Babbling about films mostly
Diary: Week of the 31/12: NYE, Emanate, and DVDs
New Years was good :o)
Me and sweetcyanide went to angryangeltoo's party for the passing of the new year before heading en masse to the party at House of Robot (which was considerably more studenty) :oP
Tuesday was spent lazing about with sweetcyanide, and then for the rest of the week I was working and watching lots of Dark Angel (which was keeping me up at night and making me tired for work, but oh well...) :o)
I've had my photo taken for a proper ID page rather than a temp one now, plus I've got a specific computer rather than whatever is free. Starting to feel all growned up and respectable :o) The inability to apply common sense or show any initiative at work still bothers me though.
Started driving lessons again on Thursday, I haven't forgotten much :o)
Went to the last Emanate at Unit 22 on the Friday, which was quieter than I expected, but the music more danceable than I expected too, hence a good time was had.
Headed back to halluciphy's afterwards with lots of people and skulked off in the morning when people were sleeping (although, to be fair, it was past noon) :o)
Weekend was spent watching Dark Angel and Season 3 of Battlestar Gallatica, which I still haven't finished watching yet :o)
Review: Dark Angel
Just finished watching the second season of Dark Angel, which seems to be the last season left. Shame, as a lot was left unfinished.
Ironically, it seems Fox ditched the show for Firefly, which was itself ditched before the end of its first season :o/
Anyway, spoilers probably abound...
The 'Third World America' setting is interesting, although it mostly comes through in certain plotlines and dialogue rather than being omnipresent through the show. A lot of the time the setting isn't much other than what you'd expect from working class areas in a devoloped nation.
The technology level was a little bit silly in sometimes in the first season and more so in the second. I can stretch believability a long way for fantasy, but not so much for near-future sci-fi.
I also felt they could have done more to portray the possible psychological effects on behaviour and character that being raised from birth as a soldier could have one a person, this is especially true for the second season where (spoilers) it is revealed that the soldiers that did not escape got even more intensive conditioning than the ones we were familiar with.
That being said, the plot lines themselves were mostly quite good in the first season, and good in the second one barring the strange inconsistencies and continuity errors that seemed to prop up, as well as new depths of pseudo-science.
Such things as (spoilers) finding a new way to make Max more special seemed fairly bizarre given the impressions given in the first season, as well as most of the discussion of genetics being very obviously pseudo-scientific. I did eventually adjust to the 'monster soldiers' thing, although I can't say I was a big fan of the idea.
Maybe I'd think more of the plot lines if I understood more of how the various organisations in the series fitted together. Having a (spoilers) millennia old cult doing what had been achieved via science and doing it as well, if not better, didn't really fit in with the theme, as I felt it, of the first season.
As to the characters, I did end up liking most of them; the ones they kept around anyway :o)
Max is clearly set up to cash in on a certain popular archetype; in this case they've set out to create a 'dark' aggressive 'bad girl' suped-up character, which isn't a bad thing. One of the things things that I felt Buffy lacked was positive portrayals of more 'masculine' empowered female characters, whereas most of their female characters (that weren't evil/insane) pandered to more traditionally female archetypes (whilst also kicking a bit of backside).
That being said, it felt like too much of the first season's dialogue was trying too hard to set this up at the expensive of a believable character that isn't just a cardboard cut-out. A real person can't be all witty remarks and sarcasm or else it comes off as fake and hollow, though perhaps that's fitting given that character depth of Max is supposed to be hidden away from people in the first season, which would perhaps leave you with someone who uses a sense of humour as a mask. I read that there were complaints about Original Cindy's dialect from many people, including her actress, got to admit that it didn't bother me much... if only because I'm not familiar enough with Ghetto dialect to realise whether it's ridiculously phoney or not (also; I get the impression that it's a 'put on' dialect for Cindy anyway, so perhaps not meant to sound natural)
Wasn't keen on Max's original room-mate, but they dropped her from the show anyway. Wasn't keen on Alec to begin with because he initially seemed so far away from what I'd expect of someone raised in the conditions presented elsewhere.
Joshua I found very hard to take seriously at first because the idea of a (Spoilers) Man-Dog is a bit silly anyway and the make-up was a bit naff and reminded me too much of the Kangaroos from Tank Girl (particularly the dumb one). I guess the existence of all the 'monster soldiers' made more sense of the general 'gene splicing' idea given before, and explains why they are 'X series', which does suggest other series.
Anyway, worth watching :o)
Even if it wasn't the best thing I've ever watched, it's still a shame I can't see how it was supposed to end. Unfortunately I don't see them making a film like they did with Firefly :oP
Link: Greek Christian punch-up
New Years was good :o)
Me and sweetcyanide went to angryangeltoo's party for the passing of the new year before heading en masse to the party at House of Robot (which was considerably more studenty) :oP
Tuesday was spent lazing about with sweetcyanide, and then for the rest of the week I was working and watching lots of Dark Angel (which was keeping me up at night and making me tired for work, but oh well...) :o)
I've had my photo taken for a proper ID page rather than a temp one now, plus I've got a specific computer rather than whatever is free. Starting to feel all growned up and respectable :o) The inability to apply common sense or show any initiative at work still bothers me though.
Started driving lessons again on Thursday, I haven't forgotten much :o)
Went to the last Emanate at Unit 22 on the Friday, which was quieter than I expected, but the music more danceable than I expected too, hence a good time was had.
Headed back to halluciphy's afterwards with lots of people and skulked off in the morning when people were sleeping (although, to be fair, it was past noon) :o)
Weekend was spent watching Dark Angel and Season 3 of Battlestar Gallatica, which I still haven't finished watching yet :o)
Review: Dark Angel
Just finished watching the second season of Dark Angel, which seems to be the last season left. Shame, as a lot was left unfinished.
Ironically, it seems Fox ditched the show for Firefly, which was itself ditched before the end of its first season :o/
Anyway, spoilers probably abound...
The 'Third World America' setting is interesting, although it mostly comes through in certain plotlines and dialogue rather than being omnipresent through the show. A lot of the time the setting isn't much other than what you'd expect from working class areas in a devoloped nation.
The technology level was a little bit silly in sometimes in the first season and more so in the second. I can stretch believability a long way for fantasy, but not so much for near-future sci-fi.
I also felt they could have done more to portray the possible psychological effects on behaviour and character that being raised from birth as a soldier could have one a person, this is especially true for the second season where (spoilers) it is revealed that the soldiers that did not escape got even more intensive conditioning than the ones we were familiar with.
That being said, the plot lines themselves were mostly quite good in the first season, and good in the second one barring the strange inconsistencies and continuity errors that seemed to prop up, as well as new depths of pseudo-science.
Such things as (spoilers) finding a new way to make Max more special seemed fairly bizarre given the impressions given in the first season, as well as most of the discussion of genetics being very obviously pseudo-scientific. I did eventually adjust to the 'monster soldiers' thing, although I can't say I was a big fan of the idea.
Maybe I'd think more of the plot lines if I understood more of how the various organisations in the series fitted together. Having a (spoilers) millennia old cult doing what had been achieved via science and doing it as well, if not better, didn't really fit in with the theme, as I felt it, of the first season.
As to the characters, I did end up liking most of them; the ones they kept around anyway :o)
Max is clearly set up to cash in on a certain popular archetype; in this case they've set out to create a 'dark' aggressive 'bad girl' suped-up character, which isn't a bad thing. One of the things things that I felt Buffy lacked was positive portrayals of more 'masculine' empowered female characters, whereas most of their female characters (that weren't evil/insane) pandered to more traditionally female archetypes (whilst also kicking a bit of backside).
That being said, it felt like too much of the first season's dialogue was trying too hard to set this up at the expensive of a believable character that isn't just a cardboard cut-out. A real person can't be all witty remarks and sarcasm or else it comes off as fake and hollow, though perhaps that's fitting given that character depth of Max is supposed to be hidden away from people in the first season, which would perhaps leave you with someone who uses a sense of humour as a mask. I read that there were complaints about Original Cindy's dialect from many people, including her actress, got to admit that it didn't bother me much... if only because I'm not familiar enough with Ghetto dialect to realise whether it's ridiculously phoney or not (also; I get the impression that it's a 'put on' dialect for Cindy anyway, so perhaps not meant to sound natural)
Wasn't keen on Max's original room-mate, but they dropped her from the show anyway. Wasn't keen on Alec to begin with because he initially seemed so far away from what I'd expect of someone raised in the conditions presented elsewhere.
Joshua I found very hard to take seriously at first because the idea of a (Spoilers) Man-Dog is a bit silly anyway and the make-up was a bit naff and reminded me too much of the Kangaroos from Tank Girl (particularly the dumb one). I guess the existence of all the 'monster soldiers' made more sense of the general 'gene splicing' idea given before, and explains why they are 'X series', which does suggest other series.
Anyway, worth watching :o)
Even if it wasn't the best thing I've ever watched, it's still a shame I can't see how it was supposed to end. Unfortunately I don't see them making a film like they did with Firefly :oP
Link: Greek Christian punch-up