By Jason Apuzzo. • The most striking news on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front recently was without doubt the announcement from Warner Brothers/Alcon that they’re going to reboot Blade Runner as a franchise of prequels and/or sequels. As electrifying as the news was, I was not altogether surprised to hear it given the current sci-fi craze and mania toward rebooting older franchises.

The big question, of course, is what precisely ‘is’ a Blade Runner franchise without the involvement of Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford or Philip K. Dick – none of whom are currently attached to any of these future ‘Blade Runner’ projects? (Dick being, of course, long deceased and not having furnished any ‘franchisable’ sequels to his original story). The answer, I’m afraid, is that such a ‘franchise’ is worth very little.

Having read several interviews with the Alcon people (see here and here), three points emerge: 1) they haven’t even contacted Ridley Scott yet; 2) they’d apparently like to work with Christopher Nolan (with whom they have a prior relationship), whose work on the Batman franchise represents the “template” they’re working from (i.e., it made a lot of money), and; 3) they apparently have no idea where precisely they want to take the story.

I’m groaning at all of this. It’s looking like the usual sort of thing: an ambitious group of producers grabs a lucrative ‘property’ they like, without a clue of what to do with it. They flail around looking for a ‘visionary’ (i.e., trendy) director to come in and do the actual work of figuring out what to do, because they never bothered to figure that out for themselves. Years get spent in ‘development,’ nothing happens – or worse, something like the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake happens. And memories of something precious get spoiled.

I have my doubts about this project, in other words. Indeed, I have doubts about whether it’s even going to happen. The likelihood is that neither Ridley Scott nor Christopher Nolan will be interested in doing it, and so who are the producers going to go to? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? God help us – I’d rather not learn what those guys think ‘The Tannhauser Gate’ really looks like. [Sigh.]

• Speaking of rebooted 80’s franchises, George Miller is assuring everyone that Mad Max: Fury Road will be back up shooting in January 2012, albeit apparently now without I Am Number Four’s Teresa Palmer. Bummer! I’m otherwise looking forward to that film, which will be photographed in some new Miller-designed form of 3D. Also: a trailer has just been released for Tron: Uprising, an animated series that’s part of Disney’s ongoing Tron reboot. The trailer for this series actually looks better than Tron: Legacy, itself – but that may just be because there’s no Garrett Hedlund in it.

"Star Blazers" concept art.

• Some other big news of late on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front was that Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers, in its American incarnation), the classic Japanese TV series from the 1970’s and an old favorite of mine, is going to be adapted with Christopher McQuarrie writing the screenplay and David Ellison (True Grit; son of Larry Ellison) producing. This is another project, incidentally, that can be filed away as an alien invasion project – as alien invaders are an important part of the storyline. (Btw, Ellison and McQuarrie are currently the main guys behind the potential Top Gun sequel.)

I like the sound of this project – although admittedly it’s seeming a bit like Battleship in outer space – and on an even bigger budget. Here’s the key thing to understand about Battleship Yamato, though: it’s almost a kind of anti-Avatar, featuring blue-skinned aliens (the “Gamilons”) out to destroy human life on Earth (by way of radioactive meteorite bombs) so that they can repopulate the planet themselves. Earth’s forces have to rally around an enormous space cruiser, built out of the hulking wreckage of the original WWII Japanese battleship Yamato – although at this point, they might want to instead use something like Larry Ellison’s yacht. Anyway, my only requests here would be to re-name the “Gamilons” the  “Na’vi,” cast Brooklyn Decker or Megan Fox, and otherwise we’re good to go.

• Check out this new trailer for Attack the Block, a cheeky indie alien invasion project from the UK that’s about to unspool at the SXSW Film Festival. The trailer features one of the better taglines in recent memory: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.” Also on the indie alien invasion front: a new film called Invasion of the Alien Bikini recently won the Grand Prix at the 21st Yubari Fantastic Film Festival, in Japan. Now that film I’d like to see … anybody know if it’s in 3D?

• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace will be coming to theaters in 3D on February 10th, 2012. Killjoys of the world now have something more to complain about; I personally, however, am very much looking forward to seeing Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon go at it in 3D.

From "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace."

I thought I would take the opportunity here to share with Libertas readers what I thought about The Phantom Menace: which is that I loved it. Not every aspect of it, perhaps, but on balance it holds up as being a very satisfying epic adventure in the Errol Flynn-swashbuckler mode, with an intriguing storyline that’s like something out of The Fall of the Roman Empire. It also happens to be one of the most visually sumptuous films ever made – sweeping you along from Italy’s Caserta Palace, to the deserts of Tunisia, to the beautiful (digital) cityscapes of Coruscant. The costumes on Natalie Portman are gorgeous, Liam Neeson is really the epitome of what a Jedi Knight should be, John Williams’ score is one of his best … and then, of course, there’s Ray Park’s Darth Maul – easily one of the greatest movie villains of all time, a rival to the best villains ever played by Basil Rathbone in swashbuckler films of this kind.

So with all that, who cares about Jar-Jar Binks, thin dialogue, or a little too much cutesy-pie time with young Anakin? The movie’s a blast – a huge box office hit (adjusted for inflation, it would’ve made about $680 million domestically in 2011) – and you’re all going to be there next February, anyway. So stop whining.

• More to the present, Battle: Los Angeles is coming next week – and I’ll be saying a lot about that in coming days. In the meantime, many new clips of the film have been released on-line (see here), as well as some behind-the-scenes pics (see here), images of the aliens (see here), the film also has a new poster out, and we’re also learning that the film was not, for the most part, shot in Los Angeles – but instead in Louisiana. So I suppose the title Battle: LA has a double meaning. (This reminds me: why do movie aliens always look like seafood these days?)

Jennifer Lawrence, looking hungry.

• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News & Notes: Michelle Rodriguez says that Avatar 2 will be set for the most part underwater; Apollo 18 has a new trailer out (see my opinion about it here) and a new Russian poster; David Koepp (Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) will be doing a rewrite on the already-in-production Men in Black 3D; J.J. Abrams talks Super 8 and Star Trek; many new rumors are trailing Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (see here, here, here and here) and there’s more casting news on that film (see here and here); more Transformers 3 trailers are coming; Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies alien invasion TV series has new promos out; the Total Recall remake featuring Colin Farrell now has a release date of August 3rd, 2012; the SyFy channel recently featured an Area 51-related movie; and Louis Leterrier, who is responsible for the wretched Clash of the Titans remake, will soon be doing something called G – which is apparently about “a father who has to search for his lost child as the world stops spinning and Earth begins to lose its gravity.” Let me tell you, Louis: if the Earth stops spinning, you probably won’t have much time to search for family members. Trust me on that one.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the pretty and slightly strange Jennifer Lawrence is apparently the leading candidate to star in The Hunger Games, which, for brevity’s sake, you can imagine as something like The Running Man for teens – i.e., a sci-fi future dystopia featuring televised gladiatorial-style games. Since the story takes place in a world plagued with food shortages, it seems like perfect Obama-era sci-fi – doesn’t it?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion front!

Posted on March 4th, 2011 at 6:45pm.

Alex Pettyfer and Teresa Palmer in "I Am Number Four."

By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Sexy alien teenagers flee to planet Earth on the run from another alien race out to exterminate them. One such teenager, played by Brit star Alex Pettyfer, hides out in a small Ohio town (‘Paradise’) where he falls for a cute blonde at his high school – played, conveniently enough, by Glee’s Dianna Agron – and otherwise learns to love Heartland America, pickup trucks, pet puppies and middle class life.

THE SKINNY: This very solid, D.J. Caruso/Michael Bay adaptation of the popular young adult novel, I Am Number Four, works effectively because of its excellent casting and detailed attention to the emotional lives of its young characters. The film also works as an affectionate encomium to the values and lifestyle of middle America, right at a time when those things seem most under assault. Frankly, I never thought Ohio could look like such a great place to live – especially post-LeBron.

Alex Pettyfer and Dianna Agron.

WHAT WORKS: • The cast, top to bottom. Alex Pettyfer as the teen alien ‘John Smith,’ and Dianna Agron as his girlfriend Sarah steal the show. Pettyfer comes across as a brooding hunk, and Agron has an ironic, quirky quality to her that makes her appealing. The two have definite chemistry – and, not surprisingly, they’ve apparently been dating off-screen since making this film.

• The depiction of ‘Paradise,’ Ohio as, well, a ‘paradise’ of warm suburban families, football games, Halloween carnivals … I’m ready to move right in. Hollywood so rarely tries to make the Heartland look appealing; here they actually make it look lyrical and inviting.

• Aussie Teresa Palmer nearly steals the show in the third act when she swoops in from Planet Michael Bay on her Ducati motorcycle and starts laying waste to the alien bad guys. Even though she looks to be about 85 pounds – and has a thin, raspy voice – she’s perfectly convincing as an ass-kicker due to the vaguely insane look in her eye (á la Jolie). Also: Aussie accents are sexy, especially when burnished by cigarette smoke.

