CX Reviews

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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:22 pm

One doesn't need religion to be aware of the needs of others or to remain sane. You also shouldn't make the mistake of confusing agnostics and atheists. And the point was that the Drac religion was much closer to Christianity than say Shintoism or Buddhism of something else, or that they even had one, for that matter.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Cogito » Tue Jun 07, 2011 3:56 pm

CX wrote:One doesn't need religion to be aware of the needs of others or to remain sane. You also shouldn't make the mistake of confusing agnostics and atheists. And the point was that the Drac religion was much closer to Christianity than say Shintoism or Buddhism of something else, or that they even had one, for that matter.


I think that more or less agrees with what Distracted wrote, although I prefer the way Dis put it. I am not sure whether an interest or belief in the value of something greater than yourself is necessary to remain sane, but I think that people who do have that belief are probably more likely to remain mentally healthy under prolonged stress and isolation.

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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Distracted » Tue Jun 07, 2011 4:53 pm

I agree, Cogito.

CX, I'm definitely in agreement with you that religion isn't the answer. Most wars in history were caused by religion. A belief in something higher than ourselves can be satisfied by religion for some people, but in many cases I think a person must actually transcend their individual religious beliefs to get to the core of the issue before it becomes possible to truly see things from another person's point of view. All I'm saying is that in my opinion all of us, with whatever belief system we have, all seem to want...even need... to have faith in something. That faith might not be in the Judeochristian version of God. It could be in the oneness of the universe, in reason, or the inherent goodness of man, or in the value of love, or in whatever "other than self" cause motivates us and gives us something to think about besides ourselves.

What exactly about "Enemy Mine" didn't you like with regard to this subject? Was it the fact that the Dracs were monotheistic? That they had a religion at all? Or did you not like the story because Davitch had a conversion experience? Some people are very uncomfortable with movies and books containing conversion experiences because they feel like the writer is somehow trying to influence them. I really don't think that's the case here. I think Mr. Longyear had something much purer and far-reaching in mind than converting his readers to monotheism. I think he was trying to make a statement about the human condition.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:47 pm

Cogito wrote:I think that people who do have that belief are probably more likely to remain mentally healthy under prolonged stress and isolation.

Yeah, well...

Distracted wrote:What exactly about "Enemy Mine" didn't you like with regard to this subject? Was it the fact that the Dracs were monotheistic? That they had a religion at all? Or did you not like the story because Davitch had a conversion experience? Some people are very uncomfortable with movies and books containing conversion experiences because they feel like the writer is somehow trying to influence them. I really don't think that's the case here. I think Mr. Longyear had something much purer and far-reaching in mind than converting his readers to monotheism. I think he was trying to make a statement about the human condition.

The aspect of this that I didn't like was that it came off as a suggestion that differences could be put aside as long as there was a religious common ground. It also broke the whole willing sense of disbelief thing that an alien race would have something like Christianity, though it wasn't quite as bad about it as say the original The Day the Earth Stood Still was. I have to admit that I was under the impression that Davidge was Christian, which is why he recognized the similarities from the Drac religion the movie made sure to highlight. I took his comment about Micky Mouse to be a joke since he wasn't quite friends with Jeriba yet at that point. Since I now know the intent was for there to be a conversion, it just strikes me as pandering, It's the same idea behind the old saying, "there are no atheists in fox holes." That's not true and basically it just gives certain kinds of people something to laugh about to themselves that no one can not believe in God or be completely without religion.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Cogito » Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:13 pm

CX wrote:The aspect of this that I didn't like was that it came off as a suggestion that differences could be put aside as long as there was a religious common ground.


I can see why that implication wouldn't sit well with you. I don't like that idea either. But if you can replace 'religious' with 'philosophical' I am a lot happier about it.

It has been many years since I read the book and I've never seen it as a film, but it never struck me as a story about religion. Distracted explained it far better than I can, but it seemed to me that it was about them realising that they have something in common (the need to feel that their life has meaning by contributing to something greater than themselves) and not about either of them 'finding God'.

