Halo : Reach Trailer

Finally a prequel that people want. I hope it follows The Fall of Reach storyline from Eric Nyland's book. Bring Halo 3 ODST!

T-Minus 1 Day

The return of Star Trek is almost upon us. Tried to stay spoiler-free but with all the fantastic footage out there, on the internet and television I'm way too curious to pass it up. I just purchased the soundtrack for the new movie and have visualizing the score in context to the images I've seen. The motion picture score breathes new life into the franchise. It could stand as on of the best of the series imho. Friday night Imax showings are almost sold out, but I've got some connections so here's hoping. I will write up my initial impressions Saturday if all goes well. Untill then enjoy some trek goodness!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w4vk5OZmn8

"It's the end of the worlds as we know it."

I just began re-watching the BSG mini series and season one. I saw this when it first aired back '03 and really liked it. Mind you I was a huge BSG TOS fan growing up, but this updating took a little getting used to. Gone was Lorne Greene, the crazy Egyptian inspired flight helmets, centons, felgercarb, Cassiopia, daggits and the imperious leader. Instead there was a female Starbuck, a drunkard XO, a dying school teacher president, human looking cylons, a female Boomer and Battlestar Galactica museum ship. That's just the beginning, Ron Moore the executive producer for the series, updated the show with familiar situations and characters of the same name but otherwise completely different scifi stories. A character driven occupational drama that just happened to be set in space.

The Story: Man created the cylons. They rebelled, after a long and bloody conflict an armistice was created and the Cylons departed for parts unknown. Over 40 years have past and the colonies have not heard from their mechanical adversaries. Until today, the last battlestar from the Cylon War is being decommissioned and converted into a museum ship. Her name is Galactica and she represented the world of Caprica. I should say that the twelve colonies of man are planets based on our real life astrological calender: Caprica, Picon, Tauron, Gemenon, Airelon, Sagitaron, Libran, Leonis, Scorpia, Virgon and Canceron. They are known as the Twelve colonies of Kobol. The Galactica is an old ship over 50 years old and resembles an aircraft carrier in space. She does not use interlinked computers and has manual valves and switches. She is ancient compared to modern technology of the colonies. Her commander is retiring along with his ship, one Commander William "Husker" Adama who like the ship is analog in a digital world.
At first no one suspects anything carrying out their everyday tasks and preparing to hand the vessel over to the civilian government. A message comes in that contact has been lost with a colonial unit at Armistice Station but is dismissed as a vehicle malfunction. Meanwhile on Caprica, a nuclear bombing has begun of her major population centers has begun.
Caught in this nightmare is Dr. Gaius Baltar, a popular scientist and big proponent of advancing computer science despite the government's ban. Baltar is a self obsessed man, who in this society is treated like a celebrity. Terrified that someone will find out his complicity in the downfall of humanity, Baltar escapes off planet. The colonial fleet has been decimated by the Cylons Adama takes control of what is left of the fleet and they rendezvous at a safe location to reload and regroup for a suicidal last stand against the machines. Civilian space craft regrouped as well, and head to Ragnar Anchorage to seek protection from the Galactica. The civilian fleet is under the command of newly minted president Laura Roslin and advised by Adama's estranged son Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama. While at the station they discover two cylon agents aboard. Leoben a arms dealer hiding on the station, and Doral whom Baltar chooses to deflect any suspicion from himself. For those who have not seen this mini series or the regular series that followed, I will not spoil the rest of the story. Go watch this, or re watch it again after you have seen the finale of the series. I watched this right before the final Daybreak aired.
The actor that were casted now seemed like they were born to play these parts. Edward James Olmos brings an amazing gravitas to the role and really is a father figure to the crew. As a fan of the original I was a huge fan of fellow Canadian actor Lorne Greene's portrayal of Adama to me he was the voice of god. EJO's gravelly voice and steely gaze had me forgetting comparisons within a half hour of the mini. This man could read the phone book and make it sound gripping and epic. The dedication to his craft and fellow actors helped the show attain another level of believability and dramatic tension. Micheal Hogan's Colonel Tigh is an unlikable drunkard. Over the years you like his harsh hard as nails style. The fact that he had a vice and a hard time controlling his demons made the characters growth all the more interesting. The way he swaggers around and growls out orders reminds me of an old sailor who is too long in the tooth but won't be put out to pasture. Him and Adama have great chemistry and chew up the scenery in every scene they are in together. Hogan is a veteran of Canadian TV and throws himself into the role so completely that the viewer does not know where character ends and actor begins. Mary Mac Donell plays school teacher turned acting president Laura Roslin. Giving her breast cancer ties our world with theirs and gives her alot of heavy drama right away. The fact that she buts heads with Adama and holds her own gives the Roslin character a determination that makes her rise above her personal problems and self-doubt.

End of Part One

The Future Begins!

New Trek movie Superbowl ad here. Pretty freakin cool! I like the Obi wan meet Anakin moment between Bones and Kirk.

Frak Earth!

Battlestar is back with the final ten episodes and what a gut punch it has been. If you have not been following this show you owe it to yourself to watch this awesome series. I don't want to spoil the episodes or story arcs but it must be seen to be believed. This year it seems that the show has returned to it's roots in season one. Much darker with some pretty heavy subjects tackled and a good dose of mystery thrown in as well. The webisodes that preceded this season were at the time seemingly unrelated and superfluous are gaining some relevance as these final episodes unfold. If you have a DVR record the shows now! The momentum as picked up and each show has become a must see TV event. I just watched the third episode of this "season 5" called "The Oath" and what a doozey! I'm gonna try and write some recaps or mini reviews for this final season and go back and revisit the series as a whole. Stick around.

A great podcast to listen to some great BSG round table discussion, theories episode dissection is galactica quorum fantastic hosts that give great opinions and are quite entertaining. Please check them out. Also check out the video podcast BSGcast
Very entertaining, great guests and another way to get your Galactica fix. Be back soon so say we all!

2009: A Blu-ray Oydssey

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope it was safe and relaxing. Mine was hectic as always but a great way to close out the year. Just before Christmas I picked up a copy of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey on Blu-ray. I watched New Years day and I'll give you a short review. As a side note I watched the film on a new Panasonic 50 inch 1080p plasma TV connected to a Sony BDP s350 Blu-ray player.

The Lowdown: It is the dawn of man, 3,000,000 years ago and damn dirty apes walk the earth. They are vegetarians and territorial but lack the tools to advance to the next stage of evolution. Enter the mysterious black monolith that appears one day to these primitive creatures and emits a strange buzzing signal. The apes recoil in fear, but one comes forward and dares to touch the strange object. Later on while picking through a pile of bones the same ape picks up a leg bone and utilises it like a club and clobbers him some dinner. The group becomes meat eaters now out of necessity because of the sparse vegetation. Further on still, at the local watering hole the group of new carnivores bludgeon a group of fellow rivals in what could be called the first gang fight. Flash forward to the year 1999 A.D. and Dr. Heywood Floyd is on a flight to the moon to investigate a similar object found in a crater. Upon investigation the monolith sends out a high pitched signal directed to the orbit of Jupiter. Now cut to 2001 the spaceship Discovery is en route to Jupiter to investigate strange happenings. While most of the crew are in suspended animation, we meet Dave Bowman and Frank Poole who are piloting the ship to her destination. We are also introduced to HAL 9000 a sentient computer who controls all aspects of the ship. Hal starts to act irrationally causes all sorts of malfunctions. He murders Frank and attempts to eliminate Dave as well but Dave survives and begins to deactivate HAL. As Discovery reaches Jupiter orbit Dave finds thousands of monoliths that are acting as inter dimensional gateways. I won't spoil the rest for you, but needless to say it is mind blowing.

The Video: This film looks way too good for forty plus years hardly a speck of dust or grain the picture looked outstanding. The color reproduction looks outstanding the reds and blues of the control panels jump right out at you. The cinema mode was active on the display was active so the film played back in 24 frames/second. I could pick out so much detail on the hulls of the spacecraft that at some points it was distracting. You could count individual hairs on the actors heads. Unfortunately, the actors in the ape costumes look like they are in costume. The masks don't stand up as well in hi-def.

Extras: Good selection of material including a vintage promo piece, a retrospective piece filmed in 2001 hosted by James Cameron and some production design skits. I have yet to listen to the commentary by actors Kier Dullea(Dave) and Gary Lockwood(Frank) but I will have to on repeat viewings.
Overall: 5 out of 5 most reccomended for a hardcore scifi fan or videophile that wants to show off the hi-def format to non-adopters. The movie is long 141 minutes but is rewarding and challeges your beliefs as to our place in the cosmos. The set design and the realism put the viewer in that world of the future. It must have been exciting to see all these things at the time , of what was to come.