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Taken?
jeepliberty writes "Was I the only one to feel like I was "taken" by the latest Spielberg mini-series? It concluded last night on the SciFi channel. It started out great. The first five episodes were excellent. Then like milk on the counter, it started going sour. My sister is a writer and after she sees a movie she always picks it apart for continuity, character development and plot. I always tell here "Get a life. It's just a movie." Well after I saw the 7th installment, I started picking up my sister's habits and began picking it apart. "Taken" seems to have taken a little bit from "Firestarter", "E.T.", "Sphere" and quite a few others."
I can't help but feel, along with many others, that Spielberg's time to shine has come and gone.
It seems each movie gets a bit more out far-fetched and unbelievable with the years. He's even using the latest "fad" actors in his films rather than tried and true classic screensmen.
Anyone else think his time is over? I mean, A.I. was supposed to be a masterpiece, but all it was was simply two or three hours of some annoying "Sixth Sense" ghost boy trying to find his mom.
I watched it every night and true the first episodes were by far better. My dad even started to watch it with me on about the 6th night. I especially like how each night for the first week was a different decade each night. When it comes out on DVD (which I assume it will just like Dune did) I might actually buy it.
AZTEK
I agree with the original poster that Taken seems to have cribbed bits and pieces from all over the place. I must say, in Episode 9 - where people were seeing what they were thinking about. Well - I do believe that came from an episode of Star Trek - The Original Series. And I do think it was done better in Trek.
Also, the original poster is right on about how the first episodes were good, and how it went south in the second half. I say, just about the time Alison was conceived was where it took a dive. Of course, that's just IMHO.
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Taken was a bad soap opera. I lament the time I spent watching it.
Spieldburg didn't write this stuff. It isn;t going to have the cohesion that we viewers have come to expect in his finer movies. To take the "Short stories" and blend them together is a tough job. Look at what can happen (Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles) when one author tries to show a splintered vision along a unifying theme. Bradburys stuff is good,Don;t get me wrong; but taken on a whole, it doesn't rise above the individual stories. I think a lot of people were expecting Spielburg's stuff to transend the original writers' work because he looked at it and put his rubber-stamp-signature on the project.
Is "Taken" really great? Nah.
Is "Taken" worth watching? Sure.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
No, you're right. Taken isn't *bad*. But it's not really science fiction, either, which is why it's disappointing. It's a mainstream piece of entertainment that leverages the public's knowledge of the modern mythology of the space alien in order to tell the stories of a few families torn apart and brought together, sometimes all at once, by the tribulations of the 20th century. That's not a bad idea, per se. But sometimes while watching Taken you've got to wonder if it might not be better if they just took the aliens out of it altogether.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
O.K. folks, I heard a song by Emmylou Harris that I have never heard before on Thursdays episode of Taken. It also played on Fridays episode and I have never heard this song before. It was titled "Just before it gets dark". Can anyone tell me where to find this song and what album it is on? I must know.
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You probably waste mote time reading and replying to all these frickin whiney posts.
You insensitive clod!
Which is what I think is wrong with speilberg and lucas ... They are candles who have burned too brightly for too long, and they are simply extinguishing. I'm not going to talk about "selling out" because that's cliché, but its clear they lost their passion long ago.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I too was "taken" in by the first five episodes of the series. It created an interesting and exciting storyline about events that might, or might not have, happened in our past. Adding the Spielberg touch, he was able to draw the audience into a spellbinding story that made us wonder what was to come next.
After the weekend though, it felt as if Spielberg decided to take a nap and let one of his assistants take over. The story became uninteresting with two supposed "lovers"--ages apart--running around teetering from being "bad guys" to "good guys" to just plain "weird guys."
While the first five were good--the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth were manageable--the seventh episode was the killer. In the seventh episode we watched the inside of a room and the outside of a building for an hour and a half as we learned as little as possible about the rest of the story. Watching the preview on the eight episode was more interesting than the two hours of the seventh.
While I am critical about the last few episodes I feel that overall it was worth twenty hours (two per evening) to watch this mini-series event. Not only was it interesting--to a point--seeing twenty hours of rather "quality" programming in two weeks is hard to do with the shows on television. If you have the time, check out the reruns this weekend on the Sci-Fi channel (at least the first five).
Movies serve one purpose -- to entertain. In fact, all entities can generally be classified into one category based on one primary function that they perform. For example, computers are designed to perform fast calculations. Movies are made to entertain. Actors and actresses appear in movies to pay for living expenses, whereas they appear on Broadway and live theatre productions to hone their acting skills. Writers' purpose is to organize a lot of information into coherent articles and papers. Constructions workers build things. Engineers design things. It's really that simple.
It's often been said that there are only two things that should be used to rate a movie on its entertainment merits.
1) Does the story take you somewhere?
2) Do you care about the outcome?
That's it. That is essentially what Spielberg and every other movie creator's goal is. They want to entertain and captivate audiences, but if that's going to happen they have to address those two crucial questions.
It's not that Spielberg isn't a master, it's just that he's forgetting the whole purpose. His movies have become too cold and outsider feeling; audiences are subsequently being turned off to his stories these days because, time and time again, they don't feel taken back or captivated, and they don't have an emotional tie-in to what happens in the plotline.
I think popular films of the current day can learn a lot from the anime sub-genre of filmography. It's about interesting characters that people care about, and stories they grow to love and understand. The basic simplicities of life.
Anime is not child pornography, it's not tentacle rape, it's not insert_whatever_typical_complaint_here -- it's just captivating, wonderful film. And it's new, it's fresh, it's fascinating, it's an art form.
Spielberg no longer is these things. He's old hat, washed up, boring, dull, tantric, mundane, and irrelevant any more. He turns great Kubrick, Dickens, and Shakespeare stories into a cold abbreviated plot with characters no one cares about and actors that aren't the most skilled craftsmen in their field.
I used to love Steve, I really did. But lately it's almost as though he's just doing movies to occupy his time. I no longer leave Spielberg movies at the theatre with my mouth open and dripping. I leave with a gritty taste in my mouth and thoughts of less-than-his-best wander throughout my head.
I miss the old Spielberg, and I'm sure you do too. Perhaps a petition is appropriate. Let's just say "Steve, get back to basics. We love you and respect you, but you're abondoning your true fans and are losing out on wonderful films as a result."
Well, that's just my two cents. Like I said, I'm not a critic, and I'm not putting him down.
"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
This is hardly news. Or stuff that matters. Why beat a dead horse?
from alt.binaries.multimedia.scifi.
I had high hopes.
I couldn't stand it. Stopped at the 60 minute mark, and deleted it. I couldn't believe how slow it was. Slow is an understatement. It was painful.
It doesn't help that Michael Moriarty was in it. He was great in Law & Order, but has been taken by the drink (he was charged with assaulting his common-law wife, and has been ordered to have no contact with women while drinking).
I don't like a lot of smarm, I don't like alot of romance, and I just don't understand why they keep trying to peddle sci-fi to the mainstream. The compromise between sci-fi and mainstream always sucks.
Steven Spielberg did not write this. Leslie Bohem is the driving force behind the project - Steven Spielberg is the "brand," if you will.
I think it was a fine series. The writing was often subtle and thoughtful - a rarity on television these days.
Pity Steven, constantly riddled with the knowledge that his movies, while financially successful, are really no more than pop picks of the week.
He picked up AI as an homage to Kubrick (so he said), and succeeded only in showing the world that he will never ascend beyond the Indiana Jones adventure flick.
As for Taken, I thought it ended quite poorly. The only bright spot I saw was the littlegirl, whos actiing ability seemed to shine through the drivel lines she was forced to deliver.
I am still trying to figure out exactly why the little girl, who was supposedly the SUCCESSFUL culmniation of the breeding project (as opposed to her father), was in the end unableto control her powers. I mean, if she risked dying by using her abilities how the hell is she a success? And if she's the most powerful telekinetic imaginable why the HELL doesn't she just fly herentire family to a lovely Pacific atoll for a nice vaction?
Very stupid ending, amazingly convenient, horribly sappy.
-rt
True, I was thinking of posting what I told my friend yesterday...
"i wasted 20 hours of my life.. 20 hours i coulda used to sleep, go into a coma, stay home from work, masturbate, smoke crack, anything else but watch that stupid Taken miniseries, ARGH 20 HOURS"
my life is pretty pointless so wasting 20 hours isnt truly wasting anything important, but i didnt think anyone would care, but now i know i was wrong and you must care, you wasted your time to reply.
(yes, i know you're a troll)
Your right in that at some points i felt it was in no way a movie about aliens. But without the aliens to tie it togather they would have not had much of a power strugle story that was the crawford family.
AZTEK
"Steven Spielberg Presents Taken"
At least that's what they kept on telling on TV :)
... I was waiting for snot to come out of her nose again.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Aside from that, what really sparks you as bad? Minority Report? For all of its plot discontinuities (did I spell that right?), I think that the consensus is positive - it was an enjoyable sci-fi film with good performances all around, albeit with a few cheesy moments. Let's look at his films of the late-90's. Amistad - never saw it, but heard good things. Saving Private Ryan - do I really need to go into this, it was hands down my pick for Best Picture in 1997 (Grr ... Shakespeare in Love?) At this point I'll mention his involvement with Band of Brothers. A little bit earlier, Schindler's List, another classic.