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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:44 pm

Until Davidge asks Jeriba to teach him to read it, and later he goes off and studies it on his own.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Distracted » Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:09 am

It's the only book on the whole freakin' planet, CX. Maybe he was bored. 8)

Would it have been less offensive to you if Jeriba's "scripture" had been more like the Bhagavad Gita or the Koran rather than the Bible? Many world religions have similar passages in their holy books. If I'm not mistaken, Confucious and Buddha are both credited with their own versions of the Golden Rule. Some truths are just truths.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:59 am

Something more alien would have been more interesting and less pandering.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:11 pm

Silent Running
(1972 movie)

This is a space hippie movie. There, I said it – there's no longer any need for you to watch this movie.

I'm actually kind of disappointed, but then the name and some of the stuff I read about this movie made me think it was some kind of military drama. Then I read the Wiki article on it. Then I guess I watched this movie anyway, just to see why so many people like this movie. I've since come to the conclusion that the same kind of people who liked Avatar probably liked this movie, since it had a very warped, pro-enviro-fascist message. I'll get to the fascist part in more detail, but mostly it has to do with the completely one-sided manner in which this movie has been set up in order to justify killing human beings in order to save plants.

Speaking of the set up, this movie takes place in a future in which some ecological disaster has happened and all plant life has become extinct. How all animal life didn't follow soon afterward is something of a mystery, but then not a lot in this movie makes sense. Take, for instance, that American Airlines operates space freighters, and that for some reason they have been entrusted with the care of the last of Earth's plant life, which is grown in large greenhouse-like structures attached to the ships. While the idea of keeping plants alive in a closed environment makes sense, since bringing plant life back later would be a no brainer, one would think. What doesn't make sense is crewing the ships with people who want nothing to do with plants, and only putting one botanist/ecologist on one of the ships in the fleet, and then parking the ships in orbit of Saturn, where they would hardly get any of the light they'd need to survive. Then there's the order that comes out of no where from the president (or Earth?) to jettison the bio-domes and blow them up with the nuclear warheads all the freighters carry on board for just such an occasion. And not only do the rest of the crew members not bother to check on the authenticity of this order to use nuclear warheads or think it strange in any way, but they go about it happily.

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"Make sure those trees are good and dead men."

And really, that's the thing about this movie – not only does none of it make any logical sense, but it's completely one-sided in how it presents every other character, except Freeman Lowell, the biologist/space hippie, as an utter and complete asshole. Well, I lied, there is one other character who acts fairly sympathetic to Freeman and is probably the closest he has to a friend, but frak him, there are trees to save.

From the very beginning of the movie and up to the point Freeman loses it and kills all of them, all of his crewmates are the biggest douches you could ever meet, and they seem to take a special joy in tormenting Freeman. They like to race around the ship in these weird four-wheeled carts and make a point of going right through Freeman's garden, almost running him over in the process. They later make fun of him for keeping the garden and for eating the real vegetables he grows in it. Apparently humanity has found a way to artificially synthesize some kind of substitute that they are all living on (no word on how the planet continues to have oxygen and scrubs the build-up of carbon dioxide), which is still no substitute for the real thing. Hell, even I see the appeal of real vegetables, and I'm not even a fan of them. But hey, they have to make sure they make fun of him for taking any kind of interest in those plants they're all being paid to haul around and keep alive. At least until they get the order to kill them with nuclear fire (it's the only way to be sure). They sure did seem happy for people who'd just lost their jobs, too.

Really, though, this is just so we hate all of them and think that Freeman is somehow justified in killing all of them. Hell, he even kills the one guy who's been trying to be his friend all along and is the only one amongst all the crew members to not be happy about blowing all the plants up with nuclear warheads. Then we're supposed to feel sympathetic to Freeman as he's too much of a coward to even bury the man himself, and instead has one of the three robots the ship has do it for him. All of this came off as the lamest attempt to make the audience just ignore the fact that Freeman had gone off the deep end, murdered several people, and hijacked the ship he was serving on.

