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Etherdave (183)
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Taut, well-crafted political thriller
This pretty much sums it up.
Let's Talk About Io...
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Well, the poster has their opinions, held by pretty much by nearly nobody. I guarantee Mr. Carpenter et al. have no intention of taking this film off their resumes any time soon.
The apparent explanation is that the spaceship was incredibly cold on the outside from outer space, and did not heat from atmospheric friction. The landing was either extremely slow, indicating some sort of anti-gravity propulsion, or it had some kind of shielding protecting it from the atmosphere. Its displacement of the surrounding air increased air pressure, condensing water molecules out of the air, and then freezing them into snow. Arizona may have been chosen to minimize this effect, but don't count out the crater, which just nicely fits the spaceship, protecting the main characters underneath it, while holding military vehicles at bay by sheer size.
The Ben Kingsley mecha explained merely creating a clone body was not the problem; the problem was re-creating the personality and memories of the body, for which no real science exists today, and the mechas themselves seemed to think belonged to the realm of quantum mechanics, and represented a technological brick wall they themselves could not breach. This aspect of what is already a 'science-fiction fairytale' does not bother me.
To be fair we don't know the actual passage of time. Remember Kubrick was attached to this project, he of the 'Bone that turns into a Spaceship' segue that covers millions of years in a few seconds. In this film 2000 years passes within a few phrases of a Ben Kingsley narration, and when it is over Humanity is extinct, and all that it ever was is now entombed in ice. It could very well have been a few years, or even a decade, that Monica loved David. It doesn't really matter, David proved that part of the experiment when Monica started the imprinting protocol. And then Martin showed up again to screw everything up.
I have long thought that the actual story of the movie is the demise of humanity and the rise of its eventual successor species, mecha-based intelligent creatures that are descendants of artificially-intelligent, human-engineered, robots. Thus, the movie is saying, even before the apocalyptic events described at the film's beginning, that humanity is doomed. The principal characters of this drama act out a story of an artificially-intelligent android boy, who, to gain the love of the human mother upon whom he is imprinted, forms the desire to become more human ('real'). His descendants, who exist in a future after the extinction of humanity, are still carrying out this program, attempting to gain insight into the 'human spirit' in an effort to learn more about their 'parent' species, and perhaps to incorporate their findings into themselves. The movie ends with the successor species demonstrating compassion, understanding, and kindness towards the android boy, aspects of humanity in which they seem to be interested.
The movie was an adaptation of a non-fiction novel about J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his fall from grace during the McCarthy Era. There are plenty of pictures about big explosions.
If you didn't like the movie you don't have to be afraid to say so, just brave enough to admit that it's about you and not the movie. I guarantee you nobody involved in this film is taking it off their resumes anytime soon.
Teller and his obsession with doomsday devices, the only thing on Earth that could make him a bigger star than Oppenheimer. Second Law of Thermodynamics says it can't happen. And once they did the math they realized that was so. This is why Teller flew into a rage whenever someone mentioned Dr. Strangelove in his presence. Because that's who he was.
The film intended to depict a peacetime American army composed of misfits, nitwits, and incompetents, with the odd career soldier (Warren Oates, who actually served 2 years in the Marines) thrown in for contrast.
You miss the point. This is a deliberately overblown, wildly hyperbolic, insanely insane film about people who led their lives like Greek or Norse gods, or at least like the heroes those gods favoured. Incest? What of it? Consenting adults, right? 5 times?, JUST 5 times? No wonder she killed herself... she just wasn't trying! How about Samuel's heart in a messkit? Or fighting a bear? Twice! The SAME BEAR!! I'm afraid you're simply supposed to pour yourself another one of whatever you've got in your hand, sit back, and just enjoy the ride. Premise? PREMISE?? This is for lesser films. This is 'Legends Of The Fall', the most overheated film in cinematic history. In the words of Jay Gatsby, 'It's all in fun, Old Sport'!
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