Star Wars movies costumes exhibit debuts in Seattle

The EMP Museum in Seattle is the opening venue for "Star Wars and the Power Costume" featuring original costumes from all six films. The exhibit opened on January 31, 2015 and will end on October 4, 2015. It's organized by the Smithsonian Institution and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts. The 12-city tour across the USA will conclude in 2020.

Lucy meet Neo meet Will Caster

I was intrigued by the similarities between the July 2014 movie Lucy, the 1999 film The Matrix (Neo) and April 2014 movie Transcendence (Will Caster). Lucy combines elements of both films and even shares a co-star from Transcendence, that of Morgan Freeman. Of course The Matrix also featured Black co-star Laurence Fishburne who was Neo's teacher regarding the terrible truth of the world in which he lived and learned to manipulate just as star Scarlett Johansson's character does in Lucy. In Lucy and Transcendence Freeman's character is a scientist, though more of a professor in the former. I was somewhat disappointed by Transcendence, which also had an element of the TV series Revolution in it. The trailer I saw for Lucy showed Scarlett Johansson at her formidable best a la her Black Widow character from The Avengers.

"Sharknado" vs "Atlantic Rim"

Not sure which is worse, a tornado depositing living sharks into the streets of Los Angeles, or monsters from the deep attacking Florida and being beaten back by robot fighters. On the latter, did you think I was talking about the new movie "Pacific Rim" or had made a mistake in the title of this blog post? No, because a TV movie aired in Canada on July 13, 2013 called "Atlantic Rim", which right down to the title and plot could not be a more direct ripoff of "Pacific Rim".

The copyright lawyers must be sharpening their pencils. After all, there has been a legal battle waging over the use of the title "The Butler" which originally was a 1916 movie now owned by Warner Brothers. The Weinstein Company thought it could use the title "The Butler" for its upcoming film that stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a White House butler employed by all the presidents between Eisenhower and Reagan. I too had always thought that you could not copyright a title, however, this dispute seems to be based on other legal and non-legal issues. According to this Huffington Post story on July 9, Harvey Weinstein told "CBS This Morning host Norah O'Donnell, there have been 122 instances of movies using the same title as other movies in Hollywood history, including the recent comedy "The Heat," which shares its name with three other films." As others have pointed out, something else is going on.

Might be an interesting project to put together a Web site called Ripoff Central or something like that which documents "Hollywood" vs indie film ripoffs. I'm sure the producers of "Atlantic Rim" will defend its existence on the basis of you can't copyright an idea, only its execution. After I watch my recording of "Atlantic Rim" I'll try and report back. Sadly, I never recorded "Sharknado" but I hope to catch it in a rerun.

"Immortals" movie (2011), imaginative and unbelievable

A couple of things struck me about the "Immortals" movie that I went to see. And it wasn't the 3D, which was pretty good though I hate wearing those glasses and being forced to pay extra money.

The first thing I noticed was that the imprisoned Titans in their box cage beneath Mount Tartarus -- another anomaly, since Tartarus was actually the ancient Greek equivalent of the Christian Hell and was not a mountain at all -- were clenching rebar (reinforcing bar), usually made out of steel. Curious choice for a movie set in ancient Greece.

The second thing that got my attention was the absolutely enormous, dam-size wall that looked far taller than any Egyptian pyramid and stood as a barrier between the army of King Hyperion and the other ancient Greek dude whose territory he was invading just to get to the inside of Mount Tartarus.

The third thing is that for someone who did not believe in the Hellenic gods, King Hyperion conveniently forgot about their essential role in the imprisonment of the Titans beneath or in Tartarus. Why he wanted to free them and why he thought they would not turn against him was not adequately explained. It's also curious that in Greek mythology Hyperion was one of the Titans, though in the movie he's been turned into the King of Crete.

Finally, as gods, would not the Olympians be able to teleport themselves instantly without the "Star Trek"-like golden beam?

"Terra Nova", is this "Avatar" for TV?

