Trying Something New...Continued

Prologue

Day 27

We have landed on Gamma Prime - Thomas' named it that because it was the biggest planet in the sector.  Official records will refer to the planet as Gamma 4.  

The sky here is purple.  We suspect this has something to do with the molecules in the air but we have been unable to confirm that.  Though the ship's sensors verified the atmosphere was non-toxic and breathable prior to our exiting, it was unable to identify seventy-two of the seventy-eight components that made up the atmosphere - Earth's atmosphere has only four main components.  

Artimus, our navicomputer, has advised us that our orders have allocated ten days to explore and sample this world.  Thomas and I are eager to begin.  

Maybe we've found our next Eden!

N. Velvet


Day 32

This planet is nothing like I've ever seen.  We've been here five days now and as yet we have only explored roughly 1/100th of the continent where the ship landed.  

Thus far we have discovered and cataloged over 400 species of flora and fauna of all variety.  The largest animals we've observed are herbivores that would be best described as a ferret mixed with a beaver but scaly like a snake.  Thomas believes the evolution of this planet is still millions of years too early for any large mammals or sentient creatures, but I'm not so sure.

I saw something last night.  Something that appeared to be walking upright in the woods.  Thomas said it was the plants moving in the breeze, but I know what I saw.

Thomas says that when we leave we will need to take a multi-orbit trajectory out of the system in order to survey what we can on the surface of the planet.  

I don't want to leave.  

To hell with the mission.  The scientific discoveries awaiting us here are immeasurable.  

N. Velvet


Day 34

I have switched on my DigiMem voice and optical recording devices for today's log entry.

We are sleeping inside the ship tonight.  Last night something, an animal or several of them, trampled through our camp destroying numerous samples and pieces of equipment.

I don't think it was an animal.  I think it was whatever I saw walking through the trees.

BANG

Thomas, was that you?

BANG BANG BANG

Oh my god, I think there's something trying to get inside the ship.  I'm going to turn on the exterior lights and check the monitors.  

What...what the hell is that!  Thomas, get up here.

Thomas, do you see this?  That thing...that thing has hair, it's walking upright.  Wait...did it just look at the camera?  Holy shit, it did.  That fucking thing is sentient. 

We have to go out there, we have to try and communicate with it.

Movie Review: Interstellar

The world is dying. Humanity, in its splendor and ignorance, has finally driven the planet past the breaking point.

During the 1930s in America the people of the southwest experienced a Dust Bowl; a multi-year drought which created massive dust storms that killed the agricultural abilities of that region. 

When we meet the main characters of Interstellar: Cooper, Murph, Tom & Donald, it is a dark time for crop production.  Virtually all cash crops have been made extinct by the blight and now all that humanity has left is corn.  Cooper (Mathew McConaughey) is an engineer/pilot/genius turned farmer and he and his family have made the tough decision to stick it out and keep producing corn in an attempt to continue feeding the world.

The first part of the movie sets the tone for why humanity needs to act as desperately as they appear to do later in the film.  The director, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) does an excellent job of maintaining the human element throughout the movie.  Far too often the audience has the need for an emotional connection to the characters thrust at us at some point in the film and then the idea is abandoned and it is simply expected that it will continue to exist.  Like a sapling dropped in the ground, loosely covered in soil and given no water or nourishment; it will not grow.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Let’s talk about the story.  NASA has detected a wormhole in the space around Saturn.  Prior to this story’s beginning they sent twelve individual manned missions through the portal to land on and explore the planets that had been discovered.  If the world was found to be habitable and of good quality the explorers were to report back and NASA would begin the process of sending the rest of our race to follow after them.  Cooper and his daughter Murph come upon the installation NASA is running this operation from in secret. 

Despite the long runtime, 169 minutes, there is not much dilly-dallying.  From the point where Cooper finds NASA to when he is on a spaceship heading into the unknown is roughly eight minutes of screen time.  It was as if Nolan was saying to the director of Armageddon, “I could have done your movie…better…an in about a quarter of the time”.

Let’s talk physics.  Christopher and his brother Jonathan Nolan, whom have partnered on several script writing undertakings in the past: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Memento, and it is clear that these brothers know their physics.  Far too often in science fiction films that are supposed to be based in reality the impossible is set as merely a tiny hurdle to be jumped (I’m looking at you Gravity!).  But Interstellar uses actual science to discuss potential risks and dangers involved in the mission.  For example: when visiting the first planet after coming through the wormhole the team must decide how to approach the planet, which is incredibly close to a black hole, because the closer they pass by the anomaly the more slowly time will move for them.  Because the planet is so close to a black hole time operates differently; an hour on the planet is seven years of real time.  This is both totally fucked up and cool at the same time. 

