The Sci Fi Guy

Darth Vader meets Japanese Henchmen

Oh those crazy Japanese…

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Just a quick note to actual readers – the comments have been disabled. I’ve been overwhelmed by spam on this blog, and until I can find a reasonable captcha device to solve this problem, I’ve disabled comments. Sorry to everyone that wants to share their thoughts on the articles here, but I just can’t deal with these goons any longer.

When comments are re-enabled, I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, you can find my email address in the “About” section. Thanks!

I finally review I Am Legend

I have a bad habit of getting around to reviewing movies far after it becomes relevant. Cest la vie, this is another of those reviews.

Will Smith’s I Am Legend is a tale about a man and his dog… And zombie vampires. In short, Smith plays Robert Neville, a government scientist, who is trapped in the gritty future as a man alone in the city of New York. Set a few years in the future, Neville is working on both trying to stay alive and also on finding a way to save the victims of a mysterious plague that has befallen mankind. For some reason, Neville is immune, and tries to find a serum that can cure those that are already infected by breaking down his bloodline and granting that immunity to the plagued.

Visually, I Am Legend doesn’t disappoint. The CGI effects on the plauge-ridden people isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad either. You can definitely tell that they’re computer generated, but it’s not terrible. Where Legend really shines is in the production of a full New York City of the future, filled with animals and beginning to become overrun by neglect. The film maker, who also did Constantine (and, uhm, a bunch of pop music videos) – Francis Lawrence – obviously realized that the set for this film would be the maker or breaker for the audience.

All told, Legend is a good story that takes advantage of the fact that Will Smith is an incredibly charismatic actor. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, the bulk of the movie centers just on the one character, and like Hanks, he has slowly lost his mind.

Look for I Am Legend to come out on DVD and if you didn’t get to see it in theaters, make sure to rent this one and see how you like it.

New Season of Lost!

20 minutes to go… I’ll be posting up my thoughts on tonight’s episode later on.

Empire by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is one of my all time favorite science fiction authors, and so when I saw this book on the shelves I was a little taken aback. A contemporary action-thriller novel? With his name on it? Strange. I decided to give it a shot anyways, and it turns out Card is pretty good at writing along the lines of Tom Clancy. It’s not a perfect novel, and I’d venture to say it doesn’t feel as comfortable as his far future stories such as the Ender sagas or his fantasy stories.

The premise goes as this: We follow an elite Army Ranger and his lovable sidekick as they attempt to uncover the nature of a plot to assasinate the President. While the president himself isn’t named, it’s pretty obvious the charater was based on George W. Bush, the despiseable Texan Right-Wing bastard. And of course, what story couldn’t be complete without dozens of references to the insanity of both sides of the extreme right-and-left political bases. Nobody knows if the impending civil war is a right-wing consipracy to make things more right-wing, or a left-wing conspiracy to make things definitively not right-wing and return power that was lost after the 2000 election debacle.

Here’s the thing. Card’s characters are great, as always. Our hero is all-American, and delivers one-two punches to the badguys. His wife is every man’s dream wife; the mother of 5 that could be top aide to the president. Our sidekick is also great. In fact, there’s not the usual dose of Card’s character complexities. Each character is cut from an unusual mold this time around, where the heroes do what heroes do best – kick ass and take names.

Meanwhile, what does detract from the novel is the fact that the premise is so outrageous that even a completely biased reader like myself (biased in the sense that Orson Scott Card can do no wrong) ends up saying, “This seems a tad bit over-the-edge”. Do I doubt that there are militant forces within the US that might try to stage their own version of the civil war? Possibly. But I think unfortunately Card was issued an ultimatuum from a video game manufacturer that said “We need a story that will pit the US in civil war. And we have mechs. And hovercycles.” I’m not making that part up, this book was the premise for a video game.

Card makes some legitimate points that our current fractures in society are along rural and suburban versus urban lines, but it doesn’t justify the fact that it would take a lot more than he gave credit for in order for the states to do what they did in this story. Again, not saying there’s anything fundamentally wrong with Empire, but it doesn’t jibe and it doesn’t feel complete. It feels forced.

Empire is a decent read, and it does read quickly. However, this Scifi Guy will hope that in the future, Card sticks to more extreme futures and pasts. He’s more comfortable there. And, oh yeah. Mr. Card. Please stop taking orders from video game designers. They haven’t had a good movie in forever, it’s not surprising that the novel can’t do it either.

Lost – The Return! January 31st on ABC

My DVD-watching habits of the last few weeks months have been dominated by re-watching the first 3 seasons of Lost on DVD. Fortunately it’s not a total loss since those crazy island dwellers will be returning January 31st on ABC, with a 2 hour episode.

Check out some early preview photos here: Lost Season 4 Preview Photos [ warning: have popup blocker on ]

So here’s the clues the previews have provided so far:

1. Some will get off the island, some won’t. Interesting. Straw poll to see who gets off the earliest? I say Jack gets off next season – he’s too central to what’s going on. Claire might be allowed to leave. So far no signs of Charlie – could it be that he’s actually deceased? No preview photos of him. . . But Michael does appear to return.

2. The passengers of flight 815 aren’t the rescue freighters‘ “primary objective“. Well, we all know that the island itself is powerful, in both its post-2004 technology (floating nano-cloud security system anyone?). So the question becomes what is on the island that is most valuable? Something we’re already aware of that we haven’t connected the dots, or some new object of imporantance? Jacob obviously is a crucial character – could it be that his presence, the island’s powers, are all intertwined to a long lost episode of Alias?

3. Do we get 8 weeks or the 16 we’ve been patiently waiting for? As of this minute, we get 8. The Scifi Guy supports the Writer’s Strike, even if it means a few delays in some good Spring shows. The web is the next media profit center for the major production organizations, and I think it’s appropriate that the writers be compensated for their work in all distribution channels, not just the ones that have been agreed to so far.

… more to come as I find out more!

Here’s some screen grabs from the Lost Season 4 Trailers…

I did not understand George Lucas’ THX 1138

Point blank: I don’t think I’ve done enough drugs to get this one. THX 1138 is a trippy mind bender set in a police utilitarian state where the workers build robotic policemen and have to stay sedated and / or medicated at all times (the workers, not the robots).

The audio is strange. The imagery is strange. Everything is backdropped on plain white canvases. I’m pretty sure there’s even a robot that jerks Robert Duvall off. Strange.

I tried really hard to understand what this movie was about, but throughout the duration (another quick movie – just 88 minutes) I kept asking myself, “Why the hell am I watching this?” Duvall doesn’t captivate me, and the way the audio is mixed makes it extremely hard to even understand which exact character I’m listening to. Then there’s the fact that everyone’s bald (including the ladies), except for a midget that shows up in an insane asylum room that’s all white. If you’re having trouble keeping up with my synopsis of the movie, you can see how frustrating it is to actually watch the movie!

Anyways, I’ll chalk this 1971 “classic” up to my standard response whenever I see a movie like this: I haven’t done enough drugs to get it.

Blockbuster Total Access Jumps $2 Month

In case some of you were wondering how / why I watch some of the sci fi movies that I review here (which are in no particular order except for how they show up in the mail) the service I use is Blockbuster Total Access. Sure, they’ve got the exchange-the-movie-in-the-store feature, but frankly I don’t really use it that much. Here’s the note I got from Blockbuster today:

“To continue to bring you the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals, your monthly subscription fee will change slightly from $17.99 to $19.99. This adjustment† will go into effect on your next billing cycle on or after December 27, 2007. The benefits of your subscription plan will remain the same…and it’s a value of $34.99!”

Blockbuster doesn’t have movies on demand yet. I’ll give ‘em 60 days to bring it on, otherwise, I think I’ll switch over to Netflix. After all, I’ve got an S-Video out on my video card, and my computer plugs in to my surround system. And for what it’s worth, where do they come up with the $34.99 price point? I don’t recall seeing that price listed anywhere by anyone. Sinister marketing ploy alert.

And The Stream of Bad Movies Continues: Silent Running

Reading some of the reviews of I Am Legend, Will Smith’s new post-apoc movie (which, I haven’t gotten to see yet but I will while it’s still in theaters), one thing stands as fairly obvious. Will Smith has the clout and character to stay on screen, by himself, for apparently an hour or so. Tom Hanks accomplished this same feat (successfully) in Cast Away, not even getting the chance to have a dog and a huge city, but rather a rain soaked island in the middle of nowhere.

Bruce Dern is not that actor. Silent Running is not that movie.

Okay, I’ll grant that Silent Running (released 1972) was written and created during a time when hippies were infiltrating Hollywood and were stating their pro-environment case without having chief advocate extrardinare Al Gore. Here’s the quick & simple of Silent Running: Space ships hanging out around Saturn house the last of Earth’s forests and nature resources (read: cute bunnies). Bruce Dern plays a gardener that cares for the forests, while his 3 cohorts on the space ship are just space jockeys, in space for the paycheck and rearing to get back home.

The plot really moves forward (sarcasm) when a radio call from the “central” somethingorother comes in announcing that the forests in the domes on the space craft are no longer needed. Jettison them, nuke ‘em, and come on home to Earth, where apparently the worldwide temperature is 75 degrees, there’s no disease, no poverty, and full employment.

Here’s where contemporary science fiction audiences everywhere should go “What?” I know I did. The writers basically gave us one sentence about the plight of Earth – it’s perfect. San Diego, worldwide. And for some reason, on Earth’s way to utopia, we shipped the remnants of our forests to outer space. Not even nearby space – Saturn. Way the hell out there space. Nobody-can-figure-out-why space.

So what does Lowell (Dern’s character) do when the call comes in? He murders his 3 spacestronauts, to save the last dome. Don’t mind the ethical argument this movie is making. Don’t mind the fact that the forest actually doesn’t serve anyone other than Dern.

Frankly, the only thing that borders on keeping this movie watchable for even a few minutes are the “Drones” which have more life and character motivation than the dimwittedness of our main (only) character. They plunk around sorta like R2D2 of Star Wars fame might have if denied his scooter wheels.

Moral of the story: Silent Running fails on so many levels. It’s not like Logan’s Run, which is arguably a bad movie but with great intentions, and basically an interesting story. No, I wrapped up Silent Running and was pissed off that our main character killed 3 people for his own personal cruise ship through space in the forest. Modern Science Fiction at least (usually) gives a better justification for it’s premise. My problem with Silent Running is that I can’t imagine a world where we’d all volunteer to ship nature to space. Apparently that was plausible in the early ’70′s.

A Quick Note to SciFi Guy Spammers

Hi Spammers!

Just a quick note, knock it off! I moderate all comments on SciFi-Guy.com, and besides, I barely get any traffic anyways. So, for your sake and mine, why don’t we just play nice and you go spam somewhere that isn’t paying attention?

Thanks!

*** To everyone else: Thanks for visiting! I encourage you to post a comment anywhere on the site. If you’re wondering why I’m yelling at spammers, its because I moderate everything so I always have to deal with them. Anyways, thanks again for visiting the SciFi-Guy.com, and I look forward to chatting with ya!