Hello World!

I spent Wednesday evening watching the Gladiator special edition with the commentary track on. It was a dilemma whether to watch the extended film once through without the commentary distracting me, but I knew that I would only have once chance to watch for at least a week, so I opted for listening to Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott talking over the new scenes. There's an overwhelming amount of material to assimilate all at once because the film itself is so gripping, and with my finicky DVD player it was impossible to turn the subtitles off with the commentary on so I was aware of every spoken word in the film even while I was listening to the director and star talk about it.

There is information both fascinating and utterly trivial yet entertaining - some really nice stuff on Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Harris, Connie Nielsen and Djimon Hounsou ("Djimon like Simon" as Crowe says, which is hepful to know) as well as some not-so-nice stuff on Oliver Reed which surprised me from a speak-no-evil-of-the-dead standpoint, especially since his heart attack during filming forced rewrites and changes to the planned ending of the movie that I think improved it greatly. I wondered how well I would find that the film had held up after the plethora of ancient epics that have come out in its wake, but even distracted by commentary, it's still obviously so far above them that comparisons are ridiculous. I was sort of embarrassed for Scott whenever Kingdom of Heaven came up in the commentary.

I missed Empire when it aired this summer, and I am looking forward to HBO's Rome which debuts at the end of the month. Though perversely enough, Gladiator gave me an urge to watch the Rome episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, which makes no pretenses to historical accuracy or literary merit!

Trek BBS Today

Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:

-Indulge your Trip Tucker love!

-Did you love or hate Janeway falling in love with a hologram?

-Does it bother you if Karl Marx is in the Great Thinkers section at Barnes & Noble?

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

These were some of the major news items from August 2003:

• 'Beauty And The Beast' Story Coming For Hoshi
  Linda Park (Sato) revealed that Hoshi Sato would have an unusual relationship with an alien in a third-season Enterprise episode, calling it a "Beauty and the Beast [story] with me and a guest alien."

• Shatner SPPLATs For Charity
  William Shatner (Captain Kirk) said that he planned to attend SPPLAT Attack II, a paintball event, to benefit the Hollywood Charity Horse Show, explaining that seeing a woman teaching disabled children to ride was inspirational to him. "I was moved to tears watching these children struggle with their handicap," he said.

• 'Buffy' Slays 'Enterprise's' Hugo Hopes
  Star Trek went home empty handed from the 2003 Hugo Awards, with Buffy The Vampire Slayer's "Conversations With Dead People" claiming Best Dramatic Presentation over Enterprise's two nominees, "Carbon Creek" and "A Night In Sickbay."

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

What's the most you'd ever pay to see a Star Trek actor at a convention? There's no Star Trek guest I want to see badly enough to pay this kind of money! 53.5% - (581 Votes) $50 22% - (239 Votes) I'd pay $500 for travel, tickets and the rest for the right guest star 7.8% - (85 Votes) $150, especially if there were perks like personalized autographs 6.9% - (75 Votes) $100 5.3% - (58 Votes) More than $200, especially if there was a meet-and-greet 4.3% - (47 Votes) Total Votes: 1085

Please vote in our new poll on alien ears!

Happy Birthday!

Sunday, August 28th is the birthday of Gates McFadden, who plays Beverley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!