2012 by Roland Emmerich
- Thread starter Adaryn
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nemo
Jedi
Woodsman said:
Absolutely! I always thought there`s a great b-picture hidden in Independence day. It would be a great exercise for an ambitious editor to cut down the flick to 75 min :D
Emmerich is a really bad director - he`s unable to shoot a good dialogue scene (much like George Lucas).
Pinkerton said:
I love SF, but where are the good movies?? There`s the occasional crap offering of the likes of "Sunshine" but please where are the good SF-movies??
Personal favourites are 2001: Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and (within limits) Starship Troopers.
The studios are still gung ho about producing expensive Fantasy + Comic-book adaptions - bad time for friends of SciFi.
Coming soon their is the World War Z movie, Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (fantasy and SF are similar), and Star Trek. Also TV shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost are SF-heavy and very good IMO. That's all off the top of my head but the cupboard is not so barren.
nemo
Jedi
Pinkerton said:
You may be right! I`ve heard good things about B.G. I have no TV though and am dependent on "my" videostore`s selection.
I´ve actually watched the prequel. The series wasn`t available though. The only shows I`ve watched due to my friends influence
were 24:Season I-VI (Yeah I know!), Star Trek Voyager I-VI +Futurama. I`m also curious about new Trekkie movie but think it`s a shame
they didn`t let Captain Janeway follow Captain Picard`s footsteps :(.
vinny
The Living Force
a few to try:nemo said:
- Serenity (the Firefly movie, is better if you see the series first)
- Code 46
- Pitch Black (not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it)
- Twelve Monkeys
- V for Vendetta
- Frequency
- Millenium
- Farscape Peacekeeper Wars (but you gotta watch the 4 Farscape series first, really)
nemo said:
I saw a film called, "The Man From Earth". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/ --Low budget and not the best acting in the world, but it had me glued. --All about a university prof who, upon his retirement, holds a party for his co-workers out in a little cabin where he discloses the fact that he's actually immortal. Having a representative professor from each of the main academic disciplines question him was quite neat. I'd have liked the film to have gone on for another hour.
I sat down over a few days and watched my friend's DVD supply of "Lost", and found myself riveted. It both fascinated me and infuriated me at the same time. --Fascinated me because of the 4th Density-ness of the whole show, and infuriated me because of the bias and general lack of insight the show creators have for the human condition and certain aspects of how expanded reality works. (They keep insisting that Time is a fixed series of events rather than probabilities.) But the worst part is how utterly locked down in terms of fear and communication all the characters are; it's maddening to see how the flow of important information is choked down to a miserable trickle. --If the crew of the Enterprise, (Next Generation) had been the ones stranded on that island, they would have solved the whole mystery in under three episodes without even needing high tech Enterprise gadgetry simply because they know how to network effectively. My favorite character on "Lost" is, Hugo. The only one who knows the power of sharing information openly. The telling part is how the show creators have this discordant love/hate reflex with regard to Hugo. --All the characters love him and trust him and strive to keep him safe at all cost, and yet they think he's a pathetic fool. The writers even put him in an insane asylum for large tracts of the story! The psych profiles on the creators is painfully evident.
I find the fact that the same guy responsible for "Lost" is also now responsible for the upcoming "Star Trek" film rather. . , well, we'll just have to see, but I think it will be very interesting, even if it makes for a very broken version of Star Trek!
"Cowboy Bebop" (the anime series) is also quite amazing and I'd recommend it to any sci-fi fan. --Though all the characters are quite stuck in this "Blues" story of themselves. Not a lot of self-awareness among those characters. I thought Joss Whedon's "Firefly" series was a big improvement on the story concept. (He explored a lot about psychopathy in the series.) --I really didn't like the movie, "Serenity" though. I found it so violent that I was hiding under my seat through most of it. I don't do well at all with violence in films these days.
"Galactica" I simply cannot abide by. The show creators, from what I've seen, (which is only the first season somebody sent to me on a couple of disks) seem have this entrenched belief that "Bad Things Happen To Good People" and they'll go miles out of their way to prove it through the most contrived means imaginable. It's sort of the whole, "YCYOR" utterly discounted and yet at the same time used heavily in its own discourse in the most negative way possible. "Life is mean and chaotic, and we're going to do everything in our subconscious power to ensure that this is the reality we experience just to prove how lousy everything is!" --Which is oddly typical, I find, of the modern sci-fi geek. Very weird.
--There seem to be three general modes of thinking with regard to YCYOR; 1) That you cannot control at all the course your canoe takes down the river and that you are a fool to even try. 2) That you can through the power of Wishful Thinking blithly ignore the rocks and rapids. 3) That through Knowledge and Will, one can navigate the various probabilities and potentials.
The Galactica writers seem to use a combination of the 1st and 3rd to smash into all the rocks they can, just so that they can point to the people in the 2nd canoe and call them fools. Very strange. --Though, somebody was telling me recently that Galactica is also exploring some other interesting themes which more than redeem the show. I've tried to watch some more recent episodes, but the bleakness and suicidal self-hating hopelessness of the show are just too much to take. One writer I know argues that it is an accurate reflection of reality, and is therefore, "Good Art". My argument in return is always, "Writers AFFECT reality, and so there is a responsibility to not broadcast such idiotic garbage." And never the twain shall meet. (It's an argument we've been having for over a decade. There is truth in both halves, I am sure, but still. . .)
anart
A Disturbance in the Force
Woodsman said:
Interesting, I quite enjoy the episodes of Galactica that I've seen - considering the 'skin jobs' and the hypothesis this forum discusses regarding OPs, I find it a rather fascinating scenario that seems to reflect the reality of interpersonal relations when it becomes known that not everyone who looks human is human. Humanity's predilection to destroy itself and others, and the danger of being destroyed by what humanity creates, is also delved into rather deeply for a silly television show - rather reminiscent of the original Star Trek in that way, actually.
Of course, I also found 'The Man from Earth' to be not worth the time spent watching it - so much of the false history pushed as the History of this planet is reinforced and the story itself didn't hold together well at all in the telling, as it were. Just that old 'different strokes for different folks', I suppose. ;)
Gimpy
The Living Force
anart said:
Yeah. I can't get into Galactica either. I think I watched a total of four shows and lost interest. :P My Hubby kept after me through the first season and I finally told him "They're all cylons." ;) He watches it because its sci fi, and its available. (Guess I'm not that dedicated. :D )
The last sci fi show I really liked was Farscape. Before that it was The Invisible Man, and I liked that one more for the writing than the 'special effects'. Firefly was great, but didn't last long enough, and that's a shame.
For whatever reason, I'm just not interested in TV shows, unless its about doing some kind of hobby.
I don't know if you guys know the series ''Supernatural'', but I enjoy watching it and there are some few things in it that remind me of what I read in the Wave. Mostly I just watch it for entertainment.. perhaps you can also give that a try.Nomad said:
anart said:
I've been thinking about that aspect of Galactica; it certainly does intrigue.
I'm thinking now that I might well be drawn as much to the mode of discussion as to the subject itself. Perhaps even more so. The more I examine my own reactions, the more I notice that they are tangled in the following way. . .
With The Man From Earth I found myself regularly stopping the film to debate with the ideas presented. They were lacking a lot of insight. But the setting of a room filled with tweedy, educated individuals I found much more approachable than a setting of dimly lit star ship corridors filled with violent, hostile people. Both sets of characters in both environments probably offer the same degree of hope in achieving sympathetic resonance in terms of ideas with, but one seems far less repellent to my sensibilities. The cabin filled with professors is one I know. And come to think of it, it is one where open discussion about such ideas can be really rewarding. It reminds me of this very forum. Perhaps I just find the halls of Galactica threatening because I know I would have to change myself in uncomfortable ways in order to function effectively. (Though, the laws of 'reality' there seem punitive towards anybody with the gall to be happy. I recall an episode where a missile malfunctioned at the exact moment a boy's 100th flight was being celebrated, killing him in a blaze of bitterly ironic, "How Dare You Be Happy and Lighthearted!?")
And yet, this is indeed a feature of the Matrix, so it wasn't even a particularly false representation of reality as it stands. I wonder why I found it so off-putting; I think perhaps my resentment lay in the fact that the hand of the Lizard was not recognized; --that dramatically timed missile malfunctions were offered up as, "Just the way things are" and not something I can argue with in the same way as I can argue with a room full of stubborn professors. And the desire to argue at all with a film is something I wonder about in myself.
I'm also wondering. . . My desire to hide under the seat while watching the violence in "Serenity" is clearly an automatic reaction. If I had full control over myself, then I'd be able to witness that just as easily as any other subject matter and read and measure the ideas for what they are. But I am brought back to the question. . , are some automatic reactions worth holding onto? I can't help but think that becoming desensitized to violence is something worth avoiding. And yet, it is a definite auto-reaction and I don't want to be a robot. I'm still working through that one. . .
Gimpy said:
This is probably the most healthy way of going about things. For whatever reason, I find myself intimately fascinated by stories and how they work. I find them to be a powerful means of exploring all aspects of myself and the world around me. But I suspect that just as much can be obtained through the study of virtually any subject, from a film to a pebble on the beach. --I don't know exactly how, but the metaphor of the hologram seems to imply that this is the case. (If you take a crystal in which a holographic image has been cast and break it, then even the smallest shard of the crystal will contain an image of the whole.)
nemo said:
To add on to Nomad's suggestions:
The Matrix
The Thirteenth Floor
Existenz
Dark City
Lawnmower Man
Total Recall
Jurassic Park (yes I consider it sci-fi)
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Children of Men
Contact
Alien Trilogy
28 Days Later
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Donnie Darko
Minority Report
Brazil
Predator
nemo
Jedi
ok ok ...admittetly my initial question was a bit of hyperbole ;)
I`ll eventually check those movies I haven`t seen yet!
as to those I`ve seen:
I totally agree on:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Donnie Darko
Children Of Man
Alien trilogy
Twelve Monkeys
and (to a somewhat lesser degree) also on Matrix Trl., existenz, Total Recall, Contact (though a bit on the weepy side), 28 Days later + Minority Report
Jurassic Park was ok but I found Brazil didn`t age very well. I think I`ve seen Code 46 + Pitch Black but kinda forgotten (ahh these likes and dislikes).
There are certainly a few more ok-good SF-films, Cube or The Fountain, but very few really great ones. It`s a bit similiar with the horror genre.
And the Comedy genre come to think ...
Now I`m really going to see where i can get a copy of Battlestar.
I read too much anyway :P
I`ll eventually check those movies I haven`t seen yet!
as to those I`ve seen:
I totally agree on:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Donnie Darko
Children Of Man
Alien trilogy
Twelve Monkeys
and (to a somewhat lesser degree) also on Matrix Trl., existenz, Total Recall, Contact (though a bit on the weepy side), 28 Days later + Minority Report
Jurassic Park was ok but I found Brazil didn`t age very well. I think I`ve seen Code 46 + Pitch Black but kinda forgotten (ahh these likes and dislikes).
There are certainly a few more ok-good SF-films, Cube or The Fountain, but very few really great ones. It`s a bit similiar with the horror genre.
And the Comedy genre come to think ...
Now I`m really going to see where i can get a copy of Battlestar.
I read too much anyway :P
Smallwood
Jedi Master
I guess I'll have to jump in. Even though fiction hasn't quite had the volume to me as it once did, I still find sci-fi to be a noble art form.
The Quiet Earth (1985): A man wakes up one morning and realizes he is the only one alive in the planet Earth. He begins his quest to find out what happened. The setting is probably too simplistic for many, but I liked the mysterious athmosphere and the soundtrack. It is of the drier variety, so be warned.
I'll vouch for Donnie Darko, if someone still hasn't seen it. It is just a lovely movie on many levels.
The Terminator: Surely everybody has seen this. I think it is still one of the best sci-fi action movies of all time.
The Prestige: I'm not sure whether this qualifies as sci-fi (as it is alternate-history), but it is really one of the most heart dilating movies I've ever watched and I would recommend it just for that. It deals with two magicians seeking to outdo eachother and Tesla thrown in for the good measure. A good movie, despite the fact that the director went and sold his soul to PTB with "The Dark Knight".
Personally, for some reason, I found the Alien-series disturbing. Call me squeamish, but those creatures look like something that might actually exist in some underground lab
The Quiet Earth (1985): A man wakes up one morning and realizes he is the only one alive in the planet Earth. He begins his quest to find out what happened. The setting is probably too simplistic for many, but I liked the mysterious athmosphere and the soundtrack. It is of the drier variety, so be warned.
I'll vouch for Donnie Darko, if someone still hasn't seen it. It is just a lovely movie on many levels.
The Terminator: Surely everybody has seen this. I think it is still one of the best sci-fi action movies of all time.
The Prestige: I'm not sure whether this qualifies as sci-fi (as it is alternate-history), but it is really one of the most heart dilating movies I've ever watched and I would recommend it just for that. It deals with two magicians seeking to outdo eachother and Tesla thrown in for the good measure. A good movie, despite the fact that the director went and sold his soul to PTB with "The Dark Knight".
Personally, for some reason, I found the Alien-series disturbing. Call me squeamish, but those creatures look like something that might actually exist in some underground lab
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