More catching up 2009

Star Trek:
Today I want to catch up on some 2009 films I saw earlier this year (before blogging).Star Trek is everything everyone said it was back in what, June? Lots of fun and a great cast (and by extension great casting). Here's what makes me happy as an old guy who as a kid watched Shatner and Nimoy run from one side of the bridge to the other to simulate a Romulan attack. The restart of the series isn't about a new set of characters. It isn't about Piccard or that female captain or Klingons on the bridge as good guys or a robot science officer. It isn't the next generation, it's MY generation. Those characters felt as comfortable as a warm glove. You can totally buy these actors as the originals, less worn, more energetic but the same people. It was Roddenberry's Star Trek with production design. Fans who used to watch the original series (he wrote deftly avoiding the trekker/trekkie controversy) rejoice! They're making more episodes of the original. The Oscar for casting goes to.......

Watchmen:
I was a sci-fi/fantasy geek. From Tolkien's trilogy and the Sand Worms of Dune, Asimov's Foundation series, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison. I stood on the banks of Riverworld and sat at The Left Hand of Darkness. Today, I'm so not that guy. Those authors and stories belong to my youth. I look at those old books like I'm standing in the well-lit halls of a futuristic museum. I did not keep up with my brother geeks and was subsequently kicked out of the fraternity. Therefore, the graphic novel is not my milieu. This hybrid of the sci-fi novels and comic books with a bit of X-Box and Play Station thrown in for flavor, belongs to the next generation of Sci-fi fan, and I have some advise for them. Don't hold so tightly to the material. Take a page from fans of Jane Austen or Henry Miller. Let the book be the book (or in this case comic book) and let the film be the film.
Watchmen is too long, it meanders, loses focus and exposes way too much blue penis. But when it's good, man is it good. It places you squarely in a world that never existed and makes you believe it could have or should have existed. Or that it will exist if we're not careful. That's the definition of good Science Fiction. The beginning of "Watchmen", the set up, is particularly fascinating. It shows us an alternate history with flare and efficiency. The rest of the movie, not so efficient. When the film heads backward to that alternate history (see Vietnam sequence) you can see why this next generation of geek holds so tightly to the novel. It's really good. It just needs a ruthless edit. Either that or you go the Peter Jackson route and make three long-ass movies. "Watchmen" just needs shortening. But no one can tell me that Rorschach's constant-motion mask isn't the coolest thing ever. I know. I used to be a geek.