xenolite Reviews

Star Trek: The Next Generation - A XXX Parody (2011 Video)

The adult film comunity has a Strar Trek fan community within it.

[4/10 · 24 September 2023]

I am not an aficionado of the porn parody genre in general, but a correspondent directed me to this.

The headline first: The sex scenes were too long and the expositional STNG parody scenes were too short.

What we have here is the expression of the small Trek fan community *within* the adult film community.

This movie is a sincere fanfilm that attempts to close a few tiny hanging threads for a few characters in STNG. Just a small amount of closure. The people who made it are total Trek geeks and the script (such as it is) is full of Easter Eggs for fans. They are also well regarded adult performers. It is really interesting watching them call upon the best acting ability of these actors who are rarely called upon to do great acting. Some of them really did their very best to rise to the challenge.

This film was made with love.

Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion (1966)

Really worth watching!

[9/10 · 7 January 2022]

Having now watched all 7 episodes, I have to say I am quite impressed! I guess that it must be compared to its contemporary, Star Trek, the original series. It was made far more cheaply and it shows.

TOS had similar constraints, but the quality of the background paintings and costumes was better. Of course STTOS was shot in color and Raumpatrouille really should have been. Maybe someday a colorized version of the episodes will be released. I don't think the series has a region 1 DVD release as of yet, but more people in America need to see it. It's original air dates make TOS being a major influence unlikely, but like TOS, I think the creators were looking closely at Forbidden Planet.

This show showed *much* more equality of women than STTOS. At least one was a general in command of a starship. On the other hand, there was not a black or brown face to be seen. They never give a year for when the action is taking place, but it is a time in the future when nations no longer exist. The names of the crew members of Orion indicate they are at least from all over Europe. The assigned security officer, Tamara Jagellovsk, seems to be Russian. The Captain, Cliff McLane, is possibly supposed to be American. The Female general is apparently Dutch, but nobody is African, Chinese, Indian, Arab or any other non white, non-European type. I guess all of them are minding the store on Earth. So they have different blind spots from those of Gene Roddenberry.

The series ended after a mere seven episode at least partially because it couldn't sell to international markets like the USA and Japan because it was in black and white, but it did spawn a few dozen spin off novels that have never been translated into English.

I would urge *anyone* who has even a passing interest in SF TV to catch up with this series.

The Band (2009)

Weird and dated.

[2/10 · 4 August 2020]

This movie is kind of appalling. First of all, it feels like it is more about the 1970s than the 21st century. The music business is way more business like than is depicted in this film. The fact is, this movie shows utter contempt for rock music and the people who make it. Nobody here is a disciplined artist or even seems to care a whole lot about what they do. The songs they have are simplistic with stupid lyrics. This film was *not* made by someone who loves rock 'n' roll or knows much about it or even listens to it.

A thoroughly unimpressive waste of time to watch. My God, even the sex scenes can't hold my attention. They devoted a lot of the film to depictions of sex and those scenes are just poorly conceived and filmed. Basically, the film makers failed on every single point.

Princess of Mars (2009 Video)

Just kill me

[1/10 · 6 January 2010]

I can't tell you how badly I wanted to like this movie. Wait...let me start again. I can't tell you how badly I wanted this to be a movie I liked. It's like they didn't even try.

The character of John Carter is all but unrecognizable. The character of Dejah Thoris is like some Mad TV parody only not funny and who is that old lady they got to play her? Are you kidding me?

A lot of people have compared this to other movies, particularly Avatar. It's a bad comparison. Better to compare it to the original offerings from the Syfi network then at least we would know what league we were playing in. This could still have been salvaged had it at least not been boring, but it was.

I will not call it the worst movie ever as so many others have, but I will say that even within the obviously limited budget the creators of this film had to work with, they could have done far better.