Science Fiction Series and Movies

Aliens (1986) (Special Edition): The drooling dentures strike back (James Cameron) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

The year is 1986, I'm blisfully playing in my very alien-free elementary schoolyard (darn it), while those who are old enough to be seeing this movie are getting great enjoyment from watching people melting, being severed, having their yummy, delicious brains eaten or being used for alien reproduction (Borat says: "sexy time!"). Lucky b@$#@&>$!!

James Cameron has already said "yoohoo, I'm here" by making his first attempt to terminate our species in 1984's "The Terminator". He continues his cinematic killing spree in this film, too. I think that deep down, he hates humanity. If he could, he would probably make a movie with machines and aliens trying to slaughter everyone on a sinking ship. Oh, the horror and the beauty of it all..."Aliens" was conceived as an idea before "The Terminator" had even been released in cinemas and Cameron didn't have much clout as an artist yet. He was actually offered the chance to write a script for a sequel to "Alien" only after ALL of his own ideas for movies had already been turned down and was basically given the chance on good faith, because what he had finished of "The Terminator" by that point looked promising. He gave it his best shot and here we are 23 years later, me writing the 1 billionth review of this movie and you reading it. But you know you love it, dontcha?

Let's make one point clear to avoid confusion. "Alien" is the original 1979 Ridley Scott movie. This one, the sequel by James Cameron, is called "AlienS". Quite an original way of naming a sequel, I know. Or just a damn literal one if you ask me, considering the number of extraterrestrial beasts appearing in this film. The original film only had one, remember? (lonely, poor thing...I just made myself laugh again). This movie is a very different beast to Ridley Scott's intimate original. The first one was a nightmarish, dark, claustrophobic horror movie. This one is a bona fide space action / adventure with horror elements thrown in for good measure. Cameron is about as discrete in his movie making as I am in reviewing movies. He does small and intimate (and understands the meaning of "less is more") as well as I can do back flips. But he is hell-a-good (as Cartman would say) at what he does and a true master of his craft, even if it means that he has to e.g. almost literally rebuild the whole Titanic to get what he has in his head on film. He is like an overfilled, mouthwatering, super-sized burger. Not as elegant as, say, a summer strawberry salad, but deeply satisfying nevertheless. In keeping this food metaphor going for just one moment longer, Lucas' movies would probably be like the cake your kids tried to bake for you as a surprise. Things got messy and the ingredients, some of which were tasty, now need to be scraped off the floor and ceiling. I heart you, George. (Aliens in a Mayan temple which is really Atlantis, George?? REALLY?!??!?!!11)

James Cameron is an inspired script writer and it's truly noble how much this film stays true to the original "Alien" material, although it didn't have to. It would have probably made tons of cash even if it didn't. Watching the original and this sequel back to back, I was surprised by how absolutely flawless the transition from "Alien" to "Aliens" was. Cutting off the end credits of "Alien" and starting this film immediately in their place would look totally seamless, with no one being the wiser that a movie made 7 years later had just started. It feels like we are in the same universe as "Alien", albeit a greatly expanded version of it. Ultimately though, as much as Cameron bases his film on the original story and visuals, his stylistic choices are very different to Scott's and that produces a beautiful movie, but with some questionable results here and there.

OK, let's tear this movie apart in some more detail, although I will try not to be my evil self and start with some of the positive changes made by Cameron to the "Alien" universe. Everything in this movie looks bigger, and in some cases it really needed this boost. For example, the space scenes in the original with the "Nostromo" were not particularly well done in my opinion, even by that time's standards. You could tell it was a model, which didn't help the audience's suspension of disbelief in those scenes. Here, space looks gorgeous and more detailed and the new ship in this movie, the "Sulaco", looks very large, as it should. All of the places visited in the original movie are re-done with much higher detail and a whole load more is added to the mix. This is where Cameron's craftsmanship really shines through.

Being a total nerd that will gladly watch a movie a second time with the commentary on and then will go on to watch all the special features with religious fervour, only to finally proceed to go online to research a film's making even further (yeaps, I'm so popular with da ladiez!), I believe I generally understand the technological limitations of special effects at the time this film was made pretty well. If you wanted to show something huge, it would have to be a miniature model filmed up close, hoping that your audience wouldn't realise that most of what you are showing them is the size of large toys. And everything that was life sized and didn't exist in real life, sets / props / costumes etc., would have to be meticulously created from scratch, often by scavenging parts of real-life tools and products and disguising them as something more futuristic. A combination of the large and small in more multi-layered, effect-heavy scenes would include matte paintings in the background, huge background screens on set with stuff projected on them or even hectic copy pasting of film onto film, by hand. Welcome to the many joys of pre-CG film making.

Cameron-san proves that he is a sensei of combining all the aforementioned elements in a way that many consider the benchmark that future science fiction action films would have to meet, before he would proceed to raise the bar even higher with the digital effects of "Terminator 2". All the pre-CG cinematic techniques have reached their peak here and are smoothly integrated into a breathtaking final visual result. The way Cameron cuts between actors, miniatures, life-sized sets and multiple combinations of the above is done with such precision that, even today, you would be hard-pressed to visually falter the movie and any failings would probably have to be seen in slow motion to be revealed. That is not to say, however, that the film doesn't have its fair share of miss fires in Cameron's hungry little overactive hands and mind.

