The Official Site for the Lackluster Goings-On of Michael Kaiser
Silver Screen
I See Your Starship is as Big as Mine
Feb 24th
I haven’t talked about Star Trek lately. I probably don’t talk about it enough in general. Paramount should offer of a network of Star Trek blogs like StarWars.com does, then I could talk about it every day. Oh well. I could probably make my own network (I’m sure I could, actually) but the upkeep cost would be too insane for me to handle, probably. Anyone want to give me money? *chirp* *chirp* Alrighty!
I was watching the latest movie again recently aka the best movie ever produced based on the worst plot ever written, and I decided I like the design of the Enterprise more than I did initially. I dig that it’s essentially the NCC-1701-A with more interesting nacelles. I like all the doohickies and gizmos that move around when they are about to go to warp. Check it (sorta):
So curiosity got to me, and I went to the killer site Ex Astris Scientia to see if it had any information on the size of this sucker and how it compares to other Enterprises that have come before. Of course there was, but apparently there is some debate amongst geekdom as to exactly how big the new design actually is. The producers and digital designers seem to think it is 700 meters, while nerds ways cooler than me who can analyze these kinds of things seem to think it’s about the same size as the original.
So now I want to see them all lined up! So below is every Enterprise variation I could think of (not counting “possible future” stuff), and I’m sticking the new Enterprise in twice, one for each theorized size.
SCALE: 1 pixel = 0.5 meters
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NX-01 NX-Class 225 Meters |
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NCC-1701 (pilot) Constitution Class 289 Meters |
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NCC-1701 Constitution Class 289 Meters |
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NCC-1701-A Constitution Class (refit) 305 Meters |
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NCC-1701 (Abrams) Constitution Class (?) 366 Meters (?) |
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NCC-1701-B Excelsior Class 469 Meters |
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NCC-1701-C Ambassador Class 526 Meters |
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NCC-1701-D Galaxy Class 642 Meters |
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NCC-1701-E Sovereign Class 685 Meters |
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NCC-1701 (Abrams) Constitution Class (?) 718 Meters (?) |
Yeah, I’m going to say I like it in the 300 meter range myself, if only so that it doesn’t dwarf all the supposed “more advanced” ships that came later…er…or will come later. However the movie works. Anyway, like the refit the best, I think. Still dislike the Sovereign the most. It’s just too flat. Looks like a hot rod, not a flag ship.
I Say Thee Yay!
Nov 24th
I’m behind on posting stuff. But who cares, let’s look at the latest cast announcements for Thor!
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| Chris Hemsworth | Thor |
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| Tom Hiddleston | Loki |
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| Anthony Hopkins | Odin |
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| Natalie Portman | Jane Foster |
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| Stuart Townsend | Fandral |
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| Tadanobu Asano | Hogun |
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| Ray Stevenson | Volstagg |
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| Kat Dennings | ??? |
Chris Hemsworth as Thor – He was cool as James Kirk’s daddy in Star Trek. Otherwise, don’t know much about him. Apparently he’s bigger in Australia or something. Might be on the young side, but it’s an origin story, so that’s probably a good thing. And Thor’s nigh-immortal, so why would he be old anyway? Thumbs up!
Tom Hiddelston as Loki – Never heard of him. Looks creepy. Thumbs up!
Anthony Hopkins as Odin – Ugh. I’m tired of him. He plays the same role in ever movie and the role he plays is nothing like how I perceive Odin. Thumbs down!
Natalie Portman as Jane Foster – Ugh again. I’m sure she can play a nurse pining for a god just fine, but I’m tired of her eeking into my geek movies. Especially since she never seems to appreciate the success she gets from being in them. Thumbs down!
Stuart Townsend as Fandral – All I know him from is Queen of the Damned but sure, why not? Thumbs up!
Tadanobu Asano as Hogun – Never heard of him, but he looks like he could be mean and stuff. Thumbs up!
Ray Stevenson as Volstagg – I liked him in Rome, but they better make him a lot fatter and hairier. He was also just in a Marvel movie that tanked, but it probably wasn’t his fault. Thumbs up!
Kat Dennings as ??? – Hard to say when you don’t know who she’s playing. Lady Sif? Actually, I don’t care who she’s playing, she always comes off as stoned. Thumbs down!
I have no idea how this movie is going to turn out. Kenneth Branagh at the helm is probably a plus. Not to say that I’m his biggest fan, but at least the movie won’t be silly or gimmicky. I’m curious how they will accomplish melding a heavily based magic film with the likes of Iron Man or Spider-Man. Hopefully well since all these people are supposed to join in Avengers, which will be the absolute coolest thing ever if Marvel can pull that off, especially before DC!
