Godzilla (2014) Review

With the new Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019) film out on the Friday after I write this I thought it might be interesting for me to go over the 2014 film. After watching it again I wondered if it would be a good idea to do this… And yes it is.

Godzilla (2014) is certainly a film. To say anything more about it I need to dive head first into just what Godzilla is, it’s history and impact. So lets do that.

The original Godzilla is a film from 1954 Japan. For context this wasn’t even ten years after the end of the Second World War, and Japan had surrendered in the face of nuclear destruction. As a nation it was terrified, with good reason. A nuclear bomb, while cliche in media today is no joke. A single device destroyed a city. Killing thousands, tens of thousands in a single stroke. It’s a weapon not meant to fight wars, but to end them. Definitively. You drop a bomb that not only wipes out a city, but poisons the land causing horrible death for hundreds of years to come? You damn well better be afraid.

That’s what Godzilla, the original Godzilla, was meant to be. In the original film wherever Godzilla walked he left radiation, his shadow killed people. His shadow. A giant, unstoppable, monster created by man’s hubris wreaking havoc and destroying all it touched. Its existence a warning and terrible reminder that sometimes man’s blind ambition can lead to him toying with things beyond his control.

In a country as traumatised as Japan, and a world that was already hovering on the brink of armageddon in the form of the nuclear arms race, a film and monster like Godzilla was inevitable.

The Twilight Zone 2019

If you don’t know, this year we’ve had another new series of the Twilight Zone. Since the first series, which had five seasons, was first broadcast in 1959 there have been a few sequels. The 1985 version (three seasons) and the 2002 version (one season), not including the anthology film in ’83.

Twilight Zone is big thing, it was one of the first times in TV, at least American TV, that a Science Fiction based show was aimed at more than just children. It used the greatest strength of sci-fi and horror, the metaphor, to look at our world. To see the issues and concerns plaguing us before asking how things would develop. Often taking it to an extreme in effort to force us to look at our own actions. 

Stories like “The Obsolete Man”, The Monsters Are Due on Maple St” and “Eye of the Beholder” are cutting social commentaries that resonate. Not just in the 60’s, but today and possibly in the future too.

Sometimes they were just plain horror or simply quirky fiction out for a laugh, but even then they thrilled. These were stories crafted by masters. Just look at the frankly terrifying “It’s a Good Life”, or the surreal brilliance of “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”. One of my favourites is “A World of His Own”. It's far from perfect and the twists are easy to spot, well aside from the last one, but it’s a fun quirky little story. 

Doctor Who Series 11 Overview

I need to clarify something, I’m not angry.

I’m disappointed.

I’m going to start this overview with the characters, move on to the episodes and then sum up with my hopes for the 2020 season. So with a lot to get through we best get started with The Doctor.

Having time to reflect is a good thing. It takes us away from the immediacy of a moment and can often give us a better sense of the whole picture. A great example would be that when I first saw Jodie Whittaker in the role (during The Woman that Fell To Earth) I felt there was some good potential there. The joking rename of the villain to the unimpressive Tim Shaw is perfect Doctor. The irrelevant moments, the idle easy humour that off sets the violence. That’s again very Doctor and I wanted to see more of that.

We didn’t. What we got was a very generic version of the character. When this version should have done something outrageous and clever, just because they could, Whittaker just seems to stand there. Where one incarnation would rage loudly, another would become cold and calculating Whittaker simply stands around. There’s no urgency, no passion and no real joy to the character here. Somethings do work, but not quite in the right way.

Having seen Jodie Whittaker in other roles, and some what enjoyed her acting to be honest, I’m left wondering if she’s sleep walking through the part. I can’t see any passion in her performance. She’s not been given much in the way of material to work with and I doubt she even understands the role. There’s more to the Doctor than just pulling the same funny face once or twice an episode. 

There’s more than a few concerns in the writing. In her first episode the Doctor cobbles together a Sonic Screwdriver, you’d think that means this Doctor is an engineer and a tinkerer. Someone who builds things for the sake of the plot. In her defence she does, twice more, but it’s not really in her character. It feels out of place every time she does it. At one point she derails an entire story, slamming on the narrative breaks, for a speech about some technology they come across. This is a one off, we don’t see this side of her again really. It’s all horribly inconsistent.  

It takes a while for some actors and writers to home in on the personality of a Doctor. We’ve seen it happen before. Capaldi flip-flopped his Doctor’s traits several times, Sylvester McCoy’s first season was a disaster, however his second alone makes him one of the best Doctors in my opinion.

With a season as short as this one I don’t think anyone’s gotten a grasp of this Doctor yet. So the generic grab bag handful of half baked traits they’ve bolted together to make Doctor 13 still needs time to mesh right. I am convinced that the potential is still there, but it needs something more to bring it out. More episodes, more focus on the Doctor. Most importantly more interesting and better villains.

A hero is defined by their opponents and Whittaker’s bad guys so far have been a collection of weak, half baked and ineffectual parodies. With the notable exception of the New Years Special. The new villains don’t have any depth to them and no real weight. In any other season they wouldn’t have even registered as filler.

Doctor Who Series 11 Special Resolution Review

Did Chris Chibnall get a book on how to write a horror story over Christmas?

Now I know this was probably recorded back sometime around August, but the joke works. I’m just not that funny. So what did I think of the episode?

It felt like a season ending adventure, a lot more than The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos was. It was a strong story, with some really exciting moments. Good timing, both comedic and dramatic, and worked very well over all.

It’s not a perfect adventure. There are flaws, and I’ll look at them in a moment, but there are serious strengths. We really saw the threat of a single Dalek. Last time we saw that’s with Dalek, back in 2005, since then it’s been whole armies. Now a single Dalek is a threat again. We saw just one annihilate an army here, even taking on a tank and winning. This is powerful stuff. We also got some nice body horror, with the Dalek taking control of a human body for transportation early on.

