Ten years?!?! No!

Good grief! The Matrix is TEN YEARS OLD!

Rather than babble about the first time that I saw it, and how I didn't WANT to see it, but it was free, and how I then had to drag people to see it and tell them "I KNOW it has Keanu Reeves in it but it's AWESOME!", and even throw in a couple of crying baby stories and how people in movie theaters suck (and that was ten years ago) I'll just point you to XKCD (warning, four letter word): Here. Wow. And I thought I wanted to forget about the Star Wars prequels. I actually HAVE forgotten the Matrix Se-- Um, what was I talking about/

Star Trek: It's out there.

There's a certain threshold of reality that has been passed now the people have actually SEEN Star Trek. And I CAN'T STAAAAAND IT!

In case you missed it: Here.

Yes. ALL of the spoilers are out now. Hide!

Andy Hallett - Angel's Lorne - RIP

(Ah, forgot to click "Post".) This was sad. 33! Gadzooks, I know he was under a ton of makeup on Angel, but I had no idea he was so young.

I missed going to a karaoke night hosted by him for charity at one of the Columbus comic conventions. That would have been something.

Maurice Jarre RIP

Maurice Jarre died day before yesterday. That night the Wee One and I started watching Lawrence of Arabia. (Gosh, that's a fantastic movie.) Jarre's score is such an epic part of the movie it's almost comical in the same way that Steiner's Gone with the Wind is to modern ears. Maybe Star Wars will be like that some day. Maybe it already is.

Jarre was my first film composer. Dad had the LP of Grand Prix. It opens with the orchestra making race car noises. How can a two year-old not love that? But it also has the main theme. A few years later I saw Disney's Island at the Top the World. The theme for the airship Hyperion is total Jarre. It was the first time I ever recognized that sound that Jarre has. Firefox has that same kind of feel, so does Enemy Mine. (I'm sure someone who actually knows composition theory or whatever would say "Oh,
well that's just this this and that." Then I could find all the music
like that that I wanted.)

He's gone now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Jarre Aged 84.

Old guys... IN SPACE

Not that I post here anymore, but I missed Shatner's birthday on Sunday. And Nimoy's was yesterday! Kirk and Spock are SEVENTY-EIGHT! Wow. So... They were younger than I am when they started making Star Trek. Eeesh.

3D... IN SPACE!

If I keep this up I might start posting again.

This is just neat: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/index.html The models appear to be all in .3DS, but I haven't tried looking very hard. I should learn to convert meshes. Official NASA 3D!

More BSG thoughts

Some additional thoughts:

I was really really bummed that they didn't play "The Cylons were created by man" intro (or whatever) one more time. I don't think Bear even used the "pling pling pling pling" Cylon / Six theme in the finale. Oh, and did they drop "a home called Earth" for the last half of the season? I only noticed in the last ep.

Giving credit where credit is due: Of all the crazy stuff they came up with and tried to make make sense in the final two hours the thing that felt the most natural and satisfying was explaining the Opera House visions that Baltar / Six / Laura / Athena had.

Oh, yeah: Um, where's Xena? The last two hours of BSG ever and she's busy? Huh?

Poor Chief. On every level. You have to wonder what his life was like on Earth One?

Bear McCreary: Take a bow, sir. Your work just got better and better. Looking forward to the Season 4 CD. I sing "Roslin and Adama" to my daughter. (She likes it, but not as much as Beethoven's Ninth.)

I'm listening to the soundtracks for S1-3 and it's helping me remember the good parts. There was some great stuff. The three hour pilot. Starbuck down. The Hand of God. Pegasus. Scar. "One year later". The boxing match. Apollo's speech at Baltar's trial. Starbuck's return. The Cylon Civil War. Earth One. BSG took some stupid turns in the last few years and it was a far cry from the perfect that was the first season and a half. But I'll miss her.

So say we all.

Boom boom boom.

And That, As They Say, Is That

Ok, I've gotten countless emails saying "Where are my BSG reviews?" Wait... Ok, they weren't countless I just hadn't counted them. Um. Three. Whatev.

