Brute Passes On

Lt. Gen. Victor "Brute" Krulak died Monday at the Wesley Palms Retirement Community in San Diego, he was a decorated veteran of World War II and the Korean War and a Marine legend, he was 95.

During World War II on the island of Choiseul, Krulak led his outnumbered battalion during an eight-day raid on Japanese forces, diverting the enemy’s attention from the U.S. invasion of Bougainville. Krulak’s troops destroyed hundreds of tons of supplies, burning both camps and landing barges. He was wounded on Oct. 13, 1943, and later received the Navy Cross for heroism along with the Purple Heart.

At age 43 he became the youngest brigadier general in Marine Corps history up to that time. Krulak later commanded about 100,000 Marines in the Pacific from 1964 to 1968 — a span that saw the United States dramatically increase buildup in Vietnam. Before assuming command of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, he served as principal adviser on counterinsurgency warfare to then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the joint chiefs of staff.

After retirement, he often criticized the government’s handling of the Vietnam War. He wrote that the war could have been won only if the Vietnamese had been protected and befriended and if enemy supplies from North Vietnam were cut off. Krulak once summed up the U.S. dilemma in Vietnam by saying, “It has no front lines. The battlefield is in the minds of 16 or 17 million people.”

Following retirement, he worked for Copley Newspapers, serving at various times as director of editorial and news policy and news media president of Copley News Service. He retired as vice president of The Copley Press Inc. in 1977 and contributed columns on international affairs and military matters for Copley News Service. He also wrote the book First to Fight, an insider’s view of the Marine Corps.

His son General Charles Krulak served as commandant of the Marine Cops from 1995 to 1999.

Source AP

Merry Christmas

Just a quick note to wish all who read this a very Merry Christmas. Especially to all the troops overseas sacrificing their time with their families to bring safety, freedom and security to the world.

Merry Christmas.
Lt. Colonel "Whopper" Creedon, UNETIDA

2IGTV Episode 63

It's Christmas in the world of 2IGTV and this is not lost on us as we discuss Star Wars snow speeders, gifts, the latest technological advancements in the world of 3D, the health of Apple and Steve Jobs, the state of the games industry in the economic crisis and the shuffling of the late night talk show hosts.

We talk Knight Rider, TR2N, Judge Dredd, Buck Rogers, The Star Wars musical, Shatner's Raw Nerve, Cocaine, Roger Ebert and Bitches!!!

All this and More here.

The First Lady Of Star Trek Has Passed

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of the late Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek has died of leukemia aged 76.

She was also one of the most famous guest actors on many of the Star Trek series. She had been involved with Star Trek from it's very beginning playing the mysterious Number One, first officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain Pike in the unaired pilot "The Cage". Later she had a recurring role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the 3 year run of the original Star Trek series and the character later became a doctor for the migration to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

For the 24th century incarnations of Star Trek, Barrett would protray the endeeringly annoying Lwaxana Troi, mother of Enterprise-D councellor Deanna Troi. But perhaps she more famously provided the federation computer voice for the original Star Trek Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well as a number of episodes of Enterprise and some of the Star Trek movies.

She was a formidible woman; following Gene's death she took the reigns of two of his projects, Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda and brought them to fruition. She was very much a part of the Fan community for Star Trek and Sci-Fi in general and made countless convention appearences up to the point of her illness. I'm glad to say that I was able to meet her in person in Dublin at a Star Trek convention in 1995[?].

On December 9th 2008, Roddenberry Productions announced that Barrett would be providing the voice of the ship's computer once again, for the new Star Trek in 2009. It is not clear, however, whether she had already recorded the voiceover at the time of the announcement, or had been scheduled to do so. Nevertheless, her greatest legacy is that her voice is now heard all over the world every day in the from of the Federation computer voice, as episodes of the Star Trek shows she voiced are constantly rerun.

Rest in peace.

Barrett's Memory Alpha entry.

Robert Carlyle to head Stargate: Universe

Dispelling most of the internet fueled rumours about him being the next Dr. Who; BAFTA award- winning actor Robert Carlyle OBE will be playing a lead role in a popular long running sci-fi series but it won't be in the UK - it'll be over in Canada where they will be filming Stargate: Universe!

