Author: Shmee

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Shmee Travels Beyond With Star Trek!

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I think fans of Star Trek can start to breath a little easier, Star Trek Beyond is very much a Star Trek movie, and a good one at that.  It has its problems, but it feels like the people at Paramount and the producing team at Bad Robot took fans complaints to heart.  Without the action that was injected in to this movie it could have been an episode of the titular series.

Things have gotten a little slow for Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew.  They have been in deep space three years and the routine is starting to get to them.  They are starting to wonder if life aboard a ship is right for them.  In the middle of these personal quandaries they will come up against one of the toughest fights they have ever had to deal with in Krall (Idris Elba) a Federation hating alien bent on its destruction.

While Idris plays Krall menacingly enough, Krall is the worst part of this picture.  You never really understand why he wants to destroy the Federation that much.  They kind of explain it, and they have some ideological differences, but mostly he is just a threat that Kirk and Co have to deal with, and he does pose quite the threat.

The cast, as always, is the best part of this film.  They work so well in there respective roles, and I like that Star Trek Beyond split them in to smaller groups to let them play off of each other a little more.  The Star Trek series was known for this, so it was nice of Star Trek Beyond to return to that.  After three movies it is good to get a little character building.

Star Trek Beyond is not perfect, but it was a good course correction after Star Trek Into Darkness.  The nods and throwbacks in this movie were fun and well used instead of unearned and movie breaking.  In other words Star Trek Beyond is the kind of movie that fans have been wanting, and I hope that future movies follow its lead.

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This Futurama Fan Film Looks Fantastic!

I love that the people at Cinema Relics decided to go completely live action with this Futurama Fan Film.  It looks like the movies they used to make in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  I hope that Fox lets them complete the longer version because I can’t wait to see it!

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Shmee Witnesses Some Stranger Things!

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Do you miss the kids adventure films and slow burn horror flicks from the 80’s?  If you do, Stranger Things the new series on Netflix will be right up your alley.  Much like the movie Super 8, Stranger Things is an ode to the Spielbergian films of our past, but don’t get the impression that Stranger Things is just a nostalgia trip.  It would be good even if it didn’t play to the audience’s film history.

I would usually give a plot synopsis, but this is the kind of show where I don’ want to give anything away, but let’s just say there are a lot of kids on bikes and strange G-Men.  Which you would expect from a show like this.  It is also sad, scary, and darkly funny, so be prepared to cry, scream and laugh.

The cast is wonderful.  It is really great to see Winona Ryder in something substantive again.  It is a shame we haven’t seen more of her recently.  Maybe after this casting directors will remember why they loved her so much just a few years back.  The kids of the show all pull the own weight especially Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven.

Pretty much what I am saying is that you should watch Stranger Things which is ready to stream right now on Netflix.  The only real bad thing I can say about it is that the first season is only eight episodes long, so you will probably blow through it in a couple of nights, and then you will have to go through Stranger Things withdrawal.

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The Worst Thing And The Best Thing About Pokémon Go!

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The Worst Thing:

The original Pokémon games were all about finding cool Pokémon, leveling them up, naming them, and building attachments.  They grew as you became a better trainer.  People always had their favorites.  Pokémon that they had since the beginning that were now unstoppable.  Not so with Pokémon Go.  Pokémon Go is a meat grinder.  You find your first low level Pokémon to help you level up you, but later you find new better Pokémon, so you send off you old ones to the Professor for candy.  I am not sure how the Professor makes candy out of our old Pokémon, but it is probably best if we don’t think about it.  Poor, poor Pokémon.

The Best Thing:

The game show the a bright future for AR (augmented reality) gaming.  I am not sure how long Pokémon Go is going to last.  There is not a lot of game in it, and I am seeing a lot of people having trouble trying to stay motivated once they reach level 20.  When the game becomes less about hunting Pokémon and more about hatching 10K eggs and taking down gyms to pay for incubators to hatch said eggs, but even if Pokémon Go fades away it has shown how cool AR can be.

VR (virtual reality) is good at showing a whole new universe, but there is something special about overlaying a different universe over our own to tweak it a little.  To see fifty real people standing in front of a coffee shop all trying to catch a rare Venusaur that they can all see through their phones.  I can only imagine as things like Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens progress that AR games will only get better.  Who knows in the future we all might have so much AR tech that the difference between what is digital and what is real might be trivial.