Author Topic: Sci-Fi we can do without  (Read 45831 times)

Heradel

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Reply #100 on: April 25, 2008, 08:29:40 PM
Dr. Who.
The recent series from the past few years are okay, but I just can't stand any of the older ones. I'll never understand how it got popular.

I'm probably going to get flamed for saying that.

In response to that, this.

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Loz

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Reply #101 on: April 28, 2008, 06:02:53 PM
Aaah, but anything good about the last season of Enterprise was due to them sorting out plot points because they were cancelled, I can only suspect that the cast must have been pretty pissed off to get to the final episode and find out that not only were they the first show to be cancelled early but they were also now relegated to guest stars in a TNG episode.

The Bionic Woman remake was lame. They took completely the wrong tack with it, at the very least Jamie should have been working for the organisation from the start, a soldier not a regular person.

Dark Skies was fairly horrific too, from what I remember.



wintermute

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Reply #102 on: April 28, 2008, 06:18:40 PM
Dark Skies was the X-Files clone set in the 60's, right? I'm pretty sure I saw several episodes of that, but the only thing that sticks in my mind is one pre-title sequence, which went along the lines of: Three civil-rights activists have disappeared in rural Mississippi! The most likely and rational explanation is that they were abducted by aliens! Let us investigate at once!

And I don't care that they turned out to be right about the aliens. If that's seriously your go-to explanation in those circumstances, then you're spending too much time thinking about this, and you need to take a vacation.

Anyway, that is my entire memory of that series.

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Reply #103 on: April 28, 2008, 07:06:05 PM
I only saw two episodes of Dark Skies, relatively spread out in their season (or was it seasons plural)?  I remember being kind of interested in it, but a bit surprised with how far their mythology went.  Something bad (probably aliens) happened to the guy's girlfriend, who had been the female lead at first, and then there was some kick ass government spook lady escorting him around in the second episode.  And yeah, it was a weird X-Files rip-off.  Period-piece 60s with UFOs.  I would've loved to have been in the pitch-meeting for that one.


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Reply #104 on: April 29, 2008, 01:17:58 AM
I'll come out and say that I watched Dark Skies during its (one) singular season, and I rather enjoyed it. 

Although it was awfully reminiscent of X-Files set in the 60s.  If Mulder and Scully were married.  Well, until late in the season when the Scully character diminished in importance and Jeri Ryan assumed a prominent role.  I'm kinda curious about where they would have taken things if they'd gotten renewed for a second season.

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Reply #105 on: May 01, 2008, 07:33:04 PM
(First post here)

I could definitely do without Horror movies that pretend to be science fiction.  The two examples that spring to mind are the Predator series and the Alien series.  They were both decent Horror movies, but not what I consider SF.

Also, movie versions of books where they keep the title, and maybe the same one sentence summary could be used to describe both, but where it's not at all the same story.  The best examples of that I can think of are I, Robot and Starship Troopers.

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Reply #106 on: May 01, 2008, 08:19:28 PM
(First post here)

I could definitely do without Horror movies that pretend to be science fiction.  The two examples that spring to mind are the Predator series and the Alien series.  They were both decent Horror movies, but not what I consider SF.

You probably didn't care for Event Horizon either.  (I do consider the Predator and Alien movies to be SF, but Event Horizon was basically a haunted house movie set on a spaceship.)

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Reply #107 on: May 01, 2008, 09:45:54 PM

Also, movie versions of books where they keep the title, and maybe the same one sentence summary could be used to describe both, but where it's not at all the same story.  The best examples of that I can think of are I, Robot and Starship Troopers.


I never did figure out what they were up to in the movie version of Troopers.  At one level, they seemed to be poking fun at the novel -- exaggerating it into a "Hey, kids! Let's put on a war!!!" parody.  On the other, they seemed to be trying to create a 50's-era war movie in a future sitting, which could be construed as a legtimate projection of the novel's world view.  I think there's a lot more there than that, but it is a defensible view.

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Reply #108 on: May 02, 2008, 02:27:13 AM

Also, movie versions of books where they keep the title, and maybe the same one sentence summary could be used to describe both, but where it's not at all the same story.  The best examples of that I can think of are I, Robot and Starship Troopers.


I never did figure out what they were up to in the movie version of Troopers.  At one level, they seemed to be poking fun at the novel -- exaggerating it into a "Hey, kids! Let's put on a war!!!" parody.  On the other, they seemed to be trying to create a 50's-era war movie in a future sitting, which could be construed as a legtimate projection of the novel's world view.  I think there's a lot more there than that, but it is a defensible view.

I couldn't figure that out, either... but I think they were going for some kind of award for shlock.  My three prime justifications (having last seen this film nearly 10 years ago):
* co-ed shower scene (boo-YA!)
* Michael Ironsides, after finding a dead soldier with a hole in his skull, bellowing "They sucked his BRAAAAAAIN!" to the ceiling as the camera withdrew to an impossible height.
* Neil Patrick (Doogie Houser) Harris in a Nazi SS uniform approaching the giant bug creature - which has just been nuked in her lair, had her feeding proboscis hacked off, and been dragged out of her tunnel to face several hundred space marines with machine guns, tanks, bazookas, and more nukes - placing his hand on her side, and pronouncing (because he's a telepath, and can scan alien brains for subtle details that the average space marine would NEVER figure out on their own) that "She's... AFRAID!"

