Recently the people of Russia were shocked when a lump of
rock from space travelling at over 30000 miles an hour shattered into pieces as
it entered the earth’s atmosphere some 20 to 30 miles above us but did not
fragment sufficiently so that one piece of size exploded close enough for there
to be have been a giant flash like an atomic bomb exploding and then a reported three minutes there was a
shock wave which caused glass to implode
and over one thousand people to be injured, including 250 school children.
It is over 100 years since there was a similar incident also
in Russia which is said to have flattened some 80000 trees and a previous
strike on a much larger scale is thought to have been responsible for the end
of dinosaurs over 60 million years ago when the impact created a huge dust
cloud ending surface life for several decades until it settled changing the
earth’s climate over the planet similar to that of today.
The whole earth planet under threat has been a feature of
several films recently experienced with the latest Battleship viewed over the
weekend and previously the Darkest Hour and Avengers together with John Carter
a film about intergalactic conflict.
Apocalyptic films have been a feature of the cinema since I became a young person in the 1950’s dividing
between extra Terrestrial attacks and
man made disasters with the earliest remembered, The Day the Earth Stood Still,
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Neville Shute’s credible post nuclear war film,
On the Beach, War on the World’s and when World’s collide. As a young man the most influential was Dr
Strangelove and War Games. The Day the earth caught fire sounds familiar and of
course the Planet of Apes, first and original production feature a planet
destroyed by nuclear weapons where the Apes managed to survive and mutate into
human like beings, whereas in the latest production, the rise of the Planet of
the Apes a very different scenario is advanced. There were three more Planet of
Apes films in the 1970’s.
Also in the 1970s were the Andromeda Strain, Alien, Logans
Run, and the first of the Mad Max films, the Omega Man, Silent Running and
Solyent Green. Others before the end of the millennium include Aliens a new War
of the Worlds and the Day of he Triffids left out of a list of some 170 I
consulted.
More recently as CGI came to the fore Armageddon, I am a
Legend, The Book of Eli, Battle Los Angeles, Deep Impact, End of Days, Cyborg,
Dogma, Independence Day, The Matrix films, Waterworld, 2012, 28 days later (and
28 weeks later) remakes of the Day the Earth Stood Still and On the Beach,
Doomsday, Impact, Meteor, Children of Men, Escape from LA films which I
remember clearly and also Contagion and 12 Monkeys. I am sure I have left out
many others I have seen and could compete for the best 25 or so.
Of the four recently experienced I liked the Darkest House best because of its
unsentimental reality as an alien race descended in hundreds of thousands over
the entire earth surface in individual shields which left visible a frame of
light which when in proximity to a human being could cause us to explode into
dust having first shut down everything electrical. It will be appreciated that
the recent electricity blackout on the hill in which I live had a greater
impact on me that would have otherwise have been the case. The shut down every
airplane in flight and left vessels at sea, transport on the ground motionless.
The creatures had the power to penetrate most surfaces that preventing most
humans from escaping such as in the underground network and tunnels. Others
such as those working in coal mines would have been trapped underground without
prospect of rescue.
The film aimed at the weekend young audience features to
American trying to promote to him Russians their idea of a Mobile Phone Application
which list all the best night spots for the young traveller. They arrive to
find that their Swedish business partner has stolen a march and their idea and
arranged a contract presentation. They attempt to alcohol drown their sorrows
at their best listed party club where they find their former business partner
and his girl friend and two attractive USA girls who have commented on their
app with a photo. They go outside to witness what appears to be an aurora which
quickly becomes the start of the blitz and they all survive together with the
former partner who sacrifices his girlfriend to save himself in the inner
cellar of the club.
After waiting several days using stored food and drink they
venture out to find a silent world and try and make their way to the USA embassy finding much destruction and only one
woman in a ground floor flat warning of
the danger still around. They quickly discover what she means but
manage to make their way to the Embassy where on the upper floor they discover
a log book of information on the elimination of human and other life world wide
a radio broadcasting a message in Russian suggesting survivors but a message
they cannot understand.
