2019 Further into the SF stream and moving pictures

To start the new year I thought I would go further into the techno side of SF and watched Neflix's "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch" This is a "multimedia event" where you are prompted to make choices of the branching of the plot line during the movie. I could not stream it directly on my TV so I mirrored from my Ipad, where I watched the visual, over to my Apple 4k enabled tv/audio system. After a short time I just watched it on my ipad as I only got the sound through my stereo/tv system and no visual on my tv screen. I could tap on the choices given on the ipad screen.

You can infer my review, as after 10 minutes I started clicking on the choices that would bring the show to an end the quickest- which means if there was a chance for a character to die, I clicked on that. All these choices mean there are several endings to the show but I am not up to exploring more.

Here is a link to a more positive review of the movie at i09 below. I am not knocking the multimedia stuff , just thinking a more compelling story could be told.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/we-may-never-see-all-of-black-mirror-bandersnatch-183140...

Time to get on the Bird Box {IMDB review & trailers} bandwagon? The new Netflix movie with Sandra Bullock has a large social media presence. I started watching the movie before the youtube reaction,with people wearing blindfolds and filming themselves trying to function , and got halfway through the flick before deciding I had better stuff to do. I found there to be to many obviously silly decisions that rational people would not make {like in the later seasons of the "Walking Dead" } which aggravated me and the acting was sub par in IMOHO. The flick has an "R" rating but I saw nothing in the first half to deserve it.

I like Sandra Bullock but she looked like she was wearing tons of makeup even when very wet. I would lean more for this being a horror movie than SF but I have not seen the entire flick. Bird Box is based on a novel by Josh Malerman. After all the hoopla maybe I will watch the rest of the movie blindfolded.

Well I saw AQUAMAN in the theater a few days ago and frankly, despite the almost continual mass battle scenes I almost fell asleep in the movie.

There was little or no humour in the movie. To me that movie the movie followed the following pattern: 5-10 mins of dialog, huge fight scene (the first was pretty good in the lighthouse)...5-10 mins of dialog, next huge fight scene... repeat...repeat...repeat... each fight scene filled with grotesque sea animals. I saw little story line other than the predictable end result.

To me there is no comparison to the Marvel franchise which has fight scenes but at least has a story line and humour to move the movie along.

I saw the movie Mortal Engines back in December at a morning cheap show and was surprised that evidently it is a teen/preteen targeted flick. I have not read the book Mortal Engines it is based on so I have no idea if the story was perverted by the movie. The special effects are great and the theme of beauty and the beast works up to a point but the character development is built around action/explosions and a little shallow to me but may work well for the younger set.

>3 Lynxear: While at Mortal Engines I saw the previews for Aquaman and the action scenes, special effects looked great, made me wish I had held on to my movie money a little longer.

>2 DugsBooks: I tried to read the book, couldn't get more than a third of the way through before I got disgusted with the whole thing and gave up.

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As Netflix struggles to stay in business ;-) I find they are offering a lot of SF grade B or possibly C movies. A couple I have watched recently Occupation and Watchmen fit squarely into that mold IMOHO.

Occupation definitely leans toward a "C" rating {see IMBD reviews} and is nostalgic in that it is one of those "conceived as B movie and shot in Australia" movies that were prevalent a few years ago. An alien invasion with grey, big eyed, human like extraterrestrials who decide to camp out on earth. There is an environmental theme to the flick along with family/tribe values.

Watchmen fares a little better in my opinion as a noir comic character but live actors flick set in an alternate reality. I believe there is a big comic book inspired fan base for this.

Both flicks are good & family oriented OK if you just want to kick back on a lazy weekend or use the tube as a babysitter {sans Watchmen} is my evaluation.

I am really looking forward to season 3 of Stranger Things which I found out about here on LT. The first 2 seasons were great. Link to trailer;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlpmMRrt-s8

>4 DugsBooks: I got sucked in by the Aquaman trailers as well.... so much so that I saw it in IMAX...huge waste of money. Those action scenes are endless and take up 3/4 of the movie... if you are an action junkie go in and shoot up. Me? I like a decent story line with a bit of humour, like Guardians of the Galaxy or Ironman movies.

I have not seen Mortal Engines but from your review I will give it a pass.

>6 DugsBooks: But Watchmen is quite violent. I don't see how that's babysitter material.

