Nivenus at the Desk XIV: Battlestar Galactica, District 9, and Doctor Who
Hello again! It has been quite awhile.
This time round I'll be covering three products - but as annotated reviews. After looking back over my earlier entries I've noticed how long they seem to didder on. So my goal here is to reduce the actual quantity but increase the quality.
Be warned, this is a beta test.
The three I'll be reviewing are the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica (both 4.0 and 4.5), District 9, and the second season of Doctor Who.
Also be aware that later I'll be posting a more spoileriffic review of BSG Season 4's finale given its controversial nature and my own strong opinions about it.
Until then, read on, my friends!
What the Score Means
10.0: Excellent. Terrific. Might not be perfect, but it's damn close. Best in the field.
9.0: Pretty damn good. I've seen better stuff, but not much. Most people should enjoy it.
8.0: Pretty good, if you really like this sort of stuff, but it might be more underwhelming if you're not. Even if you are one of the latter, though, I'd expect you to find it passingly amusing, if nothing else.
7.0: Good or average, but take note that your mileage may vary. In other words, if you're already a fan or predisposed to works like this you may really like it or think it's good. But if you're not, steer clear or at least approach with a cautiously open mind.
6.0: Meh. You might enjoy it, but I wouldn't guarantee it. If you do like it, it'll probably be a passing thing and I wouldn't count on it having any revisitable value. Semi-average, semi-poor. What I like to call "thoroughly mediocre."
5.0: This steps beyond thoroughly mediocre into the realm of truly bad; it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
4.0: Boringly bad. This stuff is the kind you stop watching if its a movie, stop playing if its a game, or just can't finish reading if its a book. You just can't get into it, no matter how hard you try.
3.0: So bad it's good. That is to say, if you take this at face value it's going to be horrific. But, if you just hang along for the ride and turn off your brain or, conversely, decide to get ridiculously symbolic about it, it can actually be very entertaining, if only for its comically bad quality.
2.0: So bad it's horrible quality. There's nothing funny about it, except perhaps that the human mind could be so warped that it would actually produce the shit. Not fun.
0-1.0: Burn! Burrrrrrn! Burn the evil! It hurts!
Table of Contents
Battlestar Galactica (Season 4)
District 9
Doctor Who (Season 2)
Battlestar Galactica (Season 4)
Overview
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica. If you have not seen these seasons and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read any further.
For anyone who's been following my reviews it should be easy to deduce that Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica has become one of my favorite shows.
It was pretty much like that from the beginning, oddly enough. Our family had finished the last season of Babylon 5 two years earlier, had watched Firefly roughly three or four times by then, and weren't particularly eager to start Stargate or Farscape. Given the good reviews BSG was getting, as well as a personal recommendation from a friend, I figured - what the hell? Why not?
As a nice bonus, the show was a remake of the series that inspired Homeworld, one of my all-time favorite games and a sci-fi classic in its own right. Indeed, it was the high marks the fan community of that series which helped push me into renting it.
As it turned out, I was in for a big treat. The three-hour pilot of Battlestar Galactica, while a little long, was a fantastic piece of television that hooked me pretty early on. I approached with skepticism - after all, I'd heard how cheesy the first show was, a fact I have since verified by going back and watching a couple of episodes. But instead of being disappointed, as I'd braced myself to be, I was enthralled and by the end of the miniseries it had already won me over far more than Firefly's pilot, Serenity, ever did.
At last, I thought, a series that is willing to do military sci-fi right - without any of the silliness that most shows, even the otherwise breakthrough Babylon 5, were willing to indulge in. And yet it wasn't a glorification of the military. Throughout the first season, I often found myself siding against Commander Adama and with the civilians led by President Laura Roslin. In time, the situation grew more complicated as I began to side with neither side and even came to view the human-cylon conflict as something far more complicated than mere genocidal rage as seen so often in science fiction before, from the Terminators to the Machines of the The Matrix.
Rather than merely Terminator meets Star Wars I had come unto Blade Runner meets Star Wars meets Babylon 5 meets The West Wing. What a surprise!
But all good things come to an end. And so, it was with some sadness that I heard Battlestar would be coming to its end. However, contrary to what others believe - the show was never canceled. After all, Battlestar is, or was, Sci-Fi's (oh, excuse me, SyFy) star program. It made the msot money, drew the highest marks from reviews, and single-handedly transformed Sci-Fi from that “lame place where science fiction goes to die or be horribly resurrected as reruns” into a prime time channel. So, no, BSG wasn't canceled. But it was ended. By the writing staff who, unlike so many in the business, knew when it was time to quit.
In fact, in a way, I saw the announcement that BSG's fourth season would be its last as a good thing. It meant that unlike, say, Babylon 5, it wouldn't be dragged on into an unwanted and unprepared for season, where things went nowhere and characters were gradually deformed until beyond recognition. It wouldn't be like Firefly, where an entire season's worth of plot was crammed into a single, two-hour film.
The fourth season of BSG is, like all the others, a great piece of television. But, contrary to my earlier beliefs, it does not wholly avoid the problems of bringing an arc-based series to an end. While it avoids B5's aimless wandering, as well as Firefly's plot compression, it brings new problems of its own, brought on by another problem - the fact that the writers, as revealed in recent interviews, didn't know where they were going until the third season.
More on this to come. Needless, to say, however, the ending of BSG brings with it mixed feelings. But, at least I have something else to look forward to. Caprica.
Plot
RDM's BSG has been well-known since its inception for its engrossing story, and for good reason. Full of clever, arc-based writing and engaging twists and turns, the plot of BSG was enlivened by the impression that, behind it all, lay some great and yet undisclosed story the writers had yet to reveal. This became all the more enticing at the end of Season 3, where we were introduced to the so-called Final Five - or, at least, four of the Final Five. One, for some unknown reason, was missing, though we knew that in due time all would be revealed in the fourth and final season.
And it all was. But was it what we hoped it would be? In some ways, yes. The fourth season of Battlestar Galactica contained some of the best writing I've seen in television ever and many of the answers to our burning questions - who the Final Five are, where Earth is, and what role the gods (plural or singular) are playing in this magnificent drama. Nearly every piece in the puzzle is filled, every gap or plot hole explained. And yet, when it all comes together, it somehow seems less than what we were expecting.
Many mysteries are solved, such as who the final, fifth cylon is.
On the other hand, however, as the fourth season progressed something became increasingly obvious - RDM and company hadn't planned it all out and did not, in fact, know from the getgo where the story was going on or what would happen to our protagonists. This became most obvious in the second half of the season, at which point the plot grows muddled and confused, hopping back from one story to another with no clear direction. It's not that some of these individual stories aren't good - but they don't add anything to the arc and take up valuable end arc time, which is at a premium in this final season.
Most disappointingly, when the final arc is dealt with, its done in a sloppy and unsatisfying manner. Though some of our questions come off rather nicely and some arcs conclude logically, more than a few are written off with “A Wizard Did It” explanations. Like, for instance, cylon biology, which is never adequately explained. What makes them different? Why can they download? Why can they interface with computers? It sort of comes off as if the writers didn't know themselves (which I suspect they didn't).
Generally, speaking, however, BSG Season 4 lives up to the high standards of storytelling that the previous seasons set. Yes, the writers clearly didn't have a “plan” the way they promised they did - at least not from the beginning. But it's evident that, as the show progressed, the writers, in particular RDM, realized that the show needed that sloganized “plan”. So, instead of continuing to make it up as they went long they sat down and came up with a pretty impressive “Author's Saving Throw.” The ending result isn't perfect, but it's really, really good.
In the end, Season 4 has a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to storytelling. On the one hand, we get the answers to most of our questions - and many of those answers are satisfying. Unfortunately, the final episode of BSG is hijacked by the very things I admired BSG for avoiding - last minute explanation and anvilicious messages, a poor ending set up by the increasingly aimless story of BSG Season 4's second half. But that said, when we look back at the season as a whole, I have to say, it may not be BSG's best - but that doesn't mean it wasn't great.
Score: 8.8 (out of 10)
Characters
The characters of Battlestar Galactica have always been one of its strongest points. Okay, well, the whole show was full of strong points, but its characters really stand out. In fact, it's the characters who more or less define the show - they're human (okay, wrong word, but we haven't invented the appropriate term as a culture yet), flawed individuals who nonetheless remain heroes we can root for. They're dysfunctional, but not hopelessly so, and while we can sympathize with just about every last one of them, we're still able to appreciate the battle between good and evil at work in this unusual space opera.
In Season 4, the characterizations remain as strong as ever, even when it's unpleasant to watch. Since this is the final, last act of BSG the show (though the franchise will continue through the prequel Caprica) many of the relationships we've seen develop over the past three years come to a culmination here - for better or worse. And we're not disappointed.
It's hard to specify who are the main characters in BSG, since nearly everybody has a major role in the storyline. But if we had to center it in on three characters - it's probably be Adama, Starbuck, and Baltar. Not that the other characters don't matter, but it's these three whose actions have the largest effect on the storyline, no matter what the other characters might want you to think. Adama leads the fleet, makes the decisions that matter, Starbuck is the closest thing BSG has to the hero of a thousand faces, and Baltar is, like Londo Mollari from Babylon 5, the morally gray character who is placed at the crux of the show's most difficult moral dilemmas. Without him, the show wouldn't work.
