2011-06-20, 01:54 | Link #1 | |
Call me MK! :)
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: The top of the world.
Age: 34
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Falling Skies (Tv Series ~ 2011)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462059/ http://www.tnt.tv/series/fallingskies/ http://sharetv.org/shows/falling_skies Quote:
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2011-06-20, 03:34 | Link #2 |
Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: USA
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I'll probably catch it online sometime...I actually tuned in to the start of it on TV but I missed just like a couple minutes here and there so I turned it off after 10 minutes total. Online viewing with the amount of user control I have I'm just too spoiled to watch a series on TV now.
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2011-06-22, 18:47 | Link #10 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Also, that Alien was definitely too hard to kill. Why bother with Mech suit (though they are very cool, I'll take any mechs I can get....), when you're already nigh impossible to kill.
I just think it would have been much better if they spent a bit more time on the script. The actors are actually decent, it's the script where the problems are. Then again this kind of sentimentality is par for the course for Spielberg (who's producing). |
2011-06-22, 19:08 | Link #11 | |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
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Though I certainly found it interesting that the characters seemed to find the fact that the alien mechs had a different number of limbs than the skitters a more interesting point of contemplation than say, the fact that the Skitters are running around in combat completley unarmed. That's the thing that irks me so much. Not EVERYTHING that Spielberg does is smarmy and sentimental like this. We're talking about the guy who produced Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the Pacific and who directed Schindler's list. Spielberg CAN take a realistic and serious approach to these kind of violent situations and how they effect people. Not everything of his has this smarmy sentimentality over it. |
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2011-06-22, 20:01 | Link #12 | ||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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2011-06-22, 22:19 | Link #13 | |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
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Letting pathos run out of a control IS a problem going on here, but I also think it's the content of the Pathos. One thing to remember about Spielberg titles like Saving Private Ryan, Schindlers List, The Pacific and Band of Brothers is that they DIDN'T have happy crappy stuff thrown into them. They had emotionally dramatic scenes, but they weren't happy crappy. That's ussually what I envision when I think of sentimentality in film. And that's something Falling Skies had to much of. It distracted from the fact that this was a horrific alien invasion where billions of people have died. ...Well, and then there's the fact that our pilot seems to put more emphasis on our characters messing around with some bandits than with the actual aliens themselves. |
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2011-06-22, 22:23 | Link #14 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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I mean your planet is in the middle of an alien invasion, you're fighting for survival, and you send children to a school??? Maybe those kids should be out, I don't know, gathering food or something? |
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2011-06-27, 04:57 | Link #18 |
Author
Join Date: Nov 2010
Age: 53
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Falling Skies is a series around a "classic" alien invasion scenario. One where the aliens wipe out military, infrastructure, etc, etc, etc. Several things are suggested to me after watching the pilot.
1) The aliens use a conquer and remove tactic. I.e. they use a large invasion force to conquer territory then move said invasion force to another location, leaving only a (by comparison) small garrison force behind. The Japanese conquest of the Philippines back in WWII jump to mind as a similar event. This suggests one of two things to me: a) The aliens are currently in the middle of fighting an interstellar war with another race yet to be introduced (such as we saw in the original V series). Or b) The aliens are conquering large amounts of territory for resources and placing the bulk of their forces at nodal points where it can respond as needed. Alternately, it could be both. 2) The alien technology is clearly a mix of highly sophisticated organic bioweapons (such as the parasites we see on the captured children) and moderately advanced technological warfare. The fact that they lack body armor capable of shrugging off even shotgun pellets at close range (not hard to do with steel) and that the 'mecha' they use don't conform to their body structure (six legged creatures using two legged war machines), suggests to me: a) The alien technology is primary the result of captured technologies (such as we see in the movie Independence Day) which they have adapted to their own use. b) It also suggests to me a lack of flexibility. There's a notable lack of unmanned combat machines (many of which are all over in most modern militaries) and clearly no change in tactics from day the garrison force set up shop. As for why you'd send kids to school, there's still a need to pass along knowledge necessary to run and maintain an industrialized society. In this case, it's more important than just about anything else (long term, anyways) and I suspect that they don't spend more than a couple of hours a day at it.
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2011-06-27, 07:14 | Link #19 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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2011-06-27, 08:11 | Link #20 | |
Kuu-chan is hungry
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Raleigh, NC
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Also, even if there isn't much hope for things getting back to normal in the near future, knowledge still has to be passed on. Who knows when the scientists/doctors/etc. will get killed before passing on as much as they can to the kids? Heck, even in the Terminator series, I bet they had schools and stuff. They just didn't show it. You can't have future generations knowing crap if you want to survive and win a long war against a technologically superior force. |
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Tags |
falling skies, tv show |
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