NEW STAR TREK MOVIE?

Stardate 2009: you must be kidding. A new Star Trek movie? C'mon now! There is only one Star Trek--and it was filled with rubber-headed monsters and space hippies and terrible wooden dialog. The Shat read his lines like a Shakespearean ham performing Lear at the community theater. All he needed were a few cloves stuck in his cheeks and a nice honey glaze. I'm not a loyal Trekkie by any means, but that's the Trek I know and love--kid stuff for kids--not these high-tech, CGI-fueled mini-operas and morality tales. Give me the original, anyday--replete with cheap special effects--and we can have a laugh over beer and Cool Ranch Doritos.

The original Captain Kirk battles a rubber-headed monster on the Planet of Cheap Special Effects.

The old crew before the franchise went into warp.

The new movie? I heard it was great. Haven't seen it. They've updated the story for modern day viewers, which sounds weird to me. Anyway, the Enterprise is caught in a downwardly spiraling economy and a Romulan efficiency expert is beamed aboard to clear things up. After a devastating flurry of buzzwords, the e.e. lays off most of the crew and outsources their jobs to a slave planet. The film ends with the "enterprising" crew searching the far reaches of the galaxy for work.


The original series didn't shy away from social comment: space hippies on "The Way to Eden."

WILLIAM SHATNER, RENAISSANCE MAN

William Shatner cannot be killed. He has nine lives. Not only is he an actor (Star Trek, Twilight Zone, T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal), a director (Star Trek the Movie), a writer (Star Trek books, with Judith and Garfield Reese-Stevens), and a pitchman and shill (countless commercials), he can also sing like a nightingale.

Well, not really. You could say The Shat is a "song stylist." His interpretations are so bad they're good--and then bad again. When he met Mr. Tambourine Man he didn't just ask for a song, he pistol-whipped the perp like T. J. Hooker on cranky pills.

Here Shatner performs the Pulp song "Common People" with the help of Joe Jackson and Ben Folds.

Of course, we can't resist re-posting his surreal "interpretation" of the Elton John classic "Rocket Man." This is cool. In fact, it's cold as hell.

Who said there are no second acts in American lives? That's right. Too bad Fitzgerald never met William Shatner.

NEWS FROM OUTER SPACE

Artist's simulation of Phoenix Mars Lander

Mars Lander Beams Back Video

Life on Mars? Maybe. The Phoenix Mars Lander has beamed back video of the Red Planet that has never been seen before. The data collected could have a tremendous impact on planning for future missions, NASA scientists say. Scientists remain uncertain about whether the new video represents first contact with a new alien life form or just a guy in a cheap rubber suit.

Artist's simulation of first contact with alien life forms on Mars

NEWS FROM OUTER SPACE

Top stories from beyond the beyond...

"U.S. WILL TRY TO SHOOT DOWN SPY SATELLITE GONE BAD.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has decided to try to shoot down a failing 5,000-pound spy satellite, fearing its rocket fuel could turn into a deadly toxic gas if the spacecraft crashed in a populated area, officials said Thursday." -- from today's LA Times

And a story from today's New York Times:

"SMALLER VERSION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS DISCOVERED

Astronomers said Wednesday that they had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets. 'It looks like a scale model of our solar system,” said Scott Gaudi, an assistant professor of astronomy at Ohio State University."

Maybe there's a miniature version of the Earth, and a miniature me sipping a tiny coffee, writing a much smaller version of this blog. I'm just saying.