Was watching the movie "Virus" and...(I promise this is on topic mods)

[Austin 3:16]

....though the movie was pretty bad (it came out in 1999 starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland), I couldn't help but be impressed with how they made the cyborgs look in it. It was a weird and disgusting combination of flesh and cybernetics. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Well I was thinking while I was watching it, if JJ Abrams ever decides to introduce the Borg in any of his Star Trek movies (after Into Darkness), then it should be a lot like the cyborgs seen in the "Virus" movie. I mean, these guys were terrifying. Here are some pics of the cyborgs in the movie:





What would you think if JJ Abrams' Borg (if he ever decided to use them) looked like this?

And yes, I know that in Abrams' Star Trek universe, the Borg shouldn't look any different than the Borg in the prime universe. But we all know he would change their look anyway. After all, he changed what the Romulans looked like even though they were from the prime universe.

[King Daniel]

I always thought the Virus cyborgs looked cool, but I imagine Abramsverse Borg would use a lot of CG to remove body parts and replace some with moving machinery. Imagine a Borg without a bottom jaw, or with a huge chunk it it's side removed and replaced with a few spindly bits of grotesque machinery and piping. Extremely atrophied, partly mummified. It could be horrifying and fantastic.

[Greg Cox]

You know, I edited the novelization of that movie, but I have never actually seen the film . . . .

[The Keeper]

I wouldn't be opposed to them re-imaging the Borg to the extreme, it may help make them menacing again but wouldn't going so far bump the films rating up to an R thus limiting the audience?

[bbailey861]

Would 'Zombifying', and I use the term loosely, the Borg (which would be really cool) automatically bring about an R rating? I mean we're talking about making them look more grotesque and menacing looking - not flooding the movie with swearing, nudity, and sex. Just really really scary looking.

[The Keeper]

bbailey861 wrote:

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Would 'Zombifying', and I use the term loosely, the Borg (which would be really cool) automatically bring about an R rating?

I don't know, that was pretty much my question as well. How scary looking can something be today and still be given a PG-13?

I mean we're talking about making them look more grotesque and menacing looking - not flooding the movie with swearing, nudity, and sex. Just really really scary looking.

I found out the film mentioned in the OP was R rated but having not seen it I cannot speak on how flooded with nudity, swearing or sex it may have been. Are these the only factors today which earn films R ratings?

[Redfern]

Swearing can put a funny spin on things.

The film "The King's Speech" is for the most part a very subtle character study, almost suited as a stage play. There's no violence, merely the blaring of an air raid siren As Lionel is driven to the building where the King is to give the titular broadcast. There's no nudity or sex. The "worst" we see is Duke and Duchess of York in some housecoats.

But amazingly, it has an "R" rating!

Why? There's a scene where Lionel discovers "Bertie" has less difficulties speaking when he utters a "coloful metaphor". So the speech therapist encourages the Duke to "let it out". "Bertie" rips loose with a string of curses that roll trippingly off his tongue without hesitation. It's rather quite silly as he rattles off various tenses of the "F" word as though called upon in a grammar class.

Yes, it was a short sequence with "bad" language that earned the movie its "R" rating, not for nudity, not for violence. So the ratings game can be quite arbitrary at times.

Sincerely,

Bill

[bbailey861]

Also, what would garner an R rating in the U.S. is not necessarily how other countries would rate the film. The King's Speech, here in Ontario, was rated PG.

[Zardoza]

I think the borg will be faster. Or at least there will be Borg commandos that will be faster. They did the same thing in Dawn of the Dead.

[Set Harth]

They should be on speeder bikes.

[SalvorHardin]

Set Harth wrote:

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They should be on speeder bikes.

No need for bikes. There should be Borg with wheels instead of legs.

[Zardoza]

Borg with magnetic feet that could shoot at you from angles you would never expect!!!

[Kirby]

SalvorHardin wrote:

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No need for bikes. There should be Borg with wheels instead of legs.

So, Scotty's line "If your grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon" was a bit prophetic.

[trevanian]

Greg Cox wrote:

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You know, I edited the novelization of that movie, but I have never actually seen the film . . . .

92mil and it doesn't even look like 30.

Some terrific miniature wave tank stuff, some moviesaving CG from Tippett (a necessary 11th hour move because the full-size main robot wasn't able to get around at all), the aforementioned good creature/bot work (I called my article about it "building a better borg" which got the director angry for some reason), and the most by-the-numbers movie you'll ever see. Took me FOUR DAYS to get all the way through the screening copy, but at least I didn't have to pay to see it in a theater.

I didn't think the graphic novel it was based upon was anything special, but the movie seems like WING COMMANDER by comparison (funnily enough, both movies produced by Todd Moyer, a rather scary intense eyes-bulging-wide-all-the-time kind of guy who thought he was going to make a BATTLESTAR PEGASUS movie as a followup to WC, and who is currently suing Brendan Fraser for having beaten him up.)