I'm not that impressed with the new TV series that premiered on September 26, 2011 called "Terra Nova". One of the stars is none other than Stephen Lang, who plays a similar character to his role in the movie "Avatar". The compound in the world the lucky citizens of the 22nd century are sent back to 85 million years ago is somewhat reminisicent of the compound on the planet in "Avatar" that's being mined for an energy source that will help an Earth also on the verge of envrionmental collapse as is the 22nd century Earth in "Terra Nova".

Critique of unread novel and seen movie "I Am Number Four"

Though the premise and ideas behind the novel and its movie version are ones that highly interest me, I've not read the novel but have now seen the movie. In looking over the official site for movie I was immediately struck by what I think is a huge plot hole. Read on if you dare.

Allegedly penned by an alien, Pittacus Lore, the novel I Am Number Four is the basis for the 2011 movie of the same title starring Alex Pettyfer as alien teen John Smith (that is, Pittacus Lore). Geeze, wouldn't he be suspected immediately of extraterrestrial or non-USA origins with a name like that?

What bugged me about the premise of this novel and movie are the ruthless aliens that destroyed the population of his home planet Lorien. Come on people, if the "evil Mogadorian" (their name even sounds evil) wiped out the population of one planet, what's to stop them from doing the same in one fell swoop to poor, defenseless Earth. I hate to say it, but these 18 Lorienites who came here for refuge are not that enlightened if they're using Earth and its population as a planetary shield against the Mogadorian, hoping, I think, that whatever "humanity" their enemy possesses might be swayed by the beauty of our world. Well, folks, in the real world, an implacable enemy simply is not going to hunt its prey one by one, it will choose the shock and awe option every time. Humans of course learned this lesson long ago.

But then the novel series Lorien Legacies (the second installment is called The Power of Six) and the movie's sequel would not exist and Pittacus Lore would not be laughing all the way to his or her alien bank.

As far as the movie itself goes, I don't think an adequate explanation was given about the war between the two alien species, both of whom of course are humanoid in appearance, the Lorienites enough so that they can pass as humans while the Mogadorians, who comically dress like the good guys (and girls) in The Matrix movies have gills on either side of their noses and tiny sharp teeth. All males, they're bald and with intricate tattoos.We're told by Henri (Timothy Olyphant), John Smith's Lorienite guardian/warrior, that the Mogadorians don't colonize, they decimate planets and then move on. So my question is: why such a small force of Mogadorians to hunt 18, if the bad aliens know there's a nice defeneseless planet ripe for decimating, why not commit all their resources? As it was, they kind of skulked around secretly until the final showdown. It also puzzled me why no one seemed to think to call the National Guard out once the firefight broke out at the high school and where were all the gun-toting militiamen. I mean we were in the heartland of America.

The movie and the relationship between the hero and his high school sweetie reminded me a lot of the Twilight films.

Overall, the film was well acted, well paced and despite my dissatisfaction with the bad and the good aliens' psychology, I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction films. The film has a lot of echoes of many other movies including Jumper, Push The X-Files and even Star Wars.

"Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" TV movie shoot in Estevan Village, evening of November 1, 2010

There was a TV movie shoot taking place on the evening of November 1, 2010 in Estevan Village, a neighborhood shopping district in the municipality of Oak Bay. The shoot was entirely confined to the barbershop. It looked to be a professional effort as there were several big trucks parked on Musgrave Avenue. There were some lights set up so the barbershop appeared as it would in daylight. Walking on the other side of the street I was practically blinded due to the angle of one set of lights.

According to a newspaper article on November 9, the shoot was for a TV movie starring Richard ("The Waltons") Thomas and titled "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" for airing on the Hallmark Channel in 2011.

Lost, the Movie

How long before we see a Lost movie based on the TV series that ended its six year run on May 23, 2010?

