(no subject)
Dear Channel Nine,
I hate you right now. I watched Scorched. When it was advertized, I originally thought it was a mini-series. Then I saw it was only a film. Don't get me wrong, it still could have been a good film but it was OBVIOUSLY cut to pieces to make it movie length.
The first hour was really well paced and then in the second hour things started to go wrong. Sections jumped forward without flowing quite right. One second there's a dramatic scene where a pregnant mother hands off her children to a helicopter, getting left behind to face the encroaching fire by herself. Drama. Drama. What will happen? Oh nooooes.
Well nothing happens. After the ad break the fire is over. The next time we see her she's safe and back with her kids and with her husband looking at their scorched house. What????? We don't even get to see how the hell she got out of there? Found her kids? And her husband? My continuity nazi had a schism.
Great concept, great actors (how many times have you seen Georgie Parker play a villain?? Trippy!) and even though there were dubious patches, I thought it had the markings of a great drama. And then it got cut to shreds and I thought "it really sucks they had to squeeze this into two hours because I'm sure the missing scenes would have made it really wonderful." I didn't expect what happened next:
"SCORCHED coming soon to DVD with over two hours of footage too HOT for TV."
WHAT??? TWO HOURS??? You mean the other half of the mini-series that would have made the second hour fluid story-wise? I have to BUY the second half of the series?
*glares*
Screw you channel nine. I might have been enjoying it and part of me wants to see if it's better in its entirety but I have PRINCIPLES. *glares*
They can't say they didn't have the air time because this was their production, the people who made the 13 episode strong Underbelly, and they could have made air time for a four mini-series. It was ONE extra night, one movie bumped. Plus, they can't say the unaired footage was like Underbelly Uncut because Underbelly had a lot of gratuitous sex and violence that was unnecessary to the storyline and THAT was what the bonus footage was made up of. The storyline on TV had no problems. Scorched obviously won't have two hours of similar footage since this had no sex scenes, no language and any violence was against nature. Grrrrrr.
* Love having Andrew Daddo back in an Australian project.
* Thought the cinematography and camera work was superb. Just enough edginess to be interesting rather than intrusive. I love how when they were with the camera crew they used various devices: night vision and handheld being the obvious choices.
* The footage used from various real Sydney bushfires was really well chosen and edited into the fake footage. Obviously they couldn't set a real blaze this large so they did wonderful work with what they had.
* Love how it wasn't just ash and smoke when the characters were down on the streets, running for their lives - there were charred leaves floating around in the air. Great set work and very real, that's what I always remember about Sydney bushfires. I remember during one of the really bad fires - nowhere near our suburb - I went outside and charred leaves were floating down like snow. When the wind is fast and high they are carried for miles, burning embers too, that's how houses end up burning down nowhere near a fire. I found it fascinating and I love that they paid such close attention to street level bushfire reality.
* Again, the concept was awesome since it combined a lot of real threats Sydney-siders are facing: drought and water restrictions, deadly bushfires, rising oil and electricity prices. Then packaged them with government corruption, screwing over the poor population of Sydney (who are the first in the line of fire - literally) by restricting their water supply in preference of the wealthy suburbs. It's a great, topical concept with a lot of potential.
* Rachel Carpani's death scene was AWESOME: falling down the stairs then a close up as she hyperventilates until she finally stops breathing. That acting was off the charts - she should stay in Australian dramas because I loved her in Mcleod's Daughters, thought she did a great job in this but really didn't like her work on Cane. To tell you the truth I didn't like her death narrative wise. I thought it strange she was doing a story on the factory fire immediately after discovering her big lead. Again, this was the problem with the shoddy continuity because she had the helicopter kids in her possession, then all of a sudden the kids aren't around, we don't know what happened to them and she's at a detergent factory doing a story about the danger of the fire reaching the factory...then it does. I had to really think at the end to try and explain WHY she was doing such a minor story, minor in comparison to the government conspiracy she finally had proof of. The only explanation I could come up with was that she wanted expert testimony, like her boss requested, so she sent the file to the Fire Chief in hope he'd change his mind about giving her a quote before she ran the story. I put this under likes because the death scene was sooooo well acted, choreographed and shot that I want to give them a pass for every other problem it caused.
I was prepared to love this...I just really don't like that I have to buy the DVD to enjoy it properly when it was meant to be a free-to-air production.
