Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Explorers Review

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It’s time for a film about a few kids who decide to explore the unknown and have some wacky adventures. Generally this kind of film isn’t really my style. The kids usually aren’t the greatest main characters and you’re just waiting for the grownups to step in. Additionally this time the plot seems a little unfocused with subplots not really going anywhere. The real world plot was also a lot more interesting than space which is something that should really never happen. That’s when you know that the film made some strategic errors.

The film starts with a kid named Ben having some dreams that look like what you would see in a Tron film. All kinds of sci-fi computer chips and such. Fortunately he is good at drawing what he sees and so his super genius friend Wolfgang is able to make an invention out of this. It’s a sort of bubble that can travel across large distances. So naturally they build a spaceship during the night. Now they are ready to space but is this safe? There may even be some aliens out there.

One thing I’ll give the film credit for is not making the main 3 kids jerks or anything like that. For all intents and purposes they are good kids. Perhaps a bit too eager to grow up like with drinking beer and Ben having a huge crush but they aren’t juvenile delinquents or anything like that. They just have a ton of free time so they may as well get to inventing. The film is a good portrayal of how you can have fun doing anything when you’ve got some friends at the ready.

I will also say that the effects are pretty solid. Again, that Tron type world in the dreams looks really good. The flying around may be less impressive but all in all you can tell that some real effort went into this production. The soundtrack is also very lively. Perhaps not something that you will be jamming to but at least you can’t say that the music is invisible. I will always prefer a loud soundtrack to a movie where you don’t remember what any of the tunes were at all.

Now on the weaker parts, well like I said the characters aren’t the greatest. Ben is basically your average kid but he has a huge crush on a girl at school and basically isn’t able to talk to her at all without stuttering. The romance is really not developed well at all and doesn’t make any sense. Lori and Ben have almost no time for any interactions during the movie so the ending just feels really obligatory.

Lori is okay I suppose but of course she doesn’t really have much character either. By all accounts she’s a nice person within the school but that’s about it. Then you have Darren who seems to have grown up in a rather rough environment. He was pretty hesitant about going back home for example. This doesn’t really go anywhere though so we just have to hope that things got better for him later on. At school he was quick to defend Ben from the bullies so that was good.

From the 3 main kids he would definitely be my favorite. After that we have Wolfgang who is the genius who builds everything. He’s certainly very smart and is a good sport about things but also tends to panic a lot. He worries about every possibility and doesn’t live in the moment as much as the other two. You want him on your team to build everything but he needs to lighten up a bit.

Now the film does have a pretty interesting concept that is introduced about a shared dream world that can be accessed through an alien gizmo. While you are dreaming is when you go to this kind of Tron world. This is how the kids have the blue print for the ship and so it served as a map of sorts. Alien tech is always pretty interesting even if there aren’t a lot of explanations going around. Why is this even a thing and what causes other people to be pulled into it? The main kids all share this world after a while and eventually even Lori gets in there.

The space act is just rather boring like I mentioned before. You have a weird alien who flirts with one of the kids and everyone else starts talking using pop culture references and such. It kind of makes sense that aliens would only know humanity through TV if the signals are all that they could grab. Although at the same time I feel like it means their intelligence is pretty low. Every film still has some kind of a plot, even commercials so shouldn’t they be able to talk normally instead of just using memes and big sound bites?

I mean the aliens are clearly intelligent because they were able to invent all of this technology. It reminds me of when in a show some animals will speak perfect English and then raise a kid who speaks broken English. Like why would that even happen? It just doesn’t make sense once you actually think about it. The film thinks the aliens are absolutely hilarious though so their scenes feel like they go on for quite a long while but get repetitive real fast. The aliens also just seem like creeps so it was probably good to ditch them.

As a result of spending so much time on the alien world we had to abruptly end the plot about two rangers finding out about the UFO and one of them being particularly obsessed with it. He basically just pulls a Spiderverse “Not bad kid” as they dash off in the UFO. Pretty convenient outcome for the kids since he won’t be telling anybody about the ship or doing anything about it. That felt really abrupt and it’s a shame because we could have had a fun government angle.

Overall, This film feels like it’s a bit all over the place. I actually think it could have been a fairly decent school story although it’s not like it would have been amazing or anything like that. Instead going to space was a total mistake and this film is a reminder to me on why you want some adult main characters. The kids are not able to hold their own at all here. It’s a pretty harmless film, no big issues but it’s not really going to be holding your interest either. I’d say to watch Back to the Future instead if you want some slice of life shenanigans.

Overall 5/10

Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night Review

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It’s time for a quick Sword Art Online adventure. Of course that means Kirito gets to take the center stage once more so that’s always fun. I thought that going back to the classic days of Sword Art Online was a brilliant decision but it’s a shame that it takes so long for these titles to come out. I want them to adapt all the floors already! Well, in the meantime this is definitely a fun title although it is held back quite a lot by the random fanservice thrown in. The series is quite shameless when it comes to this area which is too bad.

The mini series starts with Asuna challenging Kirito but she is taken down very quickly. This discourages her quite a lot since the gap should not be quite this big. What she lacks is confidence more than skill. It’s hard to just obtain that though and Kirito is no help since he has always been able to show up in the big moments. Asuna will have to just try to keep on moving forward. Unfortunately there appears to be a weird underground group that is trying to stir up tensions between the two big armies in the Sword Art Online world. Everyone is stuck in this death game until it is cleared so who would be causing trouble like this?

Kirito and Asuna spend part of the volume trying to get to the bottom of this mystery while also just hanging out and making memories. They visit a nice cafe for drinks and even collect some treasure. At this point they have a solid amount of trust between the two of them but it isn’t absolute yet. A good example of this is when Kirito decides to head off into the caverns alone to deal with the villains instead of bringing Asuna along. Kirito says all the right things but it comes down to him not trusting her enough to be a part of that fight without slowing him down.

Sure enough, it wasn’t Asuna’s best moment as she allows herself to be disarmed which grants the villains a powerful weapon but she does make up for the blunder. Asuna also gets to fight against Argo one on one which was pretty fun. I would have expected Asuna to have done better but I suppose this was pretty early on in her career. Give it a few more months and Asuna would easily be claiming victory here.

