My birthday, which was last week, always signals to me that it's time to hurry up and enjoy what's left of the scalding heat and beautiful sunshine.
To that end, my wife, oldest son, and I are going to Vegas next week for the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Convention. More on that later.
I enjoyed a nice, quiet bachelor weekend with my oldest boy this past weekend, while my wife and youngest went to visit her sister and parents, since it had been a few hours since we last did that. :P
Many great trailers were beaming out of Comic-Con, but we actually mostly just gamed, ate, and went and saw the latest generic summer action film that was branded with 'Star Trek.' It was actually an enjoyable film, and I appreciated that it at least attempted to connect with the last sliver of canon that this trilogy didn't delete. Really, I appreciated that, and I wish they'd kill this splinter of the series, restore the canon, apologize, and get back to making real television/internet Star Trek.
Which they sorta are. The generic summer action film series is continuing, but a teaser was shown for Star Trek: Discovery at Comic-Con and I hope, so deeply, that they do a big reveal at the convention next week.
Take a look:
What's interesting is that some of the press materials and official language I've seen surrounding this new series hammer home two key points:
1. this has nothing to do with the current Paramount films nonsense
2. the name 'Discovery' ties into everything they're trying to do with this show
Both of these points send my heart soaring. Star Trek isn't about blowing shit up and LOLing at a science fiction film featuring an overrated Beastie Boys track. It's about bringing the best of humanity out by being part of a larger galactic community and expanding our knowledge and seeing what's out there. The spirit of adventure, coupled with empathy and the need to better oneself, is what drives this franchise, and it's why I love it so dearly. I love Star Wars and Star Trek equally, and they balance me.
Anyway, I get way too worked up about this shit. It's been too long since we've had real Star Trek, even though I understand why the franchise needed to go away for a while.
Along these lines, I was thinking the other day about how 2005 was such a dramatic year of changes for me. It's kinda shocking to look back upon, actually.
In 2005, I got married, the final new Star Trek aired, the final Star Wars film came out, my first child was born, and the Busch Stadium in which I'd basically grown up was knocked down. All in the span of like 10-11 months. It was a year of endings and beginnings.
Except it wasn't. It was a year of beginnings. Star Wars was passed into more caring hands. A new, frankly better, Busch Stadium (and though I don't allow myself to feel nostalgia, I feel nostalgic about that old park) was built. Star Trek went away for a while, and the generic summer action series that was technically branded as Star Trek probably helped revitalize interest in the franchise (actually, I think the resurgence of Star Wars had more to do with that, but that's a different argument), and now it looks like the real Star Trek is coming back, And I hope it ignores the generic summer action films that were technically branded as Star Trek.
But I digress.
Let's wrap this up.
Real quick - I randomly started playing Wasteland 2 again the other day. I don't know why I stopped. Actually, I do. I have a terrible habit of not really investing fully in games when I play them. I let my mind wander, I try to multitask, and really, all I end up doing is not getting the full experience. I played more Wasteland 2 with my attention totally dialed in, and it's a fucking great game. It's really my kinda game. Lotsa story, lotsa strategy, lotsa math, and a fucking fantastic world. You need not have played the first game. I gotta say that inXile is easily on the level of Obsidian and BioWare (which makes a lotta sense once you start looking at developer family trees.)
I'll talk more gaming soon. And I got more to say about Comic-Con.
-Blaine
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