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Often times with science fiction movies that involve present day humans there is a tendency to use the “everything that could possibly go wrong will go wrong” mentality; a good example of this would be Mission to Mars.  Interstellar doesn’t do this.  Sure things go wrong and sure there are problems to add drama to the film but they are more believable because they are not so damned predictable. 

There are portions of the movie that you just have to take on faith.  Faith that Nolan will explain himself and his vision at some point.  Like how when a dust storm kicks up and Murph forgets to close her window so her room is covered with dust.  The dust coalesces into lines which spell out coordinates in binary…which Cooper realizes and identifies.  This isn’t TOTALLY insane since Cooper has already been portrayed to be exceedingly smart and inquisitive, but it’s a bit of a stretch for the audience.

At times movies can be either ruined or significantly enhanced by their score; movies like Gladiator and Star Wars are examples of the latter.   Interstellar has a score that completely draws you into the story.  The moments of tenderness are soft and inviting and the moments of pure adrenaline driving intensity are represented by roaring crescendos that will drop your jaw without you even realizing it.

Nolan has proven himself to be an outstanding creator and he did not let us down with Interstellar.  You don’t have to be a fan of sci-fi to enjoy this movie; because in truth it’s not a science fiction movie.  What occurs is rooted in fact or theory…with a little bit of imagination added to it. 

If you missed this in the theater I feel for you, but make sure you catch this as soon as possible!

As always, thanks for reading!

Late to the Party: A Review of Fringe

I just finished the final episode of Fox's Sci-Fi thriller: Fringe. And if I had to sum it up in two words I would use: Rushed & Anti-climactic.

I realize I came late to the party on this show, as I am prone to do in this day in age as a man without DVR, Netflix is my best friend.  Doing so allowed me to watch Five Seasons in a matter of weeks (late at night a couple episodes at a time).  

Fringe sucked me in, as I'm sure it did many sci-Fi addict, with its cool X-Files type weirdness and Government conspiracy intrigue. But I knew the show was in trouble at the beginning of Season Two. I nearly gave up and quit watching because the storytelling and acting degraded so much from Season One.

To use a drug metaphor, incorrectly probably since I'm not a drug user and never have been, Season One was like that first hit and Season Two was the second hit you take just as you're coming down and it's not nearly as good.

It was clear that there was an over-arching story involved, something that everything was building towards, but it was so overt that the random, aside episodes, seemed tedious and almost haphazardly shoved into the rotation. 

For example: some HUGE piece of information would come out in an episode and the next ep would seem to infer that whatever had happened wasn't important because no one was talking about it.

Season Four practically required a masters degree in physics to follow since it was bouncing around from timeline to timeline and inter-dimensional exchanges of characters, etc.

I feel like in the vacuum left by LOST networks tried to grab hold of that audience who were sucked into a sci-fi show without even realizing it. Fringe was no different and Season Five finally unveiled the big plot: the Onservers had come to conquer us.

The problem with that story route is that its too predictable for American Tv. There was NO POSSIBLE WAY the good guys weren't going to win. Sure, some people died along the way and it was sad, but you knew they were going to pull it out.

X-files never really fulfilled its promise of Aliens. Not till the movie. LOST ended in a way people didn't understand (unless you'd been paying attention) and Fringe tried hard to be great and fell just a bit short.

I don't slight them for trying and I suspect uninspiring ratings continually threatened the stability of the shows story integrity: never knowing if you'll ever get to finish your overall plot is a scary thing, just ask Firefly fans.

Fringe stands alone, separate from shows like X-Files because it dared to reach beyond what people could perceive as possible and I applaud it for that.

If you've not seen the show, it's worth a watch. But know that you'll have to stomach some annoying episodes along the way. But if you watched Battlestar Galactica all the way through, you're already used to that.

SGU Review Spectacular!

As I tweeted recently (as I'm sure you are all avid followers of my twitter account @RealJacobQuinn) I finished watching the entire series of Stargate: SGU a week or so back and since I am attempting to word out a writers block on a script what better time to launch into my review of the series.

Let's talk about about Stargate, since I'm sure there are at least a couple of you that clicked into this without really knowing what you were getting into. Stargate started as a less-than-spectacularly received feature film staring Kurt Russel and James Spader with Rolland Emmerich directing. The plot of the film is simple enough; technology unlike any the world had ever seen was unearthed at a dig site in Egypt in the early 1920's. Of course it's an American archeological team and of course the government takes it and hides it away. After decades they get far enough to realize that it's a device that can potentially open a wormhole to another planet, solar system, galaxy, universe...dimension? The possibilities are endless.

