Look, I realize we’re living in the age of digital audio, and since we're basically an MP3 nation ourselves, I was curious to see how much of your hard drive space is being swallowed up by them. Give me a rough estimate in MB or GB if that's easier, or just tell me the actual file count.
I'm trying to figure out if MP3s are actually the primary culprit behind all that wasted disk space, or if something else is taking up more room.
The same logic applies to Sphere and Congo, both adaptations of Michael Crichton novels.
Sphere possesses an incredible premise, yet it remains an incredibly poor film, particularly given that Barry Levinson was at the helm. They likely assumed that pairing three heavy-hitting actors with a famous author and a decent director would be enough to guarantee a box office hit.
The movie is a disaster, though compared to Congo, it’s practically a masterpiece...
Yeah, hands down their absolute worst. It’s pretty bad. The Tom Hanks character is ambitious on paper, but the execution is sluggish, chaotic, underdeveloped, and just plain overblown.
Tom Hanks isn't actually failing here—it's just that the character he was given is a disaster.
That witch character doesn't serve any real purpose in the plot beyond being a minor side note, yet the movie keeps trying to frame her as the main driver of the action.
The rest of the cast feels forced too; I can barely fit them into the narrative, and constant bouts of nonsensical dialogue and scenes keep breaking the internal logic.
Despite the attempt to build some kind of atmosphere, the Coen brothers completely missed the mark. This film sucks!
Megan Ruiz13 said:Personally, I am waiting for this movie with a great deal of interest. Aliens is easily one of my all-time favorite films—I’ve probably sat through it at least 50 times. As for the first Predator, that remains one of Schwarzenegger's finest works; I can't say I haven't watched it at least 20 times myself.
I played the game, you absolute brute. If the movie stays true to the game, there’s going to be blood everywhere—tons of it. We're talking green, red, and a massive pile of dead Alien scum.😁
Man, how do I keep falling for the same old tricks?
I was actually holding out hope that this could turn into a decent flick. Even the fact that it was helmed by that total geek Paul Anderson didn't completely kill my optimism.
And now, here I am, reading all these reviews tearing it to shreds. Honestly, I don't think they're wrong. It really wasn't ever going to be a good movie. That’s just how things are done these days.
It’s a real shame, though. I let myself get hopeful because, frankly, I'm desperate for someone to finally recapture that specific atmosphere—that certain grit and soul found in the best SF films of the 80s...
It actually could have been something special, maybe even a masterpiece, if James Cameron had directed it. He’s basically built for this kind of stuff.
Looks like instead of wasting money on a movie ticket, I'm better off just renting both original movies and grabbing some beers...
Larry Moore49 said:You're suggesting it would be wiser to remain silent rather than attempt to squeeze something into a subgenre of time travel where it simply doesn't fit.
If you absolutely insist on peddling nonsense, then silence is indeed the more prudent course of action.
If you feel the need to carve out a specific niche within SF to deal with alternative realities, then by all means, go right ahead.
Larry Moore49 said:It would be far more logical if science fiction were treated, just like any other genre, as a mere subcategory of the broader TIME TRAVEL category.
If you don't have anything substantive to contribute, the most intelligent course of action is to remain silent...
Look, you can categorize it however you please. Personally, I view Fatherland exclusively as SF. If it doesn't fit that mold for some people, it’s simply because our definition of SF isn't sufficiently refined. In those instances, we're talking pure fantasy—an entirely imagined world—yet there lies the contradiction: it remains anchored to precise historical data.
I would actually place it within some sort of subgenre of time travel. Concepts like traversing time or slipping into alternative realities are the closest parallels we have—they aren't distinct enough to warrant an entirely new category, yet they remain too disconnected to be lumped into the same one.
At the end of the day, we can all agree that, in some capacity, we perceive Fatherland as SF.
When discussing the theme of an alternative future—or what I prefer to call a temporal shift—in *Fatherland*, we are really only looking at 10% of the core motive. The remaining 90% actually falls under the category of speculating on the future of human society. I use the term "future" because the narrative deals with events following a specific historical turning point, regardless of whether that point happens to be the 1960s.
However, we are interested in that 10% because it remains somewhat ambiguous to me. To be clear, I agree there aren't direct touchpoints with the classic time travel trope, but I certainly wouldn't argue for creating an entirely new category just because of that. It should simply be treated as a subcategory. In this instance, the mere fact that the timeline has been altered is a sufficient explanation for calling it time travel. I will repeat myself: this isn't about time travel being a plot device used by characters within the story; rather, the entire plot itself is the result of a sort of temporal displacement. That is precisely what time travel is—the transition from one reality into another. This film depicts events within an alternative reality. In my view, it isn't necessary for the characters to be aware of this, nor does the plot need to explicitly address the concept.
