While I am a big fan of Steve Martin and his presentation of “Disneyland – The First 50 Magical Years”, I’m thrilled to see the return of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln at the Main Street Opera House. The historical and educational value coupled with Disney nostalgia make this one of my favorite attractions in the park.
New to Mandalay Bay, the Minus 5 Bar is made completely of Ice. Even the cups!
On September 1, 2008, The Star Trek Experience at Las Vegas Hilton closed it’s doors and ended a 10 year patronage at the hotel. Almost immediately after the departure, rumors began to spring up about the Experience’s Bar and Restaurant reopening in Downtown Freemont Street, Las Vegas. Negotiations with city planners were made and rumors were confirmed. The bar would open at Neonopolis in time for the premier of the new Star Trek film.
A few weeks before the premier, it was announced that the Bar and Restaurant would not be open in time to launch with the film, but would still be opening in the near future. This weekend, we went to investigate and see just how much progress has been made. Considering that Neonopolis has been open for several years now, we expected some light traffic and a few familiar stores in addition to a large portion well into construction for the new Bar and Restaurant. What we saw blew us away.
Like a scene out of Resident Evil, the place was a ghost town. Almost no stores were open and there was absolutely no construction underway. The place was dead. It was apparent that the media hype was just that. I’ll be astounded if anything returns to this dilapidated structure, less a wrecking crew.
After over a year of anticipation, the latest product from the Star Trek franchise was released in theaters today. Titled simply “Star Trek”, its release marks the eleventh film of this science fiction universe. As a loyal fan of the series, my skepticism ran deep as this film is a dramatic departure from the classic formula that Trekkers alike have come to know and believe in. With only one familiar face (Leonard Nimoy, Spock) linking the past with the future, it seemed unlikely that the film would exhibit a natural progression from the previous films. Never the less, the impressive visuals evidenced in the cinematic trailers were undeniable. Star trek lore aside, I had every confidence that this film would be great.
Confirmed on May 7th at 7:00 p.m., the film was everything I had hoped it would be. With innumerable references to previous shows and movies, the film stayed surprisingly true to the original laws of Trek while at the same time modernizing the 1970’s style of space travel. I highly recommend investing the extra dollars for the IMAX experience. The sound alone makes it worthwhile. The most notable performance in the film is that of Karl Urban who played Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy. He brought the essence of DeForest Kelley back to the roll in a manner that was very obvious, but never distracting. This really made the movie for me.
–Spoiler Alert–
If you have yet to see the film, you may want to stop reading at this point.
One of my initial curiosities about the film was how the writers plan to bring an Old Spock back into the story. The most obvious assumption was some form of time travel scenario. Star Trek has an extreme familiarity with this approach. The other, less enticing, idea would be some kind of flashback sequence in which the film opens with Old Spock retelling a story from his past, at which point the ‘Scooby Doo’ wavy lines overtake the screen and we watch the rest of the story unfold through the narration of Leonard Nimoy.
Fortunately, the later was not the case. Time travel, yet again, becomes a major plot element that bridges the past with the future. However, unlike every instance I can remember in Star Trek time travel, the story purposefully makes no attempt to rectify the timeline and restore order to the time space continuum once the bad guys have been stopped and everyone has been saved. This unorthodox decision was brilliant. With an alternate timeline, the franchise is now free to explore all new destinies for its characters. New adventures, new TV shows, new movies; they’re all made possible with the freedom to try new alternate outcomes for some of the more popular historical events of the Star Trek universe.
Needless to say, I look forward to boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before.
This poster was hanging above the check-out lanes at Albertsons. Star Trek Cereal?! Breakfast just became fun again!
After months of training, Bryan attempted his first marathon this weekend. Finishing with a respectable time of 4 hours and 15 minutes, his performance was nothing short of inspiring. What is perhaps more impressive is that later in the afternoon he proceeded to play two full half’s of an Arena Soccer game! He is a machine!