We also got a limited car chase, a nice little bit of romance for our guest characters and while predictable in places I can’t really complain about that this time around. Rather than lifting sections wholesale from other, better, stories Chibnall seems to have figured out what he’s supposed to be doing. 

After the shear incompetence he showed during the season proper this is a refreshing change. I honestly found myself wondering if it really was just Chibnall who did this, and he wasn’t helped by a ghost writer. Someone with experience in writing Science Fiction and horror. I think he was.

One of the things that helped convinced me of this is the way the subplot about Ryan’s dad appears at odd thematic points. Only to bring the story to a crashing halt when they did. One scene we get a Dalek murdering a couple of police officers, the next a tender moment between Ryan and his previously absent father. The tonal whiplash almost gave me a neck injury.

Another part of the theory came about because this time around Chibnall actually knew something about Doctor Who history, with references to the Black Archive and even UNIT. Of course that brings us to UNIT. According to what we are told UNIT is currently disbanded due to budget issues. On the one hand this is a good thing, forcing the Doctor to solve this without their help. On the other What the absolute hell? UNIT has been a steadfast ally to the Doctor since the 60’s and now they’re just gone like that?

The last Doctor (Twelve) negotiated a colony of Zygons on earth, with UNIT policing them. What’s happened to that? It just doesn’t make much sense, the reason given is it’s budget has been cut because alien invasions aren’t that common anymore. I question that logic, just about every alien race passing by has tried it in the last dozen years, but alright. Maybe after the Dalek’s killing spree, and knocking out the entire communications infrastructure of the UK, they might get their act together.

Speaking of getting their act together. That is what this special sort of feels like. Chibnall and team got it right. Series 11 had growing pains. It tried really hard, but just didn’t quite work. With this special it did and it’s not quite the good news you think. The next season isn’t due until 2020, a long year away and whatever the good will this special earns might not be enough.

One or two great episodes in a season do not make up for a mediocre greater whole. I’m going to be posting a full season review in a couple of days, but this special was indeed one of the highlights. If Chibnall did pull someone in to shadow him for this one, understandable given the amount of episodes he did this season, then I hope he keeps them. If not and this was just a case of a good story done well, then brilliant. More please.

In fact more like this in general. Social commentary was never the problem, it was the bad stories that couldn’t justify it. More creative, entertaining episodes like this was would address that problem and bring both newer and classic fans back together again in the love of good story telling and staying true to Doctor Who.

10 out of 13

Would be better, if not for the tonal whiplash at points. A good start to the year though. See you in 2020 Doctor.

Doctor Who Demons of the Punjab Review

As much as I don’t want I’m going to split this review in two. Set up a boarder between the sections and then look at them apart before fitting them back together. 

It’s a metaphor, go with it.

In part A I’m going to look at the plight of Yaz’s grandmother and her family. It’s a terrible time that in many ways appears to mirror the troubles of Northern Ireland. A boarder is being enacted dividing India and Pakistan, this devision is religious as much as political. Separating Hindu and Muslim as much as the two peoples. Unfortunately Yaz’s grandmother is marring a hindu from across this new boarder and her soon to be brother-in-law has been radicalised by extremist propaganda…

The result is a tragedy. Just one more in a time where they are all too common. What was politically expedient at the time proves to be a terrible burden for decades and generations to come.

It’s a moving, powerful, tale that really pulls on the heartstrings. Strong performances and instantly relatable characters. Some likeable, others not so much, but all together well written and enjoyable. A solid drama I can’t really fault, made all the more poignant knowing that this was all together too possible. This not only could have happened you’re left with the heartbreaking certainty that it probably did, and more than just with this single family.

The story highlights one of those sad parts in human history the is often skipped over or out right missed in most summaries of our long past, not least because it happened so far away and there were other things going on. 1947 was the first moves in what we know now as the cold war. With Europe still reeling from the deviation of the second World War and the slowly descending Iron curtain about to cut the continent in two. The history books at this time are kinda full and there’s no room for anything more in schools.

So this period of India / Pakistan really does deserve something out there to raise more awareness of it. What makes this stronger than Rosa is we’re not following this one iconic figure. It’s so much smaller, dealing with just one family, but has such a greater impact for that. So I give this part of the story a solid score of 10 out of 13. Easily the strongest I’ve seen this season.

In Part B we’re actually going to look at the part of the story that is Doctor Who, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. 

The time travel with Yaz crossing her own time line was utterly wasted. It even missed the otherwise pointless revelation at the end that the Grandmother should have recognised Yaz or the Doctor. It could have been anyone in that aspect and while I appreciate the rebellion in not going with the typical cliche, leaving Chekov’s gun unfired as it were, it isn’t exactly fulfilling.

The aliens were your typical fare. The basic idea of assassins and warriors that have given up their killing way was hardly original, but once again no threat what so ever. In this case though they weren’t supposed to be, so I won’t complain. What I will complain about is the psychic whatever flashes that gave the Doctor a headache a grand total of twice. Done just to build some tension, but that’s about it. 

A lot of the more science fiction elements just feel bolted on to the main plot and it doesn’t fit. In many ways they weren’t needed and should have just been removed. Focusing more on the main story.

That said there were a couple of nice moments. Yaz finally getting some much needed character development in a talk with Graham being one of them. but this side of the story rings hollow. Especially with the shear weight of what I’m calling part A.

Taken as a whole, which you have to do, this is still one of the strongest episodes so far. Even with the plot holes and dull aliens there’s enough here to enjoy and a serious message is in there as well. I wish the Doctor Who elements were better integrated. In another season this would have been incredibly out of place and have felt wrong. This season it’s some of the best we’re going to get.