All three of them are done brilliantly.
Starbuck's back... and not everyone's happy about that.
In Adama, we see the culmination of a man driven to the edge by what seems an increasingly hopeless situation, a man who exudes a shield of unyielding confidence but who, beneath, is falling apart. It's a painful experience to watch, but it's all the more heartwarming when he succeeds against all odds, holding it together. In Starbuck, we see a woman who has returned from the dead - though whether that's literal or metaphorical isn't made clear until past the season's mid-point - and the way in which both she and those who care about her deal with this is not only realistic, but compelling. We want to learn Starbuck's secret, whether it means she's a cylon, a zombie, or whatever. The answer we get is, in my mind, satisfying.
As for Baltar, what can I say? Here is a character who from the start was portrayed as nothing less than an egomaniacal, selfish jerk who served as the worst kind of everyman - the kind of man every man wishes he wasn't. And yet, while I know that many hated him for it, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for him, since most of his actual sins were minor, while his actions led, on a regular basis, to utter catastrophe due to circumstances beyond his control. And here, in the fourth season, he becomes part of a cult of personality.
Personally, I didn't find the cult itself compelling at all - it was a run of the mill, female majority, hollywoodish cult sort of thing. It was boring. But the way that Baltar was thrown into it, the way he reacted to it, and the way he changed as a character because of it was interesting. Here is a character who both believes he is the victim but also knows without question that he is in need of redemption. The conflict between Baltar's selfish compulsion towards self-preservation and his desire to do good become an interesting dynamic throughout the season, from beginning to end.
As for the other characters, I'm going to try and limit myself space-wise here. For the most part, the other main characters are served just as well. There are certainly some surprises - a few sudden deaths here and a betrayal there, but none of them seem particularly inconsistent with what has come before. There are a few exceptions here. Roslin's collapse into a self-pitying lump during the second half seems inconsistent with the character she's been established as so far - even if it's understandable for virtually any other character. On the other hand, however, Boomer's continuing decay from hero to villain are understandable given the circumstances given to her, even if they're the result of her own decisions. It's heartbreaking to watch but it's good writing.
The character that surprised me the most was Number One - also known as John Cavil. In previous seasons, I simply saw an asshole who wasnonetheless, was nonetheless fun to watch since he had a strangely charming manner to him. In Season 4, though, he becomes so much, much more. A magnificent bastard to the nth degree, Cavil goes from supporting character to primary villain in a wonderfully satisfying way. And while he remains the most easily condemnable character, he remains full of strange little character traits and understandable motivations - even if they remain petty and vain - that make him a believable character.
On the other hand, the character worst served is Number Three. For half the season, the cylons won't stop talking about her, as though she's a messiah or the antichrist (it depends which cylons you're talking to). But when she finally shows up - it's for only a handful of episodes and her overall effect on the show is rather... well, underwhelming. Here comes a leader of the cylons, who in Seasons 2 and 3 was a deliciously zealous character. But in Season 4, she's just a cameo. Nothing more.
Looking back at the season as whole, I have to say, it's pretty damn good and it had some of the best character moments in the entire show. But it also had some really WTF-like moments where the characters suddenly spun and did something completely contrary to what could be expected of them. It's not unreasonable to assume that characters in real life might do this and one of the best things about BSG is how realistically it treats its characters. But one thing I've learned in writing is that, in order to make things real, you sometimes have to add a little bit more order than exists in reality. Surprise us, but don't do it too often and gives us self-consistent reasons we can understand or we'll grow skeptical.
Score: 9.5 (out of 10)
Production
Since this was known to be the last season of BSG from the start, it is unsurprising that Sci-Fi chose to pull out all of the stops production wise. I noted in my review of the third season that the production values of the third season jumped dramatically from those of the previous two. Well, the jump was just as large here, in the fourth season, which is, simply put, the best goddamn looking show yet produced. There is no real comparison with any other show and while I'm not someone to normally get too excited about eye candy - after all, Babylon 5 and Doctor Who aren't that great looking - it's undeniably fun to watch the special effects scenes Zoic puts together.
Seriously, though, BSG's special effects in Season 4 are absolutely astonishing. There isn't really a difference here between the shots used in Season 4 and those used in most of the science fiction films being released today. Now it's true that the best of feature film special effects still look better than BSG's - but a large majority does not. Lighting, shadows, rendering, textures, they all look terrific. I can only imagine how awesome BSG Season 4 looks on blu-ray.
This is but a taste of BSG's special effects awesomeness.
But BSG's production values were never limited to just the special effects. Sound design has long been BSG's strongest point, a field that it leads in as much as it leads in visuals. BSG's soundtrack is, in my somewhat-but-not-entirely humble opinion the best television soundtrack there is. Okay, well, Ghost in the Shell does give BSG a run for its money but I think, in the end, Bear McCreary wins out this time. It's a wonder the genius composer doesn't do more soundtracks, but I suppose he was too busy with BSG to loan out his talents that much. I can scarcely wait for Caprica's soundtrack then.
Acting has also been a strength of BSG from its inception. While RDM's Comic-Con proclamation about the Emmys may have been more than a little self-indulgent and congratulatory it's nonetheless true, from my perspective, that Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, and James Callis are some of the best actors on television. And most of the others - well, they're no pushovers.
Seriously, BSG's production values are ridiculously good, particularly in the last season. Full marks.
Score: 10.0 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 8.8
Characters: 9.5
Production: 10.0
Overall: 9.4
District 9
Overview
If you're reading this and you still haven't see District 9 then, well, go out and see it. You're in for a treat. Actually, I'd be slightly surprised given that D9 appears to be this year's A New Hope, by which I mean it is a surprise hit that came out of nowhere. I never expected Star Trek to be a failure but District 9 I honestly wondered about. Not in a bad sort of way, more of as a "difficult to market to the general public" sort of way.
Well, I'm happy to say I was wrong. District 9 is selling like crazy.
District 9 is a great movie. It's by far not the best film I've ever seen. I'm not sure I would even rank it among the top ten. But it is a great film and it's made all the more impressive because it comes from a director who has, to this point, done zip, nada, nilch. Okay, Neil Blomkamp hasn't directed anything before. He's directed a few short films. And he also was set to direct Halo, before the film met a horrible death at the hands of inexplicably panicky movie studios (seriously - they were concerned that Halo, of all things, was going to be a bust). But a completed feature film he has never helmed. Until now.
The guy's got a future ahead of him, I can tell you that. If Abrams is the new Spielberg and Jackson is the new Lucas than it may well be that Blomkamp is the new James Cameron.
So read on ahead, though by now I've answered that singular question: “is District 9 worth seeing.” Yes. Hell, yes.
Plot
I can't give away too much of the plot lest I spoil it but I will say this - District 9 is the kind of plot that surprises you without relying on cheap tricks like out of the blue twists that do little more than to shock and awe you. Oh, yes, there's one big central twist, but you may well have been spoiled to that already (assuming you haven't seen the movie yet), but that's just what we in writing like to call “plot point one.” It gets the story moving. It's not really a game changer for the movie as a whole. And that's perfectly okay.
What makes District 9 great is that it's conventional and unconventional in all the right ways. It's surprising without being gimmicky, it's original without being pretentiously artsy, and it's inventive while sticking to the true and tried formulas. And this all has to do with just the story, which is told both unconventionally and as we might expect from a science fiction film.
One note: this film is not, as Roger Ebert claims, a space opera. I know, because I make a business knowing what those terms mean. That's not a bad thing. But don't go into this move expecting a space opera. What this film is is a military techno-thriller form of science fiction along the same lines as the Aliens or Terminator franchises. That's what you'll get.
The story starts off fairly simply enough: an alien ship appears in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. People are frightened at first and then perplexed when nothing happens. After days of waiting the South African government decides to cut through the hull of the ship and see what they can find within. They are shocked to discover the ship is full of neither starry-eyed benevolent visitors like those from Close Encounters nor with conquering soldiers along the lines of Independence Day. Rather, what they witness is effectively a beached ship filled with illegal immigrants, much like, say the Golden Venture.
With no way of repairing their vessel and seemingly no leadership, the aliens are desperate and starving. With seemingly no other choice left to them, the South African government allows the aliens to settle near Johannesburg in a ghetto that comes to be known as “District 9.” There they quickly become a resented presence, barely tolerated by the natives due to their bizarre physiology, unhygenic lifestyle (brought on by immense poverty), and ownership of high-tech weapons that only they can use, which are quickly confiscated. In order to handle the issue and “protect” both the aliens, who quickly become derogatively known as “prawns” after the cricket species native to South Africa, the South African government hires out the local private military corporation Multi-National United (MNU) to deal with the unwanted guest population.
Wikus leads the forced relocation of the aliens, meeting Christopher for the first time.
The next half-hour (effectively the prologue) is, essentially, setting up the real story which is not, as one imagines at first, in the form of a mockumentary. We are introduced to Wikus van de Merwe, a mild-mannered but ambitious MNU field operative who happens to be the CEO's son-in-law. We are also introduced to the time bomb that hangs over the rest of the movie - that, due to strife between humans and the aliens, District 9 will be dismantled and the aliens moved to a new camp 240 kilometers away from Johannesburg, known as “District 10.” As Wikus begins to lead the evacuation of District 9, he makes an accidental discovery that not only changes his life forever but the dynamic between human and alien as well.
