Hobbs's Profile

Dragon Slayer?

awesome!

hey hobbs, if you haven't gotten it, you really need to find Shatner's "Star Trek Movie Memories" book

find a hardcover if at all possible...it's a big book...and it actually gives a lot of the detail on the behind the scenes squabbling

Trek 1 -- Roddenberry had been watching Close Encounters and Star Wars, and decided to greatly up the visuals....he put in those long, snail paced flyby's of the Enterprise...

plus the director never really had a chance to view the final cut because they really were debuting a "rough cut" of the movie at their world premier....no one had ever seen just how long and tedious it was, they only saw bits and pieces out of order

I haven't seen the special edition of this, it's so hard to find in this particular area, the visuals were very good for this movie, but even the crew felt the actors were buried under all the special effects....a sort of precursor to the Star Wars Prequels

Trek 2 - this movie went through like 5 or 6 completely different drafts before Nick Meyer got ahold if it......he rewrote it all in 12 days.....awesome stuff...I do have this one on special edition...I was fine with the changes...and the expanded role of Scotty's nephew

Trek 3 - I'm not sure if Carol Marcus was kept out intentionally or not.....I will have to look that up, but since it's more about Spock, I don't think it ever truly entered Harve Bennett's mind to pursue that relationship.....although there is the scene in spacedock where Enterprise shows her scars and in some lounge a blond woman stands up in somewhat shock.....I've often wondered if that was meant to be Carol, only recast in some form...

Trek 4 - see, they can make a standard Trek movie that appeals to all audiences

Trek 5 - Shatner, blame Shatner, that's all I can say.....he wanted rock creatures, he talks about that in his book, he also wanted angelic beings that become devils intent on bringing the crew into hell on the planet surface

I'll forgive this one on only one cause -- Shatner was watching all these televangelists, and got to thinking "how is it these people can manipulate the masses in such a means?"  he was watching Tammy Faye Baker and her husband, and all the rest....his starting point was fine, but after that it all just went to hell...

Trek  6 - a tribute to Roddenberry, yes, did he like what he saw? absolutely not. he knew of the story they'd tell, and his opinion was Kirk and crew should say "we want to help you, come let us cooperate" while the Klingons wanted nothing to do with it

Roddenberry did die in this timeframe, and everyone was thinking of how to honor him, I think it was Leonard Nimoy who came up with the tribute at the beginning....because, honestly, since Trek 2 Roddenberry had been cast aside and Paramount let him make Star Trek TNG basically to shut him up, and milk more money from Star Trek

Generations -- both crews were supposed to encounter each other...in fact both ships were to come across a time rift to encounter each other, but most of the TOS crew said "we'd said our goodbyes" and in a much better fashion with Trek 6

they were right...Trek 6 was a feast, Generations was sort of like fastfood...there's a big difference between Nick Meyer and Brannon Braga....I did like the somewhat mystical, new age feel of Generations and the Nexus (in fact I'd like to see the nexus again somewhere)

originally the idea to crash the Enterprise was to be the season finale for TNG

First Contact -- originally the Borg were going back to Renaissance Italy, but thankfully that didn't happen....great movie

Insurrection -- another great movie, if a bit undervalued -- loved F. Murray Abraham as the villain...he makes a good villain, even in "Amadeus"

Patrick stewart wanted to do something more light hearted....this movie also underwent its countless rewrites, so much that as it was screened, Trek fans felt it was becoming a chick flick, given the relationship of Picard and...well I can't think of her name right now.....my only complaint is the CGI probes look too CGI

Nemesis -- I heard John Logan was writing this, and immediately got very, very excited....I'd kill to see his final draft of this script

Logan is a devoted Trek fan (and it shows) but some of his terminology is still rooted in TNG, when we've had a good ten years for it to grow...the intent of exploring an evil Picard (in a sense) was okay...didn't really need another Data....it did really try to be Wrath of Khan and shouldn't have....

and why the hell did the Starfleet Taskforce not realize something was going on when the Enterprise never showed up? they should've come charging in like the calvary, only to also get slaughtered by Shinzon.....oh, and then the crippled Enterprise could've been ignored, only to have them slam into the ship while Shinzon's not looking.....

I just thought of that, that'd be better than what happened......but Logan's long drawn out battle doesn't feel drawn out in the least.....

