Saw MiB last night, along with trailers for Starship Troopers,
Alien 4:The resurrection, and Lost in Space. MiB first--I loved
it� Just plain old-fashioned entertainment. I'll probably see it
again soon (might even buy the video). Rick Baker and ILM did a
truly fine job on the aliens and FX, without which it would have
failed--as someone has said already, it's all surface. But what a
fun surface� Memo to anyone who hasn't seen it yet: do *not*
leave your seat until the credits actually start at the end.
You'll miss a lovely visual sequence that explains the McGuffin.
There's one shot in that sequence that I can see on an Analog or
Asimov cover, probably by Kelly Freas or Bob Eggleton. A lot of
the people in the audience last night left as soon as the camera
started pulling away from Earth, and unless they happened to look
back they missed a fine finale.
The trailers--ah, the orgy of Hollywood skiffy� Frankly,
they sort of blended into each other; I'm not really sure now
which ships that looked like models George Lucas rejected as not
*quite* what he wanted went with which movie. What did impress me
was how much better LiS looked (in the trailer at least) than SST
(will that dofor an abbreviation?) Better visually, I mean. I
swear, in one least one shot of the spiders I saw bluescreen
lines around the fakiest looking aliens since before Star Wars.
The overall "look" is awful. *What* production values? MiB might
be all surface and even a Ghostbusters ripoff, but IT LOOKS GOOD�
SST looks to be just another war movie in space with lousy FX.
And here's something ominous, for a movie based on a book with a
strong viewpoint character: there was absolutely no indication I
could see that it even has a viewpoint character. There were a
couple of small-group shots with a dark-haired guy in one and a
blond in another. Which, if either, is Rico? And no mention of
RAH either. Any bets it's aimed square at the younger male
audience who like fancy guns, lots of explosions, soem
spaceships, and have no idea whatever that science fiction books
exist except as novelizations? OK, maybe the trailer doesn't do
the movie justice. Here's one viewer who has no interest in
finding out. (Alien 4 might be good--hard to tell. But when
Ripley-clone looks evil, I'm curious enough to consider checking
it out. I loved the first two, skipped the third)
On another topic, has anyoneseen Contact yet? It got poor
reviews in the Washington Post, as having a great begining and
going sharply downhill. I haven't read the book yet and don't
remember the reviews on that. Will try to get it this weekend.
Chris Callahan
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