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karlosslaj
Reviews
Andromeda (2000)
If every mission sounds impossible and is done losslessly, tension disappears
It is much better than modern sci-fi which are rather fantasy in space. But Andromeda is taking massive damage in nearly every episode without ever docking for repairs until the third season and the crew keeps on surviving ambushes against the prepared enemies all the time. What's worse, they usually fully achieve the objective without ever compromising their values or taking injuries, and over time it starts to feel repetitive.
Andromeda is still an interesting universe with some rare highly-creative episodes. Although I see this universe could be picked up for a remake at some point, I decided not to watch the last two seasons.
The Ark (2023)
Good story, but awful character interactions
Imagine that you are the ship's key engineer who needs to swiftly counter enemy weapon as you are in its range... yet, instead you go to medbay to accompany a single crew member with another episode of deadly disease
That there is very finite amount of water, yet you sneak and try to waste it on showers when everyone is on uncomfortably small rations with couple days to go at most.
That you are a security officer and one of the luckiest and hopefully most qualified few, yet during completely unreasonable riot that an actual adult crew would never start --- you join in.
That you have to excessively yaber unrelated information, although it annoys everyone and you are fully aware of that. No visible effort to dull it.
That you are a captain, who puts the whole ship at risk and go on a suicide mission just to come back for one non-essential crew member... when you are missing three of them, but you make it explicitly clear that you are coming back only for that one non-essential that doesn't question your decisions.
A genius engineer that may be considered essential given the state of the ship - you are not coming for him.
----
These are just few examples out of many. You will find unreasonable undisciplined out-of-character behaviour several times in every episode.
Story itself is actually pretty good. Its about a colony ship with more realistic technology that we could, quite frankly, build today if like all top billionaires came together and funded it.
But it is awfully clear that the writers can't deliver within this premise, so they conjure up confrontation that should have been left for Star Treks - or at least written differently.
I am 10 eps in and I will continue watching. But it doesn't come close to what the writers were supposedly involved with earlier or legendary sci-fis in general that we all like.
Hwan Hon (2022)
A new best in a long time
The world is convincing and it rules don't change on a whim. Characters' behaviour is derived from their qualities as it should be. Humour is convincing. What appears to be side-plot fluently merges with the main plot in an unexpected way. Makes you thrilled for what happens next.
Alchemy of Souls is my new favourite show replacing two decades old Stargate. After seeing so much of the series written with low-quality, I would not trust anyone if they said to me that it is possible to deliver 20 60+ minutes long episodes of naturally yet unpredictably evolving series in a consistent yet rich fantasy world.
A minor downside is that if a single swordsman is outnumbered, he would always get himself surrounder almost as if it gave him the advantage. It is my opinion that fights can be interesting and cinematically-sound without sacrificing realism as much.
Guardians of Time (2022)
Feels like they worked with an outline of the plot rather than the plot itself
All of the four main characters just go along with everything almost as if it was some everyday stuff happening to them.
There was no deep conversation anywhere, main characters just go along with the story as it happens to them - they are not making any decisions.
Even nearly-adult just messes up inside of the house like a well-raised 10 year old wouldn't. I mean shooting arrows inside house? -- come on.
The story just lacks any content. No tension, no surprises, all is reasonable predictable.
It is my belief that this topic could easily make a nice series, so the writers must be very bad to make such 'basic' plot.
Medieval (2022)
Failed to catch the resolve of god's warriors
Medieval tries to capture a very chaotic period in Bohemian Kingdom (Czechia). If I didn't know our history, I would probably get lost. Perhaps, it needed to be a series, so all the plotlines can develop properly including just as interesting events that follow.
However, the loud music covering the song Who are God's warriors (Ktoz jsú bozí bojovníci) is the utter disappointment. It is sung twice in the movie and you can't hear either of the time. Should not be that way, a couple of years after the events of the movie, there is a crusade that gets intimidated as thousands of men sing the song and flights long before any swords cross.
Arcane: League of Legends (2021)
Superior compared to Dota series
The animations and the story writing is great compared to that of Dota's Dragon Blood. In fact, I enjoyed it a lot although I never watched animes before. If you are captured by fantasy universes, you will probably like it too.
L'effondrement (2019)
The Collapse
L'Effondrement is about collapse of the civilization. It isn't crystal clear what caused the collapse. There might be a few hints, but basically all supply chains fall apart and with them, everything.
What I love about this mini-series is that we might experience something exactly like this*. The show catches panic, desperation and denial very well.
Each episode is dedicated to a different person or a group that experiences collapse in a different way. Some of them end relatively well. Some are a tragedy. A few go sideways...
*except Ep. 05, there are safety systems designed for situations.
Baelin's Route: An Epic NPC Man Adventure (2021)
Nice day for writing a review, ain't it? Huh, ha!
The story is an excellent collection of common in-game RPG village with all its gems. Or bugs should we call it? Well, any player will be able to relate. And production quality is much higher than one would expect. There are popular shows that would be comparable. Huh, ha!
For All Mankind (2019)
Realism deteoriating with each season
I really loved the show earlier, scenario was well thought-through and it was all believeable including the mistakes the astronauts would make.
