James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction

[REBerg]

Premieres this month on AMC

James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction

 

[Alexa]

It should be interesting. I'm a little angry with him for reporting the 2nd part of Avatar, but I'm sure I'll forgive his delay, once I'll see it.

 

[REBerg]

1.01 Aliens
While author and actor observations about aliens in favorite films were interesting, the conversations Cameron has with other directors, including Lucas, Spielberg and Scott, were fascinating. I never thought of E.T. as a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I'm looking forward to more.

 

[Rodders]

This should be interesting.

 

[Jeffbert]

Currently watching E2; interesting topics; this one is space travel. I hope this series has more than 10 eps per season.

 

[REBerg]

1.02 Space
Lots of Star Wars and Star Trek nostalgia. I'm surprised about how much Lucas borrowed from earlier films for the first Star Wars -- whether he knew it or not.

 

[Jeffbert]

I heard that the droids R2d2 & c3po were modeled on a couple of losers hoping to get rich as soldiers in Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. Actually, Ben K. & the Princess may also have been inspired by characters in that film.

 

[Jeffbert]

I watched Stranger Things the other day, though it was mentioned in one of the 1st 2 episodes, I do not see the relevance. I intend to watch #3 soon, but must make room on my DVR, & do want to save it for a while. I did catch a few minutes of #3, it appears to be about radioactive mutations, Gojira (Godzilla), THEM!, ETC. It should be fun!

 

[Jeffbert]

1.03 Monsters. A really good look at this subject; though impossible to cover in only 40 minutes or so. Too many films & their monsters must be omitted. I do dislike the very small font size of anything below the person's name, as I must roll my chair rather close, & often pause to read it all. I am so very sorry but in the 1st remake of the thing, I laughed my A$$ of during some of the morphing scenes. Thorough coverage of Stranger Things, Aliens, & JP. Something about an adult's instinct to protect the young making these films very intense for adult viewers. Also gave the origin of 'Gojira'; gorilla + whale? O.k., but I have difficulty visualizing such a thing. Using SF or fantasy to make political statement goes all the way back to Jonathan Swift' Gulliver's Travels.

Coverage of The Fly completely omitted any reference to the 1950s version, as the topic was slowly morphing from man to fly-man.

I will definitely watch this one again!

 

[REBerg]

1.04 Dark Futures
I suppose that it's been out there for a long time, but I have never seen the original RoboCop as an American Christ story before Verhoeven himself said so in this episode.
Science fiction has served Humanity well with warnings of paths to dystopia. The portion of the program given to The Handmaid's Tale seemed especially appropriate in today's world.

 

[Jeffbert]

1.04 Dark Futures I heard of The Handmaid's Tale, but had no idea it was scifi. as the whole thing about returning women to the role of pleasuring men, & little else? If so, I do not see how it relates to today's culture, REBerg.

The Big Brother aspect is really frightening, with so many govt. cameras mounted all over, not to mention smart phones and cameras on computers (I put electrical tape over mine), GPS on cell phones, etc., privacy at best is a thing of the past. But, they'll never catch me!!!

I cannot recall the single most important thing they said about TWD, except that it had nothing to do with zombies. I did like the clip of TTZ, Claude Adkins trying to talk sense into a maddened crowd, looking for the Martian among them. More about Rod Serling than I knew, & I had TTZ Companion, though it has been lost for over a decade. Sad that they censored him so much.

 

[ctg]

How would you like to head back to the future in a DeLorean car? Or travel with the crew of the USS Enterprise to save the whales? These two examples (from "Back to the Future" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home") show a very common trope in science fiction — time travel.

We all have things we regret in life, so the concept of turning back time (or in the case of one "Superman" movie, reversing Earth's rotation) is an inviting one. Who wouldn't want to fix the past, or erase a regrettable historical event that negatively impacted humanity? Or for people who are more focused on the future, how about turning time forward to see a neat event — such as the first human landing on Mars?

