I watched the new show last night. Not real impressed so far, I'll give it another episode or two but I'm pretty meh on it right now.
I realize how cheesy the original mini-series and series were, I've been watching them on Syfy the past week and the new show feels just like the old one. Stilted dialogue, the people clapping after the first address from the alien leader, plus it seem to be developing way too fast. From we are here to help to we want you for food and have been here for years, in the first show seems a little much.
__________________ From Wormwood -
Keanu Reeves is the most frightening actor I've ever seen. I dare you to watch him in Dracula or Point Break and maintain a belief in a rational, ordered universe.
The thing that gets me are the blatant (and thoroughly avoidable) plot holes.
I don't consider this one a spoiler, as it is stuff that happens early in the first episode....
"Until today, we thought we were alone..."
Lady, your people have cures for 65 human diseases, and know all human languages. You honestly want me to believe that you didn't know we were here before *today*?!?
The thing that gets me are the blatant (and thoroughly avoidable) plot holes.
I don't consider this one a spoiler, as it is stuff that happens early in the first episode....
"Until today, we thought we were alone..."
Lady, your people have cures for 65 human diseases, and know all human languages. You honestly want me to believe that you didn't know we were here before *today*?!?
My wife said pretty much the same thing "So how long have you been watching our tv shows to learn the language?"
I also had a problem with how fast the lady jumped to armed resistance is the only option.
__________________ From Wormwood -
Keanu Reeves is the most frightening actor I've ever seen. I dare you to watch him in Dracula or Point Break and maintain a belief in a rational, ordered universe.
Who would ever buy that an alien race, with 29 motherships over the most populated cities on earth, come in peace? Right, of course it takes millions of you to make first contact with us. Certainly not an invasion force here, move along citizen. Then they ask for water and other resources? Sure just take our water. We don't need it. I'm sure the Visitors couldn't find a single non-populated world with water.
I still have hope for the show. At least they changed the Visitors' clothing from military style uniforms.
__________________ Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
Water of course being composed of hydrogen and oxygen, two of the most common elements in the universe.
Okay then. So should I just skip this show? I was only really intrigued because they had Morena Baccarin.
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
Author of the War of the Burning Sky serialized novel, free at EN World. Part Two, The Irons Have Tolled, now available.
I think the holes are there because they are rushing through setup. The show is probably not about how the resistance gets set up, but about what they do once they are resisting. So, getting them to resisting quickly is necessary.
Me, I'd rather then start kind of in medias res, and cover the formation in flashback form, but I can understand them not feeling the general public would go for that.
Water of course being composed of hydrogen and oxygen, two of the most common elements in the universe.
Okay then. So should I just skip this show? I was only really intrigued because they had Morena Baccarin.
and an element abundant on our planet. Not sure what that element is exactly but we have a lot of it.
I'm going to give it a couple more episodes, maybe the first one as just so we could get right into the action next time.
Just found this
"Originally, V was supposed to premiere in early 2010 with the return of Lost, then in late 2009. It got moved up to November sweeps, but it will only air for four weeks before going on break. After that, it won't return until March, so even if the V TV series gets some momentum going in 2009, it will have to reestablish itself again in 2010."
__________________ From Wormwood -
Keanu Reeves is the most frightening actor I've ever seen. I dare you to watch him in Dracula or Point Break and maintain a belief in a rational, ordered universe.
He's Cthulhu with a learning disability.
Last edited by Gog; 4th November 2009 at 07:07 PM..
Reason: New info
The thing that gets me are the blatant (and thoroughly avoidable) plot holes.
I don't consider this one a spoiler, as it is stuff that happens early in the first episode....
"Until today, we thought we were alone..."
Lady, your people have cures for 65 human diseases, and know all human languages. You honestly want me to believe that you didn't know we were here before *today*?!?
We *know* they are lying, but the people in the series only see a highly evolved race that might have the power to decode human language in hours and find cures to 65 human diseases in days/weeks. Not that strange when you think about it, things like penicillin would cure a lot of sick people a few hundred years ago...
The church that accepts aliens within a day, reporters that ignored when asking why they look so much like humans. It seems that the aliens have infiltrated all levels of government, industry and religion, so they should be able to pretty much limit 'embarrassing' questions...
They want water and an (as of yet) unknown mineral, maybe something pretty rare in the universe, maybe a mineral that we haven't found yet. We of course *know* that (most of) the aliens want us for snacks ;-)
Armed resistance isn't that great a leap when your partner just tried to kill you, is an alien, and you killed. Everyone is accepting the aliens as saviors, but it is clear to the FBI lady that they have had Terrorist cells for a while, they are killers and her son likes them. For someone who already uses firearms, it isn't that big a leap...
