Showing posts with label bill corbett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bill corbett. Show all posts

Battlefield Earth (2000) Review

Battlefield Earth (2000)
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#1 Johnny Goodboy used a Psychlo learning machine, and learned "Euclidean" Geometry. I guess the psychlos were fans of the ancient Greeks.
#2 The tribes lived in caves in Denver for 1000 years, but one spoke with a heavy British accent.
#3 They had no system of writing any more, but after using the learning machine that taught him Pyschlo, Johnny knew how to read English
#4 It took the psychlos 9 minutes to defeat the combined armies, navies, air force, marines of the USA, China, Russia, and England etc... but it took 9 minutes for a dozen cavemen to defeat them?
#5 If the psychlos were so smart that they had a learning machine, then how come they couldn't learn English, but needed to teach Johnnie their language? Also, the ancient teacher from another alien race spoke to Johnnie in English.
#6 The Styrofoam creatures at the mini golf place looked mighty nice after 1000 years. I guess styrofoam really doesn't biodegrade.
#7 The Psychlos have advance mapping capabilities that allowed them to detect a tiny bit of gold from a earthquake in the rocky mountains, but they couldn't find Ft. Knox in 1000 years. It took cavemen a few days to figure that out.
#8 The library of congress is topped with the capitol dome.
#9 The Psychlos fought a war, albeit a short one with humans with aircraft, yet thought dogs were smart and humans were unable to operate mining equipment.
#10 The Pyschlos taught the most rebellious human to use their flying equipment, which is dumb in and of itself. How did they beat us in the first place? But then, he sneaks off in the craft for a week, cruising to Ft. Knox, Washington D.C., and Ft. Hood, Texas, and they don't notice it or track it with radar.
#11 In Ft. Hood Texas, the rebels arrive 1000 years after humanity was decimated, to find that the power was still on. I guess themilitary paid their electrical bills way in advance. Not only was the power on, but there were harrier jets with full gas tanks, missiles, and a flight simulator that was still functioning and turned on when they arrived. Oh, and there was a nuclear bomb left out in the open for them to grab too. How convenient.
#12 The rebels, aside from Johnny did not get the learning machine experience, but he was able to train them to read English in seven days. He got them enough training time each in the flight simulator for them to learn battle tactics and to fly advanced military aircraft to beat the evil aliens in battle. Let's see. 10's of thousands of air force personnel who trained for years and years were vanquished by the Psychlos, but 3 dozen hillbillies with a week of training in English, battle tactics, and flying were able to destroy them without breaking a sweat.
#13 When Johnny is shot with a pyschlo radar gun, he goes through 5 or 6 plate glass windows without getting a cut.
#14 The night they defeat the aliens, Johnnie's hair is all thrashed around and going this way and that, after a hard night of battle, he emerges with clean hair that is nicely braided in front.
#15 The books in the Denver library were still very readable after 1000 years of exposure to atmosphere.
#16 The buildings still had glass in the windows 1000 years later.
#17 Cars were slightly rusted, but still had their original paint job from 1000 years ago.
#18 Cars still had air pressure in their tires after a millenium of disuse.
#19 The nuclear bomb had no casing, but the rebels didn't show signs of exposure.
#20 The humans instead of mining the gold, got bars of it from Ft. Knox. I was surprised that John Travolta's character noticed, but Johnny said that they melted it down into bars for them. Yeah, from what foundry near by?
#21 Johnny was tortured by the Psychlos, testing if he could survive for 4 minutes without oxygen which they didn't breathe. He runs through the place, and there are several fires burning despite the lack of oxygen. I guess the laws of chemistry are suspended in the 31st century.
So...the guy who said the film had no plot holes apparently possesses quite a few holes in his own thinking. This is not the kind of stuff on which you base suspension of disbelief - this is inexcusable tripe from talentless filmmakers (and a hack scifi writer who was the laughing stock of his generation) aiming only to cash in on the success of numerous superior films. And since when is scifi poorly received in the press? Movies like "The Matrix," "Star Wars," and "Pitch Black" all received well-deserved accolades. The reviews for "Battlefield Earth" have been resoundingly negative not due to any religious bias but due to the simple fact that it's an ineptly filmed, poorly acted, incoherent, derivative attempt to milk genre fans of their money.
But, judging from the dismal box office receipts, it's nice to see that the proposed sequel will probably never happen. Thank God.
Now go watch some real scifi flicks, and hey, go read some books by Heinlein, Campbell, or Bradbury, a group of writers who each possessed more talent in their pinky fingers than L. Ron Hubbard exhibited through a career propelled by some of the worst prose ever produced. Scientologist or not, the guy just plain sucked.

