The VHS Corner: Disney Sing-Along Songs Overview

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Welcome back to the VHS Corner, where I talk about the VHS tapes of my childhood. Today I'm going to cover an entire series of VHS tapes that I watched alot when I was a kid and will be covering the tapes in the series that I owned, as well as the ones that my parents rented for me or I saw at the hospital. So let's dive into the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes from my childhood.

Disney Sing-Along Songs was a series of direct to video, meaning not shown on TV or theatrically, VHS and DVDs that ran from 1986 until 2006, released by Disney. They consisted of song clips from different Disney movies and TV shows that had come out over the years. And often this was the only way you could see those clips as the movies hadn't been released on home video. I only had three of these tapes in my personal collection, but we rented seven of them from Rogers Video in the early to mid '90s. I'm going to cover the ones I owned in the order in which I got them in, and then I'll go over the ones we rented in the order they were originally released in. So with out further ado, let's get into it.

The first Disney Sing-Along Songs tape I ever got was the third tape released, The Bare Necessities. Each of these tapes had a broad theme they followed. This one's theme was animals and the Animal Kingdom. The movies the songs for this volume were selected from all had to do with animals, like Baloo from The Jungle Book, the mice from Cinderella, and Winnie the Pooh. This tape was originally released in 1987 for the 20th anniversary of The Jungle Book. The songs on this tape are "The Bare Necessities" (from The Jungle Book), "You Are a Human Animal" (from Mickey Mouse Club), "The Work Song" (from Cinderella), "Old Yeller" (from Old Yeller), "Figaro and Cleo" (from Figaro and Cleo), "Winnie the Pooh" (from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), "I Wan'na Be Like You" (from The Jungle Book), "Look Out for Mr. Stork" (from Dumbo), "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" (from The Aristocats), "The Ugly Bug Ball" (from Summer Magic), and the reprise of "The Bare Necessities".

This is one of my favourite VHS tapes of all time. If you've been following me for any length of time you might remember that I did a list of my favourite VHS tapes and VHS box sets over on The Review Basement for it's 300th post and this tape is on it. It was one of my first Disney VHS tapes, my first Disney Sing-Along Songs tape, and one of my first introductions to Disney in general. It was a Christmas present in 1989. I don't have the tape anymore sadly, but I do own it's 2006 DVD release and I watched it last night in preparation for this post and it's still as good as I remember it being.

The second Disney Sing-Along Songs tape I got was the second volume, Heigh-Ho, which came out for the 50th Anniversary of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I don't remember when I got this tape, or who gave it to me, but I remember watching it pretty frequently when I was a kid. The songs on this tape are "Heigh-Ho" (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "Up, Down, Touch the Ground" (from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree), "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee" (from Pinocchio), "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" (from Pirates of the Caribbean (Disneyland attraction)), "The Dwarfs' Yodel Song (The Silly Song)" (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "A Cowboy Needs a Horse" (from A Cowboy Needs a Horse), "The Three Caballeros" (from The Three Caballeros), "Theme from Zorro" (from Zorro), "The Siamese Cat Song" (from Lady and the Tramp), "Let's Go Fly a Kite" (from Mary Poppins), and the reprise of "Heigh-Ho". 

The third and final Disney Sing-Along Songs tape I got when I was a kid was the 1994 release of the seventh volume, Disneyland Fun, which originally came out in 1990. I got this tape way later in my childhood, as I got it as a Christmas present in 1996 or 1997. The version I had was a special edition release as the tape came in this big box with a Mickey Mouse microphone included. I don't have that edition anymore, but last November I got three boxes of VHS tapes from someone I know, and the regular 1994 edition of this tape was in it so I have it back in my collection. This was also the only live-action Disney Sing-Along Songs tape I owned when I was a kid. The previews on this tape were for the Disney Favorite Stories Collection which began coming out in 1994, a Winnie the Pooh home video collection, and then a 1993 preview for Disney Sing-Along Songs after the program.

The songs on this tape are "Whistle While You Work" (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "Step in Time" (from Mary Poppins), "I'm Walking Right Down the Middle of Main Street U.S.A." (from Disneyland is Your Land), "Follow the Leader" (from Peter Pan), "The Great Outdoors" (from Country Bear Vacation Hoedown), "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (from Song of the South), "Rumbly in My Tumbly" (from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree), "It's a Small World" (from It's a Small World), "Making Memories" (from Magic Journey), "Grim Grinning Ghosts" (from the Haunted Mansion Disneyland Attraction), "The Character Parade" (from various Disneyland parades), and "When You Wish Upon a Star" (from Pinocchio). 

Released in 1988 as the fourth volume in the series, Disney Sing-Along Songs: You Can Fly! is a tape that my parents rented for me once. I vaguely remember it because Ludwig von Drake, a relative of Donald Duck, is the host for the program. Plus I remember a decent number of the songs as well. We didn't rent it very often though so I didn't watch it as often as I did the ones I owned. The songs are "You Can Fly" (from Peter Pan), "The Beautiful Briny" (from Bedknobs and Broomsticks), "Colonel Hathi's March" (from The Jungle Book), "I've Got No Strings" (from Pinocchio), "Little Black Rain Cloud" (from Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree), "The Merrily Song" (from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), "He's a Tramp" (from Lady and the Tramp), "Step in Time" (from Mary Poppins), and "When I See An Elephant Fly" (from Dumbo), as well as the reprise of "You Can Fly".

Next up is Under the Sea, which came out to celebrate the original 1990 home video release of The Little Mermaid. This was a tape that I saw once at the hospital and then I think we rented it as well. I remember seeing it at Rogers Video but I don't remember if we actually rented it that time. I do remember watching it at the hospital for sure though. The songs are "Under the Sea" (from The Little Mermaid), "By the Beautiful Sea" (traditional song set to clips from Disney cartoons and movies), "Never Smile at a Crocodile" (from Peter Pan), "That's What Makes the World Go Round" (from The Sword in the Stone), "Kiss the Girl" (from The Little Mermaid), "At the Codfish Ball" (song sung to clips of Disney cartoons and movies), "Sailing, Sailing/Sailor's Hornpipe" (song medley sung to clips of Disney cartoons and movies), "A Whale of a Tale" (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), "Someone's Waiting for You" (from The Rescuers), and a reprise of "Under the Sea". 

I Love to Laugh! is a Disney Sing-Along Songs tape that I know I watched only in the hospital and didn't rent it. I do remember it though as it has several Disney songs that I really like. This tape was hosted by both Professor Owl and Ludwig von Drake, which is the second tape where Professor Owl co-hosts with Ludwig von Drake, the first being Fun with Music. The songs on this tape are "I Love to Laugh" (from Mary Poppins), "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place" (from Song of the South), "Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum" (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (from Mary Poppins), "Quack, Quack, Quack, Donald Duck" (from A Day in the Life of Donald Duck), "Oo-De-Lally" (from Robin Hood), "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" (from Three Little Pigs), "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers" (from Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too), "Pink Elephants on Parade" (from Dumbo), and "Jolly Holiday" (from Mary Poppins). This is the only non-Disneyland/Walt Disney World related Disney Sing-Along Songs tape that doesn't end with a reprise of the opening song.