While Asuna does panic a lot, she is definitely better than in the last volume. She blew up at Kirito way too many times in that one and just didn’t seem as mature as she should be given the circumstances. In this volume, while she panics in dangerous situations a bit, at least you can see the improvement and character growth. She is gradually gaining more confidence.

Meanwhile Kirito looks great as always. He was absolutely not going to let the villains get away with their plans and found a way to manipulate both sides into doing what he needed them to. It wasn’t a solo effort as Argo helped a lot with the information and they both had allies to help. Kirito is just the guy with enough ability to make it all work together. He is completely indispensable in that area. I’d have liked to see him take the two saboteurs down himself though. In every encounter there was some kind of extenuating circumstance that prevented a true fight.

With 3 volumes there isn’t too much time f a lot of adventure but they squeezed in a good amount of Kirito and Asuna bonding moments. Additionally the whole third volume is for the floor boss which was a good decision because that boss as really intense. I really enjoyed the theme that he got in the movie and the manga definitely makes him an imposing figure as well. So the manga’s final volume really flies by. The pacing is super fast and you can’t go wrong with nonstop action. The enemy is rather huge so there isn’t a lot of hand to hand action this time around. Think of it more as a platforming challenge as Kirito and the others have to keep jumping around and trying to dodge all of the blows.

Now like I mentioned before, the fanservice does hurt the series quite a bit here. This would be an easy 7-8 just for the fun action and all but the constant fanservice does knock it down a few pegs. It’s not as extreme as the last one but does keep this as being in the middle as a passable series rather than being a good one all the way. It’s a shame that every Sword Art Online product seems to have an asterisk next to what would otherwise be known as an incredible adventure. At least we have a video game coming up which shouldn’t run into that problem.

In some ways the series s also going to be a bit limited in what they can add in the early floors. We already know that Laughing Coffin will turn out to be the name of the organization to which the two saboteurs are a part of. I’m looking forward to the big war since that is generally off screen in the Aincrad story. That said, you can’t really add a rival to Kirito and there aren’t too many humans you can add without dramatically changing the tone of the series. So we’ll see what they do to keep the ideas fresh as we go through the series but a part of me doesn’t think we’ll ever even make it to the 10th floor so it’s probably a non issue.

The artwork is really good here, I think it has improved from the last one. The action scenes are really sharp and there is always a lot of detail here. Naturally that does backfire when you have some of the fanservice moments since less detail would be good there but this doesn’t feel like some kind of cash-in/tie-in manga. It feels like a legit adventure so I appreciate the effort there. The pacing is good and it’s definitely a reminder of how much you can get done in a 3 volume series.

I’ll also give a quick nod to Kirito and Asuna still being one of the few pairings that actually works. The shipping is done well and this is the kind of slow burn style that I like to see. The characters are taking their time and so you get to really believe in the bond between them. I enjoy the banter and they never take it too far. Their personalities are also quite different and just work together. I guess what I’m saying is that this romance really works in every possible way and I imagine that is where a lot of the appeal for the Progressive series comes from. It’s a chance to see the two of them hanging out a lot without the constant end of the world stakes from the main arcs.

Overall, I can’t fully recommend this one but it is a cool novelty to see Kirito and Asuna fight. The outcome may be obvious from the start but it doesn’t make the experience any less entertaining. Hopefully next time we can get a longer battle though as this one ends almost instantly. You’ll finish the volume wanting more Sword Art adventures which shows that this one did a good job on the intrigue at least. Stay tunes for the next manga title!

Overall 5/10

Moonraker Review

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Moonraker continues the James Bond marathon as we actually get some sci-fi elements this time around. Personally I would say it does continue with the classic Bond vibe despite this. To me this is a very familiar kind of adventure so you shouldn’t worry about the space stuff feeling a bit off. The climax is certainly explosive to be sure but it’s not even one of the longer Bond climaxes.

The film starts with Moonraker, a space station being taken by a mysterious foe and so James Bond is called in. James Bond is known as 007, the top British secret service operative in the entire world. He also has a license to kill as needed. Surely Bond should be the man for the job, but it turns out that M16 isn’t the only agency interested in what’s going on in space. The CIA send in an agent named Holly and this provides Bond with someone that he can finally show off for. Bond is usually one step behind the villains and get clowned on consistently, but tends to fare better with other agents. Can he keep his mind on the task at hand or will his endless weakness for women be his demise?

Bond is one of those guys that you don’t really want in your corner. Yes, I recognize that he ultimately gets the job done but it certainly tends to be at a high price. A lot of bodies will roll by the time he stops the villain here and that is true in this case as well. You can’t always blame him for every event but it would be easier to sympathize with Bond if he wasn’t constantly distracted. The “romance” with Holly definitely won’t be impressing you as each one is just manipulating the other. There isn’t really any passion or development here.

It did lead to the best scene in the film though where Bond walks through her room and calmly disables every trap possible. It was one of the only scenes in a minute where Bond actually looked like the top ranked professional that he is supposed to be. That was absolutely impressive. I just wish we could see more of that Bond. In terms of fighting ability, Bond is pretty good without the film portraying him as invincible or anything like that. For example he is usually not going to defeat someone like Jaws and has to just try and get out of the area.

On one hand that is a good look for Jaws but not so much for Bond. Surely his mastery of the martial arts and other deadly forms of combat should be enough to make up for a strength difference right? This may just be an issue with the films not being more modern but Bond always seems to fight like a normal guy. He is always willing to step into the fight though so I’ll give him that and he does have a lot of confidence. You can always count on him to deliver with a strong one liner as needed.

I don’t like the guy but at least he has the charisma to hold a film. Meanwhile the heroine Holly is more proactive than some of the others. She may fall to Bond’s charms like the rest but at least she can fight. It would be smarter for her to carry a gun so that she can properly defend herself but at least she has a knife. I always like when they add in a second agency to these films so having her be from the CIA was a good move. Bond got to have a little backup in that way.

