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Spielberg has yet to produce a TV series that impressed me (some eps of "Amazing Stories" notwithstanding). And other than "Fringe" and "X-files" Fox has been unable to sustain a sci-fi show.
Then there's the concept: the earth is polluted so they go back in time to a pre-human planet? Putting aside the fact that the atmosphere, etc., was different back then, there's the whole time paradox issue.
No thanks. Lang will, as is often the case, be better than his material and the show will die relatively quick death.
Then there's the concept: the earth is polluted so they go back in time to a pre-human planet? Putting aside the fact that the atmosphere, etc., was different back then, there's the whole time paradox issue.
The atmosphere wasn't that different, there was alittle bit more oxygen, but I don't think it was enough to make humans sick and there doesn't have to be a time paradox issue, the wormhole could lead not into the past but into another universe or it's a predestination thing like Mr. Laser Beam suggested.
I'll check out the pilot, but I don't expect the series to last long, it hasn't even started and I'm already losing interest. The characters seem to be really stupid, in the trailer there are scenes where they walk aroung acting all "Lalala, we're strolling through the forest" and suddenly realize that there are dangerous animals around, is that supposed to be surprising?
But how would the characters know that? I mean, yeah, that was a cute joke in Star Trek IV, but it was a throwaway, not something to build a show around.
Perhaps the characters ignored the possibility of a paradox and/or assumed predestination without knowing that would be the case (thereby potentially screwing up their own lives). That's pretty risky. And, if they have a time machine and aren't worried about paradoxes....why not go back to a point in the past where they can just "fix" what destroyed the planet in the first place?
I am going to give it a chance and it sounds like a good idea and I love dinosaurs. I have been spoiled by great looking dinosaurs on screen I hope the CGI doesn't disappoint.
now I am wondering why did they pick the dino era in earth's past when they Know there's a asteriod coming to wipe them outl. would'nt that make this show alternate history then not sci fi?
Yep, and also the presence in the past of all these future humans is bound to have a very "Sound of Thunder"-style ripple effect on history, unless it's a predestination paradox (i.e. their existence in the past was "always" a part of it).
They've got to be thinking about it. Any travel into the past, no matter how far back, is going to affect the future. The only thing I can think of is that they're *planning* on the upcoming meteor strike wiping out all evidence that their colony was ever there.
I caught a sneak preview of the first hour a couple of weeks ago.
If I had to pick one word to sum up my feelings for that episode, I think it would be... meh. Really didn't care for any of the characters (although Stephen Lang's colony leader has the potential to be interesting), and the whole thing just felt rather predictable to me. The dinos were kind of cool, but just as things were starting to get mildly exciting
(during a Carnotaurus attack near the end of the hour)
, the DVD used for the screening started freezing up.
Another thing that's somewhat bothersome about the characters: the actors playing the parents in the main family really don't look old enough to have children in their mid-to-late-teens. Though I suppose if I can suspend my disbelief long enough to accept time-travelling to the prehistoric era to save humanity, I can forgive this.
There was also a fair bit of awkward exposition throughout the episode, although since it was the pilot, one could hope that this isn't going to be a continuing problem after they finish laying the groundwork.
Oh, and about the time-travel/altering history stuff that some people have discussed, one of the aforementioned bits of awkward exposition touches upon this. The older daughter (who I think the show is trying to present as a socially-inept brainy type, although I really don't think that was working too well) explains it to her brother -- and, of course, the audience.
Basically, it's the Abrams-Trek effect: the presence of the humans in the past has created a divergent, alternate timeline (or perhaps it was already a different, parallel universe) that has no effect on the future that they come from. So they can crush as many butterflies as they wish. When the future humans first discovered the tear in the space-time continuum, they had no idea where it went, so they sent a probe through to find out (so yeah, to answer another question, no, they had no choice about the time period they travelled to). They also sent some sort of super-indestructible beacon thing through the rift. When they didn't find it in their present time, they knew they were dealing with a separate universe.
