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You're dead to me.

You'll be telling me Return of the Living Dead 2 was better than the first one next. Aliens was great because it had Bill but it also had Newt. It also had Sigourney's very strange hairstyle.

Alien killed off its main hero which was epic at the time. It like Star Wars changed the film landscape.
 
You'll be telling me Return of the Living Dead 2 was better than the first one next. Aliens was great because it had Bill but it also had Newt. It also had Sigourney's very strange hairstyle.

Alien killed off its main hero which was epic at the time. It like Star Wars changed the film landscape.
Zombie movies do nothing for me, never seen either.
 
You'll be telling me Return of the Living Dead 2 was better than the first one next. Aliens was great because it had Bill but it also had Newt. It also had Sigourney's very strange hairstyle.

Alien killed off its main hero which was epic at the time. It like Star Wars changed the film landscape.
Um which main hero killed off would that be?
 
Um which main hero killed off would that be?

Tom Skerritt - Dallas the Captain, brave, good looking, a leader, the alpha- white male of the team. It was totally unexpected that he died and that's what made the film unpredictable.
 
Tom Skerritt - Dallas the Captain, brave, good looking, a leader, the alpha- white male of the team. It was totally unexpected that he died and that's what made the film unpredictable.

Hm. We could argue that. I think Ripley is set up as the hero from the start. Never occurred to me that Dallas was the man. Ripley has the pivotal lines, the best shots, and makes more sense. Good excuse to re-watch.
 
Difficult to choose where to put this one but here it is.

Out Of Blue: SF, Neo-Noir, Serial Killer, even science, a film of many tropes. Present day New Orleans, detective Mike Hoolihan (Patricia Clarkson) investigates the murder of an astrophysicist, Jennifer Rockwell (Mamie Gummer). From the outset it is a complicated case, there are two main suspects, both physicists, her lover Duncan (Jonathan Majors) and the shifty Ian (Toby Jones). The killing also bears characteristics of a serial killer who has been dormant for 30 years. Jennifer's father Tom (James Caan) is a politician, war hero and business magnate and along with his dysfunctional family interferes in the investigation.

As Mike makes inquiries she becomes immersed in world of The Multiverse, Black Holes and Quantum Mechanics, Schrodinger's Cat figures as much in developments as he own cat does in her life. The focus shifts from suspect to suspect and even a new suspect emerges. Mike also undergoes strange encounters and sensations. Is she imaging some events and even characters or is she shifting between alternative realities? The fact that Mike is a recovering addict doesn't help.

An intriguing film which requires close attention and the Lynchian sense of strangeness and ambiguity may put many off. It likely demands a second viewing. Director and screenwriter Carol Morley has adapted the novel Night Train by Martin Amis, delivering an original addition to the SF/Neo-noir Genre. 8/10.
 
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Prospect is a good little sci-fi that works without relying on cgi. The main character is a teenage girl. She and her father are spacefaring prospectors who drop in on an old claim to pick over mine remains and boost their kitty. They're accosted by two armed men and things take a turn for the worse. We see herself take up with her father's killer in a bid to escape the planetoid. Straightforward plot and believable characterisation serve the film well, especially given its dearth of special effects. The setting, the costumes and the atmosphere are all well-designed. Nothing overly new in it, but its an engaging watch. 3.5/5
 
I've recently started re-watching the brilliant 60s Sci-Fi series, The Invaders, and reading up on the series I just found this bizarre French comedy sketch inspired by the show, which I just had to share! According to Wikipedia the series was very big in France!

The series proved to be enormously popular in France (first aired in 1969 as Les Envahisseurs), and it is still a local favorite, inspiring books, comics, songs, comedy skits (Les envahisseurs by Les Inconnus), and even TV advertising commercials.


 
Alien Warfare (2019): Navy Seals versus Aliens. A secret base goes silent, 100 personnel seem to have disappeared. The Seals go in, find a surviving scientist and discover that an Alien artefact was being experimented on. Aliens then arrive to take back the device. Battle ensues. This might have went better if it had been played totally for laughs. It just turns out to be a low grade SF film, mediocre acting, dull script, dodgy CGI. The axtion just about holds interest (if you've had a couple of pints). 4/10. On Netflix.
 
The Wandering Earth: Chinese SF epic. The Sun is ailing and will soon turn into a Red Giant. A worldwide effort builds engines to move The Earth to the Alpha Centauri System. As Scotty said: Ye Cannae Change The Laws of Physics! But lets suspend our sense of disbelief for a while. A space platform is built which will navigate the Earth and protect it from collisions etc. Seventeen years into the mission some of the engines fail and the Earth is in danger of crashing into Jupiter.

The action is centred around a taikonaut on the Space Platform and his family on Earth who are caught up in the efforts to repair the engines. Good effects in space, well imagined satellites and spaceships. The Earth based adventure is engaging as massive trucks race across the frozen Earth. About half of the world's population has perished as the Earth's rotation was stopped, the remainder living underground. Some of the CGI becomes a bit ropey at times but this is an engaging film. Based on the novella by Liu Cixin and directed by Frant Gwo, The Wandering Earth is on a par with the better Hollywood disaster movies. 7/10. On Netflix.
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Prospect (2018)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_(film)

A father and his daughter set out to mine gems on an alien moon. The moon itself, (looking a lot like New Zealand), isn't the paradise it first looks like as the pair run into other prospectors.

Can Cee save herself and her dad and make the pick up from the overhead transport ship?

