Equilibrium

Saw the film Equilibrium this past weekend - has Christian Bale and Taye Diggs in it. Pretty good movie. NO spoilers below

Takes place after the 3rd World War, which destroys nearly everyone and everything. It was so horrible that the remaining government decided to do away with human emotions, since it was human emotions that led to the fighting and the wars - and humanity cannot withstand another world war.

So they invented this serum stuff that everyone injects three times daily or so that inhibits emotion. The city they all live in is pretty high-tech, surrounded by the skeleton buildings of the bombed out old city from the war. Everything is colorless, everyone wears blacks and greys - there's no uniqueness. Things are done for efficiency's sake. Our main character, Mr.Preston (Bale) is a Cleric - the highest order of the police/military force. Clerics are like super-assasins. Think "gunfighting martial arts" remeniscent of "The Matrix" except it's all down to a science, not gut-luck. Preston is THE best Cleric there is.

The job of the Cleric is to hunt down sense offenders -- humans who refuse to take the emotion inhibitor and who feel emotion. Some of these humans try to fake their way along with everyone else in the main city, and others live out in the 'wilds' of the dead city, collecting art and pretty things and generally trying to be human but having to always hide.

The movie follows Preston as he discovers his partner Cleric (played by Sean Bean) is himself a sense offender and must kill him himself. But not before his partner says some things that stick with Preston. Distracted, the next day Preston accidentally breaks his last remaining dose of the inhibitor. Rather than getting his dosage renewed, he for some reason decides to see what happens without it. And slowly begins to feel emotion. Is it good or bad?

You can guess where this goes.
The message is both underplayed and overplayed to a degree - kind of like "V for Vendetta" but futuristic post-apocalyptic and darker. The two films go well together, I think, both being about what happens when governments go too far in controling what makes us human, what makes us free. So the story is good, the action is good (the gunfights, once they explain why they work the way they do, are good) and definetly attention-keeping. Christian Bale did a good job with his character - particularly the subtleties of feeling emotions for the very first time. Taye Diggs, on the other hand, pissed me off - I didn't like him in this film at all. Diggs plays Preston's new Cleric partner. He seemed to show emotion when Clerics are not supposed to - although its possible the inhibitor doesn't perfectly inhibit EVERYTHING and that Digg's character was feeling anger without knowing it. *shrugs*

Anyway. Good film - two thumbs up from me. :)

Transformers [film]

Today we went into Anchorage, spent entirely too much money (kind of) hitting every store we normally go to, and ended with seeing Transformers. The film in short (no spoilers):
• Best effects/CGI I've seen in a film, ever.
• Lots of nods to the original series - this film is geared toward adults who runneth over with nostalgia.
• Simple plot with obligatory action movie elements that always piss me off: computers and hackers not being at ALL realistic, the government and soldiers not being realistic, and humans always able to outrun EVERYTHING.
• Lots of humour - it was a lot smarter than I thought it was going to be and not at ALL "for kids".
• The film slowed down noticeably when the main human characters (Sam, Michaela) or the Transformers weren't on-screen.

All in all, I was pleasantly suprised. I only really go to the theatre to see things that a) I may never find on DVD and b) things that are fun to see really, really big and loudly, the second of which often can conflict with my low tolerance for lower-brow films. I tend to like my films to have brains. I wasn't expecting much but the film was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. And it's probably way better if you were a Transformers fan as a kid (which I definetly was - I can still sing the theme song and name half the Autobots and Decepticons). My inner child squiggled with glee when Optimus Prime rolled in to fight Megatron - I honestly felt relieved for the good guys, heh. :)

So yes. Definetly worth seeing in the theatre.

X-Men 3

In spoilerless short: I liked it, definetly worth seeing in the theatre. I didn't like the switch in directors and it did seem like they tried to cram in too much but as this is an ongoing movie series, each movie does have to set up more stuff for later so in that respect it does feel like part of a greater story.

If you haven't seen it yet, stay til after the credits, too.
Like I said, it did feel crammed.


SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE FILM BELOW!