Carlyle will play Dr. David Rush on the new Stargate: Universe an "edgier and younger in tone" series than the two previous incarnations, "SGU follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a Stargate when their hidden base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship missing in the far reaches of space. As they fight to survive, Dr. Rush (Carlyle) works to unlock the mysteries of the ship and return the group home, but evidence of his ulterior motives soon arises." according to the MGM press release.

Many Stargate fans were worried that according to the original casting call, only the series' military commander, a Colonel Everett Young would be older than 25 and the remainder of the cast are in their early 20's. Carlyle is obviously not the colonel however so there'll be at least two characters who'll have some idea what they're doing.

Dumbass Iraqi Journalist Flings Shoes At Bush

The training that I personally gave President George W. Bush to dodge missiles such as knives or eggs etc. paid off today when some dumbass Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at him during a press conference. The conference, part of the outgoing president's secret tour of Iraq was being held with with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement.

Bush had been finishing his remarks in which he said the security agreement was made possible by the U.S. surge of troops earlier this year, when the journalist, one Muthathar al Zaidi pulled off his shoes and hurled them at the president shouting "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog"*. Bush dodged the shoes and was not struck, mostly because of the comprehensive training I gave him in 2005 after watching the Ben Stiller movie Dodgeball, where I emulated the training given by Patches O'Houlihan, a character in the movie. Bodyguards quickly wrestled Zaidi to the floor and hauled him, kicking and screaming, from the room.

I must say that I'm extremely disappointed that the man didn't receive two 9mm's into his skull and instead was merely "subdued" before being carted off - but perhaps he will have an accident in custody. If this is the gratitude that people show for being liberated from tyranny - Obama may have the right idea to begin getting out of there and letting God sort 'em out. Anyway, while I can take credit for his Jedi-like reflexes, I can't take credit for Bush's razor sharp wit - "All I can report," he joked of the incident, "is a size 10."

*Different news sites are all reporting variations of what the moron was shouting as he threw the shoes

Source: Youtube,FoxNews, MSNBC, AP

World In Conflict - Full Review

It was back here in April '07 when I mentioned that I may be picking up an RTS (Real-Time-Strategy) game; A genre with which I've had little time for in the past, but World In Conflict secured my custom for these main reasons:
1. - It would dispense with the usual boring mechanic of mining for gold, ore, oil or whatever such raw material was required to build your war machine and replace it with a point system that allowed you do air-drop units into your battle zone and begin the fight immediately.
2. - The game would be one of the first to utilise Direct-X10, the Windows Vista API, the next evolution in graphics.
3. - The story would be crafted with the aid of Tom Clancy collaborator Larry Bond which may perhaps explain the games similarity with Red Storm Rising which he co-wrote.
4. - Alec Baldwin himself would be the narrator of that story between the battle sequences.
Thankfully, all of that and more were part of this stunning game.

Picture a world where in 1989 the Soviet Union is collapsing, but instead of what happened in our reality- the hard-line commies instead quash glasnost and perestroika and invade Europe, drawing US forces there and launching a daring attack on the mainland United States. Remember Red Dawn?

In a nutshell: World in Conflict plays out like a Bay-directed, Clancy-penned hybrid of an RTS game. There's no base-building; Instead you get a pool of "reinforcement points" to create a customised force from. When you loose a unit, the point cost of that unit counts back into your point pool and can be used again to summon reinforcements to the field. As the point pool isn't huge, you need to be pretty accurate in which units you bring out because most of the time you force will consist of between a few to a dozen units. The result of such a dynamic resource and strategic model is an RTS that plays far differently than any other sample of the genre.

During the course of the game you're given command of various ground and air units from Bradley IFVs to Apache gunships. You play a company-grade Army officer and so are not laden down with the usual several dozen units you get in other RTSs. As with other RTS' you're not in command of every unit on your side on the battlefield. No, in this you have a small mobile team capable of achieving your objectives swiftly and concisely as part of a larger force that you must support and defend and they will do the same to you, much as you do in FPS form in the Call Of Duty games. You also have power at most stages of the game to direct different forms of artillery fire from daisy cutters to bunker busters and of course the final solution: The Tactical Nuke! - but I wish there could have been more of them to use.

