STUFF & THINGS 10

By Richard Early

NEW TITLE IDEAS

Instead of a quote of the week, I’m making a request. I need a better title for this blog. Please help.

MORE TREK

Well, if you didn’t like last week’s blog, you won’t like this one. I’m going to review the Trek movies following up my review of the various series.

Before I start, though, I want to mention that I just started watching the 2005 Doctor Who relaunch. I’ve seen the first 3 episodes and I loved them. I know a lot of fans have seen this stuff, but it’s brand new to me. I watched a lot of Who back in the 1980s when it was run locally on Friday nights by our PBS affiliate. The new show brilliantly captures everything I love about Who. The first episode, “Rose”, immediately presents a Doctor that embodies all the great traits of the character. And Rose being chased by department store mannequins can’t be missed. It felt like Grant Morrison and that’s about the best compliment you will ever get from me.

OK, on with the Trek:

THE MOTION PICTURE

Even as a kid, I kind of liked this when a lot of my friends did not. It’s far more science fiction than Star Wars and that’s not what fans wanted. But it’s reintroduction of the original cast couldn’t have been done much differently. The movie captures the spirit of the original series but tries to broaden the character’s horizons. We see Spock on Vulcan and Kirk on Earth. We get conflict with new characters. In some ways, it’s not unlike “The Cage” in that respect, or “Where No One Has Gone Before”. There is a newer version with cleaned up visuals that’s pretty good.

THE WRATH OF KHAN

Look, I’m not going to review this movie. What could I say that hasn’t been said? I just want to address the fact that there are fans out there who don’t consider this the best Trek film. In particular, I’m talking about you First Contact guys. I’ve got news for you. There would be no First Contact without Khan. In fact, there would be no franchise without Khan. Why? Because Nicholas Meyer and company actually did something fresh. Sure, they mined the original series for a villain, but after that they set in motion a new kind of story for Trek. We get character development on an unprecedented level. We get a more serious universe, not quite dark, but very dangerous. And we get a central theme about life and death that again is the sort of story that makes science fiction great. Plus, Spock’s death at the end of this film (spoiler) is fresh at the time the movie is released (1982). Now a story climaxing in character sacrifice seems trite. But Khan and Empire Strikes Back set the stereotype in motion. I could go on for blogs about this movie and maybe I will, but we have to move on.

SEARCH FOR SPOCK

An OK flick. I wish the franchise had not felt the need to immediately bring Spock back. I would have liked to see at least one movie without him. They could have really developed Kirk’s character by taking away one of his pillars, but they went right to the well. I think my big dislike in this movie is protomatter, the plot McGuffin to explain how things went wrong with Genesis. David, Kirk’s son, used an experimental substance called protomatter to make Genesis work. That just doesn’t work for me. It seems implausible since he was not working on Genesis alone and although we know he’s a hot head in the previous film, I just don’t buy his motive or opportunity. I don’t care for the unstable Genesis planet that is created. Sure, Genesis rewrites existing matter into a livable world, but how does it create different climates? Aren’t climates going to be based on the poles, the tides, and the sun? It’s bad science and thus an incredible story. Anyway, a flawed film with good things in it. Love the ending on Vulcan.

THE VOYAGE HOME

One of my favorites. Those of you who hate it usually do so because there aren’t any space battles. But there is ship-to-ship combat between the Klingon Bird of Prey and a 20^th century whaling vessel. Anyway, remember, sci-fi doesn’t mean sci-action. This is a message movie done well. It’s ultimately about the extinction of humped back whales but with the fate of the world on the line. The time travel element is brilliant because the actions in the present are shown to have consequences in the future. A great lesson. Modern earth seems like an alien world from the perspective of Kirk and crew which is a brilliant twist. Customs and cultures that are every day to us are foreign to members of our own race who visit from a different time. This movie reintegrates Spock in the same way I would have thought a movie without him could have served Kirk’s character. Good film. Fun.

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Ugh. Unnecessary. Self-serving. All I really want to point out is how silly the central character development is. See, this movie tries to tell us that our characters, and therefore us, are shaped and defined by one single event in our past. But that’s just not true. Even in Khan, Kirk evolves as a character from where he starts the movie but is not solely defined from that point on by the events of the film. It’s just bad story telling. Shatner was allowed to direct this movie and the franchise paid the price. Sorry, Shatner. I never, ever meant to say anything bad about you.