Where did I leave off? I guess I didn't do any of S4.5. Not great. I might change my mind if I watch it again. I had a much higher opinion of S3 the second go-round. (Except for three or so episodes. Those were still boring as dirt.) I loved the first half of S4. Something about 4.5 just didn't click for me. It wasn't so much that they were making it up as they went along as it was that they were making it up as the went along and it was stupid. There were a couple a serious cop-outs. Nicky not being Tyrol's kid was a real loser moment. Especially since when we found out Tyrol was a toaster Moore assured us that he knew what he was doing and Nicky would be just a significant as Hera. Ah well.

Oh, and for the three people that read this that care? The Final Five aren't immortal. They aren't even especially long lived. They just traveled at light speed for a few thousand years. So for them it was only a year or two. (Months?) Relativistic travel. Go read Speaker for the Dead.

We'd pretty much given up after the episode where Six and iTigh's kid died (keeping Hera special). Or at least I had. The mutiny was ok. The "falling apart battlestar" storyline should have been introduced more gradually. Now we know why they did it but it was still a little too rushed. So yesterday we sat down and watched the last FIVE HOURS of BSG. And were largely un-disappointed. (Unless you're a die-hard Kara/Lee shipper. Sorry, sweetie.)

First off? I want my glowing white spaceships. Grrrr.

It was a bang-howdy finish. And it felt like it should have happened about a season and a half ago. Finding "Earth" actually felt pretty natural. The Hand of God in all of BSG was something that had been sorely missing for a few seasons. As I will constantly grouse about, first season BSG managed to balance the spiritual, the political, and the soap opera with thrilling space action so so so perfectly. It was really missed. It was nice to see the echoes of it here. All Along the Watchtower even felt nicely woven in. Why not?

The big "let's go get Hera" op did not feel anything other than "Heck, it's the end of the show. Let's blow it all up." Sometimes you have to roll the hard six when you know you're not coming back next season.

Nice to see that Wild Bill is still consistently inconsistent. A suicide raptor mission? Who'd be crazy enough to try THAT? Oh, yeah, Wild Bill like nine episodes ago.

Six and Baltar! Yay! I'm a Six/Baltar shipper. Who knew? That was a thread that was never successfully picked up from when Caprica and Gaius met up back on New Cap. It was also nice to see Gaius be smart again. Gaius is supposed to be a jerk, but he's also supposed to be brilliant. They were always much better at the jerk part.

NOT. ENOUGH. STARBUCK. AND. LEOBEN. Come ON! They dropped the ball so much on these two it was like New Years in Times Square. Starbuck meets her destiny and turns out to be an angel and Leoben isn't even there to say "Wow, whatdayaknow?" Bleah.

And the whole Kara Thrace: Harbinger of Doom? Yeah, that was so -- Wait, you can't even dismiss that as "we changed our minds"! They were still nattering on about it an episode ago! How does THAT make sense?!? And how is this the FINAL chapter of the human race?!?

So did anyone else come to the conclusion that Starbuck's dad was the Thirteenth cylon? -- Um, apparently so:

How about fan theories over the show, like mention of a missing Cylon named Daniel? After his name was mentioned, the fans just went wild online. Did you intend for that to happen, and was he supposed to inspire this big fan-driven backstory?

RDM: You know, the Daniel thing is going to be one of the great fiascos of the show, in terms of what fans thought and what the truth was. Because Daniel was not intended to be anything more than an interesting bit of backstory in that episode. And that's how we approached it. It was just a story that Cavil and Ellen tell each other, that sort of goes to the idea of who Cavil was and how deep his resentments were, and his jealous nature - and [we wanted to] do a Cain and Abel allegory. That was all it was. And then after the show aired. I started picking up all this stuff about how fans were obsessing about Daniel and how [people thought] Daniel was Kara's father, and he was the big surprise. I started thinking, "Oh sh-t, slow down people, I don't want you to really get
invested." I usually don't like to go out there and say, "Oh, that's a bad theory," because part of the enjoyment of watching the show is coming up with ideas. But this was gathering such momentum, I didn't want people to be going into the finale and really be waiting for the Daniel shoe to drop, when there's no shoe. It's one of those things where you're inside the show, [and] you look at it, and go one way. And then it's broadcast, and an audience sees it, and then they seize on this piece that you never really anticipated, and then you're sort of amazed. And you're saying, "Slow down, no - come back."