A major issue with trying to weld a story to an RTS is that you basically have a whole load of disposable units that will most likely not survive from the start to the end of the level [not the way I play anyway]. Massive Entertainment dealt with this challenge by disregarding the implementation of "hero" units and presenting the narrative through the interactions of four different US Army officers. The tough abrasive no-nonsense Colonel Sawyer, pulled out of retirement to command the resistance against the Soviets and his three primary commanders. Captain Webb in support, tank commander Captain Bannon and the player's alter-ego Lieutenant Parker. Each has an interesting character arc that weaves its way through the different missions and is detailed with well-written dialogue. In addition to the game engine and FMV cut-scenes; Alec Baldwin narrates the game from your point of view. Each level transition is told through a series of majestically painted stills of soldiers in the conflict with dialog giving us a glimpse of what they are thinking and feeling as war rages on. It's a very effective way of telling the story and certainly adds flavour to an already rich storyline.

The game interface for World in Conflict is smaller than that of most other examples of the genre. The bottom middle contains a graphical representation of your current units and their status, the top right hand corner contains the reinforcement widget. A mini map is in the bottom left hand corner, and on the bottom right hand corner: the special abilities buttons (including unit formation). Overall, the reduced interface gives players a larger view of the battlefield, allowing greater micromanagment and taking advantage of the game's magnificent visuals.

The game's engine is incredible, you can zoom right into each unit and see an incredible level of detail right down to the model of assault rifle one of your soldiers is carrying, or zoom outwards to see the whole battlefield. As mentioned previously, WIC was one of the first games to utalise DX10 and Windows Vista. Users on this platform will have a much higher graphical presentation including "god rays", cloud shadows and soft particles. However I'm told the engine still looks magnificent on DX9, but once you experience it on DX10 you know that the future of gaming at this level is certainly bright. DX10 provides only cosmetic enhancements over it's predecessor, WIC still features deformable terrain in the form of buildings and foliage that are destroyable, dual-core multithreading and Havoc physics. The only technical let down was the omission of 3D sound due to the game being completed at the height of the Windows Vista sound debacle; but the game still has awesome sounds with great filtering.

Final Verdict: Easily the best experience of a Real Time Strategy game I've had since WarCraft 2.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

Hornet Down ***Updated***

An F/A-18D Hornet preparing to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. crashed in a densely populated San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing two three four people on the ground and destroying two houses.

There was little sign of the plane in the smoky ruins, but a piece of cockpit sat on the roof of one home. A Navy bomb disposal truck was at the site, and Marines were talking with police. Authorities told observers to leave because the smoke was toxic.

The Marine Aviator, who ejected safely and ended up hanging by his parachute from a tree in a canyon beneath the neighborhood, was in stable condition at a Navy hospital, said 1st Lt. Katheryn Putnam, a Miramar spokeswoman. "He had been returning from training on the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast. Investigators will review information from a flight data recorder. There was no indication the pilot was using alcohol or drugs."

The exact cause of the crash is not yet known, but Steve Diamond, a former military instructor who witnessed the crash, said the downed pilot told him the plane suffered a mechanical problem. "The pilot was flying quite low in the moments before he ejected," Diamond said.

The Navy recently inspected hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets, built by Boeing Co., after discovering "fatigue cracks" on more than a dozen of them. The inspections looked for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron — a flap that helps stabilize the jet in flight — to the wing. The Navy announced last month it had grounded 10 of the $57 million fighters and placed flight restrictions on 20 more until repairs could be made.

[Left] The distinctive markings of an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet from the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101 (VMFAT-101) the unit from which the crashed plane was part of.

Source: FoxNews, AP, Sky News

Transporter 3

Jason Statham returns to our screens (after a shaky appearance as a driver in Death Race) as a driver of a different sort and a somewhat more familiar role in his third outing as the rule-confined loner Frank Martin in Transporter 3.

It's not made abundantly clear if this time Frank is fully or semi-retired, but nevertheless he's forced by a big bad-guy boss-man Johnson (Prison Break's Robert Knepper) to go on a mission to deliver a 'package'. This time he's rigged with a magnetic explosive which will detonate- killing him if he wanders too far away from his beloved Audi. He's also got a passenger in the form of a sweet piece of fluff called Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) a freckled, red-headed Ukrainian who is annoying as she is sexy.