With the third season, it seems like American crews and NASA employees completely forgot about protocols, discipline or the process of how astronauts are selected.
According to Vulcan book Dictates of Poetics, a character's actions must flow inexorably from his or her established traits.
Well, now half of the key characters tend to mess up just to make storyline more interesting.
--- but instead they make a mess of it. A story is oversaturated with people acting out of line that it is no longer believeable.
Tribes of Europa (2021)
Good enough, but could have been better
The first episode made me constantly think about when does the anti-logical decision comes. All the shows that have main characters constantly try to save each other against the world. Well, it started off very well. I would not question any behavior in the first episode. Of course, the young are braver but that is natural... I also like that it started really swiftly.
I must say that later, there were a few doubtful choices but still believable I guess, although I would expect a bit more caution. Nevertheless, that was when the story has already grown on me.
A few scenes were completely predictable, the setting it up was too obvious. But some were surprising. Overall, I like all part of it including acting, action, effects... One thing the creators should probably focus a little more is a political landscape or a little bit of history and I think another season will have enough room for everything :)
Raised by Wolves: The Beginning (2020)
Original and Thrilling
The beginning explores colonizing other systems via ships manned by androids with human embryos on them. I always this is how we do it if ever. Early episodes made me believe, that they work very accurately with the information about space.
Kepler-2b is at a state after some sort of extinction of huge species. That makes sense because it doesn't have any shield from asteroids like Earth has. It doesn't have a stable axis either which would exert a great influence on its life. While the first is likely not considered, the developers might still be working with the second fact. And even if they don't, it is already a success they made me believe that something about their world feels realistic.
Throughout the whole show, the history of Earth plays an important role. The religious war resulting in Mithraic's victory but destroying Earth in process. Atheists unhindered by their beliefs were able to launch a small ship because it is not against beliefs to let androids raise the children. Androids are programmed to raise the children as atheists but at some point, they ask why would they lose the war if they were war all along.
The environment is full of secrets ready to be explored and the writing is so good we haven't even started exploring most of the questions yet all episodes in the first season were meaningful. There wasn't any hint of artificial story-stretching.
Of course, the realism of some concepts introduced later in the show is highly questionable but point at one sci-fi which is realistic and fun at the same time... This show is doing a much better job of keeping things reasonably realistic and fun or thrilling at the same time than most of the genre.
People who complain about realism should stop watching sci-fi because faster than light travel, energy shields, teleportation and hundreds of other sci-fi concepts are by all indications not-realistic. Raised by Wolves is doing well without these which make so good. There is so far just one unlikely-to-be-scientifically-explained element I recognized and I am eager to see what they make of it. Either way, it comes in play pretty late and you might enjoy most of the series in spite of it.
Stargirl (2020)
Finally another show, where superheroes do other things than winning!
Already, in the beginning of the first episode, you spot that this isn't just another weird show where superheroes win anything no matter the odds. Flipping away from this cliche recipe gives the show some taste. There is suspense, you don't know what happens next. There is also an interesting plot (or likely will be). I usually don't watch superhero shows, because you know how they end before they begin. But those such as Gifted or Stargirl, those seem legit and perfect for spending the time on.
Under the Dome (2013)
Two seasons great, third different and far from as good
In the first two seasons, you are thrilled to see what happens next. The whole story is shrouded in mystery and creates a great atmosphere. By the third reason, main protagonists kind of lose that role and it feels different. Perhaps even weird. I recommend to watch first two, a third one wasn't as good.
El hoyo (2019)
It's unique, it's thrilling, but I detected some unadequacies
I definitely recommend The Platform. The storyline surprises on several occasions, it is thrilling as you don't really know what happens next in this environment. Main protagonist is new to the prison, so he doesn't know either.
Yet, there are a few counter-intuitive examples of behaviours. Let's say two armed prisoners tell you not to touch the food, killing is not restricted. You are a 50 kilo woman with no reasonable chance against them - will you insult them and then proceed to take the food?
There are more details like that and even though they do not break or alter main plotline in any significant way, they are annoying to say at least.
The Witcher (2019)
Good transition from the book to series
There are different scenes that sound good in a book but would make it poorly to the movie. I think the adaptation of books is handled very well. Some scenes are optimized, some are changed, some stay the same. Story includes the same tension the books do and looks good on the screen. One of very few good fantasy works here that I can totally recommend. Even battles look good and logical mostly, unlike in Game of Thrones which was far more focused on kingdoms, skirmishes and battles. So I am very happy about the show.
There are two downsides. I understand why filmmakers put black people in this Slavic world and I quite like the idea of dryads being black. But an elf? I think they could make a better work of utilizing them. My second problem... is not really mine. I just guess, the people who don't know the story will have a work to do to understand it. Show follows three storylines - Ciri, Gerald, Yennefer. All of them often refer to the same event, same place, but in entirely different time. Drop your attention and you will get confused fast if you don't know the story already.
9/10, I am positive the following seasons will great, first one was just a warmup, where the characters meet each other ;)
Project Almanac (2015)
Better Than Expected
Based on trailer, I though it will be just some weird teenagers going back in time to do stupid stuff. I was delighted to see that it has some complicated (in a good way) story to it and was generaly very tense. It would have used some more work though, camera work especially.