At night they notice a light coming from a residential block
across the city. They manage to get to the place after various close calls. The
former business partner is disintegrated. They find a young woman who has been
saved by an electrical engineer who has, amazingly I must add, managed to
create a counter protective force field as well as a potential weapon, a
microwave based device, which has the effect of destroying the force field
around the individual aliens. The
Russians are able to translate the message which is from a nuclear submarine
which is calling at the city in the river to take any survivors and to join
other nuclear submarines that have survived. The film does not to explore the
extent to which other nuclear power facilities and their workers have survived
or if others have survived in bunkers or other protected installations with
air, food and water available. These films tend to overlook the basics
including sanitation and ill health. One of the two girls dies as they attempt
to make their way out of the building to find their way submarine. The inventor
stays behind to fend of the attackers and dies.
It is on this journey that they encounter a small group of
armed Russian Police men who have also managed to find a way to protect
themselves at a local library. They are determined to stay and fight rather
than leave via the submarine but they offer to help to get the party to the
location. There is now considerable
activity going on throughout the city and presumably elsewhere as the purpose
of the invasion is revealed to clear the population before mining for conductive
metals. It will not have escaped some viewers that this is what mankind has
done throughout the ages, going on exploration, eliminating or subjugating the
indigenous population in order to exploit the mineral and other wealth
available.
The remaining four, two girls and the two young men find a
vessel at the quayside which they use as the tide will take it down river
towards where the submarine is waiting. They part from the police who elect to
stay and fight, especially as they have access to one of the devices which
stuns the alien, removing the force field sufficiently for ordinary weaponry to
be able to destroy. However the boat is tracked and attacked and while the two
men and a girl are able to swim and reach the submarine one of the original girls
has swam to the opposite back and is hiding in a bus depot. The two young men
elect to go and find her and in the dramatic conclusion to the film she is
rescued but one of the best friends dies. However they have their experience of
using the weapons and what is learned about the alien to pass to other
survivors and they learn that those in Paris
Another film where the future of all humanity is in question
is Battleship although in this
instance why an eminent invasion is in the offing is not made clear. An
interesting aspect of the film is that the introduction is longer than usual
featuring two very different brothers. The first has become a Captain in the
USA Navy, a traditional all American white man while his younger brother is
creative and adventurous prepared to go outside acceptable behaviour to impress
his girlfriend, Sam, who happens to be the daughter of an influential admiral
commanding the Pacific Fleet. Because of his behaviour the brother is required
to join the Navy as a junior officer and his progress is such especially after
he attempts to get the Admiral to agree to his marrying the daughter that he
appears to be destined to be discharged as unsuitable for an established
commission. Nevertheless he sails on another ship adjacent to that of his
brother on an exercise in the Pacific close to the Island of Hawaii USA Hawaii
One comes into contact with an earth satellite and damaged
knocked of course and falls in Hong Kong harbour destroying buildings and later we learn killing
some 25000 people. This is accidental.
The remaining four objects disappeared into the Pacific Ocean just off the Hawaiian coast and
then a giant structure appears which creates a huge force field around Hawaii
Accompanying this alien host construction and as we are to
learn heavily defended with armaments are more mobile constructions also with
their own devastating fire power. The
creative young brother is sent in a small craft and team to investigate what at
first appears inanimate objects. We the audience learn that those on the alien
space craft are able to make an assessment of anything close to them including
armaments and after jets are destroyed while hitting the force field the aliens
launch devices which are like giant burning wheels which can cut through metals
and concrete, destroying military helicopters and then the supports to a raised
road highway. While the attack on military craft is a rational move the attack
on the roadway is inexplicable.
The alien’s hardware includes mini rocket devices which
penetrate metals in a delayed action response where they then appear to dive
into the vessels and explode destroying the ship commanded by the elder
brother. The full complement on officers
on the bridge (an unlikely situation), are also killed on the ship on which the
creative brother is stationed and he returns to be told his is now in command.