11 one of my biggest issues is the "commercialization" of Trek -- we now have Abram's logo in front of the movie, which takes away the authenticity....it's like it's now "star trek, brought to you by pepsi, drink pepsi cause Kirk does" kind of thing

whew

but that book movie memories is awesome, I'm re-reading parts of it to hopefully shake some of my rose colored vision of hollywood

I freely admit I don't know as much on Wars as I do on Trek

and (here's a fun piece of trivia) back in high school, when we were rounding out our senior year, the juniors would make 'predictions' of where each of us seniors would be in ten years

they declared that, a decade later, I'd be on Star Trek

I'd still like to know who came up with that little prediction....

any ways...

you know you're a truly devoted fan when news of your beloved series and its possible destruction KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT! storms rolled through my area last night, and as the rain began to fall, I thought "good now I can get back to sleep," but all the bad possibilities from JJ Abrams kept me awake....

Lucas has always stated he's more interested in the visual, editorial, and direction side of it, especially in animation -- it's just him and the work, no  actors to "get in the way" as he put it

George is NOT a writer...yet he often gets the writer's credit...George is a storyteller in the more general terms, being very good at the basic brushstrokes on the painting, but he has to have others come in and do the actual work to make it really good

Greedo is annoying, I give you that, and yes with the special editions Lucas did become too involved with CGI...those scenes literally stick out like sore thumbs

Empire and Jedi were, of course, better.....because Lucas had given over the reins....it's sad to say a man's best work is when he just comes up with the story and gives other people the property to work on

there was a character in either Empire or Jedi that was cut, some kind of "light man," who generated a lot of light....can't figure out what he was thinking there

the great advantage of 4 - 6 is the fact Lucas only wrote one of them, and that he had a ton of material that became these 3 movies

the prequels on the other hand...

I sat in a theater one night with my friend, watching Phantom Menace. But actually I'd bought the illustrated screenplay and read the script, and couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Then the crawl comes up and states the bit about the Federation's taxes and the blockade, and I almost screamed "this whole damned thing is about taxes?! you've got to be kidding me!"
(I'd later revise that statement)

Jar Jar....well...you know it's great you can have a Jar Jar, and George does seem to have a reasonably fair sense of humor, he just shouldn't do comedy...ever...

an interesting thing Lucas has said about the prequels is that they are "tome poems," much like Star Trek 1 is also a tome poem, it has a "higher" story to tell

what really annoys me (and this includes the new Star Trek and Enterprise) is how the past looks far more advanced than the future

fans were disappointed with Darth Maul getting sliced in two...and at the time I wondered about the state of the audience when they were sad the bad guy wasn't coming back

Attack of the Clones

I saw this movie with my female cousin (even though I knew better to take her, I took her anyways, she talks during movies)

this movie looked FLAT...absolutely flat, as in no depth perception in the image which is most notably seen when Anakin is traveling across the desert to eventually kill all the sandpeople.

the scene (and this cracks me up) where Anakin is shirtless, laying in bed, dreaming about his mom and he's muttering to myself.....well.....it just looks like he's about to have an orgasm, and his mom's giving it to him

as for his mom, that whole bit about her laying on a cross like structure, I went "oh please"

I bought the novelization for this book and read it before hand....there might've been much more in the story that was cut out, from what I remember......see if you can find the novel.....it's the only Star Wars novel I own

Revenge of the Sith

although much improved, we're still dealing with the prequel curse in this, abundant CGI (which was interesting in some places), the emotions come across as very weak (as in the previous two movies), and Anakin, the Backstreet Boy from a galaxy far, far away....is going to be Vader

and that bit about " you underestimate my power..." is....well...terrible

I remember remarking to someone "hey, now we're going to see Lucas unfiltered on the big screen, he's writing the script, he's directing the movie, etc"
I was very happy.....then I watched the movies

I'll say this though -- watching the DVD's special features was, is, and always be the best part of these movies...I've learned more watching those features (and from a few other movies) than I have anywhere

Lucas....he's a good storyteller...but he needs to tell someone the story so they can tell it even better...he keeps reselling everything, he keeps finding useless reasons to publish books of stuff on his franchise we don't need...but he's among the best in the business

but he should also really just stop

oh yes, Spielberg, Lucas, and a few other Name Directors were also solicited to make Star Trek 1 and 2, which would've been terrible...Spielberg is great, but he's not a person I want on the Enterprise...

Hey Hobbs - I love your comments, you're always intelligent and insightful. Thanks for the friends request!

there's nothing like a reboot of Trek to really get the people worked up, eh Hobbs?

Rob's Mania review has brought us all out...and they're trying to squash me (while i'm doing my best to keep my level headed sanity) but some people just want to get prove themselves or top each other while I keep bleating on about keeping the timeline intact.....

oh well, I'm just as crazy as they are...

