This summer marks the 25th anniversary of my all-time favorite movie summer, and today is the 25th anniversary of the release of my all-time favorite summer film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Here’s the trailer, in case you’re unfamiliar:

I was 13 years old at the time, so yes, this was also the incredible summer of the likes of Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, Tron, Conan the Barbarian, The Thing, E.T., Rocky III and Poltergeist (and Porky’s, which came out in March), as well as the peak of my arcade video game addiction (mostly Galaga, Donkey Kong, and Crazy Climber). But TWOK trumped them all.

It’s very difficult to condense what this film means to me in a short blog post. Suffice it to say that the film worked then so well because I was 13 and faced with all the usual early teen life-altering realizations and decisions, which included whether or not I was “outgrowing” my interest in SF, and in Star Trek in particular. We all go through this in one form or another at this point in our lives. If it’s not SF, it’s comics, or stuffed animals, or Barbies, or whatever, all anchoring us to a childhood that other bits of culture (sex, cars, music, drinking, drugs – in actuality or (more likely) in any combination of allusions and representations) are pulling as away from.

TWOK reinscribed Trek (and SF, and fandom in general) back into anxious existence through its wit, panache, thrills, and (yes) heart. Mock all you want, but damn it, Spock’s “death” scene is (still) genuinely moving, as is Nimoy’s voiceover of the familar “Space…the final frontier” delivered a few minutes later. Along the way: some joyous scenery chewing, copious blood and gore (at least for Star Trek), a few bravura effects sequences, and James Horner’s unabashedly bombastic score. I love this film.

I should also point out that the first time I saw this film, way back in a three-plex over by NAU in Flagstaff, Arizona (that’s now, alas, an office suite), was the most engaging moviegoing experience I’ve ever had. A packed house, very into Trek, experiencing it all anew, laughing, gasping, and cheering, and bursting into sustained applause as the closing credits rolled. I went back to Trek opening nights for years thereafter, and I keep hoping that experience happens again in newer films, but nothing has ever come close to that night.

Let me also mention the second-most important film of my all-time movie summer, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

If TWOK reaffirmed one kind of identity, Fast Times introduced to me, mere weeks before I started high school, a particular vision of 1980s teenage life as sexy, scary, irresponsible, depressing, and intoxicating. A world of trying on identities, of figuring out girls as sexual and emotional and intellectual, and navigating your own and your male friends’ changing masculinities. I didn’t live in Southern California, but I could still recognize the film’s situations and archetypes in my own experiences. That is, that big question, “Who are you?”, at this age, and not quite realizing, until much later, that that “you” is fleeting.

I’m missing out on much of the “big” movie summer of ought-seven due to other responsibilities, but I hope the children of 1994 get as much out of this one as I did back in ‘82.

This panel was interesting in how roughly the same idea (online video sharing) was approached very differently by the three presenters, indicating to me how important various practices and sites are, and how very little we’ve come to terms with what’s going on (relatively speaking)

Robert Gehl gave the only paper that was explicitly about YouTube, using the metaphor of the archive to ponder how YT functions as such. Its curation is (with few exceptions) done by its users; i.e., they’re the ones who tag, vote, and otherwise categorize its entries, collectively building (say) its front page. Its display is quite different than a traditional archive, in that its contents can be posted virtually anywhere (with a handy drop-in link). This has demarcated its uses by bloggers (who further categorize its contents through their selection and description on their own sites) and traditional media (like al-Jazeera, the BBC, and CBS), who utilize the site and its abilities as paid promotional vehicles. Through all of this, the actual labor of the YT uploader and tagger is unpaid, of course. Indeed, given CBS CEO Les Moonves’ comments in this month’s Wired, this looks to be a big strategy for TPTB. That is, it’s promotion if they like it; it’s copyright violation if they don’t. Either way, they won’t pay for it, and are extracting (or punishing) your labor. Lots of this going on in our ever-evolving convergent media circus.

Next up, Jonathan Gray, in a preview (ha!) of his upcoming book, discussed movie trailers as key paratexts in the production of textual meaning (link to full paper (PDF)). Using the examples of two radically different trailers for the 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter (one for the Canadian market, the other for the US market), he analyzed how Canadians were presented with a more open-ended paratext than Americans, with different textual markers (for, among other things, filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s authorship). It’s amazing that trailers have scarcely been acknowledged in the many decades of Film Studies, but perhaps it took the blurring of text and promotion in the current era to prompt this analysis. Regardless, In A World of convergent media…I look forward to Jonathan’s book. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

The always-energetic Joshua Green completed the panel with the big question: is it still “TV” if it’s online? He admitted right off that he didn’t have an answer for that, and indeed that it was impossible to place all of the various online video practices in discrete categories. He identified some big meta-issues about what “television” means any more, and showed how CBS’ Innertube, the Democracy Player, and good ol’ BitTorrent trackers all “dis-embed” and “re-embed” TV content in different ways, but none of them is “television” as a cultural technology. Cracking stuff, with a bit of John Hartley and Raymond Williams about it. He chimed in with some great comments along those lines at the Lost panel on Sunday as well.
Next up in the MIT5 retrospective: Fans and Producers (whereupon I present, and moderate, and some stuff kind of hit the fan).

A few bits and bobs from blogovia to tide you over till the next installment of my serial narrative oeuvre.

Alan McKee loves TV. A lot.

Kristin Thompson takes down Neal Gabler’s recent (and misinformed) lament about the “decline” of movie culture. See also chutry’s take on this issue.

Vinyl is back! Well, sorta. My old buddy Tim Anderson talks wisely about music formats, convenience, and something once called “leisure time.” (Ah, leisure. It feels good just to say it. Leeee-zzzhhurr.) Believe me, he knows of what he speaks. And I knows he has a hell of a lot of records (buy me a beer and I’ll tell you about Tim’s Big Move of ‘98).

Mike Newman digs Scribd, the new document sharing site, and I have to say I do too. There’s something almost retro about it, like the wild-and-wooly text-only web of the early 90s mashed-up with Web 2.0 stuff.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s 2007 State of the News Media report/tome is out, and while I haven’t yet dived in, there’s sure to be loads of intriguing data and scathing assessments.

Will Wright rocks SXSW (via wonderlandblog).

Just thought I’d pass this on. SMU’s Student Film Association is doing a road trip this weekend down I-45 to the cool drive-in in Ennis. Guess what they’re going to see. That’s right…

Snakes On A Plane…In a Car.

Has it really been ten days? Wow, that’s what the start of the semester will do to your schedule. A few quick takes for today, starting with some kind of late-in-the-day thoughts about Snakes on a Plane.

I’ll spare you the whole recap of my viewing experience on Friday night (you can check it out on this thread over at Henry Jenkins’ blog), but the short of it is that I was pleased. Not all that impressed, but certainly pleased. It was refreshing to see a summer action film that pretty much hit on its expectations, when so, so many others find it difficult to deliver, or show a bit muc of the strain (e.g., Superman Returns, which I otherwise enjoyed). In this case, as they say, it’s not rocket science: snakes, plane, action ensues. I wish I’d brought a rubber snake or three along for kicks, but there’s always midnight showings down the line (and if there’s any justice in the world, there will be midnight showings down the line).

That said, the impact of the film on the way media events are marketed is a matter of greater interest. As Henry writes in today’s excellent post, while it’s not going to be the fan-generated mega-blockbuster some predicted, it’s still very early in its life cycle as a media text. Those who write off online fan buzz based solely on this weekend’s box office just aren’t seeing the big picture.