Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The return of The Thing

Jason Apuzzo at Libertas reviews the new remake of The Thing.

BTW, he takes a shot at the sci-fi series, Falling Skies, which I think is well deserved. I watched every episode of the first season, and thought it was pretty awful: utterly pedestrian writing, cringe-worthy overacting, excessive emoting, comparatively few scenes actually featuring aliens, and an unbelievable plot line (the aliens were able to wipe out the armies of the world - millions of troops, with sophisticated weaponry - but has trouble even locating a poorly armed band of guerrillas, whose second-in-command is a college professor? In Massachusetts? Please). This series is so vastly inferior to the - sadly - cancelled V that it makes me shake my head in complete bafflement.

One positive: I do like the program's sarcastic biker-gang character, John Pope.

9 comments:

rinardman said...

I'd say any of the "aliens invade Earth" sci-fi movies & TV series require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. For that matter, any sci-fi requires some degree of the same. My favorite, Fringe, is hardly plausible; but certainly entertaining.

RebeccaH said...

I agree about Falling Skies. It struck me as singularly juvenile, a show aimed at kids. That makes it about as exciting to me as watching grass grow.

JeffS said...

I watched one or two segments of "Falling Skies".

Ugh! I prefer "Invader Zim".

We'll see about "The Thing".

Yojimbo said...

"The Thing" will probably be eaten by a hungry polar bear just before he drowns.

How can you mess with the original?

mojo said...

They'd be better off if they used better stories, but the better SF stories get kinda tough to film. Can't be that bad anymore, though.

Suggestions:
Greg Bear, "Blood Music", "Darwin's Radio"
Larry Niven, Beowolf Sheaffer stories

and so on. Lose the dweebs in the writer's pit.

richard mcenroe said...

There was actually an interesting National Geographic special about alien invasions. It's available in chunks on YouTube...

Minicapt said...

Perhaps he was a "Harvard Professor"?

Cheers

Kevin B said...

I think I prefer Frank Sinatra in the musical version of John Carpenter's The Thing.

http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2011/10/they-think-that-im-a-dog-but-im-the-thing.html

Anonymous said...

Blues Brothers was good, and all those other things you once said you'd never seen,Paco.

I don't trust your movie instincts.

In fact... well never mind.