Some ruminations on two films I saw recently but have no intention of
buying on disc.

/Moonfall/
This is not a bad Emmerich film. /10,000 BC/ and /Anonymous/ were bad
Emmerich films. But it isn't a really good one either.

If you are hoping for something like, say, /The Day After Tomorrow/ or
/2012/, you may be disappointed. You will see characters and events
that, in many cases, appear to be based on other films. In fact, there
isn't much left over.

Except for the Moon itself. It is a "construct", that is, it is
artificial with an outer disguise. IOW, if you have ever wondered what
the Moon in Weber's /Mutineers Moon/ might look like on the Silver
Screen, this will give you some idea. Not as Weber imagined it, to be
sure, and the plot is completely different, with the Machines
operating on a Universal scale and looking like the nanobots in the
remake of /The Day the Earth Stood Still/.

As I said, "other films". No real coherence or particularly memorable
characters here.

/The Wandering Earth II/
When I saw this, I was surprised to see that it was a prequel and not
a sequel. I was also disappointed at it.

This basically documents how the Wandering Earth Project (and MOSS)
came to be and traces it through several crises. Including some very
well organized physical attacks. But it simply doesn't match the level
of energy I remember from the first film, although reviewing the
Wikipedia plot summary of the original suggests that seeing this first
make make it more understandable.

Part of the problem -- for me -- was that each crisis is not only
foretold, but an actual on-screen /countdown/ appears. This greatly
reduces the level of tension especially since, having seen the first
film, we know each crisis must be resolved in a satisfactory manner.

OTOH, if you are wondering about the science behind this endeavor, the
film does go into more detail of how they planned to do it. I'm not
sure how well it would actually work, but it isn't as simple as
stopping the Earth and heading off directly away from the Sun. It's
more like expanding the orbit, getting velocity boosts from gravity,
and accelerating/coasting/decelerating to reach their destination.
Whether the time said to be needed is realistic I have no idea.

It is, IOW, about the launch of a really big Generation Ship. And the
first film showed that Generation Ship encountering Jupiter, with
members of the first generation playing an unexpected part.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Among the things Paul S Person wrote:
> Some ruminations on two films I saw recently but have no intention of
> buying on disc.
>
> /The Wandering Earth II/
> When I saw this, I was surprised to see that it was a prequel and not
> a sequel. I was also disappointed at it.
>
> This basically documents how the Wandering Earth Project (and MOSS)
> came to be and traces it through several crises. Including some very
> well organized physical attacks. But it simply doesn't match the level
> of energy I remember from the first film, although reviewing the
> Wikipedia plot summary of the original suggests that seeing this first
> make make it more understandable.
>
> OTOH, if you are wondering about the science behind this endeavor, the
> film does go into more detail of how they planned to do it. I'm not
> sure how well it would actually work, but it isn't as simple as
> stopping the Earth and heading off directly away from the Sun. It's
> more like expanding the orbit, getting velocity boosts from gravity,
> and accelerating/coasting/decelerating to reach their destination.
> Whether the time said to be needed is realistic I have no idea.

I always wonder about movies like this: at what point can I blow up like McCoy at getting conned, "There won't be any damn permits! How can you get a damn permit to do a damned illegal thing?!"

Can we compare it to a caper film? Few people nowadays would expect one to be a blueprint they can copy for a robbery. The audience would grant the plan as given, and watch the personality interactions as the mechanism goes forward.

--
-Jack

On Fri, 19 May 2023 06:48:20 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn
<jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:

>Among the things Paul S Person wrote:
>> Some ruminations on two films I saw recently but have no intention of
>> buying on disc.
>>
>> /The Wandering Earth II/
>> When I saw this, I was surprised to see that it was a prequel and not
>> a sequel. I was also disappointed at it.
>>
>> This basically documents how the Wandering Earth Project (and MOSS)
>> came to be and traces it through several crises. Including some very
>> well organized physical attacks. But it simply doesn't match the level
>> of energy I remember from the first film, although reviewing the
>> Wikipedia plot summary of the original suggests that seeing this first
>> make make it more understandable.
>>
>> OTOH, if you are wondering about the science behind this endeavor, the
>> film does go into more detail of how they planned to do it. I'm not
>> sure how well it would actually work, but it isn't as simple as
>> stopping the Earth and heading off directly away from the Sun. It's
>> more like expanding the orbit, getting velocity boosts from gravity,
>> and accelerating/coasting/decelerating to reach their destination.
>> Whether the time said to be needed is realistic I have no idea.
>
>I always wonder about movies like this: at what point can I blow up like McCoy at getting conned, "There won't be any damn permits! How can you get a damn permit to do a damned illegal thing?!"
>
>Can we compare it to a caper film? Few people nowadays would expect one to be a blueprint they can copy for a robbery. The audience would grant the plan as given, and watch the personality interactions as the mechanism goes forward.

The personality interactions approach worked for me with the original,
at least insofar as the kids were concerned (that part of the story is
basically teenagers stealing a vehicle and turning out to be one of
Humanity's Last Hopes). It didn't work so well with this one. It had,
for me, a different feel. It did, however, produce an interesting
solution toward the end to the "reboot the flooded server before the
Moon reaches the Roche limit" problem.

There are those on a related newsgroup that have been discussing the
scientific validity of the first film and/or the concept of turning
the Earth into what amounts to a Generation Ship. My note above might
encourage them to watch it and see if the additional information makes
the science more plausible.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."