Star Trek Blu ray

Mired in a funk, Star Trek franchise desperately needed a big boost from the latest movie. Once a can’t miss franchise, the Star Trek suffered some setbacks with their last two television series and lack luster success at the box office. Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were great success compared to Voyager and Enterprise. Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons. The movies based on The Next Generation crew steadily failed declined in box office revenue from movie to movie. With some hiatus, Paramount decided to reboot the franchise with J.J. Abrams at the helm. With so many big movie franchises getting a successful reboot, Paramount was hoping for a similar success.

The problem with rebooting Star Trek is deep and rich history. Unlike other reboots like Batman, Star Trek faced some problem tinkering with the story line. The plot and details had to be consistent with the Star Trek universe. Also, the writers had to come up with new cast or use the existing character from Star Trek universe. The writers chose to go with the old school characters from the original Star Trek. This caused some trepidation from fan base as the characters from original Star Trek are so revered. There was also problem of disrupting the history of the characters. To get around the history line of the characters, the writers used the time travel convention to get around the set history. While this sounds like a cop out and easy way out, it is pretty refreshing to see “what if” development in the new time line.

The story starts out with a Federation ship encountering a Romulan ship from the future. Nero, the Romulan captain comes from a future where his world is destroyed. He is seeking revenge in the past in hopes of saving his home in the future. In the future, Spock is unsuccessful in trying to stop the destruction of Nero’s home world. This leads to Nero seeking revenge in the past against the Federation. Upon the first encounter, George Kirk assumes the command of the ship and dies while protecting the survivors. This sets up new time line where James T Kirk’s father is dead and new threat is encountered. The new casts are all capable actors. While the story line mainly revolves around Spock and Kirk, the other characters such as Sulu and Scotty are well represented. Overall the reboot was a very successful and I am looking forward to the next movie.

What do you think about this movie? Please leave your thoughts below.

	Star Trek Magnet~ Kirk On The Bridge~ Approx 2.5" x 3.5" Sale Price: $4.95

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra Blu Ray

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra Blu Ray Review

I had some reservation about the quality of G.I. Joe prior to the viewing. The studio behind G.I. Joe refused to screen the movie for the critics before the wide release in the theater. This is usually done to prevent bad reviews reaching the public before the release in the theater. The reason cited by the studio was that Transformer’s sequel received fairly poor reviews by the critics and they did not want the same for the G.I. Joe film. After watching the film, I feel it’s on par with Transformer sequel. It’s not bad but it’s not great. All the great special effects and stunts are present in the movie based on Hasbro’s toy and animation franchise. Even so, it is not one of the better movies to be released this year.

The movie revolves around a not very nice arms manufacturer and dealer named James McCullen. His company develops a nano tech weapon to be sold to NATO. However, on the day of the sale, he masterminds the heist of the weapons and threatens to unleash it on the World. He comes through on the threat by using Cobra to unleash the weapon in Paris. To counteract Cobra, G.I. Joe is dispatched to stop the Cobra and McCullen. The two forces collide all over the World. Cobra intends to steal the weapon and G.I. Joes intends on preventing them from unleashing the nano weapons.

The plot is not the important part of the film. It starts with convoluted story of long line of McCullen arm dealer from the 17th century to present day. And, add few cheesy revenge factors from main characters to round out the overall plot. All of it serves as an exercise to showcase the special effects in car chase scenes and fighting scenes. These scenes are very well done. The big budget of the movie shows up in a very good way in the action sequences. Not so much in acting. The two main leads, Marlon Wayans and Channing Tatum are awful. Marlon Wayans should stick with the parody films instead of action. I just can’t buy him as an action hero. Channing Tatum is no better. Had the movie had solid leads and more original plot, it could have been a decent movie. Instead, it’s just another mindless action movie with big budget.

What do you think about this movie? Please leave your thoughts below.

	G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Two-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray] List Price: $39.99 Sale Price: $26.94 You save: $13.05 (33%)