Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Star Wars Advent 2018 Day 12 and a cunning little fighter

Day 12 ! Halfway through the boxes. What do we have today ?
A Jedi starfighter today from the prequel movies. A small, functional, pretty little fighter.

And books of movies / movies of books today. By the way there is no 4D cameo today. He took one glance at one of the books there and stomped off on disgust.

One of those books is older than I am ! I wonder if it was before decimalisation. Perhaps not.

On the right we have The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean. This one led to an all time classic World War 2 movie where the Germans had a stronghold in the Mediterranean Sea. Embedded in the mountain side, dominating the area, they had massive gun emplacements that meant the area was a no go zone for all Allied shipping. The stronghold was impregnable by land, unassailable by air and any ships that attempted to get near would be blown to bits by the gun emplacements.

Cue our heroes being sent in to infiltrate the island, penetrate the stronghold and blow up the guns. In the middle, we have intrigue amongst a varied cast of characters.

This is one of the all time classic war movies and I'd heartily recommend it.

One thing about the book and film though, I haven't read the book for a while but I remember it diverging from the movie in significant ways. And then the book that follows, Force 10 From Navarone, follows the story of the movie instead of the book.

Oh - I left the price on the book .... I acquired this one as a second hand book for 50p. That was actually more than the cost on the back ! Of all the items that have massively inflated in price, books are among the most significant. This book has a tag of 40p on the back. It was printed in April 1974 (written in something like 1957). I can't believe that it costs that much more to print a book now. Yet this book would cost £8 now. (Or £4 on Kindle). That's a 20x increase !

Crikey.

Next up, we see Firefox by Craig Thomas.

The movie was a Clint Eastwood star vehicle and the start of the book sums up the plot pretty well. It unfolds as a series of intelligence memos reporting that Russia have developed a new fighter of unprecedented speed and deadly weaponry. But what really sets it apart is that it is invisible to radar.

The book and the movie follow each other quite well here and they remind you of what things were like in Eastern Europe near the end of the 20th century before the walls came down.

I'd heartily recommend this book as well. And I'd point you to its successor as well. This one was followed by Firefox Down which I enjoyed as well. But I'm not going to say anything about that because .... spoilers.

That brings me to ... Star Trek Nemesis.

This film killed Star Trek. Or at least it did until the reboot movies started up. Star Trek Enterprise was still going ... but didn't last long after Nemesis despite improving considerably in its final season.

This is a Star Trek movie with very few redeeming features. It's very grim, dark, non Star Trek. It was very brave of them to go in this direction, perhaps beyond brave and into foolish.

The book is better than the film, it explains what's going on better and there is a minimum of humour included.

But it's a disastrous story from start to finish.

It's like - with most franchises, especially Star Trek, I'd recommend you watch all of it, even if just to experience it. But not Nemesis. Avoid this one like the plague.

(PS All that said, this book was another present from a friend which I enjoyed and definitely appreciated it when it was received .... and then the movie happened)

More tomorrow !

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