[scifinoir2] Pandorum
Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
[scifinoir2] Last US Sardine Cannery closes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_bi_ge/us_so_long_sardines I used to love sardines as a kid. I would consider it a treat whenever my mother packed a tin in my lunch bag (along with a sleeve of saltine crackers). A can of sardines was a source of infinite fascination. How, pray tell, did they squeeze all those tiny fish in that little can? One of the thrills, for me, was using the tiny metal key to carefully unroll the thin metal seal. The goal was to achieve a perfect wheel of narrow cage metal - without cutting yourself - and, with much trial and error, I mastered it. About ten years ago, feeling nostalgic and not having eaten a sardine in at least two decades, I bought a tin. First of all the key and the thin metal seal were gone, replaced by a ubiquitous pull tab, convenient and absolutely devoid of charm. Once I popped the top, I was confronted with a briny squash of indeterminate fish parts. Salty and slimy, I found the mess both unpalatable and uneatable. My children are 18 and 21 and doubt if either of them has ever eaten a sardine. Funny how times change. ~rave?
Re: [scifinoir2] Pandorum
I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
Re: [scifinoir2] Pandorum
The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@comcast.netwrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi. -- READ MY BLOG http://centralheatingblog.blogspot.com STRING THEORY http://stringtheory.podbean.com
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockwork...@... wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@...wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
The accelerated evolution is part of the science that they need to sell us on. We have seen scary aliens before...spend time on stuff people have not seen before. When i want to watch Alien, or Aliens again ill just pop it in. I shouldnt have to watch it in other moviesover and over and over.. On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 1:46 PM, B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com wrote: Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockwork...@... wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@...wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
I haven't read a Card book in twenty years. But, why is he on the avoided list? Is there something about his Mormon (?) background and how it influences his writings? Disrespect for people of color or other non-whites? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:48:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
So Event Horizon isn't the best comparison, but is a better overall movie? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:46:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Omari Confer clockwork...@... wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@...wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
That's where we differ. I thought the hunters were incidental. I thought the real meat was the pandorum sickness itself and the big reveal. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockwork...@... wrote: The accelerated evolution is part of the science that they need to sell us on. We have seen scary aliens before...spend time on stuff people have not seen before. When i want to watch Alien, or Aliens again ill just pop it in. I shouldnt have to watch it in other moviesover and over and over.. On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 1:46 PM, B Smith daikaij...@... wrote: Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockworkman@ wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
I think Event Horizon is better. Stronger cast, better set design and a great premise. The We're leaving line is epic. The funny thing to me is that EH routinely gets trashed as a bad movie. I loved it and watch it every time I run across it on tv. I thought it was an effective sci-fi/horror movie. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: So Event Horizon isn't the best comparison, but is a better overall movie? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:46:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Omari Confer clockworkman@ wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
All of the above and more. He's written some very homophobic things and his take on President Obama is pretty interesting. He claims that he's a Democrat but has been hyper-critical of Obama from the very beginning and been very alarmist about all of the actions he's taken since he became president. Very Tea Partyish in some ways. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: I haven't read a Card book in twenty years. But, why is he on the avoided list? Is there something about his Mormon (?) background and how it influences his writings? Disrespect for people of color or other non-whites? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:48:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@ wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of semihard sci fi.