It was also nice to see Jaws return as the big villain here. He is definitely a true threat with how powerful he is. I do think his character switch at the end was pushing things though. I would have liked to have kept him as fully evil, just unwilling to listen to Drax out of self survival. That would have made more sense and unfortunately I wouldn’t have added his new girlfriend either since that whole plotline was too rushed. It just didn’t really make a lot of sense and someone like Jaws isn’t going to change so drastically in such a short amount of time.

Drax is more of a forgettable main villain. He’s definitely not very smart though with how easily he allows Bond to draw a rift between him an Jaws. You’d think that Drax would have been able to see through the bait but I guess he’s just not socially aware of what’s going on. Other villains wouldn’t have gone down so easily. Drax isn’t a fighter at any rate so he won’t end up being all that memorable anyway.

The action and special effects are good as always. The Star Wars type energy climax may come out of nowhere but it does look good so I can say that in favor of the film. The soundtrack isn’t particularly noteworthy but as always I do like the classic Bond theme. No matter how many times it plays or gets remixed, I’ll always find it to be pretty impressive. If the film could just stay away from all the fanservice and rushes romances then this could actually be a good series. Unfortunately as it stands, the Bond films tend to all get absolutely crushed when you’re watching them.

The film also gets some props for being long but never feeling all too drawn out. The action is consistent and the different set pieces are all unique so it’s not like the film starts blending into itself either. The pacing is good and the writing is nice. I always like when Bond bumps into another M16 base and all of the big shots happen to be there. In a way it feels like magic with how quickly they set everything up but I’ll chalk it up to their intelligence gathering truly being first rate.

Overall, Moonraker is one of those films that I wouldn’t recommend but it’s not as if it is significantly worse than the average Bond film. On the contrary it holds up to the others just fine and the space climax really isn’t bad. It’s just a shame that this is known as the outer space Bond film and yet they don’t actually leave Earth for a good chunk of the runtime. If the film really wanted to be bold, it should have made the majority of it take place out there.

Overall 4/10

War of the Worlds (2005) Review

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Now we’re going to be looking at the next installment in the War of the Worlds series. This one tries out the alien invasion plot again with more modern effects. It’s definitely a fun film and this is a good way to see how you can tackle the same plot in massively different ways. If you like action and sci-fi then this will definitely be another winner for you. Things get real dramatic here.

The film starts off with Ray needing to take care of the kids for a few days while his ex-wife heads out. Unfortunately what he didn’t count on was the fact that aliens invade that same day. They send aliens into robots that have been planted throughout the Earth and are quickly destroying all of civilization. They don’t seem to have any concrete weaknesses and the sheer numbers are hard to deal with. They are disintegrating tons of humans all around and their barriers are resisting even the most powerful weapons. Ray needs to find a way to keep his family safe but are there any safe places left in this whole planet?

Right off the bat I can definitely say that this film has way more horror elements than the first film. The updated graphics definitely help with that as you really absorb the scale of destruction here. The visuals also get eerie like when Ray leaves a house and we see a lot of red surrounding the area. The aliens use blood as a type of fertilizer and it certainly looks crazy. At the time his daughter was also missing which ramped up the tension. So you’re not going to be bored at any point during this movie.

Now, the supporting cast is a lot more annoying than in the original though. First you have Rachel who constantly panics during the movie. She does a lot of screaming throughout and rarely locks in. During the scene I mentioned earlier, she went completely silent for over a minute while Ray was calling for her so by the time he locates her, it is too late. She just looked really bad there and staying more calm would have gone a long way. Rachel may be young but she just holds the characters back and gets them into trouble on so many occasions.

Then you have Robbie who is in his total rebellious phase. He listens to a lot of music and antagonizes Ray as much as possible. He doesn’t do anything to make the adventure any easier and even runs off to try and join the army more than once. He’s really just getting in the way during each of those scenes. He tries to have a big moment about telling Ray to just let him go but it was obviously going to be a bad move on his part. I never really softened up on Robbie and so even by the end of the film I didn’t like him.

That means Ray is really the guy who has to hold this together. Fortunately he is a solid main character who quickly gets with the program. He is always moving the family around and does his best to take care of them. It’s not like anybody really expected an alien invasion so he just had to do his best here. Ray manages to get past all of the guilt tripping and while he does break down at several points, he always manages to get back up. He even manages to land a big hit against one of the aliens later on.

Deep into the film we also meet a guy who went crazy after watching a bunch of his fellow soldiers get drained and murdered. It’s easy to see why he cracked but ultimately his role was a tragic one. He needed to make a stand and at least take out a few of the aliens. Instead he started to get really loud throughout and really lost his mind. This forced Ray to make a tough choice there. Technically I was not on Ray’s side there as I think he should have taken Rachel and just left. Worst case if he tries to stop them, then you go for the fight to the death. It was clear that both characters couldn’t stay around each other for long though because their end goals were way different.

This film also shows how humanity quickly starts to fragment when things get really tough. They’re all willing to shoot each other to get a working car even if they have no plan beyond that. The crowds get really violent and while the film isn’t as jaded as the original one, it’s always rough to see humanity choking like this. It’s also a reminder that if you are driving through a mob that wants to get into your car, you’re going to need to speed up because if you stop at all then you’re almost certainly going to be murdered.

When a full mob forms like that and they’re all agitated, you’re not going to be able to calm them all down. The fact that Ray had a gun helped to prevent the worst case scenario but of course even then we quickly saw that other people had guns as well. When you’re dealing with sheer numbers, even a gun will only buy you a little bit of time.

The film has really good pacing throughout so you never really feel the length. It did a good job of balancing all the action scenes with the occasional family moment of Ray trying to get through to the others. It also showed how some people will mean well but just don’t realize what’s going on until it’s too late. Ray tries to save one of his work colleagues but the guy was more interested in getting his car back than surviving the apocalypse. That’s just going to happen sometimes. All of the special effects have aged really well and I also liked the sound that occurs when the Tripods show up. Now there was a very nostalgic sound.

Overall, War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. It definitely gets intense throughout as I forgot some things like the plants using their blood conversion machine. The ending still feels a bit forced and rushed but that’s what is usually going to happen when you write a scenario where the humans really have absolutely no shot at victory. If you want to avoid such an ending then you have to equalize both forces at least a little bit. This film is mainly focusing on Ray and his family so we get less of the overall government picture outside of a few moments. Maybe you could have shown some government meanwhiles as they find some weaknesses. Ultimately it would flow better but this is still a satisfying watch.

Overall 7/10

The War of the Worlds Review

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It’s time for the original War of the Worlds film. This one deals with the serious alien invasion that threatens to end all life on the planet. Unless the characters are able to lock in quickly, they will be destroyed. The older these films are, the easier it is to picture a complete alien takeover because there just aren’t enough weapons to fight them. This makes for a fun alien invasion film. Nothing fancy and no gimmicks, it’s just about the humans doing their best and eventually giving up hope.

The main character here is Clayton who happens to be fishing nearby when the first meteor lands. At first people figure it’s just an asteroid and they can make a lot of money off the tourists. Unfortunately it turns out that this is the incoming sign of an alien invasion and the creatures quickly appear all over the world. They are completely immune to conventional weaponry and have incredible numbers at their disposal. Can Clayton find a way to stop them or will he be crushed?

What makes this different from a lot of other alien invasion films is how there isn’t really a lot of hope for the humans. Usually we lose the first encounter but at least find a glimpse of a weakness and start to press the advantage. Instead in this one the humans are so far out of their depth that they are on the back foot the whole time. There is no weakness to be found and so eventually the only option is to give up. The governments may stay strong but the individual citizens quickly succumb to their base instincts of stealing and panicking.

The film is definitely not a good look for the pesky humans everywhere. We get a long scene of them basically attacking anyone in a car and destroying supplies. Even the briefest of hopes is removed once they knock Clayton out and take his devices. It showed a very big weakness that the humans have which is that their bonds are quickly destroyed at the first sign of distress. It almost makes you ready to root for the aliens because you’ve seen all that you’d like to of the ugliness in humanity.

Now there was a moment early on where you figure the weakness for the aliens could be light. They are quick to run from the flashlight in one scene and so that could have been interesting to pursue but the film doesn’t go in that direction. We do get a very sudden ending with their actual weakness. This always comes across as being very abrupt but otherwise the humans had been written into a corner.

Considering how old the film is, I’d say the effects are pretty good. Especially the special effects for when the humans are vaporized by the laser. It just looks a lot newer than I would have expected for this era in time. It’s clear that the film makers did a good job with this one. The general writing and script is also pretty solid. It’s perhaps a more jaded product than many others in its genre with humanity not deciding to band together this time but in a lot of ways it does feel like the more realistic approach. If aliens ever did appear in the real world, I have real doubts that people would stand together to fight them. Most likely there would just be a ton of in fighting the whole time.

Then Clayton is a decent main character but I won’t say that he’s great. Like the rest of humanity, he did completely give up on humanity. In the end he just wanted to find Sylvia so they could be together in their last moments. Romantic perhaps but this guy was one of the last hopes that the world had for victory. To see him just throw it all away was rough. I’m sure many would make the same decision though.

To his credit, Clayton had been trying a whole lot before that. They tried different approaches and possible weapons in order to end the alien threat. It just turned out that none of them were particularly effective here. The barriers that the aliens had were simply too powerful and not something that mere numbers could overcome. Early on the U.S. brings in a bunch of tanks to take on the first UFO and they are all vaporized within seconds.

As for Sylvia, she’s a solid main heroine. She does a good job of launching the exposition when she first showed up to talk about all of the scientists. Technically speaking I’d say the main cast is very small here though. You do have your share of supporting characters running around but there isn’t a lot of time for individual stories. It’s another good thing in the film’s corner which is that it decides to focus a lot on the invasion as a whole. I think that’s the right approach.

As always I will take the stance that trying to peacefully walk to an alien UFO is a bad idea though. We get this in two occasions. Once from a group of 3 guys who were hoping for global fame and then from a preacher who thought that the aliens could be reasoned with. In both cases I think this is just too naive. Even on the off chance that the aliens are peaceful, approaching them is not a bad idea because that will usually be seen as an aggressive move. The aliens have to make the first move and only if it’s a peaceful one can you move forward. Otherwise you just need to trust the government and let them start firing. It may sound callous but it’s the only real option.

Overall, The War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. In some ways I would say that it doesn’t necessarily stand out a ton from some of the other old alien invasion films but that’s because I tend to enjoy the genre a lot from all angles. I may not have this one in an elevated slot but it doesn’t really make any mistakes and does feel ahead of its time. You can really feel the dread throughout the movie even if the ending is on the happier side. I would recommend checking it out, I think you’ll be surprised at just how advanced the film feels.

Overall 7/10

The Martian Review

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It’s time for one of those big sci-fi films that reminds me why I would never want to travel to space. It’s just way too scary to think about being in outer space with no way back home. I don’t even like being on a boat where I could be stranded, let alone somewhere out of this world. Of course for those who do want to go into space, this is still a good watch of things to prepare for. I’m sure that not every fact will be correct here but I imagine that most of the details are probably right.

The film is about a crew who go to Mars but unfortunately a strong storm shows up out of nowhere. They are barely able to escape but what they don’t realize is that they left one of their own behind. Mark was presumed dead after taking a bit hit during the escape but he managed to survive. The next ship won’t be back to Mars for several years and the planet is infamous for not being able to sustain any kind of vegetation. Can Mark use his botany knowledge to change this fact or is he doomed to a slow death?

The premise is already a fun one because it gets the gears in your brain churning. Mark has enough food supplies to last for around half a year I believe and so he needs to grow enough crops for 3 years. Even under perfect conditions that would be tough and these conditions are anything but. For starters he will have to worry about the storms. If any big ones like that show up then he is absolutely dead. If he messes up on any of the formulas or math then he is doomed as well. Another condition is that Mark has to find a way to create water and he has a very limited amount of attempts to get this working. There are dozens and dozens of ways for this to go wrong and then you have to factor in how he is all alone. There is no google search and no other people here for advice. If he gets something wrong, then he has to solve it with no help.