TV is a new avenue for Spielberg - don't count him out yet. Over the past few years, I think his good work outweighs his bad work.
Let me guess, Steven, you picked out yet another (originally) interesting film with a "crank" that I'm expected to turn and turn until OOP! big shock, a jack pops out and you laugh and the audience laughs and the dog laughs and I die a little inside
?
Taken was simply awful.
The beginning had potential, but wasn't really excellent as others have stated. The beginning would've been excellent if the series had actually built on it. Instead it just ran around in circles. Nothing actually happened. It was a 20 hour miniseries about aliens and there were about 5 minutes featuring aliens. And nothing whatsoever was added to what scifi has already said about aliens. It was just derivative and uninteresting and definitely could've been improved by a shorter running time.
I wrote up a more elaborate and swear-filled review at my blog, if you'll excuse the flagrant self-promotion.
It was slow. There were a couple of hours of good stuff very loosely packed into 20 hours of air time. In the first couple of episodes I found that I could turn it on, watch for 10 minutes, wander away for 10 minutes, and return to find that I hadn't missed anything interesting. In the last few episodes I could watch 10 minutes and leave for a half an hour and not missing anything. I'd like to see a fan edit of it down to maybe 2 hours or so. I'd probably watch it without wandering away.
Not that anyone including SciFi or /. cares, but I refuse to watch this show after they murdered you-know-what. Opting for the Spielberg name was doubtlessly hoped to be a free ride, though I doubt Spielberg comes cheap. I'm still skeptical of SciFi's editorial decisions. (These are the guys who broadcast double helpings of John Edward, after all.)
Not that I think I'm missing much. IMHO Spielberg's stuff has been pretty bad for a while. Here is a DVD'd list of his film work -- how many titles have you seen, and how many have you liked? There are a number of notable turkeys. I know many people love him, but when I hear "Hollywood" as a put-down for something thought glib and slick and insincere, I immediately think "Spielberg."
So that's two strikes against the show. And, as we all know, even if we miss a show and later regret it, the reruns will hound us for years if the thing was halfway good, or even if not. I laugh now to think how I once meticulously archived Star Trek: TNG episodes (I confess that was a major reason I bought the VCR). I had no idea how popular the show would be!
This is hardly Spielbergs second film, but I
just think there was too much of it. There are
parts that are very skillfull, but the story
doesn't need 20 hours to be told.
That's why I thought of the 2nd system effect.
The series is bloated and includes practically
one of everything. If "Taken" had been much
shorter forcing the viewer to imagine the parts
that couldn't be told, it might have been tighter,
tenser and better.
Oh, wait, that was "V."
... and thought it made school seem a little less boring by comparison.
Slow-moving, dull. At least that's the impression I got by seeing about 15 minutes apiece of several episodes. Time wasted.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It was so hyped I didn't even bother tuning in. Sci-Fi needs to get their act together and show good stuff again, like Lexx season 4.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
> 1) Does the story take you somewhere?
It certainly did: for about 3/4 of the series. What the heck are these aliens up to? How will society be impacted? What does it all _mean_?
> 2) Do you care about the outcome?
Sure: but that's where the series falls apart. It has a stupid, hopelessly vague answer to the "what the heck are these aliens up to" question. It's ending is designed to say "no impact on society at all". Nothing happened and every character (and the audience) who expressed concern over these events over the 40-some years of the plot is shown to have wasted their time.
I suppose the failure to emerge of clear, thoughtful pictures of what these aliens were all about is supposed to leave me with the imaginative freedom to Wonder in Awe at the Big Imponderables but this rehashed Close Encounters ending -- well, been there, done that, and it only took around 20 minutes last time.
I'm a little surprised about all this Spielberg-bashing.
Are people saying that an older, highly acclaimed director with a lot of clout and past success can't make good movies? Look at Robert Altman.
Spielberg is 56 years old. He could be making movies for another 30 years, and who knows what he'll choose to do?!
At the moment, from what I gather, he is trying to ensure the profitability and stability of the brand new major studio he created, the first in many, many years. He seems to be having some success, especially in animated features, against the company that invented the genre.
Hollywood is nothing if not a breeding ground for surprises. We all know Minority Report could have been better--it wasn't the masterwork that Bladerunner was--but you have to give him credit for putting his considerable resources into a less-than-forgiving proposition.
If what we're talking about boils down to the difference between Minority Report and Bladerunner, then I think it's something both very small and very large. A little bit of inspiration goes a long way, you might say. Maybe the theme of Constitutional erosion wasn't as inspirational to him as the Holocaust or D-Day had been, but I have no doubt that he'll be truly inspired again, whether it's next year or in ten years.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
I think the mini-series ending was left open in hopes of having a "Taken II". At the end of the series, the girl Ali is taken, and says she will return. So in my opinion, I think they will come out with a sequel.
Timothy, go back and play with tinkertoys with your mom.
The shameless shameless repeated plugs for TollHouse cookies was disgraceful.
Sergent: Stand down men
Alien: Would you like some TollHouse Cookies
Soldier: Mom?
Alien: I baked you some Tollhouse cookies
That is the worst plug in the history of TV. An alien offering someone TollHouse cookies. And on top of that they did it repeatedly through the show. I figure they thought they would get people hooked the first so many eposides and then brake out the product placements. No forgivness
I thought the first eposides were great but this last one was awful.
I wasn't. Spielburg has really lost something in alot of his recent projects. Just look at the low quality (comparitively) of AI (especially compared to if Kubrick had finished it), Minority Report, JP 3, and the horrible defacing of E.T.
Although, I am quite interested in seeing how his new "Catch Me If You Can" will be. It looks good.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Funny how when Ali blows up the truck in ep 8? that it does indeed cath on fire, but the next morning the tires seem to be perfectly intact...Last time I checked rubber tires (no matter how "steel-belted" they were) not only melted/oozed, they exploded. So to see all 4 tires in perfectly good shape leads to me believe that the people involved are extremely lazy (possibly) or the fact they wern't allow to burn tires due to the enviromental "hazard" it would make. Even though they coudl have faked it and stripped the tires or something. I'm sorry SciFi, next time try getting a series for the series and not for "the name". (Glad I dont' pay for this crapola!)
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
SSIA. ;)
:(
G'bye Karma
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so i knew what would happen anyway (except for the very end with the necklace, thats not in the book). and actually, i thought the first eps were kinda gay and it got better as it went along.
Taken wasn't about the aliens, it was about the abductees. The reason the aliens were in it so little was because Leslie Bohem wanted to concentrate on the lives of the people involved in the "alien conspiracy". It was scifi because it involved aliens and they're "secret plot to take over the earth", but beyond that, it was, like any good scifi(ST:TNG) about the people, their experiences together, etc. Sure, it wasn't amazing in that regard, but honestly, I've never seen a film of any length that was. I thought, for what Taken was written to do, it did an excellent job. I'm glad it didn't get any more into the aliens, I was sort of dissapointed in the 9th episode until i figured it out, because I was afraid they were going to "reveal" too much about the aliens.
Oh well, what do i expect from reviews by people that read slashdot...
I gave up on Taken after they threw the kid in the bomb shelter and there was a window in it.
The Lone Gunmen are killed in the final episode.
You have been warned.
...another dime out of my pocket or another second of my time. After AI and that ball of crap Minority Report, I'm through with good old S.S.
especially your use of (shudder) "mecha"
I would like to see what was left on the cutting room floor.
Characters that changed completely or were dropped out entirely.
supposedly there was a Narc in the AA mtg.
Charley's personality does a 180.
Little Blondie becomes a half-comatose bawling non-alien.
MaxHeadroom and SheBitch pretend to have a thing for each other... Or do they...Or don't they... Beats me.
Haul in the troops. Bang our sheilds. What you mean she's gone? Oh well I guess we can leave them alone now.
It bit.
The best parts of the show were the living-tattoos on the illustrated-chef, the buzzing in bubble-toed-insect-boy and the suprise budda-gator in the scifi-bumpers between shows
I would love to see a show dedicated to all those creations.
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hahahahahahah
classic..That's going in my sig.
Farscape at least introduced that bullshit "Jewel" comic relief girl late in the show. Lexx was just a giant alien comedy that never was scifi from the beginning. Lexx is junk. My computercase alone is better scifi scenerery than what lexx threw onto the stage.
I've never even SEEN AN AD ON TV for this "Taken", and I've got DirectTV. How often do I have to suffer through the watered-down crap on Sci-Fi to know about these kinda things?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
They started running commercials for Taken in June. With that much advance hype you just knew it was going to suck.
Watched the first two episodes, and the speed of the story was like watching paint dry. Caught pieces of eps 3 4 5 6, and the watched the final hour of ep 10. The plots of XFiles and Close
Encounters did better explaining these same things.
As far as I was concerned, SciFi bought a name and spent WAY too much for what they received. They'd have been better off keeping 'B5:Crusades' running or funding the other Stryzinski (-5) series...
