“It’s 1984 and you’re seated in a dark theater. A beautiful woman … is on the run from an unstoppable killing machine, a marginally human force focused only on death. Her death. Shoot it, light it on fire, blow it up … it just won’t stop. Merciless and unrelenting, its sole goal is to kill this particular woman, preferably in some unspeakably horrible way.
“Now answer me this: Are you watching The Terminator or one of the Friday the 13th flicks?”
Such is the premise of an interesting post by Todd Brown over at AMC’s SciFi Scanner. It’s a great point, and he traces it all the way back to the granddaddy of all genre-bending classics, Frankenstein — a “horror” monster created through scientific means. So where do you draw the line … and why are we even drawing lines to begin with? Give it a read, and let me know what you think.
The Star Trek movie won’t be out until May 2015 or something, but J.J. Abrams has released some photos to … I don’t know … torture everybody I guess. Enjoy!
Based on the commercials, I was curious to see the movie Blindness — a moody adaptation of a sci-fi/thriller novel about a future where (almost) everybody goes suddenly blind. Then I started reading the reviews. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not one to reject a movie outright because of what the critics say. But when I see critics getting particularly creative about the way in which they put down a movie, it tends to make me think twice.
Case in point, here’s what they had to say over at Slice of SciFi …
What was a poetic, exhaustively-brilliant piece of fiction has now become a clunky, clattering, ever-collapsing film of bludgeoning rhetoric.
Okay, so that’s kind of damning, right? But who knows — maybe this film just wasn’t Sam Sloan’s cup of tea. Or maybe he was too attached to the book. The people over at AMC’s SciFi Scanner tend to have a good nose for bad sci-fi movies …
There are two kinds of people — those who love Unbreakable … and everybody else. I’m referring, of course, to M. Night Shyamalan’s second movie. The one that largely got panned for not having a twist ending as cool as his first movie. Which, don’t get me wrong, I really liked The Sixth Sense. I saw it twice — once to be shocked by the ending, then a second time to go back and figure out how I hadn’t seen it coming. But Unbreakable I’ve probably watched a dozen times now, and every time I get to the end, I say the same thing: “I really wish M. Night would make the sequel already.”
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the movie was always intended to be the first in a trilogy. This means that if he does make a sequel, it will be something he’s already put thought into, something that the first movie was intended to mesh with, and not just an add-on for the sake of itself.
Word has it that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire have been signed on for the Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5 movies. This will perhaps come as a disappointment to those who feel that Raimi dropped the ball on the last Spidey movie, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing him pick the ball back up and run with it again.
When I saw the first movie, I thought it was the best superhero flick to date. Then the second movie blew my socks off, and I had to transfer the crown. So the third movie left me more perplexed than angry. How did Raimi manage to go so far off track? I tend to believe rumors that he was coerced into including Venom as a primary bad guy, even though it it didn’t fit his previously stated overall plan to work with only old school supervillains for the first few movies — the result, a story that went on too long, with too many bad guys.
So prove me right, Sam. Make these next two as solid as the first sequel, and all will be forgiven (even that whole dancing thing). Follow through on that Lizard subplot you’ve been building up to. An army of genetically altered lizards rising up from the sewers of Manhattan would be an awesome use of CGI, don’t you think? Oh, and be sure to include Bruce Campbell cameos. Lots of Bruce Campbell cameos. People like those. I’m even fine with an Iron Man cameo. Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility — so please don’t frak these movies up. Thanks!
Back in January, several friends and I carried on a lengthy and completely ridiculous email debate about the Terminator universe that dragged on for several days. In honor of the new season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles starting in a few weeks, I’ve decided to share a chunk of this debate with the world. Some minor editing has been done to keep things coherent, and to protect everybody’s identities, I’ve enlisted a few of my other friends to act out the lines. Please to enjoy …
I watched the first and second episodes of the new Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles show, and enjoyed it. Great action and special effects for a TV show, and seems to be remaining true to the mythology established by the first two movies. The writers also found a really clever way to completely bypass the sucky third movie.