Time travel is the focus of Episode 6 of "AMC Visionaries: James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction," which airs during a two-hour finale tonight (May 25) at 9 p.m. EDT/PDT (8 p.m. CDT) as part of the show's 2-hour season finale.

Is Time Travel Possible? Scientists Explore the Past and Future

 

[REBerg]

1.06 Time Travel
I loved the portion (I wanted to say "time") of this episode given to Doctor Who. As a full half-century fan, I long ago acquiesced to the crazy time travel paradoxes posed by the Doctor's adventures.
I have been in it for the fun. However, Peter Capaldi's words regarding the series struck a chord.

“Somewhere in that (Doctor Who), people see that’s what happens in
life. You have loved ones, and then, they go; but you must carry on.”
​

I was also intrigued by the concept that The Terminator franchise is essentially about free will vs. fate. Death to Skynet!!

 

[Jeffbert]

1.05 Intelligent Machines
As I mentioned earlier, as is obvious, 40 minutes are just too few to do justice to these topics. Something must be omitted. They merely mentioned Colossus the Forbin Project (1970), and omitted mention of Mother & (I think his name was Ash in Alien) in Aliens. Just as much as HAL 9000, they apparently had a mission quite unknown to the humans. There is no reasoning with them; their duty is to bring the critters to Earth.

I thought the series was about scifi Films, but the part about Data wanting recognition and human rights, seems it should have been about the bicentennial man instead. Is Data more well known than Asimov's character? Probably so, but films not TV, or so I thought, anyway.

Anyway, critiques aside, this was very interesting.


1.06 Time Travel
Very good coverage of paradoxes, but I think they spent too much time on Dr. Who. Seemed like a good balance between the humorous Back to the Future, and the serious stories. Did they even mention 12 Monkeys?



General:
I guess it is far easier to discuss films & TV, than books, because you already have all the clips you will need. Or to focus on books that have film or TV versions., for the same reason.

Having covered these 6 subjects, will there be a 2nd season? The one page says Season 1 & has a pull-down tab that does nothing at this time.

 

[ctg]

Did they even mention 12 Monkeys?

I haven't seen any of these, but 12 Monkey's is a difficult subject to handle. Much more difficult than the other series.

 

[Onyx]

This sounds relatively hard to watch. James Cameron has made a lot of science fiction films, but they are all pretty cringe-worthy as sci-fi. I'm not surprised that his series would be more about Star Trek and Doctor Who than 12 Monkeys or Upstream Color.

 

[REBerg]

As I mentioned earlier, as is obvious, 40 minutes are just too few to do justice to these topics. Something must be omitted.

Right on target! It's a tribute to science fiction that 240 minutes of television analysis cannot possibly cover the immense breadth and depth of the genre. Scifi is so much more than that.

 

[clovis-man]

Perhaps I'm jaded, but I tired of the conversations between Cameron and the director du jour devolving into love feasts. "Oh, you're so right." "I agree entirely". etc. And not really much mention of more obscure material. I'll keep watching, but lower my expectations.

 

[REBerg]

I tired of the conversations between Cameron and the director du jour devolving into love feasts. "Oh, you're so right." "I agree entirely". etc

It's a natural setup for a mutual admiration society. How cool would it be if a "conversation" erupted into fisticuffs?

 

[Jeffbert]

THEMS FIGHTIN' WORDS!

NOTE: pretend this emoticon is Yosemite Sam.

Clovis-man: Good point, in a way, the series was just a mutual "great job" between JC & his guests. Still, its better than nothing.

I would like to see some similar thing, but one that discerns between sci-fi & fantasy elements. For me, sci-fi is anything that is not impossible by current science, even though it may be centuries in the future when such things are possible. Fantasy is the impossible stuff, such as Warp 'speed' travel. Granted, they did say that 2001 had purely science elements & it was the best example of such, but its ending was -- damn, I cannot describe it as science or anything else, for that matter.