Star Trek films that I think are delightful to watch

 

A still from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), directed by Leonard Nimoy

When it comes to the films that I've seen in the last several months, I can say that I very much enjoyed seeing the first four Star Trek films again (Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). These four films are some of my personal favorite films. The other Star Trek films don't really interest me. I definitely like the main cast. I think that William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley were very good in their roles. They were good in their roles even in the original series, which began airing in 1966, and this is the main reason why I was able to endure watching it. As good as the show was in the 1960s, I must say that it became silly and outdated already in the 1970s because the science-fiction genre became more fact based and more sophisticated in the 1970s. By the way, in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Christopher Lloyd, who played Dr. Emmett Brown in Back to the Future (1985), played the valiant Muslim Commander Kruge. This is something that I didn't notice before. Another film that I enjoyed seeing again is Blue Thunder (1983). This film was my favorite when I was a child because it's an action movie with good-looking helicopters. Blue Thunder is still a film that I like. There isn't only the exciting action. There's also a memorable score by Arthur B. Rubinstein and a good cast. The score for Blue Thunder is one of the music albums that I've been listening to lately. I've also been listening to the first two albums by Animotion, which is one of my favorite bands, and I've been listening to blaxploitation soundtracks. These soundtracks are some of my favorite albums, though my favorite among them is not Shaft by Isaac Hayes or Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield but The Mack by Willie Hutch. I also like Hutch's soundtrack for Foxy Brown. I think that I found out about Hutch after getting the soundtrack for The Last Dragon (1985), which is another one of my favorite music albums. He provided two tracks, The Glow and Inside You, for the film. Well, I have many music albums, but the ones that I've listed are the ones that I've been listening to the most lately. Moreover, the soundtrack for The Secret of My Success (1987) and the soundtrack for About Last Night (1986) have also become my favorites recently. By the way, About Last Night was remade in 2014. Interestingly, this remake is good as well. This is a rare occurrence for modern comedies. But Blue Thunder is not the only film that I've rediscovered recently. I can say that Full Metal Jacket (1987) is now one of my favorite films of the 1980s. I've seen it twice before, but I was much younger back then, and I didn't think much of it. Having seen it for the third time recently, I can now say that Stanley Kubrick's direction appeals to me more. Full Metal Jacket has many good scenes, like just about every other film directed by Kubrick. Now that I'm an adult, I like Kubrick's films a lot more. The thing about Kubrick is that he didn't make standard films, and this is the big reason why I didn't appreciate his films when I was younger. Full Metal Jacket is not like Platoon (1987), which is an entertaining film that just about anyone can like, and it wasn't meant to be. The first third of Full Metal Jacket is hilarious and shocking at the same time. The last third of the film is thrilling and shocking at the same time. The death of Sergeant "Cowboy" Evans actually made me feel sad this time. This means that the characters were developed enough for the viewer to care about them.