These conditions are tough to deal with and it’s just lucky that he is a botanist. I wouldn’t know the first thing about creating water or setting up the planets so I would definitely be dead. As the film goes on Mark is able to find some breakthroughs and even manages to contact Earth. From this point the adventure is a lot easier but that is all relative. He still has to deal with being on a completely different planet and running out of food. The sheer mental stress from this would be intense.

The film is long but doesn’t feel slow because of how much information is coming through. So as long as you enjoy the general premise then you’re going to have a good time. Mark is also a pretty solid main character. He knows how to banter with the other characters and is mainly just doing his best in order to move forward. He does have a few moments where the stress gets to him but that makes sense. Also finding out that his teammates weren’t told about him surviving was something that would irritate everyone. The crewmates get some scenes of their own but for the most part don’t do much until the end. They seemed like a pretty strong group. You certainly hope you will get along with the people that you are stuck with in a rocket for long periods of time like this.

I always wondered if you have to do long personality tests or something with your group to make sure that everyone gets along. Finally we had the plot on Earth which is always a lot of fun because we get to see the politicians debating. Naturally they were not too thrilled at what was going on. There are a lot of risks involved to every possible decision here. If you decide to send another group to Mars, you may double the losses. Of course if you do nothing, then that’s a huge PR blow as well to just let one of your team die on Mars without any help.

There are a lot of debates on the Earth side and one character even has to go rogue to help Mark out. It’s one of those situations where playing it by the book would lower Mark’s chances of survival. However if everyone broke the rules like that, then things would be more dangerous in the long term. You always have to pick and choose when to go rogue and the ends don’t always justify the means. Of course as someone who says you shouldn’t leave anyone behind, I’d say to put the maximum amount of effort to save Mark.

While the film is clearly too fantastical to have been based on real events, I could picture a slightly toned down version of this to happen in real life someday. You certainly hope that nobody would be left behind or that a storm couldn’t derail an entire mission but these things happen. I like to think that a company like NASA certainly practices through scenarios like this.

Now technically I think the film would be more fun if there was a second character trapped on Mars so we could have the banter. That said, the film might have been tempted to squeeze in a romance plot at that point which would be really unnecessary. So perhaps this is for the best. I can also confirm that the situation is a lot scarier because Mark is alone. Even a single other person would take away part of the scare factor since no situation is quite as intense when you have backup.

Overall, The Martian is a pretty good film. It is certainly heavily focused on the science angle here but I thought that worked out really well. In general it’s fun to look at space and so the science around it gets interesting as well. The effects are pretty good and the film doesn’t really make any big mistakes here. I do think that it will lack a lot of replay value because of the nature of the film. It’s long and is all hinging on how the adventure goes. Once you know the ending, the build up will end up feeling a lot longer the second time around. I’d still recommend checking it out though because the first time it what counts.

Overall 7/10

Future Boy Conan Review

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This is one of those legendary anime titles that everyone has heard of, but has everyone watched it? I think it’s just old enough where people tend to miss out on it and even for me I feel like I may know the name by association but didn’t really know the show. Well, now I finally got to check it out and it’s a fun title. Conan makes for a good lead and the show looks really good for its age. Some of that is due to the high quality of the release but it also shows that the animation techniques were really timeless here.

The show starts by introducing us to Conan and his grandpa. They are some of the last humans alive after a terrible war shook up the whole planet. The humans had gotten too violent with their massive means of destruction and so this launched the world back into the stone age. One day a girl named Lana washes ashore and it turns out that she is the grand daughter of the world’s greatest scientist, Lao. Unfortunately this means that the army led by Lepka want to kidnap her. This faction believes that the world needs the weapons of mass destruction once more and of course Lepka will be the one to lead the world. Conan must now protect Lana from the forces of evil and is really on his own after his grandpa dies during the attack. Can Conan adapt to the rest of the world?

Now even with something like 95-99% of humanity wiped out, you’ve still got enough people for about 2 cities and 2 villages. That makes sense as humanity will gradually grow again as long as they aren’t 100% eliminated. If anything it underscores how brutal the war was because this happened during the lifetime of guys like Lao, so to see humanity immediately reduced like this was crazy. It actually wasn’t nukes, but a kind of magnetic weapon that caused the problem within the planet.

One of the things that I appreciated about the show is how Conan quickly adapts to things. He naturally knows nothing about the outside world, technology, or any of that. Yet instead of acting clueless or confused he just works on understanding it. This is why I never like the fish out of water trope because often times it feels like the characters don’t even bother using context clues. If there’s something that you don’t know, then you just work to understand it by using tools that you are familiar with. That’s all there is to this in the end.

So Conan does well there and is quite mature for his age. I’m not always sold on the kids being main characters kind of dynamic but Conan isn’t your average kid. The show also gives him a good amount of super strength to the point where he can lift boulders, hold his breath for a long time, run across a moving plane, etc. It’s not to the point where he can become Superman and just save everyone but enough to where he is always really helpful in a bunch of different situations. Conan has a good moral compass about him so he’s always trying to help out his friends.

He’s not some crazy pacifist though and knows when the villains have to be taken down. As the series goes on, he gets a best friend in the form of Jimsy. Jimsy never really grew on me though. He’s another kid who grew up in the wilderness so he has to adapt to society as well. I’d say he just doesn’t do as good a job in that and while he is strong, I would definitely take Conan in a fight. Jimsy is always going to be held to second place in that regard. Jimsy just had more weak moments like ditching Conan at one point.

He eventually becomes a reliable friend but it sure takes him a while. Any adventure is easier with a friend so his presence itself helped Conan but the character could have gotten off to a quicker start. Then we have the main heroine Lana who gets a massive role here. Of course she gets along with Conan really well so you can expect a real romance once they are older. She has the ability to use telepathy to a small extent like communicating with animals or with her grandfather. She is being hunted throughout the whole series and does a good job of keeping her wits about her. That can’t be easy at such a young age.

Lana doesn’t have the physical abilities that Conan has so she often has to stay back during dangerous situations. It’s definitely something that annoys her and she always tries to get in on the adventures. At times she does get used as a hostage so that does put Conan in a tough position. It’s hard to blame her too much since she is a kid but I would have liked an episode with Conan teaching her how to throw a spear or something like that. I think that would have worked out really well.

