Sonequa Martin-Green Archives

Space Jam: A New Legacy

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY REVIEW:

Warner;
Comedy;
Box Office $70.51 million;
$34.98 DVD, $39.98 Blu-ray, $49.98 UHD BD;
Rated ‘PG’ for some cartoon violence and some language.
Stars LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Cedric Joe, Khris Davis, Sonequa Martin-Green, Ceyair J Wright, Harper Leigh Alexander, Sue Bird, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green, Damian Lillard, Klay Thompson, Nneka Ogwumike, Diana Taurasi.

Borrowing the same basic concept of its 1996 predecessor, Space Jam: A New Legacy dives into the realm of video games to bring the Looney Tunes back to the basketball court.

As with the original, the story involves an NBA player teaming up with Bugs Bunny and the gang in a high-stakes basketball game with dire consequences if they lose. The 1996 version starred Michael Jordan, who was recruited to help save the Tunes from being imprisoned by the owner of a cartoon amusement park planet.

The 21st century version of the premise involves LeBron James, the current era’s equivalent of a player with Jordan’s superstar stature. However, fans of the original film looking for another fun romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously will likely find themselves disappointed early in the proceedings, as A New Legacy quickly devolves into what is essentially a promotional reel for Warner Bros. IP.

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Space Jam: A New Legacy plays like a collaboration between the marketing departments of the NBA and WarnerMedia, resulting in a script that seems like it was developed by a PR committee that just finished a marathon of the original Space Jam, Ready Player One, Tron and the “Wreck-It Ralph” movies.

The story involves LeBron being recruited by Warner Bros., for a partnership involving a new slate of films in which he would be scanned into a computer and inserted into several movies created by a algorithm named Al G. Rhythm (given humanoid form by Don Cheadle) that controls the supercomputer where all Warner’s characters are stored.

LeBron’s reaction to this little piece of meta-commentary on Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy is to declare that the idea of athletes acting in movies is a bad idea, and thus Al’s proposal is stupid. The movie then proceeds to do exactly what it thinks it’s cleverly making fun of.

After Al takes offense to LeBron’s rejection, he somehow traps LeBron and his movie son, Dom (Cedric Joe), in the computer to get revenge.

Conveniently for the plot, 12-year-old Dom is some sort of genius video game designer, so Al steals his basketball video game as the arena for the contest that will allow LeBron to win his son back and earn their freedom.

For their team, the Goon Squad, Al and Dom create super-powered avatars based on some of the top NBA and WNBA players. All LeBron has to do is recruit a team of Warner Bros. characters to compete with them. His first instincts are to team up with the likes of Superman and King Kong, but then LeBron meets Bugs Bunny and his plans are derailed.

It seems Bugs is the only character left in the Looney Tunes section of the Warner Bros. Serververse (where each franchise has its own “world” that looks like a cartoon planet) because Al convinced the other Tunes their talents would be better served elsewhere. Daffy Duck, for example, hangs out in the DC Comics-based world posing as superman, complete with the John Williams theme.

Bugs uses LeBron’s predicament as an excuse to round up his friends on the pretense that they’re the ones being recruited to play. And thus, LeBron ends up teaming up with the Tune Squad for the big game, just like Mike 25 years earlier.

LeBron’s version, though, is more of a reboot or a remake than a sequel. It’s a completely standalone adventure that makes just a few passing references to the original while mostly ignoring its established worldbuilding. The original featured the Tunes as real-world characters living in their own realm beneath the surface of Earth (not unlike Toontown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit), while the bad guys were cartoon aliens from another planet, hence the “space” in Space Jam. The new iteration is more like “Cyberspace Jam” given how it pretty much all takes place in virtual reality.

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The creators of A New Legacy also appear to have misunderstood what made the story of the original work beyond the basic premise. The original film was as much the story of Jordan rediscovering his love of basketball as it was about the Looney Tunes playing alongside him. The movie famously chronicles Jordan’s real-life foray into an attempt to play professional baseball after he abruptly retired from the NBA following three championships. The film ties into this by having the evil aliens steal the talent from top NBA stars; as Jordan was away from basketball, his talent was left intact, leaving him for the Looney Tunes to recruit.