Be Our Guest was a tape that my parents rented for me but I didn't watch it at the hospital. I actually have it in my own VHS collection now, as it was in one of those three boxes of VHS tapes that I got back in November. It was hosted by Jiminy Cricket. The only preview on this tape was a shorter version of the Disney Sing-Along Songs preview that was on the 1994 edition of Disneyland Fun, as it only goes up to this tape since Friend Like Me hadn't come out yet. The songs on this tape are "Be Our Guest" (from Beauty and the Beast), "A Spoonful of Sugar" (from Mary Poppins), "Little Wooden Head" (from Pinocchio), "Bella Notte" (from Lady and the Tramp), "Heffalumps and Woozles" (from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day), "Beauty and the Beast" (from Beauty and the Beast), "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" (from The Great Mouse Detective), "Chim Chim Cher-ee" (from Mary Poppins), "Once Upon a Dream" (from Sleeping Beauty), and the reprise of "Be Our Guest". 

Friend Like Me is another rental, not hospital viewing, tape that I watched when I was a kid. I think I remember this one the most out of all of the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes that I rented or saw at the hospital because it had to do with Aladdin, which is one of my favourite Disney movies of all time. It's also one of the tapes we rented that had the Muppet Sing-Alongs: Billy Bunny's Animal Songs preview at the beginning of the tape. At the end of the tape there's the standard Disney Sing-Along Songs preview as well as a preview for the Walt Disney Mini-Classics releases of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, and Winnie the Pooh and A Day for Eeyore. 

The songs are "Friend Like Me" (from Aladdin), "The Best of Friends" (from The Fox and the Hound), "Something There" (from Beauty and the Beast), "How Do You Do?" (from Song of the South), "Friendship" (by Mickey, Donald, and Goofy), "In Harmony" (from The Little Mermaid animated series), "Let's Get Together" (from The Parent Trap (1961)), "That's What Friends Are For" (from The Jungle Book), "A Whole New World" (from Aladdin), and the reprise of "Friend Like Me".

Now the 2003 DVD included a few extra songs to the program, but I'm only talking about the original 1994 VHS release of Circle of Life, so those songs won't be included on this list. Being a kid in 1994 meant you'd seen The Lion King at least once in theatres, maybe more than that, and for me that meant renting the corresponding Disney Sing-Along Songs VHS release. It's hosted by Jiminy Cricket and starts with previews for Pocahontas, which is unusual since these tapes didn't advertise new animated movies coming out, since this series is one big advertisement for Disney movies and TV shows as it is, and for the VHS release of Muppet Classic Theater, which I have never seen, but have heard about. It ends with an updated Disney Sing-Along Songs preview. The update includes the 1994-1999 cover style, which debuted with re-releases of the earlier tapes and with this release, rather than the 1990-1993 cover style which began with Under the Sea, and goes all the way up to Friend Like Me but excludes Fun with Music as it did not get another re-release in the new cover style. It's also the first tape to include songs from previous tapes.

The songs on this tape are "Circle of Life" (from The Lion King), "Part of Your World" (from The Little Mermaid), "Prince Ali" (from Aladdin), "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" (from The Lion King), "Belle" (from Beauty and the Beast), "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" (from The Aristocats, and was originally on Disney Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities), and "When You Wish Upon a Star" (from Pinocchio, and was originally on Disney Sing-Along Songs: Disneyland Fun).

Colors of the Wind is an interesting tape because it mostly contains songs from previous Disney Sing-Along Songs releases. It's hosted by Jiminy Cricket and Ludwig von Drake. The tape opens with previews for the home video release of A Goofy Movie, and for the four Disney Princess Collection tapes that included episodes of Aladdin: The Animated Series and The Little Mermaid and it ends with a new Disney Sing-Along Songs preview that only includes footage from Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, Friend Like Me, and Circle of Life, and a preview for Mickey's Fun Songs, which is a series similar to Disney Sing-Along Songs but they're live action and take place at Walt Disney World and the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus with all three tapes, Let's Go to the Circus!, Campout at Walt Disney World, and Beach Party at Walt Disney World, being re-released as Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes in 1996. It's also the only tape where the song it's named after doesn't appear until the end of the tape. Normally the title song is either the first or second song on the tape, with a reprise at the end. 

The songs on this tape are "Just Around the River Bend" (from Pocahontas), "The Work Song" (from Cinderella and originally appeared on The Bare Necessities), "Why Should I Worry" (from Oliver & Company and originally appeared on Fun with Music), "Hakuna Matata" (from The Lion King), "Little Wooden Head" (from Pinocchio and originally appeared on Be Our Guest), "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" (from The Lion King), "Higitus Figitus" (from The Sword in the Stone), and "Colors of the Wind" (from Pocahontas).

And that my friends comes to the end of our Disney Sing-Along Songs journey. I might do a follow-up on the tapes I didn't own or see when I was a kid, because the series ran until 2006, but this is where my journey ends, aside from Beach Party at Walt Disney World, which I think I'm going to talk about on it's own at another time. But join me tomorrow when I dive into the Comic Book Longbox and dig out my old issues of the various comics I had growing up that had the title The Batman Adventures on them. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

The Book Nook: The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries Series by Eric Wilson

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Welcome to another edition of The Book Nook. Today I'm going to be talking about a pretty obscure Canadian book series called The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries by author Eric Wilson. I've never talked about these books on any of my blogs before, not even the original Review Basement blog on Word Press. So I thought now would be the perfect time to talk about them. Let's get into it.

The first book in the series, Murder on the Canadian, was originally published in 1976, though it's also been republished a few times over the years. The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries is about a brother and sister detective duo, who solve mysteries in major Canadian settings. Occasionally they'd work together on a case, though most of the time, the books would be labeled as a Tom Austen Mystery or a Liz Austen Mystery with each of them working a case on their own, or with their own best friend or whoever. And that's the entire premise of the series. It's kind of like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, but Canadian, and about a brother and a sister rather than two brothers or an only child. 

I discovered the series in grade 6, around the same time as I started reading the Star Wars novels published by Bantam Books, and around the time I was starting to read more Gordon Korman books, and series like Animorphs and Goosebumps. I've never owned any of these books, but I did borrow them from the school library every once in a while. Not as often as I borrowed Hardy Boys books, or Animorphs books, but they were certainly in my rotation of books to borrow from the library. The Greely Elementary School library also didn't have very many of them either, so I read the same five books in the series all the time. Now, I'm going to take a look at the books in the series that I did read.

