DISCOVERY – INTERESTING BUT FLAWED ATTEMPT TO FILL IN THE GAPS

AUDIO OPTION FOR REVIEW OF STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

SHORT TAKE:

A two season Star Trek show which was released (in real life) just before Picard, it takes a stab at gap filling in the story arcs of Star Trek in general and the characters of Spock and Pike in particular (even though they do not show up until the second season) during the (reel life) period between the two original pilots from the 1960’s.

WHO SHOULD WATCH:

Adults only for: language, graphic violence, sexuality, promotion of alternative lifestyles and frequent examples of – best way to put it —- conduct unbecoming a Starfleet officer.

LONG TAKE:

Star Trek, “The Original Series”, with Captain Kirk, debuted in 1963. I was four years old and lived in a house full of science fiction fans. It does not take Sherlock Holmes to correctly surmise from that I have followed Star Trek my whole life.

And in case anyone doesn’t know, and relevant to this article, as referenced above, there were TWO Star Trek pilots: the FIRST one with Captain Pike, and the SECOND, but better known one, with Captain Kirk.

Roddenberry, the brains behind everything Star Trek, (the way Lucas is for Star Wars), had some clout and a LOT of persistence. So when the powers that be did not like the first pilot, Roddenberry managed, in an instance as rare as finding a herd of unicorns, to persuade the producers to give him another shot at it. He changed much of the lead cast and told a different tale. The rest is history. Discovery looks at knitting these two scenarios together into the whole cloth of the Star Trek Universe.

I have seen all the filmed live iterations: TOS, Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Picard, ALL the movies in both the prime and alternate time lines – and now into the fold comes Discovery. I have mixed feelings about this show.

The original Star Trek concept in 1963 was promoted by Roddenberry as “Wagon Train to the stars” to the powers that held the money. In fact, Roddenberry used science fiction as clever social commentary, much of which is still quite relevant almost six decades later.

As a framework for that cultural analysis was the idea that the best of mankind would strive and survive to reach out to the stars and, as has been so many times quoted, parodied, and ultimately followed, “…to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” (Cue theme that only The Queen of the Night could sing.) Possibly the most famous split infinitive in literary history.

The eloquent words and profoundly inspiring message have been part of what has kept the Star Trek franchise alive for almost sixty years, across seven different shows, with seven different casts, covering hundreds of shows, and inspiring thirteen movies; not to mention: cartoons, novels, graphic novels, audio books, fanzines, comic cons, animation, games, technical manuals, coffee cups, bath mats, life sized cut outs, costumes (deep breath) – the list goes on and on.

One of the uplifting concepts that has kept this boat afloat (pun intended as the Star Trek universe has always had a naval feel) is the idea that these frontiers will be breached by the best and the brightest, the most humane and brave, the self-sacrificing, the merciful and the altruistic, to insure that we would go forth to that (following homages intended) Undiscovered Country (Star Trek VI) of this Final Frontier (Star Trek V) with our best foot forward.

Unfortunately, this is not what Discovery did. It began with a mutineer, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) starting a war with the Klingons. Huh!??? And much of the next two years deals with the direct and indirect fallout from that. Granted, good comes out of this catastrophe, as well as discoveries of galactic-sized threats which are averted, in part, due to the setting in motion of events stemming from this war. (It gets complicated.) But my teeth were set on edge right away because this was NOT the Starfleet I remembered.

Set (in reel life) about 10 years before Kirk and not long after Captain Archer, I do acknowledge that this is Starfleet in its infancy – even embryonic. Captain Archer, in the series Enterprise, stepped WAAAY  over the line more than once: hypocritically denying assistance to a freighter in one show, running rough shod over an alien species during a diplomatic mission in another, acting abrasively and belligerently to his crew on the bridge, and on one noteworthy occasion leaving a hatchery of sentient infants to die on a fading ship – because they were an enemy insectoid race – DESPITE the fact they were innocents. I have a lot of trouble with Enterprise too.

That all being said there ARE interesting characters and intriguing storylines within Discovery. There is, for example, a backstory on Spock (Ethan Peck, grandson of Gregory Peck) no one anticipated and information on Pike which fits  nicely with the character to which we were introduced 60 (real) years ago. Like it or hate it or love it, I understand this is an effort by the crafters of the Star Trek universe to tie up the ten (reel) years between the first pilot with Pike and the opening proper in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” which introduced us to Kirk and company.

The cast is hit and miss.