[polldaddy poll=3250135]

What a wonderful universe view from the Hubble

Went to see the Hubble IMAX film and was pleasantly surprised to hear the late Israel (Iz') Kamakawiwo'ole's signature song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World." Though not a Hawaiian language song, it expresses the love and optimism one feels at being alive in a universe of endless possibilities. The song appears on his first solo CD from 1993, Facing Future.

Duel of the Kraken Gods

When I first saw the trailer for the upcoming movie Clash of the Titans, I was struck by how much Liam Neeson's Zeus' character command of "Release the Kraken!" echoed Bill Nighy's Davey Jones' character declaiming almost the same or the same words in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Perhaps this is what you call a homage from one film to another. "Release the Kraken!" indeed.

Copy Wars: China P88 vs Apple iPad, Dark Void computer game vs Avatar movie

You may have heard about the Chinese company, Shenzhen Great Loong Brother, that's threatened to sue Apple over some kind of claim that Apple's iPad is a clone of their product, the P88, which apparently has been on sale in China for the past six months. This Wired magazine article points out some of the silliness around the Chinese claim.

James Cameron's movie Avatar has also had its share of accusations of third-party influences, one the most interesting coming from those familiar with ayahuasca, a drug from South America that supposedly gives its users the illusion of being connected with the natural world. In Avatar, the Na'vi people of the planet Pandora achieve this feat through a direct physical connection by plugging the end of their hair braid into not only their Tree of Souls, but also into some animals. This Globe and Mail op-ed piece by Canadian filmmaker Richard Meech compares Avatar's symbiotic connection to the drug-induced, imaginary one of the Amazon "vine of the soul."

Now comes the computer game from Capcom called Dark Void. In Episode 1, Chapter 4, after falling through a long hole in a mountain, the hero (you) end up at the bottom and in a landscape that looks suspiciously like the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Avatar. In the movie the Na'vi use flying beasts to fly around and in Dark Void the heroes use rocket packs.

Movie note: The Book of Eli (2010)

I went to see The Book of Eli movie today (January 19, 2010). For my notes, see my Doomsday Blog entry.

Avatar movie opinion

Finally saw Avatar in 3D. It was a rainy New Year's Eve afternoon, so I'd expected a much bigger crowd. Got there in plenty of time and had a relatively close seat but the screen was set well back. I wasn't that impressed with the 3D effects and glasses were required. Wearing glasses on top of glasses is a pain and you don't really want to move your head for fear of losing some of the 3D aspect.  The movie is a love story combined with a cowboys versus Indians, humans versus alien, technologism versus primitivsm, science versus pantheism, the last a false dichotomy if ever there were one. The planet Pandora, a moon of a gas giant whose atmosphere is unbreathable to humans, contains the unlikely named mineral unobtainium, worth $20 million a kilo (I can't remember if this was a kilogram or a kiloton). The mineral has some kind of energy properties that will alleviate a crisis on Earth. This might explain the floating Hallelujah Mountains. The indigenous Na'vi humanoid species stand in the way of human exploitation of their planet's geological treasure. The humans use biological robots called avatars and coffinlike immersion chambers  to control the avatar and interact with the the Na'vi who regard the avatars as demons. When the human agents are out of the immersion chamber the avatar itself is essentially unconscious. The setting, life forms, art direction and attention to detail in Avatar is indeed like nothing you've ever seen before in a science fiction movie and James Cameron has once again raised the bar in that genre. The story, however, leaves a lot to be desired because it is so heavyhanded, moralistic and prejudiced against human behavior. Would we really squandor the opportunity to fully interact with our first contact with an intelligent alien species, no matter how primitive they appear to be?

You can find many more details on the Internet Movie Database about Avatar.

Heroes and Ray Bradbury

I was struck while watching the November 30, 2009 episode of the Heroes TV series by the similarities between Ray Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) about Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show and his amazing collection of short stories based on tattoes covering the body of The Illustrated Man (1951). The Illustrated Man was also a 1969 Hollywood feature film starring Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom. In the movie, he is searching for the woman who tattoed his body. Sound familiar?