lost in space

Direct Beam Comms #123

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVApril 15, 2018April 14, 2018

TV

The Lost in Space franchise has been around longer than the Star Trek franchise, yet while there’s been more than 700 episodes of Star Trek on TV and 13 movies in the last 50 years, with Lost in Space there was only the original 93 episodes of TV that ended in 1968 and one poorly received film in 1998. But the original concept behind the series is even older. It’s based on the novel Swiss Family Robinson from 1812 about a family marooned on an island after a shipwreck which was almost certainly inspired by the even earlier story Robinson Crusoe from 1719.

Lost in Space has been gone so long that there are a few generations of people who’ve grown up without it, and their only connection to the material is the series’ catch phrase, “Danger, Will Robinson!” I know I’ve only ever seen a smattering of classic Lost in Space episodes as I don’t ever remember it rerunning in my area when I was a kid.

While there hasn’t been much Lost in Space since that 1998 movie that starred William Hurt, Mimi Rogers and Gary Oldman there was an attempt to reboot Lost in Space on The WB in 2004 that would have starred Adrianne Palicki (currently starring in The Orville) as Judy Robinson. But that series never got any further than a single pilot episode and was never brought to series.

But now, 50 years after the original 1960s series ended comes a new Netflix version of Lost in Space. Starting Molly Parker and Toby Stephens as Maureen and John Robinson, the duo along with their three kids are part of an evacuation of the Earth after it was hit by a comet causing an ecological disaster. But instead of ending up where they were supposed to be the Robinsons were separated from the rest of their colonists when their ship the “Jupiter 2” crash landed on an uncharted planet. This planet is full of wonders and dangers as the family must overcome obstacle after obstacle in order to survive even their first day lost in space.

I enjoyed this new Lost in Space if there was a bit too much, erm, danger going on in the first episode for my taste. If it’s not the family crash landing on the planet than it’s Maureen breaking her leg or Judy (Taylor Russell) trapped in ice or young Will (Maxwell Jenkins) being lost in a woods … and that’s not all that happens in the first episode that feels overloaded.

Lost in Space isn’t Stranger Things or even something like The Expanse — and I think that’s a good thing. This new show feels more like a family adventure show, something that’s really not made anymore. I’m interested to see where this new Lost in Space goes, if I hope it slows down a bit on the whole family in peril every few minutes thing.

The Expanse

Over the last few years the one bright, shining spot on the Syfy channel has been The Expanse. There was a lot of talk when this series premiered that Syfy was trying to turn its act around, to become more like the channel it used to be that ran series like the Battlestar Galactica reboot rather than what it had become known for more recently as the home to cheap-o movies and schlocky genre reality series. Yet here we are three years later and Syfy still airs those cheap-o movies and is still producing schlocky reality shows.

Oh well, while it might be on a channel questionable character, it doesn’t take away from the fact that The Expanse is still one of the best series on TV no matter where it happens to air.

I remarked at the time The Expanse debuted that we were experiencing a dearth of “very large ships in outer space” shows. Which three years later we still mostly are — there’s also Star Trek: Discovery that covers this same sort of ground too but that’s the only other one I can think of. Which is really odd. We live in a time where sci-fi, horror and other genre series are king yet the most traditional sci-fi show out there of people zipping around the cosmos in ships is still mostly missing from the crop of current series. I’m not sure if this is because that “very large ships” bandwidth is being taken up by 700+ episodes of Star Trek that seem to air in constant rotation on TV, not that I’m complaining since I love that stuff, or if what’s popular sci-fi now are more Earth based shows like Black Mirror or Westworld? But the last few years The Expanse has been filling a very large hole as it were in my sci-fi yearnings since there’s not much else out there new that’s like it.

In The Expanse, it’s a few hundred years in the future where mankind has colonized most of the solar system. People are living on the Moon, Mars and on asteroids out in the “belt.” But even though it’s a bright, shiny future we’re still squabbling over petty things and mankind isn’t going to let a little thing like the discovery of something in the depths of space that threatens all life in our solar system dissuade us from having an all out solar-system war with the Earth on one side, Mars on the other and the people living in the belt caught in the middle.

Much of the first two seasons of The Expanse focused on the lead-up to and the eventual start of this war and this new third season of the show picks up mere moments after the second season ended, with the solar system exploding in war all around the crew of the Rocinante while the one person who might be able to stop the bloodshed Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) is being held hostage on a ship far out in space.

