The first kind of fire is what you saw at the edge of the horizon. Low and grey and intimidating certainly, but definitively far away. That was where it hid, in the complacency of distance and difference. It was happening there not here. To them not us. A fire, yes? But not one we could do anything about.
But fire spreads in a way which hypnotizes, which steals memory and perception of linear time. One day the fires were on the horizon. The next you walked past a lady having a nervous, hurried phone call about hand sanitizer.
That weekend the panic buying started.
*
The second type of fire is much closer to home. This is the sort encouraged, but never quite enough, by politicians as terrified as they are outmatched. These are the fires that set distances and because there are so many, for a while, this seems like the cruelest type of all. The archipelago of enthusiasm has always thrived on company in every sense of the word. Culture and joy are team sports, communal experiences where you come in alone but leave as part of a benign conspiracy of joy.
Now you leave one at a time, two meters apart. Now, the fire surrounds you, the floor really IS lava. Now you know where you aren’t provably safe and it’s basically everywhere. The clock is started. It will be stopped. But no one knows when yet.
*
The third type is the fire of the common purpose, of the actual truth spoken to power. A floundering government is worked around. Yet more senseless, un-regarded murders power countless thousands onto the streets, their fire internal, their fire shared. The virus, it transpires much later, not so.
The world, the archipelago is locked in place. But it isn’t frozen. That’s what this fire teaches you. It can be changed, even within your miniscule bubble. It can be healed. By all of you moving as one. Like a fire. Like a flame.
*
It’s the end of the year and you are so, so tired. You stare out across the archipelago, now a collection of islands again. All string lit and salt crust. A gentle tropical faded elegance, like Jagger before Richards fell out of the tree. Chiseled from hedonism and sandstone.
You haven’t heard from anyone for a while. That’s okay too, Everyone’s busy. Everyone’s sheltering under their tier. So you sit and you look absently at your computer screen. It takes you eighteen full minutes to realize it’s blank.
And a further ten to realize the fires are back. This time you don’t wait. This time you’re up and moving. Seal the island, lock the bridges and…
You stop and look around you. From your position in the archipelago of human enthusiasm you can see thousands of islands and islets. You can see the places which have been dark for too long. You can see others that may yet return and everywhere else?
Life.
People.
Fire.
Small groups, individuals but so many, dancing your gaze onto the next and the next and the next. Humanity. Damaged. Grieving. Isolated. Together. Burning the old year to prepare for the new one.
You set off for the beach. Time to start a fire of your own.
I’ve spent a little while trying to work out how to title this and honestly, I think ‘blunt instrument’ is the way to go.
I love the movies. I always have. Film was the medium that taught me there was life beyond where I grew up. Film taught me about stories and emotion. People taught me narrative and the amazing things that happen when you subvert it. Film is where I go to heal my hurt and I’ve never, not once, failed to feel better after seeing a movie than I was when it started.
I haven’t been to a movie theater since February. The last two movies I saw were Emmaand Underwater. Both pretty good and a deeply weird and lovely double bill. Check them out.
When lockdown took hold, I made my peace with the fact I wouldn’t be going to the movies again, odds are, this year. I have streaming services, we have a monthly rental budget, I watch plenty of movies. But I won’t be setting foot through the doors of a cinema again until there’s a vaccine. It isn’t safe.
This is not a memo several studios, and any government on either side of the Atlantic, seem to have received.
Let’s burn a couple of straw men before we go any further shall we? First off, if your first response to this piece is ANY variation of ‘It’s just the flu’ or ‘It’s a cover up’ or any of the bilious, clammy machismo drivel that’s been spouted by people who saw a scientist once on TV, then leave. Now. This is not for you. Go stand in the corner with the depressingly large bunch of professional MMA fighters so scared of admitting they’re scared they’re trying to out macho a virus.
‘But what about businesses? How will they stay open?’ This is a great point and it’s one there are two responses too. The first, which has zero empathy and isn’t one I back, is that capitalism’s greatest sin is that it isn’t dying fast enough and we should let it do just that. I see that point, I really do. But I’ve worked retail jobs. I’ve worked service jobs. I enjoy paying bills, eating food and not having to worry about either on top of a global pandemic. Jobs, if this is the societal framework we exist in, are good. People should have them and be paid fairly for their time.
But COVID-19 is an unprecedented global event. Every government has the responsibility to look after their people and their economy although God knows the last time they were mentioned in that order of priority. At times like this, governments need to crack open the piggy bank. Cinemas, theaters, the entire arts sector is in massive, relentless trouble in this country and it desperately needs help. Their help. Not our health.
A very brief diversion; this is the perfect opportunity to trial Universal Basic Income. Finland just finished a two year successful trial of this. It’s remarkably simple and terrifies the UK government because there’s no chance to hurt people who aren’t their voter base with it. Simply put, you get a flat, unconditional amount of money from the government every month. If it’s enough to cover your costs and everything else, you don’t have to work. It doesn’t go up if you’re fired. It doesn’t drop if you’re employed. It’s redirected instantly back into the economy whether through shopping, utilities, rent or whatever else. It’s a foundation for people to build on, not a cushion for the groups the UK has been conditioned to hate for decades to relax on. It’s a brilliant idea. We need it. Right now? It would mean retail staff wouldn’t have to risk their lives for minimum wage and the chance their company was still there in a year. But instead of that we get the richest chancellor in the country’s history handing out short term furlough grants, giving some freelancers two entire payments months apart of a percentage of projected earnings and basically saying ‘good luck’ to everyone else.
That’s a simplification sure, but not much of one. UBI is a good system, Finland just proved it worked. Everywhere else needs it, not to mention an unprecedentedly large amount of financial support to keep organizations afloat while they functionally shutter for a year. We don’t have that, which means we’re now at the point where cinemas aren’t just reopening, they’re using this to entice people in.
I love cinema. I love breathing more.
And here’s the thing, I hear the folks saying the cinemas have to reopen, I really do. I know this is a no-win situation for them. I also know their staff will be directly impacted, in every way, long before any board members and shareholders are. Know what else I’d like them and every retail organization to do, if they are re-opening? Pay a living wage. Hey, Waterstones, what’s up? Aside from profits?
