But first, I saw They Might Be Giants again! I wasn’t planning to, but they were playing near my home (Tarrytown Music Hall) and it was only $28.00 for the ticket, so I thought “wot the ‘ell” and went. B. told me they had rewritten “The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas” and sho’ nuff, TMBG performed the new version. Turns out they got all the facts for the song (song lyrics here) from one of those 1950s Golden Books everyone had as a kid. And, it also turns out, that in the 1950s, the scientists were wrong about a lot of their sun information. So the new song is sung as “The Sun Is A Miasma Of Incandescent Plasma”. I still like the original better, so even though the information is outdated and incorrect, I will continue to sing it and I hope TMBG will too. At least they have other informative songs, like “The Mesopotamians” and “Mammal” (where I learned the term ‘monotreme’ – Go Echidna!).
Yep, saw the Star Trek movie. In the IMAX, no less. And it was explosionalistical to the max. I was concerned when I went to go see it, because I am not a Star Trek fan of any kind. I know very basic rudimentary information on the show, and here is the length and breadth of it.
James T. Kirk is Captain of the Enterprise.
He’s got a doctor on board named Bones who says, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a (something)!”
Kirk also has a guy on board named Scottie who’s an engineer or something, and says, “I’m givin’ it all she’s got!” in a heavy Scottish accent.
There’s a nice black lady named Uhura who Kirk kissed and it was the first interracial kiss on TV, I think.
Them there’s Spock, who’s a Vulcan and doesn’t have emotions and has pointy ears.
Also, tribbles.
Aaaaand that’s it. So when I went to go see the movie, I was justifiably wary. I think I caught all of it. Here are some things of note:
– Anybody else think the Romulan ship looks like a Bloomin’ Onion as interpreted by Geiger?
– Speaking of Romulans and They Might Be Giants, the actors playing Romulans has prosthetic foreheads on their real heads. Which caused me to sing the chunk of the song ‘We Want A Rock” by TMBG (Lyrics: Throw the crib door wide / Let the people crawl inside / Someone in this town / Is trying to burn the playhouse down / They want to stop the ones who want / Prosthetic foreheads on their heads / But everybody wants prosthetic / Foreheads on their real heads). See, I never got that song. Obviously it’s about Romulans coming and destroying your planet. I understand now.
– Kirk makes out with a chick who’s completely normal-looking, except she’s painted bright green from head to toe. COME ON. Really. She looks exactly like Elphaba in the musical Wicked. There’s no reason for her to look like that, it’s distracting and stupid. She could have at least had funky scales, like Mystique in X-Men.
– Uhura and Spock are clearly gettin’ jiggy with it, which doesn’t make sense for two reasons. One, why would you want to have intimate relations with someone who doesn’t really express emotions? And two, isn’t Kirk supposed to be romantically involved with Uhura?
– I LOVE that Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) played Scottie. Have you seen Shaun of the Dead? The first half is absolutely fabulous. So, yay, Simon Pegg.
That’s all I can think of. I don’t really get the whole Star Trek obsession, but it was a nice film that had lots of neat-o special effects, and that’s pretty much what I was looking for.
Ok, I’m FINALLY catching up on your weblog and I lub eet for myriad reasons. One being that I literally LOL while reading it. Ok, that aside, here’s the Trekkie nerd part of me to fill you in (although someone might have done that for you already. Actually, maybe you and I talked about it. But you know me and remembering…):
Kirk and the green lady is a reference to the original series (hereafter known as TOS). That was way back when Vulcans and Romulans looked pretty much the same and Klingons all looked like Ghengis Khan. Budgets were LOW and special effects were CRAP so things like, “how can we make this lady look like an alien?” “Well, boss i found this bucket of green paint in the back of my garage…” actually worked.
I hated the Spock-Uhura thing A LOT. Mainly because I totally wasn’t buying the chemistry between them. And I love TOS Spock A LOT. So I also wasn’t keen on the new actor guy whatever his name is. He’s no Leonard Nimoy circa 1967.
Kirk and Uhura’s kiss on TOS was forced through mind control by some evil guy for said evil guy’s evil amusement. Evil. I forget all the details because I saw it so long ago, but I think it was an ancient Greek themed planet or something. ALSO an interesting factoid, the actors didn’t actually kiss. It was shot in such a way that it looked like they were, but censors were concerned about actual lip on lip action. Even so, I think they got threats from the KKK or something crazy.
I have more Star Trek geekiness that I may inflict upon you, but I’d like to remain your friend so I’ll stop there.
Bloomin’ onion… LOLOLOLOL!!!!!