• The alien creatures were excellent, and suitably menacing. Nice wok, as always, by ILM.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: • The appearance of the alien bad guys. Essentially they’re 7-foot tall white guys with tattoos, pig-like faces, wearing dark trenchcoats. For some reason they reminded me of ‘Birdman’ Chris Andersen of the Denver Nuggets. It was, however, admittedly rather creepy when they walked into the high school with assault rifles near the end of the film – because they looked like the Columbine killers.

• The general sense that you’ve seen films like this a thousand times; especially films featuring white teenage guys with ’special powers,’ who need to learn to use them responsibly, etc. Just for variety’s sake, I’d love to see someone make a movie about, say, a chubby Hispanic gal with ’special powers’ who needs to use them responsibly. Continue reading »

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley watches things blow up in Michael Bay's "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

By Jason Apuzzo. • I’ll start today’s Invasion Alert! with J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg and their forthcoming alien invasion thriller Super 8. A new trailer for the film ran during the Super Bowl – and although I’m very much looking forward to the film, the trailer itself didn’t do much for me, frankly. More interesting, actually, was a lengthy interview Abrams recently gave to The LA Times, in which he discussed the small town/middle America vibe of the film, its sentimental roots as a father-son reconciliation story, and the generally Spielbergean ambience of the whole project.

It’s becoming fairly clear that this film is going to be a return to the sort of family-oriented sci-fi projects Spielberg was doing in the late 70s/early 80s with E.T., Close Encounters and his TV work (incidentally, Close Encounters is coming to Blu-ray shortly) – although I sense a trace of anxiety in Abrams’ remarks as to whether such softer fare can still sell in the era of Michael Bay and James Cameron. My sense is that it can.

Many people tend to forget that most sci-fi films from the 1950s, for example (like Invaders from Mars or Invasion of the Body Snatchers), were actually set in small towns – and were highly evocative of middle American life and its values. Those films are still beloved today, not unlike Close Encounters (E.T. has aged somewhat) and if Abrams and Spielberg have done their homework on this one, they’re likely to pull off a crowd-pleasing hit – because I don’t yet sense any home runs in this current crop of edgier sci-fi invasion projects green-lit in the wake of Avatar.

I happen to like Abrams a lot, by the way. He talks in the interview about how he doesn’t do Twitter, how he still has a tape deck in his car, how he doesn’t really like the current film scene – in which everything has to be pre-marketed, pre-branded, franchised, etc., with no mystery left by the time a film is released. This remark from Abrams seems to sum up his thoroughly old-school attitude:

“We have such a challenge on this movie [Super 8],” Abrams said. ”Yes, we’ve got Steven’s name on it and my name on it — for what that’s worth — but we’ve got no famous super-hero, we’ve got no pre-existing franchise or sequel, it’s not starring anyone you’ve heard of  before. There’s no book, there’s no toy, there’s no comic book. There’s nothing. I don’t have anything; I don’t even have a board game, that’s how bad it is. But I think we have a very good movie.”

I know much of this is being said tongue-in-cheek, but isn’t it amazing that we’ve gotten to this point – a point at which a guy like Abrams, who is himself helming the new Star Trek franchise (the screenplay for the next Star Trek, incidentally, will apparently be delivered in about six weeks), feels compelled to say such things? I wish filmmakers working on the big scale would go back to telling personal stories, about actual human beings. In an era of formulaic entertainment, it’s the one formula no one seems willing to try.

Brooklyn Decker ("Battleship") preps for Sports Illustrated.

• … and so now on to Michael Bay. Among the alien invasion movie Super Bowl trailers (of which there were no less than four) his Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer certainly took the prize for spectacle, hands down. It actually looked a lot like Battle: LA, albeit in quasi-music video form.

At the recent premiere of his other alien invasion thriller, I Am Number 4, Bay actually compared Transformers 3 to Black Hawk Down – something which leads me to wonder why he doesn’t just do a movie like Black Hawk Down about our current war effort, rather than channel his energy into yet another toy franchise movie. Oh, wait! I think I know why; it has something to do with cross-platform marketing and casting Victoria’s Secret models. But that’s just a hunch.

Don’t’ get me wrong – I basically like Bay. He’s old-school in his own way. But there are reasons why he never really breaks through and has the Lucas/Spielberg/Cameron-sized hits, you know? There’s always just too much marketing there, and never enough imagination.

On the marketing front, incidentally, Bay and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley were out helping to hawk new Transformers toys recently (toys which seem to be revealing plot details about the movie), and Rosie finally talks about the project herself, here. So far she isn’t calling her director Hitler yet, unlike certain prior Transformers leads …

Not encouraged in Iran.

• Brooklyn Decker, of the forthcoming $200 million alien invasion thriller Battleship, is basically everywhere right now – appearing in the stupid Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston movie (two people who need to disappear for about five years), and now, of course, she’s on the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Did you really think we were going to miss that here at Libertas? Not a chance, amigo.

Also: the Hollywood Reporter just did a big feature on her, and you can watch the video associated with her SI photoshoot here. The video is probably NSFW (Not Suitable For the Workplace) – but at the same time, if your workplace doesn’t want you watching an American blonde prancing around in a bikini, perhaps you should simply work someplace else. This isn’t Iran.

• Cowboys & Aliens also had a Super Bowl trailer, and it was terrible – even though it featured the obnoxious Olivia Wilde going semi-topless. I’m getting the strong feeling that this film is going to be the turkey of the lot. If Jon Favreau’s got anything else to show us from that film, he’d better show it fast …

… although actually, he is doing that, as the LA Times followed Favreau recently to the Alamo Drafthouse where he showed the first two reels of Cowboys to an audience that apparently liked it a lot. Go figure.

One enthusiastic fan apparently even remarked, “You made Harrison Ford kick ass again!” Actually, Ford kicked alien and commie ass to the tune of $750 million worldwide for Indiana Jones 4 - but after all, who’s counting …

Also, Favreau recently talked to EW, and revealed some important clues as to his alien invasion film’s larger ‘meaning’:

EW: Instead of “cowboys and Indians” it was “astronauts and aliens.” So the idea of visiting an indigenous culture, invaders who in the Westerns would be the pioneers and settlers, is it reversed in this story? Are the cowboys essentially the natives and aliens are like the conquering Europeans?

Favreau: Yeah, in the frustration of not having the technology to allow you to prevail. It’s always the low-tech culture that feels powerless when faced with an enemy that has technology on their side. And of course the culture with technology on their side feels like it’s manifest destiny: They’ve been granted this gift by the divine and intend to use it. So yes, it is a bit of a flip, because the cowboys find themselves as the low-tech culture. And what’s also fun is it allows the cowboys and Native Americans to come together, which would be impossible had there not been a greater common enemy. It sets the Western up in a very classic way and then turns it on its ear.

I’m a little uncomfortable with this line: “[T]he culture with technology on their side feels like it’s manifest destiny: They’ve been granted this gift by the divine and intend to use it.” Why do I think he’s talking about us, when he uses the phrase ‘manifest destiny’? I thought Favreau was on our team; perhaps he’s now gone Eastwood/off the reservation.

Teresa Palmer in "I Am Number 4."

In any event, it’s interesting – and somewhat grating – that from Avatar through to Cowboys & Aliens, V and Battle: Los Angeles, ‘imperialism’ and ‘oppression of indigenous populations’ are obviously emerging as key themes in this genre.

• The rumors have now been confirmed: Charlize Theron will be joining Noomi Rapace in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus; and, also, there is further confirmation – from cast member Michael Fassbender – that Prometheus is more-or-less going to serve as an Alien prequel. Fassbender says there is a “a definite connecting vein” in the film with the Alien series.

Incidentally, I’m not a fan of Charlize Theron – she’s a bit frosty and left-wing to my taste – but she can project intelligence and I’m otherwise glad to see that Scott is keeping the Alien franchise focused on compelling female characters. Prometheus may do Avatar-type business, if he plays his cards right.

• Speaking of blondes, Aussie blonde Teresa Palmer – who plays “a fearless, Ducati-riding alien” babe (every film should have one) in the Michael Bay-produced I Am Number 4 - talked to the Wall Street Journal recently; also check out this interview with I Am Number 4’s highly perky blonde Dianna Agron.

• One of the other big alien invasion projects with a Super Bowl ad was, of course, Battle: Los Angeles – and Battle: LA also has a new extended trailer and a new TV spot.

The best thing this film has going for it, though, is this cheeky, History Channel-style documentary short about the original ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ from World War II. The video features Bill Birnes of UFO Hunters and is a real hoot. Check it out below.

