Caught this on TV the other night. I'd seen the trailer while at some other movie, and had been interested in the idea of (at least) 5 waves of attack by aliens against Earth. Not enough to buy a ticket, though.

Turns out I would have been disappointed if I had paid to watch it. They fairly quickly run through the first 4 waves: an EMP takes out most of our electrical equipment, an earthquake sends tsunamis across the coastal cities, (I guess a number of earthquakes, in each major body of water, which solves the head-scratcher of every city in the world being at the same time of day)(our viewpoint is in Ohio, which, I guess means we have a wave coming out of Lake Erie, making me question how small a major body of water the aliens targeted) a bird flu that spreads to humans, and... almost forgetting already... I guess it's being hunted down by things that assume our appearance, which we are told about, but which our main character does not experience until we are worrying about the 5th wave. Well, that's quite a collection, goes from fairly quick and easy, if brute force, to something still using simple force, but needing a lot more setup, to something that needs a lot more information and work (one character tells us that the aliens have visited before) to essentially one at a time -- well, I guess each wave will be to diminishing returns.

It all felt fairly superficial. as if just a background for the YA story, which itself wasn't that engrossing. Well, wait, what are we comparing it to? It came out early in 2016, "The Walking Dead" was in the middle of season 6, in Alexandria, with a giant zombie herd bearing down on them. (while they were filming they had to know about the prison/the Governor arcs, yeah, the book came out in 2013, 3rd or 4th season,) Spielberg's "Falling Skies" had come and gone, and syfy"s "Defiance" had given it a go. One example of the "standard apocalypse background" that I'm complaining about is a highway scene: lanes of dead cars for miles, with the occasional body or suitcase/cooler scavenged through and discarded. But this was a slow-motion apocalypse: the cars weren't evacuating, it was a normal day when the cars died, and there was still enough government in place for the quarantine, would they not have noticeably cleared a lane for the still-running vehicles we see later? As for the quarantine, I have no real post-2020 critiques, I just hope no one has posted clips of it tagged with my least favorite word of the decade, "prescient."

It came from a book, part of a trilogy. The movie does a good job of being self-contained in its story, although when they do their equivalent of blowing up the Death Star, they do their equivalent of explicitly evacuating all the command staff. It was not a good advertisement for the books for me.. Do the aliens eventually make sense, or is it like the joke about dungeon monsters in between adventuring parties? I can believe it if I was told the movie dumbed down the story; there's room to have lost a lot from even an old '70s 180-page paperback, let alone a modern 500-pager. And yet, 500 more pages of this is not what I'm looking for.

--
-Jack

On 2023-10-07 20:59:52 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
>
> The 5th Wave (1916)

1916 ... wow, Chloe Grace Moretz looks really good considering she
wasn't even born for another 81 years!! ;-)

That is a typo which should have said 2016. :-)