Freeman then goes on to show an amazing aptitude for (fake) electrical engineering and robotics despite being a plant guy when he builds new control chips which magically reprogram the robots on the ship so they can perform surgery on him, because the would be friend he murdered actually managed to do a fairly decent job of defending himself before he was murdered. He also manages to set a course through Saturn's rings so as to fool all the other ships that there's been some kind of accident, so they'll all think he and everyone else on the ship is dead. Then he programs the robots again, so they can help him plant trees. Oh god, I can't help but laugh at that, and the montage with hippie music made it even worse.

And since nothing else in this movie makes sense, he decides that he's going to set a course for deep space, because those plants will all grow up big and strong in interstellar space, far away from the light of any star. It's not like a biologist would know that or anything. He even acts all surprised when the plants all start dying. (Just imagine I'm laughing again at this point). Well, his little attempt at piracy ends up failing because in all the vastness of space, another member of the freighter fleet he broke away from just happens to stumble upon his ship. And since he fooled them into thinking that all the others died in some kind of accident, they're on their way to rescue him like any decent human beings would be. But since the plants come first, he's terrified that they'll be sure to finish the job of destroying the last dome he managed to save. He then rushes to set up artificial lights and makes sure to leave one robot behind to take care of the plants while the then jettisons the last dome into space to drift on its own. Not that it matters, because there will probably be a shortage of water or a lack of heat not long afterwards, ensuring all the plants die anyway. Freeman then makes sure he waits until the dome is clear to blow up his ship and his would be rescuers along with him when he sets off the nuke that was meant for the last bio-dome.

So if you haven't figured out where the fascist part of enviro-fascist comes from by now, I suppose I could just explain the part where he kills everyone who disagrees with him, and even suckers some people in who trying to save his homicidal ass do he can kill them too. But hey, they committed the crime of nuking some plants, so naturally the movie wants you to think they deserved it and that Freeman made some kind of a noble sacrifice. While I agree with the idea that killing any hope the planet has for a return of its plant life even if it's somehow managed to find a way to survive without them and all the ecological disasters that would unleash, what really happened in this movie is that Freeman went insane and killed a bunch of people to save some plants. And this is the guy the audience is supposed to sympathize with.

If you happen to agree with that message, though, I'm sure you'll love this movie. For everyone else, well, it's fun to laugh at while you watch. It also has some pretty good visual effects considering when it was made. I also dug the name of the ship, which was Valley Forge. That didn't make much sense considering that the other ships were named after forests, but it does when you consider the fact that the interiors were shot on board the retired carrier USS Valley Forge along with a few other freighters in the moth ball fleet at the time. The sets actually looked pretty decent, too, considering that they were basically dressed up WWII era ships. Anyway, I'm not going to throw this movie much of a bone, because it's insulting and makes no sense. 1/10.

And why the hell did they call it "Silent Running?"
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Distracted » Sat Jun 11, 2011 3:09 am

"Silent Running" is a submarine term that means running deep and quietly to evade the sonar. Likely it was meant to be symbolic. I always disliked the movie, too. Thought it was pretty stupid, actually.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:30 am

Distracted wrote:"Silent Running" is a submarine term that means running deep and quietly to evade the sonar. Likely it was meant to be symbolic. I always disliked the movie, too. Thought it was pretty stupid, actually.

That's what I mean about the name, though. I actually thought this was some kind of war movie when I first heard about it. :crazed:
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:40 am

2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968 movie)

This is actually a somewhat intimidating movie to review, simply because it represents so much more than some dude on the internet can interpret and opine about and do it justice, or for that matter without simply repeating what everyone and his sister has already said about it. The other aspect is the way this movie is treated by fans and people who love to hate it alike, though in this case, that aspect of it is why I'm even bothering to write this review.

It's said that this movie is one that you either love or hate, and considering some of the various reactions I've seen to this movie, I can see where this impression comes from. This is especially the case for the people who really love this movie, because for them, both it and its creators are beyond any criticism. Usually the implication from them is that if you don't like this movie and see it for the "masterpiece" they feel it is, then you're just too stupid to get it, and you better not have the gall to criticize either this film's creators or the film itself, because Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke are geniuses and we mere mortals are like unto amoebas next to them.