The marketing campaign for Battle: Los Angeles has been nearly flawless, even without any blondes. We’ll see if the film itself matches up.

• In other Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion News & Notes: Men in Black 3D is experiencing more shooting delays, and the script is being re-written mid-shoot (ouch); Steven Spielberg’s/Fox’s hugely expensive Terra Nova TV series had an ad during the Super Bowl, and it looked like ridiculous Avatar-style liberal claptrap; Shawn Levy will be directing the James Cameron-produced 3D Fantastic Voyage remake; Logan’s Run is getting re-made; Roland Emmerich may be taking on Isaac Asimov’s acclaimed Foundation novel series, which he apparently would do in 3D, plus he confirms that there’s no action currently on an Independence Day sequel; Jerry Bruckheimer apparently wants to do a new space adventure film, to be written by the guy who wrote the first draft of what became Prometheus, and who also wrote the forthcoming alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour 3D; Roberto Orci talks here about his hoped-for adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s alien invasion epic Ender’s Game; the indie alien invasion thriller Attack the Block will be showing at the SXSW film festival; and, finally, for some unknown reason, Gareth Edwards’ indie alien invasion thriller Monsters – which hardly made a dent at the box office, and which nearly bored me to tears – may still get a sequel or even a TV series, although Edwards himself won’t be involved.

Alice Eve of "Men in Black 3D."

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … you would think that with Brooklyn Decker writhing around the beach in a bikini for Sports Illustrated, she would be today’s official pin-up. Or perhaps the prickly Olivia Wilde, who goes semi-topless in the latest Cowboys & Aliens trailer. But the alien invasion genre has a deep bench, my friends, so instead I go today with Alice Eve, who just joined the cast of Men in Black 3D – playing a younger version of Emma Thompson’s character. Oddly enough, though, I don’t remember Emma Thompson looking quite like this in her youth …

And that’s what’s happening today on The Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on February 17th, 2011 at 7:30pm.

The 'Space Jockey' from Ridley Scott's "Alien" (1979).

By Jason Apuzzo. • The big news since our last Invasion Alert! was the announcement by Fox of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, a semi-prequel to Alien, Scott’s classic sci-fi horror thriller from 1979. As predicted here for many months, Noomi Replace has been tapped by Scott as the lead for this long-rumored project, with Angelina Jolie And Charlize Theron reportedly circling other roles. Also: Michael Fassbender was recently added to the cast, apparently to play an android. And, despite Scott’s coy public statements, early indications are that this film will, indeed, serve as a prequel to Alien – and that we may actually get two films following this new Prometheus storyline, as well.

So what is the Prometheus storyline? Lips are officially sealed but some interesting plot details have leaked … [SPOILER ALERT] suggesting that the story involves the discovery on Earth of alien DNA at a desert archaeological dig, followed by the lead characters’ jetting off to the original alien homeworld – a setting we haven’t set yet in the Alien series. (There’s already a lot of online chatter that Scott intends to shoot the film’s archaeological dig in Morocco.)

The word for years has been that Scott wanted to do a prequel to Alien that would tell the story of the non-human ’space jockey’ from the first film (seen above), the fossilized/mummified creature in whose ship the alien eggs were initially found. I listened to Ridley Scott’s DVD commentary on Alien recently, in which he basically sketched out his conception of the Alien backstory: namely, that the race of ’space jockeys’ were originally using the alien creatures as a kind of bio-mechanoid weapon to terra-form planets, prior to the creatures breaking loose in the ’space jockey’ ship – the ship eventually discovered by the crew of the Nostromo. Of course, James Cameron later riffed off this theme of ‘military exploitation’ of the alien creatures in Aliens, and it’s easy to imagine Scott returning to this theme for Prometheus; the film’s title itself suggests the use of ‘forbidden’ technology, which the aliens would certainly represent. [END OF SPOILERS.]

We’ll be keeping a close eye on all this. My sense is that Scott was kicked in the pants to do this film by the success of Avatar; I doubt he wants to go down as second fiddle to Cameron – and, frankly, he shouldn’t. Suffice it say that although Scott has gone a bit daft in recent years, and become more aggressively left-wing, he remains one of sci-fi’s greatest filmmakers – and it’s exciting to consider what his return to this genre may hold. Prometheus is set for a June 8, 2012 release.

Brooklyn Decker talks about "Battleship."

• Speaking of James Cameron, he recently committed to release dates in 2013 and 2014 for the Avatar sequels, and talked recently about some of the technical challenges he’s facing already on those films (such as underwater motion-capture, and the potential of filming in the Marianas Trench; he certainly doesn’t do anything the easy way, does he?) Also: Cameron claims that he still wants to do Battle Angel Alita, once he’s finally done with Avatar. We’ll see.

But that’s not all. Cameron also confirmed recently that Tom Cruise is interested in top-lining the epic alien invasion thriller At the Mountains of Madness (based on the Lovecraft novel) that he’s producing for Guillermo del Toro – although no deal is in place yet. (Del Toro also offers an update on that project here.)

From "Battle: Los Angeles."

• In the midst of her media blitz for Just Go With It, Brooklyn Decker recently talked with MTV about her forthcoming, $200 million alien invasion thriller from director Peter Berg, Battleship. You can check that interview out here. I can’t quite remember what she said, but I know she looked good saying it.

• Battle: Los Angeles is approaching. Images of the invading aliens have been leaked, plus new set photos, interviews and an on-set video blog are now available. I was initially quite enthusiastic about this film, but that’s cooled somewhat. We’ll see.

• Can you believe it? Some 25 years after it’s initial publication, Orson Scott Card’s alien invasion thriller Ender’s Game is now the hottest property being shopped around Hollywood (Card is a right-winger; did you know that?); although, of course, 25 years is nothing compared to the almost 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars was published, and Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (WALL•E) offers an update on Disney’s live action adaptation of that novel here; John Carter of Mars is currently set for a March 9th, 2012 release.

• And guess who else is headed to Mars … Sinbad! No kidding, Charles Schneer’s son Barry wants to bring the Sinbad: Rogue of Mars comic to the screen in 2012 as a belated sequel to the wonderful Sinbad movies his father did years ago with Ray Harryhausen.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of "Transformers 3."

• Sinbad may not only be running in to John Carter up there on Mars, of course, but also Alexandre Aja’s Cobra the Space Pirate, another comic book/manga hero whom Aja (Piranha 3D) is planning to bring to the big screen soon, as well; Aja talked recently about that project here.

• On the Classic Alien Invasion Front: The New York Times reviews the latest triple-feature DVD release of Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth, War of the Satellites and Attack of the Crab Monsters; and we otherwise want to wish the great Zsa Zsa Gabor the best, as the star of the 1958 cult classic Queen of Outer Space continues to undergo more medical difficulties.

• In other Sci-Fi News & Notes: Director Gareth Edwards talks about the Godzilla reboot today; Matt Reeves And J.J. Abrams apparently haven’t found the right concept yet for Cloverfield 2; the J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg Super 8 will have a Super Bowl ad (along with Transformers 3 and Cowboys & Aliens); Spielberg’s forthcoming Terra Nova TV series continues to raise eyebrows, primarily due to its cost; Westworld is being re-booted (?!); Sony will be releasing Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium; V-babe Laura Vandervoort has a new interview out about the future of that series (which may not actually have a future, if its ratings continue to sag and its storyline irritates the fan base); and Liam Neeson will be returning to the Star Wars universe to voice Qui-Gon Jinn on The Clone Wars TV series.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon just posed for the UK’s Vogue … and I’m suddenly not remembering Megan Fox any more, you know what I mean?

And that’s what’s happening today in Earth’s War on Alien Invaders!

Posted on February 4th, 2011 at 7:47pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. “Well, the time has come to ask, is ‘dehumanization’ such a bad thing? Because good or bad, that’s what’s so. The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren’t. The whole world, not just us. We’re just the most advanced country, so we’re getting there first. The whole world’s people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things useful only to produce and consume other mass-produced things, all of them unnecessary and useless as we are …” - Howard Beale, from Paddy Chayefsky’s Network (1976).

“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.” – Michel Foucault.

I thought I would take a little time out today from the usual run of events here at Libertas to review a favorite film of mine that for various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: George Lucas’ THX: 1138 from 1971. There is an excellent, new Blu-ray edition of the film available out there for you collectors right now, and I recommend it highly.

Future shock: from George Lucas' "THX: 1138."

THX: 1138 is probably best known as the film that started – and almost ended – George Lucas’ directing career. The film was based on a student short Lucas did at the USC Cinema School called “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” (the “EB” standing for “Earth Born”; THX-1138 was actually Lucas’ phone number at the time). That student short, incidentally, happens to be included in the Blu-ray edition, and is definitely worth watching. Around USC Cinema circles the short is something of a legend – in large part because it does everything a short is supposed to do: tell a powerful story quickly, visually, by ‘cutting to the chase’ as fast as possible. In fact, the original “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” is nothing but a chase, involving a lone future-worker’s escape from a totalitarian society.

