marneederider

Most Sci Fi movies are terrible, not even remotely plausible. This one was better than average. Yes, the rooms on the spaceship were large than necessary, which would not happen at this point in time. And there were various other small items like that.

But mostly it was fairly plausible at the time it was created.

I would have given it an 8 (quite a high score for me), but I subtracted two points for the following reasons:

1) The ending was very abrupt and I didn't understand it. It is not an action-packed Hollywood-block-buster-type film (which is a positive). It attempted to explain what was happening every step of the way. Until the end. I still don't understand what happened. To abrupt and cryptic.

2) The main character is a guy maybe 50 years old and would be considered hideous if you looked at the equivalent woman of that age (but an OK-looking guy for his age, imo). He's married to a beautiful model-looking woman in her 20s or early 30s. She's not only beautiful, but she's intelligent, accomplished, loving, and a great mother. WHEN will this stupid trope end? Yes, there is very occassionally a person in their 50s who marry someone that much younger, but is relatively rare. But in action, SF, and thriller movies, it seems it is the norm. And it is HARMFUL. Because of this, there are women who think that even if they find a responsible man who loves her, they get married, have children, she's loving, and responsible, and good at her job, but 99% of women in the US think that her husband will stop loving her once she reaches 32 and/or if she exceeds 120 pounds. STOP IT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. If you watch UK shows, they show men in their 40s and 50s and beyond falling in love with NORMAL-looking women their age. You're ruining people's lives with this trope.

The entire premise was faulty from the beginning. I can handle taking some liberties with reality in a science fiction movie if it's on the fringes, not if the entire plot is based on this deviation from reality.

How can they say they are protecting these kids from mental health problems in space by raising them in such a way as to guarantee mental health issues? Kids, all the same age, with very little adult interaction, no skin-on-skin touch (for some bizarre reason), is going to cause the kids to have many problems by the time they are, I don't know, 2 years old?

There have been many, many experiments that have shown that children REQUIRE bonding and affection as children to thrive. They can have life-long issues without that, which often can never truly be cured.

So, just setting them up to not miss earth is very, very definitely not going to be the thing that keeps them sane.

Also, for their psychological health and brain development, wouldn't you provide some colors in their training facility and also on the ship? It was just stark white. Not great for mental health.

Absolute garbage. Most science fiction movies are terrible (or are called science fiction when they are not). But this one is far worse than most.

It was far better than most Netflix movies these days. Less flashy, more nuanced.

And then in the last 5 minutes, a totally unrealistic resolution where everything is okay. We've seen, all throughout history, that when a civilization goes completely downhill, there is nowhere to go but down - until everything collapses and a new civilization emerges.

What we DON'T see happen is one person within a very large system making one decision (after many bad decisions), and suddenly turning everything around on a dime.

And everyone lives happily ever after.

These days, with how things are going, a simple happily-ever-after movie is just utterly ridiculous.

This was a good Sci Fi movie up until the last 5 minutes, then it slapped itself in the face.

It seemed straight-forward. Justine revealed that she knew the planet would hit them. Her physical and mental ailments were her feeling the impending end of everything.

Then it was about people. Just how these specific people cope in the end of earth. It's the end of earth. What is the correct way? There is no correct way, but I guess Justine ended it with love and empathy, to a small degree.

I didn't like it. I don't think it's a masterpiece. I don't think it had anything to say. The music sounded like the soaring music when the two people fall in love in a melodramatic 1940s musical.

Visually, it was absolutely stunning throughout.

It wasn't science fiction, and even if it was, there are far better ones on the science side. It doesn't say anything meaningful about people, because let's hope we're never faced with entire planetary destruction in a single moment like this.

It doesn't say much about people outside of that, except different people have different personalities, which we already knew.

It doesn't say anything about depression, because that's not what it was. Justine told her Mom she was scared, and it had nothing to do with the wedding. She was talking about her fear of the impending doom. Her Mom didn't listen. She wanted to talk to her Dad, who abandoned her. She told Claire she knew the planet would hit. This was not a story about depression.

What did it have to say? I don't know. I got nothing out of it, other than a story about random made-up people, who then all died. End of story.

This could easily have been an 8 or a 9, but some lazy decisions brought it to a 6.

