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Foundation (2021)
They made a Ruin out of Foundation
Typical of nowadays tendency to forcefully lower the level on any intellectual production, this series, which was so highly anticipated by many, confirms that we live in a terrible and pre-appocalyptic era. I must add my stone to the edifice by denouncing what is probably one of the worst intellectual scams in modern History.
I have read everything from Asimov about 35 years ago. Of course I admire the Foundation series and its astonishing articulation with the Robots series. This is certainly one of the most stunning piece of modern literature there is, along with Bradbury, Herbert and K Dick works. Needless to say that considering today CGI developments, and the general public interest for great series (think of the miracle of Breaking Bad), I was expecting this adaptation to be of a major importance. But after suffering these awful first 2 episodes, I feel compelled to share my rather painful experience.
This series is similar to what a sequel of the worst gimmicki Sci-Fi would be, like a Bollywood adaptation of Babylon 5, low on budget.
I'll try to be as factual as possible, although such a revolting failure leaves little room for compassion.
1/ The story (what remains) : It is destroyed from the start. What makes the OG Foundation interesting is the slow and unstoppable flow of events despite human actions. Leading to many revealing epiphanies along the way. Here the story is butchered from day 1. There is no room left whatsoever for the characters to develop or the plot to build up. Everything is put flat and meaningless in your face. There is absolutely no reason to do so at the scripting level. Most successful series nowadays achieve far better results in developing complex and interesting plots. Of course Breaking Bad is the reference here, but its prequel does almost as good of a job, Dexter used to do it years ago. With such a high budget why make such a linear story out of what is one of the most subtle and interesting saga in History. No idea. What remains of the story is then so limited than the director must emphasis on a whole gamut of weak and useless "dramas" (the old emperor painting the wall scene is the most useless thing I've watched in ages). Then the mumbo-jumbo of math and pseudo scientific justifications to the plot, exposed from the start, forcefully again, while in the books the scientific agenda develops very softly and almost transparently, as it is used as a brilliant tool of manipulation by the main characters, while paving the way to the whole saga. Then the space elevator nowhere to be found in Asimov saga, but directly stolen from Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy... No copyright infringements whatsoever... Then the useless and recurrent violent scenes taking place every 5 minutes or so. Where does it come from ? Nothing like this in the original books. To the contrary, Foundation story is highly intellectual and metaphorical.
Finally I want to shout out my total revolt at the idea of introducing robots from the second episode. For me it's game over. It's like they willingly spoiled the entire Foundation series, like some baby would have fun playing with its poo at Christmas diner. What could you expect from such a production ? See below...
2/ The acting (supposedly) : At first I left myself play with the idea that they voluntarily took some liberties with the characters, swapping them over, heavy-duty woke style. Highly disturbing but in line with the spirit of the times. Then very quickly I found the acting to be extremely limited and highly painful to watch. Especially this tall black dude played by Alfred Enoch, who deserves a special award. No idea what this actor is doing apart from introducing a totally unwelcome "romantic" tension while being pathologically unable to hold his head straight (maybe some strange form of alien disease ?). There is no such thing in the original books, all characters can hold their heads straight (apart from the Mule). And these pseudo sexual scenes that spread all over the episodes. They manage to be highly disturbing, while feeling totally out of place, even without one noticing that no such thing ever occurs in the books. I expect to see some hardcore scene by the end of season 1 if the ratings are too low for Cupertino's death star. Then the girl role played by Lou Llobell (could have been Greta Thunberg). My God does she forces her play, with enough pathos to choke a whale at diner time. Totally unable to act in any meaningful manner. She's just exposing her inability to sustain the role all over the place. Finally the main character of Hari Seldon played by Jared Harris, which I usually appreciate quite a lot as an actor, is restricted left and right to do anything remotely sensitive or touching, the script being so constrained and limited for any form of artistic rendering. There is no way he didn't know what he was heading for when he read the script first hand. So sadly no mercy for him neither. I'll spare my review for the rest of the actors crew, lost in this apocalyptic mess (hairy Irish accent in year 12000 seriously ?). Overall I find all characters lacking any form of inner energy or charisma, while being for some weird reason, disturbingly ugly to watch. Overall the acting is such a catastrophe that there must be a real issue with the actor direction, if any. Most likely they used a broken AI or some beta release algorithm to save on direction costs.
3/ Special effects & photography : Lots of reviewers are reporting that CGI are of high quality in these 2 episodes. Sorry but they are not. As said above many ideas emerge, or are directly stolen from other productions (books, films...) but the general feel is that all the sets look terribly tiny and lack any depth. Many scenes feel out of any random Sci-Fi episode from an obscure series, the kind you stumble upon at 3 AM on cable TV. There should have been a very different approach to CGI production in this adaptation. In fact the original story does not require any special effects. You could easily adapt it for Broadway theaters. And you could have kept the money for some really interesting scenes and photography rather than playing all day long with your team of underpaid Asian CGI sub contractors. The picture is mediocre at best and constantly plain and boring, while the lighting feels flat and heartless. No kudos to camera and photography...at all... Go and ask Denis Villeneuve how it needs to be done.