A New Legacy, on the other hand, has such a cut-and-paste story that they could have plugged nearly any marketable NBA player into it without it being fundamentally different, since the player’s family at the center of the story is entirely fictional. And then they chose LeBron James, one of the most unlikable players in the NBA, who in some metrics is considered the league’s most-hated player.

For the big game, the movie’s creators are essentially just playing a game of “spot the famous Warner Bros. character” in the audience, as the court is surrounded by extras dressed in recognizable costumes but who bear little resemblance to the original actors who played them (the guy dressed as Robin from the 1960s “Batman” show is especially distracting as he dances around every time he’s on camera).

As much as it all is an excuse for glitzy graphics and flashy colors, it should at the very least keep small children entertained.

The 4K disc doesn’t contain any extras. All of the extras are included on the regular Blu-ray Disc of the film.

The bonus materials primarily consist of about 28-minutes of behind-the-scenes featurettes split into four parts, like the quarters of a basketball game. They run seven to eight minutes each, focusing on LeBron’s involvement, the rest of the cast, the visual effects, re-creating classic Warner characters as background characters, and animating the Looney Tunes with CGI.

There are also five deleted scenes that run just under eight minutes and expand on some of the ideas in the film, including a jab at Cleveland.

Originally published as a streaming review July 18, 2021.

Season 2 of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Beams to DVD and Blu-ray Nov. 12

Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS Home Entertainment will release Star Trek: Discovery — Season Two on Blu-ray and DVD Nov. 12.

The four-disc set will include all 14 episodes of the second season of the CBS All Access original series, plus more than two hours of bonus material.

The season finds the U.S.S. Discovery joining forces with Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) of the U.S.S. Enterprise on a mission to investigate seven mysterious signals across the galaxy apparently created by the mysterious Red Angel, a being associated with the disappearance of Spock (Ethan Peck), the adopted brother of Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). The cast also includes Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Shazad Latif, Wilson Cruz, Mary Chieffo, Tig Notaro, Rebecca Romijn and Michelle Yeoh.

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The Blu-ray and DVD will also include two “Short Treks” episodes related to the season: “Runaway” and “The Brightest Star.”

Other extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and commentaries on the episodes “Brother,” “New Eden,” “Through the Valley of Shadows” and “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2.”

Featurettes offered on the discs include:

“Enter the Enterprise” — a look at re-created the iconic “Star Trek” starship;
“Putting it Together” — about the creation of the season finale;
“The Red Angel” — a behind-the-scenes look at one of the the season’s major plot elements;
“Designing Discovery: Season Two” — a look at the locations and spaces created for the second season;
“Prop Me Up: Season Two” — propmaster Mario Moreira shows off the show’s props.
“Dress for Success: Season Two” — a look at the costume design;
“Creature Comforts: Season Two” — producers, craftsmen and actors discuss the design process, the implementation and the performance required to bring characters to life. Includes a discussion with makeup artist James McKinnon;
“Creating Space” — showing off the visual effects process;
“Star Trek: Discovery — The Voyage of Season Two” — a recap of the season.

Internationally, the Blu-ray and DVD sets will be released Nov. 18 in the U.K., Nov. 19 in Italy, Nov. 21 in Germany, Nov. 22 in Spain, Nov. 25 in the Nordics, Nov. 27 in Benelux, Nov. 28 in Denmark and Dec. 4 in France. Japan and Australia release dates are pending.

Star Trek: Discovery — Season One

BLU-RAY REVIEW:

Paramount/CBS;
Sci-Fi;
$41.99 DVD, $50.99 Blu-ray;
Not rated.
Stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, Wilson Cruz, Michelle Yeoh, Mary Chieffo, James Frain.

“Star Trek: Discovery,” the sixth live-action series to carry on the “Star Trek” legacy, in many ways seems like an attempt to reinterpret the classic elements of the iconic science-fiction franchise to fit them into the modern age of television. Values such as exploration, diversity and tolerance that have been hallmarks of the franchise since the original series debuted in 1966 are all foundational underpinnings of this new show as well.

