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I was going to post my first Superhero Day Job post tonight but it has been called off thanks to the weather!  For the past three nights Brisbane has been absolutely smashed with storms, but we ourselves have been really lucky as we’ve only had some water damage and nothing really serious.

Here are some lightning shots taken as the storm front passed over us:

Others of course haven’t been so lucky, to get an idea of the flooding we’ve starting to have to deal with this is the inner city bypass which is very close to the Brisbane CBD:

 

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Yesterday morning it was raining, not a good sign for the buses in Brisbane as they generally run about ten to fifteen minutes late in wet weather and of course yesterday was no exception.  The other thing you can expect when it rains in Brisbane is not to get a seat on one of the express buses unless you are close to the origin of the bus line.

So when our bus arrived it was full and we prepared ourselves for a long trip into town whilst standing, despite the fact that there were about ten or so people who fall under the student banner and rightfully should have given up their seats (especially on a full fare express bus).

A bit further down the road and the bus has filled up nicely and we approach another stop where a pregnant woman flags us down.  She gets on and then makes her way into the middle of the bus.  I’m already standing so I’ve got no seat to offer her, but several young guys sitting do their absolute best to not make eye contact with her.  No one moves to offer her a seat.

The bus driver is watching this and is furious, she finally says ‘Are you OK to stand love?’ several guys again shift uncomfortably in their seats but no one gets up.  Then a man does actually get up and offer his seat.   

Real men don’t let a pregnant woman stand on the bus when he has a seat.  It should be noted though that no able bodied women offered their seats either and the man who did wasn’t a student.

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OK this is it, the last part of the deconstruction, this is the cool bit, I found Klingons!

On first viewing I thought that was Kirk sitting in the Captain’s chair but it isn’t, that’s Captain Pike and Kirk is standing behind him.  Which I think explains why he isn’t wearing command gold at this stage because Pike is still the Captain.

The hallways look great and fit the whole visual design of the film, it’s nice to see Uhura in the thick of the action.

I’m willing to bet that this is the time ship that Nimoy’s Spock pilots back in time, it has a slight Starfleet feel to it.

Look I don’t know why Uhura is stripping off, the trailer gives the impression that Kirk is watching her.  That’s not very professional.  I love Scotty in this part of the trailer though, they resisted having him say something like ‘they canna take it Captain’.

I’m going to skip ahead quickly now because this section has a lot of scenes from the end fight sequence, a bit of sword fighting and the Enterprise taking off with an explosion behind it.  The cool thing though is that they hinted that Klingons were in the film and the biggest surprise for me is that they are in the trailer!!!

I suspect that Nero is held captive by the Klingons after the events in Nemesis.

Following is a great line from McCoy who is almost as good as Spock in my opinion, some giant red monster on an ice planet facing Kirk and then we get to see Kirk in command gold.

We then witness the end of the Kelvin as it rams into what I guess is the Romulan ship.  We also get to see what I suspect is Nero’s ship going back in time.

The next scene is Kirk (I think) in bed with someone - for some reason people have said that it is Uhura, it’s not.

We also see a scene of what I expect is Kirk’s mother giving birth which I’m surprised would even be in the film (maybe she’s in some other pain?)

I don’t think this is a phaser in Kirk’s hands, it looks more like a Klingon disruptor or maybe then it is a Romulan weapon, if it is the phaser they certainly have redesigned it.

So that’s it, obviously there are other scenes I left out but it was getting ridiculously long as it was

I think if you know some of the basic storyline you can piece together a fair chunk of the film from the trailer, which I am surprised by considering the secrecy before.

I’m just excited I found the Klingons

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If you haven’t read part one you should probably go back and do that first.

So picking up from where we left off, the very next scene shows what I believe to be cadets at Starfleet Academy getting ready to ship off to their first assignments.  There’s been a lot of talk about the red outfits and everyone has said that they are cadet uniforms so I’m willing to go with that.  The reason why I think they are shipping out to their assignments is that one of the shuttles has the very familiar NCC1701 written on the side.

Cut to a quick shot of Kirk and Spock on the bridge, Kirk is wearing the black uniform/undershirt that is frustrating so many people speculating on the plot.  I still can’t get over how perfect Spock looks, perfect casting.

And then we have the money shot, the footage we have all been waiting to see, it’s the Enterprise.

I love the look of the space station behind her too, it has a Regula 1 from Star Trek 2 kind of feel to it and is similar to the look and feel of the stations in the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Side fact for you is that Regula 1 was in fact the space station model from the first film just turned upside down.

