Star Trek Titan: Taking Wing

Thursday I finished reading the novel Star Trek Titan: Taking Wing. Taking Wing is the first volume in a series chronicling the adventures of Captain William T. Riker and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Titan. Will's wife, Commander Deanna Troi, is of course aboard as the ships' counselor and diplomatic officer, as are Alyssa Ogawa from The Next Generation and Melora Pazlar from Deep Space Nine. The novel also features Leonard James Akaar, born in the classic Trek episode "Friday's Child," now an esteemed Starfleet admiral. Titan is heralded in the novel as having the most species-diverse crew in Starfleet, and parts of the novel explore the dynamics of integrating such a crew, including the engineering difficulties of accommodating diverse needs.

Taking Wing begins with the Titan leaving drydock with sealed orders from Starfleet, mediated by Akaar. Although the crew expected to be on a mission of scientific discovery, they are sent instead to help broker internal negotiations within the Romulan Empire. This brings other familiar faces into the picture, including Tomalak from The Next Generation, and Donatra, Suran, and Tal'Aura from Nemesis, along with new characters like Xiomek, leader of the Reman faction. On this mission, Titan is accompanied by two Starfleet tender ships, as well as—provocatively—three Klingon Vor'cha class cruisers, led by Captain Kegh of the I.K.S. Vaj, present at the Remans' request.

I found this to be a very enjoyable story (except for the romantic subplots, which I could live without). The characterizations of Riker and Deanna are very well done, and several of the new characters and old friends work very well in the story. The book ends with a "cliffhanger" hook into the next Titan novel, The Red King, which has not yet been released. This promises to be a fun and interesting series.

Imaginext dinosaurs: cool toys, goofy storyline

Recently Fisher-Price added a dinosaur range to their Imaginext line of toys. The dinos are fun to play with, but there are some real oddities here. For one thing, the dinosaurs are anachronistically accompanied by cavemen, and often equipped with saddles so the cavemen can ride them. That's a bit confusing for budding paleontologists, but these aren't history toys, they're let's-pretend toys, and we can imagine a world where people and dinosaurs live side-by-side. Here's another thing, though: one of the big dinos is "Thunder the brontosaurus"—except that "brontosaurus" is a fiction, a great mistake, a camarasaurus head attached to an apatasaurus body (but I guess "Thunder the apatasaurus" didn't jingle in the ear quite right).

But here's the biggest thing that bugs me about the Imaginext dinosaur line: the attempt at a backstory. Fisher-Price has tried to unify and energize each of their Imaginext ranges by means of overarching storylines. Thus the medieval system has mutated into King Arthur and the pirates range has mutated into the adventures of Captain Hook. Some of this is pretty cool, and some is just repackaging of the same figures in new dress. But back to the dinosaurs. Here's the dinosaur backstory, drawn from the web site:

Imagine ... a civilization of humans and dinosaurs, living in a lush, green land. One side—the predators—are using up its natural resources, wiping out everything and everyone that gets in their way. The other side—the ecovores—want to preserve their land. And they're willing to fight to make that happen. Will the predators succeed in destroying the land, causing their own extinction? Or will the ecovores stop the destruction and make the land a place where dinosaurs and humans can live together peacefully? In the world of Imaginext, anything is possible!

Not only is this radical environmentalist mumbo-jumbo masquerading as a children's story, but it is bad radical environmentalist mumbo-jumbo. In the first place, predators like tyrannosaurus, allosaurus, and velociraptor were, of course, themselves part of a thriving ecosystem, not destroyers thereof. Removal of such predators from their ecosystem would actually destroy the balance in that ecosystem. Second, Fisher-Price has named the preservationist heroes of their story "ecovores"—which is not only absurd but incoherent within the storyline. The combining form eco- is obviously from ecology, but the combining form -vore has to do with what an organism devours (it's derived from Latin vorare). Thus carni-vores eat meat, herbi-vores eat plants, omni-vores eat both, and trust me, you don't want to know what copro-vores (more commonly called "coprophages") eat. Thus, the heroes of this backstory, the ecovores, are "those who devour the ecology," which is ridiculous for creatures trying to preserve the ecology. But as far as that goes, who ever heard of herbivores trying to "preserve" the ecology? What could that possibly mean? Strict fern rationing for the brachiosaurus? Pachycephalosauri limited to eating five lilly pads per meal? It's just silly.

