Stuff I seen.
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:53 am
Ascension: weird fucking stuff but enjoyable if you have time to waste.
During the Kennedy administration, a decision was made to "supposedly" launch a space ship with an original crew of 350 people in the hopes of establishing a new home for humanity on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. This would be highly unlikely for anyone who knows a lot about the Alpha Centauri system but would seem to make perfect sense if the only thing you know is that the Alpha Centauri system is the closest system to our own and that Proxima is the closest of the three stars in the system. However, the catch is: the spaceship never left earth. It's not even a spaceship. The people inside all think they are, at the start of the series, 51 years into their voyage when they are actually inside a giant laboratory experiment sitting in a secret bunker on earth. The program is now being managed by the son of the scientist who originally convinced President Kennedy to go along with his plan to convince a group of humans that the voyage was real when the actual goal was to try to speed up human evolution by selecting only the most intelligent people for the voyage. It also shows how such a limited society adapts to the pressures of such things as needing to control the birth rate to avoid overpopulation. The original included kidnapping children to take part in the experiment. Scientifically, of course, it makes no damn sense, as any half-educated physicist or astronomer aboard that "ship" would have long ago figured out what was really going on.
Sense8: I'm only three episodes into this one but I think it's going to be at least good enough for me to finish the first season. At the start of the first episode, Daryl Hannah puts a revolver in her mouth and pulls the trigger. Goodbye lady with a guy's name for a first name and a woman's first name for a last name. Then, eight different people across the globe start experiencing Hannah's suicide as well as slowly becoming aware of each other's existence through some form of telecommunication. There's a bad guy who was somehow mentally connected with Daryl Hannah who is trying to track down these eight people and a good guy (I think) who is trying to protect them but he has been declare a dangerous fugitive and is considered to be a bad guy. Anyway, you get to see Daryl Hannah kill herself several times plus the Korean chick is kind of cute and the Finnish chick living in London could probably be a looker if she wasn't dressed like a homeless person most of the time.
EDIT: Lesbian Martha Jones ain't a bad addition. She never acted like that when she was chasing after the Doctor.
Dinotasia: This one is supposed to be a documentary about dinosaurs and it pissed me off. It kept skipping back and forth along the timeline of dinosaur history and never once mentioned what each of the dinosaurs were. So, you get to see several sauropod thingies without ever being told "This is a diplodocus" or "This is an apatosaurus" as well as several different carnivorous dinosaurs that can't all be T-Rex or Allosaurs. I understand leaving something to the imagination but this one just leaves you wondering WTF. It's like watching a movie where none of the characters is ever given a name.
The Dark Knight Returns: the first thing that DC should have made clear about this animated feature is that it takes place in an alternate universe. The graphic novels make it clear when they are dealing with anything other than one of the mainstream universes, not so with this movie. So these are not the Superman, Batman and Green Arrow from either of the main universes in DC's new 52 multiverse. On this version of earth the U.S. government is full-blown fascist and costumed heroes have been criminalized. The only exception is Superman who has become a tool of the government because, in his mind, it's the only way to save lives. After an interesting lead-in story involving a new Robin (a girl this time) and the Joker, the government gets nervous that batman has come out of retirement after ten years. Superman first shows up trying to talk Bruce back into retirement. Batman says no. Superman warns him that it won't just be talk the next time. Batman basically says "Bring it bitch." because we all know that after 50+ years of DC ruining the Superman character by having him virtually indestructible it makes perfect sense for a 55 year old human to challenge Superman to a fight. Anyway; with the help of an armored Batsuit (which Superman should have been able to rip through in seconds), plus a 12 year old Robin-girl, a one-armed Green Arrow, and (of course) kryptonite; Batman beats Superman's ass, gloats about it, then goes into cardiac arrest and dies (sort of). The best scene is watching the Joker intentionally break his own neck. Some of the scenes from the new Batman v. Superman movie were supposedly based on this animated feature.
During the Kennedy administration, a decision was made to "supposedly" launch a space ship with an original crew of 350 people in the hopes of establishing a new home for humanity on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. This would be highly unlikely for anyone who knows a lot about the Alpha Centauri system but would seem to make perfect sense if the only thing you know is that the Alpha Centauri system is the closest system to our own and that Proxima is the closest of the three stars in the system. However, the catch is: the spaceship never left earth. It's not even a spaceship. The people inside all think they are, at the start of the series, 51 years into their voyage when they are actually inside a giant laboratory experiment sitting in a secret bunker on earth. The program is now being managed by the son of the scientist who originally convinced President Kennedy to go along with his plan to convince a group of humans that the voyage was real when the actual goal was to try to speed up human evolution by selecting only the most intelligent people for the voyage. It also shows how such a limited society adapts to the pressures of such things as needing to control the birth rate to avoid overpopulation. The original included kidnapping children to take part in the experiment. Scientifically, of course, it makes no damn sense, as any half-educated physicist or astronomer aboard that "ship" would have long ago figured out what was really going on.
Sense8: I'm only three episodes into this one but I think it's going to be at least good enough for me to finish the first season. At the start of the first episode, Daryl Hannah puts a revolver in her mouth and pulls the trigger. Goodbye lady with a guy's name for a first name and a woman's first name for a last name. Then, eight different people across the globe start experiencing Hannah's suicide as well as slowly becoming aware of each other's existence through some form of telecommunication. There's a bad guy who was somehow mentally connected with Daryl Hannah who is trying to track down these eight people and a good guy (I think) who is trying to protect them but he has been declare a dangerous fugitive and is considered to be a bad guy. Anyway, you get to see Daryl Hannah kill herself several times plus the Korean chick is kind of cute and the Finnish chick living in London could probably be a looker if she wasn't dressed like a homeless person most of the time.
EDIT: Lesbian Martha Jones ain't a bad addition. She never acted like that when she was chasing after the Doctor.
Dinotasia: This one is supposed to be a documentary about dinosaurs and it pissed me off. It kept skipping back and forth along the timeline of dinosaur history and never once mentioned what each of the dinosaurs were. So, you get to see several sauropod thingies without ever being told "This is a diplodocus" or "This is an apatosaurus" as well as several different carnivorous dinosaurs that can't all be T-Rex or Allosaurs. I understand leaving something to the imagination but this one just leaves you wondering WTF. It's like watching a movie where none of the characters is ever given a name.
The Dark Knight Returns: the first thing that DC should have made clear about this animated feature is that it takes place in an alternate universe. The graphic novels make it clear when they are dealing with anything other than one of the mainstream universes, not so with this movie. So these are not the Superman, Batman and Green Arrow from either of the main universes in DC's new 52 multiverse. On this version of earth the U.S. government is full-blown fascist and costumed heroes have been criminalized. The only exception is Superman who has become a tool of the government because, in his mind, it's the only way to save lives. After an interesting lead-in story involving a new Robin (a girl this time) and the Joker, the government gets nervous that batman has come out of retirement after ten years. Superman first shows up trying to talk Bruce back into retirement. Batman says no. Superman warns him that it won't just be talk the next time. Batman basically says "Bring it bitch." because we all know that after 50+ years of DC ruining the Superman character by having him virtually indestructible it makes perfect sense for a 55 year old human to challenge Superman to a fight. Anyway; with the help of an armored Batsuit (which Superman should have been able to rip through in seconds), plus a 12 year old Robin-girl, a one-armed Green Arrow, and (of course) kryptonite; Batman beats Superman's ass, gloats about it, then goes into cardiac arrest and dies (sort of). The best scene is watching the Joker intentionally break his own neck. Some of the scenes from the new Batman v. Superman movie were supposedly based on this animated feature.
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