This inciting incident is where the story really starts moving and after which it never lets up. There is never a slow moment, never a pause in the relentlessly progressive plot that follows as we go quickly from one scene to another and the secret Wikus unknowingly discovered is generally unfolded. If you've avoided the chief spoiler as to what this is so far, well, I congratulate you as I'm sure it's the talk of the web now. Needless to say, it makes an effective plot device even if the science behind it is rather, shall we say, “unlikely.”
The story is a well-crafted one, in spite of a few plot holes. But these inconsistencies, these flaws, are only obvious in retrospect or upon repeat viewings, much like those in the recent Star Trek. They don't catch you as you watch the film, so engrossed are you in the unfolding drama before you. Of all the stories I've seen this year, this one had me hooked the most.
Before I finish though, let's look at some of the flaws. As I pointed out earlier, the major plot point, while interesting and great for drama, doesn't make much sense given the details, we the viewers, have. Similarly, the lengths to which the villains go in the story seem, at times, unnecessarily and unrealistically malicious (more on that later), to the point that they almost become a force rather than characters. However, the flaws of the story do not overwhelm its strengths and are overlooked easily during the initial viewing of District 9, which demonstrates just how engrossing the film's story is.
And the setting is brilliant. Never before, as far as I know, has a story like this been told in film, where aliens have come to Earth, but not as saviors or conquerors but as desperate fugitives. Oh, I suppose Men In Black approached the subject to some degree, albeit farcically, but this film does what MIB did as a humorous aside and turns it into a compelling and tragic drama. It's very, very original and its easy to see why Jackson threw his support behind Blomkamp's vision when Halo collapsed.
There's also an obvious sequel hook, though whether or not that's a good idea is a matter of opinion. I expect there's promise in such an idea, but it sounds very difficult to pull off well.
When you put it all together, District 9 has a wonderful story. A flawed story, yes, but a wonderfully flawed story and one that will likely continue to entertain for many years yet.
Score: 9.4 (out of 10)
Characters
When it comes to characterization, District 9 is very unusual. This is one of those films where we can honestly say the morality lies somewhere between black and gray. Our point-of-view hero character is a speciest, amoral jerk and our villains are downright horrific. It's not just the humans either, with the aliens often demonstrating (justifiable though not commendable) loathing for the humans they've been forced to live with by circumstance. Of all the characters, only two can properly be called “good.”
Contrary to what you, my readers, might imagine from my previous writing this is not, in fact, my favorite form of film morality. I'm an optimistic humanist, who tends to view humans (and sophonts in general) as good, or at least inclined towards good. That said, this system works for the kind of film that District 9 is - a film that turns science fiction conventions on its head without ever seeming too preachy (though your mileage may vary here). More importantly, its grim nature is necessary for the kind of story D9 is.
Let's start with Wikus. Here is a character who initially seems likeable. He's friendly, mild-mannered, and ambitious without seeming arrogant. He takes initiative and he seems honestly to want peaceful, harmonious relations with the aliens. But it is slowly revealed that Wikus is really not all that nice of a guy underneath it all. As he stands by, watching atrocities, making un-funny jokes about “prawns,” and using thinly-veiled threats against the aliens to get them to move we gradually begin to feel less sympathy for him.
Wikus makes a strange but compelling hero in District 9.
But then, that's all changed suddenly. Once again, he's our hero, our point of sympathy. And yet, he really doesn't change all that much as a character, at least not at first. Rather, our sympathy is aroused simply because of the suffering he goes through. In a way, this is more poignant than if he was a genuinely good guy. After all, it's easy to sympathize for the nice guy who gets beaten down. Feeling bad for the jerk though, as he's subjected to horrific conditions, is not as easy, even if it is a more accurate reflection of morality. Goodness comes from universal compassion, universal love for even the worst of us. Wikus isn't the worst of us, but he's far from the best.
Then there's Christopher, the alien with whom Wikus primarily interacts. Christopher is, in fact, not the character's name by choice but as a legal requirement for all aliens, much as in the height of colonialism natives or slaves were often given European-sounding names by their conquerors. Christopher is, more than any other character, good in nature. But he's not perfect. Witness, for instance, the clear connections between Christopher and the Nigerian mafia which runs District 9's underworld. Christopher is also, to a degree, selfish, though far less so than Wikus or the other characters. But these flaws are, more than in other characters, easily overlooked by Christopher's positive qualities, such as his loving relationship with his son, who goes unnamed.
A few more characters join the cast, though none are as fascinating as either Wikus or Christopher. There's Wikus' wife Tania, her father and MNU's CEO Dirk Michaels, and Colonel Kobus Venter. Each, in a way, serves as a facet of humanity as a whole and as a foil of sorts to Wikus. Of these, Tania is the most sympathetic by far, an average woman caught up in extraordinarily horrific events, torn between her loyalty to her father and to her husband. Compared to the others, however, she's a very minor character and one who serves mainly to highlight what is good and noble about Wikus while highlighting the evils of MNU. This is alright but it means there's only a very limited depth to her character.
Dirk Michaels and Kobus Venter give a face to MNUs' villainy. Both are, I'm afraid to say, rather underdeveloped however. They give a physical face, a physical presence, but not an emotional one. It's not that we don't believe MNU's ruthlessly efficient agenda couldn't exist in reality. It's more that we never see any clear motivations as to why Michael and Venter are so slavishly happy to be a part of that. Oh, sure, Michaels makes loads of cash as I'm sure Venter does as well, but money is never the sole motivator for any but the most sociopathic individuals. I suppose one might say they're both sociopaths - but that seems exceedingly unlikely. So what we're left with is a cardboard figurine of corporate evil, with all the appropriate trappings, as well as his henchman of doom, who seems to just like killing things. Fortunately, not enough attention is spent on either of them to drag things down too much.
When you look it as a whole, District 9 has a nice cast of characters. But if you're to examine each individually, it's easy to spot the flaws, the places where lazy characterization overtook good ideas. Fortunately, this is limited primarily to the antagonists and since the story focuses so much on the relationship between its two morally-conflicted protagonists, we allow them to get away with it. But hopefully later works from Blomkamp will come with more interesting antagonists.
Score: 8.4 (out of 10)
Production
District 9 is what A New Hope and Alien - a wonder produced on a shoestring budget - the main difference being that rather than being that it was produced entirely independently, rather than partially independently as ANH was or through the studio system like Alien was. For how impressive the special effects on District 9 are you'd expect it to have funding comparable with Iron Man or maybe even Star Trek. But no, it actually has roughly a fifth of either movie's budget, even though it ends up special effects of roughly the same quality.
The effects of District 9 are surprisingly impressive given the film's low budget.
The impressive visuals of the film may, in fact, have a lot to do with the art direction of the film and the way in which it was shot. Since a lot of the special effects are done with mockumentary-style shots it was likely easier to disguise the illusion of reality. Similarly, while the aliens may have been produced on a low budget, they look so much different than most aliens we've seen on the silver screen that it's easier to make them look real than it would be to say, make a furry humanoid, gray, or space elf look real. After all, who really knows what an insectoid alien species would look like?
That said, it can't all be copped out to that. Later in the film, for instance, we get some very clear shots of the alien mothership and a mech of all things. And these look every bit as spectacular, just showing how talented the people over at Weta Workshop are.
Acting wise, the film is pretty good, but not great, though I was surprised to learn that, in fact, the aliens are portrayed all by one individual - Jason Cope who, in fact, is used in the film the same way that Andy Serkis has been used in Jackson's recent films - that is to say, he serves as the template over which the aliens are built. It's hard to judge how good of a job he did but I will say this - even though the faces of the aliens are very, very well, alien, you can still read emotion in them. I have no idea if that has anything to do with Cope or not, but it's damned effective. Cope does have one other role, that of the non-humans activist Grey Bednam, but the role is very minor and pretty standard for this sort of thing. That said, Cope does come off as pretty much just any typical documentary interviewee type.
Of the actors portraying humans, Wikus' actor Copley is by far the best. That's not to say the other are necessarily bad - they're adequate for the kind of roles they play - but Copley demonstrates real talent. From what I understand, he ad-libbed a non-insubstantial number of his lines, particularly during the mockumentary sequences, but I would never have noticed if I hadn't heard that, so naturally does he inhabit his role. Through Copley, Wikus, in spite of his flaws, becomes a truly sympathetic everyman and I doubt the character would be half as effective if put in the hands of most other actors. Copley, like Sacha Baron Cohen is that kind of actor who has a surprisingly good instinct for improvisation and inhabiting his role to the full.
Lastly, there's the soundtrack. A musical track as imaginative and tastefully exotic as the film as a whole, it sounds both like what you would expect from a science-fiction epic and yet entirely nothing like what you've heard before. The composer, Clinton Shorter, is no John Williams - but he doesn't have to be. He does his own thing and is, may I add, brilliant at it. And he does it all so well that it never distracts from the film itself.
In finality, given how low the budget for District 9 was, it's a wonder that the film has such high production values. But it does. This is a film that, more than any this year so far (and likely altogether), gives the bang for its buck.
Score: 9.5 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 9.4
Characters: 8.4
Production: 9.5
Overall: 9.1
Doctor Who (Season 2)
Overview
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first season of Doctor Who. If you have not seen this season and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read any further.
You may remember, a while back, that I reviewed Doctor Who Season (aka, Series) One, giving it a positive but not wholly enthusiastic review. Since then, I've actually finished both Seasons Two and Three but just haven't had the time to go back and review them. I seek to amend that.
Doctor Who's second season is a bit unusual in that it is what is essentially a second start for the series, much like Babylon 5's second season. The main character is replaced (okay, that's not entirely accurate) but the supporting character(s) remain the same. This means that the basic premise and feel of the show has continuity, but the characters don't, meaning that is an unusually good place for a new viewer to jump into.
At first I was skeptical of this season, even though I'd eventually grown fond of the first season. To a great degree, this was largely because most of the charm of the first season had come from its characters and I was reluctant to part with the deep and smugly charming Ninth Doctor for the more erratic, spontaneous Tenth Doctor. But while I can safely say that I still feel the Ninth Doctor should have gone on a bit longer before departing I can also say that I've come to like the Tenth Doctor.
Better yet, the writing actually improved in the second season. The first season was good - put only a very erratic, sporadic basis. Some episodes were wonderful, others okay, and others embarrassing. But the second season has a much more consistent level of quality, for better or worse, as well as an overall stronger story-arc (unlike the first season, which kind of went out with a whimper).
So, essentially, in spite of my doubts, the show turned out, once again, to my liking.
Plot
Like the first season of Doctor Who, the second season is primarily episodic in style, without the arc-based story design that we viewers of science fiction have come to expect ever since X-Files and Babylon 5 pioneered the format roughly a decade and a half ago. This means it's hard to judge the story of the show, though not impossible. Also, while the season remains very much a series of independent, interchangeable tales there is a much stronger story arc this time round - one that doesn't drop out from the ceiling all of a sudden to surprise you but one that has clear and effective foreshadowing throughout the show so it's a bit easier on me as the reviewer this time round.
A more cohesive and self-consistent arc defines this season, resulting in one hell of a finale.
First off, on an episodic basis, the stories of Doctor Who have improved. I'm not sure why this is. It may be that Russel T. Davies, who wrote the vast majority of episodes in Season One, improved as a writer. It may be that the supplementary writers they hired for the second season were better. Notably, the The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit two-parter is one of the best supernatural-themed science fiction stories I've ever seen - period. Similarly, The Girl in the Fireplace is a touching, singular piece and New Earth is a pretty big improvement over its Season One predecessor, The End of the World.
That's not to say there aren't bad eggs though. Fear Her is just like every other creepy girl story that's come before, except with a typical Doctor Who twist, and the Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel duology, while mildly entertaining, is an unnecessary revisit of virtually every luddite trope that's come before which serves only to reintroduce one of the Doctor's classic adversaries. Granted, the cybermen are kind of cool in a cheesy kind of way (though nowhere near as cool as the Daleks) and there are some mildly interesting concepts thrown out there regarding parallel universes along with important character development.
However, these less-than-spectacular set pieces are easily overlooked, especially since, as it turns out, some of these episodes are good in other ways - such as introducing plot elements that play heavily into the finale which is both set up and concluded in a way far more satisfying than Bad Wolf / The Parting of Ways was. The arc also involves a few twists I didn't see coming and handles the departure of one character with an unusually fine touch rarely found on any show.
Overall, Doctor Who Season Two's story is a pretty big improvement over Season One. Once again, it isn't terrific or, as the Ninth Doctor would have said, fantastic. But it is pretty good.
Score: 7.9 (out of 10)
Characters
Character-wise, the second season of Doctor Who isn't quite as good as Season One. This is, I believe, partially due to the awkwardness of the show's second start. At the end of the first season, the Ninth Doctor is killed off, destroyed by the power of the TARDIS, which he absorbs from Rose to save her life. As a result, the show is forced into adopting a new central character - the Tenth Doctor.
For those out of the know, one of the central rules in the Whoniverse is that the Doctor, as a member of the Time Lord species, can regenerate himself - that is to say, as long as he isn't killed in a super-permanent fashion and hasn't done so in awhile, the Doctor can regenerate his body, literally disassembling and reassembling himself so as to come out as an entirely new being. Hence, the name “First, Second, Third, Nth, Whateverth, Xth” Doctor. The key thing is, the new being is not only physically different, but emotionally and mentally as well, with a varying personality. He carries forward the memories of his preceding forms, but in every other way is essentially a new character.
Since I liked the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, a lot I wasn't particularly sanguine about replacing him, but I had foreknowledge this would be the case so the shock was gone. That said, it still was a blow, especially since the Tenth Doctor, on first impressions, seemed like a random, whatever-goes, no character traits whatsoever protagonist - not cardboard, but rather with too many qualities to be realistic. It wasn't too long, however, before it dawned on me that the chameleon-like personality of the Tenth Doctor was the whole point. The Tenth Doctor is supposed to be like an erratic child on a sugar high. Its his youthful enthusiasm that sets him apart, as does his sometimes troubling moral hypocrisy.
The Tenth Doctor takes a little getting used to - but he's fun. He's cheap, easy, loveable fun. And, unlike the Ninth Doctor, the center of the story. In my last review I mentioned that, as far as I could tell, Rose Tyler more appropriately filled the role of protagonist. I stand by that claim - for the first season. In Season Two the writers seem to have become aware of what was happening and worked hard to switch course, putting the Tenth Doctor front and center. It's his motivations, his character traits, and his actions that drive the story - not Rose's. And while this transformation doesn't make him any more interesting of a character, it does make him a better protagonist, a better hero. The Ninth Doctor, for all that I liked him, was more of the mentor figure to Rose.
The second season restores the Doctor as the primary protagonist, although to the detriment of Rose.
Unfortunately for Rose, the Doctor's return to prominence means her role declines sharply. That's not to say she's unimportant. She's still a major character. But whereas in Season One she was a heroine in her own right, in Season Two she becomes a sidekick. Admittedly, that's what she was intended to be in the first place. Her role isn't completely gone. Her crush on the Ninth Doctor, for instance, turns into an actual (if rather platonic) relationship with the Tenth Doctor in Season Two and is one of the primary motivations for both characters.
Interestingly, although Rose's role shrinks in the second season, that of her family and friends increases. Rose's mother, Jackie, was little more than an irritant in the first season, although one who obviously cared for her daughter, becomes an important character in the second season. Even more so is the case of Mickey, who was sort of a sad, lonely figure in Season One as it became more and more apparent that Rose had abandoned him for the Doctor. In Season Two, though, Mickey comes unto his own in a way I never would have imagined, even becoming a companion of the Doctor for a short while.
There's also one more character, who's appeared before in Season One, who plays a prominent role in the overall arc of the season, though this character is a surprise twist, not revealed until midway and his return at the end is even more of a surprise. His impact on the story is interesting and important but, unfortunately, I can't reveal much more without spoiling his identity. Needless to say, he was a surprising but welcome influence.
Overall, there's some parts of the season I was impressed with character-wise and others I wasn't. On the one hand, the Tenth Doctor is a less interesting character, though only mildly, than the Ninth Doctor. Secondly, Rose declines in important and interest. But, on the other hand, the season returns the Doctor to the forefront, which was how it was meant to be, and many of the supporting characters from Season One get a much needed boost in important and character development. Overall, good, but not great.
Score: 9.2 (out of 10)
Production
It's obvious looking at Season Two that the BBC understood that audiences enjoyed the first season of their revival, because the production values are noticeably higher than those of Season One. The effects look better, the art design improves, and even the soundtrack has an extra bit of style that it lacked in the first season.
First off, let's look at the effects. They're still rather low in quality compared to those of American science fiction shows, but they're no longer a decade behind. Rather than comparable with say, Babylon 5, they're more like Voyager. Although that still puts them a few years behind, it's a big improvement. Best yet, the art design was far better this time round - with a few notable exceptions (like, say, the absorbaloff). Comparing Season One aliens with those of Season Two just isn't fair - compare the ood and the slitheen, for instance. The improved art design goes along way, far more than even the improved effects.
In regards to acting, I can't actually say it's better with any definitive judgment, because most of the characters are the same. But I will say this. Much as I loved Eccleston and the ninth doctor, David Tennant is, in some ways, an improvement. He inhabits the role to a degree that Eccleston never did, throwing himself wholly into it. It's not really a surprise when you consider that Tennant practically chose acting as a career, just so he could play the Doctor. That extra bit of enthusiasm, and the willingness to go all out in the role, is something that makes the Tenth Doctor just a little bit more loveable. In other words, the issues I have with the Tenth are character issues, not criticisms of Tennant the actor.
The Tenth Doctor may be a bit shallower than the Ninth, but David Tennant is a brilliant actor.
As for the soundtrack, it's not so much better as bigger. But that's still a nice improvement because, other than the opening theme, the first season didn't really have many noteworthy tunes. That changes in Season Two, which adds themes for several of the villains as well as soundtracks for individual episodes, making for a more complete soundtrack.
Looking back over the second season of Doctor Who it's clear to see that the production values, like so much else, are an improvement over the old. Whether this is a trend that can be expected for future Doctor Who seasons is unsure, though, I can safely say that, the future looks bright for the show, a surprise given how skeptical I was initially approaching this British sci-fi classic.
