Turambar-3
Joined Feb 2001
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Reviews16
Turambar-3's rating
I'm sure there are some people who will be convinced this movie contains some sort of hidden truths, but I'm not. There's almost no plot, not much dialogue and we learn very little about the characters - worse, we don't care about any of them anyway.
What little plot there is, as it turns out, ends up with several big holes in it. The ending takes place in the last 5 minutes, because the writer obviously just ran out of ideas (or paper). It's trudge, trudge, trudge for 75 minutes, then a disappointing ending so devoid of anything useful that the viewer just ends up with nothing. If someone had suggested to me that this movie might end this way, I'd think he was kidding.
This movie was showing on HBO one Sunday against all of the infomercials, and I got curious. I thought it might be a fun little action flick, but an old Jackie Chan movie would have been a hundred times more entertaining.
What little plot there is, as it turns out, ends up with several big holes in it. The ending takes place in the last 5 minutes, because the writer obviously just ran out of ideas (or paper). It's trudge, trudge, trudge for 75 minutes, then a disappointing ending so devoid of anything useful that the viewer just ends up with nothing. If someone had suggested to me that this movie might end this way, I'd think he was kidding.
This movie was showing on HBO one Sunday against all of the infomercials, and I got curious. I thought it might be a fun little action flick, but an old Jackie Chan movie would have been a hundred times more entertaining.
The first things I noticed about this series, of course, were the good acting and great CG effects. Then the funny stuff started happening - contemporary clothing and cars over forty years in the future, astronauts who wouldn't have made it past a preliminary interview, trite dialogue, made-up technical details like faster-than-light instant communication from Venus, and General-Hospital plots.
I feel badly for everybody involved with this series other than James Parriott. The people and the sets are very pretty. The music cues us to laugh when the comic relief arrives. We get long music videos twice an episode. For the most part sexual innuendo is completely skipped because it's too subtle - the characters talk constantly about sex because the writers don't know what else astronauts would talk about. The editors gave us lots of long, pregnant moments to give us time to consider the incredible implications of every emotionally charged moment. We're even given lots of "Let's do this" and "when you do this thing that we do" dialogue to remind us that we're watching true heroes, in case we've forgotten. And every episode ends with an honest-to-god "You see, Timmy..." eternal lifetruth.
Admittedly, the plot holes are sometimes pretty large, but that's normal for TV, right?
The whole problem here is that audiences are sometimes too smart. This series should be a rich emotional and philosophical stew but it's really a bowl of thin watery gruel. The "Grey's Anatomy" female demographic doesn't get enough to satisfy, and the sci-fi crowd gets what's left over after the bowl has been licked clean. Without women and sci-fi fans there weren't enough people left to watch this series, and that's too bad for everybody. It's especially bad for anybody who wants to make a sci-fi series for a major network in the near future, because this one will make it tough.
There's a quote from James Parriott that I think is worth including here. "I was reading in The New Yorker how stock market swings follow Pi, the fractal equation. And that's sort of a scary thing, that it just moves. You can plot the right dips and curves that it does indeed move fractally, and that just blows me away. There's just tons of stuff we don't know."
This quote explained loads to me. The problem is that Parriott didn't understand what he was reading, and he got it completely garbled, *and then, being a TV guy, he based a new TV series on his garbled version of what he thought he'd read.* Oh no.
Now, for those who haven't seen Parriott's reveal of where the series would have gone next season, I'll summarize (and no, I'm not making this up):
There's some good news about all of this that means a lot to me, even though it probably won't mean much to most people. This series has cured me of television for a while. And, as the script writers say, that's a Good Thing.
I feel badly for everybody involved with this series other than James Parriott. The people and the sets are very pretty. The music cues us to laugh when the comic relief arrives. We get long music videos twice an episode. For the most part sexual innuendo is completely skipped because it's too subtle - the characters talk constantly about sex because the writers don't know what else astronauts would talk about. The editors gave us lots of long, pregnant moments to give us time to consider the incredible implications of every emotionally charged moment. We're even given lots of "Let's do this" and "when you do this thing that we do" dialogue to remind us that we're watching true heroes, in case we've forgotten. And every episode ends with an honest-to-god "You see, Timmy..." eternal lifetruth.
