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thingmaker (32)
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Why do the ships fly so slowly? - They do not.
Is this a plot hole? -- It is not.
Or is there a reason for them to be moving so glacially? --- OK, lets give an example of why this is meaningless.
Ever thought about the International Space Station... Just sorta hanging up there in orbit, apparently motionless? Cuz that's how it looks in footage of the station from anywhere in it's vicinity. But you know that is not what's happening. It's zipping along at 17000 mph or some preposterous mach number if you like those... say about mach 30.
It is always about frame of reference. In interplanetary space you are well away from anything. The stars just maintain their positions, moving only if you rotate or tumble... The sun and any planets are only going to move at a crawl that you cannot perceive - again, unless you rotate or tumble. if you want to visualize a spaceship from a point of view where it seems to zip by, you just establish your viewpoint at a different velocity. You want the ship to go by as fast as a fighter jet; just view it from a point traveling 1000 mph less than it's velocity(or 1000 mph more than if you want it to zip by in the other direction).
Ultimately the point of showing the ships "flying slowly" is that they are in a sense flying slowly... It takes many long boring airline passenger hours to get to the moon, and you can hardly even see it get bigger most of the way. Flying to Jupiter takes months and months... The trip is inevitably tedious. Should the Discovery look like it's zooming?
Our White House denizen is not smart enough to be the Baron (funny abut his kid's name though).
I don't think Dune loses relevance. The movies might be able to play a very interesting trick on audiences. Paul, the "chosen one", could very easily be a hero audiences root for, as they root for other "chosen ones" like Neo in "The Matrix"... Or even Luke Skywalker, heroic and powerful because of his special lineage... If Paul makes the connection as a young, special, hero overcoming the obviously evil Baron Harkonen and the obviously corrupt empire... Well, the fact that he is leading a jihad which results in the deaths of billions could be a splash of cold water in the faces of hero-obsessed fans.
My dream is that the two Dune films are both good and successful (They could be good and unsuccessful, although that might lead to there only being one made. Or they could be shitty and successful...) and a third is made of Dune Messiah, which is a brilliant conclusion for the story about corrupted power or the corrupting influence of power. Anyway, I'm just now re-reading the first Dune books again after a number of decades and that is how I remember the first two. I read the third but wasn't impressed. Maybe that will change.
Yes and no... This is the first movie in nearly ten years that I have planned to see at the theater. I have a lot of hope and it is based on some kinda firm footing, in that I have seen the directors previous films and even when I do not like them, I find them worth a viewing.
But, if this Dune goes wrong, I don't expect little kids are going to be very happy with it. It just isn't that kind of story and if it does go wrong it will look like Bladerunner 2049. I don't dislike Bladerunner 2049, but I don't believe it's a kid favorite.
Not sure this is simply a result of the Hays Code...
The original novel, previously titled, in a slightly different form "The U-19s Last Kill" (Saturday Evening Post serial), had a... similar ending.
The robbery goes off perfectly.
The loot is abandoned (Either {in the U-19 version} the box is too big to fit down the sub's hatch and there is no time to unpack it. Or the four large sacks are too bulky to load in the really short time before the destroyer arrives {Assault version}) The Nazi is prevented from launching the real torpedoes. The Navy destroyer (not Coast Guard cutter, in the novel) apparently loses the sub after the Queen moves off. It is suggested that they thought they were dealing with a modern sub and assumed it was faster, had greater ability to dive deep... And in any event probably they felt compelled to accompany the passenger liner.
Our modern pirates just don't know exactly how they got away. The survivors, (and they all survive, Nazi included), sneak away in the sub. The sub is allowed to sink and everyone says their goodbyes.
Like I said, similar. Less melodramatic. No more believable. But both (or all three if you see the U-19 version as a seperate entity) versions are very memorable, very entertaining and I love em all.
BTW - I saw the movie at the theater on a double bill, I think with Thunderball when I was about nine or ten and probably read the novel before I was twelve. When I re-read it a few years ago, I was surprised to discover that the sub in the novel was a WWI boat... And you though the suspension of disbelief involved in fixing up a twenty+ year sunk sub was tough. How bout a forty year sunk sub?
I don't see the heavy "comic tone".
What I see is a Star Wars film with greater shades of grey. Characters who have committed terrorist acts beyond the pale of the moral tone of Star Wars. AND it still fits in perfectly because these dark rebels sacrifice themselves for the cause. Their deaths, including all those that were essentially innocent, purify the rebellion.