I really couldn't disagree more with fans of this movie, more about their attitude than with the quality or lack thereof of the film itself. While I respect both Kubrick and Clarke, they were both mere mortals themselves and have since proven themselves as such. And while I'm not a film "expert" and I tend to think a lot more with my left brain than my right, that's because I'm a mechanical engineer, which also means I'm hardly an idiot. I also have done film studies (arts & humanities credits FTW!) and I've wasted plenty of my spare time watching various movies and TV shows. And since I'm an engineer, it kind of follows that I have a pretty analytical mind.

But enough about me, what about this movie?

Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly one way or the other about it. It's certainly not a bad movie, but to be fair that's at least in part because it isn't really a normal movie. A "normal" movie would follow a particular set of characters who have a varying degree of importance, and a plot of some kind that tells a story. There is definitely a story, and there are characters, but in this case the characters really aren't important other than as generic people who are just there to tell the story and nothing else. The characters are never explored all that much except for HAL 9000 to a very limited extent, and there are at least two sets of characters the wide-spanning story go through before it even gets to Discovery One and her crew. This makes the structure of the story unconventional to say the least, and done by anyone else, this might have come off as being somewhat amateurish. After all, it seems as if the beginning and end of the story were planned out, with everything else being filled in later on in order to suit those two parts of the story. I got that impression because of the abrupt nature of two of the three transitions between the four parts of the film. This lack of a traditional story structure is also very likely to be where most of the hate comes from as far as the more venomous critics are concerned, and for everyone else, the slow pacing probably just makes the movie boring as hell to watch.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but really it tends to depend on what kind of mood I'm in as to whether I find this movie boring or not. When I first saw this movie as a teenager, though, the beginning of the movie made me wonder if I'd somehow picked up the wrong movie and gotten some kind of scientific documentary instead. And really, the movie loves to take its sweet time in its first half. There are long static shots of landscape followed by scenes of people in chimp suits moving around with some kind of wild pig that looks like it was filmed at a museum of natural history. There are also the open and unanswered questions, and really, anyone can ask questions, so I can understand why for some people this is a negative. I'd even agree that other movies and TV shows have tried to do the same thing and completely sucked at it. My more logical side, however, does see the benefit of doing the movie this way, because most of it actually is part of the overall big picture that movie is trying to get across. So what's the big picture? Again, speaking only for myself, I'd say that it's about some extraterrestrial force taking an interest in the inhabitants of this planet and either forcing evolution or somehow helping it along, with the end result being that humanity become creatures of the stars. The monoliths then serve as the primary conveyers of this, acting at key moments in the development of humanity.

The thing is, everyone is going to see this differently, because everyone has a different way of interpreting things, and some people go a lot deeper than others in looking for some kind of meaning, even in the most innocuous things. There's also the unfortunate effect of pop culture, because when I first decided to watch this movie back in the '90s, I didn't know a thing about the "Dawn of Man" portion of the movie because all anyone ever talked about was the "Jupiter Mission" part of the movie, and maybe just a little bit about the other two parts that took place in the far off future of the late '90s and early 2000s. So while I saw an expansive movie about the evolution of humanity through the influence of an alien intelligence for purposes unknown, apparently many others saw a movie about the dangers of technology and the roles it plays in our lives. To be frank, though, I blame that on all the fan service.

"Fan service?" You ask. "What fan service?"

Well, some of you might actually be asking, "what's fan service?"

This is a term mostly associated with anime and manga, and since I'm an anime nerd that's simply the term I prefer to use. Within anime and manga this term is most often used when referring to gratuitous nudity and sexual content, but really it means anything that is only there to please the audience. Non-sexual fan service in anime might then be a really cool giant robot. When it comes to sci-fi, this tends to be all the really cool space ships, or if it's a dumbed down dumb action "sci-fi," this can include when those ships fight and all the really cool explosions. When it comes to 2001 though, what I'm mainly referring to are all the long drown out shots in the second part of the movie. What? You thought I meant I think people masturbate to the space ships?

