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dean_martin
06-20-2011, 01:40 PM
The season premiere was not bad. Reminds me of AMC's The Walking Dead except with aliens. If you have dvr use it. TNT sold a ton of commercials for this plus they used their own Falling Skies promo during each break. Beats the new V hands down, imo.

GMichael
06-20-2011, 03:29 PM
I watched it tonight on my DVR. It's not bad so far. Lots of potential. Let's see what they do with it.

Woochifer
07-01-2011, 01:22 PM
Finally caught up on the episodes that I queued up on the DVR. It's a nice little bit of brainless summer action TV, but nothing really essential. Mixed bag so far. Reminds me a lot of the original V miniseries (I have not watched the ABC remake series), and it has the Spielbergesque elements.

Kam
07-22-2011, 04:49 AM
I have to say, the most annoying thing (that they did change in the last episode at least), was the constant promos for what was coming up in the show, DURING the show. I really wanted to yell at the TNT execs, you do NOT need to show me a teaser of what is coming up after this freakin' 2 minute commercial break, i'm already watching it! Talk about ZERO faith in your audience. Did they think people would jump that quickly? And since i Tivo'd it i was less annoyed, but still, that was the most insulting thing of all.

Well... relatively speaking, wasn't all that insulting, but still... a tad bit annoying at least.
:D

GMichael
07-22-2011, 04:56 AM
I have been enjoying the show, but little things bug me about it. Like, why is it that a fighter would freeze up and stand their screaming just because a Mech was shining a light in his face? Shoot back! Duck? Take cover some how. Don't just scream like a little girl. What is this, a B horror flick?

Woochifer
07-22-2011, 01:13 PM
The series is starting to get repetitive, and very predictable. I can see why this kind of alien invasion story would work better as a miniseries. They're now 6 weeks in, and it already feels like the story's ready to wind down. The first season is due to go 10 episodes, so at least they're not trying to stretch the premise into a more normal 20+ episode network broadcast schedule.

dean_martin
07-22-2011, 02:05 PM
I read where the series has been renewed for a 2nd season. I have to agree with the repetitive observation and of course the irritating constant promos. I'm one episode behind, but I've been watching them all. The "harness" storyline is getting old.

OT-the new season of Breaking Bad has gotten off to a bang. AMC has begun showing promos for the next season of The Walking Dead. Looks good.

BTW, it's good to see Kam again.

Woochifer
07-22-2011, 02:35 PM
I have to say, the most annoying thing (that they did change in the last episode at least), was the constant promos for what was coming up in the show, DURING the show. I really wanted to yell at the TNT execs, you do NOT need to show me a teaser of what is coming up after this freakin' 2 minute commercial break, i'm already watching it! Talk about ZERO faith in your audience. Did they think people would jump that quickly? And since i Tivo'd it i was less annoyed, but still, that was the most insulting thing of all.

Well... relatively speaking, wasn't all that insulting, but still... a tad bit annoying at least.
:D

Hey Kam, good to see you back!

Yeah, I'm a bit old school in that I thought network promos were supposed to fill up the ad time that they couldn't sell. Now you got these constant corner graphics promoting other shows, and promos going over the end credits that lap over into the first few seconds of the next program.

Falling Skies ups the nuisance factor even further by self-promoting in the middle of the show. It's not even like other shows that do self-promotions to get you to sign up for an online newsletter or Twitter feed. These are just self-promos for the show that you are already watching.

Thank goodness for the 30-second skip button on my DVR. :cool:

Kam
07-29-2011, 07:10 AM
Thanks Dean and Wooch! :D

The angle I was hoping they'd play up more was the desolate landscape feel. At a budget of $4mill an episode, I was actually expecting higher production values. If we'd had our asses that thoroughly kicked by the initial alien invasion, I would have expected a lot more infrastructure to have been wrecked, at least in terms of the infrastructure that the aliens wouldn't have needed to continue their colonization of our planet.

Did anyone see that Discovery(maybe science channel?) show about What would really happen in an alien invasion? It looks like the falling skies peeps followed their outline pretty darn closely. It had fascinating interviews with military and science people detailing theories of invasion and the necessary technology that the aliens would need and be able to have as defenses against our weaponry.

On a side note, why do the dinosaurs from jurassic park look better than the mech's in this?

Doing a not-exactly apples-to-apples comparison, and I'm not an expert (in any way) on the cg technology and how it's been advancing, but:
JP $70mill in 1993 dollars at 127 mins or $0.55/minute
FS $52mm in 2011 dollars at 572 mins or $0.09/minute

So JP had a much higher production budget, obviously, but what about the technology issue? In 18 years the CG technology can't top jurassic park?? I've seen stuff much cheaper that looks far more real than anything from the 90s in spfx, but where is the excuse for why an 18 year old movie's technology looks better than so much done today?

Woochifer
08-02-2011, 12:01 PM
Thanks Dean and Wooch! :D

The angle I was hoping they'd play up more was the desolate landscape feel. At a budget of $4mill an episode, I was actually expecting higher production values. If we'd had our asses that thoroughly kicked by the initial alien invasion, I would have expected a lot more infrastructure to have been wrecked, at least in terms of the infrastructure that the aliens wouldn't have needed to continue their colonization of our planet.

$4 million per episode doesn't really allow for much of a cinematic production. That's why the show seems to limit the screen time for the aliens and other action set pieces, and show lots of dialog.


On a side note, why do the dinosaurs from jurassic park look better than the mech's in this?

Doing a not-exactly apples-to-apples comparison, and I'm not an expert (in any way) on the cg technology and how it's been advancing, but:
JP $70mill in 1993 dollars at 127 mins or $0.55/minute
FS $52mm in 2011 dollars at 572 mins or $0.09/minute

So JP had a much higher production budget, obviously, but what about the technology issue? In 18 years the CG technology can't top jurassic park?? I've seen stuff much cheaper that looks far more real than anything from the 90s in spfx, but where is the excuse for why an 18 year old movie's technology looks better than so much done today?

I think it comes down to craftsmanship. Jurassic Park was the first movie that really tried for photorealism using CGI. The Abyss and T2 set the table with the morphing effects, but Jurassic Park was a big step forward in how the human characters blended in with the CGI characters.

I recall that ILM spent a lot of time and effort to get every little detail with the dinosaur animation, textures, and rendering to look right. At that time, the animation tools had to be custom programmed on Silicon Graphics workstations, and at that time, those workstations cost a fortune.

At that time, the reason to go with CGI was to get a look that wasn't possible using other technologies. Also recall that Jurassic Park also heavily invested in mechanical effects that Stan Winston created.

Nowadays, things are done digitally because it's cheaper and faster. Not necessarily because it will look better or more realistic. The tools are more standardized, and they can run using off-the-shelf desktop computers. Today, something like an iPhone will pack more graphics rendering power than those Silicon Graphics workstations used in Jurassic Park.

The other thing to keep in mind is that much of Falling Skies occurs using the same sets week after week. It's basically a family drama with aliens, and the aliens don't appear on screen all that much.

The look of the show is alright, but it definitely looks low budget compared to theatrical movie.

Kam
08-24-2011, 08:49 AM
It was kind of interesting, but the cliffhanger didn't do much for me. Reminded me too much of the ending of Survivors (the awesome BBC series) but that also might be because i just recently watched it.