A new series that premiered here last weekend.
The show seems to revolve around the idea that all the old Faerie tales were true, and they did happen. But the characters are under a curse and now living in modern times with no memory of their past or the events they were associated with.
It may not sound all that great, especially since I just re-read that above paragraph. But the show seems to have something about it, that kept me interested for the first episode so far.
I like the cast, and at first I thought that this might be more of a kids show. Since it debuted here on a Sunday night. But once the episode was over, I definitely don't think that would be the case. At least for kids younger than their teen years anyway.
The show has its fair share of darkness about it. From creepy characters, to the apparent death of Prince Charming at the hands of the black knights.
So, I am definitely interested to see where this show goes in future episodes. With some of the other new shows I've been watching this fall. There seems to be more interesting on this year than usual.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Real Steel
Real Steel the new big CG Boxing Robot movie with Hugh Jackman made it's launch this weekend.
I can say that I wasn't expecting it too be all that good. The early trailers weren't so hot. And it wasn't until the last month or so that we finally got some trailers that actually made the movie look like it was worth going to.
The movie worked well enough, they tried to have it setup as a father and son movie with the boxing mixed in there.
My biggest problem with the movie, and where the suspension of disbelief failed to take hold was in the world that the movie was set in.
It's supposed to be 2027 if I remember right, and we now have these 10 foot tall 1000 pound robots, that are able to balance, and walk, run and fight without falling down. They are controlled by remote control or voice command. Yet, the world around them seems to be still frozen in the world of today circa 2005.
If you take the robots away, and Jackmans futuristic truck away, then the movie could have walked right out of 1995 even. The world doesn't support the story it's trying to tell.
Especially when they are doing fights for cash, who even has cash these days.. Jackman has this iPhone 15 he uses, and yet they have no way to transfer e-cash or anything else. They still use cash. Even when they got their first League fight they still seem to get paid in a wad of cash (I could understand the underground fights still using cash, but official league fights??)
And these are robots, you would think that the operators would have designed some more moves for them. They aren't restricted to anatomical human movements. And we are never really informed about the rules of the fights. Shouldn't the bigger 'bots be more heavily armored and ridiculously stronger?? And in such, there would be no way a smaller weaker bot is going to beat a bigger 'bot.
Reminds me a Star Trek paradox with their ships. The bigger the ship, the bigger the energy supply. The bigger the energy supply, the stronger the shields and weapons. There is no advantage really to have anything other than the biggest ships.
But Real Steel never bothers to explain any rules of the game to us, he just throws his bots into fights. Which in itself, seems a little ridiculous. We are led to believe he's been around the block a few times. And yet he seems to be repeating the same stupid mistakes time and time again. Which would lead us to believe he was a moron, so I don't know what you'd have to call it. But when the boy is on control he knows what he's doing. Now, I realize that it can be easier to be level when looking at something else. But, he wasn't new at this. It seems to be implied he's been doing this for years. He should have learned by now, especially with Bailey reminding him and learned. Or gone broke been killed long before now.
So, as always it's in the details. And these little details caused me to never quite achieve the level of suspension to fully enjoy the movie. It was a decent movie, but something I could have waited for DVD for. And hopefully we never see a sequel.
If you want to see good movie about a sport, underground fights and the trying to get into the league. Go and rent 'The Blood of Heroes' was a fantastic movie back in the 80s.
2.5 stars out of 5
I can say that I wasn't expecting it too be all that good. The early trailers weren't so hot. And it wasn't until the last month or so that we finally got some trailers that actually made the movie look like it was worth going to.
The movie worked well enough, they tried to have it setup as a father and son movie with the boxing mixed in there.
My biggest problem with the movie, and where the suspension of disbelief failed to take hold was in the world that the movie was set in.
It's supposed to be 2027 if I remember right, and we now have these 10 foot tall 1000 pound robots, that are able to balance, and walk, run and fight without falling down. They are controlled by remote control or voice command. Yet, the world around them seems to be still frozen in the world of today circa 2005.
If you take the robots away, and Jackmans futuristic truck away, then the movie could have walked right out of 1995 even. The world doesn't support the story it's trying to tell.
Especially when they are doing fights for cash, who even has cash these days.. Jackman has this iPhone 15 he uses, and yet they have no way to transfer e-cash or anything else. They still use cash. Even when they got their first League fight they still seem to get paid in a wad of cash (I could understand the underground fights still using cash, but official league fights??)
And these are robots, you would think that the operators would have designed some more moves for them. They aren't restricted to anatomical human movements. And we are never really informed about the rules of the fights. Shouldn't the bigger 'bots be more heavily armored and ridiculously stronger?? And in such, there would be no way a smaller weaker bot is going to beat a bigger 'bot.
Reminds me a Star Trek paradox with their ships. The bigger the ship, the bigger the energy supply. The bigger the energy supply, the stronger the shields and weapons. There is no advantage really to have anything other than the biggest ships.
But Real Steel never bothers to explain any rules of the game to us, he just throws his bots into fights. Which in itself, seems a little ridiculous. We are led to believe he's been around the block a few times. And yet he seems to be repeating the same stupid mistakes time and time again. Which would lead us to believe he was a moron, so I don't know what you'd have to call it. But when the boy is on control he knows what he's doing. Now, I realize that it can be easier to be level when looking at something else. But, he wasn't new at this. It seems to be implied he's been doing this for years. He should have learned by now, especially with Bailey reminding him and learned. Or gone broke been killed long before now.
