Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Gotta love this made up “Thundercats movie” trailer. Using some great CGI they have made Thundercats out of Brad Pitt, Vin Diesel, and Farscape’s Chiana:

March 23rd, 2009 | Category: 1980s, Retro Sci-Fi | Comments (2)

Well, at least that’s one serialized show I can check off my “to watch” list. Battlestar Galactica is done. Was it worth it? Was the finale all it was cracked up to be?

I’ve read some of the responses online and it seems there are quite a few pissed of BSG fans out there, notably for the angelic “deux ex machina” aspect of the ending. I can’t say I was disappointed in the finale, but I do feel there were a few things that could have been done better. (And hey, it could have been much, much worse.)

First off, I don’t mind that Baltar and Caprica Six’s mental alter egos were “angels” so much – but I still would have preferred this explanation to have something more to do with the Cylon technique of projection. And why those two? It’s not like Caprica Six and Baltar were given information from Head Six or Head Baltar that significantly changed the destinies of everyone.

But as for Starbuck – her being an angel or ghost was pretty damn lame. I fully expected her existence to be explained by some sort of left-over Resurrection ship orbiting Old Earth somewhere. So no, rather than using this much more interesting and plausible explanation, we find out she’s just a ghost – who happens to be confused and needs hints from Hera of all people – and who can physically fly physical ghost ships. Lame, lame, lame.

And of course, this all begs the question – if God is going to use ghost Starbucks and visions of Caprica Six to push forward His Great Godly Agenda, why let the holocaust of the Colonies happen in the first place?

And why was there any need to seed New Earth with Cylon/Human Hybrid blood in the form of Hera? Why not just send an angel down to the tribes and teach them some language skills?

Better yet – send a big black monolith down there ala 2001 and let that do the job.

I was glad, however, that we did finally have some sort of tie-in to our Earth. And going 150,000 years back into the past was just as good as any tie-in possible.

Question: Are they leaving the door open for a modern-day Galactica spin-off, where the Centurions return to New Earth and terrorize us humans? Possible. If that happens, can we have Head Six and Head Baltar (the angels) come back? Because at least those two are interesting.

Missed: I would have liked to see the return of Lucy Lawless as Deanna. And I would have liked more resolution between Starbuck and Leoben (Number Two). Leoben was always prophesizing things…and he was always so captivating to watch. He was definitely underutilized this last season.

At any rate, I’m not entirely disappointed – at least we had a happy ending of sorts. After watching that grim, dark show for so many years, I was glad that there was at least some sort of hopeful resolution. I’m semi-satisfied, but that’s only partially because I didn’t have huge hopes for the ending.

Now, if Lost gives us some lame loose ending like that one, I will be super pissed. Can you imagine? What if we find out that the Lost island is really just run by supernatural beings, and Richard Alpert is Satan. Ugh!

But this is all just a reminder that sometimes the question is more compelling than the answer.

I give the finale a B+.

March 21st, 2009 | Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Lost | Category: Television | Comments (3)

Are you rushing out to see Watchmen tonight? I have decided to wait until it comes out on DVD. I generally get a good sense of a film from the trailers, and my feeling on it is that it will be so-so. There’s something about the quality of the atmosphere that doesn’t quite feel right for me in the snippets I’ve seen. It seems that Watchmen has gotten a few negative reviews already as well. With a down economy and movie tickets costing over $10/pop (sometimes just for a matinee here), I think I can wait. I could be wrong, though!

If you’ve seen it, please let us know if it’s worth the theater price!

March 6th, 2009 | Category: News | Comments (1)

I was reading this excellent round-up of Wednesday night’s Lost episode, and then I realized I actually know this guy! He’s someone I used to comedy improv with!

I can’t really improve upon that article much, but I will add my own brief two cents: I think the big statue (and old temple) that have been seen by the time travelers does confirm my theory that the Lost island is Atlantis.

I’m still having Lost time traveling dreams, by the way. Boy, does that show ever get under my skin!

March 6th, 2009 | Tags: Lost | Category: Television | Leave a comment

If the first episode of Season 5 of Lost bored you, then you are either not a fan or just a TV critic watching it because you have been forced to. As Lost’s creators explained in the pre-show, we are now finally at the point in Lost where more questions will be answered than asked, and that has to be exciting for any true Lost fan.

SPOILER ALERT: Alert your eyes from here on out if you haven’t watched this on your DVR yet!

For me, the major revelation in this episode was that the characters could get physically dislodged in time. Daniel Faraday, the physicist who is seen it the beginning of the show back in the Orchid station circa 1980, likens the time shifting to be like a record skipping.

