Dailles and Nightlies- 2010: The Year We Make Contact

   2001: A Space Odyssey is my all-time favorite film. I've said this on this site multiple times, and will probably bring it up whenever it feels appropriate. I see the film at least once every year, I've read the book, I've read the sequel books, and I've read everything I could on the production of this film and its novel. So, it was a pretty good year for me when it became its 50th anniversary. With the attention given to the film due to this, I decided, with the inauguration of this new series, to spotlight its lesser known sequel. Arthur C. Clarke (co-writer of the original film, and the author of the book) wrote 2010:Odyssey Two specifically as a sequel to the film's continuity (i.e. changing Saturn in the book to Jupiter in the film). Stanley Kubrick declined directing, so Peter Hyams (known for Capricorn One and Outland) took over those duties, (having to start over with effects due to Kubrick destroying the original props), and was released to mixed critical and financial success in 1984. So, yeah, in honor of its 50th anniversary, we take a look at its underappreciated sequel.

     In 2010, 9 years after the Discovery shut down in Jupiter's orbit, Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider, taking over the role William Sylvester played in the first one) took the fall for the events, and is mostly working in the Very Large Array. He is approached by Dimitri Moiseyevitch (Dana Elcar), a representative of the Soviet space program (remember, this was made in 1984), who hopes to recruit him for a Jupiter mission they're planning with their ship  Alexei Leonov (named for the first human to conduct a spacewalk). They hope to investigate the events that lead to the shutdown of the Discovery , the malfunction of its computer HAL-9000 (Douglas Rain), and the disappearance of Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea). Most significantly, they hope to examine the large monolith the Discovery was sent to investigate (as revealed in the climax of the first film). Despite rising tensions between the US and USSR under a conservative president (who cut funding to Floyd's agency while they were planning their own Discovery Two to investigate) and an incident in Central America, Floyd agrees, and manages to get approval for him, Walter Curnow (John Lithgow), the designer of the Discovery and Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), HAL's creator, to travel with the Leonov. They find themselves with already tense relations with the crew, including Captain Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren), who is concurrently a major with the Soviet Air Force; Dr. Vladimir Rudenko (Saveliy Kramarov), the ship's doctor; and Irina Yakunina( Natasha Schneider), the ship's nutritionist. As they enter Jupiter orbit, they find strange signals coming from Jupiter's moon Europa. After prodding from Floyd, they investigate further, only for a strange light to emerge. This only harkens the strange events that may or may not explain what happened to the Discovery, Dave Bowman, and HAL-9000.

      This could've easily just been a Kubrick knock-off, a way to just imitate his style without any sort of consideration as to why that style is effective or making it work in its own way. While there are a couple Kubrick style shots and homages in the film (including an amusing one where he and Arthur C. Clarke are the US President and Soviet Premier on a Time magazine cover), Hyams largely does his own style, making it very distinct from the original and not overly reliant on it. I do like the more modern, 80's feel to the film, which, while unable to top the timeless period-ness of the original, is an interesting enough in its own right. The effects are superb, especially considering that they had to largely remake a lot of them from the originals. It keeps up with the original in those terms. It largely keeps to the events of the book (though my favorite scene in the book, where Dave Bowman is shown the floating gasbags of Jupiter, and oceanic creatures of Europa by the monolith beings, isn't in the film).

     Which probably leads me to my first problem with the film (and the book): the ending, where it is revealed the monolith beings want to create a new sun using the monoliths to create enough mass. It makes sense, given what has been stated in the plot and gives a good climax. However, it stretches belief and feels a bit odd in an otherwise realistic film. Another book-related problem was the explanation of HAL's malfunction. It is revealed that he was torn between the original mission orders and orders given to keep the Monolith secret. It feels like a disappointment given the scale of his malfunction, and felt like something else was missing from this, but the film decides to just leave it there.

      This is definitely not as good as the original, but most films in general aren't. However, I do think it is a good sequel in spite of that, and just a good standalone film, and does improve on the book by adding the Cold War tension to it. If you like the original, you'll like this, or appreciate it. Even if you don't like it, this is distinct enough from it that you might enjoy it. Definitely see 2001 first, though, if you haven't already. It is a far better film, for sure. However, this is a nice underappreciated film, and especially a study of Cold War tensions in film.   

