The Borg are incredibly stupid.
At Wolf-359, the Borg proved they are pretty much capable of destroying the entire Federation with a single ship and they start Star Trek: First Contact by pretty much proving it again. But instead of trying a radical new plan like sending two ships, they go with the next logical step: time travel.
Ok, so going back in time and destroying an enemy before they can be a threat to you is not such a bad idea, but the implementation was terrible. They fly towards Earth, wreaking all the colonies they can find, and generally attracting Starfleet attention, and then moments before they get blowed up they launch their time travel Sphere. It's not like the Borg thought "Hey, this whole direct attack thing isn't working too well, let's invent time travel in the next quarter second and kill Zefram Cochran." Time travel was clearly part of their plan from the beginning, so why did they bother with the whole wreaking the Federation part and attracting the Starfleet reprisal which nearly stopped their plan before it began? They are going back in time to prevent Earth from getting warp drive and starting the Federation. So why not go back in time first and then head unopposed towards a Federationless world free of warp drive? The point using time travel to destroy an enemy before they are a threat to you is that they can't stop you.
Then there is the matter of why the Borg care so much about Earth anyway. The Borg are centered in the Delta Quadrant so they are expending a lot a resources and energy to get to Earth. The Federation is technologically inferior to the Borg as evidenced by nearly destroying them twice with a single ship. And every time they speak to a Borg, all they can talk about is the biological and technological inferiority of the Federation. The Borg have committed themselves to a costly, far off, war of choice with no clear gains, or timeline for withdrawal and a native population fiercely and philosophically opposed to occupation, but whom the Borg Queen claims will greet them as liberators. Earth is the Borg's Iraq.
After jumping back to the past and just before they get blowed up for the second time in thirty seconds because they just had to make a big, flashy entrance, the Borg beam over to the Enterprise and attempt to assimilate it. Which, again, is not a terrible plan and it seems to be going well, until the Borg make another horrible tactical decision. After taking control of half the ship and effectively disarming the crew by adapting to their phasers, the most powerful ship the Federation has ever built containing more than enough advanced technology to conquer the war-torn, divided and relatively primitive inhabitants of Earth, the Borg decide to stop and try to call for help. Help that at Voyager speed will not arrive for 75 years. The Enterprise crew was Earth's last line of defense and if the Borg had pressed their advantage, they would have certainly fallen. Then, with the crew dead or assimilated and the Enterprise under Borg control, the Borg would have had effectively infinite time for reinforcements to arrive for the assimilation of Earth. (Not that they would be necessary.)
Apparently, the hive mind is not all it's cracked up to be. But the combined individual minds of the Enterprise crew aren't much better, as they keep relying on a piece of equipment that routinely malfunctions and threatens their lives. I am speaking of course of Lt. Commander Data. At a critical point in the movie, Data is tempted by his new fleshy penis to join the Borg Queen and Picard is completely unsurprised by this turn of events because in no less than 13 episodes Data disobeys orders by deliberate choice or malfunction. (The Naked Now, The Schizoid Man, The Measure of a Man, Pen Pals, The Offspring, Brothers, Clues, Redemption, Cause and Effect, The Quality of Life, Descent, Phantasms, and Masks) That's 8% of all the episodes. And that doesn't count the times part of his personality tried to kill Worf on the Holodeck, he gave a town radiation poisoning, or he destroyed another town's well. Data is even worse in Star Trek: Insurrection when he takes a planet hostage and then participates in an...oh, what's the word for it...an act or instance of rebelling against a government in power or civil authorities. Would you keep a guy around that could bench press a bus and call Stephen Hawking a total moron, if he was trying to kill you 8% of the time? The dude's got an off switch. It's time to use it. (Data finally takes care of his malfunctions permanently by blowing himself up in Star Trek: Nemesis... after disobeying orders.)
Friday, October 12, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
I Want Candy- On Second Thought, I'll Pass
Let's be honest here. I didn't watch this movie for complex plot development, well-drawn characters, or even a good laugh at some low humor. I watched I Want Candy because I wanted to see some boobs, specifically Carmon Electra's boobs. Any boobs would have been nice, but not a single nipple was to be found. The truth is a heterosexual male will watch any piece of crap with a BPM (Boobs Per Minute) of at least 0.07. (That's one nipple every 15 minutes in a 90 minute movie.) But you didn't need me to tell you that. Without the support of undone bras, the direct to DVD, commercial-free cable, and horror genre would have revenue streams limper than audiences about 15 minutes after the start of a porn film. So why, in this era when any level and style of pornography is instantly available for free any place on the planet, does this bad-but-with-boobs genre of film persist? Because these movies are as close as we get to what the protagonists in I Want Candy claim to have made and what is so desperately needed: porn that's watchable as a movie.
