In a new featurette, director J.J. Abrams talks about the upcoming movie Star Trek Into Darkness. According to Abrams, “the action, the scale of the movie is lightyears beyond what we did in the first movie”. The new footage shows indeed a lot of action (and plenty of his trademark lens flares).

Since Abrams has just been hired to direct the new Star Wars movie, it is going to be very interesting to see if he will choose a different approach for that galaxy far, far away or not. Part of the disappointment over the prequels was fueled by the over-emphasis on action sequences to the detriment of the mythological aspects of the story. Elaborate racing and fighting sequences couldn’t make up for the lack of character development and story depth.

Will Abrams bring back the classic Star Wars we know and love from episodes IV-VI? Or will he do something radically different with the franchise, just like he made a radical new start with Star Trek?

I can’t wait to discover it in 2015!

Fr. Roderick

PS: I am just as much a Trekkie as I am a Star Wars fan, and personally, I am super excited about the high-quality movies we can look forward to for both franchises. About time after the less than stellar movies that preceded them!

I never thought I would see this: pope John Paul II seemingly practicing with a baseball bat! It isn’t the real pope however, but a look-alike. The video was a clever publicity stunt for a sports company. Everybody knows that the real pope John Paul II was mostly into hiking and skiing.