8 out of 13

Doctor Who Season 11 Mid-season overview

Half way through this truncated season and I feel it’s necessary to take a metaphorical step back and look at the big picture.

I was looking forward to this season. I really was actually. Look, lets be honest here Steven Moffat had run out of steam by the end. Season 10 was an improvement over the previous two, but nowhere near as great as season 5. I blame Sherlock, it’s difficult enough to run one epic series, let alone two that become that amazingly popular and that ingrained into popular culture.

Both shows suffered because Moffat was torn between them. Still, I’m not here to go into that right now. We’re looking at Who. Now Chibnall cleared house behind the scenes as well as in front. This was going to be a fresh start for them. And Doctor Who needs to do that every so often. The show's been around for fifty five years, to keep up with the times it needs to change.

If it didn’t it would become stagnant. It would die off, much like Star Trek did in the early 2000’s. If you don’t innovate you lose viewers to those that do. Without viewers you fail and your show is gone. Especially in Science Fiction TV where they can cost more than smaller programs and the audience often demand more.

So with a new, fresh, show runner and a new Doctor things were looking up for the program. I was actually quite excited when I saw we were getting our first female Doctor. Of course there were people who didn’t like the idea, there’s always people objecting when the Doctor regenerates. I thought it was worth a chance.

There were also people at the time that called Chris Chibnall a hack writer, I didn’t particularly agree with them. I was never that impressed with Chibnall’s previous work on Doctor Who and Torchwood, true, but he was brought on as staff. Shackled by the guidelines imposed on him from the screenwriter. Now he was captaining the ship he could set the course. 

So we’re half way through the first journey on this captaincy. Where do we stand? Well the important thing to remember is it’s never too late to improve. You just have to know what the problem is. That said I announced in my last review that the gloves were off. I’m not going to be polite here. Chibnall has proven to be an incompetent, mediocre and stagnant writer.

Doctor Who The Tsuranga Conundrum Review

Wha…

I don’t know how to begin this review, because I truly am in two minds about this episode. On the one hand it was an utterly pointless waste of my time that I want to bill the BBC for to get my money back. On the other it was a whimsical piece of dada-ism in film making that deserves some kind of award.

I want to love Doctor Who. It’s important you know this. I want to be screaming from the rooftops about how brilliant it is. I want to argue with people that they are truly missing something of real importance by not watching it. Then I’m confronted with an episode like this. An episode where, after watching it, all you can do is ask questions that you know there isn’t going to be an answer to.

What was the Doctor and team Tardis looking for in the scrap pile? Why the hell was there a mine hidden in a pile of otherwise useless junk? Who called the medical transport?

But no time for that… Suddenly the ship is attacked by a space gremlin! and OH NO! It eats metal and feeds off energy! We’ve never seen that before… Oh wait I’ve lost count of how many times that nonsense has been tried! For the sake of, the Transformers Cartoon did this in the 1984 and it was a long long way from original. It’s right up there with the “What if it’s the MAN that becomes pregnant?” cliche. And will you look at that. Whats more he’s not ready to be a single parent, oh the tragedy! Will he keep the child, or give it up for adoption?

Here’s a hint, whichever one is the most cliched, and the most cowardly from a writers perspective. (I don’t want to belittle real life single parents that feel they can’t take care of their child and forced to give them up to adoption, but this pat solution is pointless) Speaking off we also have the pilot that’s suffering from a degenerative condition and their brother that they lie to because they want to maintain their perfect image. Whoopee bloody doo! 

These are all ideas that have been done by Red Dwarf, back in the 90’s. And back then they were a bad joke! The Dwarf boys were laughing that it was old hat two decades ago! Now what is meant to be the premier Sci-Fi show of the era, the trend setter that has redefined Science Fiction for more than fifty years, does this? You can’t make it up. Is this supposed to be so retro that it’s new or something? Is it supposed to be a new take on the old ideas? Because believe me its really neither.

Doctor Who Arachnids in the UK Review

Think I’d better mention that I don’t like spiders. 

They have the effect of creeping me out. Too many legs, eyes and fangs. Don’t forget the fangs. Then there’s the webs wrapping you up, covering you, suffocating you. Being mummified alive. Trapped in tomb no bigger than yourself, screaming silently as you slowly die… 

Anyway Arachnids in the UK was meant to be a horror story. Back in the day Doctor Who was legendary for scaring people, the joke being the viewers often hid behind the sofa to het away from the terrifying things they had to see. Horror has been a staple of Doctor Who since it’s inception and it’s always been that The Doctor taught children it was alright to be scared. That fear was good and bravery wasn’t the absence of fear, but doing what had to be done despite it.

It was one of the best lines in the Curse of the Fatal Death (a comic relief skit on Doctor Who from the 90’s) when the Doctor was thought dead that summed it up wonderfully:- “…It will never be safe to be scared again.”

This is why we needed a horror story, specially around halloween. We needed to be scared. To be terrified. To be brave. So, were we?

Kind of, yes.

I would actually describe Arachnids in the UK as a tribute to shlock horror movies. There’s a whole sub-genre of horror films that feature some aspect of nature grow wildly out of control. Films like Night of the Lepus. Usually these films feature morally questionable experiments going awry or Nature fighting back against mankind’s often selfish actions.

In this episode we got a morality tale about (wo)man’s science messing with nature and things it shouldn’t trifle with. How the quick solution isn’t always, or ever, the best one. We also got to see the real monster, as always, is the worse excesses of humanity. Which all worked in a way and all straight from classic monster horror movies.

Doctor Who Rosa Review

Well that was… Horrific. On many different levels.