So, as always it's in the details. And these little details caused me to never quite achieve the level of suspension to fully enjoy the movie. It was a decent movie, but something I could have waited for DVD for. And hopefully we never see a sequel.
If you want to see good movie about a sport, underground fights and the trying to get into the league. Go and rent 'The Blood of Heroes' was a fantastic movie back in the 80s.
2.5 stars out of 5
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Terra Nova
The new TV series that started last week with a two hour series premiere. Spielbergs next stab at the Jurassic Park franchise shall we say without going back to the movie series that is slowly being run into the ground, arguably since the original. Being that JP2 didn't have a lot of redeeming qualities to it.
Anyway, now we seem to be 140 odd years into the future, and the surface of the earth is becoming unlivable due to what seems to be pollution and overpopulation. Now, a time machine has been invented based around some kind of temporal rift, and they now choose groups that will go back to 85 million years in the past to start a new colony of man. I kind of had a flashback to the original Battlestar Galactica as I wrote that. But anyway, at this point the whole thing doesn't sound very interesting to me.
We discover throughout the two hours that there is a split between the colonists that have been going back. We have what we could call, the loyalists and the Sixers. The Sixers have split off to form their own group, and seem to be operating at this point as raiders and bandits. And have some spies in the camp of the loyalists.
Few other points we discover is that the son of the camp commander is missing in the wild, and that there is a waterfall 'Zone' that is off limits that has some strange writing, that may or may not have anything to do with this missing son. I should mention, that smartly one of the characters points out that they aren't really in the past, but apparently some alternate dimension of Earth. Or else anything they do could alter the future. And by the end of the two hours we find out that this may not be true..
Now that is the most interesting aspect of the whole thing for me. They think they are in an alternate Earths past.. But if they really aren't, than I look forward to seeing the repercussions in the future. With them not being able to get resupplied, or more people. Or even what may be sent back that they don't expect because of the changes. Because other than that I don't find this show to be all that interesting, but for the new Dino of the week. And I should mention it's established that once you go back you cannot return to the future. It's a one way trip.
Not, it's only been two episodes, shown together as a movie type thing. And I'm willing to give it a season to see how it goes. But, if this thing is really as expensive as I've read (Most expensive TV Pilot ever made) than will anyone else?? In this day and age where shows get canned after a few episodes if the ratings are low.. But then the cost may work for them in this case. With so much invested the suits may not want to pull the plug if they can wring a buck out of it.
In the end I will throw out a prediction, they should have used the basic premise of moving a colony back in time to the Dino Era as a reboot of the movies. And went from there. I don't see this as much of a TV show, but Stargate or Sanctuary with Dinosaurs in place of the Go'Auld or Monsters every week and some different trappings. But I guess most shows are like that, you just change the backgrounds and rename the monsters.
Oh, and props to the offhand remarks about getting used the past atmosphere being so high in oxygen. They could have been referring to their present being so bad. But I know I saw this is a documentary somewhere. That the Oxygen levels were so high then that it would have been a problem for Humans adapted to our present. And one reason why we don't have such large creatures or giant Insects anymore.
Anyway, now we seem to be 140 odd years into the future, and the surface of the earth is becoming unlivable due to what seems to be pollution and overpopulation. Now, a time machine has been invented based around some kind of temporal rift, and they now choose groups that will go back to 85 million years in the past to start a new colony of man. I kind of had a flashback to the original Battlestar Galactica as I wrote that. But anyway, at this point the whole thing doesn't sound very interesting to me.
We discover throughout the two hours that there is a split between the colonists that have been going back. We have what we could call, the loyalists and the Sixers. The Sixers have split off to form their own group, and seem to be operating at this point as raiders and bandits. And have some spies in the camp of the loyalists.
Few other points we discover is that the son of the camp commander is missing in the wild, and that there is a waterfall 'Zone' that is off limits that has some strange writing, that may or may not have anything to do with this missing son. I should mention, that smartly one of the characters points out that they aren't really in the past, but apparently some alternate dimension of Earth. Or else anything they do could alter the future. And by the end of the two hours we find out that this may not be true..
Now that is the most interesting aspect of the whole thing for me. They think they are in an alternate Earths past.. But if they really aren't, than I look forward to seeing the repercussions in the future. With them not being able to get resupplied, or more people. Or even what may be sent back that they don't expect because of the changes. Because other than that I don't find this show to be all that interesting, but for the new Dino of the week. And I should mention it's established that once you go back you cannot return to the future. It's a one way trip.
Not, it's only been two episodes, shown together as a movie type thing. And I'm willing to give it a season to see how it goes. But, if this thing is really as expensive as I've read (Most expensive TV Pilot ever made) than will anyone else?? In this day and age where shows get canned after a few episodes if the ratings are low.. But then the cost may work for them in this case. With so much invested the suits may not want to pull the plug if they can wring a buck out of it.
In the end I will throw out a prediction, they should have used the basic premise of moving a colony back in time to the Dino Era as a reboot of the movies. And went from there. I don't see this as much of a TV show, but Stargate or Sanctuary with Dinosaurs in place of the Go'Auld or Monsters every week and some different trappings. But I guess most shows are like that, you just change the backgrounds and rename the monsters.
Oh, and props to the offhand remarks about getting used the past atmosphere being so high in oxygen. They could have been referring to their present being so bad. But I know I saw this is a documentary somewhere. That the Oxygen levels were so high then that it would have been a problem for Humans adapted to our present. And one reason why we don't have such large creatures or giant Insects anymore.
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