The first book in the series I ever read was Spirit in the Rainforest, the 8th book in the series, which was published in 1985. It's the only book in the series that I read where Tom and Liz are together on a case. Because they're brother and sister, Tom and Liz appear from time to time in each other's books, but they usually only appeared long enough for the center character in the book, be it Tom or Liz, to tell their sibling about the case they're on and then to explain to them how they solved it at the end. Similar to how Sherlock Holmes would explain his methods to Watson at the end of a Conan Doyle novel, or to how Frank and Joe would explain how they solved a mystery to their friends and/or family at the end of a Hardy Boys book. The plot of this book is Tom and Liz are visiting the rainforests of British Columbia and they hear a girl cry out a warning. Because it's been over 20 years since I read these books, I don't remember very many details, so there's alot about this book in particular that I don't remember.

I would also like to take this moment to pause so I can say something. Like I said at the beginning of this post, this is a pretty obscure series and so there's very little information online. Wikipedia has a book list on it's bio page for Eric Wilson, but there aren't any synopses for any of the books and the books themselves don't have their own Wikipedia pages. So the only place I could find synopses for the books that I read was on Eric Wilson's official website and they're extremely brief. It's the best I can do though. For the rest of these books I'm going to go in publication order, simply because I don't remember in which order I read them in.

 I think I actually read book 3, Terror in Winnipeg, which was published in 1979, next. In fact I'm pretty sure this was the next one I read after Spirit in the Rainforest. What's interesting is that the original cover, which you can see above, says that it's a Tom Austen Mystery, and the description on Eric Wilson's website confirms that, but the cover shown on the website, which is the one used for the most recent printings of the book, say that it's a Tom AND Liz Austen Mystery. Anyway the website simply states that Tom goes up against someone whose identity comes as a terrible shock. The story takes place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but those are the only clues you get as to what the book is about. I remember liking this one, though not nearly as much as the other four that I read in the series.

Next is book 4, The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma and it was originally published in 1980. Judging from the description on the website, and the cover used for the more recent printings of the book, this was actually a Tom and Liz Austen Mystery even though the original cover says that it's just a Tom Austen Mystery. I suspect that many of these books were actually Tom and Liz Austen centered books, but the original publisher just labeled them as Tom Austen Mysteries for a large chunk of them to attract more male readers, which is stupid but it's the late '70s and early '80s. Anyway the book takes place in Toronto and Niagara Falls (Canadian side), so that's cool.

Next was book 8, Vampires of Ottawa, published in 1984. This was a Liz Austen Mystery and it was cool because I was born and raised in Ottawa and have lived here my whole life, so there were some landmarks that, despite this having been published two years before I was born, I recognized in this book from having seen them growing up. Having not read this book in over 20 years though, I couldn't tell you which landmarks they are, but maybe someday I'll find copies of the series and read all 20 books.

The last Tom and Liz Austen Mystery I read was book 14, The Prairie Dog Conspiracy, which was published in 1993, and the library had the hardcover edition. This book takes place in Tom Austen's hometown, Winnipeg, similar to book 3. However, I think this book is a prequel to the rest of the series, because Liz is hardly in it, and Tom isn't a detective yet. I'm pretty sure that's why this was my favourite of the books I read in the series. I don't remember for sure. I do remember borrowing it for three weeks in a row because nobody else was borrowing them. My classmates had moved on to things like Animorphs and Goosebumps and other books of that nature. And I just reread it over and over again. Again the Eric Wilson website gives a pretty poor summary of what the book is.

And that my friends is my look back at The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries by Eric Wilson. They were only in my life for a short period of time, because I didn't own any of them, but I loved them as much as I loved The Hardy Boys. Like I said, I'm hoping to get at least a few of these books one of these days. They were a great series to read and it's a shame that these books don't get as much recognition as they deserve. Maybe when I do get my own copies of them, the ones I read when I was a kid at least, I'll do full reviews on them.

That's going to be it for me for today but I will be back tomorrow with my look at the magazines of Star Wars. I've also got the season 3 premiere of The Orville dropping this Thursday so keep an eye out for that review. There's also a fun episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airing/dropping on Thursday as well. I've seen the trailer and promo images for it and I am really excited for this one. So until then have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x04 "Memento Mori" TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! I'm back with this week's SNW episode review. Today we're talking about season 1, episode 4, "Memento Mori", which was more intense than the first three episodes, but not overbearingly so as many episodes of Discovery's first season were. It's still a reminder that this is Modern Trek, not Classic Trek, so anything can happen. Let's get into the review.

This episode actually reminded me of a more intense version of Classic Trek episodes like "Balance of Terror" where the Enterprise is attacked and damaged by an enemy they don't see and the captain, be it Kirk or Picard or Archer, has to outmaneuver them in order to prevent the ship from being destroyed. Which is interesting.

Even though tensions were high in this episode, and there was a bit of gore, when M'Benga had to sow Una up due to her injuries because most of the ship's systems were offline, it wasn't a violent episode, nor was it overly dark like it would've been on Discovery or Picard. Which is actually kinda nice and confirms it for me even more that they're really trying to keep SNW consistent with TOS. I'm really glad that about that because I'm tired of how overly dark Discovery and Picard can get. 

This was definitely a La'an episode, though we did get some great stuff with Hemmer and Uhura down in Engineering as they tried to make repairs to the ship. I actually liked that some of La'an's backstory was shown, but through a mind meld with Spock. It made the story flow better and didn't interrupt the main story the way Tarka's backstory did in one of the later episodes of Discovery season 4. Christina Chong did a wonderful job in this episode.

I loved the stuff we got between Hemmer and Uhura. As I've said in previous SNW reviews, Star Trek's biggest strength is the characters and their relationships with each other. Sure, the writing wasn't always great on TNG or on TOS, but we believed in the shows because we believed the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and Picard, Riker, Data, La Forge, Crusher, Worf, Troi, Yar, and Wesley. So I enjoyed the smaller, still poignant moments between Hemmer and Uhura in this episode as much as I enjoyed the bigger stuff going on with the Gorn attacking the Enterprise. This is the fourth week in a row that I've said this, but when are we getting an Ortegas episode? Like c'mon writers, give us an Ortegas episode. Melissa Navia is amazing in the role and she needs more to do. Plus I'd love to see Ortegas and La'an hang out together.  

What I found most interesting was the submarine warfare that was heavily prevalent in both TOS and TNG due to the limited movements of the ships. It's all well and fine to have fancy space battle choreography in modern Sci-Fi shows like Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and The Orville (season 3 is going to be insane!), but sometimes you just need a simple one on one game of cat and mouse between starships. And that's what this episode, and episode 2, gave us. 

I think that La'an taking over as first officer while Una is in Sickbay indicates that she's the ship's second officer like Scotty, Data, Tuvok, Dax (and later Worf) and Trip were on the classic shows. Tuvok was the only Chief of Security to hold the position of second officer, but given that he was second officer, it's not unprecedented for the Chief of Security to hold that position.

I'm also glad that the writers didn't allow the fact that La'an is a descendent of Khan define the character. While I suspect that's why she's had so much to do in these first four episodes, within the story it isn't defining her. Which I figured it would given how well known Khan is to the Star Trek fandom, and even to people outside of the fandom. So far that's not the case, and I'm very glad to see her stand on her own as a character. I'm also glad that the writers are letting her stand on her own instead of simply just tying her to Khan.

