spodgod

I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight – and I was disappointed.

It wasn’t crap – I didn’t leave feeling I’d wasted my time, like I did after sitting through the new Indiana Jones movie - it just wasn’t the towering celluloid triumph just about every frothing geek reviewer over the last three months has been creaming about.

The frustrating thing about it is that all the parts are there. Caine and Oldman are brilliant and Heath Ledger is the Joker.  There’s absolutely no trace of the guy from Brokeback Mountain; not an atom of the bozo from 10 Things I Hate About You.  His was, literally, the performance of a lifetime. 

There are fine set pieces too.  In fact, a whole string of ‘em.  Exploding henchmen, fake batmen, base jumping and real stunts…

But. 

But, but, but. 

In Nolan’s desire to make The Batman real and relevant; to make a movie that erases the memory of the camp TV series and Schumacher’s abortive tenure – he sucks all the exuberance from… everything. 

Batman should be a fantastic, improbable character and Gotham a hyperreal extrapolation of urban claustrophobia.  Burton’s bi-polar stories might be too slick and leatherette for noughties taste, but he knew how to do extremes.   In making both the city and the bat ordinary, Chris Nolan robs them of dramatic impact.  Only Ledger’s malevolent clown projects the mix of menace and madness that should have been threaded throughout the narrative.  Everywhere else The Dark Knight is simply not dark enough.  It cuts away from the gore, lingers in the daylight and talks too much.

There are casting problems too - I don’t buy the laconic, plain looking Maggie Gyllenhaal as the woman Gotham’s two most eligible bachelors are head over heels with.  And Aaron Eckhart is drowning as Harvey Dent.  Drowning.

I came away with a yawning hole in my satisfaction – yearning for a shorter cut of the movie with more Joker and less daytime.  I wanted the batcave and Wayne Manor by moonlight.  In future I might even want Robin in the mix (but no Riddler or Penguin).  Most of all, I want a much darker knight to return – a mean and wounded Batman driven by vengeance rather than a sense of justice.  Justice is Superman’s job.

That, ultimately, was this movie’s biggest flaw. When Bale’s Bruce Wayne says he must reveal his identity to save Gotham, to save his loved ones from being killed, I just don’t believe him.  He’s so contained and controlled that I don’t believe he feels anything. 

Next time around – and there will certainly be a next time given The Dark Knight’s phenomenal box office – I fear we’ll just get more of the same;  Heat in a cape.  I’m not sure if I’ll bother.

I’ve just finished watching the aborted US pilot of Life on Mars, based on the hit BBC show about a modern cop who’s hit by a car and wakes up in the 1970s.

Guess what? It wasn’t actually as bad as I expected it to be. But then again, I thought it was going to be ridiculously bad. By which I mean, Ed Wood bad. Based on the knockabout trailer, I thought there would be comedy disco moments and whacky sight gags. Huge loon pants and ludicrously huge afros. I thought it would be an unholy hybrid of “Police Squad” and “That 70s Show”. Thankfully, that’s just the way the trailer was cut.

In fact, this version sticks pretty closely to the original first episode script – with lots of memorable lines and moments still intact. Even some of the shot set-ups are the same. The scene where Sam is run over is nearly identical – down to the bit where the camera cuts to his prone body in the road, his eyes open and blinking.

The violence is still gritty, at times shocking and Gene Hunt still isn’t afraid to throttle a prostitute or kick down a door to get his way.

But, ultimately, it doesn’t really work. On a scale of “one” to “Fitz” – it scores a solid “Oh my God! Why did they bother?”

It seems like the executives at ABC, the network rebooting Life on Mars, agree. Insider buzz says that the first pilot is headed for the dumpster, with recasting, relocation and a change of creative team all due before the series goes live.

Of course, you expect there to be differences. The move from Manchester to Los Angeles makes that inevitable. But its more than a simple transplantation of mis-en-scene – it’s a subtle chipping away at the quirkiness and edge at the core of the original, that leads to a tidal reshaping of the show’s premise. Hang on to your hats; Gene Hunt is no longer the star of Life of Mars.

The US remake invents political correctness a full decade before the term was ever coined, redrawing the departmental hierarchy and the relationship dynamic at the centre of the show. Annie Cartwright starts out as a full detective in this version, Sam Tyler’s de facto partner… and this passes without question. What the huh?

Well, actually, let’s be fair. There’s a token moment of wolf whistling when Sam picks out Annie during a briefing – but none of the endemic sexism of the UK Life on Mars that made it seem so real.

