Actual Idea I Had for April Fools Day Post, Part I

I Can't Stress Enough How Actual This Actual Idea Was. . .

I Should Write the Shitty Family Guy Parody of Star Trek II:


You know I'm really trying because I'm not at all trying!

*********************************************************************************

Family Guy Presents: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!


by Jeremy K.

A Parody of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Harve Bennett, Jack B. Sowards, Nicholas Meyer, and
Samuel A. Peeples, and Family Guy, created by Seth MacFarlane.

EXT. NIGHT, Griffin House, Establishing Shot.

CUT TO:

INT, Living Room. WS on GRIFFIN FAMILY-- PETER, LOIS, CHRIS, MEG, STEWIE, and BRIAN-- sitting on the couch watching TV. Suddenly, POWER GOES OUT.

GRIFFIN FAMILY

(grumbling)

Aw man! What the hell! This sucks! (etc., etc.)

PETER

(abruptly)

Too bad there aren't any more Star Wars movies.

LOIS

(surprised)

. . . what?

PETER

Nah, I'm just saying, it sucks that there are no more Star Wars movies. You know, after the first three films, it's like George Lucas just sorta gave up and, y'know, rested on his laurels.

CHRIS

Uh, Dad--

PETER

-- and it wouldn't even bother me as much if it weren't-- I mean, there's just so much back story, so much mythology that we were only given the faintest glimpse of. Like-- like how did Darth Vader become Darth Vader, you know?

BRIAN

Uh, Peter--

PETER

I mean, that alone could have probably sustained a whole new trilogy in and of itself!

(beat)

Anyway, this random-and-yet-strangely-familiar blackout brought that to mind for some reason.
You were saying?

MEG

Dad, they did--

LOIS

(interrupting)

It's nothing, Peter.

PETER

No no no no, no, it's okay, go ahead.

MEG

(catching on)

Oh, uh, Mom's right, it's nothing.

LOIS

Unimportant.

STEWIE

Totally only three Star Wars movies.

BRIAN

(fake anger)

Yeah, only three DAMN IT but on the other hand unspoiled memories childhood dreams all that jazz.

CHRIS

Yes sir-rie. Never know. . . what could have. . . (trails off)

PETER eyes everyone suspiciously.

PETER

Are you hiding something from me?

Everyone else is silent.

PETER

Lois!


LOIS

(reluctant)

Peter. . .

BRIAN

Look, Peter, sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

PETER

(realizing what he's discovered)

Oh my God! There's new Star Wars! That. . . that's amazing!

STEWIE

It's not. It's really not.

PETER

(leaps off the couch)

I-I gotta find this! New Star Wars!

(sing-yelling)

STAR WARS! GIVE ME THEM STAR WARS!

(runs off screen-- we continue to hear him after he's gone)

NOTHING BUT STAR WARS! DON'T LET THEM--

CUT TO TITLE ON BLACK

TITLE

One savaged and molested innocence later.

CUT TO:

INT, WS of FAMILY on couch. PETER has returned. He is frozen with rage. After a tense couple of seconds--

LOIS

(gently)

. . . Peter--

PETER SCREAMS and PUNCHES MEG OFF THE COUCH.

PETER

(screaming)

WE'RE DOING STAR TREK II!

PETER breaks down and sobs.

*********************************************************************************

We open on pure black. Then--

TITLE

The 23rd Century. . .

TITLE flies off screen. Then, another TITLE--

TITLE

Which is to say, the twenty-two hundreds. . .

TITLE flies off screen. Then, another TITLE. The scene continues on like this.

TITLE

I mean seriously, what's up with that? . . . Like, how did twenty THIRD century suddenly mean the twenty TWO hundreds, you know? It's crazy! . . . Probably the same morons who said the new millennium begins in 2001, and not 2000. . . Assholes. . .

CUT TO:

INT. Enterprise Bridge, VWS-- The bridge is a mess. Alarms blare, consoles are blown out, support beams have collapsed, fires rage, and crew-members' bodies-- including those of SPOCK(BRIAN), McCOY(DR. HARTMAN), SULU(QUAGMIRE), and UHURA(LORETTA)-- are sprawled about. Only SAAVIK (MEG) remains in her post at the captain's chair. Then, a BRIGHT LIGHT fills the room. SAAVIK, despondent, stands at attention.

CUT TO:

WS, VIEW SCREEN, parting open. We now realize that the "bridge" is just a mock up. In silhouette, bathed in light from the outside, we see CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK (PETER) walk on to the bridge.

SAAVIK

Any suggestions, Admiral?

KIRK

Prayer, Mr. Saavik. That, and not sucking.

(to Spock)

Captain?


SPOCK

(opens eyes)

Trainees to the briefing room.


The rest of the "dead" crew stand up and brush themselves off and leave. McCOY is about to leave, but is stopped by Kirk.

KIRK

Physician--

(comedy beat, ZOOM IN to ECU of KIRK, smirking)

Heal Thyself.

Cut to CU of McCoy.

MCCOY

Fuck you.

Cut to TWO SHOT of KIRK and SAAVIK, with MCCOY walking out of frame.

SAAVIK

Permission to speak candidly, sir?

KIRK

(contemptuously)

Very well.

SAAVIK

(fighting emotion)

I don't believe this was a fair test of my abili--

KIRK

(mocking, whiny)

Wah, wah, wai don't fink dis waws  fair test of my-- Suck it up, Saavik! If it's so unfair, how come I managed to beat it?

SAAVIK

(loses it)

Because you cheated, you ass!

KIRK

(cocky, self-inflated)

Yeah, I guess it is kinda cheating to be so awesome!


SAAVIK

No, you idiot! You hacked into the simulation and re-programmed it to--!

KIRK

(as Saavik goes on)

But I guess that's just how I roll: saving the galaxy by the seat of my pants, always coming out on top-- in more ways than one!


Suddenly, the FRESH PRINCE WILL SMITH  jumps into frame.

WILL SMITH

If you know what I'm sayin'!


Just as suddenly, FRESH PRINCE WILL SMITH jumps out of frame.

KIRK

We do, Ensign Fresh Prince. We do.

SAAVIK

-- the only reason you weren't kicked out of the acad--!

KIRK

(talking just to hear his own voice at this point)

You see, unlike some people, James Kirk doesn't lose, and James Kirk doesn't make mistakes! 'Cause if he did, at least one of those mistakes would almost certainly have come back to bite him in the ass by now, and they haven't. Quid pro quo.

SAAVIK

That's QED, moron!

KIRK

Yup, never makes mistakes! None whatsoever.

CUT TO:

INT, WS Enterprise bridge. A FLASHBACK-- Spock, in a blue old-style uniform, sits in the captain's chair. Spock checks his watch, and then presses a button on the captain's chair, activating a communicator.

SPOCK

(into communicator)

Bridge to Captain. Spock here. Uh, it's been six months. Should we set course to Ceti Alpha V and check up on Khan, sir?

CUT TO:

INT, WS of KIRK'S BEDROOM. KIRK, in his familiar TORN UNIFORM, stands at the head of the bed, while a GREEN SKINNED ORION WOMAN lies in the bed, holding a DAGGER. The AMOK TIME FIGHT MUSIC plays in the background.

KIRK

(beat, then into hand communicator)

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. . . let's do that tomorrow.

SPOCK

(through communicator)


Aye aye, sir.

KIRK closes communicator.

KIRK

(to ORION WOMAN)

Say it again.


ORION WOMAN

(sexy)

May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans?


KIRK

(aroused)

Ohhh yeah.