Tempted to attack following the blowing up of his brother’s ship he is persuaded
to go and pick up the survivors of the other ship which has become badly
damaged. This is a Japanese ship participating in the exercise and where the
captain is among the survivors, a man who the creative brother has crossed
swords on the football field which led to the loss of the game to the visitors.
Sam, the girlfriend of the creative man works as a
physiotherapist at a centre where one of those aided is a double foot amputee decorated
army veteran who is angry and feeling sorry for himself unable to return to the
only thing he has wanted to do. She takes him on a hike to the very mountain
range where the communications centre is located. Before the force field
severed connections NASSA, the White House, the Pentagon and other state
centres around the world have been in communication first to alert the Hawaiian
centre of the threat and to hope the centre would be able to provide an answer
to what is happening.
Sam and the Veteran are told to get off the mountain by
police but the couple hesitate, fortunately as aliens destroy the vehicles as
the Police leave. The two then make contact with the geek and cowardly head of
the station at the same time as we see that the individual aliens are wearing
full space suits and later we learn that the human form like creature are
intolerant of sun light and is used to help defeat them. We also learn that they have come to
establish a communications portal with their home land using the communications
station which in turn makes use of a dedicated satellite when it comes into
orbit once a day for a short period.
Together they are able to get a message out to the remaining ship that it is
important to destroy the satellite link before the aliens are able to
communicate with their homeland, presumably to bring an armada of invading
spaced ships to earth. This brings Sam in communication with her creative
boyfriend.
The Japanese captain suggests to the creative brother that
they use below water Tsunami tracking buoys to identify the location of the
alien attack craft and after an abortive attempt they are able to use these to
destroy several of the enemy craft before the mother craft is able to attack
and destroy their ship after they have managed to escape ashore. Without major
weapons the mission to destroy the communications centre appears to have failed
but they decide to try and make use of a “retired” battleship tourist
attraction and its crew of retired naval mariners and where amazingly all the
armaments necessary are on board so the film degenerates into Boy’s Own comic
book territory. We had reached the beyond credulity factor.
Amazing also the battleship is able to sail and to confront
the mother craft which is able to outsmart and get off a 1000 lb round on the
communications centre where the trio on the ground have been able to hold up
operations sufficiently to prevent the aliens contacting their mother world.
Their effort also results in the alien force field being lowered and communications
between the aliens being severed enabling the USA
If Battleships degenerated from a serious imaginative sci fi into comic nook then the first of what I
believe will be new series called The
Avengers 2012 brought together a number of Marvel Comic book characters
into one unit and a film defending earth against Alien attack. It also was a
film where the need was to build a communication and travel portal between
worlds. The film was also was well starred.
In no particular order Chris Evans plays Captain American, the all American hero
who was a super fighter experiment during World War II and bravely saves the
free world from Nazi domination. He dies but is found in a state where he can
be resuscitated and brought back to the
present time in hospital room designed for the 1940’s so his new reality
is not such a shock. A new film featuring him alone is scheduled for 2014.
Mark Ruffalo plays the Incredible Hulk the Dr who when raged explodes into an uncontrollable violent
huge green man. Although the film was released in 2006, another film is not
planned until 2016.
Robert Downey Jnr plays Iron
Man the billionaire playboy who has a suit which makes him invincible and
in which he can fly. There have been two Iron man films although HE also
appeared briefly in Hulk and Iron man 3 is due in a couple of months.
Chris Hemsworth is Thor
a complex film directed by Kenneth Branagh and with a stellar cast about the
good brother and the bad adopted brother and intergalactic rivalry and conflict
which spreads through a portal to earth. The avenger’s story concerns the
arrival of the baddie back on earth to pave the way for the alien horde that in
turn will help the baddie to displace his brother and gain his kingdom. A sequel to Thor is also planned for this autumn
called Thor, The Dark World.