But that’s the choice we’re being given by multiple studios and, honestly, it’s made me angrier than I was expecting. Tenet opens over here shortly, and the few critics able to see it have said it’s definitely a Christopher Nolan movie for better and worse. Wonder Woman ’84 just released its second trailer which finishes with the words ONLY IN CINEMAS. New Mutants too will be cinema only and honestly, that one plays like a genuine crotch punch. The thing’s had it’s release moved around as much as Cabin in the Woods did, is an overhanging artifact of the Fox X-Universe and would have soared on Disney +. Instead, the football is being taken away YET. AGAIN.
Oh that Wonder Woman’84 trailer? Released at an online event, because San Diego Comic Con was cancelled due to COVID-19.
If you see irony at the bar, take his keys, yeah? The dude’s had a shitty year.
There’s no hint of a VOD release for any of these just yet although Tenet has a notional bluray release in December. Hopefully the others will follow, but even if they do, the studios behind these movies are doing two awful things, one awful for us, one awful for them. The first is they’re creating a class system which is based on a potentially fatal dare. Do you want to be spoiled on Tenet? Or do you want to maybe get sick for months? Step right up, folks! Christopher Nolan has a show for you and this time he’s remembered to put women in it! That doesn’t just appeal to the sort of macho bullshit that only ever gets louder when people are bored. It preys on human weakness. It’s cruel. We’re all tired. We’re all scared. We all want to go out. The movies are right there.
The second, awful, thing it does? This is capitalism, a system designed to do nothing but perpetuate itself, leaving money on the table. Day-and-date VOD releases, Hell, VOD releases inside two months announced at the same time as the cinema date would clean up. Crucially, it would also send a message that every organization, for all their ‘we’re all in this together’ emails has utterly failed to communicate:
Everyone matters. Everyone gets to go to the movies, even if the movies have to come to them.
Imagine if that had happened. Imagine if, in this dog’s arsecrack of a year, studios had been together enough to reach out to their entire audience, not just the ones they could get the quick, possibly not sanitary, buck from. Some tried it. Disney releasing Hamilton to Disney + did remarkable business and the increasingly platform agnostic dual release of Mulan plays a lot like a pilot scheme for future titles. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted Face The MusicIS doing day-and-date cinema and VOD in the US but only the US (DUDES! *BOGUS*). Even the much rumored ‘mature tier’ on Disney + looks a lot like a possible home for Black Widow. There is some progress. There is some innovation.
But there’s also the doors to the cinema, open when they shouldn’t be, staffed by people who don’t want to be there and aren’t being paid enough, presented as the only option and surely if this horrible trudge around the Sun has taught us anything it’s that there should always be other, safe options. But instead of answering the call to welcome their whole audience, studios are preying on boredom, on the desire to escape for a while. In doing so they’re not just adding a distinctly sour note to movies about heroism, they’re also proving something else. Capitalism doesn’t care about us. So we have to do it ourselves. Look after yourself. And, next year, I’ll see you at the movies.
I have a book in my comiXology wishlist. It’s the first She-Ra graphic novel. Looks great, I love the show and this fits an extra piece of canon in there. I have a comics budget and I couldn’t quite stretch to the 8.99 it costs. I put it on my wish list and figured I’d come back later.
On Wednesday the book was 8.99.
Today it’s 12.99.
With no warning or announcement, Comixology have rolled out a 66% price hike in the UK and Europe wide. The assumption is that this is to begin to recoup the amount they’ve lost subsidizing the industry over the last few years. The assumption is that this is yet another way that Brexit the eternal foot-to-own-bollocks of the UK has found another way to make this island smaller, more expensive and less joyful. The assumption is that this is just the way of late stage capitalism and we should all just shrug, accept it and move on.
That’ll probably happen. The fact the comics press have rolled out one whole article about it certainly seems to suggest it’s less important than the Black Cat’s new armour or the persistent rum ours that DC are about to retire every single one of their lead characters and replace them. Got to get the clicks, right?
But 66%.
That doesn’t just correct the subsidies talked about in the Bleeding Cool article. That’s a 1:1 parity. Here’s how BC breaks it down:
(A quick aside: Hate on them all you want but they are the only site that bothered to report on this.)
That, by itself, is bad. But the manner in which this has been rolled out is bluntly offensive. There’s been no warning, no statement, no explanation beyond a bland ‘We take lots of factors into account’. Just an eyeblink and suddenly the money that got me 4 comics last week gets me 2 this week.
I’m a comics reader. I’ve worked in marketing. I’ve done my time in customer care. This is genuinely one of the absolute worst ways to deal with customer relations I’ve ever seen. At best, it presents as cowardly. Hiding from the audience you know is furious and hoping none of them will notice. At worst? It’s arrogant. The same people who paid £4 last week can pay £6 this week.
So far, that second response seems to be the one they’re getting. As part of the Amazon mitochondrial network. Comixology is simultaneously super available and remarkably difficult to talk to. Tweets and DMs (polite ones, you know me) go unanswered. There’s no press release. No statement. But there is a message. Whether it’s one Comixology wants to send isn’t for me to say. But by not saying anything, they’re saying this loud and clear.
You’re not a big enough market to care about.
Because it’s not just this multi-currency price hike. Comixology run a service called Unlimited which is, in essence, a fire hose. You pay a flat fee a month and can access tens of thousands of books. It’s brilliant the sort of library you can lose yourself in for months.
It’s not available in the UK. And as of one day ago, the same account that won’t answer questions about this was responding to queries about that with bland ‘no plans at this time but thanks for your interest!’ tweets.
So, to be clear, the week is closing with digital comics now more expensive to lease than physical comics are to buy, with no explanation or warning in a country where Unlimited isn’t available and exactly one article has been written about it.
In the dictionary under slow clap, there’s a picture of this.
I want to say this may help retailers, and it might. But retailers are hurting worse than this particular arm of the Amazon Mechalith ever could. Multiple stores are cutting their shelf copies to the bone and because the reordering system in comics is a joke told by a shrieking god to a sleeping giant in a rainstorm, there’s no certainty anything you want will actually be in print. And now, if you want to lease it digitally, it costs more than the physical copy you may not be able to get.
I used to work in this industry. I don’t miss it. But God does it make me sad on days like this.
This is going to hurt everything and everyone. Customers have seen their budgets cut in half, smaller titles that could find homes online will now continually lose out to the big names, retailers will be under more pressure, companies will get risk averse. This will shrink the industry. Demonstrably hurt it. And the only outcome that suggests it might not? Is one where we all shrug, accept that we really do live inside a commerce system that’s dead but somehow still moving and start saving up for the next issue of our favorite title. But hey maybe it’s one our local retailer has risked a measurable percentage of their own profit margin to buy a shelf copy of. Living the DREAM.