I hate you right now. I watched Scorched. When it was advertized, I originally thought it was a mini-series. Then I saw it was only a film. Don't get me wrong, it still could have been a good film but it was OBVIOUSLY cut to pieces to make it movie length.
The first hour was really well paced and then in the second hour things started to go wrong. Sections jumped forward without flowing quite right. One second there's a dramatic scene where a pregnant mother hands off her children to a helicopter, getting left behind to face the encroaching fire by herself. Drama. Drama. What will happen? Oh nooooes.
Well nothing happens. After the ad break the fire is over. The next time we see her she's safe and back with her kids and with her husband looking at their scorched house. What????? We don't even get to see how the hell she got out of there? Found her kids? And her husband? My continuity nazi had a schism.
Great concept, great actors (how many times have you seen Georgie Parker play a villain?? Trippy!) and even though there were dubious patches, I thought it had the markings of a great drama. And then it got cut to shreds and I thought "it really sucks they had to squeeze this into two hours because I'm sure the missing scenes would have made it really wonderful." I didn't expect what happened next:
"SCORCHED coming soon to DVD with over two hours of footage too HOT for TV."
WHAT??? TWO HOURS??? You mean the other half of the mini-series that would have made the second hour fluid story-wise? I have to BUY the second half of the series?
*glares*
Screw you channel nine. I might have been enjoying it and part of me wants to see if it's better in its entirety but I have PRINCIPLES. *glares*
They can't say they didn't have the air time because this was their production, the people who made the 13 episode strong Underbelly, and they could have made air time for a four mini-series. It was ONE extra night, one movie bumped. Plus, they can't say the unaired footage was like Underbelly Uncut because Underbelly had a lot of gratuitous sex and violence that was unnecessary to the storyline and THAT was what the bonus footage was made up of. The storyline on TV had no problems. Scorched obviously won't have two hours of similar footage since this had no sex scenes, no language and any violence was against nature. Grrrrrr.
* Love having Andrew Daddo back in an Australian project.
* Thought the cinematography and camera work was superb. Just enough edginess to be interesting rather than intrusive. I love how when they were with the camera crew they used various devices: night vision and handheld being the obvious choices.
* The footage used from various real Sydney bushfires was really well chosen and edited into the fake footage. Obviously they couldn't set a real blaze this large so they did wonderful work with what they had.
* Love how it wasn't just ash and smoke when the characters were down on the streets, running for their lives - there were charred leaves floating around in the air. Great set work and very real, that's what I always remember about Sydney bushfires. I remember during one of the really bad fires - nowhere near our suburb - I went outside and charred leaves were floating down like snow. When the wind is fast and high they are carried for miles, burning embers too, that's how houses end up burning down nowhere near a fire. I found it fascinating and I love that they paid such close attention to street level bushfire reality.
* Again, the concept was awesome since it combined a lot of real threats Sydney-siders are facing: drought and water restrictions, deadly bushfires, rising oil and electricity prices. Then packaged them with government corruption, screwing over the poor population of Sydney (who are the first in the line of fire - literally) by restricting their water supply in preference of the wealthy suburbs. It's a great, topical concept with a lot of potential.
* Rachel Carpani's death scene was AWESOME: falling down the stairs then a close up as she hyperventilates until she finally stops breathing. That acting was off the charts - she should stay in Australian dramas because I loved her in Mcleod's Daughters, thought she did a great job in this but really didn't like her work on Cane. To tell you the truth I didn't like her death narrative wise. I thought it strange she was doing a story on the factory fire immediately after discovering her big lead. Again, this was the problem with the shoddy continuity because she had the helicopter kids in her possession, then all of a sudden the kids aren't around, we don't know what happened to them and she's at a detergent factory doing a story about the danger of the fire reaching the factory...then it does. I had to really think at the end to try and explain WHY she was doing such a minor story, minor in comparison to the government conspiracy she finally had proof of. The only explanation I could come up with was that she wanted expert testimony, like her boss requested, so she sent the file to the Fire Chief in hope he'd change his mind about giving her a quote before she ran the story. I put this under likes because the death scene was sooooo well acted, choreographed and shot that I want to give them a pass for every other problem it caused.
I was prepared to love this...I just really don't like that I have to buy the DVD to enjoy it properly when it was meant to be a free-to-air production.