hugh_booth Reviews

Stargate Universe (2009–2011)

No longer so Cautiously optimistic (or now I don't know math).

[3/10 · 4 October 2009]

After having watched the two hour pilot there are things to like and things to worry about. The introductory story was simple enough with the group getting stranded on the ancient ship Destiny, and facing immediate difficulties once there. In truth some of it felt a bit like a rehash of the beginning of Atlantis, though in fairness the troubles facing these characters are a bit more logical.

On a distinctly negative side, they seem to expect the audience to know more about Stargate than their writers. Early on they rely on an ancient communication device to get a message to Earth. Unfortunately it is not well explained and only people intimately familiar with the other series are going to understand this readily.

At the same time it becomes depressingly obvious that the writers don't really know the current state of the Stargate universe. Dialogue tells us early on that a planet they are going to is 21 light years away. It then takes long enough to sit around, chat, and have a meal to get there by ship. The ship in question should have been able to make that hop in about ten seconds. Later that ship is present and the only thing standing between our new characters and the attack which leads them to flee through the gate unprepared. The problem is, the human ship, the Hammond, should have destroyed the attacking ships in three seconds flat. Any viewer who recognized the communication device used earlier would know that. So right off they cheat the audience in establishing their desperate situation.

At this point, a bit of a wait and see approach is necessary. There isn't much to the characters yet, though given time that may change. Hopefully though, they will start giving their audience a little more credit. If the writers continue to expect the audience to know Stargate while not knowing it themselves, the series is going to fall flat on its face.

As of episode four, there doesn't really seem to be any improvement on the bad points. Obstacles for the characters have gone from believable to a farce. Yes the ship that's been traveling for hundreds of thousands of years at speeds faster than light is suddenly running out of power. Evidently a little life support and a stargate that can be charged off truck alternators have taxed a power system that must be generating hundreds of terawatts. This is exactly the kind of BS that leads to incredibly bad science fiction.

On the character front, the show is clearly in a lot of trouble. Put simply, there isn't a single one for the audience to actually like. The best characters are simply those who are less annoying than others.

Some people have complained that the series looks too much like the new Battlestar. I kind of thought it sounded like a rip off when the creators were spouting the wonders of their original photography style, but I didn't really care. If it had been done well I wouldn't have minded. Unfortunately it hasn't done it well, and more than anything, the only thing the show is right now is dull. Maybe by episode ten we'll actually meet a bad guy. We'll see if I can hold on that long as a viewer.

Macross Zero (2002–2004)

Macross embraces Disney Voodoo

[4/10 · 29 July 2009]

I've seen a fair bit of Macross, understand the back story, and was looking for some new stuff to watch. I was sorely disappointed. The bag guys they brought in were clichéd and unbelievable, and the central plot descends from a great Sci-Fi story into sub par fantasy.

To understand why the bad guys don't work, you need to know a little about the original series. Alien ship crashes in 1999 ending a global war and uniting the world. Some anti-unification dissidents make a little trouble, and then in 2009 the aliens arrive. This takes place between 1999 and 2009.

With little else to work with, the anti-unification guys get tasked as the main bad guys for this. While Macross is known for variable fighters, here we learn that it was these bad guys that came up with them first. Theirs also seem to be better than the United Earth versions which are just coming out. So without any access to the alien technology on the ship, they have better variable fighters first, that actually work. Right, and what they're not telling us in the real world is that Al Queda was really the first to deploy the F-22 Raptor.

Otherwise the central story revolves around an island with remains of an alien culture that influenced our evolution. This is standard Macross fair, but they manage to take it to ludicrous ends. On this island, singing by the shrine maiden can induce spontaneous high level mutation in nearby life. I can just see the cautionary warnings now. Be sure not to teach the shrine maiden any Britney Spears, it causes cancer. Now music has always played an important part in Macross, but I'll buy it having an emotionally debilitating effect on a group of emotionally sheltered giants long before this makes any sense. In the end this is all to support an unnecessary claim that life on Earth evolved way faster than it should have. It's like the makers saw some of the more clichéd Disney fair of the princess dancing around and singing while the animals rally and decided they needed to throw it in.

It's a real shame, but Macross sequels and spin-offs have been extremely hit and miss. If you want action this is okay, but if you want a logical storyline, stick to the original Super-Dimensional Fortress Macross, and Macross Plus.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Could have been a much better update

[3/10 · 9 July 2009]

Chances are no one will read this review, but I'll still put in my two bits. As many other reviews have stated, the characters are terrible and there isn't a likable one in the bunch. Unfortunately as a science fiction update it suffers terribly as well. The 1953 original was built on a more solid premise, and this film is just laughable by comparison. This is before we consider just how much more we expect out of a sci fi film in 2005.

