Watched Aeon Flux again this afternoon (the 2005 live-action movie starring Charlize Theron, not the early 90’s animated shorts from MTV). I saw this originally when it came out in the theater, but hadn’t seen it since. It was good on a second watch, although the story is a ‘revealer’ – meaning the first viewing is the best viewing – assuming you like the movie of course.

So there are many departures here from the animated shorts, in part because many of those are probably (still) unfilmable, even with CGI help. Many of them are ‘experiments in fantasy’ – as noted in the disclaimer at the start of each – and aren’t intended to be a coherent ongoing plot or in most cases even connected to one another (Aeon dies in many of them at the end).

I think the approach taken in this movie is better – use inspiration from the original(s) and recycle scenery, action, and story elements where you can, but come up with an original plot that stands separate in its own right. Admittedly, this can be a tougher way to go if fans of the original start picking apart the new interpretation – but it can work if done well – think Blade Runner, which uses many core elements of the original PKD story but then departs in its own way. Another great example is Minority Report, which has *more* story than the original, because the original PKD story wasn’t a novel to begin with.

Here, they succeed in telling a new Aeon Flux story, and also a ‘complete’ story (not just an exploration of some weird scenario resulting in her death anyway). I think the production values and casting and special effects were also very good and effective, but not overdone. No Matrix-style ‘bullet time’ in the fight scenes, and no overdone CGI that just takes you out of the story (ask the last three Star Wars movies about that one!).

I guess my quibbles with this would be the following:

1) in the featurettes also on the DVD, one of the producers says at one point she doesn’t know of any other sci-fi film like this one – I beg to differ – Logan’s Run? Last city on earth, far future, time-limited population, computer-controlled, purported utopian society (although much more obviously driven by hedonistic sex and drugs/recreation by comparison) – there are several parallels. There are other similarities in anime too, but that’s not live action, so you’d have to begin comparing back to the original AF animation in that case?

2) They don’t develop the other characters enough for effective back-story. You certainly find out more later, but early on you are kind of in the dark as to WHY it’s a utopian society? It’s supposed to be a city of 5M people, surely someone is pursuing new science, trying to expand beyond the city’s borders, etc.?

3) Who the heck is The Handler (the leader of the ‘Monican Revolution’, played by Frances McDormand)? A person, computer program, figment of Aeon’s imagination, or? And is she only in ‘pill’ format (they ingest a pill when they communicate with her)? And how was she created in the first place? They never explain, semi-major plot hole.

Otherwise I agree with one of the IMDB reviewers – definitely a B+ film – i’ve seen far worse that cost far more (see previous post on Star Trek:Insurrection) – this movie came and went pretty fast in the theater and I think the marketing done for it was pretty bad, which ultimately helped cut its release time short I’m sure.

There are hints in the Wikipedia article that there are another 30 min. of footage out there – perhaps a director’s cut could be issued someday in the future? I’d definitely watch it again to catch that….?

candybowl

Started watching the 2001-2004 Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack again while I ride the exercise bike in the basement. I’ll chart my fave episodes here as I go.

So far, from Season One:

The Beginning, Parts 1-3. Here we see Jack fight Aku, get sent into the far future, get his name, and help a group of dog archeologists(?) enslaved by Aku to their freedom. I like the setup in Part 1, which to me also seemed a bit inspired by the start of Yellow Submarine where the Blue Meanies attack Pepperland. Jack’s arrival in the far future is our first sight of how Aku has changed the world. It’s interesting, to be sure, and gets further revealed in each episode of the series from there on. What’s also interesting is that it’s implied Aku rules with an iron fist and enslaves a lot of the world – but there sure seems to be a lot of people running around in the jungle and big cities irrespective of his rule? Kinda weird.

Jack and the Three Blind Archers. Jack assaults a mysterious tower on a remote island that contains a secret well possibly able to grant his wish to go home to the past and rid the world of Aku. The tower is guarded by three unbeatable archers that have easily and completely defeated legions of soldiers’ previous attacks. This episode is one of the earliest to really show Jack’s commitment to his discipline – he carries out part of the assault blindfolded based on his observations – and the episode (like many others) contains a strong moral lesson. Certainly the latter is fairly stereotypical for martial arts subject matter, but even in a kids show the story doesn’t insult the viewer.

More to come!

candybowl

Altogether too rare, but definitely fascinating. As linked by Boing Boing….I will have to read this through a couple more times to truly get the gist but again, fascinating…..

The Paris Review – William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211

I especially like the Blade Runner comment….

candybowl

Too funny…

candybowl

Not sure what prompted it, but the two Frank Miller Batman (The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again) graphic novels recently popped into my head, so got them from the library. I had read the first one (DK Returns) not long after it came out in the late 80’s, but hadn’t read the second one (DK Strikes Again) which came out around the 9/11 timeframe, I think. These were both miniseries in the original comic format, then were condensed into larger ‘graphic novel’ type format by the time I got around to reading them.

Like the recent Dark Knight Batman movies (which were obviously heavily influenced by DK Returns) these comics show a much grittier, far more vigilante side of Batman than say, Superfriends or more vanilla Batman stories (and the first 4 Batman movies only the first of which has *any* merit). I think it’s safe to say that Batman directly appeals to the crusader in all of us – especially men – when you wish you were that offbeat rich scientist guy who could right the world’s wrongs by virtue of your own smarts, kick-ass fighting skills and crazy-good technology. Batman doesn’t care about making money – he inherited it and uses it to his own ends. He uses his own sense of what’s right and is willing to pay for that perspective with everything he has, including his fortune and even his own life.

And these books spell out far more dramatically the tension Batman causes to those around him (who tolerate his ‘activities’ but often barely) while they admire his clarity of purpose. Here Commissioner Gordon is the guy who often has to apologize for Batman’s over the top action – but he not-so-secretly wishes he could be doing the same thing if given the chance.

In DK Returns, Batman ultimately sees the opportunity for one more ‘crusade’ – both against a crazy ‘mutant gang’ trying to take over Gotham, and the rebirth of The Joker. And Mr. Miller takes obvious potshots at the stupid psychotherapist who of course certifies Harvey Dent (Two-Face) and The Joker as clearly sane and ready to rejoin society – the Joker proves him very, very wrong (they don’t really do anything with Two-Face, strangely enough). Of course, Batman wins in the end but at a pretty steep price. I also liked the intro of yet another Robin (a very young teenage female admirer) who is played very straight as simply a novice who wants to help, not some stupid anime-style fantasy chick.

Which leads to the second series, DK Strikes Again. Here we see other DC superheroes enter the picture. In the previous series, Superman made a brief appearance as not much more than a presidential toadie, but here we see The Atom, Wonder Woman (with an interesting small side plot and new character involving Superman) Green Lantern and The Flash appear again too (there are other DC heroes popping up throughout too but these are the major ones). Nearly all take Batman’s side in trying to ‘clean up the country’, excepting Superman, who takes the side of ‘law and order’ and tries to stop them. And an almost unrecognizable Lex Luthor plays the central villain with his henchman Brainiac. Miller even includes some scenes to actually slam the original Robin here again (hinted at in the first series) as mostly a helper Batman had to bail out more often than not when confronted with their deadly opponents.

I have to say I liked the second series far less. On the one hand, the involvement of the other heroes with Batman was well done and likely even inspired stories like The Incredibles (readjustment of superheroes to modern boring society, refusing to go quietly, etc.). But there were far too many distractions (most notably the silly/useless inclusion of ‘The SuperChix’ – some sort of fake superhero team composed of anime-style models who do nothing but get on TV in crazy outfits) and the plot is far too muddled – hard to figure out what’s really going on after the first book? Here it seems like Miller was trying to include too many dystopian touches at the expense of a good story and well-rounded characters – You definitely still see the vendetta aspect of Batman but it’s just not a focused narrative like the first series. I’d advise reading the graphic novel and THEN reading the Wikipedia article (linked above) so you can see what you missed.

On the whole though, definitely worth checking out – and your mileage may vary of course.

candybowl

So in my ongoing, misguided quest to catch up viewing random old sci-fi and similar movies or TV I missed the first time around (the magic of DVD reissues) – I watched 1979’s The Black Hole today. At the time, this movie was Disney’s attempt to glom onto the sci-fi ‘arms race’ in the movies – started by Star Wars in 1977, followed nearly immediately by Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (also in 1977), and the much-anticipated (but fairly disappointing) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Of these four movies, The Black Hole is clearly the loser by a **wide** margin. The next-to-last finisher, ST:TMP, had some interesting ideas and the effects started out well, but it rapidly turned very boring and tedious, much like the first few seasons of ST:TNG until Roddenberry kicked off and things got more feisty.

