Dennis D. McDonald (ddmcd@ddmcd.com)consults from Alexandria Virginia. His services include writing & research, proposal development, and project management.
I like movies that start out with a fake documentary describing the imaginary culture underlying the film — two good examples are Monsters Inc. and Starship Troopers.
Add Moon to the list.
The elements are familiar: Han Solo-style wisecracking captain-with-a-heart-of-gold, rag-tag crew, gorgeous babe good at swordplay and kick-boxing, evil empire, space armadas battling at close quarters, and — I kid you not — flesh-eating outer space zombies.
I wasn’t a big fan of the original Star Trek TV series, but I did enjoy the movies and subsequent TV shows. Having a new Star Trek movie that reinvents original series and charcater premises is a welcome event, escpcially when you see and hear the results on a huge IMAX screen, which I just did.
Watching this movie I was struck by the similarities and differences with The Phantom Menace. Both make heavy use of computer animation, both were based on characters or situations already popular from previous media incarnations, and both dealt with grand issues like Good versus Evil.
What I liked about this film were its gorgeous production values, its nonstop action, and its reverence for classic predecessor sci-fi films. These factors got me through this film which flags at the end with fuzzy story themes but. overall, it’s a fun and engrossing ride.
This dizzying and perplexing movie bathes the viewer in a warm and beautiful gauze of, love, death, loss, and redemption. Forget the narrative and go with the flow.
The film superbly rendered on this DVD bears repeated watching. All aspects are masterfully done. It is an adult, literate, and intelligent film that swings back and forth between intellectual challenge, mystery, and wrenching emotion. The music and visuals are stunning.
Intelligent speculation and scrupulous attention to detail are ruined by repeated depictions of instantaneous radio communications between Mission Control and the magnificently detailed Pegasus space ship as it tours the planets.
In 1957, Toho Studios released Akira Kurosawa’s epic The Hidden Fortress, a film that George Lucas has stated strongly influenced his creation of the Star Wars saga. I wasn’t paying attention. That was also the year that Toho released Inoshiro Honda’s sci-fi epic The Mysterians.