Jean & the Phoenix Saga
Obviously with Jean disappearing in the last film, the Phoenix Saga had to be addressed. The comic book version is way too sci-fi for the X-men world that the movies take place, in, which tries to make everything more realistic, so in that respect I like how they worked in this whole Jean backstory of her powers and worked it into the Phoenix just being part of her. I thought that was well done. It kind of felt like it was sort of taking too much of a back seat to the Magneto plot, though, with the Brotherhood on the one hand... On the other hand, with the Phoenix being a part of Jean (rather than a giant space opera thing) it would of been a weak film had everything centered SOLEY on Jean.

I thought her powers could of been emphasized a bit more but that could be because I'm an X-Men fan already and I'm used to the REAL Phoenix. I'd like to hear opinions from people wh haven't had much to do with the comic version of the story on this one.

Jean and Wolverine
OMG! Now, I'm a huge Wolverine fan, of course, and I have always been a fan of the relationship between Logan and Jean. I thought they've done a great job with the short span of time in the film (as opposed to the relationshpi taking a little longer in the comics). In the comics, Jean does have an element of reserve toward her own powers - and she loves Scott (Cyclops) because HE is safe and represents control and order. Logan on the other hand is wild and free - he calls to Jeans dark side.

In the film, I love how they did the paralell with Logan's memory blocks to Jean's memory blocks (something that doesn't exist in the comics). It was a fantastic way of further making their relationship a bit more believeable with the short time span. Just - the whole thing was showcased so well without being over the top, particularly with Logan having to be the one to take down Jean in the end - because he's the only one who could survive it with his healing factor compensating.

Wolverine
Speaking of the healing factor -- this film did a great job of showcasing his healing factor more. I'm used to the Wolverine of hte comics constantly being shredded to bits to where no normal person or mutant could survive. And it isn't uncommon for his flesh to give way and expose his bones (with or without adamantium). Also, Logan still feels pain despite his healing ability - and I thought Hugh Jackman did a good job of portraying that, particularly in the scene where he's fighting the dude in the woods who is pulling bone spikes from his body and impaling Logan with them. The whole thing was much more ... realistic in terms of how Wolverine is than, say, the fight between Logan and Yuriko at the end of X-Men 2.

And again, awesome acting on Hugh's part - particularly his body language. Wolverine is strong and confident but moves in an animalistic way. And they did a little bit more to showcase his animal-like senses, though they could of done more.

(For a second, I thought they were going to jump the gun on a Wolverine story when Magneto grabbed Logan by his skeleton. I thought Magneto was going to rip out Logan's adamantium right then and there, giving us a lead into a Wolverine spin-off film.)


Storm
They did a great job incorporating more Storm into this film. The character writing and the acting was awesome for the character this time around - much better than the previous films. I like how they incorporated Storm's leadership ability into this film, particularly since she WAS a team leader of the X-Men (dunno if she still is or not). Liked the hair, too.

Other X-Men
I liked the progression in Bobby/Iceman's powers. I like how his abilities finally manifested fully due to his life or death fighting situation with Pyro - that was a great way of working it out.

Angel's plot was only weakly worked in. The first scene of him as a child made me think it was going to link in more with everything else, since it was shown right next to the scene of Jean as a child. There were just SO many mutants in this film that they were showcasing it was *almost* jumbled but not quite. Like Beast being in there - I mean, he was there because he was working with the government and they hint at the fact he used to be an X-man way back in the day. And Angel's father was the one who made the cure, and he made the cure to help his son, not hurt mutants, giving the whole film less of a black-and-white feel, but it was so loosely woven I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Shadowcat/Kitty Pride -- she was awesome! Though she's a teen in the film, I like how they emphasized that she's not a fighter - she has to use her intelligence to defeat the enemy. That's how she was in the comics, too. She probably had my favorite fight/flight scenes of the whole film, too. Heh. Really stole the show from the returing characters.

Magneto and Xavier. I love the backstory on this being brought in and I loved the line, "Charles Xavier did more for mutant kind than you can even imagine". No matter their differences in approach for mutantkind nowadays, they have a healthy respect for eachother - again a great example of the shades of gray rather than black/white.

