Okay, I obviously haven't seen Pandorum yet so I'll give it a chance but . . .
Why is it so gosh darn dark on that space ship? Couldn't they have painted the walls white or blue or anything other than gun-metal gray? The darkly lit and depressing gray metal space ship interior is such a tired cliche now. Hell even in Alien there were brightly lit areas meant for crew habitation that didn't look like the mechanical sections of the ship.
@strideo: Again, like you, I haven't seen the film, but from this part of the article "Normally, there's supposed to be someone there to help reorient you when you reawaken from hypersleep" I'm guesing the ship isn't really designed for habitation since everyone is meant to sleep the entire way.
From a non-story POV, I'm guessing it's supposed to make things darker and scarier.
@Kiamat: And there's part of the problem for me. It seems like things just look like that just for the sake of making the atmosphere scarier and oppressive but from a story telling point of view I just can't believe that all these space ships will be designed to look only slightly cheerier than a freaking boiler room that Freddy Kruger would hang out in.
Imagine how much more original it would be if at the beginning of a film the ship is brightly lit and clean but as the film progresses more lights start to get knocked out and rooms start to have blood on the bulkheads from the mayhem and murder going on. As the environment all around the characters slowly gets trashed and brightly lit corridors give way to darkened halls with flickering lights or dim emergency lights things would start to feel more claustrophobic.
Also the idea that a horror movie needs to be mostly in the dark is not necessarily true in my opinion. I think a lot of horror film producers get confused between what is actually horrifying and what is just startling. Startling is when a creature pops out and grabs it's victim, horrifying would be when a creature paralyzes it's victim and buries them among the bodies of other victims to be eaten later while they're still conscious.
@strideo: I agree that if a ship is used to transport awake passengers then it should be brighter. Just look at the ship in Wall-E. Bright colours and very clean lines. Nice place to live for a few hundred years or so! The thing with this ship or say the Event Horizon. They are both working ships. The ship in Pandorum is essentially a transport ship for people asleep. The only people awake onboard would be the crew. They would be trained to work in these conditions. Just like a NASA crew. A shuttle doesnt have a Starbucks or peace mural thrown in..its a working ship. No need for luxuries. The Event Horizon had one purpose too, to create a black hole. Granted it went tits up. But still a working ship.
Gun metal gray seems to be the norm. I heard that battleships and aircraft carriers got coated in that because firstly its cheap on mass (Aircraft carriers are bloody huge) and secondly less distraction when using the ship in battle. A real life working ship. Ships in films like Aliens, Sunshine, Event Horizon and Pandorum are all bloody huge working ships. So they probably fit the real world rules around the design. I wouldnt want to paint a ship yellow if the tins cost 70 quid a pop. How would you afford the fuel.
@CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard): If you've ever seen the inside of an aircraft carrier then you'd know that it is brightly lit and most of it's interior bulkheads are painted in lighter colors and not everything is gray. The inside of an aircraft carrier is downright perky when compared to some of these science fiction spaceships that are pretty much designed for their mood as much as functionality.
Like I said; even the Nostromo from Alien isn't entirely drab throughout. I didn't mind the dark and menacing look of spaceships such as the Event Horizon either but now it's getting old.
Also I never said I was looking for a story about a luxury ship, just a ship that wasn't completely nasty so I don't know where the Starbucks remark came from but speaking of the shuttle it is quite well lit in there isn't it? Hmmmm.
Enemy Mines is awesome. Im a big fan of Quaid. It was just amazing. But one of his other earlier forays into the Paranormal was Wilder Napalm, where himself and his brother have Pyrokinetic powers. Very cool film. I know they say Pandorum is a cross between Sunshine and Event Horizon, but for me thats a good thing. I enjoyed both those films. Event Horizon gave me sleepless nights for months. Sunshine just rocked! I cant wait for Pandorum or Legion. Quaid kicks all kinds of ass!! The uprising of THE QUAID has begun!!!
Edited by CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard) at 09/22/09 5:09 AM
CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard) was starred
CoffinDodger (If the typos crap. Blame my keyboard) was unstarred
I luv Enemy Mine. Seen it a million times. I've always found that most films with good, solid character actors like Quaid & Louis Gossett Jr. can elevate damn near any project!
@Daveinva: Oh, my bad... I'll add a spoiler warning. It seemed to me that he was bending over backwards to avoid giving any spoilers... but I guess ther were a few in there.
It's funny. A few days ago, I threw in "Freaks and Geeks", and was watching that. A little while thereafter, you post the trailer for Pandorum, and I'm all: "Damn, that one character they're calling Ben Foster looks damn familiar. Who is it?" Turns out, it's Eli, the retarded kid from "Freaks and Geeks". As it truns out, you CAN go full retard.
This is a common survival tip if you're ever in a horror/survival movie: at first, you might think the outwardly calm and controlled guy is the sane one you should stick with to stay alive, and the panicky/frightened guy isn't worth sticking with because he's scared (that is, if he's panicky but still "functional" as opposed to completely freaking out; I'm talking at least Pvt. Hudson levels here)
The problem you have to watch out for, is that...maybe the panicky/scared guy is afraid because a *sane* person WOULD be afraid...
...and the outwardly calm guy has in fact, completely snapped.
***I.e., Sam Neil in "Event Horizon" isn't foaming at the mouth near the end, he's actually really calm....as he goes progressively more insane.
Enemy Mine was always deliciously cheesy, even for the time, but I still always had a fond spot for it. Of course, that made it especially weird when Drakh expats showed up on Stargate as the Unas.
