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geekpellets · 5 years

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Fatal Frontier

Deepstar Six Sealab, underneath the water. Sealab, at the bottom of the sea. First things first, if you think this is a movie about a sealab that gets attacked by a sea monster, what you’re describing is like 1/4th of this movie. Most of the movie is about general disasters happening in and around the sealab, most of which are caused by dumb human decision, but some it is indeed causes by a sea monster. Fortunately, the movie is quite suspenseful without the addition of a sea monster. Living so far under the sea where any small thing can mean the death of everyone is tense enough on its own. The movie has a number of likeable characters, and a few jerks to add flavor. While none of these characters are especially deep, they all feel human, so I was instantly on their side. Even the biggest jerks in the characters can be understood and sympathized with on a very human level. The acting is good, except for a couple of expressions of sorrow. There is a character in the movie who’s not important at all. She does very little, she says one important sentence that anyone could potentially produce, she dies so quickly that you might miss it if you blink, and no one mourns her or mentions her again. The effects are quite good. The blood is decent. The set is awesome. A few of the kills are quite gnarly. The scenes where they show them on or around the ocean floor look great even after all this time. The monster is well built, but get used to basically just seeing its head. I assume that all they could afford, but still, it’s a cool animatronic feat. Unfortunately, it is a kind of silly design if you actually get a good look at it. It’s head is like paper thin, but it’s jaws are thick and swollen. I don’t know what to do with that. It looks like a goober. That’s ok because you don’t see it for like...an hour. Unfortuantely...you don’t see it for like an hour. I would have liked to have seen more of it, even though it looked a bit silly, and when I say more of it, I also mean a bottom half perhaps? On the onset, they make it seem much bigger than it is, and to do the kind of exterior damage that it does, one would expect this to be true. When they finally reveal it though, it’s not nearly big enough to be responsible for the things that the movie claims it is responsible for. The movie is well paced and entertaining, but it has a short second climax that is both entirely unnecessary and adds nothing to the film. One thing is obvious, everyone is giving the film everything they’ve got rather they were working in front of the camera or behind it. You can feel that. Everyone is putting in their A game. Everyone is taking this seriously. There’s a lot of good in this movie. The movie simply doesn’t aim that high at the end of the day. It feels like they had a mark, and they put everything into reaching that mark, but that mark is in a lower place than this movie’s competitors/brothers and sisters. Yeah, this movie is inspired by Alien, but it’s no Alien. There are many films inspired by Alien, and I think that many of those films aspire to do more innovative things or are just outright more entertaining. I think this is a better than average film, but it isn’t a must watch film. If you never watch it, no one’s going to say, “You never saw Deepstar Six!? Remove yourself from my presence, you knave!” You’ll be a ok. If you do watch it, you’ll still be a ok. Although, you might develop a fear of scuba diving. Alien: Covenant First, if you were fooled by the title into thinking this is more of an Alien movie than a Prometheus movie, I’m sorry. Personally, I liked Prometheus. It’s flawed, but I thought it was a decent waste of time. Given the expectations and fan base around the Alien franchise, it’s understandable that some people might have been hoping for more than decent. It’s interesting really. It really feels like Ridley Scott wants to create this new mythology, but can’t fully do that because fans and producers want Xenomorphs. So, in this movie, he decided to add more Xenomorphs. Does adding Xenomorphs save the Alien franchise? Of course not. That’s silly. Xenomorphs, whether they are present or absent, is not the problem and does not address the problem. Credit where credit is due, the acting is good. Michael Sheen will always bring a proper performance. Some of the environment CG is good. Some of the blood is good. The props and practical effects are great. I wish I had more positive things to say. I didn’t hate this movie. It was an ok watch, but a little over two hours of just ok is asking a lot. It takes forty minutes for this movie to really get started, and the issue is it really isn’t building up much in those forty minutes. These characters? Bland and one note. I didn’t care if any of them died; I can’t imagine how anyone could. This movie could have ended at about an hour and forty minutes. It would have been a basic climax with a basic conclusion, but regardless the movie has a basic climax and a basic conclusion. Part of the problem is this movie cares far more about its robots than it does its humans. Yes, this is more of a Prometheus movie than an Alien movie. It is also more of Terminator movie than an Alien movie. There is one human character in this entire film that has the potential to be interesting, who could potentially have succeeded in becoming a Riply-esque figure, but they don’t give her attention or development to do that. When the film finally does become an Alien movie near its end, it’s so...nothing. It’s bloody, yeah. Most of the deaths a quick, in general, and a lot of them are off screen. All of the Xenomorphs are noticeably CG the entire time in a franchise known for its amazing practical Xenomorphs. There is some noticeable CG blood as well. Because we don’t know these people that well, it’s not a suspenseful experience, and most of these characters don’t even get an opportunity to fight or flee. For me, this movie is more defined by what it isn’t than what it is. It’s not suspenseful, it’s not thrilling, it’s not clever (the symbolism is not unique and the twists are painfully obvious), it’s not fun, it’s not funny, it’s not sad, it’s not dramatic. It’s just stuff happening I guess. A film with a good budget, a historic director, good actors, and all it could strive to be is...mostly harmless to me. Also, as far as the new origin of Xenomorphs, I don’t think it was necessary and I don’t think it improves anything. I gotta say, this movie isn’t worth watching. It’s not outright bad, it simply doesn’t bring anything to the table.