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qwints

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Reply #109 on: May 07, 2008, 07:19:59 AM
I'm gonna say we can do without any more books by Michael Crichton. I just read Next  and I'm getting sick of him using his books as a long parable for his op-ed at the end.

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Reply #110 on: May 07, 2008, 03:01:08 PM
I'm gonna say we can do without any more books by Michael Crichton. I just read Next and I'm getting sick of him using his books as a long parable for his op-ed at the end.

You made it past Jurassic Park, Airframe, and State of Fear?  You're doing better than I did. :)

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Reply #111 on: May 07, 2008, 03:34:19 PM
I thought Jurassic Park was good.

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Reply #112 on: May 07, 2008, 03:58:09 PM
I thought Jurassic Park was good.

Ditto.  It was Airframe and Lost World that I really started to feel a disconnect.  Prey was okay but I never read the more recent ones.


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Reply #113 on: May 07, 2008, 04:07:47 PM
I'm very fond of Prey, there's a nice narrative touch in there that wrong footed me.  Plus I have the audio book read by Wilson from House which really takes the edge off:)



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Reply #114 on: May 07, 2008, 04:09:21 PM
I'm very fond of Prey, there's a nice narrative touch in there that wrong footed me.  Plus I have the audio book read by Wilson from House which really takes the edge off:)

SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Was it that you thought the wife was going to end okay based on the intro/prologue, only to realize, shit, she's not his wife?  Because that threw me (in a good way).


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Reply #115 on: May 07, 2008, 04:15:23 PM
It was Airframe and Lost World that I really started to feel a disconnect.  Prey was okay but I never read the more recent ones.

The Lost World read like a novelization of the first Jurassic Park movie.  It had the feel of a sequel cranked out solely for the money.

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Alasdair5000

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Reply #116 on: May 07, 2008, 04:21:32 PM
I'm very fond of Prey, there's a nice narrative touch in there that wrong footed me.  Plus I have the audio book read by Wilson from House which really takes the edge off:)

SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Was it that you thought the wife was going to end okay based on the intro/prologue, only to realize, shit, she's not his wife?  Because that threw me (in a good way).

That and the huge nested flashback, yes:)



Alasdair5000

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Reply #117 on: May 07, 2008, 04:22:02 PM
It was Airframe and Lost World that I really started to feel a disconnect.  Prey was okay but I never read the more recent ones.

The Lost World read like a novelization of the first Jurassic Park movie.  It had the feel of a sequel cranked out solely for the money.

Quite agree.  That's a desperately poor book which was made into a desperately poor movie.



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Reply #118 on: May 07, 2008, 04:40:35 PM
It was Airframe and Lost World that I really started to feel a disconnect.  Prey was okay but I never read the more recent ones.

The Lost World read like a novelization of the first Jurassic Park movie.  It had the feel of a sequel cranked out solely for the money.

Totally.  It was like Crichton saw the movie and realized, damn, I wish I hadn't killed Jeff Goldblum.  Also, I should make Malcom funny, just like Goldblum.  Although I don't think he ever pulled off the funny. 

The movie was also sufficiently horrible.  Especially the teenage gymnastics vs. raptors finale.


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Reply #119 on: May 07, 2008, 05:07:23 PM
The Lost World read like a novelization of the first Jurassic Park movie.  It had the feel of a sequel cranked out solely for the money.

Quite agree.  That's a desperately poor book which was made into a desperately poor movie.

... which had desperately little in common with the book that it was supposedly adapted from.  But as I suggested, they had already made the movie version and called it Jurassic Park.   ;)

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Reply #120 on: May 07, 2008, 08:33:37 PM
I'll come out and say that I watched Dark Skies during its (one) singular season, and I rather enjoyed it. 

Although it was awfully reminiscent of X-Files set in the 60s.  If Mulder and Scully were married.  Well, until late in the season when the Scully character diminished in importance and Jeri Ryan assumed a prominent role.  I'm kinda curious about where they would have taken things if they'd gotten renewed for a second season.
Same here. The opening titles and the narratives seemed to imply that they were going to bring the show to present day, so I was kinda interested in seeing where they were going to go.

I also agree on the whole Jurassic Park thing. That last book read more like a contractual obligation. It was like it was thrown together just because they all knew it would sell like a bastard.

And it seemed like Starship Troopers was a purposefully campy movie that sometimes forgot and took itself too seriously sometimes.... I never read the book.



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Reply #121 on: May 08, 2008, 08:06:55 AM
Dark Skies actually had an incredibly cool structure laid out which, due to the first season suffering from first season disease and not actually getting anywhere particularly fast, they never got to.

   The plan was simple; one season equalled one decade.

   And as the decades passed, John would rise higher in MJ-12, the war would become more public and he'd eventually realise something; we were losing.

   Had they still been on air, the producers were seriously talking about doing a two hour special, New Year's Eve, 1999 that would finish, live, with Loengard delivering an address to the nation which would in essence be 'My fellow americans, for the last four decades we have been at war with an alien intelligence...'

   Would have been fun:)