Mystique - she's an underestimated character, I think. She is very intelligent and mysterious. Kais and I discussed that part of that mystery is aided by the fact she rarely speaks in the film. It isn't because she's the "female bombshell" token character - that's how she is in the comics. With what little she did have to work with, I thought Rebecca Romijn did a good job - particularly after she was shot with the 'cure' and reverted to her original form in front of Magneto. Half of her shock was also in the fact that she's shapeshifted so much she doesn't recall what she used to look like, her past being lost to even herself.

Another point about there being so many characters -- this film has LOTS of them, it's not as isolated as the first two were. Though I'm not sure how it worked out for the movie, this IS how the comics are. A lot of the X comics are SO full of mutants it can be hard to keep track of what is going on. It really is epic - it isn't one hero isolated to one town, like Batman to Gotham. It's a whole planet of mutants struggling to find a place in the world. The first two movies do well to introduce us to the idea of mutants to begin with, and this movie acts to widen the scope.

I think that scope could of been more powerful, though. In the 2nd film, they really brought it home what it's like to find out you are a mutant by paralelling it to coming out as a gay person (the scene where Bobby tells his parents he's a mutant). That was more personal and I thought carried more weight. And when Jean was speaking to the ?senate? in the first film. This film was a bit more... cartoony feeling in that respect.

(oh, I also did like there being more mutants, if to show their teamwork better - like in the danger room scene, particularly with Rogue borrowing Colossus' powers to avoid getting hurt).


Set up for the next film?
I stayed til after the credits and it shows Moira McTaggert working in a hospital when suddenly a patient speaks out to her. It's a whiskered Charles Xavier calling her by name and she gasps and says, "Charles?" So it looks like the disintegrated characters will return (as I thought they might). I'm just not sure how that's going to work out. Did something Charles do save them? Or did part of Jean with her super abilities do something to save everyone she loved right before she died? That is definetly within her powers using the Phoenix force, for sure.

And we know that mutants who were 'cured' are regaining their powers. Before I saw the bit with Xavier at the end, I kind of thought that perhaps when his powers returned, Magneto might return to help lead the X-men like has happened in the comics. In particular it would of been a great homage to the "Age of Apocalypse" alternate timeline in the comics where history is altered because Xavier dies. The world becomes a much darker place and Magneto leads the Xmen in Charles' memory.

And Rogue... Is she going to cross paths with Mystique, the woman who raised her in other versions of things? Rogue is a hugely popular X-Character and I just KNOW fans are dying for her to obtain her invincibility and flying ability. I'm thinking they might work in a storyline where Rogue isn't aware she's got her powers back and accidentally absorbs Carol Danvers' (Miss Marvel)'s powers of invincibility and flight permanently, as happened in the comics.

But as for a greater storyline, I'm not too sure where they're going to go with it. I mean, the Phoenix Saga we all knew had to happen as it's one of the greatest Marvel stories ever told - it's quintessential X-Men. But where are they going next?

Conclusion
So, I loved all the little bits and pieces a LOT. There were lots of great moments. But that's what it felt like overall - little moments losely strung together. The whole thing wasn't as solid as the previous two films and yet it still works. It somehow feels wrong and yet ... not. Weird how that works.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

Spoilers for Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith"

To be rather brief: I thought this film was much better than I and II, but still not as good as the original trilogy, which I grew up with.

What I did like: I liked that the digital effects got better. I liked that they started to make the ships look used; they had texture to them, made them look more real. Still looked digital but it's progress, I guess. I also liked that the ships were degenerating into the ships of the original trilogy -- it was cool to see the predecessors to the Star Destroyer class ships, and the ships that will eventually evolve into Tie Fighters and X-Wings. It was so cool to see the familiar ship of Bail Organa - and what a shock when we suddenly got to go INSIDE. One of the last ships we see inside of is the FIRST ship we see inside of in Star Wars IV: A New Hope. What a blast from the past that was.

The only planet I really liked was the Wookie homeworld - that place was cool; I'd actually like to go there. It was cool to see the Storm Trooper forest uniforms - to see how ALL storm trooper uniforms evolved. Really shows how the Empire in the future makes everything uniform and sterile. Corouscant was impressive but too much to look at when you get up close. The shots of it from space are astounding, to see an entire planet made of city... scary.