If the original film was the old pervert in a dark alley that tried to get your attention with a candy, only to give you nightmares with his evil intentions later, this film is Willy Wonka who tries to get your attention by offering rivers of chocolate and although you will feel slightly mentally abused at the end, no nightmares are to be had after this sugar high. The film has way too much eye candy to show and it makes sure you can see ALL of it. The darkness of the original movie is all but gone here, with the film being too well lit for its own good most of the time. I appreciate being able to see all the cool effects clearly, but it comes at the price of losing some of that soil-your-panties atmosphere of the original. That, however, doesn't mean that this movie lacks its fair share of good scares.

This very logically brings us to the aliens in this movie. It's the name of the movie, so they are going to be SO good and scary, right?? Let's not forget that the sparkling jewel of the first film was this magnificently fear-inducing biological machine of death, designed and filmed with an almost perverted sense of respect towards the viewers. They were showing you something that would awaken that childish fear about what's hiding in your closet inside you and they knew it. Well, what Cameron does is equivalent to taking a very special, handcrafted, unique product and mass-producing a shitty factory version of it. First of all, he changed the design of the alien. I'm certain the aliens in this movie looked slightly different, especially after watching both movies back to back. James, did you hear ANYONE complain about the way the alien looked in the original??? Did it really need jet fighter-like aerodynamic additions to its head to look cooler?? Additionally, the aliens look much more like people in rubber suits than in the first film. I understand that he had to produce a lot of them on screen, unlike the single one of the first film, so some kind of cutbacks would have to be made, but at some points these dudes in black tights (seriously) and a rubber suit being propelled forward by wires don't cut it.

The way the aliens are used is also questionable as far as I'm concerned. The fact that their acid-for-blood seems to be corrosive only when the plot calls for it is a little insulting. The fact that dozens of them look much less menacing than one in the first movie and that they are being gunned down like stormtroopers in Star Wars at certain points showcase this film's departure from the original material and into mindless spectacle-land. I also didn't care much for the one, bigger alien appearing in the movie (I know I sound like I'm reviewing a movie that just came out, but I am honestly trying not to include spoilers for those who might have not watched this film yet. Excuse my occasional vagueness). It looked like a half-finished prop and needed more work. Cool and scary nevertheless. This movie is cool and scary in general, I don't want to be a hater, but did it really need an alien using an elevator??? Wtf?? Did it like, hum and whistle to elevator music while waiting to reach the upper level and eat people?? Would it be even physically possible for these aliens to whistle?? Better stop that trail of thought now before my mind gets lost in a vicious circle of fake xenobiology. Anyway, these kinds of really "doh!" moments I mentioned stick out like thorns from what is essentially a, more often than not, flawlessly executed film.

"Star Trek" Themes on Guitar: To boldly thrash where no man has thrashed before. (Chris-INISE)

2009-07-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yet another find of intergalactic awesomeness. If you like it, make sure to visit the creator's myspace, which is filled with all sorts of other similar goodies (guitar version of the superman theme, anyone?)

"Star Wars" Guitar Suite: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll in a galaxy far, far away. (Michael Romeo of Symphony X)

2009-07-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

This is not a review, just something I found online which is made of pure win. Enjoy it and if you like this guy's mad skills, visit the band's Official Site. They are one of the best contemporary metal bands out there at the moment.

"Alien" (1979): How I came to fear drooling grannies with dentures. (Ridley Scott) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

The year is 1979. While I'm busy being born, some people are busy being eaten...in space. The circle of life must go on I guess. Let the interstellar feast of human flesh begin.

This movie is Ridley Scott's first attempt at science fiction. He would only attempt it twice, with the second one being 1982's infamous "Blade Runner". Judging by the stinkers he directed after these two movies (before recovering with "Thelma and Louise"), it might be a blessing he didn't delve into science fiction any further. He proves one of life's deeper truths (am I really typing this now?? I didn't know I was so wise... I just made myself laugh with my own comment about myself). Almost all of us homo sapiens truly shine for very brief moments which are far and few between, while most of the rest of what we do is simply "OK", if not utter crap. A lot of the time we simply occupy space and use up oxygen. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on Lucas after all, he IS just a man like Scott...Nah!! Jar Jar Binks has traumatized my soul irrevocably, in a child-abuse type of way. I HATE YOU George Lucas!!! But I digress. I guess I could finish this review right here, I've already called the movie I'm reviewing a classic, but I'm definitely NOT a man of few words. You, my imaginary (for now) public, deserve to know more about this film.