Then in a blink or you’ll miss it scene we get to see the new warp effect, and it makes the Enterprise look damn fast!

Now this is where a lot of quick trailer editing can lead us down the garden path a little, first of all we get a shot of the USS Kelvin as it attacks what I can only imagine is the Romulan baddie Nero’s ship, what is the most interesting about this scene is apart from looking amazing it appears that the Starfleet shuttlecraft are dogfighting in the battle.  The shuttles have usually been relegated to transport only which is something that I’ve never really understood, every other show has fighters and it only makes sense to equip the shuttles especially if there has just been a Romulan war.

Then the scene cuts very quickly to a great scene on the Enterprise bridge, giving the sense that it’s the Enterprise in this particular battle which it isn’t.

Of course it must be said that this is the bridge of the Kelvin and that Checkov some how survives the attack, but I doubt it as I believe that the ship is supposed to be in the past with Kirk’s father on board or something like that.  I really hope that they aren’t joysticks in the middle of the console, I don’t think I could go another Riker Sidewinder maneuver.

Now it is this next scene that struck me as really interesting and I only worked it out when I slowed it all down.  Spock is helping his mother Amanda down a gorge whilst his father Sarek and two others I can’t identify follow escaping what looks like a land slide or an earthquake.

Oh cool it’s a red shirt, I wonder who is going to die

Mmmmm is this an explosion in sick bay?  Or just some random scientist guy getting blown up in a lab somewhere?

In Star Trek Generations there was a scene that was cut at the very start of the film that had the retired James T Kirk orbital skydiving, that’s where you skydive from orbit.  It looks like he finally gets to do it in this film.

Check back later tonight and I’ll complete the deconstruction.

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Right, to say that I’m excited about this film is the biggest understatement of them all, this is THE film for 2009 for me and that’s even with Watchmen coming out.  For months and months we’ve gone with no information about the Star Trek, a media black out because they didn’t want the film spoilt, but now you can’t do anything but see cool stuff from Star Trek.

I love the teaser trailer that was released ages ago, it felt like coming home especially when Nimoy’s voice recites Space… the final frontier.  But the second trailer is the pay off, it looks amazing and we get to see quite a bit actually so I thought I might download a HD copy and take a much closer look:

The trailer opens with a red sports car racing along the road and if you were freakishly observant you may have gotten your first hint that this is a certain James T Kirk since the plates are futuristic Iowa plates:

I wouldn’t feel too bad if you didn’t see it as there were about five frames that I could barely make this out in, it’s a nice reference though to Kirk’s established home state.

We then see a hover bike cop chasing the car towards a giant gorge which when I look at it again with more detail looks like the remains of a city, but I’m fairly certain this is just my impression as the walls look like cut stone.

Of course the car comes way too close to the edge and young Kirk has to leap from the car in a scene that reminds me of Mission Impossible 2, obviously we’re establishing some daredevil tendencies:

He barely makes it out of the car in time and we are treated to a view of the gorge (or is it a ravine?) and how deep it is (it may be a canyon… it’s a hole in the ground), it seems to me that it’s been dug out for raw materials maybe?

Young Kirk is lying in the dust after his car falls to the bottom of the gorge and he is approached by a police man/robot who was the one chasing him originally on the hover bike.  I suggest that it may be a robot, but it would seem a little advanced for what we know about the 23rd century so far.  Any conspiracy nuts out there want to discuss the significance of 924?

The child then makes a lot of people cringe and declares himself James Tiberius Kirk (I probably would have just said James T Kirk myself but you know).  We’re then treated to Chris Pine riding another hover bike out to where they are building the Enterprise, for all the purists complaining about the ship being built on Earth, this looks way cooler.  It is also nice that Kirk and the Enterprise come from the same place (we see the same two buildings in the background so I guess it is still in Iowa).

Yes it seems like a Top Gun moment, no I don’t care.  The shot looks awesome I’m sure it serves the storyline by being built down on Earth.  It is very symbolic of them rebuilding the Star Trek franchise back from the ground up.

So enough Kirk, on to Spock and Vulcan which looks like a desert city which is right for the Vulcan we all know and love.

We then hear a voice over describing Spock’s life as half human half vulcan and like Kirk we see a very young Spock, I’m not sure if this is Sarek or someone else.

Yeah this kid looks like the other Vulcans won’t let him play their reindeer games.  

We then cut to see Winona Ryder playing Amanda, Spock’s mother with Sarek, who really looks the part, I have to say that the casting in this film is just awesome.  

