Random SCIFI/Fantasy Thoughts

[JD]

I still think Spielberg's A.I. and War of the Worlds are two of the absolute best and most underrated scifi films of the last 15 years. So there.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who really likes these movies. The first time I saw A.I., I hated it, but I decided to give it another shot a few years later, and I really liked it. I loved Spielberg's War of the Worlds, and honestly kind of shocked by the reaction it got.

I've been doing a rewatch of Farscape and I really miss shows like this on tv. I know we're in the hard core comic book realm now but it would be great to get a space based show on tv again.

Syfy is going to be premiering two new space shows this summer.
Killjoys
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8rLnjMqi78[/yt]

Killjoys follows a fun-loving, hard living trio of interplanetary bounty hunters sworn to remain impartial as they chase deadly warrants throughout the Quad, a distant system on the brink of a bloody, multiplanetary class war.

Dark Matter
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTHOdjil-R4[/yt]

The crew of a derelict spaceship is awakened from stasis with no memories of who they are or how they got on board. Facing threats at every turn, they have to work together to survive a voyage charged with vengeance, betrayal and hidden secrets.

 

[davejames]

Hmm, both of those shows look like they have potential, although it's also easy to see how they could wind up being just another couple of generic and formulaic Syfy series.

 

[tomalak301]

Interesting set of shows. Interesting that Killjoys is done by the producers of Orphan Black so that's a nice selling point. Might take a look, maybe on a boring night and see what's on demand.

 

[JD]

It's also from the creator of Lost Girl, and Black Matter is from the creators of the Stargate shows. I trust those guys and girls to give us good stuff.

I just remembered another movie that I liked a lot that most don't appear to, Cowboys & Aliens.

 

[fireproof78]

Heck, just one movie earlier, in Star Trek III, McCoy has to charter a flight and haggles with a shady alien pilot over the price . . ..

I like to think that it varies from planet to planet and culture to culture, depending where you are in space. There may well be portions of the Federation where money is no longer used, but you may still need currency on Argelius or wherever. And once you get out on the Final Frontier, beyond the "utopian" plenty of 23rd century Earth, all bets are off. Then you have struggling miners, con artists, mail-order brides, smugglers, bartenders, etc.

The Federation is not one big monoculture. I'm sure that Earth and Vulcan and Andor and so on all have different ways of running their economies.

One concept that I have kind of thought on for trying to take a concept that Joss Whedon used to create Firefly of the idea of a frontier worlds that the Federation does not reach or has forgotten about. You can turn it around again and have the Federation trying to reach out the frontier worlds and offer to assist, with mixed success.

I just think it would be fun to have the frontier atmosphere, but still have the Federation serve as the good guys.

 

[davejames]

I just remembered another movie that I liked a lot that most don't appear to, Cowboys & Aliens.

Yeah I never understood the intense criticism that one got either. It may not be much more than a generic scifi action movie, but it still works a whole lot better than any Transformers or Pirates sequel ever has, and certainly deserves to be higher than 44% on RT.

 

[JD]

I just thought it was a fun sci-fi action movie, and I really don't think it was supposed to be much more than that. I think sometimes critics and people forget that that is all some movies need to be to be enjoyable.

 

[davejames]

Having just rewatched Edge of Tomorrow, I actually don't have a problem with the ending at all now. Yeah for it to make any sense you have to first accept that the Omega explosion somehow reverberated or traveled back in time a day, but given all the other time travel conceits in the movie I don't really have a problem buying that one. And of course once you do the ending suddenly makes a whole lot more sense.

And given the fun spirit of the movie overall, it kinda feels right to me that it ends on a lighter note-- with Cruise's character earning himself one final reboot after all the crap he had to go through before-- instead of the darker one that people seem to prefer.

And that final laugh just seems to sum up everything perfectly, I think.

 

[tomalak301]

I've been Binge watching Farscape Season 3 this week and I have some thoughts on that, since this is the right thread to do it.