The plot to this is beyond ridiculous, even for a Transporter movie, hell even for a mindless action movie. What in the nine hells was Luc Besson doing while writing this? Painting? Cooking? Masturbating? Because he certainly didn't seem to have actually written anything - I just don't get why the bad-guy had to do what he does, it's really making life a lot harder for himself. However, the insane unbelievable stunts, Statham's fights and chases as well as Valentina being annoying (or sexy) almost completely distract you from any semblance of story. Still it would have been nice to have some small thread of plot no matter how daft, at least to hold against the most rudimentary of analysis, but this is a basic popcorn flick, so just roll with it I guess.

Cory Yuen choreographs some brilliant fight scenes for director Olivier Megaton and it seems like Frank has to take down more enemies than usual at once, but they're not as good as in previous installments. After seeing him take down a host of thugs with a fire hose before; using his clothing as a weapon this time round seems a little naff. There does seem to be some incredible stunts here and completely over the top even physically impossible which sometimes converts cool to laughable but I'll leave you judge those for yourself.

Final Verdict: 95% of 3rd movies don't turn out to be as good as their predecessors and Transporter 3 is no exception. It has none of the character or spirit of the first movie or the more intense adrenaline action of it's sequel, but that said- it holds it's own as an action movie.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****

Youtube Trailer / Official Site / IMDB Entry / Wikipedia Entry

Bears... In... Spaaaaaaaaaace.....

Four Teddy-Bears were blasted to the edge of space by university boffins at Churchill College in Cambridge. The cuddly toys were attached to a helium balloon and launched 30,000-metres into the atmosphere.

They were fitted out with space suits designed by schoolchildren from the city as the toys braved freezing temperatures. The computer-controlled quartet, who were fitted with a GPS system and camera to track their progress, landed safely just north of Ipswich, Suffolk, following their pioneering flight of just over two hours. Cambridge University said the project was part of an initiative to "engage local schoolchildren in science and engineering".

The project was overseen by the Cambridge University spaceflight team - a student-run society launched two years ago. Ed Moore, one of its 10 members, said: "There can be few more worthwhile things for us to do than to try and provide that spark for the current generation of school kids. We had a fantastic time working with the kids."

Lt. Colonel "Whopper" Creedon of U.N.E.T.I.D.A., denied reports that he had a flight of Harriers scrambled from the RAF station in Wattering to deal with an "imminent danger" at the same time of the bears' flight and was unavailable for comment.

Source: Press Association

Jones is NSA

General James L. Jones (Ret.), former Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and former Commander of the Unitesd States European Command has be officially nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama as his National Security Adviser.

Jones is currently President and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy. He will bring 40 years of active duty in the Marine Corps and is no stranger to the the executive as he was senior aide to former SECDEF William S. Cohen.

In other appointments; Hilary Clinton was also officially named Secretary of State and as previously presumed, Robert Gates was officially confirmed to remain as SECDEF. Obama said he would be giving Gates and the military a “new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control.”

Origami in Space

You all know of Origami the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. Legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

But what if you could fold something more interesting than a stupid crane? Well Won Park, a bloke in Hawaii has started folding a few more interesting shapes which include ships such as the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars and the Enterprise from Star Trek.

See a whole load of his work here.

Source: TheForce.net

SECDEF Gates to be Retained

FOX News is reporting that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will keep the top Pentagon job for at least the first year of the Obama administration.

Gates has very strong support among Democrats and the President Elect's decision to keep him on follows speculation, encouraged before the election by Obama's aides, that Gates would stay on for an interim period. A registered independent, Gates has served various Republican administrations. President Bush nominated Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was descending into chaos and became a political liability for Republicans.

Gates will continue to preside over two U.S. wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that Bush launched as part of the larger war on terror. There are several issues on which Gates and Obama disagree, including missile defense. Gates supports placing a missile defense system in Europe, but Obama already has suggested that he won't sign off on it until the technology has been proven capable.

A formal announcement is expected immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as part of an unveiling of the new national security team, which is expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state; Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser, Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence and Susan Rice as U.S. ambassador to the UN.

Source: FOX News

2IGTV Epidode 62

In this packed Episode: What effect has the Presidential Election have on The Colonel? Mark has watched the Clone Wars series – but not the movie! We give our opinions on W., Max Payne and Quantum of Solace (beware of spoilers). We let you know what we’re watching (or not watching) on TV now and when to expect 24 and BSG.