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The security chief for the alien Psychlos, who have conquered the Earth, decides to use human slaves to mine for gold, but a young man decides to challenge Psychlos domination.Genre: Science FictionRating: PG13Release Date: 16-JUL-2002Media Type: DVD

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The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) Review

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
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Let my preface my review by saying that I actually do remember watching this as a wee lad back in 1978 and loving it. Specifically, I remember that Han was trying to get Chewie home for Xmas (well, Life Day - what ever the hell that is) and that Chewie's tree-house dwelling family were "captured" by storm troopers. I also remember all the major characters being in it (except of course Governor Tarkin and Ben Kenobi who bought the farm in the movie). Call it selective memory, but I LUCKILY didn't remember anything beyond this! Seeing that I have/had found childhood memories of this special, I was curious to see how it would play almost 30 years later. Boy, was I surprised...
It starts off OK. Our heroes, Han & Chewie are in the Falcon fleeing 2 imperial star destroyers (déjà vu?). The cockpit is the cheaped out TV version and actual movie footage of the space ships are used but no big deal. At this point, I'm just amazed that Harrison Ford agreed to this! Obviously, Stardom had not hit yet. And then Boo-yah! They jump to hyper space and all is well. Then the open credits role and announces the cast and "special guests": Bea Arthur (what?), Harvey Corman (are you serious?), Art Carney (Norton in a galaxy far far away?), Dianne Carroll (who?) and the Jefferson Starship (no!!!!!!!!). At this point, I'm thinking so far so good - maybe it won't be as bad as they say it is...............WRONG.
Back from commercial break, we go to the first scene at Chewie's tree house. We are introduced to Chewie's family, wife = Mala, his cute yet annoying as hell son Lumpy (very creative name!) and lumpy's perverted grandpa Itchy (OK, heads need to roll for this!). Now begins the 15 plus minutes of pure torture - grunting wookies playing house! Just when you think it can't get any worse Lumpy The Whiney goes for an electronic gadget. Now we have to suffer through 10 minutes of Circus Solei type non-sense with jesters, jugglers and dancers. BIZARRO WORLD times 100! Note: whenever one of Chewie's family members go for an electronic gadget or gizmo, prepare to suffer. Also note: have the remote ready to fast forward through the things that are so bad, you will get nightmares if you watch them. Worth noting is the fact that after viewing this part of the show I got up and made myself a nice bourbon on the rocks. Take that for what it's worth...............
After the viewer survives what just happened, I believe we are introduced the Art Carney the Space Trader. I think he sells a nail clipper or something to a grumpy Imperial Officer. It seems "Norton" is close to Chewie's family but more importantly, plays the comic relief role in the special. He pops up a few more times in the next hour plus and frankly, he annoyed me the least out of all the Special Guests. Call me crazy, but I kind of liked Art Carney in this role! He was given crap to work with and gave 110% effort. I loved the beer gut and the bi-focals too! CLASSIC.
Next we go back to more annoying Wookie shenanigans. This time Itchy, who obviously got hit with the ugly stick, heads for an electronic gadget. NOOOO!!!!!!!! This is where it gets really interesting. Itchy attaches himself to this dream machine where your imagination runs wild. In comes the sensual Diane Carroll as what I can only describe as a call girl in space. It's borderline pornographic here. Itchy is making noises that one should not hear on Network Television! Soft core wookie porn is not my thing. I actually got a kick out this part until she started to sing a never -ending song. Time to hit the fast forward button again........................
I think at this point Chewie's family gets a video call from Princess Leia and C3p0 looking for Han & Chewie. Relatively speaking, not a horrible scene really but Carrie Fisher has a mischievous look in here eyes (i.e coked off her gord no doubt).
Next, Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 check in via video to check on Han & Chewie's progress. SHOCKING MOMENT! Mark Hamill is almost unrecognizable! I'm guessing that this is one of his first appearances after that horrific car crash. His eyes look weird and small and his nose, well rumor had it that he actually lost his nose in that accident (although never really confirmed). Very disheartening actually. He appears to be on pain killers or something too. And the make-up - it's caked on big time covering huge scars I suppose. So sad but interesting to see none the less.
OK, let's talk about Harvey Corman, funny man from the Carol Burnett show. Not funny whatsoever. In fact, every second of time he got was annoying and pointless. He gets the award for "#1 Show Wrecker" along with whoever wrote the crappy story! Save yourself and fast forward thru every scene he is in! Trust me............
I think at this point in the show, two imperial storm troopers and an imperial general come a knocking looking for rebels and what not. They start harassing the wookies and trashing the place. They even trash poor little Lumpy's room to bits (even his new toy!). For some reason the scene where the stormtrooper trashed lumpy's room and toys sticks with me to this day. This is probably where my feelings for the Empire went from dislike to hate. Kudos to the guy that played the imperial general, he did a good job portraying a bad guy. I was hoping he would order the storm troopers to shoot either Lumpy or Itchy (or both).
Finally, we get something cool. The cartoon that features our heroes and BOBA FETT. You think that Boba may be a nice guy after all but in the end, we find out what side he is really on. Pretty cool. Probably the best part of the special next to seeing Luke, Leia and Han act like idiots.
Next we go to Tatooine and the bar in Mos Eisley! SO COOL. All of the original characters are there: wolf-man dude , hammer head, the white bear thingee with one tooth, the dude that didn't like Luke, the band, the vampire guy etc etc. In comes Bea Arthur as the bartender. Real corny and stuff but when her ex-boyfriend, Harvey Corman the space alien, comes in you get the worst bit of television in the history of television. FAST FORWARD NOW! Corman leaves and you think the worst is over. Wrong again! Bea Arthur has to sing and dnace around with the alines. WHY GOD, WHY? Cut 10-15 minutes out of this scene and just have Bea offering a free last round of drinks and we are good to go.
To make a long review short, Han & Chewie show up and save the day. Han throws a storm trooper out of the tree house and all is well. Han and Chewie embrace (real big hug - very curious???) and we get on with the queer Life Day celebration. Anyway, we now have out heroes (han, leia, luke, R2, 3PO and Chewie back together again and here is when the show really shines. The whole Life Day celebration is friggin ridiculous but the best part is when Princess Leia sings the Life Day song to the theme of Star Wars. HILARIOUS & CLASSIC TV MOMENT!
In conclusion, there' so much wrong with this special that I really could go on for hours about it. It easily could have been cut down to 30 minutes (by cutting an hour plus of needless crap) and been a good little show for kids. Really, the writers should be tarred and feathered for this pathetic effort. Also, Lucas needs to take some blame here. It's his franchise - He let them use his stars, his characters, clips from his movie, theme music from his movie, sound effects from his movie etc. Without a doubt, Lucas learned his lesson after this fiasco. Oh, I forgot to mention Jefferson Starship because they suck and I fast forwarded thru that part..............
Was it worth seeing? Hell ya. At least for nostalgia purposes. Now I know why Lucas wants to find and destroy every copy of this show!


