The year ends, but a future waits…

Here we are now right at the cold, wet and dull end to 2015. While right now things may be grim and dreary outside, there have been a number of entertaining and suprising events, books, films and more over the months.

What have been some of the film/book/game highlights for you?

There have been the huge event films including Avengers:Age of Ultron, Mad Max, Jurrassic World, smaller challenging films including Ex Machina, Chappie. Many of us might probably agree that the cinematic turkey came very early this year with Terminator:Genisys. After several long years and a final parting with original director, Marvel’s Ant-Man made it onto the big screen and was thankfully and surprisingly overall a great fun movie. One of the most anticipated huge sci-fi cinema events was the return of Ridley Scott to the genre with his adaptation of The Martian which pleased a great many.

With new books in genre we had a return to his known loved science fiction style from cyberpunk legend William Gibson with The Peripheral. Serious hard SF author Stephen Baxter continued on with his Proxima/Ultima series, Adam Christopher gave us SF Noir Made to Kill, Neal Asher has his Dark Intelligence-book 1 in paperback in September, as well as recent returns from Jeff VanDerMeer, Gary Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Ramez Naam, John Scalzi, John Meaney, Richard Morgan, among many other in the SF genre.

The horror genre was the master Stephen King offer us more besides the now regular detective noir thrillers and mystery tales he has put out over recent years. Sarah Lotz Three, David Wong’s Futuristic Violence and Fancy suits. Can we still class Dean Koontz as horror? If so, he has, as usual been putting out his well crafted thrill-rides tales. Thankfully there has been real new horror work from the UK legend Shaun Hutson, Ramsey Campbell. The other cult horror author from these parts Graham Masterton has moved away from horror for a while but is now putting out very successful thriller novels on fine form. There is good, more varied horror fiction outthere but a reader possibly really needs to dig around and hunt it down sadly.

With fantasy books, one of the top reliable authors Robin Hobb has continued to put out a new series, we had work from Trudi Canavan, Jim Butcher continued on with his well established and loved urban fantasy tales, Brandon Sanderson, Raymond E. Feist, Joe Abercrombie still establishing his strong fantasy style, Terry Goodkind.

The videogames highlights of 2015 included Halo 5, Fallout 4 in recent weeks, new Tomb Raider, Assasin’s Creed, Witcher3, Destiny built upon the initial established world, the almost perfect Batman game series ended with Arkham Knight.

What made your year, and what are you waiting for from 2016?

 

THE ALIEN AND THE GIRL-ALIEN5

Another week, or even another day and another change of title for film directing living legend Ridley Scott. Now that we know his continuation of the Prometheus story is go, and set to begin shooting early next year he has change the title from Prometheus 2 to ALIEN:Paradise Lost, and now it has change again to ALIEN: Covenant.

The other big news in recent days is that the Blomkamp sequel could very likely see a return of the Newt female character from ALIENS as a grown woman. Who would play the role, and what would the character be doing years later?

So ever since Prometheus was release in cinemas a few years ago now, there have been so many divisive opinions and views about the success of it, the reason for it, and the meaning of it. So who did create the aliens Xenomorphs we know? Why were they created and how did they get loose?

With Prometheus, we were simply given a whole load more questions, which confused some of us, and enraged a great deal more of us. Back then Scott did suggest that it would be the first in a trilogy which would connect up with the original ALIEN film.

Many fans were left feeling very short-changed and cheated, with Prometheus offering us possibly a weaker imitation of the events from the original movie, and some contradictory or confused space philosophy and Theology which not many fans seemed interested in.

Many fans have been on a new high in recent months knowing that contemporary sci-fi movie director Neil Blomkamp will now be directing a brand new ALIEN sequel, which does seem to be involving many elements which fans would be much more delighted to see on screen. He seems to be a real fan, and also keen to put something out there which would holds more of the fan-popular marks of the SF series and the actual Xenomorphs.

Now with yet another official name change for the Ridley Scott project, what does this suggest to us about the plot? He has stated that yes, this will now be the first in a trilogy connecting into the first ALIEN film. So does Prometheus not actually really count in the series at all? (I know many of you may be very pleased with that).

