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Babylon A.D.
darleysam
On my way toUKRegistered User regular
On my way toUKRegistered User regular
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Yes, it's Vin Diesel, but keep reading.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364970/
Veteran-turned-mercenary Thoorop (Diesel) takes the high-risk job of escorting a woman from Russia to China. Little does he know that she is host to an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah
Okay, sounds like it could just be an excuse for a "high-octane action-packed chase movieâ„¢", but from what little i know about this (plot outline, poster, imagination), i'm actually optimistic. Why? Because it's directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Why should that chap from Amelie and Munich matter?
Because he wrote and directed La Haine, a truly outstanding film.
As i do more research, i see it's based off Maurice Georges Dantec's 'Babylon Babies', which isn't a book i've heard of before, but actually sounds quite good. So, while this may be a bit preemptive, seeing as how the film's not out until next year, and it may well just be an explosive vehicle for Mr Diesel to ride off into the sunset, just from what i'm seeing it actually looks like it has potential.
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The Pacifier.
but Pitch Black?
Vin Diesel returning to Sci-Fi? I don't care what you wanna say about the guy, Riddick made the man into the actor he is today.
I think this movie has great potential.
Edit: Darley, I love you.
let's go make babies.
Yes, after seeing the likes of The Pacifier (no, i didn't watch it with eyes, the posters were enough), i figured his career would end up in the likes of Mr Nanny and Jingle All The Way, but from reading about the book this is based on, there is certainly a whole lot of potential for this to be a really good sci-fi film. Like i said, Kasovitz is a good director too, which is only going to help.
You mean he's going to become the next go governor of California?
x2
I never really think less of actors for taking goofy roles like The Pacifier. It's not like Vin Diesel is pretending it's a great film. I don't think anyone pretends it's meant as an authentic piece of cinema- anyone who's old enough to smoke, anyway. It is what it is.
And I thought Chronicles of Riddick was perhaps the best Sci-fi film of many a year.
Stoked.
Pitch Black - Fucking Awesome.
That was how I felt at first, too. Then a friend of mine randomly said "wow, Chronicles is the best science fiction movie since the original Star Wars". At first I derided him endlessly- probably for a full week. I called him petty, childish names.
Now I kind of agree. O_o
PS I liked Chronicles - it was a pretty good action flick - but it was pretty disappointing after Pitch Black.
I am not fickle about such things. To me, science fiction is a fictional story involving speculative science. Aliens, too.
I sort of feel the opposite. I really enjoyed Pitch Black as an action movie. I also liked that they didn't feel the need to thoroughly investigate the anatomy of the creatures or the long (and I'm sure chilling) history of the planet. It struck me as an awesome, hard-to-forget movie with great visuals and a memorable ending.
I found Chronicles pretty epic, though, which is a huge success for a movie with Vin Diesel in the lead. It was the first movie involving these elements that I genuinely liked and would rewatch and would purchase in quite a while. I enjoyed it more than Star Trek or The Fifth Element or Serenity or Ultra Violet or any big hit scientific, fantastical movies of the last 10 years.
That was just cruel of you to imply that it'll take place in the Babylon 5 universe. :P
I'm all for *any* new sci-fi that doesn't suck.
Margaret Thatcher
The movies you're talking about are more properly described as fantasy. Except Star Trek, in most cases. This isn't about "nuances of the genre". If I were to change the light sabers to magic swords, starships to noble steeds and the Jedi Order to equally noble... uh, Knights, Star Wars would remain essentially unchanged. You can't do the same thing with (say) 2001, or even Starship Troopers. So, "scientific" - no, "fantastical" - yes.
Also, epic isn't a word I would use to describe Chronicles. The only epic thing about it was Diesel's throbbing manhood. I called it an action flick because it contains nothing but action. Pitch Black, still mainly concerned with action, made you sympathize with and care about it's characters. One of the really bad moves in Chronicles was the Lara Crofting of Jackie/Kyra. They took a wonderful, human character and turned her into a silly, nerdy male fantasy.