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

A movie most like more than I do. We’re back to allegory sci-fi which is great, but it’s too heavy handed here. The movie is about the fall of the Soviet Empire after Chernobyl. It’s very 20^th Century political. I just don’t like that stuff very much. Plus the cross-cultural commentary like “You’ve never heard Shakespeare until you’ve heard it in the original Klingon” or “There is an ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China,” just doesn’t work for me. Also, the Valeris character is a bad Saavik rip off with dubious motivation.

GENERATIONS

Here’s where it all starts going wrong for me. This movie just sucks. And I hate to say it Next Gen fans, but I think this movie starts to reveal the underlying problems with your guys. See unlike TOS, TNG’s characters are just vanilla and obvious. Only Data and Worf have any real potential, but with Worf already mined to death in two TV series and in this movie, Data is ruined irrevocably with the emotion chip. The overall problem is that the characters in TNG are not based on any archetypes that matter. In TOS, McCoy is emotion and Spock is logic and they battle in Kirk’s conscience for superiority. In TNG, you just have a bunch of stereotypes who fight for screen time. A little harsh, but not far off. It’s why the TNG movies aren’t very good for the most part. This is one of the worst. The Kirk stuff is awful. And the time travel stuff is more awful. So, you have a chance to stop the villain and you can control going back in time to do so. Would you A. go to the moment the villain is about to strike or B. go to a point where the villain is helpless. This movie picks A. Did you? Plus, Kirk is reduced from being at all serious to a complete humorous characterization of himself, complete with the last words “It was fun” and lines like “The odds are against us and the situation is dire – sounds like fun”. I really don’t like this movie.

FIRST CONTACT

Here’s my Simpsons reference for the day: I call the movie “Blirst Contact”. Brownie points if you know why. Let’s see, I hate the Borg Queen. A lot. She doesn’t make any sense based on our prior understanding of the Borg and the fact that the Borg have been around for over six years at this point and we’ve never even had a hint of her existence caps it off for me. Previously, Borg ships were sterile. Yet now they convert the Enterprise to being hot and humid. They have the same sense of time travel theory as the previous movie; go to the point where you have the narrowest of windows to complete your mission rather than to the dawn of man when you have no opposition at all. Zefram Cochrane can’t be a serious character, he has to be a comedic buffoon who doesn’t seem smart enough to invent anything let alone warp drive. Plus he’s motivated to create warp drive to sell for profit on a world devastated by nuclear war. Where are his buyers exactly? And on top of that, he doesn’t invent it. Geordi has to come back in time using warp drive in order to invent it for Zefram, creating one of my least favorite things in sci-fi, a closed time travel loop. In fact, this is almost always the example I use for bad time travel. And then there’s the Khan rip off. Khan was motivated by revenge and that was his fatal flaw and here it nearly becomes Picard’s fatal flaw. Picard even quotes Moby Dick just like Khan does. This movie does not work for me and I could write blogs about it just like Khan. Maybe I will.

INSURRECTION

Not much to say. It’s a two hour TV episode for some reason made into a movie. I don’t get it. Mediocre at best. The main aliens are a race of people who claim to be non violent. They will not take up arms to defend themselves. We’re supposed to find this morally impressive. Yet they are more than willing to let the TNG crew take up arms on their behalf. This seems more than a bit hypocritical to me and is a big problem with the movie.

NEMESIS

What can you even say about this thing? It’s bad. The actors and creators have sunk to the very bottom of the derivative tank. Anything that was ever fresh or exciting about TNG is gone, replaced by junior high school nature vs. nurture philosophizing and self-serving action sequences. I think it’s good that this part of the franchise has come to a close. When you have Star Trek dune buggies, you’ve run out of ideas. Oh, plus the Data sacrifice is a total rip off of the Spock sacrifice in Khan. He dies saving the crew but downloads his memories into a new android similar to Spock moving his katra to McCoy to later be reintegrated into a new body. Ugh. It was the only Trek movie I had only seen once until I was dumb enough to rent it again.

NEXT, PLEASE

I’m going to hold my review of the reboot movie from this year because we’ve gone pretty long here and I’ve got lots to say about the new one.

STUFF & THINGS 9

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” (add echo on your own!)