It makes you wonder what they’re saying with this decision. For a snapshot of the real attitudes prevalent in America at the time, take a look at the Dirty Harry movie “The Enforcer” from 1976, where Clint Eastwood’s Callahan is teamed up with a female partner. It’s a crazy idea! Hilarity and right-wing wisecracks ensue. There’s none of that here. It’s all been airbrushed out.

There are many little disappointments like this. The lack of period detail for one. The UK version was so soaked in it, it virtually smells brown – like No. 6 cigarette ends soaked in Double Diamond. The US version dresses up clearly contemporary streets with bits of neon and plastic – giving the impression that everyone’s ready for a 70s themed party rather than actually living in the 70s. And, unforgivably, no one smokes.

The biggest problem though is the cast. None of the US actors fill the roles they’re playing one tenth as well as the UK originals. With the beefing up of Annie Cartwright’s involvement, Gene Hunt’s part is reduced to “craggy boss in the background” – but Colm Meany brings no charisma to the character. He’s bluff enough, but not sexy, edgy or in the least bit cheeky. Curiously, there are none of Hunt’s classic lines either – possibly victim to the PC filleting of the original script. If they were there though, Meany wouldn’t do them justice.

As for Jason O’Mara, the guy playing Sam Tyler, he sounds like he’s reading the script off idiot boards. There’s one scene in particular that makes you realise they’ve fucked it up royally – and it happens in the first five minutes.

It’s still 2007 and Tyler is interrogating a serial killer thought to have murdered two women. Opening the suspects’s diary he reads:

“I am a killer. I killed them. I kill”.

When John Simms read the same lines, they were shot through with sarcasm, twitchy frustration barely contained below the surface. It was a dark, comic moment that deftly set the tone for the next fifteen episodes. When his stateside equivalent tries the same scene he sounds like he’s ordering some kind of morbid take-out.

It’s interesting to watch – because this isn’t a complete abortion. It’s merely an Americanisation. Unfortunately, that means much that was endearing about the original is lost. There’s more money on screen and everyone’s better looking, but that simply serves to make it seem slick where it should be grimy. It’s not true that Americans don’t get irony. They watched Seinfield in their millions for fuck’s sake. We tucked it away at 1.00 in the morning on BBC 2. But that’s exactly what’s missing from Life on Mars US. The only irony evident is that the makers impose 21st century values on their 20th century protagonists – when the whole point of the original was to highlight and comment on the disparities. Der!

There’s a line towards the end, where Annie says to Sam:

“Perhaps you were put here for a reason. Maybe you’re supposed to make a difference”.

And the music swells as she takes Sam’s hand.

In the original, Tyler would have looked at her incredulously, sneered and walked away. Here he juts out his lantern jaw, fixes his eyes on some point in the distance and the credits roll. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Of course, this is the Life on Mars that could have been – not the series that will be. Rumour has it that when it finally airs, Life on Mars US will be set in New York instead of LA. David E Kelly, the saccharine storyteller behind lightweight legal dramedies like Allie McBeal and Boston Legal has walked off the project. Maybe he was pushed.

The New York Times reported that several key roles will be recast, with Rachel LeFevre’s Annie Cartwright up for the chop. We can only pray that the axe nicks Colm Meany on the jugular as it sails past.

So, there’s still hope for Life on Mars US, especially when reports say that “The understanding is that ABC brass felt the show would be more easily accepted by viewers if it reminded them of ’70s crime films like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and The French Connection“. Now that’s a cop-in-a-coma-retro-time-traveling show I’d book seats to watch.

More:

Life on Mars review at io9.com

I finally bought a Blu-Ray player.  I say “finally” as I’ve spent several months trying not to buy one… As an inveterate early adopter and fully diagnosed, unmedicated geek, I tried to build one.  Problem is, I’m the wrong kind of geek. 

To clarify – there are technical geeks and pop-culture geeks – right-brain and left brain geeks.  I’m something of anomaly in this classification, falling somewhere in between. I’m a technoculture geek – a little bit nerdy and a little bit rock and roll, as Donnie and Marie never sang.  So, while I can do the following:

Code in JavaScript
Build a computer from component parts
Design, customise and create dynamic web sites with off the shelf server side scripts
Tell you why Firefly should never have been cancelled

 I cannot:

Code in C++
Solder together a circuit board
Write my own CMS in PHP
Tell you why Star Wars is so popular

Despite this disability, I decided it might be a really clever and spiffing idea to build my own Blu-Ray player from an old computer… It already had an HD video card and was (is) connected to the 36″ Sony Bravia flatscreen HD TV in my living room.  How hard could it be?  I might even save money.

