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Enterprise (2001)
Season 3 was a major improvement.
Seems like the first 2 seasons of TNG, DS9, Voyager and now Enterprise all suffered from the same thing, boring episodes. Then in Season 3 things seemed to get better just as cancellation seemed near.
The Xindi storyline reminds me of the Dominion War of DS9 which kept the series going for several more seasons. It will be interesting to see what Season 4 will bring, the alien in the Nazi uniform is a bit of a mystery - is he a Reman as some have suggested? And how exactly did this tie in with the destruction of the Xindi weapon in Earth orbit, as the changes to Earth seemed to coincide with that event. A bigger question is why nothing outside of the Earth system seemed to have changed as the Xindi brought Enterprise back to Earth after the event. Why does Enterprise still exist at all if history was changed?
Enterprise is far from perfect, but it is a vast improvement of the dud of Season 1 and 2. I would like to have seen the MACO's resemble the marines from the movie Aliens, these MACO guys look like extras.
The future of Trek? I would like to see the parallel universe that was visited once in Star Trek and twice in DS9 where the Empire was a darker version of the Federation. My vision would be: Sometime during the era of TNG, DS9, Voyager, a fleet of Federation ships would be involved in war games and something goes wrong and they all end up in the other universe via spacial anomaly and have everyone against them. Some of the ships would band together to find a way home, others would say its a waste of time and they should overthrow the Empire and a few would strike out on their own wanting no part of either plan. The crews of the various ships could interact and it would be more interesting than just 1 ship - 1 crew formula used throughout all the series thus far.
This would bring a fresh perspective to the franchise and maybe they could use Nimoy to play the Empire leader between Priceline.com ads, which would attract older fans.
Squirm (1976)
Something in the dark, coming up the stairs...
This is one of the creepiest films I saw as a child.
Recently saw this again and I cannot get that opening music out of my head! Anyone out there have the full lyrics? It goes something like "Something in the dark, coming up the stairs, looking through the peep hole..." The only better song might be the Freddy Kruger kids jump rope song.
One of the better nature gone bad movies of the 70's. But definitely not a movie to watch on a full stomach.
Something in the dark, coming up the stairs...
Its really bugging me, I might have to rent a copy.
The Omega Man (1971)
Burn! Burn!
Very well done, much better than the original with Vincent Price.
Some observations:
Until I saw the uncut version I never noticed things like working street lights in the opening credits (years after the germ war killed almost everyone), the body lying in the street near the armored car (not decomposed) and the motorcycle guys jacket with the hand on the back with the raised middle finger.
Neville's home base was located amongst abandoned buildings up against it on both sides. So, every night, the zombies would try and burn Neville out. So why not just set fire to the houses on both sides and burn the entire block down instead of stupid frontal assaults on Nevilles apartment? I guess being a zombie robs you of 75 IQ points in the process.
Ok, so the zombies are stupid, weve established that much! But that does not explain Nevilles actions. Why would he live in a fire trap to begin with? I would have chose an old military base with electrified fences and steel doors to keep out the zombies.
Neville could have killed them all in one night. Just set up steel barrels full of explosives, nails, nuts and bolts all over the street and when the zombies came to burn him out, detonate the barrels taking them all out at once instead of hunting them down 1 by 1 (ok, maybe he just enjoyed the thrill of the hunt).
Neville could have simply moved to another location so the zombies could not find him at night. It was not like there was any shortage of available housing in the area! Why sit there night after night listening to moaning zombies chanting "Burn! Burn! Neville! Neville!! Burn! Burn!"? Neville was certainly a glutton for punishment.
For its logical flaws, it is still a very good movie and very watchable. The chase scene thru the stadium was great.
It has been over 30 years, it might be time for an updating of this classic. Maybe Heston could play the role of zombie leader this time. Hopefully they would not screw it up the way they did with the Planet of the Apes remake.
Silent Running (1972)
Questions, questions.
Lots of questions! Few answers.
