intelligence and hopefulness that makes Star Trek what it is. And that's not the fault of the movie. It's the fault of the writers and director, J.J. Abrams because they didn't sit down to watch any of the episodes of the TV series before they wrote the movie. Instead, they read books like the Star Trek Encyclopedia and the Star Trek Chronology as well as Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki to get their information. Which is not how a movie should be made if it's based on a TV show or another movie.

This is a well made movie, but it's not a good Star Trek movie. In fact it feels more like a fan service film than anything else. Because Orci, Kurtzman and Abrams read the Star Trek Encyclopedia it felt like everything that non-Star Trek fans think of when they think of Star Trek, particularly Star Trek: The Original Series, is in this movie. Even things that aren't actually true. For example, I think at one point Kirk says, "Beam us up Scotty!" even though he never actually said that on the show. It was usually, "Kirk to Enterprise! Beam the landing party back to the ship" or something along those lines. Which is kind of frustrating because this movie had potential to really go places that TOS never could in exploring the crew and their relationships with each other. Instead they squandered it with a prequel plot and then lost that prequel plot with so many callbacks and fan service moments.

Everyone complains about Abrams's tendency to use lens flairs in his movies. And I have to agree with them. There are certain scenes in this movie where he uses lens flairs and they were absolutely unnecessary. In fact there is exactly one scene where a lens flair was necessary and that was in the very opening of the movie when the Kelvin is near that sun before it encounters Nero's ship. And maybe one more as the sun is coming up as Kirk arrives at the shipyard to be shuttled to Starfleet Academy and he sees the Enterprise under construction there. Not almost every single shot. Especially ones where they're in an interior of a ship. 

The best part of this movie for me is the cast. This was my first time encountering the majority of them, including Chris Hemsworth, who was only two years away from becoming famous for playing Thor, Son of Odin in Thor (2011). There were only two or three cast members, aside from Nimoy, that I was actually familiar with. Winona Ryder, as I saw her as Lydia in Beetlejuice (1988) and as Adam Sandler's girlfriend in Mr. Deeds (2002), Bruce Greenwood, as I'd seen him as John F. Kennedy in Thirteen Days (2000), and Eric Bana, as I'd seen him as Bruce Banner/the Hulk in Ang Lee's 2003 movie Hulk. It was my first time seeing everyone else, including Jennifer Morrison because Once Upon a Time wouldn't start until 2011, two years after this movie came out. All of them did such a great job at portraying the iconic Star Trek characters. The problem with the characters, at least with some of them, is in the writing, not in the acting.

For example, Chris Pine played an awesome Captain Kirk. However, he isn't quite Captain Kirk. In fact he's the Kirk that non-Trekkies think Shatner played on the TV show and the first seven movies. Shatner's Kirk was always a more complicated character than this movie portrays him as. There are very few episodes where Kirk hits on women, let alone sleeps with them. The only time he broke the rules was when a member of his crew or the ship itself needed saving. And even then Kirk weighed the pros and cons of each decision he made before he made it. And often times Kirk doubted himself. In the episode "Balance of Terror" there's a scene in the Captain's Quarters, where Kirk and McCoy talk and Kirk says that the Bridge crew look to him for guidance and then asks McCoy, "What if I'm wrong?". This Kirk, even in the next two movies, doesn't have moments like that. I get he's supposed to be young in this incarnation, but even the younger Captain Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" had to decide whether or not to strand Gary Mitchell to prevent him from destroying the Enterprise as he became a God. 

The characters that I like the most in this movie are Scotty and Spock. Simon Pegg is such a great actor and I have loved everything that he's been in that I've seen. His portrayal of Scotty is so close to the way James Doohan played the character in the TV show and earlier movies, and yet is so different too. He is much more willing to interact with people in this movie than he was on the show. Like in "The Trouble with Tribbles" Kirk had to force Scotty to go to the Starbase for shore leave and when Kirk punished Scotty for getting into the fight with the Klingons at the bar, confining him to his quarters, it actually pleased Scotty so he could get back to his technical manuals, which Kirk had torn him away from earlier in the episode. Here though, Scotty is the kind of guy who is a bit more balanced between his job as an engineer and having a social life. Which I appreciated greatly.

Spock is the most fascinating (pun intended) character in this movie. While we kind of explored his struggle between his Vulcan and Human halves on the TV show and the first four movies, we never dove too deeply into it. Here though it's basically the entire plot of the movie. We'd always been told how difficult Spock's childhood was on the show, but to see it firsthand, even though it was in an alternate reality, is pretty cool, and it really does help inform who Spock is as a character and how hard he tries to control his emotions and follow the Vulcan way, despite being half-Human. The way Zachary Quinto played the character kind of reminded me of how Nimoy played the character in the pilots and the first few episodes of the TV show. His emotions came up to the surface a bit more in those early episodes, and that's how Quinto played him here. Which is a stark contrast to the more cool and collected version that Leonard Nimoy portrayed in this movie as well.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall Star Trek is a very good movie. It has a difficult time deciding whether it's a Star Trek movie or not, but in a way that's the charm of the film. There's a lot here for Trekkies to enjoy without totally wrecking previously established canon, which is why they went with the parallel universe thing rather than a simple prequel or complete reboot. But there's also a lot here for non-Star Trek fans to latch onto here. Especially those people who prefer more action in their Science Fiction. I have my problems with this movie, as I laid out in this review, but those are problems related to it being a Star Trek movie, not problems with the movie as a movie. I'm giving Star Trek 7/10 stars as it's a good movie but it's not a very good Star Trek movie.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020) Trailer Review/Overview

I don't normally do trailer reviews/overviews on this blog. At least, not since I moved over to Blogger. Even on Wordpress I usually tried to avoid talking about trailers just because they sometimes misrepresent what a movie or TV show is going to be. Mostly because the trailer, particularly the initial teaser trailer, is made before many things are finalized for the movie or show, like dialogue, special effects and music. And so things can change between the time when the trailer was made and when the movie is released or the TV show starts airing. But I decided to make an exception for Star Trek: Lower Decks, the upcoming animated Star Trek series created by Mike McMahan, one of the writers on Rick and Morty.

To be honest I have been skeptical about Lower Decks. I mean, don't get me wrong, the concept is cool and has lots of potential if it's done well, but it's an animated show by a creator who has never worked on Star Trek and has been a comedy writer his entire career. I have never seen Rick and Morty but what I've heard about it has led me to believe that I just wouldn't enjoy it because the humour is weird and disturbing enough that I just wouldn't understand it. 

As long time readers of this blog know, humour is something I have great difficulty with due to my Autism. As a result there are many comedies that I don't or can't enjoy because I don't understand the humour. Which is why I tend to prefer comedies where the humour is secondary to the characters and the story or is just one piece of the whole puzzle. That way even if I don't understand the humour, I can enjoy the show or the movie on other levels. Which is why I love The Orville and why I absolutely loved Community because while I didn't always get the humour, both shows have elements that I could latch onto and enjoy them on that level.

The trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks is awesome. I didn't understand the humour, especially the visual gags, and I haven't seen a character that has stood out to me as a character I could connect to as I have in previous Star Treks, such as Data. I'm intrigued by the premise of the show though and from what I've seen of it in this trailer, yeah I'm about 70% onboard with it. That remaining thirty percent will hopefully come when the show actually airs and I see the characters in the context of the show. And who knows, maybe once I see the jokes that I saw in the trailer in context of the show, then I could be completely onboard with the humour of the show.

Over the last few months as CBS has unveiled more and more about this show, I've had numerous conversations with my buddy Aaron about the show's concept, the animation style and certain design elements that I thought wasn't great and could be improved if this show is to stand out, not only against the live action Star Trek shows and the previous Star Trek animated show, but also against the numerous animated shows that are exactly like this, but with different settings like Rick and Morty and Disenchantment. Like the ship, the U.S.S. Cerritos, for example. When Aaron showed me a still image of it, I hated it. Just looking at it at a standstill it looks uninspired, lazily designed and just a hodgepodge of previous Federation starships when there's no reason for it to be such a hodgepodge since the designers don't have to be limited by a visual effects budget, it being Animation. But when I saw it in action AND saw the interiors in the trailer, it looks a thousand times better and I was able to better appreciate what they were doing with it because for me my like of a starship design is 50% interior design and 50% exterior. If I can't imagine myself living on that ship by looking at the interior of the ship then it's very hard for me to like that ship. No matter what franchise or series the ship is from.

The animation style is also a little too cutesy for my taste, almost like Disney was animating the show rather than whatever animation studio was hired. But I think that's just what I'm used to in animated Television versus what Television animation is like these days. Animation these days isn't as visually dark as it was in the '90s, even on shows like Spider-Man: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series where the aesthetics were a lot brighter than they were in shows like Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles, which were much darker in tone and in aesthetics due to the nature of the shows. As the show goes on the air and I watch it the character designs and the colour choices for the overall animation style have the potential for me to really like them, but just based on this particular trailer and the still images that CBS has released, it's a little strange and over the top for an animated Star Trek series to me. 

As I said, the characters, based on both this trailer, and their descriptions on Wikipedia, aren't really standing out as characters I'm going to like or even connect to on any level. That doesn't mean that once the show gets going and if I like it, there won't be a character I can connect with, it's just right now there isn't. But maybe, when I see them in action there will be.

As I've said many times before I don't want to dislike these shows and movies. But, I know my tastes and preferences and when shows, books, movies and comics don't fit into those tastes and preferences then I have a harder time enjoying them. But, because this is Star Trek, I am willing to give it a little bit more leeway than I would anything else, whether it's something I already like or is something brand new. 

Based on this trailer alone Star Trek: Lower Decks is nothing like any other Star Trek that has ever been produced. And honestly, we shouldn't expect it to be, because as I said in my review of Star Trek: Picard season 1, wanting every Star Trek series or movie to be the exact same as all the other Star Trek shows and movies is what will kill the franchise, not some writer or producer who wants to carve a new path for the series. 

As I said, I have my misgivings about this new animated Star Trek series based on the premise and who created this show. That doesn't automatically make it bad or good. It just means that due to several factors, Lower Decks has a lot of hurdles to overcome. It's also not going to be for everyone. One of the things that I said to Aaron during our many discussions on this topic is that because McMahan is the creator and the showrunner and he comes more from a raunchy comedy background, particularly the more disturbing elements of Rick and Morty, this series might not appeal to as many Star Trek fans as CBS hopes. Also, because it's an animated series on a streaming platform (in the U.S.) that not as many people subscribe to, it's going to have struggles that an animated series on Nickelodeon, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network or Netflix might not have. I have my fingers crossed that it's going to be good. After all Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was different than Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were and while it wasn't as successful when it was on the air, it's become one of the most popular Star Trek shows of all time in retrospect, so maybe Lower Decks will have a similar story to tell in twenty-seven years?

