Category Archives: Geekery
Why Does Bill O’Reilly Play Himself as a Geek Villain?
I’ve noticed this trend in two recent superhero/action movies: Iron Man 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In an effort to seem more realistic, as if they are part of the real world, both movies feature a scene where one character is watching TV and The O’Reilly Factor is playing. But instead of just being some random clip, it’s actually a small scene of political pundit Bill O’Reilly talking about the movie as if it were real life. He comments on the characters and the plot as if it were a real episode of his show.
And in both cases, Bill berates the heroes!
Why would he do that? If he’s playing himself (which he is, according to his IMDB page) and it’s supposed to be his own show, why would he so openly criticize the heroes? Why not fully support Iron Man and the Autobots?
I don’t have an answer, I’m just curious.
This isn’t about Bill O’Reilly’s politics. I’m a liberal-thinking sort of guy, he’s a conservative. It’s probably fair to say I disagree with most everything he says and the way he says those things. But I’ve never watched his show and don’t know enough about him or his politics to offer any sort of critique or argument against him. No doubt he himself believes in his beliefs and values his own opinion on the issues. Likewise, there are probably millions of fans that trust him and value his opinions.
So why come off as a jerk who openly opposes the actions of the heroes?
Obviously O’Reilly has a certain persona as a loud-mouthed, angry political pundit, but is that persona more important than his personal character? Is he playing this perceived persona for the sake of a cameo rather than saying nothing at all?
Let’s take a look at what he says in those two movies.
From Iron Man 2
Here is a transcript of what Bill O’Reilly says in his brief clip from Iron Man 2:
“When Mr. Stark announced he was indeed Iron Man, he was making a promise to America. We trusted that he would look out for us. He obviously did not. And now we learn that his sectretary, a woman named Virginia ‘Pepper‘ Potts, has been appointed CEO of Stark Inudstries. WHAT ARE HER QUALIFICATIONS!? Miss Potts is doing nothing to manage–(mute)”
He berates Tony Stark/Iron Man and insults Pepper Potts and her ability to be CEO of Stark Enterprises. In that picture, he calls Pepper a “pinhead”. But they’re the heroes! By the end, Tony proves that he is awesome and still a superhero. And Pepper is beautiful and super nice, the viewers are supposed to be rooting for Pepper. By insulting them, he not only comes off as a big meany, but he’s proven wrong in the end because clearly it’s safe to believe in the heroic Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.
So why doesn’t Bill O’Reilly support Tony Stark or think Pepper Potts would be an awesome CEO? Why doesn’t he support Iron Man?
Now for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, O’Reilly interviews John Turturro’s Agent Simmons:
“Now Agent Simmons, you would have us believe that it would be in our best interests to take sides in this so-called ‘alien civil war’…But polls show half the world would feel safer with the Autobots completely gone. Get’em out of here! We don’t need’em here!…Now agent, here at the Factor we have obtained documents that you were fired by the Intelligence Committee. Your psych evaluations report severe delusional tendancies…You sounded like a pinhead agent, and I’ve got a suggestion for you: damage control.”
Now Agent Simmons may be a little nuts, but he’s only ever been 100% correct about everything. He’s only ever been heroic, especially in Transformers 2 and 3. Yet O’Reilly openly mocks him on the air. Once again he calls one of the heroes a “pinhead”. And “Get’em out of here! We don’t need’em here!”? O’Reilly may not be directly backing the Decepticons, but he’s anti-Autobots.
But why? Agent Simmons is only ever a good guy in Dark of the Moon, and the Autobots once again save the world. Why couldn’t Bill O’Reilly use his show to support the awesome Agent Simmons and help promote his book? Why take the side of ‘polls’ that are anti-Autobot?
Is he simply reading the lines given to him by the script-writers, and is therefore just banking on his name and perceived reputation to collect a little paycheck? Or did the writers want him so badly to make these little realistic cameos that they worked with him and these are actually O’Reilly’s opinions given the facts?