I have some hope that we get some more info on the aliens that have been working on earth.
__________________ The Helix - Datahaven When cutting edge isn't sharp enough. I will not accept that. No regret.
Personally, I found it rather dull, lacking in an energy that other shows (SGU, Flashforward) have had. I don't mean action, per se; it just felt very lifeless to me.
I think it was a wise decision to start with the basics of the original miniseries, rather than revisit them all again. Hopefully they can tell their own story from that. Though I will admit I'll be a little sad if the Red Dust doesn't come about.
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Originally Posted by RangerWickett
Water of course being composed of hydrogen and oxygen, two of the most common elements in the universe.
Yes, but together as water? Probably not as abundant. It probably uses a lot less energy to harvest water from an abundant planetary source than to make it via hydrogen and oxygen.
We *know* they are lying, but the people in the series only see a highly evolved race that might have the power to decode human language in hours and find cures to 65 human diseases in days/weeks.
My point is rather that "might have the power" is really pretty bogus - Occam's Razor applies. What requires fewer amazing assumptions - fantastic powers, or just hanging out for a while and learning?
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Not that strange when you think about it, things like penicillin would cure a lot of sick people a few hundred years ago...
Sorry, but alien biology is... alien. They can know their own workings forwards and backwards, but that should not give them much insight into the details of ours.
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It seems that the aliens have infiltrated all levels of government, industry and religion, so they should be able to pretty much limit 'embarrassing' questions...
Well, it limits official asking of questions, which is not the same thing.
My point is that they can tell the truth (or at least more truth), and have it raise fewer questions. "We spent the last year in transit listening to your radio and TV broadcasts, learning your languages. We are so happy to finally meet you," rather than, "We only learned about your existence *today*", which just isn't very credible.
Quite simple - it is a bit of shoddyness in the writing. Not unexpected.
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We of course *know* that (most of) the aliens want us for snacks ;-)
I have been avoiding spoilers for the series. I am not sure (or convinced) that they want humans as a food source. Humans take too long to mature to make good food animals anyway.
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Armed resistance isn't that great a leap when your partner just tried to kill you, is an alien, and you killed.
No, given the evidence before her, her actions seem reasonable, at least.
As far as the water goes, I think that's simply a hold over from the original series. Don't forget that comets can be mostly water and you don't have to go into a gravity well to get it. So asking for water makes absolutely no sense for someone with their level of technology.
I'm waiting to see if it will wind up being as good as "Earth:Final Conflict" (the first season) was. Since that is essentially the same premise as "V" only done much better (than the original at least).
__________________ "We are all Individuals! They chanted in unison...
We *know* they are lying, but the people in the series only see a highly evolved race that might have the power to decode human language in hours and find cures to 65 human diseases in days/weeks. Not that strange when you think about it, things like penicillin would cure a lot of sick people a few hundred years ago...
Yet the people in the series believe the Visitors aren't smart enough to figure parking 29 ginormous spaceships, that cause tremors and knock out electronics, over our world's most populated cities might cause problems. The damage in dollars would end up in at least the 100s of millions. Probably at least a couple dozen deaths were caused by the tremors alone. If one jumbo jet was too close, the death count just rose a couple hundred.
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Originally Posted by LightPhoenix
Yes, but together as water? Probably not as abundant. It probably uses a lot less energy to harvest water from an abundant planetary source than to make it via hydrogen and oxygen.
Right, but there have to be worlds without intelligent life to harvest it on. Who would give up water, which they can't replace, for a little technology?
__________________ Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
As far as the water goes, I think that's simply a hold over from the original series. Don't forget that comets can be mostly water and you don't have to go into a gravity well to get it. So asking for water makes absolutely no sense for someone with their level of technology.
Yeah, that's basically insane. Anything natural resource aliens might want from earth is easy to get elsewhere in the solar system where there are no humans to worry about annoying.
When Niven and Pournelle were asked to re-imagine the show once (nothing came of it), they threw the backstory out and decided the reason why the visitors wanted earth was because they were dinosaurs. Posit an intelligent species of dinosaur. They develop interstellar travel, set up colonies on other worlds. The dinosaur killer hits earth, wipes them out here, and millenia later they don't really remember where they're from. But when they stumble across us, earth feels right. The sun's the right color, the gravity is right, the length of day is right, things smell right, etc.
Yes, but together as water? Probably not as abundant. It probably uses a lot less energy to harvest water from an abundant planetary source than to make it via hydrogen and oxygen.