And widowson - Jesus Christ - at least snip the fucking pictures.
That said, I really like Vin Diesel, because he seems like he's having fun with his goofy roles, not taking them seriously. Pitch Black showed me he could play an interesting character and do it well.
roman: I guess I see the distinction, but to me it only really becomes relevant when those themes and plot devices are actually significant. Like maybe the satire in Starship Troopers or the perpetuity of mother nature in There Will Come Soft Rains. Thanks for the lesson, though. About the human element: I didn't mean epic in the sense that we are completely engrossed in the lives of the characters. I was thinking quite the opposite- the 2 hour movie paid hardly any attention to character motives (funnily enough, it seems like the most characterization is done w.r.t. to Dame Vaako) and gave undertones of this large, impressive world with this foreboding, interesting empire- but it didn't self-indulgently world build (a reason I don't enjoy Tolkien).
I mean, except for it being a rip-off of an uncountable number of straight-to-video rip-offs of Aliens, with one-dimensional characters and a cliche depthless antihero.
But, as a brain candy action movie two degrees of separation away from any actual creative work, it was decent. An enjoyable way to waste a slightly drunk evening.
The best part of the movie, though, was when
that alone was worth the price of admission.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So better than the Aliens, the Terminators, Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys, Dark City, Serenity, Matrix, and Children of Men?
Shit man I need to go rent this.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Be aware that I have shockingly bad taste in movies. Or rather, it is super super super difficult for me to "not like" a movie. I am a very easy critic. There are very few movies I can't sit through. I am not a scathing critic; I enjoy most everything. I do have gradients of liking stuff, though. I know what I think is not bad and what is really good. Sometimes.
Though the mention of Terminator has me second guessing myself. I think T2 is up there.
I guess I understand what you're saying about it seeming epic but it didn't feel epic, you know?
Yes, there's a big planet and an interplanetary death-cult of evil, and cosmic forces. But it doesn't feel like there was any thought given to the world beyond how the CGI will look, and most of the creative energy with the bad guys went towards designing some ridiculous armor. It's almost like someone saw Lord of the Rings, felt it was awesome and then tried to replicate it, completely misunderstanding the reasons behind it's success.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Basically what I would have said if I was capable of wit or brevity. (Dark City was fucking awesome)
Organ, don't be so hard on yourself. You're just like most people. You filthy, unwashed pleb.
And Feral, is the* Depp in your avatar? Because I'm becoming quite aroused.
*Was supposed to be "that", but I decided to leave it.
Fair enough. Maybe it was the aesthetics or just my nostalgia tinging me about Pitch Black but my mind sort of filled in the blanks. I can certainly see how it wouldn't viscerally 'satisfy' some, though.
Kyle MacLachlan. Twin Peaks.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Empires are built because of laymen like me. I am the ubersheep.
Untersheep, you mean.
And, yes I can see it's not the Depp upon closer inspection.
I really should watch Twin Peaks sometime. Couldn't find it anywhere last time I looked.
The first print of Season One on DVD lacked the Pilot episode (which was ten different kinds of WTF, because it's a two-hour pilot that sets up the story and characters) and had a very limited print run in the US.
The good news, and partially what inspired my av (along with some banter jacobkosh and I got into in the Reaper thread), is that a new boxed set is being released next week with both seasons and the pilot.
It's worth watching the first season, the first few episodes of the second season, and the film. The second season kind of went to shit after episode four or so (basically, after they solve the murder mystery that drives the first half of the show) and then picks up again later on, but it never quite recaptures the early quality.
That said, it is David Lynch, and it was a soap opera filmed in the late 1980s, so expect a certain amount of cheesiness. There's a little bit of dumb dialogue in each episode and one character (Nadine) who is absolutely mind-meltingly irritating every time she's on-screen, but luckily she's pretty scarce during the first season.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have been greatly shamed today on many points.
Hmm, I wonder if it'll reach Israel (my guess: not for a long, long while). But until then, there are always other means.
That's right bitch, take it. TAKE IT!
I think Riddick from PB was much better than a cliche depthless antihero, in that he was not the gruff, brooding man with the heart of gold, he was just an asshole who only saw value in the ability to survive. The antihero gets a bad rap because of fiction that focuses on false antiheroes - ie, standard heroes who are just "dark" or "troubled." An effective antihero is a protagonist who is not particularly virtuous, and that quality may or may not change over the course of the story.
More than that, they made him seem dangerous, not in the ridiculous "I can kill you with a coffee mug" way they did in Chronicles, but in a more believable fashion. They made him seem to have some animal cunning mixed with human ingenuity, and that was what made him dangerous - not superhuman skill or strength or reflexes.
In part that's why Chronicles was so disappointing.
Lord knows this is true.
edit: sorry levin. Just sharing my distaste for the lateness of stuff to Israel.
*cough*teacup*cough*
Also, the scene you spoilered? Totally awesome.
Yes, that's basically what i loved about the character of Riddick. He's not, as you say, a nice guy with a dark past or who snaps at kids (but secretly wants his own), or is having trouble with his wife. He's a bastard. It's that character that makes me think that he can actually lend himself well to the right role, and not just be a set of biceps in front of a camera.
I think the problem is that people are seeing Riddick in CoR as the same person he was in PB, but that isn't really true. It's fairly evident that the events from PB changed him as a person in regards to how he views his fellow man (or furian or whatever). In PB he only cares about himself and getting off of the planet, and he could care less about anyone else. But when someone loses their life for him at the end of the movie, he obviously gains some sort of compassion for human life, which is why he becomes the more "troubled, but with a good heart" kind of guy he is in CoR. I don't know, that's just my take on it.
Also, people are arguing whether or not it was true Sci-Fi or not, and the answer is that it obviously isn't - it's Fantasy with a Sci-Fi backdrop. And to be honest, I couldn't be happier. I loved the mystical nature of the different races in the film, and how the power of the furians and necromongers and the other people were never really explained in any reasonable way. I hate it when science fiction tries to keep everything sterile and always-with-a-rational-explanation. CoR brought back the fun fantasy elements that science fiction has been desperately lacking lately, and I for one thought it was really great.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
No no
Nononono
This is exactly what we have an overabundance of
It's okay to do a fantastical movie in a futuristic or technological setting
But I have not seen a good, smart, rational sci fi movie that didn't pile on the mystic bullshit in a long time.
I agree. While i obviously don't know more about this film than has been posted, from the story it's based on and the director, i actually wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be a good, rational sci-fi film.
Vin Diesel seems to be one of those guys who gets flak by default, note that the thread starter stated "Yes, it's Vin Diesel, but keep reading." as though because it was a Vin Diesel movie people would immediately be turned off. But you know what, I like Vin Diesel. I think he is a good actor, and is in interesting movies. He is also making a movie about Hannibal (the Carthaginian General, not the cannibal). I eagerly await this movie, because Hannibal is my favorite general, and I think Vin Diesel could pull it off if done properly.
yeah, i put that because i'm well aware that a lot of people would see his name and go somewhere else, and to be fair, he has made a fair few terrible films. There are, also, some very good films, and that's where i'm optimistic for this.
Yeah, he seems to get a lot of flak. Personally, I've enjoyed most roles I've seen him play, and adored Pitch Black. This Babylon thing seems promising, and I'll check on that Hannibal.
I suppose the flak might be due to people looking at him, and thinking 'another musclebound moron', and expect Van Damme or some such.
Has anyone seen Find Me Guilty? Hilarious; I love Diesel.
Just because some things are not explained in detail doesnt mean its not science fiction!
Also, the difference between fantasy and sci-fi cant be defined so much, they're really the same genre.
Vin Diesel should just realize he's typecast already, hes a sci-fi guy. I mean, cmon, he plays DnD.