If the former is true, does this mean he acknowledges that his opinions are usually wrong and he’s just a mean blowhard? (OK, so I slipped a little bit of politics in there.)
And what do his fans think? If they value O’Reilly’s opinion on the issues, do they support his distrust of Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Agent Simmons? I wouldn’t think so. Do his fans then have to accept that he’s being a jerk, and is wrong on the issues presented in the two movies?
Either way, I’m just kind of curious.
A henchmen T-shirt! I must (and will) own!
My friend Katie found this T-shirt at teefury.com today and it is brilliant. Plus it fits with the actual theme of my blog, henching! The T-shirt stars Henchman 21 from The Venture Bros. cartoon show. I have actually dressed up in a homemade Henchman 21 costume to go to comic book conventions. There’s a picture of me in costume in the ‘About’ page of my blog. And more on my Facebook. So this shirt is a geeky must! I already placed my order. Thanks to Katie for the tip.
Hench!
Cosplay of Epic Proportions
Here is a cosplay picture from a recent convention (either comic book or video game, I dunno) and it is by far one of the best ever. For those who don’t know, ‘cosplay’ is the term for people who dress up in costume when they go to a comic book convention. I’ve done it a few times now. I may even share my cosplay stories someday on this blog. But there’s a picture of cosplay done right, featuring the protagonists from the game Portal 2.
ATLAS, Chell and P-Body
To Go Where Many Geeks Have Gone Before
As Philip J. Fry once said, “You now what movies average out to be really good? The first six Star Trek movies!” Turns out, all 11 Star Trek movies average out to be pretty good. I, and friend of the site Alyssa, spent the past week or so watching a marathon of all 11 Star Trek movies because I’ve never seen them before, or at least most of them. I’d specifically never seen the first six, featuring the original Star Trek cast with William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy and the rest of those lovable old folks. Those films are a milestone of geekery, and it was my sworn duty as a geek to watch.
And sure enough, they’re all mostly pretty good.
To boldly go...yadda, yadda, yadda
I have never seen a single episode of the original Star Trek TV show from the 1960s. It wasn’t on in syndication when I was growing up in the 80s, as far as I know. My father was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but as a kid, the show was boring and too ‘grown up’ for me to appreciate. That’s the one with Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc Picard. Star Trek: TNG was like the Yankees’ game, the TV my dad wanted to watch while I begged him to change the channel to my show. However, I have seen a few smattering episodes of TNG, as well as Voyager.
But I have never been a Trekkie.
So I dove into these movies with the most basic background and understanding, and I found them to be pretty good – for the most part. The movies that involve the original show cast (Shatner, Nemoy et. al) were the best, whereas the movies that involve the TNG cast (Stewart et. al) were rather dull and just seemed like really long episodes of the show with better graphics. I also really like the franchise reboot from 2009 with Simon Pegg as Scotty and Chris Pine as the new Capt. James T. Kirk. But then I always prefer modern movies over the old stuff. Though I did learn that the 2009 reboot isn’t really like the classic movies at all.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Star Trek is the story of the future, where humans have gone out into the galaxy, met a bunch of aliens and formed the United Federation of Planets. Their military branch is Starfleet, and the various Star Trek series tell the story of several different spaceships having different space adventures. The most famous of which is the Starship Enterprise, commanded by Capt. Kirk, with Mr. Spock, Bones, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty. They’re an eclectic crew, and you really get a sense of familiarity when they bounce off one another in the first six movies. The actors had been working together for years, were growing old together, and it makes for a more united sort of team.
I was surprised by how strong the continuity was between the first 6 movies. They all bleed one right into the other, with the first part of each movie essentially picking up right where the previous one left off. Each one has its own plot, but it’s one big ongoing adventure overall. The crew is getting old, but not so old that they can’t still have adventures, punch a few klingons and rebel against Starfleet every now and then. The adventures, no matter how varied, focus on the humanity of the crew working together to overcome whatever they’re facing. These are character-based adventures, which is always the best way to handle this sort of sci-fi.
