I've watched the latest rough cut, and it looks great. I'd like to press forward with the effects work and final recording of the computer voices and whatnot.

Many thanks to all the Bothans who died to bring us this cut.

I can record Straya's master's lines, but it would be great to have a dispassionate female voice do Niken's computer lines. Any volunteers?

EDIT: Strike that. I'm told that Straya's lines have already been done by Fireproof. Thanks!

I loved it. It's a beautiful movie.

There are plenty of nits to pick, if you want. Cooper showing up and NASA and immediately being asked to save the world and like RIGHT NOW. The very idea of wasting time on the first planet, where every hour costs 7 years on Earth AND on the ship they leave in orbit. Some of the 5-dimensional being stuff, particularly the random trapped-behind-the-endless-bookshelf sequence.

But my only real complaint is that way too much of it echoes Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I'm not saying that the stories are the same or even that a lot of beats are the same or that no movie can ever do any of these things again, but there were just a lot of moments that were really reminiscent of those films for no particular reason.

2001

• There's a mysterious thing in space apparently put there by aliens for us to visit

• Scientists have been studying this for years in secret before the Big Mission

• Video messages from home that take a long time to arrive

• Silence in space is covered by orchestral music

• Rotating the ship to make artificial gravity

• The scientists back home haven't given the astronauts the full story

• The Big Mission is sabotaged by a crazy guy popping airlocks and whatnot

• Travel thru a worm/black hole to an otherwise unreachable planet the aliens want us to get to

• Creation of a new stage of human life on that planet

• A character ages many years over the course of the story and ends up in a hospital in space

Contact

• Aliens send us a mysterious message

• A female scientist is obsessed with the alien communication

• NASA sends the Big Mission to meet the aliens without any real idea of what will happen

• A crazy guy sabotages the Big Mission with a bomb

• The ship rattles apart until the astronaut separates him/herself from it to float freely

• The aliens turn out to be the female scientist's dad (sort of), and they meet in a surprisingly earth-like setting despite some crazy inter-dimensional travel

• MM

And then there are even a couple of things that are really reminiscent of Red Planet: using a somewhat untrustworthy military robot with weird, non-organic body movement on a scientific mission and ending up scavenging parts from it; and a fistfight in spacesuits on a cliff.

It's exciting to see people talking about THINGS. Owen, that asteroid field looks terrific. A mysterious second ship even!

We saw Battle Beyond the Stars for what it was at the time, but also accepted it as such. I think it had some boobs in it, which helped.*

* Aside from the ones on the ship, which was mind-boggling what-the-fuckery.

Agree about John Wick. I kept waiting for a twist that shook up our understanding of the relationships. I expected the bad guy to crumble: he was the only one who knew what Wick was capable of, so why wasn't he more terrified? I liked the Continental, but it and its characters came a little late and added too little to the pot. As you say, Wick basically shook it off and kept trudging toward his goal.

Just a little bit of pixie dust could have made this a keeper. My friend and I walked out discussing how to improve it and couldn't come to any firm conclusions. We just wanted more.

EDIT: In retrospect, it reminds me a bit of Payback, where the bad guys have nothing against Porter and don't fully understand why he's so angry over a relatively small amount of money. They only try to kill him because he is fucking up their whole operation to settle his small personal grudge.

I have so little knowledge of how long these things take that I wouldn't know when whip-cracking is appropriate or what effects shots are needed to fill things out.

I'm no engineer, but I know that the things that make the biggest difference in a developing society are communication and venture trade. Historically, the inventions that made those possible are:

• paper (1100s in Europe)

• magnetic compass (1300 in Europe)

• printing press (1450)

• carrack sailing ship (1400s)

But you could shake up history quite a bit just by introducing a few modern ideas. Just teaching everyone to read and write makes a huge difference. The idea of interchangeable parts and an assembly line make mass production possible. Fiat money and fractional reserve banking would allow much faster growth in trade.

And I'm kind of fascinated by modern-done-primitive inventions. A telegraph network made of mirrors (day) and oil lamps (night) would allow fast communication between cities. A water-wheel driven elevator (or paternoster) would make a tall building practical.

Teague, I should have said so last week, but please extend my standing travel offer to any of Mike's loved ones.

I was thinking old age makeup and a prop news website.

I'll stop now.

It was impossible… to stop. Impossible. But I did. I must love you.

Edward Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 24, p.460

I lightened them up. What more do you want?

He flashed a brilliant smile, looking at me appreciatively in a way I was learning to recognize.

Bella Swan, Twilight, Chapter 6, p.121

Mentioned it on the chat, but I found that Mike's proper blog (DorkmanScott.com) is down. However, his old blog is still available (DorkmanScott.WordPress.com). I've been enjoying his excellent dissassembling of the book The Case for a Creator.

http://dorkmanscott.wordpress.com/categ … a-creator/

Well, Gran, you might have noticed that my boyfriend glitters. It’s just something he does in the sun. Don’t worry about it…

Bella Swan, New Moon, Chapter 1, p.4