Looked forward to it, but was so sad that a multimillion pound programme was so boring. I wanted to know how the Earth had become so unlivable and why. Also why some really bad people were allowed to go.
I think that I will be pressing delete on my Virging+Box on this one.
Eh, it's a TV series....don't expect all the answers within the first episode.
Also regarding the poor CGI and comparing it to Jurassic Park. You have to remember that a lot of dino's you saw in Jurassic Park were not done by CGI, they were animatronics.
With millions of pounds spent on it, the CGI shouldn't be dodgy - it should be as good as Jurassic Park
I'm starting to wonder if the last time anyone here saw Jurassic Park was 1993. 80% of the on-screen dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were animatronic.. and done by Stan Winston of all people.
Quote from Stan Winston: "If you can see the entire creature, legs and all, moving across the screen, then it is digital. The majority of other shots, particularly close-ups, probably use the animatronics."
Opening shot - the moon is made of wool or maybe cheese (can no one render moonrock!) with the US flag not fluttering (whew got that right - the not fluttering not the cheese). We fly to the earth and see lots of satellites stretching from horizon to horizon eh??? Has earth shrunk to the size of Manhattan or are satellites the size of Manhattan. Earth seems to be flat we see the same amount of continents or cloud formation from the moon as we see close up - hoorah the flat earthers were right. And the earth is like 500 km from the moon right. Fly to model like city - is this one of those make your own city video games. No - but ridiculously raised railway -check - train going along just as we fly in - check. Overfast zoom in so we do not notice the nicely rendered flapping plastic/fabric sheets on top of some of the building that some poor guy has spent ages rendering just right and actually gives a sense of large scale buildings and 99% of the audience miss as we are going 1000km per hour so everything looks like a model. You must admit it is progress when cgi looks just like models made out of old match boxes. Ok the prison is a little better but someone thought it would be a good idea to use identically rendered whatever the cross shaped bits of wood or whatever are. The train station - hoorah much better someone on the special effects team has seen Blade Runner (he will be sacked soon) we even has rendered people (show offs) on the far side of the platform doing those odd movements rendered people do. The portal ok (nothing like SGU of course!!!) but why the sparks falling down - if my microwave does that I would unplug and get my family away. Ok things get very bad now --- take beautiful Queensland locations and try to tart up with poorly rendered impossibly spindly mountains with waterfalls falling from the top of them!! And the waterfalls fall in sloooow motion - odd jerky slow motion. Was this made by a 10-year-old on a 10-year-old PC. And we have not even got to the dinosaurs yet. Let's not.
I wonder who this is made for - surely the "family audience" is largely mythical by now. I would say children initially but young children could be scared I guess and the illicit alcohol drinking is probably a bit risque for middle america (despite the moral - drink and dinosaurs will try to eat you). And half of this opener was post 9pm for some reason. But any child over 12 or certainly 14 would find it all a bit cheesy and lame as crap.
Even with awesome special effects or even effects that were a bit special the bad acting and terrible script would suck the life out of them. And awkward stilted delivery of lines like the following to further sour the cream:
"He is you: a pretty girl and a chance to break the rules; you would have done the same thing at his age"
"You should know - you were that girl"
I think you've gone over the CGI and looked for flaws that, as you rightly pointed out, 99% of the audience would miss. It's not a Hollywood film with a massive budget to blow, it's a TV show that is limited to a much smaller budget.
Elsewhere on Digitalspy 'Terra Nova' pilot budget to reach $20m? I would call that Hollywood film budget scale maybe budget Hollywood budget:D 28 Days Later cost just 8 million dollars to make. Even better read the rest of the article - they decided to "pay several high-profile writers $200,000 a week to perform rewrites on the pilot script." They should sue for the money back for that pile of stale cliches.
I only notice bad cgi in bad films or tv - if it is good I am too absorbed in other things. And even in bad tv and may not care too much .... unless the producer flushes millions on it and claims after it is delayed months for post-production polishing it will be perfect
Budget indeed! $20 million is nothing when trying to make a sci-fi film that is 2 hours long. Your talking $100 million + for a decent CGI film these days.