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
A lot of the less stellar movies from Spielberg 'seem' to be from the sci-fi genre. A lot of people were upset with Minority Report, AI, Lost World etc. (with the exception of Close Encounters). The Spielberg films a lot of us cherish are his more -believable- attempts; A Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Jaws. A big part of watching a movie is knowing the characters..
After the weekend though, it felt as if Spielberg decided to take a nap and let one of his assistants take over.
Seeing as how Spielberg had nothing to do with the story, the writing, the directing, or the editing, that's not too hard to believe.
I write in my journal
Movies serve one purpose -- to entertain.
And books?
And Music?
Movies are just as viable a form of teaching and communication as any other interaction with ideas, no matter their source.
--- I do not moderate.
Is a goddess! Just wait until she's grown up.
Taken
I liked it alot. Yes it had it's flaws, yes there are better things, but it was very entertaining. That they got me to devote 2 hours a night to watching it, to using my VCR to tape my normal favorite shows to watch later (instead of tapeing "Taken" to watch later) shows that was good. The events themselves were well paced, and the show moved along untill the last 2 or 3 episodes, which seemed like they were stretching for time.
I think that they did a very good job overall. I didn't think that the special effects were rediculous. Many times movies/miniseries/etc have special effects that are so over the top that you stop being "in" the movies, and get taken back to reality. That didn't happen here. I also think that Matt Frewer (the guy who played Edison Carter on Max Headroom) was perfect for his role. The little girl was great too. Nothing else seems to stand out that much acting wise. I also have to say that the switching between the 3 families was pretty confusing at first, before I got to know the characters. It seemed like they spent very little screen time on one family before moving to the next in some of the early episodes.
The story was pretty good overall. There were lots of good "it makes you think" type things, or just new twists on old ideas. For example, I loved the idea that the craft that crashed in Roswell crashed BECAUSE OF a weather balloon. I don't think I've ever heard that before. That was just such a perfect idea. I do have a few problems though. First of all, things like the little alien implant being some kind of centipede looking thing which causes people to go insane (or whatever) bothered me. It's not the idea, it's that it wasn't really explained, AT ALL. Also, the whole thing of the burial site in the woods had next to nothing to do with the story, except as an excuse to kill people.
So overall it was quite good. My biggest complaint can be derived from above. I think that there were a few things that they needed to spend more time on, and a number of things that they spent way to much time on (for their impact on the story). Overall, I'd give it a 4.5 or so out of 5. It was very intertaining.
Spielberg
Some have said above that he's "over the hill", "past his time", etc. Well, I think it's hit and miss. "Taken" was good, and I'm glad it was a miniseries because it wouldn't have worked as a movie, or just a 1 hour a week series. "AI" was pretty good, but it was LONG. A good chunk of that movie could go and it would be better. It reminded me ALOT of "Bicentennial Man," with a little bit of an "Outer Limits" episode thrown in. As for "Minority Report," I'm looking forward to seeing it. I always wait 'till things come out on DVD to see 'em, so I can't comment on it.
Sci-Fi Channel
I think they did great with this. It was heavily promoted so it didn't end up flying under the radar. And I'm glad that Spielberg's name was attached, because if that wasn't emphisized, I'm not sure I would have watched. I heard that it got over 6 million viewers one night (or something), which is the largest share any cable show has gotten ever (from what I heard, ignoring pay-per-view events); even outdoing the Sopranno's season primere. I do have two complaints for Sci-Fi though:
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
All I could think of when I saw the ad was how bad it would be.
Each writer has a certion style. It's hard to stay fresh and on some level there are some elements some writers could never do well.
This plot device has a HUGE potental and now forever doomed to be compaired to 'taken'.
It's not 'spealbergian'. This is best done on low tech seldom a space ship with more goth stylings.
It's gotta go in directions he can't go.
Picture a Buffy the vampire slayer where Buffy never gets hurt.
Picture a StarTrek where the main cast members die as often as red shirts.
(Not becouse the actor wants out but to maintain a certion roll over of reality where everybody dies eventually)
I admit I never saw it but I can't help feel he's jumped to quickly into the dark.
He's got experence in the light and cute now he's gotta learn writing all over again if he wants to go this deep.
I had my doupts about my attatude.. still do.. I've never seen how can I know for sure?
But if Clive Barker were to make a Smerfs cartoon I'd have no doupt it'd be screwed.
Oh well... He'll be able to approch the subject matter later when his gothic stylings have matured...
Who knows maybe we'll see a total rewrite with a diffrent title from him.
I don't actually exist.
Compare "Taken" to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (an anthology series from the early days of television). In both cases a reknowned director put his name on a TV product that he did not write or direct.
Spielberg spent $20 million while Hitchcock worked on a shoestring budget (the series was cheaply produced even by 1950's standards). The real difference? Though the quality of the Hitchcock TV series was sometimes uneven, overall the presentation was filled with wit, intelligence, and first-rate talent. Nearly a half-century later, many episodes are considered classics. The series continues to play in syndication around the world.
Despite Spielberg's nearly endless budget, digital effects, modern color & sound, and TEN hours running time(about as much as an entire season of Hitchcock), "Taken" falls flat.
For posterity's sake, perhaps the miniseries should be retitled "Mistaken".
the mini series, being scifi, is ahead of its time?
Let me start out by saying that "yes, it plot seemed to be less interesting as the episodes went by"...but I think this has more to do with the time compression element of the story than it does with Steven Spielberg.
I really like the first 5 episodes, I also thought Jesse K. was the best character of the show. The early episodes with Owen Crawford held me spellbound (that character was my manager at Terabeam). The episode directed by the former "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was easily the spookiest. As the story came out of the "time compression" that they were holding to in the early episodes, the plot started to wander. There just wasn't enough depth of character to fill up the final hours.
Remember also that Steven S. was the overseer of all the other directors. The individual episodes had seperate directors and I could feel the difference from show to show.
In the end, it's all just entertainment....and most people here posting watched it...enjoy it, it was free and you also got to see those halfway funny IBM ads.
I really don't mind if these sci-fi production companies chooose to film in Canada because it is cheaper. However, I really get freakin irritated when their Canadian actor's hideous accents wreck the mood. I mean these are supposed to be Texans, and people from Las Vegas. It sounded like I was watching CNBC.
Thank you for yor time.
I wasn't able to catch the miniseries, though I saw it was by Spielberg and wanted to...but it seems he borrowed a lot from Dune, the comprehensive Science fiction epic by Frank Herbert. Resurrecting humans from their dead cells. These resurrected bodies were called Gholas. Just wanted to add that...
The first 5 were fantastic, I won't argue with that. The last five were mediocre, but I had other reasons to watch. The actor who played Lisa Clarke (Emily Bergl) used to ride my school bus with me. Kinda interesting seeing someone you used to sit next to in a miniseries. Good for her though, I think she did a great job, even though the episodes she starred in were a bit lacking in plot.
today is spelling optional day.
48,000th story, baby! woot!
now THAT was a good mini series!!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Tivo. I can't imagine how anyone braved the commercials every two minutes without it.
It is suck, but it is not a Spielberg film. He is just a producer-- the big boss behind, not the director. The film made me remember those sick old days watching Hongkong made _cheap_ films. Good guys are so good, bad guys are so bad, they are just some silly make up but not living humen. Don't mention how stupied the story is.
Yes, I feel a bit taken by Taken. IMO, the flaw with this particular tale was a lack of clear conclusion. It became fairly obvious by about hour 16, that the author really never decided for himself what the aliens were really doing. Instead, we got a bunch of vagueness about post-reptilian brains and the "next step in evolution." Yawn.
I'm sure I'm not the only long-term sci-fi fan who reacts to the premise "the next stage of human evolution" with ennui and disinterest.
The lack of a compelling motivation for the aliens -- and just saying "it's beyond our understanding" is nothing more than a cop-out -- is the fatal flaw in Taken.
I liked the characterization -- particularly the character of Mary, one of the best cold-hearted bitches to come down the track in a while -- the extended story line, many (but not all) of the special effects, and the overall concept. However, the lack of any real conclusion spoiled the mix. Yes, I'm sorry the mother had to let go of the little girl, but that's hardly an emotional conclusion that fit the overall piece -- sort of like framing Romeo and Juliet in terms of Nurse's little girl growing up.
Sigh.
Julian May.
Alfred Bester.
Poul Anderson.
People who knew how to end a story.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
I am truly amazed about how bad his films have gotten, there is more flash and gee wiz than story.
I heard that he will directing another Indiana Jones film, I hope that he doesn't screw it up Like Lucas is with Star wars.
what do you expect from a guy who is asshole buddies with Bill Gates.
If you had been paying attention you would have noticed "Taken" was not Steven Spielberg's doing, rather, it was made by Speven Steelberg. Speven's work is unwaverinly brilliant, warranting your undivided attention, adulation and praise by virtue of the power of his name alone. When Speven Steelberg "presents", you'd better watch. I didn't.
And ready for you to take her down town to make the day of some aliens.
Who can't agree this picture looks like Allison at 18years old? If you disagree, I say you have bad tastes!
NOTE: she is in the middle of a field...making crop-circles maybe?
the movie picks YOU apart
eat shit you tastless trekkar!
Ally is grown up, by the time of episode 18. She is somewhere in her late teens. Picture here.
Thank me now!
I don't know what this FUD is all about. The people here reviewing it probably only saw one episode. You have to see the entire 20 hours, which I did, to get the entire experience. The reason most of the people here dislike it is probably because it had limited "action" and more drama/story.
I saw the promo for "Taken" on the USA Network (USA is affiliated/owns the SciFi Channel?) and I was a bit skeptical. Also, it seemed Spielberg was getting too much glory, as there were many many directors (one for each episode, I believe) who took part in the miniseries. So if you don't like this, it isn't entirly Spielberg's fault.
Anyways, I thought the miniseries was very good. Probably the best miniseries I've ever seen. And the best "Alien" story, in terms of accuracy and "it could of happened"-ness, as well.
The great thing about the miniseries was the theme of "Family" as it followed three families from the 1940's to today. They pulled it off quite well, as you could see traits of the characters which resembeled their parents/grandparents. And how they all intermeshed and met up again in the future.
The Government was portrayed quite badly, as offical governement workers often killed off innocent people to keep the secret. If the Government really did that, it is very dangerous. Here's a tip: If you ever find aliens/UFO's etc., call CNN or the Today show gang, not Uncle Sam. It reminds me of one of the few episodes of Stargate I've seen, where some guy says "It's almost worst to lie to your citizens than to commit murder".
The aliens were interesting as well. They did a good job of crafting them, but I believe they could of done better on the special effects. They certainly weren't up to par with the current movies in theatres, but around to where "Enterprise" is. The Alien ships were interesting, as it displayed what they could look like in the interior. The theory about them meshing together to create one big craft was interesting as well.
All in all, the people who did this miniseries did do their homework. As I reconized a lot of plot which was taken out of real life events. I also remember the crew mentioning that they intereviewed abductees and sifted through a large amount of documented events and theories before doing the show, which payed off IMO.
I would like to see a sequal, but I'd like Steven Spielberg also to do it. If it loses any of it's original imagineers, I think it would be very disapointing.
Yeah really. Which part of "Steven Speilburg presents " is not understood?
There were 11 different people credited with directing, and Leslie Bohem is credited with the writing.
What did Speilburg do on this project?
"Executive Producer"
A producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the filmmaking process, but who is still responsible for the overall production. Typically an executive producer handles business and legal issues. See also associate producer, co-producer, line producer.
There were 7 other people credited with co-producing this little epic.
Steven apparently wrote the checks and had meetings once in a while to oversee what everyone else was doing.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I have to agree that whatever Stevie tacks his name on now usually ends up sucking long schlong. However, as was mentioned in another post, this was mostly due to the large orgy of directors (wasn't there one unique director per episode?). My personal fave was the one directed by the guy who did Poltergeist (forgot the ep
To make it simpler, I'll refer to the separate stories as the Crawford, Clarke, and Keys stories.
So what were the pros of this series? Well, it looked like they really thought it out with the first five episodes. Everything up to the moment when Owen Crawford dies is pretty darn good. The other thing too is that these writers should have known just by putting a mini-series on sci-fi, this was going to be viewed primarily by sci-fi junkies and geeks. I think this was sorta kept in mind during the first five episodes, but then it went to shit. Oh yeah, kudos to Matt Frewer in his performance..by far the best in the whole mini-series.
The Craford Story
The tech and such was pretty well thought out, but then if you talk to some aerospace buffs, you'll find out that LMartin wasn't really doing much aerospace in the mid 50s. Not to mention, all flying wing research was scrapped immediately after Edwards' crash in the late 40s. They also seemed to be right on the money by using a thinktank of primarily physicists and engineers to try to figure out what as going on in the 50s. However, there were like no thinktank groups at all that were being used after 57 or so, which makes me really wonder how much these writers know about how the military would approach such a problem. I do applaud, however, the way the writers incorporated such events as the crashing of a UFO into a weather balloon near Roswell, NM.
Keys Story
So this part of the story had a lot of potential, but was ruined by mid story. I won't waste a lot of words on this, but how could a guy like the Keys grandson suddenly turn his opinion around about "our friends" (aliens, as was referred to by Clark and associates) in light of how those abductions ruined the lives of his father and grandfather? The story was rich when telling about the lives of Jesse and his father facing with the traumas of abduction. Then again, I guess meeting with the Clarke chick just made him forget all about all those years of suffering.
Clarke
This story was gay from day one. Alien man makes love to texan woman. How hick can ya get? Half-breed son has a love for hot dogs and and baseball. Granddaughter likes pink hair and drumming. Great-granddaughter can make everyone see flying saucers with the power of her mind.
Overall, this story could have been better, but the line the Crawford daughter said explained it all....
"This isn't the X-files"
Steven apparently wrote the checks and had meetings once in a while to oversee what everyone else was doing.
If I had to take a wild-ass guess, I'd say that Spielberg probably backed the production with his reputation and good name. I'm sure this miniseries cost a fortune to produce, and DreamWorks probably wouldn't have been able to raise the money to do it if it hadn't been for Spielberg's involvement.
But again, that's just a guess.
I write in my journal
i guess everyone missed the big fat christ-type story going on. throughout the series you can draw parralels to events in the bible. also, the whole "it was too much like other alien movies". it was supposed to be. the people saw what they wanted to see. that's why everything seemed like a cliche, more or less.
You are one sick puppy...she's only 9!
then yes you were taken and no we can't help recover them time that was lost to you forever...
Allie grows up to be Sylvia Saint? Holy Christ! I knew that chick couldn't be from this planet. Being able to take Rocco's cock up the ass just ain't natural.
I was ROTFLMAO when the tollhouse lady said "You'll shoot your eye out" to one of the soilders in the saucer thing. That's when I turned it off. But you know what the scary thing is. The channel that I turned on next was playing "A Christmas Story" and Ralphies mom just got finish telling him "You don't need a bb gun, YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT." I think I'll go have some chocolate chip cookies now.
I forgot to commend Who Framed Roger Rabbit though what I liked about the film had much more to do with the styling, dialog, and Bob Hoskins's amazing ability to act against thin air. Kathleen Turner's uncredited voicing of Jessica Rabbit was very nice. It felt like a movie where Spielberg was farther in the background, some 15 years ago.
Taken had elements of Sphere? My condolences.
Sphere was awful, stinky, just plain bad. The book stunk, and so did the movie.
I agree with you mostly, however, the mother was not simply some construct to act like his mother. It was a cloned body and it was altered so that it wouldn't think about much other than david, but the mecha had captured her "soul" and placed it within the new body, which is why it would only last for a day. The mecha had discovered that once a "pathway had been taken in space-time it closes and cannot be reopened"... so, once someone was braught back from the dead, as soon as they lose consciousness (fall asleep), they die again & once they do, they're gone forever.
Shouldn't this comment have been made around the time that Jurassic Park 2 came out?
But seriously. Speilberg is NOT the end-all be-all of directors, and he never was. He is just good at making popular movies. Not particularly good ones.
Not to say that I didn't enjoy his films, but his "films" completely lack the sense of aesthetic beauty of the works of Errol Morris, Peter Jackson, Stanley Kubrick or even George Lucas. Jaws and Schindler's List are the two highlights of his career; he put his heart and soul into each one of these pictures.
Let's not say that he was ever the best director of all time. He's the most successful director of all time. (Him or George Lucas...I forget which.) And as all you Linux people can surely agree, corporate success does not necessarily equate with quality.
shut up...it's fiction, you idiot. The guy has a right to his opinion. Cram your attitude for once....or is your head in the way, as usual.
What the hell is wrong with you whiners? Mor eto the point... what were you watching, and what bad whacky weed were you inhaling?
Taken was excellent. You say it's slow? I don't agree. I thought the plot cooked along, touching on a lot of common preconceptions about aliens, and tweaking them. Such as the weather balloon CAUSING the crash. That was almost a stroke of genius.
Did is slow down in the second week (last 5 eps)? Sure it did. We went into real time story mode. That's a given in most cases unless the title of the show is "24". It more than made up that in the 9th episode... the ruse was almost PERFECT, and pulled off to excellent effect. It was probably one of the best hours of television in quite awhile.
Then again... opinions are like arse holes. We all have em, and we don't need to see em.
I've been avoiding the series primarily because SciFi seems to be hell bent on reviving the US UFOlogy entertainment industry. This has been suffering recently since the X-Files colapsed under the weight of its own overdone mythos. There has always been a strong link between fiction about UFOs and the so called "true stories". Many early encounters cribbed details from recent science fiction movies before convirging on the current pattern of abduction stories. At any rate it is interesting to see the sudden invesment by SciFi in the abduction mythos at a time in which even many key players in American UFOlogy are backing away from the huge number of abduction claims made in the 90s.
due to his far left-wing politics, I am
boycotting anything connected to Spielberg.
