What's the last SF you've seen lately?

I just watched the first episode of Total Recall 2070 over at hulu.com. I don't remember it showing on TV, but it was okay, not great. It reminded me more of Bladerunner than TR. In fact I never cared much for the movie Total Recall, bits & pieces of it, but there were parts of it I didn't care for (actually I need to rewatch this movie again). With the series the acting at times was a bit wooden too, but was ok. I might watch another one in the future. I prefer SF movies over TV series, I think, but I've enjoyed some series as well: X-Files, Babylon 5, some Trek, Twilight Zones, Lexx, Outer Limits, Red Dwarf, Sarah Conner's Terminator, and a few others.

At any rate last weekend I watched the bio of Philip K. Dick as well on instant watch at Netflix. It was pretty good too. So what the last SF you've seen? Did you enjoy it or not?

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Permalink Reply by David on October 3, 2009 at 10:32am: Thanks for the head's up reminder Baff, I'll mark my calender. That and the V TV series I hope do well, so who knows. Good SF has been missing here lately, but with a few movies like Surrogates, Distict 5, and the newer Pandorum, I hope rekindles that.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ToxicDon on October 3, 2009 at 9:29am: Inkheart

An average fantasy/adventure story with decent acting and effects. Not engaging enough to make you want to watch it a second time, but not bad enough to hate yourself for viewing it. Fair family movie that Netflix lists as Sci-Fi/Fantasy, though it is much more the latter.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David on October 3, 2009 at 10:14am: Thanks for the rec--that one flew under my radar. A lot of fantasy tends to seem a lot alike, although there are certainly exceptions: LotRs, Conan, The Dark Crystal, Legend, Harry Potter, Princess Bride, Neverwhere, Wizard of Oz, Return to Oz, Stardust, and others I've enjoyed. I'll give it a watch. Thanks.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by craig kurth on October 9, 2009 at 6:34pm: terminator: the sarah conner chronicles season 2 - 4/5 stars. great series. im disappointed that it was cancelled. i was hoping the syfy channel or another one would pick it up.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David on October 9, 2009 at 7:15pm: Yes, I used to watch that as well. I switched times going to work when it showed so missed much of Season 2, but yep, I watched it too. Pretty good show. Might have to play catch up with Netflix. Thanks CK. Too bad it wasn't picked up. I think the Syfy channel is planning on overloading us on Stargate. I know it has its fans, but really for three different series? At least they brought back Scare Tactics.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by D._ on December 9, 2009 at 5:29am: Sunshine 3 stars. It had great visuals but the story lacked in depth.

Terminator: Salvation Ok, same thing here, great SFX but the story just didn't grip me. I didn't think there was anything added, but more confusion, to the overall plot to the series. There is such a thing as creating too much confusion to ruin a storyline that started out good and kill the interest of fans to watch any future movies of a franchise. It happened with Lost and with Heros. It seems this may be heading in that direction. Bummer but, I still gave it 3 stars for the great SFX.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David on December 9, 2009 at 7:05am: I've seen Sunshine too, and agree with you it had nice visuals, but the story was pretty mundane. Some people enjoyed it. I haven't seen Terminator: Salvation, and really was sort of looking forward to seeing it when the trailers came out. But it started getting so many mediocre to bad reviews, I passed. Boy, what a way to screw up a franchise.

Like Craig said above, you might try watching the Sarah Conner Chronicles, they are ok. The general setbacks that affects most made for TV shows, ie. budget which also means the effects, but at least the plots were done well. Sometimes I think as in the Matrix, they shouldn't just milk a franchise dry, as generally speaking, the sequels just don't add up. And sometimes, I agree, some scripts get too convoluted.

The last SF I saw was Star Trek, the new reboot. I don't give out too many five star reviews to newer movies, but I did to it. I thought it was the best ST movie made even over Wrath of Khan--yes, I know sacrilege to some. But the franchise stories were getting a bit tired and needed some new life and energy injected into them.

I also caught the Chronicles of Riddick on TV. I enjoyed the visuals (which reminded me of some of the art from Heavy Metal), but story/directing was sooooo bad that all I could rate it was one/two stars. Again, the plot wasn't clear and poorly written! It didn't help that I didn't care for the cliched character nor Vin Diesel.; ▶ Reply to This