Well you can find it in comets. In fact there are theories that this is where we got some portion or even all of the water we have on earth.
Plus, if you can manage interstellar travel + anti-grav, then power is not really going to be an issue. The power requirements for moving object that large and negating gravity have to be vastly greater than anything putting H & O together would require.
__________________ "We are all Individuals! They chanted in unison...
I'm waiting to see if it will wind up being as good as "Earth:Final Conflict" (the first season) was. Since that is essentially the same premise as "V" only done much better (than the original at least).
Earth: Final Conflict was also on my mind. I think that show had a better start that made it more interesting to see where things would go.
I think one good reason to come to Earth would just be to get to learn the only other intelligent lifeform they discovered. They might not have wanted to say this (aside from any other reasons) to avoid the humans worrying about permanent settlement from aliens. As "Visitors", it's all nice and dandy.
Still, they could have come up with a better story. (For example, they could have said they were just hauling comets from the Oort Cloud and caught Earth radio transmissions, and thought: "Hey, let's take a look!"
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
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My point is rather that "might have the power" is really pretty bogus - Occam's Razor applies. What requires fewer amazing assumptions - fantastic powers, or just hanging out for a while and learning?
A couple of Billion people belief in a god in some form of another... That's a lot of amazing assumptions.
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Sorry, but alien biology is... alien. They can know their own workings forwards and backwards, but that should not give them much insight into the details of ours.
They are not THAT alien, bipedal, use water and oxygen. Not to mention that analytical ability progresses with technology.
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Well, it limits official asking of questions, which is not the same thing.
My point is that they can tell the truth (or at least more truth), and have it raise fewer questions. "We spent the last year in transit listening to your radio and TV broadcasts, learning your languages. We are so happy to finally meet you," rather than, "We only learned about your existence *today*", which just isn't very credible.
Quite simple - it is a bit of shoddyness in the writing. Not unexpected.
But it makes such a more impressive speech, something politicians use a lot. I'm also not convinced that we are the first species they've found, the number of ships gives me the impression of nomads, the kind that travels from food source to food source...
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I have been avoiding spoilers for the series. I am not sure (or convinced) that they want humans as a food source. Humans take too long to mature to make good food animals anyway.
Oh, I'm not going by the old series, stopped doing that after Battlestar Galactica ;-) They are aliens and what's unique to and currently pretty abundant on earth? Yep, humans, yum-yum!
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Originally Posted by Rykion
Yet the people in the series believe the Visitors aren't smart enough to figure parking 29 ginormous spaceships, that cause tremors and knock out electronics, over our world's most populated cities might cause problems. The damage in dollars would end up in at least the 100s of millions. Probably at least a couple dozen deaths were caused by the tremors alone. If one jumbo jet was too close, the death count just rose a couple hundred.
People tend to forget the bad when you hold up shiny trinkets like new technology and medical help that will probably save millions right away and billions in the next century...
As for the water, it's water AND a mineral. Think about it as oil and gold in the same place, pretty useful...
__________________ The Helix - Datahaven When cutting edge isn't sharp enough. I will not accept that. No regret.
A couple of Billion people belief in a god in some form of another... That's a lot of amazing assumptions.
Dude, you know quite well real-world religion is not something we should go into here.
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They are not THAT alien, bipedal, use water and oxygen.
Which means pretty much nothing, in terms of the detailed biochemistry.
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Not to mention that analytical ability progresses with technology.
Which actually hits to the crux of the matter - if they have that kind of analytical ability, and gravity control, they can darn well figure out of to synthesize "minerals" and get water without mucking about with the sentient population of Earth. That they are technological gods and that they need to come to Earth to resupply are not ideas that go well together.
People tend to forget the bad when you hold up shiny trinkets like new technology and medical help that will probably save millions right away and billions in the next century...
Some would, but a lot wouldn't. I can't believe most governments wouldn't come to the conclusion that the Visitors are a threat. There isn't much they can do, but they would be covertly preparing for hostile action. I also believe they would be doing their best to limit direct contact with the Visitors.
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Originally Posted by Cergorach
As for the water, it's water AND a mineral. Think about it as oil and gold in the same place, pretty useful...
Water is more valuable in the longterm than oil and gold, but there is no reason to ever trade a resource from a populated world. Any spacefaring race that comes to a populated world and tries to take such resources in anything but minimal quantities is basically declaring war.
__________________ Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.
Last edited by Rykion; 6th November 2009 at 04:42 PM..
Reason: typos
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