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
Kinda wild when a scifi/futurist who's written stories about a world where Natives weren't conquered by Europe has homophobia. But then, scifi is chock full of prejudices and fears, and I guess those of us with that Star Trek Man will get better eye toward the future might even be in the minority. What has Card said about Obama? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:14:02 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum All of the above and more. He's written some very homophobic things and his take on President Obama is pretty interesting. He claims that he's a Democrat but has been hyper-critical of Obama from the very beginning and been very alarmist about all of the actions he's taken since he became president. Very Tea Partyish in some ways. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: I haven't read a Card book in twenty years. But, why is he on the avoided list? Is there something about his Mormon (?) background and how it influences his writings? Disrespect for people of color or other non-whites? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:48:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@ wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
Event Horizon gets trashed? I'm surprised. Like you, I love it. I think it's a good movie, with a surprising but effective mix of scifi and horror, as you said. The cast is roundly good, especially Fishburne, who as usual burns up the screen with that barely suppressed anger of his . - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:02:09 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum I think Event Horizon is better. Stronger cast, better set design and a great premise. The We're leaving line is epic. The funny thing to me is that EH routinely gets trashed as a bad movie. I loved it and watch it every time I run across it on tv. I thought it was an effective sci-fi/horror movie. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: So Event Horizon isn't the best comparison, but is a better overall movie? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:46:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Omari Confer clockworkman@ wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources
[scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
The usual right wing playbook. Not qualified, too liberal, dangerous for the country, blah, blah, blah. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: Kinda wild when a scifi/futurist who's written stories about a world where Natives weren't conquered by Europe has homophobia. But then, scifi is chock full of prejudices and fears, and I guess those of us with that Star Trek Man will get better eye toward the future might even be in the minority. What has Card said about Obama? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:14:02 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum All of the above and more. He's written some very homophobic things and his take on President Obama is pretty interesting. He claims that he's a Democrat but has been hyper-critical of Obama from the very beginning and been very alarmist about all of the actions he's taken since he became president. Very Tea Partyish in some ways. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@ wrote: I haven't read a Card book in twenty years. But, why is he on the avoided list? Is there something about his Mormon (?) background and how it influences his writings? Disrespect for people of color or other non-whites? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:48:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@ wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of
[scifinoir2] Dororo
http://www.nipponcinema.com/trailers/dororo/ I just saw the movie Dororo based on the manga comics of the same name. The movie is an epic, odd and moving mishmash of Frankenstein, Pinocchio, Edward Scissorhands, the Karate Kid, and the story of Moses, if all those stories had taken place in feudal Japan during the age of Samurais. At the heart of Dororo is an incredibly silly and wondrously irresistible premise: the warlord Kagemitsu Daigo has made a pact with demons - in exchange for giving him the wherewithal to rule the world, he will allow the demons to take 48 body parts from his unborn son (the demons need the human body parts so they can deceive men and wreck mayhem). Daigo knows his deal has been sealed when his son is born without arms, legs, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, liver, heart and forty other undisclosed body parts. Daigo wants to kill his newborn son who, sans heart and other vital organs, still lives and breathes (or a facimile thereof since he doesn't have a mouth or lungs). Daigo's wife intervenes, places the baby in a woven basket and sets it adrift on the river. The baby is found by Jukai, an alchemist-healer who proceeds to turn our hero into a real boy via miraculous prosthetic limbs and organs. The death, dumb, blind kid (who will wield a mean set of demon-slaying swords/hands) is also given a clockwork heart that allows him to see and hear (How does he see? With his heart!). When Jukai dies, Hyakkimaru sets out in the world to kill demons and retrieve his body parts. Every time he discovers and dispatches a demon his prosthetic parts are replaced by his real parts. Hyakkimaru is joined on his quest by the feral girl-thief, Dororo, who is masquerading as a boy. Dororo's father is killed by Daigo's dark army and she has vowed to stay a boy until she has avenged her dead parents. Satoshi Tsumabuki as Hyakkimaru and Ko Shibasaki as Dororo, an alleged couple in real life, are fetching and compelling as the stars of this movie. Filmed in New Zealand by director Akihiko Shiota (with the beautifully acrobatic sword fights choreographed by Hong Kong master Siu-Tung Ching), Dororo rises above its hokey and unconvincing demons, a mishmash of bad special effects and worse CGI, to wring actual emotion out its outlandish premise. Improbably, it make you care and long for parts two and three, the promised sequels. ~rave!