This was absolutely a great trailer. I just hope it doesn't let the comedy get in the way of good storytelling, because at the end of the day that's all I want from a Star Trek show. Good storytelling. I'm not rating this trailer, but it does have me interested and somewhat excited for the show when the pilot airs in 13 days. And yes, I will have a review of that pilot episode up the very next day as it'll be airing in the evening on August 6th on CTV Sci-Fi Channel. I'll also be back tomorrow for my movie review of Star Trek from 2009. Later. 

Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew (2020) #2 Comic Book Review

One of the problems of reviewing a comic book series issue by issue as they're coming out is that it's really hard to not talk about spoilers from the previous book. For instance in this review I have to talk about the ending of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #1 because it plays a big part in the plot of this issue. Kinda like how critics in the '30s, '40s and '50s must've gone nuts trying to review each episode of the old movie serials since they'd have to reveal that the hero survived the cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode in order to talk about the current episode they were reviewing. 

The second issue opens with Nancy and Frank explaining to Joe why Nancy isn't dead and why she faked her death. It all tracks back to the Syndicate, which Nancy, Frank and Joe took down the leaders of in the previous arc. Of course being that this is a mystery series, I kinda saw Nancy being alive and having faked her death coming from a mile away. After all I have been reading about these characters and their adventures for 25 years or more and I know that they weren't just going to kill off Nancy Drew and be done with it. Especially since she's the lead character on her own CW television series. As scary as that notion is. 

The rest of this issue is just Frank, Joe, and Nancy trying to discover the identity of the person who tried to murder Nancy. I won't go into too much detail on that for the time being seen as how there's still three or four issues left to go in this series, but they talk to two of the Bobbsey Twins, Freddie and Flo. Oh and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (the original creators of all of these books) Universe has gotten bigger as there's one point where Frank references Tom Swift. It isn't specified if he's referring to the original Tom Swift, or Tom Swift Jr. The Tom Swift series was originally published from 1910 until 1941 and was one of the earliest book series to be published by Stratemeyer, long before Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were even thought up. The Tom Swift Jr. series, about Tom's son was published from 1954 until 1971 and was a continuation of the original series. 

As I mentioned in my review of the previous issue, I've only ever read the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, but I'm familiar with Tom Swift because there were usually ads for his books on the back of the dust jacket for the reprint versions of the original text editions of the Hardy Boys books. So I've always been familiar with the name if not the character himself. 

You can tell that this book's writer, Anthony Del Col, is a huge fan of these books, because he's using characters that maybe weren't as well known as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were. Or that time had forgotten while both Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys got movies and TV shows many times over the decades. While Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins are arguably the most well known characters created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate besides Nancy Drew and the Hardys, I bet if you talk to the current generation of kids and even my generation, chances are pretty good they'll remember Nancy Drew and/or the Hardy Boys before they remember Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins. And that's just because Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys have been on TV and in movies and therefore have been in pop culture more than the Bobbsey Twins or Tom Swift have. So even if you'd never read the books, you knew who Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were.

Normally I'd hate the fact that Del Col has Frank and Joe at odds with each other. But, this isn't anything new for readers of The Hardy Boys. In fact it's actually been going on since 1987 when The Hardy Boys Casefiles started being published. Many of those books found Frank and Joe at odds with each other for one reason or another, so it isn't like this is a 2000s/ 2010s/2020s thing where characters have to be edgy by being turned against each other when they were originally close. This is basically just a natural progression from the Casefiles series. Which is kinda cool. Because, again, Del Col is a fan.

Joe Eisma's art is once again spectacular though it is weird seeing characters other than Archie and the gang drawn in his style. One of the easter eggs in this issue that I picked up on is the way Nancy's hair is. When we saw her in flashbacks in the first issue she was blond, as she has been for years. But when we see her here, her hair is more of a strawberry blond/orange colour. The reason this is an easter egg is because on both the original text version covers and the revised text version covers Nancy's hair is more of a strawberry blond/orange colour but became more blond with the Nancy Drew Digest books in the '70s and The Nancy Drew Files (the Nancy Drew equivalent to The Hardy Boys Casefiles) in 1986. And since then they haven't really gone back to that original hair colour since then. At least not on the book covers. In the many Nancy Drew movies and TV shows that have been around, Nancy has only been blond in the 2007 movie starring Emma Roberts, while everywhere else she's either had black hair (the 1995 Canadian TV series) or strawberry blond (Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys, the current CW series and probably the original movies from the '30s) or orange (the 2019 movie starring Sophia Lillis). So I thought that was neat to see a visual nod to the character's original design.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall issue #2 was pretty good. They were able to move the story along a lot better in this issue since they didn't have to go through all the background details to set up the story like they did in the first issue. The problem with it is that because there's still three or four issues to go, they can't really do too much or there won't be any story to tell for issues 3, 4, 5 and 6. I think it's 6 issues anyway, it might actually be five. Regardless there wouldn't be a story left to tell in the remaining issues if they tried to do too much in this one. However Del Col is good enough as a writer to keep the pacing consistent which is appreciated. I'm giving Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #2 9.9/10 stars because I'm a bit tired of the old cliche of a small town not being what it seems it is. Riverdale just kind of ruined that trope for me, and it's not really doing anything for me here either. It's still a good story though.

The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 11: Teddy and the Mudblups (1988) VHS Review

Teddy and the Mudblups is a tape that I didn't own when I was a kid. However the episode of the same name, which this tape contains is one I watched a lot because it's one of the ones my dad recorded off the TV for me on the second of two tapes containing batches of episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin from when they originally aired in 1987. And yes, I know that the episodes, at least some of them, were from their original airings in 1987 because the McDonald's Star Wish commercial that aired in December 1987 is on one of the tapes during a few of the episodes. I had to look it up on YouTube to find out what year that commercial was from. So yeah I watched this episode a lot as a kid.