>8 dukedom_enough: I stand corrected. Family oriented definitely not the right phrase for Watchmen but any teens in a household would babysit themselves with the flick if they are familiar with the comic background. I have to keep European ratings, which place a high hurdle on violence and let boobs/partial nudity slide a bit, and USA - where if you flash boobs it is "R" rated but close ups of people being drawn and quartered are ok, in mind while evaluating I guess.

::edited in another attempt at clarity, since LT proofreaders are out with the guv shutdown ;-) ::::

>9 DugsBooks: European scheme sounds more sensible.

I just ran across a neat SF short streaming videos compiler/sponsor called "DUST", while poking around on youtube. I noticed it when I watched a short film called "FTL". FTL, a 15 minute short, was pretty good and surprisingly professional. Others are probably familiar with this as it is evidently a showcase for some who want to make it to the "big screens". Well worth a look.

https://watchdust.com/anthology/

>11 DugsBooks: Thanks for the great link... I watched "Lunatique" which was 11 minutes long. It is a post apocalypse short with a lonely woman trying to survive. It is my kind of movie :). I was engrossed wondering if she was making the right decisions or not.

No Spoilers but it was far better than Aquaman for me. It would have made a great full movie for me.

Lots more movies to review here for us.

>11 DugsBooks: Interesting. They have a Roku channel. They need to pop up the length of each episode.

>11 DugsBooks:

I am hooked on this site :).... I just saw a trailer for a scifi movie titled "Prospect". It has been released to theatres already but it is not offered where I live............WHY!!!!!!!!! It looks so good. and will go to DVD in March... stupid ... it would make millions if released generally.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 88% rating

Yes a great site....thanks again

PS: I just watched "FTL" ........ Another great 14 min movie..... Great graphics... great story line... I WANT A FULL MOVIE!!! I want MORE!!!

hahaha....I got to go or I will stay at this website all day.....

>11 DugsBooks: >12 Lynxear: The world needs more SF short subjects.

>14 Lynxear: I have seen more great story lines for SciFi than I have for years in the theater. No CGI battle scenes repeated ad infinitum ... solid SciFi in everything I have scene so far. I would love to read full length novels based on these shorts. It would revive my interest in SciFi books in general.

feeling almost giddy in anticipation of watching more.... discipline, Lynxear... discipline! :)

>11 DugsBooks: I have been watching DUST for a while now. The first one I watched, and it remains a favorite, is the animated 'The Oceanmaker'. One of the more impressive aspects (for me) is that the story is told with zero dialogue.

>11 DugsBooks:

Oh this is great, thanks. I hit "Nice Shoes" first...

Speaking of short SF films... Has anyone watched Amazon Prime's 'Enigma'?

Glad folks, who had not seen it before, liked that DUST site. I am rationing my use of the site also, a nice reality break.

>19 ScoLgo: Looks interesting, I will look for Enigma on Netflix - it will get there sooner or later no doubt.

"Floating dead in space, transport ship Genesis has become an unsolvable mystery. The crew are all dead. But how, and why? What began as a simple transport mission ends with bloodshed and the disastrous escape of a VIP prisoner. Winner 20+ festival awards."

What To Expect From The Expanse Season 4 The article explains that the Series The Expanse {imdb link} has been picked up by Amazon and a new season is near - as many already know I guess. It has been a while since I viewed any episodes on Netflix, I am not sure if they have all three seasons.

On Netflix I watched:
IO Last on Earth , a dystopian movie that features a lot of dysphoria {popped up when I misspelled dystopia so I used it} where a teen aged girl is stranded on a dying earth. This YA at best flick suffers from some bad science as "energy is being mined from the core of other planets"?? {ignoring free sun outside the atmosphere?} while the Earth's atmosphere is becoming poisonous to life. The same flaw as the movie Interstellar, where in IO mankind has also left earth as if it would be easier to live in space.

I also finished off The Magicians series which seemed a bit duh to me to begin with but got interesting as the series evolved and you get invested in the characters. Lots of , non explicit, bisexual happenings throughout the episodes.

I also watched Solo - the Star Wars flick again when it became available on Netflix, and it holds up well.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/286778#6489732

>21 DugsBooks: All three seasons of the Expanse are now streaming at Amazon Prime, for those who have that service.

I noticed most of my reviews of Netflix movies have been rather negative and since I now have a financial interest in Netf ... as I always like to be fair in my evaluations I wanted to mention an unheralded series I liked called Maniac {IMdb link}
This is a "limited series" and where a group of people are thrown together in different virtual worlds which are barely distinguishable from reality because of the drugs involved. Two random people who normally would not interact are serendipitously found together again and again in different worlds and become close as a result. Cute love story kinda that gets you invested in the characters. I agree with the IMdb rating of 7.9 out of 10 stars.

