OT: Dr. Who

[Fairlight]

Is it just me, or did Bill Campbell say:
> 
> There aren't many movies that I consider true SF, as opposed to
> cowboys and indians set in the future.  The two I can think of
> offhand are ``Blade Runner'' and ``Enemy Mine''.  

I have both of those on DVD.  :)  Aside from the time/locale, I don't
really consider "Enemy Mine" science fiction so much as drama.  My wife
says there are older movies with almost identical plots, going back to one
of our earlier 20th century wars.  It is a good movie, though.  And I've
read the actual novel for "Blade Runner", and have to say that while it's a
great movie, they cut that book to shreds to make it.  It's amazing how
much of Phillip K. Dick's work has been made into movies, too.

> The worst SF movie of all time is probably ``Starship Troopers'', but
> then expecting most Hollywood types to understand Heinlein's political
> views be a bit much.  I would hate to see what they could do with ``Moon
> is a Harsh Mistress'' or Farnham's Freehold.

So many say that about "Starship Troopers".  I have that DVD as well, and
honestly, you know...I read the book as well (after I saw the
movie...wanted to see what the backlash was about).  If you just accept the
movie for what it is (or are unaware of the novel in general, as I
originally was), it's not all -that- bad.  It's heavily done in Paul
Veerhoven's style, complete with way more gore than necessary, and his
penchant for inline faux commercials (that dates back to "Total Recall" and
"Robocop", at least).  I don't get into the butchering of the political
message of the novel, really.  I think he made an attempt to cover some of
it with Michael Ironside's character.  But just as it sits, it's not a
-bad- movie...it's just not the novel, verbatim.

Conceptually, I'm gonna go with "Stargate" as opening up one of the neater
ideas in recent science fiction history, and then the entire mythos that
was built on from there with multiple series is fantastic.  Other strong
contenders (but which were both SF/horror cross-breeds) were "Event
Horizon", and John Carpenter's 1982 remake of "The Thing".  Love both of
those.  "Serenity" is actualy a good contender for best recent SF film,
even if you divorce it entirely from the "Firefly" series and take it
standalone.

Worst SF movie...hmmm... *ponder* Well, I'll tell you that you're wrong
about your pick.  There was a movie from the 50's or so on a cheap
collection of off-the-track SF movies that my wife picked up, and one of
the movies on there I couldn't even bear to watch past a point, it was
just soooo badly done--and I can watch almost any SF.  But my pick for
worst impacting train wreck?  Hmmm...can you pick a programme rather than
a movie?  Because "Enterprise" had so much potential, and they were almost
entirely unfocused--and when they -got- focused, they went off on a really
bizarre tangent that pretty much shot Star Trek canon to hell and back
about a couple dozen times.  In fact, the "Star Trek" reboot stuck closer
to canon, IMHO.  "Enterprise" wasted almost all the potential it had.

Possibly "Alien 3", if pressed for a movie.  I still like the movie, but
pretty much many consider it the worst in the series.  My own feeling
is that it developed Ripley's character a lot (not as much as "Aliens",
but still, a good bit more), but it was basically, "Well let's take the
situation and take it in the exact opposite of the previous movie--instead
of a ship full of space marines, let's get it to the point where they
barely have fire."  I mean, really...the first movie's characters had more
weaponry resources.  "Alien 3" was like...well, "Survivor: Fiorina 161".
And bonus penalty points for -undoing- character development by killing off
not only Ripley in the end, but Bishop, Hicks, and Newt from the start.
I'll watch it, but only if I'm watching all four movies back to back.

Seen "Avatar" yet?  As with most of Cameron's work (except "Titanic", which
I refuse to watch on DiCaprio principle), I like it.  But I do think it was
over-hyped both by the industry, and then by the people that claimed it was
-so- good that after watching it, they were depressed-to-suicidal coming
back to reality.  Just not seein' it...it was good, but nowhere near -that-
good.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis,