In some future Mickey decides that he is better off away from earth. He volunteers for quite an odd function. He will be a tester in some space colony and after every test he will be dead and reprinted.
The idea itself is already not too interesting and it also is not worked out too way. Of course it can be used to make jokes and add some drama, but the story develops in quite a predictable way. The result is unconvincing.
Only when i was reviewing the latest “Tron” did I learn that there was another film, series too, computer games, animation. This 2010 version is not of the least director either.
“Tron: Legacy” is the least of the three (1982, 2025 and 2010), but still an enjoyable movie. This time the son of the creator of “the grid” accidentally ends up in that grid himself. What starts as a common action film, then becomes a more interesting computer game science-fiction film with 1980’ies music, like its counterparts. Also recognisable elements such as the motorcycles, the rings on the backs, etc.
The latest “Tron” film has a few elements that make more sense when you saw this 2010 film first, so I would advice to watch them in the order they came out.
I remember liking the original, but apparently I do not remember much of it. I had to get into “Tron: Ares”, but I highly enjoyed it once I did.
We watch the battle between two computer game giants, one of which built a “grid” that is protected by the application Ares. I mostly had to get used to the applications being portrayed as people.
The son of the family behind one of the companies, has the power he wields rise to his head. A sort of 3D printing technique was created to put things in the software and the other way around, pieces from the software in the real world.
Ares starts to rebel against his creator and while given the order to find a woman from the other camp who found some super-code, he concocts his own plan.
The result is quite the scifi spectacle, but most interesting are the (1980’ies) computer like environments and the music giving a vibe of the same era. And indeed, when you know the original, you will see many references. Perhaps I will watch the old one again some time. That one I rated four starts in 2011. This time I come to the same rating.
1950’ies New Mexico. The whole of the small town is at a basketball game. Everybody, but Fay who mans the telephone switchboard, and Everett who hosts his weekly radio show.
A strange sound is heard and Everett asks his listeners. Two callers have more information and Fay and Everett set out to investigate. Something is in the sky over the town and it is not the first time that there are visitors.
An alright drama.
In 2024 two “Alien” films have been released. There is also “Alien: Rubicon” (Adrian Avila).
I was a bit disappointed that there is no Sigourny here, but I now see that she was also already not in Jeunet’s version of 2017. The story remains roughly the same though.
Some youngsters work in a mining colony basically as slaves. They find an abandonned spaceship nearby and fly up to use it to fly to better worlds. Needless to say that they run into parasitic aliens.
The film is not boring, but neither is it very interesting.
The death of an actor can be a reason to look up a film. Michael Madsen passed away, so last weekend we watched “Die Another Day” and “Species”. Madsen played in a lot of film with very low IMDb ratings, “Species” is rated 5.9. I may have seen it before.
In a laboratorium an alien is bred who is human-looking. When it proves to be dangerous, the child-like-looking alien is about to be gassed, but she gets away. Growing quickly, the alien soon is a sexy full grown woman looking to create offspring.
A bit of action, a bit of thriller, sex scenes as they were always in movies of these days. Quite a stack of actors too, such as Ben Kingsley and Forest Witaker (in a weak role). Not a great film. The IMDb rating is even a bit high.
A scifi series that made it to three seasons, 39 episodes and then suddenly stops with a couple of very loose ends. It was either cut abruptly or there are still plans for a new season.
A group of people wakes up in a spaceship with no recollection how they got there. It appears that their memories have been erased and they have been put into “stasis”. Naming each other in the order in which they woke up (“one”, “two”, etc.) the people, for better or worse, decide to team up and find out what happened.
Learning tiny bits about their pasts, trust-issues come and go. Also their past as the crew of the Raza, the ship they woke up on, catches up. This is the basis of a massive series of events in which the crew became better people than they used to be, built trust, friendship, occasionally help people, etc. The crew grows and shrinks, new characters and story lines are introduced and as the series go on, their are also ‘stand alone episodes’.
All in all the series are alright with better and poorer episodes.
A year after a family’s daughter has died, tensions rise when strange lights appear and more people disappear.
“Dark Encounter” is a fairly dramatic science-fiction thriller with a fairly dull story.
Between 2021, when I reviewed “Daleks’ Invasion Earth” and now, we started to watch the second incarnation of the BBC series. I still have not figured out what the whole ‘Dr. Who universe’ looks like. There were BBC series between 1963 and 1989 (!). In the meantime several films were made. The series were recreated in 2005 and Wikipedia and IMDb.com do not have an ‘end year’, so I guess the series are still running. There are also movies called “Doctor Who”, there appear to be other series, spin-offs and what not.
The present title was released a year before “Daleks’ Invasion” and is from the same director with the same actor for Dr. Who. I remember the 1966 film to be quite amusing, this 1965 is somewhat amusing, but looks a bit dated.
In the 1965 movie, Dr. Who just created his Tardis and when he wants to demonstrate it, he lands on a desolate planet which proves to be inhabited by both Daleks and “the thals”. We learn that Daleks are creatures that created their robot costumes to prevent themselves from self-inflicted radiation.
With some minor adventures, Dr. Who and three others save the thals from the Daleks.
The stages look good, the acting reminds a bit of old time family television.
There have been many Star Trek spin-offs. I do not really follow them. When looking for a bit of a quiet series to watch, I gave this one a try. This spin-off -of course- has Patrick Steward return to the Star Trek franchise.
There are three seasons with a variety of stories. Picard has retired and lives on a wine farm. We are in some time in the future in which several of the kinds of beings that we know from earlier Star Trek material coexist. Usually picard is asked for help, he has to talk his way back into Starfleet to obtain a ship, is confronted by missteps in his past, but manages to go on his mission.
There are references to earlier Star Trek films (and series?), old characters return and in a way “Star Trek: Picard” is a bit of a reunion.
There is more action than I remember in other Star Trek material that I know. The series are fairly predictable, but alright watching.