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jackdmenendez
Reviews
The Acolyte (2024)
The best series ever from Disney, not to mention anything from Star Wars
Wow, a really bad guy, Qimir, whom we can empathize with and even like and a really good guy, Sol, that we want to love but who has a nasty secret; I never thought I would see the day that Disney would do something like this. At first we think we know who the trustworthy character is between Osha and Mae but then we meet the family and doubts arise. Mani Jacinto, plays Qimir, oh my gosh, what an incredible actor, there is no other actor in Star Wars history that can do what this actor does.
A lot of people don't like this story because they think it is breaking the Star Wars tradition but nothing could be farther from the truth. I love Star Wars, I saw the 1977 "Star Wars" five times the month it came out. The one big plot twist in the first Star Wars trilogy was that Darth Vador turns out to be Luke Skywalker's father and we all thought, oh no, say isn't so but it was. There was also a minor plot twist where Luke and Leia are siblings. The Acolyte is full of exactly this kind of plot twist and takes us down the same road only this time good and evil are complicated as they are in real life and consequences of keeping secrets and lies are deadly.
The original Star Wars does not contain enough of a fantasy universe to build on, that's why the later Star Wars movies suck. Disney is doing the right thing to expand the Universe so that new stories can be told and what a great story the Acolyte is so far.
One other thing I found interesting. Disney is not afraid to kill off characters that we care about. They seemed to learned the power of that from Game of Thrones. E5 was the equivalent of the Red Wedding.
Falling Skies (2011)
Can I just give this zero stars and be done with it?
Oh, where do I start with the badness here? I know let's start with the Aliens. The aliens supposedly have advanced technology that overwhelmed the world's militaries including the U.S. Yet, somehow the remaining human beings manage with small arms to hold off robots that look like clanking demented bunny rabbits among other "advanced technologies" wielded by the Aliens like jet fighters that wouldn't have a chance against an F-22. The demented bunny rabbit robots are not nearly as mobile as modern robots built by Boston Dynamics. The bunnies are armed with bullets and a laser site. It takes them at least 10 seconds for the bunny to pull the trigger whenever the laser site illuminates a target giving human targets plenty of time to escape and counterattack always destroying the hapless bunny. When the robot does finally shoot it is a spray of bullets that go everywhere except where the laser site is pointing. There are these other alien robot skeeters, to stop them one has to shoot them, a lot; difficult. These are the most unimaginative aliens yet, but wait the aliens are the best part of the show!
The human characters are annoying due to brainless writing, though many of the actors try to make up for it by being young and good looking. The audience is bombarded with sappy and cornball moments about the children. There is a lot of gearing up with realistic looking firearms by youngsters going to fight demented bunny robots. The aliens like to kidnap children and make them wear big plastic artificial external spines. The purpose of this seems to be to create obvious rescue plot scenarios because the writers can't think of anything else.
The real problem is that with all the sappiness and poor story telling the observer never buys into the desperation that would have to come if aliens had just wiped out 95% of humanity.
This is just really dumb science fiction.
Extant: Extinct (2014)
The plot has twists and turns but does not make sense
Contains some spoilers: This show has potential and I wanted to give it more stars; I really did, but I couldn't even though the show is very watchable and can be entertaining, it is also stupid. The plot, as long as you don't think about it, contains some twists and turns that are exciting. We do care about the characters and the writers are trying to explore some interesting ideas about the future. Unfortunately, there is a big problem. To understand the problems first understand that the show has two major themes. One theme is beautiful humanoid robots, Humanics have been created by humanity and the show explores their potential for good and bad depending on how they are used or misused. The story around the robots can be cloying at times, but it is not a show stopper. The other major theme is an Alien invasion. There are gaping problems with this theme.
So this is the spoiler: the aliens spread kind of like a virus through sexually transmitted spores that create alien babies who grow up in a matter of a few weeks or months and infect others. The sexual transmission takes place in single's bars through one-night stands. The viral spread of these aliens is understood by the military who are keeping the existence of the aliens a secret. Yes, this is disturbingly contrived given the powers and knowledge of the aliens, they could easily figure out a way to spread themselves in a more efficient way than picking up women in bars, but then where is the fun in that? The bigger problem is that the military and major characters spend all their time trying to hunt down and kill the one original alien, who happens to be Molly's (Berry) son when they know there are already tons of other aliens around happily spreading the alien spores through sexual exploits. That's like trying to cure a cold by killing just one virus when there are billions already infecting your body. Maybe there is a good reason to go after the original alien but, the main characters and the military don't know that and yet they concentrate on killing this one alien with drone strikes and everything else in their arsenal as if that will cure the Earth. The aliens are clearly highly intelligent, but no one tries to talk to them; it's more like hunting zombies with glowing eyes than dealing with aliens; stupid.
It's too bad, because of the potential here. Lot's of science fiction has been written about aliens who spread like a virus through human hosts and they are all better than this idea. For example, there is "The Alien", and this show kind of rips that idea off with exploding wombs. There are Christopher Rowley's novels about the Vang, which make the Alien seem pretty friendly and simplistic. This TV show though does not even try to make the Aliens and their biology interesting or imaginative.