So, The Black Hole. Basically there is a spaceship (The Palomino) on an exploration mission crewed by 5 largely nobody actors save Tony Perkins (in what must be one of the most wooden performances of his career) and Ernest Borgnine. They also have a floating robot on board, named V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (I only heard them mention the acronym’s meaning once, and really, who cares – he was voiced by an uncredited Roddy McDowall). Naturally the robot is aimed at R2D2 and kid appeal, but unlike R2D2, he can talk and is arguably more useful as a real crew member (despite frequently quoting Shakespeare and other poetry when he’s supposed to be doing his job). V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (and the later-seen ‘Old B.O.B.’ – the “72 beater Corolla” version of V.I.N.C.E.N.T.) are more like the otherwise silent(!) Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running than the Star Wars robots. Lucas 1, Disney 0.

So the Palomino crew find a big, apparently abandoned American spaceship – the USS Cygnus – stationed near a black hole. Somehow it avoids getting sucked in, despite its proximity. After a too-long exercise (in fake excitement) at avoiding getting sucked into the nearby black hole themselves, the Palomino docks on the Cygnus, its crew get all but taken prisoner, and meet Dr Reinhardt, the scientist (read: madman) running the Cygnus with his OWN big henchman robot, Maximilian. And I must say, not only does Maximilian *also* know how to float around like all the cool robots, he is apparently mute (despite understanding English), has one big glowing eye on his head (right outta The Outer Limits) and breast-level, apparently sharp, flip-out ‘egg beater’ spinning claws that he uses on several occasions to harass and attack with. Tony Perkins (later) learns about them the hard way, for one. And Dr Reinhardt himself has almost a bigger ‘fro than Huey on The Boondocks. Mad Scientist, indeed.

And thus the Palomino crew now go through the drawn-out motions of figuring out Reinhardt’s diabolical scheme (in a nutshell, he killed/turned his entire crew into robots to ‘save their lives’ and plans to send the Cygnus through the black hole to somehow gain immortality) while they try to repair their own damaged ship to escape.

During this hour or so, we watch Tony Perkins become a traitor (Maximilian whacks him as a reward :)), other sentry robots compete with V.I.N.C.E.N.T. at laser target practice, Old B.O.B. tells them most of the ship’s horrible secrets, and several ridiculous chase sequences ensue as the crew finally wises up and tries to escape. Of course, the last-minute-coward Ernest Borgnine tries to steal the Palomino and leave the rest behind, and gets blasted/blown out of the sky as a result.

Then, if things weren’t bad enough for everyone, meteors (looking not unlike the flying Jello-sticky pad monsters from an old Star Trek episode, but better lit) start pelting the ship. In what must have been a dramatic need to amp up the expensive special effects during these lame chase sequences, a big, round, sun-like burning meteor manages to crash through the roof and ROLL down the center of the ship while the Palomino crew are racing across a catwalk in its way. Yeahhh…..

And of course we have the inevitable faceoff between V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Maximilian (Old B.O.B. was already winged by a sentry’s laser and dies the soldier’s death he deserved – Slim Pickens-voiced piece of crap!) While Maximilian whips out the ‘breast cuisinarts’ and tries to give V.I.N.C.E.N.T. a chest-level rock-polishing, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. gives him a power drill to the guts in addition to laser-based indigestion. And of course somehow we next see Maximilian spiraling away from the ship INTO the black hole? How did he already get outside?

So since EB got their ship blown up, (and meanwhile, due to all the meteors hitting the ship, Dr. Reinhardt gets crushed at his workstation by a falling flat screen TV from the ceiling – yeah, it was a big one) the “Palominos” head to the probe ship, and in blasting off from Cygnus to escape, find out Reinhardt already programmed the probe to enter the black hole too – Suckahs!

What now follows is one of the weirdest endings to any movie I have ever seen. While the probe ship spirals through the black hole with the remainder of the crew aboard (and their speech is speeded up/slowed down for effect, which just makes it unintelligible) – we somehow see Dr Reinhardt soaring into the black hole himself – then we see Maximilian soaring near him, THEN we see them embrace (and apparently ‘mate’ with one another) because the next scene is Reinhardt’s eyes peering OUT from inside Maximilian’s head. And then we see the new ‘man-bot’ atop a fiery mountain with the demented crew milling around in the depths below – not unlike Saruman and the Orcs in the Two Towers (but aren’t we still in a black hole – where did the volcano planet come from?