The story of how “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” got translated into a feature is a long and complex one; suffice it to say the crucial players were Francis Coppola and his newly formed American Zoetrope Studios, plus the cabal of USC Cinema friends Lucas dragged up to the Bay Area with him (most notably Walter Murch), plus a few key executives at Warner Brothers like John Calley – who would later stab Lucas and Coppola in the back once the film was completed. And actually the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of THX: 1138’s creation is essentially the story of American Zoetrope itself – the fledgling dream of Francis Coppola to found a Bay Area filmmaking colony of independent artists, set up in opposition to the factory-mentality of Hollywood. Appropriately, the Blu-ray features a great documentary on the founding of American Zoetrope, and the role THX: 1138 played in that company’s rise and fall … and rise again.

Bad day at the office: Robert Duvall in "THX: 1138."

So what, then, is THX: 1138 about? The film focuses on a worker in a futuristic, dystopian, police-state underworld who begins to have a crisis of conscience about his meaningless life and the oppressive, stultifying world he lives in. He rebels – awkwardly at first (he stops taking his tranquilizers, makes illicit love to his roommate, etc.) – and then finally decides to escape.

And that’s really it – the entire film in a nutshell.

What makes THX: 1138 worthwhile and interesting as a film is the striking world Lucas creates out of what was a very modest budget at the time – exactly $777,777, to be precise (executive producer Coppola was superstitious about numbers). The key to the film’s arresting, futuristic ‘look’ – a look that now seems prescient – is what might be described as a Japanese minimalism, combined with a similarly Japanese emphasis on bold, static compositions and a simple color palette.

Lucas initially wanted to film THX: 1138 in Japan, for two reasons. First, Japan seemed at the time to be the most futuristic of countries with respect to its integration of technology into the normal flow of living. (It still seems to be that today.) Secondly, Lucas and Walter Murch (who edited and co-wrote the film) were into Japanese movies at the time – particularly those of Kurosawa and Ozu. They were fascinated by the ‘alien,’ non-Western quality of Japanese rituals – and the degree to which Japanese filmmakers made no effort to explain these rituals for non-Japanese audiences. This ‘alien’ quality was exactly what Lucas and Murch were looking for in order to depict a futuristic society in which individual identity was put in jeopardy.

One is tempted to think here of Marshall McLuhan, who around the time of THX was proposing that the whole world was becoming “orientalized,” and that in the future none of us would be able to retain his or her cultural identity – “not even the Orientals.”

Static compositions, featuring static people.

We begin the film with THX (played with subdued intensity by Robert Duvall) at work on an assembly line, helping to put together what basically look like droids. He’s having a tough time of it, though, not able to maintain his concentration or focus. Is he having psychological problems? We don’t yet know. In THX’s world, all emotions are suppressed through the compulsory use of drugs – drugs that resemble “soma” from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

An early crisis comes in the film when THX’s female roommate ‘LUH 3417′ (Maggie McOmie) stops taking her drugs, and secretly substitutes a placebo for THX’s normal tranquilizer. As THX’s sedative wears off, he finds himself experiencing emotions, doubts, even sexual desire. Chief among these emotions is anxiety, and his work at this point definitely begins to be affected.

Nothing he tries helps. THX goes home, for example, to watch TV – actually holograms. TV in the future, however, has basically been reduced to three different sorts of programming: 1) mindless, sadistic violence; 2) porn; 3) glib, meaningless ‘talk shows.’ Sound familiar?

Everything in THX’s world, incidentally, is impersonal and automated. For example, looking for solace, poor THX visits a kind of high-tech confessional booth which features a generic religious icon (known as “Ohm”) who mutters impersonal, pre-recorded platitudes. “My time is your time … blessings of the State, blessings of the Masses … work hard, and be happy.” THX vomits in one of the confessionals, so disgusted is he by what he hears. He goes home to masturbate (off-screen) – although he’s only able to do so with help of an automated machine. In Lucas’ future, all forms of private experience have been automated, regulated, rendered ‘technological.’

THX is eventually incarcerated for his ‘bad behavior,’ and dragged off to a white limbo prison – where he encounters a group of maladjusted freaks similar to the crowd Jack Nicholson encounters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. My favorite in this group is Donald Pleasence playing ‘SEN 5241′ – a cliché-spouting, bureaucratic functionary. Pleasence’s dialogue in this portion of the film is really delicious, filled with ridiculous platitudes and non-sequiturs. It’s actually some of the funniest stuff Lucas has ever written.

The ‘prison’ in this portion of the film has a Waiting for Godot/existentialist quality to it, in so far as there are no walls of any kind. In fact, THX’s big decision to ‘escape’ the prison consists merely in Duvall’s deciding to walk away into the unseen distance. That’s it. Lucas’ point here could not be clearer: most of the walls we experience in life are illusory, and self-created. Sometimes all we need do is walk away from what’s holding us back.

And, interestingly, most of the prisoners in THX’s white limbo prison are afraid to escape – even though nothing is physically holding them back. Eventually THX and SEN make their way out into limbo on their own, where they encounter ‘SRT’ (Don Pedro Colley), who is actually a hologram who’s managed to escape the underground world’s computer network. SRT reminds one here of the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz, or of C-3PO from Lucas’ later Star Wars. Even robots apparently need a little freedom, too.

A future in which love is forbidden.

THX eventually discovers LUH’s tragic fate, which has a little bit of a ‘Lot’s wife’ feel to it, and then an extended escape sequence begins through the city’s vast underground road network. THX is chased here by android police on motorcycles, and to this day I’ve never understood how Lucas got guys to drive that fast on motorcycles with faceplates on. Weird.

The robot police pursue THX up toward the surface, but – and this is one of the film’s more arch, ironic touches – the budget expenditure allotted to capture THX becomes too great, so the computers tell the robot cops to stand down! Beautiful. Those future dystopias are always running out of money, aren’t they?

We finish the film with an incredible shot that is best appreciated on Blu-ray. After spending the entire film underground, in artificial lighting, THX emerges onto the surface of the Earth in front of an enormous, orange, blazing sun – photographed with what must have been a 1000mm lens. It’s a striking scene that is repeated in 1977’s Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker gazes out on the twin setting suns of Tatooine, contemplating a future of adventure and freedom he doesn’t believe he’ll ever have. In THX’s case, he certainly does achieve his freedom – although the exact nature of that freedom, and of his future, remains unclear.

Thus ends THX: 1138. And now comes the $64 million question: on the whole, is the world of THX relevant to the world of today?

I think the answer must be: yes.

Are we currently living in a world in which the government is intruding into too many aspects of our daily lives – and using advanced technologies to pry into our privacy … even beneath our clothing? Of course we are. And why do we allow this? Because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that it’s necessary, and that a benevolent state apparatus has our best interests in mind.

I’m reminded here, among so many other things, of what is currently going on at our nation’s airports. All of us are now being scanned, X-rayed and disrobed at our airports if we commit the crime of wanting to fly. Book a flight to New York, for example, and you’re likely to find yourself stripped in public – or having your naked form recorded onto a government hard drive. (“Don’t worry – we’ll make sure it gets erased!”) And so a commercial flight can now turn into an exercise in exhibitionism, an opportunity to get scoped-out and humiliated by a government official – all for the crime of traveling.

But that’s not all. New devices are now being marketed that conduct psychometric exams of airline passengers, who are required to answer a battery of questions (to a computer) to determine whether they fit a pre-defined psychological ‘profile’ of someone wanting to blow-up an airplane. Our own Homeland Defense officials are apparently very interested in this technology. And why wouldn’t they be? (After all, perhaps they could even determine if someone might attend a Tea Party rally.)

As citizens and as customers, why do we put up with this? We do so because we’ve been brainwashed, made docile (and literally, in many cases, sedated with drugs), and ultimately because we want to put up with it. Because we’ve been sold the politically correct bill-of-goods that all ‘humanoids’ – whether they be Gramma Betsy from Kenosha, or 18-year old Ahmed from Lahore – are just as likely to blow up a plane as anyone else. Why? Because bureaucratically we’re all the same – just numbers in a system. And if you happen stand up and protest this madness, if you complain about ‘the system’ and its obvious inadequacies and dangers – you can expect to be accused of being a bad person. You’re not with the program! You’re ‘off your meds,’ ‘hateful,’ ‘paranoid’ and a danger to public safety.

This is the world we live in, and this is the world of THX. Indeed it’s altogether amazing – and unnerving – how almost everything about Lucas’ film seems appropriate today.

The experience of freedom.

A few final words about the Blu-ray itself: the image on this film is fantastic; also, Walter Murch did some of the most striking sound design work of his career on this film, and there are superb documentaries (”Master Sessions”) on the Blu-ray that cover that subject for the cinephiles out there.