Overall this was another solid episode of SNW. I admit I was a little bit worried when they released the away team scene and it looked as dark and intense as alot of first season Discovery episodes, and it looked like we were actually going to see the Gorn in this episode and it was going to be a scary episode. But, thankfully, like I said they held themselves to keep the show's tone consistent rather than going off on tangents. I just wish Ortegas got more to do and had an episode for herself.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week for more reviews including the season premiere of season 3 of The Orville. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) Premiere Review (Episodes 1 & 2) [SPOILERS]

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I am doing very very well for a rainy Friday morning. I have two reviews for you today. This is my review of the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and then later I'll have a review up for this weeks episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This review is going to be pretty spoiler heavy, so if you haven't watched the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi yet, please do so before you read this review. Let's get into it!

I think I've been saying this since the series was announced back in 2019, but this is the one Star Wars Disney+ series that I was excited about as soon as it was announced that Ewan McGregor was reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi. As I've said in my pre-series thoughts post that I did on May the 4th, Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of my favourite parts of the Prequel Trilogy as McGregor made the character his own, while still making him believable as he got closer to the Sir Alec Guinness role in the Original Trilogy, and he didn't just ape what Guinness had done in the first three films. I was also one of the people who wanted a Kenobi spin-off film, IF Ewan McGregor came back to play the character and was disappointed when the movie was canceled in 2018 in the wake of the failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Then Disney+ and The Mandalorian happened and the movie was reworked into a limited series for the platform, and here we are. 

There were alot of surprises within these first two episodes and I was there for all of them. For example, I loved that Alderaan and the Organa Family, including Bail (played by Jimmy Smits), and a ten year old Princess Leia (played by Vivien Lyra Blair), were featured in these first two episodes. While Obi-Wan went to Tatooine in order to keep an eye on Luke, I always suspected that he also had a responsibility to Leia as well, given that Bail told Leia to deliver R2-D2 and the Death Star plans to Kenobi on Tatooine in A New Hope, and the novelization of Return of the Jedi has a passage where Ben explains to Luke that Bail had always told Leia to contact him on Tatooine if she needed help, though that's not stated in the final version of the movie. So it was cool to see that confirmed onscreen since we don't actually have a whole lot given to us about this particular period in the Star Wars timeline, in Legends or in Canon. 

I loved the fact that Obi-Wan leaves in an actual cave in this series. I never assumed that he simply found a hut out in the middle of the desert and lived there for 19 years. But I also didn't think he had a job either. In the first episode Obi-Wan reminded me of Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) in The Incredible Hulk (2008). Having a job that doesn't get you noticed, and hiding away because of the power he has. So I think that's interesting.

Like I said, I liked that we got to see Leia's life on Alderaan because anytime we've seen her it's been either in a direct prequel to A New Hope or an animated series (Rogue One and Rebels), or it's in the Skywalker Saga movies AFTER Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star. And even though she's younger, this version is definitely still the Princess Leia that we met in A New Hope, which is pretty awesome.

The Inquisitors are my biggest problem with these first two episodes. I just don't care about them. Sure they tried to make the Third Sister (Moses Ingram) interesting by having her have a personal vendetta against Obi-Wan, but it fell flat for me because it's not anything new. She basically wants to capture Obi-Wan and hand him over to Vader in hopes of rising above her station in life and that's it. That's not even anything new in Star Wars. So hopefully there's more to it than that because right now that character does not interest me at all. Though I am wondering if she was one of the children we see in the Jedi Temple during Order 66 at the beginning of the first episode.

These first two episodes explain so much about things in A New Hope. As I speculated in my pre-series thoughts post, it explains why Uncle Owen told Luke that his father was dead. It turns out that Owen doesn't know that Anakin became Darth Vader. He simply believes that Anakin was killed. However, Obi-Wan also believed that Anakin was dead after their duel on Mustafar.

Which actually brings me to my one other problem with these first two episodes. Okay, it's not actually a problem, but more like a question. So this show takes place 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, so how did Obi-Wan not know that Vader was still alive? In the Legends continuity Vader was the face of the Empire, with him debuting as that face during the transition from the Old Republic to the Galactic Empire in the 2005 novel Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan found out after catching a Holonet broadcast that introduced Darth Vader, the Emperor's enforcer, to the galaxy. 

I'm not saying that this show has to follow exactly what the Legends novels did, but you'd think that at some point in the ten years since Obi-Wan arrived on Tatooine, he'd at least have heard rumours about the Emperor's enforcer from various off-worlders that he'd come across. Especially because 10 years is a really long time to not know that your former apprentice is still alive and wearing a really cool looking armored suit.

Speaking of the Legends novels, I saw a video from Screen Rant on Twitter that was an interview with Ewan McGregor and he said that they didn't used John Jackson Miller's 2013 novel, Kenobi, for source material for the series, but he read the novel after they'd finished filming the show. Which is interesting. Especially because I even said in my pre-series thoughts post that I wondered if they used Kenobi for inspiration for the show, and it turns out they didn't.

Overall this was a solid start to the series. Both episodes were what I wanted to see from Ewan McGregor coming back to play Obi-Wan Kenobi again, after having filmed Revenge of the Sith back in 2003. I was very nervous about this show going in, as excited as I was for it, because of how The Book of Boba Fett ended up being right out the gate. Now it's possible that this series will end the way The Mandalorian season 2, and The Book of Boba Fett ended, but I'm hoping that with a singular director and a singular writing team on this show, it'll feel less disjointed and end stronger than the other shows I mentioned. We'll see though.

Alright that's it for this review. I'll be back in a little while for my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Stay tuned.

The Magazines of Star Trek Part II: Starlog Press (1976-1998)

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Most of us who live in Ontario and Quebec had a scary weekend thanks to the storm that happened on Saturday. Everyone I know is fine, and most of them have their power back, which is good. Today I'm here for part two of my look at the Magazines of Star Trek. Part 1 covered the fan club magazine, and the other two officially licensed magazines. Today we're going to be looking at Starlog Press and the magazines they published that have to do with Star Trek. I am going to briefly touch on Starlog Magazine itself, but will mainly focus on the Star Trek centric publications. So let's get into it.

Published from 1976 until 2009, Starlog was THE magazine for everything going on in the world of Science Fiction. Though it mostly dealt with movies and TV shows, Starlog covered the latest Science Fiction books and comic books as well. The first issue, which was published in 1976 featured Star Trek, which was just two TV shows at this point, Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969) and Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974). The magazine would feature the franchise regularly as it moved into the movie era of the early to mid '80s, and then the continuous production of movies and TV shows from 1987 until 2005. After an attempt to go digital in early 2009, the magazine ceased publication altogether.

In 1982 Starlog Press published a one off magazine for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In fact from 1982 until 1987 the movies would be the only thing keeping the franchise going, since there weren't any TV shows until Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987.

One was done for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in 1984.

Two were done for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 19865. The Official Movie Magazine, and the Official Poster Magazine.

One for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in 1989.

One for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991.

And one for Star Trek Generations in 1994.