4/ Costumes : I don't recall any alien races in the original books. Which is actually one of the story intrigue if I remember well. Why bring back legions of Star Trek (DS9) costumes then ? Surely they had a good deal on some leftovers. Costumes are another area of deep concern. They just don't fit the purpose. No one seems dressed accordingly to his role. Funny fact, that tall black guy wears a cheap jacket full of zippers and snap buttons like in good old Brooklyn 20th century. Wow... This is quite worrying for the whole team of costume designers involved in this wreck.
5/ Music score : After getting accustomed to exquisite music scores in recent years (The Mandalorian comes to mind), I was instantaneously disturbed by the evident lack of originality from the opening theme. It felt wrong and lacking any form of creativity straight away. I immediately felt something was off. I would go as far as saying that once you've heard this desperate attempt at making an opening music, you probably have a good idea of what's next to come. You may then decide to move to something more satisfying, such as mowing your lawn or, as another reviewer said, "watch the paint dry while snacking on glass". Probably the best thing to do rather than watch this thing. Thank me later.
Overall while I was expecting maybe too much from Apple in terms of wisdom and creativity, from such an evil company, I cannot help myself to feel deeply revolted and personally insulted by this production and its total lack of even remote sense of beauty and respect for the original work. I recommend any of you to read the books and leave this piece of junk where it belongs, in the bins of History.
The Machine (2013)
Yes it's all true... One terrible farce, possible candidate for worst movie of 2014 so far...
Seriously, something must be done with the way movies are marked and reviewed over the Internet.
I was quite confident that a mere 6.X mark would make a watchable sci-fi movie, so I end up spending (I really mean wasting) 40 minutes of my life watching this movie (from the middle I switched to fast forward with occasional stops to enjoy the depth of the verbal exchanges). Sorry but I just couldn't stand the awful (did I say awful ?) acting and dialogs. On par, scripting is nowhere to be found. Even as a TV movie, it would be quite unwatchable. The only positive part (and they even managed to ruin it) is to have a sneak peek at the really beautiful body of the main actress. But this is a bit short to keep the audience watching for the whole duration of this "masterpiece". I actually know better porn movies than this extremely cheap and poorly made production. Here's the reasons why I think it is highly despicable :
-Scripting : zero, nada, null, the void of intergalactic space. Things happening are technically stupid and morally revolting. Maybe they wanted to make a joke about English engineering here. Well on that point they succeeded...
-Acting : Even if they had real robots acting it would have been better. Plain and simple...
-CGI : Extremely cheap but Hey they wanted to look like the Big Boys in Hollywood... Fail !!
-Dialogs : Even the void of intergalactic space is richer and a greater source of enjoyment. Seriously the things actors say in this movie (I can't call that dialogs) are just painfully and plainly revolting phrases. It certainly match with the non-existent script, so there is at least a form a coherence here.
I want to highlight the fact that the content of this movie is both highly stupid technically speaking, and at the same time morally revolting.
1/ No ! English military labs will not produce this sort of robotic application, just to infiltrate and kill the bad Chinamen. This is not PLAUSIBLE. They do not and will not have the technical leadership to do so in a foreseeable future, it's OVER. In UK like in most Western countries, the cash is gone elsewhere (into banksters pockets mainly). Developing such a project would be the most costly and stupid decision that could be made, as trained humans (aka special agents/forces) are WAY cheaper, more reliable, predictable and adaptable.
2/ Morally speaking, and even if an open war with China could be a possible and very sad future, the way such a scenario is presented to the spectator is really outrageous for who knows China, its people and its history just a little bit. I find it quite insulting, without any justification other than plain ethnocentrism, to present Chinese people as such stupid and mean enemies. To me, this element alone did cast a stinking smell of racial prejudice all over the movie. And I am NOT Chinese to say this !!
Finally, I want to add a VERY special recommendation to the person who had the privilege to "compose" the film score. Please find yourself another purpose in life than to copy previous majestic pieces of soundtracks such as Vangelis' Blade Runner score. There are plenty of decent and rewarding activities out there that do not require this sort of annoying skills of yours. Not to mention the perfectly (and already mentioned by other reviewers) laughable and dreadful cheesy sound effects, excreted on a regular basis, in order to "arise" the spectator's attention. My God what I have done to deserve such a treatment as a spectator !!
Overall I still don't understand why a group of possibly talented people spends so much time, energy and resources to produce such a lame work, based on such a paper-thin script, whereas a small team of people with an intelligent story can get incredible results (check "Primer" for instance). Also get out of your bedroom and read good books to change your ideas on what sci-fi is about (Hyperion series, Barjavel magnificent stories, Phillip K Dick little known novels...). Then write a good script that brings something new to the spectators... Please...
Looper (2012)
Made me become insane and violent.... And worse again...
I came to the only possible conclusion watching this piece of "art": The director and scriptwriter (and certainly some people of the production team) must be the first ones to be sent to a DISTANT future when time travel is eventually discovered, so they NEVER get a chance to bother us again in our time frame with the "product" of their mind.