Why don’t the machines just send back a whole damn army and kill everybody if they’re that good at rifling back machines? Jeez, if I was Sara Connor I’d be crying foul at some point.
Was Terminator 3 the one with the cop in it and they made what’s her name a psycho survivalist eager to martyr herself? The cop alone could have killed everybody on the planet.
Okay, so last week, Yahoo! posted a list of its users’ “Top-30 Sci-Fi Films“. And I’m not sure what to make of it. First off, it’s Yahoo Users, so you can’t take it TOO seriously — the average user must skew somewhat young, and probably doesn’t make a living reviewing movies.
On the up side, I was actually surprised to see that half the movies on the list were more than 10 years old, with most of that half more than 20 years old. On the down side … all three X-Men movies? Revenge of the Sith? I Am Legend? Only one movie older than Star Wars? Really? (More of my commentary after the list itself.)
30. Serenity (2005)
29. X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006)
28. I Am Legend (2007)
27. Donnie Darko (2001)
26. X-Men 2: X-Men United (2003)
25. Deja Vu (2006)
24. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
23. Ghostbusters (1984)
22. V for Vendetta (2006)
21. The Terminator (1984) Continue reading →
This week’s W.Y.O.S.T. subject is Vaughn Armstrong. And the answer is a resounding YES, he HAS been in many a Star Trek show. In fact, he holds the record for having played the most different characters on the various Trek shows. He’s appeared 27 times as 11 different characters of 8 different races — 3 Klingons, 2 Cardassians, a Borg, a Romulan, a Vidiian, a Hirogen, a Kreetassan … and even a plain old human. He played 5 different characters on the Voyager series alone, and shares with Jeffrey Combs the distinction of being the only actor to portray 3 characters in the same season of the same show (Enterprise). The only Trek show he never appeared on was The Original Series … but I’m sure it’s only because he was a teenager at the time.
A Vietnam War veteran, Armstrong did a lot of stage acting in his early days, and didn’t actually enter the Hollywood scene until he was 27 years old. The following year (1978), he landed a one-shot role on a Wonder Woman episode, and the next decade would find him on such popular shows as Lou Grant, Matt Houston, Simon & Simon, Remington Steele, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and the classic 1984 time travel movie The Philadelphia Experiment.
I’m running behind on my W.Y.O.S.T profile this week, but ran across a hilarious”Internet List” this morning, and decided to share it.
Topless Robot has compiled a list of “The 7 Biggest Asshole Computers in Science Fiction“. Conspicuously absent from the list are Autopilot from the recent WALL-E movie and “The Architect” from the last two Matrix movies. Can you think of any others they missed?
“It’s 1984 and you’re seated in a dark theater. A beautiful woman … is on the run from an unstoppable killing machine, a marginally human force focused only on death. Her death. Shoot it, light it on fire, blow it up … it just won’t stop. Merciless and unrelenting, its sole goal is to kill this particular woman, preferably in some unspeakably horrible way.
Based on the commercials, I was curious to see the movie Blindness — a moody adaptation of a sci-fi/thriller novel about a future where (almost) everybody goes suddenly blind. Then I started reading the reviews. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not one to reject a movie outright because of what the critics say. But when I see critics getting particularly creative about the way in which they put down a movie, it tends to make me think twice.
There are two kinds of people — those who love Unbreakable … and everybody else. I’m referring, of course, to M. Night Shyamalan’s second movie. The one that largely got panned for not having a twist ending as cool as his first movie. Which, don’t get me wrong, I really liked The Sixth Sense. I saw it twice — once to be shocked by the ending, then a second time to go back and figure out how I hadn’t seen it coming. But Unbreakable I’ve probably watched a dozen times now, and every time I get to the end, I say the same thing: “I really wish M. Night would make the sequel already.”
Okay, so last week, Yahoo! posted a list of its users’ “
This week’s 