Hang on a second?  I think I’ve seen those rocks in the background somewhere else?  Is that a Gorn I see… (apologies to all the non Trek geeks out there).

I can only guess that the next scene is Spock telling the High Council that he’s off to join Starfleet, making these guys the scariest looking guidance councillors I’ve ever seen.

The next shot gives us perhaps our first look at the transporter effect as it will appear in the film, showing Spock materialising on a planet that appears to be crumbling (I’m thinking it is still Vulcan as there is a scene coming up showing Spock with his parents running from falling rocks etc).  I suppose it may simply be some sort of effect from time travel and the time line being messed with.

Ok so that’s it for part one, I was going to do this in one big post but this is getting away from me slightly, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss part two!

So what do you think about this part of the trailer?  Think that’s the transporter?  Doesn’t the ship look cool?

See the whole trailer at the Apple site or at the Star Trek site.

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I was reading somewhere that there are some who are calling Quantum of Solace the best Bond film ever!?  I mean I haven’t seen it yet but the reviews I’m reading aren’t that good and frankly my impression of the whole thing doesn’t move me to expect the best Bond film ever.

I want to see the film too, really badly, we’ll probably head out this weekend to see it (and hopefully the new Star Trek trailer on the big screen too) but first I’ll take the advice I’ve read in a couple of forums and watch Casino Royale again to make sure I’m on the same page.

The thing is though and I’ve made my position pretty clear in the past on movie reviewers, but there is one reviewer who whilst I don’t always agree with I certainly do respect his opinion and he makes some really good points about the Daniel Craig Bond films… 

No Q, no fancy gadgets, No Moneypenny, no new super car, and the biggest disappointment was the villan was just a man.  He didn’t have diamonds in his face, he didn’t walk with a limp or have a slave yeti bodyguard or anything crazy.  He was just a greasy, sniveling little man who was unimpressive and seemed like a lame match against James Bond.  This movie was nothing more than a Borne movie, or some action movie about Spy’s.  It was a just an empty shell of the old bond movies.  Casino Royale was also less like a bond movie, but still had some elements of the old movies, and was good enough to not notice as much.  Quantum Of Solace was not good enough to not notice.

I worry that the makers of Bond have seen the success that the Bourne films have had and are hoping to move Bond into that arena.  Craig is great as Bond, he even looks like the James Bond that graces some of the original paperbacks so I have no problem there.  I’m not asking for a return to the nutty days of killer yo-yos but I’d like a little flavour in my Bond villains.

Another point that needs to be made because often the argument is that they are making these new films closer to the novels is that in the novels there are no sports cars and expensive equipment, MI6 is running on fumes from an oily rag.  The movie franchise moved well away from the books a very long time ago and I have them separate in my mind.

As I say though I’m looking forward to seeing this, it’ll be a fun action film I suspect and probably a strong addition to the Bond franchise, it will have to do a lot to convince me of the Best Bond Film title though.

• If you’ve seen it what did you think?
• If you haven’t are you looking forward to it?
• What Bond film do you think is the best?

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The opening scene of the first episode of Batman - The Brave and the Bold makes me want to get up early on a Saturday morning before everyone else in the house, drag my pillow into the lounge room and whilst still in my pyjamas eat Coco-Pops in front of the TV with the sound right down so as not to wake anyone else and watch episodes of this show.

The ridiculous death trap that Batman and the Green Arrow find themselves in with an equally ridiculously named villain called the Clock King. It is just plain good old fashioned Saturday morning cartoon fun that hopefully foreshadows future episodes of this new animated series featuring Batman teaming up with a bunch of other characters.

“Let’s clean the King’s clock”  

Yes that’s right!  Batman makes a lighthearted quip and with that one line I’m reminded that the Batman can be fun and doesn’t always have to be a tortured miserable SOB (who frankly should get over himself and use his vast fortune and intellect to build a really cool suit of armour that flies and… oh that’s right, wrong comic book series).

The show feels like the 60s live action show but in all the right ways, which I’ll admit sounds awful, but it works and it’s more about comic book adventure rather than mythos and angst and miserable conflict.  What makes this really fun is that it is refreshing, it has the feel of the old serials but with a science-fiction / modern flavour.

I mean how cool is it that Gotham has a Museum of Clocks!?! Just perfect for the Clock King

This first episode also features The Blue Beetle who to be fair I’ve never really been a huge fan of but there is so much energy and fun in this show that it is hard not to enjoy the characters as they fly into space and take on meteors and then find themselves on an alien world.