Visually, this movie is still very effective even by today's standards, although it has aged a bit by now (and not in a way like, say, wine ages). When it comes to showing you the larger things in life like, uhm, space, it doesn't do too bad, but I do have a few gripes with it on a few points. The main spaceship appearing in the movie, the "Nostromo", and the "ore" refinery it's towing, are both introduced in a slow, sideways, swooping take at the beginning of the movie to make them seem humongous (a cinematic technique that had become the norm for introducing supposedly immense spaceships through Kubrick and Lucas by that point and would later be made fun of by Mel Brooks in "Space Balls"). However, they just don't have enough detail for me to convince me of their size. Common ways of making things look bigger than they truly were (you would be surprised how small these models some times were compared to the vast sizes they were trying to portray on screen) were putting a lot of detail in the sculpting of the model, using enough miles of optic fibers to light up a small town on the inside of the models, so the tips of the fibers would pretend to be the little lit up windows of the ship and finally, super-imposing recordings of the actors moving about on the sets that were supposed to be the decks and rooms of the ship on areas of the model with larger windows, so you could see the tiny people move inside the window and go "oh, cool". In my opinion, the "Nostromo" just doesn't have enough detail in its sculpting, it doesn't have nearly enough of those small lit up windows and when you see the tiny people through a deck window, it looks kind of fake. It is still exceptionally good by any standards, but it had been done better multiple times before (look at the mother ship in "Close Encounters", it has enough lights on it to blind you, you need sunglasses just to glance at the damn thing even on a TV screen...Yeah, Spielberg took things too far quite often).

The movie, in my view, holds up much better when it's presenting the smaller things in life (well, smaller compared to a mile long "ore" refinery the "Nostromo" is towing anyway), like the many claustrophobic rooms and corridors of the inside of the spaceship, small parts of an alien planet perpetually covered in fog and stormy weather and parts of a craft they find there (It's so hard trying not to spoil a movie when talking about movies this old, because you need to tiptoe around scenes that are classics, but I will still try not to spoil it anyway, just in case some people haven't watched this movie and want to do so. Oh, the sacrifices I make for you). The inside of the "Nostromo" is amazingly done with an affinity for attention to detail. The lighting is often unnaturally dim or even dark, but this IS supposed to be a horror movie in space, so we will excuse the artistic licenses taken by Scott to make things dark so he can scare us shitless. Thank you, sir. The alien vessel they encounter on a planet far, far away looks very alien-y and they have managed to make it look frighteningly beautiful and quite vast, considering it's just a set with matte paintings in the background. Kudos to you sir, again. You managed to make me scream like a little girl being touched inappropriately in this scene, too. I guess the planet they are on looks good too, but its so constantly covered in fog and rain that you can't see much of it. That probably makes it more convincing than seeing it in normal daylight (which would probably show the many imperfections of the set) and certainly adds to the poop-your-pants atmosphere or perpetual fear that something horrible is about to happen around every corner. The one thing I have to note as showing a lack of foresight are the spaceship's screens. They are obvious, chunky, conventional curved-like-a-ball CRT screens and the geeky things they are showing (random numbers and astronomical maps etc.) are obviously playing from overused VHS tapes. Those damn future corporations must be so stingy that they still use CRT screens showing fake information off of VHS tapes to make the crew believe they are doing something important. Cheap bastards. And whenever something is calculated from a computer in the "Nostromo", the computer makes a sound that goes like "chunkuh-chunkuh-boing-boing". What is this? Future space travel or a saturday morning cartoon??

But the 'pièce de résistance' (Yeah, I'm so refined) of this movie is the Alien itself that wants to munch on everyone's brains. Originally this alien started as very likable to me. You see, I was raised with two grannies close by, both of which wore dentures they would occasionally take out of their mouth to make me laugh and they would sometimes also drool, especially while sleeping (uh, my sweet grannies). Anyone that has seen this movie can see the parallel I'm drawing quite easily (or I'm just nuts and I just compared my grannies to a killer alien from outer space with acid for blood). However, you will very quickly realize that this alien is not an "E.T." version of your beloved senile granny. It drools and takes out its teeth so it can bite your head off, preferably in dim, enclosed spaces with spooky sounds being heard in the background and multiple people screaming at the inhumanity of it all. I'm suddenly very, very afraid of my grannies now, especially as they sleep drooling at night, with their dentures almost falling out of their mouths...In all seriousness, this movie has the same premise as a 50s rubber-suit monster B-movie. The alien IS technically a guy in a mostly rubber suit (although they did use everything from Rolls Royce parts to a cast of a real human skull to make it look more realistic) (Not kidding about the Rolls Royce parts, seriously). However, the way that the lighting, sound, atmosphere, endless amounts of fake sweat and drool are combined, along with the way the alien is shot, result in producing one of the most menacing beings ever shown on film in one of the most successful science fiction horror movies, while avoiding the rubber hilarity of those older B-movies.

The soundtrack of the movie is very minimal, but very effective. Apparently, Jerry Goldsmith (one of the giants of cinema music) wrote a more lush score, but Scott decided not to use it quite that much. In any case, the final result works in a giving-you-nightmares kind of way. The acting is of note in this movie, too. It appears to be very realistic and the dialogues have a very natural flow. It would seem that the actors were given some freedom to improvise and roll with it. These are not the clean-cut people of "Star Trek", they are real human beings, scum just like the rest of us, smoking, swearing, flirting and the likes. The film is also notable for introducing the female heroine, paving the path for many (often lesser) future female heroines and kick-starting Sigourney Weaver's career in cinema kick-ass-ery. It's also notable that it makes a reference to the clutches of gigantic corporations and how they can pull the strings to influence every action and decision of their employees, even putting their lives at risk if necessary for the benefit of corporate greed. This common theme in early science fiction perhaps somewhat stems from the tight control of the studio executives over the production of these often very expensive movies, which would often involve them making artistic changes and decisions (for the benefit of a smaller budget), creating animosity between the creative people and the more executive, bureaucratic branch of movie making.

