I am really not looking forward to this.. I know I have to do this, but I keep stalling. Maybe now is a good time to start playing one of those facebook games! Maybe not. I’m afraid when I start looking at this, this will happen:
Anyways.. The show must go on. Let’s push play..
Is it on? Is something wrong with the screen? I have sound. Oh right, the intro on this movie is long. There’s a creepy orchestral soundtrack playing to a dark screen, I get images of someone walking around in an empty hallway. Sounds like it’s from a horror movie, soon we’ll have a jump scare.
No? Ok. There’s the song everyone knows and loves, Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra”. I love it because I used to be a big mark for Ric Flair, and others might have other reasons for loving it.
Here we see the dawn of man, a scene with men dressed up as monkeys. The only way this scene would’ve been awesome is if David Attenborough would be narrating this. And not just these crickets and monkey screams. David would’ve said something like: “Here’s the man-ape, they’re not much different from other apes, except they’re men dressed up like apes. They are quite territorial and live in relative peace. They eat and forage, take good use of the recourses, find mates and do about their daily business. But then, another man-ape clan comes to their territory, and then they fight for recourses. And the fights don’t usually end well.”
Ah, change of scenery. 2001 – A Space Ballet. Zero Gravity works well with this orchestral soundtrack. (Johan Strauss II’s “An der schönen blauen Donau” Yes, I googled it, leave me alone!). The imagery works well with the soundtrack right now, we get it. Move on! Ah! People! Who are they? Doctors? What are they discussing? A virus at Glavius? No one can reach them through communications? Others denied entry? Am I seeing where the idea of Dead Space came from? When this Dr. Heywood Floyd, who they seem to focus on, arrives to Glavius, will he encounter this?
No, he doesn’t. It’s a meeting where Dr. Floyd is holding a speech, and there is NO epidemic on Glavius. Then what is it?! This dialogue is so cryptic, I think I’d need a professional do decipher it. Wait.. They’ve found a stone? A thing? Are you sure this isn’t where they got the idea of Dead Space? That looks like something that could be a Red Marker. Now it emits a beeping sound that hurts my ears! End scene? On that? What happened to the people who were surrounding it? Except they held their helmets where the ears are supposed to be.
18 months later, The Jupiter Mission. A man jogs and shadowboxes. In this is where Nintendo got the idea for Punch Out.. IN SPACE!! Wait.. That didn’t happen, did it? This camerawork confuses me. How does the gravity work in this ship? What the hell is that they are eating? Goo? In different colors? They watch an interview of the ship’s crew, including HAL. Interview by BBC. HAL is really being a jackass, placing doubts into the crew.
HAL: - You have doubts about this mission, don’t you?
Dave: - Uhm.. I do?
HAL: - So you DO have doubts?
Dave: - No.. Yes.. I don’t know!
The next thing you’ll see is a picture of HAL’s AI profile and this will be it:
The scenes when the crewmembers go to space, really makes me sleepy. All you hear is the rhythmic sound of someone breathing. Like when you lie next to a sleeping person, and you listen to them breathe, you’ll slowly start breathing the way they breathe and fall asleep. Must. Stay. Awake! He’s back in! When did that happen? Did I fall asleep? Something is wrong with the comm. Dish, HAL says let it fail, so they can fix it, and the people just nod and say: - HAL is correct!
Oh wait.. The crewmembers sense that something is wrong, HAL is weird. No shit, Sherlock.
Oh great! Intermission! Why? I understand that there’s an intermission for the cinema release. But why is it in the home release?
The comm. Dish has failed now, and they are going to fix it. Frank has an accident; Dave is trying to save him. HAL is being evil, shuts down the life-support of the crewmembers in hibernation. As a pure douche bag now, HAL won’t let Dave in. I guess Frank is dead, Dave just sent him flying to deep space without checking for signs of life. Bye Frank!! Bye bye! “What’s going on? Dave? Can you hear me? It’s okay, I was just unconscious. Dave? DAVE?!”. Okay, Dave’s out to shut HAL down and HAL tells him to “Take stress pill”.
HAL: - Yo, Dave! Take Chill pill, dawg!
This end-sequence is really taking a lot of time; it just feels like stretching out to infinity and beyond..
Yes.. Appropriately, here comes the sequence called Beyond Infinity. Accompanied by the creepiest choir music I’ve ever heard. Did the composer just put a choir to the sound booth and say: “Go nuts!”?
I don’t get it. I don’t understand what’s going on. Creepy Choir, Shots of Jupiter and the Spaceship. What’s going on? Dave reached Jupiter, I guess. Or tripping. Dave is definitely tripping. I don’t know what he is on, but it seems like it’s really powerful stuff. Stay away from drugs, or you’ll end up like Dave, seeing Galaga in 3D, weird imagery. Colors that make your eyes and head hurt, which I guess is supposed to look like the surface of Jupiter. Or Dave is flying above Earth, but the drugs made him colorblind.
What? I thought that was the end! Why don’t I remember these scenes? And when did he get from a spacepod into a house?! WHEN?! HOW?! He is really tripping..
Or is it me who’s tripping?
He has aged, he’s in his spacesuit. No, he’s the man who is eating. What the? I am so confused! What’s next? He’s older and in bed? And now “Also sprach Zarathustra” again played to the images of an unborn child next to earth? Wait.. Is that.. Dave?! It ended? What? What was that supposed to mean? Dave is Earth? Earth is Dave?
This ending makes flaming mad! Like a.. A.. A..
NO.. I meant.
This movie.. Was actually better on the second viewing, but not much. It’s slow paced, it takes forever to end ONE scene. I appreciate what it has done for Sci-fi, but I appreciate what other Sci-fi have done for the pacing. Every scene is like watching a kid killing an animal with a stick, it’s inhumane and torturous.
If you excuse me, I will now go down a whole bottle of whisky and cry myself to sleep.
That very last sentence made me laugh. :)
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