The Brother From Another Planet (1984 movie)

 This movie is probably the most strangest and odd movie I have ever watched. When I rented it from the Ringling School Library, one of the guys that works there said that "this is a funny movie." So I took his word for it, thinking it was going to be a comical movie. But after watching the whole movie, I was left speechless and in my mind I was thinking "....What the Heck is going on." There was no intro description of where this "Brother" came from, what planet, what was his reason for flying in space, and does he have a purpose. It all seemed forced and no real plot that caught my attention as strong as other films I have seen.

 I understand that this is a 1980's film, so back then it might have appealed to people at the time. But I didn't feel like this guy was an alien, as the movie forced the viewer to believe that he came in an alien spaceship and crashed landed on earth. They made that begininng scene very quick, with quick sound effects. The parts in the movie that tried to make us believe he was an alien was that "This Brother" had three toes on each foot and he can take out his eye and record what he sees. When he puts the eye back in his head, he replays everything in his mind. He can also repair things and heal without any tools. Before I saw the parts where he took out his eye, and I saw the three toes, what came to my mind was that he is not an alien, he's one of those curcius people with something strange about their appearance.  I'll give the movie credit for making him mute, that brings more of a mystery to a person and makes them more alien from everyone else. What I notice and what also got on my nerves what that whenever he was around someone, they will go on and on talking, knowing that he can't talk back, but he can listen. At times I wish the people would be quite like the alien. I think this movie would be better as a silent film and you figure out what is going on by watching the body movements of the person, just like the alien.

 From looking at IMDb.com, the ratings of this movie is 6.8 out of 10. In my vote this was a 4 out of 10. My reasons for giving it a low rating was that there was no real story to follow, the main character wasn't engaging, the side characters talked too much and everything was forced onto the screen, like if we already know the rules of a sci-fi film and aliens.

Snow Crash

 I'm glad that this book was a bit more entertaining than the past sci- fi books (maybe I'm getting better with understanding the literature world of sci- fi). This type of sci-fi book is a cyber punk type of story that follows these two main characters. One is named Hero Protagonist and YT a 15 year old girl with a lot of attitude and that "girl punk" personality. While listening to this book on audio book version, it helps me to understand what is happening with one of the main characters , the person narrating did a  great job at that part. I'll admit that there were some parts in the story that I got lost in the information, but the rest of the book got me interested in wanting to know whats going to happen with Hero and YT.

 YT (her name means Yours Truly)  is my favorite character and I enjoyed listening to what was happening on her end. She was a girl that seemed very street smart and a fast talker, meaning she wouldn't let someone talk over her. If she had something to say to someone, like if they were doing something wrong, she would speak out and not be the innocent young 15 year old. Another thing that I liked about YT was that she was making the best of what came her way. I think any girl at that age would love getting all that attention from guys, even if one of those guys kidnapped her and made her his girl, that would be the Raven character.  I wish I could say that the parts with Hero were just as entertaining to listen to, but I found myself being more drawn to YT. I think that's because I wish I were that type of person with a strong backbone personality and have fun, something that most girls don't do as often.

 At some parts of the story, when it talked about the Mafia and the Pirates I would forget that this is a sci-fi story. At times when the story goes into talking about the character's avatars and how the drug "Snow Crash" is effecting both the user's brain and in the computer and in reality, it reminded me of this Japanese Manga and Anime series that has that same affect on the people. The show is called .Hack Sign (there have been many version of this series). It is similar with this story because, both stories have people going into a cyber world, they have their own avatars that they can customize, and some kind of virus that seriously hurts them in both Digital and reality.

     



 I would like to see someone make a movie out of this book. I think it would be a cool movie and it would bring more sci-fi stories on the big screen that most people haven't seen before, something new. I would like to see what this cyber world looks like, compared to how I imagine it, but nothing like how Tron looks. I can imagine the director going far and beyond with design and details on  creating the cyber world.

