ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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A new take on a famous character, a third movie about resurrected dinosaurs, and a post in which I offered a simple and irrefutable explanation for why Jeff Goldblum’s laptop could easily upload a virus to the alien computer in Independence Day, despite the strong objections of an All Sci-Fi member who swore up and down that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

I wasted a shameful amount of time trying to convince him I was right, but to no avail. Oh well . . .
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Sherlock Holmes (2009)



What was it that Captain America said to Tony Stark in The Avengers?
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"Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off and what are you?"

"A genius, crime-solving, consulting detective."
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Well, I rewrote the line a little, but it still fits, eh?

How does Robert Downey Jr. manage to be so quiet, so cool, and so tough — all at the same time. It ain't fair to the rest of us.

As a devoted Sherlock Holmes fan from way back into the last century (which sounds further back than it really is), I must confess I didn't care for Downey's scruffy appearance in this version of the Baker St. detective. His disdain for fashionable clothes and good grooming was clearly a statement on the part of the filmmakers: This is not your grandfather's legendary London sleuth.

On the other hand, Jude Law's version of Dr. Watson was a wonderful about-face from the bumbling comic relief we got with Nigel Bruce in the 1940s movies. I've always disliked the way Watson — a writer, a doctor, and the best friend of the wisest man in the planet — was portrayed as a blithering idiot.

And then there's . . . The Woman, as Sherlock was inclined to call her. Irene Adler was her name -- and Rachel McAdams was The Woman who played her.

Be still, my foolish heart.

This is a gal to die for, with beauty unsurpassed, and charms that could convince snakes to slither in formation.

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If beauty were illegal, she'd be doing twenty-to-life.

The movie's photography tickled my fancy a bit less, however. In their efforts to create a dim and dingy 18th century environment, the filmmakers seem to have used only three colors; white, black, and brown -- with the exception of Miss McAdam's bright red lips, a kissable oasis in a near-monochromatic desert.

But there's no faulting the story, a worthy challenge for the great detective and a bloody good movie, start to finish.
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Independence Day (1996)



I had an argument with a guy once who thought I was nuts for believing that a virus could be uploaded to an alien ship's computer.

I couldn't make him see that the movie spoon-fed us all the foreshadowing and background info we needed for the virus strategy to make sense.

The defense for the concept goes like this.

The aliens were very adept at conquering less advanced civilizations. That's what they did for a living. They were pros.

Their computers were geared to interface with less advanced technology. That's why they were able to "use our own satellites against us." To do that, the interface would have to include both input and output. Their computers were feeding signals into our satellites, and receiving signals from them.

A sufficiently advanced computer would have no trouble deciphering a message sent to it from a less sophisticated one — especially if it was designed to do exactly that, as shown by the way they used our own satellites. So, the alien computer would understand anything received from our systems. It's smart.

Conversely, the last thing the cocky aliens would expect is that our lame and archaic computers could pose any kind of threat. None of their former victims ever thought of it. So, even though they were smart, they were also over-confident.

Look at it this way. A really stupid Frenchman could tell a convincing lie to a really smart American — if the American also spoke fluent French. Duh . . .

It's a classic David-and-Goliath scenario: smack the arrogant giant with a little rock in just the right place and lay the jackass out cold.

The defense rests.
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Jurassic Park III (2001)



I liked the third Jurassic Park when I first saw it — and I still do. I like it even better after seeing the fourth one.

I'm spittin' into the wind by criticizing a movie that's earned $1.285 billion so far and claiming that its predecessor — this one — is far better. After all, Jurassic Park III only earned $369 million.

Chump change, relatively speaking.

But this tale of a daring rescue and a brave team in search of a lost boy is, in my opinion, a much better movie than Jurassic World — with its silly suggestion that velociraptors would make great G.I. Joe-asauruses!

The character in the movie who liked that idea got eaten. I wish the writer who thought it up would suffer the same fate.

And what about those endless shots of really, really stupid tourists who think that running and screaming in a big open area is the smart thing to do when threatened by a flock of hungry pterodactyls. I mean, Jeez Marie, if it had starting raining these morons would have quickly run indoors! But we don't see a single person do that when the flying dinosaurs swooped down!

Jurassic Park III had nothing as insultingly stupid in the whole movie. In fact, the story has several good moments that proved the characters are both courageous and clever.

For example, the lost boy survives for weeks on the dinosaur-filled island by collecting T-Rex piss, because the odor scares away other dinosaurs. Bright lad.

Alessandro Nivola (Sam Neill's young assistant) uses a scavenged parasail to snatch a boy from a nest of baby pterodactyls. You don't see THAT every day!

The story is focused on the survival of the group, and it doesn't feel the need to concoct evil capitalists working in cahoots with unprincipled genetic engineers to make designer dinosaurs that'll keep the ticket-buying public from getting bored and going back to Disneyland.

And yet, look at the spooky little parallel to what happened in real life. Movie goers didn't cotton to the second and third Jurassic Park films like they did to the first one because they felt like they'd been-there-and-done-that.

So, Hollywood did the same thing the geneticists did in the fourth movie — they invented bigger and smarter dinosaurs to lure audiences back to the theaters.

I might not like the fourth one, but one thing its premise did right was mirror the way people act when they need a new cinematic thrill to replace the old one.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)