Captain Pike’s character in Discovery, introduced at the tip end of season one, was a breath of fresh air in embodying the characteristics of the Starfleet captains with whom we grew up. I look forward to the future planned shows, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with Anson Mount’s Pike.

You will meet, if you will excuse the unavoidable pun, a much darker Mudd (Rainn Wilson, The Office alum) as in Harcourt Fenton —, than we saw in the original series.

A line often attributed to Louis B Mayer is: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union”. Unfortunately, there has been a trickle which has grown into a  monsoon of disregard for this advice amongst the writers, directors and producers of TV shows and movies over the last few decades.

One of the demonstrations of distracting and overt PC writing in Discovery is the prominent portrayal of a homosexual couple by engineer Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Dr. Culber (Wilson Cruz). As there are no other featured couples and as their relationship figures heavily as unnecessary subplot fodder in a number of the episodes, this smacks more of political correctness then plot craft. The shoe-horning in of scenes is distracting as well as making the show inappropriate for non-adults. To be fair, Kirk’s promiscuous bed hopping did not exactly contribute to a G-rated atmosphere either. But at least Kirk’s antics were to promote ratings amongst the teenage boys who already dominated the demographics for Star Trek: TOS. The relationship between Stamets and Culber is propagandistic posturing.

In addition, their relationship as portrayed was neither dynamic nor convincing. Dr. Who’s pansexual Captain Jack Harkness frequently conveyed, in one flirty grin to a total stranger, more connection and interest than Culber and Stamets did towards each other in two seasons.

Cruz as Culber does the heavy emotional lifting but only succeeds in coming off as whiny. Stamets is an interesting stand alone character as an aloof and snobby, but brilliant, engineer wrestling with a technology new to the Star Trek universe: a Spore Drive, which allows instantaneous travel from one point in the galaxy to another. Stamets was obviously in love with THAT. But there is very little chemistry between the two men.

Tilly (Mary Wiseman), another engineer, while also brilliant, should not have been allowed anywhere near a star ship bridge. She is flighty, immature, overly chatty, and tends to wander off in flights of irrelevance even in the midst of a crisis. This behavior would have either been trained out of her at the Academy or she would have been dismissed. And in one of the “Short Trek” shows, (15 minute lagniappe episodes), Tilly commits an outright crime of aiding and abetting a stowaway when she helps one to their home planet without even reporting their presence on board the ship. This would have been court-martial level grounds for cashiering in anybody’s reality aboard a military vessel of any kind.

There are bright spots. Saru (Doug Jones, who has the dubious honor of having played the amphibian man in the horrible Shape of Water SEE REVIEW HERE), a Kelpian, is the first officer. He is from a species which we have never before seen, and is unique to the crew. Jones, with his 6 foot 3-1/2 inch tall frame gives the skeletal visaged Saru a surprising physical grace. Saru is an officer who is thoughtful, considered, intelligent, calm under fire, attentive to the advice of the other crew, and who makes plain old good decisions. In the first season Saru is the one who reminds me the most of the Starfleet personality we should have had all along.

Jason Isaacs is Captain Lorca, of whom I’m hesitant to say much for fear of giving spoilers. Suffice to say that while more in line with the Star Trek: TOS personality, he pushes the envelope too much and too hard to be a comfortable character. These feelings ultimately fit well with his story arc and the structure of the two season plot but it can be very off-putting on first viewing.

The music by Jeff Russo (Star Trek: Picard) provides the same inspiring atmosphere we have come to know and love from the Star Trek universe. The special effects, gadgets and prosthetics are pretty cool, but nothing we haven’t seen before in the best of some of the shows.

The dialogue has too much profanity especially for a starship bridge crew, who are on the bridge and on duty. And remember I’m evaluating from the point of view of Star Trek not the reality of a naval cruiser on Earth, though I suspect some of the cavalier dialogue would not be well tolerated on a modern-day destroyer bridge either.

There’s been a good deal of complaint about the female-heavy cast: Martin-Green’s Burnham, Wiseman’s Tilly, Emily Coutts’ cybernetically enhanced Detmer, Oyin Oladejo’s Owosekun, Sarah Mitich’s android/human hybrid Airiam, Michelle Yeoh’s Captain Georgiou, Mary Chieffo’s female Klingon Chancellor L’Rell, Jane Brooks’ Admiral Cornwall, Rebecca (pre-Lawrence “Mystique” from X-Men) Romijn’s Number One – the list goes on. I’d have to agree. There is a grossly disproportionate number of prominent women in the show, especially when you consider that many of the men that DO make it to the cast list are either given only passing notice, like Ronnie Rowe’s Lt. Bryce, or are written as women-dependent and emotionally fragile, like former POW Ash Tyler (played by Shazad Letif).

