Gorgeous New Star Trek short film and Other News Around the Net!

Here’s our first (brief) teaser for Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion)’s upcoming Alien show, Alien: Earth.  I really want this to be good!!

Here’s the first trailer for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning:

It’s funny to me that they’ve dropped the “Part Two” from the title.  Will that really make a difference to people?  That’s a solid trailer, and I’m looking forward to this movie, though it’s also sort of funny to me that there’s not much to differentiate this trailer from the trailer for Dead Reckoning Part One!  I guess that makes sense, because this is the second half of that story.  I hope they can stick the landing.

A new Wallace & Gromit movie is coming!!  And it’s a sequel to “The Wrong Trousers”!!  I can’t wait for this:

Oh boy I am excited for that.  I love Wallace & Gromit.

Here’s a very cool-looking new trailer for Captain America: Brave New World:

I really hope the movie is good!  (Bravo to the trailer folks who cut that very slick-looking trailer.)

Here also is a new look at Thunderbolts*:

I hope that movie is also good!  I really want it to be!!  If done well, this mix-up of different side-characters could be a blast.

This is a fun teaser for a variety of shows coming to Disney+ in 2025:

Here’s a trailer for season three of What If…?

I’ve enjoyed the first two seasons of What If…?, though the show never quite got as wild and inventive as I’d hoped it would.  Still, I’m looking forward to this final season, and wow does it make me happy to see Storm in there!  I love seeing X-Men characters finally start to make their way into the MCU!  The incredible X-Men ’97 show really has me excited.

I’ve always enjoyed Devin Faraci’s writings about movies and TV shows; I support his patreon: Cinema Sangha.  Click here to read a terrific recent piece about Better Call Saul, and how the best stories are journeys.  It’s a terrific read.

I’m intrigued by the ways in which the upcoming Disney+ Daredevil show seems to be embracing the three original Netflix seasons.  It’s fun to see these photos of Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, and Karen Page reunited!

Click here for an interesting Rolling Stone interview with Martin Starr.  I of course first encountered Mr. Starr as a kid, played Bill Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks, and I’m always happy when he pops up in a new project.

I was sorry to read of the passing of Jim Abrams, part of the famous ZAZ team (including Jerry & David Zucker) who masterminded Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and so many other brilliant comedy classics.

I was also sorry to read of the passing of Tony Todd.  He’s probably best known for starring in Candyman, but of course to me he will always be Worf’s brother Kurn, from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  He also was wonderful as the older version of Jake Sisko in the classic DS9 episode “The Visitor” (arguably one of the best Star Trek episodes ever made).

Looks like Guy Ritchie has lined up a strong cast for his next film: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike, and Anthony Hopkins.  Cool!  I’m always interested in Guy Ritchie’s projects.

Click here for a cool look into the Beatles ’64 doc that was just released on Disney+!  I can’t wait to watch this.

Click here for an interview with Mike Schur and Ted Danson about their new show A Man on the Inside.  I am excited to watch this show!  Mike Schur can do no wrong in my eyes, and their previous collaboration — The Good Place — was a stone cold classic.

Daniel Craig and director Luca Guadagnino — who recently collaborated on the film Queer — are considering teaming up again to make a Sgt. Rock film for DC/Warner Brothers Discovery?  Wow, that is surprising news!  I don’t care much about the Sgt. Rock character, but I am intrigued by these plans!

Pamela Hayden, who has voiced Millhouse on The Simpsons (along with other characters like Jimbo, Rod Flanders, and more) for 35 years, has announced her retirement from the show.  They apparently plan to recast the character with a new voice actor.  I wonder if we’ll start seeing more of this as the Simpsons show keeps chugging along through the years…?

I haven’t yet watched the Wolfs movie on Apple TV+, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but I’m hoping to get to it soon.  It looks like fun.  It’s interesting to read about the split between the Apple TV+ folks and director Jon Watts (who directed all three MCU Spider-Man movies), who is evidently P.O.ed that the film didn’t get a theatrical release.

Let’s wrap up with this incredible new short from the folks at The Roddenberry Archive.  It’s called “Unification”, and it’s a beautiful, near-silent short film that appears to reunite William Shatner’s Captain Kirk with Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, beyond death:

That is just extraordinary.  It’s actually a follow-up to a short they released last year called “Regeneration,” which picks up after the end of the movie Star Trek: Generations.  It’s a beautiful epilogue that I really wish we’d gotten to see in the actual film, in which we see Starfleet recovering the crashed Enterprise-D saucer, and Spock visiting Kirk’s grave after Picard buried him on Veridian III.  Take a look:

Both shorts are gorgeous and emotional.  I love the way they weave together imagery from across the Star Trek franchise.  (The new short, “Unification,” includes glimpses of two characters from the second pilot for the original Star Trek, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” from 1966: Gary Lockwood’s Gary Mitchell — Kirk’s friend who achieves godlike powers and goes mad — and also Yeoman J.M. Colt, played by Laurel Goodman.  All of these recent Roddenberry Archive shorts have included the number 765847 in their titles; this apparently was Yeoman Colt’s Starfleet serial number.  I’m not sure what the connection is, but I’m intrigued!)

William Shatner was involved in this latest short; and Kirk was played by Sam Witwer (who voiced Darth Maul on the animated Star Wars Clone Wars and Rebels shows).  The CGI facial replacement used to create Captain Kirk at various different eras of his life (from the Original Series, to Star Trek II, to Generations) is extraordinary.  (As is the way the same technology was used to recreate Spock!)

But while the shorts are gorgeous looking, it’s the unexpected wallop of emotion packed into their short run-times that is why I love them.  Seeing these beloved characters reunited was very moving to me.  (Far more moving than Kirk’s actual on-screen death was in Generations.)  Had these shorts just been about Kirk and Spock, dayenu.  But that they also brought back Robin Curtis to reprise her role as Saavik — and to lean into the long-held fan rumor that the reason Saavik stayed behind on Vulcan at the start of Star Trek IV was because she was pregnant with Spock’s child — the two did get it on when Spock went through Pon Farr in Star Trek III — filled me with joy.  I’ve always liked Ms. Curtis’ work as Saavik, and I was sad she was shoved out of the franchise after her brief cameo at the start of Star Trek IV.  It’s wonderful to see her brought back into the fold, and I was very moved by the suggestion that Saavik and Spock had a life together that we just never got to see on-screen.  Absolutely wonderful.  It made the heart of this old Star Trek fan sing.

Click here to watch several fascinating behind-the-scenes videos about the making of this latest short film, including interviews with William Shatner and Robin Curtis.

That’s all from me for today.  I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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