I have to mention at least one spoiler here, I just can't help myself. The one thing that is just plain dumb (apart from the many plot holes and unnaturally dark sets, which can be excused because they are all conspiring to create a film that will scare the life out of you), is the damn cat of death! First of all, who brings a darn cat into outer space?? Secondly, who the f... is dumb enough to go into the dimmest, most humid bowels of a spaceship to find the bloody aforementioned cat, ON THEIR OWN, when they have an alien with perfect-killing-machine-of-doom-who-will-eat-your-flesh-and-brains-and-will-destroy-you-and-everything-you-love abilities roaming around in the bloody ship!???! Well, OK, when they are playing spot-the-cat initially, they don't quite know just how dangerous things will get, but everyone should already know better with everything that's been going on in the movie up to that point. The cat parts (there's more than one of them) are the only ones in the movie that really fall into antiquated horror movie conventions. They are obvious set-ups to isolate someone and most likely get them horribly, horribly killed in order to make you go "eeeeeeeeeek" and throw your pop-corn in the air. That's quite silly for a movie this revolutionary. I'm done with my cat-hating rant. His name is Mr. Doomsy I think, or so I call him as I've blocked him from memory to avoid being aggravated by his existence in this film.

This movie pays homage to Kubrick's "2001" in many ways. There are scenes where the only thing you hear is breathing or a heartbeat, very reminiscent of Kubrick's surreal epic and very nerve-racking. There is one instance where classical music can be heard inside the "Nostromo". The film moves between two extremes, the vastness of space and the claustrophobia of the spaceship. Not to mention a computer which, though far less prominent than the almighty HAL, plays a big part in the story. It uses these Kubrick ideas to great effect and me likey. I also humbly believe it pays homage to the old B-movies with monsters that always included some nudity to draw in the crowds, when we find our heroine very scantily dressed (with a huge , almost unnecessary showing of butt crack), trying not to be eaten alive. Either that, or Scott is a pervert, craving for some Sigourney butt crack. You dirty old man.

This movie is like "2001" met "Star Wars" and they proceeded to have an orgy with "Jaws". It's the offspring of such an unholy communion. It's seriously scary, very entertaining (even though somewhat outdated) and deserves a place in every sci-fi fan's collection. Not to mention it paved the way for Cameron's "Aliens" which took it to a whole other level (before crashing down again through the two totally unnecessary sequels). There is a Director's Cut available, but unlike "Blade Runner", it has very little to offer, with Scott even admitting it was unnecessary and that the original cut was his complete vision as he intended it. Prepare to be joyfully eaten by an alien drooling granny with dentures below!

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Movie Info:

Year: 1979

Director: Ridley Scott (IMDb, Wiki)

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm and others

"Alien" on: IMDb (8.5/10), RT (97%); "Alien" Wiki

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube)

Making of (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2

Alien Design Documentary (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2

Alien Legacy (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Ridley Scott on "Alien" (Youtube)

A sample of Jerry Goldsmith's Music for "Alien" (Youtube)

Jerry Goldsmith Interview on "Alien" Score (Youtube)

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Downloads:
File is 700MB AVI, single Megaupload link. Unrar with WINRAR, watch with VLC player.

Remember, if you like it...BUY IT!!! (Before the Weyland-Yutani corporation sends you to respond to a "distress signal" and you end up running for your life in an escape pod with half your butt hanging out)

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968): Dude, where's my future? (Stanley Kubrick) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

The year is 1968. Up to this point, the world of science fiction movies has been like a classroom mostly filled with B students that keep throwing stuff to each other and at the teacher when he isn't looking (the countless B-movies filled with those hilarious rubber-suit monsters or aliens), the occasional hopeless oddball that seems to receive most of what's being thrown (Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" comes to mind...sorry, I need a minute to stop laughing after remembering that one), with the very few B+-graders, like Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and Haskin's "The War of the Worlds", smiling smugly in their little corner at the back of the classroom, but with caution, afraid that the rubber-suited bullies might come and kick their slightly more intellectual behinds. However, this high school classroom is about to become a university lecture hall. An upcoming director by the name of Stanley Kubrick, who has never directed science fiction before, is about to fall like a giant black monolith on the cinematic world's head.

In the world of cinematic science fiction, especially in the years before CG visual effects which allowed for easy corrections and more artistic experimentation, it would appear that directing a movie like you are running a concentration camp and being literally obsessive-compulsive about the level of detail that can be achieved on screen meant that you would probably end up with a good movie in your hands. Welcome to the wonderful world of endless script rewrites, vicious artistic arguments, multi-year production delays, where going severely over budget would almost become the norm and would cause many studio executives and producers to age prematurely. A lot of the drama of this movie's development involved Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, the writer of the original short story the movie is based on and the concurrent to the movie full novel that he proceeded to write to coincide with the film's release. Whoever said that great minds think alike was sorely mistaken in this case. This was a true clash of science fiction Titans which probably lead to as much of a depletion of the world's paper supply as Scott's "Blade Runner" before the dust had settled and the script and novel were in final form.

