Pirates and Khan

I recently bought two DVDs that I recall watching in the theaters now some twenty years ago. For that reason, they were moderately cheap. The two DVDs were Star Trek; The Wrath of Khan and Dragonslayer.

For my money, still the best of the Star Trek movies is the second one. Jaime favors Star Trek 6, but that has a bit too much political intrigue, and Kim Cattrall as Valeris is too annoying for words (Nicholas Meyer wanted to get Kirstie Alley to reprise her role as Saavik, which would have really punched up the drama--but really, even her replacement Robin Curtis would have been far better than Cattrall).

Star Trek 2 tells a revenge plot and is based on an episode in the original series, Space Seed. In it, Khan and his followers have left Earth circa late 1990s, when there was a eugenics war, and Khan had attempted to take over the Earth and failed. He fled to space in suspended animation with his crew. He gets revived by Kirk and the Enterprise, and then proceeds to take over the ship. Eventually, they regain control and put him on a planet where he can do as he pleases.

Star Trek 2 takes place twenty years later. The planet, Ceti Alpha 5, which had been something of a paradise is now inhospitable. A nearby planet had exploded, shifted the orbit, and the crew simply surviving, hoping against hope that someone would find them. As it turns out, Chekhov is part of a new crew looking to find a dead planet to terraform and find this planet, not realizing that Khan is on the planet.

This leads to Khan getting off the planet and deciding to take revenge on Kirk, using the terraforming device known as Genesis as his weapon.

Khan makes revenge his sole motive, even as he can presumably live life as a free man, he must find vengeance. That simple tale, and of course, the sacrifice of Spock at the end, gave the film a kind of emotional heft that the chilly first Star Trek film lacked (though, for my money, it's perhaps the second or third best film, despite a tone that's more 2001 than Star Trek).

Indeed, the Star Trek franchise was really hurt by Star Trek 4. As fun as that was, the producers of Trek felt they needed to add humor and Star Trek 5 was godawful. Shatner claims better special effects would have helped. No, a better storyline would have helped. Star Trek 6 moved in a better direction, but Cattrall makes the film unbearable, and its Klingon as Gorbachev Russia just didn't work for me.

I bought the director's cut, so we'll see if Meyer did much different with this than the original.

Back in the day, there were movie trailers, but they were far less prevalent as they are now. You used to see three or four trailers before a film. Now, it's not unusual to see 8 or 10 trailers. People who make trailers are copycats. They use the same style over and over until they get tired of that, and move to another style.

For example, if you watch the trailer for Dirty Harry, you see scenes from the film that are minutes long. No trailer these days sticks to any scene for more than about 10-15 seconds. Three minute dialogues are out. By the time trailers are made for Star Trek 2 (and even through Star Wars), the voiceover is king.

Typically, you hear a guy telling you about the film in voiceover. The Star Wars and Star Trek trailer have a fair bit of voiceover.

These are gone in modern trailers. Look at, say, the trailer for Superman Returns. It's typical of modern trailers. In particular, you see short snippets, then black, then a short snippet, then black. It's always black, fade into a scene and repeat. There are short pieces of dialog, and lots of music, as the director of the trailer tries to create a wall of sound and emotion.

If there's need for dialog, it's done in words. Most famous for this is the trailer to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback is unusual because unlike, say, Superman, they only ever made one trailer for the film. Superman has at least three. But it's so distinctive that it's been parodied to death. The text that is used "It was a friendship. That became a secret. There are places we can't return. There are lies we have to tell. There are truths we can't deny." and then some text about Ang Lee and so forth. Its simple melody and its famous line "I wish I could quit you" have to make this one of the most effective trailers ever.

Last night, I watched the sequel, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. To be honest, I don't remember a whole lot from the original, though I did recall enjoying it.

Everyone's already pointed out the plot for this film is rather labyrinthine. There's Jack Sparrow (Depp) who owes Davy Jones, an octopus like man-beast, his soul. There's Will Turner (Bloom) who needs Jack's special compass to free his true love, Elizabeth. There's Bill Turner (Stellan Skarsgard) who is Will's father and part of Davy Jones's cursed crew, and still cares for his son.

The film is really, however, a bunch of set pieces played for comic effect, wrapped up in part mystery, part mythic task common in fantasies like Lord of the Rings. Thus, we have Depp being treated as the sacrificial king of a cannibalistic tribe, a sword sequence on a waterwheel, two ships battling each other, a Kraken creature (first mentioned in Clash of the Titans, which came out about the same time as Dragonslayer).

Perhaps the two pieces that serve as a kind of emotional core are Will Turner's relation to his father, and whether Elizabeth might not care as much for Will as we thought she did, and possibly have some emotions for Jack.

For whatever reason, late night dinner with the largest magarita I've ever had (fortunately, two others to share it with) or a two plus hour running length or maybe it's just the film isn't all that, but I found it tough to stay completely engaged in this film. Depp isn't nearly as good in this film, and seems a touch bored or puzzled throughout. I couldn't get into all the action sequences that didn't mean that much to me.

Even though Cars was predictable, its special effects really gave a sense of awe and power, and created very likeable characters. John Lasseter just seems to have that much better of a grasp of what makes a good story go. I don't mind that PotC makes its plot hard to follow. It makes for some good discussion afterwards. For example, I really enjoyed the first Mission Impossible movie better than all the others. It has a plot I still haven't figured out (and frankly don't care to), but enjoy much better anyway.

Pirates, like Empire, ends on a cliffhanger. Davy Jones's heart has been stolen from Jack, who appears as if he's been killed by the Kraken. They're back at the voodoo woman's place.

I'll probably watch the third part, but the second one (this one) wasn't so inspiring.