Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Avatar is a darn good movie, but as cautionary tales go, it’s too in-your-face.

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

I have nothing against a good cautionary tale, having been weaned on them watching the original Star Trek television series when it first went into syndication back when I was a kid. I’m the classic definition of a Trekker (I never cared for the term “Trekkie”), and I loved The Twilight Zone. So I definitely know how to appreciate a good cautionary tale when I see one, and while Avatar might fall short in that respect, frankly it is a darn good movie otherwise.

Not only is it a measurable leap forward in terms of cinematic techniques and special effects, but it’s also a stellar tale, impeccably presented. The 3D aspect of what is shown (I saw it in IMAX 3D) fell short however. There were only certain scenes where I could actually see the intended 3D affect, and none of them were the more memorable scenes that the movie has to offer. In that respect the movie didn’t really live up to that aspect of the hype in my humble opinion, but even as a standard 2D movie, which it isn’t, it’s still an incredibly paced, dynamic film. However, as a cautionary tale, it peddles and preaches a clear and distinct ideological view to its audience, and therein lays my biggest problem with the film. In spite of the technical innovations achieved, it’s also just more in the way of anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-military, pro-Green, anti-human sentiment. I feel compelled to ask whether we haven’t had more than enough of that by Hollywood titans out to dazzle us with their brilliance as they enjoy many of the societal benefits that they decry in their films.

Early on in the movie, one of the central characters—an alien from the Pandora Moon no less—talks down to the protagonist for the dire sin of his being utterly unfamiliar with the environment in which she lives. Cameron was making a point, but he was also talking down to his audience as though we are all children, telling us in effect to pay attention to our surroundings and to act accordingly and to be respectful in situations foreign to us. And it turns out much of the movie comes across that way unfortunately. I know you’re probably thinking to yourself right now that apparently I didn’t like the movie after all, so why give it four stars? Well, in a nutshell because it is also entertaining, very well executed for the most part, and magnificently crafted in spite of its condescending approach.

Roughly forty percent of the movie is live-action, with the other sixty percent pioneering CGI, and Cameron manages to deliver it all in an almost seamless fashion. The viewer can identify with the alien creatures and their world as though they’re just as real as their human counterparts, which is really saying something, because they are portrayed as the more sympathetic of the two groups. That might well have been a tougher sell had the Na’vi race not looked authentically realistic in their own right, but they do, and the battle sequences that take place on Pandora are truly spectacular.

Sam Worthington turns in a decent performance, although I felt he was better in “Terminator Salvation.” Zoe Saldana is especially good considering she’s never actually seen in the movie, only her computer-rendered character. The real stand-out for me, however in terms of performance, is Stephen Lang, who looks as though he pumped up on steroids just for the sake of making this film. He plays the human Colonel and primary villain who’s hell-bent in succeeding in his mission to level a significant portion of Pandora, and to eliminate anyone that dares to get in his way, be they human or native, in order to get to the precious mineral that lies beneath the alien colony living there. (Cameron actually named this precious mineral “unobtainium” for metaphorical reasons obviously, but it’s ridiculous to hear said aloud nonetheless.)

I felt as though I was watching a weird combination of “Dances with Wolves,” “Medicine Man,” and “Attack of the Clones.” All in all the movie is definitely worth seeing however. I’m tired of being made to feel as though I’m one of the bad guys though as I’m sitting there to be entertained, having paid the price of an IMAX ticket no less for the thrill of being impugned.

J.J. Abrams ventures into the final frontier with a new cast

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I have a number of problems with the plot of this film, not the least of which is its seemingly, on the surface at least, erasing of all prior original series-related canon, which is in fact its greatest sin, and its overall implications don’t even stop there because it renders virtually all subsequent modern Trek mythology established in later shows null and void as well. That amounts to hundreds of episodes and ten movies rendered completely moot by virtue of their being undone. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would ever say this, but this is worse than if they were to have resurrected Kirk from the dead post-Generations the way a contingent of the fan base had been pining for over a period of many years because the implications here in contrast are much more far-reaching. J.J. Abrams and his two writers, along with Leonard Nimoy, have stated in interviews that what takes place in this movie occurs in an alternate universe. However, the clear evidence attesting to that is lacking in the film itself. My review will therefore proceed taking that into account for what it is: an absence of hard and credible evidence.

