On Movies and Superheroes With a JTID Geek

An Evening at the Oscars with a JTID Geek, this is my Bobby Ghisays moment: One “Yuuge” difference between watching an American movie versus a British/European movie is that 99% of the time in an American movie the hero will save the day. It is so predictable that it is not worth watching at times. We know any second now the hero will overcome whatever challenges he or she is facing and save the day and we know 99% of the time he/she will not only survive but ride off into the sunset.



With British/European movies you never really know how they will end because chances are both the hero and the people he/she was trying to save will end up dead or the world get blown to bits and we all die. Somehow people in Europe and the UK are not too concern with saving the day because the reality is, we cannot win all the time. It got to the point where the British film industry was forced to create alternate happy American endings to some of their movies in order to satisfy the snowflake American market and leave the reality of life endings, to mature people who understand that we cannot win all of life's challenges. These days money is winning over both creativity and reality and the British are making movies for the American market.


I remember my disappointment after watching “Crimson Tide” with Denzel and Hackman that movie should have ended with the world destroyed instead of the predictable last minute save the world happy ending bull crap. It would have made a bigger impact, with a more realistic message that one day our luck will run out and we will self-destruct. That movie should have ended with the brutal destruction of the world, showing human suffering because of human stupidity. These happy endings regardless of situations are creating delusional people not afraid to push the envelope, because they think humanity will save the day in the last seconds.  


The movie “28 Days Later” was one of the best zombie movies ever to me because it was the only zombie movie that scared the hell out of me and I am not afraid to say that. I think I read somewhere that “28 Days Later” had 3 alternate endings one where everyone died, some died and they all lived. As the studio try to please the market.


One of the worst Sci-Fi movie to me was Independence Day. I am a Sci-Fi geek but this movie was an insult to my intelligence from start to finish. The special effect was great, top class but the story-line was terrible and the ending predictable. Will Smith who is a brilliant actor just decided to play Fresh Prince in the movie. But it was the science that was all wrong, are you telling me that those aliens with superior technology had no concept of an anti-virus or that a ship that crash landed on earth decades before still had the same software version as the ship that just arrived decades later and was able to reconnect to the mother-ship without a software upgrade or any identifying login sequence. By using a Apple PowerBook 5300 they were able to upload a virus to the mother ship. Then that July 4th speech almost made me puke, it was corny and over the top. I was able to look past the fact that humanity cannot get to our nearest planet but we can beat aliens who traveled between galaxies.


The original “War of the World” was a true classic, humanity failed to defeat the aliens, all seemed lost but in the end the aliens were defeated by germs. I still remember watching that on JBC TV with my 13 inch black and white Westinghouse TV.


One Sci Fi movie that left a lasting impression on me was the 1951 black-and-white movie, the original, "The Day the Earth Stood Still". It made me question the future of humanity and this planet at a very young age. I began to see humanity through a microscope, like little destructive insects. The remake of that movie did nothing for me and was not even worth a re-watch.

The First Matrix movie blew me away, the second, Matrix Reloaded was rubbish and should never have been made with elements of that script merged into the third movie, Matrix Revolutions. Matrix Reloaded, was milking a script too far.


The 1970 British Sci-fi show with the groovy music, UFO was a must watch for me growing up, “SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation”


And who can forgot the 1975 Space 1999. Not to mention the fashion of the time use to drive young boys crazy.






Star Trek Next Generation is the best of the Star Trek franchise, followed by Star Trek Enterprise and then Star Trek Voyager. I was not a big fan of Star Trek Deep Space Nine maybe because they never go anywhere but it comes sixth behind two shows that does not belong to the Star Trek franchise but are top rated by me. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. I loved Stargate Continuum and Stargate The Ark of Truth. Stargate Universe was just rubbish!



I purposely left out Star Trek Original because it is in a class all by itself and I do not want to judge it with modern technology.