I really did like it, but was irritated by old, tired, mistakes that we've seen far too many times.

I don't mind small things being unrealistic, like empty coffee cups, or lack of morning breath. But when major parts of the plot couldn't actually happen, then I'm quite annoyed. I also don't like shows that perpetuate harmful myths.

Issue #1: They show people running through the woods at night without a flashlight. You simply can't do that. Contrary to popular belief, it is dark at night. In the woods, there are no street lights. It's too dark to see. Even with a flashlight, you have to be careful. There are sticks and branches, and dips, and roots to trip you up.

Issue #2: They show a guy popping extra anti-depressants because he's stressed. Anti-depressants are not addictive, they don't immediately calm you or improve your mood. They don't give you a high like heroin or addictive pain killers. People don't just take one any old time. You take them once a day, on a schedule, like most medicines. They used to show people doing this for a while in older shows, but most shows finally figured out the error of their ways. I guess the writers here couldn't take 2 minutes to do a google search on depression and its treatment.

Other issues:

Without giving spoilers, one of the younger characters talked and acted in a way impossible for the way in which she was raised. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but they should have given it more thought.

How the treatment center was run and how the people were cared for there made little sense. But maybe that's how they do things in that country, so perhaps it was true to life.

Don't have Alexander's mother wearing perfectly flawless foundation, powder, lipstick, eye makeup that is perfectly in line with the style of the 2024. Women could be considered beautiful without having faces like wax mannequins throughout history, as it turns out. Making the entire series 100% historically accurate was probably beyond their budget. I understand that. However, this is such a simple bone-headed mistake that I couldn't watch past that.

In addition, they had people sitting and narrating as if they were some sort of experts, but they didn't give any caption stating who they were. Perhaps they did the first time the spoke, but I was not watching every moment. But in a valid documentary, they will have text showing who a speaker is EVERY time they are speaking. Even if they did show it earlier, I'm not going to remember everyone's qualifications after just reading it once.

On a much more minor note, the director should have told one of the commenters to not end sentences as if they are a question. It's very irritating to hear in this type of thing.

There was no point to this, nothing to be learned. It was not based on reality. It was not predicting the future. As far as horror, horror should be based on things we're afraid of. Who is afraid of some completely specific occurrence that will never happen (not some general fear). I just can't imagine why anyone would find anything interesting in the plot.

The acting, directing, etc. Was all quite good. (As usual, you couldn't understand 10% of what the actors were saying, but that's par for the course these days.) Why talented people chose to create a movie on a pointless plot is beyond me.

The dudes were supposedly married for 25 years, but their wives looked to be about 30 years old. The wives are young, boyish figures, n o wrinkles, no gray hair. It looked like Keanu and the other main character were photo-shopped in, but still appeared to be in their mid-to-late 40s. (I think they were in their 50s when filming, though.)

I thought Keanu Reeves was supposed to be such a great person. Why would he consent to being in a movie that is so hurtful to women (and men)?

What is it about American shows that they can't have age-appropriate women? This isn't a problem in UK shows. And it seems like they have better sex lives in the UK, with a much healthier outlook on sex.

Seriously, the plot entailed people putting many innocent people's lives in danger in a car chase to save someone who couldn't die, and the movie makers made it clear we were supposed to root for the reckless people putting innocent people's lives in danger. I thought we had grown past that moral corruptness in movies back in the 90s.

It was a stupid, terrible, cliche plot. It was a slightly humorous idea, but done very poorly. Do 15 year olds actually talk like they are 30-year-olds? (According to every show that has come out in the past 10 years, they do. But in fact, they talk like 15 year olds.)

However, I did love the cast, each and every one.

In Volume 3, episode "Paranormal Rangers", they interviewed a woman who wanted to remain anonymous to avoid people who knew her thinking badly of her for reporting an unusual occurrence.

They altered her voice, but they showed her face. YES, though she wanted to remain anonymous, they showed her face multiple times. They showed one shot where it was an extreme closeup of the bottom half of her face while she was talking. It showed everything except her eyes. It showed her smile. Anyone who knows her would know it was her. Absolutely NOT anonymous. Shame, shame, shame, on the show producers.

They also showed her seated in shadow. Very likely someone who knew her could recognize her from that. I would definitely recognize my son from that. I wouldn't need to see his face.