The other big character for the heroes here has to be Captain Dyce. Now, calling him a hero may be a bit of a stretch. He starts out as a villain and even after that he starts to waver back and forth at times so you’re never really sure if you can trust him. He has a big betrayal at one point as well. Despite that, he is definitely the most entertaining character though. He may meddle in the heroes’ affairs a lot and get into trouble but there is a certain confidence about him. It also may help that he’s an adult so he is able to fight in a different way than the others.

It’s always nice seeing an adult who can actually do something in this kind of adventure. He is tasked with the role of being comic relief a lot of the time but also has his serious moments. This balance works extremely well and he adds a lot to the show. It definitely would not be the same without him and his leadership. I also liked his robot suit. It may not appear as much later on but that gizmo was super handy.

Another one of the villains is Orlo. This guy is a lot pettier than Dyce but also makes for an entertaining villain. You may think that he looks bad since he spends a lot of time trying to intimidate a kid but that’s just how he rolls. I would have liked him to have ended out his screentime still being the leader of his group though. He ends up bowing to Monsley and her crew almost immediately. It’s true that he would have lost any kind of fight there but you at least have some respect for a villain who doesn’t bow the knee in the end. From the way he ended up succumbing to the others, it showed that he was not the main guy in any capacity.

His little sister Tera had even less moments to look threatening here. She is good at talking tough to people who can’t fight back but immediately falters afterwards. She is only a little kid of course but that made her look even worse. You shouldn’t be a villain at such a young age and have to be able to know that you’re on the wrong side of things. Orlo at least had some convictions, she was just following the path that was laid out for her.

Then we have Monsley who is essentially the second in command among the villains. She commands a ton of respect from everyone and has earned her spot at the top. Anytime she shows up, the village where Conan is at tends to take a lot of damage. She captures him a ton of times so we also see how capable she is. In some ways Monsley has to be the most impressive character here. Ultimately by the end of the story she has to ask herself some tough questions about what she is even doing here anymore. She gets a whole lot of character development and it is all handled really well.

Finally there is the main villain Lepka. This guy does one of my favorite villain tropes which is where he will feel a laugh coming and tries to stop it. The attempts are futile though so he ends up laughing as loud as possible and just going along with it. It’s just great when that happens. Beyond that, he just works really well within the role. You always want at least one villain who is just evil and the heroes have to stop him. He has no delusions of being a good guy or anything like that. He just wants to crush everyone and rule the world.

Right up through the end he is still fighting for this. He will shoot random people and murders as many as he can. He tries to punch Conan into the exploding ship at the end which would have murdered him. This guy is absolutely shameless but he did raise up an empire and nearly took over the world. Lepka was a very serious villain and definitely not someone to mess around with. It’ll be hard to top him as a main villain.

We also had Dr. Lao of course but he spends most of his time either captured, knocked out, or missing. He’s not a bad character or anything but I do feel like he could have made things a whole lot better on Lana. I’m unclear on the extent of his powers so maybe he was really just out of range for a large chunk of the adventure of something. I just think he should have helped more. In the end his presence is felt throughout the series but it almost felt like he had given up until Conan and Lana showed up. His disguise was great for staying out of trouble but not for helping the world stop the encroaching threat. I suppose he figured that without him, Lepka would ultimately not get very far. It’s not like this is a terrible plan but it’s far too passive for me.

The animation is pretty clear like I mentioned before. I also think that all of the environments really stand out here, whether it be the highly technological city or the small villages. There is a lot of movement in the fights which balance the visual humor well with the actual blows being felt. There are a few times where Conan is beaten quite thoroughly and the show doesn’t shy away from it. It doesn’t end up being super violent or anything but it’s clear that he’s taken a lot of damage.

The cartoony style ends up being beneficial for characters like Dyce as otherwise it would be harder to forgive him. Conan is super forgiving of everyone but the viewers won’t be as kind. The soundtrack is decent but it can be repetitive. It doesn’t seem like the show had a ton of budget allocated to it so the selection is small. The opening is decent, but I would say it looks better than it sounds.

If there was ever a show where I would say that it’s all about vibes, it would be this one. I think the show’s greatest strength is just that it has a fun atmosphere. It’s nice to see Conan just travelling the world to save Lana. The whole show feels very calming. Yes there are the big climaxes and danger moments but most of the time you’re just seeing what it would be like to live in a world without a lot of people. As far as post-apocalyptic worlds go, this one just seems rather nice. It’s good to have a more optimistic look at one for a change.

Overall, Future Boy Conan is a pretty good series. It has a very low key feel to it even with the end of the world stakes. Treat this as a slice of life adventure type story and you should be satisfied. The story wraps up nicely here so it’s definitely going to be interesting to see how the sequel fares. Could be a while before I check that one out though. There isn’t anything to really dislike about this show. It’s a pretty safe option that you can really recommend to anybody. As long as they enjoy a good adventure then this one will be a winner.

Overall 6/10

Final Fantasy IX Review

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It feels good to be playing through all of the mainline Final Fantasy titles like this. Final Fantasy IX is definitely one of those great games that has withstood the test of time. The game’s length is impressive and also delivers on great gameplay and a solid story. At the end of the day there is nothing to worry about as it delivers on every aspect of what you would want a video game to do. I highly recommend playing through this one whenever you have the chance.

The story introduces us to Zidane who is a wandering thief. He works with a fake theater troupe who go around robbing from kingdoms and doing whatever they want. Their latest plan is to kidnap princess Garnet but the twist occurs when Zidane finds out that she wants to be kidnapped. Well, the end result is the same now so he manages to get her away from the kingdom where her mother is trying to take over the world or some reason. She even intends to harm princess Garnet so Zidane will need to protect her. He may have finally found the love of his life so his days of being a flirt may be over.

The gameplay is more of a classic Final Fantasy than the last one. You still have active turns so you can’t think for too long about what you want to do but you also don’t have to worry about enemies auto scaling to your level. If an opponent is too difficult then you can run around fighting minions for a while to get your groove back. You learn skills based on your weapons and if you win enough battles then you will master the ability and won’t lose it when you switch weapons. For this reason, I actually didn’t learn the ability to flee a battle until later in the game. It worked out though since it forced me to fight a lot and gain a ton of EXP in the process.