And yet, in its modernization, the show has trouble meshing with the aesthetic and historic trappings of the franchise familiar to its most dedicated fans. Not the least of these issues is the setting of the show 10 years before the original series, yet presenting ships and technologies that seem far more advanced than what has previously been established about that era in the franchise’s timeline, not to mention the drastic alterations to uniforms and aliens.

This likely owes a lot to the “modernization” aspect. Previous incarnations of “Star Trek” always felt a bit quaint and old-fashioned, as the various shows had to dance around a canon rooted in the 1960s’ vision of the future (especially tricky once the actual timeline no longer matched what was predicted in the original series). “Enterprise” had the biggest challenge in that regard, as a prequel set 100 years before the days of Kirk and Spock, in that it had to present technology that looked advanced to a 21st century audience without accentuating how much the original series looked out of date.

Certainly, the big-budget flagship show for the new CBS All Access streaming service shouldn’t be expected to constrain itself along the same lines if it had any intentions of competing in the ever-growing marketplace of content.

The producers of “Discovery” seem to have taken a looser approach to franchise consistency, keeping the general idea of things intact while designing a prequel to a hypothetical version of the original series had it been created using today’s visual effects. It would almost seem more at home with the look and feel of J.J. Abrams’ film reboots if it didn’t quite align with what’s established in that timeline, either.

So, what we have is a generally interesting sci-fi show that wants to appeal to fans’ sense of “Star Trek” history without fully connecting those nostalgic punches. It’s probably better to think of it as its own thing, as a part of an alternate “Trek” where it more or less lines up with its own versions of all the hundreds of episodes of established continuity that came before.

And, really, it’s not like it’s too far outside the lines to really line up with canon, anyway. If we’re being completely honest, the first five series weren’t exactly flush with storytelling consistency either, and even the original series was known to contradict itself several times when it came to the future history of Starfleet and the Federation. The point being: just go with it.

A couple of the biggest points of departure “Discovery” makes from traditional “Trek” storylines are the emphasis on a serialized format, and a shift in focus from an ensemble crew to a central protagonist with supporting characters. While previous “Trek” shows dabbled in serialization, most notably the later years of both “Deep Space Nine” and “Enterprise,” the latter point is perhaps the biggest break from the formula, in that the main character is not in command of the show’s title vessel, as was the case in all previous “Trek” shows.

Even more interesting is that the U.S.S. Discovery isn’t even introduced until the third episode. The initial episodes introduce us to Lt. Cmdr. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), first officer of the U.S.S. Shenzhou, which finds itself at the center of a war with the Klingons when Burnham disobeys an order.

Months later, stripped of her rank and en route to prison, Burnham is recruited by Discovery’s Capt. Lorca (Jason Isaacs), who needs her expertise with an experimental engine that could turn the tide of the war. Burnham’s chance at redemption then becomes a unifying thread for the various plotlines that twist and turn through the first season’s 15 episodes.

And that experimental engine is what really takes the show into some realms that seem better suited for a general sci-fi show and not “Trek” in particular. But hey, once again, just go with it.

The four-disc Blu-ray includes a handful of deleted and extended scenes, including one that was previously released online as it seems to point toward a plot thread in the upcoming second season. The deleted scenes are connected to the episodes they were cut from and accessible through the relevant menus on those particular discs. There are also promos for almost every episode and a trailer for the entire season.

There are also more than two hours of behind-the-scenes featurettes spread across the first three discs. These are typically 10-15 minutes each and focus on different aspects of the production, such as the writing, sound effects, production design, props, costumes and visual effects. While most are available in the discs’ special features sections, one on disc three is available through an episode menu as it deals specifically with the creation of the food for an elaborate dining scene in that episode.

These featurettes all speak very well of the hard work, craftsmanship and detail that is poured into creating the series (even as some of the producers might make a pronouncement about “Trek” history that could raise the ire of hardcore fans).

Finally, the fourth disc includes a 40-minute filmmaker retrospective about the season’s story arcs, recapping the adventures and plot twists encountered episode-by-episode.

Not included are any of the episodes of “After Trek,” an hour-long panel discussion released with each episode. You’ll have to stick with CBS All Access to see those.