Cardiff! It's Doctor Who Land!

Just got back from a weekend break in Cardiff. Have stayed in the city before, and a couple of years ago I found myself to be sharing a hotel with some producer types from Doctor Who! I first realised when my girlfriend pointed to a guy behind me in the hotel bar, who had a 'Doctor Who Special Effects Crew' t-shirt on. Then as I listened to other peoples conversations, I became aware that they were talking about Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate. Now I got quite excited, this was a couple of months after series 3 had ended and series 4 was filming. In fact, Planet of the Ood was being filmed that very week. Cos I saw Tim McInnery was also in the bar! Imagine! Captain Darling himself had been sat right across from me and I hadn't even realised, as he'd had his back to me.

So after this excitement, returning to Cardiff to stay in the same hotel this last weekend did fill me with a certain excitement. Could I see some more Who people?

We checked in on the friday, and later that evening, we walked by the reception desk on our way out for dinner, there was Martha Jones' mother! Checking in!

The following day I was fairly sure we were going to spot John Barrrowman, as we were in Cardiff to see his concert. (My fiancee likes to look at him, so we have to go see him sing. And be in panto. Basically I'm following my fiancee stalking Captain Jack. I'm cool with it as it means she'll always let me watch Torchwood!) But we weren't the only ones with tickets! Several hundred women and their less enthused husbands, but also, who should we spy in a private box waay above us unwashed masses, (actually I showered, but it was a long walk to the arena) but the Doctor himself, David Tennant! Lots of people spotted him and there were many attempts to photograph the distant figures in that box. Sadly the zoom on my camera was not up to the task, you can fuzzily make out a skinny figure with sideburns, but only just. Interestingly enough, he seemed to be accompanied by his girlfriend, which I shall get back to shortly.

For the record, John Barrowman is pretty entertaining, and while his music may not be entirely to my taste, the guys enthusiastic, funny and clearly having a great time, it's kind of infectious. He gladly pointed out Tennant to us all, (David even stood up while the spotlight shone to show him wearing on John Barrowman tour t-shirt) and spotted Kai Owen in the audience too. Brilliant, so Francine Jones, Rhys, Captain Jack, Jenny and the Doctor! In 2 days!

Yep, Jenny. We know David Tennant's been dating his on-screen daughter of late, and it looked a lot like her up there. Blonde. Blonde again, I should say, as all post episode interviews with Georgia Moffett after 'The Doctor's Daughter' showed she was a brunette. But now, as they're finishing filiming on the last special, the last appearence of the 10th doctor, here she is in Cardiff, blonde again. Hm. Not saying it's conclusive, you know women, always changing their hair colour instead of not looking in a box, but my, it's a coincidence!

Ah, with a tiny bit of research, I quickly discover the blonde hair is a recent change, (unless I'm missing a further switch) and I'm pretty much clutching at straws with that as my evidence. I just really want to see Jenny again!

Oh no. Just oh no...

Being a nerd has bought me many moments of happiness. The joy of seeing an awesome sci-fi thing done well, or a much loved film/tv series done in a new way. Spaceships, explosions, robots, all these things are plentiful and wondrous in the world of the nerd.

However, there's the flip side. There's the terror of a beloved series/character/concept being taken and perverted in a terrible way. George Lucas is a prime offender here, and the pain of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still fresh and will probably never truly fade. No matter how much I try to repress, I am still scarred from Batman and Robin, I assume Indy 4 will always be with me like that too.

Though I don't normally bear grudges, I did wonder if Shia LeBoeuf should have been allowed in Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen after Indy 4. Or if he should ever be allowed to work again, let alone with giant robots. I know, it may seem harsh, but I really think that a man's career should be ended for partaking in that film! This is what a nerd dictatorship would be like...

But on a serious note, I wonder if LeBouef may be cursed? I really enjoyed Transformers and I look forward to Revenge of the Fallen too, but then I saw something. And while it's not going to affect the film so much, I am still shocked and pained by it.

http://tformers.com/transformers-stan-bush-responds-with-new-fan-friendly-version-of-the-touch-video/11524/news.html

I mean, what? Did Stan Bush think the 'The Touch' was so awesomely popular for over 20 years, because we all hoped it'd one day be re-done as a sub par Linkin Park ballad? Is that what he thought we all liked it for???

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for artists playing with their songs and doing a performance that's different to the norm, it's a beautiful feature of live gigs. But they normally do a version that's good. Seriously, what was he thinking?

A good friend of mine had 'The Touch' played at his wedding. At. His. Wedding. This is the affect that song has had on my generation, any re-make of it should really have paid due respect to the feel of the original.

The Touch is also soon to be released as a downloadable track for Guitar Hero, I hope it's going to be the original version, as I can't imagine that if I hear that new one again I shall refrain from putting my guitar controller through the TV!

Right, now I've got that off my chest, I'm going to watch the 80's movie to calm down!

I have been and always shall be a Star Trek fan

I wondered about kicking off my NerdBlog talking about the new Star Trek film. Lots of people are talking about it, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to add anything new. Then I thought, a) is there a better way to start a NerdBlog than with a Star Trek one and b) it's such a frickin awesome film that I want to talk about it.

So in brief summary, I started watching Trek with The Next Generation 20 years ago. Instantly hooked, watched religiously, then the original, DS9 on launch, through Voyager and Enterprise. There's a lot of things I love about Trek, it has spaceships and explosions, it tells stories with a moral meaning and it has awesome characters and great relationships between them. It's difficult to briefly sum up Star Trek and it's affect without going on for seventy squibillion pages, there's a lot to it and it means different things to different people. My briefest summary could be it shows the human race as I'd hope it could be, as I'm sure it should be and there's spaceships and explosions!

I don't want to go into my thoughts and feelings on the decline of Trek right now, (but I imagine I will in the future!), but suffice to say I was apprehensive about this new film, not because of it's recasting the roles or changing the design, but because I worried it was just an attempt to wring some money out of the franchise again. Yeah, I'm cynical like that.

So I refused to become excited by it. When I heard the plot was looking like involving time travel I became extremely cynical. No way was I going to get excited by this only to be disappointed if it was bad. (see Indiana Jones 4) I had to grudgingly admit that the trailers were pretty good, but hey, that doesn't mean anything, the whole point of trailers is to make a film look good.

Then last week, I woke up on the day I was to go see it and damn, I was excited! I couldn't help it, it was new Star Trek after a long drought. I was getting a Christmas type feeling. So I plodded through my day at work, wishing everyone a 'Happy New Star Trek Day' and made my way to Nottingham where I was to meet up with friends to go see it.

Armed with a pretty immense bag of popcorn, I settle in my seat and once again tried to dispel feelings of excitement. Nope, no chance, I'm properly excited now.

And it starts. Excellent opening sequence, and I'm immediately drawn in. This movie clips along at a really good pace, we're soon at the Academy. And oh my god, is Karl Urban channelling the spirit of Deforest Kelley? Cos it's eerie, but he's a perfect McCoy. Like spot on. Then we're into the Kobayahshi Maru sequence and obviously it's a nostalgia kick, and really really fun. You can see Chris Pine perfecting that Kirk cockiness as the movie progresses.
Enjoyed the sequence when Kirk is brought onboard the Enterprise, we get to see Sulu and Chekov. Even found the giant hands bit funny. The sequence on the drill was incredible. Crap, did they just blow up Vulcan? Shit, they actually destroyed Vulcan? That's a bit brave. Then the cynical voice pops up, 'unless they bring it back with time travel…' Well, we'll see…

So at this point, I'm loving what is a brilliant, fast paced, sci fi movie with awesome effects. It's so very close to feeling just like Trek should.

Then Kirk's in the ice cave, and he meets 'Old Spock'.

Shit.

Ok, you got me. Every doubt, every cynical thought, it's wrong! I apologise for doubting.

This is the point I engaged with it as Star Trek. This is the point I relaxed and stopped looking for flaws.

So the Movie continued, came to a satisfying and action packed conclusion, and had Spock recite the 'Space, the Final Frontier' speech.

Now this speech is a very important to me. To my mind, not just anyone can say it, it's gotta be an Enterprise Captain and one of note. Kirk, Spock, Picard. Not the one on the Enterprise-B from Generations. Not Jellico. And for the first 3 series of Enterprise, not Archer. Ok, the 4th series picked up and I relented, when he did it for the finale I was happy with it. So I was quite interested that Leonard Nimoy did this one. In terms of the movie acting as a hand-off to this 'alternate universe' crew, I saw it as a nice touch, maybe having Chris Pine do it for the next film. Most importantly though, this film earned that speech at the end.

Obviously there's a couple of bits, tiny niggles really, that I'm not happy with. Scotty's appearance on the Enterprise, when he's stuck in the pipes, oh. Oh dear. Sorry, but I hated it. It's slapstick, and to my mind, the best humour on Trek comes from the characters. But it's a tiny sequence in all. I'm also not entirely happy with the Enterprise design. It's a minor thing, but the nacelle struts and the point where they join the engineering section. Overall, I'm perfectly happy with the design, and I'm not the type to get up in arms about re-designs etc. It's just I really don't like that small section of it.

But hey, if those are the biggest complaints I have about the film, I think it's done pretty good really.

So after the film, with us all agreeing it was awesome, we proceeded to stay up until 5 in the morning watching episodes of various trek series, which was super awesome fun times!