In terms of action, the film opens well. Nero, the Romulan Captain of a ship called the Narada, emerges from the future and into the past, initially without his even realizing it. In a rage over having just witnessed the destruction of his planet in his own era, he attacks the first ship he sees: a Federation Starship (the USS Kelvin) that also carries Kirk’s father and his pregnant mother. The Captain of the Kelvin is instructed to beam aboard Nero’s ship during the assault and Kirk’s father is placed in command. As a result of the peril at hand, Winona Kirk goes into labor as the ship is being evacuated and Kirk’s father sacrifices himself and the ship in order for the crew to escape safely. High intensity action and I couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance of the escape shuttles to the shuttles seen in the original series –a nod and homage of a sort that I really liked and appreciated.

Jump-shot to Kirk as a boy racing a 20th century Corvette recklessly over the side of a cliff just after being warned by his stepfather not to damage the prized vehicle. The young lad barely makes it out of the classic sports car in time and pulls himself up from the side of the cliff as the automobile crashes to the bottom of the canyon. I can understand some boyish impetuousness, but this is just plain crazy. Kirk’s mother is never seen again. His stepfather is never shown and never heard from again, and this standalone scene can almost be edited out of the film entirely, but it does help set the stage for the older Kirk we’re about to meet, who—to put it mildly—still has issues.

He hits on the first girl he sees in the next scene, which happens to be Uhura, and in his bold inebriated stupor then proceeds to pick a fight with four Starfleet cadets, asserting that they’re short on muscle to put him in his place. Pine is good in the role, and this is an angrier Kirk than we’ve come to know up until now, with the underlying reason for his defiant rage a result of the absence of the father he never got to know and who wasn’t there to raise him. (This becomes clearer later in the movie when he meets the elder Spock and specifically asks him if he ever knew his father in the other timeline that Spock came from.)

Overall the stage is set and the film doesn’t waste any more time on Kirk’s misspent youth. Pike sits down and has a father-son type talk with him following the bar fight and manages to convince him to join Starfleet. Initially I had some reservations about Bruce Greenwood in the role of Pike, but he does a fine job. What happens with his character ultimately, as with all the main characters, is another matter entirely, however.

As we met up with Kirk as a young lad, so too is the case for Spock as well, who has a bad encounter on his home planet, Vulcan, with full-blooded Vulcan boys intent on tormenting him into showing human anger and emotion resulting from his mixed heritage. This is certainly consistent with what we already know about the character’s background and childhood, but what follows later in his early adulthood is not. These two principal characters—Kirk and Spock—meet in Starfleet Academy following Kirk’s having cheated on the Kobayashi Maru Test, which, as it turns out here, had been designed, or at the very least maintained by Spock. The original series and big screen features in no way indicates anything like this, and the writers rely here on vagueness and a lack of implication in those prior films to reach this contrivance. And while Kirk’s life up to this point has taken some very different turns than what he had experienced in the original unaltered timeline, Spock’s existence appears to have gone unaffected up to this point for the most part, seemingly consistent in both.

Here is where things begin to get hairy again, however, because unbeknownst to all, and what Kirk will shortly figure out is that Nero has lurked about quietly for the last quarter of a century and decides that it is now time to re-emerge finally. Another contrivance, and instead of taking a more logical course by having Nero’s ship disappear into the black hole that hurled him into the past immediately following the destruction of the Kelvin, only to have him reappear again twenty-five years later, with it being only mere moments to him and his crew, writers Robeto Orci and Alex Kurtzman choose to have them skulking around in the shadows for that period of time waiting for Spock to appear. One wonders why Nero’s crew would remain steadfast and loyal throughout all that time, and even though they’re Romulans, who like their Vulcan cousins have a considerably longer lifespan than human beings, it is nevertheless somewhat remarkable that Nero and his crew show no signs of age nonetheless compared to how they look when they’re first encountered at the beginning of the movie.