ORION WOMAN

I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant-- wait, who am I supposed to be again? 'Cause this feels weird.

We CUT TO:

EXT, Outer space, an exterior shot of a barren, desert planet. We hold as the STARSHIP RELIANT flies into frame from behind, heading toward the planet. We then hear a LOG from CHEKOV (TIM THE BEAR from The Cleveland Show).

CHEKOV(V.O.)

Starship Log, Stardate 8130.4. This report classified MOST SECRET. Log Entry by Commander Pavel Chekov, Duty Officer. We are continuing our search for a lifeless planet which will serve as a suitable test site for the Genesis experiment.

CUT TO: Two shot of CHEKOV, at the science station, and CAPTAIN TERRELL (CLEVELAND).

CHEKOV

Does it have to be completely lifeless?

TERRELL

Don't tell me you got something?

CHEKOV

I suppose it could be a piece of preanimate matter caught in the matrix.

TERRELL

You mean like Tyler Lautner?

CHEKOV

. . . what?

(beat)

Why on Earth did you say that?

TERRELL

. . . I have no idea.

CHEKOV

What a weird, random thing to say!

TERRELL

And hurtful, too!

CHEKKOV

Yes, very hurtful! Tyler Lautner has worked hard for his success!

TERRELL

Yes, yes, of course! Oh wow. . . yeah, just forget I said that and we'll beam down to the surface.

CUT TO:

EXT, Planet Surface. WS of a barren desert. Sandstorms so strong they block out everything more than a few metres away. TERRELL and CHEKOV BEAM DOWN, wearing environment suits. They spot something, and we PAN LEFT to reveal a CRASHED SHIP-- the BOTANY BAY.

CUT TO:

INT, Botany Bay Main Room, WS. A hatch opens, and TERRELL AND CHEKOV ENTER.

CUT TO:

INT, Khan's Room, CU on a BOOKSHELF. CHEKOV enters the room and approaches the bookshelf. We PAN to look at the books as CHEKOV does, with CHEKOV still remaining in shot.

CHEKOV

Infinite Jest, Bridget Jones' Diary,  Primary Colors. . . The Vagina Monologues?! Why, these were all published in nineteen ninety--

ECU on CHEKOV as he makes a horrifying realization.

CHEKOV

Oh no!


CUT TO:

INT, Main Room. CHEKOV runs up to TERRELL and GRABS him by the arm.

CHEKOV

We have to go!

TERRELL

What's the matter-- ?

CHEKOV

Now! Damn! Hurry!

CUT TO:

EXT. Botany Bay Hatch, Two Shot of CHEKOV and TERRELL as they come out the hatch. They're about to flee, but they see something that stops them in their tracks. We PAN 180 degrees to reveal. . . A FUCKING SANDWORM, complete with the ELECTRIC GUITAR MUSIC FROM DUNE! A couple dozen men and women in black clothing, KHAN'S SOLDIERS, run alongside the beast. We then--

CUT TO:

FS shot of KHAN-- played, of course, by STEWIE-- riding the sandworm.

CUT TO:

CHEKOV and TERRELL, who know they are fucked.

To be continued. . .

I'm So Vain. . .

. . . I probably think this link is about me.

Seriously, it's cool to be linked to by other website. I'm pretty sure the person who runs it has commented here before, yet somehow I only just discovered Aren't We Nerdy this past week. The site's premise involves listing- Jeff Foxowrthy style- all the various signs that a given person might, indeed, be nerdy.

Like being able to name all eleven Doctors from Dr. Who in a single breath.

Or being being the proud owner of a shirt that says "I only kiss sueprheroes."

Or splitting your days between preparing notes for an introductory physics course, writing the first draft of a live-action Sailor Moon screenplay, and figuring out ways to try and meet Miyuu Sawai. . . again.

So to get into the spirit of Aren't We Nerdy. . . even moreso. . . I thought I'd share yet another of the many nerdy ideas that bouce incessantly through my head. After all. . .

What is the most resilient parasite?
Bacteria?
A virus?
An intestinal worm?
An idea?
Please. . . I'm talkin' 'bout Disco.



Resilient... highly contagious. Once disco has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. Disco that is fully boogied - fully gotten-down - that sticks.

Disco hit its peak in the late 1970's-- coincidentally, this was an era that saw a massive resurgence in the popularity of science fiction. Star Wars. Superman. Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was inevitable that unstoppable force of this sci-fi wave would collide with the immovable object that was disco fever.

The results of this collision were sublime.

So much so that I found myself thinking. . . this really needs to come back!

Hence. . . quite possibly the greatest idea I've ever had. . .

DISCO INCEPTION.

That's right. A fully funkified re-imagining of Hans Zimmer's original score to the film Inception. A groove that gets down not one, not two, but three levels of boogie.

Seriously, I have put way more thought and energy into this than anyone should, and I really need to get it out of my system. The whole thing has turned into a swirl of ideas, images and sounds in my head, so forigve me if what follows seems to lack cohesion more than usual:

- We open (yes. . . I even imagined a lame 70's style music video to go with it) with Inception's (in)famous closing shot of the perpetually spinning top. As we close in, the spinning top gradually morphs into a spinning disco ball, by means of effects that would make the chroma-key from William Shatner's Rocketman look sophisticated by comparison.

- We're on the disco floor. Dancing projections abound. We hear the sound of "Time", the final track of the Inception score, only. . . funkier. It's tempo is more upbeat. It's accompanied by snaring drums and waka-waka guitars¹. The legendarily deep sounds of Zimmer's brass section have been replaced by the snazzy, jazzy, high-pitched horns of disco.

- Then, we hear the chorus-- one which I've never been able to get out of my head since it first appeared:

IN-CEP-TION!
I'll dig myself right deep in your heaaaaart!
IN-CEP-TION!
I'll dig right to the deepest paaaaaaart!

There's also a second part to the chorus, but it changes every time it pops into my head. The first part, however, is always consistent.

- After the first verse or two-- I've thought up lyrics, but never bothered to write them down-- we see Cobb, Eames, Arthur, and Saito strut onto the dance floor, their trademark upscale suits unbuttoned near the top. The crowd clears, and the quartet proceed to set the dance floor on fire in ways that John Travolta could only. . . ahem. . . "dream" of.

- Then. . . we go deeper. See, I imagined sturcturing the song the sam way that Nolan structured the film, as a set of nested songs. We'll go to the next "level" of groove, which basically amounts to another song- a discofied version of another one of Zimmer's original tracks. Then we go to the next level, and then. . .

- Limbo. A Deodato-esque surreal-groove rendition of "Waiting for a Train". Then. . .

- The Kick. A disco cover of "Non, Je ne Regrette Rien." (This isn't quite a disco version, but it's approriately campy).

- We go back up the levels, hearing the "kick" during each transition, until we're right back to the first song:

IN-CEP-TION!
I'll dig myself right deep in your heaaaaart!
IN-CEP-TION!
I'll dig right to the deepest paaaaaaart!

- And then we pull out from the disco ball. . . back to the spinning top. Back to reality. . . the dream is over.

OR IS IT?!?!?

And that's Disco Inception.

Whew. . . How did this start again?

Right! Aren't We Nerdy. Go there! Boogie Woogie Oogie, right now!



1) As you can see, I'm not the musician of the family.

Oh, to be a Japanese nerd in the early '80s. . .

Back in the early eighties, Gainax-- the Japanese animation studio that would eventually produce Neon Genesis Evangelion, among many other famous anime-- produced opening animations for Japan's Daicon (lit. Big Con) science fiction convention. Having discovered these animations on YouTube more or less by accident about ten minutes ago, I must now share them with you because they are awesome.

Here's the first animated short, from Daicon III. The animation is a bit rough, but it shows the starship Enterprise getting blown up by a schoolgirl, so I have to include it.



Gainax's animation for Daicon IV is a significant improvement over Daicon III. The animation is smoother and. . . well, just watch (it really starts to get good at the 2:00 mark).



Note: the next part of the Sailor Moon script will be taking place at a science fiction convention, so consider this a warning.

Standoff of the Space Cowboys

This post is in response to a comment left by A.J. a few days ago:

Oh, and if you don't mind me asking what part of your Star Trek idea did the film incorporate? I think it's safe to assume it wasn't the part where they cover everything in lens flare.

The short answer: the creation of an alternate timeline, split off from the "canon" timeline, was something I was going to implement in my story.

The long answer. . .

The title of this post is the name that I was gonna give to my story. It's a silly name, loosely based on Gene Roddenberry's own nickname for Star Trek, "Wagon Train to the Stars". Nonetheless, in my mind the name stuck. The outline of the story is as follows:

A Federation Starship accidentally travels back in time to early 1960's Earth, crash-landing in the Caspian Sea. Their ship heavily damaged, and straddled between the Soviet Union and then US-allied Iran, things seem hopeless for the crew. Even if they could somehow manage to hide from the two biggest superpowers of the time, they won't last long without supplies.

However, they are quickly discovered and contacted by an oil tycoon hoping to mine the vast underground reserves of the Caspian Sea. The crew is offered protection and supplies in exchange for. . . well, they're not really sure, since the crashed ship is not all that terribly useful as an oil drilling platform. Neither is it terribly clear how an oil company, no matter how rich it is, can hide a bloody starship in the middle of the ocean from the Soviets and Americans. Still, the crew is hardly in a position to turn down his help. On top of all this, the crew has to clean up the messes they've made, like a photon torpedo landing on the border of two hostile nations, or crewmembers fleeing the ship.

Unfortunately, the ship's very presence in the twentieth century-- not to mention its contact with the oil company-- has opened up the possibility of historical alteration, destroying the timeline they know. However, the crew, initially, is in a position where they cannot be sure whether this is happening. The severe damage done to the ship's computer has almost completely erased its voluminous historical records. For instance, while some of the crew knew that an American president was going to be assassinated, no-one can be certain on what date it was supposed to happen. For all they know, the assassination that happened yesterday was supposed to happen tomorrow. As a result of this ambiguity, they cannot be certain whether their presense leads, in a hidden way, to the history they already know-- whether they were always part of history without even knowing it-- or whether history has actually changed.

The ship remains at the bottom of the Caspian Sea for five years. Up until this point, the crew has managed to adjust to their situation, and has seemed to contain any major historical changes. Unfortunately, the crew soon make what from their standpoint is a horrific discovery: a TV show called "Star Trek" that appears to be based upon their own future history.

AN ASIDE: Yes, yes, I went there. How cute of him, you all say. But aside from all the predicatable metafiction, I was always fascinated by the behind the scenes story of Star Trek. Indeed, it would be pretty interesting if they made a docu-drama TV series about the making of the show, with a title like "These Are the Voyages..." or some-such. It could serve as a sort of late-sixties companion piece to Mad Men (are you listening, AMC?).

Anyway, it's seeming more and more likely that history has indeed been changed and that the Federation, at least as it known by the crew, will never come to be. An ideological scism occurs, and the crew divides roughly into two camps: those who think that the original timeline must be restored, even if it means interference in the social and political structures of the day; and those who believe that this new history must be allowed to take its own course. The remainder of the series follows the conflict between these two camps.

That, more or less, was the idea of mine that was incorporated into the new film. There were all kinds of other aspects to this story, though. Most of them were only halfways thought through, and some might not have made it into the final version. Here are a few of those ideas, listed in no particular order:

- A powerful alien artifact stored within the hull of the ship-- this is actually what causes the time travel accident.

- A Klingon math genius who adopted the Vulcan way of life (can you tell it's fanfiction?) and is the only person who understands the artifact. She falls into a coma following the crash of the ship.

- An artificial insemination program that uses said Klingon's ova in combination with donated sperm to try and breed another math genius who can understand the artifact. This program does eventually create another genius, a young woman who is not only brilliant but also extremely volatile, due both to her Klingon genetics and her upbringing in a society that she doesn't really understand and that really doesn't understand her (she's not raised on the ship, but rather in contemporary human society).

- Remember the accused saboteur I mentioned earlier? As part of her plan to escape, she used nanobots and technobabble to change species, from alien to human. The process kills her within a few days.

- A human-Q hybrid, created to destroy the alien artifact (the artifact is like Kryptonite for "full-blooded" Q). As his powers are controlled by his human mind, he finds that many instances where his powers are used are either unconscious or occur in an almost rambling "stream of consciousness". The hybrid, very human in personality, is born in Venezuela and raised Catholic (SUBTLETY!).

- The whole series would be eighteen episodes long, and its structure would loosely be based on the James Joyce novel "Ulysees" ('Cause Bloomsday in Dublin is like a Star Trek convention-- that's my flimsy excuse and I'm sticking with it!)

That's about as far as I'll with this story for now. I know I keep promising a new Sailor Moon piece, and I'm working on it. It'll be up sometime.

He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.

In a world where disco never died. . .
One man. . . will put the hose on Disco Inferno.
James Franco stars in . . . Dyskopia.

Yeah. . . I've been waiting for any excuse to use that pun. Anyway, here's Disco Close Encounters. Wait 'till the very end!



Why people ever believed that you can dance to John Williams, I will never know.

UPDATE: And who's the evil ruler of Dyskopia? John Travolta, of course! "When you were learning how to spell your name, I was being trained. . . TO CONQUER GALAXIES!"

I Haven't Forgotten About Sailor Moon, I'm Just Writing a Really Big Piece of the Script Right Now so Until it's Done Here's a Joke

Q: What's a Klingon pirate's favourite food?

A: Heart of TAARGH!

You're damn right it's funny!

Birthday Blogging

Reasons Why I Should Write a "Happy Birthday" Blog Entry for Naomi #1: It's Naomi's 22nd Birthday Today



. . . well, not really. Your actual, sixth birthday won't come until 2012, as I revealed two years ago. But we'll celebrate today to keep up appearances.

And celebrate we shall, with the greatest birthday present of them all: Star Trek jokes!



First, a few installments of Gazorra's "TNG edits" series:















Next, a few Star Trek "episodes in brief" from Tranchera, like "TNG edits" only a little less weird. The first is particularly fitting:














Some random trek humor. The first is a birthday message from Picard to Gene Roddenberry:











Incidentally, is it weird that I imagine Dr. Tomoe being played by Geroge Takei?

Pop Quiz, or Maybe More of a Survey:

Please choose one of the four answers below.

Jeremy didn't like E.T. beacuse:

A) Having long ago lost any semblance of childhood innocence and wonder, he is fundamentally incapable of understanding an allegory of childhood bonding and loss. As such he is, like many jaded cynics, utterly perplexed by the subtleties of a movie that speaks in a deep language of emotions, though any child can pick up on those same subtleties with ease.

B) E.T. is an overratted sacred cow featuring a cast of cold, detached and uninvolving actors essentially improvising their way through a long string of non-sequiters trying to pass itself off as a plot, and whose success or (in this case) failure as a film hinges on the audience's ability to empathize with a puppet that makes Yoda look look fucking Gollum, as well as on their willingness to pretend the John Williams isn't peddling a slightly re-written version of Holst's Jupiter Suite.

C) All of the above.

D) None of the above.

Oh, and if I hear any "Man, that's rich coming from the guy who wants to write the Sailor Moon movie" I will fucking end you.

Funk Railroad to the Stars

Hi everyone.

Between finishing up a couple of scientific publications, figuring out just how make money and get to Japan, and writing a very long post on my American adventures, I've not had a lot of time to post onto my blog. I might bring Wednesday Wire back this week, but I'm not sure yet.

Until I finish up my post on the USA, here are a few videos showcasing the latest of my weekly obsessions: 1970's outer space TV show themes.

Following the success of Star Wars, a lot of space-themed TV shows began to air. The most well-known of these is the original Battlestar Galactica, which was a perfectly fine piece of camp until Ronald Moore decided to ruin it by making it all good and relevant (or so goes the consensus view-- I never got into it myself). But there were others-- many others-- and unlike BSG, they wisely eschewed the sweeping, timeless, and dull orchestral approach to theme music taken by John Williams and instead fully embraced the cosmic power of Disco.

For example, take the theme to Space: 1999, the other of the more well-known Star Wars TV knock-offs which premiered in the UK in 1975:


The TV adaptation of Logan's Run seemed to want it both ways. It takes a standard (though 70's style) orchestral theme and infuses it with disco elements (e.g. the synth siren at the beginning):



Next is Space Academy, a show about a group of "young people [gathered] from the farthest reaches of all the known world" and sent into outer space:

Judging from the opening credits, in the future "all the known world" has been mostly destroyed by nuclear war, with only nothern Minnesota surviving (I assume that the black and asian kids are, like "Peepo", cute robots). One commentor at Youtube decried the fact that Johnathan Harris is starring in this trash. Damn right! He should only work in classy shows, like Lost in Space!

Thus far, I've shown you some fairly disco-licious fare. However, all of it pales next to QUARK, a short lived 70's space satire. This is pure, concentrated 70's right here. The mere sight of this may cause you to sponaneously grow a Barry Gibb beard. Your pants will shrink after you hear but a few bars of its theme. And the sight of not one, but two identical Farrah Fawcett clones will induce a John Travolta dance spasm so severe you may not be able to walk for a whole month.

You've been warned:



I'll see you in September.

"But wait!" you say. "How can you omit Disco Star Wars?"

The answer is, "easily." I already posted Disco Star Wars once on this blog. But, if you really want a discofied sci-fi theme, check out the re-scored end credits of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The disco adventure is just beginning!

French and Just Star Trek

Fuck you.


























Fuck you.


















Fuck you.























Fuck all of you.

Fuck you, The Onion. Fuck you, Saturday Night Live (fuck you twice for not allowing videos to be shown in Canada from nbc.com and then filing a copyright clain against Youtube.com for showing the same video!). Fuck you, Spill.com. Fuck you Leonard Nimoy.

And fuck you*.

*If applicable. Otherwise, have a good day.

Fuck you for buying into this ridiculous lie, that if someone doesn't like the new Star Trek movie. . . it's okay. It's not because it's a bad movie. It's because it's a great movie, and the only people who would be dumb enough to complain about it are those closed minded, continuity horny Trekkies. That's right, only the hard core losers who never moved out of their parent's basement would dislike this movie. Those pathetic losers don't realize what their missing out on. It's not our (ie. your) problem, it's their's.

Now that I've undoubtably won you over. . . what did I think?

Star Trek is a bad movie. It's not exceptionally all bad, but it's bad. I say this as a lapsed Trekkie, open minded enough to want to see where the film-makers would go with this movie. In fact, I was anxious to see some change. Like I said, I'm a lapsed Trekkie. I'm lapsed because the stories that Star Trek the franchise was trying to sell me all sucked. I wanted something new.

I'm stressing this because I truly believe that the fact of Star Trek the movie's badness is something objective. It does not rest on your being or not being a Trekkie. Everyone, of all colors and creeds, should be able to see how bad this movie is with but a little bit of thought. This film is borne of a suckiness that transcends barriers of (sub-)culture, the kind of badness that, I had hoped, would touch the very depths of our common humanity.

But no. I was wrong. 96% wrong.

Sigh.

It's not the changes that bother me. I don't mind the parallel universe time altering thing. I don't mind the new design of the Enterprise. I don't mind new actors-- in fact, I thought Karl Urban and Simon Pegg were great in this film. I don't mind a more emotional Spock, and I don't mind Spock and Uhura becoming intimately involved (though I did perform a truly earth-shattering head-smack when Uhura looked longingly into Spock's eyes and told him "I will be monitoring your communication frequencies" as though she had just said "love means never having to say you're sorry"). I don't even mind the fact that the Death Star somehow missed Alderan and instead destroyed planet Vulcan, or at least I don't mind it for fanboy reasons.

What I do mind is that it's a bad story. In fact, it's a fractally bad story. Just when you think you've found every plot hole, every ludicrous motivation, a closer look at one reveals a dozen more. It's like the Madelbrot set of incompetance (Just so you know, I may have "unconsciously" borrowed this metaphor from SFDebris).

Just to list off things as they come to me, in case this didn't look enough like a rant:

The main villain, Nero, is driven to genocidal rage by the fact that his homeworld, Romulus, has been destroyed by a supernova. He directs this rage, specifically, at Spock, and more generally at the Federation for failing to save his homeworld.

First of all. . . this was Spock's plan. He, personally (what, did they run out of red-shirts?), will pilot a small ship into the doomed Romulan star. Right at the moment it explodes, Spock will release a strange substance called Red Matter (or as I call it, Red Bull) that will magically, and I mean magically, create a black hole that will suck up the exploding remnants and save Romulus. . . at least until the planet freezes thanks to the lack of a life-sustaining sun (hat-tip to Spoony).

Now. . . as both a lapsed Trekkie and a masters student in physics, I know that Star Trek has frequently raped humankind's vast knowledge of science for the purpose of cheap story-telling. But I couldn't let this slide. Besides, I'd like to beat SFDebris to the punch for once in pointing out a huge scientific boo-boo. Here's my first problem with the whole create a black hole to suck up the supernova: when a star goes supernova, quite often IT CREATES A BLACK HOLE! That's where black holes come from! Supermassive stars are the stars that undergo supernova. It is these stars that have the mass required to collapse into a singularity. So what makes Spock think that creating a black hole will suck back the exploding stellar remants? In countless supernovae, it's never happened before. . . why would it work this time?

Okay, okay, you might argue that Spock will just use the Red Bull to create a more powerful black hole, one of those million solar mass monsters that will easily suck back the star in on itself. Even if you ignore what effect this would have on Romlulus (the planet we're trying to save, remember?), there's that pesky matter of, you know, the million solar masses! Hell, forget a million masses, what about the minimum 1.4 to 3 solar masses needed to form a black hole? Are you just gonna store it in the trunk? Well, I hope you have pretty big trunk, at least as big as the minimum Schwartzchild radius of 4 to 10 km needed to contain your not-yet-a-black-hole on your way to Romulus.

But on to the plot. . . Spock arrives at Romulus too late, and the star explodes-- cause, you know, scientists can't predict which stars will go supernova many millions of years in advance or anything like that. Still, Spock, not wanting to let perfectly good Red Bull go waste, decides to release it. . . or at least a very small part of it. I don't know. Anyway, this creates a black hole and, funny thing about black holes, they pull things in, and soon Spock finds his ship in an inescapible free fall of death. And so too, convineintly, does the ship belonging to the aforementioned bad guy, Nero.