This is, clearly, why I don’t build computers for a living…  During the process I discovered the following:

* A five year old, kit built PC repurposed as a media centre probably isn’t the best choice as a base unit for a Blu-Ray player project because…

* Most internal Blu-Ray drives have SATA connectors rather than old school IDE.  Even the bottom of the range, barebones Pioneer model (c£90) that seemed such a bargain.

* An SATA board can be bought for about a tenner and plugged into a spare PCI slot. Problem solved, Blu-Ray drive installed.

* Once installed, however, none of my existing media player software would not play back my Blu-Ray disc.  Not even VLC

* There are currently no reliable open source players that support Blu-Ray either (see VLC).

* WinDVD 9 Plus is expensive for a software-based media player… (c£50)

* It’s not enough that a video card has a DVI-D out port to plug into your HD TV…  It also has to be HDCP compliant.

* HDCP (High Definition Copy Protocol) is hardware enabled protection built into commercial Blu-Ray discs.  If your video card, monitor and operating system don’t support it, your Blu-Ray discs simply will not play.

* Virtually all HDCP compliant video cards on the market fit into PCI-E (not PCI) slots.  If your motherboard is three or more years older, as mine was, chances are it doesn’t have any…

* There are some cards on the market which feature chipsets that are described online as “HDCP Ready”.  That doesn’t mean the card itself is actually equipped to decode HDCP.

* There are about a dozen video cards on the market that fit into an AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot that are listed online as being HDCP compliant.  Make absolutely certain it says that on the box before you buy one.  Like I should have.

* After you’ve got your Blu-Ray drive up and running on its brand new SATA board and you’ve installed your apparently HDCP ready but not actually HDCP compliant video card (c£70), don’t be surprised when the expensive media player software you bought still can’t run the one Blu-Ray disc you have in your collection…

* Using AnyDVD (c£60) is probably illegal – but the current version does quite effectively remove region coding and copy encryption from DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.  Perhaps that might be a solution to all that incompatible hardware.

* Until, that is, you realise that the old Pentium 4 CPU in the machine you’re installing all this stuff on isn’t up to the task of Blu-Ray playback after all - and what you finally get is a mess of stuttering and strobing that renders your copy of “Edward Scissorhands” unwatchable.

*  At this point you might, like I decided to do, head back to Amazon and pick up a bottom of the range Blu-Ray player instead.  For £250.

* Always keep the boxes your components came in.  You’ll need them when you have to put them all on eBay.

Fan produced Star Trek series Phase II may not be as fannish as it first seemed. A statement issued by director Marc Zicree suggests a level of professional involvement in the “franchise” that was previously unsuspected…

Star Trek fans can’t get enough of their favourite show. There are ten movies already, with a high profile $160 million new project on the way, 600 TV episodes, a gazillion novels and a bunch of comics. And yet, fans still want more – so they make their own Star Trek.

Filmed with high resolution digital cameras on authentic looking replica sets, Star Trek: Phase II (previously known as New Voyages) takes over where the original Star Trek ended – co-opting the name that Gene Roddenbury chose for his failed attempt to revive the original series on the small screen. Playing out the archetypal fan fantasy, a plucky bunch of Trek-nerds recast themselves as their Sci-Fi heroes, facing the same jeopardy, saying the same lines, wearing the same velour jerseys and ill-fitting trousers as the original Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

Phase II isn’t the only Trek fan film on the block. Star Trek: Exeter and Star Trek: Hidden Frontier are also contenders as fan favourites. Still, the “series” which has so far released four episodes, is eminently notable for the talent it attracts. Former Chekov actor Walter Koenig appeared in the Dorothy Fontana penned episode To Serve All My Days. That’s the same DC Fontana who acted as script editor on the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Though the first two episodes of New Voyages were decidedly shaky, with amateur acting, fan fiction narratives and poor CGI, the series came on several leaps and bounds with the Fontana penned episode. There were outstanding performances from Koenig and young actor Andy Bray, both playing Ensign Pavel Chekov. Production values rose to match the quality of the script and talent on screen.

