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Friday, January 31, 2025
Sockbot and Flattop
Thursday, January 30, 2025
83
Happy birthday, Dad. I hope you're flying something cool.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Doc Brown and His Time Machine
Monday, January 27, 2025
Spy Smasher
Here's one of the images I used as a reference.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Union Landing Party
Saturday, January 25, 2025
Courageous Mountaineer
Friday, January 24, 2025
Vivisection 31
Star Trek: Section 31 (Olatunde Osunsanmi, 2025) is the first direct-to-streaming Star Trek feature film. It also has the distinction of being the worst Star Trek feature film of any kind.
Based on Section 31, the shadowy spy organization first seen in season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, this new film pulls Section 31 from dark corners and into the spotlight, thereby subverting and missing the point of the original DS9 episodes featuring 31. Rather than asking questions with some nuance and ambiguity about moral actions in times of war, Section 31 (the film) tries to turn one of Star Trek’s most despicable villains into a hero while replacing spy intrigue with fight scenes and explosions.
Mission Briefing
Control speaking. You are directed to watch a very special episode of Mission: Impossible reskinned in Star Trek: Discovery and Suicide Squad (the worse one) garb. Believe in the extremely plausible redemption arc of Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), admitted genocidal cannibal and torturer from the Mirror Universe! Watch her team up with a ragtag assortment of unlikeable Section 31 agents to chase a McGuffin before it wrecks the galaxy! Revel where no Star Trek story has revelled before! Revel, I say!
Well, in the words of another Control before me, “That’s why it’s called Mission: Impossible, not Mission: Difficult.”
Dark Origins
Originally developed as a new Star Trek series, Section 31 was whittled down into a single film presumably because Michelle Yeoh became way too busy (and expensive) to commit to a series in the wake of her escalating popularity rising from Everything Everywhere All at Once. This turn of events is a blessing, leaving us with just a couple of hours of agony instead of several seasons’ worth of pain.
13 Things Wrong with Section 31
• Cinematography. The camera can’t sit still, transitioning from snap-zoom to snap-pan to shaky-cam to torturously elaborate spins and swoops that distract from the story telling.
• Editing. The hyperkinetic editing brings to mind the excesses of later Bourne movies; it’s distracting and fails to capture the stunt work of the fight scenes, rendering them impotent.
• Plot. In a remote corner of the galaxy, outside Federation space, someone has a doomsday device and it’s up to our heroes to get it out of the hands of the bad guys. Absolutely by-the-numbers with not a single interesting take on a very old trope.
• Dialogue. The dialogue is filled with painful catchphrases stolen from 21st century sitcoms and action movies, ruining our immersion in what’s supposed to be the far future while annoying us at the same time. None of the cheap laughs land at all.
• Characters. Aside from Emperor Georgiou, who benefits from the character development she enjoyed on Star Trek: Discovery, none of our protagonists exist as other than as science fiction tropes decades old. There’s a sexy vamp, a grizzled combat veteran (with a thrown-in backstory established strictly in dialogue to tie the story back to better movies and shows), the comic relief, a shapeshifter, the Starfleet officer pressed into Section 31 service because she somehow messed up (never explained), and a guy in a really janky-looking mech suit.
• Cheap laughs and cultural insensitivity. Two of the characters have exaggerated Irish (?) accents because ha ha, accents are funny and just add to the quirkiness of this lovable bunch. You’d think we’d have outgrown this kind of humour by now, but no.
• Direction. There’s no tension in any of this. There are foot, hovercar, and spaceship chases without any zing or real stakes. Also, the actors are either explicitly told to ham it up or the director just can’t control them. Half of these performances are so over the top you want to throw things at the main viewscreen. Er. The TV, I mean. The other performances are TOO understated. And finally, an unforgiveable sin outside of parody: the protagonists walk toward the camera in slow motion to show how badass they are. At least there wasn’t an explosion blooming behind them.
• Twist. There’s a twist. This isn’t a spoiler, because you’ll see it coming from a mile away. Actually there are two twists. You’ll see both of them coming from two miles away. Each twist is explained with exposition and flashbacks to be sure you understand each twist.
