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Time... and travel
Friday, 20 July 2007 10:28 amOn 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?)
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.
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?)
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.