They also showed the reflection of her entire face in her rear-view mirror, as if being in a mirror somehow makes her unrecognizable.

Main character has a very unusual job. Most people work average jobs. A show about an relatable person should have characters with average jobs, not a unicorn job like writing a column that actually makes money. It is a damaging cliche for young people. Most people have jobs that looks boring from the outside.

Who offers to get their co-worker something when they are going to get a beverage for themselves? No one. At least not ordinary people. Sure, maybe this would happen with unusual people, but the movie plays it off as if this is normal office behavior. It is not. The writers clearly have never lived in the real world.

It's fine to have a documentary that shows various extreme types of "play", but the show creator decided they would make up reasons why we do it. Clearly the writers do not have the expertise to provide any insight into this. Ridiculous. One example is saying we do scary things to "maintain alpha status". There is no such thing as "alpha", except in some internet bros' minds. It's neither a scientific term, nor is it a widely-used layman's term. Another example is saying something about how 200 years ago, we all faced death or did scary things regularly, not as play, but as a necessity of daily life. Such a blanket statement is completely wrong. Most human societies have been stable for long periods. Having regularly scary activities would happen in some times and some places, but was by no means universal. As far as anthropologists know, that would have been true for 10s if not 100s of years. About the only regular scary thing would be hunting large, aggressive game, but doing so is definitely not universal.

To the writers: Next time, stick with just the sensational activities you're showing and leaving the made-believe "insight" on the drawing floor.

I can't believe anyone gave this over a 1 star. You couldn't see a thing most of the time.

I was into Episode 3 and just gave up. I really, really want to know what was happening. Seems like it could have been an 8 or 9 if not for the worst filming (or editing?) I've ever seen in my life. I'll just read about it on Wikipedia or something.

Same old tired cliches: 1. Cliche: The suburban family happily cooks breakfast every morning, but a parent is still cooking, the kids only get to take two bites before they are shooed off to school. In reality, few parents cook breakfast for kids before school. Hasn't happened since cereal was invented. And if they did cook, good parents would let their kids actually eat the breakfast.

2. Asthma is not a psychological condition as it is portrayed in the show. It's not the same as a panic attack. Deep breathing and meditation will not cure it (though it might help a tiny bit).

3. Unlike in the movie, in reality: In the case of an emergency, women do not lose all intelligence. They are capable of making decisions, forming rational and practical thoughts, and making hard decisions.

4. Unlike in the movie, when confronted with the end of the human species, a person would pretty readily break a promise to their family. They would break it if doing so meant actually directly saving the life of their family and saving civilization (without which their family would very likely die).

5. There is zero possibility that a vaccine is going to make much of a difference with a virus that is as transmissible and as fatal as this one. What has it been - a few days? And most of the world is infected? How are you going to produce and distribute a vaccine in time to make a difference? It would have to be distributed to every unaffected person in the next few days. And that wouldn't protect them from being outright killed by the infected. And we knew even before COVID that producing a vaccine and distributing it could not happen in the matter of a week. (I haven't finished the movie yet. I wouldn't be surprised if they also go with the Hollywood stupidity of suggesting that a vaccine can cure people, when in fact a vaccine has never cured a single person. It prevents disease. It does not cure it.)

You put up text "Simulation" when you simulate some part of the events. In this day and age when there are actually real videos of events a lot of times, it's even important than ever in the past to distinguish between real footage and simulated video.

In the very beginning of the "Royalty" episode, they said that in the 1600s, almost the entire world was ruled by royalty. This completely ignores the original peoples of the North American continent. As usual, the history of that region was ignored as if it never existed and had no impact on history, which couldn't be further from the truth.

They said that the idea of everyone being equal and people had the right to choose who ruled over them.

Well, hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian and by and large don't have appointed leaders. And as for the organized governments of North America, at least one, the Iroquois Confederacy (which was a league of nations), allowed all each nation to vote for and send a representative to a yearly congress. (Sound familiar?)

In the Iroquois Confederacy, women participated in all major decision-making. Women had the power to veto any act of war. And women selected the chiefs.

There was no royalty. We don't know how long it had been going on, but certainly since before the 1600s. The US model of government was largely based on the Iroquois Confederacy, except that it was far less representative than the Iroquois Confederacy.