Score: 8.0 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 7.9
Characters: 9.2
Production: 8.0
Overall: 8.4
This time round I'll be covering three products - but as annotated reviews. After looking back over my earlier entries I've noticed how long they seem to didder on. So my goal here is to reduce the actual quantity but increase the quality.
Be warned, this is a beta test.
The three I'll be reviewing are the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica (both 4.0 and 4.5), District 9, and the second season of Doctor Who.
Also be aware that later I'll be posting a more spoileriffic review of BSG Season 4's finale given its controversial nature and my own strong opinions about it.
Until then, read on, my friends!
What the Score Means
10.0: Excellent. Terrific. Might not be perfect, but it's damn close. Best in the field.
9.0: Pretty damn good. I've seen better stuff, but not much. Most people should enjoy it.
8.0: Pretty good, if you really like this sort of stuff, but it might be more underwhelming if you're not. Even if you are one of the latter, though, I'd expect you to find it passingly amusing, if nothing else.
7.0: Good or average, but take note that your mileage may vary. In other words, if you're already a fan or predisposed to works like this you may really like it or think it's good. But if you're not, steer clear or at least approach with a cautiously open mind.
6.0: Meh. You might enjoy it, but I wouldn't guarantee it. If you do like it, it'll probably be a passing thing and I wouldn't count on it having any revisitable value. Semi-average, semi-poor. What I like to call "thoroughly mediocre."
5.0: This steps beyond thoroughly mediocre into the realm of truly bad; it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
4.0: Boringly bad. This stuff is the kind you stop watching if its a movie, stop playing if its a game, or just can't finish reading if its a book. You just can't get into it, no matter how hard you try.
3.0: So bad it's good. That is to say, if you take this at face value it's going to be horrific. But, if you just hang along for the ride and turn off your brain or, conversely, decide to get ridiculously symbolic about it, it can actually be very entertaining, if only for its comically bad quality.
2.0: So bad it's horrible quality. There's nothing funny about it, except perhaps that the human mind could be so warped that it would actually produce the shit. Not fun.
0-1.0: Burn! Burrrrrrn! Burn the evil! It hurts!
Table of Contents
Battlestar Galactica (Season 4)
District 9
Doctor Who (Season 2)
Battlestar Galactica (Season 4)
Overview
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica. If you have not seen these seasons and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read any further.
For anyone who's been following my reviews it should be easy to deduce that Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica has become one of my favorite shows.
It was pretty much like that from the beginning, oddly enough. Our family had finished the last season of Babylon 5 two years earlier, had watched Firefly roughly three or four times by then, and weren't particularly eager to start Stargate or Farscape. Given the good reviews BSG was getting, as well as a personal recommendation from a friend, I figured - what the hell? Why not?
As a nice bonus, the show was a remake of the series that inspired Homeworld, one of my all-time favorite games and a sci-fi classic in its own right. Indeed, it was the high marks the fan community of that series which helped push me into renting it.
As it turned out, I was in for a big treat. The three-hour pilot of Battlestar Galactica, while a little long, was a fantastic piece of television that hooked me pretty early on. I approached with skepticism - after all, I'd heard how cheesy the first show was, a fact I have since verified by going back and watching a couple of episodes. But instead of being disappointed, as I'd braced myself to be, I was enthralled and by the end of the miniseries it had already won me over far more than Firefly's pilot, Serenity, ever did.
At last, I thought, a series that is willing to do military sci-fi right - without any of the silliness that most shows, even the otherwise breakthrough Babylon 5, were willing to indulge in. And yet it wasn't a glorification of the military. Throughout the first season, I often found myself siding against Commander Adama and with the civilians led by President Laura Roslin. In time, the situation grew more complicated as I began to side with neither side and even came to view the human-cylon conflict as something far more complicated than mere genocidal rage as seen so often in science fiction before, from the Terminators to the Machines of the The Matrix.
Rather than merely Terminator meets Star Wars I had come unto Blade Runner meets Star Wars meets Babylon 5 meets The West Wing. What a surprise!
But all good things come to an end. And so, it was with some sadness that I heard Battlestar would be coming to its end. However, contrary to what others believe - the show was never canceled. After all, Battlestar is, or was, Sci-Fi's (oh, excuse me, SyFy) star program. It made the msot money, drew the highest marks from reviews, and single-handedly transformed Sci-Fi from that “lame place where science fiction goes to die or be horribly resurrected as reruns” into a prime time channel. So, no, BSG wasn't canceled. But it was ended. By the writing staff who, unlike so many in the business, knew when it was time to quit.
In fact, in a way, I saw the announcement that BSG's fourth season would be its last as a good thing. It meant that unlike, say, Babylon 5, it wouldn't be dragged on into an unwanted and unprepared for season, where things went nowhere and characters were gradually deformed until beyond recognition. It wouldn't be like Firefly, where an entire season's worth of plot was crammed into a single, two-hour film.
The fourth season of BSG is, like all the others, a great piece of television. But, contrary to my earlier beliefs, it does not wholly avoid the problems of bringing an arc-based series to an end. While it avoids B5's aimless wandering, as well as Firefly's plot compression, it brings new problems of its own, brought on by another problem - the fact that the writers, as revealed in recent interviews, didn't know where they were going until the third season.
More on this to come. Needless, to say, however, the ending of BSG brings with it mixed feelings. But, at least I have something else to look forward to. Caprica.
Plot
RDM's BSG has been well-known since its inception for its engrossing story, and for good reason. Full of clever, arc-based writing and engaging twists and turns, the plot of BSG was enlivened by the impression that, behind it all, lay some great and yet undisclosed story the writers had yet to reveal. This became all the more enticing at the end of Season 3, where we were introduced to the so-called Final Five - or, at least, four of the Final Five. One, for some unknown reason, was missing, though we knew that in due time all would be revealed in the fourth and final season.
And it all was. But was it what we hoped it would be? In some ways, yes. The fourth season of Battlestar Galactica contained some of the best writing I've seen in television ever and many of the answers to our burning questions - who the Final Five are, where Earth is, and what role the gods (plural or singular) are playing in this magnificent drama. Nearly every piece in the puzzle is filled, every gap or plot hole explained. And yet, when it all comes together, it somehow seems less than what we were expecting.
Many mysteries are solved, such as who the final, fifth cylon is.
On the other hand, however, as the fourth season progressed something became increasingly obvious - RDM and company hadn't planned it all out and did not, in fact, know from the getgo where the story was going on or what would happen to our protagonists. This became most obvious in the second half of the season, at which point the plot grows muddled and confused, hopping back from one story to another with no clear direction. It's not that some of these individual stories aren't good - but they don't add anything to the arc and take up valuable end arc time, which is at a premium in this final season.
Most disappointingly, when the final arc is dealt with, its done in a sloppy and unsatisfying manner. Though some of our questions come off rather nicely and some arcs conclude logically, more than a few are written off with “A Wizard Did It” explanations. Like, for instance, cylon biology, which is never adequately explained. What makes them different? Why can they download? Why can they interface with computers? It sort of comes off as if the writers didn't know themselves (which I suspect they didn't).
Generally, speaking, however, BSG Season 4 lives up to the high standards of storytelling that the previous seasons set. Yes, the writers clearly didn't have a “plan” the way they promised they did - at least not from the beginning. But it's evident that, as the show progressed, the writers, in particular RDM, realized that the show needed that sloganized “plan”. So, instead of continuing to make it up as they went long they sat down and came up with a pretty impressive “Author's Saving Throw.” The ending result isn't perfect, but it's really, really good.
In the end, Season 4 has a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to storytelling. On the one hand, we get the answers to most of our questions - and many of those answers are satisfying. Unfortunately, the final episode of BSG is hijacked by the very things I admired BSG for avoiding - last minute explanation and anvilicious messages, a poor ending set up by the increasingly aimless story of BSG Season 4's second half. But that said, when we look back at the season as a whole, I have to say, it may not be BSG's best - but that doesn't mean it wasn't great.
Score: 8.8 (out of 10)
Characters
The characters of Battlestar Galactica have always been one of its strongest points. Okay, well, the whole show was full of strong points, but its characters really stand out. In fact, it's the characters who more or less define the show - they're human (okay, wrong word, but we haven't invented the appropriate term as a culture yet), flawed individuals who nonetheless remain heroes we can root for. They're dysfunctional, but not hopelessly so, and while we can sympathize with just about every last one of them, we're still able to appreciate the battle between good and evil at work in this unusual space opera.
In Season 4, the characterizations remain as strong as ever, even when it's unpleasant to watch. Since this is the final, last act of BSG the show (though the franchise will continue through the prequel Caprica) many of the relationships we've seen develop over the past three years come to a culmination here - for better or worse. And we're not disappointed.
It's hard to specify who are the main characters in BSG, since nearly everybody has a major role in the storyline. But if we had to center it in on three characters - it's probably be Adama, Starbuck, and Baltar. Not that the other characters don't matter, but it's these three whose actions have the largest effect on the storyline, no matter what the other characters might want you to think. Adama leads the fleet, makes the decisions that matter, Starbuck is the closest thing BSG has to the hero of a thousand faces, and Baltar is, like Londo Mollari from Babylon 5, the morally gray character who is placed at the crux of the show's most difficult moral dilemmas. Without him, the show wouldn't work.
All three of them are done brilliantly.