Just finished watching "The Umbrella Academy " on Netflix and enjoyed the series despite a very skeptical attitude to start. It is a series about some kid "superhero" comic book like characters after they have matured and the shine has all worn off long ago since their disbanding. The Umbrella Academy - link to book it is based on by Gerard Way

If you can get past the dubious look of the cover photos for the series it can be engaging.

I came across an informative article "The 11 Best Science Fiction Movies and Shows on Netflix in March 2019" at Inverse. Evidently this is updated monthly. Umbrella Academy is ranked 11. It mentions "The OA" {previous review} is scheduled for a second season soon & should be great.

>23 DugsBooks: I liked Maniac a lot. Emma Stone can do anything.

I saw the first episode, the second season of "The OA" and it was great. I was worried about how they could make an effective transition but the episode was pretty intense with a soporific musical score for part {reminiscent of Sense8 whose music score was the equivalent of a Quaalude} and evolving the series into a different facet of the story where a lot of characters are reset in another parallel universe.

The first installment was an hour long and interesting throughout. I have no idea where the tentacled friend in the image comes from. Maybe the main character, The OA, is reliving the high school dating scene in later episodes. Below is a link to the Netflix site and to further confound you the movie was written and produced by Batman.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80044950

Link to where image is from, I did not read the article as it is full of spoilers. http://topmovieandtv.com/tv/the-oa-season-2-explained-who-is-old-night/

Ok, this is the Big One - the movie we all wished could be continued but had given up on ever being mentioned again. Bill and Ted Face the Music! {link to imdb site with trailer}. It seems our intrepid time traveling rockers {from the 80's?} are back again just when we all need them. Party On ;-)

After one of the biggest cliff hangers ever in the movies when Infinity War left a majority of the Avengers pantheon of heroes in the dust of time - the resolution of the predicament, the new Avengers Endgame movie, has filled that precipice from the bottom up with cash so it is an easy leap for Tony Stark and others to set the universe straight. "Endgame" made more in its first six hours on Fandango than the one-day record set by "The Force Awakens" in its first 24 hours of sales states the article in Marketwatch and goes on to throw superheroic numbers about. It might be difficult to see the movie in the first few days of its release so many tickets have been sold I have read.
Should be a good one if you like the genre not sure when I will be able to see it, link to official website with trailers.

Oh My!!!! It appears the Star Wars saga is reaching a new level as the Star Wars saga comes to a close? No spoilers so you can view the news yourself at the just released trailer for the new Starwars movie out around the holidays in December 2019. Link to trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKR1lOj_Gs4

Link to really chatty article at Polygon that also has the trailer link and a host of spoilers about the background of the show which was announced at "Star Wars 2019" according to the article's author McWhertor.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/12/18301895/star-wars-episode-9-trailer-rise-of-s...

Aaaaahhhharrrg....A huge movement in the force as the Sith Overlords masquerading as Disney executives mount an assault on my IRA holdings.. on Netflix - but it appears the few remaining Jedi at NFLX are holding their own as the stock price fluctuates in response to Disney deciding to stream their entire catalog from a Disney portal bypassing NFLX.

I finished watching The OA series >26 DugsBooks: and liked it a lot. The best way to describe the direction of the series is using Kurt Vonnegut's Bokononism religious terms I believe. As the main characters slip through parallel universes they are tied together in what appears to be a true Karass as opposed to a Gran Falloon. They all keep their true natures while their circumstances, due to inevitable differences in parallel time, change considerably.

Review of Star Wars 2019 celebration in Chicago USA at Io9

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-10-best-things-that-happened-at-star-wars-celebrati-...

>29 DugsBooks:, I like the juxtaposition of J.J. Abrams claiming that Rian Johnson's effort left him many gifts, with the trailer image of Kylo Ren welding his helmet back together (symbolically doing some damage control).

Aha, now the stock trading floor is littered with the smoking remains of the Sith opposed to Netflix. I have watched several more SF vignettes through Dust on youtube and have yet to see one I don't like, brevity might be an asset as there is not time to belabor any part not that appealing.