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*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!*fap!* Aww yeah, I love a good aft. ;)

While some of it does simply serve to illustrate how common space travel is at this point in humanity's continuing evolution, a lot of it is simply showing off. Now, to be fair, damn near every aspect of everything that was show is based on actual scientific and engineering knowledge and concepts that were available at the time, it's just that it's like they crammed as much as possible of it into this movie. Some of that technological fan service-I mean prediction actually turned out to be spot on, like flat screens built into the back of airline seats and glass cockpits, while just as much seems to simply be a zeerust product of when the movie was made. And no, I don't just mean the clothing, art style, or the continued sexism, I mean things like the Velcro shoes. Sure, you'd need something like that to "walk" in zero gravity, but for me it came off as silly because it would have been so much easier to move about using various handles and foot-holds to move about and reorient one's self than to use Velcro shoes and a circular portion of the ship to "walk" around into another orientation.

One thing, though, is that no matter what you think about this movie or what you thought it was about it, it was very influential and innovative, not just in its content, but also in how it was made. As an engineer, I'm impressed with both of those aspects of the movie, because some of the things they built to film this movie are amazing by themselves, let alone some of the technology the movie's makers predicted well before it was actually invented. This movie has also been ripped off and referenced in a lot of different ways, too. Actually, I saw a more recent example with the anime series Planetes. Not only does it feature a space station and passenger liners that to an extent resemble the ones in 2001, but those passenger liners also have all female flight attendants and all male pilots who wear uniforms that are almost exactly like the ones seen in 2001, though with some minor differences, like color. Oh, and there's a fusion powered space ship that's set for an extended mission to Jupiter. ;) It's seeing little things like that after having seen this movie that enable a viewer to grasp just how much of an influence this movie had, and to an extent that's actually a nice thing to see.

That about sums up my thoughts on this movie and I would definitely recommend that you watch it. At the very least, you can more fully grasp the influence this movie has had not only in the entertainment industry and pop culture, but also just in everyday life through the various technologies that were predicted well before their time. And even if you don't interpret the movie the same way I did – that of a commentary on the evolution of humanity through its use of tools – the nice thing about this movie is that it really is left open to interpretation. It's pacing is slow, but even, so as long as you're in the right frame of mind for something slow and thoughtful rather than something fast and exciting, you should be able to enjoy this movie.

Now for the controversial part of this review - the rating. While plenty of people, including plenty of art and film institutes, think this is the most awesomest movie evar, I just think it's an okay movie. Sure, it’s thought-provoking and innovative, and it's set apart from movies before it was made, when it was made, and since it was made, but really that's why I even rank this movie as highly as I do. It does have flaws, from fan service and which stem from its unconventional nature. For instance, I like characters and character arcs, and this movie didn't really have any – that's just my own personal taste, and while I do try to be fair, my rating does reflect my tastes as well as the typical technical aspects of story and themes. So, my verdict: 8/10. Take it or leave it, but don't insult my intelligence by saying I "just don't get it."
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby Transwarp » Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:49 am

I thought the 'mission to Jupiter' part of the movie was pretty cool--mainly because of it's scientific realism--but when Bowman went on his acid trip at the end of the movie I was bored out of my skull after the first minute.

I rate it a 6 out of 10, because the characters are made of cardboard, the plot is simplistic, and the ending sucks.

Other than that, it's GREAT!
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:12 pm

2010: The Year We Make Contact
(1984 movie)

Yet another somewhat controversial movie, apparently, although in this case it again mostly comes from fans of the original 2001 film. I can honestly say that I don't see what the big deal is, because just like 2001 it isn't a bad movie, and it even manages to be genuinely creepy in places. In fact, the opening of 2010 almost looks 2001's story look a lot more mysterious and chilling than it was when I actually watched the actual movie. 2010 does have plenty of flaws, though, but I'm going to guess that the main reason for all the fan hate comes way more from the drastically different tone between the two movies than something as trivial as there being sound in space, although I've seen both points argued.

