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mdrejhon
Reviews
Race to Mars (2007)
One of the more 'realistic' portrayals of a manned mars mission.
Overall, an amazingly realistic "space drama" 4-hour TV show for the right expectations - a show that makes you think. A show for the "Deep Impact" crowd rather than the "Armageddon" crowd.
As a science fiction enthusiast and a space technology reader, I can recognize that some people expected a nonstop action-filled movie and got disappointed by it. The show is more of interest for the documentary/intellectual crowd, or the docudrama crowd, than for the popcorn movie crowd.
In short, this series is designed as a more realistic (if slightly hollywoodified) portrayal of a manned mars mission. This series is much more realistic than "Mission to Mars" and "The Red Planet", if you are looking for realism (including boredom) instead of popcorn action (nonstop action).
Without going into the plot, there are a number of realistic portrayals exhibited in this show, included included psychology elements of a manned mars trip, scandal (remember Nowak), skipped quality-control checks (just see all the product recalls going on these days), politics, a 'reasonable' going-against-mission-control school of thought (just remember Alan Shepard played a little unauthorized golf on the moon in 1971), spacecraft software bugs and radioed upgrades (very common in current spacecraft), the amount of time it took to travel to Mars is similar to current mars missions, the use of centrifugal force for artificial gravity, a number of very reasonable disasters (some of which are similar to what has happened before - fire on MIR space station, collision of Spektr of MIR, space shuttle disaster, - all real space disasters etc), Apollo 13 style improvisation (did you know they actually used duct tape and plastic bags to fix the life support system?), boredom, health issues, bathroom, mold, laboratory animals, experiments, and lots more.
Even the use of nuclear thermal propulsion system was a somewhat realistic idea - lots of designs were tested in the 1960's (wikipedia: "Nuclear thermal rocket") and almost became mission-ready until concerns about radioactivity came to fore. Nuclear thermal is theoretically simple - use heat of a hot nuclear object to turn a liquid into superheated gas which comes out of the rocket -- rather than more fun but currently-unobtainable technology such as fusion or antimatter rockets. Given production budget limits, understandable uses of pre-existing technologies have had to be used (i.e. thick tablet computers, etc) which adds slightly to a cheesy effect for the technologically knowledgeable people, but it is very likely we will still use very similar technologies then.
The China reference is realistic. Let's not forget we all 'hated' or 'feared' the soviets (USSR) one way or another back in its day. Whether we like it or not, apparently China is slowly catching up - being the 3rd nation to have a man in space already, and are planning to send a rover to the moon in the near future (see BBC news, etc), so the reference to China was relatively realistic. China is getting more scrutiny these days, so there's a lot of negativity, but let's be fair -- they have clearly demonstrated actions with ambitions to be a contender for a future space race -- and let's face it, while imperfect, life is apparently much better there than it was in 1989 -- it's night and day. Given time, China would very realistically fit into this movie's time line.
Granted, there are many unrealistic portrayals too. There is some amount of Hollywood-ification. The time line for a Mars mission of this scale as early as 2030 is a little unrealistic, considering NASA has said 2037 as the earliest date for a Mars mission, according to Griffin, the admin of NASA. Especially considering the size of the ship, is kind of huge for a first Mars mission which would probably be more Wright Brothers-like in scale (something bigger than Apollo, but much smaller than the ship in this movie). In addition, there's the usual audio outside the ship - understandable use, even if it should be dead quiet. There are a lot of other unrealistic elements, but all made-for-TV, even "based on a true story" shows, have dramatizations to varying extents.
"Race to Mars" excels as excellent inspiration to travel to Mars. I hope that a few people are encouraged to work towards space program as a result of this show This is the type of movie that makes you think more; and the movie likely more greatly appeals to the intellectuals, who enjoyed movies such as 'Deep Impact' more than 'Armageddon'. (More background information: The popcorn excitement in 'Armageddon' was more fun and exciting, while the more realistic elements were in the movie 'Deep Impact'. Many of these types of 'earth-is-doomed' movies still suffer from unrealistic premises (i.e. small number of nuclear bombs being blown up on such asteroid/comet objects so close to planet Earth, are not realistic), but intellectual purists have recognized that realistically a real-life asteroid/comet impact event would more realistically resemble 'Deep Impact' than 'Armageddon', despite lots of other impossibilities apparent in both movies.) Both movies were enjoyable - but for very different reasons.
We would be happy to see many more of these high quality made-for-TV shows as time passes. I am impressed that only $12 million was spent (production, excluding marketing) to make a show of this high quality, of 4 hours in length, and in full high-def. This budget was huge by Canadian TV standards, but tiny for a Hollywood film. While probably not Acadamy Award material (except for 'best documentary', if it was a real event), this show was easily much superior quality to many more expensive productions that made it to the big screen.
9 out of 10 stars.
Titan A.E. (2000)
Easily the best movie I've seen, involving cell animation!
Usually, I do not comment on movies that I have watched in the theaters, but I must say that I am really looking forward to the DVD release of Titan:After Earth, for my home theater system!
The movie, is easily the best traditional cell animation (combined with CGI or otherwise) that I have ever seen, and easily beats the Dreamworks animation such as Prince of Egypt in my opinion.
If you have not seen the film in the theater, and you like scifi, you should go see it. It will please Star Wars fans - or even just plain scifi fans who at least somewhat likes animation. If you're not sure about animation but if you at least "liked" Toy Story or Toy Story 2 a little bit, then you'll have no problem with this movie. There is a HEAVY amount of CGI for the backgrounds. It is a visual feast for the eyes - lots of very 3-dimensional CGI special effects thrown in - especially the outer space sequences. Very scifi and lots of fun - the movie was even better than the trailer suggested it would be. Do not judge based on the trailer - the trailer made it sound somewhat initially corny, but the movie was less corny than I expected!
Even though this is animation, this movie is PG rated for violence, brief language, mild sensuality. This isn't a little kid's cartoon!
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1995)
One of the few times the sequel ruined the original
Having watched the original Lawnmower Man a few times as a reasonably enjoyable (albeit far-fetched) movie which had a nice gradual change in mood from start to end of the movie, I originally looked forward to this sequel. When I saw the sequel in the theaters, I was not prepared for the big disappointment I was to be hit with. I have to say, that this sequel is one of the few times that a sequel ruined a relatively-good original. I now don't think I would be able to enjoy watching the original Lawnmower Man movie, after having some details forced into my mind from a really awful sequel.