But as it turns out, Red Bull, in addition to magically creating black holes and giving you wings, also causes time travel. Thus, both Spock and Nero plus crew are sucked over a century back in time to before the events depecited in the original Star Trek series. Actually, to more accurate than this film deserves, the two are launched to different times, twenty-five years apart. This, by the way, is not revealed at the beginning of the movie, but rather right smack in the middle, by means of the Vulcan exposition meld. . . but more on that later.

Nero and his massive ship arrive right in front of the Federation starship Kelvin. This is where the movie begins, and it's at this point that some reviewer, I think Spoony again, asks a good question: What was a Federation starship doing in the Romulan system at this time? I mean, even if you don't know that the Federation and the Romulans were in a centuries long state of cold war. . . there is no explanation given for this. In fact, there's no indication given that they're even at Romulus. And if they're not at Romulus, what is Nero doing there? Anyway, Nero's ship, the Narada or Ramada or Nirvana or something like that, does what any good Star Trek villain does-- he opens fire on the Kelvin after the Kelvin attempts to hail them. Now, knowing what I've already told you, you know that this makes absolutely no sense, but as I already mentioned, what I've already told you about Nero's situation and motivations isn't revealed until the middle of the movie. What that means is that the first time viewer has no way to know how stupid this is until the end of the movie. This goes beyond mere incompetence and into the realm of dishonesty, as though the writers knew how moronic this was and, instead of trying to create a plot that makes sense, instead just tried to cover it up with bad non-linear exposition.

So Nero orders the captain of the Kelvin aboard and starts asking him questions. Again, Nero has no reason to know that he's travelled back in time. . . and yet the second question he asks of the Kelvin's captain is "what stardate is it?" When the Kelvin's captain answers, Nero flies into a rage and kills him, and then proceeds to destroy the Kelvin. When I saw this in the theatre, my first thought was that Nero has deliberately travelled back in time to kick ass, but has arrived at the wrong date. That would explain Nero's question about the stardate, as well as why he was attacking the Kelvin. Looking back, I seriously wonder whether the writers were just making this up as they went along.

(Just to nitpick-- we learn in the film that Nero's ship is mining vessal. . . what's a mining vessal doing armed to the teeth? To fight pirates? Maybe.)

So it turns out that the first officer and acting captain of the Kelvin is none other than George Kirk, father of James T. Kirk, who, in another amazing coincidence, was just being born right at the moment the Kelvin came under attack.

Why am I doing this?

So Captain (George) Kirk protects the fleeing crew of the Kelvin and, once they're safely out of range, slams the Kelvin into the Narada, a heroic sacrfice. . . preceded by an argument over what to name the newborn baby. I'm serious. George Kirk on the Kelvin, and, let's say Wheezy Kirk, on a fleeing shuttle, communicate via radio over what to name their son, right in the midst of battle.

"Let's name his after your father, George!"

"Wheezy, no son of mine is going to walk around with the name Tiberius!"

"George!"

"Wheezy!"

"George, I don't care if you're about to crash into that Romulan death star, we are going to pick a name for your son!"

"Fine. We'll name him after your father, James."

"My Father's name is Jean-Luc. . ."

Kelvin smashes into Narada. The theme song starts.

Movin' on up
To the east side
To a deluxe apartment in the sky
Mov-movin' on up
To the east side
We finally got a piece of the pie!

So after destorying the Kelvin, Nero just. . . hangs around. For twenty-five years. Again, having no foreknowledge of his motivations or reasons for his current situation, I thought that maybe the damage caused by the Kelvin was so significant that it took twenty-five years to repair. But no. You see, he's been waiting for Spock. As I mentioned earlier, Spock and Nero arrive twenty-five years apart, and Nero has been waiting at the black hole, for Spock to come out. First. . . if he's been waiting there, how come no-one else found him? I mean, he destroyed a Federation vessal. Don't you think they'd send send the space marines to go looking for him? Second, even though he didn't know that he had even been sent back in time and even though he, presumably, knew nothing about the properties of Red Bull-- other than perhaps that it exists and makes black holes-- he actually mentions that, according to his calcuations, Spock should be coming out of the black hole (you know, the thing from which there is no escape!!!) at about this time. So what was he doing all this time? Coming up with his brilliant plan of. . . sigh, I'll get to that later. I mean, couldn't he have been trying to warn Romulus about thet Supernova that's about to engulf their world in century's time? But then again, everyone in this universe is so stupid they can't figure out that the Romulans' massive red-giant star that's produced an awful lot of carbon will probably go supernova. Maybe Nero just decided it was futile.

So, Spock arrives, Nero captures him, takes the Red Bull, and unleashes-- oh, Jesus fucking Christ in a bag-- his plan.

"It's very simple, Mr. Spock," says Nero, stroking his Romulan British Shorthaired Cat. "I cannot save Romulus, for reasons neither of us could possibly comprehend. So I will do the next best thing. . . I will destroy each and every planet in the Federation! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"Yure Inshane, Neroh," says Spock, speaking, for reasons known only to him, with a lisp and Scottish accent. "To do that, you would need a firepower greater than half the Starfleet!"

"That is where you are wrong, Spock! You underestimate the power of the Red Bull! I will use this mining ship to drill a hole to the core of the planet. Then, I will drop a small bit of Red Bull into the core, causing a massive singularity that will envelop the planet! And since you were packing enough Red Bull to collpase a supermassive star, I will have more that enough to destory every single planet in the Federation!"

"But that makes no sense! We tried to help you!"

"And you failed!"

"Well sorry! Last time we try to help the Romulans. Sheesh. And besides, I've seen that drill! All anyone would have to do is shoot it off from a distance."

"Wrong again! I will block all transporters and communications!"

"But what does that have to do with--?"

"The only way to stop the jamming signal would be for a small group of soldiers to skydive from space onto a small platform and destroy it, and no-one would dare try anything that stupid!"

"Do you expect me to believe this cockamamee plan, Goldfing-- I mean Nero?"

"No, Mr. Spock. I expect you to die. . . with a guilty conscience! You see, I will leave you behind on an ice planet, near the desert planet of-- wait, ice planet near a desert planet, (sigh) whatever-- and make you watch!"

"What do you mean 'watch'?"

"I think it's time we demonstrated the full power of this Red Bull. So your course for Vulcan!"

"No! Vulcan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly--"

"Would you prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system! I grow tired of asking this so it will be the last time: Where is the rebel base?"

That's it. That's the plan. And we spend the whole movie following the crew of the Enterprise trying to stop it.

I haven't been focussing too much on the introduction of the crew because, to be fair, that part is handled okay. Not great, not even good, but okay. Okay, that is, save for one huge exception, which leads back to the Vulcan exposition meld I mentioned earlier.

Nero Arrives at Vulcan and drills his hole. Because most of the fleet is busy elsewhere, it's up the the newly minted cadets of Starfleet Academy to save Vulcan. Once everyone is aboard their assgined ship, they fly off to Vulcan. . . except for the Enterprise. For the purposes of this film, Sulu, the pilot, is an idiot. An idiot who can handle a sword real nice, but an idiot nonetheless. You, see, Sulu forgot to turn off the "external inertial dampener," which prevents the Enterprise from reaching warp. Seriously, "external inertial dampener?" That's as stupid as calling something an "inert reactant." Anyway, they arrive, find all the other ships blown up, and are attacked by Nero. Nero is about to about to destory the ship, when. . .

"Wait!" says Nero. "Zoom in on that ship!"

The screen zooms on the ship, revealing its name-- Enterprise.