• Music. The music, even though created by the talented Jeff Russo, is bland as bland can be, especially for an action film.
• Phasing. Remember that episode of TNG where LaForge and Ro are out of phase with the rest of the people on the Enterprise, and yet they don’t fall through the floor? Section 31 makes the same mistake and compounds it by having a character get stuck while passing through a wall without the wall exploding or their foot being severed at the ankle.
• Most embarrassing surprise cameo ever. Oh boy, I would have loved this for this person if it had been any other Star Trek project. Alas.
• Extreme stakes. Far too often in modern Star Trek the heroes face galaxy- or even universe-threatening disasters, and Section 31 does the same. NOT EVERY STORE CAN HAVE STAKES THIS HIGH. The impact is utterly lost.
• And most importantly and most damning of all: Why is this even a Section 31 story? The way this tale is structured, it could just as easily been the crew of the USS Cerritos taking on this mission. Or the folks from DS9. Or maybe a pack of Klingon warriors. Any of these would have worked just as well as Section 31, because there’s no spycraft in this story! There’s no skullduggery! No questions of morality or ethics are ever raised, aside from one character’s note that “I’m here to make sure no one gets murdered.” This film is about Section 31, but aside from the limited participation of Control—the mission commander—this story has none of the essential trappings of the organization it’s purportedly about, nor does it touch any of the original themes raised in DS9 in any meaningful way. It’s “rule of cool” taken to ridiculous extremes, except none of it is cool.
Stories I Enjoyed More Than Section 31
Every other Star Trek film. Yes, including Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Star Trek Into Darkness.
“The Alternative Factor”
“And the Children Shall Lead”
“The Way to Eden”
“Turnabout Intruder”
“Shades of Gray”
“Endgame”
“These Are the Voyages”
Season two of Star Trek: Picard
At least these episodes and movies, as flawed as they are, were made with a level of professionalism and pride that eclipses the laziness and cynicism on display in Section 31. Every example named above tried to be about something--or at the very least was brought low by production difficulties. Section 31 has no such excuse.
I would also rather rewatch
- Any Transformers film
- Artemis Fowl
- The Blind Side
- Attack of the Clones
- The Rise of Skywalker
Well…maybe not that last one. But boy is it close.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Shrieking Dale Arden
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Dr Cyclops
As another Doctor Cyclops (below) said, "Now you really can call me Doctor Cyclops...because I have one good eye."
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Joey the Trainer
Monday, January 20, 2025
The Ref
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Buddy Flynn
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Bucky the Kid
Friday, January 17, 2025
Commando Cody
Thursday, January 16, 2025
In Dreams, He Walks: David Lynch, 1946-2025
Or that's one interpretation. Lynch's work is full of delicious ambiguity; it demands our full attention and cries out to be re-watched for new meaning. Despite that ambiguity, though, I believe a couple of themes shine through his body of work.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Callous Captor
"They call me Callous Captor. I'm your host, and this is Dungeon Break."
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Twister Ramirez and Pugsy Flanagan
Monday, January 13, 2025
Captain Marvel
Here's the Big Red Cheese himself, Captain Marvel. I'm mostly happy with this except for the amount of red wash I used--a bit too much.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Weaponless Tong Warriors
I painted the weapons for these guys months ago, but I haven't looked for them yet. So now they just make threatening gestures.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Mexican Federales
Friday, January 10, 2025
Sparks the Mechanic
Thursday, January 09, 2025
General Fierro
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
Woke Up This Mornin,' Painted Myself a Minifigure
Monday, January 06, 2025
Dale Arden
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Hoover Dam Monitoring Station
Saturday, January 04, 2025
Ravenhawk
The mysterious, ebon-clad Ravenhawk! Is he friend or foe? An ally to Flash Gordon and Dale Arden, or a Hawkman traitor?
Friday, January 03, 2025
Flash Gordon Dismounted from a Hawkman Rocket Cycle
Thursday, January 02, 2025
Flash Gordon Approaching on a Hawkman Rocketcyle
I painted this model inspired by colours used by Alex Raymond in the Flash Gordon comic strips of the 1930s and 1940s and by images seen in the 1980 film adaptation.