Nano, http://www.nanothefilm.com/ , was great. Nice concept and as with most of the shorts the special effects and execution are top notch.****

The Final Offer, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8722088/ , was fine and is a quick and ultimately funny first contact episode. ****

Helio, is a dystopian action short set in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO4Py1EvuiQ ***

The Candidate, is a 20 minute short that could make a twilight zone episode. It proves that you don't need a lot of special effects to create a good story, just a good script. ***** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FzdrPRmCLQ

::edit:: * rating system 5*s best.

Has anyone watched the Netflix "Love, Death + Robots" anthology series? Short animated films, many based on stories by SF authors. I liked the two Scalzi-based ones, the Ken Liu one, and the Swanwick one, but otherwise wasn't much impressed. Too much violence. Note the Scalzi one about alternate histories stemming from killing Hitler is very NSFW.

>11 DugsBooks: This is a great site. Thank you

I just learned that today is "Alien Day" - the 40th anniversary of the movie Alien. Microsoft is having a sale on the flicks over this weekend according to the Space.com article by Tariq Malik on Alien movies .

>34 dukedom_enough: I am watching the anthology and have noticed, like yourself, the quality varies a lot among the episodes. You are more diligent than I , I have not read much of the credits so I am not sure who did what. I will check that from now on.

>35 RBeffa: :-) a lot of people like those shorts.

I hope May the 4th was with you. Image of the Jedi island Skywalker made his home as a recluse.
Better image is the one used by Bing search engine on that day.

https://www.bing.com/

Scroll back to May 4th on images

::edit:: also https://www.bing.com/search?q=Skellig+Michael&form=hpcapt&filters=HpDate...

I saw the Chinese made movie "The Wandering Earth" on Netflix recently and it was interesting if not gripping. The movie is most famous for grossing $700 million dollars so far world wide.
Set in the future a few hundred years perhaps, the plot entails the Sun starting to expand so Earth's people are trying to move the planet with huge engines spewing jets into space. The Earth freezes of course and there are issues reaching the orbit necessary. There are a lot of action sequences throughout the flick with big noises etc.

I agree with the imdb review overall.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7605074/

::edit:: I tried to watch Avengers Endgame when I was near a theater over the weekend but , unless you are going to sit in a handicapped area on the lap of someone in a wheelchair {all my friends refused}, there are no seats available in reasonable time showings.

I have not yet seen the movie, however, I did read the short story which I liked. So, I'm looking forward to seeing the film if Netflix ever decides to play it in Australia. There are some other good stories in the anthology (The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu).

'Maniac' Yes! I loved this series. It was as if the writers were channelling P.K. Dick.

>38 DugsBooks: I saw movie "The Wandering Earth" when it came out on the big screen and even with the subtitles it was a pretty good movie as well. It held my attention throughout the movie and the plot made sense to me.

>38 DugsBooks: >39 dwhatson: >40 dwhatson: >41 Lynxear:

I saw and enjoyed it. Was sometimes a bit hard to understand just what they were doing, but great fun.

Not SFF, but if you have HBO access, "Chernobyl" is SFF-adjacent, and quite amazing. Have seen the first 3 episodes so far, and it's a better drama than almost any series I've seen in (at least) years.

>43 dukedom_enough: Well, Frederik Pohl wrote a (non-sf) novel about Chernobyl in the early nineties (not unsurprisingly called Chernobyl), so it should be of more than tangential interest to most of us. After all, back in the 1950s, this would have been science fiction...

So wonderful:

Gandahar - René Laloux (1987) (full movie)

>45 LolaWalser: Looks very interesting, thanks.

>46 dukedom_enough:

I hope you like it. I was shopping around for Fantastic planet and was surprised to see this on YT. Laloux should be appreciated more...

>47 LolaWalser: I had no idea Laloux even did anything besides Fantastic Planet. Which I also should see again. So many books and films I've only ever seen once, and in many cases when I was too young to appreciate them.

I love Gandahar. Laloux did some awesome shorts that you can turn up on YouTube too.
La Prisonniere (1988) https://youtu.be/IyG5P3keFn0

Most interesting: Samuel R. Delany's review of Star Wars, published in 1977. Reference found here on Twitter.

>49 paradoxosalpha:

I ended up ordering a UK edition of Fantastic Planet with several shorts in the extras including that one. I expect you are familiar with Karel Zeman's work? "if you like this, you might like..."

>50 dukedom_enough:

Very nice, extremely informative, and again (I already quoted Harlan Ellison from 1969 toward the same point), a piece of "pre-PC" criticism that makes the argument for showcasing human diversity by taking on monotonous (white, male...) representation. Snipping for the oldies thread, thanks.

>51 LolaWalser: So interesting, right? And combining what we now call diversity concerns with that thorough knowledge of Golden Age SF. Somewhere in that Twitter thread there's a pointer to Delany's review of the recent Star Wars film, but I haven't read it yet.

>50 dukedom_enough: I read that review when it first came out. The copy of 'Cosmos' has long since vanished, though...

>43 dukedom_enough: Finished watching "Chernobyl". I think it's the best TV series I've ever seen. Extremely relevant to what's going on right now in government and society.

“Why worry about something that isn’t going to happen?”

“Ah, that's perfect. We should put that on our money.”

>45 LolaWalser: and following
I watched several of Laloux' movies as a kid and was enchanted by them. I was very small at the time, and I believe I saw all but one on a black-and-white set, but still. I've rewatched Gandahar and Les maîtres du temps in recent years, and this has been my reminder to rewatch La planète sauvage!

Cool to see Laloux' fans!

I saw the second season of Dark on Netflix and it was entertaining throughout as the series answers a lot of mysteries and creates new ones. Keeping up with characters existing in several phases of their lives simultaneously is difficult at times.

Vogue article that presents Dark as "a grown up's Stranger Things". It is a little chatty.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80100172 {official site}

Earlier review of the series with a lot of spoilers
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a845327/dark-season-2-netflix-release-date-cast-tr...

>57 DugsBooks: Decided not to watch season 2; too much Teutonic angst in season 1. It's the 21st century; if you discover evidence of time travel, you don't go insane, you start looking for an angle.

>45 LolaWalser: >49 paradoxosalpha: Pretty neat stuff by Laloux. I think Fantastic Planet was featured frequently on weekend late Saturday night "stoner" movie fests years ago at theaters.

I watched The Fisherman *** on youtube after coming across it. Set in Hong Kong it has english subtitles and teases out the feeling of another "Old Man and the Sea" theme before taking a turn.,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V0hlyv6sss

I also watched "Darkwave: Edge of the Storm" ***{24 min} which was ok but evidently a precursor to a full movie effort hopefully. A little rough and kind of cliched but viewable stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue0t8VYFU-4

IMDB review https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4890490/

* rating system 5*s best

Am I the only one who was not impressed with "Spider-Man: Far from Home". I normally like Jake Gyllenhaal movies but he was a pretty dull bad guy as Mysterio.

The plot just did not work for me {sigh}. Spider man fighting a hologram but doesn't realize it...what was his webs sticking to?

Looks like a tasty new SF series, "Another Life", coming up for Netflix with Katee Sackhoff {Battlestar Galatica among other credits} taking the lead on a mission to make first contact with an alien race that has landed a possibly hostile probe on Earth. Ms Sackhoff appears in danger of being type cast in another demure, shy, delicately mannered role {not}.

A tabloid type website with lots of trivia about the new series.

io9 article below.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/an-interstellar-war-looms-in-the-latest-trailer-for-kat-...

This is a link to the official Netflix site for "Another Life", the main trailer is in - French?, however.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80236236

::edited out of necessity because evidently proofreaders are taking the summer off::

>57 DugsBooks: I'm up to S2:E5 in Dark and I love it! I'm usually not a fan of "angsty teutonic shows," but it reeled me in. It's like a huge puzzle. I'm also encouraged that next season (#3) will be the last season - the writers mapped out everything from the start, so hopefully it won't suffer the same fate as Lost.

>61 DugsBooks: Cool

A bit OT (horror not SF) but at Readercon this past weekend, I saw bits of Horror Noire, a documentary about Black people in horror film. I think it covers people both in front of and behind the camera. Looks interesting and I will watch the whole thing when I can (doesn't seem to be streaming just yet).

Finished S2 of Dark earlier this week and I am still thinking about it. It blew me away! Kudos to the showrunners for managing such an incredibly complex plot.

Watching Amazon's 'The Boys'. Sort of a riff on Watchmen. Strong cast, entertaining but very gory.

I just noticed an interesting documentary premiering tonight in the USA on PBS public broadcasting - Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

"Features intimate conversations with the author, and new interviews with Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon and David Mitchell
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Le Guin’s groundbreaking novel “The Left Hand of Darkness”

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/worlds-of-ursula-k-le-guin-about/11575/

>67 DugsBooks: Oh, thanks for the reminder. I saw that in my local PBS station's newsletter but that was days ago.

>67 DugsBooks: Thanks! I will be watching that for sure.

>61 DugsBooks: Not very good. Made it through the first episode on irritation alone, expostulating volubly the entire time. Not sure continuing will be healthy for me.

Has anyone looked at Years and Years, currently on HBO in the US? Has been praised by people whose opinions I highly value.

>71 dukedom_enough: Well, it's already been aired in the UK. A lot of people liked it - showrunner was Dr.Who's Russell T. Davies. Overall, I liked it - family saga covering the years 2020 - 2035, though you have to suspend disbelief slightly because so little of the visual aspect of the world changes (everyone's cars are still the same, for instance). But that's a minor glitch. There are a couple of times when the carpet gets pulled out from under you.

Only one problem - RTD does exercise one of Oscar Wilde's dictums - "genius is an infinite capacity for stealing the best bits". There are times when I went "Boo! You've nicked that from...." (he did it in Dr.Who as well).

>71 dukedom_enough: I've only seen the first episode which I thought was very good.

I just realized that Rutger Hauer died recently. His role in Blade Runner, & esp. the end monologue, is a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU

or you can go to youtube & search for "blade runner batty"

>70 richardderus:
Yep, a lot of critics agree with you. I was stunned that some of first few episodes were so badly written {see links}. I agree with the critics who say the cast are acting their asses off but can't make up for the bad scripts. The series is very YA oriented which shows in some of the interactions between the crew members......and speaking of crew interactions, the crew is so undisciplined that were it strictly military most of them would have been put back in storage or spaced by any competent captain.

One plot hole I found particularly egregious is that there is the first alien object seen that has landed on Earth, in the USA, and the team evaluating the object is comprised of only 4 or 5 people who are essentially twiddling around awaiting for inspiration. Even if security were paramount and excluding the rest of the Earth there would be at least hundreds working on the event - albeit most likely compartmentalized. With the YA veneer however this complexity is glossed over.

I watched the complete series and it gets a lot better towards the end but needs some serious upgrading I think it is worthwhile but not a must see so far.

Another Life Is a Clumsy Muddle of Superior Science-Fiction Stories

Something goes very wrong in space in this limp sci-fi series from Netflix

>74 rshart3: Iconic scene and all versions of it are great - he really nailed the role & Hauer will be missed.

>67 DugsBooks:, >68 gypsysmom:, >69 ScoLgo:

Watched the LeGuin piece on PBS with the family last night. It was good.

>75 DugsBooks: He’s such a smug, hostile irritant that you’d think a psych evaluation would’ve kept him from joining the new mission in the first place.
Yuh huh.

It wasn't in the least a rewarding experience...I kept wondering how the US funded interstellar FTL drive by itself, how the crew would agree to get on the damn thing without seeming to know how they were going to find their target, still less how they could be SURPRISED that it wasn't where they were pointed! Every NASA committee would've had a sniff of such a project, the Department of Redundancy Bureau would've demanded triplicate research documentation on where/why/how they were pointing the thing, the military would've made the Congress look laissez-faire in their demands for personnel input...just NO.

Bad.

Lois and I watched Years and Years on HBO. Excellent and moving. For at least a decade now, Charles Stross has been saying that technology and events move too quickly for near-future SF to be a viable mode. The series gets around the problem by limiting technological change - so, not credible in that sense. Also, gets a bit preachy at times. But superb at getting right the feeling of one thing after another as the days/weeks/years pass.

A new Russian made SF series I am watching on Netflix, Better Than Us, sounds like a tired meme when described as "human like robots designed to serve people evolving to an almost cognizant emotional state". But the crew who put this together did a great job of making the near future series easy to suspend disbelief with what I consider good acting and cinematography. I am about half way through the series and it revolves around a new "self aware" robot scarily/eerily incorporating itself into a broken family. At the same time the premise is used to characterize issues of female roles in society, all that without any particularly lurid scenes so far.

Worth a watch.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8285216/
https://www.netflix.com/title/81026915

....meanwhile in a galaxy far away and long ago I have abandoned the Jedi forces defending Netflix stock and beat an ignominious retreat cashing in my few devalued chips.

>79 DugsBooks: Sounds a lot like the UK's Channel 4 series 'Humans', which was itself based on a Dutch original. It dealt with similar issues, though it had to make a few concessions to filming budget realities* by setting it in an alternative present, so that the "synthetics" were mature products and society has had time to evolve new approaches to robots being amongst us - including new prejudices.