Trying to review this episode is difficult because its a difficult topic. They try to address it in a ridiculously short amount of time. 50 minutes is not long enough to go into any real detail. Add in the pointless time criminal sub plot (seriously what was the point of that guy?) and we have even less.

The problem is I don’t feel like I’m qualified to comment on it. Being English, from the hills of Lancashire and born long after the events in question, it’s not something I have the context to address. Certainly not in a short written review of the Episode in question

Yes I know who Rosa Parks was and yes I know why she was famous. I have the morals to say the very concept of segregation appals me. It’s a vile practice from a time I hope has long since past, but unfortunately still effects people to this day. It is something I would hope to have the courage to have fought against, were I there at the time, and would stand up against today should I be in a position to do so. I didn’t need the episode to tell me this. I most importantly didn’t need this episode to make me feel guilty about it! 

But I wasn’t the audience for this episode of Doctor Who. The audience was the people who are only just learning about this stuff and that’s alright. There are people in this world that don’t know about Rosa Parks just yet that could have watched it. That needs to learn that one woman’s bravery, and her anger, was important.

The problem there is that, again, it was and remains a complex issue that 50 minutes can’t do justice.

Doctor Who The Ghost Monument Review

Can I talk about Enlightenment. I want to talk about Enlightenment. No, I’m not taking a sudden right turn into philosophy and using the tile as clickbait. Enlightenment is a Classic Doctor Who adventure from the Peter Davidson (5th) Doctor’s run and in all honesty is one of my favourites of his time in the TARDIS. 

In it the Doctor lands in the middle of the final stage of a vast intergalactic boat race. It’s goal? Enlightenment. Ultimate knowledge. It’s all part of the never ending conflict between two Guardians, the Guardian of Light and the Guardian of Dark. Paired forces of elemental creation so powerful they have developed their own wills and personality. 

Whoever wins the race would have the freedom to do what ever they chose. If they did “good” with it they would tilt the scales in favour of the Light Guardian. “Bad” well then the Darkness gains in power. That is how the Guardians work, though proxies. Choosing champions to represent them across time and space, sometimes without them even knowing they have been chosen. Other times…

The great debate.

Oh boy

Thank you William Shatner, you have waded into the oldest and most impossibly stale argument in geekdom and you've kicked off a new phase in the war. For those of you that don't know Shatner did an interview on his youtube page saying Star Trek was better than Star Wars.

Of course he was going to say Star Trek. There are two reasons for this, both are that it's William god-damn Shatner. The only thing more legendary than his acting is his planet sized ego. Anyway Carrie Fisher decided to open a Youtube page herself and challenge that.

Meta, an investigation.

Meta, an investigation.

Oh dear, this is something percolating in the background of geek culture and has been for sometime. Meta-fiction, literally meaning "beyond fiction". So far beyond that it's almost abstract.

But just what the hell does that all mean? Well not much is the short of it, but the long is a real twisted story. There are about three different levels to Meta-fiction, each one coming about through different means. So lets start in the shallow end:-

The first level is an in-joke. Something that the writer, or director, puts in for a gag. Like Alfred Hitchcock's cameo's, or Bruce Campbell's cameo's in the Spiderman films. They can often just be one liners, a character quipping that something like that would only happen in a bad TV show. Or even the cylon in the title sequence of The A-Team. In someways a gag like this pulls you out of the fiction, taking you out of the story. In others it flags up the point that it only a story after all, and because we're in on the joke it puts us at ease.
Meta in-jokes are fun and if pulled off just right add to the over all experience. We're put on the same level as the creator, we're interacting with whats happening and feel like we're being let in to the Writer / Directors confidence. Of course if they're pulled off wrong it's just a cheap sting.

The second level is what I like to think of as The Great Game. Bringing the fiction into reality. This sort of started with Sherlock Holmes, but it's also found in stuff like Bernard Cromwell's Sharp series. This "level" deliberately blurs the lines between fact and fiction. Taking historical events and weaving them into the story, bringing up something like September 11th is a good example. Not in metaphor, but directly and having it as a motivation for a characters actions as was done in Farscape at one point.
Blurring the lines like this really adds a sense of realism to a story. The Scream films used this sort of meta-fiction perfectly. By acknowledging the codes and conventions of horror films, making classic horror films fiction in story, we felt like we were on the same level as the characters. That they were real people and not the bland ignorant cyphers of the previous twenty years.
That's the point of this level, blur the lines and you make fiction more real. Throw in a few twists and you make the characters people we can relate to. This doesn't always work but it can be very interesting to see pulled off.

The third though, well let's jut say it's mindfu*k time! The third level is what happens when the fiction acknowledges that it is fiction. It's literally having a character going on a quest to find god and meeting his Writer / Creator. In this you all sorts of questions, with the Character asking fundamental questions about their own existence and why. This was done to great effect in Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man, which I highly rate. Another point with this level is it often pulls the other two in with it. Littering the story with real world references and history. Stargate's two hundredth episode featured a writer coming to the team looking for ideas for scripts! The episode was littered with so meny in jokes and stings that it was all one big gag.
Take look at another of the corner stones of this level, Yes Virginia, There Is A Hercules, from Hercules:- The Legendary Journeys. In fact, for god's sake do. It's one of the three episodes that makes that show worth while. While on the surface it's just a clip show the framing device is so meta (ironically a Greek word…) that it makes your head spin. We see the production team, played by the main cast in exaggerated roles, fighting amongst themselves and we have the Greek gods appear to them, in character and with all their powers. The sting of this episode is even more barmy. Kevin Sorbo arrives to defeat the Gods, saying that he really is the greek demi-god and Kevin Sorbo is a cover.
This level of meta-fiction doesn't just blur the lines between one fiction and another, but flat out crushes them all, even those between fiction and reality, completely. It's like taking a bulldozer to the actor's forth wall and then detonating it with a truck full of C4. Almost anything can happen when you wheel this out, from George Lucas meeting Darth Vader to the TARDIS landing in the middle of the Doctor Who set!
With this level you can either have fun, or ask some of the most difficult philosophical questions you'll ever see. Either way the audience will be equally confused and enthralled.

