Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I'm thinking of watching some He Man and She Ra during this challenge as they fall under fantasy.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

12 Monkeys (1996) is amazing! I cannot believe that it took me this long to finally watch it! Terry Gilliam's distopian vision of the future is deliciously kooky and so much fun to watch. This is right up there with Brazil, one of my all-time favorite films.

I also watched Brave which I last saw when it was in theaters. It is quite an entertaining film, and I love the character designs and the beautiful settings.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

If I remember right, the commentary on Monkeys is worth listening to.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

LOVE 12 Monkeys! I feel bad for you going this long not knowing that! I've probably seen it 12 times. It never gets old even when you know the twists. I wish I could discover it all over again actually. I like all Terry Gilliam stuff really. Fisher King is good too.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Thanks! I'll have to give it a listen. I had settled on one of the commentaries for The Matrix for the checklist, but I think I can do two commentaries!

Just finished up season one of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I'm pretty sure that anytime Princess Ardala appears and leaves, the scripts read "Princess Ardala arrives after leaving a space orgy" and "Princess Ardala leaves for a space orgy". I've heard that season two goes in a different direction so I'm a bit trepidatious.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I watched 12 Monkeys on one of the Encore channels a week or so ago. Great movie.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

So I'm looking over the checklist to see what I have in the unopened pile (priority viewing stuff) I can use and do a bit of looking at the "film that takes place in the "future" but the year has already come and gone" item. Rats... nothing in the pile *but* I discover Mad Max (takes place in 1984) as well as The Road Warrior (takes place in 1986) and Beyond Thunderdrome (takes place in 2004) all qualify. Then there's the bonus checklist items of "Post-Apocalyptic" and "Watch a film and at least two sequels". It doesn't hurt that I've not watched any of those in a few years and it's one of the few trilogies where at least one film isn't lacking so it looks like a Mad Marathon day! :)

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Nice. I may postpone my Arnold marathon due to the SyFy tv schedule today. While I know they are cheesy b movies, one of my guilty pleasures have always been shark movies and there is a marathon of shark movies all day on SyFy today.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I knew that Jeffrey Combs starred in Re-Animator and From Beyond, but I didn't know that Barbara Crampton co-starred in both. I like their onscreen chemistry.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

That's the spirit! :) I assumed it would when I was typing, but then paused and wondered why, doubted myself and equivocated. It's almost-certainly Spy-fi, but on reflection there's really nothing overtly fantastic (spys in the Buy More and weekly jeopardy excepted) or super-fictitious (same caveat), so maybe not...

I enjoy it a great deal. It's legal-comedy-occasionally-mildly-romantic-drama, but the actors are superb and the plots fairly strong. Not that it matters much (except by way of more information to sway or dissuade), but almost all the shows on USA are, in my opinion, excellent: Covert Affairs (spies!), Suits (lawyers!), White Collar (FBI & conman!), Burn Notice (ex(ish)-spies-for-hire!).

I do need to get that.

Scrambling for an audience instead of letting the audience find the show. A western (hm) in space (arg!) was always going to be a niche sell, so I find myself slightly sympathising with Fox over how best to target it to begin with... but then they made a ridiculous mess out of a mildly difficult prospect and shot themselves repeatedly in the foot.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Yes, quite. The Prisoner and The Avengers are obviously fine. Likewise Strange Report and Randall and Hopkirk (deceased); probably Department S. The surreal aspects make them overt fantasy even without the futuristic sci-fi elements (robots, brainwashing, supercomputers, etc..) But then more peripherally "SPY-fi" shows that get lumped together under that banner, rather than a level down - e.g. Missission: Impossible, Chuck, The Professionals, Jason King - don't really tend to contain much to set them too far apart from "straight" spy and detective shows. Some of the UK DVD's have a catch-all phrase: "cool spies and private eyes" that can be a nice little tagline to group all those 60s and 70s shows together, but that eliminates the SF/Fan genre entirely. Hence my query! :)

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

The guy has the entire CIA computer database dumped into his head by putting on a pair of sunglasses and can recall it by glancing at just about anything related to it, and in the 2.0 release instantly knows kung-fu and other combat techniques. That's not fantastic???
:)

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Why not? Aside from parts of #3, don't they get progressively better when you watch them in "order"..?!