As far as the story goes, there is nothing really especially bad about it, and at times it is actually pretty interesting to watch, because in this case there is a lot more focus on the story and the characters. We even have a main protagonist this time – Dr. Heywood Floyd. The pacing also matches a more typical movie, and it 2010 has any real faults, it's that it's a fairly typical movie of the time. That works both for and against it as far as I'm concerned, because it both makes the movie more interesting to watch, but also fills it with plenty of clichés and dates the movies as being from the '80s even more so than anything from 2001 dates it to the '60s.

I'm speaking mostly of the enviro-hard-on that most movies, or at least most sci-fi movies of the '80s tended to have. There was also a fascination with whales and dolphins at the time, and this is again reflected in the movie. I mean, a dolphin tank in the living room? Really? Even if Dr. Floyd's wife is a marine biologist, talk about bringing your work home with you. There's also the overall tone of the series, and the end "lesson" that's declared at the end of the movie, which is that humans are just tenants of this planet, and that it got some kind of warning from the "land lord" to take care of it and behave. How this is derived from what actually happened is the real mystery, though. And then there are little things like characters going on about how they love the color green, "trees... and grass," right before they start talking about how much they love hot dogs so we don't think they're some kinda limp-wristed environmentalists or something. After all, nothing says manly like shoving a wiener into your mouth. ;)

As for what else dates this movie, it mainly has to do with the whole Soviet/American "we can totally be friends" theme that is the main backdrop of the movie. This is far from the only movie to do this kind of thing, and really it just adds to the whole zeerust factor of any "futuristic" movie that includes the Soviet Union. The touchy-feely-ness of the American and Soviet characters finally being forced together through adversity just kind of adds to the corn factor.

That being said, I did kind of like the way American engineer Walter Curnow and cosmonaut Max Brailovsky form a friendship through working together, which feels a lot more natural than Dr. Floyd's "bond" that forms with the commander of the Russian space ship Alexei Leonov. I have mixed feelings about the situation back on Earth as far as the Soviet Union and the United States being on the brink of war in what's pretty much just a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis as far as I could tell. It does help to add tension and make the audience feel the space crews' frustration, but at the same time it really doesn't seem like part of the same movie. This also sharply contrasts with the much friendlier way the whole political divide was in 2001, where it barely mattered. Dr. Floyd even seems to have some Russian friends that he actually meets up with on the rotating space station before heading to the moon. One thing I'll give to this movie though is that it has a lot less fan service in it, so there's that I guess.

The actual story is pretty straight forward as well. There was naturally a big controversy caused because of the failure of Discovery One's mission, and a lot of mystery surrounding what happened. The story, then, is about finding out what happened as well as to an extent resolving what the black monolith orbiting Jupiter was about. That's about it.

The movie's strong points in that story involve how well it is able to set up the story. The movie starts by giving a short synopsis of all the relevant information from the first movie the audience needs to know even if they haven't seen it. The first scene in the movie informs us of the political situation the world is in, sets the stakes, and gives us important information of what's happened since the first movie, not only as far as the Discovery and the monolith, but for Dr. Floyd. A few more scenes inform us more about the political situation between the US and Russia.

On the other end of the spectrum movie also tries to do some character drama/development with Dr. Floyd and his family, but this falls kind of flat to me. While it does flesh out his character a little, I found myself not really caring. And in the end all it really served as was a set-up for Dr Floyd to so some captain's log style narrations every few scenes and at the end of the movie, which is itself a drawback as far as I'm concerned. Any writer can just have some narration to explain something, but it takes a little skill to show the audience instead of just telling them. Really the only place to do this and not come off as lazy is when there's a time restriction of some kind, and I can't help but feel that was the case with this movie. Or maybe it was just lazy writing; I don’t know.

I also found the big payoff at the end to be both interesting and a let-down, because while it added some drama and mystery to everything, especially as it was just getting started, in the end it turned out to be some lame environmental message. On the other hand, it does add something as far as the whole monolith thing, which are apparently tools to help life along or something like that. The drawback here is that humanity is no longer as important as it was in the first movie, but this likely goes back to the whole environmental message thing. That's just a theory I have, though.