Scarlett Johanson is the Black Widow a martial art fighter and spy from SHIELD a comic book and a TV series and stars alone with Jeremy
Renner as Hawkeye also of SHIELD who
is a specialist marksman. Samuel L
Jackson is the Director of SHIELD who has secretly been developing a device
provided via Thor which is an energy
source of unlimited potential intended for peaceful purposes its military potential is also being explored
and whose activities has aroused he
attention of other worlds.
Tom Hiddleston plays Loki the adopted brother who says he
will recover the device and this will enable the aggressive race, the Chitauri
who in exchange will provide the army enabling Loki to become Master of the
earth world. He has a personal device
which renders those he touches his slaves and he is able to gain the device
from Jackson plus some of his key people to develop into a state where using
the tremendous available power communications unit at the top the Iron Man building
and which is independent of main grid and cannot be shut down he will be able
to create a portal for the Chitauri army to come to earth. Faced with this
emergency Jackson
Loki is captured and taken to a special security unit on
board the control centre but they do not know what he is unto. His brother
arrives to try and help concerned that SHIELD had developed the technology for
military purposes and that it was now in the hands of people enslaved by Loki. There
are strong differences of view about the best way to try and find the device as
welll as concern about its potential use and while this is going on, agents of
Loki take the initiative and attack the control centre and free their leader. Thor
appears to have his power removed after losing a fight with Loki and Hulk finds
himself separated from the others.
Too late it is realised that the device has been taken to
Iron Man tower and is being used to open a portal with the enemy. While
everyone begins to organise themselves into a superhero fighting unit which the
SHIELD director hoped for the odds appear against them as the enemy arrives in
various craft especially a huge caterpillar
mobile weapon.
There is a prolonged battle in which the skills of the
individual are all of great use in the race to close the portal before the main
force mother ship is able to descend to earth. They is an also in race to avoid
the area of New York
The earth world is not in immediate danger in the fourth sci
fi film John Carter which I saw in
TV 3D this weekend. A young man is
called to the home of his wealthy uncle by telegram to find that he had died
and is in a tomb which cannot be opened from the outside. He inherits the home
and the wealth plus a diary which it is also important for him to read. The Diary
is the story of John Carter, an adventuring former seaman. The film is directed
by the man who directed Finding Nemo and Wall E two excellent animated films.
It is the first of series of novels about intergalactic adventures of the
superhero. It costs an extraordinary $250 million to make and only made
marginal profit in terms of superhero CGI films.
We only learn the back story of John Carter in snatches
during the film, as action commences with Carter a former serving officer with
knowledge of Apache Indian dialect is required to assist the local officer commanding
in Arizona but declines because it prevents his searching for a legendary cave
of gold, reminding of the Indiana Jones series and other of similar ilk.
He is held and breaks out and followed by the Colonel and
his troop hey run into the apache, and with his horse shot from under him,
Carter rescues the Colonel and hen head for a mountain and hide out in cave
which the Apache move quickly away from.
The cave is in fact a portal, hence the connection between this
film and the previous where the earth world was under threat. He encounters unknown
to him a super being who surprisingly he is able to kill, the basic flaw in the
whole story and consequential series, and then getting hold of an object the
man held and connecting it to a design in the rock of a similar nature he is transported
to another planet mars, when he discovers that because of the different air
density is able to move in giant leaps high as well as long.
He encounters a non human race of sentient beings that have
four arms and a different bone density which prevents them from possessing the same
agility and it is this difference between them prevents him killed. This race
described as Green Martians Tharks led by Tars Tarkas William Dafoe who has a
rival Tal Hajas. Tars see value in using the skills of Carter and want to make
him their lead warrior which would further undermine the cause of his rival.
Into the scene comes his unrecognised daughter who is something of a rebel and
with the power to help Carter communicate by being able to understand the
different language.