Admittedly, the plot holes are sometimes pretty large, but that's normal for TV, right?
The whole problem here is that audiences are sometimes too smart. This series should be a rich emotional and philosophical stew but it's really a bowl of thin watery gruel. The "Grey's Anatomy" female demographic doesn't get enough to satisfy, and the sci-fi crowd gets what's left over after the bowl has been licked clean. Without women and sci-fi fans there weren't enough people left to watch this series, and that's too bad for everybody. It's especially bad for anybody who wants to make a sci-fi series for a major network in the near future, because this one will make it tough.
There's a quote from James Parriott that I think is worth including here. "I was reading in The New Yorker how stock market swings follow Pi, the fractal equation. And that's sort of a scary thing, that it just moves. You can plot the right dips and curves that it does indeed move fractally, and that just blows me away. There's just tons of stuff we don't know."
This quote explained loads to me. The problem is that Parriott didn't understand what he was reading, and he got it completely garbled, *and then, being a TV guy, he based a new TV series on his garbled version of what he thought he'd read.* Oh no.
Now, for those who haven't seen Parriott's reveal of where the series would have gone next season, I'll summarize (and no, I'm not making this up):
- Nadia turns into a man. - Donner's vasectomy reverses itself for the second time, so does Zoe's hysterectomy, and he gets her pregnant. - Wassenfelder becomes autistic, making him extra, extra smart, because everybody knows autistic guys are extra, extra smart. - Arnel loses his leg in training, forcing them(?) to recall Zoe. - Jen is forced to kill her bunny in order to have the guilt necessary to see the "fractal objects". - Eve realizes she's supposed to be on the ship, so they put her on a "resupply mission". - Rollie goes to jail again, but when it's necessary to get Eve to Mars Rollie leaves town in a big way. - Goss realizes the "fractal objects" made him a bad guy. - We never find out what the "fractal objects" are, or in fact, what makes them "fractal objects", because frankly, I'm a math guy, and I didn't see no "fractal objects". - Sharon and Walker may still be alive on Mars, but that wasn't completely decided.
There's some good news about all of this that means a lot to me, even though it probably won't mean much to most people. This series has cured me of television for a while. And, as the script writers say, that's a Good Thing.
The premise of this show, just the idea of a 70's cop show, has huge potential. It's one of those ideas that a bunch of people in Hollywood will come up with all at once in a wave, just because the 70's are such low-hanging TV fruit. Unfortunately, the idea that was chosen is a lame one to begin with, "I woke up in the 1970's! Not sure why!" "Life On Mars" also has some very good actors. That's why it's painful watching them, as I write this comment, woodenly coughing out really, truly terrible, formulaic, banal, boring and predictable lines to a raucous backdrop of equally-formulaic 70's-era hits and flame-filled non-sensical explosions. For the past hour Sam has roamed the episode constantly dropping clever bon mots from 2008 and modern-style cop puns so that we won't forget even for a second that he's from the superior future. The writers don't miss a single moment to cram it down our throats that we're in the 70's now. I've seen every LOM so far; I held on and hoped for the best, but tonight I finally reached my disgust threshold.
"Life On Mars" has everything it needs going for it except sufficient cleverness. "Lost", the show that comes on (for me) before it, is so well-written that one can suspend disbelief while an entire island (replete with ghosts, no less) disappears and skips around the Indian Ocean. "Life On Mars" has a far more down-to-Earth plot, but it needs a miracle at least as big as Lost's sapient island to make it work.
"Life On Mars" has everything it needs going for it except sufficient cleverness. "Lost", the show that comes on (for me) before it, is so well-written that one can suspend disbelief while an entire island (replete with ghosts, no less) disappears and skips around the Indian Ocean. "Life On Mars" has a far more down-to-Earth plot, but it needs a miracle at least as big as Lost's sapient island to make it work.