What I did not like: The digital stuff was just still too shiny for me. Yoda was still too shiny, the ships were still too shiny, the worlds were still too shiny... Much better than the last two films, yes, but still not as good as if they'd built sets, ships, and puppets. I don't know if thats just because I grew up with the look of the originals, but I'm sticking to my opinion.

The dialoge was some of the most trite, cheesy, and ridiculous stuff I've heard in a long time, barring the last two Star Wars films. The scenes between Padme and Anakin were some of the MOST painful, particularly because I KNOW these people can act and I've seen them do so but to see them hobbled by such terrible dialogue and direction literally made me cringe and shift in my seat.

The story itself: I liked how they showed Anakins evolution; it just felt too rushed in a lot of ways. The entire storyline felt like it was on the right track but just didn't go the whole mile. Kaisa informed me that Anakins shift to the Dark Side WAS quick once Palpatine got to him after Anakin killed Mace Windu - that once you start down the Dark Path, the change is pretty swift. So I guess this all would of felt more natural if you KNEW that ahead of time, but most folks don't and it still felt rushed to me. It really sucks that this film suffered so badly because George Lucas was so hell bent on covering his ass with his pulp story obsession - it didnt feel like a pulp at ALL to me; so why couldn't he let the creation be what it was supposed to BE? It could of been a really strong film with a powerful story, but instead it was laughable. Watching it, I didn't know whether to take pity on the poor film or laugh at it and turn it away.

In a morbid way I did like when Anakin finally fell - when Obi Wan cut off his legs and arm and left him to burn and die. When you see everything Anakin went through in this film, you almost wish the original trilogy had showed more of Vader's side of things to further help with his vindication at the end to be more powerful. It really goes to show that he was doing the wrong things for the sort of right reasons and that really he wasn't an evil guy, just twisted. We see so many stories of good people going bad and somehow they seem so irredeemable becuase of that. We forget that equally, you can take utterly evil people and turn them to good, too. You have to forget about 'tainting'; that's seeing things from only a 'good' standpoint.

One other thing that bugged me: there also seemed to be two kinds of shots - full shots and tight medium shots. Especially during the light sabre fights - you were so close you couldn't see what they were doing. It didn't serve to pull me into the fights at ALL - it felt cramped and the entire time I kept wishing they'd pull out so I could see what was going on.

Did you catch...
The Millenium Falcon in the lower right corner near the beginning, showing some kind of spaceport on some well-lit planet?

The guy who played that one "storm trooper" with the dark hair, whom Palpatine contacted and had attack Obi Wan? The guy played Jengo Fett in the last two films.

At the very end, Vader and Palpatine were on the bridge of a star Destroyer looking at the construction of the first Death Star. They were accompanied by General Tarkin (who would become Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars IV: A New Hope). Here, however, he was played by Wayne Pygram, the guy who played Scorpius in "Farscape". (I missed that part - Kaisa caught it).

Fallout [short film]

This has nothing to do with the game "Fallout", though I found this article and series of links on the No Mutants Allowed Fallout site:

Fallout, a PA movie short
Posted by Kharn - at 2:12

Here's something we missed; in 2003, William Joines did a short entitled "Fallout" for his junior thesis project. After watching it, I can only conclude that the 15-minute $650 dollar short is an excellent piece of work, with some really impressive acting and set-building.

The basic premise is that of a little girl waking up in an empty and damaged fallout shelter with her memory gone and we watch her as she tries to survive and regain her memories, locked in the shelter. The short was shown on the Riverrun Film Festival and was a Student Academy Award Nominee.

Be sure to check it out as you can see the whole thing on Will Joines' website

Link: Fallout page on Will Joines' website

Link: in case any of you ever want to build a bunker set, here's how to do it; John Steckley set-building page

After checking with the director, we can verify that there's no relation the the Fallout game. Spotted on Fallout.ru

..................................

If you're into short films, post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/survival stories, or just want to see a neat and well done story about a little girl with lost memories, check it out. Very very cool - I wish I'd put more time into the film projects I had to do as electives at my college. ;) Very atmospheric.