"Ah, yes," says Nero. "Finally, my chance. . . for revenge."

"Revenge," says General Zod.

"Revenge!" says Ursa.

"REVENGE!" says Lex Luthor. "Now we're cooking!"

As he did with the Kelvin, Nero orders the Enterprise's captain, Christopher Pike, aboard his ship. Capatin Pike orders young Spock, ie the one just out of Starfleet Academy serving on the newly commissioned Enterprise, to serve as acting Captain. He then orders Kirk to serve as first officer. . . which is weird because he had to sneak aboard the Enterprise with Dr. McCoy's help and. . . you know what, never mind. Spock takes command, Captain Pike goes to Nero's ship, and Kirk and Sulu do the flashy oribtal skydiving thing onto the aforementioned platform and accomplish nothing of consequence.

Nero then drops the Red Bull into the Planet's core. Vulcan starts imploding, and Spock beams down to the surface to rescue a small council of Vulcans responsible for the preservation of Vulcan's cultural heritage. As the planet is imploding, the council is hiding in a transporter-impermeable fortress. All six of them. There are a couple of things to nitpick here. First, are they just keeping all that culture in their heads? That, strangely, would made a weird sort of sense; we already know that Vulcan's had pass their essense or Katra from one individual to another, and it might make sense for culture to be passed on in the same way. Unfortunately, this is never explained. Second, and this relates to the chain of events leading back to the Vulcan exposition meld, Spock's mother is there. Now, I presume the reason for that is because Sarek, Spock's father, is on the cultural heritage council, and spouses of council members, for whatever reason, allowed into the cultrual fortress of logitude where they're all hiding. Still, it seems strange, given events earlier in the film, that she'd be allowed in there. Spock was tormented endlessly as a child for having a Vulcan mother. They even called Sarek a "traitor" for marrying a human. And yet this same apparently threatening human is now allowed into the vault containing, presumably, the very essence of Vulcan culture?

But anyway, Spock's mother and father are kneeling in the Fortress of Logitude-- apparently their plan was to just sit out the destruction of their planet. Spock brings them out into the open and orders a transport. Unfortunately, due to surface instability, the Enterprise fails to beam up Spock's mother from Vulcan. You gotta love the false moral equivalence on display. An enitre planet, aand its six billion inhabitants, are wiped in in a span of minutes. Men, women, and children, all extinguished. But what's really bad is that Spock lost his mother! I guess the writers though audiences couldn't possibly relate to mass genocide. . . so they decided instead that they could relate to the death of their Winona Ryder looking mother.

So, naturally, Spock is a little pissed off, though being a Vulcan he handles it well, or seem it seems at first. Unfortunately, his fellow cadet-turned-crewmate, James T. Kirk, has been giving Spock shit over the decisions he's made. Spock, understandably, orders Kirk removed from the bridge. Kirk then fights backs against the officers asked to remove him, and Spock nerve piches him, rendering him unconscious. Again, all well and good. Then Spock says this:

"Get him off my ship."

Wait. . . what? "Get him off my ship", not "Throw him in the brig"? Immediately we see Kirk marooned on some ice planet with minimal supplies. The computer aboard his space pod makes some excuse about how there's a Federation outpost fourteen miles away, but see. . . it's an ice planet. An ice planet that turns out to have ice fucking dragons that try to eat Kirk, and nearly succeed. There is no way Spock couldn't have known that it was dangerous to send Kirk down there, but he did it anyway. This relates to yet another a stupid plot point which I will get to later.

So Kirk is eventually chased into an ice cave by the aforementioned ice fucking dragon and is about be devoured when all of a sudden the dragon is chased away by a man with a torch. The man turns around and reveals himself to be none other than. . . future Spock! That's right, my friends! Nero happened to maroon Spock on the very same planet that younger Spock would later maroon Kirk. Not only that, they were marooned within a fucking ten-mile radius! How overly convenient it that?!

So Spock greets Kirk, with an allusion to an earlier movie. Not, "Jim. . . your name is Jim," (or maybe he did say that, I don't remember) but "I have been and always shall be your friend." I remember him saying that because it felt just so damn out of place in this context. You do not say something like "I have been and always shall be your friend" as a greeting, but as a parting. That's why it worked so well in Star Trek II when Spock was dying, and why it just feels awkward here.

Anyway, Spock reveals that he is, in fact Spock, from the future. The conversation that follows, as usual, is utterly idiotic.

"I'm Spock," says Spock.

"No way," says Kirk.

"I am. And you're James Kirk."

"Whatever."

"I'm from the future. That's why I look like an older version of the Spock you know." (Just go with it.)

"Pssshh."

"I was brought here by Nero."

Kirk looks back at Spock with a sudden somber seriousness.

"How do you know about Nero?"

How do you know about Nero? Fuck that! How do you know who I am? How do you know Spock? Anyhoo, we proceed with the Vulcan exposition meld and Spock then tells Kirk "You must get Spock to relieve his command."

Why? Who knows.

"But how can I do that?" asks Kirk.

"You must show that is showing emotional distress which makes him unfit for command."

Ah. Do you mean the kind of emotional distress that would prompt him to abandon Kirk on a deadly planet with few supplies and no defences?

Anyway, they go to the Federation outpost, meet Scotty, and teach him about his own invention of transwarp transporting or some such. Kirk and Scotty then beam aboard the Enterprise, leaving Spock behind. They could have kept this simple, but nooooooo. They had to be funny. When they arrive, Kirk is just fine, but Scotty, he's. . . *snicker* . . . he's trapped in a tank of. . . "inert reactant"! And then. . . *snicker* he's pumped along a series of pipes! Ha ha ha ha! He's pounding on the pipe walls and Kirk is running after him, trying to save him fron drowning! Hahahahahaha! And then, Kirk, *snicker*, Kirk pulls an emergency release, and Scotty falls fifty feet onto a hard floor! And the best part is that this scene served absolutely no purpose to the overall story! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, fuck you.













So anyway, Kirk and Scotty are captured and brought to the bridge, and Spock asks how they were able to beam aboard. Kirk decides this is the ideal moment to provoke Spock into anger and thus show he is to emotionally unstable for command. He does this by. . . berating him about his lack of emotional response over his mother's death and the near extinction of his race. Well, it does the trick, and Spock proceeds to beat the living snot outta Kirk. Spock ends up nearly strangling Kirk to death, only to pull back and declare himself unfit for duty. Wow, it happened just like Spock said it would. It's almost as if everyone were following a really hackeneyed script.

So, with Spock relieving himself, Kirk crowns himself, Napoleon-like, as the captain of the Enterprise. And what does he do with this newfound authority? He beams over to Nero's ship, leaving Chekov, fucking Chekov, in charge. Is there no chain of command here? And of course, because we need these two to be friends again, Spock decides to join him on his little away mission.

"Say, sorry about saying that you don't love your mother and aren't saddened by your species' near annihilation."

"No worries. Sorry about nearly killing you in a fit of rage."

"You know what I say? That's why pencils have erasers!"

So they beam aboard, some stupid action sequences ensue, and Kirk and Spock destroy Nero's ship with Red Bull. They return to Starfleet academy, Kirk earns a commendation and, I swear to fucking God, is instantaneously promoted to captain of the Enterprise! There really is no chain of fucking command! And to top it off, Spock comes aboard and requests a position as first officer. Kirk replies, saying he would be "honored." This is supposed to be touching, but it just feels cheap. This friendship was not earned in any way. One minute they're rivals, the next minute they're friends. Why? Because that's what the script needed to happen.