Blade Runner (movie 1982)

 Blade Runner was a hard story to follow, even if it has Harrison Ford as the star. Ford's character is a cop that is tracking down these 4 replicants and kill them on sight. These 3 of the replicants are dangerous, but one of them, a woman replicant (that is seen in the beginning of the film) isn't out to kill their creator like the others. That part of the film I could understand, what was hard to follow was the pace of the film. Most sci-fi films are longer in film length because it's the only way to make sure the information can show well to the viewers. But this film seemed to have a lot of scenes where it was just watching the actor's movement, and listening to the background music; not speaking or doing anything scientific. It felt like the movie was going to go on and on, and here I thought another movie with Harrison Ford was going to be exciting.

 Ford's character in this film is different from how I have seen him in the Indiana Jones films, the personalities are different. In Indiana Jones, Ford has a more adventurous, exciting and thrilling personality while still being a man that loves and respects history. In Blade Runner though, I didn't feel attached to his character, like I'm suppose to feel for this character in a way like we connected to his character in Indiana Jones (like how most films develop their main characters, so the audience can relate to them). In this movie, Ford doesn't seem  outgoing enough to go and find these replicants. He seems that he was unwillingly thrown into the job.

 There was another thing that kind of bothered me about this film. It said that it was in the future 2017 (or 2019) in Los Angeles. But it looked like it was in China or Japan, because almost everyone in the film (not the main characters or supporting characters) were Chinese or Japanese. I have never been to LA, so I don't know if in some parts of that city they have China town like the one in New York City. But I just found it odd that I saw more Chines or Japanese things like ad signs and music (playing in the background of the film).

 The one thing that I was glad to see in this 1982 movie, was that the film director and producer didn't make the replicant look like some fake robotic human. Knowing that back then the special effects weren't as good as they are today. To me, along with a good story the design and set also makes the film something more to the viewer. The things that they did to show who was the replicants is their strength, and in their eyes. I noticed that in their eyes, there would be a small circle that glowed, like if it were recording.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

    Reading more and more of these sci-fi books, I find myself getting more lost in the words and even listening to them through the audio book version. This isn't the first time that I have gone through a whole book and when finishing reading it, I'm confused as to what has happened. It has happen to me in the past when I buy a book that I think are good from reading the title and the summery on the back. But then reliaze that I was wrong. I would try to find something about the story to hang on to like the characters and see that if I can stay with it from beginning to end, then maybe I will find something that I end up liking.

    The one thing that I found to be odd about this book is that at the beginning of each chapter they make an advertisement for Ubik. It seems that Ubik is everything and does anything, like some wonder product. Also that when the characters were in the half life, I was making the connection to the movie Inception. The reason why I make this connection is because the people in the half life aren't there, their bodies are in a building and one by one they are dying by someone. In the beginning of the book, they talk about this world and how the people in it have some abilities like telepathy or changing the past (one of the characters can think of an event in the past and change it without time traveling). That part was interesting and I was hoping to hear more about the characters and their powers and how far they can go with the idea of people with that kind of abilities (not relating to the X-Men series and movies).

But sadly I didn't find anything beside those few things that I mentioned. The book was only 17 chapters, and it seemed to rush in writing of getting to the main plot of the story and ending the book. I may have mentioned this in my last blog, but I like books that take their time to describe the story and the characters so that you as the reader can grow attached to them. Also (and sorry for repeating myself from my last blog) when the characters were talking about something scientfic it was hard to understand. This may not be the book and the authors fault. I'm a visual learner and the difference from how I can see things clearly when reading a fantasy book than sci-fi book is because I have been reading more fantasy books and have seen many movies and looked at fantasy artwork to get the visual of a fantasy magical world. For sci-fi, there is not much for me to help visualize. I know that sci-fi is in some ways still fantasy, but I'm not a fan of science and it was not my favorite subjects in school. So that might also explain why it is hard for me to get into it.

I hope that I won't be faced with this kind of problem with every sci-fi books. I like getting back into reading books, it became fun again like how I would love to read a book as a kid.

