I admit, I am not good with math (Calculus, Algebra I am quite good at, same goes for geometry), but this is beautiful and almost makes me want to try and get better at Calculus.
One Rat Short from Charlex on Vimeo.
I admit I am always fascinated by hair / fur animation as this still is where a lot of “revealing mistakes” happen. But this one is quite good, not only in the fur animation but also in the overall execution. Kudos.
(via Schockwellenreiter)
There will be spoilers
When I heard that J. J. Abrams was going to direct the next Star Trek movie I was a bit…. confused let’s just say. As much as I enjoy Abrams TV work (minus Lost) most of it did not strike me in the vain of Star Trek. He is good in taking old Genre’s and pay homage to it but he hardly did push the old paradigms forward.
Watching his “vision” of Star Trek I have to say Abrams is exactly Abrams. This is not so much a new entry into the Star Trek canon as it is a fan movie with a really really big budget.
The movie takes us back to the “Genesis” of the Kirk legend, we get to experience his birth (literally) and both his and Spock’s youth as they are growing up and, eventually join Star Fleet.
The movie during all of this never seems to take itself to serious. Kirk is the rowdy and much more edgy than his Shatner incarnation and Spock is deeply emotional and seems to have a (romantic?) relationship with Ohura.
The movie also makes “light” of a “favourite” plot device of many recent Star Trek writers: Time travel. The good news is, Abrams and his writers seem to realize just how overused of a plot device it is and such did not press the big “reset” button at the end of the movie. What this also means is that should there be another movie in the franchise dealing with “TOS” it will be in a different universe / timeline and open new opportunities.
Many critics have pointed out the “ultra modern” design that has very little resemblance to the original production design, and this is certainly true when it comes to the Bridge design which has taken many modern cues while still somewhat retaining the old 1960s flair (lots of white and primary colours), but the rest of the Enterprise is much more industrial looking. In fact this is where the movie at times turns into a “made for TV” episode, large industrial environments that clearly are “alien looking” and yet still from this world. Heavy pipes and controls all brightly lid. These are the moments when the movie receives Abrams signature of “cheap TV productions” and gets the flair of a fan film more than anything else.
I have to admit though that I do love the new design of the Enterprise A, it is more elegant, more stylish and not by accident reminds me of a 1960s American Sedan. Whoever designed it, Kudos, it is a very pretty ship.
Lastly, both Bones and Scotty are also part of the crew. While Bones comes “on board” relatively early on we have to wait quite some time before we see Simon Pegg as the new Scotty. Sadly, much like he did in the last Bond movie, his appearance is cut way too short and he is not really given enough room to become Scotty.
So what’s left at the end?
Make no mistake, the movie is highly entertaining, that is if you are not a hard core trekkie that cannot laugh about their own show. Most of the characters are a caricature of the heroes they are supposed to become later in their life. This does not make the movie a bad movie, quite the contrary, it is a remarkable fresh take on the series but it also only works because most people are at least knowledgeable enough about Star Trek to “get it”. But most die hard’s will loathe Abrams for what he has done. This is not your “classic” Star Trek, it certainly is not ToS, it is something new, an homage to the 1960s cult TV show but not the next coming of Star Trek, this, will have to wait for a while.