Movies

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Watching Terminator: Dark Fate, I found it a rather nice retake on Terminator.

While Gensys was pretty entertaining, and the alternate version of Sarah and “Pops” was pretty damned fun for me: Dark Fate is a little more terminator, less popcorn. The beginning is a tad rough, but quickly leads to what we’d expect.

It’s hard to decide what I like best about Carl’s reintroduction though. That he ends up a drapery expert, or the Texas comment about his armory. The bit between Sarah and Carl, is really a positive aside to the whole cyborg / guardian battle. It’s far more a win than a distraction.

Legion’s future also seems more plausible to me, with the more stab happy Rev-7s, and the Rev-9 being far more plausible than the T-1000. And that it probably wasn’t SkyNet that created it, lol.

One of the problems I’ve long found with the SkyNet timeline, is the lack of sense it’s usually made. If we presume that SkyNet was so screwed by the time the T-800/Model 101 and T-1000 were sent back, it becomes even more plausible that SkyNet would play the most obvious card: once you’ve invented time displacement, go back and provide yourself with the necessary files to not be so screwed, develop a head start, and send back oodles of terminators. Because if we accept the linear influences, that becomes the logical course of action: not just sending two minions back in time and hoping at least one would be successful.

Actually, that let’s send back oodles of terminators is one of the things I like about The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Because why send one, when you have time on your side? Likewise, I think Legion makes a better follow up than Rise of the Machines and Gensys did, in the sense that if you buy into their model of time travel, and that Judgement Day would be inevitable despite taking out Cyberdyne, why would it always have to take the same form of SkyNet? Same shit, different timeline.

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Check out “Iron Sky: The Coming Race” on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/title/81132624?s=i&trkid=14170286

Said what the hell, why not? And was not disappointed. Much like when I watched the original Iron Sky.

Because if moon nazis weren’t enough, let’s throw in aliens, and Hitler riding a T-Rex, motherfickers! The bit with the holy grail and the Steve Jobs cult, and that lucky red shit, oh it was entertaining, lol.

Somehow, I agree with Sasha’s notion that the transport ship was made by Americans, therefore there must be weapons somewhere; and the iPhone / Nokia 3310 jokes. There’s many little nuggets of greatness, not to mention first fighting dinosaurs, and the hilarity with the world leaders.

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Watching Doom: Annihilation on Netflix, I think it doesn’t suck. You won’t rush to theaters for such a film but it beats the last attempt at a DooM movie, hands down. Or should we say, the people at least cared and that tends to make a video game movie that doesn’t suck.

In my experience, video game movies tend to be either pretty good, or pretty awful, and make no one happy. The only exception that really come to mind is the first Mortal Kombat film.

Doom: Annihilation at least does a decent job of presenting a band of doomed space marines, stuck on Phobos, and being attacked by zombies. Also other things. Like the ’16 video game, it tries to put enough narrative around the concept to make it function. Not a deep, far reaching story; because that doesn’t work for Doom. This film on the other hand, ain’t a bad try. I especially loved the many nods to the game, and related Id titles; not to mention bits like the possession warning on the doors.

I’d actually like to see another shot, that takes on Doom II’s notion of the Earth being overrun. It may also be sad that the only reasons why I remember the name of Mars’ moons all related to video games, lol.

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Watching Christmas Vacation for the first time in some years, I think the real problem is less that Griswold’s luck is like a suburban dad version of Ashley Williams, and has more to do with his foolishness. But there in lays the rub.

In a way, Clark Griswold kind of represents the foolishness in us all, parodied to National Lampoon levels. He’s pretty much hopeless, and nothing he tries to do for his family goes according to plan, but they love him just the same. Somehow.

Most people can probably identify with how that works out, and be glad that most of us space out our foolishness enough not to have a reserved spot on the other side of the nut house, or encounter SWAT teams that often in our happy endings. Oddly, the characters work really well, lol.

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Watching The Outer Limits – s02e9 – Trial by Fire, I find myself wondering somewhat just what kinds of civilizations we could find out there amongst the stars.

Based on our own civilizations throughout history, I rather think there’s three ways that works out.

In a perfect world, we would probably have a first contact out of Star Trek. But I don’t really have that high a hope for humanity, so I expect our early associations to look more like Avatar or Enemy Mine.

In a way though, I worry that a more likely scenario given how difficult truly foreign beings are, and how fucked up we are, things would turn out more like the Earth-Minbari war in B5. Which could be summarized as a hot head meets cultural differences kicks off the near extimerination of the human race. Except I don’t think the Battle of the Line would turn out so fortuitous, so much as like an ID4 assault ship firing its primary weapon.

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Watching the 2010 version of True Grit on Hulu, I’m kind of happy it turned out as such a good film. It also reminds me that one of these days, I really should get around to reading the book.

For better or worse as the case might be, I kind of developed a soft spot for westerns along the way. Enough years were spent watching television with my mother, that there were two channels that were worth noting. TCM and Westerns. Among the side effects of that, are my taste in movies running from about the 1930s onwards to the present. Sadly though, they don’t really make a lot of westerns anymore.

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Watching Small Soldiers (1998) for the first time in a very long time, I think there is just so much wrong with the story that you’ve got to remember the suspension of disbelief factor. Even as a kid, I found it amusing that it calls for compressing at least a decade of R&D into three months to create a children’s toy: that would have to cost more than most people’s first car, just to break even. That’s the least of the issues versus reality.

Thing is, much as when I was a kid, the concept is entertaining enough that I can do that suspension of disbelief thing 🤪

Reality holes aside, there’s a lot more to it that makes it an entertaining yarn. Actually, I kinda wish they had made a sequel just for the hell of it.

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https://apple.news/Av5apvmC8T7m75cUcy4Pfcw

I find it curious how Hocus Pocus has ended up with so much popularity after the fact. For me, I mostly remember it as good family viewing for Halloween, but I suppose that’s why people still watch it. As well as a side effect of being raised by a Disney fanatic, lol.

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Watching The Terminator for the first time in some years, I kind of like how well the film has held up with age.

It’s a pretty simple but well executed film. A number of things are also a bit refreshing, in a less is more kind of way. Because back then there was virtually no computer generated imagery, and the first film may as well of had no budget compared to the sequels, of which at least one of was awesome.

Part of me wonders, all these years later: how much of the budget actually went into the scene with the truck and the Terminator. Compared to the brief future scenes and some of the trickier effects shots. I reckon the scene is kinda hokey by today’s fancier visual effects but I do have a soft spot for how things turned out.

The way people structure scenes, and what they show and what they leave out has changed. Someone directing a film like this today would do things very differently IMHO, unless they were shooting it on a ramen budget instead of as a professional film. Because as Judgement Day came and went, and Kyle’s future draws closer: we live in a world where films look more like Avatar than The Terminator. I’m still waiting for when behind the scenes reels have more in common with Mockingjay or a Holodeck, and despite the glorious spectacles, I’m not so sure that’s an evolution purely for the better.

You can tell which scenes are Arnold and which are prosthetics, for example. But films back then, things were a lot more mired in the consequences of how to film what they wanted to portray. Today? Well, you can do pretty fancy shit with powerful  computers and skilled artists.