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You know, I’m getting really tired of greedy companies trying to squeeze more money out of fans of classic films and television by constantly reissuing them in ever more ridiculous “super-duper remastered rejiggered repulsive regurgitated” editions.

But what really ticks me is off is when the studio and/or filmmakers go back and try to “update” them with new effects, or new editing, or whatever.

Worst case scenario: Paramount is issuing Star Trek: the original series Season 1 on HD-DVD this November, for a whopping US$220. But what really offends me is that they’ve decided to re-do ALL the visual effects with modern CGI.

Why the holy fuck would anyone want to take a classic 60s show which was produced with sweat and tears with the best technology of its time and throw it all out of joint by pasting modern crap over it? Not only is that extremely disrespectful to the artists who worked on it at the time, but it is going to look ridiculous against the 60s hair styles, sets, and rubber gorillas that Captain Kirk fought.

What’s next, airbrushing out the beehive haircuts and putting digital trousers on all the women?

Leave well enough alone, and find some taste and restraint, guys. Weren’t the Star Wars “Special” Editions bad enough?

No, not Jack Warner. I’m talkin’ David Warner, who is as far as I’m concerned the Evil Genius of all time, without question.

So let’s do a refresher course of the major roles as Evil Genius that makes him in my geek book one of the top dogs:

1. Ed Dillinger / Sark / MCP in Tron (Jesus, this guy is the MCP!)
2. Evil Genius — that’s right — in Time Bandits
3. Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI
4. Jon Irenicus in the RPG Baldur’s Gate II
5. Morpheus in the RPG Fallout
6. Picard’s torturer Gul Madred in Star Trek: the Next Generation

He’s been in a shitload of animated shows, too, playing Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman and Herbert Landon in Spider-Man. He’s been in Privateer 2: the Darkening, one of the Wing Commander spinoffs, the Outer Limits, Babylon 5, Lois & Clark, and on and on and on.

In fact, glancing at his bio at the IMDB, would seem to have appeared in everything. Ever made. Ever. Good or bad. He was even in Captain Power, for god’s sake!
But in my book, his crowning achievement, even over torturing the spit out of Picard, is as the MCP. To actually be the Master Control Program, and then also to be Sark and Dillinger. Wow. What a fabulous villain in a long career of fabulous villains.

Actually, to be fair, while he is the Evil Genius of all time, he’s not the undisputed master of all evil villains, a position which must be at least shared by Peter Cushing. I’ll tell you one thing, though — if Cushing had been unavailable for the role of Governor Tarkin, I know another native Briton who could have filled in nicely, despite being much younger…

End of line.