Files are .mov format, the large file took me around an hour to download on DSL.

Underworld [film]

First, I went into this film with a LOT of apprehension.
1) Sony got their asses sued by White Wolf who created the "Werewolf: the Apocalypse" and "Vampire: the Masquerade" World of Darkness, a world that was HEAVILY stolen from in the making of this film. I'm not sure what the outcome of the lawsuit was, but there were 40 some instances of legal infringement on the films part. I, being a fan of the "Werewolf..." collectable card game (CCG) "Rage", was thus wary of the film and its treatment of the subject of the vampires and werewolves.

2) I have always been a werewolf fan and have always really disliked vampires. Don't know why, it's been like that since I was a kid. It didnt' help that when I became a fan of the Werewolves from White Wolf's World of Darkness that it turns out the werewolves and vampires hate eachother. I don't know the vampire's reasons for hating werewolves, but I know the werewolves' reasons and totally agree. ;P

There ARE differences, however. In the film...
...The reason the werewolves and vampires don't get along is different.
...The historical relationship between the two is different.
...Werewolves are called "lichens" instead of "garou".
...There appear to be no active female werewolves
...one can become a werewolf simply by being bitten by one (don't know about the vampires)
...werewolves are compelled to change during a full moon
...both werewolves and vampires are such due to complex viruses.

In the World of Darkness...
...there are TONS of active female werewolves
...you are born a werewolf and cannot make a human into one
...werewolves can easily change forms at will
... memories are not transferred in a bite

Things that are the same:
• werewolves are allergic to silver
• both species regenerate
• vampires don't deal well with light
• the two species hate eachother and often war
• a werewolf doesn't know she's a werewolf until her first change, which is often painful and uncontrolled
• werewolves often won't use as much technology but do, and often are seen as brutal and primitive, something some strive to change and some revel in.

As this relates to the film
There were enough differences to delinneate the two worlds in my mind, though I cringed at a few things. These things didnt' affect the overal strength or weakness of the film, though.

I liked the world of the film. The mood was perfect - the decadence of the vampires and the slums of the werewolves. The night time of it all. The mood was consistant and believeable -- the way that the gothic punk world of "the Matrix" worked and the way the gothic world of "Van Helsing" didn't work. ;) And it wasn't a rehash of this world, either. The shots were creative and composed well. Visually, it was a treat to look at and very real.

Effects wize, the werewolves could of been better. They weren't very graceful and moved in a hulky way. There's no way they ever could of been the equals to vampires or survived this long with this many all out confrontations if they were seriously that physically impaired. Of course, I may be drawing too much from the World of Darkness on this one, where many werewolves ARE these berzerkers, but many more are graceful hunters and martial artists. *shrugs* They weren't THAT bad - the part that bothered me most about them was when they were running on the walls. If you really concentrated on them, it looked really WRONG. Even if you'd used the same animation for them on the floor it would of looked WRONG.

Characters and plot. Compared to Van Helsing, I actually CARED about the characters. I cared what happened with Michael and Selene [sp?]. I even cared about what went on with Viktor, between he and Selene. The plot was a bit TOO confusing in the beginning. Personally, I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to sticking it out to see what happens, even if I'm not sure it's going to come together well in the end in a coherent plot. So on one hand, it made a mess of the beginning and I had no clue what they were talking about, but on the other, it made it a bit more realistic in that the viewers are just thrown into the middle of this thing that's been going on forever.

Compare that to some of the other films that have been out lately - like Van Helsing or DareDevil - where there is a history to the characters. In Van Helsing makes it out to be mysterious but that we'll find out more. And we never do, and by the time we find out that we will never know, we really don't care. With DareDevil, we care, and it's very humanistic, but it's packaged *so* nicely and neatly, almost like they're brainwashing us to like this character, in a way. ;) Though, in DareDevil it works because it's a movie of a comic book and is supposed to FEEL like a comic book and suceedes well at this.
[/TANGENT]

So I liked that this is a slice of a much larger story and I like that we may be in for a sequel. Or not. It would work fine the way it is, leaving us to imagine what happens, since the beginning was so open, the ending can be that way, too. We just happened to observe that two hours of their lives or whatever.

