With the most recent Star Trek movie coming to video November 17, I felt it would be fitting to revisit what most people (myself included) think is the best of all the Trek films, 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. If you’re curious about what I think of J.J. Abrams’s reboot of the franchise, check out the episode of my podcast in which me and my cohost, Lisa Soloway, review the new Trek and compare it to The Wrath of Khan. In short, I thought the new film was a lot of fun and incredibly well cast, but I was seriously weirded out by the whole “alternate timeline” plot, and ultimately felt it was a weak concept upon which to reboot the series. While I do understand why the filmmakers made that choice, I still feel like it was a cheat from a writing standpoint. But what the hell, the movie is undeniably a fun ride, and I admit I’m just nitpicking because I love Star Trek so much.
In a sense, Star Trek II was itself a reboot of the franchise, as many people didn’t like its predecessor, 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture (personally, I’ve always loved it, as stated in a previous column). It’s interesting to note that director Nicholas Meyer, like J.J. Abrams, didn’t come on board as a fan of Star Trek — he’d reportedly never even seen a single episode of the 1960s TV series. Up to that point Meyer was best known for writing and directing the excellent Time After Time (1979) and writing both the novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and the screenplay for the 1976 film adaptation.
This week will see the release of 
That may explain my fascination with the Kids’ WB! animated series Freakazoid!, produced by Steven Spielberg back in the rip-roaring mid-’90s. Warner Bros. Television Animation had been through a resurgence of sorts, propped up by the success of the moody, atmospheric, and terrifically written Batman: The Animated Series. They suddenly had the rest of the entertainment world paying attention, so much so that Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment came to call. From there, a succession of fondly remembered series tumbled out: Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. The word came down that Spielberg’s next series should be a superhero show, so Bruce Timm, an integral part of the Batman show, started spitballing ideas, working up a premise and designing characters. The result was a show far more earnest than Spielberg planned, so he sent back the message to crank up the humor. He should have been more careful with his direction.