Star Trek Beyond

Was fun.

In a way the other two Reboot films haven't been.

 I think it's because the creatives this time got that Star Trek's job is to be the positive sci-fi franchise, the hopeful one, the one where people do make mistakes but learn from them.  It's job is not to be grimdark (DS9 never was, no matter what people tell you) or to get lost in continuity loops to amuse the fanboys (Enterprise, here's looking at you). I liked the film's message and its positivity.

I also approve of the fact the story was original. It wasn't based on a previous story, instead it was based on the experiences of these characters, not the experiences of their TOS versions.

Justin Lin should be allowed to direct anything he wants.  The thing I liked most about his directing style is how well he (and the SFX crew) conveyed the three-dimensional nature of space.  The establishing shots of the Yorktown were incredible.  I do wish he'd use fewer cuts in the hand-to-hand fight scenes.

I know at least one person is going to complain that my main objection to JJ Abrams is his flashy style so how can I love Justin Lin's directing so much? It's because the flash in Lin's style helps the story while Abrams's is just there to look cool. Lin used flashy tricks to show, not tell, the size of space, its three-dimensionality and the Escher-esque qualities something like the Yorktown [or a zero-G battle] is going to have.

Chris Pine's Kirk was much less punchable in this one, which helped matters enormously.
I am utterly in love with Jaylah, but I think everyone is.

SPOILERS BEYOND HERE

It wasn't perfect. I thought that Spock was too emotional and the twist was predictable. The minute you heard Edison's name you could guess that nothing good had happened, but that's a Star Trek tradition too. Seriously, Star Trek pulled "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" way before Batman ever did.

It's clear that someone in the writing staff liked Enterprise, and treated it with more respect than its own finale did.

I liked the way the film gave you enough detail to get what was going on but allowed you to fill in the blanks yourself. I am intrigued by the alien tech. I wonder if Krall's appearance was down to how the machine worked. Maybe it transfers more than life energy but also some part of the victim's DNA. I'd also love to know how the swarm actually worked.

That's how you use "modern" music in your sci-fi film! It turns what was a pretty cringey moment in the first Reboot film into a moment of awesome. "I like the beats and the shouting," indeed.

I do worry that I am turning in to Urban-Bones though ;)

Book Review - The Piranha Club: Power and Influence in Formula One by Timothy Collings

The ever wonderful L got me this as a present a couple of years ago and has been very patient waiting for me to read it.

I almost want to write two reviews, one for F1 fans and one for other readers.  Because, despite a few flaws, I would utterly recommend this for anyone with more than a passing interest in F1.  If you've not got an interest in F1, you're really not the target audience.

Both reviews would make one similar complaint - what Collings needs, even more than someone to thoroughly proof-read the book (I'd complain less, were this not supposed to be the revised edition), is someone to help him organise his thoughts.

The book follows a mostly chronological path, beginning with Enzo Ferrari and carrying on to the present day (which was 2003).  Which makes sense, and it was interesting to get an overview of how the sport developed and changed, through the prism of the teams and team bosses.

Only sometimes the book randomly jumps so Ron Dennis and Frank Williams get introduced before Ken Tyrrell, for no obvious reason, especially as Ken Tyrrell was also a garagiste.

And then we suddenly get a section on the skulduggery of the 1993, 1997, 1999 and 2003.  And each individual section is very good (especially the 1997 bit, which, as a Ferrari fan, I remember *differently*), but the whole would have been so much better with an introductory paragraph to the chapter (which is called Tempestuous Times) and and intro to each section.  For the price of five extra paragraphs, the chapter could have gone from 'really good' to 'excellent'.

Following that chapter we jump back to 1997 (admittedly to a really excellent chapter on Jackie Stewart, Stewart Racing and how to organise an F1 team).  

The jumping also affects the flow of his introductions to team managers, so we get Paul Stoddart doing his thing in the 2003 section of 'Tempestuous Times', before he, Minardi, and why he bought Minardi are introduced a chapter and a half later in '2001 - A Political Odyssey'.

I think the lack of organising principle is why, particularly in the early chapters, you quite often get an anecdote on one page, only to have it be repeated over the page.

All those complaints are utterly unimportant if you're an F1 fan though, because the book has so much interesting stuff, especially about how things work (or don't work) on the business front, and some of the personality background on the team leaders.

And Bernie.  Oh the Bernie stuff was interesting.  Particularly Stirling Moss saying that Bernie was a half decent driver.  There is a man whose opinion I respect in these matters.