So much for THAT.

The whole "Clyons losing resurrection" plot was still silly. That should have been backed up on disk someplace. Seriously. And WHAT was THE PLAN? Other than a miniseries this fall? If Cavil hated having a human body so much why was he so all-fired hot to get resurrection back? Why not just go back to the Centurions?

But it was really nice to see Tyrol choke the felgercarb out of Tori.

Did Hotdog make it? He'd be the only Nugget that did. EDIT: Looked it up. Well, he wasn't explicitly killed, so I call that a win!

They finally got to kill off Racetrack and Skulls. They even made a gag about it.

"Could we PLEASE not tell her the plan?"

They didn't hook up Boomer and the Chief. Nice one.

I'm glad the Fighting Agathons made it, but I'd have been ok if Helo had bought it fighting for his daughter.

Sam flying the fleet into the sun was a little unsatisfying. Flying off someplace undetermined might have been better. It wasn't a bad send off for the Old Girl as far as it goes, but it was somehow not quite a satisfying as it should have been. But they played the theme. That goes a long way.

Lee got the short end, as he almost always did. And he was upstaged by Kara the Friendly Ghost, as he almost always was.

The most perfect and natural and easy part of the whole episode was Laura and Bill. (iTigh and Ellen wasn't bad either.) And the dying leader lead her people to Earth. With the help of a crazy maybe dead viper pilot. Bill at Laura's grave was one of the best images of the whole series.

Annnnnnd the Six in Baltar's head and the Baltar in Six's head were ANGELS???? What the frak?

Well, there's still Clone Wars.

30 Years Ago There Were Those Who Believed

Thirty years ago I was wandering through a new mall in a new town (Valley West Mall if I recall correctly) and in the hobby shop I saw new models for something called a Colonial Viper and a Cylon Raider. Being the young lad that had just moved from New England I wondered why fighters from the American Revolutionary War had space ships.

At my grandparents house we gathered at the TV set and watched this new show. "There are those who believe that life here began out there..."

Thirty years later I have to say that it holds up much better than one might expect. The effects are top notch. I remember my mother being somewhat amazed (alarmed?) when I spotted John Dykstra's name in the opening credits and noted that he did the special effects for Star Wars! (Yep. Been a nerd for a looooong time now.)

The THEME! I'd be hard put to come up with a cooler TV theme. Some come close (Wild Wild Wild West). The music over all was quite good. (We'll all just skip over "It's Love, Love, Love". It was the 70's.)

The cast was good. Starbuck was the highlight of the original series, too.

Yeah, it's really hokey. (REALLY.) I guess you can look at it and say "So twelve planets full of humanity are mercilessly slaughtered and then those that didn't die are shoved into a rag tag fleet looking for a place to survive? Sounds like happy Sunday night entertainment to me!" (See "Moore, Ron".) But what really strikes me watching the two hour movie (that ran for THREE hours with commercials - that was a late Sunday night for a fourth grader.) now is that this was a story about The Good Guys facing off against an Implacable Foe who, when offered peace, turned around and visited total genocide (helped by an insidious insider and a credulous political class). This was not only 1978 when that sort of thing was not a popular notion, but on the very night of the signing of the Camp David Accords. Wow. I can see why Moore was drawn to taking a more serious bent with nuBSG. Sometimes I think it would be nice if he took a less "people just suck" attitude.

BSG was our Must See TV for the rest of the season. Yeah, there were some not so swell eps (wait, who gets shot down and has to make nice with the natives this week?). But there was also Gun on Ice Planet Zero and Lost Planet of the Gods (where WOMEN *gasp* became fighter pilots! Yep, moving ahead fast in 1978). Commander Caine was SOOOO much cooler back then. I'm still waiting for the Crystal Ships to show up on nuBSG. And Fred Astaire was Starbuck's DAD!