I can understand some of your trepidations about Voyager hobbs

I often scream about Brannon Braga screwing things up...well this is the second place where he really did such atrocities...it started in the later seasons of Next Generation, but some truly laughable things came out of Voyager, all thanks to Braga

but, to be fair, a few good things were also the result of Braga's collaborations with J. Menosky -- they often did some pretty good two parters, like "The Killing Game," "Unimatrix Zero," and one I think that was called "Past Tense," but I'd have to double check that.

the first season of Voyager was kind of stale and antiseptic...

the second season was a little darker in tone...and the writer's were starting to find their way, but Voyager, just like Next Generation, started taking off in its 3'rd season...which also featured a damned good two parter cliffhanger called "Scorpion"

eventually Braga departed the show, and it sort of returned to a somewhat Next Generation, somewhat antiseptic feel, but it wasn't so bad it made me turn it off...

I honestly feel Voyager's potential was wasted...I also felt it was played too safely in some cases...

I don't recall your feelings towards Deep Space Nine (which was really, really good) or if we've even had a back and forth about that series, but Voyager could've learned a lot from DS9, especially those final six episodes (or thereabouts) which was an overreaching storyline that essentially to be continued until the two hour finale

Braga screwed up some of the Borg timeline in Voyager, he wrote that just laughable episode "Threshold" where Tom Paris evolves into a large orange lizard...shudder...it was just terrible....and then The Doctor miraculously de-evolves him at the end of the episode...that's pushing it far beyond even the realm of sci-fi believability to me...that and what I think was his Next Gen. episode "Genesis" which had the whole crew de-evolving, only at a slower pace....Barclay's a spider, Troi's a fishy woman...Riker is a caveman....etc

Some of Braga's better efforts where when he was paired with Joe Menosky...and those are some of the episodes I pointed out earlier

Scorpion, which had Voyager teaming up with the Borg to destroy a new, invading species when it turned out the Borg actually invaded their territory, etc.

Equinox, which had another ship lost in the Delta Quadrant, which used very questionable means to get home by killing aliens, genetically modifying them, and using them as fuel

The Killing Game featured the Hirogen taking over Voyager and running deadly simulations of World War II, the Crusades, a Klingon exercise, and a few others while the crew were made to take part in these brutal battles while having neural implants to make themselves believe they actually were holodeck characters fighting WWII and so on...

Year of Hell, another two parter, featured not time travel exactly, but temporal manipulation....a madman has invented a huge ship that exists outside of space\time, and he's wiping out entire races and planets in an effort to restore his home world and, ultimately, his family....

Unimatrix Zero was another Borg episode, which was well done, having Janeway, Tuvok and Torres assimilated while the crew try to liberate Borg with a genetic defect which restores their individuality in a dream state...and they try to bring that process into the real world...

I still think if they'd maintained a much more deliberate over arcing storyline for each season it might've been a lot better

and when Janeway let her hair down (both literally and as a captain) her character really became something wonderful

and we had a few good Q episodes, which is always nice

and there were the clunkers, like the one called 'Tuvix' in which Tuvok and Neelix  melded into one being in a transporter accident

Chakotay wasn't used very well either...he was basically a walking prop, and was somewhat ineffective as a person in command...not the actor's fault, the writer's fault..

Endgame was the final episode, showing how they got back home...another Borg episode, another time traveling story....but it was good

too many time travel stories have watered down the effectiveness of it as a viable plot...it really is "oh, another time travel story......okay....." and that's about it

I can't make any claims about "Enterprise..." I haven't even seen a complete episode

on the whole, Voyager wasn't bad...it just never reached the point of what it could've been

Hobbs, what server you play WOW on?

Howdy Hobbs!

JD here from the Movies for Nobodies podcast. I'm doing some grass roots marketing for our weekly movie podcast. If you're into audio podcast then check us out. We talk everything movies...trailers, news, opinions, etc...

We've been doing it for about 3 years, we have a newly designed website and almost all of our episodes are still available on our website and on iTunes. The website is set up as a "blog site" so it's easy to leave your opinions on the different topics.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hear from you!
 

yo hobbs i to am also a fan of calvin and hobbs - first i wanted to say thanks for accepting my friends request (granted that it may be a little late) and second if you havent heard about it already I just finished reading a book called Looking For Calvin And Hobbs: The Unconventional story Of Bill Watterson And His Revolutionary Comic Strip. It's a great look at the history of the C&H comic strip as well as great insight into the strips creator- Thought I would Give you a heads up on that one. See you around on the posts

Hobbs - What happened was I started watching The Pacific and then I remembered ESPN was showing a Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks documentary (good documentary if you like basketball) at the same time so I switched to that. I have The Pacific on my DVR so I’ll watch the whole thing before the next episode.

If you don’t have HBO, try looking online to see if you can find the episodes while you wait for the DVD release. That’s what I’m planning on doing with the Supernatural Season 5 episodes that have aired so far.