Was this movie worth the trouble it caused during its conception and production? That would have to be a resounding...."Huh? What the f... did we just watch??" initially that would turn to a huge "YES" in the following years (although my mother still doesn't get it). One needs to understand that Kubrick basically proved that time IS relative with his uncanny ability to predict the future and create movies that were (and still are) way, waaaaaaaaaay ahead of their time. If all things went wrong for him as a director, he could easily become a very successful fortuneteller or tarot card reader. Also, one needs to understand that Kubrick was interested in creating art, not just movies for the box office. He was a Picasso of cinema, not afraid to boldly go where no man has gone before (oh, Jean-Luc Picard, how much we miss you). Armed with those two realizations, you can now proceed to the rest of this informative, wonderful and generally awesome review (I rule, YEAH!!! Sorry, having a hard day today, I need the self-praising).

I have an allergy for reviews that mention the whole plot of a movie. That is not constructive or helpful criticism, it feels like you are reading an elementary school essay ("and we went there and we did that and then we played and then we ate and then we went home"...someone shoot me). There is this magical way of finding out the plot of a movie that's called ..."watching the bloody movie"! So, I think I made it rather clear that I won't discuss the plot of "2001".

Visually, this movie is a monumental achievement. There hasn't been a movie before or since that has done so much to define what is visually possible on film. The life-sized sets, the costumes, the miniature-based spaceships and planetary special effects (that appear massive on screen), the attention of detail on the large and on the very small (the many stickers with instructions for use and warnings that appear on various imaginary devices in the many spaceships of the movie come to mind), all showcase the fact that people literally shed blood, sweat and tears to design and make them. Thankfully, the movie doesn't include smell-o-vision so that we can smell the results of all this intensive labor and the smell of the overworked actors that probably had to do every scene a gazillion times before Kubrick was happy. I can only imagine what this movie looked like when it was presented in its original 70mm print on a "Cinerama" screen, which was larger than today's multiplex screens and engulfed the viewers with its curvature for the most immersive experience to date. Unfortunately, those screens don't exist any more (not where I live anyway) and I personally feel sad that I am too young to have ever experienced this movie the way it was meant to be watched. Watching it on a normal TV still gives you a huge sense of mystery and grandeur, so one can only imagine what the people in the cinema felt like watching this for the first time. This is 1968 that we are talking about people! 1968! It would be almost a whole decade before Lucas would start ripping off older WWII movies scene-for-scene to make Star Wars and its space fight scenes.

Aurally, this movie is extremely effective. However, one needs to realise that, being a work of science fiction art and not some sci-fi childish drivel aimed solely at lining people's pockets (Goooood boy, Transformers 2 *pat on the head*. Sit quietly and play in your corner now), effective doesn't necessarily mean pleasant. Watching a rotating spaceship slowly dock on a rotating, wheel-like space hotel, in what resembles a choreographed technological space dance with the "Blue Danube" waltz playing in the background, is a unique, surreal, very pleasant and unforgettable experience. Equally unforgettable are the lengthy times of total silence that are supposed to represent the lack of sound in space, with the heavy breathing of the astronauts in their space suits dominating the soundtrack. It's supposed to represent how difficult and risky it is for man to be in space (that's what I think anyway, I will stop thinking too hard now before my head explodes). The scenes where the soundtrack turns to the most eerie collection of random, choral voices to convey the fear and amazement of humans faced with the unknown (a sound that would make the scariest of horror films proud) is also utterly unforgettable. But the last two are also extremely unpleasant. They are meant to be. They are meant to scare you, amaze you and make you think. Use that thing behind your eyes in your skull, don't be afraid. Sci-fi is not only about things going "boom" in space and aliens probing people's private places.

I've been avoiding this part, which will talk about the concepts and themes the movie tackles, for as long as I humanly could. Now, I will take one for the team (I really hope you are happy for the aneurysm I am about to have while trying to describe my understanding of this movie). One definite central topic is that of the evolution of humanity and our future and destiny as a species. The movie seems to think that we face and will face many dilemmas on how to progress, but it seems to hope for the best. We appear to have achieved a lot in the film, but to have also somehow lost our passion and soul (as apparent from e.g. the over-commercialisation of even space and space travel, shown through the endless brand names that appear on everything and the meaningless, frigid dialogues that take place there). It definitely also tackles the topic of artificial intelligence, though many argue that the A.I. in this movie is the most "human" character of them all, with the real humans appearing to be disillusioned, cold and bored, almost spoilt by their technological achievements. It definitely shows space travel as something difficult and new for humanity where humans have to re-invent and adapt themselves in order to survive, explore and expand. However, this exploration of humanity's real playground, the universe, appears to be of the utmost importance for our future destiny, no matter how difficult these first baby steps might be. The movie possibly discusses contact with aliens, but no one, in my opinion, can be absolutely certain if this higher intelligence is alien or something else in nature. Finally, the movie takes an ultimate stab at guessing our future destiny in a very surreal, trippy way which I could only describe as "hopeful" and as "I wish I had taken some illegal substances before viewing this part". Definitely worth watching, but make sure you are not too tired or you will start bleeding from your nose and ears from too much visual and aural stimulation. One can see how the excitement of the space race and the hopelessness caused by the wars of the time permeate the movie. It's a shame that contemporary movies don't bother with such heavy questions, it's not like things have changed THAT much since then. This was my humble attempt at understanding this movie...I used the word "definitely" way too many times...I and my confidence in my interpretation will now go and hide somewhere before we embarrass ourselves more.