Starlog Press also put out anniversary magazines for Star Trek. The first was the 25th Anniversary Special in 1991, and they also did a 30th Anniversary Crossword Puzzle magazine as well in 1996. I don't have very much to say about any of these magazines as I've never owned any of them. I've mainly seen them in ads in the Starlog Press Star Trek publications that I did own. Though the 25th Anniversary magazine is one I saw in the gift shop at Paramount Studios when I went to visit the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation in January 1993. I didn't get it though. I bought Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual instead. Well, my parents bought it for me, because I was 6 at the time. So let's talk about those publications now.

First is the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Journal magazine published in 1992. This magazine is awesome. I still have my copy up in my bedroom closet with my other Star Trek and Star Wars reference books, and to this day, I still go through it as often as possible. It contains info about the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation, including the Enterprise-D, Klingons, Romulans, and the Borg. Including schematics for those races. It's mostly made up of schematics for every major room on the Enterprise. The Bridge, Sickbay, Engineering, Ten Forward, the Observation Lounge, Shuttlebay 2, the Captain's Ready Room, and the Transporter Room are all included. The only major rooms we don't see schematics for in this magazine are the Battle Bridge, the Captain's Quarters, the Senior Officers's Quarters, and the Crew Quarters. All of the photos used in the book are from seasons, 1, 2, and 4, with none from seasons 3 and 5 and no info from season 6 since this book came out as season 6 went into production. Like I said, I still have my original copy from 1992 and it's still in great shape after 30 years.

That same year, Starlog Press published Star Trek: The Next Generation Makeup FX Journal which focused on Makeup Design Artist, Michael Westmore and the work he did in bringing the new life and new civilizations shown on Star Trek: The Next Generation to life. I actually owned two copies of this magazine. My dad bought me a copy at the Hobby Center sometime in 1992, and then I got the second copy from the cast of TNG when I visited the set. I don't know what happened to the copy I got from the set, but the original copy I gave to my dad for safe keeping because I didn't have room for it with my other reference books. So I haven't read it in over six years. There were some cool pictures though of the various stages of makeup design. If I remember correctly they showed step by step how Brent Spiner was turned into Dr. Noonien Soong for the 4th season episode, "Brothers". Now we get into the multi-issue magazines that came out from 1987 to 1998.

The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine began publication in December 1987, three months after TNG debuted. The magazine was similar to the aftershow, The Ready Room, that modern Star Trek shows have now in that there would be several interviews with cast and crew, as well as summaries and behind the scenes tidbits on specific episodes. Aside from the first issue, which only tackled the pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", and several issues that focused on a certain element of production, every issue had summaries of four or five episodes in it, which included some of the dialogue. 

The first issue I ever got was #19 (as you can see the cover of above). It was a special making of some of the show's most acclaimed episodes like "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Data's Day", and "The Mind's Eye". I also had issues 20, 21, 24 and 25 (covers not shown). I don't think we have any of them anymore. I haven't seen them since before we moved in 2016. 

The series ended at issue #30 in 1994 since that's when TNG ended it's historic seven season run. I didn't have any issues after 25, or any before 19, but the covers appeared on the subscription pages for the magazine in the other Starlog Press TNG publications that I had, so I got to see all of them. 

1993 saw the debut issue of The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine come out, around when DS9's pilot episode, "Emissary" first aired. I don't have a whole lot to say about this magazine as I've never owned an issue of it and it's the exact same format as the TNG magazine, just for a different show.

Unlike the TNG magazine though the DS9 one didn't have summaries for EVERY episode. Alot of episodes were skipped in favour of focusing on the production of the show rather than summarizing every episode. So that's interesting. It ended in 1998 at issue #25 when DS9 ended. 

When Star Trek: Voyager debuted on UPN in 1995, Starlog Press also published a magazine devoted to the series, The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine. Like the DS9 publication, this one did not include summaries of every episode. Mainly because it ended at the end of the show's fourth season. Again, I didn't own any issues of this magazine. In fact, I didn't even know that it or the DS9 magazine existed, because I wasn't buying Starlog or Starlog Press publications, and I never saw them on the magazine racks in any store. Not even at Chapters. 

This magazine ran even shorter than the DS9 one did, as it ended at issue #19. For whatever reason Starlog Press discontinued all of it's Star Trek publications in 1998. Though aside for this magazine and the DS9 magazine, Starlog Press hadn't actually done any Star Trek publications outside of the 30th Anniversary crossword puzzle book in 1996, and they hadn't done any movie related magazines since Generations had come out in 1994.

I think that's because by 1998, Star Trek wasn't as popular as it had been in 1991 and 1992, during the franchise's 25th anniversary. DS9 retroactively became a classic when streaming became a thing in the early to mid 2010s, and Voyager was pretty underrated during it's entire run on UPN, except with the hardcore Star Trek fans. Even though there's so much more of it now, by 1998 there was already so much Star Trek out there that it was difficult for new people to get into it. The pull back of merchandise proved that. The DS9 and Voyager toylines produced by Playmates weren't sold here in Canada. In fact the last Playmates toyline to be sold here was the one for Star Trek: First Contact in 1996. Anyone who had them, and the later mixed lines that Playmates did, got them in the United States. Even the comics became harder to find, because I don't think any of the WildStorm Star Trek comics came out here either. So Star Trek wasn't as popular with the general public once TNG ended in 1994.

And that my friends is the end of my look at the Magazines of Star Trek. I hope you enjoyed this retrospective of the history of Star Trek in magazines. I'm planning on doing the Magazines of Star Wars at some point. That will be a much shorter article because there aren't as many Star Wars centric magazines out there, as the main one, Star Wars Insider, has been in continuous publication since 1987 (when it was known as The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine), and the secondary ones all ceased publication in the '90s or early 2000s. I will be back with plenty more blog posts this week, so until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care and stay safe!

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's your weekend going so far? Mine's been pretty great. Last night I watched the new Disney+ Original Movie, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers which just came out yesterday. So I'm here to talk about it. There will be some minor spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet, please do so before reading this review, unless you don't care about spoilers. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Of all the Disney Afternoon cartoons that I used to watch when I was a kid, including the classics like DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and TaleSpin, I don't remember ever watching Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989-1990). The characters are familiar obviously, but I don't remember watching the show. at all. So this movie was an interesting one for me.

This movie actually felt more like a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) than a movie based on the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers cartoon. But I think that's the idea. The premise of the movie is that Chip and Dale are two Chipmunks who grew up together and went into show biz together. After three years of doing a show called Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, the show gets canceled and Chip and Dale go their separate ways. But when an old friend calls them for help, the dynamic duo reunite to solve the mystery of the Bootlegged Toons.

We've seen this premise dozens of times before, so it's not actually anything new. But the way they did it is genius. Or at least interesting. Like I said, the blending of live action, 2-D Animation, 3-D Animation, and Muppets (yes there are Muppets in this movie) is very much like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, including the appearances of, and references to, non-Disney animated characters. Though oddly enough the Looney Tunes characters don't appear in the movie at all, Despite Batman from the DCEU showing up as a cameo in the movie. 