I will not spend one second nor one cent on what
he produces, as he would only turn around and
give it to his fellow socialists. And since I'm
sure it will be accused, I can assure you this
has nothing to do with his religion!
After seeing that piece of crap called "A.I.", he fooled me once; shame on him. After seeing that piece of crap called "Minority Report", he fooled me twice; shame on me. Pardon me if I don't even need to see his latest effort. I'm still scraping the doo off my shoes from his last productions. What Madonna was and now is to music, Spielberg has inherited the same legacy. Someone please put a parking meter in his slot at the production studio to collect money to reimburse me for the pain and suffering I've been put through as he tries to milk the last remaining bit of money he can from his ever-fleeting burst of notoriety.
I agree. And the answers
1) The story started to take me somewhere but in the end it didn't.
2) I actually haven't finished that last half of the last episode (I don't care to either). I spent all that time wathcing all the episodes but I still didn't care what happened to anyone in the story.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
I really love my hound dog but I guess for 3.2 million I could loan him to the military...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Didn't you ever learn that the bitch was in the details?
How WELL did it take you somewhere? WHY?
HOW MUCH do you care about the outcome? WHY?
I suppose you could write a whole standard review answering those.
see subject.
After shows like the X-Files, movies like Signs and his own Close Encounters, this series is not simply redundant, but just outright lame
There were some elements of this movie that were done and done quite well, but there simply wasn't enough to hold it together, not to mention I felt like I was watching every alien abduction movie that had ever been filmed spaced across a two weeks and massive hype. To make it worse, you finally find out the core of the Aliens plan of diabolical abductions, cross breeding and secret agendas... It's because they're curious. WHAT!? It took two weeks to tell the audiance that alien abductions are caused by beings that are "curious" and are looking to reawaken their emotions?! They needed this epic breeding program to find out THAT?! Aliens that don't know right and wrong. They're just curious. It was a total anti-climax. And in the end, all is right with the world and psycho woman finally sees the error of her ways, after the murder and attempted murder of a dozen people along the way. Riiiiiight.
I'll ask Spielburg a minor favor here... Don't make another alien abduction movie. Ever. Or a movie about aliens. Or one involving space. Or one...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"Taken" seems to have taken a little bit from "Firestarter", "E.T.", "Sphere" and quite a few others."
Including, as barake pointed out, the Christian Holy Bible. The riot troopers in episode 10 were definitely evocative of Roman soldiers.
How much could this series be thought of as having Taken from CE3K or simply expanded on it? That would depend on just how much Spielberg was involved in the day-to-day as opposed to just being the money guy.
There's a hint of Nietzscheanism toward the end in the idea that Allie is superior because she's a combination of alien intellectualism and human passion. The subtext still reads to me that the aliens are missing something due to their 'more evolved' state, a la GR's Earth: Final Conflict, and that it's the humans who are better. It's almost the Trek prejudice that humans have something special and unique and are superior to other species, but I'll want to watch episode 10 again before I commit to that.
Of course, as "I'm confused! I don't know which genre flick I want to rip off!" filmmaking goes, Taken is still far superior to Event Horizon or Supernova. (It genuiniely pains me to bash an Angela Basset movie.)
And, of course, it's always good to see more of Matt Frewer.
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
Movies serve one purpose -- to entertain.
No, that's not a fact - just an opinion.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You're completely discounting a 20 hour series becuase in one 2 minute scene some tires didn't act the way you expecting them to? Wow.
Oh, get a grip. ... hell, pick a mass media. By insisting that all anime is incredibly good, you're basically showing that you have absolutely no ability to critically evaluate it. A hint: Any art form or mass media in which a single fight scene can take twenty half-hour episodes to get through, not including the digressions away from said fight scene to show other, minor characters fighting, is not automatically captivating. Nor, I would like to point out, is it automatically wonderful. So, I reiterate: Get a grip.
Anime can be tentacle rape. And there's nothing that says it has to be 'captivating, wonderful film.' It's not new - it's been around as long as animation has been made in Japan - and it's just as much of an art form as any other mass media. It's a mass media. There's good anime. There's bad anime. There's tentacle rape anime. There's magical girl anime. There's five-people-in-giant-robots-saving-the-world anime. Some of it is pretty good. Some of it stinks to high heaven. Saying that all anime is 'captivating, wonderful' is like saying that all novels are 'captivating, wonderful,' or all comic books are 'captivating, wonderful,' or
Taken was not sci-fi. It was a drama with sci-fi elements. I didn't get a chance to wath the first four episodes because I was afraid of what Speilberg would do to sci-fi. If you go into a series expecting something, the you will generally be disappointed. And as for the people saying it is a rip-off of other movies and tv programs, there is no such thing as an original idea. Well, except for maybe Memento. The reasons the aliens are so much like what everyone else has written is because the storyline's premise are the events and ideas around the roswell incident and other supposed alien abductions. I thought the storyline was pretty good and cohesive considering it took 20 hours to tell. People bounced around from bad guy to good guys because that is how it really is. Even Moussalini had his good side. Now I am not saying that Taken was an excellent series. Taken was an acceptable piece of work. For those of you who say you wasted 20 hours of your life watching it. What would you have done with those lost hours? Watched other tv show you could complain about. It is not like you would have written a masterpiece of human literature, cured cancer, or stopped world suffering. How do I know that? Anyone who watches that much tv is bound to not have an imagination, cripling their creative thinking.
Haha. Looks like you got mode'd. Dumb whore.
That's not Sylvia Saint, Sylvia Saint has larger nipples than that. Have you ever noticed that her left one is larger than her right one also?
Doesn't anyone recall Spielberg's Amazing Stories ? I'm a huge fan of Twilight Zone, and these were similar shows to that. However, I believe just as with Taken, Spielberg did not wright all of the episodes -- he just had his name attached to the series.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
I didn't talk to anyone else before forming my opinion on it. I didn't wait to read a review about it. In fact, I never read or watch reviews for movies.
The movie sucked. Perhaps it was powerful. I don't deny it. But it sucked.
It sucked ass.
I felt bad for the robot boy, true. I felt sad when the mother (replica or resurrection, either way) died, and the kid closed his eyes to sleep too.
But mostly I felt like it should have ended when the kid was under the water staring at the blud fairy. Even more, I felt like I got "taken" for $10 for the price of the ticket.
True, at first I thought his rescuers were an alien race, but later I realized they were just "evolved" robots. Natural to expect that, especially since it was mentioned by the gigolo robot earlier in the movie.
It still sucked.
They could have gone a lot of better ways than showing that humans disappeared and only robots were left. They could have gone a lot of ways different than taking the robot out of his time.
They didn't. And it sucked. It probably (or will probably) win awards. People who consider themselves the elite will sit and think about the movie, and come up with reasons why it is a great movie. But it sucked. I didn't pay $10 to see a movie that will be considered great and thought-provoking by the "elite" of the artistic and intellectual set. I paid $10 to see a fun scifi movie that would be entertaining.
It sucked, and it wasn't entertaining. "Artists" can pile a quart of dog shit on a plate and call it art, but I resent being told I should appreciate it as art just because they tell me. I really don't like paying $10 to view it.
I was just annoyed as all hell at the total usurpation of the entire channel for a two-week period for this damn mini-series.
When ABC runs a mini-series, they don't suspend every other show on their network for the duration -- they show all of their regular programming at their usual times, changing only necessary shows to open up slots for the mini-series.
But not the Sci-Fi^h^h^h^h^h^hTaken Channel! They removed EVERYTHING BUT "Taken" from the lineup and replaced every single show with the cheesiest movie they could find, as though any timeslot NOT devoted to showing episodes of "Taken" (OR "Roswell" retrospectives" were beamed directly to the Satellite of Love.
I found this maddening, to say the least. I would have liked to be able to turn on the channel at some other time during that two weeks and see something OTHER than "Taken", bad Roswell "in search of" take-offs, or MST3K fodder. At the very least, I would have liked to be able to watch Babylon 5...but that's a totally different complaint. They don't give a crap about any show the fans actually LIKE. (Like Farscape.)
But I digress...
Then there is the sheer level of saturation. They decided to give us the super-deluxe "phalanx-gun" treatment for the "Taken Experience", making absolutely certain that there was NO WAY IN HELL we could miss an episode except on purpose!
Each episode would be shown THREE TIMES in a row, then once again the next night, before the new episode, then all of the first week's episodes were shown AGAIN on Saturday and Sunday, just in case! Then they showed the WHOLE THING this weeekend, in case you missed the last two weeks!
I must admit that it *was* convenient one night, when I simply HAD to watch the 11PM showing due to an evening meeting that ran long, but I could have set my VCR if I had needed to. This was such overwhelming oversaturation, it approached the baroque.
I certainly hope the ratings were what they expected...because it seems to me that Vivendi placed an awful lot of hope on this mini-series. If it didn't generate what they expected, I expect next to hear reports of bankruptcy filings.
---ArdRhi
Sic Biscuitus Disintegratum
I was wondering how many posts it would take for someone to say it. Yes, not all Spielberg films are happy tales. He's simply a master of melodrama. What offends isn't how sugary things can get, or how sad, but how overtly MANIPULATIVE his touch can be.