#Deepstar Six #alien: covenant

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drink-n-watch · 5 years

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Genre : Action, Drama, Historical, Time, Action

Episodes: 13

Studio: ufotable

To mere mortals, time may seem like a steady unyielding stream, flowing eternally from the past to the future. But to those who know better, it’s a chaotic whirlpool that spins back on itself and splashes all over the place. If you’re not careful, the whole thing is liable to fall apart. Kind of like this analogy. The Time Retrograde Army has been pulling all the stops to disturb the flow of history but thankfully, the loyal Swords of the second unit are here to stand in their way. No matter *when* a disturbance comes up, they rush to the frontlines to take the enemies down while the unsuspecting humans go about their destinies. But all wars have casualties and the loyalties of even the most faithful soldiers can be tested when they need to choose between their old Master and their new one.

Did that description make any sense? Touken Ranbu is kind of a weird series guys. It’s a bit all over the place. I did my best!

I watched Touken Ranbu Hanamaru last year and was very pleasantly surprised. I’m not sure what I expected at the time but it certainly wasn’t a cute slice of Life comedy with mild fanservice and nonsense humour. Essentially a Moe show for those who like chiselled abs. It was way more fun than it had any right to be and I quickly added Katsugeki to my watch list for when I was in the mood for another lighthearted pretty boy fest.

oh no, pretty boy is sad!

From the very first scene, I thought to myself, well this looks different. Good but different yet also familiar. As the opening credits came up I instantly realized what I what I was seeing as the name “ufotable” came up on the screen. I have been watching A Lot of ufotable lately. Sure I saw fate back in the day but in the past few months, I have been making my way through all the Garden of Sinners movies as well as my weekly Demon Slayer viewings with Crow. I can now say that the studio has a pretty distinctive visual style AND certain storytelling preferences. Just one look at Katsugeki Touken Ranbu was enough to see that it was indeed a ufotable anime. Which makes sense considering the studio’s frequent collaborations with Nitro+. Ranbu is based on a mobile game by Nitro in case you didn’t know.

My instant follow-up thought was: is Hanamaru also ufotable? It looked really different. Man, I can’t wait to see ufotable’s take on cute boys doing cute things! That is so out of the studio’s usual fare!.. for the record they did not produce Hanamaru, that was Doga Kobo. Something that becomes obvious in retrospect.

The studio has some undeniable strengths and certain weaknesses. The visual style is blunt, striking, with saturated colours and fantastic use of light and shadows. Whether it’s to your personal tastes or not, the look is clearly polished. Likewise, animation is often impressive and ufotable has some of the best CG integration in the business. Katsugeki is no exception with frequent CG which is in general perfectly melded to the animation. To me, it went just a bit overboard in the last episodes and ended up clashing with the rest of the show but otherwise, it was good.

it may not translate to stills so well but this is 90% CG

On the flipside, I have not been as impressed with the audio mastery of the studio. In this series the soundtrack is uninspired and at times overbearing. As for the voice acting…. I’ve heard some of these actors before so I know they can act but it just didn’t work here. The delivery was all over the place making it seem like characters standing next to each other were reacting to completely different situations and there was a clear lack of chemistry.