There is a new mechanic in the game known as stealing though. As Zidane, you use this to take something from enemies which is often a potion or some kind of status item. Bosses can drop some really good equipment though so I recommend using this when needed. Also if you use the ability around 700 times then you will be able to use a move that does the max amount of damage possible in the game. (9999) You will need a special piece of equipment to use this but can get is decently early on through synthesis.

I aimed to use steal as much as possible but in the end I didn’t use it enough for the technique to be handy before I completed the game. So maybe this tip isn’t actually all that useful. The main character really his like a tank in normal gameplay anyway so you should be fine. The game is definitely difficult the way any good RPG should be so you will definitely need to stop and train sometimes.

Fortunately the PS5 version lets you speed up the game by 3X so that makes the battles fast. Some of the animations are quite long so otherwise it would have taken longer. The game also has other options like an instant win mode but using those would be as if you weren’t even playing the game so I wouldn’t recommend that. You still want a feeling of pride and accomplishment from completing the title after all.

Meanwhile the graphics are definitely really good. They went all out on the big budget animations but even the in game graphics are really good. The game decides to show off near the very end by doing a long action segment while using the sprites instead of the CG models. Basically the game looks really good at all times. The soundtrack is also really good. I really enjoyed the battle theme. It was a solid remix from previous games and had an excellent start.

I also liked the main boss theme which was really catchy and Kuja had a good theme too. What really stood out was the final boss theme. Like the Jenova theme from FFVII, it starts out slow and then really comes alive. When you hear that fast paced tune come on, it really changes the whole dynamic of the fight. It just gets you really hype the whole time. It felt climactic as the ending should go.

The main game should take you over 30 hours and there is plenty of replay value here. You’ve got a lot of characters to challenge to card fights and tons of side quests and islands to explore. Getting the Platinum for this game would really be quite the ordeal. The trophies don’t exactly look hard but are definitely very hard. You’ll be here for a very long time so you’ve really got a tremendous amount of bang for your buck. It’s what every Final Fantasy fan looks forward to after all.

Then even if you’re just here for the story, it’s a masterpiece as always. Characters have to deal with their origins and what it really means to be alive. You have several fake outs for different characters as well as who the main villain is. A lot of characters all have their own agendas and are given moments to shine. This also may be Bahamut’s best game ever. He is treated as an unstoppable force and while he does get power creeped later on, his initial appearance is crazy hype. You’ve even got a big romance going on here if that’s your thing.

The game also balances the quality of life features well. At first you have to run everywhere, then you get a boat to speed things up, and finally you get a high speed airship. The game makes travelling fun and allows it to get easier as you go through the game. So this was a game that really thought of the player at all times and those little things really matter. There’s also a ton of variance in the kinds of builds you can have with your characters. So your gameplay experience may drastically differ from someone else’s even when using the same characters. You get to fight the way that you want to.

Overall, Final Fantasy IX is definitely an elite game. You’ll realize that early on from just how much fun it is and that feeling never really dies. With this I’ve played well over half of the mainline Final Fantasy titles which definitely feels good. I’m not all the way there yet of course but still making progress. If the long length worries you, I’d just say to pace yourself. A long game is a good thing because it gives you more time to learn about the characters.

Overall 8/0

Star Ocean First Departure R Review

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It’s been a while since I played the last Star Ocean title. With this one we get back to the classic days of the series. It’s a great RPG with a lot of quality of life features scattered throughout. Surprisingly the one thing it is missing is quick travel. I gotta admit that it would have been handy to have that around but I suppose it would have definitely sped the game up a great deal. This game is already fairly short compared to other RPGs so you would probably not want to let it get too out of hand.

The general plot starts with a mysterious plague infecting the people of Roak. Roddick needs to figure out what is going on with this plague quickly because everyone is turning to stone. That’s when mysterious beings from a planet called Earth show up. They explain that they are from the future and will need to join Roddick in the past in order to stop the plague. It will mean going up against a demon lord and an army of high powered fighters. Will Roddick and his friend really be enough to stop them? Well, they have an ace up their sleeve in the form of symbology, a kind of magic that defies even the most advanced sciences.

The game did a good job of balancing both sides pretty well. Sometimes in these things you wonder what the old timers can really do against the future. Well, in this case having your swords amped up by magic helps quite a bit. The future folk can still just wipe out the planet but fortunately that’s not their style. Then you have the demon lord who is immune to conventional weaponry but not against magical attacks. So it’s a rather perfect balance there.

The gameplay is not quite turn based. It’s an auto attack system where you continually attack as you wait for the meter to build up on your specials. The strategy comes down to positioning. You always want to be surrounding the opponents and preventing them from doing the same to you. Even if they are considerably lower leveled, a few good shots from both sides will take you down in a flash. So you want to always be moving and it seems to help with accuracy but that could be placebo.

As you level up you will learn more attacks and have to decide which ones to use in battle. You can also switch between characters at will and use their attacks as well so you want to make sure that all of your characters are in good fighting shape. There will be times where some members of your group are not available so you should keep that in mind. Otherwise you may have a situation where your strongest fighters are all gone and your weak ones are too underleveled.

The game can get rather difficult so this one is definitely not a walk in the park. You will need to get stronger at multiple points so you should go ahead and fight a lot of enemies. There is no way to turn off encounters so you will have plenty of chances for that. At times the spawn rate can feel really high but later on you will learn skills to reduce that a bit. You will also learn skills that reduce your stats in order to get more exp and skill points. I highly recommend using these while training.

Also you should level up the skill that reduces the cost for all other skills as your top priority. It makes it possible for you to learn all skills before reaching level 100 with a lot of room to spare while it would take you way longer to do that otherwise. You will have the opportunity to use all skills but this will save you so much time on it. So the game has a lot of little strategy problems for you to deal with like that. You want to really keep these things in mind before just diving in.

The graphics are pretty impressive within the game. You have some fully animated cutscenes in addition to the normal ones. The game also allows you to swap between the modern character portraits or the more retro styled ones. The game is always very clear visually on what’s going to happen next. Then we have the soundtrack which is also pretty good. It’s a little more limited but there was a danger theme that I enjoyed a lot. So that was a good one to listen to.

