Synopsis: The film begins in the early 1920’s, when an arctic explorer (played by Keanu Reeves) encounters a strange sphere while climbing a mountain. After chiseling away at the ice, a flare of white light engulfs him. He awakens unharmed, but with a mysterious scar on his right palm.
Jump forward in time to modern day America. Jennifer Connolly is an American scientist specializing in exobiology who is very nearly kidnapped by the government. Their reason is, of course, related to ‘national security’. She ends up in a Chinook helicopter with a ‘who’s who’ roster of top scientists from every major discipline. It seems that an object moving at high velocity is headed towards Earth, threatening to hit it. The epicenter of the impact will be New York City.
When the object changes course and slows, and then descends into Central Park we see that it is not an asteroid or comet, it’s a glowing sphere. Just as in the original film (considered to be the most iconic, if not seminal ’science fiction’ film) the military behaves badly, shooting the humanoid shape that emerges.
From there we’re treated to some very well-done special effects. The plot differs from the original film, but the themes are essentially the same:
- “Humanity is driven by fear and violence.”
- “Advanced alien civilizations are watching Earth with great concern.”
Continue reading ‘Film Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still’
nbsp;Sci-Fi.com now has the 90 second trailer for the new BSG spinoff, Caprica, online. It is set as a prequel, a generation before BSG.
It appears the elder Adama is the same actor that played Major Beck in the 2nd season of Jericho.
BSG returned a few months ago, and I have not commented on the series to date in some time. Another new episode airs tonight at 10pm on Sci-Fi, and the season is progressing along, with surprises around every corner.
It is still a well done series, but some of the aforementioned surprises leave one with a “huh?” or “why on earth did they do that”. We know at the end of Season 3 that they revealed four of the final 5 Cylon models, and that Starbuck had returned.
(Partial spoilers below the fold)
Continue reading ‘BSG Season 4 rolls on’
Consider this your two week’s notice that season 4, advertised to be the final season, of Battlestar Galactica is now just two weeks away. The season premeire will air Friday, April 4, 2008 at 10pm EDT. As of now, the official site features a “What the Frack is going on” clip of near 10 minutes in length, with fast narration and montage of show clips. Two more clips are there as well, titled “Revealed” and “Phenomenon“. Revealed is a 22 minute commentary from Executive Producers Moore & Eick. Phenomenon is also 22 minutes in length, and deals with the show’s unexpected popularity, and features entertainment figures from actors to hosts to singers.
For those that aren’t up to speed, a slew of seasons 1-3 episodes will be airing on Sci-Fi over the next two weeks.
Sad to note that Arthur C. Clarke died today. I was a big fan of his books, and my appreciation for science-fiction is largely due to Isaac Asimov, Star Trek, and Mr. Clarke. Link to an article here.
This year’s summer movie season is going to be incredibly fun for me, as there are quite a few films I’m excited to see… Iron Man being near the top of my list. This second trailer just adds to my excitement!Download With Iron Man, Indy 4, The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, Wall*E, Wanted, Hellboy II, The Dark Knight, X-Files 2, and The Clone Wars… I’ll be spending a LOT of time in the theaters May through August.
Synopsis: When a human spaceship tasked with exploring Halley’s comet discovers a strange ship in the tail of the comet, three crystalline chambers are found. Within each, a perfect human specimen — one female and two males, all nude. Nude women normally excite me, but in this case it would have been better for everyone had they just let the alien ship keep on cruisin’ the spaceways. Instead, they take the three nudies back aboard their space shuttles and head back for earth. Oh, did I mention that inside the ship there were some bat-like creatures about a zillion years old, and vaguely humanoid? You’d think astronauts had read some science fiction as kids, but no — they bring the sleeping humanoids back to Earth.
Continue reading ‘Film Review: Lifeforce’
Sci-Fi has two promo videos up for BSG’s Season 4, set to air in March. They are titled Destiny and Future.
The trailer for the 11th Star Trek film is now online at Paramount’s official site. They have versions of it in HD available for download.
They appear to be hitting the construction of the NCC-1701 as a focal point of the new film, which partially accounts for the presence of Captain Pike in the cast. As the original series pilot had Pike, but never aired it, only to see parts of it used as stock footage in the two-part episode Menagerie, events that happened 13 years before Kirk takes command.
The trailer itself seems darker than the prior films. New casts on known characters are tough, as is re-imaging a franchise with a cult-following. One can hope it does as well as the new Battlestar Galactica has done, but the hurdle for Trek will be far higher than BSG.
Synopsis: Ending almost precisely where the last film ended, AVP-R is the next film chronicling the conflict between the alien race of hunters seen in the ‘Predator’ films and the ‘xenomorph’ creatures from the ‘Aliens’ movies.
The film is loud, violent fun for the most part but if you brought your brain with you into the theater, this could hurt. At the end of the previous film an alien hunter is impregnated with one of the xenomorph creatures, which, at the film’s conclusion bursts out of his chest. At the beginning of AVP-R, we see this new creature (called a ‘Predalien’) cause the alien spacecraft to crash back onto Earth after killing the crew.
Back on the Predator homeworld (we see some flowing lava nearby) a single hunter is alerted to the mishap and is dispatched to solve the potential outbreak. The hunter arrives on Earth to find the ship destroyed and several facehuggers (about 3) and the ‘predalien’ gone.
Continue reading ‘Film Review: AVP Requiem’
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