One quibble I have with the film is its portrayal of sex in the future: namely, there is none. Lucas decided to go the Orwell/1984 route and predict a ’sexless’ future in which children are created primarily in test tubes. Needless to say, I don’t think a sexless future is on our horizon – at least here in the West. Sex is omnipresent and omnipotent today, so Lucas probably would’ve been shrewder to go with Aldous Huxley and Brave New World, or with Yevgeny Zamyatin and We, and predict an orgiastic/promiscuous future in which monogamy is forbidden and children are collectively raised ‘by a village.’ (Lucas otherwise seems to have borrowed the shaved heads and number-names from Zamyatin, or perhaps from Ayn Rand’s Anthem?) This orgiastic/group-sex/collective consciousness future seems much closer to where we’re headed, and the subject of sexual relations is the only area where THX: 1138 seems off-kilter.

THX: 1138 is a great experimental film, however, with a lively and sardonic sense of humor about our world. Underneath that humor, of course, is an authentic social critique of our society – as we march happily toward a future of conformism, sedation, docility and political correctness.

Work hard, and be happy.

Posted on January 17th, 2011 at 1:28pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Given the sudden shift in theme and meanings in ABC’s V, it’s obvious that we’ve got to keep a careful eye on sci-fi these days – as each new project further proliferates and complicates the political messages being conveyed by the genre. Aside from V – which within one week went from satirizing global warming hysteria, to associating the Israeli Mossad and the Catholic Church with suicide bombing (!) – two other interesting cases in point are the forthcoming Battle: Los Angeles, and Steven Spielberg’s new Falling Skies TV series. Let’s do a little speculative ‘deep reading,’ shall we?

The latest Battle: LA trailer (see above), which just hit the internet this week, revealed something interesting: namely, the aliens’ motivations in the film for attacking Earth. Apparently Battle: LA’s wave of alien invaders – among many similar alien hordes arriving on our planet during the 2011 and 2012 movie calendars – will be arriving specifically in order to seize our natural resources.

Now, this is a fairly typical theme in the alien invasion genre going all the way back to the 1950s, and it has been re-appearing as recently as in V (and James Cameron reversed the scenario in Avatar, with humans doing the invading) … and yet I can’t help but wonder if in a post-Iraq War world whether the subtext of this film, much as in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (at least, according to War of the World’s screenwriter, David Koepp), is to let Americans now feel ‘what it’s like to be invaded/exploited’ ourselves? (Even when we’re not actually exploiting anyone, but liberating people living under tyranny.)

I only ask this because of this somewhat peculiar, on-the-nose line that appears conspicuously early in the trailer:

“When you invade a place for its resources, you wipe out the indigenous population. Right now, we are being colonized.”

Which real-world invasion/’colonialist’ scenario is that referring to? I’d love to know. Somehow I think I already do.

Were it to be a reverse commentary on the Iraq War, Battle: LA would certainly resemble Spielberg’s War of the Worlds – and, on that note, the other big alien invasion trailer to hit recently was for Spielberg’s Falling Skies TV series (see above).

Aside from recycling every cliché of the genre imaginable, the trailer was noteworthy for this similarly on-the-nose line:

“History is full of inferior forces creating so much trouble that the invading army leaves.”

Hmm. I wonder what ‘history’ this line is referring to here. I keep scratching my head, but I can’t come up with anything – maybe some of Libertas’ clever readers could help? In any case, one gets the sense from both the Battle: LA and Falling Skies trailers – and even from last week’s episode of V (alas) – that the thematic ‘purpose’ of some of these alien invasion thrillers may actually be Iraq War-payback.

Should that be the case – and I’m not yet assuming it is – I’m allowed to find such a message troubling; it has an angry, vengeful, self-loathing quality at a time when the mandarins of our culture are currently lecturing everyone about how we’re supposed to be ‘toning down our rhetoric.’ Hollywood, look in the mirror.

• We’re apparently going to be getting a Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell, a remake which will not be taking audiences to Mars this time , however – nor will the film be shot in 3D. This might actually be the only case in recent memory of aliens actually being removed from a project, rather than added to them (i.e., Universal’s Battleship).

• And speaking of Universal’s Battleship, James Cameron is back in the news – after a whole 2 weeks – for publicly blasting, so to speak, Universal’s alien-invasion themed Battleship. Here’s Cameron:

We have a story crisis. Now they want to make the Battleship game into a film. This is pure desperation. Everyone in Hollywood knows how important it is that a film is a brand before it hit theaters. If a brand has been around, Harry Potter for example, or Spider-Man, you are light years ahead. And there lies the problem. Because unfortunately these franchises are become more and more ridiculous. Battleship. This degrades the cinema.

Unfortunately I agree with him here. We just had Missile Command go into development this week, and in a few months we’ll be getting a third Transformers movie, with McG’s Ouija board game movie not far behind. What’s next, a Voltron movie? Oh, wait, somebody’s already doing that … In other Cameron news, incidentally, here is an update on the Cameron-Guillermo del Toro adaptation of Lovecraft’s ‘alien invasion’ novel At the Mountains of Madness.

Actress-model Brooklyn Decker of "Battleship."

• Incidentally, Universal’s $200 million alien-invasion ‘epic’/board-game adaption Battleship is currently in the midst of reshoots – based on the fact that multiple endings of the film were apparently shot (which probably doesn’t help the budget) – but nonetheless Battleship star Brooklyn Decker is out praising her ‘embattled’ director, Peter Berg.

But her standing up for her director isn’t really what’s got you excited, though, is it? You want to see the recent pictures of her shooting the film on the beach in Hawaii – so here you go. You deserve that, after making it through the Falling Skies trailer.

Anne Francis, from "Forbidden Planet."

• It seems impossible, yet even more alien invasion projects were announced this week: Fox just announced that it’s put a movie adaptation of Atari’s classic video game Missile Command into development – a game which has no plot, incidentally; and, just today, something called Alien Sleeper Cell went into development, as well, with District 9 producer Bill Block attached. The title Alien Sleeper Cell alone should tell you everything you need to know about whether the current wave of alien invasion films carry political/ideological connotations.

• The lovely and talented Anne Francis of 1956’s Forbidden Planet has died – just a few months after her Forbidden Planet co-star Leslie Nielsen also passed away. Our condolences to her family. Ms. Francis was a marvelous star, and did a wonderful (if short-lived) series in 1965 called Honey West in which she played a stylish, 60s go-go girl detective. She had a sweet, pixie-like charm about her – and she will certainly be missed.

• Did you know that the alien invasion genre has even hit this year’s Sundance? Of course, Sundance being Sundance … they’ll be premiering Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (no, that’s not a Roger Corman movie) at this year’s festival, along with Another Earth (check out an interview with director Mike Cahill here) and Troll Hunters – the latter being, I suppose, more of a ‘creature invasion’ film.

Rosie Huntington-Whitely of "Transformers 3."

• And on the Creature Invasion Front, Piranha 3D just hit Blu-ray (including 3D Blu-ray; see our review here); David Fincher will apparently be shooting the massive squids of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 3D; Gareth Edwards, director of the indie alien invasion thriller Monsters (see our review here) has improbably been given the Godzilla reboot – which can only mean Legendary Pictures hasn’t actually seen Edwards’ film; and, of course, Troll Hunters will be getting its world premiere at Sundance. I love Troll Hunters’ trailer, by the way – is that because I’ve met so many trolls in LA? The movie does seem authentic in depicting trolls, although in real-life they’re usually much shorter.

• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News & Notes: we may be getting a Tron sequel after all; there will apparently be a Cowboys & Aliens Super Bowl commercial (you can catch actor Sam Rockwell discussing Cowboys & Aliens here); here are DVD/Blu-ray details for Skyline (see our review here); J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 and also Transformers 3 will be getting the IMAX treatment; we may also be getting a Super 8 trailer in March; there are some new production stills out for Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova TV series; Charlize Theron may be in contention for the Alien prequels (I doubt she’ll make it; it will probably be Noomi Rapace); there’s a new TV spot out for I am Number Four; the new alien invader-comedy Paul has a new trailer (it’s terrible); the faux-documentary alien invasion thriller Apollo 18 will now be released on April 22nd; Jodie Foster has signed on for Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium; check out this new trailer for the Star Wars Blu-rays; and there’s a great new trailer out for the new Star Wars: The Old Republic video game.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Transformers 3′s Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has an artsy, sexy new photoshoot out, perhaps designed to make people forget that Megan Fox was once the belle of that alien invasion franchise. Click here to see more of the shoot .. which is quite an eye-full.

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on January 13th, 2011 at 4:26pm.

Morena Baccarin as the alien queen, Anna.