Quinto does a fairly adequate job as Spock, but his portrayal is very different from Nimoy’s in the original series or the movies that followed. While we shouldn’t have expected nor hoped for simple impersonations by any of these actors in their respective roles, it’s more noticeable in Quinto’s case that the performance varies from his original counterpart because Nimoy is in the movie, which also serves as an unintentional reminder. Some of what Quinto does in the role is also very out of character, such as stranding acting First Officer Kirk on the inhospitable far side of planet Delta Vega (nice nod to “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” though seemingly inaccurate nonetheless), and damn near getting him killed as a result. And while the planet harkens back to the second pilot episode of the original series, where it was Spock’s recommendation to strand Gary Mitchell (who is nowhere to be found here interestingly enough) once he began developing superior god-like powers, and thereby endangering the ship, young Kirk is hardly the same kind of threat here in contrast, although events leading up to this perpetrated by Nero could be deemed enough for Spock to behave in a seemingly irrational manner. Nevertheless, it still amounts to a lot for Kirk to forgive once he makes his way back to the Enterprise.

It’s on Delta Vega that Kirk meets the elder Spock as he runs for his life into a cave from a giant predator. (I guess we’re supposed to chalk this “chance meeting” that defies astronomical odds up to “fate.”) From there the two meet up with Scotty, who, in addition to being awkwardly brilliant, is intended for comic relief more than ever before in the annals of Trekdom, which incidentally, no longer matters a darn anyway as previously pointed out. Upon their return to the Enterprise, young Kirk follows through on elder Spock’s instruction to expose Spock the younger as being emotionally compromised after the destruction of the Vulcan home world by Nero, and in doing so the writers blow an excellent opportunity to show the shrewd and cunning side of Kirk and his ability to outsmart Spock-the-younger at a critical moment by having Kirk remove Spock from command after his outburst instead of Spock removing himself. I guess they felt they were being true to the Spock character here by having him realize the extent to which he is emotionally compromised right away rather than it taking a little longer for him to realize it, but it would have provided a great distinction between the two characters had it been handled the way I just suggested instead while also helping to illustrate why of the two it is Kirk who actually belongs in the command chair.

At least with The Wrath of Khan there was the strong sense of a continuing saga, with an old familiar foe coming to exact vengeance. Here, however, the villain appears out of nowhere, and with undo prejudice proceeds to wipe out all of established canon in the blink of an eye, basically telling longtime fans of the franchise of all stripes to just forget about all they’ve watched for the last forty-plus years because none of it matters any longer. (Should that be viewed as an appreciation of the fan base, or as a slap in their collective group of faces?)

The film’s climax, while exhilarating to many, was in many respects nothing we haven’t already seen before, which is why it fell somewhat flat for me, although points for showing the Enterprise firing scores of high intensity bursts, very atypical of what longtime fans are accustomed to seeing, are in fact well deserved. However, the movie ends on a note not consistent with the characters we have come to know, especially in the case of the elder Spock, who never would have stood for the destruction of his home world. The Spock we know would have convinced young Kirk to help him undo the damage that had been done by Nero by their going back in time to change a course of events that was never intended in the first place as evidenced by the original timeline (and deep down this is something Kirk also knows to be true from a much more personal standpoint). That’s just basic “Star Trek 101” – we’ve seen it many times before in similar situations, and the rest of the new Enterprise crew here would have agreed to help restore things to their natural order simply because it was the right thing to do. Kirk’s father need not have died in vain as a result, nor the six billion inhabitants on Vulcan, not to mention their future generations that had been deprived of ever being born as a result of Nero’s actions, none of which was ever meant to be. Genocide on a scale so massive that it is almost inconceivable is instead allowed to stand.

Star Trek has always been about hope –hope for mankind, hope for our future, but with that ending, hope is in very short supply and hard to come by …to say the least.

…And if it all really does take place in an alternate universe as Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman have been saying for the better part of a year at this point, they really should make that irrefutably and abundantly clear in the sequel so that there is no longer any doubt.

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The Comic Prequel to the Hit Movie

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The four books of Star Trek: Countdown are more like Chapters in this Comic Book prequel to the latest movie. There is information contained therein that people who have seen the movie would benefit from knowing although most are probably not already aware of these things.

First off though, I should say that the Art work is for the most part very good, and it is indeed a true prequel to the movie that should be viewed and regarded as canon material. This commentary about it will contain major Spoilers however, so if you would prefer to read this comic book series on your own rather than having portions of it revealed to you here, then I would advise you to stop reading at this point.