I can't trust a show that would continue to perpetuate this myth that all historical advances were represented by the Europeans, ignoring all other regions. I'm 53 and I'm shocked (shocked!) that this is sill happening today.

Overall, I liked this. In fact, it was better than the majority of so-called science fiction movies. It was nothing super profound, but was a decent story about the effects of unfettered capitalism, with a twist.

But the stupidity of the supporting actress wearing high heels when she knew she might run is just so tired. Guys, if you can't appreciate a movie without a woman wearing high heels, get your heads examined.

That poor actress could very easily have suffered long-term damage from having to run, run down stairs, and climb a fire escape in ridiculously high heels.

They even went so far as to have her run in lower heels in one scene, then when they reached their destination, she magically had much higher heels. This is to train young girls to think that they ought to be able to run long distances in heels with no problem. Talk about unrealistic expectations.

The Mom running for almost 6 miles in high heels was also ridiculous. Anyone who has ever had to even walk a while in high heels knows that eventually, you take them off. The pain of running in high heels is so much greater than the pain of running on soles where the skin has been peeled off due to friction.

Shame on these movie makers.

I don't know why this has such a low rating unless other people rated it very low due to the one glaring problem I noted.

Most so-called science fiction movies aren't even science fiction, but this one was, for the most part.

I really, really liked it overall. Like the science fiction and the human story. I didn't like that they never explained why earth was destroyed, but it didn't lose points for that.

It lost points because it implied these the highly intelligent, well-educated people would actually think that two human beings could perpetuate the species. Per the first result on google, you'd need at least 500 people. I didn't and don't know the exact figure, but don't most people know that you can't perpetuate the species with only one breeding pair???!!!

Another idiotic show portraying government agents stupidly using torture. It is well established that torture does not work. People just lie.

So they portray the government agents using techniques that are illegal and don't work. I'm only at episode 2, so I don't for sure, but let me guess....the idiots being tortured never think the lie - they just blurt out the truth like idiots, further perpetuating the myth that torture works.

Shame on the makes of this show.

This is basically what is happening with regards to climate change, it just condenses into six months what is happening with climate change in decades. Climate change won't wipe out all life on the planet like in this movie, but it will wipe out human civilization if we don't address it.

Very fist scene, the wife discovers that the husband has purchased a house without consulting her. Not even sure if that's legal, but even if it is, it is definitely grounds for divorce.

She gave him a big kiss, when in reality, most people would never forgive the spouse and this would be reason for leaving them.

It was so ridiculous that I didn't watch beyond that point.

I did not mark as spoiler since this is literally the very first minute or two of the movie.

Nothing special or mind-blowing, but a solid story with above-average acting by the main characters.

My only gripe was that they forgot to give it an ending.

I would give this a 7/10, not counting the plot. The plot was a 2/10.

Hypnosis to make people kill their loved ones is not a thing.

The vast majority of therapists are not "doctors". "Doctors" don't have sessions with people with common issues. In fact, if you think you're going to go to a person with a ton of training in pscyhiatry or psychology when you seek help for mental issues, think again. That's not how it works.

As for the "doctors" that do treat patients, if they have a 500 square foot office, they would probably have to charge at least $300/hour, which someone who is unemployed would not be able to pay.

Just as a general plot, this was a very basic, standard thriller. I don't mind the basic, standard thriller genre. That's why I watched this. But it's not supposed to be fantasy, so at least base it in reality. If you're going to go for fantasy, go for something new, not hypnotizing people into doing things they don't want to do, which was debunked and a tired plot device by the 1980s.

Other than plot, my one complaint: I'm glad the main character didn't weight 82 pounds, but if you're going to hire a beautiful leading lady who is a normal weight, how about not dressing her up in trench coats for the entire movie?

This could have been created 40-50 years ago, set in the future and it would have been dystopian science fiction.

In this world, a person is completely unable to take autonomous action in the face of an emergency due to bureaucracy. That is the bane of modern society. We are unable to take creative action in the face of an unusual situation that is an emergency. Everyone is just a statistic. Modern society says: Stick to your job and follow the rules, even under extraordinary circumstances.

Display of strong emotion in the face of an emergency situation is treated as completely unacceptable, against everything that makes us human. