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Time is relative. For example, it took me 5 hours to see a 2 hour movie a several weeks ago. I left home to a friend’s house, we picked up someone else, went to the theater, saw the movie, and drove the converse route back which took a total of five hours. So although I thought Star Trek was a decent film, I’m not sure it was good enough for me to justify the time I spent trekking (pun intended) to go see it.
Time is an important aspect in the recent works of JJ Abrams. I’m not just citing Star Trek, but also his television shows, Lost and Fringe. The new Star Trek rises from events that have occurred in the future, creating a new timeline for the writers to create new adventures for a new generation. The film theorizes that though the past has been drastically changed, some things are still fated to occur, specifically the gathering of the Enterprise crew members. Lost, I feel, is going to follow a similar path in the last season. The show has set up a cyclical time loop that can go one of two ways. Either the final season will show how the events of the previous season caused the cycle to be broken or it will show how even though events may have been changed, the cycle is destined to continue into the next iteration. For more in depth and possibly mind numbing discussion on Lost, see Jeff Jensen’s analysis on EW. On the season finale of Fringe, it was revealed that a parallel world in a divergent timeline exists where again on the surface everything seems very similar but underneath things are quite different. For example, in this reality, the Twin Towers were never hit, a premise I first saw in Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina. Haven’t been a huge fan of Fringe and its loose use of pseudo-science but there are bits and pieces that are intriguing.
With more and more science fiction entering the mainstream entertainment channels, I really hope that subject matter isn’t dumbed down too much and that new ideas will be explored, especially when dealing with adaptions of existing works (ie No Khan for a while please). I just hope that they don’t merely retread old ground and seek to challenge the viewer.
Sometimes it seems like everyone lets you down and nothing goes your way. Then, a series of interesting events occur that gives you a sense that things aren’t too bad and there are things to look forward to. I call these fortunate times “Pockets of Inspiration”. They aren’t always readily apparent and they need to be sought out, but when you find them, it’s worthwhile.
New material from Faye Wong might be on the horizon. She’s doing some ads so her break for motherhood may be soon over. Here’s a recent release of a song she did several years ago with new arrangement.
New episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya are airing in Japan. Interspersed within the timeline of the original series, the first new episode is as good you expect, mixing different sci-fi conventions into an interesting milieu. I just hope they’re priming us for a new season.
The Storm Riders sequel is coming out in the near future and there is a new trailer. I’m not too confident in the Pang brothers based on the films I’ve seen from them but the footage doesn’t seem too bad. I’ve been waiting for the sequel for a decade so with the success of this film, I hope that more effects-laden epic martial arts movies will be on the horizon.
And the trailer for the next Final Fantasy game is just stunningly gorgeous. If the story and game mechanics are good, I might have to break down and get a PS3 when it’s released.
Now if only the unwatchable Naruto filler would end so that the main storyline could continue.
And I don’t know why, but I have this song on repeat.