I AM SUCH A SUCKER

For whatever reason, I just can’t say no to Star Trek. Ever. Since the time I was about five years old and saw my first Trek rerun (no, I’m not quite old enough to have seen them first run, thank goodness), all the way to the new movie, I just can’t say no.

It’s not that I like all Trek. I think at least about half of any Trek thing ever is terrible. But does that stop me? No. The point of thsi little commentary is that I recently decided to Netflix my way through Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, the only season of Trek TV I just couldn’t bear to watch. But despite that wise decision, it only took about four years for me to change my mind and buckle. So here I am.

For some reason, I am compelled to give my opinion of everything Trek in this blog. I’ll keep it short, but I’m going to hit everything. Let’s go TV first, movies second and generally in order of air dates. I don’t know why anyone would care what I think about Trek, but let’s do it anyway.

STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Without a doubt, my favorite Trek. Small budgets and poor effects of the era forced the writers to actually develop stories. I’m sure they had no idea what they had created and it was one of those rare occasions where the cast just happens to exceed any expectation. Many episodes were metaphoric, themed to deal with social issues or philosophical conflicts. Something more was at stake than simply the survival of the Enterprise crew. Ideas meant something. And generally Kirk and company did the right thing under the circumstances. Kirk was a maverick, willing to take on any challenge. And while he was fiercely loyal to the Federation, he was willing to bend its rules. I think this cowboy character type really connected with me as I grew up. I am a big believer in good is good and bad is bad. Unlike many fans, I like a more pure hero. I don’t need the hero to never waver or never be tempted; I just don’t want them to be dark or silly. Oh, and Kirk is the best captain ever, sorry Picard guys. Plus I can choose Spock and McCoy vs. Riker and Crusher. Yep, that’s easy, too.

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

I loved the show when it was on. This series meant an awful lot to me. It came along at a time where there just wasn’t much sci-fi on TV. I remember when it started you could watch Superboy at 5:30 and Next Gen at 6 every Saturday. No matter how bad Next Gen was Superboy made it look awesome. All in all, this is a landmark series. But in retrospect, it is a series that does not hold up much for me. I have come t believe that there are very few ‘great’ episodes and less ‘good’ episodes than you would ever believe. Early in the series, they are committed to Rodenberry’s futuristic utopia and there is absolutely no character conflict. The deepest conflict that ever develops is the Worf stuff, which is basically strong. But I think this hurt the show. Again, I don’t want to see people at each other’s throats, but there have to be conflicts to make things more compelling. On the flip side, I do like the fact that the show is often about a group of smart, heroic characters working to solve problems. That’s when the show works well. The classic Borg cliffhanger “The Best of Both Worlds” is without a doubt one of my favorite TV sci-fi stories. I am quite sure this episode defines the series for most fans, and rightly so. I also really admire episodes like “The Inner Light” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, episodes I could write entire blogs about. So, the point is, it’s a flawed series that is not my favorite of the franchise. Oh, and Kirk still kicks Picard’s ass. Don’t forget.

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE

Now here’s a series I like. Conflict, genuine conflict, story arcs, continuity. Yeah. I was into this show from the start, long before most fans accepted it. I like the fact that the station is part Federation, part Bajoran It gave them so much to work with. Plus, the doorway to the Alpha quadrant always allowed an alien to appear at the station or the crew to go exploring. The show really had the best of all sci-fi elements in it. The Dominion was a great villain, and tying them to Odo created endless conflict for our favorite shape shifter. Sisko evolved from an uncertain Commander to a champion Captain and even had to take on cosmic responsibilities. Sisko’s interaction with the Wormhole aliens was never my favorite element, but I think at times it worked. All in all, a strong series, better than Next Gen but no TOS. Oh, and Kirk is waaaaaay cooler than Sisko and still kicking Picard’s ass.

