They even used one of the Forbidden Planet backdrops in TOS!

And, in fact, they get a show out of the investment, so the first premise isn't even correct. I've been perfectly happy to toss a few pennies in the hat of amateur entertainers, online or on a pavement, and never felt ripped off, even though I "only" got some open-air music or juggling or a bit of steampunk drama for…

This is back to par for the course, for Paramount. They used to go around slapping down fansites and Trek actor shrines in the early years of the internet, before they realized they could get free GOOD publicity instead of alienating their fanbase that way.

That in fact sounds exactly like my theatrical-run experiences back in the "good old days" of yore, when pocket calculators were just starting to be sold in stores and video games were clearly never going to replace pinball machines because, well, just LOOK at this Pong thing! Scratches, jumps, frames flipping wildly,…

Sigh. Too far. But still, it is good to know that there is a brick-and-mortar store somewhere still selling old Gundam Wing model kits. It's a little slice of the Mysterious Eighties existing, like a time bubble, in the uber-efficient and glossy Twenty-Teens!

Or a large, heavy, ugly-but-indestructible coffee table!

Worse yet, a lot of critics, even the National Post reviewer, feel that the main villain is a cliched gay stereotype…

There are ways to recraft old standards in ways that bring new insights or a fresh sense of wonder to the cliches — including the ancient Greek poems themselves, which were literary reworkings of oral folklore and bits and bobs from all around the Mediterranean.

I especially love their discussion of a possible sequel — "sequelitis" was already a thing, to the point where unauthorized sequels were frequent in that pre-copyright enforcement era, as well as "filed-off" remakes and sequels-in-all-but-name, since audiences have always been calling for more of the same (only, you…

That is something that Daniel Radcliffe also says in an interview is true of Max Landis — that every character in Victor Frankenstein sounded the same, in what he assumed was a version of Max Landis' own voice, before they got someone in to do rewrites…

WHERE IS THIS BARNES & NOBLE?!

Ours got rid of their movies and music and replaced them with Lego.

Also everyone praises the production values, even the reviewers that lambaste everything else. So that probably brings it up a notch.

WHO DOESN'T LIKE LUCY LIU!?!

AU was only original in the same way that FSOG was original.

Also, how is "Bourne Identity meets Pineapple Express meets Adventureland" anything BUT derivative?!

The way to convince people that you aren't just getting jobs because your father is a famous director is NOT to create highly, and obviously, derivative mashups of other more popular works, and then whinge and stomp your feet when they aren't received with loving adulation by critics and public alike!

Which was hardly original — "teens touch glowing alien goo, get powers, can't handle them, one goes to the dark side & must be destroyed by the other" is a mashup of pretty much every superhero origin story ever; I swear I had like a dozen versions of this in my Collected X-Men hardcovers before I moved.

…Polly eased her way along the line until she was walking alongside Igor. He nodded to her in the gloom, and then turned his attention to walking. He needed to, because his pack was twice the size of the rest of them. No one felt inclined to ask him what was in it; sometimes, you thought you could hear liquid sloshing.

Oh, burn!