The Sword and Laser discussion

Rob wrote: "Yeah. I've read the book. My it was basically two parts. Part one was season 1, and part 2 is season 2, so it works out well.

A third season would have been new story afterwards."

Mr. Mercedes went beyond the books. Maybe NOS4A2 will too.

Doubtful, because the NOS4A2 has been cancelled. Unless someone else picks it up, but that seems unlikely to me.

Also, while I haven't watched all of Mr. Mercedes yet, as far as I know they still one book per season. They just did them out of order. Season 2 is from book 3 instead of book 2.

My understanding is season 3 (which I haven't seen) is supposed to be based on book 2 from what I read. Maybe they added some other stuff though to fix the continuity they broke by changing the order of the books.

Mr. Mercedes is also likely cancelled since the network it was on no longer exists.

I imagine both shows are going to shop around, but not sure how easy it is to get "saved" since few shows are in production right now.

Always a sucker for low budget 1950s sci-fi flicks I've never seen, I recently ran across the title "King Dinosaur" (1955) and had to look around for it. I found the Mystery Science Theater version on YouTube. Super cheap SPFX and, being a really cheap '50s sci-fi, the dinosaurs were all magnified lizards. This was obviously made before anyone cared whether any animal is harmed in the making of this picture, because these little guys tear the heck out of each other. Reptile enthusiasts be warned. Unfortunately, the obnoxious human characters survive.

Just watched The Omega Man, the 1971 Charlton Heston take on Matheson's "I Am Legend." I saw it when I was 10 or so and the film was set a year or two in the future, with calendars showing "March 1975" in several shots. The movie freaked me out and I kept thinking it was actually going to happen. Had nightmares until a few months after March 1975 passed with no biological holocaust.

The movie freaked me out a lot less decades later. Was a good, tight 95 minute B movie. Well done movie on a small budget. Similar thematically to another Heston movie, "Planet of the Apes." Yep, in both cases they blew it up.

With a mostly young group of kids as survivors who are slowly turning, I kept expecting one of them to say "Bonk! Bonk on the head!" And then continue on with "Nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah..."

After it was "mentioned in dispatches" I also watched Upload on Amazon.

It was light, fluffy and fun; a perfect tonic for the more serious times we are living through.

I didn't expect to like it as much as I did but the main characters are likable and I ended up rooting for them to "win". The end of season cliff hanger did its job and I am looking forward to season 2!

Getting back to The Mandalorian, just watched Episode 4. It's a decent episode, straight up trope "Wandering Samurai (or Cowboy) Saves Helpless Village From Attackers." Some good non-stereotype pieces mixed in.

But...the attackers are the "Klatooinians"? What's next in Episode 5, the Baradians? After that the Niktonians? Will the final boss for Episode 10 be the Gortians?

At least they didn't have the Kardashians like Star Trek 🤔

The Kardashians are a quasi-reptilian humanoid species.

Star Trek's Cardassians are also bit reptilian looking 😜

The first episode of HBO’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves from Ridley Scott is free on YouTube. That is some bonkers stuff.

https://youtu.be/YIAIiw8UAfA

Rob wrote: "Doubtful, because the NOS4A2 has been cancelled. Unless someone else picks it up, but that seems unlikely to me.

Also, while I haven't watched all of Mr. Mercedes yet, as far as I know they still ..."

I'm okay with NOS4A2 being cancelled. They did the book justice and it's better concluded than adding additional bogus story elements.

Trike wrote: "The first episode of HBO’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves from Ridley Scott is free on YouTube. That is some bonkers stuff."

It continues to be bonkers in Ep. 2 & 3

After 3 episodes I'm still trying to work out who are the good guys. The Atheists or the Christians? :-?

Episode 5 of The Mandalorian. Ming Na-Wen did a pretty good job. I would have sworn she was 25 years younger which is why it took me a while to place her. And a nice kicker at the end.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Episode 5 of The Mandalorian. Ming Na-Wen did a pretty good job. I would have sworn she was 25 years younger which is why it took me a while to place her. And a nice kicker at the end."

Obviously you didn't watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

AndrewP wrote: "Rob wrote: "Doubtful, because the NOS4A2 has been cancelled. Unless someone else picks it up, but that seems unlikely to me.

Also, while I haven't watched all of Mr. Mercedes yet, as far as I know..."

Although I barely started season 2 (I have read the book), I think I'll be okay with this, but I'm really disappointed about Altered Carbon! I really wanted to see book 2 on the screen. I hope they do more movies. The anime one was great!

