At long last... or not... Marc Scott Zicree has released the first hour of Space Command, the other Kickstarter wunderkind. Unlike Alec Peters he finished something, even if it's half of the two-hour movie he promised.
Well, at least he got this far, so that's saying something. But, given how crap his first draft script was and how it drove Drexler et al to flee the project, my expectations are beyond low. So here we go...
Oh brother... it's awful. It took me two hours to finish the one hour because I kept stopping and starting, just so I could take a break. In short, lots of toxic masculinity and whitewashing. Bland and boring. I might write further thoughts later.
Overall I liked it. Yeah, some stuff seemed a bit pat and rushed, but I get these guys have to set up their story and 'universe' fast and just wanted to get into it. Very decent 'pulp' style science fiction (and I don't think that's a bad thing at all.) Yeah, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea; but overall, I thought this first hour was better then the pilot of Babylon 5 myself (It sure had enough of the original B5 cast involved. ). YMMV.
This is the one that was sold as being like a 50s pulp rocket jockey thing but after they raised their initial money the format was revealed to be something entirely different, more Flash Gordon meets B5 and thus Drexler bailed because it wasn't the show he'd come aboard to do. I read the first draft script (which they abandoned) and it was, in two words, laughably dire. Zicree's writing was puerile. One hopes this is better but, again, I'm not getting my hopes up.
Okay @Daddy Todd . You asked for it. Comments written as I watched... Spoiler: Mucho $poilers 0:01 Self-proclaimed Mr. Sci-Fi can't just let me watch and has to blah blah me for 2 minutes. <Dave Lister>Spin On</Dave Lister> 02:07 Starting with a well-worn quote. Amateur screenwriter's gimmick #13. 02:58 Mira Furlan and daughter look just like they're sitting in front of a green screen and never once do they appear to be in the (virtual) set. My suspension of disbelief is already being taxed. [EDIT: Yes, I understand these are unfinished effects of a "preview", but I'm just writing my thoughts as I watch] 03:13 Camera is circling Flash-Gordon wanna-be hero but the HUD in front of him is match moved to him so it moves all wrong relative to the camera 03:29 "I can get under her hull". As opposed to getting under her what else? 04:13 Blah blah blah, disobeying orders, blah blah blah. Generic hero trope #2 04:42 Textbook jump cut to an utterly mismatched shot of the outside of the ship, neither changing angle or framing enough to cover or motivate the cut. Cinematography 101 is calling and wants to slap you. 05:10 Ship has weirdly specific grabber arms in just the right place for what I assume is an unconventional maneuver. 06:03 OPENING TITLES. Yay! Mercifully brief! No prolonged title sequence. Probably because of well-worn quote at top. But I'll take it. 06:45 When train door opens VFX people dim Flash up and down because they can't be arsed to actually animate a shadow mask across him to sell the illusion. 07:06 Outdoor dialog with Pops and Flash sounds like indoors, not out. No one could hear each other outdoors the way they are speaking. 07:12 Flash and Pops in car are as unconvincingly in environment as women were in spaceship, but at least the background is real. 07:49 Views from car feature lens flare when there's no light sources or reflection anywhere that would produce one. Oh, right, because Adobe AfterEffects... 08:30 Car is digitally slid into shot as given away by zero perspective change on anything in said shot. 08:36 Pops' POV of Synthetics should be looking upwards from car but is shot flat. Hey, and they have dark skin...just what is the message here? And why have the only lines spoken in this show been by WASPy characters or a Synthetic played by one? 10:44 "I believe when this shift is over" that I'll predict exactly what the rest of this too-obvious line is. E-yup. Nailed it. 13:04 Yay! Brown person with dialog! But we're expected to believe pasty-white Flash has an Indian subcontinent mother. I guess he got every gene from Pops. I like the actress, but the dialog here is—as throughout—all surface and just explains that—as ever—heroes have daddy issues and heroes must be mavericks and this must be said out loud because who needs subtext? Mom also comes across as the wise yogi complete with foreign sounding music: ethnic trope 7 engaged. 18:00 Butch haircut-sporting female captain Essex loses command of Paladin rocketship to heroic Flash because hero. 18:10 Captain Essex suffers wobbly matte work, especially around her ears. 18:30 Female captain Essex says that Space Command accident "...took a lot of good men" because MEN is the paramount noun here, at least according to scriptwriter 23:00 Flash meets crew. Hey, at least one of them is darker than beige, and one is a woman of east asian descent, but only the boys get lines here because MEN. 23:22 And now FEMALE CAPTAIN ESSEX says her HIS crew will follow him into the mouth of H E double toothpicks if he decides "to save two more women from burning to death". Ah, so MEN be saviors and women be rescued, to which I say, this script be sexist as FUCK. 25:20 Well-acted scene where father figure engages monologue backstory motivation mode and admits feels because he could not save his woman. MEN save women trope now in overdrive. 28:38 Exterior of Paladin rocketship looks like tilt-shift photography because either VFX people do not understand how optics work or weren't paid enough. Any field of view wide enough to show this much rocketship in focus is going to be far enough back to also have background in focus. Or perhaps VFX artists trained on computer rendering have possibly never used an actual lens for anything but iPhone selfies. Somewhere John Dykstra weeps. 40:32 Greetings, Program! Tron, I mean Sheradin shows up and contributes nothing, thus wasted. 44:00 Will Robinson lectures, Will Jr. protests, and woman accompanying them has zero lines but humongous hoop earrings. 45:54 Inside alien spaceship some utterly unclear action implies some cliff edge thing then Mira Furlan walks out anyway and I have no idea what is supposed to be going on because the shot design is crap. 46:25 Even worse jump-cut than 04:42. Slap-editor mode unavailable but desired. 47:30 Okay now I see magic forming floor that was unclear ay 45:54 but still unclear WTF happened then. 48:00 Full Total Recall-ending mode enabled as alien nutcracker spaceship emerges from Barsoom. Captain Essex shows up in identical ship to hero...so just why was she booted from her ship and given one identical? Oh, because bad stupid awful writing. 50:33 NEXT TIME Female Captain Essex gets rescued by Flash, chews him out, gives him a big fat smooch because of course she does since he's the manly hero reasons. 51.30 Mr. Sci-Fi is back. Spin on. More previews. To H E double toothpicks with this. Thumbs down clicked. Browser window closed. What was this fucking story about so far? I'll tell you: it was about 49 minutes long. I feel like I am suffering testosterone poisoning. Medic!
Pretty much what @Maurice said. As I said, toxic masculinity and whitewashing is the future in SPAAAAAAAAceee Command (did I say it like Mr. Sci-Fi?).
You do us proud! Thanks! I got through less than 4 minutes, and my partner made it less than 2 before he went back to binging “Lucifer.” So, it’s good to know we’re not missing anything. Incidentally, how did Zicree end up with Forry Ackerman’s “Mr Sci-Fi” title? Did he buy it when the contents of the Ackermansion was auctioned off?
He once told a story something like this: Ira Steven Behr was so amazed at his ability to pitch "Sci Fi" ideas, he opined that they should lock "Mr. Sci-Fi" in a room at Paramount, feed him and let him slip them Sci-Fi ideas under the door. Or words to that effect. I met him at a Rod Serling event in Beverly Hills three years ago, and, gosh, I wanted to like him. Even posed with him for a picture, but... he is a non-stop, runonsentenceshighpitchedvoicelistinghisowncreditshaswrittenforeverybroadcastnetwork self-promoting, whew, take a breath and repeat kind of guy. He truly may be a well-meaning human being at heart, but I admit to being somewhat put off by him. Sir Rhosis
Funny, but I’ve never seen him produce anything that I thought was a particularly interesting scifi idea. They all seem very derivative and pastiche-y. What little I’ve seen of his screenwriting is awkward and obvious. But maybe I’m missing something.
That was terrible. I lasted until the “car ride.” I would more into why it’s terrible, but it’s just not worth it. It’s DOA. Why would any exec put money into this?
I've never thought much of Zicree's work. His two Star Trek contributions as aired were carried across the finish line by other writers. His Babylon 5 episode (with solo credit) is the worst of season one. If Zicree was such a sci-fi generator for Ira Steven Behr, then why does he only have one story credit (not even a teleplay credit) on Deep Space Nine? As for Space Command, I can't see any executive greenlighting this for their streaming service. Not even as a SyFy movie of the week, and they've greenlit some pretty polished turds.
I should add that I understand the effects are a work in progress, but no VFX are gonna save this turd story and these nothing characters.
Aside from a handful of his YouTube videos that I've come across, I'm not really familiar with Marc Zicree, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds it rather hubristic on his part to refer to himself "Mr. Sci-Fi," particularly when there are undoubtedly plenty of other people more deserving of the title.