Oh and…!
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| Samuel L. Jackson | Nick Fury |
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury – Another guy I’m tired of, but you can’t argue with the likeness, and I love that he keeps popping in to tie all these movies together. Thumbs up!
Junk Drawer: Micro-Heroes – Old Template
Oct 16th
I got a folder on my server called “zzzfiles” which I use to store a bunch of junk I don’t know what to do with but don’t necessarily want to delete either. It occurred to me today I can just as easily store most of its content on my blog, thereby streamlining my file keeping and allowing the files themselves to (however briefly) see the light of day.
So let’s start with the Micro-Heroes directory. Back when sometime, I used to actively post at ComicBoards.com, and even moderated one or three of their boards. During that time, the Micro-Hero craze kicked in and I joined in along with everyone else. I won’t get into the whole history, but you can read about it here. I will mention that the part about storTroopers threatening a lawsuit was my fault, because I created a Webring for Micro-Heroes. I think all they were really asking for us to do was drop the Webring, but everyone freaked out and dropped the original template all together. Oh well.
The following are Micro-Heroes I created, that I managed to keep, in the old template style. I like the old template much better, way more cookie-cutter than the new stuff. I think there were a lot more of the old template that I lost, especially in the Green Lantern department. At one point I was trying to make a Micro-Hero for every known Green Lantern, but now I don’t have any! I wonder if someone out there saved them?
Captain America
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| Captain America | Nomad w/ Cape | Nomad | The Captain w/ Stark Shield | The Captain w/ T’Challa Shield | The Captain |
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| Superia Stratagem | Ex-Patriot | Captain America w/ Plasma Shield | Super Patriot | Captain America Jr. | The Patriot |
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| Wing Flappin’ Avatar | |||||
Star Trek
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| James T. Kirk | Spock | Leonard McCoy | Montgomery Scott | Hikaru Sulu | Uhura | Pavel Chekov |
Command Uniforms
Engineering Uniforms
Medical Uniforms
Doctor Who - I meant to do all 10, but alas…
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| William Hartnell | Patrick Troughton |
Miscellaneous
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| Iron Man | Nexus |
Galactic Surprise
Oct 13th
The Girl turned 30 this week. Or, as she puts it, she celebrated her first anniversary of being 29. We celebrated on her actual birthday with a little party at our house, so that The Kid could participate. My mom and in-laws were all in attendance. Then the plan was to go to Outback on Saturday, but (insert nefarious mustache twirling here) the REAL plan was for her mother and sister to take her out shopping so we could set up a surprise party at her sister’s house. Totally worked, and she got suckered. I was sure she was on to us, but I guess not, though now her hindsight is 20/20. Good thing I’m an excellent liar! (“Hi honey!”) And even though she has told me she doesn’t like surprises, none of us were maimed or killed, so I guess it worked out. This was my first planning of a surprise party, and while it was not my idea, and I did have help, gotta say it’s not all that fun! Found it to be a big source of stress, actually. Ultimately worth it of course, but I think on her 2nd anniversary of being 29 I’ll plan something out loud. The Girl handled turning 30 much better than I did. I had a real crisis of DC proportions, but she seems to have cruised through it. I guess it helps when you’re pregnant and have bigger things to worry about.
Next day, went to Star Wars: In Concert with my Best Good Friend at the San Jose Pavilion (home of the Sharks). The crowd was pretty good, though not sold out, which worked for us because we moved up a couple rows to give ourselves some elbow room. The music was, of course, amazing and it was great to hear it live. Sometimes the videos set to the music were equally amazing and moving, but sometimes it seemed like whoever made all those up was just mailing it in. But it’s hard to beat a stadium full of persecuted people all loving the same thing, cheering for all the same things that make you cheer. It’s very energizing! And unlike conventions, no discernible B.O. that I noticed! Aside from the concert itself, there were a bunch of Star Wars props in the lobby, but the crowd and lighting were too intense to score any decent pictures. What was really cool was, even though it was a 7-10 show on a Sunday night, many delinquent parents brought their kids anyway. It’s awesome to see that something I loved as a kid is still going strong for the next generation and it warms the heart to see a bunch of little dudes holding lightsabers and head banging to the Imperial March!
