Time... and travel

[da]

On the airplane to YYC, they showed us the movie Meet the Robinsons. I didn't know anything about it, and I was going to skip it, but I got sucked in within five minutes. If you, like me, have been under the same rock as me (especially if you tend to avoid kids' movies)- think The Incredibles-style realistic animation with a plot similar to Back to the Future. I liked it- the villain ("Bowler Hat Guy") was properly eeeevil and the plot had fun twists.

On the flight back from YYC, we had one of the upgraded Airbus 320s with seat-back movie-players. (It was crashy for the beginning of the flight, so I got out my laptop and watched a Doctor Who episode, "Blink"). The movies on offer were less than stellar- "Blades of Glory"- ugh. But they had the newer version of "The Time Machine," which I'd never seen, so I gave it a try. It failed on many fronts- it felt like a formulaic Big Budget Adventure Film, the deus ex machina ending made little sense, the actors all seemed wooden (though this might have been the fault of the tiny screen and bad sound) and I think Peter Jackson probably wants his orc costumes back. On the bright side, the Time Machine itself looked shiny and steam-punk, and there were a few nice shots of the moon breaking up, though regrettably few of big rocks crashing into Manhattan (they removed that scene, as it was released at the beginning of 2002 and it was deemed Too Soon).

I just have to wonder, though; they could have made a much sharper, more challenging movie with the same original story. Contrast this with Doctor Who, which can be just as formulaic (more so, 'cause it's a 45-minute serial), yet much more fun.

Finally, I broke my unintentional string of time-travel stories by watching a short bit of the BBC Planet Earth series, which was beautiful and I look forward to eventually seeing more. The episode was "The Great Plains" which sounds like it ought to be a dog-boring topic, but it wasn't much at all like those awful documentaries we had to watch in Elementary School. Here, there was drama, cute fluffy baby snow geese, and the baby foxes who ate them. And time-lapse views of sheep denuding a huge swath of grassland. (since my flight had the gall to finish before the episode did, I wanna know how it ends- does the tapdancing penguin get eaten?)

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And I am very glad to be home again- and reasonably happy to be back at work, too. This afternoon is: trying to finish up evaulating "slice-o-matic" and a few other 3d visualization tools, and possibly moving on to another project which involves yet still another computer under my desk. Sigh. Also, a hopefully interesting phone-call, which I may blog about later.

Comments

[thingo.livejournal.com]

I picked up the Planet Earth DVDs based on a suggestion I had seen on a blog that they're good to watch with your kids (and they make an excellent alternative to, say, Blue's Clues). First of all, yes -- the kids love them. Second, holy cow. What an amazing series. My personal favourite is the episode on caves. Picture a giant cave in Borneo, populated by three million bats. Picture a 15 metre mountain of guano, covered with a seamless carpet of cockroaches. Oh, and picture the crew filming there for 30 days (every episode is followed by a ten minute "making of" segment). What's impressive is that the show never gets preachy. They have ample opportunity to throw in heavy-handed environmentalism messages, but show great restraint, preferring to let the wonder of nature speak for itself.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Oo.

Aside from the cockroaches, that sounds great.

I was amused to discover that toward the end of the Plains episode I missed seeing an elephant get taken down by (lions? leopards? some African predator).

Did I say amused? I mean frustrated. Damn you fast plane!

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

You were wanting a slower flight?

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

For an elephant takedown? Hm.

I will say that it will be a fine day when they can allow movies to continue during landing and taxiing.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Not going to happen. The issue is that they want you not wearing headphones or paying attention to the screen if they need to evacuate you. Landing is one of the very few times where if you actually pay attention, you might not die in the event of an emergency.