*Present-day sets, props and comparatively little CGI.

>80 RobertDay: I read of that comparison while browsing for an image but never saw any of those. Better Than really nails a lot of the cinematic details IMOHO and I think it won awards for that according to IMDb.

Looks like there is going to be another Matrix sequel. I liked all the editions so far, some more than others. The first in the series was smiting in its originality of plot & film execution.

There are a lot of "Matrix 4 official trailer" titled videos on youtube but I do not think an actual trailer exists. Here is a link to an informative one at just over 4 minutes with a rehash of the series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MIwuPaSK4M

An article at Inverse How the 'Matrix 4' Plot Could Resolve Neo and Trinity's Deaths

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/matrix-4-twitter-reactions

The first trailer for the Star Wars "Last of the Skywalker series" titled The Rise of Skywalker has been released. The movie will open December 20th 2019 according to media. The trailer and lot's stuff at the official link below. It appears there will be a lot of character development of Rey and Kylo. I am not sure how Luke will be represented, as a force ghost?

Mark Hamill drove through town down the interstate posting on various media a couple of weeks ago. Would have been neat to run into him, although unless he was pointed out to me I am not sure I would recognize him. I thought I could show him some of my surgery scars to see if they could be used as light saber wounds in the movie - something I am sure he would have enjoyed. ;-)

https://www.starwars.com/films/star-wars-episode-ix-the-rise-of-skywalker

>83 DugsBooks:, I'm most intrigued by their pledging to make this a good closure for all nine films. I hope that means something deeper than just trotting out fields and galaxies of familiar toys and people from the past. It does make sense for Palpatine to figure in it somehow. It will make the most sense if Anakin does as well, and we get the true definition of his bringing "balance" to the force (and therefore placing him as the Skywalker of the title). I can't think what else would sew it all together from One to Nine, story-wise. I do like the fan theory of winding things up by merging light and dark, ala The Dark Crystal.

I saw "Stranger Things" season 3 several weeks ago and enjoyed the continuation of the series. The sense of foreboding/tension has diminished as the "Upside Down" is now a known threat to the participants. However just when you think it is all over and all the ghosts are out of the closets you find out differently. A lot of product placement in the movie which contributed to {helps with} the cost from articles I have read. As a lot of action takes place in a 1980's mall, the subtle advertising is not out of place or jarring anywhere.

Plot lines change with the age of the characters as the series progresses which endears it to many I am sure but it is losing some of its "spooky" edge. I read where the cast all got raises - must be linked to having to wear 80's shorts as in the photo.

Link source to image:
https://tvline.com/2019/07/08/stranger-things-season-3-ratings-netflix/

>84 Cecrow: I think Anakin's slaughter of the "younglings" at the Jedi school is unforgivable but a continued evolution of the "force" seems inevitable. I am always consternated by the apparent "weak wills" of Jedi. They lose all rationality and ethical judgement just to lift something a few feet more with the force? I am not familiar with all the nuance , dark crystal etc., but hope to see some Mace Windu like action in the final edition.

.....Going a bit further into the interactive video {which I am completely ignorant of evidently} I just saw where tonight is the last episode of Artificial , an interactive show on Twitch about an A.I. daughter becoming human. If anyone knows anything about this let us know, I have never "twitched" though I have seen it mentioned here.

A rather garish article about the subject with links:
Watch the Season 2 Finale of ARTIFICIAL Live on Wednesday, August 28 on Twitch at 5 p.m. PST

>87 DugsBooks: "Interactive" affects me like a Kryptonian vampire being spritzed with garlic-infused powdered kryptonite.

>79 DugsBooks: I finished watching the series Better Than Us and thought the series got better with each episode. It may be derivative as described by >80 RobertDay: but to me the well developed mystery and intrigue blurred the distinction of being SF.

Anyone having seen the other versions may have a blunted perception of the show but I enjoyed it - definitely a hook at the end to tie in another season but a great stand alone resolution to the first season.

Doctor Who--"Mission to the Unknown" recreation starts in 15 minutes!

https://youtu.be/NW8yk-m5Ig8

Nine minutes!

Someone's excited!

I read something about this, a British university drama class (or was it volunteers?) putting together a lost episode, using techniques true to the 1960s.

>92 Cecrow:

Heh! NEW "Old" Who in 2019! 'twas great. (It's up now on the link above for replay.)