What an AWFUL experience watching this movie was. I just don't want to spend ANY effort trying to explain the reasons why, it'll be for the generations to come to destroy and make sure every trace of this ill conceived, badly executed, meaningless fable disappear without leaving any trace (a la Keyser Söze if you know what I mean...)
Seriously this movie deserves a negative note. If you want to watch a good time travel movie without the nightmarish mix of "The Shining" + "Terminator" + "12 Monkeys Army" + "Equilibrium" + "Heroes" + whatever they find to put into their cheap mix : just go and watch "Primer", a true mind boggling experience about time travel, made with a few thousands bucks, and which at least tries to be as accurate as possible, while being properly scripted, acted and directed.
One last comment about this complete waste of time and energy, where on Earth did they find this horrible angry kid! My God he could as well be the "Rainmaker" for real, he'll be cursed for the rest of his life acting in this movie!!
Tanpopo (1985)
What a masterpiece this movie is!!
I can't count the number of times I've watched this wonder, discovered one night when I rented it from the local video store in 1993. I believe that like a great recipe, you need to practice it at least a dozen times to start to get a grip on it. Every time I watch it I take more pleasure as I get older (and hopefully wiser). This film is without a doubt one of the most sensual, generous masterly realized movie of all times. It is to be hold close to Fritz Lang and Kubrik masterpieces, but obviously in a completely different register. It would take me all night to decipher the various reasons why this pure marvel is so good. But this is not required. It is simply a tale about life and death, and the ongoing process of sex and food in between the two. Epicurism was never thought to be a Japanese value, until we Westerners with all our believes and convictions, realized that Japanese culture encompasses much more that our restrained field of philosophy. This ode to life touches all aspects of our arrogant human society in so many FUNNY and touching ways that I could hardly compare it to anything else watched anywhere else. In a way it is an encyclopedia of human traits. Maybe "La Grande Bouffe" would be the closest contender on SOME aspects only. But Tampopo goes much further in my opinion. And above all the marvelous acting makes it SO FUNNY!! Every time I watch it I laugh more... To have managed to put all these traits of human behavior in only one such great movie is truly an ASTONISHING work in terms of scripting, directing and editing. But even the way it is filmed is perfection itself. Above all keep in mind this NOT a serious boring movie at all but a funny piece of cake to watch... A bit crazy too!! Be aware you'll never look at your bowl of noodles the same way after watching this movie!! "Bon appetite!!"
Chronos (1985)
Very sharp movie that may leave some in doubt. But that would be sad...
OK I just watched this movie as an attempt to retrace Ron Fricke's filmography. As I find Baraka to be probably the best of all of my all time favorites, I started to watch Chronos with a somehow pervert feeling : "that cannot be better that Baraka" ... In my opinion it's not, BUT I must immediately add that it's a different approach to the reality he shows us, and in its way it's a masterpiece.
-Clearly the "message" here is an attempt to make the spectator aware of the scale of time and its unstoppable pace, along with the fragility and futility of advanced societies if left ungoverned. It's a difficult challenge to make such a movie in terms of techniques it requires and storyline you may actually tell. On this level he has managed to weave it all perfectly well.
-The technical achievement of making a movie of this level of quality with a low budget, on so many locations, with such a high level of consistency in the takes is just MAD technically speaking.
-This was all made in 1985... It's JUST Unbelievable...
-The work Ficke has accomplished with the dynamics of the light is closer to painting than mere filming. Almost all takes have a profound and aesthetic composition, dealing in it's way with the moment of the storyline. So contrary to what some say, it's not JUST filming locations... There is a second level of composition in these frames. Everything is extremely well demonstrated at the last frame of the movie...
-I do not agree that there is no political meaning in this film. It is in my opinion on a parallel with Baraka. There's quite a large amount of Christianity in it, but I am sure that Ron would have put other religions in the film, if he had had the budget in these ancient times (1985 remember)... He did so in Baraka BTW...
On the downside I must admit that on some aspects the film is difficult.
-First the music. It is certainly composed and played with utmost dedication and all the hard work it requires, but after a first watch, I must admit that I had a bit of a rough time with it. It's still quite detailed and interesting, but it sounds outdated and too heavy in its attempts to bring along the viewer with the pace of the movie... It can be perceived as lacking the delicacy and master-mastering of a soundtrack such as Baraka. My main concern is that some tracks sound too much like some early Jean-Michel Jarre compositions and this is quite painful for a fan like me... Certainly that Jean-Michel Jarre would have been a fine composer for a movie like this, but he may not have been aware of it, or not interested in such projects at that time. Overall the music brings you a bit out of the center but it's quite serious music in itself, I must also say.
-The "technicality" of the movie may at some moments take over the viewer. In a sense it can be perceived as boring if you don't read the light behind the scenes. And it's all quite amazing... I think this film is worth a detailed analysis. Certainly that watching it a second time with commentaries must be a real joy...
Overall this a very interesting Ron Frick movie as it is in a sense a preparatory work of Baraka, but there is so much sense in all the frames, that it is also a marvelous and specific experience. To be watched again....