This movie is like Picasso's "Guernica". Some people will hate it, other people will love it, but pretty much everyone will respect its vision. It caused very mixed reviews when it came out. People where not ready for a movie that takes almost half an hour before the very first words of dialogue are spoken. But as with every true work of art, it has withstood the test of time probably better than any other film ever made. A lot of the original criticisms, usually made by the older guard, were recanted when people had a chance to adapt to what was a truly new kind of cinema and understand its vision. This movie caused cult-like fanaticism and younger audiences would go for repeated viewings, keeping the movie in the cinemas for well over a year. People would be found screaming about not understanding it or screaming in joy when they thought they DID understand its meaning (an example of someone thinking they got it here). Don't fall into that trap, this movie will have its own meaning for you, as every good work of art should. Many people were actually inspired to become film-makers or scientists because of this film and many more where simply inspired and more hopeful about life in general. Some even wrote a university thesis about it. I'm not kidding. Unfortunately, the amazing future the movie predicted for 2001 has not taken place yet and that's a real shame. Where is the future promised to us? I can only hope that we are just not there yet and Kubrick's dates were simply just overly optimistic. I don't want to think that this future will never happen because we are squandering our potential in finding new and better ways of killing each other (wow, this movie has affected me again, despite having watched it multiple times before). I cannot guarantee that you will enjoy it in the traditional cinema, pop-corn and cola sense, but I can guarantee that you will never forget it. If "Blade Runner" was the visual Daddy of modern sci-fi, this is the Grand-daddy that started it all. View an HD version if possible. Prepare to meet higher universal intelligences and evolve below!

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Movie Info:

Year: 1968

Director: Stanley Kubrick (IMDb, Wiki, The Kubrick Site)

Cast: Keir Dullea, Garry Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain and others

"2001" on: IMDb (8.4/10), RT (96%); "2001" Wiki; Official Site

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube) (Includes "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, the movie's famous theme)

Stanley Kubrick: The Legacy of "2001" Special (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2

"2001": The Making of a Myth (Youtube) (Hosted by James Cameron) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Kubrick at the opening of "2001" (Youtube)

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Downloads:
This is a nice 1.4GB AVI, divided into 15 Megaupload links. Unrar with WINRAR, view with VLC player. Password for rar files is "areg".

Remember, if you liked this classic movie...BUY IT!!! (Or HAL will NOT open the pod bay door!)

"Blade Runner" (1982): The original, better clone wars. (Ridley Scott) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

The year is 1982 and no one is worried about the implications of Dolly, the first cloned mammal, because Dolly is still nothing but a glimmer in some crazy Scottish researcher's eyes. But Ridley Scott is about to change that...or is he??

From day one, the production of Blade Runner was plagued with problems. The script had been re-written enough times to cause Greenpeace demonstrations about the rain forest trees that were being cut to keep the writers supplied with paper. The various incarnations of the script had been praised or denounced by the author of the original novel so many times that if this script was a kid, it would have developed split personality disorder and would be hospitalized for life. The torturous, perfectionist attention to detail demanded by the director would often lead the cast and crew to reactions that probably resembled scenes from "300", with everyone literally fighting with everyone else (some of the crew would even come to lovingly call the movie "Blood Runner").

And those internal woes of the movie were not its only problems. It was released at the same time as Spielberg's "E.T." and a year after "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark", and the reason I'm mentioning this will become clear in a minute. Everyone knows that Spielberg is GOD in Hollywood (or Lord Xenu if you're a scientologist) and that E.T. is his secret minion of alien destruction. How could the bleak, gloomy, dystopic Blade Runner compete with the evil, money-making cuteness that was E.T.'s "phoooone hooooooome"? And how could anyone sell Mr. Indiana Han Solo Jones himself as a fallen-from-grace, morally challenged future cop in a movie with no clear-cut, black-and-white heroes or villains?

These are the exact same questions asked by the movie's executives at the time and we ended up with enough cuts of the movie to make an emo kid with a razor happy (and probably dead), long before George Lucas had discovered his obsessive-compulsive joy of re-editing and "enhancing" his older movies. The original cinema cut had a tacked on happy ending that made the whole dark atmosphere of the film pointless. Unsurprisingly, it didn't do very well at the box office. Then came a director's cut (originally not approved by the director (!)) that somewhat restored the original vision. And finally, in 2007, we got the Final Cut, which was what Scott had intended to show us in the first place (unless he has a Super-final-for-real-this-time-no-really-I-promise Cut of the movie up his sleeve which I don't know about).

This movie is no Terminator, you've been warned. It doesn't just graze the surface of the whole creator-creation / man-machine (or clones in this case, called "replicants" in the film) conundrum, the conundrum IS almost the whole movie. Through it, the movie tackles the fleeting nature of life. It also tackles the over-commercialization of everything and the ever-expanding, overreaching, powerful arm of corporations (a topic briefly touched upon in Scott's previous sci-fi epic, "Alien"). Yeah, it's deep. And even though I criticized the Matrix sequels for preaching, that is not the case here. This movie doesn't preach, it doesn't lecture, it just absorbs you into its atmosphere and story and let's you make up your own mind about its core philosophical questions.