In terms of replay value you have the trophies to try and obtain. That should take you a very long time because of all the endings. There is also a post game dungeon to try and complete as well. So you’re getting a good amount of content here. The main campaign is probably around 10-12 hours as well so that’s decent. When you combine all of the content, then you’re definitely in good hands here.

The only improvement I’d like the game to have would be a quick travel. It just feels like that should be a necessity for any RPG nowadays. If not, then you at least need a way to turn the random encounters off. Whether you do that directly by turning them all off or only turning them off when they are a certain number of levels below you, both are solid options. I dare say that would make this game even better, but like I said that’s just a minor quirk. Ultimately it’s not a big enough deal that it would significantly hurt the experience for you. There’s also no excuse or you to be underleveled as a result of it. Make a backup save every now and again just in case though.

Overall, Star Ocean is a great game. In some ways you can call it a very basic RPG but it does the job for me. You have enough time to get used to the characters and the story is good. I liked the gameplay and the technical effects were all good. I have no real complaints with this game and in general I just really enjoy RPGs. You can’t really go wrong with the genre and it tends to churn out a lot of the all time best video games. I look forward to seeing what the next Star Ocean adventure will be like.

Overall 8/10

The Valley of Gwangi Review

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It’s time for a classic dinosaur adventure. In a way this is a whole lot like Jurassic Park, the old version. Perhaps that’s a surface level similarity but eh it’s close enough.

The movie starts off with a big shot named Tuck deciding to visit a small horse show on his way to the arena. He runs into his ex, T.J. Her show is really struggling, due in no small part to his running out on her for riches and glory. He offers her a chance to go with him but this time she stays strong and won’t fall for his tricks….for like 10 minutes. He sweet talks her into joining his side once again. What she doesn’t realize is that this will ultimately take her into the forbidden valley of Gwangi! This is due to the star tiny horse being stolen by a bunch of native conspiracy theorists who believe that he belongs back on the valley.

Okay so there are a lot of problems with the main dynamic from the start. Tuck seems to mainly be interested in using T.J. He walked out on her easily enough the first time and now he really wants to buy her main horse. She only agrees because she found the mini one with mystical properties but otherwise he was putting on a lot of pressure was already failing. Keep in mind that it’s not a one girl show. She has a whole team and other workers doing their best and now Tuck wants to take the one act that still draws some fans?

For reference, she and the horse jump into a pool of water which is surrounded by flames. I can’t say the act sounds all that interesting but generally all of the animal acts make me feel that way. Anything that has even the slightest bit of danger to the animal makes it all not worth it. We also get bull fighting and the like so you’re shaking your head throughout all of this. The main thing that stays constant throughout all of this is that Tuck isn’t the nicest guy.

Sure, by the end the romance and everything works out but it really shouldn’t have. This romance was poorly thought out right from the start and hurts T.J. as a character for entertaining this as well. Lope has a pretty big role as the kid helping Tuck out but he’s too young to be able to fight or anything like that. He doesn’t end up contributing a ton.

Horace goads the Gwangi tribefolk into kidnapping the mini horse so he is the one who really sets everything into motion. Of course I’d say he didn’t really think this through. Things could have easily been fatal for all of them. The thieves knocked out the guard after all but could have easily murdered everyone. The pursuit of knowledge alone is naturally not worth all of the sacrifice for this.

You could say the film really starts once they make it onto the valley though. Now we have all of the dinosaurs and the action. The main characters take this a lot calmer than you would expect as they talk about getting the dinosaurs into the circus act and all. You’d think that it would be a much bigger deal that dinosaurs exist right? I guess back in the day it may have been slightly less of a big deal since you could assume crazy extinct animals exist all over in different pockets.

The professor is probably the most impressed by default but that guy is the type of man to choose research over safety. For the most part you’re going to feel bad for the dinosaurs though. They aren’t quite ready to be dealing with humans. Right off the bat one of them gets his neck broken by the humans. You’d think the dinosaur would have been a bit stronger. Along the way you have dinosaurs destroying each other as well.

The effects are handled pretty impressively for its time. Of course this is to the detriment of the film since the dinosaurs bleed quite a bit and the film isn’t shying away from actually having a body count here. It just should have been more humans dying than the actual dinosaurs if you ask me. So the film is ahead of its time and dinosaur fans will get a kick out of it but it definitely didn’t end up being my style.

The king of the dinosaurs here is Gwangi and for the most part he looks like a normal dinosaur. He is ultimately defeated by the humans and forced to be in the circus which is definitely the ultimate disgrace for a proud creature like this. He gets some revenge later on by taking down some of the humans at least. Now you’re supposed to be rooting for the humans but by this point in the review you can see that I’m team Dinosaur. The humans just aren’t likable.

At least in the most recent Jurassic World film they are trying to create a rare medicine out of the dinosaur dna so there is some kind of a noble cause. Here, it’s really just about the money. They want to improve the circus act with the dinosaurs. The professor wants to increase his knowledge but has disregard for who has to pay for this progress. Ultimately there is a lot of selfishness going on here and all of the violence that ensues is directly the fault of the humans.

It makes the dinosaur violence feel even worse because the whole time you know they would have had more peace without the humans. Yeah, the dinosaur vs dinosaur stuff would still be happening but we wouldn’t be seeing it at least! Shoutout to the old lady at the beginning who warned everyone about the valley though. I was glad that she was actually correct and not just crazy. Yeah, they are usually right in these kinds of creature features but I was still happy for her. She probably gives Gwangi a little too much credit in terms of sentience but it was close enough.

Overall, The Valley of Gwangi does deliver on giving you a ton of dinosaur action. It’s the kind of film that does live up to the premise so you don’t have to worry about being misled here. If you want to see a survival film with dinosaurs showing up and the humans having to deal with them, then you’re in luck. This is the film for you. It is an unapologetic dinosaur film with pretty strong effects. Now if you don’t want to see the dinosaurs and are worried about the annoying humans, then this is definitely a film to give a hard skip.

Overall 3/10