Every twist and turn is unforeseen. Plots, labyrinthine in their complexity, are muti-layered. more importantly they have a resolution. Both short term and long term.
Welcome once again, don't get lost along the way...
Monday, 21 September 2009
Saturday, 19 September 2009
The Last Starfighter
I have one question for those of you who do read this thing, but first he's a little background.
Among the films I saw in my childhood an odd little film called The Last Starfighter sits quite high in my all time favourites list. It's a fairly standard coming of age story where a young man is lost in middle America. His name is Alex and his future looks grim. While he is a bright and skilful person he needs a chance to prove it.
So he spends his free time playing the one arcade machine in the trailer park where his family lives. A game called Starfighter. Only not all is what is seams. The game is, in reality, a combination of training simulator and testing platform. By beating the high score Alex comes to the attention of the alien that built the machine, Centauri.
From there Alex is swept up in a galactic war, with the fate of thousands of inhabited worlds hanging in the balance. As he is The Last Starfighter
Now there are better films. Better acting, better scripts and more realistic visual effects, but this film is fun. It achieves it's goals and does it with good humour an solid morals. Everything I want in a film. I'm doing a video review of this cult classic, at least I want to and here's my problem.
As of now there is both a HD-DVD and a Blu-Ray release, in region 1. That means NTSC and completely useless to me here in the UK. What makes this worse (ohh yes, it does get worse) is while there is a basic DVD release (and even a Special Edition Widescreen version) they too are only available in NTSC.
Here's the question, why the hell haven't they released it for the UK Market. I know for a fact it's got enough of a cult following to warrant it. so what is it that that stops it from being released?
That's the question, anyone have answer?
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Childhood memories. The Muppets
You know the good thing about You Tube, occasionally you can find the old memories. You know those old TV shows you only half remember and no one's bothered to realise them on DVD yet? Or if they only had it out for a short while and now can't get hold of it without paying though the nose.
Now, elsewhere, I have talked about how I remember watching Battlestar Galactica as a child and how it influenced my mind and sparked my love of Science Fiction. I've also talked, again elsewhere, about how I first caught a glimpse of an episode of Transformers and it made me seek out the classic show. To the point where I now collect them and enjoy the characters. What I've never touched upon is my first TV memory.
It wasn't that, but I still love that sketch. It's that one song I have stuck in my head at the most in opportune moments.
Still not that, but I have to share my neuroses sometimes.
Back to the point, my first TV memory was watching Sesame Street. I'm not too proud to admit it and it played a big part in my mental landscape. You see as well as the above something I haven't talked about is my love of puppets. If you know me away from computers you know that along with videos, books and an ungodly amount of cast plastic I have a lot of cuddly toys. I can't throw my voice or stitch worth a damn, but I have a load of hand puppets.
I worry more than a few of my friends and colleagues when I turn up to meetings with dirty, bedraggled hand puppets that look inquisitively around. Hundreds of these "people" loiter around my house. Rascal, the crafty ol' Fox that's afraid of Bat's and his wife Vicky Vixen, but nothing else. The twin polar bears, Artos and Gwinny, that got lost in a snowstorm (true story!) and hate the cold. The Irish SAS Cat, Patrick O'Pheline (don't ask, seriously, that one confuses even me). Torquil, the old hedgehog that's spikes have curled up and enjoys hibernation so much he does it all year, unless there's a ham sandwich near by.
That's just a few, I haven't scratched the surface. Needless to say they are all individuals and great fun to live with. When they turn up things around here take a turn for the mad. Torquil was the first and they sort of exploded from there, but why?
When I first watched Sesame Street I loved the Muppets, from Groucho the Grouch to Count Von Count. I laughed and loved the show, cheering when ever Big Bird ambled on the scene. They weren't puppets or lumps of felt, they were people on the screen, each with nuances and personalities people to this day remember. Moving on, as I grew up I found The Muppet Show hilarious, jokes that were so obvious and built up through the whole episode had a pay off and the delivery would always be fantastic. No matter how obvious or predictable the joke. Again the Characters jumped out of the screen and became memorable. Fraggle Rock, another example, was just fantastic Children's TV that even I over look sometimes but deserves all the praise it can get.
As part of our cultural heritage Jim Henson's creations were fantastic. Then he went on to make shows like The Storyteller (with no less than the fantastic voice of John Hurt as the narrator) and films of epic genius like Dark Crystal. Even after his death in 1990 Henson's company continued to just be frankly awesome.
All of these are made with puppets, complex, extravagant and beautiful puppets. They aren't for just children, the jokes are clean but great whatever age you are. There are some things you should never grow too old for. I'm glad to say I've rediscovered the awesomeness that this represents and before I go back to watch my Farscape DVD's I want everyone who stumbles across this to remember not how mad I am but how great this guy was.
Now what got me on this rant was simple. Over here in England calling someone a Muppet has become an insult. Like saying your an idiot, quite frankly I think this has to stop. We need to, how do you put it, "Take it back" Muppet isn't an insult. It's a battle cry for originality, creativity and glorious creations.
Friday, 4 September 2009
The Final Countdown and Time travel Video.
When I was very young I saw a film that I could only ever vaguely remember. This film was called The Final Countdown . It features time travel, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour and a dog. Done in 1980 it is a frank, honest film. Well made for the time and a rarity in 80's sci fi in that it was aimed more at adults than children.
In the 80s' it was a common mistake that science fiction was for kids. As such it was all action based and adventure stuff. The original Battlestar Galactica for example actually had to have elements shoe horned in specifically for children, to distract from the holocaust and acts of genocide.
Well after seeing it on TV recently (but missing the first hour, annoyingly) I tracked down a DVD copy of the movie. It really is a lost gem from Science fiction's past and I loved it. Sure the plot twists are predictable and it does feel slightly rushed in places, but it's been a long while since I was exited by a real dog fight. Especially if it was between F-14 Tomcats and Japanese Zeros. These were the days before CGI so instead of cutting corners they rebuilt the vintage planes and filmed it LIVE. (I miss that sort of film making and want it back).
Long story short, its a great film and anyone reading this should see it. If only once. It's thought provoking, intelligent and all together very clever.
Another thing I've been meaning to do for a while is produce a video review of a movie. I've got the equipment and in fact filmed three separate sequences but none of them have turned out right. I just end up rambling and miss the point. I'm also not funny enough to get it right. Well watching this film has given me another idea.
Coming soon a video overview of Time travel in films. I'm going to be going over various forms of time travel and their effects. Both in reality and their own cannon. I'm going to touch everything I can, from natural time travel to man made. From spinning the earth backwards and sling shooting around the sun to strange warbling boxes in the corner of the room.
It's going to be dangerous, confusing and an Ultimate guide to Time travel. Keep your eyes open...
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Darth Vader's Psychic hotline
This is funny, have a look. Trust me
Try listing all the references. I just love the B5 stuff, most people forget that show these days!
Friday, 28 August 2009
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Amazon Star Trek Review
I wrote this review for the Star Trek (2009) movie on Amazon.co.uk and just wanted to share it here...
The big problem Trekkies have with this film is it re-writes history to the point that the original series never happened. This point of view is plainly silly and I prefer to think of it as cementing the original timeline. From now on the original series, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and all the previous films are untouchable. You can still buy the DVD's, enjoy the shows whenever. Only now the creators have an empty canvas, unhindered by decades of back story we know backwards. You might notice I left Enterprise out of that list above. That's because I think it belongs in this new time line, after all they went out of their way to reference it.
Alright, now that's out of the way lets look at the film. It's not what you expected. If it was I congratulate you. First of all the cast. They fitted the roles perfectly, sometimes too perfectly. At times it felt like they were trying to pull off impressions of the original actors. While they did bring a few new aspects I would have liked to have seen a bit more.
The ship. Ahh the ship, originally every Star Trek ship was designed by artists. Inside and out. As such they were a reflection of the times. From the 60's block colours to the 80's creams of next gen and the dark moody look of the 90's DS9. It was more interested in style and substance came in a strong second. As long as it looked good we were fooled into thinking it worked. This film comes at it from a completely different direction and because of that the Enterprise feels like three different ships. The exquisitely crafted outside, the advanced habitable saucer section and the brutal pipe riddled construction site engineering section. Each look like they belong to a different ship,, it doesn't gel together right. There is no transition from steam punk boiler house to over lit corridors. Made all the worse by shaky cam direction. There's almost no consistency here, jarringly confusing and distracting. The only other ships we see are polar opposites, Spock's Jellyfish is a triumph of style, but looks out of place in the Star Trek universe. It's design is too alien and has no connection to Vulcan designs we know of. The Romulan mining vessel looks far too fragile for it's purpose. All those spikes and edges are just bits to brake off.
As mentioned elsewhere the plot had more than a few holes. Why was there a twenty year gap between the mining ship and Old Spock's arriving? At any point did Starfleet command question how a washed-out cadet with a history of disobedience gets thrust into command of the fleet's flagship on the voice of one man? Surely there must be more Vulcans out there, somewhere, not just the handful of thousands that got off the planet quick enough. They don't detract form the film but if you think about it there are a lot more that just don't make sense.
The direction, as I touched on, was more than a little distracting. Shaky camera technique and Fly-on-the-wall style filming works well in a modern drama to add realism, or a horror to bring a point of view to the audience. But not with something like this. Star Trek is too fantastical to be realistic and J.J. Abrams is just a little to heavy handed with it at times. Having the opposite effect of what was intended and actually taking us out of the movie by wanting to see more of what is going on. There is also an over reliance on lens flares to build atmosphere. Yes it made the film stand out and gave a nice dichotomy between the Dark Romulans and bright Federation, but we could all do without the symbolism.
With all these negatives you'd have every reason to hate the film. What stops you is the shear passion on the screen. Everyone involved knew they were working on something a great many people feel very passionate about. It had the right mix of humour, character development and drama to be entertaining. To feel like a worthy successor to the legacy. It didn't drag or feel rushed, despite you wanting some parts to be expanded on.
As a film it's solid, as a story it's interesting. As a fan I enjoyed the head nods to continuity and could accept the new actors because they pulled it off. Of all the films out this summer this was one of the best, far better than the disaster that was Transformers 2. It's only real sci-fi rival this year is District 9 and that doesn't have half the fun.
No Simon Pegg for a start (who's Scotty stole every scene he was in, even from Nemoy!)
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