Science fiction love and hate - The Bear and Badger

Bollockoff

I need that Grand Tour poster.

Matt_82

Anyone watched any of The Expanse?

Aaroncupboard

No but I am desperate to. It is meant to be very good and the book series is fantastic.

Billy

Never heard of it, what's it about?

Stopharage

Matt_82 wrote:

Anyone watched any of The Expanse?

Watched the first episode and left it there. Not because it was bad but because so much seemingly disjointed stuff was going on I'd rather come back to it and watch 3 or 4 episodes at a time to keep on top of events and characters. Pleasantly surprised by the quality of it all considering it is a Sci-fi Channel effort and they're normally up there with 1980 Dr Who sets.

Aaroncupboard

Billy wrote:

Never heard of it, what's it about?

It is all set in our solar system, with humanity spread out into three distinct groups - earthers, martians and belters (living in massive asteroid belts). The book/series follows a private eye tryjng to track down a missing woman and a ship captain who makes a discovery that could eventually lead to all out war between Earth and Mars. To say anymore would potentially spoil things but it is really good, blockbuster space opera stuff.

Having looked at some reviews of the tv series, it seems they only covered the first half of the first book. Makes sense as the final episode contains a massive shift in the focus of the story.

b0r1s

Just nicked this from Chump's post in the Film thread, because it looks great.

Billy

That looks great!

Also thanks for the description Aaron that sounds cool too.

djchump

The Expanse books are great - super-slick popcorn scifi, fun characters, good reads: James S. A. Corey.

FranticPea

Hmm didn't realise the show was out. Love the books.

Matt_82

Looking at the trailers, it looks a wee bit 90s tbh but I'm interested in the political side of things.

pantyfire

It's ok.
It's extremely slow and yes they've only covered 50% of the first book.

The main characters don't seem to fit with how i perceived then to be, especially main dude - forgot his name. Holden, that's it. He's far too young for me. Jayne - is it Thomas Jayne? He's quite good but the rest Zoe etc... Are a bit meh.

I have to say tho i think I've read all the books and they are ok. Entertaining enough but not amaze.

pantyfire

Oh and i can't stand Smokey voiced Indian woman. She was crap in 24 years back. She's still crap now. Everything she says is so badly garbled it's super distracting.

They must have spent a small fortune making it though. Probably because of GRR Martins name attached.

Billy

She's also in Mass Effect 2/3 and Destiny.

Billy

Skipped Star Trek v, it has a 5.4 rating on IMDb with some users asking hilarious questions. Watched Star Trek vi instead, not bad but I think I'm done with it now. Set out to learn a bit about the franchise or at least up to where Deep Babylon 9 cupcake crew whatever. Enjoyed my time with the franchise, I still think of it as a bit panto but good fun. Isn't Simon Pegg directing the new one or did I misread that?

Also watched Coherence, thanks to Tempy I think for mentioning that after I brought up Primer. While I preferred Prime in almost every way I absolutely loved Coherence and am going to watch it again ASAP. Fantastic film, mostly excellent cast and very natural acting, I gather a lot was ad libed? Slight spoilers here.... The main Character Emily was fantastic, stunning, and with loads of depth, hope she gets more similarly challenging roles in the future rather than just thin blonde roles.

Did not at all like the shaky cam, I'm fine with a bit of shaky cam but this was just fucking ridiculous.

Lastly, would have liked it to go further, Primer was really stretching what people could comprehend with limited or no exposition and Cohernce could have gone a bit further, still loved it.

IanHamlett

pantyfire wrote:

Oh and i can't stand Smokey voiced Indian woman.

Fuck off her voice is intoxicating. I really like the idea of that show but I just can't put up with anything SyFi make. It's like they're deliberately trying to make the kind of show you used to flick past at 2am on ITV in the 90s. The kind of show that had already been cancelled by the time a british station picked it up as filler.

The good news is scifi is on the up. The vampires and demon hunter thing seems to be getting replaced bit by bit. But nothing has grabbed me yet.

Also, Martian was great. Not in an ever sit through it again kinda way, but in a science is great kinda way. It's a love letter to science. The indomitable human spirit is smashing rocks together with shit running down his leg without the scientific knowledge to execute his will. The scientists, the method, the mutual respect, the collaboration that transcends distance, language and politics. I fucking love science me.

Billy

I cringed at the 'I'm gonna science the shit outta this' line.

AJ

I would have chortled, I love "science" being used as a verb.

Billy

If it was almost anyone else I would have laughed, but mat Damon is always just so mat Damon. Tom hanks pulled off being mostly a one man show in the remake of castaway and I never failed to believe him throughout.

That was one of the things I really enjoyed about Coherence, new faces. With Damon I've seen him a dozen times and know the range of emotion I'm going to get, how he makes a joke, how he deals with bad stuff happening, what his facial tells are.

djchump

I've not seen Coherence, will have to check it out as the IMDB page has the "people also liked" list as:

Spoiler:

So it seems right up my alley :-)

Billy

Anyone seen Triangle 2009 (not 2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/

Might give that a go tonight, been meaning to watch it for years.

Aaroncupboard

Yeah it's a pretty good film. Not much in the way of sci-fi though.

djchump

I love it.

superflyninja

HmmAnyone see the Europa Report? Not a bad lil film that.

Funkstain

Billy wrote:

but I think I'm done with it now.

If you're ever at a loose end and want to really get a feel for what people liked about Star Trek: Next Generation, this handy guide will help:

https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-the-next-generation-in-40-hours-c4a6762cbd3#.jca4sderw

Reduces the entire thing to a dozen episodes or so.

Then watch the eighth film, First Contact (do NOT under any circumstances watch 7, Generations), then watch the eleventh film (the 2009 reboot), then you're really done, and you can make your mind up with the full context. CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING without it you are as a blind babe wandering the dangerous woods of uninformed opinion! Take heed.

DS9, Voyager and Enterprise are all shite, I wouldn't bother mate.

Tempy

superflyninja wrote:

HmmAnyone see the Europa Report? Not a bad lil film that.

Yes, it's pretty good and the execution of the found footage stuff is smart

regmcfly

Billy wrote:

Anyone seen Triangle 2009 (not 2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/

Might give that a go tonight, been meaning to watch it for years.

It's a decent film with a clever-clever twist and that's fine too.

Stopharage

Billy wrote:

Anyone seen Triangle 2009 (not 2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/

Might give that a go tonight, been meaning to watch it for years.

We had friends over and it was my choice of film when we popped to Blockbuster. I picked Triangle. I got absolutely rinsed for choosing it but I enjoyed it. The previous film I'd chosen was Wendingo. And before that Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

My mate got her own back, she chose gems like The Holiday and Sex in the City 2.

regmcfly

I did not know there was a Wendigo film BRB cancelling all plans to watch

superflyninja

Tempy wrote:

superflyninja wrote:

HmmAnyone see the Europa Report? Not a bad lil film that.

Yes, it's pretty good and the execution of the found footage stuff is smart

Yeah, I didnt know anything about the film prior to watching so it was a nice surprise.

Also been meaning to rewatch The Abyss.
Not sure if this has been mentioned before but The Signal is rather good.

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