So, in summation, Meta-fiction is a way to blur the lines between fiction and reality, in storytelling, to enhance the experience for the audience. That was the short version if anyone asks!

All hallows.

All hallows! An investigation:-

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because I've been busy but otherwise I've not had much to say. But there is one thing that's interesting me. Halloween.

Halloween, lot's of people seem to be excited by it:- "Oh it's my favourite Holiday!" "I love Halloween!" "So what are you doing for Halloween" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas is my favourite film of all time Evar!" It never hit me why, alright it's a good film, but why does everyone get so excited by Halloween? I've never really understood it and I think I know why.

Of all the holidays it's the most social. Now I'm not a social animal, mostly I keep to myself in the pub or those that know me. I hate loud parties (what few I've been to) because I always seem to end up the loner on the corner. Cringing at the oppressive, and crap, music and wondering why I'm surrounded by people I can't relate to. So I've identified why I don't rate Halloween. Why do other people rate it higher than, say, Easter or Chinese New Year?

It's because the others aren't social, well not really. They're always family things. Christmas has become that time where we have to dust off the address book and contact relatives you haven't heard a thing from for 12 months. Or long car journeys to old friends that you no longer have anything in common with and can't quite understand why. New Years is more a case of getting drunk and shouting a lot. The parties are always at someone's house, or with some work buddies that you don't know socially.

As for Easter, well that's on it's last legs. Remembered for chocolate eggs and the fact you get some extra days off work.

Most, if not all of the non christian celebrations are ignored when it comes to time off work or celebration outside of themselves.

So in the end we get halloween, the one last party all the evil sprits get before all Hallows. Their banishing before winter winter sets in. That's the origin of it and some how, while that's been mostly lost this simple little pagan festival has survived it all. Religion, mis-information and even crass commercialism to be the one night of the year we all have a good party.

So if you're going to enjoy yourselves, dress up as a witch and party more power too you. Me, I'll be the loner in the pub.

One last thing before I go:- An interesting point about Easter, it's the polar opposite of Halloween. Originally another pagan festival, celebrating the start of life in the year. Hence the bunny's Eggs and everything else.

Black Holes

I am not one of the worlds great physicist, I'm not even one of the worlds great spellers, but I like to think I have a brain. So when watching a documentary on Steven Hawking and his view on Black Holes I was painfully reminded why I didn't take up hard science as a career.

Black holes are amongst the most powerful forces in nature, capable of crushing whole stars and indeed solar systems while being no larger than a pea. This is thanks to the frankly silly amount of mass compacted, with a staggering amount of densely, into a small space. We use metaphors like "sucking" and "trapped" when in reality it's just another way of "falling". Now, according to Hawking, once matter has passed what is called the event horizon (a mathematical, not physical, edge to the Black Hole) it would be impossible to stop falling. The problem is what happens next.

Now according to most people there are two possible arguments. The first states that all the matter in the Black Hole eventually vanishes. Just that, vanish, cease to exist. According to Hawkins this is what happens and it breaks just about every rule in the book. Matter is simply organised energy and one of the basic rules out there is that energy (and thus matter) cannot be created or destroyed. only converted. The theory flat out tells us that in a Black Hole the forces involved supereed the laws of physics. Unfortunately, if this is true, it leads to a problem. Black Holes are so powerful and so immense that the universe just couldn't exist, as we know it does. It would have been sucked up long long ago. There are just that many of the blasted things out there. Now a good number of Physicists have also noticed that and come up with the only solution, Black Holes are finite and do eventually stop.

But what happens to the matter they sucked up? When those forces end, a good question itself is how, what happens. Now Hawking's theory tels us... nothing happens. After all if the matter and energy no longer exists then neither do the forces that they exert. It wraps up the problem in a nice little bow. The problem is, of course, without matter, little things like Existence itself would have been destroyed long ago.

Now a good number of other, less famous thinkers, suggest that doesn't happen. They suggest that the Black Hole eventually traps itself. With nothing escaping matter just continues to spiral deeper and deeper into itself and that's it. The Black Hole stops exerting forces and collapses. The key to this is a little loop hole in Hawkins math that points out that a Black Hole produces heat. Incredible amounts of heat that just bleeds off into space.

Now as this documentary tried to explain this I paused it got up and ranted at a wall for an hour. The reason for this is simple, either I'm seeing something 99% of the most brilliant people in the world haven't or I'm missing something fundamental. The problem is because I'm coming from it with the basics and not convoluted, unproven, math and vague imagery I don't think I'm tied up in the decades of linear thinking these people have caved out for themselves.

Heat, much like light and matter and anything else, cannot escape a Black Hole. If the forces inside are creating more and more heat in a denser and denser point there can only be one solution. The forces acting within would have to reach a critical point where there is more energy inside trying to get out than there is gravity pulling it in. The more a Black Hole absorbs the more energy that would be eventually produced. The result would be, what people once suggested could be called, a White Hole. Or, put more simply, kaboom. An enormous kaboom. The matter, once trapped, would break forth and well miniature big bang is the best description I can come up with.

There is obviously a complex and elaborate theory that states I'm wrong. If some one, anyone, has it please tell me. Otherwise I'll return to Sci-Fi reviews and fan fiction as soon as possible

Miracle Day.