Much like with the Battlestar Galactica reboot The Expanse isn’t a show viewers can just start watching now, three seasons in. There’s so much backstory going on from plot to character relationships to politics it’s really only possible to start watching this show from the beginning.

So, if you haven’t seen The Expanse yet do yourself a favor and check the first two seasons first before jumping into this new third one. But it’s worth your time and effort to do so.

Movies

Solo: A Star Wars Story trailer

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Direct Beam Comms #118

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVMarch 11, 2018March 10, 2018

TV

Star Wars Rebels

Over the years I’ve had to remind myself that for the most part, Star Wars Rebels is a kid’s show. Time and time again I’d get sucked into the story of the series only to get pulled out when there’d be an episode that was all-action, or one where the characters break into some location they realistically shouldn’t be able to or do some otherwise fantastical thing that didn’t fit with the “sci-fi realism” other episodes. Then I’d have to remember, Star Wars Rebels is a kid’s show on a kid’s network, Disney XD, and all the episodes with the complex stories and character relationships that I’ve dug so much over the last four seasons but came to an end last week; those were the anomalies that didn’t fit with the standard kid’s show episodes.

But beautiful anomalies they were.

Star Wars Rebels was one of the first Star Wars “things” to debut after Disney bought the franchise from George Lucas a few years ago. Taking place sometime before the events of Episode IV, in Star Wars Rebels it’s dark days for the nascent rebellion who, at that point, literally have no hope of defeating the Empire. Enter the crew of the ship the Ghost lead by one of the only Jedi left alive after Episode III Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and ace-pilot Hera Syndulla (Vanessa Marshall) who, along with their crew, try and stop the Empire’s expanse anyway they can while also teaching young Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) the ways of the Jedi. Along the way the likes of Darth Maul and even Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones himself!!!) shows up to try and put an end to the rebellion.

The creators of Star Wars Rebels did a great job of not upsetting hard-core fans of Star Wars like me while at the same time telling new and interesting stories from a period that, up until then, wasn’t mined very well for its potential in previous media. Anyone who knows Star Wars knows that the Empire is at its height in Episode IV and because Star Wars Rebels takes place immediately before the start of that movie, we as the audience knows the characters on the show aren’t going to be the ones to defeat the Empire. But playing on this, in Star Wars Rebels many of the victories are minor ones, and because the focus of the show is of the crew of the Ghost, even these small victories can feel like big ones.

Over the course of four seasons there’s been a few ups and downs with Star Wars Rebels, which is to be expected. Some episodes worked better than others and some seasons worked better than others too. But it’s the fact that any of the episodes worked at all on a level other than simple kid’s action series that I think Star Wars Rebels was one of those hidden animation gems that fans of the genera flock to but most others ignore because, “I don’t watch cartoons.”

I suppose even if Star Wars Rebels is done I should be happy that the creators of the series got to tell their whole story without the show being cancelled before the end of the story as so many animated series are.

Legion TV spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypdctnhssdw

Lost in Space TV spot

Comics

New Mutants Epic Collection: Curse of the Valkyries Paperback

I have a feeling that this collected edition of New Mutants was originally meant to coincide with the release of the New Mutants movie that was originally due out this spring. Except that movie was pushed back til next year while this collected edition is still being published on its original release date. This edition is kind’a interesting in that it marks the end of the original New Mutants story run right before Rob Liefeld took over the book up until issue #100 when New Mutants would come to an end and be transitioned over to X-Force.

From Marvel:

From the horror of Limbo to the glory of Asgard! As the fires of Inferno burn, the New Mutants must escape Magik’s dark domain – but that leaves the way open for S’ym and his demons to invade Earth! Luckily, X-Factor’s former wards, the X-Terminators, are on the scene! Can Rusty, Skids, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Artie, Leech and Wiz Kid help the New Mutants repel an army of demons and save Magik’s soul? Then, when Hela’s evil spell corrupts Mirage’s Valkyrie side, Doctor Strange lends a magical hand! But to cure Mirage completely, the New Mutants must travel to Asgard, home of the mighty Norse gods! The trouble is, Hela is scheming to murder Odin and conquer Asgard! Will a handful of mortal mutants be enough to defeat the Goddess of Death?

Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics, Vol. 2

The second collected edition of the Star Wars newspaper strips is out this week. If the first edition was somewhat unique in that all they had to go on was the first movie, then this edition had the first and second movie, the Marvel comic book stories and a few novels for the creators of the newspaper strips to draw from.

From IDW:

The epic seven-days-a-week sagas begin with “Han Solo at Stars’ End,” based on the novel by Brian Daley, adapted by Archie Goodwin and Alfredo Alcala, followed by seven complete adventures by the storied team of Archie Goodwin and artist Al Williamson. The pair had previously worked together on Creepy, Eerie, and Blazing Combat comics magazines, the Flash Gordon comic book, and 13 years on the Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip. They seamlessly shifted gears to take over, at George Lucas’s request, the Star Wars newspaper strip. Included are all strips from October 6, 1980 to February 8, 1981.

Movies

The Movie Chain: #10: The Martian (2015)

Last week: Sunshine

The Movie Chain is a weekly, micro-movie review where each week’s film is related to the previous week’s movie in some way.

I thought the film The Martian was okay when I first saw it. This movie about an astronaut (Matt Damon) marooned on Mars when he’s left behind after a natural disaster and has to survive without any realistic hope of rescue, then having to wait years for rescue to arrive wasn’t my favorite movie of the year. But over the last few years I’ve found myself watching it again, and again. In fact, I’ve probably watched parts of The Martian at least ten times.

I think part of the appeal of the movie for me is the theme of never giving in to desperation. I’m pretty much just the opposite — I’m the guy who would have stayed in the CDC building at the end of the first season of The Walking Dead along with Dr. Jenner. But to see a movie where the message is fight ‘em til you can’t and then fight some more really resonated with me like with the movie Dunkirk did a few weeks back.

I liked The Martian so much that I recently had to put a moratorium on watching it whenever it comes on TV. Sometimes I’ll get so infatuated with certain movies I’ll watch them so many times that I’ll start to dislike them because of over exposure and I don’t want that happening with The Martian.

Next week: No memories? No worries, solve your problems by kicking people in their heads and punching them in their faces.

Cool TV Posters of the Week

Direct Beam Comms #116

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVFebruary 25, 2018February 24, 2018

TV

The Frankenstein Chronicles /**

While the new Netflix series The Frankenstein Chronicles may have debuted last week here in the US, the series starring Sean Bean actually began airing in the UK way back in 2015. This show about detective John Marlott (Bean) working in London in the 19th century is an interesting twist on the standard cop drama. Here, Marlott uncovers the body of a girl washed up on the banks of a river. But it turns out it’s not just one girl he’s found, it’s actually parts of nine different girls stitched together. And when he begins trying to find out who all the body parts belong to, Marlott soon begins finding that kids have been going missing all over the city and no one’s taken notice.

I thought that The Frankenstein Chronicles had a lot of interesting ideas from what if Dr. Frankenstein was a real person to how these murders and 19th century morals conflict with one and other. Because this killer is putting people together and trying to bring this creation back to life it’s a question for people back then if he’s in fact doomed the souls of the dead to an eternity of damnation.

The again, after one episode I couldn’t quite escape the fact that at its core The Frankenstein Chronicles is a detective show, of which there seems to be 1,001 of these days. I think what helps this series is that there’s only twelve episode in the first two seasons, of which both are currently streamable. So I can’t imagine there’ll be enough time to do a lot of false leads in The Frankenstein Chronicles which for me anyways, always turns detective shows into great bores.

Lost in Space promo

Movies

The Movie Chain: #8: 28 Days Later… (2002)

Last week: Dunkirk

The Movie Chain is a weekly, micro-movie review where each week’s film is related to the previous week’s movie in some way.

As I sit here typing this it’s hard to believe that 16 years ago zombies weren’t much a part of films that were being released and weren’t a part of TV at all. Sure, there were a few zombie movies around and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead were available on VHS and DVD, but for the most part back in 2002 only horror aficionados were watching anything that featured a flesh-chomping zed.

That was until the release of 28 Days Later…

That movie, about a bike messenger (Cillian Murphy also of last week’s Dunkirk) awakening in a hospital bed from a coma 28 days after a zombie apocalypse has burned through Great Britain single handedly took zombies from VHS rental fodder to the forefront of horror. The movie was popular, had several different releases with different endings attached in theaters and, more importantly, made a lot of money.

