Archive for the 'Authors' Category

Inglourious Basterds

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
State of Body Slightly scalped. Nothing serious, really. Oh, and there’s a bit of a cut on the forehead; hopefully won’t scar too much.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator Shellshear
Comments Brilliant, except very slightly implausible towards the end bit of the film.

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Terminator Salvation

Friday, July 24th, 2009
State of Body Innards ripped out and replaced with machinery that is tougher, louder and more futuristic, but ultimately non-functional.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator Shishberg
Comments Impressive in some ways, but not any of the ways that made T1 and T2 great.

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Watchmen

Friday, March 6th, 2009

One hour into Watchmen, I thought it was going to beat out Dark Knight as my favourite superhero film.

I didn’t expect much. The graphic novel is dense and long and literary, and although 300 (the director’s previous film) was visually lush, I wasn’t moved by it. I knew it was going to be pretty long, and would nonetheless have to do some fairly savage cutting to get it finished under three hours. I was prepared for compromises. That was the first surprise. It fit in far more than I was expecting, and patiently laid things out without the kind of mad rush that infected such films as The Golden Compass. It even made an improvement in discarding the giant squid in favour of the very logical “Doctor Manhattan goes nuts” scenario, tying things together very effectively.
Still, perilously close to greatness, the second half meandered into setpieces that were cool but left the plot hanging. The subplot about Black Canary’s patrimony *was* rushed and so was Doctor Manhatten’s ultimate conversion to save humanity.
For a change, let’s open the comments for suggestions for changing the film, even if it is just me in the end.

Pride and Extreme Prejudice

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Astute readers may recall a 2006 Film Forensic about how Pride and Prejudice might be improved with vampires.
Recently, someone decided it would be a better Zombie story.
And now, please welcome to the stage: Pride and Predator. Yaaaaaaay!

Dollhouse, Episode 1

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

I watched the first episode of Joss Whedon’s new “Dollhouse” TV series the other day. While it wasn’t particularly exciting in itself, and it doesn’t really sell the raison d’etre, I can see some good SF potential.

It posits a pretty big SF idea: that it’s possible to read and write memories and personality, and even fuse aspects of memory and personality from several people.
In the first episode, this is used purely for imprinting expertise onto people (Echo, the main character, gets to be a motorcycle-riding hottie and then a hostage negotiator). Whedon makes a strong effort at selling why people would pay for an artificial hostage negotiator rather than a real one:

“Nobody has everything they want. It’s a survival pattern. You get what you want, you want something else. If you have everything, you want something else. Something more extreme. Something more specific. Something perfect.”

…which is nice, but not quite compelling enough. However, there are plenty of reasons the Dollhouse might appeal to people with the right amount of money.

A government wants a perfect spy/infiltrator against an Enemy. A Doll is uploaded with a genuine Enemy-sympathising personality. They join the Enemies. Time passes. When the time is right, the Doll is uploaded with the Spy upgrade.

A hypothetical billionaire wishes to swap their sex for a day. They upload their own memories and personality into a Doll. The Doll-billionaire does stuff for a day. The billionaire downloads the memories from the Doll.

A hypothetical billionaire is old and wishes to not die. They pay a great deal of money, and upload their memories and personality into a Doll.

It seems unlikely that these scenarios will be played out. They highlight the society-changing aspects of the underlying technology a little too much, moving the series too far away from the initial concept. It’s very unlikely, however, that Whedon is unaware of these possibilities, and he may play around the edges of this. What’s more likely is that we discover limitations of the Dollhouse technology – perhaps the memory imprinting only works for a short time (which would gel with the stated position that Echo will get aspects of her own personality back), or that prepping to be an imprintee is time-consuming/requires surgery/only works on certain people.

Joss Whedon has opened a big world of possibilities with the first episode of Dollhouse. It’s as though somebody had invented a time machine and is using it as an alarm clock. Perhaps it has hidden limitations, and an alarm clock really is the best use for it. Time will tell.

I Am Legend

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Alternate thoughts on the ending.

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I Am Legend

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Some thoughts on the ending.

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The Mist

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Some thoughts on the ending…
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No Country For Old Men

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

A few thoughts on why I should definitely not be put in charge of this kind of material…
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Fantastic Four

Friday, November 30th, 2007
State of body A super-powered corpse that won’t trouble you with too many deeper questions.
Detail of Inspection Inspected twice.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Family friendly fun.

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Highlander: The Source

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
State of Body Not so much decapitated as cut off at the knees.
Detail of Inspection Inspected twice, with the body parts in distinctly different arrangements.
Forensic Investigator Jon Blum
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel when nobody watched the last one?

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RoboCop 3

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
State of Body Worked over pretty bad and then neutered.
Detail of Inspection Inspected 3 or 4 times. Probably this time was watching it for the last time I ever will in this lifetime.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel? You just have to copy the first one, don’t you? Hey, didn’t I already say that somewhere else?

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Memento – second impressions

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

David Morgan-Mar continues his experiment, having now watched the film in the intended order…
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Memento – in chronological order

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

Guest reviewer David Morgan-Mar, having never seen the film Memento, watches it in the re-edited chronological order!
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RoboCop 2

Sunday, September 30th, 2007
State of Body Like so many other sequels this much maligned corpse can’t escape negative comparisons to its far superior progenitor.
Detail of Inspection Inspected 4 or 5 times. Difficult to remember after such a long hiatus.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments How hard is it to make a sequel? You just have to copy the first one, don’t you?

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Die Hard 4.0

Thursday, August 30th, 2007
State of Body Certainly not stale, but as this corpse was always going to be a success it could have taken a few more risks.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Fun, but can’t make it to the next level. What more could one expect with “4″ in the title? That’s what the writers, producers and director hoped you’d be thinking.

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Spider-Man 3

Saturday, July 7th, 2007
State of Body Watchable. Enjoyable. Unmemorable.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments Great action. ’nuff said.

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Snakes on a Plane

Monday, May 21st, 2007
State of body Oooooooh, where to start. Um, dead? Yeah. Very dead. Strange puncture wounds. Mysterious.
Detail of inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator shellshear
Comments So much potential! Well, I thought so anyway. A classic example of a movie playing it far too safe; of failing to properly explore the premise.

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X2

Monday, May 7th, 2007
State of Body Viable, but has signs of future instability.
Detail of Inspection Inspected a few times.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments This body is in pretty good nick. If only it had kept to the cast established in the first one. I think I’m mixing my metaphors. Oh well.

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Underworld: Evolution

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
State of Body Not dead, but not truly alive.
Detail of Inspection Inspected once.
Forensic Investigator winstoninabox
Comments This body’s DNA matches that of an earlier victim. Similar wounds are apparent.

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