By Jason Apuzzo. I just wanted to remind those of you who are enjoying ABC’s V that the show is back tonight, in what promises to be an interesting episode. Previews for the show (albeit not the one below) have shown a suicide bombing taking place during this episode; plus, the colorful Jane Badler – who played the alien leader in the old series – returns in this episode, something teased in the season premiere.

Also today there’s a new interview out with actress Morena Baccarin, who plays the Visitor queen, Anna. SPOILER WARNING: Baccarin reveals some tantalizing details about how the show’s storyline will be developing – including what cast members from the original series will be returning, and in what capacity; and, furthermore, it’s revealed that the producers have planned-out the storyline of the series through a hypothetical third season, a season which may or may not happen depending on ratings.

Click on over to Collider for more details. I’ve also embedded a preview for tonight’s show below.

[UPDATE: Having now seen the episode, I was not happy with it at all - and my earlier fears about the 'suicide bomber' subplot were validated, alas. Although there were aspects of the show I liked - particularly the speculative elements about the human soul, and Jane Badler's juicy performance as the alien queen's mother - I was very disappointed by the overall arc and purpose of the suicide bomber subplot. Its purpose seems to be to show that 'desperate people in desperate circumstances' will turn to terrorism, even - as we learn - an ex-Israeli Mossad agent. Memo to ABC: the Mossad fights terrorism, and doesn't practice it. Had the leader of this rogue, suicide-bombing branch of the show's 'Fifth Column' been a Chechen or a Russian, I think it would've been much more believable. As it stands, however, having its leader be ex-Mossad feels like a cheap shot toward the Israelis. Also: having the actual suicide bomber himself be a Catholic parishioner who is 'inspired' by Father Jack's words was in extremely poor taste. What a disappointment. Two shows in, and my enthusiasm has already cooled.]

Posted on January 11th, 2011 at 2:26pm.

Morena Baccarin as the alien queen, Anna.

By Jason Apuzzo. Have you ever had the feeling – recently – that you were watching a classic?

I unexpectedly had that feeling Tuesday night watching ABC’s Season 2 premiere of V, even if – skeptic that I am – I’m not completely trusting that feeling just yet. I simply can’t believe this series could be as good as it currently appears to be. It must be a mirage, a hallucination – correct?

Over the holiday vacation, I’d actually taken the time to finish the entire Season 1 of V on DVD, and was pleasantly surprised – no, overjoyed – that the series had taken the striking thematic turns it had. Of course, years of being saturated with Hollywood entertainment has taught me to be skeptical, and to resist giving myself over to politically-oriented network programming (which V most certainly is) unless I happen to know some of the people involved – ABC’s Path to 9/11 being an example – or otherwise have some grasp of the professional agendas in play.

Laura Vandervoort of ABC's "V."

But I’m reaching the breaking point with this new incarnation of the V series: I am, quite simply, loving it – and am in a state of ongoing shock as to what I’m seeing depicted on a show-by-show basis. Because what I’m seeing, in essence, is this:

• A show that dismantles the liberal-progressive/green-environmental vision of the world more thoroughly, and with greater wit and psychological insight, than any 3 prime-time shows on Fox News put together.

• A show that has somehow managed to anticipate (rather than merely follow) the anti-Obama, anti-big government, Tea Party vibe of our times – without losing its sense of timelessness, or the universality of its themes.

• A show that features among its primary heroes a Catholic priest/Iraq War Army chaplain-vet (how many times have you seen that on network TV?), paired with an FBI counter-terrorism agent. Ahem. The priest’s mission, incidentally, is to direct his parishioners’ faith toward God and transcendent values – rather than toward immanent political power, or toward wondrous lifestyle-technologies. What a message for our times!

• A show in which the menacing invader-aliens use the promise of universal health care and advanced green … excuse me, ‘blue’ technology to cultivate public addiction to their rule. Ahem, and double ahem.

• A show that portrays the news media as willing dupes of hostile invaders here to do us harm. (I can’t imagine where anybody got that idea, by the way.)

• A show depicting young, dumb teenage guys as being … young, dumb teenage guys – rather than as pseudo-divine Chosen Ones with ’special powers’ here to save us all.

• A show featuring strong, intelligent, professional women as the lead characters – women deftly balancing their families and careers (after all, even an alien queen has to control her daughter!) – women who never lose either their femininity or their competitive edge.

• A show featuring Laura Vandervoort as an alien princess with a plunging neckline.

OK, perhaps the last point isn’t quite so critical here for our purposes, but you get the idea – there’s a lot to like about V.

Joel Gretsch as Father Jack Landry.

For those of you who aren’t otherwise familiar with the show, ABC’s V is a remake/reboot of NBC’s original V series from 1983, a series created by Kenneth Johnson – a TV legend responsible for shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Hulk. It’s not clear to me how much (if at all) Kenneth Johnson is involved in this new series, but having seen the original series – and having read both of Johnson’s superb V novels (including the most recent, from 2008) – I think that ABC’s current re-visioning of V is actually even better than the 1983 original from NBC. It’s storyline is richer, more sophisticated – and also frothier and more entertaining.

V in any of its various TV or novel incarnations is essentially a retelling of the familiar alien-invader stories that were so popular in 1950s sci-fi cinema; one thinks here of films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Invaders From Mars (1953), The Thing (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) or Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956). Or, for that matter, one thinks of more recent fare like Independence Day (1996) or the Alien and Predator series; and, when all is said and done, I expect that the V franchise is at some point going to take its place in pop culture alongside those other revered alien invasion films once this new series (and Kenneth Johnson’s hoped-for movie adaptation) has played itself out.

In V, gigantic alien saucers arrive over 29 major cities throughout the world carrying beings (‘Visitors’) who appear to look like us – and who claim to come in peace. The aliens profess to desire only a small, unspecified token of Earth’s resources, in exchange for which they offer to share their own technological and medical advancements.

Of course, we learn in short order that these alien visitors are not here in peace, at all, and that underneath their synthetically grown human skin they actually resemble reptiles – scaly, carnivorous reptiles with sharp tails. (If you’ve read Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, this all may sound familiar.)

That’s the basic V setup. The remainder of the series – whether on the TV shows or in the novels – consists of the aliens’ complicated efforts to curry the social and political favor of their human hosts, to propagandize and control the human population in order to achieve an ultimate end. What that end is, exactly, is something I won’t reveal here in case you don’t already know – although, in fairness, the aliens’ mission appears to be somewhat different in the new series than in the original.

What’s interesting here, however, is that in their human skin – and while living among human beings on Earth – the aliens themselves begin to change. They begin to take on empathetic human emotions – i.e., they begin to go soft – and some even ‘fraternize’ with the enemy. (One thinks here of 1958’s I Married a Monster From Outer Space, a great little thriller from director Gene Fowler that riffs of 1949’s similarly fun I Married a Communist.) And so, in both the old series and the new one, aliens impregnate Earth women and hybrid children are born – complicating matters even further. Among other complications, these new ‘mixed marriages’ and children create a tension on time, as the alien leadership must rush to achieve their goal before their own kind begin to get too chummy with their Earth subjects …

Get ready for Obamacare.

Both the new and old series are great fun, and both series cleverly comment on the ways in which totalitarian-style governments – particularly those of the fascist and communist variety – win the hearts and minds of their populations through the now-familiar totalitarian bouillabaisse of trickery, false promises, bribery, surveillance, secret police and aggressive control of the media.

Kim Jong-il, are you watching?

What has been especially uncomfortable for many people, however, is how close the current V series seems to be to depicting/satirizing the current Obama Administration, and in satirizing ‘progressive’ rule in general. In case you missed the first episode of Season 2 this week, for example, the aliens promised to reverse global warming as another p.r. gesture in their ongoing seduction of Earth’s population. Doesn’t that sound familiar? I can’t think of a Democratic politician in the past ten years who hasn’t campaigned on that exact platform: Elect me and the tides will recede. I’ve spent most of my life living near the ocean in a state run by Democrats, and the tides somehow remain the same.

V wouldn’t be nearly so effective, however – it would merely be a kind of talk radio screed – if it weren’t so entertaining.

Now starting its second season, the show is starting to develop that iconic quality that great TV shows develop once they hit their full stride – and I think Brazilian-born actress Morena Baccarin as the wicked alien queen Anna is probably most responsible for that. She’s great fun to watch – and her behavior grows increasingly perverse and diabolical as the series goes on. She makes Hillary Clinton seem like Doris Day, and she might be the best alien queen since Laurie Mitchell in 1958’s Queen of Outer Space – although Jane Badler from the original V series is apparently coming back as Anna’s mother, so she’ll also be around to contend with, as well. (The rest of the cast is superb, as well – in particular Joel Gretsch as the priest and Scott Wolf as the slimy news anchor.)

Women rule the show.