What makes a good Science Fiction show? First you need a good concept. Most of the good Sci-Fi shows have nothing to do with the science or the year it was set in but the concept of the movie, the script, the storyline. Then no matter how good your concept is, if you do not have lovable character who grows on the audience then forget it. The audience wants to be able to relate to each character, we want to follow along with their development from one week to the next. 


No matter how good the good-guys characters are, they are only as good as a good villain. The audience wants to be able to relate to each villain just as much. We love Picard and the crew of the Enterprise, but we also love Q, the Borg, the Romulans and Klingons. We love Jack O'Neill and each member of the SG1, but we also love Apophis and The Goa'uld. We did not know much about Ra, but it was Apophis who brought us intimate lovable knowledge of the Goa'uld. That character set the stage for the good things to come. Then throw in the Replicators, Ori and the Wraith just to name a few and over time we begin to bond with every single character in the series.



The Christopher Reeve superman movies just did not do it for me, I remember watching the first Christopher Reeve’s movie at the Carib Theater and was excited about it but that quickly wore off.

The first one was great but all the others failed, however the line “kneel before Zod” will live on forever. Reeve was perfect for the role but the writing, plot and characters were too weak for a comic head like me. Coupled with directors who ignore decades of comic history and decided to create their own idea of what superman was, the same can be said for some of the old batman movies. It set the stage for the future failures of everything in the DC universe, except the animations. Somehow they are unable to move from comic to screen properly, like Marvel. 


I can sit and watch the old Star Wars movie over and over but I cannot sit down and watch the old superman without feeling like throwing something at the screen. The worst one by far was Superman Return. I was not sure what the writers and directors were trying to do but it was an epic failure not worth a second watch. What made it even worst was that the movie had the technology to do whatever it wanted. Henry Cavill Superman, Man of Steel was in my view, the best so far.



I think people are either Superman or Batman fans, everyone have a preference. I am a Batman person, not that fancy pants version of batman doing the Batusi but the Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb type Batman. Mean and gritty. The Batman who would not kill you but when he is finished with you, you wished he had killed you. Not to mention he carries a piece of Kryptonite with him just in case he needs to whop Superman’s ass.


YOU DON'T GET IT, SON. THIS ISN'T A MUDHOLE. IT'S AN OPERATING TABLE. AND I'M THE SURGEON.

TIME TRAVEL!

The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible.

I frigging wish it was because that is one concept that does my head in. I can handle the simple go back in time shows (Doctor Who for example) but I refuse to watch shows stuck in time loops with subtle changes between loops.

Space-time Continuum

It is lazy television, making 10 minutes of show and loop it for an hour until the end. Then there is the time paradox, a temporal paradox. A causal loop is a paradox of time travel that occurs when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event. It seems when a plot gets too complicated just go back in time, this does my head in.

The consistency paradox or grandfather paradox occurs when a future event prevents the occurrence of a past event that was partly or entirely the cause of the future event, thereby preventing the future event from occurring, thus creating a contradiction. Oh dear lord please shoot me now!



Time travel drives me crazy and I can see why the logical Vulcans would say it is not possible, as a way to simply not deal with it, the permutations can drive you crazy.


Colonel Jack O'neill of Stargate SG-1 trapped in a time loop decided to take the loop off, is exactly how I feel about time loops. Who can forget Star Trek Voyager Series 5, Episode 24 Relativity, with time incursions and the need to clean up the timeline.  

Time And Relative Dimension in Space 

However I love Doctor Who because for the most part it is simple time travel.

99% of the movies I watch have nothing to do with reality because I try to disconnect from reality when watching movie. 85% of the movies I watch are Sci-Fi movies with strong story line because the science is not enough.

I do not watch movies that stereotype black people as suffering criminals and poor sistas with worthless baby fathers, none of that Boyz n the Hood type rubbish. I feel a lot of these movies are telling kids how they should live and not how they should NOT live. It is a glorification of a dysfunctional lifestyle and does nothing to uplift people. In a large part of the white world their perception of everything different comes from Hollywood and I must say some of us get the perception about ourselves from Hollywood as well. There is more to us than suffering, criminals, violence, and poor pregnant sistas.

