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GTBurns
Reviews
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Trek shows the truth behind Gene's Utopia
In Star Trek "Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few ot the one" SO someone who has more must be obligated to give what he has to help those with few.
In Insurrection, the Federation takes this to extremes, showing the Federation is not the benelovent Utopia Gene Roddenberry wants us to believe. The Federation was willing to displace and destroy an entire culture so a few people who have immortality can be given to all. But do all people in the federation even deserve to even have what this small community has?
What about the right for their culture to exist and follow their traditions a practices they hold dear?
So the Federation in reality is a overbearing all powerful entity which will not hesitate to use its power in the name of "equality". Sounds like ever oppressive communist regime on earth. Murdering millions in the name of social justice.
IN the end this is why the movie failed, instead of concentration on thiese major moral and political issues, Berman aand Braga turn this film into a slapstick parody.
Worf a conflicted tragic figure of the TV series, is relagated to getting zits. Dr Crusher gets better breasts and Troi and Riker covort around as the Federation borders on commiting Cultural genocide. Trek has in the end some almost a sad parody of itself which is not a good sign of health.
In my TV criticism class, I learned when a genre or series is nearing end of it's life the as the quality and relevance of its newest products fade. This has started with Innsurrection and continued on with Nemesis.
Enterprise (2001)
Lets give the show a chance
Sure this show has some flaws, I am so far going to give it a chance. TNG was not good until the Borg appeared.
Enterprise still needs to find its space legs, the suggestive scenes especially the decon chamber stuff needs to go. It is nothing more than an excuse to see Tpol and Hoshi lube each other up.
Those scenese are the start of ever sex scene in every skinemax film I ever saw.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Why this movie lost money?
Nemesis cost Paramount 90 million to make, and it only made 44 million. Thus being the first trek film to make less than 50 million.
Generations was Star Crap, but it only cost 30 mil to make so at least it made money. This film was a disaster because the brainiacs at Paramount decided to release this film between the release of Harry Potter COS and Two Towers.
Only people who went to see this film were the die hard Trekkers from that dated back to the 60's. Younger kids were too busy buying advanced tickets to LOTR, I know I was one of them. I liked the Next Gen cast, but mythic battles on a epic scale look much more exciting.
Star Trek is no longer a revelant franchise to the Youth, this is a SF saga born out the the ideals of the 1960's. The SF fans who are 25 and younger are hooked on two things Lord of the Rings and Matrix and the even younger kids are Harry Potter crazy.
Matrix is SF for the 21st century, and LOTR is the Star Wars killer.
Face the truth Star Trek is at its end, the film franchise is DEAD, they pumped out too many series too quick to make any movies based on them.
Paramount has been fighting in vain to get younger people in theTrek fold with gimmicks like 7of9 and T'pol who are Breastmonsters and cat suits, while forgetting the sense of Adventure and writing that made the Original Trek classic to begin with.
Let's hope they do not even make a Voyager film, that series is in my opinion began the decline of the Trek franchise. That show was about as entertaining as watching a Discovery Channel about grass growing.
Matrix and LOTR are going to be the big names of this new century no Star Trek and Star Wars.
The Forbidden Dance (1990)
Be thankful it wasn't about the "macarena"
This film was pure 1990's dreck. A film to cash on several major events. Laura Herring the first hispanic Miss Teen USA, plight of the rainforest and Lambada the SHORT lived sexy dance craze.
This film was a box office disaster which saw itself competing with and losing out to the other less stupid Lambada film. This films plot is about Laura as a Brazillian princess who will help her native rainforest by winning a dance contest with her sexy lambada moves. This plot becomes beyond stupid when the viewer realizes Laura has no dance ability.
It would of been more believable is if Laura played a hooker and raised money by sleeping with every creepy man she came across. The demise of the Lambada was unfortunate since the next dance craze of the 1990's was the Macarena.
Be thankful there was never a Macarena film
Left Behind (2000)
Christian Sci-fi
I saw about 10 minutes of this film being watched by a fellow dormmantein college. Beyone the blantant religous themes, How is Kirk Cameron still getting work!? All these TBN funded christian doom films have one thing in common. Special effects that make Ed Wood look like Steven Speilberg, preachy dialogue and wooden acting.
Avoid this film, even if you are a believer. What Would Jesus Do? Probably want his money back.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Pain on Film
This film was based on a novel by L Ron Hubbard novelist and founder of Scientology, was Travolta's labor of love for his faith. It was bad on many levels. People feared that this film would have sublimal messages which lead people to scientology. Never fear, people ran from this film in droves.
My Fellow humans all critized the effects and cinematography, aside from the bad camera angles. I found the sets and effects to be little above average. besides from Travola and Whitaker in embarrasing Psychlo cosumes I have seen worse effects.
Still this film could of ahd knock out costumes and effects and it would of still did not matter. All films depend on the same foundation, Plot. This film's Plot and story was just bad. Poor Dialogue, and a bad story.
Blame the writer of the book, Battlefield Earth, The book it was written by L Ron Hubbard. This was the man who wrote many non-fiction "Scientology" books. In "All about Radiation" he claims gamma radiation is water soluble and the sacred Operation Thetan III level of Dianetics auditing, Scientologists learn humans are descendants of "thetans" who were blasted apart by XENU the Galactic Federation warlord.
Good Science Fiction is based on science fact, L Ron was not the one for science fact or any method of reason. This film's plot has faults of mythic porportions which many are going to go down in history.
Lets review the mythic disaster that is the story.
This film takes place in the year 3000. But Denver only looks like it was vacant for 75 years. Put it in perspective The Roman coloseum is over 1,000 is it looks like hell. How come the city did not get overtaken by plant growth. After 30 years of negelct the coloseum was covered in vines and weeds. The streets are clean, sure parts were under the Psychlo fun-dome, even the uncovered areas looked untouched. How are building in Denver still standing after Earth in conquered in 9 minutes, and 1,000 years of Psychlo domination?
Then there is Fort Hood, ignorant cavemen find an army base which is still standing and has a bunker with pristine M16 rifles and working harrier jets and a running simulator. USMC pilots spend over 100 hours of flight time to learn the harrier jet. These illiterates are flying like Top Guns in 10 days. According to one cave-idiot, flying a harrier is like breaking in a wild horse.
The Psychlos are defeated by these humans because they are mentally handicapped. Terl(played by Travolta) takes the most dangerous and rebellous human Johnny Goodboy Tyler, and teaches him all he needs to know for revolution, H een taken him to the denver library, where paper has lasted for 1,000 years. Yet my dads old playboy's from the 70's started to wither and fall apart after 10 years.
When handed bars form Fort Knox Terl totally buy's Johnny's line "We smelted then in bars in your honor."
With all these screw-ups, it appears the screenwriter was comatose at the keyboard. With all these inconsistencies, I'm suprised I did not see a scene where Johnny find a pristine 7-11 with electricty, working slurpee machines, fresh milk and hot dogs still revolving on the warmer. That would still be more believable since we know 7-11 Hot Dogs and pizza sticks have shelf life of 1,000 years.
This film is the second worst Sci-fi I have ever seen, #1 is Theodore Rex. This film was created to push an insane religon, Theodore Rex was just plain stupid.