Category: Media

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The 50s

February 9, 1968: premiere date of the Star Trek episode ‘Return to Tomorrow’

Telepathic aliens take control of Kirk and Spock’s bodies with the intention to build new, mechanized bodies for themselves.

One of my favorite episodes, if only for this moment:

As cheesy as Shatner can get, this is my favorite of all of Kirk’s speeches, in all of Star Trek.

I love that they copied it in Free Enterprise.

It’s also cool to see Diana Muldaur in her first appearance on Star Trek:

 

And of course, smiling Spock:

I’ve found myself in this or a similar pose over the years.  Maybe influenced subconsciously by this episode?

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The Falcon

I managed to find my copy of this book yesterday.

I searched for it mainly because of a two-page spread that was being shared around social media on Monday.

The configuration in the left column, center row looks like the ship we see in the Solo trailer.

In the book, the Falcon was named Stellar Envoy when it was seen in Revenge of the Sith.

It will be interesting to see how they go about explaining whether or not this is still true, and how the Falcon eventually looks the way that we’re all familiar with from the Original Trilogy.

Again, I may be a little excited about this upcoming movie.

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Solo

June 1977: After I had seen Star Wars for the first time, and before I would ever know what kind of impact it would have on me, all I knew was that I wanted to be Han Solo.

About a year or so later, Star Wars books started to appear, and among them was Han Solo at Star’s End, the first of the original Han Solo Trilogy, by the late Brian Daley.

Since then, I had always imagined that they would make a movie about Han Solo and his early adventures.

Flash forward almost 40 years:

Anyone who says that no one wanted this movie made has never met me.  This, and the Jawas film/TV series, are two things that I’ve wanted from Star Wars since first seeing it when I was 10 years old.

I sound biased, but this could be the best Star Wars film since Rogue One.

You might say I’m more than a little excited about it.

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A week?

I must have been busy.  Or lazy.  Both?

I spent part of my weekend cleaning stuff around the house, like the upstairs bathroom, among other locations.

I’ve been hitting my elliptical for about 10-20 minutes for the past week.  I hope to make it back up to 30+ minutes, if not more.

I caught up with my TV watching, the CW DC shows are surprisingly keeping me interested.  Black Lightning is good, so far.

I used my instant pot TWICE in one weekend, making some chicken in salsa thing, and pork ribs.  Both turned out pretty good.

More games that I’ll (maybe) eventually play came in.

More porgs were acquired.  And dice.

And it’s almost February.  Yikes.

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Snubbed

I’ve been kicking this around in my own head for half the day, after there were  no Oscar nominations for this movie.

As great as I thought this movie was, it was no Oscar contender, except maybe in some of the technical categories, like Best Costume Design or Best Cinematography.  But they were snubbed there, too.

I dunno.  Maybe the other genre films that did get nominated deserved it more.

And it’s not like the Oscars mean anything in the grand scheme of “what Chris likes.”

Raiders of the Lost Ark lost to Chariots of Fire for Best Picture in 1981, after all.

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The 50s

January 19, 1968: premiere date of Star Trek episode ‘The Immunity Syndrome’.

The crew of the Enterprise encounters an energy-draining space creature.

The space amoeba!

In which we also learn that there was a starship manned solely by Vulcans.

WAS.

Spock has a bad reaction to the death of over 400 Vulcans.

Eventually, a Shuttlecraft is sent in (with Spock aboard) to gather information about this organism, and the Enterprise crew end up destroying it with a probe armed with an anti-matter warhead.

This episode is not to be confused with the Space: 1999 episode of the same name:

While on a survey of a planet to replenish food and water on Moonbase Alpha, an alien form attacks a crewman who seemingly goes mad; after a brief struggle with the crewman, Tony Verdeschi is attacked by the alien as well. Koenig and the survey party must find Tony and help him regain his senses before the madness kills him and solve the mystery of the alien life form. All their technology breaks down, preventing them from leaving or receiving aid; all food – native and their own supply – become toxic.

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LEGO Responds

I picked up this LEGO set over the weekend, mainly because of this little guy:

A LEGO Porg.

I then emailed LEGO to ask if it was possible to order more porgs, and they sent me this response:

I’m sorry, but we aren’t able to help you get the LEGO® parts you requested. The pieces you need are based on a story and characters we didn’t create ourselves. Our licensing agreements with their original creators specify we can only sell these “licensed” pieces as part of a set.

Bummer.  But I understand.  No way I’m buying that $800 Millennium Falcon, though, just for two more porgs.

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Prepare for Ground Assault

Solitaire wargames update!

I picked up Tiger Leader a while back, in a ding-and-dent sale at Game Kastle.  I never got around to playing it due to other games that occupied my time.

After playing a couple more of DVG’s ‘Leader’ games, I decided to pick up Sherman Leader, and this one came with an upgrade kit for Tiger Leader.

And after punching the counters and sorting the cards, both are ready to go.

I don’t know which one to try first.

Do I invade Poland or defend the Philippines, both of which are campaigns in their respective games.

Or recreate the North Africa campaign?

 

Though I did pick this up last year (and haven’t played) as well:

Decisions, decisions…