Yeah, they got the 1960s vibe pat down. The boys are maybe a tad young and the main guy's haircut 21st century, but overall, 10/10.

And they got Edward De Souza (who played the main guy in 1965) to do the intro! Excellent Whovian day all around.

>93 LolaWalser:

The "Making of" video is pretty good too. Edward De Souza and Peter Purves actually visited them whilst they were filming.

>94 andyl:

Thanks, I had missed it, that was lovely. Something nice in a time like this...

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER {link to website} , "the final episode of the nine-part "Skywalker saga", tickets have gone on sale - setting up the ultimate battle between Star Wars and Avengers: Endgame for total amount of money made by a film. Lots of great previews at the SW link above.

https://www.wired.com/story/star-wars-vs-avengers/ is a wired article that gives some of the hard data on money taken in. I anticipate a similar event to Endgame {only open seats the back row right or left } for seeing The Rise Of since the movie doesn't premiere until this December and ticket sales are off the charts. I look forward to the movie. There is a lot of buzz online about the way Disney is handling the franchise - the flim should help resolve that issue.

I finally watched Avengers Endgame on DVD and liked the flick which needed to make a lot of money to pay all of the famous stars involved. A good movie but as some have written it might be a saturation point for some fans of the Marvel films.

A new offshoot of the Star Wars universe is The Mandalorian {link to trailer} which will stream on the new Disney channel Nov. 12th. As I understand it, bounty hunting is the main occupation of that particular culture.

::edited some of the more heinous grammatical errors::

>96 DugsBooks:, it's not gonna beat Endgame, no way. No Star Wars film has beaten Titanic or Avatar for box office take, let alone the new all-time high. It's not a contender (lacks the worldwide appeal, for one thing). In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd lay odds it underperforms Episode 8. From one SW fan to another though, I appreciate the enthusiasm.

I don't necessarily grouse about how Disney handles the franchise, but I do disparage the apparently lack of planning into a story arc across these three movies. The second one went just about straight sideways and left almost nothing for the third one to do. Bringing Palpatine back had zero foreshadowing, is one clue.

Re your link:

Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have been besmirching the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The director of The Godfather said the films were despicable; Scorsese said they weren't cinema at all. This week, Bob Iger, the head of Marvel's parent company, Disney, addressed those comments. "I reserve the word 'despicable' for someone who has committed mass murder," Iger said at The Wall Street Journal 's Tech Live conference. "These are movies." But, he added, if "they want to bitch about movies, it's certainly their right." Your move, directors.

Copppola is passionate about movies, thus the word occurs to him. Iger is ... the "just movies" guy, I guess. Or should I say, just $$$.

I'm not excited about yet another Star Wars movie, guaranteed not to be the last.

I am excited about Taika Waititi taking on Flash Gordon. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421201/

>98 paradoxosalpha:, ironically that's the license Lucas couldn't secure in the 1970s and so made his first Star Wars flick instead.

Too true!

>98 paradoxosalpha: I like most live actor renditions of Flash Gordon but no animated versions in particular.


By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56471822

I started rewatching the netflix "Altered Carbon" series on Netflix and was surprised to see that a new season is upcoming soon. {Link to a chatty article about the series}. The article quotes the author of the novels originating of the series, "Richard K Morgan has said that the show is aiming for a run of five seasons, which suggests that more books might be on the way as there's only three available so far."

I am a huge fan boy of Altered Carbon and think both the novels and movie versions stand far above the normal fare. The novel won the PKD award and the movie version won several awards {including for sound - it has a great soundtrack on my system} and was nominated in numerous other categories - I think it should have won more categories. Looking forward to the new season.

It's not affection for the Flash Gordon world or characters per se; I'm just excited about what it will be if Waititi brings the same sensibility he applied to Thor Ragnarok.

>102 paradoxosalpha: Ragnarok the movie was great!, I got from the article you linked that he is working on an anime version of Flash which would be overkill I think. Flash Gorden with actors etc with the same resources as the Thor movie would be an enjoyable hit .

Some holiday freebie streaming available evidently, "The Roku Channel will stream the first season of the "Game of Thrones" saga, along with several other shows and movies, between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, the company said.", a quote from an article about the streaming service. Maybe this will help the stock price rally a bit since my interest .. I enjoy the opportunity to stream for free especially since "HD" features of the movies are preserved. I know "Andromeda" the series is still featured there {entire series}.