Tassie Dave wrote: "Trike wrote: "The first episode of HBO’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves from Ridley Scott is free on YouTube. That is some bonkers stuff."

It continues to be bonkers in Ep. 2 & 3

After 3 episodes..."


I enjoyed the series so far (but I don't like this weekly crap, give it to me all at once). I do like how I feel like I am rooting for the (view spoiler)[ "fake Christians" who I would have never guessed it when he first appeared. (hide spoiler)]

The Mandalorian Episode 6, "The Prisoner." This episode is trope city which, I have finally twigged, they will all be. This one's the untrustworthy squad with multiple betrayals. And for added nerd tropeness, we've got an ersatz Harley Quinn Twi'lek and a straight up demon who is, well, impervious to fire.

When it's all trope all the time, enjoyment comes down to quality of characterization, shot selection, and acting skill. This one's got all three. Nicely done.

But even if it didn't, they would have had me with the title alone. The Prisoner, of course it's Number 6. When they do the inevitable DVD release perhaps they should shuffle the episodes around and have a new Number 2.

All this needed was the Mandalorian to head back into his ship with a sloppy salute, ending with the line "be seeing you."

John (Taloni) wrote: "a straight up demon who is, well, impervious to fire."

Did you recognise the Demon? "There can be only one"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooN9x...

^ I didn't! Nice pull there on the casting. I also didn't catch Natalia Tena, but then I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan and have never seen Game of Thrones. I recognized the Kurgan once you pointed it out, but would not have remembered Tena either way.

The production team on this miniseries is really doing its job well. I mean, I made fun of the "Klatooinians" last episode, but it was still a nice pull.

So I watched "The Black Hole" tonight for the first time since the '80's when I was a kid. I had remembered a few visuals, but apparently not much of the plot. I had it in my head there were family's on the ship, and a kid that was trying to escape was friends with the robot, not even the slightest.

So I was doing a google search for similar movies to see if one had what I was remembered. And up poped a movie I don't believe I had ever heard of before "Starcrash". The movie poster, and short description made it sound positively awful in the best kind of way heck it even had The Hoff in it. And it was on amazon prime. So I fired it up, and it was horrendous. I couldn't stop laughing at how bad it was. I stopped about 30 minutes in so I could save the rest for another day I needed a pick me up. But so far the ships literally look like plastic model kits, not even a hint of an attempt to hide it. It's complete 70's sexplotation with all the woman wearing bikinis, even the main heroine. The acting has been exactly what you would expect, and DH hasn't even shown up yet. The special effects look like they are 10 years older then the movie. It is completely awful, and I couldn't stop laughing at it.

Yes, it's a shockingly terrible movie. My favorite thing (well, one of them) is that it was common practice at the time to detail your spaceship miniatures by buying a bunch of plastic model battleships, airplanes, etc., and repurposing random pieces from the kits; but in Starcrash they actually take the sprues (the framework you have to cut the pieces from), spray paint them gold, glue them to the miniature and call it a day.

I know. The very first scene is cribbing off of Star Wars, so of course it has a big ship fly by. But you can tell it is an unpainted injection molded white plastic model. I mean it would have taken 2 minutes to at least try and cover the thing in some paint at least.

The one thing I will give it credit on in those early ship shots is however they were doing the matting, it actually holds up. And in most stuff from back then, that is not the case. What was on Amazon prime actually looked like a really clean transfer as well, not what I was expecting for a "B" movie from this era.

The Cygnus is one of the most beautiful spaceships ever, like a gothic cathedral meets a glass skyscraper, and is the highlight of The Black Hole. The Palomino, not so much. The Disneyfied robots are silly, but Maximilian is awesome. So much so that they are still making toys out of him, 40 years later. https://www.entertainmentearth.com/pr...

The Black Hole is one of those movies that is *almost* good, which makes it perfect for a remake. With cooler robots and a better ending it would be great fun.

StarCrash, though... hoo boy, I don’t even know where to begin. Other than Caroline Munro, there’s not much of interest to look at. Marjoe Gortner was always the knockoff version of Hasselhoff, so to have them both in the same flick alters spacetime.

Munro has been a Bond girl and Sinbad’s main squeeze, but her greatest work is clearly as the reporter in Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” video: https://youtu.be/o41A91X5pns

Loved The Black Hole as a kid. Read and re-read the novelisation until the binding was falling apart. Probably best I don't watch it again now. Would probably spoil it for me.

Yeah, that scene where the Palomino is slowly flying past the Cygnus, shining the floodlight on it, and then all of the Cygnus' lights come on ...

