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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
1982 | Action, Sci-Fi
Wowee! From the ridiculous to the sublime. This is how to make a Star Trek movie! If you were trying to bring back the action and fun of the original TV series, then what better than to bring back one of the original villains in a sequel to that story? And being able to cast the original actor (Ricardo Montalban) is just perfect.

Nicholas Meyer also clearly had the same frustrations about that first movie. The film barely pauses for breath. Interestingly, it clearly reuses footage from the original movie in travelling to the Enterprise in space dock, but cuts that 6 minute special-effects-porn-fest to about 20 seconds! It’s a striking comparison!

The movie “introduces” Kirstie (“Cheers”) Alley as Vulcan officer Saavik (although she was in a student-made feature the year before). She makes quite an impression. Also new to the series is Merritt Buttrick, playing Kirk’s son David. Sadly, like Khambatta from the last film, his Trek-voyage was to be short lived. Although he appeared in Star Trek III, he died of Aids just three years later.

The movie is also notable for launching the late James Horner onto the world stage as a leading film composer. Horner cleverly associates the “ship” in starship with a roistering seafaring motif that would be equally at home in a Hornblower movie as it is here. I remember leaving the cinema when this was released and heading STRAIGHT into HMV to buy the vinyl soundtrack!

There are very few things I can find to critique in this movie. It all holds up pretty well, even after nearly 40 years (MAN, I FEEL OLD NOW!) The only scene that perhaps grates with modern sensitivities is in the (supposedly comic) “lady driver” reactions from Kirk.
  
IY
If You Could See the Sun
Ann Liang | 2022 | Young Adult (YA)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Alice Sun strives to be the very best of her class at her elite Beigin international boarding school, where she is the only student with a (partial) scholarship. She’s around China’s most rich and influential teens and she needs to do everything she can to get a leg up. But one day, she starts to turn invisible, as in, no one can actually see her type of invisible.

When she realizes she can use her new power in exchange for money she desperately needs, especially since her parents have dropped the bomb shell that they can no longer afford her school tuition after this semester, Alice will discover all the secrets her classmates have.

But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual illegal crimes, Alice must decide what it's all worth.

This was a very quick and engrossing read for me and I was very interested in how it would all play out. I also enjoyed how the power Alice has of invisibility is never quite mastered and she doesn’t know when she will have the ability.

This is the second book I’ve read recently where the main character absolutely hates their rival and they then become friends with said rival and the rival is utterly confused by the actual hatred and then they fall in love. I couldn’t love it more! Ann Liang does the rivalry so perfectly that within the first few pages I was cheering for Alice to open her eyes and for them to kiss.

Overall, I stayed for the love trope between Alice and Henry, but also to see how Alice would handle the big situation she got herself in. Will be recommending this to quite a few people whom I know will enjoy it.

*Thank you Inkyard Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review