I believe that is the point...
Forget culture, meaning, technique, cinematography etc.
No problem, except maybe the "etc."... cuz that covers a lot of territory. I've seen the film in theaters four or five times and on HD video often... I enjoy it completely, sometimes I think of the larger story, the way Clarke envisioned it in the novel and even the early versions which I know from Lost Worlds of 2001 and later books on the making of the film. Sometimes I think about the ramifications of every element... What's going on day to day on that space station? How about the Soviet Lunar city? How many moon buses are zipping around on the moon? How many countries and corporations have a foothold in space? How many clues does HAL drop that something is awry?
Sometimes I just go with it. The environment is immersive and believable and the story, while open to interpretation, is both awe inspiring and somewhat disturbing, with echoes of "Childhoods End".
I saw it when it came out in 1987. I had no idea what to expect. While watching it I was impressed and thought "Wow, it's like a David Drake story..." I was thinking, specifically of a short story in which a small town sheriff tracks an unknown killer which is taking people in his area all on a single night, as I recall. The killer turns out to be a non-humanoid alien that appears to be sport hunting... Of course David Drake wrote a lot of military SF too, so some of his Vietnam/horror/SF came to mind as well.
Overall, I still think the movie is great, just not as gritty and real as David Drake, but that's just me.
I looked at the list... I've seen all of the movies and Battlestar Galactica and all are bad. I saw them when they were new, except Orin, which I only managed to get through a few minutes of just a few years ago.
Are they worth watching? Well...
#1 - THE LAST STARFIGHTER is a landmark in use of (Now horrendously dated) CG effects and while clumsy in story, it's at least mildly likable. And the Craig Safan score is good.
#2 - BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS is too cheap, too simpleminded (The Seven Samurai in space only garishly silly) and, aside from the early James Horner score, totally forgettable.
#3 - KRULL is more high fantasy than SF and it reminds me of some favorite books like Andre Norton's "Witch World" series, but the central characters are bland and uninteresting and the story seems hasty and superficial (Compare the quest in Lord of the Rings). The only real saving graces are the Gandalf figures' part with the Widow of the Web and a dynamite James Horner score.
#4 - THE BLACK HOLE seemed dull and ponderous when I first saw it and I remember laughing out loud at the epic heaven and hell finale. Nice looking, if poorly conceived special effects ( the glowy meteor ploughing through the arboretum was amazingly silly but looked cool and the big space-drain of a black hole also looked cool but ridiculous.) and a listenable but inappropriate John Barry score (alternating ponderous and blaring) are the pluses...
#5 - SATURN 3 has an interesting slick looking future world and a nice attempt at isolated psychological horror but I just found the stars uninteresting in their roles. Also Harvey Keitel's voice is dubbed by someone else. Neat Elmer Bernstein score, though.
#6 - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is a cheap looking, stupid film based on an animated series I never liked. A couple of fun actors are not enough to make it remotely good. Again, nice music, this time from Bill Conti.
I could go on...
Me, I've seen most of the SF, fantasy and horror titles they have done and saw most of them before they did them... But I only watched the MST3K versions occasionally. I guess I am a bit offended on behalf of a lot of the films. I don't mind making fun of something that deserves it but the business of mocking everything at the same rate in order to fill out a show kinda gets on my nerves. I mean just because there is a cut-down version of "Marooned" (1969) under another title with some shitty music added... Well, it's still a decent, if slow film. And "MST3K the Movie" was "This Island Earth"... That movie is amazing. A lot of '50s elements that now seem massively dated, but it's still good. So the MST3K version feels a bit wrong to me.
Some of the minor '50s items, like "The Giant Gila Monster" (1959), are fun to make fun of but also genuinely charming and fun on their own terms. I feel just a little bad that a lot of people will probably never see them except through the MST3k versions.
I saw their version of "Gamera" (1966) long after seeing it on TV in the early '70s but now I love it even more - Because I've seen the original Japanese cut in Blu-Ray. I'm not saying it's a good movie. It's even funnier without MST3K and in it's own language.
One film I have only seen as an MST3K is "The Starfighters" (1964) and I know it's pretty bad but I would love to see not only an intact version but a Blu-ray copy at that. Nifty footage of F-104s which are possibly the coolest plane ever built...
You worry me... Cuz I can't help but agree with your gloomy forecast. But, I am still hopeful. This is the first movie in years that I will actually see at the theater. I can't quite recall if I've been in a theater since Star Trek 2009. It may be that long...
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