Relevant precursors that also tie into the film:

–The markings on Nero’s forehead are there because it’s a Romulan tradition memorializing loss; he does this to commemorate the death of his wife, unborn child and planet. (Interesting that we’ve never seen this cultural custom before concerning the Romulans, but that’s the reason for his tattoos.)

–Nero’s mining ship is retrofitted with Borg technology, which the Romulans integrated with their own. This happens at a highly secret Romulan military station meant for high ranking officials following a major disaster, which in this case was the destruction of Romulus.

–Spock’s ship (the “Jellyfish”) is a prototype that was also originally designed by Geordi La Forge. (FYI – In this Comic, Data Captains the Enterprise E; Picard is an Ambassador, and Worf is an officer in commission with the Klingon Empire.) The Vulcans also modify the Jellyfish as per Spock’s instructions.

–The red matter that Nero uses to destroy planets is actually a highly classified Vulcan scientific and military secret that initially they refuse to share with Spock and Nero out of concern for what the Romulans might do with it once the Hobus star problem gets resolved. Spock has also fallen out of favor with Vulcan High Command as a result of his many years working as a diplomat on Romulus, and the Vulcans now find it difficult to trust him for that reason.

These next comments are more my own personal observations, but there’s a glaring problem with the overall premise of the story, which the movie also indicates and therefore suffers from too as a result: it is clearly indicated that the Hobus star going supernova affects not just Romulus directly, but also the planets Vulcan and Earth as well. This is too far-reaching in scope and not consistent with the universe we know. Vulcan should be too far away and therefore not affected, and the same goes for Earth. Yet the story ties them all together in terms of the dire consequences of the star going supernova despite the enormous distances that there should be between these planets and their surrounding galaxies.

Furthermore, it’s a little difficult to accept that in this era of highly advanced technology that the Romulans are unable to determine what will soon happen to the Hobus star; Spock warns them, but they refuse to believe him, and one would think that their instruments would confirm Spock’s findings, and it’s basically a major crisis that could have been averted had they just listened to him and studied the star carefully for themselves in the first place.

This four-book series reaches its climax as Worf is severely injured in the final book/chapter and his fate is left in question at the end. Indeed, after being impaled the way he is on the Narada, it seems incredibly unlikely that he would be able to survive. (Nero pulls the same stunt with Worf that we see him pull with the Captain of the Kelvin in the movie, and then later with Pike too, by ordering him to shuttle over to the Narada following a battle in which Worf and his ship and Fleet end up basically at Nero’s mercy.)

However, aside from Worf’s fate hanging in the balance once all is said and done, Picard and Data, et al, and their timeline, appears to remain intact following Nero and Spock being sucked into the black hole at the end of the story, which, given the extent of dramatic changes that take place in the film, seems highly unlikely. We know, for example, that Vulcan has not previously been destroyed in Kirk’s era, as happens in the movie, so one wonders how Orci and Kurtzman would justify this, or if they have any interest whatsoever in caring to do so. They have stated in interviews, along with Leonard Nimoy, that what happens in the movie takes place in an alternate universe even though the movie doesn’t bear it out as Uhura’s use of the term “alternate reality” on the bridge of the Enterprise about midway through the film is not really enough to establish that it’s not the original prime timeline that has been altered as a result of Nero’s actions.

This Comic Prequel is an enjoyable addition to the film that otherwise fits nicely alongside it as a companion piece, but the references to the Hobus star going supernova as affecting both Vulcan and Earth are misguided and never would have passed muster to make its way into a screenplay or teleplay. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who share story credit and gave final approval to this four-book series before it went to publication should have changed that aspect of the story, but otherwise, it’s a fun read.

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A very different kind of Stargate and a very different type of drama for the franchise

By Carl Lawrence

SyFy, Fridays, 9:00 PM EST

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars (after 4 episodes)

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS)

