The Day the Earth Stood Still Quick Review

This is the only movie I went out to see during the Christmas and New Years break. Nothing else looked real interesting. Maybe the new Bond film, but I can wait for it on DVD.

Oh, I'm including spoilers so if you haven't seen the film stop reading now.

-----Spoiler Alert!!!!! -------- You have been warned.
So the basic plot is an alien spacecraft lands in Central Park. We send all 4 branches of our military, the New York City Police, and the National Guard, all armed to the teeth and ready for action! An alien (Klatu, played by Keanu Reeves) and his robot pop out of the ship to greet us. Someone shoots the alien and the robot then takes out the assembled military. The shooting stops and the alien dude is rushed to the hospital and saved. The story goes from there.

The original short story starts the same way, but the alien dude doesn't live. The story is more about the mystery surrounding the robot and what happens to it after the initial incident.

In this version, the alien dude is here to serve judgement upon the human race. We apparently are going to destroy the planet, so a consortium of aliens has sent Klatu to do a quick review of things and take us out. This is where things start to get silly.

To "save" the earth, the aliens decide to take DNA samples of the all living species on the planet. Then, they proceed to destroy all life on the planet. lol. A very interesting way to "save" the planet.

In the end, Klatu is convinced that there is hope for us. So he proceeds to stop the planets desctruction half way thru. Thus leaving our female lead and her child alone and with no food, water, or transporation of any kind. And since the aliens apparently destroyed all our electronic equipment, no way to get any help. So their reward for saving the human race is probably starving to death or dying of thirst.

In addition, the end result of Klatu's actions would be the death of millions if not billions of people due to starvation, famine, and disease because of the complete destruction of human infrastructure. Real happy stuff. lol. I will not be purchasing a personal copy of this movie. :)

Review: Scrapped Princess

This is the most recent series I completed watching. A solidly good series, but not great. Spoiler alert! Detailed plot elements are discussed in the Thoughts section of the review. Skip that section if you wish to avoid spoilers

Plot
The story takes place in a medieval world of knights and chivalry. Well at least that is where it starts. The main characters are a young 15 yr old girl named Pacifica, her brother Shannon, and sister Raquel. The story starts with the family on the run. Long ago, there was a prophecy that a princess would be born that, if not killed by her 16th birthday, would be the poison that destroys the world. That is what the Church of Mauser says anyway, and since they are the only religion and also the official state religion, what they say goes.


As you may have already guessed, Pacifica, is in fact, the scrapped princess. Instead of killing her, the knight assigned the task of killing the baby, gave her to a kind couple in a small town to raise. As the series starts, the government and the church have found out that the scrapped princess is still alive. Since there are only a few weeks until Pacifica's 16th birthday, can her family keep her alive long enough to poison the world, or possibly save it?

Thoughts
The world the story takes place in starts out very medieval. The first hint that things may not be as they seem is Raquel's use of magic. Her powers seem to come from devices that appear throughout the world. Then the group ends up fighting and encountering unworldly beings that turn out to be robots. More and more technology is discovered. Eventually, we learn that humanity fought a war against a technologically advanced alien race some 5000 years before the story, and lost. The aliens locked the humans on Earth, regressed their culture, and left a number of robots as jailers. However, a couple of the human built robots not controlled by the aliens were also left behind to help the humans break free when the scrapped princess appears. So there are quite a few giant robot fights by the end of the series. lol.

The story progression is pretty good and the character development is pretty good as well. I'm not sure I really cared for the ending. It seemed to really contradict everything that took place up to the final episode. Why spend all that time trying to kill the princess when you are just gonna let her decide the fate of the earth? That didn't make a lot of sense to me and is the main reason for the 3 stars rating. This series can be purchased via Amazon. See the following links if you are interested.

Rating: 3 out of 5