My Three Sci-Fi Movies
I'm not sure that word games with old, bad sitcoms is right, but I'm sure it's better than quoting Mariah Carey songs, right Doomkitty? :)
Something that I think is great fun about television shows is that, unlike movies, you can take your time having a story unfold, building drama and intrigue as a season goes on while peppering that season with one-shot episodes that help develop characters. In a lot of ways that's a big reason why I almost like TV shows (good ones anyway) better. Science fiction makes the best of this, I think. I saw the neo-Battlestar Galactica miniseries today. It was a pretty darn riveting way to spend four hours, I can tell you that. I haven't seen much else of the series SciFi had on, but from the miniseries alone you can see that the relationships between characters and the hopeless situation that they are all in would be a lot less poiniant as a two-hour movie as they are with a 13-22 episode season (I honestly don't know which... 13 eps seems to a basic cable standard that SciFi tends to break). The same can be said for other sci-fi-ish series: Star Trek, Buffy, Farscape, Firefly...
Now for the awkward segue to the movies part of the post. Apple.com's "http://www.apple.com/trailers">trailers page (addicting sight for a preview fiend like me) has a trailer up for "Serenity," the new movie due out in September based on Joss Whedon's Firefly. While trailers always show the best of a movie, it still looks kick ass (and I don't just mean River's new kick ass moves either). I would be quite happy indeed if this was able to become a franchise ala Star Trek, since the series never really got a fair shake. And while I think the TV series would better utilize the characters, I'll certain take a movie over nothing.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes out this weekend, and the general plan is to hopefully see it. Movies like this, or X-Men, or LotR, or the upcoming TF movie always worry fans. And rarely pleases some of them. The same will likely be true for Hitchhiker as well. There was one rather notorious early review of the movie that a TF buddy found a while back (which I can't find right now, dammit!) that said it was basically the worst thing on film. But when I skimmed the review it sounded like someone who wasn't seeing his favorite jokes from five books and/or the radio program showing up. Ain't It Cool News has posted up some further reviews that seem to have a general theme (and *spoilers* so don't read them it you don't want any!), which is this: people who like the source material, but seem to realize that it can't be verbatim from that source material, but rather must by the very nature of the beast be sort of "other universe" based on the characters with some familiar adventures seem to like the movie. People who like the source material and want the movie to be that source material only better do not like the movie.
In short, I expect to like the movie.
AICN also has a review of Revenge of the Sith by way of Kevin Smith here. Beware here as well, for it is spoiler-laden (profanity-laden too, but this is Kevin Smith... :) ). In a few short words, he really, really liked it.
Something that I think is great fun about television shows is that, unlike movies, you can take your time having a story unfold, building drama and intrigue as a season goes on while peppering that season with one-shot episodes that help develop characters. In a lot of ways that's a big reason why I almost like TV shows (good ones anyway) better. Science fiction makes the best of this, I think. I saw the neo-Battlestar Galactica miniseries today. It was a pretty darn riveting way to spend four hours, I can tell you that. I haven't seen much else of the series SciFi had on, but from the miniseries alone you can see that the relationships between characters and the hopeless situation that they are all in would be a lot less poiniant as a two-hour movie as they are with a 13-22 episode season (I honestly don't know which... 13 eps seems to a basic cable standard that SciFi tends to break). The same can be said for other sci-fi-ish series: Star Trek, Buffy, Farscape, Firefly...
Now for the awkward segue to the movies part of the post. Apple.com's "http://www.apple.com/trailers">trailers page (addicting sight for a preview fiend like me) has a trailer up for "Serenity," the new movie due out in September based on Joss Whedon's Firefly. While trailers always show the best of a movie, it still looks kick ass (and I don't just mean River's new kick ass moves either). I would be quite happy indeed if this was able to become a franchise ala Star Trek, since the series never really got a fair shake. And while I think the TV series would better utilize the characters, I'll certain take a movie over nothing.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes out this weekend, and the general plan is to hopefully see it. Movies like this, or X-Men, or LotR, or the upcoming TF movie always worry fans. And rarely pleases some of them. The same will likely be true for Hitchhiker as well. There was one rather notorious early review of the movie that a TF buddy found a while back (which I can't find right now, dammit!) that said it was basically the worst thing on film. But when I skimmed the review it sounded like someone who wasn't seeing his favorite jokes from five books and/or the radio program showing up. Ain't It Cool News has posted up some further reviews that seem to have a general theme (and *spoilers* so don't read them it you don't want any!), which is this: people who like the source material, but seem to realize that it can't be verbatim from that source material, but rather must by the very nature of the beast be sort of "other universe" based on the characters with some familiar adventures seem to like the movie. People who like the source material and want the movie to be that source material only better do not like the movie.
In short, I expect to like the movie.
AICN also has a review of Revenge of the Sith by way of Kevin Smith here. Beware here as well, for it is spoiler-laden (profanity-laden too, but this is Kevin Smith... :) ). In a few short words, he really, really liked it.