Ironik

Good for you! As to the cuteness factor, if you follow the link you'll see it's not my cat so I'm not emotionally involved in its relative attractiveness. I do animal rescue and that was one of five motherless kittens I watched overnight.

No you did not.

Weird, no matter what I try, I can't see this picture.

Pournelle *will* sue if there's a gripping hand.

I don't have either of those issues. I just hate how CoV is designed, from the zones to the idea we're never anything more than lackeys.

Honestly, every single thing Cook was involved with in this game sucks. Where did he go? Because I want to avoid whatever game he's working on now like the plague.

I don't really play villains (see above) but I agree with this. I didn't even know this was a requirement.

That was one of the things that was so amazing about Spider-Man in his debut: he's just a scrawny little nerd. That was recaptured beautifully in the Ultimate Spider-Man series.

I take your point about things being reimagined versus being original, but you aren't allowed to use Casino Royale as an example of anything other than bad storytelling.

I'm sorry, but that movie is so goddamned boring that even the writers couldn't figure out what the hell to do with it so they actually KILLED JAMES BOND in the middle of it. Since it's the title character, so we know he's not going to die... so that's just completely wasted time in the middle of the film for no purpose whatsoever. He even goes back to playing cards as if nothing's happened. It was ludicrous in the extreme. One of the single best Bond opening scenes ever, and then nothing.

I don't think that's true of the first film at all. You clearly get a good sense of who Wolverine is, the issues Rogue has, why Magneto hates humans (in one of the most efficient villain introductions ever) and the rivalry between Xavier and Magneto. I think the only real benefit 2 had over 1 is it featured more action in a wider-ranging story. I never once thought X-Men was plodding and if no sequels had been made, that would've been a fine stand-alone movie.

True, the TNG films were basically big-budget episodes of the series, but they made a lot of money. Adjusting their box office earnings versus their budgets results in a figure about $70 million less profit than Star Trek, but that includes the flop of Star Trek: Nemesis. Star Trek was marketed brilliantly. The true test will be ST2. The Phantom Menace had huge hype, great anticipation and was a massive let-down. It made nearly a billion dollars in theatres. The next two did 60% of that, despite having inflation on their side. That's still a ton of money, but it's pretty clear a lot of people abandoned the series after seeing TPM. Whereas the original series sold more tickets with each succeeding entry and pulled in more fans, the second series did the opposite. I kind of have the feeling that Star Trek is in that same boat, albeit to a lesser extent.

Well, we'll see.

I still say Star Trek was a bad film on its own and suffers badly when compared to fare such as Wrath of Khan. Abrams couldn't even seem to decide what sort of tone to set with it, so it's like every other character was serious, alternating with a character who was campy.

Kirk: campy.
Spock: serious.
McCoy: campy.
Uhura: serious.
Chekov: campy.
Sulu: serious.
Scotty: campy.
Old Spock: serious.
Nero: seriously campy.

Do you have an example in mind? I can't think of any remakes that fit this description.

There was a bit more to it than that, and in X-Force she was physically and psychologically tortured. (Although to be fair, most of the characters in that book get twisted around, some pretty badly. But she got the worst of it.) It was way too grim for me and I stopped reading the book. I don't know about the other examples, but in this case she qualifies.

I don't buy into this, because that would mean you're excusing this film when you would never excuse a movie with an original story. And that's what I find a lot with Abrams' Trek: people keep saying, "Oh, it's the first one, give him time to sort it out," No. Abrams is a seasoned professional and the very weaknesses we see in his Star Trek are the exact same ones we see in his other works: he doesn't do characters, he does character sketches. He'd be great at making commercials, because he communicates a stereotype very quickly. But when it comes time to fully delineate a multi-layered character he invariably falls down.

I mean, no one watched the first Back to the Future and said, "Well, let's wait till the second one to see if Biff becomes a credible threat and Marty can think on his feet." Everything you needed to know was in that movie. Same goes for Raiders of the Lost Ark or Die Hard or Iron Man or the best Star Trek movie that's not a Star Trek movie, Galaxy Quest. You get the story, the heroes, the villains, everything, all completely set up.

Instead of raiding Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: First Contact for his villain and his plot, he should've done what Bennett did and take a good long look at Trek's universe and come up with something interesting to hang his reboot on.

It says "Jesus loves you." Of course he does. Duh.

I mean, I pay him good money to do my lawn and even arranged for him to marry one of the girls at the office so he can get his Green Card and not have to move back to Guadalajara.

Don't buy any used cars for the next few years. Lots of cars with mysterious electrical gremlins always appear on the used-car market after floods, invariably sold "as-is".

If the parts can be modified with color and the sliders, then they can serve multiple variations on a theme. A canine head that can be substantially altered can serve any number of animals from a fox to coyote to wolf to dog. Throw on the panda ears and add some cheetah spots and you've got a hyena.

Some parts can be used more than others, true, but I have a dog character and I want him to have a proper Akita-like head and a furry dog tail, so an anthro pack works for me.

It is an undercurrent of sexism, and I would contend that it's echoing the comics the game is based on.

It's possible that feature was added to starships after -- or even *because of* -- his encounter with Enterprise. Regardless of whether he knew about it: he recognized what was happening instantly and immediately shouted, "The override! Where's the override?!"

If he did know about it beforehand, he was smug in his domination of Kirk and his anger and arrogance led him to make that mistake. Kirk capitalized on an error his enemy made. And you have to give Khan credit: he and his gang were able to run a Federation starship pretty soon after taking it over and gave an experienced crew the what-for.

Dramatic license that we can handwave away: Enterprise's engines are damaged. Maybe like Zoolander they can't turn left.