Re: [scifinoir2] Dororo
ahar...@earthlink.net I just adored this film. Saw it at the NYAFF a couple of years ago. Cheers! Amy Subject: [scifinoir2] Dororo http://www.nipponcinema.com/trailers/dororo/ I just saw the movie Dororo based on the manga comics of the same name. The movie is an epic, odd and moving mishmash of Frankenstein, Pinocchio, Edward Scissorhands, the Karate Kid, and the story of Moses, if all those stories had taken place in feudal Japan during the age of Samurais. At the heart of Dororo is an incredibly silly and wondrously irresistible premise: the warlord Kagemitsu Daigo has made a pact with demons - in exchange for giving him the wherewithal to rule the world, he will allow the demons to take 48 body parts from his unborn son (the demons need the human body parts so they can deceive men and wreck mayhem). Daigo knows his deal has been sealed when his son is born without arms, legs, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, liver, heart and forty other undisclosed body parts. Daigo wants to kill his newborn son who, sans heart and other vital organs, still lives and breathes (or a facimile thereof since he doesn't have a mouth or lungs). Daigo's wife intervenes, places the baby in a woven basket and sets it adrift on the river. The baby is found by Jukai, an alchemist-healer who proceeds to turn our hero into a real boy via miraculous prosthetic limbs and organs. The death, dumb, blind kid (who will wield a mean set of demon-slaying swords/hands) is also given a clockwork heart that allows him to see and hear (How does he see? With his heart!). When Jukai dies, Hyakkimaru sets out in the world to kill demons and retrieve his body parts. Every time he discovers and dispatches a demon his prosthetic parts are replaced by his real parts. Hyakkimaru is joined on his quest by the feral girl-thief, Dororo, who is masquerading as a boy. Dororo's father is killed by Daigo's dark army and she has vowed to stay a boy until she has avenged her dead parents. Satoshi Tsumabuki as Hyakkimaru and Ko Shibasaki as Dororo, an alleged couple in real life, are fetching and compelling as the stars of this movie. Filmed in New Zealand by director Akihiko Shiota (with the beautifully acrobatic sword fights choreographed by Hong Kong master Siu-Tung Ching), Dororo rises above its hokey and unconvincing demons, a mishmash of bad special effects and worse CGI, to wring actual emotion out its outlandish premise. Improbably, it make you care and long for parts two and three, the promised sequels. ~rave! Post your SciFiNoir Profile at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/app/peoplemap2/entry/add?fmvn=mapYahoo! Groups Links No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.801 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2810 - Release Date: 04/14/10 02:31:00
[scifinoir2] World Science: Newfound species dubbed 'T. rex' of leeches
ahar...@earthlink.net Cool science stuff. - Original Message - From: World Science To: emailn...@world-science.net Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 11:46 PM Subject: World Science: Newfound species dubbed 'T. rex' of leeches * You may still have to avoid T. rex: A leech that turned up in a girl's nose has been dubbed the T. rex of its kind by scientists. They say its ancestors might have tormented the old T. rex in a like fashion. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100414_rex * New evidence cited that rocky, watery planets are common: Vaporized remnants of rocky, and possibly watery, bodies hang around many dead stars, astronomers say. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100413_planets * Possible new human ancestor revealed: Two partial skeletons unearthed in South Africa are from a previously unknown species, according to scientists. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100408_australo * Life on Titan? Stand far back and hold your nose! If life has evolved on Saturn's frigid moon, Titan, it would be strange, smelly -- and potentially explosive, new research suggests. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100412_titan * Artificial leaves could help power machines of future: Researchers are presenting a design strategy that they say could harness Mother Nature's ability to produce energy from sunlight and water. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100326_leaf * Another species of extinct humans ID'd? A previously unknown lineage of humans has been identified based on genes extracted from a bit of bone, scientists say, though it is not believed to be a direct ancestor of modern people. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100325_hominin ADDITIONAL NEWS * Family tree research can open Pandora's Box: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100409_familytree * Brain cells shout in unison to get message through: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100401_neurons * Eye-operated video game developed for the disabled: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100326_planning * Power prompts less accurate time predictions, research finds: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100326_planning World Science homepage Don't forget to visit our homepage for Science In Images; links to top science news from other publi- cations; and other recent World Science stories! http://www.world-science.net World Science archives To new readers especially: you need not miss our ex- citing past stories, though they won't appear in future newsletters. See archives for any year by typing that year after the homepage address: for example, http://www.world-science.net/2007 Invite friends to join World Science! Click here to open an invitation email you can send friends and colleagues so they can join you in sub- scribing to World Science at no charge. Feel free to change the email text (although you might want to leave the subscription instructions unchanged.) More information This is the World Science newsletter. To cancel your subscription, please reply to this email address with cancel in the subject line. To subscribe, write to this email address with subscribe in the subject line. To change the address where you receive the newsletter, simply subscribe the new address and cancel the old one. Any World Science article may be reproduced on another website, on condition that it is reproduced along with a link to the World Science homepage, http://www.world-science.net. Linking to the page of the original article is optional. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.801 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2810 - Release Date: 04/14/10 02:31:00
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
