Star Trek VI - novelization from the movie

"Star Trek VI " was the first Star Trek movie i watched on theaters on 1991. It left quite the impression, it never lost its bite, and it never gets "old", which is funny ´cause it´s a movie which talks mostly about age.

"Star Trek" its always best when it tackles about real world issues, and in this case was no exception. As any kid growing on the 80s, we always had the looming threat of the nuclear war looming in our nightmares. The "Usa Vs Soviet Union" theme was everyday issue since airing of the the movie "Day After" in 1982. I watched "Rambo II" and "Rocky IV" on theaters so the cold war was always something to discuss about in school. So, when the Chernobyl accident occurred, our folks discussed "now this is it", the end of the world is near. It didn´t, soon followed Perestroika and slowly the nuclear war menace was vanishing from our nightmares (only to be replaced to nightmares about calculus tests).

So, "Star Trek VI" was riding this wagon. The villains Klingons were always proxies for the "otherness", the "bad guys", the savage villains to be defeated. May it be the "huns" or the "soviets" or "biker thugs", they represented the adversary for the idealistic humans from the Federation. Like a comic strip "Sev Trek" once said "Someone has to make us look good". So, in "Star Trek VI", the Klingons "chernobyl" exploded, leaving them vulnerable and wishing to end the cold war, only to have saboteurs from both sides trying to stop the incoming peace. War is profitable and some people were addicted to it and unwilling to change, Captain Kirk included.

The novelization of "Star Trek VI" follows the pattern of many book novelizations. Pick some scene from a movie and extend it in both ends. Make it start before the scene you know from the movie and let it end after the same scene. In some cases it works brilliantly and in some cases, becomes a little tiresome cause such scene was just fine as it was.

In this book, some extra elements were added to make Kirk be angry with the Klingons. In the third movie of the series, Kirk´s son was killed by the villain Kruge and this is reason enough to make him hate all the species.In this book, Kirk´s former girlfriend Carol Marcus was also wounded by a Klingon attack, making Kirk extra angry, a fact which is repeated a little too often on the book, which makes the movie a little lacking in comparison, as no mention of Carol is made or implied.

Aside of that, everything else that works very well on the movie, works very well here. As most characters have "thought balloons" making the story even more personal. The drama is there, the urgency is there, and so the stakes.

In short, this story never gets old. :)

"X-men: Apocalypse" and "Star Trek"

How come no Star Trek fan has mentioned this one yet? 

In the movie "X-men: Apocalypse", the 5000 year-old super-mutant-with-a-god-complex wakes up from his entombment  in the 1980s Cairo.  

Still  disoriented he walks into Ororo´s home, in there he finds a TV set which is airing the "Star Trek" episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", and then he learns in that episode that the "Age of Gods" is gone. and that pisses him. So Star Trek is to blame for his apocalyptical behaviour throughout the movie. :) 

In the previous movie, "X-men Days of Future Past" there was also a Star Trek easter egg, as Hank McCoy was watching Star Trek in his workspace, the episode "The Naked Time" which also involves time travel.

Star Ocean First Departure - PSP

Long story short. “Star Ocean: First Departure” for the PSP (2007) is a game that is the perfect marriage of Star Trek and Final Fantasy.

This game is like “Final Fantasy” set in the “Star Trek” universe, told by the point of view of a  heroes from a medieval backwater planet meeting an advanced “Starfleet” like planetary organization. Gosh, they even have their “Guardian of forever”.

In many ways, it´s more “Trekky” than most Star Trek games, (often reduced to mere dumb shooters) ´cause the science fiction here is on Asimovian levels of quality. Their spaceship has the bridge, engineering, even a mess hall, you could feel at home like in a Federation vessel. There are plenty of alien cities and ships to explore.

I also played the third “Star Ocean” on the PS2 a few years back.  It´s really a game a trekker should take the time to play it, it´s amazingly rewarding.

Star Trek Voyages of Imagination

May i recommend this book again for those who wish to read the pocketbooks but don´t know where to start.(and a gift from me wife) :)

It has synopsis of every Trek story book published (up to printing of this book) and thousands of interviews of writers, which are entertaining per se.  Most of them are professionals, aficcionados, but some of them are just average joes making a buck (and doing a good job while on it)

Star Trek books by William Shatner

Have you folks have read books from the "Shatnerverse"?

They are pocketbooks written by Shatner and friends in the late 1990s to 2000s) focused on Kirk (obviously) and are massive ego-trips but immensily fun reading. Real page turners from my point of view.

Using the whole Trek universe as a sandbox, Kirk´s adventure starts slowly and depressing shortly after the movie Star Trek VI. Then a vengeful admiral sets him up for something evil, using a lady in distress as a bait. Then goes a plot which really completes Star Trek VI and stops right before "Generations".

"The Return" takes place after Generations and before First Contact, and so "Dark Victory" takes the events from First Contact to teell another great story. (The events from First Contact created the Mirror Universe!

A quieter story, but equally compelling is "Avenger" which tells a plausible story of Vulcan saboteurs which want to stop mankind from wrecking  ecosystems across the universe by mindless colonization. That would make a whole season of talkative "Next Generation " episodes.

So these books "tie the knots" of many TNG threads left abandoned. It kinda feels like Babylon 5 and X-files, with a big conspiracy going on. (hey, it´s the 1990s).
So, heres my suggestion for treasure hunting :) 

How Lara Croft saved Captain Kirk

I was playing Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation when i started to associate ideas.

Lara Croft is a busy character, an athletic woman solving puzzles while running against time through ancient temples trying to save the world from former Atlantean queen Natla.








This game inspired german movie maker Tom Tykwer to direct the amazing cult movie "Run Lola Run" which featured LOLA (Franka Potente), an athletic woman with red tinted hair solving puzzles while running against time through Berlin trying to save her boyfriend from being killed by mobsters.









This movie inspired director J.J.Abrams to produce the hit tv series "ALIAS", which featured an athletic spy Sidney Bristow (Jeniffer Garner) wearing a red wig (or blue, depending on the occasion), solving puzzles while running against time through enemy bases trying to save the world from other spies.










This TV series proved to be a enormous hit, enabling J.J.Abrams to produce other tv series, until he was called to direct "Mission Impossible III", which featured spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), solving puzzles while running against time through foreign cities trying to save the world from other spies.









Thanks to that movie now we´re able to watch STAR TREK again on the big screen, with a new movie directed by J.J.Abrams, with Captain Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Chekov solving puzzles while running against time through the corridors of the Enterprise trying to save the world from vengeful romulans.

In short, Lara Croft saved Captain Kirk. :)