So what do we take home from this? Two things:
-Pre order titles you want. Yes I know it means you basically have to be psychic. I’m sorry. This system is broken and shouldn’t have lasted this long yet here we are.
-Choose between what comforts you and what excites you. And get ready for it to be a very tough choice.
So I’ve checked outside and it’s all still on fire. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s so egregiously and completely on fire that everyone can see it. The countryside is burninated. The peasants are burninated. The thatched roof cottages are going DOWN. It’s just a fact at this point.
That means, like I say, everyone can see it and if everyone can see it that means you don’t have to see it all the time. The single upside to culture-wide multi-quadrant fucktastrophe is ubiquity of observation. You’re not going to miss anything, or miss an opportunity to do some good, by stepping away for a few hours. Or as Mike Doughty puts it….
First off, and miraculously still playing in theatres, Booksmart. Directed by Olivia WIlde (13 from House) from a script by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogekl and Katie Silberman. it stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein as Amy and Molly. Amy is recently out, kind of terrified and a straight A student. Molly is class president, a Supreme Court justice in waiting and absolutely prepared to take down anyone or anything that stands in her or her friend’s way. They are brilliant, hard working, relentless and have never partied once. They had more important stuff to do. Until, on the last day of school, Molly discovers the kids who partied got into the same universities they did and makes a solemn vow; they’re going to have fun. By any means necessary. Cue the music.
What follows is this beautifully balanced tango between abject teenage mania and painfully well observed characters. There’s a moment where Amy correctly guesses why Molly is acting a certain way towards another character that will break your heart with its honesty. Likewise, Amy’s catastrophic first kiss is romantic until it turns hilarious until it turns horrifically embarrassing. The movie features the single best written and acted argument I’ve seen this century, as the girls go from light-heartedly messing with each other to absolutely cutting loose. The frantic nature of late stage adolescence is hard coded into every single frame and it’s at times a hard watch but always for the best reasons.
It’s also relentlessly funny. From the opening dance off to the magnificent final few seconds Booksmart is never well behaved, always goes for the best, smartest joke and always surprises you. It’s also littered with excellent cameos, the best of which by far is Billie Lourd as possibly supernatural, definitely massively high partygoer Gigi. Hilariously angry, completely driven and painfully sweet, Booksmart is a modern classic. Miss it at the theatres? Track it down on digital August 20th and blu-ray in early September.. It’s more than worth it.
Which brings us nicely to Chef. Written, directed by and starring Jon Favreau it follows chef Carl Casper through the worst, and also best, night of his life. Carl works at a high end Californian restaurant and on the night a big critic comes in, he’s told to ‘play the hits’ rather than experiment. He does. It goes badly. He freaks out. It goes badlier (a word). He freaks out again and he’s fired. Until, with the aid of his ex-wife’s ex-husband, he buys a food truck and rediscovers the simple joy of cooking and of being a father.
On paper it looks sappy as hell but Favreau is a man who never met a piece of dialogue he didn’t love, or a scene he couldn’t frame. From opening to closing, Chef is a love letter to food and what food it is. With technical assistance from Chef Roy Choi (Whose Kogi food truck I have eaten from and remains one of the best meals I have ever had in my life), the techniques and recipes all work. But even more importantly, so does the culture. Carl works constantly, intoxicated and obsessed by food and Favreau, who trained with Choi, shows us everything. The rambunctious, cheerfully foul nature of every kitchen. The strict hierarchies, fierce loyalties and cut throat ambition. All of it stacks up and, brilliantly, evaporates once the truck gets on the road. It may be cramped but you can see Carl breathe out, see Favreau’s burly shoulders droop as his guy rediscovers his love for the game. Given Favreau made Chef after several massive blockbusters, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between Carl and his creator too.
But the movie really soars in the gentle way it explores Carl’s burgeoning friendship with his ten year old son, Percy. Emjay Anthony is fantastic as a calm, focused kid who wants more and has no problem telling his dad where to get off and he Favreau have great chemistry. The movie also takes the brave step of casting Carl not so much as a bad guy as not a very a good one. He knows he’s a bad father and husband and while he tries to do something about it, there’s always the work, always the food. He and John Leguizamo as best friend Martin are born to that world. Inez, his ex-wife played by Sofia Vergara and girlfriend Molly played by Scarlett Johannsson are far less lucky. Molly in particular exists solely to gaze adoringly at Carl while he makes her lunch and then tell him to go find his bliss.
That element is a hard ask but get past it and Chef is the very best comfort food. Favreau is a great leading man, funny and naturalistic. There’s a wide variety of fun cameos including several familiar Marvel faces. The food looks amazing, the creativity behind it is inspiring and the movie does a lot that’s smart, subtle and kind. Also do eat before seeing it. Or take notes while you are. Chef is available to buy now and honestly, get it. If a really great grilled cheese sandwich (And this movie features the best grilled cheese sandwich in cinema history) was a movie, it would be Chef.
So there you go, a little cinematic comfort food for these trying times. Dig in, trust me it’s worth it.
About once a decade, everything lines up. A half dozen major cultural juggernauts all come into land at about the same time and some poor soul is paid to write the ‘GEEK CULTURE IS OVER. WE SHALL NEVER SEE ITS LIKE AGAIN’ piece. Hey if the check clears and the piece doesn’t hurt anyone, go with God. We’re in one of those times now. Game of Thrones has under half its super short final season to go. Avengers Endgame is all over theaters everywhere and the ninth core Star Wars movie has been confirmed as the end of the Skywalker saga. If this was a concert, we’d officially be into the ‘Freebird’, ‘Hotel California’, ‘Thrift Shop’, ‘Single Ladies’ phase of the night.