"Teddy and the Mudblups" is a weird episode to go back to on it's own. Mainly because it's actually part of a story arc that began in episode 26, "Uncle Grubby" and ends in episode 30 "Tweeg Joins M.A.V.O." and it brings some temporary changes to the landscape of Grundonian life. Namely the dynamics between Tweeg and L.B. are different in this episode than they normally would be. At the end of "Uncle Grubby" Quellor appoints L.B. to be Tweeg's supervisor as he completes the M.A.V.O. bad deeds checklist that he'd been struggling with since episode 11 "The Faded Fobs". Which means that now L.B. is Tweeg's boss and gets to order him around rather than the other way around as it had been for who knows how long. Also now, Tweeg's mother, Eleanor, is living with Tweeg and L.B. at Tweeg's Tower and also orders Tweeg around. Which is driving Tweeg absolutely nuts and making us as the audience laugh our heads off.

In the original story from the book and tape set, Tweeg and L.B. don't appear at all, therefore the argument between Grubby and Gimmick just kind of comes out of nowhere and is resolved before they even leave for the Great Desert in the Airship. However, while Tweeg was responsible for igniting the spark of the argument, it had actually been festering since episode 27 "The Crystal Book" when the crystals told Gimmick that he's inventive. Since then Gimmick forgot how to treat his friends somehow and began ignoring his responsibilities in his own house leaving Grubby and Teddy to pick up the slack. So naturally when the argument starts, Teddy immediately puts an end to it as he does in the original story. But then for some reason, without Tweeg's help it pops back up again once they arrive at the Great Desert. It's one of those weird attempts at inciting drama but it ends up having that quick '80s cartoon resolution at the end of the episode. Because of that, it's almost unnecessary in a way.

This episode is the first time we see the Mudblups since episode 2 and there's actually a huge difference between them here and how they were back in episode 2. There the Mudblups were less articulate with their speech and they seemed like nothing but giant mud monsters. Here though, they speak like normal people almost, and their voices are less gurgling than they were in their first appearance, which is interesting. Also the entrance to the Mudblup Caves is a normal cave entrance instead of an underground city like it is in the beginning of the series. The cave is also more brightly lit for some reason and less atmospheric than it was in it's previous appearance. 

Like Tweeg Gets the Tweezles, Teddy and the Mudblups contains a preview for Volume 7 Come Dream With Me Tonight at the end of the episode. But instead of the same preview with Teddy singing "This Lovely Night" he sings "Go to Sleep" which is the first song he sings on the tape after "Come Dream With Me Tonight" (known as "The Teddy Ruxpin Theme" on the original book and tape set). And unlike the preview on Tweeg Gets the Tweezles, there's no intro saying "Hi there. I hope you liked that story. Now here's a little something special for you. Part of my Come Dream With Me Tonight lullaby video collection" or any kind of special cutting or anything. It just starts when the episode is over. Also it comes after the end credits and the production company logos instead of at the very end of the episode like it did on Tweeg Gets the Tweezles. This makes this the last tape to have any sort of extras on it as the live action intros and outros were stopped with Teddy Outsmarts M.A.V.O. while the in package bonus gifts stopped with Come Dream With Me Tonight. 

Overall this is a good tape. "Teddy and the Mudblups" is one of my favourite episodes simply because it's one that I did watch quite often when I was a kid since I had it taped off of the TV. This is the part of the series where there are less outright filler episodes and more episodes that feed into the week's story arc (The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin aired daily from Monday to Friday during it's original run) with each arc becoming more and more four episode and five episode arcs, which hadn't actually been done since the first five episodes. 

Well that's all for me for today. 11 tapes down, and one more to go. Of the main series anyway. I still have The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and Teddy Ruxpin: The Movie to do at some point though it probably won't be right away as I do have Barney & The Backyard Gang and Disney Sing-Along Songs to get to. But maybe those two remaining Teddy Ruxpin VHS tapes will be reviewed as just straight up movie reviews at a later date. We'll see though. In the meantime I've got lots of reviews coming your way this week and then in a week from today I'll be back for the last Teddy Ruxpin VHS review. Have a good one. So long for now!

Odd Thomas (2014) Movie Review with Spoilers at the very end

Odd Thomas is that rare movie adaptation of a novel that is so true to the source material that they are nearly indistinguishable from each other. Most of the changes made in the adaptation process are minor things that make the story work better for a movie rather than for a book. I'll be talking about those changes in a special spoiler section at the very end of the review so that those of you who haven't seen the movie or read the book can read this generalized review without dealing with spoilers. 

I just recently read Odd Thomas so I could review it on the blog and I gave it a glowing review so if you want to check that out feel free to do so as it's a completely spoiler free review. However I wasn't dreading this movie adaptation despite having read the book first because I not only discovered the movie first, but I don't get as uptight about books being turned into movies as many people do. That's mostly because for the most part I often only get to see the movie and never get to read the book, so if I discover what changes are made to a story for it to be adapted from one medium to another, it doesn't bother me because I don't necessarily have that attachment to the book. 

This story works so well as a movie. While I love the book, I did find it to be a little clunky in places just because of how Dean Koontz wrote it. Whereas I think the movie really streamlined it in a way that wasn't possible for the book. For example, because Stephen Sommers wrote and directed this movie, his sensibilities that I remember from movies like Tom and Huck, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra all of which I've seen at various points in my life, enhance what Koontz had already imbued the story with when he wrote the book. 

For example, while I loved Odd and Stormy's relationship in the book, it's even better in the movie because of Sommers's wit and humour that I remember from the Mummy movies and The Scorpion King. Because the book is written in the first person most of the interaction between Odd and Stormy is shown through Odd's recollections of specific instances. However, in the movie, a lot of that interaction is moved into the dialogue and it works really really well. In fact my favourite line in the whole movie is when Odd arrives at the church for his and Stormy's picnic dinner and she asks, "You know why I call you Pooh Bear?" and Odd replies, "Because I'm so cuddly" to which Stormy replies, "'Cause his head is full of stuffin'!" and then runs off towards the door to the church in a flirtatious sort of way which you would normally see between a married couple on a sitcom. Which is pretty hilarious.

I think one of the reasons that Odd and Stormy's relationship works so well for me is because, while it's similar to the relationship I've seen dozens of times in comic books and comic book related movies and TV shows, it doesn't have the issues that those do where the love interest is just there and isn't really part of the protagonist's life as a superhero, even if they know their secret identity. This is a terrible example but in Spider-Man 3 Mary Jane is fully aware that Peter is Spider-Man but she isn't a part of that aspect of Peter's life and in that particular movie is resentful of him for it for absolutely no good reason at all. But I'm not here to review Spider-Man 3, trust me, I'll be getting to that one eventually. My point in bringing up that example is to show that Stormy knows about Odd's abilities and knows what he does with them and is supportive of him. Also, any problems she has with him using his abilities is purely because she is genuinely afraid that he is going to get killed on one of his missions since he isn't invulnerable. Which is a completely reasonable reason for having a problem with your partner's special abilities, unlike the whole Felicity wanting Oliver to stop being the Arrow, later the Green Arrow, and focusing on her thing from Arrow season 3.

Sommers got an amazing cast for this film. Anton Yelchin (rest in peace) played an amazing Odd Thomas and makes the character leap off the page. I first became aware of Yelchin in 2009 when I saw him in Star Trek as Ensign Pavel Chekov. He was amazing in that movie but aside from the next two Star Trek movies, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond, I've never gotten around to seeing any of his other films, which I really should do because he was an amazing actor and his star got burned out too soon. While I enjoyed her cameo in That Awkward Moment I thought Addison Timlin really shined in this movie. Her portrayal of Stormy Llewellyn was solid and like Odd, really felt like the character in the book, but infused with Sommers's sense of humour. Her and Yelchin's on screen chemistry was palpable and solid, which I appreciate and made me believe that those two were a couple. Which, again, isn't always discernible in superhero movies when the love interest isn't really an important part of the plot. It also reminds me of the chemistry between Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.

It was really weird seeing Willem Dafoe in a movie where he wasn't playing a bad guy since he played the Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002) and fairly frequently his characters are disturbed in some way so it was nice to see him play a straight out good guy for a chance. Though apparently he does play a sort of bad guy in Aquaman though I've never seen it. Dafoe plays a perfect Wyatt Porter, the chief of police that Odd works with. Oh and Patton Oswalt plays Little Ozzie in a cameo in the movie, though I'll talk about him in the spoilers section at the end of this review.

At first I thought that the movie took place in 2013 or 2014 even though the book takes place in 2003, the year it was written and originally published in. However, as the movie went along I slowly began to realize that the movie does take place in the early 2000s. Even though we see cell phones and computers with internet access, nobody in the mall scenes, or in outdoor scenes, are on cell phones texting or using social media or anything like that. They do whatever we did before Facebook, Twitter and Instagram became a thing. There isn't even a single reference to YouTube or anything like that. So that was pretty cool and refreshing since so many movie adaptations of books move the setting to whatever decade the movie came out during. 

The movie version of Odd Thomas seems a little goofier and definitely not as creepy as the book felt at certain points. The only jump scare I actually experienced while I watched the movie last night was at the very beginning of the movie when Odd is having his dream about the bowling alley employees being shot and murdered. I also didn't get that constant feeling of dread watching the movie as I did when I was reading the book. And it was fun to watch.

Final Non-Spoiler Thoughts and Rating: Overall I absolutely loved Odd Thomas. It was quirky, fun, the dialogue was dripping with cheese and it's the perfect movie to watch on a Friday night either by yourself or with friends. It's a blast. If I did have one complaint is that there wasn't a whole lot of music in the movie. There's a few songs that play in the background during scenes between Odd and Stormy, particularly at the end, which I will get to shortly. But there wasn't much of an incidental score like there are in a lot of movies. I don't think it's a Stephen Sommers thing, as I remember there being a cheesy adventure style score in both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns and a big theatrical score in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but here there wasn't. It worked pretty well for this movie as it kind of underlined the danger Odd was putting himself in, but it was a bit jarring since I expected some sort of musical score in movies like this. I'm giving Odd Thomas 10/10 stars.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1767354/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Thomas_(film)

Okay, so I don't normally do this in my reviews as most of the time it just takes more work than is really necessary for the types of reviews that I actually do here. But for Odd Thomas I thought I'd make an exception because there are some changes made during the adaptation process that I would like to talk about but can't without spoiling anything. So here is the spoiler section of this review. If you haven't seen this movie or read the book don't read this section.

A lot of the changes made to adapt the novel into a movie are mostly little things like eliminating characters, reducing roles, and shifting things around so that certain pieces of dialogue, like the Pooh Bear thing between Odd and Stormy, are incorporated into the story proper, rather than being recollections that Odd makes.

One of the changes made was made to the opening of the movie where Odd is trying to apprehend Harlo Landerson for the murder of Penny Kallisto. In the book, Porter tells Odd to wait in the child's bedroom and they have their conversation in there, where Porter destroys a Barney the Dinosaur blow-up chair. In the movie however, Odd waits on a bench by the pool outside until Porter can come talk to him and no Barney the Dinosaur blow-up chair was harmed in the making of this movie.