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre's Summer of Terror- Friday the 13th, Part 2

       So, this came from a realization, whilst planning out when I would review this and other Friday the 13th films. After looking, I found that, if I were to do each on Friday the 13th in October, it would take me until the end of this century to finish. Given I might not be alive by then, I then thought to do one every Friday the 13th of a year, but that proved impractical as well. Eventually, I just decided to just spend this July, leading up to this Friday the 13th, just getting these out of the way. So, everyday up until this Friday the 13th, I will review each of the Friday the 13th sequels leading up to the most recent one. So, let's begin with this.

(Note: I will not give spoilers in the synopsis. However, to fully articulate my feelings on the films, there will be unmarked spoilers in the good and bad sections, so be warned)

          So, not much history here. After the massive success of the first film, a sequel was inevitable. Like its (to be charitable) "inspiration" Halloween, it was originally an anthology which would focus on the general theme of "Friday the 13th", but this was squashed after executives took a brief joke of Jason at the end, and decided to run with it, and make Jason the main villain. Because of this, director Sean Cunningham, screenwriter Victor Miller, and special effects Tom Savini (who all found the idea ridiculous) all left, though Cunningham would return to help with additional scenes. Instead, Cunningham's protege Steve Milner directed from a script by Ron Kurz, with Carl Fullerton doing effects. Fullerton was behind the final design of Jason in the film. Adrienne King, who played Alice (the final survivor of the first film), opted to just return for one scene, given she had been a victim of an obsessive stalker after the release of the first film. Whilst critically panned like the first one, it had been a financial success, though not to the same degree as the first one.

       Shortly after the events of the first film, Alice  (Adrienne King) is still traumatized by the experience. One day, whilst wandering around her house, she is briefly scared by her cat, and when getting some cat food, finds the head of Pamela Voorhees in her fridge, and is killed by a mysterious assailant. Five years later (which would weirdly place the film in the then-future of 1984), a new counselor camp has opened up near Crystal Lake, under the tutelage of Paul (John Furey), and includes his assistant Ginny Field (Amy Steel), wheelbound  Mark (Tom McBride), Sandra (Marta Kober), Jeff (Bill Randolph), Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), Terry (Kirsten Baker), and Scott (Russell Todd). The legend of Jason Voorhees (Steve Daskawisz and Warrington Gillette) still haunts the camp grounds, as warned by Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney), who is killed by the same mysterious assailant. Whilst Paul dismisses the possibility of Jason's resurrection, it seems that most legends have a basis in fact, as Jason is in fact alive, and prepared to get some new blood....


     First and foremost, I liked this better than the first one. Whilst the first one was more-or-less a straight Halloween lift, this manages to be more original in its presentation. It has a more original way of showing its killer, first showing his legs to give a sense of menace and scale. Jason comes off like a Universal monster in this sense. I do like the pillowcase look for him, very realistic for his circumstances. It also fleshes out the characters a little more. Not in-depth character pieces, but enough that you do feel when they are chased and killed by Jason. Once again, the effects are great, and there is more a sense of dread in each scene. Jump scares are also well-done, since they lead into the actual scares.

    It is a bit short, running at only 87 minutes long. I felt that some more time was needed to fully explain Jason's deal (as in, how he survived for 30 years, how he knew about the events of the first one, and if that final scare in the first one was really Jason). It also felt at times a bit too much like the first one, in terms of plot and characters. Even some of the kills are reminiscent of the first one (though enough is changed for me to tell the difference.)

     Like I said, I liked this better than the first one. If you liked the first one, or if you want to see the debut of the Jason, then this will probably satisfy you. If you didn't like the first one, as I did, maybe even you could find some level of enjoyment in this. Some compare to this to Halloween II, which came out the same year. Honestly, it's better than that.