Starbuck's back... and not everyone's happy about that.
In Adama, we see the culmination of a man driven to the edge by what seems an increasingly hopeless situation, a man who exudes a shield of unyielding confidence but who, beneath, is falling apart. It's a painful experience to watch, but it's all the more heartwarming when he succeeds against all odds, holding it together. In Starbuck, we see a woman who has returned from the dead - though whether that's literal or metaphorical isn't made clear until past the season's mid-point - and the way in which both she and those who care about her deal with this is not only realistic, but compelling. We want to learn Starbuck's secret, whether it means she's a cylon, a zombie, or whatever. The answer we get is, in my mind, satisfying.
As for Baltar, what can I say? Here is a character who from the start was portrayed as nothing less than an egomaniacal, selfish jerk who served as the worst kind of everyman - the kind of man every man wishes he wasn't. And yet, while I know that many hated him for it, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for him, since most of his actual sins were minor, while his actions led, on a regular basis, to utter catastrophe due to circumstances beyond his control. And here, in the fourth season, he becomes part of a cult of personality.
Personally, I didn't find the cult itself compelling at all - it was a run of the mill, female majority, hollywoodish cult sort of thing. It was boring. But the way that Baltar was thrown into it, the way he reacted to it, and the way he changed as a character because of it was interesting. Here is a character who both believes he is the victim but also knows without question that he is in need of redemption. The conflict between Baltar's selfish compulsion towards self-preservation and his desire to do good become an interesting dynamic throughout the season, from beginning to end.
As for the other characters, I'm going to try and limit myself space-wise here. For the most part, the other main characters are served just as well. There are certainly some surprises - a few sudden deaths here and a betrayal there, but none of them seem particularly inconsistent with what has come before. There are a few exceptions here. Roslin's collapse into a self-pitying lump during the second half seems inconsistent with the character she's been established as so far - even if it's understandable for virtually any other character. On the other hand, however, Boomer's continuing decay from hero to villain are understandable given the circumstances given to her, even if they're the result of her own decisions. It's heartbreaking to watch but it's good writing.
The character that surprised me the most was Number One - also known as John Cavil. In previous seasons, I simply saw an asshole who wasnonetheless, was nonetheless fun to watch since he had a strangely charming manner to him. In Season 4, though, he becomes so much, much more. A magnificent bastard to the nth degree, Cavil goes from supporting character to primary villain in a wonderfully satisfying way. And while he remains the most easily condemnable character, he remains full of strange little character traits and understandable motivations - even if they remain petty and vain - that make him a believable character.
On the other hand, the character worst served is Number Three. For half the season, the cylons won't stop talking about her, as though she's a messiah or the antichrist (it depends which cylons you're talking to). But when she finally shows up - it's for only a handful of episodes and her overall effect on the show is rather... well, underwhelming. Here comes a leader of the cylons, who in Seasons 2 and 3 was a deliciously zealous character. But in Season 4, she's just a cameo. Nothing more.
Looking back at the season as whole, I have to say, it's pretty damn good and it had some of the best character moments in the entire show. But it also had some really WTF-like moments where the characters suddenly spun and did something completely contrary to what could be expected of them. It's not unreasonable to assume that characters in real life might do this and one of the best things about BSG is how realistically it treats its characters. But one thing I've learned in writing is that, in order to make things real, you sometimes have to add a little bit more order than exists in reality. Surprise us, but don't do it too often and gives us self-consistent reasons we can understand or we'll grow skeptical.
Score: 9.5 (out of 10)
Production
Since this was known to be the last season of BSG from the start, it is unsurprising that Sci-Fi chose to pull out all of the stops production wise. I noted in my review of the third season that the production values of the third season jumped dramatically from those of the previous two. Well, the jump was just as large here, in the fourth season, which is, simply put, the best goddamn looking show yet produced. There is no real comparison with any other show and while I'm not someone to normally get too excited about eye candy - after all, Babylon 5 and Doctor Who aren't that great looking - it's undeniably fun to watch the special effects scenes Zoic puts together.
Seriously, though, BSG's special effects in Season 4 are absolutely astonishing. There isn't really a difference here between the shots used in Season 4 and those used in most of the science fiction films being released today. Now it's true that the best of feature film special effects still look better than BSG's - but a large majority does not. Lighting, shadows, rendering, textures, they all look terrific. I can only imagine how awesome BSG Season 4 looks on blu-ray.
This is but a taste of BSG's special effects awesomeness.
But BSG's production values were never limited to just the special effects. Sound design has long been BSG's strongest point, a field that it leads in as much as it leads in visuals. BSG's soundtrack is, in my somewhat-but-not-entirely humble opinion the best television soundtrack there is. Okay, well, Ghost in the Shell does give BSG a run for its money but I think, in the end, Bear McCreary wins out this time. It's a wonder the genius composer doesn't do more soundtracks, but I suppose he was too busy with BSG to loan out his talents that much. I can scarcely wait for Caprica's soundtrack then.
Acting has also been a strength of BSG from its inception. While RDM's Comic-Con proclamation about the Emmys may have been more than a little self-indulgent and congratulatory it's nonetheless true, from my perspective, that Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, and James Callis are some of the best actors on television. And most of the others - well, they're no pushovers.
Seriously, BSG's production values are ridiculously good, particularly in the last season. Full marks.
Score: 10.0 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 8.8
Characters: 9.5
Production: 10.0
Overall: 9.4
District 9
Overview
If you're reading this and you still haven't see District 9 then, well, go out and see it. You're in for a treat. Actually, I'd be slightly surprised given that D9 appears to be this year's A New Hope, by which I mean it is a surprise hit that came out of nowhere. I never expected Star Trek to be a failure but District 9 I honestly wondered about. Not in a bad sort of way, more of as a "difficult to market to the general public" sort of way.
Well, I'm happy to say I was wrong. District 9 is selling like crazy.
District 9 is a great movie. It's by far not the best film I've ever seen. I'm not sure I would even rank it among the top ten. But it is a great film and it's made all the more impressive because it comes from a director who has, to this point, done zip, nada, nilch. Okay, Neil Blomkamp hasn't directed anything before. He's directed a few short films. And he also was set to direct Halo, before the film met a horrible death at the hands of inexplicably panicky movie studios (seriously - they were concerned that Halo, of all things, was going to be a bust). But a completed feature film he has never helmed. Until now.
The guy's got a future ahead of him, I can tell you that. If Abrams is the new Spielberg and Jackson is the new Lucas than it may well be that Blomkamp is the new James Cameron.
So read on ahead, though by now I've answered that singular question: “is District 9 worth seeing.” Yes. Hell, yes.
Plot
I can't give away too much of the plot lest I spoil it but I will say this - District 9 is the kind of plot that surprises you without relying on cheap tricks like out of the blue twists that do little more than to shock and awe you. Oh, yes, there's one big central twist, but you may well have been spoiled to that already (assuming you haven't seen the movie yet), but that's just what we in writing like to call “plot point one.” It gets the story moving. It's not really a game changer for the movie as a whole. And that's perfectly okay.
What makes District 9 great is that it's conventional and unconventional in all the right ways. It's surprising without being gimmicky, it's original without being pretentiously artsy, and it's inventive while sticking to the true and tried formulas. And this all has to do with just the story, which is told both unconventionally and as we might expect from a science fiction film.
One note: this film is not, as Roger Ebert claims, a space opera. I know, because I make a business knowing what those terms mean. That's not a bad thing. But don't go into this move expecting a space opera. What this film is is a military techno-thriller form of science fiction along the same lines as the Aliens or Terminator franchises. That's what you'll get.
The story starts off fairly simply enough: an alien ship appears in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. People are frightened at first and then perplexed when nothing happens. After days of waiting the South African government decides to cut through the hull of the ship and see what they can find within. They are shocked to discover the ship is full of neither starry-eyed benevolent visitors like those from Close Encounters nor with conquering soldiers along the lines of Independence Day. Rather, what they witness is effectively a beached ship filled with illegal immigrants, much like, say the Golden Venture.
With no way of repairing their vessel and seemingly no leadership, the aliens are desperate and starving. With seemingly no other choice left to them, the South African government allows the aliens to settle near Johannesburg in a ghetto that comes to be known as “District 9.” There they quickly become a resented presence, barely tolerated by the natives due to their bizarre physiology, unhygenic lifestyle (brought on by immense poverty), and ownership of high-tech weapons that only they can use, which are quickly confiscated. In order to handle the issue and “protect” both the aliens, who quickly become derogatively known as “prawns” after the cricket species native to South Africa, the South African government hires out the local private military corporation Multi-National United (MNU) to deal with the unwanted guest population.
Wikus leads the forced relocation of the aliens, meeting Christopher for the first time.
The next half-hour (effectively the prologue) is, essentially, setting up the real story which is not, as one imagines at first, in the form of a mockumentary. We are introduced to Wikus van de Merwe, a mild-mannered but ambitious MNU field operative who happens to be the CEO's son-in-law. We are also introduced to the time bomb that hangs over the rest of the movie - that, due to strife between humans and the aliens, District 9 will be dismantled and the aliens moved to a new camp 240 kilometers away from Johannesburg, known as “District 10.” As Wikus begins to lead the evacuation of District 9, he makes an accidental discovery that not only changes his life forever but the dynamic between human and alien as well.