So when it comes to answering the question as to whether this is a good movie or not, I'd pretty much just say that it's as good as 2001. It was strong where 2001 was weak and weak where 2001 was strong, so it all kind of evens out in the end as far as I'm concerned. I'll never really get the fan hate over this movie, though. 8/10.
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Re: CX Reviews

Postby CX » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:07 pm

Pandorum
(2009 movie)

You know, in some ways I feel a bit like writing this review is a waste of time and effort. On the other hand, it's a movie that, as far as I could tell, hasn't gotten all that much exposure, so I'd like to kind of put the word out there, even if this isn't a very good movie. Actually the only other review of this movie I've seen bashes it by saying The Descent did everything this movie did only better, and really I don't think that's very fair. Really both movies are only okay movies – neither especially bad but definitely not good either. I'll get to The Descent in its own review, but as far as it comes to this movie, well, like I said, it's an okay movie, and basically it's every sci-fi horror you've ever seen.

Saying this movie is derivative is entirely fair, because it does take a lot from so many other sources. The Descent, yes, but also Alien (like every other sci-fi horror since 1979), The Cave (which was better than The Descent), Pitch Black (which was pretty good for a B-movie), The Time Machine, and arguably a bit from the Lord of the Rings film franchise. That being said, it's actually an interesting movie to watch, with just enough suspense and mystery to keep me watching it through the laughably corny parts to the fairly predicable end.

The movie follows Corporal Bower from the moment he's rudely awakened from a dream, alone in a cryo-tube that's in a dark room. He also conveniently has no memory of his identity, but knows that not only is he on a ship, but enough about the ship to explain to Dennis Quaid that they're probably screwed unless they can fix the ship's reactor.

Oh, yeah, Dennis Quaid is totally in this one, and he's actually pretty good in it. He's no Michael Ironside, but he's still pretty good in any role he's in, even if it's sometimes in a "so bad it's hilarious" kinda way.

To the movie's credit, though, it does a fairly decent job of setting things up and revealing a little bit of information at a time. Bower goes on a little adventure through the air ducts and stumbles into Mordor.

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He comes face to face with these Orc things that are so obviously not human that they obviously have to be. Bower at first puts forward the idea that these things are aliens, but if you honestly believe that even at this point, you obviously haven't seen many movies like this. And speaking of, I can't help but notice this trend in a lot of sci-fi's lately to make everything spindly and full of spikes. Actually those Orcs kind of match the ship, they're on, the Elysium, which looks like something John Eves (who designed the space octopus in Abrams Trek) would have drawn up. Oops, spoilers...

So after his first encounter with the super-Orcs, Bower figures out that the things want to eat him, and that he's actually trapped on the Nostromo, or basically the set of so many other "space" ships since Alien came out. Apparently filming things in a factory setting where things are grimy, greasy, and full of dangling chains and wide open spaces makes things "dark and gritty" and somehow more realistic even though it’s supposed to be a space ship. Anyway, despite the fact he's been mugged by a hot German woman named Nadia, seen a dead guy caught up in a cannibal trap, and nearly been eaten, he has to press on through the entire ship to get back to the reactor so he can pull a Ctrl-Alt-Del on it. Along the way he meets some other people, one of whom gets eaten, another who actually rescues him, and Nadia again, who seems to only be there to inevitably hook up with him. Nothing quite like greasy cleavage and a chick who will "fucking cut your ass" I guess. ;)

So even though this woman has no reason to go anywhere with him, she just decides to anyway, after first revealing that the Elysium is a technologic Ark, carrying the genetic material necessary to completely pollute the planet their ship was sent to colonize with other life from Earth. But, hey, the reactor's either going to explode or just go completely dead, so why not tag along, I guess...

After dodging more Orcs in slightly better lighting, the trio makes its way through the most inefficiently designed cargo bay I've ever seen that holds a crap-load of other cryo-tubes, complete with the obligatory grate over a massive fan, which is apparently where the Orcs toss the remains of the people they've eaten, and take dumps while they're at it. Naturally Madia and Bower both fall right into it, and for added bonus points they have to actually hide in it up to their eye balls while an Orc tries to decide if there's something down there or not. I can't help but note again how so many movies have done something like this, no doubt excusing it by saying it highlights what people will do to survive. To me, it just comes off as a form of porn, meant to gross out the audience while also apparently getting some people off on this kind of thing.

