No video today due to foreseen circumstances, which makes this the first schedule bump of 2026 since… February-ish. Well, it’s been a good run, I suppose.
Today marks twenty-five years to the day that the world lost Thuy Trang.
Best known for her portrayal of original Yellow Ranger Trini Kwan in the first two seasons of Power Rangers, along with a couple bit parts in other movies, her life was tragically cut short in a car accident. The news of her passing didn’t hit until September 10th… a day before the attack on the World Trade Center.
I never got around to doing a “proper” tribute back in the day because I was still in the midst of figuring this webpage business. I wrote a couple things here and there; most of which never saw the light of day until recently. But I never did a blurb on Thuy’s passing. Truth be told, the news was difficult to process when I first heard about it… and then September 11th happened.
Always a terrible thing to lose a beloved and gentle soul… made even more wretched when that loss becomes an afterthought in light of a much bigger tragedy.
The story of Thuy Trang is that of resilience. Her family fled Vietnam and fought to keep their daughter safe from those who wished to throw the sickly child overboard. Refugees who eventually made their way to the United States, where Thuy learned English and pursued civil engineering as a career before pivoting to acting, where she eventually got the Power Rangers role.
Baring my soul here, while most of you were crushing on Amy Jo Johnson back in the day, I was crushing on Thuy. I don’t know; I had a fondness for the Asian ladies and there was something about her natural beauty that I found particularly attractive. When Thuy was gone and replaced with Karan, young me was unsurprisingly sad and wanted to find out more about her post Power Rangers-life… which basically amounted to a horrible Crow sequel and a bit part in a Leslie Nielson spoof film… and then nothing.
There were a couple headshots that would pop up here and there… but I wouldn’t hear anything regarding Thuy until her passing… and chances are the first time I heard about was after 9/11.
An episode of Time Force was dedicated to her memory; I forget which one, but it involved Circuit. And of course, Once And Always also had a dedication to both her and JDF, who passed away recently.
Wanted to do a brief little blurb on Thuy for a while now… better late than never to say how much we miss her… and how a young talent was taken from us so early in life before it had a chance to blossom. Chances are she would have been thrilled with the current convention scene.
So someone made a Spider-Man fan film a couple years back that was supposed to be more comic accurate than any of the feature films. It covers a very familiar – and quite frankly, very tired – subject matter that has been touched on a couple times in these features. It’s perhaps one of the wall-crawler’s most famous moments… that eventually got undone, but that’s another story.
I never knew about this until I came across a couple Youtube things talking about how this is one of the worst Spider-Man things ever made… now think of the ground that covers.
After a while, I found the film in question. I sat down and watched the film. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s the worst thing, or even ONE of the worst things to happen to Spider-Man. I could think of much, MUCH worse. And I don’t want to slag on this film too much because it is literally a bunch of amateur actors and filmmakers doing a movie based on a beloved superhero. Sometimes, you have to cut a little slack when it comes to these fan productions, especially considering the spoils of high-quality material that Trek fans were used to during the Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Of Star Trek Fan Films.
And in fairness, I didn’t completely hate this thing.
But instead, I was just really, REALLY bored.
I don’t want to turn this into a full review – I might save that for later down the road. But here’s what I want to know… a long time ago, a bunch of kids got together and planned to make their own secret Spider-Man movie. It’s something I’ve talked about in the old blog and will occasionally make mention of. To the best of my knowledge, nothing came of it and nobody made mention of it. It’s something that seems to have been completely and utterly forgotten.
So my question is this?
Is THIS Lotus thing the secret Spider-Man movie that’s been teased all this time? Is THIS what those folks who took shots at the Studi’HOS (their spelling, not mine) wanted to make all those years? I don’t know if that’s the case. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone even remember that to be a thing.
I can tell you one thing. If this was indeed the payoff to all that build and secret Spider-Man movie hype, then my only reaction would boil down to two words.
“That’s it?”
Anyway… just a random thought.
Almost a year later, we get a portable iteration of Acclaim/LJN’s Spidey/X-Men crossover title. Maybe we were better off without one? Perhaps? I don’t know.
In a year that saw AJ Styles wrestle his final professional wrestling in front of a live television crowd – at least, as of this writing – it is only fitting that we finally get around to muse about the 2013 edition of TNA’s Bound For Glory PPV event, which featured the final PPV main event of a man that had truly been the marquee TNA star… even if he was never truly presented as such.
Hello and welcome to a rare evening edition of the monthly State Of The Blog for reasons that involve wanting to finalize stuff before making it public. Dates are set in stone, review subjects are not… save for a couple… and also gimmick tables are largely up in the air until further notice… or not… who knows? Who cares?
Anyway, Star Trek turns 60 this month… so naturally, let’s not talk about Star Trek and instead talk about other things that are not Star Trek… and no, we’re not pivoting to Star Wars. (Though make no mistake, we’re doing some of that eventually… the backlog on that front is certainly building up.)
Anyway, quite a bit of progress after the break…
and Kofi…
Just… just Kofi.
Yep.
And now for something completely and utterly different from the usual… I promise.
Oh, and by the way, the thumbnails featured in this week’s lot of video reviews are from Youtube’s inspiration tab that’s going away, so I figured that I’d give these generic A1-generated thumbnails a whirl and see how many people don’t watch. Should be fun… or not.
For those who want to give this a shot:
https://format-c.itch.io/popn-wizz
It is the 31st of August in the year of our lord 2026… and it’s the time-honoured tradition of my declaration of not having watched the Section 31 streaming motion picture starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh.
Yep, we’re still doing this.
For what it’s worth, the only “physical” gift I got this year were a couple boxes of Magic: The Gathering cards that are TMNT-themed. Never played Magic before, but the cards look neat. Nobody sent me a DVD or Blu-Ray of this thing yet, so the movie remains unwatched.
I haven’t even touched Prime Video and will be letting my Paramount+ sub expire. Part of me is hopeful that it expires before Star Trek turns 60, so that I can see what BIG SWING the show has for the occasion. Hopefully, they’ll do a Star Trek episode; could sure use one of those.
Sadly, I will not be watching the show today due to prior commitments. Another birthday to celebrate and also waiting on a broken dryer to be fixed up…. Actually a lot of things need fixing up ’round these parts, but hey, I’m sure it’ll be a fine show that won’t cause anyone any problems and that ol’ Uncle Dave will give Kenny/Willy a kazillion stars and declare it the greatest wrestling match ever or whatever the case may be.
All of this while you have Adam “Edge” Copeland on the roster, who actually did compete in the Greatest Wrestling Match Ever back in 2020 with Randy Orton. WWE told you so themselves. Would they lie?
Anyhoo… gotta run. Stuff to do.
Later.