This inciting incident is where the story really starts moving and after which it never lets up. There is never a slow moment, never a pause in the relentlessly progressive plot that follows as we go quickly from one scene to another and the secret Wikus unknowingly discovered is generally unfolded. If you've avoided the chief spoiler as to what this is so far, well, I congratulate you as I'm sure it's the talk of the web now. Needless to say, it makes an effective plot device even if the science behind it is rather, shall we say, “unlikely.”
The story is a well-crafted one, in spite of a few plot holes. But these inconsistencies, these flaws, are only obvious in retrospect or upon repeat viewings, much like those in the recent Star Trek. They don't catch you as you watch the film, so engrossed are you in the unfolding drama before you. Of all the stories I've seen this year, this one had me hooked the most.
Before I finish though, let's look at some of the flaws. As I pointed out earlier, the major plot point, while interesting and great for drama, doesn't make much sense given the details, we the viewers, have. Similarly, the lengths to which the villains go in the story seem, at times, unnecessarily and unrealistically malicious (more on that later), to the point that they almost become a force rather than characters. However, the flaws of the story do not overwhelm its strengths and are overlooked easily during the initial viewing of District 9, which demonstrates just how engrossing the film's story is.
And the setting is brilliant. Never before, as far as I know, has a story like this been told in film, where aliens have come to Earth, but not as saviors or conquerors but as desperate fugitives. Oh, I suppose Men In Black approached the subject to some degree, albeit farcically, but this film does what MIB did as a humorous aside and turns it into a compelling and tragic drama. It's very, very original and its easy to see why Jackson threw his support behind Blomkamp's vision when Halo collapsed.
There's also an obvious sequel hook, though whether or not that's a good idea is a matter of opinion. I expect there's promise in such an idea, but it sounds very difficult to pull off well.
When you put it all together, District 9 has a wonderful story. A flawed story, yes, but a wonderfully flawed story and one that will likely continue to entertain for many years yet.
Score: 9.4 (out of 10)
Characters
When it comes to characterization, District 9 is very unusual. This is one of those films where we can honestly say the morality lies somewhere between black and gray. Our point-of-view hero character is a speciest, amoral jerk and our villains are downright horrific. It's not just the humans either, with the aliens often demonstrating (justifiable though not commendable) loathing for the humans they've been forced to live with by circumstance. Of all the characters, only two can properly be called “good.”
Contrary to what you, my readers, might imagine from my previous writing this is not, in fact, my favorite form of film morality. I'm an optimistic humanist, who tends to view humans (and sophonts in general) as good, or at least inclined towards good. That said, this system works for the kind of film that District 9 is - a film that turns science fiction conventions on its head without ever seeming too preachy (though your mileage may vary here). More importantly, its grim nature is necessary for the kind of story D9 is.
Let's start with Wikus. Here is a character who initially seems likeable. He's friendly, mild-mannered, and ambitious without seeming arrogant. He takes initiative and he seems honestly to want peaceful, harmonious relations with the aliens. But it is slowly revealed that Wikus is really not all that nice of a guy underneath it all. As he stands by, watching atrocities, making un-funny jokes about “prawns,” and using thinly-veiled threats against the aliens to get them to move we gradually begin to feel less sympathy for him.
Wikus makes a strange but compelling hero in District 9.
But then, that's all changed suddenly. Once again, he's our hero, our point of sympathy. And yet, he really doesn't change all that much as a character, at least not at first. Rather, our sympathy is aroused simply because of the suffering he goes through. In a way, this is more poignant than if he was a genuinely good guy. After all, it's easy to sympathize for the nice guy who gets beaten down. Feeling bad for the jerk though, as he's subjected to horrific conditions, is not as easy, even if it is a more accurate reflection of morality. Goodness comes from universal compassion, universal love for even the worst of us. Wikus isn't the worst of us, but he's far from the best.
Then there's Christopher, the alien with whom Wikus primarily interacts. Christopher is, in fact, not the character's name by choice but as a legal requirement for all aliens, much as in the height of colonialism natives or slaves were often given European-sounding names by their conquerors. Christopher is, more than any other character, good in nature. But he's not perfect. Witness, for instance, the clear connections between Christopher and the Nigerian mafia which runs District 9's underworld. Christopher is also, to a degree, selfish, though far less so than Wikus or the other characters. But these flaws are, more than in other characters, easily overlooked by Christopher's positive qualities, such as his loving relationship with his son, who goes unnamed.
A few more characters join the cast, though none are as fascinating as either Wikus or Christopher. There's Wikus' wife Tania, her father and MNU's CEO Dirk Michaels, and Colonel Kobus Venter. Each, in a way, serves as a facet of humanity as a whole and as a foil of sorts to Wikus. Of these, Tania is the most sympathetic by far, an average woman caught up in extraordinarily horrific events, torn between her loyalty to her father and to her husband. Compared to the others, however, she's a very minor character and one who serves mainly to highlight what is good and noble about Wikus while highlighting the evils of MNU. This is alright but it means there's only a very limited depth to her character.
Dirk Michaels and Kobus Venter give a face to MNUs' villainy. Both are, I'm afraid to say, rather underdeveloped however. They give a physical face, a physical presence, but not an emotional one. It's not that we don't believe MNU's ruthlessly efficient agenda couldn't exist in reality. It's more that we never see any clear motivations as to why Michael and Venter are so slavishly happy to be a part of that. Oh, sure, Michaels makes loads of cash as I'm sure Venter does as well, but money is never the sole motivator for any but the most sociopathic individuals. I suppose one might say they're both sociopaths - but that seems exceedingly unlikely. So what we're left with is a cardboard figurine of corporate evil, with all the appropriate trappings, as well as his henchman of doom, who seems to just like killing things. Fortunately, not enough attention is spent on either of them to drag things down too much.
When you look it as a whole, District 9 has a nice cast of characters. But if you're to examine each individually, it's easy to spot the flaws, the places where lazy characterization overtook good ideas. Fortunately, this is limited primarily to the antagonists and since the story focuses so much on the relationship between its two morally-conflicted protagonists, we allow them to get away with it. But hopefully later works from Blomkamp will come with more interesting antagonists.
Score: 8.4 (out of 10)
Production
District 9 is what A New Hope and Alien - a wonder produced on a shoestring budget - the main difference being that rather than being that it was produced entirely independently, rather than partially independently as ANH was or through the studio system like Alien was. For how impressive the special effects on District 9 are you'd expect it to have funding comparable with Iron Man or maybe even Star Trek. But no, it actually has roughly a fifth of either movie's budget, even though it ends up special effects of roughly the same quality.
The effects of District 9 are surprisingly impressive given the film's low budget.
The impressive visuals of the film may, in fact, have a lot to do with the art direction of the film and the way in which it was shot. Since a lot of the special effects are done with mockumentary-style shots it was likely easier to disguise the illusion of reality. Similarly, while the aliens may have been produced on a low budget, they look so much different than most aliens we've seen on the silver screen that it's easier to make them look real than it would be to say, make a furry humanoid, gray, or space elf look real. After all, who really knows what an insectoid alien species would look like?
That said, it can't all be copped out to that. Later in the film, for instance, we get some very clear shots of the alien mothership and a mech of all things. And these look every bit as spectacular, just showing how talented the people over at Weta Workshop are.
Acting wise, the film is pretty good, but not great, though I was surprised to learn that, in fact, the aliens are portrayed all by one individual - Jason Cope who, in fact, is used in the film the same way that Andy Serkis has been used in Jackson's recent films - that is to say, he serves as the template over which the aliens are built. It's hard to judge how good of a job he did but I will say this - even though the faces of the aliens are very, very well, alien, you can still read emotion in them. I have no idea if that has anything to do with Cope or not, but it's damned effective. Cope does have one other role, that of the non-humans activist Grey Bednam, but the role is very minor and pretty standard for this sort of thing. That said, Cope does come off as pretty much just any typical documentary interviewee type.
Of the actors portraying humans, Wikus' actor Copley is by far the best. That's not to say the other are necessarily bad - they're adequate for the kind of roles they play - but Copley demonstrates real talent. From what I understand, he ad-libbed a non-insubstantial number of his lines, particularly during the mockumentary sequences, but I would never have noticed if I hadn't heard that, so naturally does he inhabit his role. Through Copley, Wikus, in spite of his flaws, becomes a truly sympathetic everyman and I doubt the character would be half as effective if put in the hands of most other actors. Copley, like Sacha Baron Cohen is that kind of actor who has a surprisingly good instinct for improvisation and inhabiting his role to the full.
Lastly, there's the soundtrack. A musical track as imaginative and tastefully exotic as the film as a whole, it sounds both like what you would expect from a science-fiction epic and yet entirely nothing like what you've heard before. The composer, Clinton Shorter, is no John Williams - but he doesn't have to be. He does his own thing and is, may I add, brilliant at it. And he does it all so well that it never distracts from the film itself.
In finality, given how low the budget for District 9 was, it's a wonder that the film has such high production values. But it does. This is a film that, more than any this year so far (and likely altogether), gives the bang for its buck.
Score: 9.5 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 9.4
Characters: 8.4
Production: 9.5
Overall: 9.1
Doctor Who (Season 2)
Overview
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first season of Doctor Who. If you have not seen this season and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read any further.