If you're even a little sensitive to blatant emotional manipulation, you won't think Saving Private Ryan is all that brilliant. What happened to subtlety? "Oh, but war isn't subtle." Mmm, thanks for the info. Some directors might think tugging on those heartstrings is more effective when it's not done with heavy-gauge cable. *That* is why E.T. disappeared from the public consciousness so soon after it was the incredibly big hit it was (no, not now when it's trendy to trot it out, as an example however not as good viewing fare) -- because it was so sentimental and overtly manipulative, no one wanted to admit they had been successful victims.
Lots of people saying "That's what makes a blockbuster -- make people feel good." Well, maybe. In fact, probably. But **good** films, IMHO -- the ones you don't want to forget -- are the ones that don't give you easy answers, in S-man's case try to push them down your throat. What if Mookie had "done the right thing"? We'd all feel fine as we walked out of the theatre (all is right with the world -- good people do good things and the wicked are punished), and wholly unchallenged. Spike made us sort out some complicated issues for ourselves. (I won't talk about his later stuff)
When has Spielberg ever done more than spoon-feed us his own answers to his questions?
jeepliberty, is that you ? I'm Jack, remember me, with the blue Ford pickup ? Did you see your sister in that movie ?_ Videos/felicia-high.asf
http://www.chicktrick.com/gdpdq/Tricked_-_Felicia
And you thought she was writing movies eh ?
Seems to me, that one possible interpretation could be that David had simply gotten into the two-sigma range of his MTBF and died out, or, like a cell phone in dormant mode, simply exhausted his power supply over thousands of years and it was eventually used up.
Spielberg did NOT direct this movie, he produced it. Not to mention, there were 10 directors for this project. Each director's interpretation of how the movie ought to play out is different...you should know that. Spielberg brought this show because of an interest he has with extraterrestrials. Don't bash Spielberg's creative talent or ability to direct on something he did not do.
On the topic of A.I. - sure it wasn't his usual performance, but he came back with Minority Report. And let's not forget Jurrassic Park, Jaws, and Schindler's List.
In conclusion, Fuck You.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ok, reading responses here, it seems most people didn't like it on the whole (especially the last few episodes).
With that said, how come you STILL watched all 20 hours of it! According to many of the responses, it started sucking around hours 10-12... that means you watched 8-10 hours of a show you hated!?!
Are we all gluttons for punishment or did you secretly like it and don't want to admit it. They did SOMETHING right if you watched all 20 hours!
Am I the only one who realized that the military could have taken Allie's parents and bred them to make more little Allie's?
I always found him to be repetitive.
ET-story of Jesus.
Firestarter-mental powers very bore-iginal.
EVERY movie of his relates back to an interview he gave back in the 80's where he said something like:
"I get the ideas for all of my stories from other places. whenever I get stuck, I go to the theatre, the opera, the library, etc. I always find the idea that moves the story onward from there...."
I have never been fooled by Stealin Scphielburgler or any of his moronic twists on something he stole from somewhere else. The Intellectual Police should be up his ass for a while. He has even recycled his own material and only changed the premise to make the events seem new. This style of re-stealing stories could be done just as well with an old pasttime from childhood..... remember MADLIBS ?
All in all this wasn't an Alien movie. Most people (including myself) were expecting to see a few humans and a load of aliens. We wanted Special Effects that rivaled any movie to date. We wanted to see the aliens do things unimaginable to us. We wanted blaster rays and huge explosions. We wanted to see our team fight the odds and kick some alien buttox.
We didn't. What we got was a story of the human will, desire and endurance. We saw how the writers imagined how people of different times would react to the aliens. We saw things that we as a society believe to be our strengths. We didn't give up and we fought to the end. The aliens were not the point of these movies, just a means of getting the point accross about how strong we are and that there are some questions we ask ourselves that may never be answered.
What I liked was that story was so large and invloved so many people. What I didn't like was tha it somewhat uninspired and didn't really put any really new ideas out there. It was pretty cool to show how the government dealt with the situation. And Chet (MadHeadRoom's character) was great and I think he added the most to the series. He was pure geek.
All in all it was a solid mini-series. I just don't think it is getting the respect it should because we wanted Aliens meets the Matrix and we got more of a "Great Expectations".
- "Who would have thought I would end up being a humanitarian?" - Chet
I'm annoyed... Several scenes were filmed at my house in North Vancouver, but Taken is only airing in the US! What a gip!
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
I thought the TollHouse cookies was some reference to MATRIX, where if you eat the cookie with Oracle, then everything will be alright....
if (!sig) { printf("Signature Unavailable\n"); }
How the hell can you review a movie and you don't even know who the hell wrote it? Before and after every damn commercial for two weeks they have said STEVEN KING! WTF?! And after two threads of trash, you still have not figured this out yet?
Like everyone else, I've been TOOKEN (not Taken) by this miniseries. Although better than most of the crap on TV, this did not live up to the hype.
After all now, if we go with the story line, about 200 or so people won't be Taken anymore because they can't be tracked since Allie removed the implants. GEESH! I would think the aliens would be kind of peeved if their experiments got away!
if (!sig) { printf("Signature Unavailable\n"); }
. . . both stories involved a "star child" half-breed with extraordinary powers who brings the two sides together in some way.
:P
In fact the end of the "V" television series was immediately called back to memory by the end of the last Taken episode.
"Movies are made to entertain."
yes, and no.
Movies can also be made to educate, or to make a point. the entertaining part is hjow a movie can hold onto a person so the point can be delivered.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
.. because its cost is why Farscape was removed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I wish I had some mod points right now. You deserve 5.
I can't believe how much power that little girl had in her own decision making! Surely real human parents would know when it's best to say "no"?
sheesh.
Loved the first five... the implant operation was intense!
Kubrick had been working on A.I. for a long time before his discussion with began with Spielberg. The following is from the IMDB triva page:
"Stanley Kubrick worked on the project for 12 years before his death, but along the way decided to let Steven Spielberg direct saying it was "closer to his sensibilities". The two collaborated for years, resulting in Kubrick giving Spielberg a complete treatment and lots of conceptual art for the film prior to his death."
The idea for the film originated with discussions between Spielberg and Kubrick, ...
A.I. is based on a Brian Aldiss short story, Supertoys Last All Summer Long.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
It wasn't that bad. There are a few bits that were totally unnecessary and didn't advance the story at all. The ads were really annoying (IBM, go to hell). The character development was great. It would be nice to see it edited down to 10 hours from the 12-13 hrs it was.
Spielberg obviously intended it to be an exploration of ethics and emotions, and he did a reasonable job. But the only scene that was flawless was the attempt to remove the implant and ensuing explosion. I still haven't stopped thinking about that one - whether emotions make a person vulnerable to that kind of violence or whether they provoke it (through a lack of ethics), or both. There's something painfully humorous about the dutiful german scientist relaying, in german, what happened to the elder Crawford.
ok, AI is crap, so is star wars? ( no sound in space....) 2001, boy did they get that wrong! ( men living on the moon?) blade runner? yeah, cars that fly!, T1/T2 ( er? where are the robots? 1997?) can go on and on, seems people pick holes in films, i can't remember watching star wars, and saying, "but you can't have any sound in space....." really what this is all about, we have got older, and "wiser"
You make a statement like that but don't post your conclusions after 'picking it apart'?
This article sounds more like a troll posting on a bbs somewhere.
Obviosly, most UFO-minded people will like at least one of those cliches; several people will like more than one. This means high ratings, high merchandising potential, and rich sequel opportunities. So what if the series is about as fresh and original as IRS tax forms ? It sells, and that's all that matters.
>|<*:=
I watch part of an episode and I thought it sucked; so every time the roommate turned it on; I went hiding in my room. Lucky for me that computer and TV is in my room. Plus it took MST3K off the air for 4 weekends; so I hated it even more. It just seemed from the hour or so I saw of it that it was lame, cheesy, poorly written and mostly stupid. So yeah, it sucked.
I wanted the whole series and thoght it dragged on too long. The book was shorter in my mind but they wanted to include every nuance and every heppening that was in the book. This is not something we usually get in a book adaptation.
/.'ers!!!
:)
I just wish someone would make a TV series or a movie about the whole UFO thing in a more serious manner and leave out all the love story crap. Make it about the recovery, technology, back-engineering and psychological impact. Now that might excite us
Oh well, as for Spielberg at least I have my DVD copies of Cloe Encounters, JAWS and Saving Private Ryan to remember his better times...
While your opinion is widespread and almost understandable in modern times, it is completely wrong. Movies are not merely a form of entertainment. Movies can and should be one of the legitimate forms of art and therefore represent all the potential avaliable to art.
... And in both cases you'd be right. Movies have historically been horrible works of art. This is mainly the fault of the screen writers who don't understand that a plot is a logical progression of events leading to a climax that solves all the problems of the story. 45 minutes of car chases followed by a sex scene and then a gun battle won't make a good movie no matter how good the computer graphics are. They are just random events and therefore don't form an integrated view of anything. and for that matter, neither will a movie about the life of your average neighborhood drugstore janitor because that's not a selective recreation of reality, that is reality. If I could learn anything profound from a drugstore janitor, I'd be at the drugstore right now.
Having said this you have to understand the definition and purpose of art. Art is defined as "A selective recreation of reality based on the artist's metaphysical value judgments." This means that an artist takes only what he sees as important and creates a reality composed of only those things. This gets us to the purpose of art. The main purpose of art is to give a perceptual presentation of a complex concept. This is most easily understood when looking at the art form of painting. When an artist selectively recreates reality in his painting, you are able to look at that painting and perceptually see the complex concept of its selective reality. You see the idea of what he thought was important in mind when he painted it, and this is important because you don't have to independantly create the concept from the vast ammount of your own knowledge, but through the perception of sight you can look at the artwork and say "yes, this represents a concept." I'm not saying that you can mindlesly obsorbe concepts from works of art. What I am saying is that when percieving art, the mind can focus on the selective image the artist has chosen to represent without having all the distractions that may be accociated with it in nature. The whole concept of what the artist thinks is important is presented for you visually. This purpose fulfills a human need to understand important concepts relating to reality. This is the same process in movies, but the most important person artistically to a movie is the screen writer. They are the ones that make the plots that represent the selective reality, the actors are merely the means of presenting it. I'm not saying actors are not important, because a bad actor can ruin the best screen play, but they take second chair to the person that wrote the story.
Getting back to movies, you might be saying, "but almost every movie I have ever seen has been horribly inconsistent with no message greater than presenting the events of any random person's life." or... "The messages that are in movies are shallow and have no meaning to my own life so they might as well just be entertaining."
Because of the lack of good movies as proof that the medium can be meaningful artistically, I can almost understand why you would never consider movies to be anything other than pure entertainment, but you would still be wrong. Just because you've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are a few examples of good movies with complex messages that relate to reality and you can learn something from. One of them would be the recent "Chocolat". For the most part this is a prime example of cinema following the definition and fulfilling the purpose of good art. If you have seen it, you know that it is obviously not naturalistic. The message of this movie is relevant to life in reality and therefore timeless and the events progress logically to a climax that solves all of the conflicts. You can see this movie and come out of it with a conceptual understanding of a complex idea about reality just by seeing that things had to happen as they did following the logical progression of events that you as the viewer merely perceived visually. If that makes any since then good.. if it doesn't then we both need to go read up on aesthetics. While they historically, for the most part, have fallen short of impressive, Movies really can be more than merely entertainment and someone needs to come along with a strong understanding of good art and make this happen.
If you think about it, the series tells us that aliens evolved so much that now they need our DNA to recover some of what they lost. That's something we saw on "Earth: Final Conflict". The aliens from "Taken" even have the commonality and brain implants.
:-)
Not to mention that several moments felt like "X-Files".
But my guess is: it was intentional. Spielberg wanted to bring together in a series all elements of alien folklore. An inventory, if you will, of all stories ever told (or at least the ones most frequently told) about aliens, abductions, government conspiracies, etc.
I think they succeeded, althought I agree that they could've done the same in fewer episodes...
I'm waiting for the DVD with walkie-talkies instead of guns.
If the answer is that they can't because they are not powerful enough, then that's really convenient. The futuristic mecha are just powerful enough to support your interpretation - not enough to build a satisfying mother from the kids mind, but enough to build one to fool him for one day alone, no DNA involved.
What bothered *me* most wasn't the ending, but the idea itself that you can make things that are "programmed to love" or programmed to X where X is some intentionality. If something is "programmed" to love, how can that feeling they have be called love or even be called a feeling or a mental state? Since love is a mental state, it can only exist in minds, and an important feature of minds is fluidity, and even a certain degree of control over it. Maybe you can't choose who you love but you certainly can choose how you will react to that feeling and that reaction will in turn affect the feeling. In my opinion the notion that you can make minds that can love but cannot have a real reaction to their own love, is nonsensical; like saying, let's draw a square, but without sides. Like I said, it was what bothered *me* about it, it's actually quite common in SF to do this.
On the other hand, assuming you can actually build minds that are "doomed to love", then clearly making such minds would be immoral; it would be like creating a flawed mind deliberately, like consciously creating someone with a mental disease. Since the movie was (supposedly) about A.I. I expected that issue to be dealt in it, but it's not. Instead, we get a tale about a boy and his love, or, as you insightfully put it, about the human condition and its capacity for cruelty... All of which I actually enjoyed. Yes, I liked the movie, heck, I even liked the ending in its plain, rosy interpretation... but to me the movie is not really very good Sci Fi, just a very good story. Not that there's anything wrong with that
I also enjoyed your interpretation but honestly, I think it's one of those retrofitting interpratations we often engage in when we have to 'justify'... Nothing in the final scenes suggests that they are going to kill the kid. The interpretation is indeed possible, i.e. not terribly contradictory to anything in the movie but it would be a stretch to say that it actually stems from it (IMHO). OTOH I've been known to try to rationalize the mystical elements in the matrix, myself :)
Nope.
Holltwood movies serve one official purpose -- to entertain (the real purpose is, of course, to make money).
But movies, in general, don't only serve to entertain.
Ok /. , I've read a ton of posts where VCRs are being setup to tape TAKEN. Get a TIVO and throw out the VCR for Christmas! With one click I got every episode of TAKEN and since the SciFI channel aired them so frequently, TIVO automaticly readjusted to resolve conflicts with my other shows I record.
If you'd never do it for yourself, then get one for a friend, relative, or lover. TIVO's change the way you watch TV. They will love you for it.
Go to TIVO now and get one.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
However, for the mini-series universe I could actually buy that. However it is a sign of bad writing when the writer fails to grasp one of the most fundamental of writing ideas, "Show them, don't tell them." Taken fell prey to this on far too many occassions but I noticed that it exponentially increased as the series went on. (or perhaps that was the "newness" wearing out) If we are too assume with the show that this is based in our universe with all its existing reality, physics, behaviors and so forth with only the pieces surrounding the aliens added in, then I will expect people to act like they should. The hokie method of starting with your skeleton plot (for each episode or as a whole) and then filling in detail should not become evident while viewing the show. However what I noticed was an alltogether (and sadly all to often occuring in related flicks) lack of internal continuity with the actual show elements itself and more importantly with the real world.
It is unacceptable to simply throw in people and their actions (the situations) to gloss over the requirements for filler or means unto an end. Bad writing is what will give you a character that is described as logical, thorough, intelligent and very knowledgable that then consistently makes the stupidest mistakes that even a child would not do. For example: Let us assume that I have a character that has not only been working in the blackest of ops for the government, but has worked around the Stalinesque types in that org who feel it is easier to murder and destroy those that just happen upon information as if those citizens were mere used condoms to be discarded. So I am pretty used to the backstabbing, lying, dishonorable and unAmerican practices surrounding my organization. So would if I decided to turn on that organization, would I just do it without at least covering my butt, much less acting out in a way that does not arouse suspicion... in other words acting appropriately based on my character's experiences and expectations.
Or perhaps we have someone that is described as being nobody's fool, who is strong and fights back in those cases where other sheepish folk submit or crater. Now if that person finds that he and his family are being hunted by someone who has the ability and resolve to kill them (and has demonstrated the willingness to follow through with the killing) then would I just knock the killer down and run? Well if I was a retard I would. No, if I had even the most basic forms of animal intelligence and survival instinct much less any logic, reason and pattern recognition, then I would in fact first take the weapon from the killer and after that I would incapacitate the killer by tying him up or if he will continue to hunt me and my family then it is best to kill him. I would definitely NOT simply run off while the dazed but very much still conscious killer will inevitably be going back for that gun that is so conveniently in their hand still or nearby.
of course, that is a lesson to all... if someone is trying to kill you and has demonstrated their willingness to do so then show no mercy as said mercy will only get you killed. Dying for what you believe in to protect it is one thing and then being a fool that allows killing to continue is another.
Okay, so you think taken was "taken" from other filmworks, and you don't like Spielberg... that's okay. But also give credit where credit is due. Taken may well be the most cohesive alien-government cover up-human sci-fi series since the X-Files. And.. they used a different director for each of the 10 episodes, and left a gaping open end for future imaginative speculation of how the alien-human hybrid story evolves in a future film or series. With the current state of stupidity on television, we should all be happy when something of this calibur makes it's way into our television programing.
One of the best miniseries I ever saw was a fairly unknown work called Invasion: Earth. I say unknown in the sense that it didn't seem to do too well in the ratings and didn't take the world by storm.
However, I thought it was one of the best "Earth vs. the aliens" movies for one very simple reason: they didn't sugar-coat anything and the motivation of the aliens was clear and straight-forward from the start, to destroy all like on Earth. They seem completely unbeatable, and in fact it ended with us about ready to get our collective asses kicked, no happy ending, no ambiguity about it. I love that, especially since if it ever continues one would assume we do finally win, and that will have impact and meaning based on how thoroughly outclassed we were, and if they go off and wipe out humanity, that's a ballsy ending and I'll love it just as much. I hate happy, wishy-washy endings where verything is great with little lasting impact. That's not the way life it and it just seems cheesy when it happens.
