According to the UK Daily Guardian
Category Opinions on Science Fiction movies
How Pacific Rim’s Monster-Mashing Amazingness Came Out of Digital Art
here’s a shot behind the scenes video of the digital art involved.
http://gizmodo.com/how-pacific-rims-monster-mashing-amazingness-came-out-840060485
‘Ender’s Game’ At Comic-Con: Filmmakers Comment On Author’s Homophobic Views
One of the Ballsiest Moves in Science Fiction Movies
Captain James T. Kirk with the help of Scotty, Chekov and Sulu steal the Enterprise. Four men, with the help of Uhura, steal a 1200 foot long ship! The wildest action in any movie I’ve ever scene. Here’s the scene:
10 best sci-fi films of all time, chosen by Tim Robey
From the UK Daily Telegraph:
From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Solaris, Telegraph film critic Tim Robey lists his 10 sci-fi films of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
From man’s origins to his rebirth, Kubrick concentrates on technology – the primitive weapon of a femur bone becomes a space station in cinema’s most famous match-cut, and AI reaches a point where HAL 9000 is more human than the humans.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
A topsy-turvy political allegory about the misuse of civilisation, with Charlton Heston as the stranded astronaut being thrust to the bottom of an even baser society than his own. Amazingly, Fox just thought they were making a monkey movie.
Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison in The Planet of the Apes.
Blade Runner (1982)
An extraordinary feat of cyberpunk design, wrapped around an equally extraordinary premise about replicants raging against the dying of the light. Harrison Ford’s Deckard could easily be one of them – witness his unicorn dream in the Director’s Cut.
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
It could have been little more than a movie about an extremely weird dog from space, but Spielberg’s subtle bead on childhood made it so much more. Simple yet profound visual ideas – the glowing finger, the flying bike – give it unbelievable lift-off.
Read a review of E.T The Extra-Terrestrial
The Thing (1982)
The same summer as Scott and Spielberg’s masterpieces, John Carpenter made his: a squirmy, what-the-hell-is-that experience which suggests some close encounters are best avoided. In the freezing Antarctic, look carefully at your neighbour.
Back to the Future (1985)
The best kind of gee-whizz blockbuster, and so beautifully low-tech about its devices – the gull-winged DeLorean as a time machine is a stroke of design genius. The mad-science aspects of the story delight constantly, as do the stars.
Brazil (1985)
Originally titled 1984½, Terry Gilliam’s crazily ambitious riff on Orwell is a dystopian comedy about a world stuffed to bursting point: one clerical error and it threatens to burst. A nightmare of retro-futuristic oppression, outfitted with mad bravura.
Aliens (1986)
On all fronts a spectacular expansion of Alien, especially in the ways it pits machinery against biology, and follows the creature’s whole life-cycle back to its source: what’s laying the eggs? Ripley’s confrontation with the Queen is truly inspired.
The Fly (1986)
Teleporting Jeff Goldblum gets an unwanted housefly trapped in his DNA, and becomes a missing link we weren’t missing. Cronenberg updates the 1958 original with hideous imaginative flair but also great sympathy – file it under Best Remakes, too.
Solaris (2002)
And another great remake, even beating Tarkovsky, because of its crystalline beauty as a thought-piece about the tyranny of memory. A huge flop for Soderbergh and Clooney, but scene for scene it’s their riskiest, most philosophical movie.
Sharknado!
The infamous and stupid movie comes on this weekend. Don’t you know I’m going to rush home to watch it. What a damn joke, SyFy. You’ve taken science fiction and turned it into something that people laugh at. Thank you very much.
Pacific Rim
Orson Scott Card Under Fire
What’s happening here proves why I say authors, and celebrities, should keep their private views to themselves. This world no longer allows for dissenting viewpoints and will crucify, and destroy the reputation and life of, anyone who had a viewpoint that is not ‘politically correct.’ It’s a disgusting destruction of freedom of speech that’s been coming in the US for years. I remember back in the 1990’s when PC arrived, and I knew back then it’d lead to ‘though police’ and stifling of speech. And I’ve been correct. Now one doesn’t have to actually do anything anymore. Just speak your mind and things will be used against you. As someone who values freedom of speech, and what writer would not, I find it frightening and discouraging at the same time.
per TGDaily.com
Ender’s Game Author Under Fire
Posted July 10, 2013 – 15:23 by David Konow
While this has been a very turbulent summer for blockbusters, Ender’s Game, which is coming in November, is one of the most anticipated genre films in recent memory. Except there’s a potentially big controversy brewing because of homophobic comments made by the book’s author Orson Scott Card.
Ender’s Game, which was published in 1985, is one of the most popular sci-fi novels of the last thirty years, and it’s taken nearly just as long to bring it to the big screen. This is such an anticipated event in genre movies that even the press shy Harrison Ford, who stars along with Ben Kingsley, has eagerly been promoting the film, or as eagerly as he can muster.
Nevertheless, as E! Online tells us, Card’s open feelings against gay marriage are now a hot button topic in the wake of Paula Deen’s firing, and Alec Baldwin’s homophobic tweets. Card has come forward to say that his views on gay marriage is “moot,” that this story takes place over a century into the future and it “has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.”
While many geeks will be out in force to support Ender’s Game, a group called Geeks OUT is trying to organize a boycott of the movie, posting the command of “Do NOT see this movie! Do not buy a ticket at the theater, do not purchase the DVD, do not watch it on-demand. Ignore all merchandise and toys. However much you may have admired his books, keep your money out of Orson Scott Card’s pockets.”
These days, there are plenty of gay geeks making their presence known everywhere, and under normal circumstances they’d probably be on line opening day for a big geek event like Ender’s, but now it’s turning into a big line in the sand. Considering Card is clearly not going to back down from his stance, expect more controversy to come before Ender’s Game is released on November 1.
Read more at http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/72419-enders-game-author-under-fire#ihYfRaciH6Y664sl.99
Pacific Rim Needs Our Help
Per TGDaily.com
Posted July 11, 2013 – 09:50 by David Konow
We just reported on the critical response to Pacific Rim, which so far has been mixed. There are critics that liked it, some who thought it was okay, and at least one overall negative review, which to be fair didn’t say the movie was dreadful, but it didn’t say it was anything to get excited about either.
You know from reading TGD that the geeks will be out in force to see Pacific Rim this weekend, yet even though the geeks are a force to be reckoned with, a movie can’t survive on geeks alone. In fact, the box office pundits have been predicting doom for Pacific Rim, even though its buzz is nowhere near as deadly as The Lone Ranger, or last year’s mega stink bomb Battleship.
How do these people know it’s going to bomb before it comes out? By tracking all the data, which isn’t always infallible. Variety headlined their story, “Pacific Rim Looking Grim With $25 Million – $35 million Opening,” noting that “Warner Bros. are bracing for what appears to be a gruesome inevitability” of potential low gross.
As The Wrap points out, this has been a particularly rough summer for movies, and this could potentially be the fourth week in a row of big screen bombs. Yet, on the other hand, as Variety also reports, Pacific Rim has gotten a very strong 85% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 98% rating of people who want to see it this weekend.
So definitely get out there and give Pacific Rim your support. It’s Guillermo Del Toro’s big return to the theaters, and it looks like it could be great fun. Hollywood may be panicking that it may not have a huge opening weekend, but perhaps word of mouth can make Pacific Rim a winner if the fan response is enthusiastic enough.
Read more at http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/72432-pacific-rim-needs-your-help#XhIPjEmXkI1d1oH2.99
‘Pacific Rim’ Looking Grim With $25 Million-$35 Million Opening
Per Variety.com
After spending the past two weeks trying to turn the tide for “Pacific Rim,” Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures now are bracing for what appears to be a gruesome inevitability for the $185 million-plus monster movie: A domestic opening ranging between $25 million and $35 million.
This weekend could be the second in a row in which an expensive non-sequel property bellyflops at the box office after “Lone Ranger” flamed out last weekend.
The impending doom has been pretty clear ever since “Pacific Rim” came on tracking early last month. And while there are certainly some last-minute hopeful signs for Warner and Legendary to cling to (i.e. strong reviews and unreliable tracking lately), there’s little chance that “Pacific Rim” will open well enough in the U.S. to counter its monster-sized budget and marketing costs.
But before we delve into the negative, there are a few possible bright spots:
- Positive reviews. As of Tuesday afternoon, the film has scored an 85% rating on RottenTomatoes, with a 98% rating among audiences who want to see the film. Exhibitor reactions to the film also have been better than expected.
- Overseas. Warner launches “Pacific Rim” in 38 day-and-date territories, including the U.K., Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Italy and Australia.
- Skewed tracking. “Pacific Rim” straddles the line of being a fanboy and family film, with heavy interest among boys, and tracking for younger auds is notoriously unreliable. Does that mean the film can double current projections? No.
- Holiday frenzy. The buzz surrounding the Fourth of July weekend was still humming on Monday, when NRG — the most subscribed-to tracking service — released its most current weekend estimates. The company will revise those estimates Thursday.
All of those factors weigh in “Pacific Rim’s” favor, particularly the first, after Paramount managed to parlay strong early reviews for “World War Z” into a surprising $66 million domestic opening.
SEE MORE: Is ‘Pacific Rim’ Doomed to Be This Year’s ‘Battleship’?
But to be clear, an opening like that is not in the cards for “Pacific Rim” — not with competition from “Despicable Me 2″ and “Grown Ups 2,” both of which also have strong family appeal. Observers predict that “Despicable Me 2″ will win its second frame in the high-$40 millions, while “Grown Ups 2″ is expected to gross in the low-$40 million range. Both “Grown Ups 2″ and “Pacific Rim” are rated PG-13.
For “Pacific Rim,” which is a passion project for helmer Guillermo del Toro, the early July release date was likely modeled after “Transformers,” which opened with $70 million in 2007. That’s the kind of start Legendary expected to see when it greenlit the pricey ensemble project about an apocalyptic battle between aliens and robots created to fight them. But without a major star toplining the film, Warners — which came on board later to help finance 25% of the production cost — had to market the film based solely on the original concept. The studio only recently began highlighting the pic’s humor and lighter elements to help draw interest.
SEE MORE: How Legendary Is Trying to Turn Around Troubling Tracking for ‘Pacific Rim’
Tracking for the film outside the U.S. is strongest in Asia, with the area’s long history of creature features, but the pic is seeing only moderate interest in other parts of the world.
Some celebrities, including Kanye West, have taken to social media with positive reactions to the film. Videogame design icon Hideo Kojima also expressed his admiration in a tweet saying, “This film is not simply a film to be respected, but most importantly, it let us dream the future of entertainment movies.”
The film’s grim financial outlook notwithstanding, Kojima may have a point. If only the film’s budget could have been kept in check.
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