So after our happy couple crawls out of the filth, they end up in the obligatory fight with one of the Orcs just to show the audience how hard it is to kill one of these things while miraculously not ending up with a serious injury themselves in the process, all so they can end up face to face with the nose-less Orc leader who was apparently just there to enjoy the show. So Bower, Nadia, and the Asian man who came to Bower's rescue but can't speak English end up running into another seemingly normal human, who not only conveniently has a recording of the message that set everything in motion, but kindly explains everything that happened between when the flight crew on duty received a message from Earth that told them they were all that was left and when the movie takes place. He even has some nice artwork to act as visual aids for his story.

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"Long ago, in the before time..."

The self-described chef is even nice enough to finish the story even after he's knocked out the trio, which he follows up by suspending them by the feet. He's even such a nice guy that he explains how this was all a trap he set up and how he's going to eat the three of them. Bower actually manages to talk his way out of this, the reactor once again coming to his rescue. This is frankly the most ridiculous part of this movie, not only because of the exposition, but because of how everything plays out. It really is a cliché storm.

In the mean time. Dennis Quaid has come face to face with himself, or rather Corporal Gallo, as he crawls naked and covered with grease out of another hose-filled air duct. It really isn't that hard to figure out that "Lieutenant Payton" is actually Gallo, who went insane upon hearing that they were the last of humanity and that Earth had magically disappeared in one day, so I don’t consider it much of a spoiler to tell you this, even though the movie tries to treat it like a big twist M. Night Shyamalan might be proud of. This is the next most ridiculous part of the film, because after the big reveal, which takes the form of Payton/Gallo fighting to inject himself with a sedative, not only does he not fall asleep, but he decides he's perfectly cool with the fact that he's completely insane.

The whole premise of the movie is actually based on this made-up condition/disease called Pandorum, which is basically just space insanity. Bower is shown to have some of the symptoms right from the start of the movie, and Payton/Gallo shows them soon after he meets the younger version of himself and remembers that he's a crazy frakker. Apparently anything can bring Pandorum on, though, because after finding out Earth was gone and the 60,000 people on the ship were all that were left of humanity, the first thing he does is to kill the other two members of the flight crew that are on duty with him. He then declares himself a god and goes about torturing the rest of the crew, you know, like Captain Janeway. ;) He eventually gets bored and goes back to sleep, but not before giving a bunch of the colonists an injection of magic juice that was meant to help the colonists adapt to the planet they were colonizing but instead made them "adapt" to the ship, making them all turn into cannibalistic Orcs.

Oh, and the ship has actually already finished its 123 year journey (gee, wonder where they came up with that figure) long ago, and has been sitting on the planet for 900 years, having landed in one of its oceans. This is revealed when Payton/Gallo opens up the pointless blast shield that had been closed when everyone finally made it onto the bridge, and the characters are able to see phosphorescent sea life outside after an initial "shock" of not seeing any stars outside. Then Bower completely loses it, blasting a random panel because he thinks an Orc is coming out of it, sending it flinging into the big glass canopy. Naturally the glass breaks and floods the room, along with apparently the rest of the ship, because I guess space ships don't have separate sections that can be sealed off from one another in case there's a hull breach.

Thanks to the hull breach, the ship ejects all remaining cryo-tubes from the ship, including Bower's, which he quickly crammed Nadia into. This then reveals that the ship isn't actually in the deep ocean, but rather a shallow that's right next to shore, which just doesn't fit at all with what was just shown. The helpful text on the screen than helpfully explains that there are a whopping 1,213 people left, which basically just means that there's incest in humanity's future, because I'm pretty sure this isn't a genetically diverse enough group of individuals left to avoid it. Oh, and let's not forget that our hero Bower has a full-blown case of space crazy – sounds like a happy ending to me. ;)

Okay, as horrible as this movie might sound, it actually isn't really all that bad. I'd even be generous enough to say that it's more interesting than most other movies like it, including The Descent. It's worth a watch, although once is probably enough. 5/10.
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