ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow, there’s not a bad movie in today’s batch!

Galactic space battles, a genetic experiment that produces a new human speicias, and a drug that turns average people in super-geniuses.

The third one was turned into a wonderful series which was produced by the star of the movie.
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Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)



I walked out of the theater with my 20-year-old son — who'd been a Star Wars fan since he was knee high to an Ewok — and wondered how I was going to tell him that I had a few dozen reasons for thinking this movie was a mess.

Things like this.

Anakin decides that the only way he can keep his dreams of Padm??'s death from coming true is to get real tight with the Dark Side of the Force — so he becomes the servant of Palpatine. The next thing ya know he's staring down at the cutest little Jedi urchin you ever saw, right before he slaughters all the little kids.

That was just too cruel, even for Darth Vader
Senator Palpatine lies helpless and cowering before Mace Windu, begging for Anakin to save him, and suddenly he's shouting out bolts of lightning, and he suddenly looks older than Joan Rivers! In seconds flat he looks like the evil emperor we love to hate in Return of the Jedi — a process I'd always assumed took years, sort of like the portrait of Dorian Gray.

I'm sorry, but "instant Evil Emperor" just seemed slap-dash and rushed.

Anakin deeply loves Padm?? and sells his soul to the devil to protect her — until she gets a little snippy with him and he force-chokes her, causing her to die during childbirth. Puzzling behavior, to put it mildly.

Anakin is facing Obi-Wan on a sloping piece of ground, and he stupidly tries to do a double-flip over his opponent — who promptly carves him up in mid-air and leaves him shy several limbs. Stupid behavior, to say the least.

Poor Anakin, burned to a crisp and missing so many body parts he looks like a door stop, is hauled into a lab, stuffed into his Darth Vader get-up, and put back on his feet without even getting a nice sponge bath first. Hell, they didn't even peal the charred clothing off him!

I'm sorry, but again I felt like "instant Darth Vader" was just slap-dash and rushed.

Anybody else have things like this that bugged the heck out of them when they saw this movie?
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Splice (2009)



This is one very ambitious science fiction story, with a concept that's a little creepy and a non-human main character who's even creepier.



She goes from conception to birth to childhood in fairly short order, and we know from the look of her that she's going to be trouble, right here in River City. I admire the way they made her appealing and bizarre, both at the same time.





She goes from her attractive-and-almost-human stage back into a weird stage — and she keeps getting weirder right up the bitter end.



This a "pure science" sci-fi story, but it stretches its concept to the limit. Or maybe just little too far, towards end. It never gets dull . . . but it often gets a bit kinky.

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Limitless (2015)



This show is more fun than a three-day weekend in Panama City. With a cheerleader.

Jake McDorman has more charm than two or three guys put together, which is just what this show needs, because it's as playful as a puppy having its way with your favorite shoes. At first I thought it was getting a bit too jokey, but they've managed to tell good stories and keep it light, without being silly.

Jennifer Carpenter as FBI Agent Rebecca Harris is convincing, and I'm sort of glad they didn't cast one of those insanely beautiful women who seem to comprise 51% of Hollywood's population these days. Shows like Flash and Supergirl pack the cast with pretty faces, and I end up having to watch every episode with one eye closed to keep from being blinded by dazzling smiles, sparkling eyes, and poochy lips just beggin' to be kissed.

One thing the series does differently from the movie is the way it presents how intelligent the pills make a person. In the movie, Bradley Cooper was super-duper smart and learned things in seconds (he could learn foreign languages just from hearing them for a few minutes). However, in the series, Jake McDorman is bright enough to solve the crimes each week, but he doesn't dazzle us with his superhuman brilliance the way Cooper's character did.

I think the producers of the series figured out that they had to dial back the genius a bit so they wouldn't have to spend so much time creating cool special effects that demonstrated the amazing things going on in Jake's NZT-enhanced brain.

I was surprised when I learned today that the series is directed buy Neil Burger, who also directed the feature film, Limitless, in 2011. I feel a little better knowing that the man who did such a great job with that remarkable movie is in charge of retooling the concept for television.

I just hope CBS doesn't figure out that I like this show — because if they do, they'll cancel it for sure!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)