One of the things I like about the movie is that it isn't super cynical. Chip is the cynical one of the duo, but he isn't extreme about it. It's more like the cartoon Chipmunk version of Eddie Valiant from Roger Rabbit. Except, he's bitter about Dale leaving him behind at the end of their show's third season, which ended up being the show's final season, rather than a Toon killing his brother, like Eddie was. Which is interesting.

I love that the whole idea of this is to Bootleg cartoon characters for rip-off movies, that are made very poorly. I mean, it's something that happens all the time. Especially in the Golden Age of Animation in the '30s and '40s. It's almost an old-fashioned thing to make a movie about, but honestly, that's what I like about it.

The weird part was having grown up Peter Pan as the villain. It was kind of funny at times, especially when he ran into Cubby, one of the Lost Boys from the movies, But it was a bit disconcerting. Seeing Bootleg Homer and Bart Simpson, and Bootleg Winnie the Pooh and Tigger was hilarious though. 

One of the things that I was worried about with this movie is that it would rely heavily on the TV series it's based on and be confusing for the audience ff they hadn't watched the show when they were kids. Luckily, that wasn't the case. While there are a few references to the original cartoon series, the story didn't rely on the show to carry it. Which is nice when a movie or show is based on an existing property, but doesn't rely on the source material to carry the story. 

I honestly don't have much else to say about the movie. It was a fun watch and I will definitely revisit it sometime in the future. I would definitely recommend watching it if you have Disney+, or know someone who has Disney+ because it's doubtful it'll ever come out on physical media.

That is going to be it for me for today. But I will be back next week with lots more posts. So until then have a great long weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x03 "Ghosts of Illyria" (2022) TV Episode Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Happy Friday! I am back with my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, called "Ghosts of Illyria". There will be spoilers, because I just can't talk about these episodes week to week without spoilers, so if you haven't watched the episode yet (if you're even watching the show), then beware of Spoilers. Let's get into it!

I'm pretty sure you can all tell that I loved this episode. I wasn't actually sure about it from the episode preview as that made it seem like they were just going for the more horror elements that were employed in certain episodes of Short Treks as well as in the early seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and that had me a bit worried that SNW was just going to devolve into a mess of a show like season 2 of Star Trek: Picard did. Surprisingly it didn't though. The tone of the episode remained consistent with that of the previous two episodes, and we got more character details about three characters. The main one being the focus of the episode, Una Chin-Riley, who I will simply be referring to as Number One for the rest of this review.

What fascinates me so much about this show is that it's making things that originated in other media, such as comic books and novels, officially canon for the first time. For example, the fact that Number One is an Illyrian originated in the 1989 TOS novel, Vulcan's Glory, which was written by TOS writer and TAS showrunner, Dorothy (D.C.) Fontana. But because it was never mentioned in the original pilot, "The Cage", and this is the first time we've really seen Number One as a character, besides her appearance in season 2 of Discovery and in her episodes of Short Treks, it was never made canon until now, so that's pretty cool. I do hope that in future episodes, where it comes to the legacy characters, the writers come up with completely new ideas for them and don't just take character background from the novels or comics. As cool as that is that they chose to take parts of Number One's background from the novels, specifically the novel written by the legendary D.C. Fontana, They also need to come up with their own stuff as well.

Number One was the focus of this episode, and I really like what they gave her to do in this episode. Not only did she have to command the ship while Pike was stuck on the planet with Spock, but she had to cure the crew of the virus that inflicted them. It's somewhat similar to the numerous virus episodes that we got in TOS, TNG, and DS9. Like on those shows there's always one crew member who doesn't get affected, or doesn't get severely affected, and saves the day. On TNG is was usually Data, except for "The Naked Now", but I won't talk about that here. Here it was Number One who saved the day.

What intrigued me the most about Number One's story is that, like Worf's ongoing struggle with his Klingon heritage on both TNG and DS9, Number One secretly being an Illyrian is something that won't go away. Generally the crew doesn't know, but Pike, M'Benga, Chapel, and La'an know.

Speaking of La'an, I felt a real connection to her because her problems with the Illyrians and with Number One being an Illyrian, come from the fact that she's a descendent of Khan Noonien Singh, a notorious Augment dictator (this is pre-TOS afterall), and that she was bullied for it when she was a kid. That's so relatable to me, being that I was bullied in school, primarily middle school and high school, because I'm disabled, which is something I have no control over. So that'll be an interesting new dynamic between La'an and Una in the rest of the season that's for sure.

Also, M'Benga gets some personal stuff to take care of in this episode. It appears that he's been keeping his daughter, who has a rare disease (it's Star Trek folks, there's no story to tell about common diseases), in the pattern buffer of the medical transporter as the only way to prevent her disease from progressing. Man those pattern buffers have really come a long way since the days of TOS (ironic since this is a prequel to TOS). I do find it interesting that M'Benga has to rematerialize his daughter periodically to prevent her pattern from decaying, so he can keep her in there indefinitely. Back in TNG, Scotty was stored in the pattern buffer of the Jenolan for about 75 years, without a problem. Though his friend didn't survive for whatever reason. But again, I'll talk about "Relics" another time. 

Pike was in the background in this episode, as were Spock, Uhura, Ortegas, Hemmer, who I absolutely love as a character by the way, and Chapel, with Sam Kirk not even appearing at all in the episode. But I mean it's a pretty decent sized cast, and the way they're structuring this series, it's like TNG, in that one character will have a storyline with the usual A-Plot/B-Plot structure and the occasional C-Plot, and those secondary plots will involve another character, or multiple characters, depending on the story being told. So that's really cool.

One thing I'm oddly wondering about is why La'an was able to turn off the Antimatter Containment Field so easily? I mean I don't know how they do it in the other Star Trek shows, because nobody is dumb enough to do it since you'd blow up the ship that way, but I'm pretty sure it would require authorization from the Chief Engineer, and the Captain to do so, and neither Pike nor Hemmer were available. I guess, maybe La'an might be able to do it because she's the Chief of Security on the ship, but still, I don't think it should be THAT easy. But maybe it is? Like I said, there haven't been any characters in the previous Star Trek shows who have been dumb enough to simply shut down a ship's Antimatter Containment Field. 

Overall though this was another fantastic episode of SNW. There's only seven episodes left now, but man it has been so good so far and I am truly excited to see where this series takes us. And in two weeks I'll be on overload with season 3 of The Orville starting, SNW continuing, AND Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi being on. 

I think that's gonna be it for me for now. I'll be back tomorrow for a movie review as Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) came out on Disney+ today and I'm going to be watching it tonight. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Trek: The Q Conflict (2019) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing very well. I know I've been doing alot of Star Trek content on the blog lately, but that is my favourite franchise of all time, and even though it's only two weeks into the series, I am really enjoying Strange New Worlds, so I'm on a bit of a Star Trek kick right now. With that out of the way, I'm going to be talking about Star Trek: The Q Conflict. It's a six issue comic book mini-series published by IDW Comics in 2019. It's also a big crossover between TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager that pits each crew against Q, Trelane (from the TOS episode "The Squire of Gothos"), the Metrons (from the TOS episode, "Arena"), and the Organians (from the TOS episode, "Errand of Mercy"). There will be minor spoilers, so if you haven't read this series then do so before you read this review. So let's dive into it.