The best of the six is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Try to keep up with this plot: At the start of the film, Kirk and his crew are in exile on the planet Vulcan (Spock’s homeworld) because in the last film they went rogue from Starfleet, blew up the Enterprise and stole a klingon warship. They’ve decided to return to Earth to accept their punishment – but since they’re the only ones not on Earth, they’re the only ones not coming under attack by a mysterious space probe that’s trying to broadcast some sort of message to the ‘citizens’ of Earth. But the humans who are under attack don’t understand the message, they don’t speak the language.
Who does?
Humpback whales. But they have been extinct for more than 100 years!
So Kirk and their stolen klingon warship decide to go back in time to the 1980s to kidnap some humpback whales from ancient Earth. The rest of the movie is a wacky fish-out-of-water tale of the futuristic crew members wandering around mid-80s San Francisco having wacky adventures! But as silly as it all sounds, it’s quite enjoyable. The actors, and therefore the characters, are having fun, and it’s the most human of all the space adventures. Plus the plot is gloriously insane! So we get three space adventures of this crew to get to know them, then they give us a delightful adventure in a familiar alien world – our own.
Cruisin' the streets of San Fran
The firs three movies are alright, with the second one, Wrath of Kahn, being the standout. The first one, The Motion Picture, spends about an hour introducing the crew and then taking a looooong tour of the refurbished Enterprise. Then it takes another hour as the crew explores a gigantic mysterious spaceship with tons of different sections and zones. All the real action happens in the last 20 minutes or so, which includes a neat twist. But it’s all a good movie. Wrath of Kahn and the third one, Search for Spock, are more common action/adventure movies. So they’re pretty good.
The fifth movie, The Final Frontier, is not very good. It involves the crew being taken over by an enigmatic cult leader and then driven out beyond the edge of known space. That part is cool, but the rest is meh. The final movie, The Undiscovered Country, is better. Kirk and Bones get trapped on a prison planet while the Enterprise crew try to clear their name. Quite fun.
Though about halfway through these six movies, Capt. Kirk transforms into the hammy William Shatner we know in this day and age. He’s no longer the badass Starfleet Captain but is really just Shatner. The transition is not a good one.
Jolly good fun
Star Trek 7 is Generations, which combines the TNG crew with the old crew, and ends with Kirk and Picard teaming up to take on the crazy bad guy. This starts a four movie series (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis) which focuses on Picard and the TNG crew. These movies are not as good. The new crew doesn’t have the same camaraderie as the old crew. Generations and First Contact are OK, especially First Contact, which is about the crew again going back in time while simultaneously fighting the Borg. This time they’re helping the farmer from Babe to create the first warp-drive engines.
The latter two movies, Insurrection and Nemesis, are basically just longer episodes of the TV show. There’s nothing particularly big-screen about them. The plots aren’t interesting, the adventures aren’t especially exciting and it’s all just business as usual. So boring. And no wonder it led to the reboot.
In 2009, new filmmakers came in and recast Capt. Kirk, Spock and the gang. They gave the movie all the modern attitude, special effects and lense flares that a movie can handle. I liked it when I first saw it, and I still do. But now that I’ve seen the first Star Trek movies with the original Kirk, I can see that the reboot is really just in names only. The familiar and comfortable camaraderie is gone in the new cast. The characters don’t have the same weight and importance as they used to. People like Sulu and Chekov are only around in the reboot movie because they were around back then.
They're fun, but not as fun as the original cast
And there is a lot more running. Everybody runs all the time in the reboot movie. There’s not a lot of that in the original Star Trek flicks.
So in the end, it was a fun marathon. It started out pretty great with a lot of fun adventures, then sagged towards the end and finally ended strong with the new reboot. I can’t say as how I’m now a converted Trekkie, nor have any interest in tracking down and watching the show. But I am definitely looking forward to more films from this new reboot crew. Perhaps they can recapture some of old magic of the old people.
Henchman-4-Hire 