ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Custer did a fine job creating two epic thread-starting posts for All Sci-Fi — the kind I wish more of out members would do. But good replies are appreciated as well. So, do be shy about adding few to the post below.

Please . . . (

And I felt a bit intimidated by Custer's fine work, so I threw in one of my own, just to protect my reputation!





Now it's time to protect YOUR rep! Come on, guys, post something!

If you don't, I might have a nervous breakdown trying to pump new posts into All Sci-Fi just to keep it interesting for all those "Guest" we have every day who enjoy our wonderful board . . . without ever adding a damn thing to it!

Here's a sample of what you'll see at the bottom of the main index each day.


]


99% of the time, I'm the only "registered user".
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Captain America: Civil War (2016)



For some reason, Britain got the new Marvel movie a week ahead of the US release date, so I can report that it's pretty good; it's well-made, and knows what to do to keep us happy.

At 147 minutes it's quite long, but it has a lot to fit in. It's the sequel to "Winter Soldier" of course, and the next Avengers movie; it features the start of the narrative for the Black Panther, and it's a reboot for Spider-Man to lead into his next movie.

And there's plenty of Iron Man. Like the recent Supes vs Bats potboiler, the collateral damage from past missions is a major plot motivator, but this time it's done right. Hawkeye may be a little late in joining the team, and Thor is presumably home chilling out in Asgard, while quite sensibly everyone decides that, given the current sensitivity to massive property damage, there's no point in getting Bruce Banner involved... but that still leaves plenty of people to feature.

It's fun seeing Tony Stark making a house call to recruit Spider-Man to his team, and flirting with his sensibly young aunt - why should a teenager's aunt be over seventy, anyway?

The big battle everyone has been talking about at the airport is well worth the wait, especially when [redacted] attempts to [redacted], something he's only tried once before apparently, and dials everything up a few notches.

Vision and Scarlet Witch may be on different sides, but there's obvious chemistry in their scenes together. I'm not sure why Martin "Frodo" Freeman has a small and unmemorable part in the movie . . . but Stan the Man is on hand just before the final credits, to deliver a pizza to "Mister Tony Stank," so all is well on that front.

The mid-credits sequence is similar to the small final scene a lot of tv shows have, with Cap, Bucky, and T'Challa - it also gives a slight teaser of what Wakanda is going to be like in that particular movie.

And, just as the lights come up and the last of the patrons head out of the door, we revisit Peter Parker and Aunt May, to remind us of our new webslinger's upcoming cinematic adventure, Spider-Man: Homecoming, due in 2017.

My local cinema wasn't as full for this as it was for Deadpool, but I'm sure that Marvel Studios have another hit on their hands. And it's only a couple of weeks to the new X-Men adventure, with Doctor Strange due later this year... good times for people who enjoy this type of movie! ]
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X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)



[size=20]I don't know why Britain has been getting the new movies ahead of the USA recently, but X-Men: Apocalypse is now out here. I read a very negative one-star review in The Times yesterday evening, which put it lower down the scale than Batman versus Superman - but I'd seen it that afternoon, and I rather enjoyed it.

It did strike me as a bit slow, and a bit in love with large-scale CGI-enhanced set pieces, but as a sequel to First Class and the present-day part of Days of Future Past it gave us a lot of the sort of thing fans of those movies would want to see.

We get the first appearance of a young Storm, we see Scott Summers have the start of his eye trouble. Psylocke looks excellent in her costume of course, and there's Angel before and after becoming Archangel, and an encouragingly large part for Nightcrawler.

Professor Xavier and Magneto have their usual on-again, off-again rivalry/friendship. Havok returns, as does Moira MacTaggert, while Jean Grey develops her psionic powers nicely. And Quicksilver has a larger part this time, including an exhilarating run around a certain well-known school when a bomb is exploding, plucking all the students and teachers to safety just ahead of the blast.

Yes, Stan Lee has his usual cameo, as one of a sequence of people gazing upwards in awe as the nuke-carrying rockets zoom off into the sky — and Hugh Jackman has a cameo too, in his Weapon X costume.

I should mention that, if you stay to the very end of the lengthy credits, there is a final sequence, but you may not feel it necessary to wait. The army base where our heroes had a bit of a fight is being cleaned up, and some gentlemen in suits from the Essex Corporation walk in and take a vial of Weapon X serum, in what may well be a lead-in to the next Wolverine tale. I was the only one who stayed that long — the other three people in the audience had departed by then.

The villain, Apocalypse, is a helpful sort of fellow, who usefully boosts the powers of those future X-Men he recruits. True, he is a bit ruthless at times, leveling Cairo and assorted landmarks around the world (I'd recommend avoiding Sydney Opera House, it's always a prime target for such events), so that from the rubble he can build old-style Egyptian monuments.

Yes, it's yet another Pyramid Scheme. As in most Hollywood movies, the really evil ruthless guys are the US military, with Stryker back in charge. The soldiers all get a well-deserved disemboweling, thankfully, except for Stryker himself, whose rallying cry, when things get out of control, is "Be right back . . . "

Maybe there was a bit much of Apocalypse setting up his plans, and a bit much of Erik's non-Magneto travails. But Mystique was in good form, and Hank McCoy, as himself and as the bouncing Beast, kept things together. Jubilee was around too. Maybe it didn't have to be 144 minutes long, but if you enjoyed X-Men: First Class, you should feel that you are getting value for money here.
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Frequency (2000)



When it comes to time travel stories, this one wins the prize for the most intelligent exploration of how changes in the past will affect the present.

Back to the Future comes close, but Frequency is the king when it comes to temporal plot twists and unexpected consequences that result from that legendary butterfly / ripple effect we've all come to love. We don't get to see a sexy time machine in this movie, but the story takes our minds on the wildest ride this genre can devise.

And it excels in another way, too. In Back to the Future the story cleverly sidesteps the fact that if Marty changed the time line and woke up in his room at the end of the first film, he should have no memory of any of the things we saw him do. The memories of his life should have been consistent with his new, affluent, well-adjusted family — which means his shock at all the changes he suddenly discovers was completely illogical.



But it was completely appropriate for this fun sci-fi adventure. The average person never notices the "error", and the "thinking people" who do notice it just smile and nod and appreciate the cleverness of the writer and director for hiding the illogic behind all the entertainment.

Ah, but Frequency meets the challenge head on, and their approach is brilliant. Jim Caviezel's character straddles two time lines, caught smack in the middle of what-it-was and what-it-changed-to. And he remembers both!



This remarkable aspect of the story, along with the roller coaster plot, makes this science fiction classic one which will endure the test of time.

. . . so to speak.

_________________ Frequency (2000) - Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)