In movie news; we have a director and writers for Captain America and maybe Wonder Woman. Snippets for Lethal Weapon 4, Bourne 4, Universal Soldier 3 and a new generation of X-Men? Brett Ratner’s Conan and Beverly Hills Cop 4, and a daft-sounding project from Sylvester Stallone.

Finally, we have an in-depth analysis of the Star Trek trailer.
Git it now at www.2igtv.com and Discuss in our Forums!

Man Tasered At His Father's Funeral - Part 14 in my "Shoot First, Questions Never" series!

Undercover agents at a funeral in North Carolina tried to serve an arrest warrant on the dead man's son — and used a Taser on him.

The incident happened Saturday afternoon as the coffin was being loaded into a hearse. The officers planned to quietly arrest Gladwyn Taft Russ III, but it turned into a scuffle.

42-year-old Russ was charged with communicating threats against his ex-wife who lives in another state. Officials said he failed to turn himself in as promised.

New Hanover County sheriff's chief deputy Ed McMahon said the officers' move backfired in the emotional environment. McMahon said the officers should have waited until after the cemetery service.

Source: Fox News

New STAR TREK Trailer online

Those of you with little patience may have already seen some grainy YouTube footage of the new Star Trek trailer badly vidcapped from it's premiere in font of some US prints of Quantum Of Solace.

Today however, just after 18:00 GMT Monday, on the startrekmovie.com website, the full HD enabled trailer was released through the Apple trailer service. If you have 1080p HD resolution I would recommend the 150Mb download of the highest resolution trailer and see images like this and this!

As for the trailer itself? Well I guess it's fair to say that I've not felt this excited about a Star Trek movie since the debut of the trailer for Star Trek First Contact in 1995. The freshness that JJ Abrams seems to have brought to this jaded franchise is quite evident from this phenomena three minute trailer full of quick cuts, action sequences involving the crew, beauty shots of the new Enterprise and frenetic space combat. And we get our first look at Bruce Greenwood as Chris Pike [above]!

It's all so new - yet hauntingly familiar.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/

Max Payne is like Dashiell Hammett, John Woo & The Punisher

I rate most Video Game movies I see fairly highly. They tend to get less bogged down in acting and plot and focus more on spectacular action scenes and some far fetched stunts. Doom, Hitman, Tomb Raider, BloodRayne and the pinnacle of the genre- Resident Evil are just some of the better examples.

Max Payne is different however. Like the top-notch game it adapts (it's #5 on Colonel Creedon's Top 10 Games Of All Time), Max Payne's story is essential to it and without it, it wouldn't work as either a game or a movie. A missed opportunity here was not to include one of the game's staple elements a "Film Noir" narration delivered by the Max Payne character. As a result the movie suffers from a lack of narration to make sense of some of the more convoluted plot elements.

Payne is probably the most underpowered and all too human character ever to be transported from a game to the silver screen. We are introduced to the character as a depressed loner, who cleans his guns at night and hasn't smiled in in the years following the brutal murder of his wife and child. It's a testament to Mark Wahlberg's grossly underrated acting that he makes the lone cop seem human with a few words and an impressive amount of violence.

We are drawn into Payne's never ending nightmare over the loss of his family and our mood is controlled by the bleakness of the seedy bars, rotten slums and abandoned factories where the investigation leads and it's always snowing at night turning every breath to a cloud of vapour. The city is as cold as Payne's heart now. This is in no small part to the design work of Daniel Dorrance who's worked on a slew of major movies including The Incredible Hulk, Collateral and Braveheart.

Directed by the Irish director of Behind Enemy Lines, John Moore, the other major players in this incredibly stylish drama include Beau Stargate SG-1 Bridges, Olga Quantum Of Solace Kurylenko, Donal Blade Logue, Prison Break's Amaury Nolasco and obligatory black hip-hop star Chris Ludacris Bridges as Lt. Bavura, a true star however is Mila That 70's Show Kunis all grown up now as Mona Sax, a deadly leather clad assassin.

The storyline admittedly veers wildly off track throughout the movie, we have Payne's life which is hell bent on revenge against his family's killers, this crosses over into a series of brutal murder investigations committed against folk with Norse mythology tattoos, Internal Affairs investigation into Payne's involvement with these murders, a super-hot deadly assassin claiming revenge for her equally super-hot murdered sister and of course the obligatory corporate conspiracy. It's a little bit much for a movie based on a video game that didn't have all these threads woven around it in the first place.