Another change that was made is a fairly major one. In the book Odd's mom is living in a house in Pico Mundo, but is so mentally handicapped that she can't handle any form of responsibility and threatens to shoot herself with a pistol if any kind of stress is put on her. Odd's dad is also around and he has a younger wife and a well off lifestyle. In the movie however, things are a little different. In the movie, Odd's mom was put away in a mental institution by his father in a flashback due to a mental instability. Unlike the book though, it appears that Odd's mom has the same abilities that Odd does and it made her go insane to the point where she was threatening to hurt people besides herself. Odd's father also isn't in the movie outside of this brief flashback at the beginning of the movie. Odd doesn't talk about his dad much in the movie, so I assume that unlike in the book, Odd continued to live with his dad until he was old enough to move out on his own and had his job at The Grille. This would change Odd's entire reason for helping the dead. It would also give him more motivation to keep his abilities a secret. Which is kind of lacking in the book as it seems like a lot of Odd's friends know his secret in the books. 

There are quite a few characters missing in the movie too. Ozzie is there, but his role is limited to a quick cameo while Odd and Stormy are hiding out from what ended up being Robertson's ghost and it's not really clear what his role in Odd's life is. In the book Ozzie is a successfully published author and is Odd's mentor in the ways of writing. He also knows about Odd's special abilities. In the movie it's not really clear how much Ozzie actually knows or whether he's an author or not. Which is a shame because I feel like Book Ozzie as played by Patton Oswalt would've been amazing. Alas I have to settle for the movie version of Ozzie as played by Patton Oswalt instead. 

The character of Lysette also plays a much bigger role in the movie than she does in the book. In the book she appears at the Porters's house for a BBQ just before Odd goes to have dinner with Stormy at the church. In the movie she appears there as well, but then she's murdered by Varner and Eckles, two of Robertson's associates who had infiltrated the police department, and then later her ghost leads Odd to the truck where the bad guys had planted the bomb after the massacre in the Green Moon Mall. 

Which brings me to the big spoiler in the movie and the book. During the mall shooting, Stormy is at work at the ice cream shop and is there when the shooting starts happening. In the movie Odd sees her after he's taken out Gosset, who turns out to be the shooter, and she seems to be fine. But in the book she's nowhere to be found. In the book, Odd becomes an unreliable narrator as he talks about Stormy as if she's still around. But, she was killed during the shooting and Odd was with her ghost. In the book the unreliable narrator bit hides this fact from the reader. However, in the movie there are some telltale signs that Stormy has been killed. Odd had mentioned previously that the dead don't talk. After he sees her in the ice cream shop after the shooting, Stormy doesn't stay another word in the rest of the movie. Other signs are there too, like it shows Stormy's wine glass is full while Odd's isn't during the montage of them spending time together after Odd gets out of the hospital at the end of the movie. 

Also in the movie, Stormy's backstory is cut out. In the book her parents were killed and she was sent into foster care, but her foster father sexually assaulted her, resulting in her going to stay with her uncle, who was a priest at the church where Odd and Stormy had their dinner date. It's the reason that Stormy and Odd haven't had sex yet. Of course this whole thing was completely taken out of the movie and Odd doesn't even refer to it in his voiceover narration at any point when talking about Stormy.

Those are pretty much the big things I wanted to mention in terms of changes and spoilers in the movie and the book. Like I said, the other changes are minor ones that don't really affect the plot all that much. For example, Odd's boss, Terri isn't in the movie at all. She's not a huge player in the book either, but she's not even mentioned in the movie, so we don't know who owns The Grille or anything like that. We also don't actually see Odd's landlady, Rosalia and the whole thing about Odd telling her that she's still visible, meaning she's still alive, every morning. All we see of her is a light going on in her condo when Odd is trying to get Robertson's corpse out of his condo and is going to take Rosalia's car.

That's it for this spoiler section so if you got this far then you don't care about spoilers or anything like that. I'll be back on Monday for the second to last Teddy Ruxpin VHS review and I'll be back with other reviews next week too. Later.

Forever Odd (2005) Book Review

While Odd Thomas is a mystery thriller through and through, Forever Odd, the second book in the Odd Thomas series is more of a psychological thriller, with Odd being proactive than he was in the previous book. Like the last book, this one is in a genre that I'm not overly fond of. Unlike the last book though, there were moments in this book that made me want to stop reading because they were a lot more suspenseful than what I'm used to reading. And there were definitely moments where, if it had been a movie, there would've been jump scares. Even It by Stephen King did not illicit such a response from me when I read it for the first time a few years ago. However, there was enough in this book to make me laugh or at least snicker at it more than once and that kept me reading.

Forever Odd is a much faster book to read than Odd Thomas was, because while they are pretty much the same length, about 67 chapters or so, most of Forever Odd is Odd narrating with very little dialogue to read. Whereas in the first book, he was usually talking to Stormy, Little Ozzie, Chief Porter or Karla Porter. Here, he's by himself, trying to find his friend, Danny, trying to escape from the bad guys, or with the bad guys, hoping to escape from them. And because there isn't much dialogue and a lot of description, I finished the book in a couple of days, whereas with the first book, it took me almost a week to finish it. 

This book takes place six months after the end of the first book, and Odd is still struggling with what happened in that ending. He's on leave from The Grille, the breakfast diner he worked at in the first novel. But when his best friend, aside from Stormy that is, Danny is kidnapped and Danny's father murdered, Odd ends up in a race against time to find Danny and take down the bad guys. But he discovers that Danny was taken to lure Odd into a trap, as the bad guys were aware of Odd's special powers. 