But despite a fun supporting cast of character it is of course Batman that really holds the show together.  There’s something cool about the way that Batman is portrayed as the ultimate hero, especially as he is idolised by the young man who is the Blue Beetle and even in space Batman is awesome, I mean he doesn’t even flinch when thrust through a wormhole.

“Dude it looks like you rock even on the other side of the galaxy”

I can’t wait until the third episode is available with Aquaman

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I noticed the other day whilst looking through my traffic logs that last month there was a huge spike in people visiting here after looking for the keywords ’superhero day job’. It makes sense that they would find my site, I’ve occasionally spoken about Superheroes, once or twice and ‘day job’ is a given.

Now I’m all for giving the people what they want, well depending on what that is, obviously if you’re looking for a glowing report on where the Indiana Jones franchise has recently gone you’ve knocked on the wrong virtual door. You’re not even on the right virtual planet.

But a look at Superhero day jobs is certainly something I can do, more than happy to in fact.

So you’re not going to want to miss this, I mean we’re talking dry wit, we’re talking sarcasm, a sadly comprehensive knowledge of comic book characters and I may even draw some custom pictures for the posts.

I’ve just started redirecting the feed back into feedburner which I left for a long time but am back to because I want the stats and stuff and I figure now is as good a time as any to go on a subscriber drive.

So as an encouragement I am offering one of my marker drawings of any character of the winner’s choosing.  All you have to do to be in the running to get your very own original marker drawing is to either:

• subscribe to the feed and leave a comment advising you have done so
• or if you already subscribe put a link in one of your own posts suggesting people subscribe to Quit Your Day Job (you should probably let me know via email or comment)
• have someone mention your name in a comment as the person who gave them the heads up to visit and subscribe

On December 12th I will draw the name of the winner out of a hat or some other sort of available receptacle for example if there are few enough entries I may do it from a coffee mug - you probably don’t need to know that…

I will then draw the requested character in a similar style to my existing drawings and send it out before the end of the year.

You are welcome to enter a couple of times, say if you subscribe and then you post about it on your own site that will equal two entries, if you mention it and link to Quit Your Day Job three times - that’s three entries.  If ten people subscribe and leave comments advising that you were the one who suggested they come then that’s… that’s pretty cool and I’ll probably send you a drawing anyway!  At the very least though you’ll have ten entries.

So go forth and spread the word of the little green robot.

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I’m not above checking out a bootleg because I have to wait until Monday for a good copy to be released.  I have no idea how long this will be available and it takes forwever to download but can’t resist posting it here for you (just pause it and wait for it to download). Officially the most anticipated film of 2009 for me:

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I don’t read the newspaper, I know that there is something nice about having something tangible to hold and rustle but I honestly just get my news online from a variety of sources.  So for something I don’t read the newspaper at the coffee shop irritates the hell out of me.  Actually that’s not true, people irritate me.

I know that out there somewhere there is a website or a self-help book that talks about saving money and cost cutting measures you can take to trim the fat from your daily living expenses.  Sure I get all of that and they probably have some awesome ideas that someone who cares about saving your teabag for a second cup absolutely love.  Me, I throw good money away by using one teabag for one cup of tea, but that’s just me and I never said I was good with cash.  Now on this website or in this book I bet it says don’t be a chump and buy the newspaper, go out to a coffee shop and read theirs, for free!!!

Please don’t.  I mean do, if you can do so without acting weird about it, like you think you’re the smartest person in the room because you know not to spend $2 on a newspaper.  Also what’s with smug couples thinking they’re really clever getting the whole newspaper and splitting it between themselves and then ignoring each other?  If I want to ignore Tracey I can do that at home, I can’t imagine why I would want to but there it is.  

I mean why not forget the paper and talk about something?  I’m sure you can think up a topic.  Why not talk over the existence of Bigfoot?  This is something you should know where your life partner stands.  As it happens Tracey the other night told me she doesn’t have an opinion on Bigfoot as she has dedicated little or no time to contemplating it.  Mmmm apparently that just got off topic slightly.

If you do insist on your tiny little victory over the powers that be and you do partake in the free newspaper BUY A COFFEE.  Don’t just wander in, read the paper whilst waiting on your significant other to decide which Bigfoot book to buy and then leave!?!?  It’s not a library!!! 

But forgetting about the lording over the newspaper, the absolute unforgivable sin is stealing the paper.  I mean there are smaller offences such as ripping pages out or taking the junk mail but the ultimate faux par is actually tucking the paper under your arm and stealing it.

There is an unpleasent part of hell reserved for you people.

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