You may remember, a while back, that I reviewed Doctor Who Season (aka, Series) One, giving it a positive but not wholly enthusiastic review. Since then, I've actually finished both Seasons Two and Three but just haven't had the time to go back and review them. I seek to amend that.
Doctor Who's second season is a bit unusual in that it is what is essentially a second start for the series, much like Babylon 5's second season. The main character is replaced (okay, that's not entirely accurate) but the supporting character(s) remain the same. This means that the basic premise and feel of the show has continuity, but the characters don't, meaning that is an unusually good place for a new viewer to jump into.
At first I was skeptical of this season, even though I'd eventually grown fond of the first season. To a great degree, this was largely because most of the charm of the first season had come from its characters and I was reluctant to part with the deep and smugly charming Ninth Doctor for the more erratic, spontaneous Tenth Doctor. But while I can safely say that I still feel the Ninth Doctor should have gone on a bit longer before departing I can also say that I've come to like the Tenth Doctor.
Better yet, the writing actually improved in the second season. The first season was good - put only a very erratic, sporadic basis. Some episodes were wonderful, others okay, and others embarrassing. But the second season has a much more consistent level of quality, for better or worse, as well as an overall stronger story-arc (unlike the first season, which kind of went out with a whimper).
So, essentially, in spite of my doubts, the show turned out, once again, to my liking.
Plot
Like the first season of Doctor Who, the second season is primarily episodic in style, without the arc-based story design that we viewers of science fiction have come to expect ever since X-Files and Babylon 5 pioneered the format roughly a decade and a half ago. This means it's hard to judge the story of the show, though not impossible. Also, while the season remains very much a series of independent, interchangeable tales there is a much stronger story arc this time round - one that doesn't drop out from the ceiling all of a sudden to surprise you but one that has clear and effective foreshadowing throughout the show so it's a bit easier on me as the reviewer this time round.
A more cohesive and self-consistent arc defines this season, resulting in one hell of a finale.
First off, on an episodic basis, the stories of Doctor Who have improved. I'm not sure why this is. It may be that Russel T. Davies, who wrote the vast majority of episodes in Season One, improved as a writer. It may be that the supplementary writers they hired for the second season were better. Notably, the The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit two-parter is one of the best supernatural-themed science fiction stories I've ever seen - period. Similarly, The Girl in the Fireplace is a touching, singular piece and New Earth is a pretty big improvement over its Season One predecessor, The End of the World.
That's not to say there aren't bad eggs though. Fear Her is just like every other creepy girl story that's come before, except with a typical Doctor Who twist, and the Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel duology, while mildly entertaining, is an unnecessary revisit of virtually every luddite trope that's come before which serves only to reintroduce one of the Doctor's classic adversaries. Granted, the cybermen are kind of cool in a cheesy kind of way (though nowhere near as cool as the Daleks) and there are some mildly interesting concepts thrown out there regarding parallel universes along with important character development.
However, these less-than-spectacular set pieces are easily overlooked, especially since, as it turns out, some of these episodes are good in other ways - such as introducing plot elements that play heavily into the finale which is both set up and concluded in a way far more satisfying than Bad Wolf / The Parting of Ways was. The arc also involves a few twists I didn't see coming and handles the departure of one character with an unusually fine touch rarely found on any show.
Overall, Doctor Who Season Two's story is a pretty big improvement over Season One. Once again, it isn't terrific or, as the Ninth Doctor would have said, fantastic. But it is pretty good.
Score: 7.9 (out of 10)
Characters
Character-wise, the second season of Doctor Who isn't quite as good as Season One. This is, I believe, partially due to the awkwardness of the show's second start. At the end of the first season, the Ninth Doctor is killed off, destroyed by the power of the TARDIS, which he absorbs from Rose to save her life. As a result, the show is forced into adopting a new central character - the Tenth Doctor.
For those out of the know, one of the central rules in the Whoniverse is that the Doctor, as a member of the Time Lord species, can regenerate himself - that is to say, as long as he isn't killed in a super-permanent fashion and hasn't done so in awhile, the Doctor can regenerate his body, literally disassembling and reassembling himself so as to come out as an entirely new being. Hence, the name “First, Second, Third, Nth, Whateverth, Xth” Doctor. The key thing is, the new being is not only physically different, but emotionally and mentally as well, with a varying personality. He carries forward the memories of his preceding forms, but in every other way is essentially a new character.
Since I liked the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, a lot I wasn't particularly sanguine about replacing him, but I had foreknowledge this would be the case so the shock was gone. That said, it still was a blow, especially since the Tenth Doctor, on first impressions, seemed like a random, whatever-goes, no character traits whatsoever protagonist - not cardboard, but rather with too many qualities to be realistic. It wasn't too long, however, before it dawned on me that the chameleon-like personality of the Tenth Doctor was the whole point. The Tenth Doctor is supposed to be like an erratic child on a sugar high. Its his youthful enthusiasm that sets him apart, as does his sometimes troubling moral hypocrisy.
The Tenth Doctor takes a little getting used to - but he's fun. He's cheap, easy, loveable fun. And, unlike the Ninth Doctor, the center of the story. In my last review I mentioned that, as far as I could tell, Rose Tyler more appropriately filled the role of protagonist. I stand by that claim - for the first season. In Season Two the writers seem to have become aware of what was happening and worked hard to switch course, putting the Tenth Doctor front and center. It's his motivations, his character traits, and his actions that drive the story - not Rose's. And while this transformation doesn't make him any more interesting of a character, it does make him a better protagonist, a better hero. The Ninth Doctor, for all that I liked him, was more of the mentor figure to Rose.
The second season restores the Doctor as the primary protagonist, although to the detriment of Rose.
Unfortunately for Rose, the Doctor's return to prominence means her role declines sharply. That's not to say she's unimportant. She's still a major character. But whereas in Season One she was a heroine in her own right, in Season Two she becomes a sidekick. Admittedly, that's what she was intended to be in the first place. Her role isn't completely gone. Her crush on the Ninth Doctor, for instance, turns into an actual (if rather platonic) relationship with the Tenth Doctor in Season Two and is one of the primary motivations for both characters.
Interestingly, although Rose's role shrinks in the second season, that of her family and friends increases. Rose's mother, Jackie, was little more than an irritant in the first season, although one who obviously cared for her daughter, becomes an important character in the second season. Even more so is the case of Mickey, who was sort of a sad, lonely figure in Season One as it became more and more apparent that Rose had abandoned him for the Doctor. In Season Two, though, Mickey comes unto his own in a way I never would have imagined, even becoming a companion of the Doctor for a short while.
There's also one more character, who's appeared before in Season One, who plays a prominent role in the overall arc of the season, though this character is a surprise twist, not revealed until midway and his return at the end is even more of a surprise. His impact on the story is interesting and important but, unfortunately, I can't reveal much more without spoiling his identity. Needless to say, he was a surprising but welcome influence.
Overall, there's some parts of the season I was impressed with character-wise and others I wasn't. On the one hand, the Tenth Doctor is a less interesting character, though only mildly, than the Ninth Doctor. Secondly, Rose declines in important and interest. But, on the other hand, the season returns the Doctor to the forefront, which was how it was meant to be, and many of the supporting characters from Season One get a much needed boost in important and character development. Overall, good, but not great.
Score: 9.2 (out of 10)
Production
It's obvious looking at Season Two that the BBC understood that audiences enjoyed the first season of their revival, because the production values are noticeably higher than those of Season One. The effects look better, the art design improves, and even the soundtrack has an extra bit of style that it lacked in the first season.
First off, let's look at the effects. They're still rather low in quality compared to those of American science fiction shows, but they're no longer a decade behind. Rather than comparable with say, Babylon 5, they're more like Voyager. Although that still puts them a few years behind, it's a big improvement. Best yet, the art design was far better this time round - with a few notable exceptions (like, say, the absorbaloff). Comparing Season One aliens with those of Season Two just isn't fair - compare the ood and the slitheen, for instance. The improved art design goes along way, far more than even the improved effects.
In regards to acting, I can't actually say it's better with any definitive judgment, because most of the characters are the same. But I will say this. Much as I loved Eccleston and the ninth doctor, David Tennant is, in some ways, an improvement. He inhabits the role to a degree that Eccleston never did, throwing himself wholly into it. It's not really a surprise when you consider that Tennant practically chose acting as a career, just so he could play the Doctor. That extra bit of enthusiasm, and the willingness to go all out in the role, is something that makes the Tenth Doctor just a little bit more loveable. In other words, the issues I have with the Tenth are character issues, not criticisms of Tennant the actor.
The Tenth Doctor may be a bit shallower than the Ninth, but David Tennant is a brilliant actor.
As for the soundtrack, it's not so much better as bigger. But that's still a nice improvement because, other than the opening theme, the first season didn't really have many noteworthy tunes. That changes in Season Two, which adds themes for several of the villains as well as soundtracks for individual episodes, making for a more complete soundtrack.
Looking back over the second season of Doctor Who it's clear to see that the production values, like so much else, are an improvement over the old. Whether this is a trend that can be expected for future Doctor Who seasons is unsure, though, I can safely say that, the future looks bright for the show, a surprise given how skeptical I was initially approaching this British sci-fi classic.
Score: 8.0 (out of 10)
Summary
Plot: 7.9
Characters: 9.2
Production: 8.0
Overall: 8.4