A quick update on my past opinion of Torchwood:-

The first series was pure character assassination. Simple. While RTD was trying to make them diverse and flawed the end result was no one came out of that with an ounce of likability. The acting was nothing to write home about either. Heck, half the time it even seemed like Barrowman, a man that could give Shatner a challenge chewing scenery, was phoning it in that year. We had so much sex, gay innuendo and pointless bodily fluids that it came off like three teenage boys giggling behind the bike shed. It wasn't grown up, wasn't adult. Just some kid that found their dad's copy of FHM and thought it was the most graphic thing since Lemon Party . Org.

The second series approached things as if the first hadn't happened. We had reasonably adult humour, a few good storylines and the characters were the well rounded and down to earth, flawed, people they were supposed to be. We got some good back story and development for the team and opened up the can of worms that was Jack's backstory for the overall plot. It could have been a lot better, and I found killing off two of the gang rather pointless, but they were niggling doubts all in all it was leagues ahead. If the first year was scored one out of five, the second was a solid three.

Then came Children of Earth. This was a deal braker for me. Quite simply it had a lot of promise and would have made either a nice three parter all on its own, or an arc for a series. They knew these aliens were coming back, people all over the world would be beginning to panic and it was up to Torchwood to try and stop it from happening again. Jack could have been wracked with guilt over what he was forced to do and it could have been a nice Torchwood on the run against the conspiracy thing. The once proud, secret, organisation that had influence at the highest levels reduced to the end of it's rope. Old favours vanishing and allies turning on them. A real draconian menace from a corrupt and desperate cabal of officials trying to hide mistakes made fifty years earlier.

Unfortunately what we got was a disaster. An over bloated arrogant mess that needed someone with the guts to tell RTD to scale back, and stop trying to rewrite the end of New Doctor Who's third year

I've already outlined how I would have fixed this Here. Much to some people's dislike.

Now comes Miracle Day. It's either going to be a carbon copy of Children of Earth with some of the bad bits iron-ed out, some more development and a bigger punch to it. Or it's just going to be a damp, predictable, squib that lasts five more episodes than CoE. Dragged out to the point where even the most avid fan throws their hands up in disgust.

I've seen two episodes so far, and I have to wonder if it was written by a first year script writing student. A director that's qualifications were that they watched Twilight one time and an editor that has a YouTube account. I might be a bit harsh here, but it really feels like a Mickey mouse operation. The villains would be better hidden if they had top hats, moustaches and capes. Along with a neon sign flashing "smarmy gits" and their own marching band.

There is no real drama here. The acting is on par with the first year and it just feels like everyone with any acting skill are just working for pay checks.

Including Dichen Lachman, Dollhouse's Sierra. Just one of the many guest stars they've got coming.

Unlike Transformers 3 I have an open mind for this one, please RTD don't disapoint

Transformers 3. The warning signs.

Looking back on it I was incredibly kind to the second Transformers movie. It really was one of the worse films I've ever seen, I have over used the skip function on the DVD and it's just empty, soulless and pathetic

There is no hiding the fact that Transformers exist solely to sell toys, but the reason it's survived for so long and well loved by hard core fans like myself is the depth of work gone into it. Look at how well written Beast Wars and Animated was. A good group of writers can really access the potential Transformers has. Aliens, wars that have lasted millions of years, sacrifices, struggles, morality, the list is endless.

One of the more interesting points had always been, however stereotyped, everyone of the transformers, Autobots and Decepticons, had their own characters. The cowardly Starscream, the heroic Optimus, the overconfident Powerglide, the arrogant Skylynx, eminently logical Shockwave, monotone Soundwave, the list goes on. The point of that is everyone has their own favorites, every transformer looks and behaves differently.

The reason I mentioned those two important points is that is what people like about Transformers. Yes there's the whole giant robots beating the crap out of each other, but under that is the diversity and scale of this war.

On paper Bay should be the perfect person for this. His utter lack of subtly, over reliance on clichéd characters and love of really big explosions is exactly what is needed. And that's why these films haven't worked. Look at Kenneth Branagh as the director of Thor. Would you have expected that to work as well as it did? How about Simon Pegg's scene stealing performance as Scotty, the best thing about that movie, never would have called it. Peter Jackson's biggest film before LOTR was the Frighteners and Bad Taste. Breaking expectations like this has proven to be a good idea. It shows how someone can look deeper and produce something others wouldn't necessarily see.

This is why Bay is precisely the wrong person for these films, he churns this sort of film out in his sleep. It's like hiring Roland Emmerich to do another disaster movie or Shyamalan to do an episode of the twilight zone. There's nothing new they're going to bring to the table, just churn out the same old crap in a different wrapper.

Having this guy do the third one is rubbing salt on an old wound. What's worse is, reading rumours and spoilers show that he hasn't learnt anything. Even when he knows the second film failed on every level he misses why. Sure the Twins were bad, but so were the parents, and it was only after massive fan backlash that he backtracked on the whole Leo Spitz character and canned him.

Still there is one thing that really sets off alarm bells, the romantic interest. Megan Fox's Mikaela Banes was horrendous. She can't act for spit, the character was ignorant to the point of idiocy and was there simply as eye candy for horny teenagers. There was absolutely zero chemistry between her and Sam and just felt like a love interest shoe horned in for the sake of it. No secret there, but Fox has gone.

Leaving us with Carly, played by, god help us, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. I did not think it was possible to cast someone worse than Fox, all we've seen is the trailer and it hurts. Physically painful. All we see is her in expensive and revealing dresses that aren't even close to practical.

She is going to destroy this film. and after everything we know that really worries me.

X-Men

With the new film X-men First Class doing quite well for itself in the Cinema I just want to mention something.

Now over the years I've tried to get into X-men, one version or another. The comics, the 90s cartoon, the films and I have one thing to point out. It's incredibly dull. Sorry to all the Marvel fans out there who think its the best thing since sliced bread, but it's not.