It wasn't always this way. The most famous porno of all time is Deep Throat and it is an actual movie with an actual plot that is actually watchable. This one isn't entirely the MPAA's fault, but they did have a hand in it. When the videocassette was born, the porn theater died. (Which was a good thing, cause ewwwwwwwwww.) Then came Blockbuster, which crushed all the small time video stores (and were subsequently crushed by Netflix), and one of their keys to success was, unlike the little guys, they didn't sell dirty movies, so they could set up shop anywhere without legal troubles or moral rumblings. At this point the porn market, became the sleaziest of males, who were and are the only ones which would frequent an adult book store. And that's when porn stopped trying. With movies like I Want Candy, Hollywood is attempting to fill that hole as hard as it can, but with its obvious inadequacies (commercial concerns and the MPAA) it just can't satisfy us.
It's not like hardcore scenes couldn't be worked into a Hollywood film. Sex scenes are common and often fairly graphic. Many times directors have to contort themselves into unusual positions in order to stay on the commercial side of the NC-17 line. Scenes in Traffic and Requiem For a Dream come to mind.
Yes, there are pornographic films, both hardcore and softcore, that have some semblance of a plot, but the non-pornographic scenes are unwatchably terrible. Much worse than the level of bad in a Hollywood film. It's partly a problem of effort, but the porn industry also has a serious personnel problem. Top female porn stars are every bit as attractive as their Hollywood counterparts. If they could act, even at a Kristen Stewart level, they'd catch a bus across town to start earning that Hollywood money and prestige. And, I suspect the writing staff is similarly challenged.
Then, there's NC-17, but that rating is not free reign. Most of the films in this rating class are good movies, but pornographically they are little more than softcore. And as no theater chain will show them, they are a guaranteed commercial disaster.
As weird as it sounds, the porn industry is dying. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? This is a niche that you can still market, smut-makers. You can't stop downright piracy, but you can cut into the 5 minute free clip market, if you can offer something worthwhile during the recharge phase. Take the time an effort to make a good film that happens to be pornographic. Invest in some acting classes for your stars. Hire some real writers that are between projects. There are always scripts on the market that you could make work. It doesn't have to be Hitch-cock. It doesn't take much to make a movie as minimally watchable as I Want Candy and then stick in some dick. If you build it, they will cum.
It wasn't always this way. The most famous porno of all time is Deep Throat and it is an actual movie with an actual plot that is actually watchable. This one isn't entirely the MPAA's fault, but they did have a hand in it. When the videocassette was born, the porn theater died. (Which was a good thing, cause ewwwwwwwwww.) Then came Blockbuster, which crushed all the small time video stores (and were subsequently crushed by Netflix), and one of their keys to success was, unlike the little guys, they didn't sell dirty movies, so they could set up shop anywhere without legal troubles or moral rumblings. At this point the porn market, became the sleaziest of males, who were and are the only ones which would frequent an adult book store. And that's when porn stopped trying. With movies like I Want Candy, Hollywood is attempting to fill that hole as hard as it can, but with its obvious inadequacies (commercial concerns and the MPAA) it just can't satisfy us.
It's not like hardcore scenes couldn't be worked into a Hollywood film. Sex scenes are common and often fairly graphic. Many times directors have to contort themselves into unusual positions in order to stay on the commercial side of the NC-17 line. Scenes in Traffic and Requiem For a Dream come to mind.
Yes, there are pornographic films, both hardcore and softcore, that have some semblance of a plot, but the non-pornographic scenes are unwatchably terrible. Much worse than the level of bad in a Hollywood film. It's partly a problem of effort, but the porn industry also has a serious personnel problem. Top female porn stars are every bit as attractive as their Hollywood counterparts. If they could act, even at a Kristen Stewart level, they'd catch a bus across town to start earning that Hollywood money and prestige. And, I suspect the writing staff is similarly challenged.
Then, there's NC-17, but that rating is not free reign. Most of the films in this rating class are good movies, but pornographically they are little more than softcore. And as no theater chain will show them, they are a guaranteed commercial disaster.
As weird as it sounds, the porn industry is dying. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? This is a niche that you can still market, smut-makers. You can't stop downright piracy, but you can cut into the 5 minute free clip market, if you can offer something worthwhile during the recharge phase. Take the time an effort to make a good film that happens to be pornographic. Invest in some acting classes for your stars. Hire some real writers that are between projects. There are always scripts on the market that you could make work. It doesn't have to be Hitch-cock. It doesn't take much to make a movie as minimally watchable as I Want Candy and then stick in some dick. If you build it, they will cum.
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