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Reviews Written By: AQUVTQFFXP4AC

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	Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection [Blu-ray]
	"Perfect picture quality and package continuity"	2009-09-27
Really what more can be said? You know what you're getting in terms of the movies, with what is generally regarded as one great movie, two trash, and one average. But that all is rather a matter of mere opinion to some. Regardless, this Blu Ray quality is PERFECT. Being as the movies are far more recent than the ones in the original picture collection, that's to be expected, but even Generations, only three years removed from "The Undiscovered Country", is perfect. The opening scene to First Contact, showing Picard in a Borg ship and zooming out, was mindblowing in its picure quality and perfection. Aside from the movies, you get a buttload of extras as usual. Each disc has special bonus features, including previously released content, and a bonus disc is about 77 minutes documentary. Another highly impressive thing is the fact that the package is highly similar to the original picture packaging. It's exactly the same design cardboard and plastic cases, even the same spine film-listing, and the same front promo (The original said "Includes 6 motion pictures featuring Kirk and Spock", this one says "Includes 4 motion pictures featuring Captain Picard") Kind of mean to disclude Commander Riker, but he gets to marry Deanna Troi while Spock gets to spend 20 years among his mortal enemies trying to be a peacemaker, so screw him. Anyway, this will perfectly fit in with the original motion picture blu ray collection.
	Star Trek V - The Final Frontier (Special Edition)
	"It wasn't HORRIBLE"	2009-09-21
In my quest to view all the Star Trek movies, I had the somewhat misfortune of seeing them in this order: First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis, The Voyage Home, Star Trek (2009), The Voyage Home (in full this time), Wrath of Khan So then I restarted again with the first to last. What was so horrible about "The Final Frontier"? Standing on its own, I thought it was a pleasant enough movie, but it suffered from a severe lack of real drama. It seemed like there was no real immediate danger for some of the film, and then Sybock comes and starts using some sort of mystic powers to "brainwash" people to his cause, including members of the Enterprise crew. Probably the only high point of the film involved him showing the greatest fears to Spock and McCoy, and in particular, the one involving Spock was disgustingly brutal, and treated properly as such. But where was the rest of this movie? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resist Sybock's manipulation, but go along with him to the center of the galaxy (what?) to some barrier where supposedly the center of all the major species' religions lie (I'm not naming the garbled fake names of the others, but the humans call it Eden) to find GOD HIMSELF! Right away this flies in the face of about 1/3 of the Star Trek episodes in SEASON ONE ALONE of the Original Series. How many times have the crew of the Enterprise encountered some godlike creature that could easily be considered any God, or even THE God worshipped by the Christians, Jews, Muslims, only to discover it's just a hyper-advanced alien creature of some sort or another? I can name so many of them, Trelane, the things whose names I forgot that brought Kirk and the Gorn captain to fight, Charlie Evans and his overseers, the beings from that planet that Kirk and Spock were stranded on when the Klingons occupied it, the Archons, the Gatekeeper, etcetera. And so just because it's this time around, they think it really could be God? To be fair, it would seem that Kirk and Spock and McCoy are probably fully aware of the fact that there is a 99% chance it's NOT God, which is only confirmed by the being's not only failure to answer, but even necessitating the question be asked repeatedly by Kirk "What does God need with a spaceship?" But in the end, there's no big conflict, no big stand-off or showdown or great philosophical debate of profound proportions, Sybock is vindicated of being a villain, and is immediately removed from the picture as no longer essential to the film's momentum. And then that's it. Every instance that there may be a conflict, either physically or verbally, either turns out to be a red herring or a SHOCKING SWERVE! revealing it to be something less than it could have been. And that's really what this movie is. Less than it could have been. But that's not the fault of the actors or the director or anyone---it's a fault of the script. The movie's overall plot is one that could and should be a 50 minute rapid-paced single episode rather than a feature length movie.
	Star Trek V - The Final Frontier
	"It wasn't HORRIBLE"	2009-09-21
In my quest to view all the Star Trek movies, I had the somewhat misfortune of seeing them in this order: First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis, The Voyage Home, Star Trek (2009), The Voyage Home (in full this time), Wrath of Khan So then I restarted again with the first to last. What was so horrible about "The Final Frontier"? Standing on its own, I thought it was a pleasant enough movie, but it suffered from a severe lack of real drama. It seemed like there was no real immediate danger for some of the film, and then Sybock comes and starts using some sort of mystic powers to "brainwash" people to his cause, including members of the Enterprise crew. Probably the only high point of the film involved him showing the greatest fears to Spock and McCoy, and in particular, the one involving Spock was disgustingly brutal, and treated properly as such. But where was the rest of this movie? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resist Sybock's manipulation, but go along with him to the center of the galaxy (what?) to some barrier where supposedly the center of all the major species' religions lie (I'm not naming the garbled fake names of the others, but the humans call it Eden) to find GOD HIMSELF! Right away this flies in the face of about 1/3 of the Star Trek episodes in SEASON ONE ALONE of the Original Series. How many times have the crew of the Enterprise encountered some godlike creature that could easily be considered any God, or even THE God worshipped by the Christians, Jews, Muslims, only to discover it's just a hyper-advanced alien creature of some sort or another? I can name so many of them, Trelane, the things whose names I forgot that brought Kirk and the Gorn captain to fight, Charlie Evans and his overseers, the beings from that planet that Kirk and Spock were stranded on when the Klingons occupied it, the Archons, the Gatekeeper, etcetera. And so just because it's this time around, they think it really could be God? To be fair, it would seem that Kirk and Spock and McCoy are probably fully aware of the fact that there is a 99% chance it's NOT God, which is only confirmed by the being's not only failure to answer, but even necessitating the question be asked repeatedly by Kirk "What does God need with a spaceship?" But in the end, there's no big conflict, no big stand-off or showdown or great philosophical debate of profound proportions, Sybock is vindicated of being a villain, and is immediately removed from the picture as no longer essential to the film's momentum. And then that's it. Every instance that there may be a conflict, either physically or verbally, either turns out to be a red herring or a SHOCKING SWERVE! revealing it to be something less than it could have been. And that's really what this movie is. Less than it could have been. But that's not the fault of the actors or the director or anyone---it's a fault of the script. The movie's overall plot is one that could and should be a 50 minute rapid-paced single episode rather than a feature length movie.
	Star Trek V - The Final Frontier
	"It wasn't HORRIBLE"	2009-09-21
In my quest to view all the Star Trek movies, I had the somewhat misfortune of seeing them in this order: First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis, The Voyage Home, Star Trek (2009), The Voyage Home (in full this time), Wrath of Khan So then I restarted again with the first to last. What was so horrible about "The Final Frontier"? Standing on its own, I thought it was a pleasant enough movie, but it suffered from a severe lack of real drama. It seemed like there was no real immediate danger for some of the film, and then Sybock comes and starts using some sort of mystic powers to "brainwash" people to his cause, including members of the Enterprise crew. Probably the only high point of the film involved him showing the greatest fears to Spock and McCoy, and in particular, the one involving Spock was disgustingly brutal, and treated properly as such. But where was the rest of this movie? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resist Sybock's manipulation, but go along with him to the center of the galaxy (what?) to some barrier where supposedly the center of all the major species' religions lie (I'm not naming the garbled fake names of the others, but the humans call it Eden) to find GOD HIMSELF! Right away this flies in the face of about 1/3 of the Star Trek episodes in SEASON ONE ALONE of the Original Series. How many times have the crew of the Enterprise encountered some godlike creature that could easily be considered any God, or even THE God worshipped by the Christians, Jews, Muslims, only to discover it's just a hyper-advanced alien creature of some sort or another? I can name so many of them, Trelane, the things whose names I forgot that brought Kirk and the Gorn captain to fight, Charlie Evans and his overseers, the beings from that planet that Kirk and Spock were stranded on when the Klingons occupied it, the Archons, the Gatekeeper, etcetera. And so just because it's this time around, they think it really could be God? To be fair, it would seem that Kirk and Spock and McCoy are probably fully aware of the fact that there is a 99% chance it's NOT God, which is only confirmed by the being's not only failure to answer, but even necessitating the question be asked repeatedly by Kirk "What does God need with a spaceship?" But in the end, there's no big conflict, no big stand-off or showdown or great philosophical debate of profound proportions, Sybock is vindicated of being a villain, and is immediately removed from the picture as no longer essential to the film's momentum. And then that's it. Every instance that there may be a conflict, either physically or verbally, either turns out to be a red herring or a SHOCKING SWERVE! revealing it to be something less than it could have been. And that's really what this movie is. Less than it could have been. But that's not the fault of the actors or the director or anyone---it's a fault of the script. The movie's overall plot is one that could and should be a 50 minute rapid-paced single episode rather than a feature length movie.