Despite the second name change (or is it third or more?) ALIEN:Covenant is still a continuation of Prometheus in terms of plot and characters involved. I personally and happy to know this, and am still very interested to see more of the surviving characters and how their journey continues on through space after the events of Prometheus. Even with the numerous plot-holes and contradictions, the ideas and themes do still have the potential to offer what could be a very stunning science fiction epic movie series on the scale of Avatar(but with hopefully better scipts than that particular film as well.)

With the hope that the new Blomkamp ALIENS sequel will not be delayed by too much time, there is room in cinema for both of these strands of the ALIEN universe to be explored and connected over the next few years and please fans of all the previously related movies.

James E. Parsons is author of Orbital Kin sci-fi book, out paperback/ebook from all good bookshops/retailers. New SF book Minerva Century out 2016.

 

The ways of space travel…

Now you may have noticed that the new Ridley Scott sci-fi movie The Martian is out in cinemas from last week, it has recieved mostly postive reviews it seems. It is a film adapted from an already quickly respected and well recieved novel from only a few years previous.

I may go and see this flick, as I am both a sci-fi film and Ridley Scott fan equally. This does though now have me thinking about the number of SF movies focused on exploring Mars, the Red Planet. Are there too many of these kinds of movies? Why always Mars?

I understand that this mysterious planet is possibly one of the most close to our own in a number of ways, but should we not consider and explore some the other known planets around us which are regularly ignored and forgotten?

Another question which comes to mind now-are science fiction films becoming far too serious again? This may be due to very interesting continuing research and investigations from NASA and other international space missions and tests, but in some ways I yearn possibly for just a little more fiction and imagination.

I understand also that films such as The Martian, Interstellar and Gravity from the last few years were partly made thanks in some ways due to the ground-breaking filming techniques and camera and CG overlap, allowing effects on screen never previously available to such stunning levels.

Such we still expect aliens and first contact in SF movies on the big screen? Are we just far past that time now?

FANTASTIC FOUR: MORE FOUR, NOT FANTASTIC?

Here we are again with another version of Marvel comics Fantastic Four hitting our cinema screens.

Many people were not very satisfied with the two previous big screen F.F. films which had taken decades to reach cinemas after so many years of studio problems and the time just never being right until the last decade or so.

Were those two previous movie really so bad?

This weekend we get another version, and from the very first pictures and trailers it has divided fans and cinema audiences. Are the actors too young? Does the tone seem much too dark for this particular comic-book adaptation?

The reviews are coming in and so far they do not seem too great. There even seems some mention of the director suggesting that his cut of the movie is not the one out there, and that version may have been much better that what we will see. Could that be true?

I am all up for filmmakers changing things, taking a story from new angles and finding some different view to develop. The feeling of being let down here may come from those who believed that the previous two Fantastic Four movies were just what they should have been. We could see this new reboot as a radical alternative view of the characters from that classic Marvel comic-and why not?

As those two goofy, colourful previous F.F. movies came just before the mighty Marvel studio began the non-stop journey to mega-box-office success ever since, they were still attempting to find the right tone, attitude after the Sam Raimi Spiderman films but probably required better effects. But then, when they added Silver Surfer in the second movie he was a very stunning result, but sadly Galactus became a gigantic smog cloud or rain storm, which totally let down all fans.

Can this new Fantastic Four rise above all of that? Should that change have been so very drastic and different to before?

I may just go see Antman again…

The Martian Film Trailer-A Hero Alone

Today I watched the new trailer for the anticipated new science fiction film from veteran great director Ridley Scott (while he should also be spending time working on new Blade Runner/Aliens/Prometheus films) which is adapted from the recent successful novel of same name.

I am not too sure about what I may have been expecting or hoping to see, and I have not read the book yet. This is a film which may hold a number or subtle surprises hopefully but I do get the impression that it is arriving after the huge success of films Gravity and more recently Interstellar, and so it needs to be different but seems similar enough to them.

This is a Ridley Scott film, and he is of course arguably most well known for his genre defining Alien and Blade Runner science fiction films, and so in some ways I would really love this film to be much more of a pulp ‘sci-fi’ movie. This in mind, that could go too close to Prometheus for many, which gathered many extreme mixed responses when it arrived.