A word on great female roles: V is full of them, and kudos to the show’s producers for putting strong, compelling female characters at the center of the V storyline – and particularly that of the FBI agent, played by Lost’s Elizabeth Mitchell. It’s all quite refreshing and humanistic, during what appears to be a misogynistic period for Hollywood.

And, more than that, I think the show’s fluidity with both male and female characters is an indication of V’s special genius, because the show’s creators - starting with its original creator, Kenneth Johnson – have always understood (unlike so many of today’s current, ever-expanding crop of youngish sci-fi filmmakers) that alien invasion stories aren’t really about aliens. These are stories about the darker aspects of the human personality, and the way in which – through our actions – all of us have the potential to ‘dehumanize’ ourselves. Alien invasion stories such as V’s are always ultimately about human beings, male and female, and our potential for good or evil.

And so, appropriately enough, V proceeds most of the time as a huge, extended family drama – in which everyone is gradually getting entangled in everyone else’s family, for better and for worse.

My sense is that this series is headed in a direction that will involve the Visitors and Earth’s human beings having to eventually find some way to live together, to co-habitate and compromise. Why? Because this, too, is the way of things – the way of history, the inevitable by-product of a mingling of peoples. And, interestingly, some of the political sting of the series may wear off as that process proceeds.

I’m reminded of a book I picked up, recently – Bernal Díaz’s The Conquest of New Spain, a first-person account of the conquest of Mexico and Montezuma by the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés, written in the late 16th century by a veteran of Cortes’ campaign. I was thinking as I thumbed through the book of how many descendants of the Spanish conquistadors and of their Aztec foes have probably intermarried by now, settled down, and raised children. This is the way of the world, after all.

So bravo to ABC for putting together such a timely, juicy and sophisticated series. Of course, they could just as easily blow it next week – I notice with some trepidation, for example, that there seems to be a ’suicide bomber’ subplot in the next show – but for now I will bask in the warm glow of a great series, with a full season ahead.

After all, I never expected to enjoy this series as much as I already have.

Posted on January 6th, 2011 at 1:05m.

Too much of a good thing? Tron girls at the "Tron" premiere.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Tron: Legacy opened reasonably well, although well enough to launch a franchise? I have doubts. I can’t escape the feeling that Disney blew a major opportunity here – that a film which could’ve been a major ‘tech noir’ classic slipped away into something frivolous … something that audiences really weren’t pining for to begin with (an over-merchandized sequel to an almost 30 year old film, featuring an extreme overdose of Jeff Bridges). I bought the Daft Punk soundtrack over the weekend, loved it (read interviews with Daft Punk here and here), and was left with the sense that what Disney could’ve had here was the anti-Avatar: i.e., a large-scale, humanistic sci-fi epic with the style and design of Blade Runner, and the heart of the original Star Wars. It’s too bad they settled for so much less.

Sci-fi’s Big Three – Lucas, Spielberg and Cameron – get a lot of criticism, especially in the overheated world of the internet. The reason those three are such indisputable masters of their craft, however, is that they focus attention on their lead characters – who typically are broken or otherwise unfulfilled young people with major challenges in their lives. I never had the sense that the spoiled-rotten billionaire kid in Legacy had really ever had his teeth kicked in; everything in life was just a little too cozy for him  – and neither Lucas, Spielberg or Cameron would’ve allowed their lead character to have such an easy time of it.

By the way, the LA Times just ran this interesting piece on whether Tron’s world reflects the way the schizophrenic mind works. It’s an interesting question, actually, and one that I was ruminating on myself while watching the film; Tron really does present quite a paranoid vision of the digital/virtual world we ‘live’ in nowadays.

• The trailer for the new Transformers movie is out, and it’s actually a good deal better – and more epic in scale – than I would’ve expected a trailer for one of these films to be. The only question I have is how representative the trailer is of the rest of the film, as the trailer feels like something designed to capture the first 5-10 minutes of the movie in which the plot’s set up. I assume the rest of the film will involve watching Shia and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley run around, which I’m not necessarily looking forward to. In any case, the trailer is a nice start so far. Here’s another new interview with Michael Bay, incidentally.

• On a similar note, Apollo 18 just started shooting in Vancouver – which, by the way, is apparently where Disney shot Tron. California’s back to being unaffordable again for filmmaking, which Hollywood’s Democrats didn’t bother to tell you when they were all out stumping for Jerry Brown recently. The new Total Recall, by the way, will similarly be shooting not in LA but in Toronto.

The new "Battle: Los Angeles" poster.

• A new poster for Battle: Los Angeles is out. I have the feeling this film is going to be the cream of the Alien Invasion crop, so to speak.

• First it was Rose McGowan, and now word has it that Anne Hathaway may be attached to the on-again/off-again remake of Barbarella. I generally have nothing against Ms. Hathaway, but she’s a bit gawky and a poor choice for this role – as I suspect she would ultimately push the film too much in the direction of Austin Powers-style comedy. With that said, she’s certainly fetching, sympathetic, and she meets the ABF Standard (Anybody But Fonda).

• There were a flurry of rumors recently about Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel(s), one of which was that the film would be titled Paradise, but those rumors were subsequently shot down by a Fox exec. The latest news is that H.R. Giger may be involved in the design of the new project; also, Olivia Wilde has confirmed that she’s not going to be appearing in the film. Hooray!

• In other Alien Invasion News & Notes: Sam Raimi’s huge alien invasion thriller Earth Defense Force is being rewritten right now; I Am Number 4 director DJ Caruso has a new interview out, and that film also has a new, extended trailer; Universal and the SyFy channel are going to partner on making low-budget (probably $5-$10 million) sci-fi films; production art has leaked for the forthcoming Battlestar Galactica prequel series Blood and Chrome; Matt Damon may end up toplining Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (God help us); J.J. Abrams confirms that the screenplay for the new Star Trek still hasn’t been completed yet; Terry Gilliam will be godfathering a new, animated, retro-sci-fi spectacle set in 1884; the new Star Wars Frames book really looks wonderful; check out this great post over at TCM’s Movie Morlocks on Howard Hawks’ The Thing as a Christmas movie; and people in China are now getting Avatar-themed weddings, which is really depressing.

Brazilian model Sasckya Porto goes "Tron."

• On the Classic Alien Invasion Front, Green Slime is finally getting a decent DVD release! And it’s about time. That news pales,  however, in comparison to news recently that an extra 17 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey (cut from the film by Stanley Kubrick right after the film’s release) was discovered recently, although Warner Brothers claims they already knew about the footage and have it themselves under lock and key. Apparently, since Kubrick himself edited the footage out, Warners has no plans of putting it back in the film or re-issuing it on a Blu-ray. We’ll see if their resolve on that point holds.

• On the Aquatic Invasion Front, Ving Rhames may be back for Piranha 3DD, which is currently planning to shoot in New Orleans (doesn’t that sound like fun?). Also, David Fincher has apparently confirmed that he’ll be directing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, so we should be seeing giant squid squirm across the big screen a few years from now …

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Brazilian model Sasckya Porto adopts the Tron look, which more women should really should adopt in their everyday life – don’t you think?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on December 23rd, 2010 at 1:08pm.

The young/CGI Jeff Bridges as 'Clu,' dictator of The Grid in "Tron: Legacy."

By Jason Apuzzo. There’s a moment late in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner when Rutger Hauer, playing the doomed replicant ‘Roy Batty,’ turns to Harrison Ford just before dying, and with a mad gleam in his eye ruminates:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time … like tears in rain.”

It’s a wonderful, sad, poetic, insane moment – the soul of the film, actually, as this fantastic and vaguely Nietzschean character expires with unexpected grace, and in so doing teaches his pursuer (Ford, the titular ‘blade runner’) something about the true nature of ‘humanity.’

In trying to summarize what director Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy lacks, it’s precisely such moments – or even one such moment.  And it’s a shame, because I think that somewhere out there – perhaps still lurking in the interstices of the director’s imagination, or somewhere on his hard drive – there might actually have been a great science fiction film here, something perhaps south of Star Wars but certainly north of The Matrix. But as things stand, greatness was definitely left waiting on the table with respect to Tron: Legacy – this very big, very stylish and ambitious production that unfortunately never really takes flight as it should.

On the face of it, the idea of rebooting Tron was a decent idea, in so far as the cinema technology (CGI, 3D, etc.) currently exists today to flesh-out the basic Tron story in a more visually satisfying manner than was possible back in 1982.  And, of course, since the early 80s we’ve obviously developed a much more precise feeling for what ‘cyberspace’ and the internet mean to us, on both a practical and symbolic level.  Even just this week we learned, for example, that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is going to be Time’s Man of the Year – and the movie made about him (the weirdly uninvolving The Social Network) is very likely to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards in a few months.

Baby Boomer Jeff Bridges reflects ad ad nauseum on his legacy in "Tron: Legacy."

So on paper, the timing for this project should have been perfect. And yet I’m wondering if maybe it’s the exact opposite: that the timing for this film, in a sense, couldn’t be worse. Worse not because of the subject matter, nor because ‘computing’ has lost some of its romance and speculative luster since the early 80s – Steve Jobs notwithstanding. Continue reading »

By Jason Apuzzo. • Tron is approaching, a wave that’s looking smaller as it approaches shore. The film is tracking poorly; it’s also getting mixed reviews thus far (see here and here) … oh, and the total cost of the film, with marketing? Apparently around $320 million. Plus, people are starting to scratch their heads about the fact that this is the debut feature for the film’s director, Joseph Kosinski (see interviews with him here and here), whose background is in architecture and design rather than in drama or literature – you know, those old-fashioned disciplines that involve human beings.

Boomer New Age morality tale?

So, what are we about to get here with Tron? I’m guessing something stylish and dull – with a dash of retro-liberalism (of the anti-corporate variety) to keep the Boomers happy. (Incidentally, there’s some speculation that this new film may already be subtly setting up the corporate villain for the sequel … )

In the meantime, Olivia Wilde continues to flaunt herself (see here), and otherwise make herself out to be the face of the production. As annoying as she is, that’s probably a good idea given how flat Garrett Hedlund seems, and how spaced-out Jeff Bridges seems in his interviews about the film (see here). Somewhat more fun are the Daft Punk guys, whose “Derezzed” video just hit.

More sinister, however, are inferences from several people (see here and here) that Disney is psuedo-suppressing access to the charming, old version of Tron while the new film gets its marketing binge. That’s certainly an ironic development for a movie that’s supposedly a sub rosa critique of ‘fascism’ and enforced sameness. (In fairness, the old film just got remastered and will be getting a Blu-ray release in 2011.)

Incidentally, whatever happened to that Path to 9/11 DVD, Disney?

Beau Garrett in "Tron: Legacy." Maybe she knows where Disney's "Path to 9/11" DVD went.

• Michael Bay is coming out of his cocoon as he finishes Transformers 3. He’s talking to the media about the film now (see here and here), he’s allowing people to visit the set, and is now saying that he loves working in 3D. Also, a teaser trailer is coming, and there’s a new poster out for the film.

I’m not sure how much juice the Transformers series still has, really, but we’ll probably learn something from that trailer. Footnote: Megan Fox is really seeming out-of-sight/out-of-mind right now.

• Nobody’s hitting the panic button yet, but the Cowboys & Aliens trailer did not go over well – not just with me, but apparently with test audiences who laughed at it, thinking the film was a comedy. Ouch. Anyway, the production team is now suddenly doing a lot of interviews (here’s Favreau) and allowing set visits (see here and here), but questions are still being raised about whether this picture is going to work.

Also, Nikki Finke noticed today that the one-sheet for Dreamworks’ Cowboys & Aliens looks a lot like the one-sheet Dreamworks’ other alien invasion thriller, I Am Number 4. Oops.

They’ve since put out a new poster, although it still has the same feel.

I’m getting bad vibes about this project. Cowboys right now is looking like one of those All Star teams in basketball or baseball that looks great on paper but doesn’t play well. We’ll see.

• Ridley’s Scott’s Alien prequels have been pushed back to 2013 and 2014. What’s more annoying, however, is that Olivia Wilde is suddenly in the mix to play the lead. PLEASE STOP CASTING THIS PERSON. She’s already in Tron, Cowboys & Aliens and the Logan’s Run knockoff Now (which also just halted production) … and now Alien? Look, I haven’t seen Tron yet but I’ve seen enough of House to know that she’s not that good, besides which she’s almost as abrasive as Natalie Portman.

The new poster for "Apollo 18."

• I Am Bored by I Am Number 4, but it’s marketing binge has begun. This alien invader thriller – also from Michael Bay – has a new poster, the film will apparently be converted to IMAX (why?), and there are new interviews out with the director (here) and babes Teresa Palmer (here) and Dianna Agron (here). Basically this looks like another movie about a WASP teenage guy with Special Powers. Never seen that before.

• In other Alien Invasion News & Notes: The Thing has a new release date (October 14th), and there’s a new interview out with the film’s director, Matthijs van Heijningen; Pauley Perette will be playing a girl from Mars in Girl from Mars; Guillermo del Toro provides an update on At the Mountains of Madness (produced by James Cameron); SPOILER WARNING … this may be what the alien looks like in J.J. Abrams’ Super 8; a production still has been leaked for The Darkest Hour; Star Trek’s screenwriters claim they’ve broken the next story; new set photos are out for Judge Dredd 3D; District 9′s Neill Blomkamp is going forward with a mysterious sci-fi project called Elysium; Alex Proyas is going to do a big new sci-fi spectacle called Amp; a Red Faction movie is coming to the SyFy channel; Mars Needs Moms has a new trailer out; Apollo 18 has a poster out already; there’s a big new Avatar exhibition in Seattle (see here and here);  and author Jonathan Lethem takes a look back at John Carpenter’s 1988 alien invasion thriller, They Live. Whew.

• On the Creature Invasion Front: Troll Hunter will be having its world premiere at Sundance; besides having one of the greatest titles in the history of the cinema, Piranha 3DD now also has a release date (September 16th); and David Ellis’ untitled 3D shark thriller recently got picked up for distribution. So there you go: sharks, piranhas and trolls.

• In the time since our last Invasion Alert! we’ve lost the great Leslie Nielsen from Forbidden Planet. Our condolences to his family; he certainly will be missed.

• On the Home Video Front, some classics from Roger Corman are finally coming to DVD: Not of this Earth, War of the Satellites and Attack of the Crab Monsters (not as bad as it sounds). Also: have I told you people that I caved and bought the whole first season of the new V? I’m definitely enjoying it thus far (here, by the way, is a review of the Complete Season 1 on DVD).

• It was both funny and sad to read about the Skyline guys’ surprised reaction to the torrent of abuse that film received on-line. Apparently they couldn’t understand all the trash-talking because, as they put it, “Brett Ratner liked it!”

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … I finally got around to watching the sci-fi music video “The Ghost Inside” that Christina Hendricks did this summer (see below). It’s a little odd, and slow … but it’s got Christina Hendricks in it as a robot with detachable parts, so how bad could it be – right?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on December 8th, 2010 at 9:06pm.

She also thinks she's Joan of Arc.

By Jason Apuzzo. We’ve been speculating for some time here at Libertas that Disney’s Tron: Legacy might go political. The early, key indication of this was an interview with Bruce Boxleitner in which he suggested that the big bad villain of Tron might be a wicked defense contractor.

In a new interview today, Tron’s Olivia Wilde adds a new dimension to this story and confirms that the film will, indeed, have a strong political subtext to it. Here she is, talking to Collider:

Collider: Watching last night I sort of got some political undertones in the film –

Wilde: Absolutely. There’s a totally anti-fascist message here.

Collider: She really believes she’s doing the right thing, having this war on imperfection. Do you get that now having seen the whole film?

Wilde: Yes, absolutely, and I saw it more than ever in the movie last night. I knew that was there in the script, but I was really excited to see, like, ‘Ooh, good. We have a little bit of a political slant.’ Maybe no one will notice but you and me, but I think the message, again, is that imperfection is beautiful, the idea of accepting flaws. The story is of a dictator who has ethnically cleansed this universe and what’s left is this desperate and miserable world. The message I think of course is that compassion, humanity and humility are important in our own lives as well as in politics. Again, that makes me think about how incredible Jeff’s performance was because to create a character like Clu who was this merciless dictator who really kind of sends chills up your spine as you think of maybe who he resembles in actual history, but I think it does have a message as well, a political message as well as one just about humanity in general.

Wilde also indicates in the interview that she identifies her own character in the film with Joan of Arc. (This may explain why Wilde was also posing recently as Lady Liberty in ads for the A.C.L.U.; she certainly seems to have an expansive view of herself.)

I would love to know exactly who Wilde thinks Tron’s “merciless dictator” resembles “in actual history,” wouldn’t you? Why do I think I already know? Hint: I doubt she’s talking about insane Islamic theocrats eager to wipe out Jews, or any actual fascists in today’s world; she’s more likely talking about America’s ‘virtual,’ imaginary fascists that haunt the current liberal imagination. And we all know who those guys are …!

The young, CGI Jeff Bridges as a "merciless dictator."

In any case, I think perhaps we’re starting to get the vibe of what this film will be saying. As we’ve said here on almost a hundred different occasions recently, sci-fi is the new medium through which the big, ideological statements are being made in the cinema. (Although, truth be told, sci-fi has actually being doing this for decades.) If Avatar didn’t make that point clearly enough, the many new sci-fi films coming in its wake will.

Incidentally, Tron’s currently tracking poorly. This won’t help.

Posted on December 2nd, 2010 at 11:23am.