Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler So what are you watching tonight?

Took the kids to see Avatar in 3D yesterday while the wife did some last minute shopping, we really enjoyed it, surprisingly for a 160 minute movie it didn't seem so long, we were pretty immersed in it.

My dad shares your opinion of “SG1.” I think what appealed to me was the interaction between the original characters that developed over time. The new characters and storyline didn’t appeal to me as much but still liked them enough to watch it.

I remember trying to watch a couple of episodes of “Farscape” here and there and thinking it was the dumbest SciFi show I’d ever seen (there‘s been some bad ones). Later just before “The Peacekeeper Wars” came out the SciFi channel did a “Farscape” marathon showing all the episodes in order. Watching that I became totally enamored with the show.

Similar with “The Next Generation,” I saw the pilot while living in New Zealand and hated it. More specifically hated the characters. About 4 years later upon getting back to the States I happened to catch an episode, I think from season 3, and was totally blown away by how much I liked it. Now it’s my favorite “Star Trek” flavor.

Not saying you would like SG1 under different circumstances but sometimes a re-look can be worthwhile.

Very interesting Dean.

I agree with you on SG, its pure schlock, but there is a chemistry between the original characters.

I loved Start Trek TNG from the beginning. Patrick Stewart was by far the most convincing Starship captain. Episodes ranged between really good and pretty schlocky.

Farscape was interesting. I think the show captured 'ship life' (ie: stuck with a few people in an enclosed space) the best of any sifi series, but missed on a major opportunity at serious scifi in favour of much more formulaic shoot-em-up.

Yeah it’s not normally the type of show I would have gotten into. I mean for the most part they are on earth or a notably earthlike planet but the chemistry of the original cast just worked for me. IMO it lost a step when they made the cast switch but at least the producers were smart enough to cast two actors Browder and Black who already had chemistry between them so a new sort of chemistry developed including them and Shanks but the others just seemed to fade out. Then when they changed bad guys the show took a nosedive for me. Still watched it but for the most part the magic was gone. However, IMO the direct-to-DVD movies have been pretty good.


I agree Stewart was tops. I just really hated the pilot. All the characters except Stewart seemed hokey and stiff. Steward seemed to be the only “real” actor who knew his character while it took some time for the others to find theirs.


The thing I liked the most about the series was that all but one character were “non-human.” I’ve always found the non, or not entirely human characters more interesting starting with Spock. Just makes them more interesting like Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves . . . . So even though I agree it was pretty formulaic I liked the twists the various aliens brought to the formula.

Just watched the standard def version of “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.” I got tired of waiting for a Blu-ray to become available from Netflix and since I just finished watching the series I wanted to see it while it was still fresh in my mind. Also Blu-ray.com said the video quality of the Blu-ray wasn’t that spectacular, though the audio is suppose to be, so I figured I’d rent it.

The video quality of the standard def was on par with the series which was pretty good considering it was shot to look grainy and mostly dark. The audio quality is a little better than the series on DVD was but still a slight issue.

Which reminds me of something I forgot to mention about the season 4 DVDs I watched earlier in which the audio sucked. The sibilance in the voices on the season 4 DVDs was so bad I for the first time ever used the “treble” setting for the center speaker lowering it by -6dB just to make it listenable. Most including many male voices were so sibilant it was un listenable at my reference volume of 80dB until I turned down the treble at which point I could at least tolerate it. It was so bad I popped out the first DVD shortly after starting and put in something I knew well just to make sure my system was ok. For “The Plan” I only had to turn it down by -4dB so a slight improvement.

I won’t go into what the plot covers in case you don’t want to know but will say that if you don’t want to know who the finial Cylon models are then don’t watch this because they are all present.

Overall this is a great addition to the “Battlestar Galactica” universe. It’s not a stand alone movie so you need to have seen the series to really appreciate it. It does explain some of the why’s behind events in the series which is nice. It also covers a lot of ground so there’s not a lot of wasted time and it flow pretty quickly. If you’re worried it won’t be that interesting because you already know what happed don’t be it’s still very interesting to see this view of events. It’s also cool to see the initial attack fleshed out much more. I’d say it’s interesting enough that I’m glad I watched the standard def version so that it gives me a good excuse to watch it again when the Blu-ray ships from Netflix.

Can you comment on if you think the 3D makes it worth the trek to the theater?

Actually this might go in a separate thread “What did you try to watch tonight?”. I just tried to watch “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” Blu-ray which tries to load but doesn’t. I’m 99% sure it’s a firmware issue since I just read of other players previously having problems with the “Mummy” disks which were corrected by firmware updates.

Just checked my firmware and It’s not the most current but since they just released a public beta on the 22nd I’m going to just wait for that one to become official rather than doing two separate updates. Not going to be heart broken if I have to wait to watch it later since I had 8 Blu-rays shipped for the holiday weekend plus the few dozen I’ve received from Amazon in the last week. And a whole bunch of other stuff I’m way behind on watching.

The 3D was really good in certain parts, I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed the movie any more or less without the 3D. It will definitely be a purchase when it comes out in BR, it does have some really great special effects.

I just watched Heat. Like with Stargate, I'm pretty late to the party. I did like the audio. I like how quiet most of the movie is, but then the helicopters, gunshots, and airplanes are suddenly there, reminding you just how much home theater you have. Overall, the movie wasn't really my thing.

Yeah I didn’t care much for “Heat” when I saw it. Not sure if it’s the movies he’s in, characters he plays, or just him but I don’t recall ever really being thrilled by anything staring De Niro.

Just finished watching the Blu-ray of “Inkheart,” at least the parts I didn’t fast forward through. What a cool premise turned into an utterly forgettable movie. Not even worth reviewing here IMO.