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I had that lined up, but noticed today that Amazon have very thoughtfully un-Primed Red Sonja as part of their ongoing campaign of psychological warfare against me... :(

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Chuck is definitely fantastic! But is it science fiction rather than science fact...


...yes. :rolleyes: :(

Fair point - and one I thought of shortly after closing down the computer. I had somehow ignored the key element of the show, possibly because it was done so well it became normal and reasonable. So I was ignoring that and trying to recall plots and problems that would be 'fantastic' and 'fiction-y', and there seemed to be few. On reflection, I was probably over- or under-thinking it! ;) Whoops.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Just got home from movie night which was an interesting experience. As a joke, tonight's movie chooser brought The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and we ended up watching it under the stipulation that we could provide our own commentary. This was fun for awhile, but then I started to really, really hate Bella. I hated her so much that I went into a long diatribe after she doesn't die in the ocean. Everyone agreed that watching the film was totally worth it to see my mild-manneredness crack under the strain.

I'm in the second season of Buck Rogers and am enjoying the changes. It almost seems like a new show. The only thing I dislike is the inclusion of the snobby robot and the way they took the edge off Col. Wilma Deering. She is much less authoritative, and they have Erin Gray do this really breathy, concerned voice at times. The changes to her character are disappointing.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I've hit a few clunkers in my first-time viewings for this challenge.

Snow White and the Huntsman was uninteresting. I have never seen any of the Twilight films but I have read that Stewart is not the most well-rounded actor in the land and this film certainly highlights her lack of range. The visuals were nice but that was about it. Seriously, in what bizzaro universe is Stewart better looking that Charlize Theron?

Conan the Barbarian continued my inadvertent senseless violence theme for this challenge. This movie was just bad and I like Jason Momoa. Nothing but blood splatter for 2 hours.

The Amazing Spider-Man bored me to tears. Seriously, if you're going to remake a film ten years after the "original," shouldn't the remake bring something new to the table? The Total Recall remake wasn't a good film but at least it was completely different than the original. Nolan's Batman universe is completely different than Burton/Schumacher's universe. I didn't see anything new or different in the 2012 version of Spidey that wasn't in Raimi's 2002 version. The only bright spot was Stan Lee's cameo which was pretty funny.

At least Despicable Me 2 was cute. It isn't as funny as the original but there are some nice moments and I still love the minions.

I started The Black Cauldron last night but got sidetracked by work related nonsense. 30 minutes into it and so far it's quite charming.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

SWatH: Here Here! The "dwarves" were funny, if I recall.

TAS-M: Really? We kind of enjoyed it, maybe more than the first. Of course, it could have just been Emma Stone! :)

TR2K: For me, it's hard to find anything redeeming here. One of the VERY few times I've felt like I wasted my money at the theater. Yes, definitely different than the original, but, to me, not in a good way. And who came up with that ending? I would have preferred a little ambiguity or even a completely different culmination.

DM2: Ditto. We definitely giggled through the whole thing with a couple hearty laughs. Definitely not disappointed. A note to those who haven't seen it yet... It likely helps to have seen the first one otherwise you don't know the motivations for Gru and why he acts the way he does. No back story is explained here at all, except what his crime was in the original.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

**SPOILER ALERT** for email readers...

Yes, 1-3 generally get better *but*:

Episode IV better sets up the Star Wars universe and introduces many critical characters.

You lose the "magic" and surprise elements in Episode V:


You may argue "everyone knows that" but I beg to differ. It's still possible people haven't heard that information, especially kids, and the last one is *BIG* in the SW saga. I made sure my grandson saw V *before* I, II, and III. It made a difference in spite of him liking Jar-Jar. He's also been instructed not to blurt it out if he and his friends are talking SW just in case another kid doesn't know.

Then you have issues with the technical quality of eps. I, II, III being superior to that of IV, V, and VI and if watched first can cause the original trilogy to seem dated and archaic in many respects.

The best order I've seen argued, and what we use, is this:

IV, V, I, II, III, VI

You get the fleshing out of the universe, the big reveals of V along with the cliff-hanger ending, and then "flashback" to see how it began in I, II, and III keeping the reveal

as you now find out in Episode III rather than VI, followed by the big ending and celebratory finish of VI. You then have a satisfying conclusion rather than the somewhat dour ending of Episode III. It makes for a better overall viewing experience.

I've seen it argued you don't need Episode I in that group because Anakin is now introduced as the angry teenager in Episode II and you never see him as the happy kid. This is called "The Machete Order". The link on the name is by the guy who came up with it. He has some rather good observations about the films and why this works. I intend to give this one a shot as it sounds like the best viewing order. Currently I keep Episode I in rotation just for my grandson as he really likes Jar-Jar (again - target audience so I understand) and the pod race sequence (I find it overly long and borderline boring).

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Oh... I should add that I own the "Limited Edition" DVDs of Star Wars IV, V, & VI which has the non-anamorphic *theatrical* releases of those films as "bonus" disks. We watch those because everyone knows Gredo did *not* shoot first (among other "bad" changes made in the re-masters). I think I've watched the re-mastered versions once to make sure the discs were not bad.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

When I was watching Snow White, I asked my daughter, "So she's supposed to be the ugly one and she's the beautiful one"?

I thought ASM was just awful. Sub-plots and other things that happen just being forgotten and they tried to cram about a trilogy worth of Spider-Man character development into one film. He's a big nerd but oh, in 3 seconds the hottest girl in school is now in love with him and the bullies are all now cool with him. Cars hanging from the bridge, we'll do a little with that and then just leave them all to die. Spider-Man is a menac...oh New York loves him now.

I never gave a crap about who shot first or Jar Jar. Jar Jar is just a typical comedic sidekick that sucks just like in a ton of other films and he's hardly the end of the world.

The biggest thing I didn't like about the remastered versions was the fact they took out a bunch of shots of random aliens in the cantina and Jabba music scene. The music number in general was an awful replacement for what used to be there.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I just watched a old clunker from Larry Buchanan called It's Alive! starring none other than Tommy Kirk (The Shaggy Dog, another qualifying title - he's done several SF/Fantasy films). The caverns looked familiar so I did some reading up on the film to find it was filmed in the Ozarks of Arkansas which means the caverns are probably Blanchard Springs but I didn't find anything conclusive (really neat place - check it out if you're ever in the area). The monster suit for the "dinosaur" was recycled from Buchanan's older film, Creature of Destruction (which I recently purchased so it's on the schedule). The most surprising fact is it's a remake of a film that was never made which was based on a story by Richard Matheson called "Being." When AIP made a deal with Larry Buchanan to remake some of their movies in color they included the script which had been in pre-production as a film called "G.O.O." and was to have starred Peter Lorre and Elsa Lanchester. Apparently Lorre's death canceled the project and AIP got back some of their money by including the script in the remake package.

I found out that many of the films Buchanan did were remakes of old AIP projects:

Invasion of the Saucer Men remade as: The Eye Creatures
Corman's It Conquered the World remade as: Zontar, The Thing from Venus
The She Creature remade as: Creature of Destruction (mentioned earlier in this thread)
Corman's Day the World Ended remade as: In the Year 2889

I updated my list of remakes in post #23 to reflect these.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Just for kicks I looked up the SF/Fantasy films with Tommy Kirk:

The AbsentMinded Professor (1961)
Babes in Toyland (1961)
Moon Pilot (1962)
Son of Flubber (1963)
The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964)
The Monkey's Uncle (1965)
Village of the Giants (1965)
Mars Needs Women (1967)
'It's Alive!' (1969)
Blood of Ghastly Horror (1972)

All appear to be available to stream or purchase. I may have missed a few but it's still quite a few. Maybe he should be a checklist name next year.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

That's funny because I pulled out the part II/III double feature DVD, which I haven't seen yet. For the first one, I made it a point to show it to my wife the last time she was pregnant and told her that's how it was going to turn out.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Well, I've joined the crowd of people who have watched Buck Rogers by watching part 1 of Awakening on Netflix. Hadn't seen this show since I was a kid.