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Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (1991) Review

Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (1991)
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Let me explain
-Spoiler Warning-
The first version of the film was shown in theaters.
The second version was shown on all home video formats. This version includes a couple of additional footage to certain key scenes, and a few new scenes all together.
- Spock has more Dialogue in the top brass meeting.
- A scene taking place in the President's office where Col. West presents his plan to sneak into Klingon territory and rescue Kirk and McCoy.
- Spock and Scotty checking the torpedo inventory before Valeris informs them that the Chancellor's Daughter is now the current klingon chancellor.
- The klingon assassin at the climax of the film turns out to be Col. West.
The Third version of the film is shown on this Special Collector's Edition DVD. This version includes all the material from the second version, and a few minor changes to certain scenes and effects.
- When Martia gets shot, a disruption sound effect is removed to make her scream more apparent.
- Valeris's interrogation scene has been entirely reedited. There are now close up shots of Kirk and McCoy when they speak their lines instead of being in wide shots. When Spock and Valeris name a particular conspirator, the face of that person briefly appears in a flashback like style.
Do I prefer this version of the film? Sure. I personally believe that Valeris's interrogation scene is much more dramatic with the flashback shots. It really helps the viewers who aren't good with names understand who Spock and Valeris are talking about, and adds a little more tension near the end of the film.
I hoped this information helps you out in spotting what has been changed. If there is anything I missed, please feel free to contact me.

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