I wanted to enjoy this. I've never been as disappointed by a pilot.
The script was atrocious clunky cliched exposition. Acting & delivery wooden and self conscious.
Ideas lifted liberally from all over the last few decades, from Soylent green to "Flesh" (story in 1970s 2000AD comic). Some of the much vaunted "lush prehistoric landscapes" overlooked by actors looked very badly superimposed. Some ridiculous character behaviour and situations straight from the How-Teenagers-End-Up-On-A-Crazed-Slashers-Axe naff horror rule book.
They don't credit their audience with much brainpower either - when the Son is brought to the waterfall to see the 'mysterious' etchings, having just arrived himself and having pointedly said earlier that there was "no going back" (COUGH! CLUE! COUGH), the direction this great mystery was going to take was bluntly thumped in our faces. I could be wrong, but nothing else about this mess gave me any reason for hope.
Unless it improves radically soon, this one's a Dodo.
I didn't think it was too bad to be honest. OK so perhaps I'm measuring it against Falling Skies so anything would be better than that load of tosh but I quite liked it. Hopefully I'll stick with it but I have to admit that the son is already getting right on my nerves and I did laugh at the way that humans travel 85 million years into the past to escape a world that they've screwed up and then proceed to behave exactly as they had done in their previous time! Guns (pointed inwards more than outwards oddly), conflict, aggression etc..... reminded me of Outcasts albeit without descending to the depths of bad acting that series managed to achieve. Will stick with it though....if I can stand the usual Spielberg schmaltzy nonsense.
Really enjoyed this episode(s) I found it to be compelling and heartwarming at the same time. The dad hearing the 3rd child call him dad was brilliant. Can't wait for episode 3
Just watched it on anytime. Have to say that i loved it. Didn`t see anything wrong with the CGI. thought it was pretty good myself. People need to see the show for what it is and thats 1hr of entertainment and not look too closely at the plot holes. I really hope it gets a 2nd season and personally i think it will.
Sound issues aside (Virgin TV, both the HD and the normal channel), and the bloody annoying and practically constant sentimental music, I just didn't take to this.
Oddly for a how about time travel and dinosaurs it just seemed so terribly, terribly bland. No character stood out as interesting, no actor was particularly charismatic, the personal family issues just seemed cliche and even playing "spot the future plot" such as "My son just disappeared one day, I haven't given up hope" wasn't fun. I didn't find it awful, it was just bland.
I assume it was clearly a double length pilot that had been sliced into two? The first episode ended so abruptly and when the announcer said something about how exciting it had been so far and stay tuned because there was more to come I thought "It bloody hasn't, it was basically a house move". All the excitement and the scene setting you would expect in a pilot such as the Sixers and him getting a job on security were in the second episode.
Mondays a quiet night, so I might give it another go, but I haven't pressed Series Link yet.
...well what I actually said was "Oi! Stop stealing from Aliens!", I wasn't feeling very charitable by then
In terms of style I'd love to see something truly original but I suppose after all this times that the references can't be helped in these things. I got Bladerunner, Solyent Green, The Running Man, Robocop, Futurama (!) and more influences in the first fifteen minutes and I am not even a big sci fi watcher.
Having said that it's cheeky and downright lazy to outright lift lines like this though.
Budget indeed! $20 million is nothing when trying to make a sci-fi film that is 2 hours long. Your talking $100 million + for a decent CGI film these days.
A lot of that goes on building the standing sets and initial props etc, for the full life of the series, not just the pilot.
I enjoyed it though! As someone said previously though, it's just Outcasts with dinosaurs. Very reminiscent of Earth 2 as well.
Apparently $20 million is much higher than it did cost according to the producers.
In fact as the effects were no better than Primeval I hope not they need a new accountant if so.
It was pointless showing it in two halves with a 'To Be Continued' logo on screen between - guaranteed to switch viewers over to Doc Martin (and it lost 25% of its audience from ep 1 to ep 2, meaning they missed the best parts).
So Sky were idiots for not showing this as a feature length story.
The raw figures were good - though - 900,000 + for ep 1, 700,000 + for ep 2.
Wise that from next week it is at 8 pm - so as to allow kids to watch and not to lose the Doc Martin audience. So Sky got something right.
Oh and in the US (seen last week) it gained the most viewers (Doctor Who like) from those who recorded and watched later - giving it a 4.1 rating (which is OK - thought the US needs live viewers more than here as ad rates are everything).
As for the is it an alien planet owing to the moon and stars being different. Not necessarily as 85 million years ago the moon was closer / so bigger and the constellations would have all been very different owing to stellar motion. Even in a few thousand years since Astrology was invented the stars have changed so much that aires is really no longer aires (if you see what I mean).
As for the is it an alien planet owing to the moon and stars being different. Not necessarily as 85 million years ago the moon was closer / so bigger and the constellations would have all been very different owing to stellar motion. Even in a few thousand years since Astrology was invented the stars have changed so much that aires is really no longer aires (if you see what I mean).
Didn't "smart girl" point all that out in the episode?
One thing that annoyed me is the Dinos are once again immune to gun fire. Even with that huge calibre machine gun the sixers had mounted on the vehicle, the Dino took it head on, fell down then got up and shuck it off!!!
For all our advancements, we might as well be shooting them with bows and arrows - I find it hard to suspend my belief. A Dino is going down fast with current military equipment, never mind future.
Apparently, this was at the request of Spielberg, who didn't want to show "majestic" Dinosaurs being killed by humans. He wanted them treated ethically:
...but has no problem with Dino's killing humans each week!
Now I understand they want the Dinos to feel threatening, and humans mowing them down might kill suspense.
They could have got around this by saying they don't want to make the same mistakes as their ancestors when building Terra Nova and only allow non-lethal weapons (stun guns, sonic canons etc) to be brought through the portal.
Anything would have been better than unloading machine guns into Dinos and pretending they are unhurt.
One thing that annoyed me is the Dinos are once again immune to gun fire.
But the dinos are only a symbol. Every "adventure" show has to have an "enemy" that's invincible, or nearly so. If they could just pop a cap in every dinosaur they came across, there wouldn't be much of a story to tell - since the dinos are obviously going to be a recurring theme.
But yes, I absolutely agree with your displeasure at this transparent fabrication. If you can create a weapon that will drop an elephant, or a battle-tank - then a crabby old T-Rex should be no trouble at all. Especially as they absolutely should have helicopters - an airborne defence/hunting force would fix the problem in 10 minutes flat. "I love the smell of roasting Velociraptor in the morning"
...but has no problem with Dino's killing humans each week!
True, but correct me if I'm wrong - don't the dinos only kill the bad people? After all, above everything else this is a typical Speilberg morality tale.
Everything in every scene is there to manipulate our emotions. So the baddies can get their come-uppance and everyone one will cheer. But come the time (and it surely will, when the ratings start to fall) when one of the goodies gets chomped [why else would they need Doctor heroine?], that will be timed to perfection to maximise the throat-lumpiness of the largest number of viewers.
Thanks for the reply peterly. I understand they need this for the story, dramatic license and all that, but I just think they could have gone around implementing it better, like mentioned above:
Now I understand they want the Dinos to feel threatening, and humans mowing them down might kill suspense.
They could have got around this by saying they don't want to make the same mistakes as their ancestors when building Terra Nova and only allow non-lethal weapons (stun guns, sonic canons etc) to be brought through the portal.
Anything would have been better than unloading machine guns into Dinos and pretending they are unhurt.
Like LOST, we'll get it's all about the characters journey and nothing else matters, but it really pulls me out of enjoying the show when things like this slap you hard straight in the face!
I actually think the show has a lot of potential, just wish they'd stuck with sonic canons and stun guns and left the bullets at home! It would have made sense that they are pushing to build a non-gun/lethal weapon culture, minimise hunting/extinction events and destroying the eco system like humans of old have done.
Didn't "smart girl" point all that out in the episode?