I keep forgetting how old Bernie really is.  Because I always assume that he's Ron Dennis's age, and he's not, he's 16 years older, which I think is because one reaches one's business years about 20 years after one reaches one's racing years.

Collings also tries to predict the future, and while there's a reason that's a mug's game, he does get some of it right.  The imbalance in the prize money has lead to other teams going bust, and is still causing ructions between the remaining teams.  He's right that it will probably be the EU Commission that eventually gets it sorted (courtesy of complaints from Sauber, where Peter Sauber has left F1, rejoined, and then sold his team).

He's also right in predicting the rise of manufacturer teams such as Renault, and teams that are part of larger organisations, where they're basically extended marketing departments (looking at you so much Red Bull), at the expense of truly privateer teams.

Where he's wrong is the effect that that's had on who the team bosses are.  Contrary to what Collings predicts, they are still mostly ex-racers and mad petrolheads, for example Christian Horner (and if anyone wants to horrify us all by digging out *that* centrefold of Horner, now would be the right time) and Toto Wolff.  The bosses of big companies don't have the time to devote to just one part of their brand that it would need for them to truly run a Formula 1 team, so they're going to try to hire the best they can and those people are going to come from the same motorsports-enthusiastic places they've always done, they're just not doing it under their own names now.  And I don't think you could.  Gene Haas apart, and time will tell if he stays, you need a pre-existing business empire to enter F1 nowadays.

And Bernie still prevails.  As I suspect he always shall until he's bored of it.  The book was written before the present Concord agreement was signed and therefore ends on a note of 'how will the teams ever agree to a new one, and how will Bernie cling on to power?'  Sound familiar?  The book also has a fantastic anecdote that explains why Bernie remains,

"At various times, he has left a room, during a meeting, after suggesting that the team principals present decide among themselves who the new leader should be, only to return and find they had spent so long arguing about the air-conditioning levels, or something similar, that no-one had even proposed a replacement leader." (pg 137)

Now, yes, it's one of those anecdotes that's probably far too good to be true, but it sounds infinitely plausible and I suspect the same thing would happen now.  He is what keeps F1 moving, and I actually do worry about what happens post-Bernie, and I think the 'Bernie out' people should consider that before they get too vociferous. But yes, in short, definitely read it if you're an F1 fan. Not so much if you're not.

Film Locations

An update to this post about where the films I watch are set, now update to the 22nd June 2014.

As you can see, they're overwhelmingly set in the US or UK, but less so than the books I read.

The ones in the UK are mainly set in England.

If I include fantasy and non-terrestrial locations, its not much better, although US and UK-set films no longer make up more than half of all locations.

Euro 2016 Final Data Viz

Only one team connects Portugal and France and that is Lyon, ensuring that they will have someone on the winning team.

Sporting Lisbon are the team with the most players left in with 4, followed by Lyon with 3 and a wodge of teams with two players left in.

I would love to say I guessed that this would be the final, but I really didn't, I don't think anyone but the most ardent Portuguese fan thought they could make it, especially after the group stage, although every prediction I made had France in the final.

Euro 2016 Semi-Final Data Viz

After the quarterfinal results, the remaining teams form a very pleasing diamond shape:

France and Germany are the two teams nearest the central and are roughly equally far from the centre.

Manchester United are the club team closest to the centre.

Because Italy lost, Juventus are no longer the team with the most players left in.  That is now Bayern Munich (because it's always them) with 6, followed by Crystal Palace (no joke), Arsenal, Real Madrid and Sporting Lisbon with 4.

Bayern, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Manchester United are guaranteed to have a player in the final, no matter the semifinal results:

Looking at the communities view, all four countries are their own communities, as, for some reason are Mario Gomez and Ricardo Quaresma of Beşiktaş.

Euro 2016 Quarter Final Data Viz

(Slightly late, been busy at work.)

After some unexpected match ups and some unexpected results the inter-connectivity diagram for the quarterfinals looks like this:

France are now the most central national team, while Roma are the most central club team.

Juventus still have the most players represented with 9, followed by Bayern Munich with 7 and Roma with 6.

There are more Swansea City players left in the competition than Barcelona players!  No, really.  But that's what happens when Italy vs Spain is a second round match.

Groups E and F have the most teams left, which will be of absolutely no comfort to fans of Sweden and Austria who were the two teams to drop out from those two groups at the group stage.  But it's the excuse I'm sticking to if anyone asks why Austria went out so early.