Hardly any Sci-Fi offers a complete scientific explanation. Consequently, I personally define Sci-Fi as anything occupying the spectrum between a minimal touch of scientific grounding and pure Fantasy, or vice versa.
Take > for example; it falls under Sci-Fi Fantasy because while it is entirely fabricated and utterly impossible, it still maintains certain scientific touchstones—things like hyperdrives, space vessels that might actually resemble real craft, galaxies, stars... in contrast, > does not qualify as Sci-Fi because it is pure Fantasy—it lacks even a single scientific reference. If > were actually a tale about an alternative past during the early days of human history, I would classify it as Sci-Fi Fantasy, for instance.
However, > is exceptionally scientifically grounded. It begins from the premise that space and time momentarily shifted directions during a genuine historical event, and then builds its reality upon the subsequent chain of events. Alternative histories are certainly a matter of science (>). While that isn't explicitly the subject of the film, the plot relates deeply to factual data and maintains more ties to science than most films, let alone something like >...
Richard Hernandez13 said:By that logic, every single movie would fall under the Sci-Fi umbrella.
That's actually one of those theories floating around... 😁
But no, let's be realistic—not every film deals with alternative realities or jumping through time. Take historical dramas or movies based on actual events; they simply reconstruct what happened without messing with the space-time continuum... 😉
"Fatherland" messes with it. "Time Machine" messes with it. And so on.
Larry Moore49 said:As if time travel were even possible...
Time travel isn't actually traveling through years; it's nothing more than a transition between alternative versions of our history. It’s been proven.
Whether we are discussing someone moving from the future back to the present, or jumping from the present into the past—or vice versa—or simply dealing with an altered version of American history, it all boils down to a temporal shift.
In this instance, we aren't really following the protagonist's journey, but rather the perspective of the viewer itself... though the underlying motivation remains identical.
David Sanchez6 said:Can someone please explain what genre "Fatherland" actually falls into?
It belongs to those films dealing with the future of human society. It naturally blends that with themes of space and time travel. In essence, an alternate reality is just a form of traveling through time.
nimblemarlin17 said:Commando. It’s in a league of its own. I mean, Dumb and Dumber had a much larger budget, so it can't really compete in the realm of pure stupidity (regardless of what you call it).
Look, Commando is essentially the gold standard. It is intentional trash, much like the work of John Carpenter—think Escape from L.A., Ghost of Mars, or Big Crowd. They are incredibly fun and completely caricatured. They aren't actually "dumb" movies; they only seem that way to people who don't get it, because those people mistakenly assume the film was trying to be serious.
Larry Moore49 said:Should there be some sort of subcategory for films like 1984 or 2001: A Space Odyssey—stuff where the "future" they depict is actually long since passed?
That isn't relevant at all. The core theme of these films is the future, and "the future" is calculated from the moment they were created.
If we started putting them into separate categories based on when they were made, then every single film set in the future would eventually just be crushed by the passage of time. It’s nonsensical.
Ultimately, classification follows the subject matter—in this instance, something pertaining to the future. The fact that that specific era has already lapsed has absolutely nothing to do with the actual substance of the film.
Precisely. Lord of the Rings is nothing more than a sycophantic piece of cinema, engineered specifically to dazzle a mindless, frustrated audience hungry for supposed "mystery," "beauty," and "fairytale charm." They actually believe it’s somehow distinct from the usual mediocre sludge pumped out by the Hollywood machine. Yeah, right!
I've tried to strip this down to its simplest form possible. In reality, most Sci-Fi films are much more complex hybrids of these core motifs.
I haven't been able to pinpoint a smaller set of fundamental themes that could encompass every single movie in the genre. This really is the most basic breakdown based on subject matter. There are other ways to categorize them—using different criteria altogether—which I’ve already mentioned in a few previous posts.
If you have a better way of looking at it, by all means, lay it out.
The real question is, what actually qualifies as science fiction? My take is pretty simple, perhaps even shallow: I define it as anything ranging from a tiny sliver of "science" paired with maximum "fiction," all the way up to maximum "science" with minimal "fiction." If it doesn't include at least a trace of both elements, I just don't call it Sci-Fi. Simple as that.