I created a site for myself called Desktop Geekery, so that I have somewhere to put the wallpapers I make for myself, instead of discarded them after I get bored. It’s also my first Wordpress theme. Even though it looks like the Default them (and essentially is from a style perspective), I learned all kinds of fun stuff about built in Wordpress functions to get it to automatically display the Wallpaper thumbnail and download links the same way for every post. Ginchy! Well I think so anyway…
Awkward
Sep 24th
Was out deliverying a shipment to Hayward for work yesterday. On the way back, saw a Toys R’ Us and couldn’t resist. (Still working on that growing up thing.) I was actually looking for a “first toy” to get The Dude, but didn’t find anything that struck my fancy. There was, however, a huge Star Wars section right up front that pulled me in by its tractor beam, and amongst the fairly cool offerings, I saw about three of these:
Stormtroopers are cool. I get why, even though they are murdering foot soldiers, people want to own their toys and dress up like them. But this toy is a bit too weird for me. “Hey kids, now you too can question, torture and burn the Lars family alive!” Not that we ever saw this scene play out on screen, but we know the end result:
You can just hear Owen telling Beru to get back in the house. Shiver!
Fair’s Fair
Sep 22nd
Went to the fair last weekend. Was it the Santa Cruz County Fair? I don’t know, the one in Watsonville. Went with the family and family-in-law. Much less crowded than it was last year, and we went on a Saturday as opposed to last year’s Sunday night. Is the economy affecting fairs throughout the country or did we just get lucky? Got one of those unlimited ride tickets for The Kid, scored myself a free ride from an attendant who let me go with her once, got my fudge, The Girl got her cotton candy, The Kid got her air brushed hat and met Smokey the Bear, a good, exhausting, three and half hour time was had.
Sunday we spent the day lounging around in recovery. Watched Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians. The Girl and are trying to be more diligent about score all the Disney animated features before they are vaulted. We even made a list on Amazon of the ones we still need, which is most of them, but at least now we don’t have to have the “do we own that? I can’t remember” conversation every time we see a Disney DVD commercial.
The Girl has been painting artwork and name signs for the kids’ room (odd and scary that “kids” is now plural!). The Kid has been in a drawing mood as of late, possibly inspired by her mother, so we got her a sketch pad and some twistee colored pencils (mechanical pencils but with color – cool invention). So now I’m surrounded by people drawing and painting, and I just watch T.V. What is my deal?
I want to see one of these new-fangled 3-D movies. We saw Up, but our showing was in 2-D for some unexplained reason, while the theater room right next to it was showing the 3-D option. Are certain theater screens rigged for 3-D and not others? It made no sense to me. Toy Story 1 & 2 are coming out in 3-D soon. Not sure if it’s fully recreated into 3-D or one of those lame-ish Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D endeavors. Maybe we’ll take The Kid to see that Raining Meatball movie, but it doesn’t look very good to me.
Beeps and Whistles
Sep 10th
UPDATE: Replaced screen shot photos with 3-D renderings by John Jongsma where available.
Astromech droids are cool. I want one. I want them all. All the R-series models produced by Industrial Automaton , at any rate. If I had one, I bet I would never have to do dishes again, even though they can’t reach the sink. Here is a list of all the G-canon astromech droids. Aren’t they pretty?
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| R1-G4 | R2-A5 | R2-A6 |
| Episodes: IV | Episodes: IV | Episodes: I |
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| R2-B1 | R2-C4 | R2-D2 |
| Episodes: I | Episodes: I | Episodes: I II III IV V VI |
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| R2-M5 | R2-Q2 | R2-Q5 |
| Episodes: I | Episodes: IV | Episodes: VI |
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| R2-R9 | R2-T0 | R2-X2 |
| Episodes: I | Episodes: I | Episodes: I |
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| R3-A2 | R3-T2 | R3-T6 |
| Episodes: V | Episodes: IV | Episodes: IV |
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| R3-T7 | R3-Y2 | R4-A22 |
| Episodes: II | Episodes: V | Episodes: II |
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| R4-E1 | R4-F5 | R4-G9 |
| Episodes: IV | Episodes: III | Episodes: III |
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| R4-I9 | R4-M9 | R4-P17 |
| Episodes: IV | Episodes: IV | Episodes: II III |
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| R4-P44 | R5-A2 | R5-D4 |
| Episodes: III | Episodes: IV | Episodes: II IV |
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| R5-D8 | R5-F7 | R5-J2 |
| Episodes: IV | Episodes: IV | Episodes: VI |
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| R5-M2 | R5-X2 | |
| Episodes: V | Episodes: I |
Some stuff to take from this:
- Episode IV is the clear winner in amount of astromechs on screen. Guess they saw a good thing and went crazy with the paint schemes!
- And of course, of the five series shown on screen, the R2 series is the most prevalent.
- George Lucas named and dictated the design for one of the R4 (can’t remember which one, probably R4-P117) and the props guy said “uh…I think the fans have all these R-series worked out and R4’s have a different head than R2’s” and George Lucas didn’t care and went with it anyway, so now all these R4’s that don’t have a cone-like dome for a head are considered R4’s with R2 replacement heads. True paraphrased story (probably). Funny how the fans are always fixing Star Wars for George.