I really wish this show had been awesome, but unfortunately, it just didn't deliver. I'll watch the second half of the premiere when it airs, to see if it picks up at all after the first hour. That's really the most I can hope for now.
Anyway, that's my first impression of Terra Nova. Take of it what you will.
Thanks for that. The characters being drab as all git-out doesn't surprise me in the least after hearing their archetypes and then seeing a couple of previews but it's still disappointing to read.
Oh, and about the time-travel/altering history stuff that some people have discussed, one of the aforementioned bits of awkward exposition touches upon this
Basically, it's the Abrams-Trek effect: the presence of the humans in the past has created a divergent, alternate timeline (or perhaps it was already a different, parallel universe) that has no effect on the future that they come from. So they can crush as many butterflies as they wish. When the future humans first discovered the tear in the space-time continuum, they had no idea where it went, so they sent a probe through to find out (so yeah, to answer another question, no, they had no choice about the time period they travelled to). They also sent some sort of super-indestructible beacon thing through the rift. When they didn't find it in their present time, they knew they were dealing with a separate universe.
Then why go back to the time of Dinosaurs? Since its a divergent timeline just go back to a time period where man exist in small packets but there are vast swaths of untouched land and few "primitives" to actually encounter (and no dinosaurs). Sure, you'd be creating a scenario that's, for lack of a better term, a violation of the prime directive. However, since its a divergent timeline anyway why not?
they have no control over what time period they go to. The tear in the space-time continuum is not artificial, but rather some sort of natural anomaly. It will only take them 85 million years in the past.
Still, seems strange that they'd pick a time when there's millions of giant, extremely dangerous animals running around the planet. I'd probably try for one of the quieter eras myself.
I ain't reading any of the spoiler coded stuff, but I have a feeling this show is going to be one of those where most of the fun is in tearing apart the absurd underlying logic.
^ So if they don't wipe out their own future, they wipe out somebody else's? That's just as bad.
I have a feeling they might abandon that if there's a story to be had. AFAIK, Time Trax was supposed to work the same way, but this proved impossible once Captain Lambert started leaving messages in the personal section of the paper for his colleagues in the future to read.
No, because to those people in the alternate future, this team of humans had ALWAYS gone back in time to live with the dinosaurs. Their time travel creates a new timeline.
I have a feeling they might abandon that if there's a story to be had. AFAIK, Time Trax was supposed to work the same way, but this proved impossible once Captain Lambert started leaving messages in the personal section of the paper for his colleagues in the future to read.
It still works if you assume that there was a Lambert from a third universe who had the same adventures in the past of first Lambert's home universe.
That's exactly what Michael Crichton did in "Timeline", time travel was impossible, they just crossed over into a universe that was a few hundred years behind ours. When a character asked how it's possible to find their professor's glasses if he never traveled into the past, the answer was that a few hundred years ago people from another universe did the exact same things our characters were doing now and crossed over into our universe and the same things have happened and will happen again countless times without change, there are countless universes that are exactly like ours, just at different points in their respective timelines and when one universe reaches the 20th century, they always send the same people back into the universe that's currently in the 14th century, nothing ever changes.
They found the glasses and I think a letter (it's been a long time since I read it) of a guy they technically never met, but that simply didn't matter.
I have a feeling they might abandon that if there's a story to be had. AFAIK, Time Trax was supposed to work the same way, but this proved impossible once Captain Lambert started leaving messages in the personal section of the paper for his colleagues in the future to read.
No, because to those people in the alternate future, this team of humans had ALWAYS gone back in time to live with the dinosaurs. Their time travel creates a new timeline.
They didn't wipe out anyone's future, they gave them a future by creating the timeline in the first place.
Wouldn't that be a trip, if time travel = creating a whole new universe. Then it wouldn't matter what you did to that timeline, since you are effectively a GOD and everyone owes their existence to you.
No, because to those people in the alternate future, this team of humans had ALWAYS gone back in time to live with the dinosaurs. Their time travel creates a new timeline.
