The Review Basement #300: My Favourite VHS and VHS Boxsets

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was quiet compared to the weekend before that, but still a pretty good one. This post is my 300th post on this blog since I started it in March of last year, at the beginning of the pandemic. So to celebrate 300 posts on the Blogger version of The Review Basement, I'm going to talk about some of my favourite VHS releases, including boxsets. The only criteria I have for this list is they had to be ones I either owned, rented, borrowed or watched at some point in my life. This list isn't in any particular order because it's really hard to rank them since they're all my favourites. So, let's get into it.

 First up is the 1991 Walt Disney Classics release of The Jungle Book. If you've read my overview of the Walt Disney Classics as well as my overview of the eleven Walt Disney Classics releases that I had when I was a kid, you know how much I love The Jungle Book. Not just this VHS release, but the movie itself, which is the first movie I remember ever seeing in theatres as it had a theatrical re-release in 1990. Apart from being my favourite movie of all time, the reason this VHS release is one of my favourites as opposed to the 1997 Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection release is because the previews are simple. They aren't promoting EVERYTHING that Disney was putting out at the time. Just a single theatrical release with the behind the scenes featurette on Beauty and the Beast, and a single home video release with the preview for The Rescuers Down Under and that's it. 

As cheesy and stupid as it is, I can't help but include the VHS release of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on this list. Apart from Alpha's Magical Christmas and six episodes from the first season that a friend of mine taped off the TV for me back in 1994, this is the only Power Rangers VHS tape that we had when I was a kid so we watched it alot. In fact, 26 years later, my dad still remembers Ivan Ooze's line from the scene where he meets the Rangers for the first time. Ivan introduces himself and Rocky tells him to pack his bags because he's going right back to where he came from and Ivan accuses him of having a big mouth, mentioning that not much had changed in 6,000 years. The rest of the scene goes like this:

KIMBERLY: "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with Mr. Raisin Head!"

IVAN OOZE: "Really?"

TOMMY: "Yeah! We're the Power Rangers!"

IVAN OOZE: "Ooh, where's my autograph book? So Zordon still uses a bunch of kids to do his dirty work eh? Well, meet my kids!"

And then he proceeds to bring to life his first set of foot soldiers, the Oozemen. And I apologize for subjecting you to the cheesy dialogue this movie has, but c'mon it's good stuff even though it's dumb. Plus the preview for Dunsten Checks In is a teaser. By the way I've still never seen Dunsten Checks In and it's been 26 years. Anyway, just for the fact that my dad remembers that "Ooh where's my autograph book?" line is enough to include this release on my list.

As you know from my Teddy Ruxpin VHS reviews Guests of the Grunges is the first Teddy Ruxpin VHS tape that I ever got. In fact, it might even be the first VHS tape I ever got when I was a kid. I had it pretty early on in my childhood, as it's in a couple of pictures from like 1988 or 1989, before either of my siblings were born. I must've watched this tape a million times and somehow I didn't wear it out. Even though I watched it two or three times in a row sometimes. I know, that sounds crazy, but what else was I going to do when I was stuck at home for long periods of time, due to illness or recovering from being in the hospital? My favourite part of the tape, and all of the Teddy Ruxpin VHS tapes that I reviewed last year, is that Teddy talked to the viewer in the live-action scenes at the beginning and end of the adventure. Like he did in the book and audiotape sets. Which, to this day, is still cool to me. 

Next up is the first boxset that I want to talk about, Star Trek: The Movies - 25th Anniversary Collector's Set. Now, I didn't own this set. My dad had Star Trek: The Movie Collection which came out in 1993 and included all six movies starring the cast of the original Star Trek series. However, this boxset is the one that I first saw the first five Star Trek movies in. One of my nurses at CHEO had this boxset and she brought it to me in the hospital in 1991, not long before Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek) came to see me in the hospital. While I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation and had seen a few episodes of TOS at this point, I'd never seen any of the Star Trek movies, which totaled five at the time, with the sixth about to be released for the franchise's 25th Anniversary. Of course, watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan scared the crap out of me as I mentioned in my review of that movie, but I liked the rest of them pretty well and then completely forgot that the Starfleet uniforms with the coloured shirts (white for command, green for medical etc) and maroon jackets were actually from these movies starting with Star Trek II when my dad started buying me the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics in 1992. Go figure. Lol. Honestly, even though Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country isn't included in this boxset, I still prefer it over the one my dad had because the individual cassette boxes for the first five films were designed specifically for this box set with the picture of the Enterprise on the back of the box. Plus the six film boxset was designed weirdly and the tapes only fit into it on an angle and weren't perfectly lined up like this set was.

Next we have the retail release for the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint". This tape is special to me as my late grandfather would watch it with me whenever I was at his and Nana's place because that's where the tape was when I was a kid. Despite having the first five seasons of TNG on DVD, I wish I still had this tape in my collection just so I could put it on and watch the teaser trailer for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country before the episode and think about watching the tape with Grandpa. Hopefully someday I'll either find the original copy in a box somewhere here, or find another copy at a thrift store somewhere.

I actually saw Digimon: The Movie in theatres when it came out in 2000, though I probably saw it in early 2001 since it was still wintertime but Christmas was over. I was in the Teens First mentorship program at the time, so my mentor, Ahmed took me to see it. We eventually got the tape when it came out not long after. I loved Digimon when it was on in the early 2000s. Pokemon was good too, but I dropped off of the Pokemon anime around 1999 or 2000. Whereas I was watching Digimon well into the third season, which aired here in North America during the 2001-2002 TV season on Fox Kids alongside Power Rangers Time Force (which I wasn't watching in case you were wondering). Anyway, there's a whole segment before the movie which is a catch up on the first season of Digimon narrated by Tai Kamiya. There's also an Angela Anaconda short attached to the movie which is annoying because nobody went to the theatres or bought the movie on home video to watch an Angela Anaconda short even if the short is related to the movie. They went to see Digimon: The Movie. Although the case stands out on the shelf because there's a big image of Davis from season 2 on the spine and not in a window picture like most VHS tapes had. It's so big that it actually takes up half of the spine. 

Next is Barney & the Backyard Gang: The Backyard Show. I've also reviewed this tape on the blog before, so I won't go into too much more detail here, but despite it being the first Barney tape ever, and being so different from what Barney would become, this is still my favourite Barney tape, and my favourite Backyard Gang tape. It's the 1992 release that came out, probably, to coincide with the debut of Barney & Friends on PBS since it has the Barney & Friends Barney on the front cover with his name in the show's font. Mind you this tape was dangerous, because at the end of the tape was previews for some of the other tapes being re-released including Barney's Campfire Sing-Along, Three Wishes, A Day at the Beach, and Waiting for Santa, which was half the Backyard Gang series, which made me want to see the other tapes. And eventually I did, except for Three Wishes, as that was the only one that didn't seem to be available at Rogers Video nor did they seem to have it at CHEO.

I had five releases of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh but the one I watched the most often was the first volume, The Great Honey Pot Robbery. I think I watched it the most because it had the funniest pieces of dialogue in both episodes on the tape. In "The Great Honey Pot Robbery" there are lines like "You can't have cake without icey cream!", "Be quiet Hose Nose!", and "Show 'em what you're made of Buddy Bear." "Fluff?" "I think we're in big trouble!". While the other episode on the tape, "Stripes"/"Monkey See, Monkey Do Better" has lines like, "Hey Banana Breath!". I don't know why I found those lines to be funny, but it's what made me come back to these episodes time and time again, even over the other four volumes that I had in the series.

 And then there's the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video release of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. This was the first Winnie the Pooh tape I ever owned when I was a kid. It was difficult to choose between this tape and the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video release of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day because I watched both them equally as much. Nevertheless I chose this one over that one, because there's no "Heffalumps and Woozles" song on this tape. Lol. 

Rainbow Brite is not something I've ever talked about on any of my blogs. Simply because it's not really something that I'm into now though it was something I enjoyed when I was a kid. We had a bunch of the dolls and toys, a few of the book and tape sets, and we rented the show on VHS from Rogers Video. In fact, that's how we watched the show because it wasn't on in reruns on TV when I was a kid, and we didn't own any of the tapes. One of the ones we rented was the 1985 movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. It's on this list because my siblings and I liked it enough that we made our parents rent it for us multiple times. I don't even know for sure how many times we rented it, but it was alot.

Next is The Care Bears Travels In Space. I loved the Care Bears when I was a kid and watched the Nelvana produced series, The Care Bears Family. I also love Star Trek. So you can imagine when I saw a while block of episodes of The Care Bears Family where the Care Bears, Beastly, Shrieky and No Heart are in space with the Care Bears onboard a starship that looks like the original Enterprise and has a bridge that looks like the Enterprise-D bridge from TNG and a heart-shaped saucer section. Here, I'll show you.

That's the S.S. Friendship commanded by Captain Braveheart. It's basically the original Enterprise from TOS, but with heart and star shapes for the saucer, deflector dish, and warp nacelles and rainbows for the nacelle pylons and the connector piece between the primary hull (saucer section) and secondary hull (stardrive section). Now, here's the bridge.

The image above is the best one I could find, but as you can see it's a mix of Kirk's bridge and Picard's bridge with the sloped railing behind the captain's chair from TNG, and the solo command chair, wraparound aft consoles and combined helm and navigation console from TOS. The first episode of this Star Trek homage block of episodes aired on October 26th, 1988, only a month before the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation aired. The tape I had only had three of the episodes from this block, but man I watched that tape so many times just because it was the Care Bears and Star Trek mashed up into one. It also has a bit of Star Wars thrown into the mix because No Heart was Lord No Heart and his head/mask/whatever that thing was, was a helmet similar to Darth Vader and Beastly and Shrieky were space pirates. So yeah, pretty cool.

Speaking of Star Wars, the next VHS boxset I want to talk about it the 1995 Star Wars Trilogy boxset. I did a review of this set last year for May the 4th so I won't talk about it too much here. This was the way I saw the original trilogy for the very first time. Up to this point the only things I knew of Star Wars were Droids, Ewoks, and Star Wars: Dark Empire #3 as I'd watched the cartoons on Global when I was younger AND I had the Star Wars toys and the comic as well. But this is how I got introduced to the source material, back when it was just the three original movies, and a handful of comic books, novels, and video games and it was much easier to get into the franchise since there wasn't as much material to consume like there is now. 

I also had the repackaged Special Edition boxset from 2000, which contained cassette box design similar to what would be used for the VHS releases of both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. I'd seen the 1997 Special Edition VHS releases, but I didn't own them until much much later. The opening for A New Hope had a behind the scenes featurette for Attack of the Clones, which was in production by the time this boxset was released. This boxset was the first time that Star Wars was on the front covers for all three movies and "A New Hope" was on the front of Episode IV. Prior to that, even with the 1997 Special Edition releases, the front covers said Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi on the pre-1997 releases and Star Wars: Special Edition, The Empire Strikes Back: Special Edition, and Return of the Jedi: Special Edition on the 1997 releases.

Then, to complete the Star Wars movies on VHS I also had the Star Wars Saga Video Pack which contained the VHS releases for both Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. It actually fit nicely on the shelf with the 2000 Trilogy boxset with the box design being basically the same. My dad had had the individual VHS release of The Phantom Menace and I'd seen the movie in theatres (twice) back in 1999, but this was my way of owning all five (up to that point) theatrical Star Wars films on VHS.

C'mon, I'm sure you can see why this boxset is on my list. The box is designed like a Borg Cube, how could it not be? Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Bog Collective is the VHS releases of four Borg episodes of TNG packaged together in a Borg Cube. But that's why I like this boxset so much. The episodes included in this set are "Q Who?" (Season 2), "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" (Season 3), "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" (Season 4), and "I, Borg" (Season 5). Aside from this set I didn't have any episodes from season 4 or season 5 on VHS, and only one other from season 3. In fact season 1 is the season of TNG that I had the most episodes on VHS from as that was what was available when Nana was buying the TNG tapes for me. I got this set for Christmas in like 1996 or 1997 with Christmas 1996 being the earliest I would've gotten it as the Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Flashback" was on TV in reruns and my paternal grandparents had moved up to the cottage full time, which is why we were there for Christmas. Plus this set first came out in November of 1996.

  As I said in my review of the movie, Batman Forever was my Batman movie. I was pretty young when Batman (1989) and Batman Returns came out and I was scared to death by Batman Returns so the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films weren't really a huge part of my life until I got all four Burton/Schumacher films on DVD sometime in the 2000s, when I was a teenager and could actually handle the creepier Batman Returns. But when I was a kid, Batman Forever was the Batman movie I watched the most because I had it on VHS and got it for my 9th birthday from my godfather. Yes guys, I had a godfather. I still watched the recorded off of PBS tape for Batman: The Movie (1966), but this was the most modern Batman movie that I could handle watching on my own.

There is one reason and one reason only for why The Frog Prince is on this list. It was my introduction to Sweetums as a character (he was one of many Muppets dancing in the opening credits for The Muppet Show). I found this character to be memorable in this video because the titular Frog Prince, Robin, sings him to sleep and every time he's about to fall asleep he waves, says, "Nighty Night" and then crashes onto his bed with a thud and a puff of dust, which is great. Plus it was a good movie. My parents rented it for me at least three times from Rogers Video when I was a kid.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is on this list because it's the only time that I can recall renting a 1986 Neon Mickey VHS release. I mean the 1986 Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes had the Neon Mickey logo before the shorts, but that original white box with the Walt Disney Home Video is something I only remember seeing the couple of times that we rented this movie. I did a review of the movie on the blog earlier this year so go read it to get my thoughts on the movie itself.

Follow That Bird! is one of my favourite movies of all time. I haven't reviewed it on this blog though I once did one on the old blog that no longer exists. Trust me though, I do intend to to review it on here at some point since it's a movie that, even though I never owned it, I watched it many times when I was a kid. It was one of the handful of must rent movies that we had on our list and it's one I still don't have a physical copy of. All three DVD releases for the movie are out of print and I never see any of them or any of the VHS releases at thrift stores. It's also not on iTunes or any streaming service, so my search continues for either a VHS or a DVD copy of the movie. My goal is to get this original one from 1986, but I'm happy with a 1990s VHS, 2002 VHS, or 2000s or 2010s DVD copy if that's what I end up finding out in the wild. In the meantime I have a digitized copy, DVD quality, sent to me by a friend many years ago, but I'd still like a physical copy to put on my shelf.

Jetsons: The Movie is on this list because of the music. That's it. It's such iconic late '80s/early '90s music that every time I watch the movie I dance and sing along to the songs in the movie. Plus there's some funny scenes in the movie too. Go read my review, which I did at the beginning of the year, to get my full thoughts on the movie. 

You didn't think I was going to do my favourite VHS list and not include a Disney Sing-Along Songs tape did you? I mean the title alone is why this tape is on my list. It was my very first Sing-Along Songs tape, which I got for Christmas in 1989. It also has some really good songs on the tape as well. And yes, I did do a review of it on the blog earlier this year, so go read that if you feel like it. Okay, five more tapes to go, so let's power through them.

I don't have to explain why the 1991 Walt Disney Classics release of Robin Hood is one of my favourite VHS releases do I? I've done it in so many posts by now that you must be tired of reading it. That's okay though, because this tape was a holy grail for so long since I never got to see it the whole way through when I watched it in the Cardiology clinic at CHEO. Luckily Michelle and Jonathan had a copy in the box of VHS they brought over for me almost a year ago and now I can watch it whenever I want.

I'm lumping the two volumes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Collector's Edition that I had into one, because unlike the ones for TOS, they didn't include the titles of the episodes on the front covers, just the back and the spines. This is how I remember seeing "Encounter at Farpoint" for the first time. Unlike the retail releases for "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Naked Now", and "Code of Honor", I had these Collector's Editions at my house rather than at Nana's and Grandpa's house. I swear if my parents hadn't stopped me, I would've had both of these tapes on an eternal loop, only turning them off to go to sleep at night. Particularly "Encounter at Farpoint". In fact I watched the episode so much that I can recite the dialogue from the entire episode while watching it and recite most of the dialogue while listening to the soundtrack. Somehow I have the ability to recognize what scene the music is from just by hearing particular music cues. Don't ask me how. I just do.

 We actually didn't rent The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland all that often when I was a kid. We rented it at least twice, and I watched it once in the hospital but it was the Care Bears doing Alice in Wonderland, so I enjoyed it. The Mad Hatter's song "You Like Hats?" is what stuck out to me the most about the movie and as a teenager it would get stuck in my head from time to time even though it had been at least a decade since I'd seen the movie last and to this day, I still haven't seen it since I was a kid in the '90s. Unlike The Care Bears Movie and The Care Bears Movie II, this one never got a DVD release with the only release being the original VHS release from the '80s. 

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is another movie that we didn't rent very often, but it's one I enjoyed every time we did rent it. We've also never owned it on any physical media. I did buy it from iTunes because it was cheap and I could watch it to review here on the blog without having to track down a physical copy. Though that seems to be pretty easy to do since Warner Bros. released it on 4K recently, and I think they reprinted the most recent Blu-ray release as well if I'm not mistaken. Or it never went out of print. Regardless, this is such a fun movie, with the Oompa-Loompa song being the creepiest part. 

And finally, last but not least, the 1989 50th Anniversary VHS release of The Wizard of Oz. This was Grandpa's favourite movie. One of them anyway. I watched it at his and Nana's house once or twice, though not nearly as much as many of the other tapes on this list. I have the copy from Nana and Grandpa's house in my collection and even though I have it on Blu-ray as well, this is the tape I watched the movie on when I watched it for my review a couple of months ago. It was wonderful.

That my friends comes to the end of my list. There are a total of 26 VHS tapes on this list, more if you count every single individual tape in each boxset, which I'm not going to do. I'll be back tomorrow for a look at an album that is very special to me. A friend gave it to me for my 16th birthday and it also holds significance for me with another friend from back in the day. So, until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Keeping Up as a Geek in 2021 vs. Keeping Up as a Geek in 2001 vs. Keeping Up as a Geek in 1991

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How's your week been? Mine's been pretty quiet actually. Given how insane last weekend was anyway. Today I decided to write about a topic that I've been considering for a while. As a geek in 2021 I'm expected to watch and read every comic book and movie and show in particular franchises in order to keep up and I just can't even with the amount of time that I have on my hands given that I don't have a job and run this blog full time. But it wasn't always like that. Which is what I'd like to talk about today. So let's get into it.

Back in 1991 I was only 4 years old, turning 5 that December. I was going to school at OCTC and I was limited in what I watched to what was on TV, what my parents rented for me from the video store, and what my family bought for me on home video. There was no Netflix, no Disney+ none of that. CDs were just becoming a thing though cassette tapes and vinyl records were still the primary forms of listening to music outside of the radio. The biggest comic book movie to date was Batman (1989) and people were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Tim Burton's second Batman movie, Batman Returns. On the TV side of things the only two super popular comic book shows at the time were The Flash and Superboy. The only geeky franchise I was aware of at the time was Star Trek. I hadn't been introduced to comic books yet, I wouldn't see the Star Wars Trilogy for another five years though I was watching Droids and Ewoks and wouldn't know about superheroes until reruns of Batman started airing on YTV the following year. There were other geeky shows on TV and movies coming out, but I wasn't aware of any of them. I was also 4 years old so I was more focused on cartoons like Ewoks, Care Bears, The Real Ghostbusters, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and Inspector Gadget as well as kids shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sharon, Lois & Bram's The Elephant Show, and Mr. Dressup among others. Even then, I watched what I wanted to watch and it didn't matter if I watched other shows and movies. 

Even people who were between the ages of 13 and 35 (and older but most of my friends are in their thirties now) were limited by what was on TV or what they could rent or buy from the video store and if you missed an episode of a TV show and didn't tape it then you had to wait for the episode to come on again in reruns, or hope it would get released on home video, which most shows didn't have a complete set of home video releases. In fact the only shows I know of that did were Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. At that time anyway as Sailor Moon would have a complete run up to the end of the English dub of Sailor Moon S (season 3) in the mid 2000s. Which also coincided with the show's early DVD releases. But back in 1991, the first two Star Trek shows were the only ones to have full series sets of home video releases, with TNG starting it's VHS run that would last until every episode had been released in 1996. Every other show that had home video releases only had a handful of episodes released, maybe a complete season if we were lucky.

But there was no pressure to watch and read ALL of it. You watched what you had access to and read what you had access to and, especially here in Canada, if you didn't see it on the channels you got on your TV, whether you had cable or not, you didn't even know about it, even when magazines like Wizard, Entertainment Weekly, Nintendo Power, The Official Star Trek Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Trek Communicator), and Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Wars Insider) were the sources of information for many of these shows, movies and games. 

Ten years later things had begun to change. DVD and the internet had become a thing as had internet message boards, though social media was still five or six years off. Netflix was around, but it was a DVD rental service back then. Because, let's face it, most of us were still on dial-up in 2001 with so little bandwidth that streaming services would've destroyed the internet if they'd been around 20 years ago. But being this geeky, autistic, physically disabled kid from Canada, I was never on message boards or anything like that until the late 2000s. So my geekdom was limited to my group of friends at school and my family. DVDs of complete seasons of TV shows started coming out around this time, but they were extremely expensive at the time, so I was still limited to what was on TV at the time as TV shows, with the exception of animated shows, weren't being released on VHS anymore.

In terms of where geekdom was at the time, our options were starting to grow. X-Men had been released the year before to critical and financial success and Spider-Man due to be released the following year. While DC Comics lacked representation in movies, it was being represented in various animated shows, and Smallville was about to become a huge hit, particularly among the teen drama crowd who enjoyed shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek. Unfortunately Marvel wasn't being represented on TV outside of the animated series, X-Men: Evolution and there weren't really any other comic book based TV shows out at that time either though Mutant X was about to debut. Science Fiction was huge with Star Trek ending it's nearly fifteen year streak on TV with Star Trek: Enterprise though other shows like Andromeda and Stargate SG-1 were huge at the time, with others like Lexx and Farscape coming into being. And while comic book based movies were basically limited to the Marvel movies, Star Wars was in fully swing with the prequel trilogy being made and was being hotly debated amongst fans. 

But because I was still in my own little bubble, I didn't feel pressured to watch all of it, or really even any of it. I watched Enterprise because I loved Star Trek. I watched the Star Wars movies because I loved Star Wars. I watched Justice League because Batman and Superman were in it. Heck, a few years later I watched Power Rangers Dino Thunder because Jason David Frank was returning to the series as Tommy again and I missed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, particularly season 1 as I didn't have any of the few VHS releases the original series had, and there were no DVD releases for it or reruns on TV. Though I still had a VHS tape full of six season 1 episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that a former classmate of mine had taped off the TV for me back in 1994, which I watched, with three of the episodes having Tommy in them as the Green Ranger. I watched Sailor Moon and Digimon on YTV because I loved both of those shows. But this was also the period where I was a teenager with hormones and being a geek got in the way of getting a girlfriend, even though I couldn't let go of the shows and movies that I loved.

Fast forward to 2021 and there are three (soon to be four) Star Trek shows on with all three airing throughout the year, dozens of comic book based movies and TV shows from every comic book publisher you could ever think of, each of them being successful to varying degrees. Science Fiction is steady in both movies and TV shows, though the genre is much stronger on TV than in movies. We have dozens of streaming services each with their own brand of original programming. Anime is huge and not as underground as it used to be, thanks to the efforts of Studio Ghibli and franchises like Sailor Moon and Pokemon continuing to entice fans to this day. Social media and YouTube keep fandoms alive and connected to the creators of our favourite shows, movies, comics, novels, and video games. And in the last ten years there's been this growing belief that being a geek means you have to watch and read EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA BEING RELEASED!!!! And so it's become a huge pressure.

Because of the amount of content that people are putting out there, it can be overwhelming for alot of people to try and watch and read everything that comes out. Especially if you're a blogger like me who does this for fun, or a YouTuber who reviews entertainment media and get paid to do it as their job. Which is never something that I even thought would happen back in 2012 when Arrow aired and the MCU exploded due to the critical and financial success of The Avengers, which was released mere months before Arrow aired. I don't do the gaming thing as I made the decision a long time ago that financially I couldn't support that hobby, even if it was retro gaming, which has gotten more expensive. But, before the pandemic I was seeing pretty much every comic book movie based on Marvel and DC and every Star Trek and Star Wars movie that came out on opening weekend, if not opening night. Because we share the same interests for the most part, as soon as he was able to, Brad would take me to the movies. And for the first four years of the 2010s I was also seeing every movie produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, except for Winnie the Pooh (2011) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). I ended up seeing both of them on home media platforms. Big Hero 6 (2014) is the last one Brad and I ended up seeing together and it was the last WDAS film that I saw in theatres mainly because Disney's slate of other movies, like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to pick up speed by 2015, with the Star Wars movies coming out around Christmastime, which is when the Disney animated movies had been coming out and I had to choose between the Disney franchises that I was most interested in.

Since the pandemic hit early last year and my interest in both the MCU and the DCEU started to wane, I began to become way more aware of the fact that I just can't keep up with it all despite the pressure to do so from the world around me and the fact that I run this blog where I, you know, review movies, TV shows, novels, and comic books. There's too much of it and I don't have the money or the time or the interest to put into EVERY movie, TV show and comic book to come out anymore. I dropped Supergirl way back during that show's third season, Arrow is over, I dropped The Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped up last year, and I never had any interest in the Marvel Netflix shows, or most of the Star Wars shows that have come out. So I've decided to pull back on alot. 

Season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks debuted last week, and I had planned on reviewing the season premiere, and I didn't because, without going into detail as I'm not THAT kind of blog, the show did something that upset me immensely to the point where I couldn't bring myself to talk about the episode as a whole because of that one element. And this week's episode just didn't click with me the way the first season did, despite the fact that Boimler had a solid storyline in the episode. But I feel better about dropping Lower Decks because there's a ton of Star Trek that is out, and is coming out, these days that I'm not concerned about missing out on brand new weekly Star Trek. And it's the same thing with everything really.

I want to get back to watching shows and movies because I want to watch them not because they're a DC thing or an MCU thing or a Star Wars thing or a Star Trek thing so I HAVE to watch them or because I have to review them. Like my sister and I are going through The Orville this year because she hasn't seen the second season yet and I'm having fun getting to watch the show with her. Especially this week because we got to "Identity Part I" and "Identity, Part II" and that was the MASSIVE two part episode that had every Star Trek fan on the edge of their seats when it initially aired back in 2019 because to those of us who are fans of The Orville and Star Trek, who were too young to really remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" when it originally aired on TV back in 1990, that two-parter was our "Best of Both Worlds" only we didn't have to wait three months to see the conclusion. I vaguely remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" on videotape because my dad taped it for me as I was in the hospital and didn't get CHRO on my tiny bedside hospital TV set and the only thing I really remember was the saucer separation sequence and Worf and Data retrieving Locutus from the Borg Cube during that battle. But, I digress.

My point is, I don't feel like I'm less of a geek for not watching, reading, and playing EVERYTHING under the sun just because it's a geeky thing. In fact, I actually feel like I am myself for picking and choosing what I watch and read going forward, because I've always had to be choosy. Either because network television is different here in Canada than it is in the United States, and so we don't get every streaming service ever, and not every show appears on traditional TV or the streaming services that we do have here. That's how I've always lived my life, either because I had limited access to things, or because my own personal interests have kept me away from the things I wasn't interested in. 

Movie wise there really isn't much that I can actually see right away since I don't want to pay $30 to see movies on Disney+ or iTunes, and despite being fully vaccinated, even without the Delta Variant floating around, I'm not comfortable going to the theatres yet so while there are certain movies that I would like to see, like Pixar's upcoming film, Turning Red, I'll wait until the theatrical run is over and it's on Disney+ to see it, there aren't any upcoming MCU films coming up that I'm interested in seeing so I won't see them, I'll watch Hawkeye when it drops later this year, but most other MCU Disney+ shows are ones I'm not interested in so I won't watch them. On the DC side of things I'm going to continue to watch Superman & Lois and I'm going to give Titans and Stargirl a try as I have season 1 of both shows on iTunes, but otherwise I'm dropping DC shows and movies as well. For Star Wars, I'll see Rogue Squadron when it comes out in two years, and I'll watch Obi-Wan Kenobi when it drops and possibly Lando and season 3 of The Mandalorian but only Obi-Wan Kenobi is a guaranteed watch for me. As for Star Trek I'm dropping Lower Decks but will try out Prodigy when that drops later this year, presumably after season 2 of Lower Decks ends in October, and the Captain Pike series, Strange New Worlds whenever that drops, and will continue to watch Discovery and Picard because Discovery is starting to become really good and I'm intrigued by the plot of Picard season 2. Particularly by Q's involvement and John De Lancie's return to the role that he's become beloved for.

As for this blog, I'm changing it completely to nostalgia and writing about movies I had on VHS when I was a kid, comics and books that I read, and albums that I remember listening to. Because, let's face it, I can talk about the past way better and more passionately than I can talk about the present. And all of those things helped shaped who I am today and where my interests lie. I'm not going to talk about all of Doctor Who the way I ambitiously planned on doing it. Instead I'll talk about the things that got me into the show like The Day of the Doctor, Twice Upon a Time and Series 11 (as I get to them in my watch through) as well as aspects of the series that I find interesting, like the Companions, the Doctor as a character and each actor's run as I go through them and things I am excited to see. So these won't be formal reviews so much as ponderings and discussions as I continue my journey through the world of Doctor Who. I promise that will be more fun than me reviewing every single season as I finish them. Though if there's a particular season that stands out to me I will definitely talk about it.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more reviews and posts including some Star Trek stuff that I would like to talk about pertaining to Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager as they are my favourite Star Trek shows of all time, but you never know, I might return tomorrow to talk about the first couple of episodes of Doctor Who which I'll be putting on as soon as I've finished here. Stay tuned if you'd like to find out. Until then, have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Free Comic Book Day 2021 Week #1: The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids: Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots Sampler

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm starting a new series that's focused solely on the comics that were published for Free Comic Book Day 2021, which was this past weekend. I don't know if I'm going to review every single one as there are 54 of them and I'm not sure I want to spend a year + two weeks reviewing the majority of these books that I don't even really care about that much. However, I will at least review all of the ones that I do care about. Including this one which is a blast from the past. Specifically my past. So let's get into this week's Free Comic Book Day 2021 issue, The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids: Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots!

I don't normally look up what issues are coming out for Free Comic Book Day ahead of time just so I'm surprised when I browse the table the books are on at the comic book store. So when Brad dropped off a bagful of comics from Free Comic Book Day and I began rifling through them, I was completely bowled over by the fact that this book even existed. It's really just a sampler to entice readers to pick up the graphic novel.

So I had no idea that this book even existed. The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids isn't a series I see people talk about online and it never had a TV show or movie adaptation like The Babysitter's Club, Goosebumps, and Animorphs did so I wasn't exactly following it online the way I do the other series I mentioned, particularly Animorphs. But it's actually a fairly recent comic book adaptation. And by recent, I mean within the last two to four weeks as the cover date is August 2021. So it's brand new.

The graphic novel is based on the first book in the series, Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones, which was published back in 1990, so before the first Goosebumps book had even come out. The basic premise of the series is a group of third graders who attend Bailey School, encounter monsters with a particular trait. For example, in this one, their teacher is a vampire who wears polka dots. In another book, called Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses, their bus driver is a Gargoyle who has the ability to turn to stone at will, unlike the Gargoyles in the Disney Afternoon TV series.

My history with The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids is actually quite limited. I only ever had two books in the series, and I don't remember reading any others either. The ones I had were Book #14, Monsters Don't Scuba Dive and Book #19, Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses. I got both of them at my school's Scholastic Book Fair, but oddly enough I got Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses before I got Monsters Don't Scuba Dive for whatever reason. 

Because I've never Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots and because this issue is basically a preview for the full graphic novel, I was a bit confused. It's not the full graphic novel, but I also don't know whether it's a preview of the first 28 pages or 28 pages from the middle of the book as it's an 80 page graphic novel. So I don't really have anything to say about the story since it's not the complete story that's in the graphic novel. The artwork is decent though, and it was interesting to see all these characters again, even though I don't actually remember any of them. After all I haven't read the books in about 20 years, maybe 22 years at the most. It was still cool though. 

Overall it was a nice preview. I'm probably not going to get the full graphic novel. At least not of this book. If Scholastic publishes the graphic novel version of Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses then that's the one I'd get since it's the first Bailey School Kids book that I ever got. However if you're my age or were an older kid in the '90s, then I'd recommend getting the full graphic novel, since, unless you were able to get it at your local comic book store on Saturday, or if they have any extra left after the fact, it's going to be difficult to get this Free Comic Book Day issue preview version, and it definitely won't be free. Most comic book stores, at least in my area, usually sell leftover Free Comic Book Day issues for $1, $2 at the most. 

And that's it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for another post. It's not a review or an announcement post per se. It's going to be an article about a topic that all of us geeks can relate to. Trying to keep up with everything when there's so much content out there and not enough time in the day to watch it all. So come on back for that sometime, eh, I'd say in the afternoon or early evening. Before dinnertime for sure. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Superman & Lois Season 1 (2021) TV Show Spoiler Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today's the big day where I'm finally able to talk about Superman & Lois season 1 as a complete piece. I'm going to be getting into some spoilers because I need to talk about the fact that none of the predictions that I made after the fourth episode are right, and I can't do that if I don't talk about specific details of the show. So if you're not caught up on season 1 of Superman & Lois please go do that before you read this review. Unless you don't care about such things. Let's get into it.

I say this every time I talk about this show, but Superman & Lois is the best comic book based TV show that's on The CW right now, and one of the best DC Comics based shows that's airing right now. And I can say that with confidence because the season is over and it actually maintained it's quality throughout the entire season. And it was awesome! All season I've been saying that The CW didn't want to interfere because it's a Superman show and they didn't want Superman fans coming after them for screwing up the character if they didn't let Greg Berlanti and Todd Helbing do what they wanted with the show. And it worked. It actually, freaking worked! Which is pretty cool given how much The CW likes to come in and tell producers to change things to fit on their network, like they did with Riverdale back when that show was being developed. 

The cast on this show is absolutely phenomenal. You have Tyler Hoechlin as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane, Jordan Elsass as Jonathan Kent, Alex Garfin as Jordan Kent, Erik Valdez as Kyle Cushing, Emmanuelle Chriqui as Lana Lang-Cushing, Inde Navarrette as Sarah Cushing, Wole Parks as John Henry Irons/Steel (that's a twist I'll be talking about), Adam Rayner as Tal-Rho/Morgan Edge, Stacey Farber as Leslie Larr, and Dylan Walsh as General Sam Lane. They're all fantastic. The kids especially. 

Usually on shows like this the kids are obnoxious and just really hard to watch but the kids on this show were actually interesting. The three main kids, Jonathan, Jordan, and Sarah, anyway. Their recurring high school classmates were the stereotypical kid characters that show up in every teen drama and comedy show and movie since the dawn of the genres in the '50s. But they were fantastic. Sarah especially had some pretty great moments throughout the season. I was afraid she was going to be the typical troubled teenage girl character like Marissa Cooper on The O.C., Peyton Sawyer on One Tree Hill, Quinn Fabray on Glee, or even Thea Queen in the first couple of seasons of Arrow, but she wasn't. She had her problems of course, but she didn't go out looking for trouble and she definitely didn't cause the trouble like the other characters that I mentioned did. She didn't even cause drama the way Lana did on Smallville, when it was revealed that Jordan was hiding something from her. Mind you Jordan also isn't making lame excuses like Clark did on Smallville. Which is nice.

The Superman stuff was extremely cool. It's the kind of thing I've wanted to see on TV basically since the first season of Smallville. So in other words, I've been waiting 20 years for this stuff to be on TV. Which is a long time. We sort of got it in the early seasons of Supergirl, but pretty much after the second season, when Superman first appeared, they quickly made that show separate from the Superman mythos except for the part of Superman's origin that coincided with Kara's origin. Especially because Justice League was coming up in 2017 and a Man of Steel sequel was promised for 2018 or 2019. Of course that sequel never happened, and any appearance Superman was supposed to have in the movies was thrown out, except for Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), so that's when this show was greenlit by WB.

Probably the biggest twist in this entire season is the fact that "Captain Luthor", who was revealed to be the man in the suit that went after Superman in the pilot, turned out to actually be John Henry Irons, from another, unspecified, Earth where he was married to Lois Lane, and she was killed by that world's Superman. Which is why Irons went after Clark on Earth Prime. It was pretty cool since we haven't seen John Henry Irons in a live action show or movie since Shaquille O'Neal played him in the 1997 movie, Steel. That and the fact that "Morgan Edge" is actually Tal-Rho, the half-brother of Kal-El, in a Spock/Sybok kind of way, except they share a mother rather than a father and both are fully Kryptonian even though Kal was raised on Earth as Clark Kent. The twist doesn't actually explain how Tal-Rho took the name of Morgan Edge when Morgan Edge already existed in the Arrowverse as played by Adrian Pasdar on Supergirl.

And yes, this show is set on Earth-Prime of the Arrowverse though the producers and writers chose not to deal with most of those connections during this season. The only one that was actually blatant was the appearance of John Diggle though he's no longer Spartan and he apparently chose not to put on the Green Lantern ring that he apparently got at the end of the Arrow series finale. Though he does mention it to Sam during the episode he shows up in. Honestly, I think it was very smart of the writers and producers to let Superman & Lois stand on it's own and not use it's connections to the rest of the Arrowverse even though it would've been so easy to call up Kara or Barry to help with the Morgan Edge situation. I'll be honest and say that even during the finale I kept waiting for Supergirl, the Flash, Diggle, Green Arrow, or Black Lightning to show up to help Superman and Steel the way Barry did for Oliver and Team Arrow in the finale of the third season of Arrow. But it didn't happen and I'm actually glad it didn't. Superman & Lois works just fine on it's own.

One thing that completely surprised me was how Kyle grew to become so likeable over the course of the season. I said in my review of the pilot that Kyle was the jerk character that we love to hate. Except, he didn't stay that way for all that long. I'd say that by mid-season he'd grown on me as an actual likeable character. And that's despite the marital problems that he and Lana were having due to Kyle's anger issues and his push to let Morgan Edge work in Smallville. He had a complete 180 turn when it was revealed that Edge was actually Tal-Rho. So that was cool.

I do wish they'd spent a little more time on Clark and Lana's relationship though. In at least two episodes they stated they were best friends, but we didn't really see that all that much. And not enough to know whether Clark told Lana about his Kryptonian heritage before he left Smallville. Judging from the flashbacks that we saw in episode 11, it doesn't appear that Clark told Lana anything. At least not before he left Smallville to learn about his Kryptonian heritage. And given that Lana doesn't recognize Superman as Clark, it doesn't look like Clark told her anything after he got home or even before he moved to Metropolis. So I hope we see more of their relationship in the second season.

So yeah, all of my theories for where this season was going to go were wrong. And I'm fine with that because what we got was pretty great. I'm glad that John Henry Irons turned out to actually be John Henry Irons and not yet another version of Lex Luthor. And I'm also glad that Sam didn't turn against Superman at all. He's not as stupid as he appears to be in the comics most of the time.

Overall this was a fantastic season of Television. It's exactly the kind of show that we need right now. It's not too heavy, it's entertaining, and it was alot of fun. Especially when certain Superman easter eggs popped up like the original costume from Action Comics #1/the Max Fleischer cartoons appearing in the pilot and the flashbacks in episode 11. I highly recommend that if you've never seen the show or just haven't caught up on it, that you watch it because it was such a good show.

That's going to be it for me for today. But, I will be back on Saturday for my review of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.   

Doctor Who Stories #3 "The Edge of Destruction" and #4 "Marco Polo" (1964) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was surprisingly busy. Especially Saturday. It was a good kind of busy though, something I haven't experienced in over a year and a half. Today I'm actually going to be covering two classic Doctor Who stories. Sort of. "Marco Polo" is a lost episode but the DVD of Story #3 "The Edge of Destruction" includes a 30 minute distilled version of "Marco Polo" with the original audio, which had been kept, as well as select photographic stills from the episode called Telesnaps, which are basically pictures taken of an episode of a TV show while it airs. Usually these images are taken with a camera that's pointed at the TV while you watch the show. In the case of Doctor Who Telesnaps were only taken of the first five years of the show. So let's get right into it.

Of the three classic Who stories I've seen, "The Edge of Destruction" is probably my favourite. The reason that is is because there's actually some character progression. TV in the '60s were almost completely devoid of character development because networks wanted standalone episodes that people could still watch even if they'd missed the previous episode and so characters had to return to whatever status quo they were in at the beginning of an episode. Which meant in most cases characters did not change very much between the beginning of a series and the end of a series. Using Star Trek as an example, at the end of an episode Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had to still be who they were at the start of the episode. So these two episodes of Doctor Who are unique in that the characters progressed as did the relationships between them. For the first two stories, basically the first 11 episodes of the series, the Doctor had been antagonistic towards Ian and Barbara. And Ian in particular was antagonistic towards the Doctor though there were a few moments in both "An Unearthly Child" and "The Daleks" where Barbara was also antagonistic towards the Doctor. But here there's a visible shift in the relationships between Ian and the Doctor as well as the relationship between Barbara and Doctor.

It's because of this shift that an element that has been an integral part of Doctor Who ever since was born. The concept of the Companion. People who willingly travel with the Doctor on the TARDIS on his or her adventures through space and time. There's never been more than three of them on the TARDIS at one time, but the Companions are both the eyes in for the audience and a tether for the Doctor so he (or she in the case of Jodi Whittaker's 13th Doctor, and Jo Martin's incarnation) doesn't go off the deep end and do something stupid like wipe out the Daleks and Time Lords like the War Doctor nearly did during the Time War. But that's getting quite a bit ahead of myself as we won't find any of that out until much later in modern Doctor Who.

"The Edge of Destruction" was a budget and time saving measure for Doctor Who the way the two part episode "The Menagerie" was for Star Trek in 1966. "The Daleks" and the story after this, "Marco Polo" were expensive endeavours for Doctor Who and they were both seven part stories without much time to prepare "Marco Polo" once production on "The Daleks" had wrapped. So rather than lose two weeks of airtime so they could have extra time to produce "Marco Polo" the show's story editor, David Whitaker, wrote "The Edge of Destruction" as a bridge between "The Daleks" and "Marco Polo" which also ended the show's original committment of thirteen episodes. The intention was to cancel the series and part two of "The Edge of Destruction", "The Brink of Disaster" meant to be the final episode of the series. But BBC executive, Donald Baverstock, changed his mind at the last minute and the show got renewed but continued to face cancellation in the succeeding decades until it was finally cancelled in 1989. Much like Star Trek, which faced cancellation during all three seasons that TOS was on the air for. 

  Unfortunately, because this is a lost episode, and the audio/Telesnap reconstruction of 31 minutes of material, I don't have a whole lot to say about the story itself. It is the first time a fictional depiction of a historical figure made an appearance on Doctor Who. I may have to get my hands on the BBC Radio Collection soundtrack version of this story just so I can at least hear the complete audio of the story. What I heard of it on the DVD for "The Edge of Destruction" was pretty good though. 

The more I get into Doctor Who the more I can see similarities between it and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. While the cast is much larger on Legends than it is on Who, they both travel in a timeship, there are Time Lords, Arthur Darvill is on both shows, fictional depictions of historical figures appear on both shows, and both Rip Hunter and the Doctor are fugitives from their homes and steal their respective timeships, the Waverider for Rip and the TARDIS for the Doctor. They can also be pretty goofy and ridiculous at times too. 

Overall these were pretty great stories with "The Edge of Destruction" being my favourite of the three classic stories I've seen at this point. It's great to return to the beginning of a series to see where it all began, especially if it started before I was even born. By the end of "The Edge of Destruction" the series is closer to the way I know it from the few modern era episodes I've seen over the years, though there's still two more incarnations of the Doctor to go before he himself becomes the character I know him to be from the modern era. I definitely recommend checking out these first thirteen episodes of Doctor Who if you're a fan of the show and have never seen them before.

That's it for me for today. It's also the end of my journey into the classic era of Doctor Who as these are the only stories that I have access to. Though a bunch of classic stories are available on iTunes so I might go back to classic Doctor Who at some point and review more stories from the series. I also won't be covering the 1996 movie starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, as I don't have access to that either. So starting in two weeks, once I wrap up my review of the Star Trek movie trilogy from the '80s with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (I'm reviewing Star Trek III this week), and going forward, I'll be reviewing the modern era of Doctor Who only. I'll be back on Wednesday for my review of Superman & Lois season 1. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm going to be talking about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Before I get into it though, if you follow me on social media you may have noticed that I announced that I would not be doing a review of the season premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks as I found one of the storylines of the episode to be problematic and couldn't write the review without completing bashing the episode, which is unfair since the main storyline centered around Mariner, Freeman, and Ransom was actually quite good. I just couldn't talk about the Rutherford and Tendi storyline for personal reasons. So with that out of the way, let's get into The Wrath of Khan!

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has never been my favourite Star Trek movie. In fact, it's my least favourite one next to Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek Into Darkness. Mainly because both Wrath of Khan and First Contact scared me as a kid and Into Darkness is a lesser rehash of "Space Seed" and Wrath of Khan. However since I've been watching it as an adult, particularly this time around, I've grown to appreciate The Wrath of Khan (and First Contact, but that's another story) alot more than I did when I was a kid. Though I still think Khan is an overrated villain.

One of the thing that I love about this movie is that it finally moves Kirk and his crew forward as characters. One of the things that bugs me about TOS is that the characters don't change. There's no character development, no growth, they're just the same in the third season as they are in the first season. And that ended up carrying over in not only Star Trek: The Animated Series, but into the first movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But Star Trek II finally shows us the crew aging and dealing with the fact they're aging. Particularly Kirk, though Spock deals with it in a way too. 

I like that Kirk's actions have consequences to them. One such consequence is Khan wanting revenge on him for the death of Marla McGivers due to a geological accident that destroyed Ceti Alpha VI and turned Ceti Alpha V into a desert wasteland. Apart from my reasons for hating Khan that I mentioned in my review of "Space Seed", this is another reason for me not liking Khan. His reasons for revenge against Kirk are petty and irrational. Yes, Kirk exiled Khan and his followers to Ceti Alpha V, but he had nothing to do with the event that killed Marla, and so Khan is acting stupidly, even for an intergalactic dictator. Which is something that his second in command, Joachim (played by Judson Scott) pointed out to him several times throughout the movie, but Khan ignored him as evil dictators tend to do when they're doing something REALLY stupid.

I thought Saavik was a great character too. I do wish she'd gotten more to do. Especially since the novelization of the movie includes an entire subplot where Saavik is tutoring Peter Preston and they become really close friends. But, I understand why that was either an exclusive thing to the novel, or why it was cut out of the movie. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer had to keep the focus on Kirk and the rest of the established TOS cast. Not that Uhura, Sulu, and Scotty got very much to do. That was par for the course on TOS back in the day as well. But, I thought Saavik was still a pretty great character. Though I think I prefer the more Vulcanlike Saavik as played by Robin Curtis in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock than I do the Kirstie Alley version from this movie.

One of the things that bugs me about this movie is how much is actually left out of the final version of the movie. For example, Saavik is supposed to be a Vulcan-Romulan hybrid but that's never mentioned in either movie she appears in, though it's in the novelizations for both movies, AND is brought up in other novels as well as several comic books. Particularly the ones published by DC Comics. The subplot of Saavik tutoring Peter is something else that would've been nice to see in the movie as a way to explain Saavik's reaction to Peter's injured body when Scotty brings him up to the Bridge. Which by the way, no wonder Peter died, Scotty took him up to the Bridge instead of taking him DIRECTLY TO SICKBAY!!! If he'd just taken him directly to Sickbay, chances are pretty good that McCoy might've been able to save him. 

Spock's death at the end of the movie is probably one of the hardest scenes that I have ever seen in a movie. Not only because of the death itself, but because of the effect it had on Kirk afterward. Spock is Kirk's best friend and has been for about 20 years at that point. And to lose someone that close to you is hard. I know, because I did it twice in the late 2000s. And to see Kirk humbled by the death of his best friend is startling, but almost welcomed because of how there'd been no real consequences for Kirk's actions during TOS and TAS. Even Gary Mitchell's death in the pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and Edith Keeler's death in the season 1 episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever" didn't have as much impact on Kirk, within the confines of the show itself, not including novels and comics. But this did, and it was a good bit of character development.

What made this even more powerful is that Kirk had been melancholy about his age at the beginning of the movie. He'd been promoted to admiral, was no longer in command of the Enterprise, and was stuck behind a desk, or training the next generation of Starfleet officers at Starfleet Academy. Plus both McCoy and Spock tried to convince Kirk to get back his command before it really is too late. The Star Trek Chronology places this movie as being on Kirk's 52nd birthday though the movie doesn't say specifically how old Kirk turns at the beginning of this movie. Of course Kirk will be dealt some pretty bad blows in the next movie, but I'll talk about those when I review that movie.

A Director's Cut of the movie was released on DVD in 2002. Unlike with the Director's Cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions before it, the special effects weren't updated or altered in any way. Rather three scenes were added. The first two establish that Peter Preston is actually Scotty's nephew, filling in the gaps as to why Scotty was personally taking Peter's body to Sick...I mean the Bridge, and why he was so upset when McCoy couldn't save him. The third scene is simply just Kirk telling Spock that David is his (Kirk's) son as they're heading to the Bridge at the beginning of the final act of the movie. So it just adds a bit more detail but still leaves a ton of stuff out of the movie.

The Wrath of Khan first came out on home video in November 1982, less than six months after it had been released to theatres. Which is pretty interesting for a movie that was released in theatres in the early '80s. Back then movies usually took a year or two to come out on home video after it had been in theatres. Longer if a movie wasn't successful. Probably because Star Trek II was released theatrically in June, while most Star Trek movies came out in either November or December. The exceptions being The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and then the three reboot movies that came out in 2009, 2013, and 2016 respectively.

I saw the movie sometime between 1991 and 1993. The movie had been re-released on VHS in 1991, along with the other four Star Trek movies that were out at the time in honour of the franchise's 25th Anniversary. I watched it at the hospital as one of my nurses, knowing that I was a Star Trek fan, brought the 25th Anniversary home video box set for me to watch as I hadn't actually seen the movies yet. Later on, probably in 1993 or maybe 1994, my dad got the Star Trek: The Movie Collection VHS box set. It was basically the same as the 25th Anniversary box set, as it contained the first five movies. The difference was that it also had Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country on VHS in the same box art design as the 1991 re-releases of the previous five films. I eventually got the 2000 DVD in like 2005 or 2006 (I was late to the party on that one), eventually upgrading to the 2002 two-disc Director's Cut DVD release from 2002, sometime in 2009 or 2010. I actually ended up buying the two-disc DVD releases of all ten original Star Trek movies (Star Trek: The Motion Picture-Star Trek: Nemesis) within a year. Currently I have the Director's Cut DVD and the 1991 VHS re-release in my collection.

Overall Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a great movie. It's still not my favourite, I much prefer it's sequel Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as I feel it's a funnier movie than this one is. This one is a fairly heavy film in comparison to it's predecessor as well as it's two sequels. But really, my only real problem with this movie is Khan himself. I've always felt that the TOS Star Trek movies work better when they don't have a singular villain. For example while Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a much slower film and more introspective, I like it because it doesn't have a villain. It has a threat, but it's something Kirk and the crew attempt to understand rather than destroy it. Same with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The Undiscovered Country is a political thriller, so yes, Christopher Plummer is on screen, playing the part of the typical movie villain and chewing the scenery at the same time, he isn't the central antagonist. He's just a singular part of a much larger conspiracy that includes the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. Star Trek II is a really good movie though and I like it alot more than I did when I was younger.

And that my friends is going to be it for me for this week. I will be back next week though for lots more reviews. Monday I'll be reviewing the third serial from classic Doctor Who, which also happens to be the last one that I have access to, so the following week I'll be starting on the modern era of the franchise. Wednesday I'll have a review of the first season of Superman & Lois as the season finale airs on Tuesday night, and on either Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, depending on when I end up watching the two part episode of The Orville, "Identity", with my sister, I'll be reviewing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. I'll be returning to The Amazing Spider-Girl the following week, and I want to get the Star Trek movie trilogy out of the way before I immerse myself in Doctor Who. So until then have a wonderful rest of the weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Marvel's What If...? Episode 1, "Captain Carter" (2021) TV Episode Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. Today I'm here to review "Captain Carter", the first episode of the latest Disney+ Marvel series, Marvel's What If...?. This will be a non-spoiler review so if you haven't had a chance to watch it yet you can still get my thoughts on the episode. So let's get into it.

I'll be honest with you, this was one of the Marvel Disney+ shows that I really wasn't excited for just because I am not a fan of the "What if?" premise as I find that question in general to be a waste of time. Look, we all have things in our lives that we wish we could change and the question, "what if?" comes about because sometimes we even have an idea has to what we would change those things in our lives to. Especially if it's something we wish hadn't happened to us. The problem is that almost 100% of the time we can't change things to suit us better and it takes up alot of time wondering what might've happened if just one tiny thing changed during pivotal events in our lives, so what would be the point of even thinking about it? 

What if? originally began as a comic book series in 1977. The basic premise of the series was one shot issues that examined alternate versions of particular events that happened in various Marvel Comics publications that been released over the years up to that point. For example, one issue of the original series explored what might've happened if Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacey from death at the hands of the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 and The Amazing Spider-Man #122. The problem that I have with this series is that every issue ends badly. And by that I mean that the writer of the issue goes with the worst possible outcome for the scenario they're writing. In Spider-Man's case, the issues that deal with him almost always end up with him dead, or sent to jail because his identity was outed by someone or one of his loved ones gets killed.

A second volume of the series began in 1989 and ran until 1998. This is the series that introduced Mayday Parker, which I'm currently reading about in The Amazing Spider-Girl. This is actually the only issue of the second What If? series that I've actually read as I have a reprint of the issue. The issue is different from the usual formula, because it set up an entire universe, known as Marvel Comics 2. 

  I also had the first issue of the 2004 series, which showed what might've happened if Jessica Jones had joined the Avengers after her ordeal with the Purple Man. In this story, Jessica is able to realize that something was wrong with Wanda Maximoff and helped her before "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M" happened. At the end of the story, she married Steve Rogers. Which was a bizarre twist. It was still a good story though.

"Captain Carter" was actually a pretty solid start to the TV series. It's basically an alternate version of the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger, except with Peggy Carter getting the super soldier serum that made Steve Rogers become Captain America in the original movie. Honestly, I thought that worked pretty well. Almost the entire cast from the movie returned to reprise their roles. Except for Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, and Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips. Phillips doesn't appear in the episode at all, it's a different character, but you'll have to watch the episode (if you haven't already) to find out who it is. I don't know how I didn't notice it on the poster, but Peggy's shield and costume have the British flag on them instead of the American flag, which is fitting since Peggy isn't actually an American.

I thought it was weird having Sebastian Stan play a pre-Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes again after ten years. It was cool though because we really didn't get to spend much time with Bucky before he became the Winter Soldier. It was also cool to have Dominic Cooper returning to voice Howard Stark, since we haven't seen the younger Howard since Agent Carter ended in 2016.  

The animation style, actually reminded me of the animation used in the Batman: The Telltale Series games that were released for the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. And like with that first game, the style works extremely well for the action scenes, but it's a little clunky for the other scenes. It's still gorgeous looking though and I actually quite like it despite the clunkiness of it outside of the action scenes. 

Overall this was a great episode. It also works great as a series opener. However, I'm probably not going to watch the entire rest of the first season. There are episodes like Doctor Strange and Marvel Zombies that I just do not care about, and I don't really feel a need to watch the whole season. Just the ones I do care about like Iron Man, Black Panther, and Guardians of the Galaxy, because those are the movies I like the most and am interested in seeing what would happen if certain events from those movies happened differently. That's the beauty of an anthology series like this, you don't have to watch every single episode to understand the show because every episode is different. But if you are an MCU fan, particularly one who is more of a fan than I am, I would highly recommend checking this episode out AND checking the season out on Disney+. Episode 2 comes out next week.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go patiently wait for the season premiere of Lower Decks to start...and yes, I realize I have five and a half hours left to go before it comes on. I will be back tomorrow for my review of said season premiere. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.