There was some dialogue that mentioned some of it but an earlier post seemed to qiuestion it and posit it might be a Lost style clue.
The series has obvious similarities with Lost, so who knows, but I was just noting that in real life they would indeed see such changes from Earth 85 million years ago.
The remit for the show is that Dinos are only to be killed if absolutely necessary and that the guns they use are designed to stun and disable but deliberately not to kill. This is supposed to be an ethical decision of the new frontier.
They might also want to be careful about wiping out the last dino of a species that then evolved into something key to the future ecology?
They might also want to be careful about wiping out the last dino of a species that then evolved into something key to the future ecology?
Doesn't matter though does it? Because they have told us that all of this is happening (conveniently) in an alternative reality. If it weren't, then even stepping on a blade of grass could be problem due to the butterfly effect.
Comments
Yes, me too. I found it very distracting, bordering on annoying by the second episode.
Eh, it's a TV series....don't expect all the answers within the first episode.
Also regarding the poor CGI and comparing it to Jurassic Park. You have to remember that a lot of dino's you saw in Jurassic Park were not done by CGI, they were animatronics.
I'm starting to wonder if the last time anyone here saw Jurassic Park was 1993. 80% of the on-screen dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were animatronic.. and done by Stan Winston of all people.
Quote from Stan Winston: "If you can see the entire creature, legs and all, moving across the screen, then it is digital. The majority of other shots, particularly close-ups, probably use the animatronics."
I wonder who this is made for - surely the "family audience" is largely mythical by now. I would say children initially but young children could be scared I guess and the illicit alcohol drinking is probably a bit risque for middle america (despite the moral - drink and dinosaurs will try to eat you). And half of this opener was post 9pm for some reason. But any child over 12 or certainly 14 would find it all a bit cheesy and lame as crap.
Even with awesome special effects or even effects that were a bit special the bad acting and terrible script would suck the life out of them. And awkward stilted delivery of lines like the following to further sour the cream:
"He is you: a pretty girl and a chance to break the rules; you would have done the same thing at his age"
"You should know - you were that girl"
A classic in the making
I only notice bad cgi in bad films or tv - if it is good I am too absorbed in other things. And even in bad tv and may not care too much .... unless the producer flushes millions on it and claims after it is delayed months for post-production polishing it will be perfect
The script was atrocious clunky cliched exposition. Acting & delivery wooden and self conscious.
Ideas lifted liberally from all over the last few decades, from Soylent green to "Flesh" (story in 1970s 2000AD comic). Some of the much vaunted "lush prehistoric landscapes" overlooked by actors looked very badly superimposed. Some ridiculous character behaviour and situations straight from the How-Teenagers-End-Up-On-A-Crazed-Slashers-Axe naff horror rule book.
They don't credit their audience with much brainpower either - when the Son is brought to the waterfall to see the 'mysterious' etchings, having just arrived himself and having pointedly said earlier that there was "no going back" (COUGH! CLUE! COUGH), the direction this great mystery was going to take was bluntly thumped in our faces. I could be wrong, but nothing else about this mess gave me any reason for hope.
Unless it improves radically soon, this one's a Dodo.
All the same ingredients, A new base, Security and outsiders now called Sixers.
Oddly for a how about time travel and dinosaurs it just seemed so terribly, terribly bland. No character stood out as interesting, no actor was particularly charismatic, the personal family issues just seemed cliche and even playing "spot the future plot" such as "My son just disappeared one day, I haven't given up hope" wasn't fun. I didn't find it awful, it was just bland.
I assume it was clearly a double length pilot that had been sliced into two? The first episode ended so abruptly and when the announcer said something about how exciting it had been so far and stay tuned because there was more to come I thought "It bloody hasn't, it was basically a house move". All the excitement and the scene setting you would expect in a pilot such as the Sixers and him getting a job on security were in the second episode.
Mondays a quiet night, so I might give it another go, but I haven't pressed Series Link yet.
...well what I actually said was "Oi! Stop stealing from Aliens!", I wasn't feeling very charitable by then
In terms of style I'd love to see something truly original but I suppose after all this times that the references can't be helped in these things. I got Bladerunner, Solyent Green, The Running Man, Robocop, Futurama (!) and more influences in the first fifteen minutes and I am not even a big sci fi watcher.