The Enterprise flies off into the unknown, its crew united, with Leonard Nimoy narrating the famous Star Trek opening, as he did in Star Trek II.

And that's it.

If you've made it all the way through this long-winded rant, I defy you to still tell me that Star Trek was a good movie. In fact. . . could you explain to me what you saw in it? Please? I mean, this movie makes the Star Wars Prequels look good. It makes M. Night Shayamalan look. . . better. I mean, you hate the Star Wars prequels, and you hate M. Night. What do you see in this? Please tell me! And if you didn't like it, for reasons other than fanboy BS, please let me know as well. Me and ConfusedMatthew can't be the only ones out there.

Until then. . . live long and . . . on second thought, don't.

Weren't we all told . .

. . . that the cold war is over? Apparently, it's not quite done yet.

MOSCOW - The Russian space agency has ordered design work to start for a next-generation spaceship capable of flying missions to the moon, setting the ground for a potential new space race with the United States.

The space agency granted the state-controlled RKK Energiya company a US$23 million contract for initial work on a new, reusable craft to replace the 40-year-old Soyuz.

The as-yet-unnamed Russian spaceship could emerge as a potential competitor to NASA's prospective Orion spacecraft.

Design requirements for the Russian craft appear similar to Orion's specification, prompting some experts to nickname it "Orionski."

Orion is scheduled to carrying humans to the International Space Station beginning in 2015, and to the moon by 2020.

Alexei Krasnov, the chief of manned space programs for the Russian space agency, said last week that the prospective Russian spacecraft is set to make its maiden flight before 2020, without elaborating.

James Oberg, an experienced aerospace engineer who worked on NASA's space shuttle program and is now a space consultant, wrote in a commentary that the new Russian space program could help NASA win funds for its plan to return astronauts to the moon.

"This will give NASA a long hoped for boost in Congress by echoing the space race motivations of the 1960s," Oberg said.

Energiya beat the other leading state-controlled spacecraft builder, the Khrunichev company, for the prestigious order. It was announced on a government website.

Energiya has until June 2010 to complete the initial design. The company builds the Soyuz and its unmanned cargo version, named Progress, which are not reusable.

Krasnov said the new spacecraft will be capable of carrying a crew of six and a payload of 500 kilograms to orbit around the Earth. The Soyuz can only carry a crew of three.

Krasnov told reporters last week that the new spaceship should also be capable of delivering a crew of four to lunar orbit.

"We want the new ship to be a step into the future, not just a scaled up version of the Soyuz," he said.

Russia plans to start construction next year of Vostochny, a new space launch facility in the far eastern Amur region near China. The new cosmodrome is expected to host launches of unmanned spacecraft beginning in 2015 and the first manned missions starting in 2018.

Russia currently uses the Soviet-built Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for all of its manned space missions and most important commercial launches. Another launch facility in Plesetsk, northern Russia, is mostly used to launch military satellites.

Windfall oil revenues of the past years have allowed the Kremlin to spend more on Russia's space program, which had suffered badly in the post-Soviet economic meltdown. But with Russia facing its worst financial crisis since 1998, observers say the government may find it hard to fund the ambitious new program.

So. . . President Bush, in 2004, decides to take advantage of the popularity surrounding the Spirit and Opportunity missions on Mars to announce his new "vision for space exploration," which involves ditching the space shuttle, completing construction of the International Space Station, and "return[ing] to the moon by 2020, as the launching point for missions beyond." Then, China, ever so eager to prove it's not a dumb kid anymore, announces its own plans for a moon mission, which I wrote about earlier. Now Russia, which had earlier annouced that it had no interest in taking part in the Nasa plan, has now suddenly decided it will build a new spacecraft capable of lunar orbit.

At least Canada's not being dragged into this moronic new space race. . . we're too busy trying to beat the Russians in the moronic new oil race.

Lab. . . again.

I've got a troofer!

No, not a 9/11 troofer. This one believes that the moon landing was a hoax. He came in, announced that the moon landing was the greatest hoax in history, and showed me footage of the moon landing that contain brief flashes of light, apparently evidence of wires attached to the astronauts in order to make it look like they're in weak gravity.

He also showed me the footage of the "waving American flag," and asked me how that's possible. Rather then explain that the flag only waved when the astronauts twisted the flag pole while putting it into place, and that the flag's ruffled appearance in other photos was deliberate, I just shrugged and said "I dunno."

"How you not know?" He's Chinese. "You have physics degree!"

I briefly mentioned the whole "ruffled appearance" thing. Then he showed me more video "evidence," this time of astronauts who look like they're suspended from wires:

Oh well. At least he gave me something to blog about.

For those interested in reality.

It's Like. . . Some Sort of . . . Star War. . .

If you could believe such a absurd thing!

Seriously, though. . . remember when the U.S. and China got into a pissing match over who was better at blowing up their own satellites with missiles? It seems like Russia has gotten into the act as well. Their approach, however, is a bit more direct. . .

From MSNBC:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Russian and U.S. experts say the first-ever collision between two satellites has created clouds of debris that could threaten other unmanned spacecraft.

...

The smashup occured over Siberia when a derelict Russian military communications satellite crossed paths with a U.S. Iridium satellite.

The two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station.

NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia on Tuesday.

Americans? Chinese? Pussies. Leave it to the Russians have the sheer frozen balls to destroy a foreign satellite. . . with their own decommissioned satellite!

But those ex-Bolshevist bastards aren't content with taking out just one satellite:

Other Russian and U.S. officials warn that satellites in nearby orbits could be damaged.

...

The U.S. Strategic Command's Space Surveillance Network detected the two debris clouds created by Tuesday's collision. Julie Ziegenhorn, a spokeswoman for the Strategic Command, told msnbc.com that the collision left behind an estimated 600 pieces of debris, but she emphasized that the Pentagon's orbital watchdog had to do "still more characterization" of the collision's potential effect.

NASA's [Mark] Matney said the count would likely be in the thousands if pieces of debris down to the scale of microns — about the size of a grain of sand — are included.

...

Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Houston space center, said the risk of damage from Tuesday’s collision is [relatively high] for the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites, which are in higher orbit [than the International Space Station] and nearer the debris field.

The satellite-- the victim satellite-- was owned by telecommunications company Iridium Holdings LLC. According to the article, one of the company's biggest clients is the US Department of Defence.

Coincidence? What do you mean yes? Are you blind? As we speak, the Russians are already planning to allow satellites they decommissioned during the Cold War to follow their original orbits and eventually collide with satellites launched years later that they could never have anticipated! It's all part of the Soviet grand plan launched years ago: to destory the enemies the Soviet Union my means of the remnant's of the Soviet Union's own downfall! And to think, you people are still fooled by that little puppet show in Berlin.

Or. . . maybe Iridium just fucked up. Though the article never specifies whether he's talking about this particular collision or any collision of satellites, Mark Matney was quoted as saying “We knew this was going to happen eventually.”

UPDATE: Cool video. It freezes up for the first second or so, but if you click a couple of seconds ahead, it works fine.

Next Week?

Hi A.J.

I'm going to be pretty busy next week-- I have to attend a committee meeting and give my final presentation for my Octave course. But Friday night or Saturday should be good.

Would it be cool if Naomi came as well?


Oh. . . and for you other people reading this (and A.J. as well):

YOR!

(It's over twenty minutes long, but its worth it!)

Tycho Crater Imaged

Remember Selene/Kayuga, that probe Japan sent into lunar orbit? Well, using photographs and altitude measurements taken by the probe, scientists at the Japanese Space Agency have constructed a 3D map of the lunar crater Tycho.