The latest entry, World Enough and Time stars George Takei reprising his role as helmsman Sulu and was written by former DS9 scribes Marc Zicree and Michael Reeves. The episode was so well received that it won a TV Guide award for best web based media – up against Lost and Battlestar Galactica. The screenplay has been nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s of America’s highest trinket – the Nebula, in the same category as the Doctor Who episode “Blink” and dark fantasy “Pan’s Labyrinth”.

And there the controversy begins.

There’s a dispute bubbling among SFWA members as to the professional legitimacy of Star Trek:Phase II. From an outside perspective the argument seems a bit churlish – opponents say that World Enough… isn’t a professional production so it shouldn’t be eligible at all. One of the loudest voices is Keith R.A. DeCandido, a science fiction writer who specialises in tie-in novels – a category that the Nebulas have traditionally shown antipathy towards. In a post on his LiveJournal blog, Candido says:

“Look, this isn’t a knock on the fan films as such. But that’s what they are — they’re fan films. They are not professionally produced. What’s more, they’re unauthorized and, by the letter of the law, illegal. In fact, one of the reasons why they’re not prosecuted, is because they don’t turn a profit, which is one of the legion of ways that they’re not professionally produced…”

Now World Enough and Time director Marc Zicree has weighed in with his point of view in a statement prepared for the SFWA. The argument he constructs is interesting in itself… but what’s more interesting is how incredibly candid he is about how connected Phase II actually is. The show’s fannish producers, lead by Kirk actor James Cawley, have traditionally been tight lipped about the privileged position Phase II/New Voyages enjoys with the studio. Not Marc Zicree.

He tells us that World Enough and Time was produced with the full co-operation and knowledge of Paramount and CBS (from “Business Affairs on down”), that he was given directorial advice by no less than J.J. Abrams while shooting the show and that several key personnel were paid for their involvement – including George Takei, and Zicree himself. The show had many professional crew members on board, hired by Zicree’s own production company, including a professional editor, Chris Cronin, who worked at industry rates. He lists a couple dozen more cast and crew members, each with extensive working credentials, some with Emmy and other awards to their names. He also mentions that a day of shooting actually took place on the Universal lot.

This ultimately begs the question we began with; is Star Trek: Phase II/New Voyages the first professional fan film? When your free, web released movie uses copyrighted characters, but is endorsed by CBS and Paramount; when it features fans in acting roles alongside Trek alumni; when amateur producers rub shoulders with directors who worked on Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation – where do you draw the line?

Here at Den of Geek we think Star Trek: Phase II could actually be the beginning of a new kind of media. The Internet brought these fans together, enabled them to build a profile and pool their resources. Now that technology is moving on and TV studios are taking notice, this fan film series has become a different animal altogether. Like Star Wars tie-in novels and Big Finish audio, Phase II is creeping towards legitimacy as a licensed product.

Our prediction? Watch out for CBS endorsed fan flicks coming to iTunes or a similar outlet soon…

***

Further Viewing:

Keith R.A. DeCandido argues against the inclusion of Star Trek: New Voyages in the Nebula nominations at LiveJournal.

Marc Zicree’s rebuttal and statement for the SFWA is available in full on Lee Whitehouse’s SFTV blog.

Three episodes of Star Trek: New Voyages are available for download. Future episodes will adopt the Phase II monicker. The first outing “Come What May” is no longer being distributed and we recommend giving “In Harm’s Way a wide berth, but “To Serve all my Days” and “World Enough and Time” are as close to classic Trek as makes no difference on a wet Sunday afternoon… See them here: www.startreknewvoyages.com

Star Trek: Exeter works on a much slower schedule than New Voyages, but their current episode “The Tressaurian Intersection” captures the spirit of Star Trek’s original series better than any other. An earlier episode and the first bits of teh second are available at www.exeterstudio.com

Another fan film full of former Trek actors is Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. Directed by Tim “Tuvok” Russ and starring Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and Alan Ruck, it should be more “professional” than New Voyages. It’s lovely to see so many Trek alumni on screen, but awful to hear them spout such truly terrible dialogue. And the plot? We’ve already seen Yesterday’s Enterprise, Mirror Mirror, Charlie X and City on the Edge of Forever. Great episodes on their own, but unpalatable when put in a blender and whizzed up into a fan-wank smoothie. Still, worth a look for curiosity value. Catch it at www.startrekofgodsandmen.com

(This entry was originally published at Den of Geek)