The “Palominos” apparently make it through in the probe ship, but up come the end credits. So we never apparently get to find out which Palomino crew member gets to take V.I.N.C.E.N.T.’s hand in marriage and create a race of floating midget robots that constantly annoy others by quoting bad poetry – sad. Even Johnny Five was more literate (and funny) than any robot in this movie.

So if you have survived thus far, you are a better person than I. I now know why this movie was a distant, distant fourth in the race to make the ‘next Star Wars’ back then, and why it has escaped notice since. The obvious attempt to make ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘ in space failed, guys. And the story isn’t over yet – apparently they are plotting a ‘reboot‘ (thankfully not a sequel and likely not the same plot in the reboot) of The Black Hole. But the first movie was no TRON by any stretch, and like the somewhat recent Escape to Witch Mountain redo, I expect it to fade fast – but maybe i’ll be wrong?

candybowl

So in the fall of 2009, a miniseries remake of Patrick McGoohan’s classic 60’s TV series The Prisoner was done by AMC. I finally (lame, I know) finished watching the last episode earlier today on my computer. Like the recent TRON update – I had mixed reactions.

On the positive side – the casting was generally pretty good. I liked Jim Caviezel as #6, and Ian McKellen plays a pretty sinister, mind-f #2 for the entire series. The rest of the supporting cast aren’t really given enough to do – but, I liked pretty much all of them.

The show was also obviously well made, and they didn’t skimp on the budget, which was nice. Given the recent reboot(s) of BSG and Firefly on the big screen (Serenity) – they really couldn’t be taken seriously had they cut corners, however.

I liked the iconic touches here and there – Rover of course (here ‘he’ is much huger than in the original series); the glimpse of the pennyfarthing bike in the (new) Village “nightclub” to name a couple. While set in the desert this time around (instead of a weird, baroque-style cloistered resort – the original onsite location was Portmeirion in Wales) the sense of isolation and fantasy-like disconnect from the rest of the world is still very effective.

On the other hand – I had several gripes, too.

One of the neat things about the original series is the constant back-and-forth between #6 and the continual replacement of #2 – because each time one ‘lost’ the battle of wits with #6 – he/she was replaced in the next episode (there are a couple exceptions to this but it was the general rule). So the dynamics kept on changing (along with the plot and whatever other escape scheme (6) or mind-control attempt (2) was happening in that episode. While 2 and 6 battle it out often here – it’s seemingly more subtle and definitely far less intense. Surely some of the original’s intensity is completely due to Patrick McGoohan himself – starting right at the opening sequence where he resigns and smashes a teacup on his bosses’ desk – but they could have ramped it up a bit more.

Second, I didn’t really like all the side plots (many of which tried to create additional storylines but IMHO failed and ultimately created too much distraction), especially that of 2’s son, 11-12. It could have been interesting – they seemed to hint early on that he’d ultimately become 6’s henchman – but I just think they didn’t have enough time to develop it and shouldn’t have really bothered.

Next – there were too many ‘draggy’ scenes. Scenes where the camera is (I think) trying to draw you into the conspiracy as one of the ‘watchers’ of both 2 and 6, depending on who’s at the center of the action. But while certainly there would be more onscreen ‘setup time’ in earlier episodes – I just felt later episodes, where presumably 6 would keep on trying harder and harder to escape – until he gets whacked by 2 or dies trying – just didn’t go that way and kept trying to be far too subtle. It was almost like they were trying to ‘out-clever’ the original series. IMHO to pull that off, you simply have to go in a fairly different direction than the original story – think Blade Runner or Minority Report vs. their original stories – and here there just wasn’t enough done to reinvent McGoohan’s original concept, in my view. It may have been a bit tougher given that the original was a TV series and not a book – thus I’m sure they felt obligated to play homage to elements of the original (most notably Rover) but that shouldn’t have limited the creativity otherwise? In a remote way, it’s similar to criticizing Star Trek ‘holodeck’ episodes – nearly every time they used that as a plot device, you had to cringe – it was SUCH an obvious ‘out’ for lame plots and lazy writing. Science Fiction can be about nearly ANYTHING – why would you need a holodeck to save your butt in writing an episode? Here, similar – given the advancements in CGI (and world events since – the original Prisoner was making all sorts of veiled and overt commentary on that along the way) there could have been far more of it here.