These are emotional times. As geeks, as people who are alive in the ocean of digital information that 21st century life is, we assemble our armor from what attracts our attention. That top line is from Hamilton by way of Brooklyn Nine Nine. I’m writing this wearing an Autobot symbol t-shirt, on an iPad with a sticker of Hunk from Voltron on the case. Why Hunk? He’s a big, articulate, kind dude who likes cooking. Why the Autobot symbol? Have you met me? All this stuff is intellectual property, and yes all we do when we interact with culture is keep IP’s alive. Go too far with that and you get to the kind of extremism that lives on the outskirts of very dark places. But be aware of the dangers of over-investment and culture becomes the lock pick for the door of life. You understand the world through the culture you use to interact with it. It’s why far left folks in the US default to Harry Potter metaphors. It’s why far right folks in the US invoke Newt Gingrich. It’s al so why the ‘don’t politicize fiction’ argument is just a massive Kaiju of willful idiocy, stomping across he innocent city of modern life. Like the song goes, yes it’s political, everything’s political.
But at the core of any cultural interaction is emotional engagement. Emotional engagement is the fuel that drives story, its what’s makes us care about everything from soap opera to Shakespeare and everything in between. Stories are mirrors. You can’t see what they’re reflecting without truly understanding it and that understanding has, as the price of admission, caring. We laugh at Jon Snow kissing Dani with one eye open and focused on her dragons. We cry as Leia hugs Rey, knowing whatever happens we’ll never see one of them on the big screen again. We prepare the re-hydration salts for Endgame, as an epochal crew of portrayals prepares to take its final bow. We know this will wreck us. We know we’ll learn and be stronger in the broken places. HEMINGWAY understood this for God’s sake. But the exact people who’d carry his boxing gloves for him and drink only Big Ernie approved whiskey seem to have forgotten this lesson. Instead, they listen to this guy.
Don’t do that.
The last few years have unleashed an impressive barrage of awful phrases onto the battered, flaming hulk of the English language. ‘Fake news’ is far and away the worst but ‘snowflake’ is the most insidious and, for me, the most toxic. It’s most commonly used to attack people who’ve dared to express an emotional response to something. Like, for example, not being happy about their rights to exist as humans being debated. Or pointing out demonstrable hate speech on a social media platform run by a sentient beard who thinks you can minmax yoga. It’s a terrible term, a blunt instrument used not just to insult your opponent but insult the very idea of emotional engagement. Linguistically, it’s a nuke. Everyone’s got them and they lay waste to everything around them. Every time it’s used, someone gets pushed further away. It’s a weapon designed to not just mock the idea of emotional engagement but the idea of emotional engagement with others. And what’s one of the biggest ways we engage with others?
Shared cultural joy. Fandom.
Gate-keeping in fandom is, often, what’s for every meal. This particular stripe of it instantly pushes my rage buttons because I’m a cishet notional and have fought the stiff upper lip my whole life. I was tremendously lucky to have awesome parents who weren’t afraid of their own emotional responses. I still took twenty years to realize that my emotions were something I was supposed to release in a healthy fashion as opposed to burying them. I honestly think this is one of the reasons why the default response for so many people is hipster snark. If you laugh at something you push it away from you and you focus your attention, and others, on what it is not how it’s affected you. That’s understandable. I’ve done it myself, more than once and will again.
But it never lasts. And it never should.
Kate Bush once sang just being alive, it can really hurt and she wasn’t lying. Modern life is exhausting and at times like this, when the support structures we rely on are evolving, it can be even more so. At times like these it’s all too easy to fall back on defensive behavior and cover up instead of letting yourself get affected. But affected doesn’t always mean hurt, and covering up just means no one else can see you. Now more than ever, we all deserve to be seen.
So, the stiff upper lip is bullshit. Hipster snark is bullshit. Laughing at other people for their emotional honesty is bullshit. All clear? Great. I’m off to load up on tissues and re-hydration salts before seeing Endgame again. See you next time
Well, Matt Reeves is a safe pair of hands, that’s a given. I mean, sure, everyone has an Under Siege 2: Dark Territory somewhere but look past that and you’ve got Cloverfield, which is a legit epochal piece of cinema. Hate found footage movies all you want but Cloverfield is never less than visually impressive and changed the grammar of blockbusters in general and monster movies in particular. From there Reeves directed the critically acclaimed remake ofLet The Right One In and made the revamped Planet of the Apes trilogy not only his own but a strikingly intelligent, modern and bleak retelling of what could have so easily been a goofy cash in. And he wrote all of them too. Behind the camera is just fine, no worries there.
But in front of the camera, there’s an opportunity. An opportunity to break accepted wisdom and actually do something genuinely new and revolutionary with the character. We know Reeves wants to cast a young Bruce and that the movie is planned as an actual detective story with a large rogue’s gallery as opposed to the yelling nocturnal punch fest that so many other Batman movies end up as.
So here’s how you do it. Or rather, how I’d do it.
David Mazouz
The kid has held Gotham, a series of 42 minute explosions, together for five years. He’s literally grown into the role, on screen and has the exact combination of presence, compassion, gravitas and literal batsarse crazy eyes to sell it. Plus you get instant good will from the Gotham crowd, you reward Mazouz for carrying that show on his back for five years and if we’re really lucky? The greatest version of Alfred Pennyworth ever committed to screen comes with him. ‘Ave iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!
Michael B. Jordan
Oh you know this makes sense. Jordan is a fiercely intelligent performer and uses that intelligence in the service of his roles. He’s arguably the lynchpin of Black Panther and his Shakespearean Killmonger is, hands down, the best villain the Marvel movies have had to date. Imagine that intelligence, that focus, put to cleaning up Gotham City.
Then there’s the physical dimension. Jordan’s extraordinary work in the Creedmovies shows he’s ridiculously physically capable too. Plus he’s a legit geek so there’s instant good will from the hard to win over members of the audience and his best performances sit absolutely in the sweet spot Reeves seems to want; a young, driven, slightly impulsive Bruce completely focused on his work but perhaps over-extending himself. It’s Creed in a cowl, and Jordan knows that territory very, very well.
LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 16: Oscar Isaac attends the European Premiere of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in Leicester Square on December 16, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/WireImage)
Oscar Isaac
Just let me have this one. I know the age gap probably isn’t big enough and Isaac’s blockbuster dance card is going to be good and full for the next few years anyway. But very few people could be Bruce Wayne better than him. Isaac’s sophisticated without being sleazy, intense without being goggle eyed crazy pants and he can do grounded, mournful decency and swashbuckling charm with equal ease. Often in the same scene. I accept he’s probably out of the range but if we can’t get him as Batman, then surely he’s a Commissioner Gordon in waiting.
LONDON, ENGLAND – JANUARY 05: Colin Morgan attends the UK Premiere of “Testament of Youth” at Empire Leicester Square on January 5, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
Colin Morgan
Morgan’s two best known performances in the UK are as Merlinin Merlin and Leo in Humans. The two roles are a textbook demonstration of his range and why he’d be a good fit for the cowl. Morgan can do seething intensity, emotional damage and comedic awkwardness effortlessly and all of them with a guiding intelligence. Bruce Wayne as a player of games, as a mask worn by Batman is something Morgan could absolutely ace. Plus he looks good in a tux so there’s that.
There’s the temptation to complicate matters of course. To fold in other members of the Bat family, to discuss the correct Robin for the occasion that sort of thing. There’s also the compulsory requirement to point out that Batman is arguably one of the most over-exposed characters to hang a movie off if you’re looking to break new ground. He’s a guilt ridden billionaire trauma victim who sublimates his rage and guilt by punching criminals. That’s slightly facetious sure but it’s also a good chunk of the character and I worry that a younger Bruce would mean we’d have to sit through the second most overplayed origin story in comics for the umpteenth time.
That being said, there are interesting things to still do with Batman and a raft of great Bat characters that are screaming out for a movie of their own. The Reeves movie won’t be that, but it is a new start and that’s something the DCEU has begun to see real success with. Wonder Woman was great. Aquaman, book torturing idiot dude bro lead aside, was great. Shazamlooks big fun and if it is it’ll triangulate the idea that DC movies work best when they work alone. So bring on the new Bat, whoever he may be. Batfleck’s era is gone, and that’s for the best for everyone, including him. Let’s see who picks up the cowl next and if their luck is any better. It certainly deserves to be.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP/REX/Shutterstock (6975532f) SJ Clarkson Director SJ Clarkson attends a photo-call for the movie Toast at the International Film Festival Berlinale in Berlin on Germany Berlinale, Berlin, Germany
SJ Clarkson is about to have a very good year. You don’t know their name, odds are but believe me you’ll have seen some of Clarkson’s work. She’s directed for everything from Life on Mars to The Defenders and is one of the never ending stream of excellent female directors who drive the US TV drama industry along. Clarkson’s work, most notably on the first two episodes of Jessica Jones, is known for being clean, character-centric and elegant. She’s excellent and when it was announced last year she’d be helming Star Trek 4 it was a pleasure to see her get the slot, and to see the franchise’s directorial blinkers finally be lifted It was also confidently announced that Chris Hemsworth would be returning as Kirk’s dad. Most people instantly assumed it was time for the Mirror universe but I figured time travel and some sort of Quantum Leapsituation.
Regardless it’s a moot point now as Pine and Hemsworth were caught up in a contract dispute with the studio that ended with them leaving the table. Now, Clarkson has left the project to direct the pilot of the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel and serve as executive producer for the series. Star Trek 4 appears to have been indefinitely shelved as a result.
And that’s brilliant news, for basically everyone, here’s why.
Clarkson first off. I wasn’t kidding about the legions of female directors keeping US TV afloat, there are dozens of them and they’re all brilliant and underappreciated and underpaid. Sandra Oh’s gag at the Golden Globes this year about ‘FIRST MAN!’ being the default choice for directors and a movie about Neil Armstrong is funny, and sad, because its true. So any time someone makes it over the fence, as Clarkson has done here, I’m delighted. GoT: 90210 or whatever the Hell it’s going to be called is the definition of a prestige gig and there must be a ton of confidence in her for her to be put in place. Deservedly so too.
Then there’s Game of Thrones itself. The world’s angriest Ren Fair is the largest TV show on the planet by a considerable margin and, now it has finally overtaken the books, has been having visibly more fun season by season. However, it’s also got a justifiably shitty reputation for how it deals with female staff. And characters for that matter. This is a great breakdown of the show’s massive fondness for ladymurder season by season but weirdly the horrific statistic isn’t the big number, it’s the small one. In the entirety of its run the show has had 3 women on the writing and directing staff.
3.
In 73 episodes.
With none either writing or directing for the final season.
On its own, that’s a hilariously shitty metric. Placed against the show’s cheerful willingness to use rape the way some people use punctuation marks, it’s disgusting. The largest show on Earth has employed three whole entire women in its biggest roles. That’s an unforgivable failure, if absolutely nothing else, of leading by example. But it does give you a starting position to row back from and, seven YEARS LATE, that’s exactly what the production office is starting to do by hiring Clarkson.
(As an aside, Mo Ryan should be your go to for this sort of thing on Twitter. One of the best entertainment journalists on the planet.)
But what of Star Trek? Well, it’s good news for that too.
The Kelvinverse movies get a lot of hate and the vast majority of it is undeserved. The original Star Trek is great, everything in Into Darkness that isn’t Khan being whitewashed is fun and Beyond is a legitimate love letter to the franchise. In fact, Beyond is a perfect capstone for these movies for all sorts of reasons. Also THIS IS STILL THE BEST THING. It gives Kirk the test he’s always needed and ties the present of this universe to the past it shares with the core timeline. It also sets up an ending that’s elegant, could absolutely stand a sequel or two but is in no way incomplete without them. And can stand toe to toe with the ending of The Undiscovered Country and The Voyage Home, where they get the 1701-A and the music swells and I become a human avatar of ugly crying.
But most importantly, bringing the Kelvinverse into land here salutes the cast members who are no longer with us. Don’t get me wrong, part of me would love to see a fourth movie with Jaylah sitting next to Sulu. But the rest of me is quite happy with that role being filled by Anton Yelchin’s instantly likable take on Chekov, off-screen and quietly, enthusiastically immortal.
Besides, Trek’s far more at home on bookshelves and the small screen now. The astonishing work consistently being done by novelists like James Swallow and Doctor Una McCorrmack has continued to expand the core timeline. Meanwhile, the launch of Discovery last year, the imminent second season as well as the new Picard show and recently announced pair of animated series all speak to a new found dedication to Trek on TV.
Tellingly, the existence of The Orville does the same thing. While the show is still very Seth MacFarlane’s bad days on its bad days, the rest of it is a fascinating look at established Trek tropes through new lenses. It is to Star Trek what Scrubs is to ER, a profoundly affectionate and respectful riff playing all the right notes, just in a different order. That’s why the the people who cite it as the ‘true Star Trek’ because it doesn’t let politics get in the way mystify me so much. Not just because they’ve presumably never seen Star Trek before but perhapsnot The Orville either. Social issues are at the core of both of them. It’s just sometimes on The Orville, there’s a punchline as well. Regardless, it’s existence and success speaks to the strength of Star Trek as a small screen concept, whether it’s branded as Star Trek or not.
So like I say, this is one of those rare occasions where a project falling through is good news. Clarkson has a great new job, Game of Thrones gets to take the NO GURLS ALOUD notice off the front door of the production office and the Kelvinverse gets the ending it deserves. Plus Trek as a concept gets to grow in new ways. Seek out new life and new civilizations. Perhaps even, boldly go?
Seriously though this is great news all round. Congratulations everyone. Now, who’s working on that Chief Miles O’Brien show? Take your time, I’ll wait. And turn up the beats and the shouting, yeah?
When Alasdair Stuart is not hosting PseudoPod and Escape Pod, or running Escape Artists Inc., he’s professionally enthusiastic about genre fiction on the Internet at places like Tor.com, Barnes & Noble, The Guardian, Uncanny Magazine, SciFi Now and MyMBuzz. He’s an ENie-nominated tabletop RPG writer for his work on Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space. His other RPG writing includes Star Trek, The Laundry Files, Primeval, Victoriana, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, N.E.W. and Chill, meaning he’s got a playbook for any variety of invasion you can name. He also makes ketchup sometimes and can bake the HELL out of focaccia. Read about his ongoing culinary adventures, as well as a whole lot of pop culture enthusiasm in his weekly newsletter, The Full Lid, published every Friday around 5pm.
He lives in the UK with the love of his life and their ever expanding herd of microphones. Follow him on Twitter as @AlasdairStuart, or at his blog, The Man of Words.
Good news everyone! I’m reliably informed by people in other time zones that 2018 does in fact end! Seriously, folks, the 1st of January 2019 has been confirmed as happening in several other places. It’s okay. It’s okay. This miserable hellscape of a year is about to be gone and the slate is wiped clean, the clock reset to zero.
I want to talk about that and why sometimes it can be frightening.
Like Ford once said, time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so. The end of a year is an entirely arbitrary temporal hinge, a left turn in our passage through linear time that it’s super easy to put a whole lot of unneeded pressure on. It’s why most fitness related new year’s resolutions don’t work, because when it comes down to it it’s only the top of the year for a little bit of time. 2019 only has that New Time smell for so long.
That can put extraordinary pressure on you, and by you, I mean us. But the thing I’m realizing this year is that pressure can be exerted two different ways. If you had a great 2018 part of you may be terrified that 2019 will be worse. If you had a terrible 2018 part of you will be terrified that 2019 will be worse. The House always wins. And the House is a Bastard.
We put ourselves under strain at this time of year even before you take into account the radical life reboots that are already rippling around the globe. Going from late nights back to early mornings if you’ve had time off, the sudden gaping hole in your day where the Quality Street used to be, the total absence of any version of A Christmas Carol. It’s always a little frightening to deal with, you always find yourself shrugging the coat of responsibility back on and wondering if it always had the mittens tied to the cuffs.
(it did. And they look awesome.)
And then you decide to run three times a week, finish a novel, write a novella and plan something else.
Here’s the thing. Do that. But add something else in too.
Downtime.
My partner and I have, between us, somewhere in the region of four jobs. She’s a lawyer, we run the podcasting company together, I’m an RPG designer and journalist, she’s an editor. We fight crime. And it really is, I am a blessed man who will go to his grave astounded at what his life is in the very best of ways.
But the one thing we absolutely stink at is downtime. And today we did something about that. Two nights off a week, one full day of weekend when we aren’t working. I promise you we will break those restrictions but I also promise we won’t do it every time. Because you need downtime and if you don’t take it, your body will take it for you. And I say this at the tail end of my second cold in three weeks, so believe me, I know whereof I hack up phlegm.
The New Year attracts us because it’s a new start. The New Year frightens us because it’s a blank page and the responsibility of what to put on there can bend you in two. Don’t let it. Or at least don’t let it for long. This is a new start. It’s one that’s unique to you and owned by everyone. It’s one arriving at the end of two of the darkest years in recent memory and with more, odds are, on the way. But that isn’t going to stop you and it’s not going to stop me either.
Write the words. Do the thing. Show it to others. Share your joy. Like the lady said, let’s get a shift on. Tomorrow is a new start and tomorrow’s on the way. I’ll see you in there.
When Alasdair Stuart is not hosting PseudoPod and Escape Pod, or running Escape Artists Inc., he’s professionally enthusiastic about genre fiction on the Internet at places like Tor.com, Barnes & Noble, The Guardian, Uncanny Magazine, SciFi Now and MyMBuzz. He’s an ENie-nominated tabletop RPG writer for his work on Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space. His other RPG writing includes Star Trek, The Laundry Files, Primeval, Victoriana, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, N.E.W. and Chill, meaning he’s got a playbook for any variety of invasion you can name. He also makes ketchup sometimes and can bake the HELL out of focaccia. Read about his ongoing culinary adventures, as well as a whole lot of pop culture enthusiasm in his weekly newsletter, The Full Lid, published every Friday around 5pm.
He lives in the UK with the love of his life and their ever expanding herd of microphones. Follow him on Twitter as @AlasdairStuart, or at his blog, The Man of Words.
John Lydon there, a few years out from being Johnny Rotten and a few years before splitting his time being a mouthpiece for Big Dairy and deciding Brexit was punk rock. It’s one of his best pieces of non Sex Pistols work, all righteous late ’80s piss and vinegar. Compelling argument too, because anger is an energy, he’s right. If you ever want to gorilla up and over a problem, all you really have to do is get good and mad at it. ‘DRIVE OVER!’ As my tiny Welsh Rugby coach used to say, encouraging 500 pounds of adolescent scrum to do their best impression of a tank.
Hello Mr McGregor, by the way, if you’re reading.
Anger tends to power Difficult Men in fiction too. House? Pissed. Sherlock Holmes? Bloody furious. The Doctor? Often mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore. Peter Capaldi’s epochal run as the 12th Doctor was driven, at least in its first year, by the Doctor’s barely contained rage at everything he knew, could sense and that was not happening fast enough. That rich vein of tetchy has run through most of the previous incarnations too, always appearing in different ways. 11’s baby-faced old man persona, 6’s fundamental inability to not shout, 4’s occasional mercurial explosions of rage. 9’s tormented, embittered survivor’s guilt that often threatened to tear him and anyone near him in half as he grinned as widely as he could to keep from screaming. It’s why ‘Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES!’ Still makes you cry a full decade and a bit after transmission. It’s the feral desperate joy of a man who wants to save everyone who, just once, can. But the thing none of these Difficult Men, or to use the correct trope, Insufferable Geniuses know is that Anger is An energy, not the only energy. And based on her first appearances, the 13th Doctor has found and is building herself around something else; kindness.
To deal with the obvious comment head on, I don’t think this has anything to do with her gender. Anger isn’t something dependent on gender and never has been. Rather, I think 13’s approach to kindness uses the decades of Insufferable Genius that preceded her as a foundation and the environment she’s dropped into as building material to create something as new as it is necessary.
Peter Capaldi’s 12 is, at the very least, my second favorite Doctor of all time so I’m not bagging on him in the slightest. But, especially in that first year, 12 was defined by his rage. ‘Am I a good man?’ Remained the driving question throughout his run and resurfaced when he flat out refused to regenerate at the end of his time. Anger at the world, at the injustice he’d seen, at the fact there were still Things To Do drove the gloriously disreputable old punk right up until his final moments when he was finally allowed not only peace but to realize that someone other than him was allowed to shoulder some of the burden. I was basically a wreck for the entire back 20 minutes of Twice Upon A Time (The Lethbridge-Stewart reveal? Not enough tissues in the world) but those final moments, 12’s curtain call, were what really got me. Especially what seemed to be a good part of the mission statement for 13:
‘Laugh hard. Run fast. Be Kind.’
It’s a moment made all the more powerful in retrospect. 12, finally at peace with himself and his end, taking his final bow and throwing a typically dignified plea out into the world as he goes. One his successor picks up in her first three seconds of life, laughing at the sheer joy of having arrived, of having so much to do and so much time to do it. The torch being passed not reluctantly but with trust. The torch being picked up not out of obligation but choice.
And 13 is unfailingly, disarmingly kind. She’s instinctively the Doctor from the first second we see her. Talking fast, solving a problem, collecting information. She knows who she is before she can remember who she is. She’s also painfully aware of the toll events take on the people around her in a way almost no Doctor has ever been before. The Tenth Doctor’s retrain of ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ was, at times, performative. Another excuse to rails against the universe so vast and malicious that even the Lonely God couldn’t save everyone.
13 has no such front. Or indeed, any at all. She apologizes when things go wrong, compliments her friends (And they’re her friends now, not her companions. That’s important too) for dealing with their situation and is engaged with everyone, not just everything. 13 builds the suit of herself from her environment. Her accent, her friends, her Sonic Screwdriver, her costume. All of it comes not from some conveniently hand waved alien box but from a northern town on a crappy night. I actually applauded at her costume coming from a charity shop because its such a perfect choice. A Doctor with no time, or resources, for the sartorial fripperies of her predecessors, rolling her sleeves up (Literally!) and getting it done. Brilliant. A Sonic Screwdriver made out of Sheffield steel and stolen bits of a Hershey’s Kiss from space. Even more brilliant. The iconic superhero elements of the Doctor stripped away to reveal the same person they’ve always been; never cruel or cowardly. Here to help. Hates empty pockets.
And behind all of it, kindness. Whitaker has the exact steel the Doctor requires and facing down Tim Shaw the tooth-faced pound shop Predator (And I mean that as a compliment) on a tower crane is a Hell of a first ‘I’m the DOCTOR’ moment. But where she lives and breathes in the role is in her compassion. The offhand reference to how ‘everyone is capable of the most incredible
change’. The fact that she quietly positions Ryan, whose fault this indirectly is, so that he can be the one to bring the situation to an end. The fact too that she watches him try and ride his bike and doesn’t intervene. This incarnation of the Doctor is kind but not smothering, compassionate but respectful. She’s here to help, she isn’t here to do it for us and that’s a distinction the show has rarely, if ever attempted before.
It’s also one that implies a welcome fallibility. The Doctor’s decision to leave her friends to heal is one again borne of kindness. But fate, as we see in the final moments of this episode, has other plans for 13 and her odd, fractious survivor’s club. Yazmin, so determined to prove herself. Ryan, refusing to break under the pressure of his dyspraxia and working to not be defined by it. Graham, united with Ryan in grief if not love. Survivors all, none of them happy about it and all of them about to take their first steps into a world that will show them just how much bigger they all are on the inside. And do so not as a punishment, but as a kindness.
Anger is an energy. Right now it’s a mandatory one. I’m writing this on the morning an IPCC report is published, that will almost certainly be ignored, which says we have 12 years to correct or curb climate change before it begins having disastrous, Roland Emmerich-ian effects. I’m writing this in a country which in six months will merrily walk off an economic and cultural cliff because rich white sociopaths turned the very people they exploit the most into a weapon that will harm us all. I’m writing this on the other side of the Atlantic from a country I love whose President’s behavior degrades by the hour, which has just railroaded a probable sexual predator onto the highest court in the land and which looks dead set on rolling the clock back to the 1950s in every single one of the worst ways. Anger is an energy, a mandatory one.
But not the only one.
If anger is a weapon then kindness is a tool and Doctor Who has returned to place that tool in everyone’s hands where it fits so well we almost forgot we could wield it. Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind. Make your own future and bring people along with you when you go. That’s what this Doctor would do. Now, let’s get a shift on.
There are two ways to view the news that Alex Kurtzman is not only going to be the showrunner for the remainder of Discovery season 2 but is spearheading the development of a fleet of other Star Trek shows. The first is to worry about the brand, nod grimly towards some of Kurtzman’s previous projects and wander off muttering about how Star Trek isn’t the same anymore.
The second is to kick a hole in the speakers, pull the plug and pogo off stage. Because, as I realized earlier today, Star Trek is and always shall be punk rock.
First off, yes Kurtzman has some ropey projects on his CV. The vast majority of people do. Not everyone has the massive success of the original Kelvinverse Trek movie, Fringe (Especially its early seasons) and the best Mission: Impossible movie on their record. Kurtzman does. And while there’s bad stuff on there as well, I’m remaining belligerently hopeful. Not only because the showrunners he’s succeeding were reportedly verbally abusive to their writers (Yell at your writers and they will eviscerate you in fiction forever) but because Kurtzman’s new deal, as reported by variety, is taking Trek the exact place it should go; where it’s never gone before.