The whole thing is a one trick pony. Mutants as a metaphor for those rejected by society. Congratulations Stan Lee that was slightly witty, and very risky for the time (1960's) what next? Urm? You have a vast cast of characters with a variety of social and personal disorders staring in what basically boils down to a Soap Opera.

Now I give the original concept a thumbs up, even if I can't get behind the science (and when I can legitimately question Comic book science, worry deeply) but a concept can only last so long. Sooner or later you have to develop it, fertilize it, let it grow. Where has the Concept gone? Sure the Characters have changed (then been reset, changed again and reset again, repeat as needed) but where has the single witty part of the story gone. Have Mutants been more or less accepted, has the hatred increased or wained? Nothing and that's my biggest problem with the whole stinking Marvel Universe.

Here, let me expand on that point. It's an established fact (sorry to say) that the people in the Marvel Universe are rock stupid, arrogant, bigoted, ignorant, fools. That is, if I was being kind to them. The only reasonable people seem to be the mutants. It's a very us verses them mentality, especially when most comic and science fiction fans feel alienated by certain members of society. Just once I would like to see someone form New York that supports, or is even on the fence, with Spiderman. seeing the good he does and point out that he's just a person. He can make mistakes. Or someone from the public argue that mutants can't help being born that way and just because they've got fantastic night vision doesn't mean they are the spawn of satan.

It's this very one sided and bias view that Marvel seems to have (and X-Men spearheads) that puts me off the whole idea. It's so predictable, whenever someone does eventually speak up for the minorities (that always seem to be around every corner and under every rock) they turn out to be a closet Mutant (read homosexual, dyslexic, jew or whatever). The whole attitude is incredibly dated. Just to make things worse, much like the horrendous One More Day debacle, there seems to be a status quo in the Marvel universe. While DC likes to reboot the whole franchise every few years (long story) to shake things up a bit (thats the short version) Marvel always hits the reset button, that or spawn a whole new universe hoping to draw people into reading.

So in summation I dislike Marvel, mostly because of X-Men and find the new movie pointless. Most importantly it seems that the X-men franchise is taking place outside of the Marvel movie universe. Meaning that other than a few references it doesn't look like Joss Whedon's going to be playing in that sand box in the upcoming Avengers movie (thank God).

Doctor Who Mid season

Okay, I hate to say this but that was predictable.

Every twist and turn I could foresee easily. I'm not going to give any spoilers here but come on, give me a break. There are still a lot of questions, and I'm going to ask one in a moment, but at just about every point I rolled my eyes.

It was well acted, produced and written, but sadly predictable.

That wasn't the only disappointment here. I was really looking forward to the Doctor going to war. Serious war, pulling out the weapons he used in the Time War. A Gauntlet, or a Rod. Hell something, He's peeved, seriously, can you thing of a better time to show that sort of thing off? It would be interesting, show just how deadly the Doctor could be. We know how dangerous he can be with just a screwdriver, imagine him armed! See what I mean by disappointing?

Okay, here we go. The real problem. Why? What was this all for? A war against the Doctor. First of all that's really, really stupid. Then again one man's hero is another's villain I get that but why go to war with him? That's more than poking a bear, its sticking your head into the Lions mouth, kicking it in the nuts and then blaming the bear. What could they possibly, possibly do that makes him that big a threat?

The big point of the Doctor is that he only comes after those that deserve it. He's not some psychopath that obliterates planets for a laugh. There has got to be a reason for this. Something. The bad guys (or should I say woman) even admit's that he's a good man. For fucks sake, no one wants to be the bad guy. Kidnapping pregnant women and stealing children from them my god in heaven, there is no moral right in that. Why were they so afraid of him?

I hope we find an answer to that. Another question I hope we get some sort of answer to is why the Doctor didn't check. It would be the first thing I would have done. Hell I'd have torn the computers and the child's DNA appart looking for the smallest thing. They had the child a month. A freaking month, not to mention the whole pregnancy. They could have done anything. Heck why not just plant a bomb, or a black hole, or something on the asteroid to kill everyone.

It's not that difficult. It's only the fact that these priests are militantly stupid, arrogant and so enamoured of a ridiculously complex and overwrote plan that they forget Occam's Razor (the logical idea that a straight line is the most likely path between to points). Just kill him. It's not that hard. As powerful as a Time Lord is it's not like he just regenerate in a god damn vacum. Detonate the whole asteroid and kill everyone. Leave the Doctor afloat in space, but no they have to be over complicated and make this predictably complex mess a solution.

Then again "Let's Kill Hitler" looks intersting, shame we have to wait four months

Stargate Universe, continued

People are actually reading my blog, this is a surprise to me. Mostly though these people are commenting on my Opinion of Stargate Universe, disagreeing with me and telling me it was quite good once you got into it.

You know what, thank you. It's always good to hear others opinions and see the discussion form another point of view. Honestly that's why I started this blog and that people are willing to hammer it out with me is fantastic.

So, I'm going to outline my problems with SGU and the things I liked about it and I invite anyone commenting to tackle me head on. Please, I want to like Science Fiction. I'm not some hate filled bitter fool that only rants about bad things because I hate everything.