I've lost my train of thought. Anyhow. I was pleasantly suprised by this film. I went into it thinking I'd get angry at a negative portrayal of werewolves. I went in expecting to have no compassion for any of the vampire characters. But it was a good story with interesting characters and I actually want to know what happens with them in their lives.

Van Helsing

Van Helsing could of been a really great story but the plot was kind of loose. There was nothing really driving us to care about the characters, especially the main character. I almost didn't care that they had to kill Dracula, either. Some things were too obvious, and other things were too obscure and it didn't really lead you along very well, so I felt like I was just drifting through the film in a very unattatched way. The effects were very cool for the most part - I especially enjoyed the werewolves (I'm a werewolf fan and picky and thought they did a neat job). The acting was okay - some people needed to choose an accent and KEEP it. And those female vampire sidekicks were just weird. They reminded me of the Furies from Xena or something - their clawed hands and movements were the same for every emotion.

All in all I totally didn't care about the film and having watched it, leaves me with nothing. *shrugs* I've definetly seen more entertaining films.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Let us keep in mind that this is a movie based on a video game and that thus far I can't think of a game-based movie that has been absolutely fantastic -- these movies are meant to appeal to folks who have played the games and, like games, just be something entertaining to watch with belief suspended. Movies like these aren't here to make us cry or think or inspire us, really. That said...

It was an entertaining film and I found it far more enjoyable than the second "Matrix" film, actually. "Apocalypse" feels much more like the games than its predecessor. The city, the piles of cars, the trolleys, the old church, the crawley mutant zombies... they all felt like they did in the games, as did the characters and their action-figure cool 2-dimensional personalities. So, while none of that is even thinkable as Oscar material, it's dead-on for a video game-to-screen flick.

The original film had a better air to it - more mystery, though they really could of done better by really playing up the Alice in Wonderland thing they kinda half-heartedly had going. Sorta. There was no mystery with "Apocalypse" - especially with Nemesis. First of all, Nemesis wasn't scary at all - he's heart-pounding, piss-your-pants FREAKY in the games. You DREAD meeting him in the games. Here? He's just some monster we KNOW Alice is going to whup. :\ Also, I had totally forgotten that Matt had been captured along with Alice in the end of the first movie. So they totally could of tried to fake us out and played out the true origin of Nemesis like a mystery. If it didn't fool the folks who watched the first film it at least would of fooled people who HADN'T seen the first film. Because we knew from the start, all the flashbacks became tedious and pedantic. They really could of done better.

The ending was a bit drawn out. 2 hours later, 2 days later, 3 weeks later... geez! It looks like there are plans for a third movie, so why not just have shown them crashing, shown the Umbrella soldiers hauling off with Alice's body and be done with it... leave it on an uncomfortable, unfinished note. Instead, it was like they tried cramming the first half of the third film into the last 10 minutes and I just feel like they told us too much. I can guess what the third film would be about easily.

now for the good stuff.

Alice had a much better outfit - rather, a bit more practical if still a bit stylish than practicality would have demanded in realistic circumstances. But this isn't a realistic film, so -- she did look hot in the first film but I liked the netting shirt and all the buckles and the semi-dreded hair. Jill looked like she did in the game so I guess that's her excuse for a skimpy outfit but her attitude really went with it - I hope they have more of Jill in the third film (assuming there is a third). Kinda missed that there were NO "knowing glances" and heart rending moments between Alice and anyone like there was between Alice and the mercenary woman in the first film, which really caught me off guard when I first saw it. It's not just me and wishful thinking, these woman felt something there...

I liked how Alice and the girl both had the T-virus and how that seems to of started a bond of some sort between them, the fact that they both have it and aren't zombies. Maybe they'll use that in the third film the way they used Matt (Nemesis) and Alice's mutations to pull them into an alliance at the end of this film. I like the injustice and I really hope that's the point of the third film - revenge for the injustice done to so many.

And of course, Milla is a joy to watch. Not her best performance, though. :\ I don't think she had much to work with. Alice in the first film at least had amnesia and was slowly coming out of her foggy fake 'i'm just a wife' haze and having her head of security mode kicking back in... she got to work with more emotion (as much emotion as one can have in a game film). This time, though, her character has been there, done that and is pissed off in a single minded way. Like I said, not much to work with. Ah, well.

Oh, gaping plot hole -- the zombies that come out of the graves. I think they do that in the games, but there's no logic to how that would work. This whole thing started with the shattering of the container that held the virus, which spread through the air and contaminated all the lab workers and people inside the Hive. They all turned into Zombies who can pass on the virus by biting their victims. When the first team went into the Hive to shut it down, there was no more T-virus in the air, just in the zombies. Our heroes sort of escape and the Hive is locked up. Then in "Apocalypse", scientists open the hive back up and zombies get out. If there was no more virus in the air in the FIRST film, then the T-virus could only have been spread by zombie-bite to the citizens of Raccoon City. So how did the corpses end up reanimating? And all at the same TIME, too. :P

The only other major thing that bothered me was the weird cinematography of the fight scenes. Up-close and really blurry to save bucks on actually training the actors and showing really cool REALISTIC fight moves. Even MOREso than Xena (and I love Xena...). Other than the fight scenes, most of the framing was actually not bad and they used interesting lighting (for an all-night movie) and the angles weren't static.

Ohh! I TOTALLY didn't see the reporter dying when she did - it caught me off guard the way she went in such an easy way. I thought she'd be grossed out by the kid and run, but nope, that was her demise.

That lunch lady was perfect.

[Edit:] hallalundi mentioned that there are interesting paralells between Resident Evil and Alien - between what happens to Alice and what happens to Ripley, the way they both start out just doing their jobs, are thrust into fighting terrible creatures and then BECOME the monsters themselves. Heck, there's even the two outsiders bonding - Ripley/Call and Alice/the girl.

I'm glad I went to see it in the theatre anyway, because it was fun and there's lots of things you'd only know if you played the games - and I used to watch Eric play the games and I'd play RE: Survivor, and Trey, Eric and I watched the first film on the computer together, and Eric and I have been anticipating the sequel since January... :P AND we knew what to expect ahead of time. If I'd had high expectations, I would have been disappointed, but I didn't so all was well. I just watch these films seeing all the POTENTIAL and I think that makes me kinda forgiving.

Farscape

I remember when I hadn't ever heard of "Farscape" and Trey was trying to describe it to me. Everything I pictured was SO off. And when I finally watched an episode, it was somewhere in the middle of the series, when Criton was being his snarky self - I thought he was a jerk.

But when I finally watched Season 1 in order from the beginning, I was suprised by the quality effects, the quality acting, the imaginative and explanitory plotlines, and the intriguing characters. It's such an enormous show! Even the PLOTS are enormous - the entire show is nothing but gigantic story arcs! Well, that's exaggerating a bit, but it does make it hard to just jump in and know what's going on. (Thank goodness the library has all the season on DVD).

I also love how they have one of the better answers to the alien translation problem.
And Criton's character in first Season is so clueless - this is someone from our time on earth in an alien galaxy who has no idea how things work. So he asks the questions we're dying to know. We relate to him - that could be us and through him the other alien characters become more acessable where I think they otherwise would not have been so easy to get to know, had Criton been FROM their world.

Highly creative show: creative visuals, creative characters, creative plots. Interesting and entertaining, it never gets old and it's one of the more original television series I have ever seen.

Scifi/Fantasty novels

A random list of scifi/fantasty books I've enjoyed in the past.

"Kushiel's Dart" by Jaqueline Carey - The best written book I've ever read. It pseudo-paralells Europe's cultures and religions in its setting, told in first person perspective wonderfully, and has more plot-on-plot than I've ever seen in my life without being confusing or dragging. It has climax upon climax, each one better than before - and you keep thinking, "geez, they've come this far and I'm only halfway through the book -what the hell could happen next?" and sure enough, it gets better. The first two chapters are a bitch to get through, but there are 98-odd chapters total, so it's really a fraction of the book and SO worth the effort. ;) First book in a trilogy, stands well on its own.

