Vids I Dig 872: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’, Featuring Robert Meyer Burnett

Vids I Dig 823: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’, Featuring ThatStarWarsGirl

Vids I Dig 799: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’, Featuring Bowlestrek

Vids I Dig 780: The Critical Drinker: Production Hell – ‘Star Trek V: The Final Frontier’

Comic Review: Star Trek: The Q Conflict

Published: October 30th, 2019
Written by: David Tipton, Scott Tipton
Art by: David Messina
Based on: Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry

IDW Publishing, 145 Pages

Review:

This has been in my Comixology queue for awhile, so I figured that reading it was long overdue and I wanted to enjoy a fun Star Trek story considering that modern Star Trek has gone the way of every other once great franchise after being taken over by “creatives” with political and social agendas and no actual creativity.

So the best thing about this miniseries was that it didn’t involve any of the Kelvin Timeline bullshit or anything remotely associated with the J.J. Abrams “reinvention” that started in 2009.

I find that kind of surprising, actually, as the comic industry is even more woke than the television and film industry and the fact that IDW of all companies gave fans something they wanted is worth a hat tip.

So the story sees Q, along with some other highly advanced alien species, bring in the crews of Kirk’s Enterpeise, Picard’s Enterprise, Sisko’s DS9 and Janeway’s Voyager. They hold a draft and each of the four alien species builds their own team, mixing up these crews into four new factions. These four factions then have to play games in an effort to entertain these godlike aliens while also settling their dispute, which is causing space and time to have some potentially catastrophic side effects.

Now the mixing up of crews felt unnecessary and it made it hard to follow, as it’s hard keeping tabs on which characters are on the same team. But that’s also kind of moot, as the crews are conspiring to solve the problem together while appearing to be playing the game by Q’s rules.

I actually really liked that Trelane from The Original Series was one of the aliens in this. He was often theorized to be a younger version of a Q. While he’s not, I loved seeing him banter with Q and sort of bending the rules of the game to his own personal advantage.

In the end, the humans find a way to end the conflict and to return back to their proper places in time and space.

This was an amusing and entertaining read and I was glad that I was able to escape into something under the Star Trek banner, once again.  

Rating: 6.25/10

Vids I Dig 731: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’, Featuring Nerdrotic

Vids I Dig 705: The Critical Drinker – After Hours: ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’, Featuring Nerdrotic

Documentary Review: For the Love of Spock (2016)

Release Date: April 16th, 2016 (Tribeca Film Festival)
Directed by: Adam Nimoy
Music by: Nicholas Pike
Cast: Adam Nimoy, Leonard Nimoy (archive footage), Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Chris Pine, William Shatner, Mayim Bialik, Jim Parsons, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, J.J. Abrams, Jason Alexander, Catherine Hicks, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nicholas Meyer, Julie Nimoy

455 Films, For The Love Of Spock Productions, 111 Minutes

Review:

“The review that Variety gave us when we first went on the air in September of 1966: “Star Trek won’t work.” [grins]” – Leonard Nimoy

This had been in my queue for quite awhile. I’m not sure why I hadn’t watched it until now but I’m glad that I finally did, as Leonard Nimoy is an actor that had a pretty profound effect on me, as a kid, and because he’s someone I greatly admire, as an adult.

This documentary went into production while Nimoy was still alive but he died early on in the process of making it. Because of that, this evolved into being about the man and his most famous character, Spock from Star Trek.

For the Love of Spock is also a passionate letter from a loving son to his father, which also involves a lot of the talented people that worked with Nimoy over decades.

I like that this spent a lot of time on Nimoy, the man, as well as the Spock character. It delves into his personal life, his history in showbiz and how he was instrumental in shaping not just his character but the mythos of Star Trek, as a whole.

This was well shot, superbly edited and it was nice seeing all of his living colleagues and friends talk about his life, work and contributions to one of the greatest science fiction franchises of all-time.

This documentary is nearly two hours but it flew by like a breeze. I was actually surprised when it started to wrap up, as I hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

All in all, this is a pretty solid film on a pretty solid and supremely talented man.

Rating: 7.5/10

Comic Review: Star Trek Vs. Transformers

Published: June 12th, 2019
Written by: John Barber, Mike Johnson
Art by: Jack Lawrence, Philip Murphy
Based on: Transformers by Hasbro, Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry

IDW Publishing, 118 Pages

Review:

What I found most interesting about this is that it was a crossover of the animated Star Trek series and the original animated Transformers show. When I first heard about this crossover, I wasn’t sure how they would bring the two franchises together but this was certainly the best approach and definitely better than mixing the terrible Michael Bay Transformers movies with the Kelvin timeline Star Trek stuff.

Overall, this was amusing and I enjoyed the art style.

However, the story is just decent and didn’t do much to really maximize the properties. Its also full of predictable things like the Enterprise transforming into a robot, in this case, a version of Fortress Maximus.

Also, the Decepticons team up with the Klingons, which sort of fits a trope of these IDW crossovers, which is villain team ups to offset hero team ups. I’m not saying that the trope is bad, it just makes these events predictable and formulaic.

Star Trek Vs. Transformers isn’t a bad crossover, it just falls short due to it being more of the same, despite the franchises featured. It’s like IDW has a checklist with every crossover and the writers have to check off every single box.

The truth is, I love checking out crossovers like this. Unfortunately, the output is really redundant and it’s kind of killing my interest in seeing different intellectual properties collide.

Rating: 5.75/10
Pairs well with: other IDW crossovers between famous franchises.

Comic Review: Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive

Published: September 9th, 2015
Written by: David Tipton, Scott Tipton
Art by: Rachael Stott
Based on: Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle, Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry

IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, 133 Pages

Review:

I read this right after coming off of the crossover between Planet of the Apes and Green Lantern. While I did enjoy this, I didn’t have the same level of fun and excitement that I felt while reading the other tale.

Still, this pits two of my favorite franchises against one another and seeing Charlton Heston duke it out on the Enterprise with James T. Kirk is just absolutely f’n badass no matter what their reasoning.

I guess my biggest problem with this was how talkie it was. I get that it is a crossover with Star Trek of the ’60s and it wanted to emulate the spirit of that show but what works for one medium doesn’t always work for another. This should have been more action heavy and when comparing it to the Planet of the Apes and Green Lantern crossover, the action was minimal.

Still, this was a well crafted story, the plot made sense, even if most of these crossovers have the same sort of premise, which involves a portal being open for nefarious means to see two universes collide.

The story also features classic Klingons, which I liked but they didn’t even feel necessary to the story other being used for the setup and to have a reason for a starship battle at the end. I think it would’ve been more interesting to see Kirk and crew marooned on the ape planet, having to fight in a more primitive way like Charlton Heston did in the original film.

If you like both franchises though, this is a decent read.

Rating: 7/10
Pairs well with: Other similar crossovers: Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern, Planet of the Apes/Kong, as well as Star Trek/Green Lantern I and II.