STAR TREK: VOYAGER

Originally, I hated this series. Most of the reasons are still valid and I wouldn’t really back off on. But for some reason, I have developed a fondness for this show, despite many, many inexcusably bad episodes. Throw out season one and two and seven, and this is a respectable series. I think the thing is that I have developed a fondness for most of the cast. I actually warmed up to Janeway when she becomes more of a mother to Seven of Nine than the Uber-Captain from the beginning of the show. Early on, it was obvious they wanted to shove her in your face to show you how strong a female captain could be. There was just too much of that. Once they settled down, it was better. Plus, I like the fact that she becomes the embodiment of the Federation: the flag bearer for civilization, and the steady, unwavering force that holds everyone together in the face of impossible odds. I love Robert Picardo as the holographic doctor. He’s priceless. He’s Gregory Hose as a hologram. Sweet. Paris sucks, Tuvok sucks more, and Harry Kim is one of my least favorite Trek characters of al time. The guy who played Kim always had this look on his face like he was struggling to remember his lines. He would roll his eye and bite his lip and I can just picture him struggling with all his might to say “Bridge to Janeway” and not “Engineering to Paris”. That, or he looked like he needed to take a big dump. Either way. The early villains in the series were terrible but continuity developed once they introduced the Borg. There’s a great two part story where Seven’s parents are seen in flashback developing technology to deal with the Borg and then in the present, Janeway must use that tech to rescue Seven. The parallel there is fantastic and it reinforces Janeway as mother figure once again. Anyway, a very flawed series, probably not as good as Next Gen. Oh, and Kirk? Wouldn’t bother to bag Janeway, still cooler than Sisko, and still kicking Picard’s ass.

STAR TREK ENTERPRISE

A big pile of crap, for the most part. The only Trek series cancelled after four seasons since TOS got canned in 2.5. Mostly awful cast, especially the guy who played Ensign Mayweather who I am quite sure had never acted before. In fact, I question whether or not he was aware that there was a profession in which people pretended to be other people and that it was called acting. I think it’s obvious that the creators of the show knew that too, as this character was by far the most underdeveloped dude on the series. The thing the show did well was define some interesting roles on a ship that we haven’t seen before. We got a translator because we dumped the technology that translated. Smart. Dynamic. Convention breaking to some degree. We got a weapons dude and an armory. Also pretty smart. The show was at its best when developing famous Trek races that had never been explored much. The Andoreans in particular, but also the Tholians, the Orions, and the Telerites. The show was at its worst when dealing with temporal cold wars and upgrading it’s tech. The whole point of the series was that they were lower tech than anything we had seen before. So I never understood why we quickly introduced phasers and shields, things it would have been interesting to force them to deal without. I never liked the phase pistol weapons, either. Plus, I thought it was silly that the Transporter is established as a new, quasi-dangerous tech in the pilot, but within the episodes it is used just like any other Trek transporter. Oh, and Kirk vs. Archer? I’m laughing. And he still wouldn’t bag Janeway, still cooler than Sisko, and still kicking Picard’s ass.

We’re going too long. Look for part two on the movies some other time. The point is I love Trek so much and it so rarely loves me back.

NEXT, PLEASE

See you all soon. Thanks for your feedback so far. Sorry this one probably bored most of you to death.

STUFF & THINGS 8

By Richard Early

DOWNTOWN FARGO

For the first time, I realized recently how much downtown has changed. I think this realization is not because I haven’t been paying attention, but because it is only recently the change has sunk in.

Thinking back to 1993 when I opened Paradox, our building and our block were very different. I used to get my hair cut by a guy who rented from the Gardner. He had the lower corner spot on 1^st Avenue. I was in getting a chop and discussing my ideas of opening a store. Up until that point, I had traveled around the area taking my private collection to conventions and had found an interest in that. My barber mentioned that there was a spot next to him in the building that rented for, I’m not kidding, $100 a month. It was terrible of course, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever. It was an 11x11 room in the basement with no access. I jumped all over that business.

In the spot we currently have, there was a gal who ran a second hand clothing store. For years after she was gone and we moved in, people kept coming in looking for her. Next to us in the building was an investment company. Across the alley was an antique store. The Lark Theatre was closed and had yet to become the Cinema Grill. Straus clothing was still on Broadway and 1^st avenue. Down the street was Northern School Supply. And my all-time favorite Chinese restaurant Phil Wong’s was thriving.

Not one thing I just listed off is still around. Except me, of course. Paradox has taken over the old investment company. The barber sold his business to a gal who since moved outt and that spot has been empty except for a few years when a second hand dealer was in there. The antique store moved to Broadway and became the Antique Mall and their space has become many things. The basement part is the Red Raven and the upstairs has seen many businesses come and go. Northern School Supply was bought up by NDSU and became the architecture campus. Phil Wong’s shut down and has been numerous different restaurants, finally stabilizing with the Drunken Noodle. And most of you probably never heard of Straus clothing.