Having said that it's cheeky and downright lazy to outright lift lines like this though.
A lot of that goes on building the standing sets and initial props etc, for the full life of the series, not just the pilot.
I enjoyed it though! As someone said previously though, it's just Outcasts with dinosaurs. Very reminiscent of Earth 2 as well.
In fact as the effects were no better than Primeval I hope not they need a new accountant if so.
It was pointless showing it in two halves with a 'To Be Continued' logo on screen between - guaranteed to switch viewers over to Doc Martin (and it lost 25% of its audience from ep 1 to ep 2, meaning they missed the best parts).
So Sky were idiots for not showing this as a feature length story.
The raw figures were good - though - 900,000 + for ep 1, 700,000 + for ep 2.
Wise that from next week it is at 8 pm - so as to allow kids to watch and not to lose the Doc Martin audience. So Sky got something right.
Oh and in the US (seen last week) it gained the most viewers (Doctor Who like) from those who recorded and watched later - giving it a 4.1 rating (which is OK - thought the US needs live viewers more than here as ad rates are everything).
As for the is it an alien planet owing to the moon and stars being different. Not necessarily as 85 million years ago the moon was closer / so bigger and the constellations would have all been very different owing to stellar motion. Even in a few thousand years since Astrology was invented the stars have changed so much that aires is really no longer aires (if you see what I mean).
For all our advancements, we might as well be shooting them with bows and arrows - I find it hard to suspend my belief. A Dino is going down fast with current military equipment, never mind future.
Apparently, this was at the request of Spielberg, who didn't want to show "majestic" Dinosaurs being killed by humans. He wanted them treated ethically:
http://seriable.com/terra-nova-spielberg-doesnt-want-dinosaurs-killed-mystery-of-the-sixers/
...but has no problem with Dino's killing humans each week!
Now I understand they want the Dinos to feel threatening, and humans mowing them down might kill suspense.
They could have got around this by saying they don't want to make the same mistakes as their ancestors when building Terra Nova and only allow non-lethal weapons (stun guns, sonic canons etc) to be brought through the portal.
Anything would have been better than unloading machine guns into Dinos and pretending they are unhurt.
But yes, I absolutely agree with your displeasure at this transparent fabrication. If you can create a weapon that will drop an elephant, or a battle-tank - then a crabby old T-Rex should be no trouble at all. Especially as they absolutely should have helicopters - an airborne defence/hunting force would fix the problem in 10 minutes flat. "I love the smell of roasting Velociraptor in the morning"
True, but correct me if I'm wrong - don't the dinos only kill the bad people? After all, above everything else this is a typical Speilberg morality tale.
Everything in every scene is there to manipulate our emotions. So the baddies can get their come-uppance and everyone one will cheer. But come the time (and it surely will, when the ratings start to fall) when one of the goodies gets chomped [why else would they need Doctor heroine?], that will be timed to perfection to maximise the throat-lumpiness of the largest number of viewers.
Like LOST, we'll get it's all about the characters journey and nothing else matters, but it really pulls me out of enjoying the show when things like this slap you hard straight in the face!
I actually think the show has a lot of potential, just wish they'd stuck with sonic canons and stun guns and left the bullets at home! It would have made sense that they are pushing to build a non-gun/lethal weapon culture, minimise hunting/extinction events and destroying the eco system like humans of old have done.
There was some dialogue that mentioned some of it but an earlier post seemed to qiuestion it and posit it might be a Lost style clue.
The series has obvious similarities with Lost, so who knows, but I was just noting that in real life they would indeed see such changes from Earth 85 million years ago.
They might also want to be careful about wiping out the last dino of a species that then evolved into something key to the future ecology?
Doesn't matter though does it? Because they have told us that all of this is happening (conveniently) in an alternative reality. If it weren't, then even stepping on a blade of grass could be problem due to the butterfly effect.
Or maybe I'm wrong..:o:confused: