Shmee.Me

April 2, 2015

Star Wars Versus Star Trek, Shmee’s Take!

io9.com recently had their Sci-Fi/Fantasy March Madness poll, and it came down to Star Wars versus Star Trek. It was a predictable final two, but one that was very hard for me to choose between. On the surface they appear to be similar: they take place in space, they have a multitude of alien species, and they both get in quite a few skirmishes, but they are in reality very different.

Star Wars is a mystic fantasy with a mysterious and powerful ancient religion, and no matter how far things progress, they will always stay the same. Humanity can’t get better than it is. There is no light without the dark. Star Trek on the other hand is totally Sci-Fi. Everything can be explained by science, and humanity is always getting better. Give humans more time, and they will make themselves in to better people.

Those are both interesting premises (one person broke it down between theocracy and communism, and he wasn’t far off), and I love to delve in to their worlds, but the fantasy element is what makes Star Wars end up winning this battle for me. It allows my imagination to run wild. Sure it is a bit pessimistic about human nature (so am I), but it gives me space ninjas with laser swords, and a hope that one day I will be able to turn off my light switch at night by just concentrating really hard. I guess I will always be thirteen.

That doesn’t mean the space exploration, and constant state of discovery that Star Trek provides is lost on me. It just doesn’t give my imagination the same sort of jump start that Star Wars does. I love both these franchises very much, but in the end if I had to pick one it would be Star Wars, prequels and all. I hope next year io9.com doesn’t force me to pick between DC and Marvel, because that would just be cruel.

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

Season Five Of The Walking Dead Has Been Put To Rest!

For the season five finale of the Walking Dead the writers tried something new. Instead of a giant battle with lots of dead people, why not tie up a few story lines. That is not to say the finale was not tense, and it did supply some good action, but it was more of a slow burn. I think it was a nice change for once. Not every finale has to have tanks and explosions (though those are things I love). Plot development can be pretty satisfying too.

The juxtaposition of where they started this half season to where they ended it was quite nice as well. In the first episode they were betrayed by what they thought was going to be a safe haven, and in the end they were setup to be possible betrayers of an actual safe haven. The characters have been pushed so far they are willing to take what they need from very nice, well mostly nice, people.

It will be interesting to see what the crew will have to do to try and keep their new home safe. There are a lot of bad people in that world, and they seem to be getting worse, and if the people of Alexandria think Rick is bad, they have no idea what is going to start coming for them. I am pretty sure that the town’s population is going to decrease quite a bit.

So all in all it was a good season, with an interesting, but not terribly eventful finale. It also gave me probably my favorite line of the show by Rick, “I was thinking, how many of you people am I going to have to kill to save your lives?” Perfect Rick. A little crazy, but 100% true. We will see if Rick has to kill any Alexandrian’s to save their lives next season.

March 27, 2015March 30, 2015

Will Ferrell Sings The Star Trek Theme!

I know my blog has been YouTube heavy this week, but times are slow in the Shmee media consumption department. Still Will Ferrell singing the Star Trek theme is pretty great, and it really does need to be on my blog. This is no doubt the best thing to that has happened because of the Get Hard movie.

March 26, 2015March 27, 2015

The X-Files? Really?

People are all a buzz about the X-Files coming back, but I have almost no interest in this whatsoever. To be fair I was never a big fan of the original show. It had all sorts of things that I loved, aliens, ghosts, and tons of other sci-fi/horror whatsits. The problem was that the show could never really elevate itself above its police procedural genre trappings. In other words it was boring. Now I know the show has a lot of fans, and they are supper excited, but it is not like the X-Files has not been given second chances. It has. There have been two X-Files movies, and while the first one was okay, the second one was terrible. I am not sure that there are more X-Files stories to tell.

I hear the plan is to do one long serialized story a year with different actors each year, ala HBO’s True Detective, but that sounds even worse. If the X-Files can’t keep a ninety minute movie interesting, how are they going to fill two hundred and sixty-four minutes (six times forty-four). Not to mention, will it be the X-Files without Scully and Mulder? Plus instead of purely being the X-Files, they are now just copying another show (I am pretty sure there is a Simpsons episode about this). I guess if season one is a success we will find out, but I am not sold.

I know Fox is desperate to try and get some hit shows to bring their advertising revenues up, and the revival of 24 worked, but bringing out and dusting off the X-Files seems like a setup for failure. I hope for the fans’ sake they got a couple of more good files left in the cabinet. You guys will have to let me know how it turns out because I have a lot of other good TV to watch.

March 25, 2015

The Paladin, The Fall

Mrs. The Paladin and I just finished watching The Fall on Netflix. Weighing in at only 11 episodes (5 episode in Series 1 and 6 episodes in Series 2), The Fall follows the Northern Ireland Police as they investigate a series of murders perpetrated by a serial killer. The Fall’s unique take on the police procedural is that we know who the killer is and even follow him for large chunks of time. This gives the show a much more psychological thriller vibe as you are watching the game of cat and mouse between the killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) and Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (a very NOT Agent Scully, Gillian Anderson).

The Fall is pretty adult, dealing with adult themes, and can be very uncomfortable at times; especially when it juxtaposes Paul Spector’s life as a husband and father with his life as a killer. It can be difficult to watch the man you just saw sneak into a woman’s house in the scene before kiss his daughter goodnight in the next scene. Another facet of the show is how Paul is an interesting foil to Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson because the two are similar in some ways – they are both highly intelligent, bristle at authority (in Gibson’s case it is patriarchy), and are driven by strong sexual urges. Of course in Gibson’s case she upholds the law while Spector shirks the law.

Series 3 was just announced this month and should be out by the end of the year, which helps with the ending of Series 2 which doesn’t end with a cliffhanger per-say, but left room for the story to continue. Neither Mrs. The Paladin and I were very satisfied with the ending however. The whole time you’re thinking Spector’s got one final trick up his sleeve… and yet it just don’t happen.

If you are looking for a dark, patient, psychological thriller than I suggest giving The Fall a try, although you might want to wait until Series 3 comes out to give you a better ending.