Weekly Sci-Fi Thread (02/19/12)

02/19/12 | Kevin Davis

[TomGuy]

Sounds like a takeoff on 12:01. I think the earliest repeating day story I've come across was from The Shadow radio series.

Awake is not a repeating day story. The main character had an accident. He awakes and finds his wife alive, son dead. He sleeps, awakes and finds his son alive, wife dead. Each each scenario, life goes on -- but without the corresponding family member. Each time he sleeps and awakes, he finds himself in one alternate reality, then he sleeps and awakes in the other reality.

This Youtube trailer should give you a better idea of the series.

[Darth Reardon]

I like the Walking Dead also. I thought the last episode of 2011 was great and the ending was excellent.

While I'm glad the series is being continued, that episode probably would have been the greatest series finale ever.

[MarkL]

Here’s a question for everyone on the SF thread...

I just watched Star Trek (the new version) by JJ Abrams on FX for about the third time. Every time I’ve seen it before, there’s been something bothering me about the movie, and I just put my finger on it... Two things actually.

Number one, they’ve gone completely overboard with the lens flare, moving zooms, and in/out focus, handheld effects that were pioneered on Firefly and used to great effect in both Firefly AND Battlestar Galactica. But it seems like EVERY scene, including internal scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise had ridiculous amounts of lens flare and reflections that I found more and more annoying.

The second thing that really bothered me was the tight shot/quick shift maneuver that Michael Bay seems to love, especially in his Transformers movies, which IMHO, make those movies nearly unwatchable. It’s almost as if the cameraman has ADD and the style is really annoying to me.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the way that movie was shot could induce seizures in some people!

Anybody else feel the same way, or am I just “out of step?”

Mark

[MarkL]

Please check out my post #23 re: the new Star Trek.

Thanks!

Mark

[Reaganez]

Syfy Returns To Space With Robert Hewitt Wolfe

Universal Cable Productions said it’s working with Wolfe on a show set in a postwar era on the Starship Defender looking for lost worlds requiring law and order. The ship is helmed by humans and trans-humans, who don’t get along very well, as part of the newly formed Unity Democracy.

http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/8759

Will Syfy’s Defiance be the next Firefly?

Syfy has finally found a lead for their joint television and massive multiplayer online series, Defiance. It’s Cooter from True Blood, better known as Grant Bowler. And with the announcement of their lead, a few new details for this space Western have been revealed.

According to Deadline Defiance will take place on...

“A future Earth, [where] Defiance introduces players and viewers to a world where humans and aliens live together on a planet ravaged by decades of war and transformed by alien terra-forming machines. It centers on Jeb Nolan (Bowler), the law-keeper in a bustling frontier boomtown that is one of the new world’s few oasis of civility and inclusion. Nolan is a former Marine who fought in the alien conflict and suffered the loss of his wife and child in the war. The trauma transformed him into a lone wanderer in the wilds of this new and dangerous world.”

http://io9.com/5877292/will-syfys-defiance-be-the-next-firefly

[LibertarianLiz]

Okay, I think my head hurts. Too many universes. Not that I disagree with anything you’ve written. Although, I am coming to a place where I think we ARE in the original universe. It is simply different because Peter was never there. Now, whatever the Observers did to erase Peter from everyone’s memory (and don’t get me started on all the problems with that), is starting to unravel and that is why Olivia is beginning to remember her relationship with Peter.

[discostu]

On your first note JJ’s addiction to lens flare is well documented and often mocked. It shows up in a lot of his movies far too often. When it first started invading the movie world it was thought to add realism, give things a documentary feel, because normal people don’t know how to film without getting flare or something. I’m over it.

On the second, tight and slide has taken over the action world, largely because Michael Bay movies make ridiculous quantities of money while sucking in every possible way. So everybody thinks it’s that camera trick that must be drawing the fans, so they all rip it off. I never liked it, mostly because Bay pioneered it and I think he should be killed slowly.

[GeronL]

It sounds more like they are working for the government side in Firefly!

[KevinDavis]

That what it sounds like..

[GeronL]

bringing “law and order” to the fringes, geez.

[Reaganez]

Defiance and the Robert Wolfe project are two different shows.

Defiance will definetly make it on air as per agreement with the video game company.

The Robert Wolfe project may or may not make it.

Defiance seems like a show about a Western Sheriff in a distant future USA town populated by beings on both sides of a major war.

Robert Wolfe project seems like a show about Manifest Destiny. Are we against the concept of government and in favor of Anarchy? That does not sound Conservative to me.

Firefly was basically a show about a Confederate officer on the run,a Johny Reb if you will.

[Calvin Locke]

I finally got around to watching the preview.

Awake seems to be an interesting concept. Doesn't look like my cup of tea, though.

For a series, that is.

[hattend]

Please ping everyone again

“Them” starts on TCM at 11:30 PM Pacific time

You have 10 minutes!