While the women did a good job comporting themselves (mostly – with the exception of the aforementioned Tilly) as command crew who just happen to be female (as opposed to the creativity-destroying reverse) this is NOT the Amazonian brigade nor community theater! There MUST have been more men auditioning for these parts than is reflected in the casting choices.

Nonetheless, after Pike, my favorite character would have to be engineer Reno (played by Tig Notaro from Instant Family SEE REVIEW HERE) who comes late onto the scene. Carrying the blunt honesty of a single minded nerd who gets along better with her equipment than people, she is funny and refreshingly abrasive in her no nonsense exchanges. Sort of like a female Henry Higgins she treats everyone the same – as though they were ALL between her and the solution to the engineering problem at hand and life would be so much easier if they would just get out of her way! Yet, also like Higgins, she is almost preternaturally observant to those around her and, as such, and as she has little filter, is often able to offer unexpectedly apt advice.

So, overall, despite the heavy handed estrogen injections, the occasional forays into soap opera territory, and the aspects of the show that make it inappropriate for youths, I’d say Discovery was worth the time, if for no other reason than to tie up previously loose ends and establish a launching pad for Pike’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

But adults only – it’s neither the relatively more innocent nor mostly the example to be followed, as was the Star Trek of our youth. Even so, it still manages to point us to the stars.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – FLAWED BUT FUN VARIATION ON THE SAME LOVED THEME

SHORT TAKE:

Repeat of all the tropes from previous movies to create what is now a formulaic Jurassic Park movie – BUT I still loved it.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Anyone old enough to see the original Jurassic Park movie. Same scare level, no sex or nudity and very little profanity. These movies are a hoot and this one is just as much fun as the others, though nothing really very new under the sun. Just a variation on the same theme.

LONG TAKE:

I love the Jurassic Park franchise. Even the ugly stepchildren JP Lost World and JP III. I know they are derivative. I agree the first was the best – character driven as opposed to the far more special effects driven sequels. I understand they have become formulaic to the point where you can accurately and safely predict the characters who will and will not survive, and the general outline of the story. But I don’t really care. People who ride roller coasters are pretty familiar with how they work, know what to expect and are not especially surprised by the effects of free falls but they still ride them.

These movies are not Shakespeare, or Chekov, or even Woody Allen. They are "what if" stories about what would happen if you threw people and dinosaurs together. And they are a lot of fun.

Two of my favorite all time cinematic scenes are from the franchise. (click pic) One is the scene where Alan Grant, renowned paleontologist, reacts to his first encounter with a live dinosaur – a brachiosaurus. He is so overwhelmed he turns to Ellie, points and can barely get out the words – "It’s…. it’s a dinosaur," and then has to sit down on the ground. Makes me smile every time.

(click pic) Another of my favorite scenes is seeing Owen racing through the jungle on his motorcycle, hunting alongside raptors. After being oriented to how terrifying these critters are, through all the previous movies, all the way back to the first movie, to see a human as part of their pack gives me goose pimples.

The premise of JP Numero V is that the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar are facing extinction – again – because their island is about to be destroyed by an active volcano. Some think nature should reclaim these anachronistic Frankenstein monsters. Others believe we have a stewardship duty to save them despite the inherent extreme danger of the attempt. Another faction is in play with more mercenary motivations.

The actors re-create the characters we have enjoyed in previous movies.

Jeff Goldblum reprises his wisecracking, snarky and insightful Ian Malcolm, in a small cameo, offering his opinions to a Congressional committee on what should be done now that these creatures are facing an(other) extinction level event on their island. The movie cuts back and forth between his testimony and the adventures with Claire and Owen on Isla Nublar.

Chris Pratt returns as Owen, the dinosaur whisperer who is reluctantly pulled in to the rescue mission in order to help Blue, the raptor he raised.

Bryce Dallas Howard appears again as Claire, former executive assistant to the CEO who owned the destroyed park. She now runs an organization attempting to save the dinosaurs and whose primary job in this movie is to scream, escape from dinosaurs and be rescued by Owen.

The ubiquitous James Cromwell creates the character of Benjamin Lockwood, a heretofore unknown partner of the Jurassic concept’s inventor John Hammond (formerly played by the late Sir Richard Attenborough and appears only as a painting). The backstory is that for a previously undisclosed reason, which will become important to a subplot, they had a falling out.

