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Happy Leap Year! It's Academy Awards night, which means that me and my girlfriends will spend the evening in front of the television, laughing as celebrity interviewers fawn over, attempt to explain or scoff at the clothing, jewelry and attitudes of movie stars. There are few more revolting displays of Hollywood superficiality than the Oscar pre-show, which makes it great fun to sit and watch.

All the experts seem quite certain that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is going to waltz off with Best Picture, which is fine with me because as far as I'm concerned, The Fellowship of the Ring should have won two years ago. People very rarely win Oscars for the movie in which they deserved to win. The supporting actor awards tend to be used either as best newcomer or lifetime achievement awards, the main actor awards tend to be lifetime achievement awards or rewards for carrying films that earned a lot of money or attention for a lot of other people (writers, directors, studios), and I can't remember the last time I thought the best director had actually directed the best movie I saw that year.

Tonight I will be watching with a good friend whom I met in Trek fandom nearly ten years ago, sharing a common love of Kathryn Janeway. She's a captain in the U.S. army and has spent the past two years first in Guantanamo Bay, then in Kuwait and Iraq, so I haven't seen her in a very long time. I suppose we'll be rooting for ROTK to get its due, but if Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World wins every technical award for which it's nominated, I will be very happy.

I truly don't care which Peter wins for Best Director; Weir is long overdue, and wonderful as I thought LOTR was, I'm just not as sure that Jackson will ever repeat that level of work, as indeed I've thought each of the three movies in the trilogy was slightly inferior to the one before it. Much of this has to do with my bias for subtlety and character work rather than special effects teams that can make me believe five thousand Orcs are swarming through the Black Gates, which I realize is a personal preference and that genre movies are rarely given their due. But if The Matrix wasn't rewarded at the directorial level for the way it transformed Hollywood's approach to special effects, I don't know what will be. So since Clint already has an Oscar and I won't root for Sofia over people who've proven themselves repeatedly no matter how good her movie is, I'll cheer for Jackson if he wins and secretly wish for Weir.

Trek BBS Today

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

-Will we ever see the likes of the original Star Trek again?

-Wouldn't Tomalok have made a great nemesis for Picard?

-Which reviewers' opinions are worth reading?

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

These were some of the major news items from the beginning of March 2002:

• 'Nemesis' To Battle 'Rings' At The Box Office?
  During a crowded movie season that would bring the releases of 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind', 'James Bond 20' and the Hannibal Lecter film 'Red Dragon', 'Star Trek: Nemesis' was expected to face strong competition from 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'.

• 'Bridge Commander' Warps Into Stores
  Activision debuted its first-person strategy game 'Star Trek: Bridge Commander' to rave reviews, putting players in command of a Galaxy-class starship, with well-known Star Trek aliens such as the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians appearing in the storyline.

• Shatner & Shatner On Working Together
  William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and his daughter Lisabeth chatted about working together on WilliamShatner.com and how they inspire one another.

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

How long have you been reading TrekToday? Three years 29.2% - (268 Votes) Two years 25.4% - (233 Votes) Four years 17.1% - (157 Votes) A year 12.2% - (112 Votes) Less than a year 8.3% - (76 Votes) Since the very beginning 7.5% - (69 Votes) Total Votes: 915

Please vote in our new poll on when you think UPN should air Enterprise.

Today's Television Listings

Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, UPN will show Enterprise's "Azati Prime". Here's the official synopsis of the episode:

Upon discovering the Xindi weapon underwater on an ocean planet, Archer decides to go on a suicide mission to destroy it.

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