The action sequences are a little more than outstanding. The gunplay is a little too sparse considering it's subject matter but once it hits you can feel each impact as if you were suffering from each projectile penetration. The main special effects sequences revolve around the demons being hallucinated by addicts of the Valkyr drug and their appearance injects a contrast of vibrant colour to otherwise washed palette. One disappointment was an under-use of slow motion. I would have been more than happy with an extra 15 minutes or so added to the movie to have all the action scenes in Matrix-esque bullet-time. I know that it's been done to death in the past 10 years, but Max Payne was the first game to feature it and there should have been more.

Final Verdict: A stylish neo-noir action thriller that delivers a troubled violent psychotic loner as good-guy against the freezing cold bleakness of New York and it's fuckin' awesome!

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

The Mutant Chronicles = Pile of Shit!

The Mutant Chronicles was one of those movies I heard about, saw the trailer and thought "Hey that might be good" [I guess I do that a lot], and even though it has the plot of a Sci-Fi channel TV-Movie you hold out hope that despite it's hokiness-- it may work...

...it doesn't.

This movie is utter garbage and I hope you don't have the misfortune of seeing it. To that end, my review will be laced with spoilers revealing characters, plot points and the ending. You have been warned.

Loosely based on the original Swedish pen & paper tabletop RPG The Mutant Chronicles; the movie is set in 2707 where 4 megacorporations have literally taken over the world and naturally they are all at war. The destructive conflict breaks a seal covering a 700 year old evil machine thingy that turns the dead into zombified mutants. They kill people and bring them to the machine which turns them into more mutants and the process repeats exponentially. Six weeks later the last survivors on Earth are escaping to Mars in Steam-Powered spacecraft (I'm not kidding!) and Brother Samuel, leader of an ancient monastic order asks for men to go on a suicide mission to destroy the machine.

Thomas Jane is an underrated actor, but the shit he was given here wasn't his fault. His two most memorable lines in the movie were "I'm not paid to have faith, I'm paid to fuck things up" and the imaginative "Gimme the fuckin' bomb." John Malkovich shamefully collects a cheque for playing Constantine, one of the Earth leaders completely ineffectually and Ron Pearlman has dropped in my estimation for an awful rendition of the Ar n'Athair (the Our Father prayer in Irish) but there is one dim acting light in the form of the excellent Sean Pertwee who had a noble role and I think gave this his all, sadly it was just too little.

The most annoying aspects of this movie was the way not one, not two, not three... but as many as six characters make a "Noble Sacrifice" with their lives (Jesus! Even one of them did it twice) so as not to slow down the mission or to make sure it continued. I also loved the way water underneath an orbit-reaching rocket ship didn't boil when it took off. Also it appears a victim of the zombie-mutants can be dragged along the ground without food and water for six weeks and survive. But the most annoying thing is near the end your hunch about the movie making a better video game all through watching it was justified when you realise that you've actually played it!!! It's QUAKE 4, seriously near the end-- it becomes Quake 4!

The only redeeming quality of this trash is it's production design, which was phenomenal, from the extraordinary array of costumes to the weapons, vehicles and architecture. A pity it's all wasted in such garbage.

Final Verdict: The Mutant Chronicles is a hopeless waste of money and talent that would have been better served making something else... ...chocolate sauce perhaps.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *

The "New" Enterprise

We had been waiting for some time but, I can now unveil JJ Abram's re-imagining of the USS Enterprise. To quote a friend of mine: "Groovy!"

While JJ admits he was never a fan of the original Star Trek series, he does have on clear Star Trek cherry-popping moment: the big reveal of the Enterprise during Star Trek: The Motion Picture. "It was the first time I had ever seen that level of attention, that love of detail, given to the tangible, practical reality of the ship." Abrams wanted to take the original Constitution Class of TOS and fuse it to the movie-era refit into a new but still familiar Enterprise. "If you're going to do Star Trek there are many things you cannot change. So if you're going to do the Enterprise, it better look like the Enterprise, because otherwise, what are you doing?"

Source: Civilian Overseer / Popwatch

Veteran's Day / Remembrance Day 2008

Today is either Veteran's Day or Remembrance Day depending on your part of the world. I request only that, if you see a veteran today that you thank them for their service. It will mean a lot.