- Aside from R2-D2, I think my favorite astromech listed above is R4-D4. I love me the counterparts, and he was so close to being sold off to the Skywalker’s over R2-D2. What would have happened? Good thing his motivator blew out, eh? He was also the only other astromech besides R2 to get a toy in the first Hasbro wave, which I had of course.
- R4-P17 apparently has female droid programming. How can anyone tell? They look the same and all beep and whistle the same. What about “her” is female? What about the rest are male, for that matter?
- Speaking of, R4-P17, R2-D2 and R5-D4 are the only three astromechs to appear in more than one film.
- Aside from the R4 series, it seems like the naming convention for each series has a range of A-Z and 0-9. If that’s the case, each series can have 260 different droids, leaving quite a few left to be discovered. Of course, I didn’t include anything from the EU, which I’m sure has already accounted for every fricking model that could ever possibly exist.
- Speaking of the EU, though we only see series 1-5 on the big screen, in the EU there is an R6, R7, R8 and R9 series of droids.
- C-3PO reminds me of my grandmother. This has nothing to do with astromechs.
Name That Bot
Sep 2nd
UPDATE: THE LIST IS COMPLETE! w00t!
Chop Shop has a great t-shirt called weRobot that features the silhouette of “51 celebrity robots pulled from popular culture references from literature, film, tv, cartoon, children’s literature, video games and even rock music.” Of course I want, but more importantly, I wanted to be able to name all 51 silhouettes. Alas…FAIL, but here’s what I did get:
(Numbers are clockwise from top)
- Hal-9000
- V.I.N.CENT
- Conky 2000 *
- Rusty the Boy Robot
- Twiki
- Robby the Robot
- Gort
- Giant Robo **
- Techno Trousers *
- Muffit *
- Voltron
- Maximilian
- Optimus Prime
- Dr. Theopolis
- Tik-Tok
- Jet Jaguar **
- Cylon
- B-9
- Astro Boy
- Marvin the Paranoid Android
- K-9
- Huey
- Wall-E
- Tom Servo
- Robot from Robotron: 2084 *
- Tin Woodman
- Rosie
- Mechani-Kong **
- Robot Santa ***
- ED-209
- Bender Bending Rodriquez
- Kryten **
- Robot from Berzerk *
- Crow T. Robot
- Johnny 5
- Mega Man
- Mazinger Z *
- Cylon Centurion
- C-3PO
- Robot from News of the World **
- The Iron Giant
- Maschinenmensch
- The Terminator
- Big Guy
- Bomberman *
- Mechagodzilla *
- R2-D2
- Bubo
- Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot
- Tripod from War of the Worlds (how is that a robot?) *
- Sentinel
* Those I didn’t get on first pass and had to research to figure out
** Submitted by commenter Joe Deeley.
*** Submitted via Facebook by Joel Gregor.
Ultimate Star Trek
May 11th
Went to see Star Trek opening day last week (or course) with my buddy. I found, going in, that my enthusiasm wasn’t that high. I think I mostly went because I didn’t want everyone asking me if I went, and also it just seemed obligatory. But I was honestly feeling kind of burnt out on it already, what with all the news, trailers, footage leaks, etc.
But after watching it…WOW! My Trek enthusiasm was revitatalized! The movie was one awesome moment after another, and me and my buddy were all nerd-giddy as we went over the movie scene by scene in the parking lot. Seemed like all the other theater goers loved it too, as all the right laughs and shouts of excitment were heard in all the right places. (Unfortunately, I didn’t see any Klingons or Andorians walking around, but lots of Trek shirts and guys who looked like they don’t get laid much, so the experience still had that nice feeling of home.)
Then…as the days progressed, the flash and pop of the movie started to fade, and the actual plot became more prominant within my brain, and now I realize the movie sucked. It’s one of those horribly lazy screenplays where nobody earns anything. I hate those! But what’s weird, I still kind of like it even though it really did suck. Maybe that’s the secret of Abrams power. He’s tricking me into liking it somehow. Or at least trickED. I don’t know if I would enjoy it again now that I’m onto him.
But yeah, it’s a really bad story directed really well. I’ve recommended it to people, even after realizing I’ve been conned. Not sure why. Damn that Abrams. I feel so Lost!
(Get it? Ouch.)
The Trilogy Meter
Mar 10th
Swiped from Dan Meth via Veronica Belmont, I agree with this, give or take a few minor adjustments. Oh and I still haven’t seen any of the Godfather series. I know, I suck and don’t deserve to live!