   Alright, so ten films to go. Tomorrow, it's Part III (fancy with the Roman numerals and everything)

Tomorrowland Spoiler review

    So, I decided to write this, just to explain my review. Now, normally I wouldn't do this, largely because I feel that a review should just be a recommendation. It's just my thought on whether or not a person or entity would enjoy it or not. Spoiling it means you'd probably not see it, and I feel that I should encourage you to see it. The only exception is if the film is repulsively bad. Then, I could spoil it all I want, because then no one would see it. Tomorrowland is not an incredibly bad film. However, I feel I need to explain the third act of the film, in order for my review to make sense. Again, this is a spoiler review, so if you are interested in seeing Tomorrowland, I suggest you stop reading, and look at my previous review. Reading my previous review would explain some of the context for the scenes.
      So, Frank, Casey and Athena manage to reach a facility, where they are teleported to the Eiffel Tower. There, the Robot agents manage to track our heroes there. However, they manage to escape, using a rocket, which is accessed.... At the bottom of the tower. Yeah. So, if they had intended on going to Tomorrowland discreetly, well, they were witnessed by millions of people, and the electricity went off in a large metropolitan area. Oops. How exactly did the founders of Tomorrowland (established as Gustav Eiffel, Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Nikola in this scene) exactly intend on getting there secretly, with that mode of transportation. This could have easily been solved by having it be in the French Countryside or something. Anyway, they go above the atmosphere and send their ship back down to reach the necessary velocity to cross the dimensional threshold to get to Tomorrowland. They cross it. However, they find that the city has fallen into destitution. They are promptly capture by Nix and his army of robots. They take the three to a device, which utilizes tachyons to see past and future events. There, we discover the truth: there is going to be an apocalypse. How? The movie doesn't explain. David Nix says that the apocalypse is inevitable, but once again, Casey's optimism shows a more optimistic future. However, they are then put into a cell, where they will be sent back to Earth. In that cell, however, they realize that,,, I'm sorry, this is part that irks me,... that the machine is sending signals to implant images of the apocalypse. Yep, that's the big mystery. Expecting something bigger on top of that. Well, sucks for you! And that's not even the worst part. When they confront Nix about it, he says that he intended to use those signals, in order to warn humanity about the apocalypse, but instead they embraced the idea of the end, and marketed it (at the back of my mind, I was thinking the movie was dissing Mad Max.) What? Really, that is his whole evil scheme. Show people the images of the apocalypse, without context. Um, hey, evil Governor Hugh Laurie, uh, why didn't you send a very clear message saying "Hey, you know this world. If you don't want it to happen, stop doing the stuff you're doing. See this (shows Tomorrowland). Try doing what we do..." and he goes into detail about what they do in Tomorrowland. And again, this is the big twist. This is supposed to be the thing the big mystery was leading up to. It really is disappointing. And once again, I feel I should blame Lindelof for this. Really, those two films (and Prometheus, which I haven't fully seen) suffer from this problem. A big mystery, which gives a insufficient conclusion, and lackluster effects. Really, it's his mark on the film, not Brad Bird's. Anyway, there is a large fight scene, Athena sacrifices herself, Nix is killed, and Casey destroys the tower. Later, Casey and Frank decide to rebuild Tomorrowland, with help from Casey's father, and a new army of Robot kids, like Athena.They go out, and get more innovators and exceptional... Oh my god, I just realized the Objectivist undertones of this (Maybe people were right about Brad Bird). Sorry, they give them pins like the one Casey received, and they go to Tomorrowland.
   Oh, yeah, the absurd scenes. Let's see, the Paris Rocket, I already covered that. The finishing fight with Nix. The CGI made it look very cartoonish. Oh yeah, there are scenes of Athena fighting. Yes, an 11 year old girl is the focus of several fight scenes. I... don't know what to say. What can you say? Oh yeah, I can't take that seriously. Sorry, I just can't. It's too absurd.
      Looking back, my review was a little too positive. That may be because I write them immediately after watching the film, and I haven't had time to fully think about it. Now that I've had time to think, I like this less. Granted, I still like it to some extent, but my opinion is more mixed. I feel this deserves a 48% (its score on Rotten Tomatoes). Well, nothing much else to say.