	Sid Meier's Civilization IV
	"Addictively flawed"	2009-09-21
I'm a newcomer to the Civilization series, and likely to draw ire from fanboys of the fanbase. But while I started off hating Civilization for no real reason, I grew to love it and become addicted to Civilization IV. Then that addiction fell off quicker than eight months in rehab, and I came to realize just why that addiction ended so abruptly. This game is not really a "game", but more a pleasant little time-waster for two or three hours a week, then two or three hours a month, and so on. My first encounter with the Civilization series was Civilization III, which unfortunately I could not get over the fact that each turn ended passed some 500 years, in which the most primitive and basest of technologies, such as the wheel or fire, would take 10,000 years to acquire, and thus by 300 BC, where most civilizations in reality are conquering huge landmasses, conquering rudimentary plumbing, and developing philosophical and scientific theories that would dominate the cultural landscape for THOUSANDS of years to come, my Civ3 Civilization had just learned how to ride horses, and learn how to count, but not how to read. It also didn't help that my city spend some 3,000 years on fire. I suppose that fire was supposed to represent unrest, but considering it's a FIRE, and fire was a VERY HUGE DISASTER in ancient times, I thought it was both highly inaccurate and highly offensive. Civilization IV doesn't suffer as much from this, but unfortunately it does do this system whereby the natural evolution of civilizations is not at all organic and dependent upon the location, the people, the religion, the government, etcetera, but is all on a fixed line where your civilization advances at the same rate as everyone else. You can be guaranteed to research certain technologies around the exact same time period each game---gunpowder circa 1300s - 1700s AD, that sort of thing. There is absolutely no chance of a sudden sharp advancement in civilization---unless you waste valuable resources building a certain monument FIRST that grants you certain privilages, you can expect to not be able to experience such things as Democracy in an ancient Athens, or free speech in a Medieval kingdom. You have to have certain ideals happen in certain times, and there is no way and no chance of defying the rigid construct and having a revolution occur in your civilization that defies all others (such as a Democracy in Athens, or a Republic in Rome or Carthage). As such, it would be impossible to recreate such civilizations as the Roman Republic (because Rome can't be a Republic in this game until some time in AD, well AFTER the Republic was long dead and gone). You can't have Alexander the Great spreading religious tolerance in the 300s BC. You can't defy the median civilization setup, you have to have your civilization develop on a straight and narrow line. Because of this, not only is there no chance for innovation, but almost all the other civilizations on the map will you will advance at the same rate and advance with the same technologies. This means that there is no chance for an encounter such as that of the Imperial Spanish/French/English with the "New World" Native Americans---in this game, they would be just as heavily armored and gunpowdered as the Europeans, though maybe without the compass invention. Another problem is the diplomacy. To put it simply, there is none. This is in no way advanced enough to come close to reality during these times, save for maybe the most ancient pre-historical examples. I've played half a dozen games, and the diplomacy in ALL of them has consisted of this: New Leader meets me, offers alliance. I choose alliance. Ten turns later, they offer Open Borders. Fifty turns later, they offer a heavily unbalanced trade that I reject. Five turns later, they demand I cease trade with another civilization. I do so. That civilization comes back and re-offers trade. First civilization seems to completely ignore this fact. One civilization randomly threatens me with war for no reason. I tell them the equivalent of "bring it on", they never do. There is no advanced diplomacy here. There is no intelligent AI. All other civilizations ever do is offer peace, then trade, then try to get you to give them your researched technology for inferior ones that take less time or you already have being researched and completed in one turn, or just plain don't want (like Communism). They sometimes threaten hostile actions against you for no reason, and proceed to never follow up. They sometimes threaten you to give them a technology or else, and that "or else" turns out to be nothing, then they have the OBNOXIOUS AUDACITY to come back to me a turn or so later, demanding THE EXACT SAME TECHNOLOGY, but this time with a cock and bull story of how their civilization is suffering and they need charity. No civilization ever goes to war with me unless I declare first. No civilization ever asks me to mediate disputes. No civilization ever asks for trades that are not routine "One corn for One rice, yes?" or "Nationalism for Gunpowder and 100 gold, yes?". No civilization ever asks for military assistance or cultural exchange. Even the diplomacy in Rome Total War is better than this! At least the RTW factions randomly declare war on you for some reason of necessity or greed. The map interface itself is quite simple in itself, but the larger your civilization gets, the more cluttered it becomes. Towns and farms and mines and windmills and roads all take up individual spaces, making for a highly inaccurate display where cities are evenly distributed, and not resemblence of reality, where larger congregations of people would flock to seaside areas rather than in the middle of a desert. This is also a horrifying ordeal to handle in times of war, when some random pack of enemy jerkwads come and start destroying minor towns and farms and the like. You move your city garrison out to attack them, only to have ANOTHER pack of enemy jerkwads have the OBNOXIOUS AUDACITY to fly RIGHT PAST YOUR UNITS and completely destroy a city two or three squares away from you! The worst aspect is the military. I am a military historian and I love games like Rome Total War and Medieval II Total War. There is no military aspect in this game. It's all literally an arms race for getting the best unit first for a slight advantage against the randomness of a dice roll decision. It's frequently common to see ONE enemy warrior successfully defeat THREE of your enemy warriors. The animation only proceeds to enrage you, as ONE BY ONE your warriors stand up in front of the enemy, only to be beaten aside by their club or sword, without ever swinging first themselves. There is no concept of realism in military conflicts, as I've once had a pair of enemy swordsmen DEFEAT a fresh new pack of WAR ELEPHANTS. I've had chariot riders be killed flawlessly by enemy crossbowmen. I've had MONGOL HORSE LANCERS defeat TWO UNITS OF MACHINE GUN INFANTRY. And not the WW1 style machine gunners, but the type who hold a machine gun in one hand, AND A ROCKET LAUNCHER IN THE OTHER HAND! How is that supposed to be a part of a grand and pleasant game experience when your space-age civilization has half its army destroyed by MEDIEVAL HORSE LANCERS? Just because they outnumber you? One of the worst parts involves destruction of cities. All it takes is ONE enemy unit of ANY KIND to wander into your city with no defending units, AND THEY COMPLETELY DESTROY THE CITY! BURN THE RUBBLE, CLEAR THE ASHES, SALT THE LAND, EVERYTHING GONE! So I lost my capital because I sent the units away to attack a pack of RANDOM BARBARIAN ARCHERS only to have those archers SOMEHOW slip past my units from another square, enter my capital, AND COMPLETELY DESTROY IT! Repetitive, singular, with virtually no replayability. Make sure never to go to war, because it will always be a disgustingly short, plodding, ridiculous affair where 50% of gameplay is hitting "End Turn" and waiting. Update: The expansion packs COMPLETELY change much of the AI and "randomness" experience for the better. It's an immensely more playable game with them.
	Common Sense (Dover Thrift Editions)
	"It took a lot of brains, and a lot of metaphorical body parts representing courage to publish this"	2009-09-20
This book is a classic for a reason; the man behind it is virulent in his message, and yet keeps it focused and steady on his purpose. "Common Sense" tells what Americans these days truly do consider to be common sense, but in the times of Imperialism and vulgar displays of power, would have been outrageous. The sheer language and brute honesty Thomas Paine uses I think takes a load of courage and stubborn defiance to put to word, as it not only targets and properly bashes England, but takes several justified shots at virtually every great nation and civilization in Human history. He tells a story from the Bible of Gideon, who the people of Israel beg for him to be their king, and he refuses, for he (and Thomas Paine) consider that any king that is not God is a fraud and a blasphemer, for there can be no king but God. This is the message Paine brutally and viciously puts to task in the next several pages, where he tells of how a monarchy is inherently corrupt, and subject to the whims and brutality of the king. He gives some startling, if uncited, examples of how the KINGDOMS of France and England and Spain had been in almost non-stop war back and forth with one another, and yet other European Republics have enjoyed decades of peace. Paine clearly attempts to associate that monarchies lead to a state of near total war, as the King wants what the King wants, and the King uses the people and their lives and money to get it. Paine even targets the Papacy for this practice. He then goes about establishing what is ideal about a representative system of government which we would end up adopting for our nation today, and how best it would be to endow our nation with power that never broaches the level of kingdom. Even after 200+ years of change in language, the literature of the book/pamphlet is nowhere near the dense and flowery literature of a Shakespeare or the like, and his metaphors are vivid and relatable. He speaks with a common tongue that can be understood by virtually anyone in his time, and by many people in this time, though unfortunately I cannot imagine certain people of lesser intelligence being able to grasp it all without help. The only real problem I have may be a problem of the edition published (Big Fish Publishing Inc January 27, 2006) or perhaps it was how it was originally written, for wont of italics, but a great many instances in Paine's text contains words that are fully capitalized. In most cases, this makes sense as the words capitalized are intended to be strongly emphasized. However, in some cases, it's either excessive (as in capitalizing every line of dialogue he paraphrases from the Bible), or just plain incoherent that it turns out sounding like he SCREAMS certain words at random that have no real need or business being particularly emphasized. It seems obvious enough to us now, but the ideas put forth by Thomas Paine in this book are truly revolutionary, and to do so in a climate where open war has pretty much begun, published first in January 1776.