If all you know about human history comes from Hollywood and the film industry then you do not know human history because that industry exist for a different purpose, to make a profit.

AND YOU BETTER KNOW WHO was Bobby Ghisays.


The post Oscar debate is just so amazing
When people from the ethnic minority are omitted no matter how hard they work and how professional they are and when they complain. There are those who tell them to shut up and stop complaining declaring the reason they were omitted was only because they were not good enough to win. As some people ask if black people think they deserve to be rewarded simply because they are an ethnic minority or female. That was the debate and defense the last time the Oscar was accused of not recognizing the contribution of people from the ethnic minority.


However when people from the ethnic minority are rewarded for hard work and professionalism. These same people complain that they are only being rewarded because they are ethnic minority or female, again implying that they are not good enough and in their eyes, they will never be good enough. With these people, the ethnic minority cannot win, no matter what they do as people like these do not want them to win.


Cancelled Too Soon
I have always said that Sci-Fi shows do not belong on regular network TV because the stations are too fickle for ratings. Over the years, lots off Sci-Fi shows were prematurely cancelled simply because ratings dropped below a certain mark. Many a time you sit and relax waiting for your favorite show to come on only to find out the network cancelled it.
  • Agent Carter
  • FireFly
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
  • Dark Angel
  • Star Trek: Enterprise
  • V
  • Terra Nova (which reminds me of 100)
  • Constantine
  • Being Human
  • Defiance
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars


Women of Sci-Fi


Zoë Washburne
FireFly Cancelled too Soon

Seven of Nine

Anastasia Dualla

*Melinda May*

Princess Leia Organa

Uhura

T'Pol

Carter
*Samantha Carter*

Guinan

Colonel Samantha Carter

*Uhura*

*Rose Tyler*

*Uhura*

*Kara Thrace*

**Starbuck!**

**Cameron**
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Cancelled Too Soon

Number Six, D'Anna Biers, Sharon "Boomer" Valerii

*River Song*


**Starbuck!**

As much as I disliked the show, I still watched it


**Teyla Emmagan**

**Amelia Pond**

**Martha Jones, Martha Jones, Martha Jones**





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Villains of Sci-Fi 



I do not know what it is about the Weeping Angels from Dr. Who, maybe the fact that they do not move when you are looking at them, the fact that you cannot even blink. They look like ordinary everyday Gothic graveyard statues. They do not talk or have real human like roles in shows, no fluid movements BUT they scare the living daylights out of me. You see them one way and then the light flickers and they appear to change position, facial expressions and locations getting closer and closer until they get you.



Anna
V
Cancelled too Soon!

Borg Queen: 
Human! We used to be exactly like them. Flawed. Weak. Organic. But we evolved to include the synthetic. Now we use both to attain perfection. 

Sontaran


**Anna**



Q - The most lovable Villain

May your reign last days, and your death, years

**Apophis**

Extremely powerful Goa'uld System Lord and one of the Best Villains. Peter Williams (born December 31, 1957) is a Jamaican-born actor currently residing in Canada. "Teal’c, this is your god, Apophis. Risen from the fires of Netu. The fate of your friends will be pleasant compared to what I have planned for you. Return them to the pit. Kintac You will be my first prime"

Peter's Blog

Lord Ba'al, one of the last System Lords 


What can I say about the Ori. if they came to my village, I would be shouting Hallowed are the Ori!
You cannot fight this level of Righteous Craziness when you are a primitive. They could turn water into wine.

She I would worship any day

A different type of Vampires



Agent Smith: 
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure. 

Kahn
From Hell's heart I stab at thee. For Hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.

Metal

Gul Dukat

Dominion

The Best Joker in a movie

Mark Hamill: The best Animated Joker Voice of all times
 


ZOD!!!

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