This novel is a good example of what Odd was hoping to avoid by keeping his abilities a secret from all but a select group of people, those people being Stormy, Little Ozzie, Terri, Chief Porter, Karla Porter, and Danny. Of course it was bound to get out eventually being how much he was a hero following the massacre at the mall at the end of the first book. Odd was fully aware that people like Datura, the woman who kidnapped Danny, were out there and would want to exploit his abilities for nefarious reasons. Which isn't really something that's been explored a whole lot in superhero fiction, outside of things like Iron Man and Batman where the argument is about the weapons and technology that Iron Man and Batman use since they don't have super powers. 

This novel felt personal for Odd. In the previous book, and I assume in the later books, Odd's mission was about protecting Pico Mundo from criminals and saving hundreds of lives. This book is a rescue mission. A rescue mission for one man, who was a close, personal, friend. Because of that, this book felt more intimate than the previous book felt.

Odd and Danny's friendship reminded me a lot about the friendships that I have. Any time they had a scene together, which was infrequent, their banter reminded me of my friendship with Brad. With me being Danny of course. Though unlike Odd Thomas, I doubt Brad has the ability to see dead people and fights crime as a result of that sixth sense. 

This book probably has the best line I have ever read. At the beginning of the book, Odd is visiting Little Ozzie and his cat, Terrible Chester and they're talking about something, I can't remember what exactly. Then Ozzie says something and Odd asks him if he's making fun of him. Ozzie replies, "If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate and innoculates from foolishness". That quote resonated with me because my friends mock me all the time. Especially when I say something stupid. Of course the quote doesn't say anything about family openly laughing at each other, but since most of my friends are like family anyway, I guess it does mean that.

The villains were a lot weirder than they were in the previous one. They felt similar as both sets were into occult stuff, but Datura and her goons felt more dangerous than Robertson and his crew did in the previous book. I think that's just because Datura was targetting Odd specifically, while Robertson was targetting all of Pico Mundo, and Odd just happened to be there. Which is interesting that Koontz went personal like that so quickly in the series. 

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall I thought that Forever Odd wasn't as good as Odd Thomas was, but it was still quite good. It just wasn't to my taste like Odd Thomas was. This book was a lot creepier and more psychological in nature. Which is fine, but it's not something that I care much about in my entertainment. It was an interesting book though to see how Odd was doing following the events in the previous book. It's not even a disappointment given how much I loved Odd Thomas. This book just wasn't as much to my taste as the previous book is. It was still good though so I'm going to give Forever Odd 7/10 stars.

Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Odd

https://www.deankoontz.com/book/forever-odd/

Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular (2020) Comic Book Review

Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular is one of those celebratory issues that I enjoy reading because often times they bring back writers and artists who have worked on these characters in the past. This one is no exception on that front. Though it's weird having Marv Wolfman and Tom Grummett working together on a story where Dick Grayson is Robin. There's nothing wrong with it of course, since Marv is the person who wrote all of the Dick Grayson stories in The New Teen Titans/New Titans throughout the '80s. It's just Tom Grummett is the artist, alongside writer Chuck Dixon, who started the Robin ongoing monthly series that ran from 1993 until 2009 and while Dick did appear as Robin in both Robin #10 as an alternate timeline or dimension version of himself and in flashbacks in Robin #0, that series was focused on Tim Drake, who was the current Robin at the time. So it's weird, but interesting, to have that artist on a Dick Grayson as Robin story, rather than a Tim Drake as Robin story.

One thing I thought was also weird about this issue is that Jason Todd only gets one story in the entire issue. He appears in one of Tim Drake's story, but he doesn't even get a story with the Outlaws from Red Hood and the Outlaws, even though there's a pinup right after the Jason Todd story that looks like it could've been one of the covers for that series. Meanwhile Dick gets a story with the Titans by the same creative team that produced The Titans in the early 2000s, and Damian gets a story with Jon Kent in the vein of Super Sons. 

Speaking of the Super Sons, this is actually my first time reading anything from that series. I've been MIA from modern day comics for a while, poking my head back in from time to time, just to see what's going on with Batman, Superman, Green Arrow and Spider-Man, but I duck out again, once my curiosity has been satisfied. As a result I've never read Super Sons even though I've heard from multiple people that it's a really good series. I've been meaning to, at the very least, pick up an issue of Super Sons and read that, just to say that I've finally read an issue, but none have actually jumped out at me and grabbed my attention (metaphorically speaking that is). At least not in the way that Invincible from Image and Sideways from DC have. 

There wasn't very much to their story, "My Best Friend" by Peter J. Tomasi and art by Jorge Jimenez who, I am assuming, are the creative team who came up with Super Sons in the first place. Again, because I'm not up on current comics, I don't know anything about this series or it's creators or anything like that. All I know is this story. It's told from Jonathan Kent's perspective as a paper he's writing for school. He chooses to talk about his best friend, who happens to be Damian Wayne, which is kind of sad considering how much of a jerk Damian is. Except when Tomasi is writing him apparently. It's something I noticed in Tomasi's run on Batman and Robin towards the original run of that series, when Damian is Robin, fighting alongside Dick Grayson as Batman, and during the first arc of the New 52 run on the series. Of course having never read Super Sons, I don't know how representative this story is of the series as a whole. But I liked it. It's not my favourite story in this issue, but it's still a good one, and that's just because I like Tomasi's work.

