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Friday, April 24, 2009

Film / TV This Week's Mercury Film Section. (Also, Caprica!)

Posted by Erik Henriksen on Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 5:43 PM

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This week in the Mercury's exhilarating Film section, you will find:

• Matt Davis reviewing The Soloist! At no point at all does he identify with Robert Downey Jr.!

• Alison Hallett getting bored by cute things in Earth! This is possibly a sign of the apocalypse!

• Ned Lannamann fawning over Zooey Deschanel in Gigantic before calling on his prodigious musical knowledge to discuss Anvil! The Story of Anvil!

• Also! Bret Easton Ellis gets adapted again in The Informers, blah blah blah something about French people, and I don't like Caprica very much.

So okay, this Caprica business is what I really want to talk about. Regular Blogtown denizens will know that my love for Battlestar Galactica is so strong that not even a restraining order kept me from frantically dry-humping Edward James Olmos' leg that one time I saw him at Subway. But over the past few days, I've actually been thinking that my not-so-kind review of Caprica was, in fact, too kind. In particular, I keep flashing back to one image in the pilot that kind of makes me hate life. I won't say what it is, 'cause it's a pretty big spoiler, but gyah. I'd characterize it as a shark-jumping moment, but I don't even think that term applies, really, if said moment occurs 80 minutes into a 90-minute pilot. That's not jumping the shark, that's crashing the motorcycle before you even get to the ramp next to the shark pit. (Sharks live in pits, right? What? Like I'm a scientist.)

HOWEVER: A few people I know and respect (hi Kiala!) really loved Caprica, and it's getting really good reviews (here, here, and here), so I'm suspecting that I might be totally off-base on this one. So if you've seen Caprica, lemme know what you thought in the comments. I'm curious to hear peoples' reactions on this one, and I'm curious to see if my reactions to the pilot are really that far off the mark. Also, we're now at that part of the blog post where I'm supposed to come up with something clever and witty to say as a conclusion, but screw it. It's 5:40 pm on a Friday and I'm all hopped up on sugar and I have important stuff to do at home, people. This E.J.O. fanfic isn't going to finish itself.

 

Comments (8) RSS

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1
My thoughts on caprica:

First 10 minutes - Holy shit there's a lot of titties and women licking each other.

Next 20 minutes - this is some decent setup here. And quite the nice scene between the grieving fathers.

Next 30 minutes - I think I see where this thing might spin off into some pretty interesting areas. The head nun is sorta annoying and OH SHIT ROBOTS. I didn't think they'd actually have the robots already.

Last 30 minutes - Well, this whole gangster plot is sorta...well, I don't know how well this fits, but I guess you could spin it some interesting ways. I gotta remind myself this is a pilot. Stoltz is pretty damned good, Malcolmson is pretty damned good, Morales is nice and reserved, no explosive histrionics, unlike his kid, who called time out the last 10 episodes of his show so he could cry, puke, or puke/cry while kicking things, and also painting.

Overall, I thought the show was pretty decently directed, mostly well-acted (Zoe is pretty fuckin annoying, which could be a problem since she's a central character) and left me wanting to check out the first 3 episodes at least to see if it'll spin these threads into something interesting and unexpected.

It's not as good an intro as the Miniseries was to Galactica, but if the show makes a similarly sized jump in quality from pilot to 1st episode as "33" did for BSG, it'll be worth it.

My biggest problem is this: I don't see why Joe Adama needed to be there. I understand that he's a foil for Greystone's character, he's there to present the other side of the coin, but looking at the Pilot, there's almost no reason to make the foil Joseph Adama. It's damaging in the same way the Star Wars prequels damaged the original works: It shrinks the universe arbitrarily. Like, Bill discovered the very first hybrid (which some people are baselessly speculating IS Greystone himself) and it turns out his dad is in on the very first Cylon being created? There's no reason that character needed to be an Adama at all. It's not as bad as finding out Darth Vader created Threepio, but it's pretty suspect.
More...
Posted by Fatboy Roberts on April 24, 2009 at 6:07 PM · Report
2
I liked it.

I liked the idea that the one true God could very possibly be Eric Stolz.

And I loved the poor little house robots. They reminded me of Mr. Handy and Mr. Gutsy from FallOut 3.

Mostly, on the serious, I am fascinated with the idea of one stupid mopey teenager being the catalyst for a robot uprising which almost destroys humanity. ALTHOUGH, I think she's some sort of angel like Starbuck. She's clearly being guided by those God nutjobs and the hot nun.
Posted by kiala on April 24, 2009 at 6:14 PM · Report
3
Also, you respect me!

SUCK IT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PAINFUL MEMORIES.
Posted by kiala on April 24, 2009 at 7:07 PM · Report
4
Short version; it was pretty good. Its not Galactica, its got more of a Kings/Rome feel to it, (sidenote- Kings rocks).

Longer version; the V-Club was a bit of a surprise, not for the plot, but yeah, the nudity, (I would say gratitious, but I remember being a teenager, so...). Once it got going, it was much better- I am looking forward to the Adama/Greystone interactions. The mafia aspect can be either great or craptastic, but I'm going have the faith. And the little things fans of BSG should notice, (the Pentagon shaped tower, the sports team names, (will we get rules for Pyramid? A-Bucs wanna know...), etc...), are a great touch. The storyline has promise- much like FbR said, the Mini to 33 jump was a great one; a similar one will give this series a place on my list.

By the by, does anyone recognize the "Tauron" language?

My main question overall would be where the belief of the One True God came from- I truly hope they delve into the history of the two mythologies/theologies.
Posted by sephiroth144 on April 25, 2009 at 10:43 AM · Report
5
@sephiroth

Yes. Twitter represent!
Posted by kiala on April 25, 2009 at 12:19 PM · Report
6
I liked it or at least was surprised by how much it didn't totally suck.

The Adama connection is a bit much, but it is nice to see the lies get passed down to the next generations (the famous civil rights lawyer is really a first generation immigrant/mafia stooge). Interesting how this Adama has lost one child and a wife, yet presses on stoically to get the job done. With the help of drinking. It apparently happened before and will happen again.

(Also, the Taurons speak Ancient Greek.)
Posted by Number Six on April 26, 2009 at 3:57 PM · Report
7
I found the whole thing kind of bland, but with the caveat that it's a pilot. Pilots aren't necessarily supposed to be masterful in their own right (even though, sometimes, they are), they're supposed to set up a series. As such, it does its job. I can't really tell from the pilot whether I will like the series. My impression is that I won't like it as much as BSG, but I will definitely watch it for a while to see where it goes. As most others pointed out, there are a number of intriguing possibilities and those could play out in ways interesting or not.

There wasn't a single aspect of it that got me whipped up, and I found all the early club scenes and somewhat disconnected storytelling irritating. I thought there was too much jumping around from character to character, scene to scene at least up until the bombing. Made it hard to get too involved. And I'm not sure about Eric Stoltz. I've always found him just fine, at least, but I wonder if someone with more force or gravity would be better for the role. EJO, for all his bluster, really anchored BSG; Caprica feels a bit rudderless.
Posted by Michael M. on April 27, 2009 at 7:33 AM · Report
8
Dude, check your facts. Fonz jumped the shark on WATER SKIS. Not a motorcycle. Therefore, you avoid the whole needing to explain the pit thing....
Posted by Demondog on April 27, 2009 at 1:31 PM · Report

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