Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Could anyone throw out some ideas for the category "film featuring laser blasters". I was planning on Battle Beyond the Stars but it will stop streaming too quickly.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

The Last Starfighter maybe? Less than 12 hours to go now. :D

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Laserblast

Regular flavor
http://www.girlsgunsandghouls.com/laserblast.jpg

or MST3K
http://www.mst3kinfo.com/satnews/dvds/laserblast.jpg

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I LOVE your layout for your list, Travis. Mind if I borrow it?

I can't wait to start. Watching the movies this year with my son will make it cool. We're stating with his choice, Ladyhawke, a first time watch for him; a "long time no watch" for me.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

starting the challenge with a first time viewing of blade runner! been sitting on the bluray waiting for the challenge

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I started the challenge with some overlap with the historical chllenge with a documentary, Nazis vs Aliens. It is about how technology the Nazis recovered from a UFO led to the computer age we have today through a series of chains of events.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

that just made me pull out my copy of Nazi's at the center of the earth to watch even tho it seems a bit early to fall back on asylum fare

so I watched Blade Runner for the first time...and will admit I'm not completely sure what I just watched...I normally don't have problems following storylines, but just didn't get this movie. just seemed all over the place granted im exhuasted so may have not been in the best mind set. I watched the Final cut...i know theres a few different cuts is there a preferred version to watch? had some interesting scenes and will probally go back to it at a later date to try again....

making up for it by watching Alien which will be my second viewing of.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Since it's not dusk over here yet, 8:30pm and an awful 90 degrees outside, I thought I'd browse Netflix. They have some new Max game where it gives you a few categories, then asks you to rate some films, and then it picks things to watch. One of the categories it started me off with was sci-fi and fantasy. I'll say it was an amusing little game to play and I'll probably get more use out of it when I don't know what to watch.

It started off picking 3 things I'd already seen, Tremors 2, Mimic, that US Godzilla movie. Then it did a new round of movies it picked and I'm going with the first one I haven't heard of yet, Imposter, which is also based off a Philip K Dick story.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

By all means, help yourself! Though if you really want to be dazzled, check out tarfrimmer's post. That chart is amazing!

I segued out of the Historical Appreciation Challenge with the 2001 documentary, Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy interview one another. From my Letterboxd diary:


Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime
-X- Watch one film from every decade, starting with the 1900s. (2000s - 2001)
-X- Watch a Documentary Feature
-X- Watch a film for each rating - Unrated

Now, LGJ765 and I are synchronizing our viewing of Star Trek. We've already watched "The Man Trap" and we're 38 minutes into "Charlie X".

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I'm kicking this one off with a 13th(?) viewing of Repo Man, but this'll be the first time in HD!

I plan on revisiting quite a few classics I haven't watched in awhile as opposed to focusing solely on first time viewings like I usually tend to do. Shooting for a goal of 60.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Nice choice, I am watching Repo Man right now on blu-ray (Criterion Collection). It looks pristine in high definition and a great film.

Sci-Fi Challenge here I come!

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Yeah, same here. For the past decade I've been watching the old Anchor Bay DVD in the giant LE tin (which I'll NEVER get rid of), so a CC Blu-ray upgrade should be a whole new experience.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Hey, I've got that tin too!

I have some alone time waiting for laundry to finish up, so I'm starting the Challenge off with some Venture Bros.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

After starting with the documentary, I got in a couple episodes of Transformers Headmasters. I started to watch 20 Million Miles to Earth before sleep got the better of me. Can't say for sure if I'll finish it tomorrow or not, but I will sometime.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

As Travis said earlier, we're watching ST:TOS at the same time. Tonight we got through the first disc, season one. I'd have to say my favorite of the night was "The Naked Time" followed by "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "The Man Trap" and finally, "Charlie X." "Charlie X" was the least favorite because of Charlie who was just a bit too annoying for me.

We're keeping a running count of a few different things: 48 human dead, 1 alien in 4 episodes. We started categorizing by shirt color but for a lot of the deaths, you don't know who wore what, so now we're just counting by death. And there were 3 Spock "illogical"isms, where something is "illogical."

My copy of the series is the BRs and they look really nice. The colors are very vibrant and lush, I'd say. So far, this is one of my favorite things that I have watched in HD. I'm also watching the remastered effects version and am pleasantly surprised that things aren't jumping out at me. I watched the short documentary on disc 1 about the remaster process and unless they mentioned it in there, I really didn't notice anything too drastic that they had done.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Started with Somewhere in Time (1980) to overlap with the Historical challenge. Christopher Reeve time travels to 1912 due to his love for Jane Seymour. The film is written by Richard Matheson and glosses over the time travel aspect of the plot, focusing of the fantasy/romance side of things. All the major players are excellent as is the production design. It's a fun film, and I can see why it has developed a cult following.

I also rewatched Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries (2003) which is just as amazing as I remember. Now that I know everything that will happen, it is fun to sit back and analyze how the show is built. I am surprised at just how much we learn in the miniseries as well as just how much of the overall mythos of the show is explained. For anyone who is watching the reimagined series, there is a great fan wiki that has compiled oh-so-much information on almost every aspect of the series and every question that arises.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Sounds like a great project! I rewatched a few episodes last week. I agree with you about "Charlie X". The kid is way too creepy to elicit much sympathy.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Just finished Disc 1 of Star Trek: The Original Series Season One on DVD. It was fun to watch along with LGJ765. I hadn't watched any of the original series since I began tracking my at-home viewings four years ago so it's been at least that long since I last made my way through the show. Probably closer to six years by now, in all honesty.

Some brief remarks on the Disc 1 episodes:

"The Man Trap"
I think what's most interesting about "The Man Trap" is that it's the first episode that aired and it's not at all an origin story. Even the expository dialog isn't conspicuously spelling out for us what the technology does or anything of that nature. We're just expected to be able to process what's happening and to go along with it, which isn't actually all that demanding of us. It's a reminder how much stupider Hollywood treats us as viewers today, afraid we won't watch more than two minutes of a show if they don't spell out every little detail repeatedly until we're all spouting catchphrases from it to verify that we do, indeed, "get it."

"Charlie X"
This episode really stands out if for no other reason than the most prominent character in it is actually Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). Per her 1998 autobiography, The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, she was sexually assaulted by one of the series' executive producers though the identity of which one has never been made public. Partway through the first season she was let go on the basis that it wasn't good for Captain Kirk to have one main squeeze when he could instead be hooking up with a new woman each episode. "Charlie X" is an enjoyable, if fairly average, episode and it showcases what Whitney brought to the series. I wish she'd been kept on the show.

Favorite bit: Charlie makes Sam the Red Shirt disappear after Sam mocks him for being thrown on the mat by Captain Kirk during some wrestling exercises. First of all, the uniforms in that scene are amazing. But the best part is how little reaction Kirk has to Sam's apparent death. Just a couple scenes later, when discussing Charlie's dangerous power, there's no actual mention of Sam and at the end of the episode after the Thasians restore Kirk's missing crew. As near as I can tell, that only included Rand. So basically, screw Sam. It seems nobody missed him.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before"
Ack! Those pilot episode uniforms are so garish! I think within just the narrative, the most striking thing is how quickly Mr. Spock advocates fearing Gary Mitchell and then later, preemptively murdering the lieutenant. Later Spock would probably argue that Mitchell was not at fault for developing his godlike powers, that he was merely a victim of circumstance and that the crew owed it to him to help him. But not early Spock! No, Early Spock is all "Kill him while you still can" and then taking it on his own to bring the biggest phaser rifle in the entire franchise down to Delta Vega just to be sure.

"The Naked Time"
Who doesn't enjoy "The Naked Time"? Shirtless, fencing Sulu! Lt. Riley's endlessly obnoxious singing and sexist diatribe about women's hair and makeup! Spock's soliloquy to himself about being logical rather than emotional! Those ridiculous hazmat suits! It can be hard to find a single favorite part to this one. I love when Riley starts to sing again and Kirk commands Uhura to turn off the audio, and she snaps back, "SIR, IF I COULD CUT HIM OFF, DON'T YOU THINK I--! Yes, sir. I'll keep trying."

I also loved Riley's observation about his dead friend: "You know what Joe's problem was? He wasn't born an Irishman." I can't find any fault with his logic.

One last note about this episode: It's interesting that Kirk has Rand take the helm during the climax of the episode. It's standard operating procedure for all crew aboard a submarine to be trained on all equipment, on the basis that one can't predict where a crewmember may be during an emergency. That provides a real life precedent for why the yeoman, whose duties appear to be tantamount to being a gopher, is even qualified to take the helm at all. And keep in mind, the Enterprise is caught in the orbit of the dying planet. This wasn't just a matter of pointing her in the right direction and letting inertia do the work. That would have been a fairly tricky situation to handle, I would imagine. By this reasoning, then, we can extrapolate that the crew of the Enterprise is even more efficient and capable than they seem at first glance.

Episodes Ranked
"The Naked Time"
"Where No Man Has Gone Before"
"Charlie X"
"The Man Trap"

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

To whoever requested the sticky on the list thread, thank you. I was just about to request it myself when I saw it was already done.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Guess I hadn't read the OP too carefully and just noticed the change to the "easy" counting method this year. Not trying to be a rebel, but I'll stick with the way we've done it in the past for my list. I like to compare how I'm doing with previous years. If I remember, I'll try to do an "easy count" total at the end of the month.

One question--I don't usually watch any short films. But why would those be treated differently when counting? Seems odd to say everything counts as one but then to place a restriction on those.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

I'm shooting for completing every entry on the checklist including watching one of every one of the multiple choices. Started out with City of Ember and Battle Beyond the Stars. I can heartily recommend City of Ember to everyone and my wife enjoyed it also. I snuck Battle Beyond the Stars in right before it was scheduled to disappear on Netflix Streaming, I thought it was very good for a 1980 space movie by Roger Corman starring John-Boy from the Waltons.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Simply something that was overlooked and I forgot to delete. The change to the easy counting came about because it was suggested by someone and I thought I would do it that way.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

No problem. Just had me curious.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

Time for a sticky on the list-- Oops! Never mind.

(:D)

Hey, what happened to the sticky on the Historical Challenge thread?! That was quick. I'm not even finished with it yet.

Re: 6th Annual Sci Fi/Fantasy Challenge
 

There's no doubt in my mind whose work that was...! :P

Dude, it's in your signature!