"Through Wolf's Eyes" by Jane M. Lindskold - A fun fantasy book. The main character, Firekeeper, was raised by intelligent wolves and is brought back to 'civilization'. She's a kick-ass character; no romance to muddle up the plot, and a lot of wry humour and plenty of adventure. First of three books, awesome on it's own.

"Rhapsody" by Elizabeth Haydon - Fantasy. There are four books and I've only read the first two because I started to lose interest. There is a lot of long build-up in this book, but the concepts of the world are fabulous and I find myself thinking about them years after I read it the first time.

"Wolfwalker", "Shadow Leader", and "Storm Runner" by Tara K. Harper. These were originally a trilogy and since then, the author has added to them, but I think these are by far the best. I've never read a more rip-snorting, edge-of-your-seat set of books. The very first chapter of the first book makes you squirm in agony for the character.. Dion is a strong female character, but not in a loud way. She's not invincible and she's got a lot of depth. She's not girly at ALL, either, and after 8 years she remains one of my top favourite characters. She's got a telepathic link to wolves, so if you like the lupin kind, you'll especially like these books.

"Cat Scratch Fever" by Tara K. Harper - this is sci-fi; The main character is kidnapped and taken AWAY from technology and tortured. There's a lot more to it than that, but the detail and description in this book are .. wow. It's about PAIN.

"Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O'Brien - sci-fi kind of. Post-apocalyptic, but in a more realistic fashion. A very short book, kind of first-person as the character writes in her journal about her life alone in her valley which seems to be the only place left untouched after a nuclear strike. It's full of common-sense survival as she has to conserve resources and plan for the future by raising chickens and taking care of the few animals available to her, planting, and raiding the local store and neighbor's house for goods.

The Renshai books - two trilogies worth, one starting with "The Last of the Renshai" and the second starting with "Beyond Ragnarok" by Mickey Zucker Reichert. Fantasy. It's as if the author continues the Norse myths beginning with the Ragnarok. The first trilogy happens right before, and the second happens 400 years after. I read the second trilogy first, so when I read the first, it was like I was reading a history. The Renshai are some of the best fighters you'll ever come across... It's a solid set of books with a nice selection of characters.


"The Dark Elf Trilogy" by R.A. Salvatore. Fantasy, from the Forgotten Realms. There are what, 16 or so Drizzt Do'Urden books, but don't let that scare you. The Dark Elf Trilogy was written second but happens first - which is good. The trilogy that was written first pales in comparison and is darn right a pain in the ass to get through, but integral to the characters overall. But this trilogy stands as just... they're phenominal. Over the entire set of books all of the characters just become deeper and deeper - especially the ones that start out rather shallow. Salvatore never disappoints. His fight scenes are some of the most fluid I have ever read; he keeps it simple and is able to describe with one sentence what too many authors take paragraphs to do.

"The Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon. Fantasy. Here is a tale of triumph, trial, pain, and sacrifice. The conditions of a medieval military are depicted VERY realistically except for the fact that women are about as equal as men here. Again, no romance to muddle up this character's journey - and it's one of the most epic stories I've read. Just read the damn thing. You'll see.

"The Slave and the Free" by Suzy McKee Charnas. Post-apocalyptic, kind of. It's hard to describe this book, which is actually the first two books of her "Holdfast Chronicles" in one. I reccomend reading this as opposed to just the first book for a good reason. In this version of future history, stuff got so screwed up (and it is explained how) that women and men are like two species in the way they see eachother. Men rule and women are slaves. Christianity has twisted to become a seperation of the father from the son to a religion that kills. Women have been slaves so long they cant even comprehend thinking for themselves. The first book is mostly from the perspective of two male characters - the second book takes off from the female perspective. The books aren't the best written I've ever read, but the concept is mindblowing. There are 4 books total; the first shows you things from the male perspective and you begin to loathe them. The second takes you outside their world and you see how the women think. The third you think of as a triumph for women over the men but before you even get to the fourth you realize that both sides are MORONS and that this whole series is really about how humanity can fall so far and so hard.