This film began it’s life as a short by director Neill Blomkamp called “Alive in Joberg” — well worth checking out if you’d like to get an feel for this film ahead of time. In fact, that short attracted the attention of Peter Jackson, who brought Blomkamp on board to direct a film based on the Halo franchise. That fell through — perhaps investors were nervous about this unproven director? — and Jackson and Blomkamp instead turned “Alive in Joberg” into District 9.

I bet the people who dumped the Halo film are kicking themselves now.

The ending leaves open the opportunity for a sequel; I just hope that if they do one, they find a way to make it feel as real and gritty and contemporary as the original.

I used to watch the original 1960s Star Trek series on Saturday mornings as a kid, and always enjoyed it. Later, I really came to love The Next Generation in the early 90s, and Deep Space Nine in the late 90s, and read many of the paperbacks based on those series. Unfortunately, Voyager and Enterprise were both huge disappointments to me; I always hoped for them to try something new with the franchise, as they had with DS9… would have loved to see the long-rumoured Star Fleet Academy series, for example.

The films have always been really hit-or-miss — The Wrath of Khan and First Contact are my favourites, and the only ones I rewatch regularly. When I heard that J.J. Abrams of Lost fame was going to reboot the Star Trek franchise, I definitely took interest. The early trailers and promotional material looked very promising, and definitely got my hopes up that we could finally see Star Trek done right.

I walked into the new film with high expectations, and still managed to come out of it completely blown away. It returns to the action-packed roots of the original television show, with a relentless pace and some fantastic action set pieces. The casting is pretty much perfect: Chris Pine is a fantastically watchable Kirk, and works very well in the slightly more Indiana Jones-style role (meaning, as a believable hero who doesn’t always win fist fights). Although I was worried about Zachary Quinto (Sylar on Heroes) playing Spock, I found him totally believable in the role, and not at all distracting. Karl Urban (Eomer in The Lord of the Rings) was a lot of fun as Bones, and a great choice. The remaining characters were clearly cast with less of a worry about them being carbon-copies of the original actors, and that’s probably a good thing; definitely look forward to getting more time with them in future films.

The story is pretty tight the whole way through; very well focused on Kirk and Spock’s stories, though mainly from Kirk’s point of view. There are some plot points that strain credulity a bit if you think about them, but in all cases you can see that they are done for the sake of keeping the story moving. To my surprise, I think the only aspect I found less than awesome was the elder Spock’s presence in the film — maybe we’ve just done this with Leonard Nimoy one too many times? — but I do appreciate that it was mainly intended as “fan service” to tie the original franchise and new film together.

It’s definitely worth seeing this film in the theatre; there have been so many films lately that have seemed overhyped to me when I finally saw them… but Star Trek does not disappoint. I cannot wait to own this on DVD, and am already eagerly awaiting more films with this cast.

A fine family adventure film — particularly enjoyed Ronan’s performance. Alas, the plot was just a tad shallower than I would have hoped.

3 stars (out of 5)

3 stars (out of 5).

3 and a half stars (out of 5)

2 stars (out of 5)

The Matrix Revolutions is an unmitigated disaster. I had hoped that their pseudo-philosophical dialogue and allegorical symbolism would actually LEAD somewhere — but it doesn’t. In the end, none of that matters a whit. It’s all revealed to be so much less than it seemed — It is summed up thus: Neo is awakened, unplugged from the Matrix, and then revealed to be the only person who can help the Machines destroy a rampant virus in their system. Neo cleans the virus in return for a promise of peace from the machines. “We need them, they need us.” That’s it. All of the intriguing philosophical undertones and nuances were absolutely wasted in the end, when it all comes down to an elaborate fist-fight between Neo and Smith. [sigh] What an horrible waste.

2 stars (out of 5)

4 and a half stars (out of 5)

4 and a half stars (out of 5)

5 stars (out of 5)

4 and a half stars (out of 5)

5 stars (out of 5)

5 stars (out of 5)

So one can understand that when Chris Roberts decided to bring it to the big screen, he felt the need to make changes to the Wing Commander franchise to differentiate it more from the Star Wars franchise — thus the clunky WW2 fighter designs and naval-style battles. Although this works fine on film, it really changes the look and feel of the franchise completely, giving nothing for fans of the amazing games to connect with… and lets face it, fans of the games were really the core target audience (or should have been!)

The whole added subplot about the “Pilgrims” — something not found in the games — felt a little bit like a rip-off of Star Wars’ “The Force” in a way, too (that is, as we understood the Force before The Empire Strikes Back): a plot device to give the main character a special power to set him apart from the other characters. Again, it works okay, but I wish Roberts had taken all the time spent talking about the Pilgrims and used it instead to flesh out the enemy Kilrathi, who were much more interesting and fully-realized characters in the video games. (Though admittedly, the budget probably wouldn’t have allowed that much time with the creature effects.)

It’s bound to be a disappointment for fans of the video game franchise upon which it was based, simply because it had so little in common — and because the video games themselves featured more well-known actors, such as Mark Hammill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Tom Wilson.

But in the end, it still makes a fine sci-fi film, well worth watching if you’re flipping channels and find it on television, or renting if you are a fan of the sci-fi genre or any of the film’s actors.

The Thrawn Trilogy of books (of which this is the first) are far and away the best Star Wars novels; perhaps because it was penned by a science fiction author with experience writing about galactic warfare.

Timothy Zahn bravely pushes the saga in interesting new directions that sets the bar for all the novels that have followed. He introduces some of the most memorable and enduring Extended Universe characters, like Talon Karde, Mara Jade, and the inestimable Grand Admiral Thrawn — the delightfully Holmesian Star Wars villain.

These books are among the few that I have read multiple times in my life.