BlackGeekdom Science-Fiction from a Different Perspective

Last night, Fox premiered yet another science fiction show, Terra Nova.  The show has a lot going for it; the main thing is that it’s produced by Stephen Spielberg. (side note: Brannon Braga is also a producer and show runner, and I won’t count this against it)  The show starts out in 2149.  Earth is dying due to pollution and overpopulation.  Fortunately, scientist discover a rift in time leading to an alternate Earth timeline 85 million years in the past.  So, we decided to save humanity by sending qualifying humans through the rift to resettle in Terra Nova.

I can tell the producers put emphasis on the production value of the show.  There aren’t any standout stars so you know salaries are low.  Stephen Lang might be the biggest star, but he is basically reprising his fantastic character from Avatar, with a few tweaks.  I’m not going to compare the show to Avatar, because that’s not what this show is.  The set is gorgeous and the effects are nice.  What bothers me most is that they decided not to use well known dinosaurs.  Apparently, they thought it’d be more interesting to create dinosaurs “that might have existed” as opposed to ones that we know, especially due to Mr. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies.  I know I wasn’t the only one thinking, “I’ve never heard of that dinosaur.”  It took a little will power to not get on the internet to look up these “new” dinosaurs.

For a premiere show, I thought the story was well done.  Luckily, they did explain that it was a separate reality from the future they left, which easily dismissed the complaints that people like me who overly criticize time travel in movies and T.V. shows in a couple of lines.  A couple of the reveals in the show, which I’m not going to spoil here, were obvious and I wish that they weren’t.   My hope is that this show doesn’t turn into Lost where more questions are raised than answered, or The Event where questions are asked and answered every episode, but the story never gets developed beyond the first episode.

All in all, the show was good and worth tuning in next week.  We’ll see if it has longevity.

 

Posted under Reviews, Television

Undercovers premiered with solid ratings numbers. However, solid ratings numbers for a season premiere of a new show doesn’t mean much. A writer’s strike isn’t going to kill this show like Bionic Woman, which premiered with a high ratings number as well.  Let me get the bad things out of the way.

The plot line was thin for a J.J. Abrams show.  It is hard to believe that this show came from the same person who brought us Lost, Alias, and Fringe.  He somehow managed to pull the things that people liked about the soapy Felicity and tried to insert it into Alias.  Those episodes of Alias were the worts ones where he had Sydney channeling Felicity.  Here, he takes it to another level creating a Felicity styled Alias..  He tries to capture us with an opening action sequence, but it doesn’t even involve the lead characters.  If I remember correctly, Alias began with an action sequence and a ragged Sydney Bristow walking into C.I.A. headquarters.  That may not be how it began exactly, but it was a sequence that stuck with you and hooked me into the show.  Our introduction to the lead characters in Undercovers was a catering discussion.  The setup action sequence was wasted.

Action sequences abound, but it doesn’t make up for the weak plot.  So, the C.I.A. needs to bring them back into the fold by finding a missing agent, who may or may not be selling secrets.  And we follow the Blooms, as they globe trot (but yet still manage their catering business) tracking down leads.  They went through each “locale” at a dizzying pace.  I barely had time register what was happening.  Only in the end did I realize that not only had the agent they were looking for had been undercover for 5 years, but that he somehow stole some DOD (Department of Defense) documents and was planning to kill the main bad guy by setting up a sale of those documents.  I don’t even know why he wanted the guy dead and why the agent went rogue.

What did I like about the show?  The production value was high.  I am sure they didn’t actually film in all the foreign locations, but they tried really hard to make it look like it.  I think Boris and Gugu have great chemistry and they look good together.  I like the little moments they have when you are reminded that they are married.  They were believable as a couple who had never worked together as spies before, so the viewer got an insight into the growing pains they are going to have as they explore this new aspect of their relationship.  Finally, there isn’t anything that I haven’t like Gerald McRaney in.