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976 Movie)

    To be honest, I didn't care much for this movie, it was hard to follow and it seemed to drag on. This movie stars David Bowie, which surprised me to see that he did a movie before Jim Henson's movie Labyrinth, which I think people remember him more from that movie than this one. In this movie Bowie's acting is good, his character Thomas Jerome Newton has a mysterious, odd and quiet personality. Thomas is an alien, a humanoid that came to earth to get water for his dying planet. But we don't know that till near the middle and end of the movie. Thomas become a billionaire by starting a high technology company, he does this so that he can use the money to build a new space ship and return to his home planet.

    For a movie made in the 1970's, this is a good idea for a story, more original than most sci-fi alien films today. But the thing that I didn't care for was the annoying girl Mary-Lou and that half of the movie was her and Thomas  or some other characters that we never see again, having sex. It really was just a movie of people having sex and a girl having sex with a alien, and the movie had to make those scenes go on forever. Long story short, it was just plain awkward.

    There was one scene that did catch my attention. When Thomas was in the bathroom, he starts taking tweezers and taking something out of his eyes. His human eyes were only a cover up of what his true eyes looked like, and with his alien eyes and his bone face structure, he definitely looked out of this world. I'm glad that they didn't make this alien have different color skin or something silly like that. His alien eyes look almost like snake eyes with the whole eyeball colored orange/red.


    All in all, I think this movie isn't terrible for those who like sci-fi movies, but for me it's not something that I would hunt for in a movie store and buy it on dvd. To me I rate it as a "OK" (4 out 10)  movie. If they did a better job editing scenes and making sure the story isn't loosing its interest, then maybe it can be better. I like Bowie's acting (and I'm not just saying that because I like his part in Labyrinth), but loose that annoy sex craving girl Mary-Lou, she is just embarrassing herself.

Serenity (2005 movie)

The movie Serenity was an interesting movie that kept me interested from begining to end. For anyone who is familiar with the TV series Firefly, this movie relates to that show. I have never seen the TV show, but this movie did superise me that I would like another sci-fi movie other than Avatar and Star Wars. What I liked about this movie, is that they didn't treat this as scientific as I thought. They didn't go on and on about some scientific thing that no one would understand. They call their space craft a ship and the people on the ship are called the crew. It seemed like if they were on a real ship, a pirate ship with a group of different kinds characters (different kinds of personality and skills), on the run and are embarked on a adventure, an adventure that they didn't expect.

There are two characters that I liked in this movie, the captain of the ship (played by Nathan Fillion) and the young girl named River (played by Summer Glau). I've seen Fillion on tv shows like Castle, but didn't think I would see him in a sci-fi action film. His character is Mal and his personality is staying focused. He only cares for him self, the ship and maybe the people on his crew (which is not a lot of people).  He is also a man that is focused on getting a job done, even if its a job that is against the law, as long as it comes with pay, Mal will take the job. Through out the movie there are parts where you can see that he does care for the people on his team, but he makes sure that he still shows authority to the crew to remind them of who the leader is on the ship. Mal also comes across as both a friendly and funny person but also a person that remembers to stay focused on the job. He also becomes interested in River after he sees her go biserk (almost like she changed her personality) and took out everyone in the club. Now he becomes interested in knowing why River was able to do that and why a special forces is after her (and try to kill her). From that point he becomes the hero character in the story, the one that won't let the secret service continue to kill good innocent people just for getting River.

The character River was a hard character to figure out at first. What was hard to read from her is that she showed little facial emotion other than fear and anger. She went from being innocent to a dangerous weapon, a killing machine (she isn't a robot). Most times in the movie she was very quiet and her face seemed to stay on one facial expression. River is a special girl with incredible powers, she is a telepath, who can read people's thoughts and she is skilled in combat. She also knows a secret that wasn't meant for her (or anyone) to find out. We are introduced to her when we see her being forced with experiments on her, a lot of the experiments were focused on her brain (because she is a telepath). River is also a dangerous weapon, she is skilled to fight and kill (if something triggers her to. Like hidden message that is broadcast on tv). The big secret that she knows is that the people that were experimenting on her, know the real reason why a planet called Maranda and why there aren't any people living on it (compared to the other planets).

Besides those characters, I thought it was interesting to finding out what the special forces were trying to keep hidden and the reason for all those experiments on not only River but other people as well. The special forces were doing experiments on people to control them, to make them behave and stop fighting (control their actions). And unfortunatly they succeeded, and the experimet turns against them. The people on Meranda are either dead or have become cannibals. So the secret service has made sure that no information about this planet and their failures gets out. The crew finds out that they have never heard of this planet and it's not in their computers. The reason why River knows of this planet is because she has memories of other people inside her brain, she has other knowlegde that is not hers. Also while being experimetented on, she was reading the scientist mind, but keeping silent to make them think she's not aware of their past failure. It seems that man is always trying to control and contain something (or in this case people) and they know that it's out of their control. And soon it will come back to haunt them or kill them.

I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this movie, because I haven't seen many sci-fi movies or tv shows. Plus, when people start talking very scientific I just get lost in what they are talking about (science isn't my best subject). But I like the movies story, of these people on ship going off to help this girl escape from the special forces and find out what they are hiding. It's always interesting to me to see what writers and film makers do with the idea of people wanting to control something and play the role of God. Which always ends up a being a big mistake and proves that people should mess with things, and they should leave thing were they are. Also I thought it was interesting that the experiments were to make people behave (no fighting), but you can't have a world without some kind of violence. If everything just stayed peaceful and quiet then that would be a boring world. I'm for world peace and everything, but I don't believe in forcing people to do something that they don't want to do. Also forcing experiments on people, especially young people like River, is very cruel. I thought the action scenes were good, and that the film didn't go over the top with special effects, just because it is a sci-fi film. Sometimes a film like this will get to carried away with the 3D special effects, that it takes away from the main focus of the story and the characters.  This film had the right balance of special effects and live action scenes.

The Sirens of Titan

     This is a book that I could not get into. It was more confusing to understand what's going on with the characters than Neil Gaiman's book Anansi Boys. So I hate to say that I won't have much to say about this book, compared to my blog on Warbreaker. I think the reason why I couldn't get into this story, is because I haven't read many sci-fi books. I think this is my first sci-fi book. I guess what I can say about this book, is that it was formatted differently than most books. There are only 11chapters and it seemed like they squeeze tons of information and characters in every chapter, that it was hard to take it all it. I would prefer a book that had lots of chapters and giving it more time to form the characters and the setting. This story felt like it was rushing at hyper speed. The only characters that were sotra interesting was Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak. Rumfoord is a wealthy man and has his own personal spacecraft and he and his dog travel through space. Rumfoord seems to really enjoy being a space explorer.

  Just like the Anansi Boys, I got lost in who was the main character. Also I don't think this book had a real villain like the past books I've read. At first I thought Rumfoord was going to be our main character, then we get introduce to other characters that to me became forgetful. In the begining chapters there is a character called Constant. He is the richest man and he goes on a journey from Earth to Mars for the preparations of a war that Mars was going to have against Earth. Even when the story mentions about a war with Earth v.s. Mars, they didn't build it up, and that would make the story more exciting. Long story short, there was too much talking and detail in each chapter. My reason for choosing this book was because when I read the title The Sirens of Titan, I had an idea of the story being a planet that inhabits siren aliens. And when a traveling space ship crash lands on the planet (like all sci-fi stories, the ship has to crash on a dangerous planet, unknown to mankind), one by one the space men are drawn to the sirens beauty and hypnotic voices, but slowly walking into their deaths. When I reads a story (any story) I get a image of what is happening in my mind, like my own movie or illustration of the story, that way I can understand the story better and have a fun way of reading a story. Unfortunately, this book didn't project any images in my mind to help me follow along the story. So I guess this was a lesson learned experience, just like the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" my saying is "don't judge a book by its cover title."