	Common Sense
	"It took a lot of brains, and a lot of metaphorical body parts representing courage to publish this"	2009-09-20
This book is a classic for a reason; the man behind it is virulent in his message, and yet keeps it focused and steady on his purpose. "Common Sense" tells what Americans these days truly do consider to be common sense, but in the times of Imperialism and vulgar displays of power, would have been outrageous. The sheer language and brute honesty Thomas Paine uses I think takes a load of courage and stubborn defiance to put to word, as it not only targets and properly bashes England, but takes several justified shots at virtually every great nation and civilization in Human history. He tells a story from the Bible of Gideon, who the people of Israel beg for him to be their king, and he refuses, for he (and Thomas Paine) consider that any king that is not God is a fraud and a blasphemer, for there can be no king but God. This is the message Paine brutally and viciously puts to task in the next several pages, where he tells of how a monarchy is inherently corrupt, and subject to the whims and brutality of the king. He gives some startling, if uncited, examples of how the KINGDOMS of France and England and Spain had been in almost non-stop war back and forth with one another, and yet other European Republics have enjoyed decades of peace. Paine clearly attempts to associate that monarchies lead to a state of near total war, as the King wants what the King wants, and the King uses the people and their lives and money to get it. Paine even targets the Papacy for this practice. He then goes about establishing what is ideal about a representative system of government which we would end up adopting for our nation today, and how best it would be to endow our nation with power that never broaches the level of kingdom. Even after 200+ years of change in language, the literature of the book/pamphlet is nowhere near the dense and flowery literature of a Shakespeare or the like, and his metaphors are vivid and relatable. He speaks with a common tongue that can be understood by virtually anyone in his time, and by many people in this time, though unfortunately I cannot imagine certain people of lesser intelligence being able to grasp it all without help. The only real problem I have may be a problem of the edition published (Big Fish Publishing Inc January 27, 2006) or perhaps it was how it was originally written, for wont of italics, but a great many instances in Paine's text contains words that are fully capitalized. In most cases, this makes sense as the words capitalized are intended to be strongly emphasized. However, in some cases, it's either excessive (as in capitalizing every line of dialogue he paraphrases from the Bible), or just plain incoherent that it turns out sounding like he SCREAMS certain words at random that have no real need or business being particularly emphasized. It seems obvious enough to us now, but the ideas put forth by Thomas Paine in this book are truly revolutionary, and to do so in a climate where open war has pretty much begun, published first in January 1776.
	Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 1 [Blu-ray]
	"A perfect Blu Ray release"	2009-09-16
Everything that is advertised in the adverts for this set (featuring prominently in the Blu Ray Star Trek Movie collection) is absolutely true. Painstaking effort was put into the digital mastering and restoration of the series, as evidenced in one of the documentaries on the first or second disc, which actually shows what I've never seen before: exactly HOW footage is "digitally mastered" or restored. They show them doing such disgustingly brutal and time-consuming things such as rubbing out and scrubbing scratches, dirt, dust, and other imperfections from film footage. They also show how all the music was re-recorded EXACTLY as it had been in the original show. For a low-budget TV series in the 1960s, the picture quality is stunning. It never falls below DVD quality, though true Blu Ray perfection is elusive, as many shots suffer from some minor scratching that escaped notice, or blurry or scratchy bits that could not be fine-tuned any further. There are still hundreds of shots and moments that are in perfect Blu Ray detail, and perfect colors and contrast. You can see perfectly now that, keeping true to his green blood, Spock's skin almost always has a greenish tint. One of the great things about it that always appeases people like me is that you can choose BOTH the original episode or the Remastered versions, separated only by the option once starting an episode, or switching with the previously completely useless "Angle" button. The show itself utterly astounds and blows me away by just how mature and ahead of its time it is in storytelling and morality. Almost no episode has a clear cut "black and white" context, and there are very infrequently any real villains who are evil simply because script demands it to be so. Some of the highlight episodes include "Where No Man has Gone Before", the second pilot episode, which features Gary Lockwood (Frank Poole in "2001: A Space Odyssey") playing Gary Mitchell, a navigator on the Enterprise who suddenly gains godlike powers and silver-covered eyes after the ship attempts to blow through an Electromagnetic barrier at the edge of the galaxy. Rather than explaining anything, it's a complete mystery just what has happened to Gary. We are told and explained how it involves ESP and his psychic response to it, but we never KNOW if his mind was permanently changed, or if an energy creature took control of his mind, or if he was genuinely becoming corrupted. There are scenes where he is struck with extreme energy, causing his silver eyes to disappear, and he looks to Kirk with his normal eyes and calls out weakly "Jim...", only a moment later to have his silver eyes return, and his attitude returning to the haughty "A God am I" sort, leaving Captain Kirk AND us wondering whether Gary could truly be saved, or if it was a trick. A great many episodes follow this format of morality, and conflicts between what is right and what is logical, and even between two different versions of right. One of the most jarring and mind-blowing episodes for me involved the Enterprise attempting to establish diplomatic relations with a peaceful planet, only to discover they've been at war with their neighboring planet for 500 years... and have fought the war entirely on computer (like video games), and when people die in the computer, they report to suicide booths in real life, in order for the war to progress. No one likes it, but they accept it, because if they do not, they break a treaty, and invite REAL war that could destroy both planets. And then the episode with Khan, "Space Seed". What I found truly wonderful about the end is how Kirk understands that Khan is not truly evil; he is simply himself. He knows nothing else but to dominate others, and lead them. So rather than imprison Khan for the chaos he caused on the ship, he 'exiles' him and his crew to Ceti Alpha V to form his own little Kingdom, and test his strength and intelligence in surviving the harsh conditions of that world. Khan joyfully accepts the challenge, though "Wrath of Khan" shows us just what became of that 'exile'. All the discs except one have bonus documentaries on them, with the only questionable one I think being an ego-service one focused entirely on William Shatner, who spends the entire documentary talking about his love of horses and horseriding. The only flaw with the set involves the sound. The sound quality is superb, but the sound effects and music are INSANELY loud compared to the softness of the dialogue. It is a serious unbalance between the two that causes a constant need to be at the helm of the remote control's volume level. Aside from that, the set is huge with the episodes, original version or remastered version, extra features, select episode commentaries, and documentaries on a wide variety of subjects, including interviews with Gary Lockwood, Ricardo Montalban, the entire original cast, and Billy Blackburn, who not only was an extra in many episodes, but provides home video footage from the set of some episodes.
	Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection (The Motion Picture / The Wrath of Kahn / The Search for Spock / The Voyage Home / The Final Frontier / The Undiscovered Country) [Blu-ray]
	"Big wads of extra features and Blu Ray movies"	2009-09-14
For the asking price on Amazon, nearly half the original price, this is a huge deal for the sorts of things normally accumulated in Blu Ray collections. Without reviewing the individual movies (You can see me do that in the DVD versions. Except "The Motion Picture", because quite frankly, the Director's Cut by all accounts was a huge difference and improvement), I'll just say that despite Wrath of Khan being claimed to be the only TRULY digitally remastered and true Blu Ray quality, it actually looks among the worst of them all. Though that's not saying it looks like trash---it looks incredible, of course. But compared to the others, "Wrath of Khan" has the most visual dirt and detractments. Some of the others, though, look as though they were remastered from the DVD versions, in that they seem to feel artificially boosted in picture quality. I think that's only my own opinion, based entirely upon two scenes from "Search for Spock" and a few from "The Final Frontier", but for the most part, they are all incredible. And despite what another reviewer says, "The Voyage Home" does not look overly muted in color; it's the same as all the others. All the discs start with the same trailers for Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Season 1 on Blu Ray. Despite what people say, these were totally skippable for me, just by pressing "Next". I'm on a Sony Blu Ray player, so this may just be something only I am able to do. The sound quality is mostly great, but I've found for the majority of the films, there's the problem of what I saw prominently in the Star Wars Trilogy DVD release in 2004---the dialogue switches back and forth at times from sounding Stereo to Mono. This might not affect most people, but due to my highly sensitive hearing, it's rather jarring to hear the traditional Mono track sound of Kirk saying something, then all of a sudden, his next lines are in Stereo, which sounds much closer, clearer, and digital. I can't really explain it further, but the most precise example of this I can recommend is from the original 2004 DVD of "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope"---in the scene where Luke is training with Obi-Wan on the Millenium Falcon, and Han Solo walks in saying they don't have to worry about the Imperial cruisers anymore. That line is in Mono. Immediately afterwards, he says "Don't everybody thank me at once" which is in Stereo. Perhaps it's my own opinion after not being badly turned off from "The Final Frontier" but the only film which suffers the most is "The Motion Picture". Due to its not being the Director's Cut, the vast majority of the visual effects range from "Decent for it's time" to a complete catastrophe. While the gaseous cloud surrounding V'ger in the opening sequence looked real enough, when the Klingon Birds of Prey flew over them, it completely ruined the effect, due to the ships having VERY THICK black outlines, and scratchiness across the darker portions of it. The worst, though, would have to be the scene Scotty and Kirk going aboard the Enterprise on a shuttle, and giving us a shot of them from the outside. Their images look like the front of the shuttle has an old TV on it, broadcasting an image of the two of them, and it looks extremely jarring against the rest of the shot. As well, the same problems plagueing the Season 1 Blu Rays plague much of the movies---the music and sound effects are loud as hell, and the dialogue is very quiet in comparison. This reaches its worst peak in "The Final Frontier". Special features abound, including most of those from the 2-disc DVD releases. Although I'm not sure it would worth replacing the DVDs for an ULTIMATE collector, as I think there may be features discluded from the release, particularly things regarding the "The Motion Picture" Director's Cut.
	2001: A Space Odyssey
	"The "tell" to Stanley Kubrick's "show (don't tell)""	2009-09-04
The edition I review is the 25th Anniversary printing, which begins with a lively and highly informative introduction by Arthur C. Clarke, providing rich information on the background of the story, and stories of he and Stanley Kubrick collaborating to create the story, Stanley cooking him a steak dinner, Stanley's playfully condescending comment that Clarke's idea that the aliens somehow hated and looked down upon organic creatures to be "cute", and Stanley going to see a movie based on Clarke's recommendation, then calling Clarke afterwards to tell him he'd never watch a movie Clarke recommended again. It also provides very interesting insight into the writing process, and various decisions behind the differences between the book and the movie, and why they were made. For example, the novel sets the Discovery mission as headed for Saturn, whereas Stanley moved it to Jupiter because the artists on the film could not re-create a convincing enough Saturn for him to put on screen. The book itself, meanwhile, is a brilliantly written, descriptive, and captivating affair. The story is essentially the exposition and wordy explanation to what was shown to us by Kubrick's film, and the book manages to not suffer as a result of its "obligation" to be the "tell" to Kubrick's "show". Descriptions of Bowman and Poole's daily routine aboard the Discovery is jarring in its steadfast routine, and the fact that the men live like sentries, one man awake for much of the day, while the other sleeps, both meeting for an hour or so, then the first man sleeping while the other awakes. There is no morning save for what consists of the morning for each individual. HAL's dialogue is just as succint and beautifully cold as in the film, and even his dialogue with Dave after Poole's death feels exactly like the sort of things HAL9000 would have said in the film, without feeling like either a superior or inferior representation of the computer character. I only have a handful of minor complaints on the book. The most important, for me, is that much of the events are written as though in a heavily "wink wink, nudge nudge" future tense sort of thing, which is even more pervasive in the "Dawn of Man" chapters. For example, almost every action occurring after the Apes encounter the Monolith, Clarke embellishes their actions with something like "This is something that would never be seen for a million years" or "The first instance of this in all of human history" as though we should know all this already, and he cannot stop insisting upon the scale, chronologically and evolutionary and in importance, to a degree that the sequence does not feel as though you are there with the Apes, living in their world, but that you are in present or future times, watching the Apes from a distance. Thankfully after that, very few things occur in that manner beyond the scale of space objects and phenomena which gains an obligatory "But they would never realize what would happen next" sort of thing. Another thing isn't really a problem, but felt more like a buzzkill for me, having been so accustomed to the movie. After Dave disconnects HAL (in which his "dying" words are far more incoherent than in the movie), he re-establishes contact with Earth, and rather than a pre-recorded message, Heywood Floyd himself informs Bowman of what was essentially revealed in the pre-recorded message of the movie. I disliked this sequence because despite the book being the "tell" portion, it did far too much "telling" at the total expense of showing things itself. It was far too expository, and it felt unrealistic in how Dave Bowman could accept these facts without even a hint of disappointment that he was left out of it. It also felt like a bit of spoilage for the final leg of the journey---I had thought it would play far more greatly if Dave Bowman were really truly alone after disconnecting HAL. And in fact, the novel does go and tell us and show us just how truly alone Dave feels after HAL's death. And yet his ability to remain in contact with Earth spoils that for me. The final journey ("Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" for the movie) is almost a completely different one from the movie, and yet no less mindblowing or shockingly terrifying. It is far more scientific than the movie, involving descriptions of what is explained to be "like an intergalactic Grand Central Station", and approaching a Double-Star system (which provided for me in a bit of Fridge Logic the realization that this was probably the aliens' inspiration for making Jupiter into a star in "2010"---giving the Solar System two stars), what is described as an intergalactic parking lot full of alien ships that had been abandoned for millions of years, and a full explanation of the reasoning behind the "hotel room" and just how Dave Bowman ended up inside of it. The epic scale of this last, dialogue-free sequence is so much like the movie in its impact---it radically diverts from the film's atmosphere, the same way the Dawn of Man sequence did in both film and novel, and more than makes up for my own personal disappointment at how Dave's final leg of the journey played out, with him in constant contact with Earth. The entirety of the book retains an epic and dramatic feel, using its descriptive words and dialogue to convey what Kubrick could do with film. The Monoliths are also officially given their descriptive dimensions of 1x4x9 (and as stated later in the book which brought tears of awe into my eyes, "And how naïve to have imagined that the series ended at this point, in only three dimensions!")