To sum it all up: I like the show and it’s potential.  There are some kinks that the writers need to work out.  I think the second episode will tell us a lot more about how the show is going to play.  NBC isn’t known for sticking with shows that underperform, so let’s hope the ratings stay solid.

Posted under Reviews, Television

This was one of the most anticipated movies of the Spring/Summer movie season.  I’ll make this review short.  Fanboys are going to hate it.  Fans of the Wolverine comics aren’t going to like it.  Fans of the X-Men series of movies are going to like it.  As far as the story goes, its fits into the story line of the X-Men trilogy of movies.  It gives the origin of our favorite mutant, Wolverine.  Questions about his past that were raised in the first movie are answered.  As with most origin stories, the action sequences were spread out by exposition.  But, when there was action, it was impressive.  Its easy to tell that they spent much time on getting the effects just right.  Hugh Jackman was his typical brooding Logan.  Liev Schrieber was excellent as Sabretooth.  Most of the other acting was okay.  However, Will.i.Am’s performance left little to be desired.  I was looking forward to him as Wraith, but he just didn’t do it for me.   One performance that stood out to me was Taylor Kitsch as Remy Lebeau/Gambit.  When I first saw him as Riggins on Friday Night Lights, I thought to myself, “He’d make a great Gambit.”  He did.

Problems:  No matter how good CGI gets, you can’t take years off an old man’s face and make him young again without it looking wierd.  No matter how far the stories of the X-Men are off base, at least they try to stay true to characters and their powers; however, Deadpool was so far off base as to make me almost completely dismiss Ryan Reynolds performace in the first part of the movie.  How do you have that much destruction at a Nuclear Power plant and not upset one of the reactors?  If I use an adamantium bullet and put a whole in your head, how do the wholes get filled in with adamantium?  I could go on, but I said I’d be short.

Fans of the series of movies and who have less than a passing knowledge of X-Men and Wolverine will enjoy the movie.  Everyone else, its going to be hit and miss.

Posted under Reviews

I thought the movie was good.  I thought the acting was solid, the effects were done well, and I thought it stayed true to the comic.  The ending in the movie was much more believable than the ending in the comic.  My expectations weren’t that high.

Zach Snyder shows that he knows how to turn a graphic novel into a movie.  He takes the panels, as he did in 300, and makes them his story boards.  I did have a problem with a couple of scenes of Dr. Manhattan (no, not the blue dongle, that was more or less a slightly humorous distraction).  There were a couple of scenes where he looked like glowing blue modeling clay.  But it was okay since it had to be difficult to make him believable on film.  The makeup making the young actors of the Minutemen look older, didn’t bother me either.

My suggestion is don’t go see this movie if you want to see a superhero movie.  To me, that’s not what it is.  Its just like the comic.  More or less a discussion on the failings of human nature and how it affects anyone calling themselves a hero.  Watchmen is always hailed as a “deconstruction” of comic book superheroes, but I don’t think anyone who says that even knows what literary deconstruction is, but that’s a discussion for another time.

BTW:  Two black people.  One died and the other was a psychiatrist.  I consider that a wash.

Posted under Comics, Movies, Reviews

I thought it was a mixture of Lost and Alias.  There were too many questions for the first episode.   The stuff about the mysterious corporation sounded too much like Dharma.  The “Pattern” sounded like the Dharma Initiative.  The weird things that were happening sounded like Rambaldi devices and inventions run amok.  I liked Alias during the first three seasons of its run until it got too convoluted.  I liked Lost before it got weird and I had to go on the internet after every episode to understand what was happening.  I will probably watch this until it gets weird or convoluted, whichever comes first.

Posted under Reviews, Television

Maybe my expectations were too high.  Maybe I let all the hype and buzz around the movie get to me.  Maybe it was remembering how the previous movies made me feel.  Maybe it was nostalgia.  Maybe it was Lucas and Spielberg together again.   I don’t know.  The movie wasn’t what I hoped it would be.  It was just okay.  It didn’t have that sense of adventure from the other movies.  The heroes were in sticky situations, but they weren’t ever in any real harm.  The age jokes were okay.  There was one chase too many.  The story, as fantastic as it was, was predictable and not very compelling.    No wonder Lucas didn’t care about the script leakage.  It’s going to make a lot of money, but not because of how great it is.  If you like Indiana Jones, you’ll probably like the movie.  Don’t get me wrong; I liked the movie, it just made me feel…unsatisfied.

(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Posted under Movies, Reviews

This is one of the books i look forward to every month.    I’ll keep this one short and brief

Black Lightning gets to some solo action.   The first couple of pages are basically are reminder of why BL is with the A listers when he easily takes down a couple of C list villans.   This issue really isn’t about it the Justice League its about all the C list villains like Crowbar, Blind Faith and the Key who are running scared from Amander Waller’s Sucide Squad who are cracking down on everybody.  Waller has essentailly declared martial law in regards to all villains (which includes an secret off planet prison.)   The fact that Crowbar, Blind Faith and the Key decided turn themselves into JLA rather than deal with Waller says something.   McDuffie is setting up a big clash coming between Waller and the JLA in the future.  I can’t wait for it. 

We also get some insight into the changes that are happening to Vixen and her powers.  The scene with her creating  a green lantern ring was priceless

Posted under Comics

I’ve watched the first two episodes of Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I must say that I am somewhat impressed. I don’t know if it’s because of the lack of new shows due to the writer’s strike, and one can only take so much of American Gladiators.  The effects are good for a television show.  The writing has been pretty good so far, especially how they’ve managed to work much of the existing Terminator universe into the story.  I usually have problems with time travel, but the writers seem to have handled any issues fairly well.    They start out in 1999 and by the second episode they’ve traveled to 2007.  This totally dismisses Terminator 3 as if it didn’t exist, but from what I read the producers like to think of this show as existing in its own version of the Terminator universe.  That’s fine with me.  They do however hold over the fact that Sarah’s going to develop cancer.  Consistency is good. 

Summer Glau brings her kick ass attitude to her Terminator “Cameron”  model character.  But her dead pan performance is, in a word, dead.   Thomas Decker, as the savior, John Connor, comes off as a whiney brat.  Richard T. Jones shows up as Agent James Ellison, the FBI agent tasked to bring in the fugitive Sarah Connor.  I won’t dog the brother for collecting a paycheck, but I will say he needs to either watch The Fugitive or U.S. Marshals and see how much passion Tommy Lee Jones brought to the role of Sam Gerard as a fugitive hunter.  If anything, he should watch a few episodes of the original Fugitive series, because he looks like he’s sleeping through his lines.  But he does have a few episodes to shape up since Sarah had dropped of the map for 8 years.  The bright spot is Lena Headey of 300 fame.  She brings a level of complexity to the titular character that echoes Linda Hamilton.  She makes the show worth at least giving it a chance.

Posted under Television

Finally we get to see the much hyped and long awaited Ultimates Vol 3 #1.   This isn’t your Dad’s Avengers,  and its obvious from the opening scene where you have the Ultimates watching a DVD recording that has been leaked on the Internet (drawing parallels to the Paris Hilton scandal) of  Tony Stark and the Black Widow getting there grove on.  From there we get to the Ultimates take on Ultimate Venom.  This issues has is dense story wise, the incestuous relationship between Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch,  Hawkeye’s reckless behavior,  and may favorite thing the appearance of Ultimate Black Panther (who came and went too quickly).  If your not a patient person this book may irritate you because it raises more questions than answers.  A number of things have happened to the team between Vol 2 and Vol 3.  

• The Ultimates are now independent of Shield and funded by Tony Stark 
• The Wasp is the leader of team
• The Black Panther and Valkyrie have join team

 The art work is excellent its nice to see Joe Madureira live up to the hype (I will admit that the style differences between him and Brian Hitch takes a while to get use too).  

Posted under Comics