Finally, a ‘neutral’ comment – the original never really ‘tied things up’ by its end. Its final two-part episode is a real exercise in complete wackiness and may only have made sense to McGoohan in the end. So in doing a remake – do you take that plunge and build a real ‘ending’, do you leave it open-ended, or do something completely out there (as done before)? Here I think they realized a major flaw in the original and tried to wrap things up, but I can’t say I was completely satisifed with the explanation(s) provided. While there was no ‘james bond villain’ pulling all the strings behind the scenes (something McGoohan was trying his best, possibly too much, to avoid in the original) – here the explanation was more esoteric yet not explained enough (or I simply missed it – entirely possible).

So, glad I watched it – but not sure I have the patience to watch it all over anytime soon to catch nuances or plot stuff I missed? It’s on the computer though, I can watch it again anytime…..

candybowl

PS – no Prisoner-related review of any type would be complete without the Simpsons version…muhhahahah!

We watched the Japanese ‘killfest’ Battle Royale a couple nights ago. My wife has been reading The Hunger Games series lately, and this movie is supposed to be similar (I haven’t read the books) in story.

I liked the movie but it is way gory. Kind of a ‘live’ anime in many ways, a sort of “lord of the flies” meets “any dystopian 70s flick” meets “Westworld” with over-the-top Japanese-style violence mixed in (how do those little kids know how to kill so efficiently)?

If you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this movie. If you don’t like kids dying within less than 10 minutes of the movie’s start – don’t watch it, your nightmares will begin shortly after you finish.

candybowl

Finished Neal Stephenson’s book Zodiac today. What a great book, even if it is circa 1988. Not completely his usual fare – this is not some cyberpunk adventure (Snow Crash) nor some sort of “historical science fiction” story (as Quicksilver is rumoured to be – I read a not-positive review of that book some time ago and still hesitate to read it).

Rather, this is the story of a rather ‘cornholio‘ Zodiac-boat driving environmentalist who goes around and busts companies who dump toxic waste in Boston harbor – or other rivers and similar places. It reads like Edward Abbey prowling the harbor like a toxic ranger. And it’s simply a great book!

For me personally, while I’m not ready to live that lifestyle by any means (nor would I likely ever have been) it’s one of those books that provide a vicarious look into how life aboard the Rainbow Warrior must really be – until you get sunk by the French Navy or rammed with a harpoon while blocking Japanese or Icelandic whaling boats.

And, like Snow Crash, Stephenson provides enough real-world grounding to make the story believable, even if it’s hopelessly biased against the evil corporations (which is my bias too, more reason to love the story that much more :)) Although the way things are now in Orwell’s USA where/when we live, the main character would have gone to jail quite early in the book, sadly. And those same douchey corp’s would probably have largely escaped liability.

it’s a great read, and not a huge book – about 300pgs (paperback). pick it up!

candybowl

So I got around to starting the Sprawl Trilogy from William Gibson again. I’m pretty sure it was at least 10-20 years ago when I last read them – and I was likely 10 years late then (I can remember people in high school talking about the books but I was still reading very old-school sci fi at the time, Heinlein, Clarke, some PKD, etc.)

What’s interesting in reading Neuromancer again is of course seeing where the predictions went (yes, no or TBD) as well as how well it holds up generally. On the one hand, there are some things in there that sort of came true – the rise of the Internet and computer networks being completely pervasive in our society is certainly true, even if the execution is less Lawnmower Man and more Amazon.com (sadly). But the widespread use of body modification is still far from as frequent as described here, The Sprawl is still yet to happen (although I’m sure there are plenty of pockets already formed) and the world isn’t run surreptitiously by AI’s – yet. Nor are there ‘orbital nations’ either run by fringe ethnic groups or covert/eccentric large family corporations (again – yet). Certainly between these books, movies like TRON and shows like Max Headroom – there were a number of entertaining, predictive thinkers back then. And to some degree, there’s still fear out there of AI’s taking over (see The Matrix series, The Teriminator series – there are others) – but at present the bigger risk seems to be from our own species, a la Orwell. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out for better or worse in the coming years.

For me, however – back to the second book, Count Zero. Stay tuned!

candybowl