	2010
	"Forced to be mediocre due to its legacy"	2009-09-02
As a movie on its own, "2010" is a great one. The sort of movie I would watch, greatly enjoy, forget about for a few months, then maybe buy if it were on sale and consider it a great movie I would watch once in a while and recommend to friends. As I said in my review for "2001", 2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic beyond the scope of any genre. Unfortunately, "2010" is a sequel to this, and is a part of its storyline. Because of this, "2010" is, and will always be, mediocre. I was really thoroughly crushed and gaping at the screen in an almost disgusted disbelief during the squicky, saccharine soap-opera like scenes of Roy Scheider playing with his son on the beach. All I could think during these "Quintessentially 80s" scenes was "This is 2010... This is 2001: A Space Odyssey's continuing story... This is the man who flew to the moon and actually touched the TMA-1 Monolith... playing at the beach with his son set to a then-contemporary 80s soundtrack" Starting with the bad, - This movie is too much in the realm of ACCEPTING its own mediocrity. It does not attempt to match 2001 in any way. It doesn't try at all for Kubrick's style of "Show, Don't Tell" or any sort of artistic approach. The main spaceship, the Soviet "Leonov" is a dark, claustrophobic mess reminiscent of any of the ship landscapes in the "Alien" movies or Imperial cargo holds in "Star Wars" with wires dangling everywhere and random computer machinery stuffing it. - While some of its CG attempts are admirable, they made some very clearly wrong choices, such as the scene with the Astronaut and Cosmonaut floating out in open space to reach the Discovery One---almost every shot of them against the black background is just a jarring jerk out of immersion, as you can very clearly see that the shadows and darkness on their space suits are amazingly bright compared to the pure blackness of the space behind them, and in some cases you can even see the green bleed-through of a Green Screen or something. 2001 didn't try as audacious space-walk attempts as this, but for the instances where it did have an astronaut in space, they were completely and totally THERE! It was perfectly seamless, perfect technology for a pre-CGI age. As well, Jupiter in this movie looks not only completely different from the one in 2001, but looks HORRIBLE. It looks cartoonish. It looks like it was drawn for a 1970s cartoon. - For my tastes, far too much time is spent on Earth where we clearly do not need to spend. An example is the overly long, laborious, and needlessly hostile conversation between the Russian ambassador and Dr. Floyd in the very beginning of the movie. The whole ocean-playing scenes as well seemed to me a total Red Herring, as it did nothing to establish Heywood Floyd's relationship with his son, and his relationship with his son played almost no role whatsoever in the movie. - As well, the movie begins with a prologue that in my view, only reinforces the feeling of mediocrity of the film. It gives us a largely pointless "recap" of what happened in "2001", using still photos from the film that play off less like a "tying-in" from one movie to another, and more like an amateur fan-site's "study guide" to the most basic and bare-bones events and plot of the movie. - Another HORRIBLE decision is to step back from Kubrick's genius decision of silence, and added SOUND IN SPAAAAAAAAACE! It's a huge detraction, not just comparing and considering "2001", but many of the sequences which are almost complete mirrors from 2001 (ex, a pod being released from Discovery One) or epic scenes like the end involving Jupiter. - Keir Dullea returns as David Bowman, but I was slightly disappointed in that his role felt largely useless. He DID have two vital points in the film for brief exposition, but for the most part, he was little more than a cameo. What only made this worse is how during his conversation with Heywood Floyd, he randomly switches appearances from his last-known self (Regular Dave), to his three Older Selves (as seen in the final sequence of 2001), to one brief shot of him as the Starchild in which he (and I am not joking) WINKS at Floyd. WINKS. And that's it. One whole shot of THE ONLY THING ON THE COVER OF THE DVD/BLU-RAY, and all it does is WINK. - Roy Scheider, to me, was a colossal disappointment as Heywood Floyd. Heywood Floyd was already established to me in "2001" as played by William Sylvester. Maybe he looked too old or he refused to sign on, or they didn't even bother, but Roy Scheider looks nothing like William Sylvester. Even worse, he doesn't even try to act like the Heywood Floyd established by William Sylvester. William Sylvester's Heywood Floyd was a calm, bemused sort of gentleman. Roy Scheider's Heywood Floyd is pretty much an [...]. An amiable asshole, but an [...]nonetheless. He's got a slippery, sly, jerkish demeanor to him all throughout, joking at inappropriate moments, attempting to dominate crew members that don't answer to him, that sort of thing. He's a completely different character going by the same name. - The soundtrack is largely 80s-style synthesizers, which rarely works in the scenes it is placed in. - It's attempts to try to explain all the things that had occurred in the previous movie, and their future implications, often ranges from unnecessary to downright pathetic---like someone who didn't get the first movie at all trying to explain it all realistically (though still very soft sci-fi), all throughout the entire sequel. - For the Blu-Ray release, they did not do a very good job with the transfer. I'd say it's better than a DVD transfer, but much of the special effects are still very fuzzy, soft, and scratchy, and a lot of times when faces are in view, the screen gets soft. While that sounds like a lot, it is SHOCKINGLY not enough to render this movie total garbage. The good: - The story is still highly compelling. Likely the work of Arthur C. Clarke's original book. - The relationship between Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) and Maxim Brajlovsky (Elya Baskin) was very quick and brisk in building up, and yet it still worked magnificently. - The scanning of Europa's surface (without spoiling) was a very tense, edge-of-your-seat type thing for a science fiction fan like me. - Douglas Rain as HAL9000 steals the show, as usual. The entire dilemma at the end of whether or not to tell HAL the truth is made all the more tense by HAL's unchangeable, unshaking monotone and childlike questioning. - HAL9000's final scene and end is a tear jerker in itself. I still get teary-eyed remembering his question to Dr. Chandra ("Will I dream?") - The end sequence involving Jupiter was fantastic, even for the special effects limitations, and the shots of scenes from Earth with two suns were realistic and gutwrenching. - The final scene on Europa, with its music choice... a pure bit of "2001"'s style of cinema. Amazing and spellbinding and epic. Whether you can accept it or not, "2010" is the sequel to "2001". Unfortunately, it is destined to mediocrity, and does not attempt to rise above that overall feeling throughout.
	2010: The Year We Make Contact
	"Forced to be mediocre due to its legacy"	2009-09-02
As a movie on its own, "2010" is a great one. The sort of movie I would watch, greatly enjoy, forget about for a few months, then maybe buy if it were on sale and consider it a great movie I would watch once in a while and recommend to friends. As I said in my review for "2001", 2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic beyond the scope of any genre. Unfortunately, "2010" is a sequel to this, and is a part of its storyline. Because of this, "2010" is, and will always be, mediocre. I was really thoroughly crushed and gaping at the screen in an almost disgusted disbelief during the squicky, saccharine soap-opera like scenes of Roy Scheider playing with his son on the beach. All I could think during these "Quintessentially 80s" scenes was "This is 2010... This is 2001: A Space Odyssey's continuing story... This is the man who flew to the moon and actually touched the TMA-1 Monolith... playing at the beach with his son set to a then-contemporary 80s soundtrack" Starting with the bad, - This movie is too much in the realm of ACCEPTING its own mediocrity. It does not attempt to match 2001 in any way. It doesn't try at all for Kubrick's style of "Show, Don't Tell" or any sort of artistic approach. The main spaceship, the Soviet "Leonov" is a dark, claustrophobic mess reminiscent of any of the ship landscapes in the "Alien" movies or Imperial cargo holds in "Star Wars" with wires dangling everywhere and random computer machinery stuffing it. - While some of its CG attempts are admirable, they made some very clearly wrong choices, such as the scene with the Astronaut and Cosmonaut floating out in open space to reach the Discovery One---almost every shot of them against the black background is just a jarring jerk out of immersion, as you can very clearly see that the shadows and darkness on their space suits are amazingly bright compared to the pure blackness of the space behind them, and in some cases you can even see the green bleed-through of a Green Screen or something. 2001 didn't try as audacious space-walk attempts as this, but for the instances where it did have an astronaut in space, they were completely and totally THERE! It was perfectly seamless, perfect technology for a pre-CGI age. As well, Jupiter in this movie looks not only completely different from the one in 2001, but looks HORRIBLE. It looks cartoonish. It looks like it was drawn for a 1970s cartoon. - For my tastes, far too much time is spent on Earth where we clearly do not need to spend. An example is the overly long, laborious, and needlessly hostile conversation between the Russian ambassador and Dr. Floyd in the very beginning of the movie. The whole ocean-playing scenes as well seemed to me a total Red Herring, as it did nothing to establish Heywood Floyd's relationship with his son, and his relationship with his son played almost no role whatsoever in the movie. - As well, the movie begins with a prologue that in my view, only reinforces the feeling of mediocrity of the film. It gives us a largely pointless "recap" of what happened in "2001", using still photos from the film that play off less like a "tying-in" from one movie to another, and more like an amateur fan-site's "study guide" to the most basic and bare-bones events and plot of the movie. - Another HORRIBLE decision is to step back from Kubrick's genius decision of silence, and added SOUND IN SPAAAAAAAAACE! It's a huge detraction, not just comparing and considering "2001", but many of the sequences which are almost complete mirrors from 2001 (ex, a pod being released from Discovery One) or epic scenes like the end involving Jupiter. - Keir Dullea returns as David Bowman, but I was slightly disappointed in that his role felt largely useless. He DID have two vital points in the film for brief exposition, but for the most part, he was little more than a cameo. What only made this worse is how during his conversation with Heywood Floyd, he randomly switches appearances from his last-known self (Regular Dave), to his three Older Selves (as seen in the final sequence of 2001), to one brief shot of him as the Starchild in which he (and I am not joking) WINKS at Floyd. WINKS. And that's it. One whole shot of THE ONLY THING ON THE COVER OF THE DVD/BLU-RAY, and all it does is WINK. - Roy Scheider, to me, was a colossal disappointment as Heywood Floyd. Heywood Floyd was already established to me in "2001" as played by William Sylvester. Maybe he looked too old or he refused to sign on, or they didn't even bother, but Roy Scheider looks nothing like William Sylvester. Even worse, he doesn't even try to act like the Heywood Floyd established by William Sylvester. William Sylvester's Heywood Floyd was a calm, bemused sort of gentleman. Roy Scheider's Heywood Floyd is pretty much an [...]. An amiable asshole, but an [...]nonetheless. He's got a slippery, sly, jerkish demeanor to him all throughout, joking at inappropriate moments, attempting to dominate crew members that don't answer to him, that sort of thing. He's a completely different character going by the same name. - The soundtrack is largely 80s-style synthesizers, which rarely works in the scenes it is placed in. - It's attempts to try to explain all the things that had occurred in the previous movie, and their future implications, often ranges from unnecessary to downright pathetic---like someone who didn't get the first movie at all trying to explain it all realistically (though still very soft sci-fi), all throughout the entire sequel. - For the Blu-Ray release, they did not do a very good job with the transfer. I'd say it's better than a DVD transfer, but much of the special effects are still very fuzzy, soft, and scratchy, and a lot of times when faces are in view, the screen gets soft. While that sounds like a lot, it is SHOCKINGLY not enough to render this movie total garbage. The good: - The story is still highly compelling. Likely the work of Arthur C. Clarke's original book. - The relationship between Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) and Maxim Brajlovsky (Elya Baskin) was very quick and brisk in building up, and yet it still worked magnificently. - The scanning of Europa's surface (without spoiling) was a very tense, edge-of-your-seat type thing for a science fiction fan like me. - Douglas Rain as HAL9000 steals the show, as usual. The entire dilemma at the end of whether or not to tell HAL the truth is made all the more tense by HAL's unchangeable, unshaking monotone and childlike questioning. - HAL9000's final scene and end is a tear jerker in itself. I still get teary-eyed remembering his question to Dr. Chandra ("Will I dream?") - The end sequence involving Jupiter was fantastic, even for the special effects limitations, and the shots of scenes from Earth with two suns were realistic and gutwrenching. - The final scene on Europa, with its music choice... a pure bit of "2001"'s style of cinema. Amazing and spellbinding and epic. Whether you can accept it or not, "2010" is the sequel to "2001". Unfortunately, it is destined to mediocrity, and does not attempt to rise above that overall feeling throughout.
	2010: The Year We Make Contact
	"Forced to be mediocre due to its legacy"	2009-09-02
As a movie on its own, "2010" is a great one. The sort of movie I would watch, greatly enjoy, forget about for a few months, then maybe buy if it were on sale and consider it a great movie I would watch once in a while and recommend to friends. As I said in my review for "2001", 2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic beyond the scope of any genre. Unfortunately, "2010" is a sequel to this, and is a part of its storyline. Because of this, "2010" is, and will always be, mediocre. I was really thoroughly crushed and gaping at the screen in an almost disgusted disbelief during the squicky, saccharine soap-opera like scenes of Roy Scheider playing with his son on the beach. All I could think during these "Quintessentially 80s" scenes was "This is 2010... This is 2001: A Space Odyssey's continuing story... This is the man who flew to the moon and actually touched the TMA-1 Monolith... playing at the beach with his son set to a then-contemporary 80s soundtrack" Starting with the bad, - This movie is too much in the realm of ACCEPTING its own mediocrity. It does not attempt to match 2001 in any way. It doesn't try at all for Kubrick's style of "Show, Don't Tell" or any sort of artistic approach. The main spaceship, the Soviet "Leonov" is a dark, claustrophobic mess reminiscent of any of the ship landscapes in the "Alien" movies or Imperial cargo holds in "Star Wars" with wires dangling everywhere and random computer machinery stuffing it. - While some of its CG attempts are admirable, they made some very clearly wrong choices, such as the scene with the Astronaut and Cosmonaut floating out in open space to reach the Discovery One---almost every shot of them against the black background is just a jarring jerk out of immersion, as you can very clearly see that the shadows and darkness on their space suits are amazingly bright compared to the pure blackness of the space behind them, and in some cases you can even see the green bleed-through of a Green Screen or something. 2001 didn't try as audacious space-walk attempts as this, but for the instances where it did have an astronaut in space, they were completely and totally THERE! It was perfectly seamless, perfect technology for a pre-CGI age. As well, Jupiter in this movie looks not only completely different from the one in 2001, but looks HORRIBLE. It looks cartoonish. It looks like it was drawn for a 1970s cartoon. - For my tastes, far too much time is spent on Earth where we clearly do not need to spend. An example is the overly long, laborious, and needlessly hostile conversation between the Russian ambassador and Dr. Floyd in the very beginning of the movie. The whole ocean-playing scenes as well seemed to me a total Red Herring, as it did nothing to establish Heywood Floyd's relationship with his son, and his relationship with his son played almost no role whatsoever in the movie. - As well, the movie begins with a prologue that in my view, only reinforces the feeling of mediocrity of the film. It gives us a largely pointless "recap" of what happened in "2001", using still photos from the film that play off less like a "tying-in" from one movie to another, and more like an amateur fan-site's "study guide" to the most basic and bare-bones events and plot of the movie. - Another HORRIBLE decision is to step back from Kubrick's genius decision of silence, and added SOUND IN SPAAAAAAAAACE! It's a huge detraction, not just comparing and considering "2001", but many of the sequences which are almost complete mirrors from 2001 (ex, a pod being released from Discovery One) or epic scenes like the end involving Jupiter. - Keir Dullea returns as David Bowman, but I was slightly disappointed in that his role felt largely useless. He DID have two vital points in the film for brief exposition, but for the most part, he was little more than a cameo. What only made this worse is how during his conversation with Heywood Floyd, he randomly switches appearances from his last-known self (Regular Dave), to his three Older Selves (as seen in the final sequence of 2001), to one brief shot of him as the Starchild in which he (and I am not joking) WINKS at Floyd. WINKS. And that's it. One whole shot of THE ONLY THING ON THE COVER OF THE DVD/BLU-RAY, and all it does is WINK. - Roy Scheider, to me, was a colossal disappointment as Heywood Floyd. Heywood Floyd was already established to me in "2001" as played by William Sylvester. Maybe he looked too old or he refused to sign on, or they didn't even bother, but Roy Scheider looks nothing like William Sylvester. Even worse, he doesn't even try to act like the Heywood Floyd established by William Sylvester. William Sylvester's Heywood Floyd was a calm, bemused sort of gentleman. Roy Scheider's Heywood Floyd is pretty much an [...]. An amiable asshole, but an [...]nonetheless. He's got a slippery, sly, jerkish demeanor to him all throughout, joking at inappropriate moments, attempting to dominate crew members that don't answer to him, that sort of thing. He's a completely different character going by the same name. - The soundtrack is largely 80s-style synthesizers, which rarely works in the scenes it is placed in. - It's attempts to try to explain all the things that had occurred in the previous movie, and their future implications, often ranges from unnecessary to downright pathetic---like someone who didn't get the first movie at all trying to explain it all realistically (though still very soft sci-fi), all throughout the entire sequel. - For the Blu-Ray release, they did not do a very good job with the transfer. I'd say it's better than a DVD transfer, but much of the special effects are still very fuzzy, soft, and scratchy, and a lot of times when faces are in view, the screen gets soft. While that sounds like a lot, it is SHOCKINGLY not enough to render this movie total garbage. The good: - The story is still highly compelling. Likely the work of Arthur C. Clarke's original book. - The relationship between Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) and Maxim Brajlovsky (Elya Baskin) was very quick and brisk in building up, and yet it still worked magnificently. - The scanning of Europa's surface (without spoiling) was a very tense, edge-of-your-seat type thing for a science fiction fan like me. - Douglas Rain as HAL9000 steals the show, as usual. The entire dilemma at the end of whether or not to tell HAL the truth is made all the more tense by HAL's unchangeable, unshaking monotone and childlike questioning. - HAL9000's final scene and end is a tear jerker in itself. I still get teary-eyed remembering his question to Dr. Chandra ("Will I dream?") - The end sequence involving Jupiter was fantastic, even for the special effects limitations, and the shots of scenes from Earth with two suns were realistic and gutwrenching. - The final scene on Europa, with its music choice... a pure bit of "2001"'s style of cinema. Amazing and spellbinding and epic. Whether you can accept it or not, "2010" is the sequel to "2001". Unfortunately, it is destined to mediocrity, and does not attempt to rise above that overall feeling throughout.
	Zulu
	"Blu Ray rating only-- Movie review will come soon"	2009-07-15
A few people have notably complained on some reviews that people review the content of the films themselves, rather than the quality of the disc or the features etcetera. I'm going to do that now, because it warrants heavy mention. I have not yet seen the movie, but I have skimmed through several chapters. This Blu Ray is indeed All Region. It will play on American blu ray players, including all the bonus features. Most notably of all: I've only seen The Dark Knight, Stargate, and Star Trek Season 1 on Blu Ray. Zulu thus far has the absolute best picture quality of them all. Whatever was used in digitally mastering this movie must have involved either an insanely high budget in the highest technology remastering, for the footage is almost perfect down to every inch of the screen. A scene of a British officer against a clear blue sky has the sky looking as perfect and clear as through your own eyes. All faces are clean and clear, nothing looks fuzzy or hazy or slightly staticky and/or slightly scratchy at all. It's sad that this seemingly went out of print, because it is truly a credit to the Blu Ray Disc.