This new film is also inspired or adapted from a previously written novel, though it could drift away from it in some ways, be that a good or bad thing. While we wait to see just what kind of controversial results we get with the Blade Runner and Prometheus sequels, Scott will offer us this interesting film, with a tale of one man who must survive Mars alone.

NIGHTBREED:The Director’s Cut (2014)

This epic horror fantasy film written and directed by the hugely talented artist/author/director Clive Barker was first released in cinemas way back in 1990. At the time that version of the film had been sadly recut and edited under orders by the film studio and producers, to sell it as more of a ‘slasher’ style movie. The real film was never intended to be like that, and at that time so much of the film was abandoned and lost for many years, with most people believing that the original version would never really ever be seen by the public.
After close to twenty five years, and with a sudden amount of sheer luck and then extreme hard work and effort, reels of footage were found and eventually cleaned up over the last couple of years. After a rough cut which was then toured around the UK, USA and other international film festivals, a strong response prompted the eventual successful completion of the closest cut of the film which Clive agrees with.
I personally live in the UK, and so had to get a US dvd copy (no idea when or if it will come out over here yet) and hope for the best. Thankfully I have been able to watch it today.
Nightbreed was adapted by director Clive Barker, who had only just has huge international success with his first horror film Hellraiser, also based on another of this short novels. This film though, while containing monsters and including some bloody and graphic sights, was much more than a simple slasher or gore fest horror flick.
I first saw the cinema cut version recorded from cable tv in the late 90’s, and was already a huge Clive Barker and Hellraiser fan then. As many have stated, that original cinema version of Nightbreed left out so much, and distorted the story vastly. I did though easily love that version because I could see enough original and stunning imagery and characters and pieces of the story between the patchwork structure of atempted slasher flick. I had read the novel Cabal which it was based on, and while I could tell that it was the same story, I knew that there were parts left out, or cut short which was strange enough as it was a fairly short book.
Over the years, reading interviews from Clive Barker I found him and some of the actors and other involved discussing the tragic events which had produced the box-office and artistic failure. Clive knew that the film studio probably did have reels of missing film scenes and footage for years, but would not let him have it. Thankfully, a glorious load of extra footage was hit upon suddenly a couple of years ago-and here we are with the cleaned up and recut version of Nightbreed today.

I did see the rough ‘Cabal Cut’ of Nightbreed when it was shown in some select UK cinemas a year or more ago, and though most of the found scenes and new footage was of fairly terrible visual quality (the film reels having deteriorated over years slightly) it was so great to see more of Midian and more of the monster I had seen pictures of but never seen on screen included in the film.
I sat down this afternoon and enjoyed a restored and spectacular horror fantasy movie, this time a slightly different, coherent and emotional film. Most of the structure of the film is still the same, but there a number of extended scenes and sequences which previously were only a second or two onscreen. This time Midian is a much more wider, elaborate, detailed place, there are dozens more monsters within the caverns below. The relationship between Boon and Lori is deeper, more touching and real. We care for them more, and by the end of the film, it means much more to see them get through the entire dramatic tale.
It does feel less like a simple Friday the 13th rip-off, with Dekker moving back in the narrative in the second hour, and more of the monsters and world of Midian move forward this time. I would agree that yes, there could still be say around ten minutes cut down perhaps, but largely this is a very satisfying, hugely enjoyable dark fantasy movie, now thankfully given the true finish and version that it should have had so many years ago.

FRIGHT NIGHT-REMAKE REVIEW

I have been catching up with a couple of modern horror remake movies over the last couple of days and the first one was this new take on the cult 80’s comedy horror Fright Night from 1985. It stood apart from many other horrors at the time for being knowingly aware of the genre and twisting the vampire myth into modern America slightly, with great heavy latex FX work and wacky geek side-kick character ‘Evil Ed. The other big deal making it memorable was the inclusion of science fiction and B-movie legend Roddy McDowall as bumbling ‘vampire hunter’ Peter Vincent.

So while with this remake there was not the heavy and serious concern of not fully capturing the intense scares and horror because the original was not a straight classic horror such as Exorcist or Texas Chainsaw… here I wanted to hopefully see the balance of creepy atmosphere, chills and jumps mixed well with the camp humour and horror references.

It has been out for a couple of years now, long enough for a cheap sequel to go out on dvd, and I had already heard about this remake, and read the reviews on release. Time has passed but I still needed to see what they had done with the movie.

It looks big enough budget, there are great panning camera shots, we are given actors like Toni Collette, and a couple of new young teen actors including Imogen Poots as the beautiful girlfriend. Current cult favourite geek star actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse takes the role of Evil Ed as his own.

Soon enough along comes Colin Farrell, huge Hollywood hunk as next-door neighbour vampire Jerry. I think that was where I remembered that he may have been one of the problems that I had when it came out. I have not always thought Farrell was a very great actor, just often in the simialr position as Keanu Reeves as good looking male actor but lacking serious ability. More recently he has impressed me in a few movies and so here he is, fangs and charm.

Does it assume that we all have seen or know of the original movie? It makes casual nods to it gradually, and Farrell slowly begins to manipulate young Charley and his mum Jane, while Ed is concerned about the increasing number of local kids missing from school. Ed gets it in the neck from Farrell earlier than expected, which seemed a real disappointment but knowing the actor, I did guess he would return later.

The film then moves along slowly, some of the spark gone, until after Farrell finally goes all vampire wild, chasing the family in their car. It all gets serious, and Charley needs real help. Enter David Tennant.

Yes our very own lovable, charming mad dandy DrWho star hits the big screen here, actually spoofing another Brit dandy-Russell Brand in an exagerrated way, as he plays the Roddy McDowall rold of Peter Vincent, Vampire Hunter.

With Tennant on screen and teamed with the young male lead, things pick up speed again, and all kinds of elaborate mad gothic props and set-pieces enter the action.  The laughs and jokes come on quick and steady thankfully, as Tennant manages to help take the known old ‘teens in peril’ horror plot to a conclusion in wild overblown style.

With earlier fear that possibly David Tennant might not have transitioned to big screen successfully, now I think I would actually really want to see him as lead in more bizarre genre films. In the final act we get some fantastic action sequences, great gasps and howls from Tennant as the vampires clamber and slither around them, and a great visual explosive last sequence with flames and screams galore.

It might slow down toward the middle with uneven pace, but overall this is great ghoulish cinematic fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Robocop-(2014 Remake)-Review

After a much extended and negative production period, a long time of hype and speculation; finally in 2014 we have been given the remake to the very much loved and cult classic 80’s action sci-fi flick Robocop.

Was there any real reason to make it we wondered? Would it be relevant to our modern times and audiences? Would it be terrible with a much lower age rating this time? Could it even be any better?

At first we may have been interested (besides those of use immediately angered by lazy remakes for expected box office) but after noted troubles with the production, a few directors on and off the film and script, actors being cast or not cast it, finally was moving along. Then a long delay again, when the release was put back for more months away.

After that we got news that this one would be something like a 15 or even 12 certificate. What was happening? No, that was it. It just had to suck the big one for sure. Right?

Well…

Even finally before going in to see it, after having seen the trailers, and getting more interested and sympathetic, I then was losing interest once again. But I was taken along anyway.

There are certainly a good number of similarities, references to the original movie, and differences as well. It does start off with a strong connection to modern day international war in the east, terrorism problems, and robot defence and drones used there. This was a good start. Soon after, we are introduced to the main characters, and move to Detroit in America.

Some believe that this was where the film lost impact or becomes softer. It might lose some strong obvious political on international issues, but it does continue to explore U.S. military, corporations and the media and how they use and abuse each other and the public.

There are many remakes and reboots of known films series and franchise these days, and this one actually seems to stick fairly close to the original plot for the majority of the movie, which was a surprise and not entirely a really bad thing.

It may not be as ironic obviously or blackly funny and cynical as the original, this time actually quite more philosophical and topical, looking at the themes of man, machine, death, soul, identity, police and politics and more.

It does have a much lower age rating which did seem to maybe be a bad thing early on, but even though it is nowhere near as gore splattered and ultra-violent as the 80’s version, it possibly offers questions,a script and approach suitable for a 2014 and young audience which is needed.

It is also definately worth seeing for the visual effects, which at times are actually really very stunning, and it can be emotional and tragic as the first one, such as Murphy exploring his ‘death’, his wife and son and who is is now.

There is some great acting from Michael Keaton, Gary Oldman, Samuel L Jackson as a manic news presenter, and the new Robocop actor Joel Kinnaman is quite suitable, with similarities to the great Peter Weller.

This Robocop might not have as many instantly classic iconic scenes, dialogue and images, but it is still a relevant and provocative modern sci-fi movie worth seeing.

 

 

 

 

Pacific Rim:Cartoon Sci-fi acted out?

After Christmas I have finally seen one of the big sci-fi mega-budget movies of last year, Pacific Rim. Yes, sadly somehow I did take probably far too long to view this movie, and had been keen to see it as it seemed to be extremely influenced by a few classic Anime features of which I am a fan.

Is that the problem with Pacific Rim?

Did you enjoy it, or find it far too simplistic, borrowing far too much from known Japanese Manga and Anime such as Gundam, Patlabor, Robotech? Would it be such a terrible thing to attempt to create some of those epic and awesome tales with real actors and live-action sets and locations?

Now that computer CGI graphics and film animation has moved and progressed so amazingly far, this is what we get here.

Another big issue here was that it was not really initially expected. Had had cult genre director Guillermo del Toro on board, but only after another large project finally fell through. So there was some feeling that he was doing this mostly for the money, but of course it still has much to admire and del Toro always puts love and great effort into all of his works.

There are nowadays so many huge CGI Hollywood fantasy/scifi movies every year, special effects are in such great state and allow just about kind of tale to be depicted up on screen. One of the biggest problems pulling this film down was, yes it did have very amazing special effects, so jaw-dropping and epic but that seemed to almost possibly hide the possibly not so amazing acting and screenplay.

Many moaned over the lack of any quality of depth to the screenplay, with it being very simple, straight forward, giant robots-smash-giant-monsters and that is all.

Well, there is more at work, but maybe only just. It shares many similarities with the genre classic Godzilla movies of course, which suggested fear or nuclear war or disaster. It comments on war, military force, invasion, fear, gender roles at war and more. But did it even need to say much more or anything?

We have had many years without a good, quality big simple monster smash-up movie such as the Godzilla films (with the notorious previous Hollywood version pleasing barely anyone at all years ago). Unfortunately, we now do have a new Godzilla movie due out this year, which many are excitedly waiting for and Pacific Rim may have taken some of the awe away from that big release sadly. We will see soon.

With the Manga/Anime classic animated features like the Patlabor movies, Akira, Robotech, Gundam and more being loved by so many for years and since crossed over the seas successfully, we could take this movie as a loving tribute or as a good few have suggested, a problematic political tool on some level, marketing and pleasing cinema audiences and international relations between East and West. In some ways, I am glad that a movie like this has been made, before or instead of a terrible live-action Patlabor or Akira hits cinema screens.

However you might view this movie, it thankfully can be greatly enjoyed as one of the most absolutely epic, visually stunning science fiction movies we have seen for a couple of years.

 

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS: DO YOU KNOW FEAR? WELL, DO YOU?

Right then, finally I have seen THE CABIN IN THE WOODS at the cinema. It took a while, not that I was in anyway putting off seeing it at all. The more I read about this movie, the more it sounded like something that I really had to see, and film that really deserved to be seen.

So what am I going to say? Should I now begin a lengthy detailed personal review, all praise and analysis? You know, right now I think not. I really could do such a thing, and I think I would really enjoy writing a very detailed academic style, like being right back at university once again.

And I have up to now half read a good number of the reviews, which were funny in that the writers had to really carefully describe and praise the movie without ruining it or let away any secrets of the plotpoints at all, which is either very easy or extremely difficult.

Yes, I was very impressed with this movie. Did it work? To most degrees, it certainly did. It is a very knowing, modern clever film. It is mainstream but manages to in ways provoke some questions hopefully.

I am already cetain that it will be one of the films of the year, definately as far as horror or genre movies go. Go see this movie, if you appreciate films, think you know a bit about them, and want to see something different at the same time.