News Around the Net
Last week I went down a rabbit hole of watching fan-edited “modern trailers” for classic films. Check out this terrific trailer for The Empire Strikes Back:
I also absolutely love this trailer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:
I’m a huge fan of the Paley Center and everything they do. They have lots of great content available online — I encourage readers of this site to take a look. It’s a treasure trove! Here are a few examples of recent material that I’ve enjoyed:
This Parks and Recreation reunion from 2019:
Alan Sepinwall interviews Hank Azaria and Amanda Peet, discussing the final season of Brockmire:
Here’s a great hour-long interview, from Collider, with Ronald D. Moore, in which he discusses his work on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind (the recent Apple TV series that I loved), and Outlander:
And here’s another great Collider interview, this one with Paul Feig:
So, wow… after years of rumors, Zack Snyder will be completing and releasing his version of Justice League! I never thought this would actually happen. Mr. Snyder directed Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, building towards a planned two-film Justice League epic. But following the poor reviews of Batman v. Superman, his plans were curtailed… and then he would up leaving the post-production of Justice League following a family tragedy. Justice League was completed by Joss Whedon. There were aspects of the film I enjoyed, but not enough to say I thought it actually worked. For several years we’ve heard rumors about Mr. Snyder’s original almost four-hour cut, and all of the storylines he’d filmed that were excised from the theatrically released version. While I am unconvinced that Mr. Snyder’s original version will wind up being much better than the theatrical version (many/most of the problems in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman can be laid squarely at his feet), I am certainly very interested in seeing what he’d planned. It’s also cool that this release on HBO Max won’t necessarily be edited down to a two or three hour version. The articles suggests a four-hour-long version, perhaps separated into chapters, might be what they release. I’m intrigued!
(Interesting aside: not long after the news of Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League broke, Suicide Squad director David Ayer tweeted that a nearly-completed version of his original cut of that film also exists! Suicide Squad went through a famously difficult post-production period, and the film was apparently dramatically re-edited late in the game in an attempt to strike a lighter, more humorous tone. It’s hard to say who is ultimately responsible, but the finished film was terrible. Would David Ayer’s original version be stronger? I’m not sure, but I’d definitely be curious to find out!)
For so many years I have been hoping that James Cameron’s films The Abyss and True Lies would be released on blu-ray. It’s shocking these films are unavailable in any kind of decent modern home video release. For a thorough update on what’s been happening, and not happening, with these two films, click here.
If you’ve tried to watch The Simpsons on Disney+, then perhaps you’ve noticed that the first two decades’ of the series’ run have all been incorrectly cropped to 16×9 from the original 4×3 aspect ratio. Well, good news, everyone! (Oops, sorry, that’s Futurama, not The Simpsons…) It looks like Disney will soon be finally correcting that problem.
A new Star Trek series is in the works. Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn will be reprising the roles they played on Star Trek: Discovery season two (as Captain Pike, Mr. Spock, and Number One) for this spin-off show depicting their adventures on the U.S.S. Enterprise in the decade before the Original Series. I like this idea, and Anson Mount’s work as Captain Pike was one of the few bright spots for me in Discovery’s second season. But after having been disappointed by both Discovery and Picard, it’s hard for me to get too excited by the idea of a new Star Trek show with the same people behind the scenes. I have little reason to believe this show will be any better than those two. And one of Discovery’s main problems was its refusal to pay any attention at all to Star Trek continuity, despite its setting in the timeline of a decade before the Original Series. I was pleased that, at the end of season two, Discovery abandoned its prequel setting to jump into the future. That there will now be another show, called Strange New Worlds, set in the time-period that Discovery so completely failed to depict in a manner anywhere near being consistent with the looks and feel of the Original Series doesn’t give me much optimism. I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong, though…
I’ll wrap up with two Star Trek music-related videos (both of which I first saw on TrekMovie). First up, this talented violinist performs a medley of theme music from the various Star Trek shows. It’s beautiful:
And this classical soprano singer surprised her audience with a rendition of the original Star Trek theme:
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