Such was the case with Taken. I should have expected it with Spielberg involved, but I was hoping otherwise, and was thinking that's how it might turn out based on the first five episodes which I thought were fantastic. They should never have killed off the first Crawford, he was one of the most interesting characters involved. I could have seen him in his 90's still running the show with sone and grandaughter in tow, wacking anyone who gets in their way.
Ah well, I'm not looking to rewrite the series, but it was a big let-down at the end not so much because they tried to pull some metaphysical higher-plane-of-existence wrap-up out of their asses, but because they just HAD to make it a happy ending. And you know what? It might not have been so bad if we were left with Allison leaving forever, never to be heard from again... but no, instead we get "Look Charlie, she'll be back!" So, we take a poor ending and make it that much worse. Just like Data dieing and being "reborn" in B-9... That's why Spock's death was so much better (ok, ONE of the reasons!)... because at the end of Star Trek II your not really sure he's going to be back... oh of course, you more than suspect it, but if he didn't come back or it took two more movies it would work well... but in Taken we're TOLD she's coming back. Geez, let her go and be done with it!
I did love seeing Max Headroom as a wacky super-genius. Can't beat that.
I just can't get past the ending though... actually, the last five episodes were rather weak, and not because of a lack of action... because of a lack of any risk-taking. Tell me a story where I don't see what's coming a million miles away... tell me a story where there are some real consequences for the characters I've become invested in, and don't cop out if you don't have a really good concept guiding it all. Don't tell me "geez, they're so much more advanced than us we can't hope to understand them". That might be true, but it's crap as far as story-telling goes.
Ah, bottom line: if you would have asked me after the first five episodes what I thought, I'd have said it wasn't as good as V (which by the way if you don't own on DVD, you can just tear up your Real Geek Club membership card because you don't belong!), but it was close, and if the last five episodes went well, it could be on par. But, as it is, I think it was OK, and could have been told in a lot less time. I don't mind spending 20 hours on a miniseries at all, but the payoff has to make it worth it, and this didn't.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
(and smarter than you fucking losers)
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Because of my youth, any movie set before the eighties is a period piece to me. And that's basically how the show was split. The first week was between the Korean War and around 1980. It was interesting and colorful to me.
The second week was by contrast, just boring. And then the last three episodes had all that goofy-ass alien stuff and a bunch of nutjobs. The families over time gradually got worse (with exceptions, Tom Clarke was my favorite in the Clarke family). Owen Crawford (I believe that's the name of the first guy) was my favorite character.
that it took to film the largest group-nosebleed scene in the history of cinema.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
...aliens write bad mini-series about you taking _them_!
You're upset because you're watching TV and its not original enough for you? Hmmm.....
In related news, I stuck my hand in a blender but it didn't make a milkshake.
*****
Hahahahahaha! You spend wayyyyy too much time with yourself!
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Whatever deeds...
I thought Taken was quite good. The story did drag at times, and the yes, there were wierd plot things... but the acting was good, and the character development was even better. That's just something you hardly ever see on Sci-Fi, not to mention science fiction in general.
And this show stuck to the age old tenet of any good sci-fi - hardly EVER show the actual aliens. In 20 hours, I maybe saw 10 minutes total of aliens. That's GREAT! The story is really all about the people, as it should be. Sci-fi, at least I feel, is always better when you can relate to the people, even when their situation is totally unbelievable.
And that's what took me, really. The characters and acting. It put "Taken" on a tier above everything else that's ever been on Sci-Fi, if you ask me. And sure, sometimes it seemed predictable, but more in the way of me going "boy it would be cool if things ended up THIS way..." rather then "sheesh, I new that was coming"
-a
It's kind of a bad sign for where Spielberg is in his career that people don't sweep the room for bugs before referring to this series as "Amusing Stories" anymore.
I always liked "The Twilight Boutique." You know, in the mall, second level, across from that place that sells lava lamps and plasma globes.
I loved the series. When the "Taken" series comes out on DVD I will have someone buy it for my birthday/Valentine's Day/Chrismas whatever. I thought the film was awesome up till the last three days when Allie was taken by the government. After that point, it seemed as though the film lost its legs and everybody was trying to figure how to end the series and it got sloppy. The final episode was very disappointing especially the charcter of Lisa Clarke. The actress had done an incredible job up to that point but the last episode the emotion was so fake it really took away from the story. Specifically, on the porch bending down trying to keep Allie from going, her expressions looked like she was laughing instead of the hysteria which I would be going through. Overall, Taken was one of the best scifi stories I have seen/read in a long time. I think my favorite episode was the one in which Allie ends up going with the government. The whole episode taking place in the that tiny room and seeing Allie's powers for the first time was amazing. I was extremely touched when Allie showed the dead man's son to him, allowing him to let go. All in all, an excellent series and almost perfect if it did not fade towards the end. Another excellent project from the SciFi channel, let's hope they can continue you bringing us projects of this caliber.
Congratulations, you managed to reduce the over-simplistic dualist arguments normally found on Slashdot to a yet a more simplistic level. That's impressive. In your world movies are 'just' entertainment, Kubrik might disagree.
who cares if kubrik disagrees. why does a movie HAVE to be anything more than entertainment? even more, why does a GOOD movie have to be anything more than entertainment?
What did you find lacking in Shakespeare, beach landings and exploding heads? Spielberg is without question a master of the spectacle but it's not enough. I recently bought To Kill a Mockingbird on DVD, a simple, quiet story that expresses more basic humanity than the entire Spielberg CGI universe. Forty years later it's still as powerful as the day it was released.
I don't think time will be kind to Spielberg and believe future generations will look back on Ryan much as we look back on movies such as Ben Hur, impressive but ultimately empty spectacle.
That's definately a good point, but as I recall I saw it as an indication that David had evolved (maybe through advanced mecha help). The stuff about the mecha's fabricating the whole event still isn't necessary nor does it make any sense to tell him it's only one day if they plan to put him to sleep anyway.
Interpretation is subjective, but I try to take an Occam's razor approach. I know that a program (the ultimate basis of any AI) is extensible, that David does demonstrate learning capabilities, that his mourning period (minus the offtime in the ice) isn't abnormally long for a child seperated from his mother in such a way. My assumptions are that the advanced mechas are honest, caring, and capable of modifying his program (if even necessary). That doesn't seem like a big leap.
I think it takes a lot more assumptions for the other interpretation and one might as well assume David's entire experience was on a computer. That would actually explain how all the various improbable events fell into place to set him on a journey his creator intended him to take (i,.e. the surprise recovery of Monica's son which is essential for his abandonement).
Wow, I'm bowled over by your explanation. The real bottom-line is that the movie was too long, too boring and had no good story to it. I understood the movie and the ending and I'm left with a sense of "eh, big deal". Everything in the movie had been done before. Might I mention "Blade Runner"? Nothing to see here...move along...move along...
last post people
nothing more to see here, move on
damn the ending of that series was sad.
dakota fanning was fantastic. such a cutie.
If you think AI was even superficially similar to Blade Runner, you need to watch one or both of the movies again. Both movies deal with human-shaped robots in the not-too-distant future. That's where the similarities end.
I write in my journal
Here's another thread I started at hardCOREware.net: http://www.hardcoreware.net/forum/showthread.php?s =&threadid=4379
I'm glad I'm not the only one to frag this lemon!
What took you so long?
I feel Taken alright.
Taken away by the parts, quite good in acting, directing, effects, production.
Taken advantage of, the story basically stinks.
Taken finally, I'm missing over 10 hours of my life that I can't really say what happened, or ever hope to get back.
last post...no more post for you
dakota fanning is a goddess in the making.
Some themes always show up when fiction involves a created being that can communicate with its creator. That may be the similarity to which Mr. AC refers.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Some themes always show up when fiction involves a created being that can communicate with its creator.
Like what, for instance? I see Blade Runner as a fairly straightforward story about mortality, with the added layer of the question of identity if you get into the "Deckard's a replicant" thing. Great movie, great story, great themes. AI, on the other hand, really doesn't have anything to say about mortality, and touches on identity (in the "know thyself" sense) only tangentially.
I write in my journal
Although Blade Runner is a fairly straightforward story, the motivations that set up the story are not.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Hmm. Okay, I'll buy it. But if pressed, I would say that Blade Runner deals with merely ethical questions, while AI attempts to invoke much harder moral ones.
I write in my journal
I read your journal review and am going to give AI a second viewing.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
True, but I would say that morals are the rules for generating ethics.
;-)
According to what I've been taught, experts (whatever that means) disagree on this point. Some thinkers believe that an ethical system should be entirely self-supporting, whereas a moral system is based on one or more fundamental axioms carved on stone tablets or something. I tend to subscribe to this interpretation as well.
I read your journal review and am going to give AI a second viewing.
I hope you find it's worth your time. If not, flame me or something.
I write in my journal
i swear this is the last post this time
btw dakota fanning is a goddess
Allie-n?
last post will be mine
dakota fanning is a goddess
what a cutie.
a goddess in the making.
sigh...
If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a
Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon,
and explode once a year killing everyone inside.
-- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...