Next up... Terminator: Salvation, May 21 2009

if it's done well i don't mind some lecturing

I guess. But, it's sci-fi, so I'm sure I'll end up seeing it anyway.

Moral and ethics messages were mostly verboten in sci-fi until Galaxy Magazine which leaned more towards the sociological sci-fi themes, like "The Demolished Man" which directly takes on the old crime and punishment. Philip K. Dick is the most famous author of sociological sci-fi now but back then it was Fredrick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, their most famous novel being "Gravy Planet," retitled "The Space Merchants" in hard cover. Azimov's Robot series definitely gets into the message of ethics and morals. So did the Foundation series.

If a film scrip handles it correctly, the ethics and moral messages don't seem like a bitter spoonful of medicine. Call it sugar-coated messages, if you want, and it's not always successful. "Gattica" gingerly tight-rope walked over the razor blade ethics and morals of genetic engineering but did it with flair. Earlier, Philip K. Dick's original story "Do Androids Count Electric Sheep" had more moralizing and ethics of producing artificial humans than the movie "Blade Runner," which finally put a heavy rubber stamp on the theme with the "tears in the rain" soliloquy




The moral and ethical message in "Total Recall" was mostly washed over and upstaged by Ahnold's hell-bent-for-leather violent action. But Spielberg got back in the groove with "Minority Report." These all had a dark, foreboding message but not really as potent as "1984" of "Brave New World" (the TV movie kinda stunk, though). Then there was "The 6th Day" where genetic engineering was just the hook for a fairly good action flick, again with The Governator.

BTW, "The War of the Worlds" climax was definitely framed in religious messages in the George Pal version, but just a smidgen at the end (from H. G. Wells, of course) in the Spielberg updated version. The scene where the minister tries to stop the Martians by walking towards the ships reciting Psalm 23:4 and getting creamed in the Pal was a set-up for the ending (the "God has his own ways" rationalization).

You basically had already made the point with this one line but, sorry, I am a chronic elaborater.

HBO just showed a 10 minute segment on TS. Unfortunately it wasn't very impressive.

i hope t salvation is good.

i remember the second one so vividly. the liquid nitrogen scene, the end, the motorcycle chase.. so epic.

back to the future, robocop, terminator, alien..

these are the main scifi movies i remember when i was like 10.

ive seen each of them all over 25 times, thats so bad..

iof salvation sucks OMFG

somone sucks at movies. the latest one was good too. sorta lacking in action IMO. but decent...

good to see some love for gattica, i watched it again the other night, it holds up very well i think

Heads up! There is an early review just now coming up on Lyons and Bailes Reel Talk on CBS:

A compelling continuation of the franchise, a great time with maybe one-too-many explosions, but a good storyline and script taking place in, actually, the near future. Jeffrey Lyons was absorbed and the two main male leads deliver excellent performances, lost track of some of the goings-on in the plot but didn't care.

The tone was that is made the grade for good sci-fi.

Only a few more days. I'm trying not to get my hopes up. It's easier that way

By the way, I just got back from Angels and Demons. It was as boring as the Da Vinci Code, maybe even more so. I would give it a 6.2 on the IMDB scale.

That's about the extent of the reviews so far -- Rotten Tomatoes.com still has no early reviews, so that's kind of a scope for the competitors to ABC's new "At the Movies.

"Angels and Demons" opened to lukewarm reviews for $ 48 million for the weekend. The documentary on History channel is probably, like their repeat "Beyond the Da Vince Code" more entertaining and enlightening than the movie. I just don't believe Ron Howard, who's always been an overrated director in my book, can direct a thriller like, say, Paul Greengrass who directed the last two Bourne films and the fourth coming up. Howard is trying to be to faithful ( to the books instead of constructing a cinematic version, so he's taking the intent of Dan Brown's page-turning airport potboilers and tossing it in the trash barrel (where some people believe it belongs). It's something to wait for on cable if you have some time to pass.

IMDB has TS rated very highly at the moment, but I usually find that the first several thousand votes are bullshit anyway. I tend to agree with most IMDB ratings on movies, but the real numbers don't start to emerge until after the real viewers have started to chime in. And that usually takes a week or two at least.

I'm not sure Dan Brown's books lend themselves to movie conversion easily regardless of how good Ron is at directing. There is just so much detail in the clues of the books that to pack it into a 2hour movie just makes everything seem rushed and incidental.

I'm getting Dejavu as I'm writing this, so I'm guessing that I may have written something very similar back when Da Vinci Code came out

Has anyone seen Alien Trespass? Was it any good? It barely hit any theaters around here.

The user reports are a lot of nut cases claiming that somehow they saw the movie in advance and those who vote completely on a bias for the franchise -- if they all showed up at a studio preview I attended, I'd be trampled. The film critic summation is always better if you stick to the Top Critics which don't have reviews by the Poughkeepsie Daily News. Of course, some of them aren't going to agree with me or you but it's a good gauge if they just pan the crap out of a movie. The borderline, mixed-reviews keeps me from the cineplex but I might catch it on cable. I doubt that I'd rent it on NetFlix or Pay-Per-View, but wait until it's on HBO.

Bummer, I was hoping Alien Trespass would be a good comedy sci-fi romp

I think I'll wait for it on cable.

This is actually a pretty hopeful review. I'm not surprised that Jeffrey Lyons (non-sci-fi geek) might lose track of some of the plot elements. I often find that I pick up on far more plot elements in shows like this viewers who are less familiar with the back story.

I tend to be more attuned to the ideas of the story and to the flow of the plot than to the characters, which may be why I didn't enjoy Star Trek 09 as much as I thought I would.

Early reviews are now coming in -- 75% panning the movie on the average of all periodical film critics and 66% (only three reviews, of course) panning it on the Top Critics page. Hollywood Reporter summation:

Bottom Line: The machines rise to the occasion. Too bad the dramatic element's just as robotic.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terminator_salvation/?critic=creamcrop#contentReviews

i quite liked the first movie, i saw the second, but honestly can't remember what it was about, the only thing that stands out is the morphing terminator, never saw the third, probably won't see this one

Surely this one can't be as mis-directed as T III, which started off hopefully but kept getting sillier and sillier in trying to bring the mythos up to the birth of Skynet. Ahnold was obviously between face lifts and came off as the most cartoonish character in the cast.