I hope Stargate Universe doesn’t become a victim of its own brooding. That isn’t to say that this latest episode wasn’t entertaining and enjoyable, and I applaud the creative team for taking a very different approach with this series not at all typical of what one would expect from a Stargate show. However, I knew at the end of the previous episode how this latest installment to the series would play out and ultimately end. It was plainly obvious that the Destiny was headed toward the star to replenish its energy supply. It was a reasonable approach for the kind of drama this show stands to offer, but prior evidence regarding the ship’s actions indicated that Destiny would act to protect itself and its inhabitants, so why didn’t any of the crew openly suggest that very possibility at some point during the episode? It’s true that whether Rush knew to expect that outcome as a possibility was made an issue by the Captain at the very end of the episode, which was the right thing for the writers to have done, continuing to cast suspicion on Rush and making sure viewers are left to wonder about him and his motives even though the evidence only barely supported the accusation at best. Clearly Rush had serious concerns about the ship’s intent to head into the star and what that would likely mean for the crew as well. I wasn’t expecting the ship to actually fly through the star and pass through its corona, however. I had anticipated a very close fly-by so Destiny could recharge before moving on again. I still don’t know how the ship could have shielded itself, let alone its human passengers from the incredibly intense radiation it subjected itself to by passing through the star, so it’s of course no wonder that Rush would have been skeptical at best that the ship or crew would actually survive after looking at its flight path.

The special effects team working on this show also deserves a lot of credit. Their contributions have been simply outstanding, better than what I’m accustomed to seeing in a Stargate series, their work clearly improving with the passage of time. The writers deserve nods of acknowledgment as well for their daring choices and making them work to the extent they have up to this point. I was extremely surprised to see the lottery losers that were stuck having to stay behind on the Destiny as it moved toward the star huddling together and reciting the “Our Father” prayer, which is very unusual for television dramas of today that more often than not tend to shy away from religion, especially Catholicism and Christianity. Yet there was no hesitation to put that scene front and center here, right smack in the face of the audience and letting them hear the words spoken in unison to illustrate the gravity and extreme seriousness of the situation at hand. I sincerely hope this show continues to take such chances in the stories they tell as the series moves forward.

I’m a little concerned, however, that at some point the plots will become too thin to support. Episode two, after a good pilot launch the week prior, concerned itself mainly with two small survey teams trying to find limestone on a desert planet in order to resuscitate Destiny’s air filtration system so the crew could continue to breathe and survive. The episode moved slowly and there was almost no real action to speak of and was a somewhat weak follow-up on which to launch the weekly show. Episode 3 was more intense, with Dr. Rush having his meltdown as a result of the stress at hand and his concern that the ship’s power was draining down to nothing, combined with the accompanying caffeine and nicotine withdrawal he was experiencing. His implosion was fun to watch, but again, the plot was a bit thin. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed that episode despite its mostly shipboard problems and inherent story structural constraints, but the question is: where does a show like this go once they’ve run out of problems like this to deal with? I would have to imagine that at some point the crew will begin moving on to find obstacles deeper within the unexplored sections of the ship itself to overcome. It’s already been established that the Destiny is a huge ship, and in that sense it will have something in common with the series that preceded it, Atlantis, wherein the writers periodically resorted to such stories via the largely unexplored or previously unknown areas of the giant City around which that show was based. In fact, the city of Atlantis was so enormous and so much of it went unexplored that if anything it seemed a premise that largely went to waste by the time that show was finished. No matter though, as I expect that the kinds of stories the crew of the Destiny will be confronted by as they work their way through the ship will be almost nothing like what we saw in Atlantis.

Here’s hoping so anyway . . .

See also: Stargate Universe Opens the Gate

Watch Full Episodes of Stargate Univerese Online at Hulu.com

Go to TV.com for more info on Stargate Universe including Episode guides and Cast bios

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 ¼ out of 5 Stars

Warning: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

Paranormal Activity, made on a shoe-string budget of just $11,000, and having brought in almost $20 million at the Box Office last week alone, is the surprise hit of the year, and it’s not without its creepy charm. Most of what happens in this film takes place in the home of an unmarried couple who are living together, and in total we see no more than four actors throughout the entire movie. If this were a typical Hollywood studio production, good luck keeping the attention of the audience with such a restricted setting and small, limited cast. Fortunately, however, it’s not that kind of a movie at all and therefore takes a huge risk that rather incredibly pays off with what it stands to offer.

Don’t get me wrong, however –we’re not talking incredibly groundbreaking cinema here either, although it is marginally innovative in terms of its approach and is significantly better than another experimental student film of the same genre that it was patterned after and took its cue from: The Blair Witch Project.  Paranormal Activity is sort of the inverse of what we see happen in Blair Witch …instead of the creepiness being evoked in the unfamiliar terrain of an unpopulated wooded area, Paranormal Activity does it in what is supposed to be all the comforts of home.

I expected the special effects in this film to be limited at best, if any at all, but was surprised to see that it did contain some technical wizardry in various sequences where called for, although the filmmaker wisely resorts to them only sparingly.

The movie starts off a bit slow, and in terms of the lighting, camera work, and sound quality, it’s rather obvious that you’re looking at a very low budget film. These shortcomings become less prominent and noticeable as the film progresses however. Of course, the pretext is that Micah, Katie’s live-in boyfriend (who works as a day trader), has bought a new camera when the film opens to record them in their bedroom as they sleep in hopes of catching signs of whatever it is that’s going bump in the night inside their home.  So the technical shortfalls also fit given that it’s supposed to be a home movie. Nevertheless, they’re still hard to take in initially, especially on the big screen. If this were a commercial picture produced by a large studio on a reasonable budget, the impression of a homemade amateur movie, if that were the intent, would be present and conveyed, but the intended rough technical edges would still come across with a professional touch and polish. Not here however. The dialogue also seems to be mostly ad lib early on.

As the story progresses, the couple invite a psychic to meet with them at their home to discuss their situation in hopes of finding a solution to the problem. Katie tells him of her recurring experiences going back to her childhood involving a presence of some kind that she has difficulty describing, along with her not ever knowing what it wants. Micah, on the other hand, never had such experiences at any point in his life, with the home–which he owns–having been previously free of such problems as well. The psychic then understandably concludes that the entity in question is something that has attached itself to Katie for whatever reason, from when she was very young.  He also tells them that it’s not all that uncommon and that it’s possible to remedy the situation, although it’s often difficult. He senses an energy of some kind in the home, but informs the two of them that it’s not really his area of expertise and recommends a colleague for them to call. Micah later implores Katie not to do so because he doesn’t like the spooky nature of what they’re dealing with, and he doesn’t believe yet another creepy hocus-pocus charlatan coming into the home can help to solve the problem.

Micah is inconsistent in that he obviously feels something strange is going on, hence his desire to record and document it, yet he views people who offer possible solutions as voodoo doctors not to be taken seriously. In his own cocky arrogance he questions the psychic about the possibility of bringing a Ouija board into the house in hopes of being able to communicate with the entity so as to find out what it wants so that they can provide it–thereby satisfying it–and give it the incentive to leave them alone once and for all. This is something the psychic is adamantly opposed to, stressing to Micah in no uncertain terms that it’s a very bad idea that would only serve as an invitation to whatever the presence is to become more frequently present and prominent in their lives. Micah halfheartedly agrees to abide by the instruction, but wanting to know what the entity wants, and wanting to communicate with it is something that nags at him until he decides to actually try it despite the repeated protests by Katie, who continues to insist against it.

As the camera continues to record their nights sleeping, little by little, the abstract presence gradually ratchets up its home intrusions. Noises heard in other parts of the house, initially downstairs, begin working their way right up and into their bedroom.  And even worse, Katie begins to act in a peculiar manner, initially getting out of bed and standing in the middle of the room for several hours, while seemingly still sleeping as the camera records her odd behavior. When confronted about it the next day after Micah reviews the recording, she remembers nothing. As if this isn’t bad or strange enough, Micah subsequently wakes up on a later night to find that Katie is not in bed with him. He gets up to try and find her, calling out her name as he searches through the house, finally looking outside and going out to the backyard. As he looks around frantically worrying, he finally sees her sitting on a swing in the darkness of the yard. He walks over to her and asks her what she’s doing, remarking that it’s freezing outside as she sits there in shorts and a t-shirt. She refuses to go back in the house, so Micah reluctantly decides to go inside for some blankets, saying he’ll stay outside with her if that’s what she really wants, only to find her going back into the house behind him as if in a trance, and then crawling into bed. The next day, Katie doesn’t recall any of this either. Micah doesn’t know what to make of it, and rather than seeking professional help for a possible sleep disorder (or so it appears here at this relatively early stage), the two remain relatively unconcerned and are more consumed with the strange happenings inside the house.