James Spader's character is a down-on-his-luck scientist who has a valuable understanding of ancient Egypt. He's approached to work on the project to help them read and translate the symbols on the gate. It takes Spader's character to get them there. In the end they open a wormhole, go through to a planet that is reminiscent of our Egypt. They fight an alien creature who had possessed a native of that planet and end up destroying his ship; thus freeing the locals. Spader stays behind to live with the woman he's come to love. He buries the stargate on his end and the American program is "shut down".

We then move on to Stargate SG1 where we learn that there are stargates all over the galaxy and each can be "dialed" using various combinations of the 36 symbols on the stargate. It takes 7 symbols to dial another planet, 8 to dial another galaxy and 9 to dial an unknown address hidden in the gate by The Ancients.

Enter, Stargate SGU.

Much like the original Stargate film, SGU involves a young, brilliant (unwittingly and uselessly) slacker named Eli Wallave, who discovers the 9th symbol needed to dial Destiny, The Ancients vessel of discovery. In an obvious attempt to be hip the show uses gaming as the seed through which the 9th symbol is discovered. The villain turned hero (sortofnotreallykindabutstillnotreally) is Dr. Rush played by Robert Carlyle; by far the most accomplished and well known actor of the cast.

The inaugural episode is filled with frontwards and backwards jump cuts in time setting up the events that transpired to get them to the ship. Once there they are forced to deal with two facts: the ship, being incredibly ancient is on the verge of falling apart at any moment and is unable to truly support the amount of people currently residing within her and the fact that they are billions upon billions of light years from Earth. Now you're probably wondering, "how can this show be any good when none of the original cast of SG1 is involved and they're just stuck on this old ship with no possible help from earth?" Nifty trick...they have these stones which allow people to transfer their consciousness into someone else's body, regardless of distance (or the fact that they're traveling at Faster than Light speed).

Besides some of the obvious plot holes and "quick fix" writer's tricks to try and get around some of the potential pit-falls that exist in so many sci-fi series, Stargate Universe (SGU) is a pretty solid show. Once they got past the constant, "we're all going to die at any moment because we have no food or the ship is flying into a star" type story lines they really opened up the potential for what this show could really be. They dip into the idea of "seed ships" which were sent ahead of Destiny by The Ancients to plant stargates on any viable world to work as a stopping points to replenish stores of food, water, etc. along the way as Destiny made it's hundred thousand year journey.

I feel compelled at this point to say that, I really did enjoy this show. It's fun and engaging and overall very entertaining. Can't ask for much more than that in series, but there are a lot of short-comings that invariably distract from the enjoyment of the show. Such as; a plot line of several episodes involving aliens who kidnap a member of the crew and alter her. They play that part of the story out, but they end up just jumping galaxies as the ship leaves one for the next, leaving those aliens behind. One alien race is traded for another, this one is mechanized drones programed by a long-extinct race to destroy any technology foreign to their own.

There are several very cool time-travel related episodes. One, for instance, involves the entire crew being cast thousands of years into the past when they think they've discovered a way to dial home using the power of a star to amp-up the gate, but a solar flare sends them astray. Their "other selves" found a colony on the planet and that small colony thrives into a society that spans generations. Leaving behind an amazing history behind, which many of the crew watches and sees their "other selves" living full lives filled with pain, suffering, love, friendship, family and amazing accomplishments.

It's through this and many other episodes that you, as the viewer, really begin to like and connect with the characters; not something common for me. As the series wound down the crew was faced with an impossible situation: the drones were bent on Destiny's destruction and had staked a foothold in every solar system with a star that was viable for Destiny to use to recharge it's batteries. So they decide to go into a hypersleep state and make the long jump to the next galaxy. But they're desperately low on power and if they're calculations are off by even a decimal they will run out of power in the void between galaxies and drift for a thousand years.

The final episode is a touching memorial of the main cast preparing to to into their sleep chambers and await the future they may never see (much like the show itself which was cancelled after just two short seasons and a total of 40 episodes). Tragically leaving so much unknown and unexplored, but that's what fanfic is for...right?

Like almost any show SGU could have been better in certain ways. I didn't appreciate they annoyingly predictable situations where the ship was either going to blow up or they were all going to die from lack of food or air or flying into a star (all plot lines from various episodes). Because they were boring and predictable. It was a nice change of pace to see characters actually die (since it almost never really happens) though I don't want to give them too much credit, it's none of the real main characters.

I would have liked to see what the team could have done with a third season. The ship, itself, is never really explored due to a lack of hull integrity and sheer size. They uncover random pieces of ancient technology that never really gets any screen time. It's things like that that disappointment me. Potential, wasted either due to a lack of vision or time.

Overall I would grade Stargate Universe - SGU a solid B+ for interesting plots, solid stories and overall concept. It would have been an A if it didn't have so many of the small negative points against it.

I hope you all enjoyed this review of the SGU television series.

Tb