Good, solid and often remarkable performances from Sophie Thatcher as Cee and a stonking performance from Pedro Pascal, (think Captain Quint ten years younger but transported a 1000 years into the future) as Ezra. Nice to see Jay Duplass in front of the camera for a change.

Low budget but I don't think it suffered for it, in fact, the steampunk like weaponry was one of the novel aspects of the film, (loved the Jerry Cornelius needle guns).

It's slow, but I reckon it adds to the ambiance and it's basically a Western in space which let's face it a lot of the SF of the '50s '60s and '70s was anyway. I liked the fact it took me back to those old short stories from the likes of Harrison, Simak, Heinlein, etc of my youth.

8.5 out of 10.
 
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Snowpiercer: South Korean-Czech SF/Post-Apocalypse film. An attempt to reverse Global Warming has gone wrong and produced a new Ice Age. The few survivors exist on board a mega-train, Snowpiercer, which runs on a globe-spanning track. The lower class passengers are in the tail, the middle in economy and the elite are at the front. Really all rather allegorical. The train's dictator is Wilford (Ed Harris), Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton) is his propaganda aide and hatchet woman (literally). Curtis (Chris Evans) is plotting a revolt, Edgar (Jamie Bell) is his sidekick while Gilliam (John Hurt) is the intellectual inspiration for the rebels.

An opportunity for an uprising occurs when children from the tail are seized by Wilford's security guards led by . This is suppressed by Mason (Swinton channelling a petty bureaucrat in a Yorkshire accent). Messages are passed back to Curtis by an unknown helper from the front of the train and eventually a revolt succeeds and the rebels fight their way through the train. Some incredible close quarter battle scenes involving hand-axes. Much of the action takes place in the narrow dark confines of the train. As they move forward though they encounter bright greenhouses and aquariums and a bizarre teacher (Alison Pill) in a classroom which carries on as if in the old days. At times the film gets as bizarre as any of Terry Gilliam's as it delivers it's message through satire and even slapstick humour. But many dark secrets are exposed on all sides during the quest through the train.

Director/co-writer Bong Joon-ho has created a closed environment SF battle film, depending on irony and humour to get many of his points across. Similar in some respects to The Hunger Games but far more convincing. 8.5/10.
 
Snowpiercer: South Korean-Czech SF/Post-Apocalypse film. An attempt to reverse Global Warming has gone wrong and produced a new Ice Age. The few survivors exist on board a mega-train, Snowpiercer, which runs on a globe-spanning track. The lower class passengers are in the tail, the middle in economy and the elite are at the front. Really all rather allegorical. The train's dictator is Wilford (Ed Harris), Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton) is his propaganda aide and hatchet woman (literally). Curtis (Chris Evans) is plotting a revolt, Edgar (Jamie Bell) is his sidekick while Gilliam (John Hurt) is the intellectual inspiration for the rebels.

An opportunity for an uprising occurs when children from the tail are seized by Wilford's security guards led by . This is suppressed by Mason (Swinton channelling a petty bureaucrat in a Yorkshire accent). Messages are passed back to Curtis by an unknown helper from the front of the train and eventually a revolt succeeds and the rebels fight their way through the train. Some incredible close quarter battle scenes involving hand-axes. Much of the action takes place in the narrow dark confines of the train. As they move forward though they encounter bright greenhouses and aquariums and a bizarre teacher (Alison Pill) in a classroom which carries on as if in the old days. At times the film gets as bizarre as any of Terry Gilliam's as it delivers it's message through satire and even slapstick humour. But many dark secrets are exposed on all sides during the quest through the train.

Director/co-writer Bong Joon-ho has created a closed environment SF battle film, depending on irony and humour to get many of his points across. Similar in some respects to The Hunger Games but far more convincing. 8.5/10.
Seconded. A great film.
 
SyFy UK are currently having a Bank Holiday 80s Sci Fi all dayer-

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High Life: An astronaut, Monte (Robert Pattinson) is outside a spacecraft making repairs when a baby's wailing disturbs him. They are the only two inhabitants of the ship which is in a state of disrepair with it's systems constantly at risk of failure, Monte freezes in terror as the electricity goes off but then resumes. To preserve power Monte ejects bodies which had been frozen. Even the hydroponics room is a bit ragged. How this situation developed is told in a series of flashbacks.

All of the ship's crew were criminals, on death row or serving life sentences. Dr Dibs (Juliette Binoche) is conducting experiments on the other prisoners, trying to create a baby through artificial insemination. Boyse (Mia Goth) is a troubled young woman who is both violent and subjected to violence. Dibs has control over the crew through the use of sedatives. The ship's main mission is to seek alternative energy sources through studying a Black Hole, light years from Earth. Nansen (Agata Buzek) will pilot a small craft closer to the Black Hole.

A claustrophobic film, shot in narrow corridors and small rooms, even the reminiscences of Earth are on trains bounded by the tracks or on forest trails closed in by trees. When Nansen drops a tool into the space void (the only wider vista) he thinks of dropping an apple down a well. The scene of the disgorged bodies floating through space is haunting. In this closed society violence occurs which threatens the survival of all. The crew had been promised that the mission was a second chance but due to the effects of relativity they age years while for those on Earth centuries pass.

The effects and design are generally ok, especially how the decay of the ship is portrayed and how the super-gravity of a Black Hole might affect a human body. But the spacesuits have that bought from Lidl look and the spaceship resembles a pedestal. Far more imagination has gone into the script and direction. This is a disturbing film with scenes which may well shock you but you will muse over its implications and meaning long after the final credits roll. Directed and co-written by Clair Denis. 8/10.
 
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