I think that I've already mentioned in one of my posts that I haven't bought a Nintendo Switch console. This is still the case. Even the release of the new and improved Nintendo Switch OLED hasn't changed my mind about buying this console. My main reason for not buying the Switch is because Nintendo has been actively going after video game ROM sites in the last few years and suing the owners of these websites for large sums of money. Before Nintendo began doing this, I had nothing against this company. I like many of the games that this company has released, but, for me, Nintendo finally crossed the line when it began its crackdown against ROM sites. As long as this continues, I won't be buying anything from Nintendo. Even if Nintendo puts an end to this crackdown, I still won't be eager to buy anything from this company because of the damage that it has already done. Frankly, the reason why Nintendo has been successful in the last several years with the Switch is not because the console itself is awesome. It's because Nintendo has finally released a console that has mass appeal and that many people want to buy. Let's face it. It's not like video game players around the world have many options when it comes to consoles. Except for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, there are almost no other companies that make video game consoles that can easily be purchased. But the demand for video games and for consoles continues to grow. So, it's not surprising that even an adequate but faulty console like the Switch can become very successful. The demand is there, but the choices aren't there. The video games that Nintendo has made for the Switch are fine but nothing great. They're mostly sequels and remakes, as usual. I don't really have a problem with sequels and remakes as long as they're good, but most of the ones that have been made for the Switch don't impress me. The only truly great new game that has been released for this console is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which features addictive gameplay but a mediocre story. I don't need to play a passable game like Metroid Dread in order to feel good. I can play a better game, like Metroid Fusion, instead. And I don't need to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons because I can play a more original game, like Animal Crossing, instead. What I'm getting at is that I'm not one of those many people (consumers) that get to feel good and satisfied only after buying something new. I'd rather save my time and money and buy something older, better, and more original instead. For example, I bought the Dead Space trilogy on Steam at a discount a few months ago, and I bought Dead Space: Extraction for my PlayStation 3 console. Dead Space is a game that's more than a decade old but it's better than almost anything that's available for the Switch. So, I've definitely been enjoying playing the Dead Space games. The scenery in these games is so good that I often stopped just to look at the surroundings. Another video game that I very much enjoyed playing not that long ago is Persona 4. Before I began playing this game, I haven't played any of the other Persona games. Therefore, I didn't know anything about the peculiar gameplay of Persona 4. Effective time management is one of the things that make this game addictive and enjoyable. Because I didn't know this, I wasted the first several hours playing this game either doing things that aren't important or simply skipping over things that are important. Therefore, once I got hooked on this game, after playing it for several hours and after getting used to the gameplay, I regretted wasting time earlier because this game has a deadline. The version of the game that I played first is Persona 4 Golden on my PlayStation Vita. After I finished playing it, I soon began playing Persona 4 on my laptop by using a PlayStation 2 emulator and a controller. Of course, Persona 4 Golden is the version of this game that you should get because it's a definite improvement over the original. It's also available on Steam. Persona 4 is now one of my favorite video games. Playing it became as much of a pleasant surprise for me as playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Silent Hill 2, for example.

Finally, because of popular demand, I'll share some more information that I have about the COVID-19 pandemic. I did listen to what Andrei Fursov has to say about this pandemic. Fursov makes public appearances and talks rather often, but I'm not one of those people who always wait for his latest interview. Actually, nowadays, I rarely watch videos in which he appears. This isn't mostly because of something that he has done, however. I simply prefer to do other things at this time. I also rarely watch the news now, and this has been the case for a long time already. Because I generally know where many states in the world are headed, I don't really need to watch the news every day or every week. News channels are created for propaganda purposes, but I'm knowledgeable enough to realize what's the truth and what's deception. I still translate the lectures featuring Fursov because my followers ask me to do this. I don't do this as often as I used to, however, because YouTube has been making things difficult for independent creators like me for a long time already. According to Fursov, a pandemic does exist, but this is how it's called officially. In reality, it's not much of a pandemic because it's not as deadly as a real pandemic and it doesn't spread as fast. Fursov said that what has been happening in Western countries as a result of it can be called madness. The restrictions that have been imposed on the masses by the establishment are outlandish and severe. Fursov said that these measures are in part a kind of training in order to make people accept a tougher regime. Just before this pandemic struck, the Western economy had been heading for another crash, similar to the one in 2008. According to Fursov, capitalism has reached a dead end. Before a crash happened, however, this so-called pandemic appeared, and tough measures began to be introduced. By the way, during the pandemic, the economic situation in Western countries hasn't improved but has become even worse. The COVID-19 pandemic has also demonstrated the harmfulness of the so-called neoliberal model yet again because states in the West and elsewhere in the world are finding it difficult to treat people because there's a shortage of hospitals, facilities, and doctors. This is one of the reasons why social distancing and isolation got introduced. Fursov said that the economic crisis that appeared in 2008 hasn't gone away and that the reason why it hasn't been as severe as it could have been so far is because a lot of money was poured into the economy in order to alleviate this crisis. This had been a temporary solution. I have to say that some of the measures that have been introduced are certainly ridiculous. Firstly, even if COVID-19 had been a deadly disease, wearing masks wouldn't have helped much in stopping its spread. Masks are mostly useless in this case, and wearing a mask for someone like me, who has to wear glasses, becomes painful after a few hours because my ears begin to hurt. Wearing a mask is also harmful because a person has to breathe air that's not fresh. So, wearing a mask is perhaps the most ridiculous measure that has been forced on people. But there are other ridiculous measures as well, like the mandatory vaccine jabs. The masses are being forced to accept an injection of something that hasn't been thoroughly tested, of something that has very unpleasant side effects for some people, and of something that doesn't even work well. I think that something like this has never happened in human history before. I think that this measure and the other measures are abusive and dumb.