Another story that I liked in this issue is "Fitting In" by Amy Wolfram with art by Damion Scott. This is the only story where a writer has worked on it, but hasn't had any history with Stephanie Brown as Spoiler, Robin or Batgirl. At least none that I could find. However, Damion Scott was the artist on Robin in 2004 during Stephanie's time as Robin from issues 126 until 128 when a different artist took over for the War Games tie-in issues, before returning for the crossover with Batgirl in Robin #132 and #133 and then three more issues after that. I did a little digging into Amy Wolfram's work and she's mostly done comics based on Teen Titans and Teen Titans GO!, as well as having written episodes of both of those shows. She also wrote episodes for the 2000s Legion of Super-Heroes animated series, and wrote Teen Titans: Year One for DC. Which is interesting.

The two Tim Drake stories are good, but they really aren't much to write about. The first one "Extra Credit" takes place in the era where I wasn't reading new comics at all as a teenager. Tim has the red and black Robin costume that he got following Infinite Crisis in the story, and by the time I got back into new comics, Tim was already Red Robin, having been replaced as Robin by Damian with Dick Grayson as Batman and Stephanie Brown as Batgirl, so I actually missed the red and black Robin costume until I read Grant Morrison's run on Batman from "Batman and Son" to "R.I.P.". Also, it's basically just Tim talking to the new guidance counselor at his school, and it's not that great as there isn't any of Tim's supporting characters from Robin in the story either. 

The second Tim Drake story, "Boy Wonders", is set between The New 52 and DC Rebirth, right before Detective Comics #934. I haven't read Detective Comics very much since Scott Snyder's run just before The New 52 started, during "Black Mirror". In fact, the only issue I've read since then was Detective Comics #1,000, which is a special issue like this one, with multiple stories by various writers and artists who have worked on Batman comics before. So it's not really a story I'm invested in. It was still good though as Tim talks to Dick, Jason and Damian to figure out whether he wants to continue as Red Robin or go away to college. 

My favourite stories in this issue are three of the Dick Grayson ones. The first one, which is also my absolute favourite is "A Little Nudge" by Marv Wolfman with art by Tom Grummett. I've read quite a few DC books from the '80s at this point, and Marv Wolfman is one of my favourite writers from this period, just based on what I've read of his work on The New Teen Titans and of course, while it's convoluted and insane, Crisis On Infinite Earths is one of my favourite pieces of Wolfman's work. Plus this is actually my favourite era of Batman comic book history, aside from the early to mid '90s with Knightfall and the surrounding issues. Dick is nearing the end of his time as Robin, he's almost full time with the New Teen Titans, and Batman isn't completely standoffish yet as Dick hasn't left yet and Jason isn't Robin yet. So to read a brand new story set in that era and that looks like that era is awesome.

The second one I like a lot is story #2 "Aftershocks" by Chuck Dixon, with pencils by Scott McDaniel and inks by Rob Hunter. The story takes place during the "Aftershock" story arc, following the earthquake that devastated Gotham City during "Cataclysm". I haven't read a whole lot from this particular part of the '90s, but I do have Batman #559 from this period and so it's a bit nostalgic for me. I also haven't read much Nightwing from this period either. I wasn't reading much in terms of new comics at this point either, so I missed out on a bunch of things like the Chuck Dixon run on Birds of Prey, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. by Geoff Johns, and the "No Man's Land" arc in the Bat books. I still haven't read "No Man's Land" but I've since read the first couple of arcs from Birds of Prey and I couldn't stand it. I also tried to read an issue of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., the first appearance of Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl, but I couldn't get into it. But like I said, I kind of know what Nightwing was up to during this era, so it was fun to read a story set during it.

The third story, "Team Building" is basically a shorter issue of Titans by Devin Grayson with art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund. Of course Jurgens is known for The Death of Superman but I'm not super familiar with Norm Rapmund. Apparently he's worked for Image, Malibu Comics, and Marvel, among others, and his work for DC has been various and numerous. He's done pretty much everything from Aquaman to Booster Gold. So that's quite the resume. And might explain why I don't know his work as well as I do Dan Jurgens's work. I had a few issues of Titans from the early 2000s and this story felt exactly like those issues, which was great. 

One of the reasons I like this story so much is because it is my first comic book encounter with Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E., who I know from Arrow and DC's Legends of Tomorrow on TV. I don't know what he's like in other books, so I can't tell if this story is indicative of Darhk's character generally, but the way he is here is more like how he was on Legends rather than on Arrow. Incompetent and really hard to take seriously. Which I have no problem with since I actually preferred Darhk on Legends than I did on Arrow. Probably because he was actually written better on Legends.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, this is a great issue if you're a fan of the Boy Wonder. No matter what era you prefer or which Robin you like, there's a story in it for every Robin fan. Some stories are better than others, but they're all pretty good. The artwork is pretty great too. Though I do question why they'd use cover art from All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder for the Dick Grayson section instead of reprinting or recreating a classic cover from the '40s and '50s or the '60s and '70s. That book is hated by so many people that it's insane for them to use a cover from a book that is that hated. Regardless, I'm glad they pulled from all of the Robins, though I do feel like Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown got shafted in favour of Dick, Tim and Damian. Oh and I appreciate that they limited Carrie Kelley's appearance to a single pin-up since you can't really tell many stories with her since she's been limited to Frank Miller's Dark Knight saga and that really weird period during The New 52 where Damian was killed and various guest stars replaced him in Batman & Robin. And even then she's never canonically been Robin, so I'm glad they kept the stories to the ones who have multiple stories across many decades. I'm giving Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular 10/10 stars.

DC Wiki: https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Robin_80th_Anniversary_100-Page_Super_Spectacular_Vol_1_1