Right from the outset, the narrator tells us how the aliens had been greedily watching our planet with eyes on its resources. We then find out that the alien tripods had been buried here hundreds or thousands of years ago in preparation for an attack. This begs the question, if they wanted our planet so badly, why did they deliver their military hardware and then wait centuries for us to develop technology with which to fight back? Of course that still leaves the unlikely fact that no one ever found any of the tripods, despite being buried beneath cities that had cropped up over the intervening time. Apparently those utilities and subway systems were never dug quite deep enough.

The aliens themselves are tactically incompetent and the humans fighting them aren't much better. When a human with high powered grenades is hucking them at one, what does it do? Naturally it picks him up and brings him inside its shield where he can actually hurt it. More, their shields don't even protect them (or their feet) from below, not that anyone thought to deploy a field of antitank mines ahead of them.

Even from a cinematic standpoint, the clashes between the humans and the aliens fail. It's all by the numbers, viewed from the periphery. Fifty years earlier the original film managed to create much more exhilarating battle scenes. Here though, the depth of the tooth and nail struggle is lost despite vastly improved special effects.

As far as staying true to the source material, there was a major point they should have changed. The aliens falling to Earth born microbes was ridiculous. Certainly a hundred years ago it was a new and fresh idea, but in the modern world it doesn't make any sense. We didn't go to the moon without quarantining our people for two weeks. The idea that these aliens would even be running their ships without an environmental seal is nuts. Independence Day may have had its faults, but in the modern age, a computer virus is way more plausible.

Impact (2009)

Science Fiction from those certain that Leprechauns are proved fact.

[2/10 · 3 July 2009]

**Possible Spoilers**

I have seen some bad Sci Fi, but if you ever needed a title to show you just how low movie makers could go, this is it. Certain aspects of Armageddon may have been implausible, but it was a masterpiece compared to this mess. They do more than make the scientists stupid to pander to explanations for the audience, they get even the basic science wrong.

Amidst fantastical sequences of flying cars because of the disastrous impact on the moon, we are left to wonder why. Is it just the increased gravity of a moon now twice as heavy as the Earth? Guess not, because only little things are floating away. Is it the magnetic pulse of the brown dwarf fragment in the moon's core? Maybe, but why are bails of hay flying away too? None of this manages to make much sense.

Now let's look at the more normal science. We have a trip to the moon to stop the disaster before it kills everyone. The scientists tell us that the gravity will be twice what it is on Earth, because the moon is now twice as heavy as Earth. That would be true if the moon was the same size as the Earth. Being a quarter of the size, gravity would be stepped up by another factor of sixteen. Our heroes would have been crushed just setting foot on the moon.

Then there was the convenient fact that they'd been planning a trip to the moon anyway. This makes it possible to go there on short notice to solve the problem. Of course no mention is made of the fact that the hardware would have all been designed for the moon's low gravity (1/6 Earth's). Even in the ridiculously low gravity they tell us, the lander would have fallen like a rock and everyone would have died.

Ironically, much of the space agency footage was shot at the University of Victoria in it's engineering buildings. Any one of hundreds of people in and out of that building every day could have told them where they were going wrong. This is high school stuff they couldn't even get right.

This was all just the tip of the ice berg with what was wrong about this movie. From 1100 twenty megaton nukes expected to destroy the moon (not a chance in hell) to the debris floating stationary over the moon forever despite the gravity, this movie is a mess. It's certainly not necessary to overwhelm the audience with scientific facts, but at least make sure you have your concepts right behind the camera.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Could have been better, but could have been much worse!

[7/10 · 1 July 2009]

For the most part, this film is the decent thrill ride that the movie going audience is looking for. As an action moving, it has scenes to astound and thrill any avid fan. As a science fiction movie it stands reasonably well. It doesn't over-explain things and doesn't throw in concepts as central plot points that are blatantly impossible (super novas that threaten entire galaxies, I'm talking about you Star Trek). The movie also does relatively well on a comedic note, and from a standpoint of general plot. Though others have complained about the central importance of Sam's role being unlikely and a retread of the first film, it follows through logically from where the first film left off.

Though the film is a lot of fun, it does have its flaws. Unfortunately the humor descends to the low brow a little too often. Also the Autobot twins that Michael Bay apparently loved so much were frightfully annoying. They did also lean towards offensive cultural stereotypes a little heavily. It is unfortunate because a couple of their funnier lines could have been delivered just as well by completely different characters. In fact they might have been funnier coming from a more straight laced Autobot. The use of the twins in pure Jar Jar Binks fashion (though not quite as irritating) was unfortunate given how many underused robots there were. The comment about Sam's roommate's bravery could have been unexpectedly hilarious coming out of Arcee.

Most of the other glitches in the film were relatively minor and not worth mentioning, though the writers could use a geography lesson. If you enjoy action films and don't need a deeper artistic message, Revenge of the Fallen is well worth the watch.

Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

Sometimes fun, but usually pretty dumb.

[4/10 · 25 May 2009]

Voyager started out very nicely, with a very well realized pilot, but from there it all went down hill. The first season wasn't bad, though it did rely on time travel too much, but then the writers got lazy. Key problems were weak characterization and story lines, a general lack of logic and continuity, and limited knowledge of Trek by the writers themselves.

Voyager should have been an excellent opportunity to explore new territory in an environment where the situation was not ideal, but it was never realized. Although by the first regular episode they were having power problems (though conveniently and stupidly the holodecks ran off incompatible reactors), potential problems were never really dealt with. Battle after battle, the ship could have (and should have) started taking on a beat up Millennium Falcon kind of look. Instead she looked as pristine in the finale as the day she came out of spacedock.

The series offers no genuine character growth. Personality quirks are added to the characters in a hap hazard way purely to serve the plot and are never heard from again. This might be something like the First Officer suddenly developing a passion for early space exploration five seasons in, when it was more in keeping with the helmsman Paris, all because its the First Officer who has the rank to ignore the Captain and get everyone in trouble.

As far as trouble, no scenes get old fast like a Voyager battle scene. Aside from having trouble with simple concepts like space is big and three dimensional, the writers turn the crew into morons. How many times can one ship get thoroughly beaten in combat because its crew can't be bothered to shoot back. They typically wait so long to shoot back that the ship is no longer in any position to defend itself. It gets particularly silly in later seasons when the ship is seriously threatened by shuttlecraft (I kid you not). The writers seemed unwilling to think through a plausible way to put the ship in trouble.

Finally, the writers seemed to have no clue what machines in Trek can do. I know Gene Roddenberry said writers aren't required to read the technical manuals, but at least watch some episodes. When characters are pinned down by a couple guys on a cliff, they should not be calling the ship to ask if they can help with their weapons. Most members of the audience have seen hand phasers vaporize people, so why not just go to a high setting and take out the whole cliff. This is just one example of many lapses of logic resulting from writers who didn't know the material.

With a handful of innovative episodes, Voyager spent most of its time wallowing in the laps of lazy writers. Plots were weak. Characterization was all but nonexistent, and the writers would have us believe two kids and a dog could take the ship.

Star Trek (2009)

Generally fun, but a big dumb movie.

[3/10 · 9 May 2009]

This movie was well cast, but unfortunately not the reboot of the franchise one might have hoped for. It does succeed as an adventure film, keeping the audience entertained, but there isn't much else. Many people have been singing its praises, however, the movie is genuinely unremarkable. As a Star Trek film it fails, with a weak story line that doesn't make much sense within the canon that still needs to be considered. As a Sci Fi film it fails with a plot that falls apart on simple science, let alone major sci fi concepts.

The revenge plot doesn't make a lot of sense from the outset. Our villain Nero is basically upset because Spock and the Federation failed to save Romulus in the late 24th century (100+ years in the future). It seems that a supernova threatened the galaxy, and despite Ambassador Spock's promise, he failed to save Romulus. The problem is, supernovas don't threaten galaxies. They don't expand in an infinite blast wave that wipes out countless star systems. In short, the concept behind the destruction of the planet was ridiculous.

From a Trek standpoint, there is then the question of how the Romulans were presented in this future. You would think that they were a helpless refugee race utterly dependent on the benevolent support of Spock and the Federation to save them. You would never guess that they were a huge Empire with a military rivaling Starfleet. In short, it would be a little like the Russians blaming the US because they were unable to stop the meteor that was going to land on Moscow. It becomes clear that the writing staff didn't bother getting any kind of picture of the state of the Trek universe before their time travel tampering set big changes in motion.

Visually, they obviously had to make many changes to the sets and special effects to update it from the sixties. Unfortunately they made a few too many changes purely in the name of being different. On the lighter side were warp speed effects that tossed twenty-five seasons and four movies of established shots (along with a lack of knowledge of how fast ships had been a century before Kirk). More serious were the engineering sets. Taking the idea of an industrial look to the extreme, one could easily mistake main engineering for a waterworks or a brewery. Aside from the lack of anything that actually looked like an engine (Star Trek style or otherwise), it just didn't make much structural sense.

The movie itself could have been much better. Though some might argue that they didn't need to know much about Trek because it's a reboot, it doesn't take that much to make sure your story holds up, without beating your audience over the head with minutia. Unfortunately the examples which hold the story to canon (gee they mention Cardassians) really don't come across as anything more than an attempt to cover the fact that the writers and director didn't learn much about the core material.

Paramount has shown once again that they are clueless as to why the franchise is dieing. First and foremost you need a coherent (preferably smart) storyline to compliment the characters. Beyond that an attempt to keep track of continuity is useful. Further one should at least try to understand basic science when making a fantastical science fiction film.