Also on the planet are two groups of human appearance beings
who have been at war. The first group live in a fixed city of Helium whose leader is played by established actor Ciarin
Hinds and who agrees to a plan to stop the conflict with the nomadic city of
Zodanga with established actor Dominic West as it head Sab Than. The plan is to
marry off his daughter Dejah played by Lynn Collins although this is a ploy by
Sab to gain control of Helium and the
super weapon being developed by the daughter
under the guiding control of the
chief of the Therns the race of super
human beings, and shape shifters played by the established actor Mark Strong
who likes to intervene in the fate of planets and their people in order to maintain
a balance which leaves them the superbeings of eternity which brings me back to
how Carter managed to kill off the being who happened to be in the cave at the
time he arrived outnumbered with the
wounded colonel.
With the help of the daughter of the green Martian leader,
and his turning a blind eye he escapes with a view to reaching a place with the
portal to earth accessed only by boat on the only remaining water on the
planet, sacred ancestral ground where the daughter intends to die and join her
long departed mother.
On the way they encounter a situation where the Princess of
Helium is travelling to meet up with betrothed in the company of her trusted
aide played by James Purefoy a renowned Shakespearean, theatrical TV and film
actor, thus emphasising the quality of the ensemble cast in the film. She makes
her escape aided by Carter and then promises to help him get to his destination
although Sola, Tars daughter, quickly works out the Princess is leading them to
Helium. They part company with sola
making her way to Helium and although Carter reaches the portal he is chased
and then recaptured by the green Martians and then finds that their leader is
imprisoned and replaced by his rival having beaten him by trial in combat in the
arena. He decides to settle the situation by getting Carter, the leader and his
daughter into the arena handicapped to meet not one but two giant creatures.
Fortunately he is able to use his comparative super strength and agility to
master the beasts and then to defeat Tal, restoring Tars, and as their champion
commanding the loyalty of the fighting force and people.
In the interim Carter has discovered that the portal is an
intergalactic energy forces which can be used through the device he first hand
held, lost on his arrival on mars and which became the possession of a green
Martian and is subsequently given by the Princess to Carter to return to earth
while she goes off to marry and end the conflict between the two cities.
Carter instead of returning to earth has become attached to
the Princess and on learning the role of the Therns in manipulating the peoples
of worlds is also horrified to learn the next step is to use the marriage ceremony
as the time for Helium to be subjugated and the planet to be fully controlled
by the Therns. Carter uses a captured Zodanga fighting craft to get to Helium
in time to stop the wedding and warns of the Zodanga army outside so they are
able to hold off until the green Martian army arrives and Helium is saved. Rather
than return to earth, Carter elects to stay, marry the Princess and throws away
the medallion key to space travel. The leader
of the Therns uses this moment to get his revenge for changing his plans and
returns Carter to earth with the key.
We learn that Carter spent ten years in his search for traces
of the Therns on earth in the hope of finding one of the keys so he can return
to Mars and during this time he had many adventures, became wealthy leading to
his sudden death and bequest to his nephew. Earlier we had learned that Carter
had discovered the burnt out remains of his home, and who I presumed was the
body of his wife and son, perhaps it was his sister and the boy survived. Anyway
I am still not clear about the existence of the nephew.
The young man having read the diary is under the impression
that Cater had found a key and returned to Mars. Carter had noted that he felt
he was being watched by agents of the Therns and had devised the tomb so it
could have only been opened from the inside thus putting the Thern of his track
The nephew investigates and works out that the wording the telegram was a coded
message on how to open the tomb which he does only to find it empty and the
arrival of the Thern leader, a trap set by Carter who had never found the key
worked out the plan to lure the leader where as planned he is able to kill him
and take the man’s key to return to Mars, his wife and further inter galactic
adventures.
Alas we are unlikely to learn more because the comparative
new head of Walt Disney was forced to resign because of up front costs and box office
failure. The rest of the planned trilogy of films has been abandoned. At least
for now.
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