After 28 Days Later… would come a remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004 that “borrowed” fast zombies from 28 Days Later… and the start of the comic series The Walking Dead in 2003 which would “borrow” the idea of its main character awakening in a hospital bed sometime after after the rise of the zombies and the collapse of society and basically took everything else from Day of the Dead.

And today the most popular type of horror monster is the zombie with the series The Walking Dead as one of the most popular shows on TV with there being several zombie movies out each year.

But without 28 Days Later… I doubt any of this would exist.

Next week: “So if you wake up one morning and it’s a particularly beautiful day, you’ll know we made it.”

Rumor Control

I started working on my yearly “Summer movie preview” column a few weeks ago. I got all the movies down I wanted to cover on the dates they’ll premiere. Even though these movies won’t open for a few months I felt confident enough listing them and starting work now since the dates of summer movies are always set in stone many months in advance. Except not so much this year. First Deadpool changed dates which wasn’t a big deal since it was only moving a week to keep away from the next Star Wars movie. But more recently two movies pulled out of summer altogether; Alita: Battle Angel and The Predator. I can’t really remember the last time two movies left their summer move slot altogether so late in the game and so close to summer.

I wonder if this is because nowadays movies are made so quickly and they require so much special effects work that sometimes the movies quite literally can’t be made fast enough to hit their release dates?

+++

Over the last few years I’ve found myself becoming very picky with what I watch. I can afford to be, if I can’t find something to watch with my satellite subscription I can always watch something on the hundreds of DVDs, tens of Blu-rays, dozens of digital downloads or any of the various streaming services I subscribe to like Netflix or Amazon Prime. At any given moment I have quite literally thousands of things I can watch at my fingertips.

So why is it that more times that not I find myself spending hours looking for something to watch on a Saturday night?

I suppose it’s all that choice. Even when I might find something I might want to watch there’s always the possibility that if I only spend a few more minutes looking that I’ll find something I really want to watch. And sometimes this does happen when I’m just about ready to give up looking and settle on something when I’ll come across something I’d wanted to see for some time but hadn’t. When this happens it’s like winning the lottery. But much like the lottery this doesn’t happen often and I’m more likely to spend time scrolling the titles than actually watching anything.

I don’t remember this being a big problem in the past. Years ago before on-demand, streaming, Blu-rays and DVDs I’d spend my TV time watching whatever happened to be on. A lot of the stuff I watched wasn’t very good and the only reason I watched it was because it was on when I had the TV on. Some of the stuff I watched was bad and a few programs were great, but those were the minority. In fact, I feel that my tastes in pop-culture right now was partially built on me watching things I wouldn’t normally and only saw them because there was nothing else on TV at the time.

And honestly, for better or worse, I’m not like that anymore. I can’t remember the last time I watched anything I really didn’t want to. I’ve even stopped watching good shows because I’ve grown bored with them since the flood of new content out there means there’s always something else new to checkout. I don’t know how I feel about that. On the one hand I’m not wasting my time watching some crappy show or movie just to fill the time. On the other hand because at one time I was willing to do that meant I discovered lots and lots of interesting TV series and movies like Doctor Who and The Last Man on Earth and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Night of the Living Dead to name a scant few that I would have otherwise missed.

Then again, in today’s age when something’s really great people will talk about it online and it will quickly become apparent what’s worth checking out and what’s not. However, there’s been many times when my tastes have disagreed with the pop-culture masses which would mean that if I’m not checking movies and TV series myself I’m invariably going to miss things I might otherwise like.

What drives me wild is we live in a world of almost limitless, new and good movies and TV series I find myself watching the same old stuff over and over again. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with watching, say, The Martian a few times over the course of a year. People listen to albums over and over again and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with that. On the other hand, in a time where there’s more than 500 TV dramas and comedies scheduled to debut in 2018 shouldn’t I be at least checking out as many new shows as I can?

There is some comfort in watching the same movie or TV series over and over again. You know what you’re going to be watching something you like and not sitting through something that’s just as likely to be cruddy than cool. But if I’m not checking out new things, how will I keep discovering these good movies I’d want to watch over and over again in the first place?

What’s starting to get to me is that while we seem to be moving away from cable and satellite TV packages as a source for our entertainment, it means that to keep up on every movie and TV series being release it means you have to subscribe to many streaming services to do so. Before it used to be a case of getting a basic cable package and a paying for a few premium channels and you’d be set. Now it’s all that plus Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Acorn, CBS All Access, etc, etc, etc… and it’s even getting crazier with the likes of Apple, Facebook and YouTube all now getting into the original TV content game too.