Thirty years? Well frak, that doesn't seem very long at all.

Terminator - 202 - Automatic for the People

Ok, so remember last year when getting new identities was a big deal? Now John not only just gets to show up at school (a new school? His old school?) but he also ditches at will and nobody cares? What happened with the girl who threw herself off the roof because "everybody saw" and they showed us at the beginning of forty-six episodes last season? (Now someone's going to tell me how they resolved that and it was important. S'ok, I can handle it.)

Ok, welcome back to this week's babbling about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I not be sure if it be time to talk like a pirate yet cause it's errrrrrrrly or if it would be more fittin' like to wait until the tide turns and the next recap bein' afterrrr Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrrr.

Still good. Not as good as last week but far better than many season 3 episodes of BSG. And we got to see the alley from The Terminator for all of about four seconds. But it was there. And it still had a bum. (He didn't ask about a bright light.) They picked up some old threads and did fun things with them. We're still in our spooky "Can Cameron be trusted?" vibe. Which they have to be careful with because right now they're calling wolf. We follow up with Charlie and Ellison. Solid, and probably more going on than I was left feeling at the end. Oh, and we have a little more idea as to the shape of the Future War.

I miss Sarah doing the narration. Just saying.

And now, matey, there be spoilers ahead.

So we get the new JC. (Er, John Connor.) Gosh, he's sulky. But they've got that cool password when they call each other, so that's nifty. Might not be too tough to crack, but at least they're thinking a little bit. The new girl friend is really, well I was going to say weird, but right now she's pointless. I do like that John is still very heavily aware that he's never going to have what is commonly called "a life". It's never going to end for him. They can hit that note as hard and as often as they'd like as far as I'm concerned.

I can't think of the last time I've seen this much Christian imagery on TV (in a more or less positive light). And in sci-fi adventure no less! And because of where they're hiding, lots of it is Catholic. Huzzah! I was wondering what religion is like in 2029. Derek prays. That's an astonishing detail. (To me, any way.) Of course, this is Derek (and Kyle) Reese mk. II, since they both got to be born AFTER Judgment Day since the timeline shifted around.

Not much interesting Cameron this time around. For a moment I thought that the T1000 was being Cameron. That day will come, I'm sure. I did like when she told John essentially that he couldn't be trusted. Almost as good as when she said last season that she didn't have to listen to John because he wasn't John yet.

It's amazing that you can have a character with her name on the show, but I still worry about her. I spent about half the episode dreading what was going to happen to Sarah. You really get into her head: Is this how it happens? Is this when she starts to die? Does she really only have six or seven years to live? (Seven seasons? They may have thought this through more than I thought...)

Derek isn't quite as loose-cannon-y as he has tended to be. He almost seems... Mellow. It's interesting to learn more about the war. That there are resources to be had and positions to defend. BUT...

Skynet has SEVERAL nuclear reactors now? What does this mean for the future?

Hey look, it's Shirley. Don't blink! I was surprised when they replaced nuclear science guy with a normal Terminator, not a T1000. They haven't quite revisited how scary those things are.

Scary dying future man (who carried a bullet inside him through time - nice) - how did he find out about The Plot? And who wrote all the future stuff in blood? What was it? More power plants? Hope this becomes clear later, cause I didn't quite follow it at all.

Ellison is almost as miserable as John. I wonder what will go on with Mr. and Mrs. Charlie.

Just occurred to me: Sarah's parents are dead (well, mom is) but Kyle and Reese's folks might still be around somewhere. That interests me.

Yep. Still loving this show.

The Device Has Been Modified

Can you believe Portals is over a year old? This makes me want to play it all over again. I'll be nicer to the Weighted Companion Cube this time. Honest!

9/11 2007

This will be the third year I'll make a 9/11 post. And it will be a blissfully uneventful day.

September 11th, 2002 we knew SOMETHING would happen. The 2004 political conventions it was pretty obvious SOMETHING would happen. Certainly the elections SOMETHING would happen.

This year's conventions went by with a yawn regarding security. Flying has become a modern day nuisance. Nobody has tried to blow up their shoes in years.