For many years now fans have been wondering what the true key to the island was, and this has to be it. Time is what Lost is about, which is why flashbacks were integral in the show’s first seasons. Now we can see that time travel is perhaps what will explain most of the strange happenings on the show, from the Black Rock being stuck in the middle of the jungle to the appearances of Jack’s father. (Somehow, I suspect, dead people walking around like the living will have something to do with the time travel.)

My brain was working on so much overdrive from the idea that I had Lost dreams last night, dreams in which I was a woman from the 1970s but kept appearing at different moments in time here in the civilized world. I could not remember, however, exactly where I was from, and I felt considerable confusion as I kept finding myself in the same house but in a different decade. In one scene from my dream (because it was seriously like a television show), I was getting ready in this house, which used to be mine in the 1970s, but was now owned by new people in the present day. The new owners thought I was an intruder. Then a large group of people started to gather at the house at a particular time period, because we’d all gotten dislodged somehow and this became the focal point.

The underlying theory in such time travel is that all time is simultaneous, but we only perceive it to be separate. Thus, it would be possible to exist at other points in time simply because all time is here, now, overlapped with all other time.

One thing that I am thankful for is that Lost is not trying to work in time paradoxes. Faraday clearly states that history cannot be changed, that we can “jump along the string” but not change it, no matter what we do. “What happened, happened.”

This is a thankful respite from all the ridiculous time travel sci-fi out there, made possible by 50 zillion time paradox episodes in the Star Trek shows (most notably Voyager) and the Terminator franchise.

We also find out in the premiere episode that the wheel that dislodges the island from space-time was buried underneath it before the Dharma Initiative arrived, which then begs the question: Who put it there? Aliens? Or Atlanteans? Because it’s entirely possible we’ll find out that the island is, indeed, the mythical Atlantis, with the Others as the only survivors of whatever holocaust dislodged it from regular space and time in the first place.

You’ll find some excellent predictions as to what will happen this season over at Slate.

January 22nd, 2009 | Tags: Lost | Category: Television | Comments (2)

It took me a while to get into the new Battlestar Galactica. I did no t initially like the dark flavor of the show, and some of the obvious Americanisms have bugged me and kept me from fully getting into the BSG universe. It wasn’t until last season that I found myself getting “hooked” on it. One weekend when I needed a break, I sat and watched BSG for two days straight. While there are still a few things about the show that keep this from being an all-time favorite, I do find many aspects of the plot and arching storyline to be quite fascinating and compelling.

(Caution: BIG spoilers from here on out!) More »

January 19th, 2009 | Tags: Battlestar Galactica | Category: Television | Comments (2)

It’s a good thing I stayed in tonight. I found out this blog got hacked. The regular WordPress files were replaced with an interface that enabled someone to access the server files. I am cleaning up the mess right now. I hope the hacker got what they are looking for – woo, exciting, lots of important information here – umm, not really. Seems like a waste of effort if you ask me. It’s not like I keep credit cards on file here.

At any rate, I’m busy changing passwords and now I have to check my other websites to see if they are OK. I was meaning to upgrade Wordpress at any rate, and thinking about changing to a new theme for the site before this happened anyway! I liked the dark theme but it did seem to lessen the interaction on the website. Things should be back to normal soon.

December 19th, 2008 | Category: Announcements | Leave a comment

I went to see ‘Mirrors’ last night. A damn fine horror. Low body count but high shock factor, with a gruesome death in there that I’ve simply never seen before. All the good freaky mirror tricks, plus a few new ones. Add the superb manipulation of suspense, and the macabre mise-en-scene (a burned out department store from an opulent yesteryear), and there really wasn’t much that left me wanting.

Mirrors have always freaked me out a bit. Who the hell is that staring back at me? Why does he obey me? And what happens if he doesn’t? ‘The Tain’ by China Melville is a great exploration of this. Our reflections, the Imagos, rebel and invade. Very creepy stuff, particularly the disembodied reflections – hands that pair up to make bird-like creatures that infest a post-apocalyptic London like the pigeons that are now all dead. And beautifully written, as always with China.

And to this day I have never been able to say ‘Candyman’ five times in a mirror.

December 3rd, 2008 | Tags: Add new tag | Category: News | Comments (1)

I’ve seen the new Star Trek trailer on TV and I have to say, it looks pretty good. I’m still not sold nor do I have my hopes up. I’m also wondering why it was so important to show a clip of a woman in an Uhuru-style red dress pulling it off to show her bra. One thing I would not like to see resurrected from the original series is a subordinate role for women in 60s go-go boots with Kirk as a universal playboy. Some spice is nice but not if it’s going to be exploitative.

November 23rd, 2008 | Category: Movies, Star Trek | Comments (3)