Of course, the absurd backstory won't stop Nathan and me from playing with the toys (in fact some are on Nathan's Amazon.com wishlist, maintained under my e-mail address). It's just nicer when the toys actually make sense.

Strange coincidences

Tonight as I was working on various projects at the kitchen table, I popped Jurassic Park and then Jurassic Park III (sometimes I like to pretend that Jurassic Park II was a long dream sequence) to play on the TV while I was mostly focused on other stuff. When Jurassic Park III ended and I pushed the "stop" button on my remote control, I thought I must have hit the wrong button, because I was still hearing the end title music. It turns out that I had my television tuned to the Sci-Fi Channel, where Jurassic Park was ending at the same time that my VCR hit the end of Jurassic Park III. As they used to say on Hee-Haw, "fact is stranger than truth."

Fantastic Four: a pleasant surprise

I finally had the chance to see the Fantastic Four movie at a matinee today, and I was very pleasantly surprised! I went in expecting something about the quality level of The Hulk, but found it to be much better than that, at least as good as Daredevil and maybe in the range of X-Men 2. The origin story was handled pretty well, though purists won't like the major changes to the source and nature of Dr. Doom's powers (or the introduction of Debbie Grim, or the change in Alicia Masters's ethnicity). Although the story features superhumans as the main characters, it's really a very human story. There is, of course, the Fantastic Four (heroes) vs. Dr. Doom (villain) plot, with a big fight at the end of the movie. Yet it many ways the story is more about how Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny deal with this sudden, unprecedented change in their lives. Oh, and by the way, the special effects are really good, very "believable" within the context of a superhero movie. I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to seeing it again (probably on DVD though, not on the big screen). If you even mildly like superhero movies, this one is worth seeing.

Goodbye, Jimmy

It's a sad day for Star Trek fans, as James Doohan, the original crew's "Montgomery Scott" ("Scotty"), has passed away at the age of 85. Read an obituary here.

Super heroes, so-so songs

After a few more days of listening, I am ready to pronounce the Fantastic Four movie album "mediocre." Musically, the best of the bunch is the Ben Moody/Anastacia team-up "Everything Burns," but the lyrics are pessimistic and depressing. Joss Stone's "What Ever Happened to the Heroes" at least makes some sense thematically, but her characterization of what constitutes a "hero"&emdash;"fast moves, fast cars, and remote control"&emdash;is completely inane. Ryan Cabrera's "Always Come Back to You" has a catchy melody, but incoherent lyrics ("I may not feel this way forever ... it has to be tonight ... I'll always come back to you") that sound like a pitch for a one-night stand with empty promises for the long-term future. The hip-hop/rap offerings "Relax" (by Chingy), "New World Symphony" (by Miri Ben-Ari featuring Pharoahe Monch), and "On Fire" (by Lloyd Banks, who follows the annoying trend of inserting his own name into the song) do nothing whatsoever to improve the overall album. I do kind of like Sum 41's "Noots," at least rhythmically, though it's a bit hard to make out the lyrics. T.F.F.'s "I'll Take You Down" and Breaking Point's "Goodbye to You" are okay musically, but somewhat too hostile; I suppose I would put them in the same category with Matchbox 20's "Push." "Shed My Skin" has some appeal as well. The other tracks are nothing to blog about. I just hope the movie isn't as disappointing as the album.

The Fantastic Four Album

The companion album to the Fantastic Four movie is now available at the iTunes Music Store and, I presume, elsewhere. Like the albums for Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Daredevil, the album does not present the movie's soundtrack, but rather an eclectic selection of tracks from a variety of largely unknown (to me) bands. I've only heard/seen the two video tracks, "Come On Come In" by Velvet Revolver and "Everything Burns" by Ben Moody and Anastacia. I can't say I'm particularly impressed. I liked the visual styles of both of the videos, which combine video of the musicians, clips from the movie, comic book illustrations, and special comic-book-style visual effects. But the music and lyrics on these tracks hasn't really struck my fancy. "Everything Burns" was actually rather depressing, and it's probably not going into the music folder on my PDA. I'll have to listen to "Come On Come In" a few more times. More later, after I listen to the other eighteen (!) tracks on the album.