Alright so first I'll go over the good points, as I see them:-

• Fresh outlook. After ten years of the original SG-1 it was time for a change. The actors knew it, the crew knew it and so did the studio. It was an impressive feat that the show made it that far. Lets be honest, the first couple of years was mediocre at best. By the end we had a well developed mythology, interesting and diverse characters and finally a sense of achievement and wonder at a new universe that was wide open to us. That's where Universe came in and it was a bold move. One I can respect and admire.
• The cast. The cast sold the situation to me. They could act and their attitude, even in the smallest part, carried the loneliness and homesick desperation that they had to be feeling. Some were a bit ropey at the start, but that was because they were still finding their legs and the writers were pining down their personality.
• The set. Destiny, as a ship, wasn't that original but it was an impressive set. It felt like an ancient derelict, held together with bailing wire and hope. The numerous malfunctions and lack of maintenance added an atmosphere of desperation that worked for the show. It wasn't the old star trek painted boards and gizmos with flashing lights. It felt real, almost as good as Serenity back on Firefly (I say almost because that was impossible to beat, it wasn't a set they built the whole damn ship!)
• The aliens. They really were alien, in motivation action and appearance. They even had their own language, one that we never understood. After the first year of SG-1 every world spoke english. Perfect english. Occasionally there was an obscure written language but the Ancient intergalactic race just happened to speak our language was a little too convenient. Much like the effort that went into the Wraith of Atlantis the creators spent a lot of time creating these creatures and did a very good job.

So that's what I liked about the show. It had a great overall atmosphere, had all the potential to be a really fantastic show. So why did I celebrate the fact it was cancelled? Well on to the bad and I'll show you.

• Copying from Battlestar Galactica. I despise the 2003 remake of BSG. I mean hate it, with every fibre of my being. It based it's whole appeal on the arc plot and overall story line and did everything wrong with it. This isn't the place to go into that, but I want to point out it was successful. Stargate Universe had already taken a lot of risks, alienating a good portion of its fan base by "Replacing" Atlantis hadn't helped (the truth is MGM canned Atlantis thanks to falling viewers and the success of the SG-1 TV movies meant taking the show in another direction, but the popular opinion was that Universe replaced Atlantis) These risks meant they had to guarantee enough viewers to make it profitable for the almost bankrupt MGM. So we got a derivative of Battlestar instead of a new Stargate. Unlikeable characters, soap opera like developments, stupidity for the sake of creating conflict, relationships that had no point in the overall plot, plot developments coming out of the blue and overly convenient resolutions producing plot holes the size of the grand canyon.
• Convenience. How do you effectively nuke any tension or sense of abandonment? "Hey what about those communication stones we brought with us?" Within two episodes they had to pull that out of their backside. Now Atlantis did it right, having the city cut off from Earth without a hope of contact. Lost and alone. Now yes doing that would have been too much like the first spin off, but that should have been a warning sign on just how short the legs for the concept were. The communication stones weren't the only culprit, the ship itself was the largest deux ex machina I've seen in years. "We're running out of water! Oh wait, the ships found some", "We need power! No, sorry the ships found that too.", "Food? Good thing we're suddenly heading to a jungle planet." Then there's the episode 'Time', where the only cure from alien parasites in the crew's blood is the venom from flying squid monsters that just happen to be on this planet. The only way to know this? A handy dandy Time travel accident, that magically happens. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's asking us to ignore common sense in favour of bullshit. By the end there's no tension in the show because you know the writers will pull ANY crap they can.

Still not finished.

• Predictable developments. In the very first episode we were introduced to a state senator (I think he was at least) and his hot daughter. When it was obvious that two of the lead Characters liked her we knew what was going to happen. A dead senator, a devastated young woman and a love triangle in which she'll make the wrong move. It was played by the numbers soap opera. When they abandoned Rush on an alien planet, next to a crashed ship no less, you just new he'd return. Almost everything that happened, without any tension to speak of, was played by the numbers. When it wasn't it the whole plot thread came out of nowhere. No development or structure. Just dropped out of no where. The trick is to find a balance between the two, to have us asking questions or defying expectations. Not leaving us 95% bored and 5% confused.

Alright, now I admit I'm being hard with these bad points, and the show did improve during the second year. It improved a lot, but it had already lost me as a viewer. I agree that after dawdling along in first gear it finally stepped up to second and occasionally third as the axe fell, but that didn't help. Not when you need to be a race car. This show had potential, and yes some good moments, but that doesn't make it good. Just watchable. It needed a lot more time than it had to get good.

The reason I was happy after hearing it had cancelled however comes mostly from the first bad point. I carried a lot of my dislike of BSG over to this show that, at times, felt like a carbon copy. I was very much afraid that we were seeing a new trend in Sci-Fi, fortunately, with the loss of SGU, this is looking less and less likely. From what I can tell in the second year it started to shake off the BSG connection and get back to it's roots, adding more humour and positive developments. All good things but too little, far to late.

Alright on to a point made in the comments of What happened to Stargate Universe:- The rumour that the BBC was behind nixing SGU for religious beliefs, where did you hear that? The BBC has been actively looking for gritty Science fiction and various dramas for years. Defying Gravity, the Survivors remake and Outcast to name three high profile ones off the top of my head. Those three were abject failures. On the other hand Merlin, Life on Mars and Doctor Who (and spin offs) have been massive successes. I'm fairly sure, if they had the money, the BBC would have snapped up the show. They didn't because BSkyB (if they are still called that) poached it and then realised they had a stinker. If any single broadcaster is responsible it's SyFy for being incompetent tossers and chopping its science fiction output in favour of professional wrestling and bad TV movies.

Finally, it's true that SGU was making money, as far as I can tell. It was quite profitable, and was getting better as time went on. But again SyFy wanted to change it's direction and MGM's books were so bad they're now selling off the film rights to James Bond! SyFy squeezed MGM until they had to pull out of production.

So that's SGU Autopsy. A show with potential. It was struggling, after a lot of trouble, to reach the right level only to get cut off at the knees.

AHHHHHHHHHH

God, good god in heaven they did it. I had thought it was a joke, no seriously, I never expected them to actually make it.

I am of course talking about Smurfs, the movie, in 3D no less...

This is so wrong I want to throw up