I love drama and comedy TV and movies and love following the development of new series and movies, but at this point even I’m overwhelmed. There’s too many choices out there for streaming content to pick from and there seems to be more and more coming everyday. It’s too much and I’m tired always having to play catchup. I’ve decide that I’m going to stick with my current TV setup for a while longer — a basic package on DirecTV that includes HBO plus Netflix and Amazon Prime. And the rest is just going to have to live without me for a while. Series like The Handmaid’s Tale, Star Trek: Discovery and the upcoming Amazing Stories sound really good, but I not willing to subscribe to another service just to watch them.

With movies and TV series I just want to be entertained but with the way things are going it’s all becoming one big hassle to find that entertainment.

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

1990s sci-fi movie bonanza

Feature, MoviesAugust 4, 2017July 22, 2017

There was an explosion of sci-fi movies all released in the late 1990s because Jurassic Park and Independence Day had come out earlier in the decade and were colossal hits. The movie studios, wanting a piece of the sci-fi money pie like how now they all want a slice of the superhero one, started putting money behind sci-fi films. And because of this money and since computer 3D special effects could now make sci-fi things like aliens and spaceships look real meant that not only could sci-fi movies have interesting stories, they could look really cool too.

Unfortunately, none of these late–1990 sci-fi movies were successful — until one huge film in 1999 that would change the sci-fi landscape even to this day.

Let’s start with my favorite sci-fi film of this period that turns 20 this fall, Starship Troopers. This movie about a team of teen military troopers doing battle with giant bugs on far off planets never got the attention it deserved. Or really, it got attention but the bad kind. I think the reason this movie was so derided was that audiences didn’t know what to make of it at back then. Here’s my secret for watching Starship Troopers — don’t think of it as a movie from 1997, think of it as a movie from 2197 that accidentally got transported to present day. To me, Starship Troopers is this propaganda film from the future trying to get the population behind this costly, unending war with the bugs and I think watching the movie in that light makes for a more enjoyable experience.

Even Horizon, also from 1997, is another movie that was derided by the critics back then but is seen in a better light today. This R-Rated horror movie about the crew of a ship sent to Neptune to rescue the survivors of the “Event Horizon” that disappeared years ago and but finds the ship possessed by some evil force is a lot of fun to watch. Event Horizon isn’t the greatest movie, but it’s not a bad one either.

Another film from 1997 that didn’t do well at the time though now is seen in a better light is The Fifth Element. This one doesn’t fit with any other US based sci-fi movies and feels totally different, but in a good way. Much of that’s because it was co-written and directed by Frenchman Luc Besson. Here, forces are trying to unleash a great evil upon the universe and it’s up to Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) and Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) to stop them. At times The Fifth Element is a bit goofy and weird but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Over the years The Fifth Element has aged very well and is a visually stunning and quite good movie.

Lost in Space from 1998 on the other hand, hasn’t aged very well and isn’t a good movie. This big-screen remake of the 1960s TV classic starts off interestingly enough with a family of explorers blasting off into an unknown part of space and after an accident and must find their way home. But the second half of the movie never quite fully gels and feels underdone. Worst of all some of the special effects of Lost in Space today look clunky and stand out in a bad way.

Like with Lost in Space the movie Soldier from 1998 hasn’t stood the test of time. Or, I thought it was a bad movie back in 1998 and I think it’s still a bad movie in 2017. Soldier is about an old solider from the future played by Kurt Russell who’s replaced by a newer model and is dumped on a world of trash where he finds a new calling of protecting families marooned there. Soldier is a movie that looks cheap and flimsy with a story to match. Let’s put it this way, the best part of the trailer for Solider features scenes of a giant battle and a skeleton floating in space — none of which appears in the finished film.

Why anyone would leave the best looking part out of a movie like that is beyond me, but it goes a long way in explaining why Solider is the way it is.

In fact, it wasn’t until the stealth sci-fi film The Matrix would come along in 1999 to both critical acclaim and find a box office bonanza that would change the sci-fi game for the next decade. Gone would be the spaceships and far-off planets of previous decades instead replaced with a more dark and run-down aesthetic with films like Pitch Black, Minority Report and many of the early superhero films of the early 2000s borrowing the style of The Matrix.

Tag: lost in space

Direct Beam Comms #123

TV