Geraldine Chaplin – the oldest of eight children who Charlie Chaplin had with his wife Oona – appears in a small part as Lockwood’s trusted housekeeper.

Others fill out smaller bits seemingly just to fluff up the roster: Justice Smith as Franklin, the geeky tech guy who seems to have been hired for having a girlier scream than Howard and vaguely imitates Jake Johnson’s character Lowery from Jurassic World I. Daniella Pineda plays Zia, a tough talking self styled paleo-veterinarian (though she has never actually met a dinosaur up close). Ted Levine is the obligate bad guy, unnecessarily cruel to the dinos and callously dismissive of human life, much like Vincent D’Onfrio’s Hoskins from JW. Rafe Spall plays Eli, Cromwell’s assistant who is reminiscent of the lawyer Gennero (Martin Ferrero) from JP I. There’s the absolutely required kid (Isabella Sermon), of course who is cute then in danger. And so on.

Special mention must be made of BD Wong. He pops up once again as the "evil" scientist Wu, who is the embodiment of everything that alarmed Ian Malcolm when he admonished Hammond in the first JP movie that: (click pic) "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." It is interesting to note that Wong and Goldblum were the representatives of the dipolar opposite views in the original JP and are the only major recurring members from the original cast. And I give the filmmakers kudos for going out of their way to make this conceptual point obvious by the small but significant presence of these two characters.

The special effects are remarkable, recreating not only multiple dinosaurs but a volcanic eruption, and chases across a variety of terrain from forest to rooftops.

It is a satisfying thrill ride of a movie, make no mistake.

BUT….

SPOILERS FOR JURASSIC FRANCHISE MOVIES, GENERATIONS, SERENITY AND  LAST JEDI

All this being said I still have some issues with the movie.

The de rigeur between-movies "break" in the romantic relationship of the leads is particularly silly. It is literally explained as having occurred because Owen wouldn’t let Ellie drive his van. Huh? In JP III the break up of Alan and Ellie is heartbreaking and gracefully presented. Alan is shown playing with Ellie’s child. You assume it is his until Ellie’s husband shows up. Then you realize not only that they are not a couple any more, but guess at why – that Alan never wanted to settle down and start a family.

Lava is, at one point, everywhere. Claire and Franklin (Justice Smith) would probably have cooked just being that close to it in an enclosed space as they were. Minutes later they are fleeing from a pyroclastic flow which moves at 50 mph and is full of toxic deadly fumes. An old dilapidated gyrosphere wouldn’t have gone that fast and Owen, even running downhill, couldn’t have come close.

In another scene, an experienced hunter, Ken, (Ted Levine) goes into the cage of THE most dangerous dinosaur ever created for a souvenir tooth. It's an insult to JP I's Muldoon who was taken by a pack of raptors while trying to save other people's lives. It was pretty transparent Ken's death in JW: FK was only to set up the escape of the Indoraptor.

 There was really no reason to try to murder Owen or Claire. They were brought along because of their unique insight into the creatures then discarded as soon as one was found. This didn’t make a lot of sense. They try to commit murder of experts who can help them in order to cover up the theft of animals who have been left to die anyway. Huh?

The most galling problem I have is with the demise of one of the creatures. The very first live dinosaur we see EVER in the franchise is an brachiosaurus. Yes, it is pretend and CGI and no dinosaurs were harmed in the making of the movie because all the dinosaurs are actually….extinct! But because of its emotional impact of awed amazement in the iconic moment of the first JP movie when we first saw what a living breathing dinosaur might look like today, there is a vested connection which audiences over 25 years and five movie have earned. But when Owen and Claire are fleeing the erupting island we watch a brachiosaurus – maybe supposed to be the very one we saw in the first movie – die a prolonged agonizing death. There is a drawn out, extremely painful scene where Owen and Claire watch the creature as it moans at the end of the dock, abandoned, without help, is enveloped by the toxic smoke, becomes a silhouette in the light from the lava and is destroyed. Like the death of Captain Kirk in Generations, the disappearance of Luke at the end of The Last Jedi, or Wash’s demise in the movie Serenity, it felt like a deliberate sign off from the parent franchise. Whether it will signal a new successful batch of movies is another question.

As I pointed out, it is really just an audio-visual emotional roller coaster ride so I shouldn’t expect subtlety.

 Overall I enjoyed JW: FK and do hope this is not the last of their progeny. But I also hope care is take in the future with those characters – human and otherwise – of which we have become so fond.