A little while ago someone asked me what my  top ten movies of all time ever were.  After my brain had stopped boiling, I decided there was no way that I’d ever be able to come up with a definitive list…  But, like the best memes, the question buried into my brain and stayed there, percolating.  This is the result.  Two months rumination removed all the kneejerk choices - the arty films that make me look smart(er), the easy classics everyone picks – leaving a list that contains ten films I absolutely and unpretentiously love.  Ten rainy day movies that I can watch over and over and over…

Blade Runner

This is such an 80s boy choice.  I am the cliche; the pre-Internet sci-fi geek.  And, yet, this is the only sci-fi movie on my list.  I first watched this movie on VHS, three years after its 1982 release.  Since then I’ve sat through it two or three dozen times; stoned and straight, on TV, at the cinema, in lecture halls and through shop windows.  I’ve written and read essays about it.  The last time I watched it was just a few days ago, on my brand new Sony Bravia HD TV, with the sound pounding through 50 watt speakers.  It was like watching it for the first time.

Groundhog Day

A movie made of brilliant moments – with a message that, forgive me for this, is the very essence of Taoism.  Bill Murray’s Phil Connors rails against the fates to get his own way.  It’s only when he surrenders himself to the situation that things turn around.  His salvation is acceptance.  Here, have a crystal, grasshopper.

Rear Window

Hitchcock’s purple patch, from Spellbound to Marnie has several list-worthy entries.  Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest, Rope…  I choose Rear Window for its claustrophobia, technical brilliance, traditional yet twisty narrative and career best performances from Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly.

Time Bandits

I love Terry Gilliam.  Even bad Terry Gilliam is better than most directors worst (though Jabberwocky takes some watching).  Brazil would be the grown-up choice here,  but Time Bandits makes me happy – and that’s the best reason there is to adore a film.

The Godfather (Pt 1 and 2)

Pity about Sofia Coppola in part 3.

Punch Drunk Love

The only Adam Sandler comedy I ever paid money to go and see.  Not a penny of it wasted.

Amelie de Montmartre

My only foreign language film – and another where reality is subverted by the magical.  There’s a pattern emerging here…

Edward Scissorhands

Oh yeah.  There’s a pattern.  This is the definitive Tim Burton outing, isn’t it? The teen-angst handbook for sensitive, gothic boys and girls. 

The 7 Faces of Dr Lau

Every birthday during childhood my two brothers and I were offered a choice of treats.  We could either go for a slap-up feed at the Elite fish and chip restaurant or go to the “pictures”.  I always chose the movie, safe in the knowledge that my brothers would pick food.  One year we went to see Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, which was terrible, but in those days you got two pictures for the price of entry (with an interval for ice cream).  The supporting flick was The 7 Faces of Dr Lau, a redemptive 60s fantasy about a mysterious carnival that rolls into a mid-western town.   It frightened and fascinated me – and still does to this day.

A Matter of Life and Death

Powell and Pressburger’s after-life fantasy; all clipped and barely post-war British.  Stunning and effortlessly funny in a way that “Here Comes Mr Jordan” wishes it could have been.

Honourable mentions:

Apocalypse Now
Fargo
Blue Velvet
Wings of Desire
Charade (the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant original)
Arsenic and Old Lace
Moulin Rouge (no, really)
Alien
House of Games
Badlands

Buffy fans of the world, prick up your ears!  Joss Whedon announced at his Saturday Comic-Con 07 panel that he is “this close” to signing a deal with the BBC to create a 90 minute movie starring Anthony Head as Rupert Giles.

“Ripper” has been one of those mythic could-have-been spin-offs from the Buffyverse since the season 7 finale – alongside vapourware like Faith the Vampire Slayer and the Spike TV movie.  Of all the ideas out there, this is the one I really wanted to see happen.  Joss Whedon at the BBC, where he can be as sophisticated and quirky as he likes.  Let’s hope the money guys don’t fuck it up before everyone signs on the dotted line.

Best. Buffy news. Ever.

Following my tetchy anti-Buffyism rant earlier this week, I settled down with an as yet unopened season 4 BtVS boxset, only to discover that disc four is missing. It must have disappeared into a hell dimension… I’m pretty sure I’m being punished for my heresy. Really.

Ironic much?

Six Feet Under ends it’s run in the UK this week. I loved the first two series and the last few episodes so far have almost made up for the lull in between.

The final episode’s on tomorrow, and for the last time I will perform my special Six Feet Under dance as the opening titles play. It’s something I’m compelled to do when I hear that tune… a sort of ritual I have to indulge in. I can share it with you too, ‘cos I taped it a few months back:

Mr Twain’s Six Feet Under Dance.

Star Trek fans can’t get enough of their favourite show. There are ten movies, 600 episodes, a gazillion novels, a bunch of comics and now they’ve started making their own; a group of Trekkies based in Maryland, U.S.A. are filming a Trek series called “New Voyages”.

It’s not the first time that fans have taken things into their own hands. Trekkies have a tradition of writing their own stories that goes back to the original voyages of the Starship Enterprise. They distributed their efforts through clubs, then the convention circuit and now the Internet. The more extreme ‘fen’ (the fannish plural of ‘fan’) are notorious for dressing up like their idols, forming alien factions and singing folk songs in Klingon.

“New Voyages” is something of a departure. Filmed with high resolution digital cameras on replica sets, this series takes off where the original Star Trek ended. Playing out the fan fantasy of being the guys on-screen, a plucky bunch of Trek-nerds have recast themselves as their heroes, facing the same jeopardy, saying the same lines, wearing the same lycra jerseys and ill-fitting trousers as the original Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and Dr “Bones” McCoy.

Following three weeks of principle photography in August, the crew spent four months in post-production editing, scoring and adding CGI space scenes to the first part of their masterwork. The resulting episode, “Come What May”, was released at www.5yearmission.com on the 17th of January 2004. The makers claim that over a million people have downloaded their hard work so far. And the verdict?

While the level of effort that has gone into this production is evident in every single frame – from the money shots of a computer generated Enterprise to the last stitch on every uniform – what’s missing is real creativity. This is Star Trek with Asperger’s Syndrome; an autistic space opera. It’s what a school play would be like if you got all the kids who are good at maths to write, produce and act in it.

Like a dog chasing its tail, the fan community has been quick to comment on the efforts of their peers. Though much of it has been positive, they’ve treated “Come What May” just like any other episode of Star Trek – pedantically pointing out continuity errors, seeking trivial background information about minor characters and making metanarratives of their own from the information on screen.

“Why is Chekov manning the navigation station if he’s now Chief of Security?” asked one respondent, pointlessly. “I guess the new transporter effect could be chalked up to ship upgrades,” he continued before observing that “there are no big alphanumeric characters on the consoles – they should have stuck to Michael Master’s classic blue prints”.

Other fans concentrated on more pressing matters. “The appearance of the cast detracted from my enjoyment somewhat,” moaned one of them, “Some of the guys had noticeable paunches and while none of the ladies were unattractive ‘per se’, I expect higher standards of beauty” he said, presumably while sucking down his third breakfast burrito of the morning. Others commenting on the spectacular height of Kirk’s quiff were told it was there for a good reason; the actor playing him is an Elvis impersonator. “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, thang you very much,” he doesn’t say in the opening credits. So far, there’s been no explanation why the actor playing ‘Scotty’ did so with the same ‘Irish’ accent Tom Cruise has in ‘Far and Away’.

Viewers posting their own reviews at 5yearmission.com and other Trek fora had a unique opportunity to get into a direct dialogue with the program’s makers. Like them, Jack Marshall, New Voyages’ writer and director is a fan – but now he’s that most scary of all things; a famous fan. “Space; it is indeed the final frontier,” writes Jack on his Web site, sounding more like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons than a three dimensional person, “In order for humanity to survive, we must one day reach for the stars and spread across the galaxy leaving greed and all our plagues behind,” hopefully remembering not to spread our greed and plagues to the rest of the galaxy in the process. “We humans are explorers,” Marshall continues, carefully making the distinction between exploring and none exploring species, like porcupines, “We came from the stars, and to the stars we will return”.

Reality check here. Lest we forget, Jack is a (probably quite agreeable) 37 year old guy from Maryland who’s made a video with a bunch of his friends and put it on the Internet. He’s not the President of the United States. He’s not Captain Kirk. He is, however, donating any profit that is made from this venture to the Space Shuttle Children’s Trust – set up in memory of those who died when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated during its descent to Earth on the first of February 2003. So, by all means, take the piss out of Jack Marshall. Giggle at the wooden acting and the script that could have been stitched together by Bonobo monkeys – but marvel at the incredible attention to detail that has gone into making this thing and donate a few dollars to the good cause before clicking on to the next link. It would be the logical thing to do.