The word is that his slate currently looks like this:
A Starfleet Academy show run by Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, currently in charge of the excellent Marvel series Runaways.
How about we start with the one giving everyone palpitations. The Starfleet Academy show is a great idea that arrived a couple of decades early. The original idea was to create a second tent pole franchise that would be
Cheaper
and
B) Logistically far easier than bringing the original cast back together.
It’s a great idea in principle but at the time it played too much like a back door replacement and was nixed. The brilliant thing about the idea is that it works far better as a TV show than it would as a movie. Plus Schwartz and Savage have shown, with Runaways, they’re exceptionally good at exploring the lives of gifted, difficult, weird young people and that describes pretty much every Starfleet Academy class you’d care to name.
This show has the potential to be the heart of the new Star Trek TV universe because cadets are the heart of Starfleet itself. Yes, it’s a military organization, a Navy that works in X, Y and Z axes but it’s also a fundamentally altruistic, compassionate, curious organization. Starfleet exists to explore the universe, make everyone’s lives better, meet new cultures and learn from them. That’s a powerful motif at the best of times and it’s no accident Discovery’s best episodes centred this concept. It’s also an immensely powerful, hopeful platform to tell stories from. Especially now and especially with a young, presumably multi-national and multi-species cast.
Then there’s that mini-series, whose plot may not be as confidential as anyone thought. Io9 are reporting that Sir Patrick Stewart is in talks to star in what would be the first Next Generation sequel since Nemesis. That’s going to make a massively vocal fan base immensely happy, and also put to rest one of the longest standing fan conversations; What happened after Next Generation?
Better still, it gives the shows a chance to break undeniable stylistic new ground in a more permissive environment than Discovery did. A mini-series with a beginning, a middle and an end? Trek as event TV? That’s so perfect I’m stunned it’s ever been done before. And better still, to do so with Captain Picard?! That’s like Christmas coming early, having brilliant diction and knowing Shakespeare.
It’s interesting too that there are plenty of gaps to fill in the post-Next Generation time period as well as amazing stories that already exist there. Star Trek‘s tie in novels have done an astonishing job of continuing the narratives set up in the various time periods, introducing new characters and new ships, crossing over with massive success and keeping the franchise very much alive and kicking. Likewise, Star Trek: Online does an excellent job of continuing the timeline in a new era, three decades upstream. All these stories, and their creators, deserve your time and the biggest challenge these new TV series may face is threading the needle between all the various islands of established stories.
Either way, there’s lots of opportunity for cameos from familiar faces and, more importantly, a chance to tell a compelling story in a different way featuring one of the greatest characters in the franchise’s history.
But seriously, sign me up for that West Wing model if we get it.
The Khan mini-series is a little harder to parse but I can see why they’re going for it. Khan remains the most iconic villain the series has ever had, and, after the misstep of casting Benedict Cumberbatch as him in Star Trek Into Darkness, there’s certainly room for a new, definitive take on the character.
As to what the series could be about, there are a couple of possibilities that spring to mind. The Eugenics Wars have always been somewhat…movable, within Star Trek canon and an origin story that explored them would have a lot of potential. It would also, if done wrong in the current climate, be the televisual equivalent of a slow motion 4K train wreck.
What might be more interesting is an exploration of Khan and his people’s time in exile on Ceti Alpha V. Perhaps there were other visitors before the Reliant or some of them were able to get off world. Either way, it’s the show we know the least about and has the most potential as a result especially as this may well be the secret project Nicholas Meyer has been working on for the last couple of years. Let’s face it, if anyone can bring Khan back and make it work, it’s him. And if Miguel Ángel Silvestre from Sense8 isn’t in the running to play Khan then something has gone seriously wrong.
Finally, the concept of a new Star Trek animated series fills me with glee. Not just because the original did such a great job but because the new series of Voltron in particular has demonstrated time and again just how well episodic SF adapts to the format. It’s also worth noting that this could be where Stewart shows up again. He’s got years of experience doing voice work with Seth MacFarlane and it’d be oddly fitting for him to bring that skill set back to Trek.
Then there are the possibilities of what a Marvel-like approach to Star Trek open up. What if the Academy show introduces a character we see, as an adult, in a later series? Or a crossover which starts in one show and flashes back there for an episode? The Arrowverse has proved time and again how effective these storytelling techniques can be and this is new ground for Trek so anything goes.
And, of course, there are the side benefits. Discovery took endless flak for both its design choices and the fact it didn’t ‘feel’ enough like a prequel for some people. Others wanted a continuation rather than a new start and still others objected to the perception of liberties being taken with the show’s canon and design.
All of those things were and are, for me, among the show’s strongest points. And the beauty of it is now they can be again without being, ironically, the torchbearer for the entire franchise. Trek contains multitudes, and here, at last, is a chance to prove it. Any era, any approach, any subject matter.
It doesn’t matter what we get in a way because the simple act of it being presented in this way means it will be different, and new and interesting. Let Discovery be Discovery. Let the new shows build on what’s gone before. let the audience pick which flavour works for them.
So why is Star Trek punk rock and not metal? Because it’s Star Trek. Because ‘Out there, thataway’. Because of trans temporal cetacean rescue missions and coffee hidden in nebulae. Because of baseball and holographic civil rights. Because of Tom Hardy’s first big job being playing Evil Jean- Luc Picard. Because of dogs named after musketeers and officers who are emotionally compromised. Because of Saru’s ability to sense death and what he says when it isn’t approaching. Because of the untidy canon and the dubious timeline and the hundreds of novels and comics and games.
Because Star Trek is an exuberant sprint, head up, arms wide, into a future where we aren’t alone and we don’t deserve to be. It’s a universe built on hard won compassion and hopefulness, on the joy of discovery and learning and communication. Infinite Diversity in infinite Combinations and sometimes those combinations will absolutely have weird uniforms, or a strange theme tune and that doesn’t matter. Because Star Trek is a universe built on hope, on curiosity and on engaging with and learning from the other. And right now, that’s almost as punk as you can get.
Four new series. Four new takes plus more Discovery and more Orville which plays a lot of the same notes, just in a different order. I can’t wait. And I’ll see you in the mosh pit.
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