The Week in Geek: Star Trek 4 no more, Glass half empty, and Carol keeps Marveling

Here we are at the end of the first full week of 2019. It's been quiet; a little too quiet? Maybe. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to talk about. As we gear up for a very busy week ahead (The Punisher, Carmen Sandiego, Glass, Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, Deadly Class), there are still some pretty big news stories coming out right here, right now.

Here they are, the five biggest stories from... The Week in Geek!

STAR TREK 4 SHELVED

It's been a big week in the world of Star Trek. We've heard about additional animated series on the way, we got a "non" on Kirk appearing in Star Trek: Discovery, and we learned that the destruction of Romulus that set up Star Trek 2009 will have a huge impact on that Picard series.

On the topic of the Star Trek cinematic side of things, we learned this week that the untitled Star Trek 4 will, for now, gather dust on the shelf. This is especially unfortunate news since S.J. Clarkson was set to direct, which would have made her the first woman ever to direct a Star Trek film.

As far back as August 2018, rumors had begun to leak that Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth (who were both supposed to reprise their roles as James and George Kirk, respectively) had left the negotiating table. The full rumor is that Paramount Studios, concerned after the poor box office showing for Star Trek: Beyond, were looking for Pine and Hemsworth to take a pay cut. If that is true, it looks like Pine and Hemsworth weren't interested.

With all the streaming Star Trek shows coming out this year and beyond, the question becomes: Where do these J.J. Abrams Trek movies fit? Do they still fit at all? It seems, for the moment at least, the answer is "no."

Credit: Universal Pictures

GLASS HASN'T SHATTERED ANY CEILINGS SO FAR

Next week, the third in the (surprise) trilogy of Unbreakable films, Glass, will premiere in theaters. The film, which teams M. Night Shyamalan back up with Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, and Anya Taylor-Joy, has a lot of fans excited, myself included.

Unfortunately, any excitement might be best tempered since the reviews of Glass this week have been... not great. With 36 reviews showing up on Rotten Tomatoes so far, 23 of them have been negative. 

When Unbreakable was first released way back in 2000, it did the unthinkable by deconstructing the narrative of the modern superhero movie before the modern superhero movie had even gotten started. Unbreakable remains one of the most forward-thinking, ahead-of-its-time movies about the comic book medium ever made.

And yet, it's worth noting that Unbreakable only has a 69 percent Rotten Tomato rating — just something to keep in mind this week as you hear negative press about a movie most people haven't seen yet.

Y'ALL ARE TALKING ABOUT ONE LINE FROM GAME OF THRONES

The Golden Globes Awards were held over the weekend. Not a big showing for nerdy stuff, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse did win. That was nice. Also, Christian Bale thanked Satan? It was a weird night.

Smack in the middle of the awards, there was an HBO trailer. People are calling it a "Mega Trailer" because it showed clips from a bunch of shows, including Veep, True Detective, Big Little Lies, and a bunch of other new series that will start this year.

But all y'all care about is Game of Thrones, and there were a lot of thoughts over one line in particular. The line: "Winterfell is yours, your grace," which was spoken by Sansa Stark to Daenerys Targaryen. Was Sansa being sincere or is she mad about it? Is this the beginning of the downfall of the Mother of Dragons?

There are only six episodes to finalize the story. HBO CEO Richard Plepler said that every episode will be over an hour and each one will, essentially, be its own little movie.

So, yeah. All that over about five seconds. That's the power of Thrones, y'all.

CAPTAIN MARVEL IS GONNA SAVE EVERYONE, I GUESS

While the rumor is that the Avengers will assemble at the Oscars before they hit their Endgame, the hero who dominated the week is Carol Danvers herself, Captain Marvel.

A lot of things happened with Carol this week: She got a new #1 issue courtesy of Kelly Thompson and Carmen Carnero, her initial run as Ms. Marvel got a new re-release, and she got a new trailer-ish thing you can see above.

But maybe the biggest bit of Carol news is the information that we weren't supposed to get. In an interview, Samuel L. Jackson sorta-kinda-maybe let it slip that Captain Marvel can travel in time, and I don't think he meant the linear, strict progression, cause-to-effect type of time travel. He meant the other one. The wibbly-wobbly one. Which means that fancy Time Stone Thanos had? Yeah. Not the only game in town. 

So. I guess we know a little more now about how that whole snapture thing is gonna get undiddled.

THE GOOD PLACE IS STILL MAYBE THE BEST SHOW ON TV

It's a quiet week and I call the shots on what goes in this write-up, so I'm calling it: The Good Place coming back is one of the biggest stories this week. It's not a big story just because the show is back (although that is nice), it's big because, unlike so many other left-leaning shows, The Good Place is actually, well, good at making its case.

Case in point: This week we were introduced to the Actual Good Place (sort of). We were introduced to the Good Place's mail depot. And the show made some good quips. One of them, through our blessed dummy Jason, saying, "What kind of messed up place would turn away refugees?" Who indeed, Jason? Who, indeed.

The plot, though, which involved Michael pleading his case that the Bad Place had somehow gamed the system to prevent humans from getting into the Good Place, pointed out another modern-day flaw: solution by committee. The Good Place PTA (basically) agreed to look into the problem, but that would take thousands of years to get done. Or, put in the show's terms, "The Titanic is sinking and they're writing a strongly-worded letter to the iceberg."

And if that's not enough to please you, there's the biggest revelation of all: The Bad Place has nothing to do with humans not getting into the Good Place. The issue is that our rules over what deems people "good" and "bad" are built around the notion of a far simpler world than the one we live in. If you gave your mom roses a thousand years ago, you gave her roses and that's nice. If you give your mother roses now, there's the question of where they came from, who picked them, who shipped them, were they grown ethically, were the growers growing them themselves ethical? What used to be a simple, good choice is not in the muck and mire of being good in theory, but, also, maybe actually... bad?

And if that isn't our world summed up in one convoluted-but-also-kind-of-brilliant paragraph, then I don't know what is. So, good job, The Good Place. You have explained the problem well. Now, can you help us figure out how to solve it? Please?

And that's it. Your Week in Geek is over. Let us know what you thought of these stories, what stories won your week, and what you're looking forward to next week. See ya then!