I’ve written a bit about the whole idea of streamlining my life and removing a lot of the hubris that I just don’t need at this point in my life. So far I’ve focused very much on books, DVDs and games but of course this philosophy extends itself further into other aspects such as clothing and stationery and a bunch of other stuff including collectibles.
Which is fine, I don’t need a lot of the collectibles I already have though I love them all dearly and they do come in handy for reference material when illustrating but part of the overall streamlining strategy is not adding more!! So I’ve found myself resisting several very cool pieces of movie memorabilia lately and not worrying too much about it.
But I’m not made of stone.
These three items would be so cool to have, no doubts about that and honestly I think whilst the title of the post says “won’t” it’s probably more a case of can’t. Money of course plays a huge role but I think the cost of these things reminds me of their actual worth. If I can’t afford them or they take money away from important things then they are essentially useless to me. (or something like that anyway…)
1. Captain Kirk’s Chair
When I was a young man watching Star Trek I always dreamt that one day I would have a lounge room that was an exact replica of the bridge of the USS Enterprise (NCC1701). That and a replica shuttle craft in the back yard. Now the shuttle craft is a little harder to come by, not impossible but pretty hard. The bridge on the other hand or at least the centre seat is a retail possibility.
Now there are a couple of issues to address.
Obviously the price is a talking point when having a chat with the wife about the practicality of purchasing this piece of furniture for our lounge room. At US$2199.99 you might want to offer to do the washing up… forever. But if you are thinking of starting negotiations this following couch puts it into perspective:
Another issue to address is that unlike the chair above it only seats the one person, presumably yourself and it’s no fun playing Mario Kart on your own so practicality raises its ugly head again.
2. Serenity – The Big Damn Replica
Okay as far as toys go this is pretty bloody impressive. This is a studio scale replica of the Firefly spaceship Serenity, measuring just under 60 cm in length and featuring hand painted details it’s literally the best model available for Serenity fans. One little hitch though.
US $2699.99
Yup, still not as expensive as that couch but that’s a pretty chunk of change which would buy many many packets of cheetos.
It’s pretty to look at though.
3. Appa plush figurine
I came to the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series (there is no movie, there is no movie) quite late, at least a couple years after it originally aired and so unfortunately I missed the craze and the merchandising that went with it. So Appa (the flying bison who I love so very much) plush figurines are only really available on ebay now and they go for a huge figure, not Serenity huge but expensive enough that it makes me think twice, which is probably a good thing because as much as I would love an Appa doll I really don’t need one…
Okay I’ve nearly convinced myself. I have a bunch of plush toys from Aliens and Farscape already and some of them I could probably part with easily but my lifesize Rygel is another story.
So are there any collectibles out there that you guys would dearly love to get but probably can’t (or won’t)?
I suspect that going into the film Salt it is probably a disadvantage watching the above trailer and forming the expectation that this might be like a Bourne film.
It’s not.
Salt stars Angelina Jolie and is about a CIA agent who goes on the run after a Russian defector names her as a Russian sleeper agent who is going to kill the Russian President on US soil.
That trailer and the general description make Salt sound like a pretty cool movie but to be honest in the actual execution it’s a severely lacking film. First off the whole idea of Russians infiltrating America to assassinate presidents and take over nuclear bombs feels like it’s an idea that went out with the cold war. I found it really clichéd, like a poor man’s Bond villain routine. The plot loses its credibility as we dive head first into the “plunging the world into war” for Mother Russia and to wipe out the evil American capitalist swine storyline!
A huge problem is that we don’t have anyone to identify as the main villain of the piece, there’s no mastermind behind it all, well there is but he certainly doesn’t rate much of a mention, I might have felt different had he been stroking a white cat and actually had any real impact.
I will admit that there are at least one or two twists that are impressive enough that they elevate themselves above the mucky muck story but they’re not exactly Crying Game/Fight Club level revelations and they don’t save the movie.
The stunts and the action sequences seem mediocre at best and the acting seems bored. In fact Jolie (who I quite like normally) looks exhausted throughout, I just want her to eat a nice meal and have a nap.
At the end of the film I just don’t care about any of the characters, they’ve made no impression on me and I don’t honestly care if they live or die. If they make a sequel, which they certainly seem interested in I won’t bother seeing it outside of some sick curiosity to see if they have learnt from this underwhelming experience.
See it if you have nothing else to watch, it’s not effective enough to make you think it’s really bad.
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