> Caught this on TV the other night. I'd seen the trailer while at some
> other movie, and had been interested in the idea of (at least) 5 waves
> of attack by aliens against Earth. Not enough to buy a ticket, though.
>
> Turns out I would have been disappointed if I had paid to watch it.
> They fairly quickly run through the first 4 waves: an EMP takes out
> most of our electrical equipment, an earthquake sends tsunamis across
> the coastal cities, (I guess a number of earthquakes, in each major
> body of water, which solves the head-scratcher of every city in the
> world being at the same time of day)(our viewpoint is in Ohio, which, I
> guess means we have a wave coming out of Lake Erie, making me question
> how small a major body of water the aliens targeted) a bird flu that
> spreads to humans, and... almost forgetting already... I guess it's
> being hunted down by things that assume our appearance, which we are
> told about, but which our main character does not experience until we
> are worrying about the 5th wave. Well, that's quite a collection, goes
> from fairly quick and easy, if brute force, to something still using
> simple force, but needing a lot more setup, to something that needs a
> lot more information and work (one character tells us that the aliens
> have visited before) to essentially one at a time -- well, I guess each
> wave will be to diminishing returns.
>
> It all felt fairly superficial. as if just a background for the YA
> story, which itself wasn't that engrossing. Well, wait, what are we
> comparing it to? It came out early in 2016, "The Walking Dead" was in
> the middle of season 6, in Alexandria, with a giant zombie herd bearing
> down on them. (while they were filming they had to know about the
> prison/the Governor arcs, yeah, the book came out in 2013, 3rd or 4th
> season,) Spielberg's "Falling Skies" had come and gone, and syfy"s
> "Defiance" had given it a go. One example of the "standard apocalypse
> background" that I'm complaining about is a highway scene: lanes of
> dead cars for miles, with the occasional body or suitcase/cooler
> scavenged through and discarded. But this was a slow-motion
> apocalypse: the cars weren't evacuating, it was a normal day when the
> cars died, and there was still enough government in place for the
> quarantine, would they not have noticeably cleared a lane for the
> still-running vehicles we see later? As for the quarantine, I have no
> real post-2020 critiques, I just hope no one has posted clips of it
> tagged with my least favorite word of the decade, "prescient."
>
> It came from a book, part of a trilogy. The movie does a good job of
> being self-contained in its story, although when they do their
> equivalent of blowing up the Death Star, they do their equivalent of
> explicitly evacuating all the command staff. It was not a good
> advertisement for the books for me. Do the aliens eventually make
> sense, or is it like the joke about dungeon monsters in between
> adventuring parties? I can believe it if I was told the movie dumbed
> down the story; there's room to have lost a lot from even an old '70s
> 180-page paperback, let alone a modern 500-pager. And yet, 500 more
> pages of this is not what I'm looking for.

The movie was rumoured to be the first in a series. Basically jumping
on the bandwagon of other young adult movies series like "The Hunger
Games" and "Divergent". The other movies in the series were never made
though due to this first one being somewhat of a bomb at the box office.

Your Name wrote:
> On 2023-10-07 20:59:52 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> >
> > The 5th Wave (1916)
>
> 1916 ... wow, Chloe Grace Moretz looks really good considering she
> wasn't even born for another 81 years!! ;-)
>
> That is a typo which should have said 2016. :-)

Heh. Must be too used to typing "19" before the date of the movies I watch!
Well, replace my references to the 2020 pandemic with the 1918 one, and references to "The Walking Dead" with... um, I guess there's disaster porn between Wells' _War of the Worlds_ and Wylie's _When Worlds Collide_, but the first two decades of the 20th Cent are a bit of a blind spot for me.

> The movie was rumoured to be the first in a series. Basically jumping
> on the bandwagon of other young adult movies series like "The Hunger
> Games" and "Divergent". The other movies in the series were never made
> though due to this first one being somewhat of a bomb at the box office.

It strikes me that there is probably a list by now of series adaptations started but failed, Narnia and Golden Compass come to mind.

--
-Jack

On 2023-10-08 14:37:18 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> Your Name wrote:
>> On 2023-10-07 20:59:52 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
>>>
>>> The 5th Wave (1916)
>>
>> 1916 ... wow, Chloe Grace Moretz looks really good considering she
>> wasn't even born for another 81 years!! ;-)
>>
>> That is a typo which should have said 2016. :-)
>
> Heh. Must be too used to typing "19" before the date of the movies I watch!
> Well, replace my references to the 2020 pandemic with the 1918 one, and
> references to "The Walking Dead" with... um, I guess there's disaster
> porn between Wells' _War of the Worlds_ and Wylie's _When Worlds
> Collide_, but the first two decades of the 20th Cent are a bit of a
> blind spot for me.
>
>
>> The movie was rumoured to be the first in a series. Basically jumping>
>> on the bandwagon of other young adult movies series like "The Hunger>
>> Games" and "Divergent". The other movies in the series were never made>
>> though due to this first one being somewhat of a bomb at the box office.
>
> It strikes me that there is probably a list by now of series
> adaptations started but failed, Narnia and Golden Compass come to mind.

Do a Google search for "movie series that got cancelled" and you'll get
a lot of different lists. :-)

"The Golden Compass" did recently get re-made as a TV series called
"His Dark Materials". There were three seasons, but I don't know if
that was the full story or not from the three books. There are also
rumours of a spin-off series.

Netflix are in the early stages of a planned new Narnia series.