-Man Aeryn's arc in Season 3 might be some of the best writing Farscape ever had. Yeah how they wrote Crichton was great too, but in Season 3 we really got into some dark places with Aeryn and her mother and how she was able to have that relationship with John and then watch her go into a very dark place. I continued my rewatch tonight with Scratch N Sniff (Decent), Infinite Possibilities (Awesome), and skipped over Ravenging Angel to see The Choice (Heartbreaking). I do know what is to come quite well, but it's been a while since I've seen episodes like The Choice and to see it so close to Relativity so you can get the full Xyilax Sun arc is really something that might be the most underrated thing about Season 3. I actually forgot how great The Choice was, and how it might Rival The Locket as the best Aeryn/John show.

-It seems a lot of focus when I talk to people about Farscape is about John being cloned, Talyn's sacrifice, and then that cliffhanger ending, but Aeryn's story here is really really great.
I don't mind that Season 3 went to dark places, mainly because there was some levity in there so it wasn't completely Dark (such as Scratch N Sniff, or Green Eyed Monster or Ravenging Angel) but then you get those Dark episodes and they do so much to further the development of our characters.

Looking forward to finishing up the season and revisiting Ravenging Angel and Into the Lions Den again. Talyn's death is probably the best death sequence I've ever seen in a sci fi program.

 

[tomalak301]

Saw Ravenging Angel this morning. It's a bit of a darker episode than I remember. There are still laugh out loud moments (Aeryn as Jessica Rabbit or Madonna) but there's a lot more going on here than just being a tribute to the old Wil E Coyote cartoons of the past. Also, Jool got some fleshing out, which was much needed because she was the most annoying character on the show.

 

[fireproof78]

I recently watched it too, and yeah, it went pretty dark. It definitely highlighted an interesting place in John's mind, as well as the response by other members to Jool and Dargo.

Despite the silliness of it, it had a very serious point. I don't think it is my favorite but it certainly highlights the differences between John and Scorpious, as well as a deeper look in to John's mind.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I never really got into Farscape - always kind of weird for my tastes. I did like that episode where Crichton hallucinates being back on Earth and all of his friends from Moya are in it as well (Crais is a cop, D'Argo a flashy astronaut, Scorpius the drummer in a bar band , etc.).

 

[Warped9]

What is the best information to date about FTL travel and aging?

Ex., traveling FTL to Alpha Centauri and back. How much time would pass on Earth, and how much time would pass for those on the FTL vehicle? I have read so many different takes on this question. Anyone know what our best answers is, as of now?

It's all dependent on how fast you're traveling. And there is a formula to calculate precisely how much relative time would pass for those aboard the ship.

But basically if you were traveling only 10 or 20 percent of light then the passage of time aboard ship would be little different than it is for those left back on Earth. But if you managed to exceed 90 percent of light then it starts to get really interesting for you and the trip would seem significantly shorter.

If somehow you managed to get really close to the speed of light then your passage aboard ship could be experienced in weeks or even days. If you could travel 99.99% of light it would seem (to you) that you were traveling at more than 70 times the speed of light. That's how you would perceive it. At that speed your trip to Alpha Centauri would take a bit over three weeks while to those back on Earth your voyage still took 4.3 years.


On another note. I also enjoyed Speilberg's War Of The Worlds. I also greatly enjoyed Peter Jackson's King Kong as well as John Carter.

On the flip side I didn't care for Inception.

 

[tomalak301]

I never really got into Farscape - always kind of weird for my tastes. I did like that episode where Crichton hallucinates being back on Earth and all of his friends from Moya are in it as well (Crais is a cop, D'Argo a flashy astronaut, Scorpius the drummer in a bar band , etc.).

That's the first episode of Farscape I ever watched. I was confused but it was weird and that was what I loved about it. There was nothing else like it on tv.

Just saw Into the Lions Den and man this show went bigger and better every season. First, they blew up a Gammack Base, than they robbed and brought down a shadow depository. What do they do to top themselves? Implode a Peacekeeper Command Carrier. Tylon and Crais's death is still one of the most emotional and awesome deaths I've seen on TV. It puts Spocks death to shame in Wrath of Kahn, that's how great that entire sequence was. Also, I got emotional during the Chrichton/Pilot scene and almost lost it when Chrichton says "give Moya my love.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What is the best information to date about FTL travel and aging?

