I saw BSG: Razor

However, since Cheesesteak is hopping up and down to post his thoughts on it, I will let him get 1st post on a review.

Now, back to listening to Antibalas...

Battlestar Galactica: Razor

Saw it. Perhaps before this week's Weekend Fanboy Report I'll get to a spoiler free review of it, with a spoiler open one during its broadcast weekend. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to do cuts within blogger so no one need glance over spoilage unless they want to.

Overall, I'd say it warrants a "B" in comparison to the overall series' "A" grade.

Late Saturday Morning Fanboy / Weekend Fanboy

Caught a much put off screening of 30 Days of Night Friday night. I’ll give it a B- overall. I went into this familiar with Niles and Templesmith’s comic, so I was concerned having that knowledge might dilute the experience for me. That wasn’t really the case. The first shot sequence with its soundscape really got my expectations up. The make up department did an amazing job capturing the likeness of Templesmith’s illustrations in the film’s vampire cast, though I think the make up needed some adjustments in the climatic conflict as I think the lighting change threw off the persuasive job it had been doing up till that point. Someone should have noticed that and compensated for it. The effects crew should also pump their fists, so to speak, for the final blow Eben dealt the lead vampire.

However, and I politely argued this point with the counter worker at Showcase Comics Saturday when I picked up a reprint of the graphic novel compilation, something was lost in the translation from graphic novel to film. Yes, the story and the number and nature of most of the characters were truncated to fit movie conventions though still did justice to the original; and while the makeup did excellent work capturing the look of 30 Days’ vamps, the atmosphere the illustrations provided didn’t fully transfer. Cold and dark tones give the fingers frostbite when reading the graphic novel, at a number of points in the movie, it just didn’t seem that cold at all. When the film did try to assert the hostile artic climate, it came off half-cocked. For instance, a sequence where the characters are walking through a blizzard was transparently CGI and wind machine. The graphic novel consistently pulls you in, and chills you. Moments like the blizzard walk pull you out. Decent bloodbath, but the setting matter so much to the story of 30 Days in a way I think the filmmakers didn’t fully appreciate in their adaptation.

I’ll conclude my thoughts with my feelings that having the vampires speak “Vampire” and not English was annoying. Its only purpose I could see was to give an added, and admittedly successful, creep out factor to the “No God” scene:

Otherwise, it took away from what could have been some fun distillation of the vamps discussions from the comic. It also mars up potential for adapting the rest of the 30 Days mythos into film too, and adds a “huh” factor to the Prequel available on Fear.net. I mean, I can accept Vamps using the Internet without English; but the logistics of coordinating attacks in New Orleans and L.A. without any sort of need to “pass” among humanity struck me as off.

Past two episodes of Razor flashbacks on SciFi had a creep factor too. Kind of curious if Adama’s psychic contact with the hybrid goo is going to have any consequences in Razor or Season 4. I’m imagining the ship Diana is going to play a role in Razor, unless the test subject pool were a trick within a ridiculously Cylon plan labyrinthine plan. Hopefully getting to the theatre two hours ahead of the screening will secure me a seat. If I don’t get in as result of there just being a more hard core fanbase ahead of me, so be it. However I’m fearing some sort of Chinatown bus stop-style crowd control fuck up on Riverview's part, shafting me after waiting on foot for two hours. And I don't mean the pushing and shoving one by the WaWa on 11^th and Arch, I'm talking the logistical mess at the Canal St. stop in NYC.

Saturday Morning Fanboy: Young Bill Adama Mano a Vintage Toaster

Wow, that was cool. I’ll admit that after the first two BSG Razor flashbacks webisodes I thought we were in for a talkie, like the Resistance webisodes before season 3. Nothing wrong with that, I thought Resistance was a pioneering effort in supplementary web content, an effort acknowledging what I assumed were limitations of “really small screen” video, and capitalizing on them with a gritty low tech, limited perspective. My only misgiving re: webeps 1+2 of the Razor flashbacks was that the nature of the talkiness suggested the story was going for some sort of “Young Bill Adama in Love” type arc, cribbing notes from the romance subplots of Starship Troopers. Yes, we all know Admiral Adama’s a love machine, and was probably one back in the day too, at least I’m sure there are several volumes of text out there in fanfic land riffing off “Unfinished Business,” “A Day in the Life,” and every single look he’s shared with Rosalyn; but from what I hear there’s enough buzz around romance and sexual tension in Razor already.

Needless to say, webep 3 showed me they were going for something a bit more ambitious this time around: a whole battle set piece with not only the vintage Vipers BSG fans are used to, but vintage vipers facing off against vintage Cylon Raiders and Basestars. Frak yeah! I even dug the music during the battle sequence, which I think in some parts might have been riffing off the 70s score.

I’m sure at some point the continuity wonks will be trying to figure out what led the Cylons to switch from the “blue pulses of light” munitions used in the ep (and the 70s show) to the more conventional projectile weapons seen in the SciFi Channel show; and I think there was a slight flub on the sound design accompanying the destruction of the Battlestar Columbia (I think they were going for something like the radio traffic heard from that doomed B-17 that got cut in half in Memphis Bell amped up a 1000, but the performance struck me more like outtakes from crowd noise to Lionel Richie’s Dancing on the Ceiling video). That said, it still was a kick-ass sequence, even if we’ve seen the decapitated Viper plummeting cliffhanger before (besides, I like the idea that Adama’s been through everything Starbuck’s been through, without pouting).

Now yeah, given the nature and velocity of the collision that put them in freefall, Adama and his Cylon adversary trading shots as they plummet, then literally coming to grips with each other before Adama pulls his ripcord is ridiculously implausible. Still, it did give some legs to the “legend” of Adama as larger than life warrior. Plus you can in this sequence a rebooting of the whole over the top skydiving combat trope that’s gone stale since somewhere between the opening of Moonraker (where it was probably best done) and the finale to Half Past Dead (please). Young Bill Adama’s calling out Bond and Bourne here, maybe Indy Jr. too if Shia wants to get out from behind all those transforming robots protecting him.

I’ll be standing in line Nov. 12 hoping to see how these clips lead in to the full on Razor. If I can’t get in, anyone out there with cable mind a greasy sandwich stopping by a couple of weeks later to hang out and completely ignore you while I stare at your tv?