Click here for a video. It's a big file, but it's worth it.

(Thanks Bad Astronomy)

Star Wars. . . Nothing but Star Wars . . . Give me Those Star Wars. . . Don't let them E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-end!*

I'm in my mom's office, pissing away reading break and waiting for word on our cat Cedric, who's undergoing balldectomy getting neutered at I speak. To pass the time (which I could've been spending doing marking. . . or something-- anything-- out in the open air) I thought I'd write about the lastest bit of space news I've come across.

Sometime last night, while the rest of the western hemisphere stood in the freezing air waiting for a lunar eclipse, the US Navy shot down one of its own country's spy satellites. The satellite was in a decaying orbit, and some believed that it might be able to partially survive re-entry and crash somewhere on Earth--more specifically, somewhere on Earth that's Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran. There's also speculation that the spy satellite contains large amounts of unconsumed hydrazine rocket fuel, which might pose an environmental hazard (indeed, the fact that the fuel was unconsumed, and hence unable to laung the satellite to higher orbit and greater velocity, might explain why it is falling in the first place).

Naturally, the United States government is keeping mum about this whole affair. After all, government and military secrets are at stake, and besides, the whole thing is so embarrasing that. . . oh look, the Department of Defence posted a video of the Navy blowing up the satellite:



Apparently, the cloud of gas that appears after the explosion was indeed unburned hydrazine, according to a spectral analysis.

Now, I can understand the DOD posting the video in order to quell the public's worries of, how shall I put it, a KILLER FUCKING SATELLITE:



But, being the paranoid sort that I am, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something else going on here. Then I remembered that China, just one month ago, also blew up a satellite with a ground-based missile:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military.

According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a "kill vehicle" and destroyed the satellite by ramming it.

The test took place on January 11. (There was a link to a video here, but I cut it out. You can find it at the main site.)

Aviation Week and Space Technology first reported the test: "Details emerging from space sources indicate that the Chinese Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) polar orbit weather satellite launched in 1999 was attacked by an asat (anti-satellite) system launched from or near the Xichang Space Center."

A U.S. official, who would not agree to be identified, said the event was the first successful test of the missile after three failures.

The official said that U.S. "space tracking sensors" confirmed that the satellite is no longer in orbit and that the collision produced "hundreds of pieces of debris," that also are being tracked.

So. . . is all of this just an outer space pissing contest between China and the United States? Are we about to enter a new Cold War in Earth orbit? The U.S. has issued diplomatic protests, and President Bush has been waving that little of sabre of his over issues of American outer space policy for some time now:

The United States logged a formal diplomatic protest.

"We are aware of it and we are concerned, and we made it known," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Several U.S. allies, including Canada and Australia, have also registered protests, and the Japanese government said it was worrisome.

"Naturally, we are concerned about it from the viewpoint of security as well as peaceful use of space," said Yashuhisa Shiozaki, chief cabinet secretary. He said Japan has asked the Chinese government for an explanation.

Britain has complained about lack of consultation before the test and potential damage from the debris it left behind, The Associated Press reported.

The United States has been able to bring down satellites with missiles since the mid-1980s, according to a history of ASAT programs posted on the Union of Concerned Scientists Web site. In its own test, the U.S. military knocked a satellite out of orbit in 1985.

Under a space policy authorized by President Bush in August, the United States asserts a right to "freedom of action in space" and says it will "deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so."

The policy includes the right to "deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."

Low Earth-orbit satellites have become indispensable for U.S. military communications, GPS navigation for smart bombs and troops, and for real-time surveillance. The Chinese test highlights the satellites' vulnerability.

"If we, for instance, got into a conflict over Taiwan, one of the first things they'd probably do would be to shoot down all of our lower Earth-orbit spy satellites, putting out our eyes," said John Pike of globalsecurity.org, a Web site that compiles information on worldwide security issues.

"The thing that is surprising and disturbing is that [the Chinese] have chosen this moment to demonstrate a military capability that can only be aimed at the United States," he said.

Again, maybe I'm being paranoid, but isn't it also strange that just a month later, the U.S. destroys one of it's own satellites, for all the world to see?

But Anyway. . . as long as you're here, read My Story II and give me some input, dammit! I plan to do this for money and acclaim and girls one day!

Links:

Bad Astronomy Blog Article

BBC Online Article on Spy Satellite

CNN Online Article on Chinese Missile Launch


*The title is based on Bill Murray's "Star Wars Song" from the early years of Saturday Night Live. I couldn't find the original clip, but I did find this video by DickSharpe80 which has the song on it.

There Will Be Blood. . . IN SPACE. . . .

. . . Space . . . Space . . . Space. . . space. . .!*



It's long been known that Saturn's moon Titan has a huge amount of organic (carbon-based) chemicals, both in its dense atmosphere (twice as dense as Earth's) and in its frozen lakes of methane(recently photographed by the Huygens probe). Scientists believe that Titan's hydrocarbon content is very similar to that of Earth before the beginning of life, and thus that the moon-- which has been effectively "frozen" for billions of years-- provides a snapshot of our own world from ages past.

Big whoop.

Fortunately, Cassini-Huygens researcher has found an actual good reason to care about Titan: TAITEN HAZ TEH OILZ!!!1!1

Saturn's moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from the Cassini spacecraft.

The bounty of fuels, however, is on an orange-coloured moon at least 1.2 billion kilometres from Earth, a trip that took the Cassini spacecraft seven years to make.

Researchers from the European Space Agency first reported their findings about the ringed planet's moon in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters on Jan. 28.

Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said the estimated fuel reserves are based on Cassini's surface maps of the moon, which show what appear to be lakes and seas. Researchers speculate the liquid is methane, one of the few known molecules to exist as a liquid in such extreme cold.

The scientists also believe dunes on the moon's surface are made of complex organic molecules called tholins.

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material-it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Lorenz in a statement. "This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."

Although only 20 per cent of the moon's surface has been mapped, the researchers have already found dozens of lakes that individually could house as much energy as the 117,000 million tonnes of proven reserves of oil and gas on Earth.

"[Our] global estimate is based mostly on views of the lakes in the northern polar regions. We have assumed the south might be similar, but we really don't yet know how much liquid is there," said Lorenz.

The dense haze of Titan's mostly nitrogen atmosphere had prevented earlier attempts to view the surface of the moon before the U.S. space probe Cassini first arrived in 2004. Radar is the only way to pierce the haze surrounding Titan, which has an atmosphere 10 times denser than Earth's.

The probe's next flyby of Titan is on Feb. 22, 2008, when it will observe the landing site of the ESA's Huygens probe, which landed on the moon's surface in 2004.

The combined Cassini-Huygens mission is a co-operative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. It first launched from Earth in 1997.

Titan's dense atmosphere and presence of carbon-based material have fascinated scientists who see it as a time vault of what Earth may have looked like billions of years ago, before life formed and introduced oxygen into the atmosphere.

As the article says, Titan is over a billion kilometers away(When? On closest approach? Furthest?) so there probably won't be any attempt to extract it. However, for the sake of balance-- actually, for the sake of my contract obligates me to climb my political soapbox at least once every three blogs-- let me just point out some of the stupid things that supposedly reasonable, advanced civilizations have done to get their hands on oil:

*As I wrote this, I found myself wondering if "Space" is really spelled like that.

Having been an astronomy and space travel nut my whole life, I now suddenly wondered why I had written a word that sounded like "Spa-kay" (Latinesque pronunciation). I actually had to look up the word "space" on Google to make sure it was spelled properly. Stupid foreign languages messing up my science!