	Zulu
	"Blu Ray rating only-- Movie review will come soon"	2009-07-15
A few people have notably complained on some reviews that people review the content of the films themselves, rather than the quality of the disc or the features etcetera. I'm going to do that now, because it warrants heavy mention. I have not yet seen the movie, but I have skimmed through several chapters. This Blu Ray is indeed All Region. It will play on American blu ray players, including all the bonus features. Most notably of all: I've only seen The Dark Knight, Stargate, and Star Trek Season 1 on Blu Ray. Zulu thus far has the absolute best picture quality of them all. Whatever was used in digitally mastering this movie must have involved either an insanely high budget in the highest technology remastering, for the footage is almost perfect down to every inch of the screen. A scene of a British officer against a clear blue sky has the sky looking as perfect and clear as through your own eyes. All faces are clean and clear, nothing looks fuzzy or hazy or slightly staticky and/or slightly scratchy at all. It's sad that this seemingly went out of print, because it is truly a credit to the Blu Ray Disc.
	2001 - A Space Odyssey
	"Epic"	2009-07-05
There is no other word for it. Any amount of hyperbole would simply be insulting. Hyperbole is what things like this are made for. The film is a feat of visual effects that even in this day is frightening and spellbinding in how REAL it looks. Even the best CGI today can make something appear real, but it will ALWAYS just be on the very finest edge of artificiality. Virtually no part of this film ever slid through that edge. Every part appeared insanely real. The prelude, "Dawn of Man" is itself a little film that brought me to tears with how amazingly, artfully done it is. The sequence in which Heywood Floyd and the rest gaze upon the Monolith on the moon was one that kept me frozen stiff in fear and wonder like no other work of art has ever done. Every single word spoken by HAL9000, coated in the thickest layers of smooth, deadpan articulation, is a horror of might and machine, and HAL's end is more heartwrenching and gutwrenching than most other movie death's for human characters. The entire "postlude", Jupiter and infinity, was an all-out display of technology and wordless storytelling that seems at first to step into the realm of the "pretentious artsy indy film made by an arrogant art student", and then destroys any inclinations towards that notion, and becomes the very avatar that those pretentious art students aim to recreate with their seeming randomness of images and ideas. I was in tears for so many portions of the film. Not from joy, not from sorrow, but from the sheer emotional power the film had that I have never seen from any film, book, play, television show, or game ever. Epic.
	2001 - A Space Odyssey (Limited Edition Collector's Set)
	"Epic"	2009-07-05
There is no other word for it. Any amount of hyperbole would simply be insulting. Hyperbole is what things like this are made for. The film is a feat of visual effects that even in this day is frightening and spellbinding in how REAL it looks. Even the best CGI today can make something appear real, but it will ALWAYS just be on the very finest edge of artificiality. Virtually no part of this film ever slid through that edge. Every part appeared insanely real. The prelude, "Dawn of Man" is itself a little film that brought me to tears with how amazingly, artfully done it is. The sequence in which Heywood Floyd and the rest gaze upon the Monolith on the moon was one that kept me frozen stiff in fear and wonder like no other work of art has ever done. Every single word spoken by HAL9000, coated in the thickest layers of smooth, deadpan articulation, is a horror of might and machine, and HAL's end is more heartwrenching and gutwrenching than most other movie death's for human characters. The entire "postlude", Jupiter and infinity, was an all-out display of technology and wordless storytelling that seems at first to step into the realm of the "pretentious artsy indy film made by an arrogant art student", and then destroys any inclinations towards that notion, and becomes the very avatar that those pretentious art students aim to recreate with their seeming randomness of images and ideas. I was in tears for so many portions of the film. Not from joy, not from sorrow, but from the sheer emotional power the film had that I have never seen from any film, book, play, television show, or game ever. Epic.
	2001 - A Space Odyssey [Blu-ray]
	"Epic"	2009-07-05
There is no other word for it. Any amount of hyperbole would simply be insulting. Hyperbole is what things like this are made for. The film is a feat of visual effects that even in this day is frightening and spellbinding in how REAL it looks. Even the best CGI today can make something appear real, but it will ALWAYS just be on the very finest edge of artificiality. Virtually no part of this film ever slid through that edge. Every part appeared insanely real. The prelude, "Dawn of Man" is itself a little film that brought me to tears with how amazingly, artfully done it is. The sequence in which Heywood Floyd and the rest gaze upon the Monolith on the moon was one that kept me frozen stiff in fear and wonder like no other work of art has ever done. Every single word spoken by HAL9000, coated in the thickest layers of smooth, deadpan articulation, is a horror of might and machine, and HAL's end is more heartwrenching and gutwrenching than most other movie death's for human characters. The entire "postlude", Jupiter and infinity, was an all-out display of technology and wordless storytelling that seems at first to step into the realm of the "pretentious artsy indy film made by an arrogant art student", and then destroys any inclinations towards that notion, and becomes the very avatar that those pretentious art students aim to recreate with their seeming randomness of images and ideas. I was in tears for so many portions of the film. Not from joy, not from sorrow, but from the sheer emotional power the film had that I have never seen from any film, book, play, television show, or game ever. Epic.
	2001: A Space Odyssey
	"Epic"	2009-07-05
There is no other word for it. Any amount of hyperbole would simply be insulting. Hyperbole is what things like this are made for. The film is a feat of visual effects that even in this day is frightening and spellbinding in how REAL it looks. Even the best CGI today can make something appear real, but it will ALWAYS just be on the very finest edge of artificiality. Virtually no part of this film ever slid through that edge. Every part appeared insanely real. The prelude, "Dawn of Man" is itself a little film that brought me to tears with how amazingly, artfully done it is. The sequence in which Heywood Floyd and the rest gaze upon the Monolith on the moon was one that kept me frozen stiff in fear and wonder like no other work of art has ever done. Every single word spoken by HAL9000, coated in the thickest layers of smooth, deadpan articulation, is a horror of might and machine, and HAL's end is more heartwrenching and gutwrenching than most other movie death's for human characters. The entire "postlude", Jupiter and infinity, was an all-out display of technology and wordless storytelling that seems at first to step into the realm of the "pretentious artsy indy film made by an arrogant art student", and then destroys any inclinations towards that notion, and becomes the very avatar that those pretentious art students aim to recreate with their seeming randomness of images and ideas. I was in tears for so many portions of the film. Not from joy, not from sorrow, but from the sheer emotional power the film had that I have never seen from any film, book, play, television show, or game ever. Epic.
	2001: A Space Odyssey
	"Epic"	2009-07-05
There is no other word for it. Any amount of hyperbole would simply be insulting. Hyperbole is what things like this are made for. The film is a feat of visual effects that even in this day is frightening and spellbinding in how REAL it looks. Even the best CGI today can make something appear real, but it will ALWAYS just be on the very finest edge of artificiality. Virtually no part of this film ever slid through that edge. Every part appeared insanely real. The prelude, "Dawn of Man" is itself a little film that brought me to tears with how amazingly, artfully done it is. The sequence in which Heywood Floyd and the rest gaze upon the Monolith on the moon was one that kept me frozen stiff in fear and wonder like no other work of art has ever done. Every single word spoken by HAL9000, coated in the thickest layers of smooth, deadpan articulation, is a horror of might and machine, and HAL's end is more heartwrenching and gutwrenching than most other movie death's for human characters. The entire "postlude", Jupiter and infinity, was an all-out display of technology and wordless storytelling that seems at first to step into the realm of the "pretentious artsy indy film made by an arrogant art student", and then destroys any inclinations towards that notion, and becomes the very avatar that those pretentious art students aim to recreate with their seeming randomness of images and ideas. I was in tears for so many portions of the film. Not from joy, not from sorrow, but from the sheer emotional power the film had that I have never seen from any film, book, play, television show, or game ever. Epic.
	Rambo: First Blood Part II
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo: First Blood Part II
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo - First Blood Part II [Blu-ray]
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo - First Blood Part II (Special Edition)
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo: First Blood II (Ultimate Edition)
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo - First Blood Part II
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo: First Blood Part II
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Rambo: First Blood Part II
	"Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood"	2009-02-23
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that. Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie. It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today. From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs. The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that. So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two. The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with. The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here. "The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it." "Hey... I'd die for it." "Then what do you want?" "I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want." EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.
