Once again, after a long hiatus due to extensive schoolwork and a much needed vacation, I return to the electronic psychological vent that is this blog. Since my last update, a lot has happened.
the new transformers trailer came out. Some might be wondering why I'm saying this as I openly voice my loathing for this film franchise. I mention this because I wish to warn people about how mind meltingly bad this movie is going to be. Look at the trailer and think about what you see. The trailer looks like someone took shots of Apollo 13 and spliced in a few deceptecons in on the moon. That's it. That's all I'm going to say. If you don't believe me watch Apollo 13 then watch this trailer and you'll see that no only do these shots look similar, they are practically identical.
Tron: Legacy came out this month. Coming in with what some are calling an "underwhelming" break in the box office weekend and mixed reviews. I have yet to see the movie but from what I've seen it's about as ground breaking as a paper clip hitting the floor. Needless to say I will be seeing it and giving my own definitive decision on the film in the following week.
In television news Syfy (formerly known as the SciFi channel, who knows what the fuck it stands for) has cancelled Stargate Universe. I am both saddened and somewhat unsurprised at this turn of events. I was loving the show, regardless of my hangups about how it went about telling a story. Yet to be honest, with such a weak start looming over them like a dark cloud, it wasn't surprising that syfy would cut the show off just as it was getting it's footing. I mean for all intents and purposes, this mission was doomed from the start. You know it, I know it, at least in the back of our minds we knew it was a very credible threat. SGU handled itself like it's predecessors, in that everything was solved by the end of the episode. For SG-1 and Atlantis this was a formula that worked, for SGU it suffered from it. I always attributed this show to be like Lost, and in many ways this show replaced the gaping hole that Lost left behind. However, the overall story in Lost wasn't solved in under an hour. If Lost had been more like SGU the sub-plot about the hatch and the button would've been 45 minutes long and would've imploded by the time the credits rolled. I think I complained about this in my review of the first half of season 2, but then I might not have. Regardless, this formula of ending everything in under an hour really proved to be troublesome. For episodes like "Time" it worked, but in episodes like "Incursion" or any episode involving the lucian alliance or even the sub plot of Rush being left behind on an alien planet, all of which were pretty much finished in an entire episode, would've been better if they had been stretched out a little more. Jack was working with the Others for a good amount of episodes in Lost, it wasn't solved in a few episodes.
This is one fault that the second season was quickly figuring out and changing, however they still had problems. Even though I am very sad that the show won't be back next year I still can't help but point out that the troubles that inadvertently caused it could've been easily fixed had the writers and producers of the show actually realized that no one knew who the fuck Simeon was by the time he killed Gin or that instead of bringing in evil aliens in the first season the threat of the lucian alliance should've been a very primary antagonist for the first season (which would've made the whole trio of episodes dedicated to the sub plot of the alliance boarding Destiny that much more credible).
Yes, it's sad that for the moment it looks like the stargate franchise is dead in the water, but to be honest it was bound to happen considering all the faults made over the course of the first season of SGU. The first teaser for the show said that: "The greatest adventure is the journey home," however that was never really an honest focus for the show and the characters. Yes, they had to first survive, but by the end of Air all of their problems seemed to go away and the show kinda coasted along the boundaries of the shows it preceded and into interesting and uncharted territory. In the end SGU felt like it wanted to go where the Stargate shows haven't gone before but didn't have the balls to step out of the regular science fiction schlock of mind control, alien invasions, and time travel (which in all honesty, was all that Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis kept using over and over. This only made visible to me by my brother, a non science fiction fanatic).
This was why an episode like "Trail And Error" really shines among the meandering episodes like the one where they found the seeding ship filled with (you guessed it!) aliens with seemingly malevolent goals. Trial and Error expanded on the mythology that Destiny is not any regular ship we've encountered before while focusing on a very deep character study on Col. Young and how the seemingly invulnerable leader was in fact struggling with his responsiblilities. This episode took those concepts and let them dance together to create one of the most powerful episodes the show might have ever produced.
In the end, we will never know what Destiny's mission was for, and whether or not our intrepid explorers would get back home, at least if there isn't a movie made to solve all of this in the future. It's sad to admit but for right know us stargate fans are going the way of Firefly fans...
Of course, you can blame Syfy for being nothing but inconsiderate to the group of viewers they have catered to for many years, tossing out science fiction fans for wrestling fans (and yes I feel this has some level of truth, after all, I don't think that they say the wrestlers are genetically altered mutants brawling it out for the fate of the galaxy or what not) but they still have a large amount of science fiction shows like Eureka and Sanctuary. If Caprica can get cancelled and still have another prequel in the works then it's safe to say that it's possible that another Stargate show will eventually worm it's way out. Hell, think of the Star Trek series, from B-grade scifi television show to major blockbuster remake it's safe to assume that at the rate Hollwood is burning through remakes Stargate will live on in some form.
In other news I have just finished watching my first Blu Ray movie, Inception, obviously, and I must say that I loved how amazing the movie looked in Blu Ray. Now if only Blu ray could also remove all the preachy nonsense in Avatar. Speaking of Avatar and Blu Ray I have also finished going through the special features in the special edition of the movie in Blu Ray as well and I must say: "Holy crap is this movie arrogant!" Not only did I find out that in addition to the theatrical release on the first disk there are actually three versions (maybe four if I counted the two extended editions that came with it) but one of them was a "family friendly format" which took out all the obscenities from the movie too (too bad there wasn't a "smart viewer format" that added in an actual engaging story). Then there are the myriad of deleted scences and making of documentaries. There's even a "Message from Pandora" feature that I dared not play for fear that it would bash my head in with a rock of eco-friendly tree-hugging crap.
The documentary on how the film was made gave me the look into the process I have so very much have been interested in seeing since the film was announced. It shows us a window into the surprisingly arduous process that took years to make the film come to life. This leaves me without any doubt that James Cameron was indeed too busy trying to come up with the world of pandora to actually make a story, hopefully with the sequel we'll have less brain dead nonsense and an actual engaging story (though at this point I don't think Cameron really cares since he has most likely made enough money to feed the entire country for a millennium). Plus I got to see alot of footage of Zoe Saldana in a bikini hiking through the Hawaiian jungle, if that isn't hot then the world has gone insane.
The overall posheness of the very DVD case of this movie leaves me spinning into a world of pissed off that I have never set foot upon before. The case is inside two jackets and is made up to look like a book with the disks tucked neatly into chambers that slide out with ease (not that they fall out mind you). The very feel of this damn case screams out arrogance. In the end, I hope that the blu ray amped visuals and added scenes are enough to once again render me torn from actually saying this movie is in the least bit good.
Well, it's getting late for me, and while I could go on I fear that I might suffer a fatal stroke due to a continuous attempt at ranting. So with that I bid you all good night or good morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment