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Well, I finally got off my broke ass and scooted over to the nearest IMAX theatre to catch the much-anticipated Star Trek reboot, and boy has my tolerance for film that doesn’t even try worn thin. I’m not going to snow anyone; I’m a Trekkie. Been since I was a kid. I was raised on the franchise by my nerd father, and properly instructed in the grand and secretive ways of Star Trek Nerd-dom. I’ve seen all the movies in the theatre save for the first ‘Motion Picture’ — I think; I was 4 at the time, maybe I just don’t remember — watched all the spin-off series and their accompanying films. Never attended any conventions, and I don’t currently own or collect any Trek paraphenalia, so maybe I’m a half-assed Trekkie but I keep up on the history and the mythology — unlike the new Star Trek film, which like every other TV-franchise-to-film reboot to come out in recent years seems to begin with the idea that, Hey, it sucked the first time around, we can do it better now. No, no you can’t. Turning something into an action-soaked milquetoast blockbuster with $50M worth of special effects and CGI and $20M worth of headline talent does not make it better. George Lucas proved this when his most hardcore fans put a fatwa out on him for turning an adult space opera into a Disney-esque fantasy romp.

The Onion indirectly did the Trek franchise justice with this mock entertainment review of the new film:

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

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As an update to my prior post about the ISS Node 3 Naming Contest and Stephen Colbert’s victory, NASA has, quite unsurprisingly, bitched out and opted instead to forego naming the new ISS module either Colbert or Serenity. Instead, NASA has wisely chosen to bestow upon Node 3 the equally unrelated and inappropriate monicker of Tranquility. Supposedly this was done as some kind of homage to the Apollo 11 lunar mission, the 40th anniversary of which will be this July (16th for the launch, 20th for the actual landing), which landed in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility). And the soon-to-be-attached Giant Recycle Bin relates to that mission how? Exactly. Just NASA abusing naming conventions once again…

And as a further insult, announced by tonight’s Colbert Report guest, astronaut/NASA bitch proxy Sunita Williams, Stephen Colbert will still gain infamy in space as a piece of orbital exercise equipment. That’s right, folks: the name Colbert will be immortalized as a treadmill, the retardedly-dubbed Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill — the COLBERT. Here’s a clip of the segment from the show:

So as a reward for Stephen Colbert doing his part in what has been announced to be the “International Years of Astronomy” to get the mob interested in space ventures, NASA decided it would be more prudent to flip Colbert’s own mockeries on him and grant visitors to the ISS the dubious pleasure of quipping things like, “Well, I got to go hop on the COLBERT for 20 minutes!” This is really just another in a slew of NASA PR and strategic disasters to which I’ll have to dedicate an entire separate rant, and that have ultimately decided for me to place both my faith and support in both Russia’s and China’s space programs, as both those nations seem signficantly more intent on making actual progress than the USA in space matters. NASA has placed itself in the position of being the cousin-with-Down’s-Syndrome of the federal budget for years and when one of their half-baked publicity stunts backfires, instead of actually taking the path of least resistance, they balked and spurned everyone who actually made an effort to support one of their nation’s causes. Way to show the love, douchebags.

I hope the Russians or Chinese invent a reusable transatmospheric/transorbital spacecraft that surpasses NASA’s dilapidated space shuttles in every way, and they name the first one Enterprise. Seriously, eat a dick, NASA. All you’re good at is blowing up space shuttles, neglecting the technologies that inspire people, like the Hubble Space Telescope, and blaspheming the democratic process. Time for someone who knows what they’re doing to take over.

A Malediction

Having been exposed to the fallout from the closure of Tabula Rasa, I’ve gotten the general impression that most individuals, even avid gamers, can’t seem to connect with the larger issues at hand. I don’t have any advice for such persons, nor any desire to advise them. If you failed to experience Tabula Rasa because of your own petty narcissism or simply weren’t capable of realizing its agonizing glory because of being fixated on masturbatory swords and sorcery diversions like Word of Warcraft, you are the lesser for it and I can not guide you toward enlightenment, nor offer you absolution. And if you do subscribe to that juvenile mystical fantasy, well, then you’re just another one of the canaille and in all likelihood will continue living the rest of your frivolous existence being a part of the problem and not the solution. Normally, I’d offer a suggestion in-line with Bill Hick’s regarding those involved with marketing and advertising: “Kill yourself…” but, seriously, there may be hope for you in adopting some form of permanent unconsciousness.

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A Postmortem

On February 28, 2009, one of very few active science fiction-oriented MMORPGs came to an abrupt end after only 16 months online. Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa, developed by Destination Games under the direction — or at least the branding — of Lord British himself (since promoted to General), the possible creative brain behind the well-known Ultima series of PC games, was released November 2, 2007 with relatively little fanfare and a very tepid reception from the gaming community, especially where it concerns the numerous review sites now sadly instrumental to the success of many a title. Despite its namesake being almost synonymous with great storytelling and gameplay, Tabula Rasa garnered nothing but excessively heavy-handed criticism and, after apparently repeatedly failing to meet quarterly earnings expectations by publisher NC Soft, the Korean company behind City of Heroes, Lineage, Guild Wars and their associated spin-offs and sequels, it was announced that it would be prematurely cancelled after it had reached only 12 months and 3 weeks of service. While possibly not an uncommon occurrence in the game development market — after all, it seems a great number of games die off while still in development, never having been published at all — I’ve the impression this particular situation warrants some postmortem analysis because of a very unique set of circumstances that may be partially responsible for the pre-emptive demise of what I considered to be a great offering in video gaming entertainment. More importantly, this latest casualty of the entertainment industry as a whole — video games, film, television or print — really just presents another symptom of an ongoing infection; a plague being treated by that industry with mediocre, monotonous, and uninspired content.

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