And boy, does this movie have atmosphere! It has enough atmosphere to make 10 earth-sized planets inhabitable. The dark vision of the future is presented in such meticulous, awe-inspiring detail that it literally redefined what sci-fi looked like after its making. Think of dirty, neon-filled streets, flying cars, huge skyscrapers full of lights, immense flying advertisements and tell me how many movies you've seen those in over the years. This movie is the Daddy of them all. Humanity's dark, gritty, but still hi-tech future image had been born. I had the fortune of watching a high definition copy of the final cut recently, gloriously restored through what must have been an almost labour-of-love type effort to make it look and sound better and clearer than ever. I was blown away...again. I wanted to take the disc out of my player, marry it and make babies with it.

The amazing electronic music score by Vangelis, the deep story, the breathtaking visuals, the way-ahead-of-their-time concepts, they all combine to create what is one of the best sci-fi movies of all time and probably one of the best movies of all time in general. I, personally, will never get tired of revisiting the world of Blade Runner once in a while. Come with me for a visit (or be hunted as a renegade replicant!) below.

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Movie info:

Year: 1982

Director: Ridley Scott (IMDb, Wiki)

Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos and others

"Blade Runner" on: IMDb (8.3/10), RT (94%); "Blade Runner" Wiki; Official Site

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube)

Making of (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

On the Edge of Blade Runner Special (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Edward James Olmos speaks about Blade Runner (Youtube)

Ridley Scott on Harrison Ford as Deckard (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2

Blade Runner Theme (Youtube)

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Downloads:
File is 700MB MP4 (sorry about it being an mp4, but it looks really good), divided into 8 RAR archives, each is one Megaupload link. Decompress using WINRAR, watch with VLC player.

Remember, if you like it...BUY IT!!! (Before I and my Voight-Kampff replicant-scanning machine start liking you for a replicant)

"Terminator 2: Judgement Day" (1991): Eating liquid mercury IS bad for you. (James Cameron) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

The year is 1991 and the world has been peaceful and Terminator-free for a good 7 years now. But James Cameron is about to change that...YAY!! :D

Let me say this from the start: if the first terminator was a classic, this is an uber-classic that brought science fiction movie making to the digital age. Yeah, it's that good. This time around you get all the wholesome goodness of the first movie and then some. It's like someone took a delicious cake with cherries on top and then proceeded to top it up with extra layers of creamy, tasty, fatty heaven. This movie is as much horror at points as the first one and it will make you become scared of liquid-mercury-filled thermometers for life.

I think that Schwarzenegger (can't believe I typed this right twice...or did I??) realized that playing a metal horseman of the robotic apocalypse would hurt his future real-life chances of ruling ze world (imagine it being said with really bad German accent for full effect) and decided to play a very big and scary...good guy, hoping people would remember how he helped Jesus...erm...I mean John Connor survive and save us all in the movie and vote for him to become a governor in a not so distant future election. Or at least, that's my evil Schwarzenegger conspiracy...who knows with these things (yes, it is quite a scary place inside my head).

This movie has one of the most memorable villains of all time in the form of the liquid T-1000 terminator, which advanced the making of CG visual effects about a decade in a hurry so that the effects presenting his many transformations could be created for this film. He can be anyone, or anything. His hands can turn into metal sword-thingies and giganto-needles that can and WILL impale you. Now, that's scary in my book (although he would make a wonderful multipurpose kitchen appliance, taking the well known telemarketing catchphrase "But wait! There's MORE!" to new heights).

This movie takes the basic premise of the first one (watch it to find out what I mean, I am not the IMDb plot summary) and adds more thrills, more and better looking action and effects and a light sprinkling of philosophical ideas such as what free will and feelings are and the whole man-machine / creator-creation conundrum etc. However, James Cameron knows to keep this to a satisfying minimum, just enough to be intriguing and he doesn't turn the movie into a philosophy lecture (Ahem, I'm looking at you Matrix sequels). A sci-fi movie can either be mostly action, perhaps with a bit of horror, OR mostly a deep allegory about the core existential questions of humankind. It takes kahunas grandes to even try to combine both in equal amounts and it would still probably not work.

I will not spoil the ending of the movie either, just in case some of you were in a coma and haven't watched this movie already in the past 18 years, but suffice it to say that it's a damn satisfying one that has no need for sequels (with the ones that have come out not proving me wrong thus far). For what follows, recovered coma patients (and young' uns who have somehow managed to miss every television showing of this movie) rejoice and then prepare to be impaled!

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Movie info:

Year: 1991

Director: James Cameron (IMDb, Wiki)

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick and others

"Terminator 2" on: IMDb (8.5/10), RT ( 97%); "Terminator 2" Wiki

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube)

Making of (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Making of Special Effects (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Edward Furlong on how he got the role of John Connor (Youtube)

Terminator 2 Theme (Youtube)

Interview of Composer Brad Fiedel (Youtube)

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Downloads:
This is yet another standard 700MB AVI file, divided into 8 RAR archives, each one its separate Megaupload link. Decompress with WINRAR, watch with VLC player.

Remember, if you liked this movie...BUY IT OR BE GIGANTO-NEEDLE-IMPALED!!!

