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patrickjdk14
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Manifest (2018)
Not worth your time
Obviously, the premise is cool, so I don't need to dwell on that.
The main issue for me with this show is that the main characters are so utterly bland, that they are effectively interchangeable. Yes, they have different backstories and careers and so on. But in terms of their demeanour when they interact with others, their emotional reactions to situations, the way they make decisions and so on, they all behave virtually identically.
It's not so much the fault of the actors (although some of them aren't great).
The showrunners seem to think that traumatic backstories are a substitute for nuanced and relatable personalities. They're wrong, of course, so what you end up with an entire cast of lame, cliched "heart of gold but not afraid to bend the rules" types. The only somewhat interesting characters to me were Egan, and to a lesser extent Adrian, both of whom are basically tertiary characters.
There are other issues too, as the show quickly takes on a "case of the week" feel. The characters are constantly running around on side-quests and getting into dangerous situation after dangerous situation, to the point that what should be big, pivotal moments in the story do not feel like such at all. This is perhaps best exemplified by the several "Callings" per episode. It's just way too much.
The show does at times do a decent job of introducing new elements into the story when needed but it's nowhere near enough to save it from being very corny and mediocre overall.
The Man from Earth: Holocene (2017)
What on Earth were they thinking?
I could have easily handled the sequel lacking the charm of its predecessor. Given the larger budget, I figured they'd want to go in a different direction than John just talking about his life with friends for the entire film. Fine - there is so much potential material to be spawned from the first one that it should have been interesting (at the very least) no matter what.
What I was not prepared for was something resembling a discarded Nickelodeon pilot. Within the first few minutes of teenagers bemoaning how their friends use Facebook too much and about how sexy John is I feared the worst, and my fears were confirmed.
John Oldman/John Young becomes something of a peripheral character, sidelined by a gaggle of high-school morons. His dialogue is far too scarce and what he does say is largely trivial and fails to add to our understanding or intrigue pertaining to his mind-blowing story. Tellingly, he treats us to the golden nugget of knowledge that Buddha was in fact not a fat Chinese man - delivered as if most 10 year olds don't know this! For me this exemplifies the comparison (or lack thereof) between this and the first film.
It is not totally without merit, there's a reason why I'm giving this 3 and not 1 stars. David Lee Smith is a fine actor and there are a couple of small, but interesting developments regarding John's life - why could the film not have been full of these?!
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Lives up to the notoriety
The original premise is kind of cool I guess. Seems realistic that humans would go all religious about the invaders, and it's a nice touch that the scavenger humans assume the massive statues are ancient humans who were turned into stone.
I mostly just wanted to point out a major, gaping plot hole I've not seen mentioned much - why do the aliens seem to think humans are a primitive species incapable of anything beyond the most basic manual labour, so much so they find it completely inconceivable that one could fire a gun, when THERE ARE CITIES FULL OF SKYSCRAPERS EVERYWHERE? John Travolta even mentions a military confrontation when the invaders arrived.
Not to mention they don't seem to think it's weird that "man animals" have exactly the same anatomy as themselves, the only real difference being height and eye colour.
Ancient Aliens (2009)
Silly
Legends existed in China about dragons? Must've been aliens.
Mayans thought there were Gods who could influence the weather? Aliens.
Primitive cave paintings resembling weird looking humans? Aliens.
I don't necessarily think that the ancient astronaut theory is totally ludicrous, but the evidence provided by "experts" in this show is lacking, and almost entirely driven by conformation bias. They have already drawn their conclusion (aliens), and work their way backwards from there.
That said, you'll probably learn some interesting things about the past, and the idea itself is, at least for me, quite thought provoking.