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You might consider an alternate explanation for a film titled 'Ad Astra (to the stars)'. The film depicts the (rather spectacular) failure of the first mission TO THE STARS. The crew, which all appear to be married, or at least paired, couples (with the exception of the commander), were intended to be the first generation of a generational crew intended to die in space on the way to the stars (ever wonder why the medical bay seems so large?). The mission exploring the outer planets and near stars, was intended to select prospective destinations. The antimatter engine was intended to be a dependable power source for the unimaginable distances between stars (why would they have needed it otherwise? Wouldn't something like hydrogen fuel cells be much more practical?). The actual mission was kept secret by the program directors, known only to the commander. When the initial mission was completed and the destination planet selected, he told them. They didn't like it, and tried to turn the ship around. Mutiny. The commander, who had succeeded in completely de-conditioning himself against all he knew on Earth (knowing he would die in space on the way to another star), realised return meant his own demise, and so he put down the mutiny- but not before killing the paired crew, intended to produce, as offspring, the next generation of crew, and damaging the antimatter engine, thus destroying the mission itself. He had failed, and return to an Earth to whom he had already long since said farewell, was simply not an option. His son was sent to Mars only to flush him out, to let the 'Rescue Team' know what lay ahead of them.
'Ad Astra' is a film about failure. Failure of a mission. Failure of an understanding to what extent humans are linked to their homes, to their concept of home, and to their willingness to cling to that home, no matter what. If humans are to colonize the stars, these are the problems they must overcome, because once there, there will be no coming back.
The music is terrible, one of the most egregious examples of James Horner's bizarre autokleptomania in his soundtracks. Motifs from 'Wolfen', 'Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan', 'Glory', and 'Titanic' abound, and are repetitive, distracting, and hopelessly overblown. That silly trumpet triplet figure is played over and over and over until it becomes comic and ultimately meaningless, even as it echoes over the two snipers' final encounter like a Hornerian version of Ive's 'The Unanswered Question'. Regrettably there will likely be little change over this in the future, as Horner's publicist stated shortly after his untimely demise that writing music wasn't really what he loved- apparently that was flying airplanes.
How does it even matter? Two good ol' boys, rampaging around the county in a pickup truck, armed with shotguns, is simply a symbol of personal freedom and individuality. One might say these two are out to discover America, albeit in their own ignorant, uneducated, sociopathic way. The important thing is the sudden, awful collision of different people's concepts of personal freedom and individuality, and how it is used in the film to complete the doomed, hopeless journey of the two protagonists. It's a fitting testament to this film's screenplay that it still shocks viewers to this day.
Spector is the dweeby guy in the tan jacket and Scumbag Steve hat testing the cocaine at the airport. He is the main characters' 'connection' to the buyer, who is never seen.
They made a movie like that, dingbat. It was called 'Thelma And Louise'. And they weren't lesbians, just two working-class women fed up with the men in their lives.
Agreed. Totally silly. Where is it written that baboons will attack the Antichrist, or for that matter, that dogs will be his servants, acolytes, and protectors? If worldly lower creatures can recognize the Antichrist, why are they not constantly attacking him? If Damien is the child of Satan, was that Satan, then, inside the dog that copulated with a human woman to impregnate her with the Antichrist? So the dog was... possessed by Satan? All very silly, but eminently, thoroughly entertaining. It's clear the film was manufactured out of a series of eschatological tropes, not necessarily connected with Christianity, or Christian concepts of End Times, or Armageddon. The purpose is to create a miasma of detail, along with every creepy, gory, silly trope that can be presented within a single film, including an impaled Patrick Troughton, and David Warner's head on a sheet of glass. What about the title of the film itself, which is a misnomer: there is no omen, rather, a (fictitious) prophecy that only forms the backstory of the narrative, and really has little to do with the story itself. The film is about a switcheroo between a powerful American statesman's child and this one, and his protectors' battle with forces that oppose him on earth, even as his adoptive father slowly comes to learn his son isn't who he thinks he is. It's 1979, I suppose they could have called it 'The Changeling', or maybe that one was taken already.
Agreed. The food seems downplayed in this film. I looked for the 'Fricasee' in the buffet food, but all I saw were the institutional mashed potato rounds. The entire film was deliberately shot using wide-angle lenses, so such detail becomes very hard to discern.
The exchange between Leamas and the employment official sounds suspiciously like a 'phrase/counterphrase' meant to let the official (who is a plant) know this is the man to whom to give the library job. It looks totally set up, and Nan is the pawn dragged into the operation because of her Communist Party affiliations. So how, then, did Nan get the job, and for how long has she been a helpless tool of British Intelligence? You might ask John Le Carre just how far back this is intended to go, except he's dead. You could ask Len Deighton the same question about Harry Palmer's office romances; were they real, or simply engineered by Control to keep Harry interested/occupied? Alas, Deighton's dead also, so you get the same answer as from Le Carre. Oh well.
I'm pretty sure this story, in novel and film both, is about the downfall of Alec Leamas, a talented and intelligent upper member of British Intelligence, almost certainly to be Chief one day, who is driven to despair and alcoholism by his own boss, Control, who sabotages Leamas' agents and networks by turning them over, one by one, to East German Intelligence, and then finagles a 'revenge mission' to eliminate Leamas, and discredit a talented and intelligent upper member of East German Intelligence, all to protect its head, Mundt, his own double agent behind the Iron Curtain, and also possibly to protect his own job and position. When Leamas, who has lost his job, his career, his pension, and his reputation, sits atop the wall and witnesses the death of Nan, he finally realizes she was the last thing in his life that hadn't yet been taken away. Control then took her away, too, since she could never be trusted to keep secret the things she now knew. Time to leave the party.
Fiedler was already on Death's door because he was Jewish, living in a system where anti-semitism thrives, now that the Nazis have been beaten. In the end, if it came to that, Fiedler was always going to be the one liquidated because he was Jewish and Mundt wasn't. If you look at the whole story, you can see that Fiedler and Leamas were both necessary sacrifices made to protect Control's REAL asset- the double agent Mundt.
In the book: grief and guilt over the General's death drives Mostyn to resign. In the film: Enderby knew Mostyn gave Smiley privileged information, and fired him for it.
Neither film fared well with critics, but they seemed to respond to the style of the film, with its satire, and tongue-in-cheek treatment of military intelligence, religion, and nudity in film, all elements of the original film, which is by far the best of the three.
The name is obviously a mashup of 'behemoth' and 'Quetzalcoatyl', and does seem to resemble a Lovecraft-type demon. It also resembles late-twentieth century fantasy/horror art, particularly that of 'Heavy Metal' magazine. I suspect one of the producers was a fan back in the day, and the film 'Heavy Metal' seems to still carry a heavy influence on the genre.
Why do the bugs, an extraterrestrial race, so closely resemble Earth insects? How did they create a monotheistic religion? How does their religion affect their day-to-day lives? There are a boatload of similar questions to be asked, but I don't think anyone's answering them soon.
As for turds, if they can't be polished, why is it so many people try? And try? And try?
I didn't hate Lola, but I thought they should have worked a little harder in the costuming department to make her look a little less like T'Pol from 'Star Trek: Enterprise'. I think it's an interesting concept to make a strong woman such as Lola into a Christian convert. Knowing this plot-point, I might have referenced older, classic films exploring faith, like 'Quo Vadis', 'The Robe' and 'Androcles And The Lion (which, adapted from a play by George Bernard Shaw, is satire)'. They might even have referenced 'Contact', a science-fiction film whose main protagonist is a strong-willed, stubborn scientist who undergoes several 'crises of faith' in the course of her dealings with extraterrestrials.
I don't think so. I didn't.
The characters are clearly analogous, but I don't think that this film, with its budget, could have afforded even Denise Richards.
Given that his demeanor at the beginning is all part of a byzantine plan to recruit Rico into the Marauder program, I understood his character change midway through. Also he is depicted as a 'true believer' in Earth's system, its military, and their strategy in the Arachnid Wars. I don't think you're supposed to think he's anything but a douchebag, but the phrase 'At least he's OUR douchebag' did occur to me while watching the film. Yes, he could have been killed and declared a martyr, but they tried that with the second film and it failed to move audiences. My feeling is he was a kind of analogue character to Carl Jenkins (played by Neil Patrick Harris in the first film), as Blalock with her photogenic torso seems to be analogous to Carmen Ibanez (played by Denise Richards), and that the whole point of the ending of 'Marauders' was for our original group of friends to live 'happy ever after'. This is satire, after all.
It was a poor film, hampered by a low budget, a meandering, poorly-developed storyline, and a poor cast. So it is easy to hate, especially if one is particularly nostalgic about the first film. Personally I feel Casper Van Dien did a good job reprising his role as Johnny Rico, and though Jolene Blalock is, perhaps unnecessarily distracting, her ending performance echoed the wide-eyed, silly, hyper-patriotic style of the conclusion of the first film.
The film is a satire of religion being marginalized from, and then co-opted into, a military autocracy. That was the purpose of the film. That's what it's doing there. The degree to which it succeeded is, I suppose, a measure of its success. It did not do so well, and several anti-war films have already presented the exploitation of religion in war, though with far greater subtlety than this. Blame the writers if you must, but this really has little to do with going to hell, or concepts of what is, or is not, appropriate in film.