@I Think We're Property: ...ugh, "Drakh" got re-used as the name of the Shadows' successor-species on Babylon 5
Long story short: we followed the Vorlons who represent "Order" and the Drakh were one of the servant races of the Shadows who represent "Chaos" (neither of which concept was entirely bad, it was supposed to be a mix of both)....or we were Gondor as to the Elves, and the Drakh were Harad as to Mordor.
Anyway, when both the Vorlons and Shadows leave the Galaxy, we effectively become the new Vorlons and the Drakh become the new Shadows.
Robotech's Invid bear mention (though they do a great job of oppressing humans once they get the chance). They were initially peaceful, and gladly welcomed the Tirolian scientist Zor, who quickly discovered that the Flower of Life, their primary food source (and narcotic of choice) could be converted into an incredible source of energy. After he reported this back to his masters (the Masters, heh), they happily snatched up as much of the Flower as they could and eradicated the rest, leaving the Invid without their main food and suffering from serious withdrawal. The Masters went on to use Zor's energy source (Protoculture) to subjugate all sorts of other races, while the Invid basically went nuts and became a massive war machine intent on destroying the Masters. They got their own chance to do some oppressin' when they took over Earth, though.
@The Curse of Millhaven: Specifically, it's from 'The Slaver Weapon,' an adaptation of Niven's 'The Soft Weapon.'
I didn't think it was so bad as an example (assuming you know the above), but almost any cover from the 'Man-Kzin Wars' series would've been far preferable...
@Delphinus100: The abomination of which i speak is crossing Known Space with Star Trek. Then again, a well-executed Puppeteer communications officer would be awesome.
Held in a position of slavery for a hundred years by the Centauri, treated like cattle, "Civilized" and then after losing the War in 2259, being constantly exicuted.
There's also the Telepaths, the Hyach-do, the Centarui themselves selling off their lower-classes as slaves.
The Minbari Worker Caste being constantly superseeded by the other two castes
Not to mention every race in the galaxy being opressed by the Shadows and the Vorlons into choosing one of their ways for thousands of years.
09/22/09
Why is it so gosh darn dark on that space ship? Couldn't they have painted the walls white or blue or anything other than gun-metal gray? The darkly lit and depressing gray metal space ship interior is such a tired cliche now. Hell even in Alien there were brightly lit areas meant for crew habitation that didn't look like the mechanical sections of the ship.
09/22/09
From a non-story POV, I'm guessing it's supposed to make things darker and scarier.
09/22/09
Imagine how much more original it would be if at the beginning of a film the ship is brightly lit and clean but as the film progresses more lights start to get knocked out and rooms start to have blood on the bulkheads from the mayhem and murder going on. As the environment all around the characters slowly gets trashed and brightly lit corridors give way to darkened halls with flickering lights or dim emergency lights things would start to feel more claustrophobic.
Also the idea that a horror movie needs to be mostly in the dark is not necessarily true in my opinion. I think a lot of horror film producers get confused between what is actually horrifying and what is just startling. Startling is when a creature pops out and grabs it's victim, horrifying would be when a creature paralyzes it's victim and buries them among the bodies of other victims to be eaten later while they're still conscious.
09/22/09
Gun metal gray seems to be the norm. I heard that battleships and aircraft carriers got coated in that because firstly its cheap on mass (Aircraft carriers are bloody huge) and secondly less distraction when using the ship in battle. A real life working ship. Ships in films like Aliens, Sunshine, Event Horizon and Pandorum are all bloody huge working ships. So they probably fit the real world rules around the design. I wouldnt want to paint a ship yellow if the tins cost 70 quid a pop. How would you afford the fuel.
09/22/09
Like I said; even the Nostromo from Alien isn't entirely drab throughout. I didn't mind the dark and menacing look of spaceships such as the Event Horizon either but now it's getting old.
Also I never said I was looking for a story about a luxury ship, just a ship that wasn't completely nasty so I don't know where the Starbucks remark came from but speaking of the shuttle it is quite well lit in there isn't it? Hmmmm.
09/22/09
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The problem you have to watch out for, is that...maybe the panicky/scared guy is afraid because a *sane* person WOULD be afraid...
...and the outwardly calm guy has in fact, completely snapped.
***I.e., Sam Neil in "Event Horizon" isn't foaming at the mouth near the end, he's actually really calm....as he goes progressively more insane.
09/21/09
09/21/09
Long story short: we followed the Vorlons who represent "Order" and the Drakh were one of the servant races of the Shadows who represent "Chaos" (neither of which concept was entirely bad, it was supposed to be a mix of both)....or we were Gondor as to the Elves, and the Drakh were Harad as to Mordor.
Anyway, when both the Vorlons and Shadows leave the Galaxy, we effectively become the new Vorlons and the Drakh become the new Shadows.
09/21/09
09/21/09
08/20/09
Mutants? Anyone . . . Anyone . . . Beuller?
08/19/09
08/19/09
Or Possibly "everyone except the Puppeteers".
-Kle.
08/19/09
08/19/09
08/19/09
I didn't think it was so bad as an example (assuming you know the above), but almost any cover from the 'Man-Kzin Wars' series would've been far preferable...
08/19/09
08/19/09
[cache.gawker.com]" rel="lytebox" class="commentImageWhat about the Narns?
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Held in a position of slavery for a hundred years by the Centauri, treated like cattle, "Civilized" and then after losing the War in 2259, being constantly exicuted.
There's also the Telepaths, the Hyach-do, the Centarui themselves selling off their lower-classes as slaves.
The Minbari Worker Caste being constantly superseeded by the other two castes
Not to mention every race in the galaxy being opressed by the Shadows and the Vorlons into choosing one of their ways for thousands of years.
Babylon 5's rife with opression.