As the haunting grows fiercer and more aggressive, Micah and Katie have increasing difficulty coping and trying to maintain their normal routines. It becomes clear that there is in fact something supernatural going on, which the camera confirms.  And after another overnight attack, the entity eventually leads them to the open hatch of the attic that had been closed. The director wisely resorts to a subdued approach in the handling of this creepy scene, scaring the viewer more by what doesn’t happen as opposed to what one would expect if this were a typical Hollywood formula picture intent on frightening viewers. From here the situation only worsens as Micah and Katie inexplicably remain in a house most people would have fled from in fear and terror. One has to question why they would remain, let alone manage to continue sleeping at night under such stress.  And yet sleep they do when possible, despite knowing the nights will not be free of unwanted interruptions from their increasingly unwelcome, malevolent intruder. Micah also seems denser than his girlfriend, given where things go and how the situation continues to develop, with his own safety in particular becoming an issue.

Director Oren Peli deserves credit for the gradual steady pacing of the film and resisting the urge to overdo it even though some viewers will find it too laid back and subdued for their more amped up tastes. Nevertheless, he knows how to scare the bejesus out of the rest of the audience who are intrigued by the creepy psychology of the idea at work with his use of a largely unseen force wreaking total havoc on the lives of two ordinary people.

If you look at this film and take into account how it was made and under what conditions, you may well enjoy it. Others will blow it off as just a home movie that was a waste of the money they spent to buy a ticket. As a former film student myself however, I respect and admire the effort that went into the making of it, and I’m glad I took the time to go out and see it. It’s also better to see a movie like this before it can become a victim of its own hype, and I suspect more people will be even less impressed by it once it’s released for home video, unless they watch it alone in the dark and perhaps  around midnight. However, it’s worth a look.

By Carl Lawrence

Stargate: Universe airs its first one-hour episode tonight following its two-hour series movie premiere last Friday that unfortunately delivered poor-to-marginal ratings at best for the SyFy Channel. I think the network would have been better off airing the movie premiere Monday night of last week instead, followed by an encore rebroadcast where it had debuted on Friday, which most likely would have assured considerably better ratings for the show’s opening installment. The show will either sink or swim now based on the audience it manages to keep, and what the ratings for the opener indicate is that it pulled in numbers comparable to its predecessor, Stargate: Atlantis, which may well be enough to satisfy the network, at least for now.

The sad thing about the disappointing ratings for the premiere, however, is that overall it was a pretty solid and enjoyable pilot that should have been watched by more people, and it was a decidedly different entry to the Stargate universe that was originally launched on the Showtime network before migrating over to the SyFy Channel a few seasons later. I’ve never been much of a Stargate fan to be perfectly honest. I didn’t care for the big screen feature that starred Kurt Russell and James Spader. In fact, I didn’t like it at all, but I gave Stargate SG-1 a shot once they decided to turn it into a weekly series on premium cable. I hung in there for its first two seasons before simply tuning it out. I just couldn’t take it anymore, it just wasn’t for me. Once the series jumped to SFC however, and talks began to surface that they were interested in producing a spin-off, I started to pay a little more attention and decided to give Stargate: Atlantis a shot once it debuted. It wasn’t a particularly great show, sort of a poor man’s sci fi series, but since there was very little else, if not anything at all for a science fiction fan to tune into, I kept on watching, although SG-1 never managed to woo me back. I just wasn’t interested.

Stargate Universe started off somewhat differently in that it didn’t debut with an arch villain species like the Goa’uld or the Wraiths for its characters to have to deal with on an ongoing basis the way SG-1 and Atlantis had; it was more subdued and the adversary here was more the ancient ship that the characters find themselves transported to following an alien attack on the base where they were temporarily stationed. And one of the main characters, Dr. Rush (played by Robert Carlyle from 28 Weeks Later), may well prove to be a villain within their ranks, since he was responsible for sending them all there, and his impetuousness may prove to be his own undoing, along with everyone else if they’re not careful and they don’t keep him in check, and he always seems to find a way around attempts by the others to do just that.

The producers of Stargate: Universe were able to produce an interesting and compelling pilot movie without feeling the need to throw a major alien villain race in the face of the audience, which was somewhat bold and to their credit, but of course, they’ve had a lot of practice at this point, so they should be confident in their abilities to try and do something different, and if you haven’t yet seen the premiere I would recommend you go back and watch it. In the meantime, episode two airs tonight at 9 PM EST on the SyFy Channel. Check it out.

Catch Previouse Seasons of the Stargate Shows on DVD: