WesWorld

Is anyone here into science fiction movies/tv and if so which shows or movies do you like most?

Original Star Wars Fan (TM) here. Of the Trek stuff I prefer DS9. Stargate I quite like too.

star wars fan here 2

Star Trek and Star Wars were both series I grew up with, hell I remember when I was really young sitting in a drive in theatre watching the first Star Wars movie!
I've seen all the Star trek movies and I'd have to say the TNG and DS9 series were my favorite, Voyager wasn't bad and the new "Enterprize" series is preaty good. The latest series I've started watching is the new "Battlestar Galactica" series, which is acctually really dark, but preaty much sticks to the original storyline.

Hmm...

I find that I currently like sci-fi that features rounded human characters (those with flaws and unpleasantries) as well as a sense of realism. Unfortunately, I don't see much of it out there. I enjoyed Firefly as all of the characters had their flaws and the show had a laid back, low-tech feel about it. Naturally, it was cancelled.

I only just caught the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries last night, and was surprised how much I liked it. They pulled no punches with the nuking of the human worlds, and I found the tie-ins to the old series to be well thought out. I also get a sense of military realism in the operations.

I was into Andromeda for a bit, as I found the one character, Tyr, to be refreshingly unlikeable, but then they neutered the character and the episodes started getting really stupid.

I can take or leave Enterprise; it's nice to see a bit of moral ambiguity being introduced this year but the series as a whole hasn't grabbed me. Stargate, Starhunter, etc haven't interested me much but I watch them on occasion.

Movie-wise, I liked the original Star Wars, Matrix, and Dark City; I've been iffy on the Matrix sequels and abhor the new Star Wars movies. I only saw "Attack of the Clones" (which really ought to have been called, "The Clones Show Up to Save the Heroes at the Last Moment") because my friend had the DVD.

On the fantasy front, I preferred "Fellowship of the Rings" to "Two Towers", and suspect I will find "Return of the King" a bit dull - I'm not likely going to see it until the DVD with all the Christopher Lee scenes come out anyway.

I would love to see a fantasy movie with a dwarf character that isn't there for comic relief...

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Originally posted by The Rock Doctor


On the fantasy front, I preferred "Fellowship of the Rings" to "Two Towers", and suspect I will find "Return of the King" a bit dull - I'm not likely going to see it until the DVD with all the Christopher Lee scenes come out anyway.

do yourself a favor...go and see it in the theater now that you still can do it.

RotK is visually stunning, and it's sounds are amazing too. There's no way in hell you can fully enjoy the film if you're watching it for the first time on a DVD...unless you own a home cinema and one of those 7x5 TV sets, which I guess it's not the case (tho I could be wrong...and you would be a lucky b**tard )

The movie lives up to the book, which is the best thing you can possibly say about a 3 hours 20 minutes movie based on a tolkien book.

Return of the King IMO is thee best of the three movies, there are calvary charges by the Rohirim that will make you salivate! The speacial effects are simply amazing (as usual) and the movie starts out with the story of how gollum got the ring which adds to the torment you sence he is going through. It is anything than more boring than the previous two, as it ties up all the loose ends and even Samwise Gamgee's charactor developes into a Charactor than astounds you.
The new Battlestar Galactica is IMO very well done. I grew up with the original series and when they began to show re-runs on the space channel are oddly enough found it kinda black and white in addition to being childish in its storyline. The new vertion is refreshingly realistic and dark which is exactly what I invision a struggle against an un-thinking mechanical enemy would be like. The Cylons quite handily (though Baltars acedential colaberation) wipe out caprica and leave the human forces in ruins and caos, I can't wait to see part two tonight!
I also hope they make a real time stradegy game for the PC based on Battlestar Galactica, until then I'll have to stick with Star Trek Armada 2! I personally like "Enterprise" because its before the creation of the prime directive so they are acting as much like humans would be expected too in tough situations, like the attack on earth by the Zindi. As in the past history of human conflict the initial rage of an un-prevoked attack shows in some of the charactors actions and reactions to certain events. Eveb Captain Archer gets heavy handed once in a while when his emotion gets the better of him.

Unfortunately, I'm at a point where superb visual and audio effects are a given, so it's more difficult to impress me.

I think the best mass battles, from my perspective, are those that make me go "if I were the camera, that is exactly what I'd be experiencing". Generally this means chaos, brutality, appropriate levels of noise, morbid humor in small doses, etc. The illusion is ruined for me by weird or wide angle shots, high-speed or slow motion shots, over-the-top music, unnecessary noise/visual effects, and inappropriate humor.

Perversely, I think "Saving Private Ryan" is the epitome of good battle sequences, because I didn't want to re-experience them a second time. The new "Battlestar Galactica" wasn't quite as realistic, but the battles were fast, violent, full of unpleasant decisions, had only a minimal musical score, and the sound effects were at least muted (in space, obviously, there shouldn't be any at all).

On the other hand, the battle at Helm's Deep in "Two Towers" featured a major musical score, ongoing joking, the cliched "first-ever use of gunpowder in combat", and dragged on too long - plus they kept cutting away to other plots, which to me disrupted whatever tension there was. About the only part that truly moved me was the wide-angle shot of the cavalry charge down the mountain at the end - and even then I was thinking that most of the horses and riders would take a tumble on such a steep slope. Frankly, I got bored, and asked myself why it took three months to film that sequence.

That's what I'm afraid will happen when I see ROTK, so I may as well see it in the comfort of my own home, and for the cost of a rental.

Nope, I'm not one of those folks with the whole home entertainment system - I get by with a 20" TV and I only have a DVD because it was a present last Christmas.

J

I also watched the second part of the Battlestar Galactica and I thought it was awesome. What really got me down was it turns out, (unless the cylons can copy a humans appearance without them knowing...not likely) that Boomer is a cylon. In the original series Boomer was one of my favorite charactors!
When it came to the space battles I thought they were very well done, as far as I know the show is a lower buget movie when it comes to Sci-Fi stuff. The moving camera shots added to the realism of an individual's perspective of the battle, simulating a person straining to get a visual on a small fast moving target. I was confused by the missle trails though, they might have been Ion trails but if they were smoke trails thats a big no no in space. The fighters ability to change their flight path 90 degrees at lower speeds is accurate.
I agree on the helms deep battle, it was drawn out longer than it should have been, allthough I like the music from the movies. In this respect the battle at Pelenore feilds is as long as it needs to be and not any longer, the only part I found odd was the army of the dead coming in and turning the tide drastically. It seemed like an easy way out, but when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas get off the boat the orcs seem kinda cocky, till they see the army of the dead sreaming off! That and the scene where Legolas takes down the mastadon
and Gimli remarks "that still only counts as one!!" was priceless.

I can´t help it but the Battle of Hoth is still the best sci-fi battle I´ve ever seen....

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Originally posted by HoOmAn
I can´t help it but the Battle of Hoth is still the best sci-fi battle I´ve ever seen....

I'm new here, but when it comes to Sci-Fi battles,
The battle to liberate DS9 in STS9 has got to be the best fleet battle I've seen!!

When it comes to Star Trek some of the best battle scenes are in DS9's final two seasons when the Fedaration/Klingon Empire/ Romulan Empire is fighting the Gem Hadar/Cardassian/Breen alliance. There are some brutal battle scenes in some episodes. In reguards to Star Wars Hoth is one of the better battles and in The Return of the Jedi the battle between the Colonial and Imperial fleets is amazing!
If Battlestar Galactica becomes a TV series I expect that there will be more space battles as they don't really have to develope the charactors...at least not for fans of the original series. The two part Movie just about layed out the whole story of the original series.
I don't know about the rest of you but I found the battle scenes in Battlestar Galactica to be incredibly realistic, its a shame so many of the battlestars and vipers were destroyed in the initial Cylon attack, we could have seen some truely awesome battles in any future TV series. In any event if it becomes a TV series and follows the original we may see the Galactica find another Battlestar that was thought to be lost in the attacks on the 12 colony's. I like how they left it out in the open that the 13th colony of earth may or may not exist.