Thank you Mr. President and all of the men and women who have made that possible for the last seven years. That day the idea that this wouldn't happen again (and soon) was almost unthinkable. But we've done it so far. God willing, we will manage another seven.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.1 Samson and Delilah

Happy Birthday, Star Trek!

Um, I mean, Oh look! A post! There must be television! No I will not blog my reviews of Bones. And if you're lucky I'll leave you out of my opinions on House, M.D. What else am I going to talk about, politics?






No! Wait! Come back! I was kidding! (For now.)

So here we are. Back for a second season. Please don't cancel my show! It's so good right now! I tell you, that was some soothing, relaxing, low key television. (Ok, maybe compared to the later seasons of Angel.) Yikes!

This was Terminator. Last season there were some obvious and mostly successful riffs on The Terminator and Terminator 2. IMHO they did well with it because they managed to stay surprisingly faithful to the continuity of the movies while they were busy coming up with their own stories. It was one of my favorite things about the show last year. Last night (we'll see if I really post this on Sept. 9) tapped into the "it's going to kill ALL of us! RUN!" panic that the first movie did so well.

Bear McCreary continues to be the hardest working composer on TV. Didn't realize that the singer in the beginning was Shirley Manson. Makes sense, of course. (She's SCOTTISH?) And yes, Bear, I immediately thought of the "When the Man Comes Around" montage. But it worked. Now give me my soundtrack of the BSG midseason closer. Thanks.

Alright, mateys! Here be spoilers!

Ok, I didn't see this coming at all. I was thinking we'd have a whole "how do we put Cameron back together" storyline. I didn't think that the car-bomb was just the beginning. And who knew Summer Glau could be so scary? And then she turns around and make you say "Awwww, you're not REALLY going to chip her, are you John? ARE YOU?" That was horrible. In a really great way. I was a little disapointed at the relatively neat wrap up. I had a few resolutions of my own. It seems that this will be hanging over them for a while though. And I really like that Cameron thinks this was a terrible idea. I love that about her: That she's more ruthless than Sarah.

I think (I hope) this is where John comes into his own. This is where John gets his own agenda. This is where John starts to know that nobody can lead him except him. That his judgment is best. (And if it doesn't involve Cameron or MAYBE his mom, he might be right.) Last year I thought John was the weak link of the show. Any time I think that I might be able to beat up John Connor, that's bad. (Furlong was a punk, but he was feisty.) This "new" John might be fairly tough. And I really don't think that's going to sit well with Uncle Derek.

Not much Ellison. That's too bad. I really really like Ellison. Looks like he's going to get his own special hell this season.

Ah, we have a budget this season? So bring on the T1000s. I'm not as crazy about that idea as I might be. But it does continue the time-travel tangle that has made this show so much fun so far. Not sure about Shirly yet. Did they show really need a Lex Luthor? But we'll see.

Sarah. Yeah, Sarah still rocks. Sarah is still harder than nails and makes PBJ sandwiches. It looks like she's taught John well. I'm sure that's not going to go well at all. Her name is on the titles, but it might be the John Connor show this season. But who knows?

Um, see you round, Charlie.

Ok, that was a fun hour. What's next? Oh, that's right, you're going to get cancelled in four episodes. (What? Of course I'm an optimist. Why?)

All along the watchtower!

No, not that one.

Good grief! It's WATCHMEN! Seriously! I don't think there's anything (other than some of the particulars of the costume design, and even then it's close!) that isn't a frame out of the comic book. They're even keeping the logo the same. I would think that this is the sort of trailer that if you didn't know the comic you'd say "Um. Ok. That looks... Busy." But if you DO know the book, every frame sets you tingling. Especially Osterman in the disintegration chamber. That got me more than the crystal city on Mars. Oh, and of course the Comedian getting tossed out the window. Yowza.

(For the unwashed, look here.)

p.s. Googling for the image at the top of this post led me to this. Small world, eh?

Thirty-nine!

Forty years ago the world saw the last July before man would land on the moon. (Sorry, it slipped my mind yesterday.)

Gotta get me a good Apollo calendar going this year. If I'm nice, I'll include the Soviets.

Meanwhile I'll be holding onto thirty-nine with my fingernails.

Star Wars at 30 - Sorta

Ahhh, an historic day. Doesn't all the hoopla about Star Wars turning thirty seem like a really really long time ago? Well over a year, yeah?

Well, thirty years ago TODAY, Star Wars finally quite playing at the Cine Capri.

Sadly, I would not be a resident of the Valley of the Sun for another 23 days. Ah, well. It would be 15 years later before I saw Star Wars on that storied screen. And by then it would say "A New Hope". But Han would still shoot first.

BSG 412: Revelations

It's over. Well, at least until 2009. Rumors abound that they may be making more movies like Razor. Hrmm.

But for now the cast and crew are having parties and kicking back on the beaches, 'cause they're DONE.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Hooooo-gosh, SPOILERS!

Cylons are outed. Earth is found. Gee, it seemed more complicated than that.

See? I TOLD you he should have told Bill.

This had one of my favorite scenes in all of BSG: Lee trying to pull his father back together. I love the character relationships on BSG. Helo and Starbuck. Tigh and Bill. Laura and Lee. But none of them hold a candle to the Adama family. Ok, I'll include Starbuck in that. But father and son... Whoo. Almost all of my favorites are those two. The very first scene of BSG I ever saw was "I didn't know this was about picking sides." (Bastille Day, season 1.)

My other favorite thing in this ep was Tyrol. He is SO relieved that they found him. He's giddy. Aaron Douglas has knocked every pitch they've given him out of the park.

For some reason, I eally dug the costumes at the end (the field jackets). Man, it looked COLD there. Brrrrr.

Starbuck and Sam. Wonder how that's going to go? Oh, just went back and re-watched the end. Not well. (Ok, Kara is less crazy than Tori. Yikes.)

Kind of like the season three ender, this is kind of two episodes. It's the human / cylon impasse and it's finding Earth. They managed to wring every drop of tension they could out of both.

Speaking of Tori, wow, I thought Baltar held a grudge. Laura tells her to comb her hair and stop sleeping with Baltar and suddenly Tori's ready to feed her to the Cylons. Balanced.

The thing that kills me is that they're making the cylon / human alliance work. They really are. Mind you, here in the U.S. we've taken more than a hundred years to get over slavery and the civil war. Wonder how long it takes to get over a twelve planet genocide?

LEE! Aww, I love it when Lee gets to be cool. And why doesn't Starbuck pick up a phone? (Oh! The drama!)

There was a horrible, horrible moment when I was afraid that Starbuck's viper was going to be the fifth cylon. It went along with the silly hope that if it was it would talk like William Daniels.

Then the jump to Earth. Starring Bear McCreary. Ohhh that was good. If you go look at his blog you see that it was every bit the work that it sounded like. They're going to make me wait another year and a half for the CD, blast them.

You just held your breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. You knew this wasn't really the end. There's another ten episodes! I liked that they're not making Earth the end of the show. Myself, after all of this, I need a little more closure than that. (They continue to make BSG the anti-Voyager. Or the Voyager that should have been.)

But tonight you got to soak up some wonderful, wonderful performances. You knew that these people would tell their children "This is when we found Earth. This is where I was. This is who I was." Bill and Lee Adama were in CiC as father and son, with Laura Roslyn as leaders that are and leader to be. Karl and Sharon Agathon were together with Hera. Gaelen Tyrol and his son Nicholas. Kara Thrace held vigil at the wall of the fallen (as did others) with Kat's photo. Sam Anders stood with her. Saul Tigh was alone.

This morning I rewatched the end. You knew it was coming. You knew SOMETHING was coming. And then that long, slow pan over our cast. And it's pretty much the whole cast. Bill looks like he wants to trash his office again. Laura looks like she should have seen this coming. D'anna wants to explain, but can't (she's REALLY dismayed and looks like she feels somehow responsible). Helo and Athena are together. Baltar is alone. Tori reaches out to Sam! (Away, evil wench!) Six goes to Tigh, not Baltar. Leoben looks like a man who has just had all of his faith taken away from him by force. Tyrol is alone as well. And Starbuck looks like she was lied to.

