Sy-Fy So-So

Coming to you almost live from my little slice of Oregon, I'm Eric Cone, Critic. The say, "Those that can do, and those that can't, teach." Well those that know better critique.

I had the opportunity to spend some time this weekend with the Sy-Fy channel. Notice, I didn't say 'quality time'. I'm a big science fiction fan, and felt totally dirty after my time with the channel. Sadly though, it was still probably the best stuff on televeision - I mean you can only watch the same episode of CSI: NY so many times before it begins to lose it's charm.
So what's up with the name change to Sy-Fy? Were there people who were pronouncing Sci-Fi as "Skee-Fee"? I recall reading an article right around the time they chenged their name that it was an effort to step away from the "stigma" of science fiction. Yet, the channel's content is the same... Are there people who would actually begin watching the channel just because of the spelling change to it's name? I sincerely doubt it.
The allure of a science fiction channel, regardless of what it is called, is that it's content is of a science fiction nature. Science Fiction is one of those blanket terms that covers everything from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars, everything from Pirates of the Caribbean to The Terminator. Throw in a healthy dose of Horror and Speculative Fiction, and that is pretty much the broad genre. Sounds pretty sweet to me.
But, the sad reality of it is that a favored genre does not equal quality programming. I had the misfortune of watching several of Sy-Fy's "original" movies. The movies were "Thor: Hammer of the Gods", "MonsterArk" and "Gargoyle: the something something" (it was late). The first two took themselves very seriously, while the third one did not. The third movie, while not great was hands down the best of the three.
"Thor: Hammer of the Gods", was a spin on the Norse mythos. I'm very willing to accept a new interpretation of a time honored story, if it's done well. But, this movie wasn't done well. While set in the time of the Vikings, the movie could have been set any time, as I'll explain later. The main characters all happen to be named after the gods of Norse mythology and are related to each other in the same way as the gods were. That seems a bit unlikely, especially when we discover that the characters, and presumably other vikings, only remember the names of two gods - Odin and Loki - and remember some of the deeds of the gods. The crew is travlling north in their long-boat-sized viking ship to find the lands of the gods and the giants. Ok, but you don't know the names of any of hte gods... After having traveled for weeks, they finally come to the "Northern-most island any person has ever sailed to" and promptly get off their ship in the middle of the night to the sound of crickets. But, as soon as it's light out, we see there is a lot of snow, which one would expect far North. The only problems is that there wouldn't have been crickets. Crickets do not winter well, and they are not active, i.e. no song, unless the temperature is above 42 degrees.
From the very beginning of the movie, the time is all screwed up, event taking into account that in the far Northern zones days and nights can be very, very long depending on the time of the year. But, the movie gives us a morning in the dark, followed by a long day that is lit brightly until the characters are calling it night. The next day they leave in the light, travel in the dark, travel in the light, travel in the dark again and travel in the light again all before setting up camp for the night. They did not walk for multiple days, as their travel and the time it takes is key to the plot (or so they feel) so they talk about how long everything is taking. The whole movie takes place over three days, but the time showed by the sequence of shots is at least two weeks. I made sure to pay special attention to this after I noticed it.
Another one of those things that bother me is the phenomenon of the changing accent. Characters drift between American, British and Nose accents throughout the course of the movie, different characters having different accents at different times. The main character, Thor, who may quite likely have been acting for the first time, starts off with I think may be an attempt at a Norse accent, moves to a British accent and finishes strongly with an American accent. His main rival starts American and ends up somewhere close to British.
The special effects for the movie were, um, embarassing. They made the old Doctor Who series look like Lucas Films. But, this movie could have pulled it off if they had taken the same attitude as the old Doctor Who series and gone for the campy instead of playing it straight. Interestingly enough, the costumes were very good, if a bit too clean and were the only consistent thing throughout the movie.
"Monster Ark" is set in the modern day, so they have to do less work to establish the setting. which is too bad, because the second half of the movie is set in Iraq but I'm pretty sure it was filmed in Arizona and Sourthern California.
The main characters are archeologists. They're supposedly not the Indiana Jones type, but they kind of behave that way. Their science in the field is really bad. They don't take pictures of anything, or notes. They break things open, snag the contents of the room and take off, the whole while lecturing on the scientfigic integrity of their work (this is a key plot point). Just because you say something is so doesn't men it is. I don't know why the director didn't just have some of the story take place off camera, it could have solved a lot of these problems.
A couple of the actors in this movie actually do a good job, which is kind of a waste since the whole sotry and production are, shall we say, crap. At least there wa s only one character with a drifting accent.
As I mentioned above, the second half of the movie takes place in Iraq with the U.S. Military as major characters and essential to the story. The stereotypes of the soldiers are so bad that you hate the movie. The Major, the main speaking part for the soldiers, is played by a large black man who only cares about "huntin' down that varmint". There are so many things wrong with the way the military is portrayed. First of all, they have a major leading a bunch of corporals and privates. Secondly, most of the soldiers never speak, but every time they fire their weapons, they literally scream like little girls. Thirdly, the uniforms are Hollywood light. None of the soldiers carry any gear, not even canteens. All except the major wear nylon vests over their fatigues that I can only assume are supposed to represent body armor or being in a special unit.
This movie also suffers from a lack of a good AD, at one point they can only take one vehicle out because all of their fuel has been blown up, but when the vehicle returns (not having picked up any fuel) all the vehicles leave and drive over 100 miles to an Iraqi "village".
The village looked very similar to the town in "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart. It was also at this point that I realized that the locals are all using AK-47s and so were the U.S. Soldiers.
The special effects remind one of the Ray Harryhausen movies of the 60s, remember "Clash of hte Titans"? Except that Mr. H's effects were far superior to the computer generated beast which does not stay a consistent size and only casts a shadow sometimes.
Still, all of this pailed in comparison to the dialog between the two main characters who can only talk about "faith versus science". It all works out so predictably I'm embarassed to say that I didn't turn the channel to watch an informercial.
The final move, "Gargoyle" was not a comedy, but was close to it. Maybe it was supposed to be a comedy and they didn't quite achieve it? The movie takes place in Hungary, where everyone speaks perfect English, except for one character, but I'm sure it's because the actor was not a native speaker, not some poor attempt at an accent. It was funny (to me) the way the nationality of the characters was announced every time we saw them. It wasn't in a normal type of way either, where you might refer to as some characters from the U.S. as "Americans", but alwayss, "this is so-and-so from America" or from Italy, or France, etc.
I haven't checked online yet, but I am sure that this movie was actually filmed in Europe and may have been produced by a European counterpart of the Sy-Fy channel. It just had a different feel to it.
A feel it definitely had to it was the "we've edited out the scenes that make this a porno and put in special effects scenes and a car chase".
Most of the characters are two-dimensional, though the local Chief of Police is almost a normal human. The dialog in the beginning is pretty ofrced, but by the end of the movie there is a definite campiness to it and the whole group has loosened up.
But, for all of the crap I put up with in the movies, the television series produced by and aired on Sy-Fy are pretty entertaining. While I haven't gotten a chance to watch "Battlestar Galactica" (I may have to turn in my nerd credentials), I have gotten to watch "Warehouse 13" and "Eureka". I liked them both well enough that I plan to watch them in the future.