And of course, the granddaddy of them all. The Lark theatre became the Cinema Grill became the Church of Water became demolished and is now the newest NDSU downtown building. A 5 story complex, the upper floors student housing, the main floor new businesses as yet to be announced. Talk about change.

Downtown Fargo has gone through many cycles. About 30 years ago now, there was a big renovation project. Just like the 2000s. At that time, however, things eventually lapsed back to nothingness. Primarily a home for banks and such businesses. Lunch time restaurants and of course the Fargo Theatre, Sammy’s Pizza, the Old Broadway and a few other staples. Traffic was intermittent.

When I opened, there was actually a lot of college aged people who lived in downtown. As time went by, this seemed to shift out to the West Acres area and I saw less and less foot traffic. Being destination, I didn’t really sense an effect. But it’s become a stark contrast to today’s downtown.

Then in the early to mid 2000s, this movement to revitalize downtown began in earnest. Moving in NDSU and offering tax breaks through a Renaissance Zone were the two big incentives. Well, it’s worked like crazy. I admit to a great degree of skepticism. I firmly believe that using tax incentives and other devices to drive development is a redirection of productive resources to an unproductive use. It’s simple. If downtown was good for business, it would have shown that on it’s own without the incentives. Does West Acres need revitalization? Does 13^th Avenue? Well, not now, but just wait five years until they all start crying about the business they are losing to downtown. Essentially, what’s happened in downtown Fargo is what’s happened when big cities build sports facilities. The argument is that the investment brings wealth. But the studies show that this is not true. It moves wealth, it shuffles business, but it doesn’t profit. Think about it. If I gave you a million dollars to deck out your house, it would be an awfully nice house. But I’d be out a million dollars I could have decked out my house with.

Anyway, there’s an old economic principle I always liked. It says that you can’t see what doesn’t exist, you can only see what does. So here we are. What exists? A downtown that has an unprecedented amount of people roaming around, living here, and working here. It’s crazy. If you haven’t checked it out, walk up and down Broadway and you’ll see. I just realized I never even mentioned the big Hotel Donaldson project, the Silver Moon restaurant, or the expansion of the Fargo Theatre.

What’s next? Who knows? I do note that so far I haven’t seen any businesses lined up for the main floor of this new building across the street. I actually know that they have approached existing businesses in the area about moving in and have been turned down due to cost. I am primarily curious to see what happens when the political will to develop some other part of town or rebuild the Fargodome or something along those lines means the end of the incentives downtown. It may be that things are set for a long run but eventually the area will begin to degrade. It might be 20 years. It might be 100. I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet it will happen.

What’s stayed the same? Paradox, sort of. I wouldn’t say we’re the same by any stretch. Much like the area around me, my store has gone through revitalization after dry period to revitialization. It’s a cycle. Hey, when we opened, we sold movie cards and Marvel super hero trading cards. When we opened, there was no such thing as Magic: the Gathering. The comic boom of the 1990s was still happening. We had no game room. We sold back issue comics. There was barely a concept of a trade paperback. There was no internet, not like today. There were no cell phones, not like today. I didn’t even have a computer when I opened. Actually, I didn’t even have a cash register, but that’s another story. I taped cool back issues to the wall for display and used a card table for a new comic rack. I didn’t carry board games or Dungeons and Dragons or miniatures or dice or Warhammer or sell pop and candy. Boy, when you read over that list, you really wonder what my plan was back then. You wonder how we got here.

I’ll tell you this. It didn’t happen through tax incentives and grants. I opened with no money and have never really had any. The only real financial investments have come from me, either in the form of working for free or investing my life’s savings – both cash and collectible. It’s happened here because of you guys, because of customers. You kept Paradox alive and have allowed me to grow it. That, in my opinion, is the only true, sustainable way for business to succeed. That’s why I’m dubious about the ultimate long term success of downtown Fargo (and tangentially the national bail outs that have been taking place, but I’m not going to go political in this blog. Ever.)

NEXT, PLEASE

Hey, if you’ve been in Fargo a long time and you’ve seen the changes, feel free to comment.

What’s on tap for me this week? In store, we’re starting to work hard to get ready for all the big stuff happening this fall. We just had a store meeting to plan out our plans. My free time is going to be season four of Enterprise, season two of Mad Men, and I’m really looking forward to next Friday night –the first preseason football game for the Purple!