Reading this series I began to realize that it's not really supposed to fit into continuity. The reason being is that several details are included throughout the book that don't fit in where the characters come from. For example, in the final issue, when O'Brien and Bashir are talking at the Q Conflict Peace Treaty signing O'Brien mentions Bashir's enhanced abilities. However, Q brought the DS9 crew from just before Worf joined the crew in the season 4 premiere, "The Way of the Warrior" and Bashir's enhanced abilities don't come to light until the fifth season episode, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", which is after they change over to the TNG movie/DS9 seasons 5 through 7 uniforms that Picard and his crew wear in this storyline. So it's little things like that where the overall Star Trek continuity doesn't matter, it's just meant to be a fun little what if storyline. That might turn some fans off of this mini-series, but personally, I like that approach to it.

So the premise is that the Q Continuum has decided to put the Metrons, the Organians, and Trelane in their place in the hierarchy of god-like beings. So Q (played by John De Lancie on the TV shows) starts a war with them, which ends up spilling out into our galaxy, resulting in stars going supernova before they're supposed to and killing thousands of people. Naturally the Enterprise-E, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, is sent to investigate AND to help evacuate as many Federation colonies in the Beta Quadrant as possible before their stars explode. When the crew discovers Q's grid barrier that hasn't been seen in Star Trek since the first season of TNG, Picard angrily calls for a meeting with Q and that results in Picard, Kirk, Sisko, and Janeway, along with their entire senior officers, except for the Doctor (played by Robert Picardo on Star Trek: Voyager), as well as Quark (for some reason), being transported to the Continuum for a tournament.

The crews are all split into teams. Trelane coaches team 1 which consists of Kirk, McCoy, Worf, Jadzia Dax, Tuvok, O'Brien, and Quark. Q coaches team 2 which consists of Picard, Spock, Crusher, Seven of Nine, Odo, La Forge, and Uhura. Team 3 is coached by Ayelborne of the Organians and consists of Sisko, Chakotay, Data, Sulu, Bashir, Troi, and Kim. And finally, team 4 is coached by the Metron and consists of Janeway, Riker, Kira, Scotty, Paris, Chekov, and Torres. Each round has particular goals, but each one gets more dangerous than the last, and the crews can't rely on Q to keep his end of the bargain if they don't play his game.

Basically this is the kind of Q story that I would've read in the novels published by Pocket Books in the '90s and early 2000s. It would never have worked on the TV shows, even today in the era of movies like Avengers: Endgame and comic book based TV crossovers like the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths, because it's too big and would require too large of a budget, even for a movie. Which is why I love comic books and novels for things like Star Wars and Star Trek. They do the stuff that the movies and TV shows just can't afford to do. Which is awesome.

I really like that Q and the others split up the crews the way they did. It gives everyone an advantage because these crews are the best Starfleet has to offer. And it also prevents Kirk and his crew from being at a disadvantage since the original Enterprise isn't as advanced as the Enterprise-E, the Defiant, and Voyager are. Especially in the issue where they fight a Borg ship in order to capture the Borg Queen for Trelane's menagerie. Which sounds like the most bizarre thing ever, willingly boarding a Borg ship to capture the Borg Queen, but this is what happens when you try to stop highly advanced beings with delusions of godhood from destroying the universe.

There are so many cameos and easter eggs in these six issues. Trelane throws a Planet Killer from "The Doomsday Machine" into a game of Capture the Flag: Starship Edition, so that was fun to watch, Q pisses off the Prophets so Q2 (Corbin Bernsen's character from TNG's "Deja Q") and Amanda Rogers (from "True Q") have to restore the entire universe, and then Wesley and the Traveler show up to help the crews put and end to Q's games. And then Q throws every enemy creature at them. Breen, Borg, the parasites from the TNG first season episode, "Conspiracy", Mugato, Salt Vampires, Talosians, Rigellians (from "The Cage"), Excalbians, Q's Napoleonic Pig Soldiers from "Hide & Q", and Melkotians are all thrown at the crews when they enter the final battle of the mini-series. And then like I said, the Borg, the Planet Killer, the Iconian Gateway, and so many other things from Star Trek's history appear in this mini-series, it's insane.

The artwork is a bit static and unoriginal in places. There are several points where a well known character, such as Q or La Forge or even Picard, are in the same poses they were in in a particular episode or movie or they make a particular facial expression that they made in an episode, so it's like the pencilers, David Messina, and Silvia Califano traced over a still shot from whatever episode or movie they took the image from, but for the most part, the art is pretty great. The ships look screen accurate (compared to what was done in the early DC Comics runs anyway), and all of the Bridges look screen accurate too. Even the characters's faces look exactly like their actors, just a bit more cartoony than the actors would look on the shows.

Every character in this book makes sense, except for Quark, because he actually doesn't do anything on the 1701. In fact he doesn't even have that much dialogue either. Both times he speaks, he complains. The first time is to ask why he's even there since he's not in Starfleet, or the Bajoran Militia, and the second time to ask why he's joining in in the final battle since he's not a fighter. I love Odo's reply, "You're going because we're all going and if I leave you here, you'll just steal this ship blind!" as if Odo has no faith in Quark, which he shouldn't because Quark WOULD steal a starship blind if he had the opportunity. They assembled on Voyager since that's where the Iconian Gateway technology is located and most ships didn't have it's bioneural circuitry and no other Federation starship had it's Borg technology either. But, because Quark is there for some reason, he doesn't actually have anything to do through the entire book. 

I loved this book. It's everything I want in a Star Trek crossover comic that is entirely set in the Star Trek Universe. The Tiptons, who have been the lead Star Trek comic book writers since 2007, did an amazing job with this story. It was being nostalgia without forcing it, and there's enough stakes without being unrealistic about it. It's just too bad it came out too late for the franchise's 50th anniversary in 2016 and too soon for it's 55th anniversary in 2021 because this would've been a fantastic anniversary crossover series. I highly recommend that you pick this trade paperback up if you're a Star Trek fan. Because it's fantastic. I completely missed it in single issues when it was coming out in 2019. In fact, I didn't even know that it existed until sometime last year.  

Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back soon with more posts very soon. So until then have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The Magazines of Star Trek Part 1: The Franchise Magazines (1979-2021)

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the magazines of Star Trek as there have been a few of them over the years and I'm planning on doing the same for Star Wars eventually too. Also I'll be splitting this into two parts because there are so many magazines that focus on the Star Trek franchise as a whole that this part will be pretty long as it is, so stay tuned for part 2. One other thing I would like take note of is that I couldn't find an image of the cover for Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine #1, so I'll be using issue #26's cover instead. So let's get into it.