Only one of them really had it...and it wasnt a key part of the story nor was it important to the story...steeming pile of dissapointment...from start to finish (save like 2 scenes)... On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 6:56 PM, B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com wrote: That's where we differ. I thought the hunters were incidental. I thought the real meat was the pandorum sickness itself and the big reveal. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockwork...@... wrote: The accelerated evolution is part of the science that they need to sell us on. We have seen scary aliens before...spend time on stuff people have not seen before. When i want to watch Alien, or Aliens again ill just pop it in. I shouldnt have to watch it in other moviesover and over and over.. On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 1:46 PM, B Smith daikaij...@... wrote: Why did you think the premise was bad? The execution was bit uneven at times and the accelerated evolution (aided by the serum and high radiation levels) required a bit of suspension of belief but I enjoyed it. I loved the ship design and the dirty, working machine feel of it. BTW the monsters were my least favorite part of it. I think the movie would have been just as effective if the antagonists were pandorum stricken humans gone cannibal like a certain character. Keith, On the surface Event Horizon seems like a good comparison but there are no supernatural elements in Pandorum. I think it could have been an even better film but I liked the world building and the premise. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.comscifinoir2% 40yahoogroups.com, Omari Confer clockworkman@ wrote: The movie was kinda bad...real talk. Decent actors, bad premise...mediocre execution. Us sci fi nerds like to dissect all the cool stuff form our favorite genre but its all about the total execution. There was one surprise near the end that made it not a complete waste but those native ship monsters were sad. The synopsis above sounds like a good moviewhen is it coming out..lol c w m On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.comscifinoir2% 40yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship
Re: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum
You cant be a Democrat and be critical of Obama? That is new to me. On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 7:14 PM, B Smith daikaij...@yahoo.com wrote: All of the above and more. He's written some very homophobic things and his take on President Obama is pretty interesting. He claims that he's a Democrat but has been hyper-critical of Obama from the very beginning and been very alarmist about all of the actions he's taken since he became president. Very Tea Partyish in some ways. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com, Keith Johnson keithbjohn...@... wrote: I haven't read a Card book in twenty years. But, why is he on the avoided list? Is there something about his Mormon (?) background and how it influences his writings? Disrespect for people of color or other non-whites? - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaij...@... To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:48:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Pandorum That makes me remember when I used to like OSC. He's another author on the to be avoided list. --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com , Keith Johnson KeithBJohnson@ wrote: I've heard mixed views, but never a good synopsis, thanks. What you presented made it sound like a great premise. I love the idea of hypersleep causing such problems. I may check it out. How does it compare to another scifi film I really love, Event Horizon? I know that latter is much more of a horror-focused scifi film. As for hypersleep, I remember reading a book by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, among many others). It postulated a fascinating world in which people who were deemed absolutely critical to humanity (great politicians, wealthy financiers, brilliant scientists, etc.) would skip generations. A person of sufficient means would live among humanity for a few years, doing whatever he or she did for a living. Then, that person would go into suspended animation for a time. As an example, Steve Jobs might run Apple for three years, set its future course, then go into suspended animation for twenty or thirty years. He'd wake up, get the lay of the land, do some more work, then back into the routine. If you think about it, it's a cool way to be granted a sort of immortality, as you can skip across the centuries, experiencing and influencing human development. The only problem is that the sleeper's mind is bubbled into a storage device before the body is put under. If something happened to that device, the sleeper would be rendered little more than a body with no mind, akin to a newborn babe, albeit in an adult's body. In one story, that very thing happens with a colony ship to another planet. There's an accident, all the crew's bubbles are destroyed, and the one guy who was awake is left with trying to retrain and re-educate all the now completely blank people. - Original Message - From: B Smith daikaiju66@ To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 12:52:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [scifinoir2] Pandorum Has anyone seen this movie? I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong it's not great but it was interesting and pretty well executed. Long story short: An Earthlike exoplanet called Tanis is discovered in the early 21st century. A probe using an advanced drive is sent there, finds that it's very, very Earthlike and can support life. 22nd century Earth is massively overpopulated, resources are dwindling, etc. A generation ship called the Elysium is built by all nations and 60,000 volunteers set off for Tanis. The journey will take 123 years so multiple crews rotate in two year shifts and go into hypersleep the rest of the time. Hypersleep is a tough process and people wake up with memory loss, mild sickness, etc. Some folks develop a severe type of sickness called pandorum. Another deep space Earth ship suffered a massive disaster when a pandorum affected crew member jettisoned all of the ship's hyperspace modules, killed the remaining crew and then himself. A crewman on the Elysium wakes up out of hypersleep for his 2 year shift. He's out of it, doesn't remember his name, etc. He reads his name off his sleep pod and begins to remember that he is ship's engineer Bower. A second crewman, Lt. Payton, awakens and they realize that they are the only people from their shift that are awake. The power is down and they are cutoff from the rest of ship. The reactor is out of synch and needs to be repaired before the ship's power can be restored. Bower grabs some tools and sets off to restore the power. Then the fun begins. I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. There were a few things that strained logic but it's a fun, scary movie with a healthy dose of