See you next year.




So say we all.

Begin Bombing

Yay! Look at what I found!

WaaaaAAAAAlll-E

LATE! Everything's LATE! (I've mostly written my BSG finale review. Good thing I'm not getting paid for this. Then again, if I had been this would have been on time. And had better punctuation.)

Since I've written this a week ago there has been a rather amusing WALL-E lash/backlash. Go look for it. Laugh. You'll read it again in a minute: We get FTL. We win.

Ah. Well, I've made my first mistake this morning: I read Lileks before I wrote my WALL-E review. Oh, well.

PERFECT. Like, Incredibles perfect. Like, when do I get to see it again perfect.

Ok, elephant in the room time: "Hey, ain't you a planet hating Republican?" Why, yes. And that's one of the many things I LOVED about this movie. I've been muttering somewhat cynically (it's what I do best) that this movie depicts a world where we've "used up the Earth". Well, that's supposed to be the end, isn't it? Nope. We are able to move a goodly chunk of the populace into very comfortable space while we put the Earth back together. I call that a win! But now I've seen the movie, it's even BETTER! It isn't a BSG "Oh, it sucks to be out in space and everyone is DEAD." No! Everyone is ludicrously comfortable! So much so that we're supposed to 'tsk tsk' at them for their obviously over-done comfort! For a rampantly consumerist society, they've managed to develop an enclosed environment that thrives at "MORE MORE MORE!" levels for SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS. (I'm sure there's a dark side: Soylent Green - in a cup!) And the other thing that no-one has touched on? They're all NICE. We only meet a few people in the movie, but they're all friendly, well meaning, and, ok, maybe more than a little bored. We should hope for such a future. Oh, and we've apparently developed CRAZY good FTL. Not bad for a dying species. (Oh, and they all seem to be, well, American. *cough*)

Plus, it's NOT global warming. It's not carbon footprints. It's not the ozone layer. (It's a little Haliburton.) It's good old fashioned post-apocalyptic pollution. It's not a warning, it's a McGuffin. (And it's GORGEOUS.)

But enough of all that. Oh, this is a wondrous film. WALL-E has heart and soul to spare. He's just so... so... well, blast it, he's CUTE. He's everything anyone gets into animation for in the first place. There was much concern (still voiced by people who haven't seen the movie) about a kids movie with no talking for the first 40 minutes or so. Hey, there was no talking in Tom and Jerry or the good Pink Panther cartoons. Or Roadrunner for that matter. And this is sublime. In ten minutes alone you'll get joy, wonder, laughs, and melancholy despair. For a start. The last few days bits of the movie have been popping back into my head. (WALL-E before he has his morning sun, for example.) Some of the beginning almost has an "I am Legend" vibe.

The trailers for the movie are just about right. There are a couple of shots that I'd take out. But 1) they lie to you (my favorite trailer technique) and 2) they show you enough to get you into the movie and hold a LOT back. So this will be brief because the movie moves into spoiler territory rapidly. There's a stretch of the movie that pretty much is just the first trailer. (WALL-E hitting himself in the head with the paddle-ball is still making me laugh.)

I can't go into much about EVE (certainly not All About EVE) without spoilage. But I love that it's the GIRL who is the "kill everything that moves psycho robot". Heh. Again, it's the Superman / Lois Lane thing: It's not that EVE is THAT lovable. It's that WALL-E loves her SO much. The scenes on Earth after EVE meets her "directive" are some of the sweetest in movies ever. You'll never look at Pong again without giggling.

Gee, WALL-E starts up with a Mac sound and EVE looks like a flying iPod. Who owns this company?

Pixar continues to be Story Writing 101. Everything pays off. The movie runs on rails. It's so tight it squeaks. Why don't THESE guys write an Indiana Jones movie? I'm sure this will be even better a second time around when you know where it all goes.

This is Pixar doing sci-fi. Ohhhhhhhh! It's so BEAUTIFUL!