With England losing, all countries are now their own communities in the community view:

Euro 2016 Second Round

Having lost 8 of the teams, including my beloved if horribly incompetent Austria (No, really guys, the one time you could get away with being terrible in qualifying, you're awesome and then totally screw up the finals!!!), this is what the interconnectivity diagram looks like

There are actually very few changes, partly I think because relatively few teams were cut, and also because a lot of the teams cut were those that had fewer links to other teams. Iceland stands alone because most of its players who were linked to another country were linked to Sweden who are out. The nearest national team to the centre are Italy, the club team nearest the middle is Rennes. Juventus and Liverpool have the most players left, with 12 each, followed by Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United with 10. I think this might be further evidence of the Premier League's multi-national nature and its pulling power. The comms view looks like this:

Belgium and England are in the same community because of the number of Belgian squad members who play in England (11 out of the 23). Everyone else is their own community.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Well that didn't quite work.

And I'm not sure why.  I'm also not sure why a film with an alleged running time of 2 1/2 hours feels like it's missing half its story.  I think it could have done with 6 months extra work on the story and the script.  It all feels a bit bland.

Spoilers from here on in.

In particular, I feel it could have done with more about the Horsemen and something, anything, in between the final battle and them rebuilding a school.  I think it's mostly I can't see Erik being that forgiving, especially given his last rage-bender lasted for ~20 years.  (Yes, I have no problem with him being imprisoned in solitary confinement for 10 years without going crazy, but I have trouble with him being forgiving.  I know I am everything wrong with comic-book fans.)

I didn't like was how Apocalypse felt like an afterthought in his own movie.  I'm not sure why it felt that way, but it did.

I think it would have been a better film if they'd hired someone who could act for Scott Summers.

I also refuse to believe that there isn't one young German actor who can tolerate latex make-up that they could have had as Kurt.  Nothing against the guy they had but really!

Michael Fassbender can join Hugh Jackman in the list of actors who can't pull off a big 'NO'.  No offence intended to either of them, since I <3 them muchly, but they can't.

I do like that the film doesn't even try to pretend Erik's wife and child aren't dead meat.  Even non-comic book readers know what is about to happen.  The details are suitably horrifying (because doing the right thing is what outed Magneto, and the actual deaths were an accident and ...) but the final result was very similar to that bit in Wolverine: Origins, down to the flannel and no-ing.  (Although I approve of the flannel and the cinematography for the Polish bits).  I was deeply amused when he (far too suddenly, see also the 'half this film seems to be missing') changes sides at the end.  The minute that X flew down you knew who it was because who else on that battlefield had quite that flair and need for the over-dramatic.

You could also tell which bits they'd been forced to put in to prop up the next Wolverine movie.  I love Wolverine as much as the next person (actually depending who reads this, more than them) but I could have done without his cameo.  It felt kind of forced (although I did love that the minute I saw the helicopters I went 'oh no, Stryker, yuck'.  All three of the actors who have played him have done bang up jobs of being truly, truly vile.  Well played, sirs.)  But I suppose you have to put that in if you're suddenly got a 27 year age gap between two actors.  I know she won't be, but I do hope we get Famke Janssen at some point in the next Wolverine film.

There was, basically, too much CGI and not enough real peril.  The only bits where I felt the characters were in danger was Angel and Nightcrawler at the beginning, and then Mystique and Quicksilver at the end.

That's my complaints out of the way.

I would have complained about how much more martial Prof. X was at the end if it hadn't turned out to be deliberate.  Doing it deliberately I am happy with.  (Because it works with the theme that he, Mystique and Magneto can and should learn from each other.)

On to the stuff I really liked:

1 - The opening.  Go team normal that defeated (or very nearly defeated) Apocalypse and his Horsemen.

It was a bit too obviously shot for 3D but was so prettily done that I am almost tempted to watch the film again (even though its not that good) just to watch it.

2 - Moira.  Go, go, secret agent Moira.  Who is a better person than I am for not smacking Charles when he reveals what happened.

3 - Storm, although she was one of the characters who could have done with more time, because she at least got a character arc.  The actress does a damn good job given the lack of scenes, the lack of dialogue and general telling, not showing of her bits.

4 - Angel.  (Who is not Warren Worthington as far as I'm concerned).  Just yes.  Very convincing when they gave him stuff to do, and I loved how the film made it clear he was just as much a prisoner of the fight club as Nightcrawler was.  I also loved the bit when Apocalypse recruited him.

5 - Alex.  Okay, I knew he was also dead meat because the actor has a new TV job and he was suddenly very present after being absent for film 2 but he was so good in what we did have.

which leads to

6 - Oh Peter Maximoff.  I knew Evan Peters could act, but ... oh Peter.  Just ... he was fantastic, in all his doubt and amused self-loathing.

I also liked that he couldn't save everyone, because it's a nice counterpoint to the silliness of the rescue scene.

7 - The music.  Throughout.

8 - Charles Xavier.  Who has grown up.  That's what I got from the film.  He's not as wide-eyed and bushy-tailed as in First Class, but he's accepted he has responsibilities, which he didn't in Days of Future Past.  And even enjoys them.

Also, I loved that he went along with Apocalypse's thing just to get his own message out there.  And his complete and utter trust in Jean.

9 - Hank!! Always Hank.  He's just so ... he's the kind of person who really would knock up a pair of red quartz glasses and pretend he just had them lying around his workshop.  So that his friend's little brother won't feel bad.

10 - Mystique!  Who turns into Field Marshal Mystique when needed and hates being a hero and is doing her best.

I am deeply amused that Caliban's response to hearing that Magneto is in trouble is to pass it on to Mystique.  Everyone knows!  Hank's response to hearing this is even more fun.

Then there's the scene in the plane, which calls back to both the equivalent scene in X-Men 2, where it's Rogue, Pyro and Iceman who are the newbies, and the scene in First Class, and that heavy silence when Mystique has to tell them that they're the only survivors from First Class.

I actually really like how they tied this in to both the other two Reboot films and to the Originals, because, for all people say that the Originals have been ret-conned out of existence, they've done something much cleverer, which makes the "conversation" Xavier had with himself vital for the 'new' future's existence, and yet avoids a few continuity snarls.

~~~~

So yes, overall I like what it was trying to do, but I don't think it quite worked.

Euro 2016 Interconnectivity Diagrams

Looking at the chart, 3 things really stand out for me.

1 - Liverpool and Juventus are the two club teams with the most players represented at the Euros (12 players each).  As a fan of the evil zebras, this gives me an odd sort of pride.  Given Liverpool didn't win anything, I find it interesting that so many Liverpool players are present.  Ditto Spurs (who are next with 11).  Manchester United at least won the FA Cup (10 players) and of the next three most represented teams (Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Fenerbahçe, with 9 each), Bayern and Barca won their respective leagues, although Fenerbahçe didn't.

So either national managers are going with their tried and tested, and to hell with recent form or there's a lot of non-Euro 2016 qualifying players playing for the national champions of England and Turkey.

2 - Wales*, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Iceland don't have any players playing in their own home league.  England are the only team where all their players play in their home league.  The days of 'play at home or else you'll not be on the team', are over, if they ever existed in football.

3 - What happened to Dutch football?

I don't just mean, "how do you go from World Cup semi-finalists to not even qualifying for Euros where 45% of the teams get to play in the finals?", I mean what's happened to Dutch football from top to bottom.

There are more players from the US and Qatari leagues than from the Dutch leagues.  There is precisely 1 player representing the Eredivisie (Arkadiusz Milik of Poland).

I think it's such a shock because it used to be that for the smaller (in football terms) countries, it would always be 'they've got no superstars, but they've got X who plays for PSV (or Ajax),' and that doesn't seem to happen any more.  (By the looks of it, Switzerland has taken over this role.)  I'm not sure why this has happened or if it's an actual shift or just a quirk for this Euros.

If you look at the community view:

it amuses me greatly that both Austria and Switzerland and the Czech Republic and Slovakia are joined in communities.  Poland and Hungary are joined because of the number of Hungarian players playing for Polish teams.  I presume England, Belgium and Spain are joined because of the number of Spanish and Belgian players playing in the Premier League.  Ireland and Northern Ireland are joined because they both have players playing for Blackburn Rovers and Derby County, who have no other players representing them and West Brom, who only have one other player representing them that doesn't play for one of the two Irelands.

*Yes, I know Wales have Swansea and Cardiff players playing for them but both of those teams play in English leagues.

Captain America 3 - Civil War

(Spoilers throughout)

It's not every day Marvel blow up a building where your mother used to work.

I know there's a rest of the film that isn't set in Vienna, but I am, for somewhat obvious reasons, stuck on that bit.

Moving on to the actual film, although I will return to the above later, it's definitely the best of the Captain America films and it's a fine pragmatic adaptation of the Civil War story.  I use pragmatic in the best sense of the word, because whoever the writers are obviously went 'what were the missteps of the comics Civil War arc, and how do we avoid them?'

And they have.  Even Tony Stark gets to make reasonable, sensible points, and the Sokovia Protocols are significantly less stupid than the Superhero Registration Act.  (My own views are somewhere between Cap's and Vision's, with a fair dose of Natasha's thrown in.  You'll notice I'm on Cap's side despite that.)

Discussion of superhero politics

Admittedly I did mostly want to shout 'stop falling for sentimental illogic' at Tony, but at least his reasoning was better in the comics.  Part of my problem is that, Ultron excepted, I'm not sure any of the things that happened (New York, Washington or Lagos) would have ended in any other way had there been an oversight committee or if the Avengers hadn't been there.  In fact, I'm reasonably sure that the Avengers not being there would have lead to far worse things in the case of New York, Washington and Lagos.  (To wit, alien invasion, Hydra getting hold of the Insight Programme and Hydra getting hold of a biological nasty.)

So while I dig Tony's personal guilt re: Sokovia, I don't think this is the best way of assuaging it.

~~~~

I basically came out of the film going <3 T'Challa, Sam Wilson and Rhodey.  No really, all my love belongs to those three.

Also that Nat and Steve (and Clint and Rhodey and Sam) are the very, very best friends anyone could ever hope for (except mine.  My friends are the most awesome.).

Discussion of Steve's Awesome

One of the things that really interested me is how everything that Steve does is defensive, from preventing Hydra getting hold of whatever the bionasty was, to protecting Bucky.  Even when he's doing that, even at the end when Tony is (understandably) kill crazy, Steve's also doing minimal damage.  He's so lovely.

I also loved that shot just before the end of the fight with Tony where Tony thinks he's won because Bucky is unconscious and Steve's disarmed and Steve just puts up his fists and OMG he looks so much like pre-serum Steve, and, if Tony Stark without Iron Man is a billionaire playboy philanthropist, Steve without anything else is a heart of gold.

I also completely and utterly stars and hearts love that Steve's motivation was 'I don't want them to kill my friend'.  Like he'd be okay with jailed, was okay with jailed, just not with killed and I just want to give him a hug.

Discussion about the bad guy

Okay so I saw Daniel Bruhl being sinister and he's a German actor and I thought 'oh no, here we go again', but oh they went to interesting places instead and used Bruhl's talents and that scene with Zemo and T'Challa!!!

It was interesting that they gave Zemo the same motivation as two of the good guys and had the good guys (or at least T'Challa) admit that.  And !!!! again.

I could have done without infinitely punchable psychiatrist (as ably portrayed by Martin Freeman) but Zemo as a whole was interesting.

Iron Man and the family Stark

When I say they made Tony Stark more reasonable than in the comics I meant it.  But that doesn't mean he was any less himself than usual.  I mean, the rest of it, including the revenge rampage I can understand, but imprisoning Wanda and dragging in child soldiers, not so much.  (I do not care how old Peter is supposed to be, he looks like a child.)

He also did the usual Tony thing of starting something then not seeing it through.  So okay, Cap is out and away, (along with Bucky) and he's okay with that, but he's happy to leave Clint, Wanda, Sam and Scott Lang in prison.  Fuck you Tony with a vengeance.

Robert Downey jnr does a fantastic job throughout of being just lovable enough to get away with it and just aggravating enough to be Tony Stark.  He's marvelous.  (As are whoever did the CGI work for young Tony because that's uncanny.)

The twist of who was in the car is solid.  As in I didn't twig before the film wanted me to.  (Also the music for that scene was really good.)  It's also a solid example of when there is no "right" thing to do in a situation, which there are several of in the film, which I really like.  I can see Tony's point that he had a right to know, but that suggests that if it had been AN Other SHIELD agent who'd been killed, he'd be okay with it (see also being okay with Black Widow despite what she's done).  Then again, Steve's reason for not telling him isn't exactly selfless either, 'I know how you will react and I would like you to not go kill-crazy on my best friend' is again, understandable if flawed.  As usual Marvel, both films and comics, is best when its messy rather than clear cut.

~~~~

Now we get to the bit where I snark.  About things like the German armed police being involved in a raid in Bucharest, and all the cars having the wrong number plates.  And the area around the UN buildings being nothing like that.  I was hopeful when the establishing shot was right but the location shooting was blatantly not in Vienna.

But yes, I did have a fun moment of going 'yay, it's my home town they're blowing up,' which friend L says is odd because he's getting sick of London being blown up in films.

~~~~

While I still think this should and could have been Avengers 3 (even without Hulk and Thor), the ending bit made it clear why this was named for Captain America.  Oh Steve!