	Psycho
	"A few design changes and pre-production decisions could have saved this"	2008-09-10
I honestly believe that. If Gus Van Sant had gone for a TRUE shot-for-shot recreation, it could have been worlds better, though clearly not as good as the original. I believe design changes and pre-production decisions done differently would have saved this. For one, COLOR! Yes, color. One of the things that made the movie work so fantastically was that it was black and white, and set a mood that was ambiguous towards night or day, making them both seem as one. With color, there's no chance of that. When Marion is driving away in her car, there is a lot of time devoted to just focusing on her face while she escapes with the money. This is utterly crucial. In the original movie, the car is a very claustrophobic place, with a dim view out the windows, which made the backgrounds seem ambiguous, and the car much smaller. It was like being placed in a closet with a light and a few paintings of scenery, it was that frightening. In the re-make, there is no chance of that, as the picture is not only clear and colored, but more expansive, so you can see the world outside of the car, and it shows too much, leading to a more open, normal feel than the eerie, dreading, claustrophobic feel of the original. This also comes to another problem: the picture's tone and/or lighting. I think this could make or break a film, and it broke this film badly. Certain genres of movie have a pervading mood that can be set by the look of the picture. For example, in the Matrix, the Matrix world was perpetually shaded in a sickly pale green tinting, while the "real" world was more clear, but much darker in shades of dark blue and gray. Fight Club also had sickly green tinting, which mirrors the Matrix when the narrator is at work. The remake does not have this. It does not have any sort of moody tone set by color or picture quality or lighting. It is filmed in the same broad, generic style as a romantic comedy or comedy-drama with 90% of its budget spent solely on big-name actors. This does not fit the horror/shock/thriller genre AT ALL. And really, the image of the film is what made the original a phenomenal movie. The dialogue and delivery is very dry and deadpan, but it's simply the look of the environments and the look of the characters that sell it beautifully. That fails here yet again, with the casting choices so much as the imagery. Anne Heche: From another website's analysis of the two films, I find I highly agree with the somewhat crude, but utterly true statement that the physical appeal of the women (Janet Leigh in the original, Anne Heche here) plays a big role in how the character comes off to both male and female viewers. Janet Leigh's Marion Crane was a small, petite woman, but she was also very beautiful in a traditional sort of way, and somewhat cute in a way that even women would feel for her and find themselves taken in by her beauty. Anne Heche does not have that; she is small and petite, but not in the beautiful, soft kind of way that Janet Leigh is. To quote the comparison of the website (Cinemademerde), Anne Heche is "sharp and clipped and angular". In particular her hair is very off-putting, and makes her a very off-putting figure, not very appealing to most people, and in a somewhat unfair way, not well-placed in her role, especially since appearance really matters in this sort of film---the dialogue would suffer from being overly dry otherwise. Vince Vaughn: I'm still heavily skeptical over this choice. Considering the choice of roles he usually plays, being a sleazy, trashy sort of guy, I was blown away by how utterly convincing Vaughn is in playing Norman Bates (whereas he was completely unconvincing as the police officer in The Cell). But unfortunately, as I keep mentioning, appearance matters! While he sells the psychopathic nature of Norman Bates very well, he still looks like a sleazy, trashy sort of guy. Considering the fact that Norman Bates is an uptight, heavily socially repressed, psychopathic momma's boy, I'd expect him to be less casual and sleazy looking, and more uptight, formal, and well-kempt. And in particular, Norman's mother. In the original, her body is kept in a cold, dark, damp basement that looks highly claustrophobic (a theme here) and frightening. When she's revealed as dead, there is only one lamp on, that gets knocked and spins about. The body is almost entirely in darkness, so you don't get a very good view of her corpse, but still enough to be shocked by it. In the remake, the basement seems enormously large, and is almost too-well lit; it actually looks like it's above ground, with windows casting in light. When the mother is shown, it's in clear light, so it's less like a horrifying revelation, and more like being shown a mummy in a well-lit museum environment. Even the bleach blonde hair adds to the cheese factor of it. That is the basic idea of what I think went wrong with this remake, and how it could have been improved. As it stands, the biggest problem is the lack of mood or tone set by coloring or film quality, etcetera. It is filmed like a basic comedy-drama, completely lacking in environment.
	Psycho
	"A few design changes and pre-production decisions could have saved this"	2008-09-10
I honestly believe that. If Gus Van Sant had gone for a TRUE shot-for-shot recreation, it could have been worlds better, though clearly not as good as the original. I believe design changes and pre-production decisions done differently would have saved this. For one, COLOR! Yes, color. One of the things that made the movie work so fantastically was that it was black and white, and set a mood that was ambiguous towards night or day, making them both seem as one. With color, there's no chance of that. When Marion is driving away in her car, there is a lot of time devoted to just focusing on her face while she escapes with the money. This is utterly crucial. In the original movie, the car is a very claustrophobic place, with a dim view out the windows, which made the backgrounds seem ambiguous, and the car much smaller. It was like being placed in a closet with a light and a few paintings of scenery, it was that frightening. In the re-make, there is no chance of that, as the picture is not only clear and colored, but more expansive, so you can see the world outside of the car, and it shows too much, leading to a more open, normal feel than the eerie, dreading, claustrophobic feel of the original. This also comes to another problem: the picture's tone and/or lighting. I think this could make or break a film, and it broke this film badly. Certain genres of movie have a pervading mood that can be set by the look of the picture. For example, in the Matrix, the Matrix world was perpetually shaded in a sickly pale green tinting, while the "real" world was more clear, but much darker in shades of dark blue and gray. Fight Club also had sickly green tinting, which mirrors the Matrix when the narrator is at work. The remake does not have this. It does not have any sort of moody tone set by color or picture quality or lighting. It is filmed in the same broad, generic style as a romantic comedy or comedy-drama with 90% of its budget spent solely on big-name actors. This does not fit the horror/shock/thriller genre AT ALL. And really, the image of the film is what made the original a phenomenal movie. The dialogue and delivery is very dry and deadpan, but it's simply the look of the environments and the look of the characters that sell it beautifully. That fails here yet again, with the casting choices so much as the imagery. Anne Heche: From another website's analysis of the two films, I find I highly agree with the somewhat crude, but utterly true statement that the physical appeal of the women (Janet Leigh in the original, Anne Heche here) plays a big role in how the character comes off to both male and female viewers. Janet Leigh's Marion Crane was a small, petite woman, but she was also very beautiful in a traditional sort of way, and somewhat cute in a way that even women would feel for her and find themselves taken in by her beauty. Anne Heche does not have that; she is small and petite, but not in the beautiful, soft kind of way that Janet Leigh is. To quote the comparison of the website (Cinemademerde), Anne Heche is "sharp and clipped and angular". In particular her hair is very off-putting, and makes her a very off-putting figure, not very appealing to most people, and in a somewhat unfair way, not well-placed in her role, especially since appearance really matters in this sort of film---the dialogue would suffer from being overly dry otherwise. Vince Vaughn: I'm still heavily skeptical over this choice. Considering the choice of roles he usually plays, being a sleazy, trashy sort of guy, I was blown away by how utterly convincing Vaughn is in playing Norman Bates (whereas he was completely unconvincing as the police officer in The Cell). But unfortunately, as I keep mentioning, appearance matters! While he sells the psychopathic nature of Norman Bates very well, he still looks like a sleazy, trashy sort of guy. Considering the fact that Norman Bates is an uptight, heavily socially repressed, psychopathic momma's boy, I'd expect him to be less casual and sleazy looking, and more uptight, formal, and well-kempt. And in particular, Norman's mother. In the original, her body is kept in a cold, dark, damp basement that looks highly claustrophobic (a theme here) and frightening. When she's revealed as dead, there is only one lamp on, that gets knocked and spins about. The body is almost entirely in darkness, so you don't get a very good view of her corpse, but still enough to be shocked by it. In the remake, the basement seems enormously large, and is almost too-well lit; it actually looks like it's above ground, with windows casting in light. When the mother is shown, it's in clear light, so it's less like a horrifying revelation, and more like being shown a mummy in a well-lit museum environment. Even the bleach blonde hair adds to the cheese factor of it. That is the basic idea of what I think went wrong with this remake, and how it could have been improved. As it stands, the biggest problem is the lack of mood or tone set by coloring or film quality, etcetera. It is filmed like a basic comedy-drama, completely lacking in environment.