"The Terminator" (1984): How Sarah Connor learned to hate 'Heavy Metal'. (James Cameron) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

No real science fiction fan can look at themselves in the mirror and feel good if they haven't watched "The Terminator". I don't care if some of you are young enough to say "but the main villain is a current U.S. governor!" or "hey, this was made by the same guy who directed the Titanic!" or that it simply looks kind of dated by today's standards. Not even if you say "but some of the sequels sucked"! This movie rules in a metal-robot-of-hell-from-the-future-brings-an-early-apocalypse kind of way. Schwarzenegger (try saying that name 5 times fast!) shines in what he is good at: looking big and scary. Sarah Connor is convincingly distressed by the big scary robot hunting her down to kill her so that she doesn't give birth to Jesus....erm...I mean John. This movie plays like a sci-fi AND a horror movie at the same time and will scare the crap out of you on many occasions. It's relentless. It's ridiculously action packed. It has a good premise behind it. It's made by the only guy in Hollywood who knows how to make both good original movies AND even better sequels. It's good enough to scare you and entertain you even today, despite looking somewhat dated. Get ready to meet your doom below!

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Movie info:

Year: 1984

Director: James Cameron (IMDb, Wiki)

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn and others

"The Terminator" on: IMDb (8.1/10), RT (100%); "The Terminator" Wiki

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube)

Making of (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2

The Terminator Theme (Youtube)

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Downloads:
The file is a standard 700MB AVI, single Megaupload link. To view, use VLC player.

Remember...if you like it (you better!), BUY IT!!! (Or humankind might have to face an early apocalypse!!)

"Serenity" (2005): The dead child gets resurrected. (Joss Whedon) (Movie, Megaupload)

2009-07-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

The year is 2005. "Firefly" fans have been starving for the mischievous crew of Serenity and their adventures for quite some time now and they have been using any way at their disposal to shout their outrage and ask for more. At last, results. The cinematic release of "Serenity", the movie based on the series, is for many (including myself) a dream come true. Simply put, the movie is great for any science fiction fan. If you are a "Firefly" fan, shame on you if you haven't watched this yet. The special effects are beautiful and a huge upgrade from the original TV effects, which were already quite good to start with. The action is fast and satisfying. The characters and humor just as great as ever. And we finally get the conclusion to the series' mysteries. "What more could we ask for?", I hear you say. What stops this movie from being a true classic is that it tries to cram years of story development (that would have otherwise happened slowly on the TV series) in one go. There is just too much happening to take in. The signature style and humor of "Firefly" is there, but it's not given enough time to breathe and fully showcase itself. However, that doesn't stop this movie from being one of the best science fiction movies of recent years. Find out why below! (Before the Reavers eatcha!)

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Movie Info:

Year: 2005

Director: Joss Whedon (IMDb; Wiki; Whedonesque, his personal blog)

Cast: Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Ron Glass, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tyduk (Well, yeah...ok...the movie had other people appearing in it, too...I didn't type all of them here...sue me! :P I can only type the names of people playing major characters, otherwise I would never be finished).

"Serenity" on: IMDb (8.0/10), RT (82%); Official Site

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Media:

Trailer (Youtube)

Special Serenity Screening Intro by Joss Whedon (Youtube)

Joss Whedon 'Serenity' Q&A (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Serenity Bloopers (Youtube)

Serenity Premiere Interviews (Youtube)

Serenity Theme (Youtube)

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Downloads:

The file is a standard 700MB AVI file, divided into 8 RAR archives in 8 Megaupload links. To UNRAR (or decompress as they say), use WINRAR. To view, use VLC player.

Remember....if you liked what you saw, BUY THE MOVIE!!! (Or River's gonna getcha!)

"Firefly" (2002-03): Like watching a child die. (Joss Whedon) (Complete series, Megaupload)

2009-07-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

This series was awesome. This series was great. This series kicked as...oh, I could just go on and on about how good it was. In my humble opinion, it was one of the funniest, most entertaining science fiction series ever made. Hell, it was probably one of the most entertaining pieces of television programming ever made. When the series got cancelled close to the end of its first season, devout fans like myself feared that they will never get to watch the conclusion of the very intriguing story. Not to mention how much the truly unique and signature humor, character chemistry and western style of the series would be missed. It felt like we were watching a beautiful, genius child die prematurely. Thankfully, the movie based on the series, "Serenity", which came into existence thanks to the overwhelming support for the series from the fans, solved that problem and concluded the storyline (YAY! :D). With its soaring sales and the sales of the series DVDs, it proved once and for all just how good "Firefly" really was and just how monumentally stupid TV executives can be in their decisions some times. Here is your chance to find out why it was SO GOOD!

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Series Info:

Year: 2002-2003

Creator: Joss Whedon (IMDb; Wiki; Whedonesque, his personal blog)

Cast: Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Ron Glass, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tyduk.

"Firefly" on IMDb (9.5/10), "Firefly" Wiki

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Media:

Fan-made Trailer (Youtube)

Firefly Special -Including Bloopers- (Youtube) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Firefly Theme Song (Youtube)

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Downloads:
All 14 episodes are 350MB AVIs, single Megaupload links. To view, use VLC player.

(Don't get confused by the different numbers of the episodes on the files names. The above is the DVD order, which is the intended order these episodes should be watched in, irrelevant of the fact that they were not aired in this order on TV and the last three, I think, were never even aired at all.)

AND...if you like what you see, remember to support the makers of such great series by buying them!! (Before some stupid TV executives decide to cancel...you!)