The most disappointing production aspect for me was the lack of the non-verbal storytelling I’ve been so impressed with in the other ufotable works I mentioned above. There is some blunt use of light to set up the mood but otherwise, I didn’t notice anything worth writing about. And I think this may be in part because of the narrative itself.

Like I mentioned, Touken Ranbu is based on a nitro+ mobile game. Last time I checked there was only a Japanese version out so I haven’t had a chance to try it out. From what I understand it’s a sort of digital card collecting game mixed with a little dog fighting. You get random sword cards which each have specific stats, group them together in “units” and send them out to battle *stuff*. There’s also some situational lore where the swords are famous historical weapons, having belonged to famous historical warriors and the battles are based on real life events. I don’t know much beyond that. This is because every video I’ve found explaining or reviewing the game have all been extremely confusing. Seems like it’s one of those games with dozens of mechanics that add up to more or less the same thing and an extremely complex backstory which sounds kind of deep but is never developed enough for you to really understand it. It’s just flavouring for a CCG.

not that I got anything against falvour

Why did I just waste a paragraph on that? It’s because I need you to understand how thin the source material is. To fix that Hanamaru Touken Ranbu took the sword characters and kept their in game designs but treated the lore much like the game does, as a bit of background info. The actual show was a completely unrelated imagining of the cute hijinks the swords get up to when they are not fighting and had little to do with the actual game. In fact, the only obvious remnant of the game origins was the choice of never showing “the master” onscreen, who represents the player character not actually in the game. It became a pretty fun running gag. Oh, an in case it isn’t clear, those guys ARE the swords. They get personified as good lookin’ dudes!

I was really looking forward to seeing how ufotable would handle a Moe show. Demon Slayer is so far the most light-hearted series I have seen from them and it’s still a brutal tale of loss and revenge filled with blood and death. How would the studio shift to a fluffy comedy?

The answer is, they wouldn’t. Aside from both being Touken Ranbu, Hanamaru and Katsugeki are completely different shows. A fact made clear in the first episode with a very visible master that turned out to be a blank nondescript young man.

he seems like a nice kid, just a little boring…

Katsugeki feels much more loyal to the game (although I can’t tell for sure) and many moments felt like illustrations of game mechanics. The story stays firmly “only lore”, concentrating all the action on those reenactments of historical battles as the second unit tries to stop retrograde soldiers from changing history. If what I just wrote sounds a bit hard to follow then you’re right on track.

To me, this change was detrimental to the series. Katsugeki Touken Ranbu is watchable but every narrative element feels threadbare and underdeveloped. And by this I mean not only the actual storyline but also the characters and settings. Everything is just sort of surface level. If I was more familiar with the game or maybe more up on my classical Japanese martial history, I probably would have appreciated the series more, but as it is, it was just a “pretty meh” for me. I mean the series was pretty but I was kinda bored.

Good thing I could count on Yager and his sexy sexy voice for distraction!

oh…me too!

Favorite character: Yager (I think it’s the voice…I’m not sure…The hotpants don’t hurt)

What this anime taught me: the Battle of Hakodate in Hokkaido was the last stand of the shinsegumi in 1869.

“Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.”

Suggested drink: A Sword in the Darkness

Every time Izuminokami and Mutsunokami argue – take a sip

Every time history has changed – take a sip

Every time an innocent bystander gets killed – take a sad sip

Every time Konosuke (the little fox) acts as a smartphone – awwww

Every time there’s a blood splatter – get some water

Every time anyone says Shinsegumi – take a sip

Every time Kunihiro says “Kane-san” – take a sip

Every time we see retrograde soldiers – gasp

Every time anyone talks straight at the camera- take a sip

Every time there’s a massacre – have a snack

Every time there’ a fire – fan yourself

Every time we hear about the “first” or “second” unite – stretch

awwwww

You know the drill right. These pics and so many more can be seen in their full resolution glory over on imgur or you can just grab them easily from my Pinterest!

Katsugeki Touken Ranbu – Action! Genre : Action, Drama, Historical, Time, Action Episodes: 13 Studio: ufotable To mere mortals, time may seem like a steady unyielding stream, flowing eternally from the past to the future.

#action #anime #blonde bishie #drama #historical #Nitroplus #swords #Touken Ranbu #yummy

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