Is it just me, or is Event Horizon essentially an R-rated Black Hole?

Joseph wrote: "Yeah, that scene where the Palomino is slowly flying past the Cygnus, shining the floodlight on it, and then all of the Cygnus' lights come on ...

Is it just me, or is Event Horizon essentially an..."

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I can see that. Event Horizon is orders of magnitude worse than The Black Hole, of course, but yeah, there are similarities, especially with the “black hole is literally hell” aspect. EH is the only film I’ve seen that gets both astrophysics and metaphysics wrong at the same time.

Colin wrote: "Loved The Black Hole as a kid. Read and re-read the novelisation until the binding was falling apart. Probably best I don't watch it again now. Would probably spoil it for me."

Imperfect memory is often preferable over actual reality.

I rewatched it within the past year and the special effects are better than I remember but the acting is way worse.

After watching it last night I can confirm what Trike says. Both the practical effects hold up very well, and the visual ones are decent for the era. The acting is not great, but I think it may have to do with the less then stellar writing, then the actual acting. The plot is also not what I would call a strong suit of it. But I was glad I rewatched, since my memory of it was so off the mark. I did enjoy it, but was more shocked that it was less kid friendly then I remembered.

When I recognized Robert Forester I looked him up on IMDB, and man was he a workhorse of an actor, 189 acting credits over the years. From the 1960's to stuff still coming out. I also hadn't realized he passed last year.

I have a little sister, she is 23 years younger than me. One Christmas I picked our family movie to watch, Gremlins. I mean, its a classic Christmas movie. My mom took me to see in the movie theater. Anyway, my sister was horrified that this was a "kids" movie and no wonder I am the way I am due to trauma....🤣😂

I also remember, in The Black Hole, being mildly traumatized by the scene where they take the mirror dome face mask off of one of the Cygnus' "robot" crew. Although when I remember that scene, I sometimes conflate it with the bit in the 1980 Flash Gordon where they pull a set of goggles off of a guy in a room, and you see a bunch of wires sticking out of his eye sockets.

Jennifer wrote: "I have a little sister, she is 23 years younger than me. One Christmas I picked our family movie to watch, Gremlins. I mean, its a classic Christmas movie. My mom took me to see in the movie theate..."

Has she seen any classic Disney films? I’m convinced Walt hated kids and loved traumatizing them. :p

Also, 23 years? Good lord. I hope your mom was 16 when she had you. Just contemplating dealing with a toddler at 50 makes me exhausted.

Trike wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "I have a little sister, she is 23 years younger than me. One Christmas I picked our family movie to watch, Gremlins. I mean, its a classic Christmas movie. My mom took me to see in..."

Ha! Close enough, she was 17. :) I can't imagine either. But she did it. And yes, she watched more Disney movies than I ever did. My mom took us to see Gremlins, Conan, Heavy Metal, Amityville Horror, Star Wars....etc....It was a different time.

I had a friend growing up that was only a couple of years older then one of his nieces. It was a rather large family, but there was also a pretty good gap between him and his next oldest sibling.

John (Nevets) wrote: "I had a friend growing up that was only a couple of years older then one of his nieces. It was a rather large family, but there was also a pretty good gap between him and his next oldest sibling."

My grandpa was number 11 of 12, and his oldest brother was 21 or 22 when he was born. When the 12th kid started high school, my great grandfather was 78 years old. I can’t even imagine that. I didn’t even like teenagers when I was a teenager.

Jennifer wrote: "Ha! Close enough, she was 17. :) I can't imagine either. But she did it. And yes, she watched more Disney movies than I ever did. My mom took us to see Gremlins, Conan, Heavy Metal, Amityville Horror, Star Wars....etc....It was a different time."

Yeah, my folks took us to see movies like Jaws and Saturday Night Fever. I distinctly recall the SNF ticket girl asking my mom, “You know this is rated R, right?” Afterwards my mom asked my then 10-year-old brother what his favorite part was and he replied, “The lady with the floppy boobs.” (They go to a strip club in the film.) 😂

John (Nevets) wrote: "So I watched "The Black Hole" tonight for the first time since the '80's when I was a kid. I had remembered a few visuals, but apparently not much of the plot. I had it in my head there were family..."

I recently watched The Black Hole too! It was probably my 1st time. I have a bunch of vintage Black Hole collector cars.

I remember a funny Star Wars ripoff movie from the 80's that had a robot peeing nuts & bolts. Does anybody remember that one?

Black Hole reminded me a bit of The Forbidden Planet.

Ian wrote: "I remember a funny Star Wars ripoff movie from the 80's that had a robot peeing nuts & bolts. Does anybody remember that one?"

Was that something in Ice Pirates, maybe? The other prime suspect would be Spaceballs.

Or Heartbeeps.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I'm not sure where I got the story so screwed up with "The Black Hole". I think maybe (we're talking 35 ish years ago) I didn't actively watch it, but it was on in the background at a house I was at, maybe a Christmas party? And so I caught some of the visuals, but not the plot. And then maybe made up part of the story in my own head? I don't know. I think I had it my head that it was a large crew with families onboard a scientific ship studying a black hole, and they had to escape. I had Vincent being a friend of one of the escaping kids, and I had some how pigeonholed Ernest Borgnine in there.

Time Bandits is another from about the same time, that I have been meaning to watch for decades, and just haven't. I see it's on HBO max now. I'm planning on signing up for that soon to take advantage of the 20% off for a year, now that I got rid of CBS. So maybe I'll finally take advantage of that and watch it.

Time Baandits is such a great, fun silly film. I saw it when it first came out when I was a little un'.

Terry Gilliam is basically having a ball and letting his imagination run riot :-D

^^ Could be worse. I have a very vague recollection of seeing a movie that I thought was The Black Hole back when I was a middle teen. My memory involves some kind of emitted light - laser, IIRC - bending as it approached the hole. Decades later I watched The Black Hole and thought, "wow, was I ever wrong."

I use that line from Time Bandits all the time to describe my chihuahua: “Don’t touch it! It’s concentrated evil!”

He is: https://www.instagram.com/p/BIgWU2qha...

So, I don't know if I'm crazy late to the party, but I swear this YouTube show has not crossed my radar until last night. It's called "Mann Shorts", and the episodes I've been watching are all comedy skits based around the same 4 people playing a Dungeons & Dragons game based on different scenarios each week. And it is really good. The writing is great, the acting is above average, and the scenarios are funny. I've been going back and watching several over the last day, and there hasn't been a stinker in the bunch. I think many in this group would really dig it. Here is the most recent episode, and the one that actually showed up in my feed. "Dungeons & Dragons: Mechanic Edition" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-A4J...

I don't know if it is just coincidence, but I watch a lot of car repair shows, so that may have been why the algorithm finally placed this in front of me.

John (Nevets) wrote: "So, I don't know if I'm crazy late to the party, but I swear this YouTube show has not crossed my radar until last night. It's called "Mann Shorts", and the episodes I've been watching are all come..."

I used to watch those whenever they popped up in my algorithm, definitely above average for youtube sketch comedy. I have been trying to minimize my descents into the youtube rabbit hole lately though...

Finally watched The Invisible Man remake. It’s a lot like Upgrade, being sci-fi horror, but a much slower burn because it’s more psychological than body horror. (Both films are written and directed by the same guy.) It’s really good, and very tense in spots.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/WO_FJdiY9dA

Blumhouse is really crushing it with SF lately. I also really enjoyed Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2U. Funny sci-fi horror versions of Groundhog Day.

Joseph wrote: "Ian wrote: "I remember a funny Star Wars ripoff movie from the 80's that had a robot peeing nuts & bolts. Does anybody remember that one?"

Was that something in Ice Pirates, maybe? The other prime..."

Yes! it was Ice Pirates!

Trike wrote: "Or Heartbeeps."

I think I need to watch this.

I am currently oscillating between Away on Netflix and Raised By Wolves on HBO.

Both very different types of SF and I like them both. I think I’m at the halfway point with both series, so I don’t know if I can recommend them just yet but so far so good.

Time was one could pretty much see everything in the SFF field, but the modern embarrassment of riches means that it’s become impossible to watch all of it. I still haven’t gotten to Russian Doll or season 3 or The Runaways, for instance, and I really want to see them both.

Now that it's on Netflix, I finally finished Cobra Kai season one and the beginning of season two. I've enjoyed what I've seen so far, and learned the definition of snake brumation not hibernation. I miss Elizabeth Shue. Although I'm not sure solving your problems through karate is a great message.

Weird Al Yankovic fixed last night's presidential debate...

https://youtu.be/un9x-DjTMT0

My Mom and I liked Enola Holmes on Netflix, with Henry Cavil. A shame it wasn't in the theater. It would look good on a big screen. I believe it's based on a YA novel series, and there's a graphic novel as well. It seemed to have a strong feminist theme, like feminism for young girls. She's a little rough on that boy.