While fans had been making their own magazines about the franchise since the original series had been airing in the 1960s, it wouldn't be until Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in 1979 that the first official Star Trek magazine would begin publication. Created by Dan Madsen as the newsletter for the Offical Star Trek Fan Club, Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine started out as an unofficial publication for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and then became the unofficial publication for Star Trek II; The Wrath of Khan in 1982 as you can see from the cover of issue #26. Naturally, Paramount Pictures found out about the fan club and the magazine, and licensed both the club and the magazine.

The magazine became full-sized/full coloured with issue #58 in 1987, which coincided with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with many of the covers featuring TNG characters, rather than TOS characters who were still appearing in movies throughout the '80s and early '90s. By the early '90s the magazine would contain reviews of the latest Star Trek novel to be released, as they also came out monthly.

My first issue of Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine was issue #87 from 1992. I actually had two copies. One I think my dad picked up for me from somewhere, and the second copy was given to me by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I visited the set in January of 1993, along with issue #88. These two issues are interesting because they were the first to introduce Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was set to debut in January, 1993. Issue #88 contained the full cast list for the new series. So that's how I found out about Sisko, Dax, Bashir, Kira and the rest. Both issues also contained an interview with Sir Patrick Stewart. Back then interviews would often be split up into two parts, split between two issues simply because of the magazine's size. There were fewer pages so there were fewer articles in the magazine. The rest of the issues would be taken up by a merchandise catalogue. I actually still have this issue and issue #88 in my collection and it's actually kind of fun to go back and see what was new with the Star Trek Universe back in 1992.

1994 was a big year for both Star Trek and Star Wars and the magazines reflected that. 1994 was the year that George Lucas announced that he would be producing a trilogy of Star Wars prequel movies, set before the Original Trilogy. On the Star Trek side of things, Star Trek: The Next Generation was ending after seven seasons, the cast would be transferring over to the big screen with the seventh Star Trek movie, Star Trek Generations, and a fourth live action Star Trek series, called Star Trek: Voyager, was about to debut in January 1995. Issue #99 reflected that change, as it was a special movie issue for Generations, with some DS9 sprinkled in among the movie stuff. Generations was a big deal because not only was it the big screen debut for the crew of the Enterprise-D, which they would promptly blow up at the end of the movie, but it would also be the first meeting between the captains of each generation, as Captain Kirk and Captain Picard would team up.

A month later issue #100 came out with the magazine sporting a new title, Star Trek: Communicator. This issue was a special issue focused on the captains of the franchise, with interviews with William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and Avery Brooks, and a debut interview with Kate Mulgrew, who was about to debut as Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, which was set to debut on UPN that month. I don't remember which one, but I remember this issue of Star Trek: Communicator being advertised in an issue of the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book series that DC Comics was publishing at the time. 

My first issue of the revamped magazine was #130, which had a big focus on the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, which had just ended, and the seventh season, which was about to start airing. It also had an article on the DVD for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was about to come out, and an interview with Armin Shimerman, who played Quark on DS9. When Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine became Star Trek: Communicator, the length of the magazine got longer, and the merchandise section got smaller and became known as Quark's Bazaar, similar to how the one in Star Wars Insider, which I'll be covering at another time, became the Jawa Trader. Despite being produced by the same company, Star Trek: Communicator wasn't as widely available as Star Wars Insider. At least not around where I live, so I didn't get it as often as I got Star Wars Insider, but it was still fun to read.

2005 was a difficult year for Star Trek. Enterprise was cancelled, and it didn't appear that an 11th movie was on the horizon so the future of the entire franchise was in question. Voyager also celebrated it's tenth anniversary that year. Because no new Star Trek was happening, Star Trek: Communicator ended with issue #155. I actually got this issue at a local hobby store that my dad still goes to today, and I enjoyed reading about Voyager's tenth anniversary. But, with the franchise seemingly dead, there was no need to continue to publish the magazine.

In 1999, a secondary magazine publication, Star Trek: The Magazine began coming out. This magazine had more of a focus on the in universe as many of the articles, including full technical briefings on ships, technology, species, and characters, written from an in universe perspective. There were some behind the scenes articles as well, just not nearly as many as Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine and Star Trek: Communicator, which was being published concurrently with this magazine, had. 

I only have three issues of this magazine, but the first one I got had Commander Chakotay on the front cover as there was an interview with Robert Beltran, who played Chakotay, at the beginning of the issue. The four technical briefings in the issue were on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-C, the Starfleet uniforms of the 24th Century (TNG seasons 1 and 2 basically), 24th Century Romulans, and the various propulsion systems that starships used throughout the franchise. Which was cool. 

The magazine ceased publication in 2003 for reasons I can't seem to find out. Unlike with Star Trek: Communicator, this magazine ended a full two years before Enterprise was cancelled, seemingly killing off the franchise in the process. Even Memory Alpha doesn't say on it's page on this magazine why it was cancelled. It just was.

Star Trek Magazine originally began publication in the United Kingdom in 1995, around the time that Star Trek: Voyager was debuting. It was essentially the U.K. counterpart to Star Trek: Communicator. The first issue covered the TNG/DS9 crossover comic book series published by DC Comics and Malibu Comics. Which is fascinating to me because I've never heard anyone talk about that comic book crossover before and I don't know if Star Trek: Communicator covered it in their March 1995 issue or not. So that's cool.

In 2006, Titan Books, which had taken over publication of Star Wars Insider and Doctor Who Magazine in North America (they were already publishing them in the U.K.), began publishing an American version of Star Trek Magazine with issue #128. Unlike the U.K. edition, the American edition had it's own numbering, as issue 128 became issue #1 over here. Not only was it published for the franchise's 40th Anniversary, but Paramount announced that a new movie, most likely starring Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew of the original Enterprise, was in development with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci writing the script and J.J. Abrams producing and directing it, though his directorial status wasn't yet known at that point. I found this issue at Chapters, which is actually where I got many of the issues that I had of this magazine. I also got a couple of issues at the grocery store as well. But again, unlike Star Wars Insider, this magazine was very hard to come by as supply was erratic over the years. Which is why I ended up stopping with issue #51 (#178 for the U.K. edition). 

Star Trek Magazine filled in the gaps that the loss of Star Trek: Communicator left when it ended it's run in 2005 as it played the exact same role as Communicator had as the official magazine for the franchise. This is where fans got alot of their Star Trek news from in addition to online sources such as the official Star Trek Twitter feed and the official Star Trek website. However this magazine ended in 2021. But unlike when Star Trek: Communicator ended in 2005, Star Trek wasn't dying off as a franchise. In fact it was getting stronger with the new shows Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and the then upcoming Strange New Worlds. But there was still another magazine waiting in the wings.

There doesn't seem to be a reason for the change from Star Trek Magazine to Star Trek Explorer though it does seem that it lines up more with Star Wars Insider, having similar departments to the Lucasfilm licensed magazine. There's only two issues out so far as the first issue came out in November 2021. 

Alrighty folks that's going to be it for this part. I'll be posting part 2, where I discuss the three magazines published in the '90s that focused specifically on the shows that were coming out at the time. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.