From Wikipedia: "After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt they "had really achieved the physics of believing you were really under water, so I said 'Hey, let’s do that with air.' Let’s fix our lenses, let’s get the depth of field looking exactly how anamorphic lenses work and do all these tricks that make us have the same kind of dimensionality that we got on Nemo with an object out in the air and on the ground.'"[5] Producer Jim Morris added that the film was animated so that it would feel "as if there really was a cameraman".[8] Dennis Muren was hired to advise Pixar on replicating science fiction films from the 1960s and 1970s, including elements such as 70 mm frames, barrel distortion and lens flare.[9][10] Scale models were made for Muren, which he used to teach Pixar."

Muren! The Old Man of ILM! Jinkies! Pixar is the CG studio that is trying to look like MOVIES instead of video games. Stanton is slated to do John Carter of Mars next. How Pixar will pull that off, I have no idea. But at least it will look like David Lean instead of Michael Bay.

And the sound. It's Ben Burtt. The man who gave us lightsabers and R2-D2. Who re-popularized the Wilhelm Scream. Oh, all movies should sound like this. Thirty years later and he's still amazing.

And if you're as obsessive as I am, stay for the credits. It's cool. Not Iron Man or Pirates cool. But cool.

So, yeah, I liked it.

Go.

BSG 411 - The Hub

SPOILERS. Good grief, go watch the show for crying out loud! What else do you have to watch? (I have my shiny new John Adams DVDs waiting for me! Huzzah!)

This is almost it. In fact, by the time you read this, it's over until next year. Wonder what horrible cliff-hanging atrocity they'll visit on us this year? (Some of you know. Soon, I too will know. Arrrgh.)

So, it was expected, but it was still cool. "Two days ago". We get to see what happened to our wayward babes. The hybrid takes the gang hub hunting. Interesting mission for the hybrid to be on. Wonder what her motive is? Airlock hooks up with old, dead friends. GB preaches to the toasters and then goes to confession. Helo finds the weirder parts of being married to a Cylon. D'Anna gets in touch with her REALLY sarcastic side. Husker doesn't get to finish his book. Jane gets to write some funny stuff for Airlock and GB.

Skipping ahead, they did it. They really did it. They got rid of Cylon resurrection. (Mind you, I'd think they'd be working their shiny toaster butts off to rebuild it, but I'll go with it for now.) And Helo managed to do it. ("You are not married to the entire Eight production line." Hee!) Good for Helo. Yes, you're guilt ridden. Sorry about that. Yes, you're very, very decent. We know that. Congrats on turning down the Eight that isn't Athena.

Elosha! Awesome! (Wish they'd bring back Billy. Maybe on her next vision.) I think that we've seen the end of the show, right here. Galactica is empty because everyone has left (probably for Earth). It's just Bill, Lee, Kara, and Laura. If you watch B5 you probably get this right away. Or maybe not. We'll see next year, won't we?

Laura and Baltar yelling at the hybrid was hilarious. Very Giles and Anya. (It's a Buffy writer, I make Buffy references.)

Mary McDonnell is terrific. The total paralysis she shows when Baltar tells he that he gave the Cylons the access codes. She knows that she HAS to do something. Something awful, irrevocable, and immediate. And she's so overwhelmed by this that she can't even breathe. And then she saves his life. This will be interesting to say the least.

Bye bye red-shirt Pike. We knew you were for it sooner or later.

Um. Did they just kill Boomer?

Three comes out of the box and is mad at everyone. Gotta love that. Baltar used to be that kind of unpredictable. I miss that. We'll see where it goes. Laura the final Cylon: Didn't buy it for a second, Ron. Not in the preview. Not in the show. Better luck next time.

So I wonder when / if they'll start showing a Cylon survivor count? And if all the Cylons are "mortal" now, will they continue to reproduce? There are two-and-a-half human/cylon children now, right? (More if you count Lee. Kidding.)

I'm not sure how Laura thinks that she can contain Three in the middle of a baseship. Seems the odds would be the other way. But that's our girl, always the gutsy move. What's going on with the non-plotting sixes?

Still no Leoben. I cry fowl.

"I love you."
"It's about time."
So say we "awwwwwww".