First question - why were these spacecraft containing Earth last forests on spacecraft out near Saturn? Would it not make more sense to have them in the same orbit as Earth where the sunlight would be the same as on Earth? Near Saturn space probes have to be nuclear powered because the sunlight is so weak out that far out to power even low voltage systems let alone keep a forest alive. The last forest dome was dying half way thru the movie for lack of sunlight. Logic would dictate that they should have started dying long before that, in fact, they should have started dying as soon as they got out past Mars.
Second - (many people mention this) why blow up the forests at all? So, the budget for the program was cut? Why not link the domes together, release them in the same orbit as Earth in case they change their minds?
Third - How in the world could they allow an econut psycho into the space program to begin with? Any nut case who would murder his fellow man to save trees is one can short of a six pack, one fry short of a happy meal, one whose elevator does not go all the way to the top, ect. His attitude is "Gee, sorry I killed you there, dude, but I had to save the trees so they could float around in deep space for a thousand years like an ecological "Flying Dutchman".
Fourth - in the end a second rate R2D2 ancestor is in charge of keeping the last forest alive for as long as the supplies and power in the dome last? How long would that be? A few months or years? No one else knew the thing was out there in deep space! I guess when you are a psycho econut, things like that do not cross your mind.
The most interesting part was the arming, launch and detonation sequence and the part at the end where Bruce went kaboom! As I recall they later used these 3 ships in "Battlestar Galactica" as farming ships. (they are actually doing a new miniseries on December 2003 which made me think of it) I believe the dome concept was also used for the series "The Starlost" a year later (great concept, horrible execution).
I am all for keeping forests in decent shape but this was a ham handed way of making the point about keeping our forests and planet in decent shape. It makes environmentalists look like nutcases- like groups such as "Earth First" (I think Bruces character would have been elected President of the group for his killing off his fellow crewmen).
Still, for some strange reason, I still watch this movie every so often. And I am just not sure why!
I rate this a 5 out of 10 just because I liked the design of the spaceships!
Miracle Mile (1988)
Great Movie.
SPOILER!!!!! Still have the original laser disc version. I view this movie once a year at least. It was highly underrated. The real time aspect was unusual and kept the viewer in suspense right up to the end.
It certainly makes you ask yourself the question "What would I do if I had the information Harry had?"
Harry had it made, he was on his way to the airport to escape nuclear war, then he stops to save the woman he loves. Would you do the same or would you save yourself.
Considering the short time remaining and the long odds of making it to the airport in time after who knows how long it would take to find the girl and make it to the airport, I really don't know what I would do. Had they both remained at the heliport, they both would have survived.
The ending was sort of depressing as you wanted them to make it. On the other hand the first plane does make it off the ground before the nukes hit as the Vietnam vet pilot points out (how he knew the plane flying overhead was theirs is beyond me). If Harry had stayed on the catering truck he probably would have had a good chance with Landa or those 2 women with the machine guns.
I wish they had made a sequel so we could have found out what happened to the people on the plane that made it out. Making it to Anarctica would have been dicey at best considering they would need to refuel at least once and the people of South America might not take kindly to Yankees from America (who had just blown up the Northern Hemisphere bringing on nuclear winter) landing in their countries. But that is an untold story...
Annihilator (1986)
Series Pilot
This movie was a series pilot that was not picked up by the network.
It was not bad, but parts of it were a bit corny as some have pointed out.
As for the Ashes to Ashes segment with the music, this was in the era of MTV back in the days when they actually aired music videos 24/7. This scene was sort of a music video within a movie. Since I liked the song, I didn't mind it.
The basic concept had and still has alot of potential. Considering most sci-fi today is largely rip offs of Star Trek, something like this would be a nice change of pace. There was a kind of creepiness to it that the androids were so lifelike that most people would never know who was real along with the mystery of who or what was really behind the replacement of humans.
I would have to rate it an 9/10 for concept, but 7/10 for execution. This might be an idea for the Sci-Fi channel to pick up now since they did not exist 15 years ago.