Ex., traveling FTL to Alpha Centauri and back. How much time would pass on Earth, and how much time would pass for those on the FTL vehicle? I have read so many different takes on this question. Anyone know what our best answers is, as of now?

It's all dependent on how fast you're traveling. And there is a formula to calculate precisely how much relative time would pass for those aboard the ship.

What, pray tell, is this formula?

 

[Warped9]

What is the best information to date about FTL travel and aging?

Ex., traveling FTL to Alpha Centauri and back. How much time would pass on Earth, and how much time would pass for those on the FTL vehicle? I have read so many different takes on this question. Anyone know what our best answers is, as of now?

It's all dependent on how fast you're traveling. And there is a formula to calculate precisely how much relative time would pass for those aboard the ship.

What, pray tell, is this formula?

Here you are: https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's all dependent on how fast you're traveling. And there is a formula to calculate precisely how much relative time would pass for those aboard the ship.

What, pray tell, is this formula?

Here you are: https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

And that pertains to time experienced during FTL travel... how?

 

[Warped9]

What, pray tell, is this formula?

Here you are: https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

And that pertains to time experienced during FTL travel... how?

More accurately it pertains to the perception that as time slows down (for the ship's occupants) it will seem like to then they are traveling many times faster than light.

For actual faster than light travel to my knowledge there is no formula of which I'm aware. Quite some time ago there was a theory bandied around that time reversed if you went genuinely FTL, but as I understand it it never really took hold. To figure out FTL travel times then it's really up to the individual as to how they want to rationalize it. But basically it would be the distance divided by how many times faster than light the supposed ship is traveling.

Of course this is based on the idea if you could go FTL in normal space, which is impossible as we presently understand it. By what we presently understand you might say that if you managed to go FTL then your trip might seem practically instantenous form your perspective while in realtime your trip could still be of measurable length. Again in normal space. And if by some manner you could put the ship outside normal space (such as hyperspace or subspace or warp space or whatever) then who the hell knows what you would perceive from within the ship.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Here you are: https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

And that pertains to time experienced during FTL travel... how?

More accurately it pertains to the perception that as time slows down (for the ship's occupants) it will seem like to then [sic] they are traveling many times faster than light.

No, it doesn't, and that goes for whatever word you meant for "then," including "them." The formula you cite is from special relativity, and it pertains only to sublight velocities. It has nothing to do with FTL travel, and nor does it involve seeming like one is traveling faster than light. On the contrary, the formula you cite supports the argument that FTL is impossible, since, according to it, elapsed time (and we're talking about not just the perception of elapsed time, but in fact physically elapsed time) aboard ship would be imaginary (the product of a real scalar with the square root of negative one), were the velocity superluminal.

For actual faster than light travel to my knowledge there is no formula of which I'm aware.

Well, that's more like it.

 

[tomalak301]

Dog with Two Bones should have won Browder and Black the sci fi equivalent of an Emmy. That confrontation scene where they talk about fate is one of the many reasons he John Aeryn relationship is the best relationship I've ever seen. It's realistic, it's emotional, and it's well within the individual character traits of both of them. We don't have a Delenn/John thing here were Delenn becomes weak in Sharidans presence. We don't have the mushiness of most TV relationships. We have two people who have been through a lot this season culminating into a scene in the series finale that's just as powerful as tylon star bursting in the command carrier or showing the wormhole weapon. This is drama at its best and in a non-explosive season finale, I think of the finales, Dog with Two Bones is my favorite.

I know I've been almost reviewing every episode but to be honest I've been binge watching Farscape and when I get really into a show, I have to talk about it. I get excited and the end of season 3 there is a lot to get excited about.

I also saw Crichton Kicks and I'm not going to talk about that one other than to say 1812 is the best DRD ever.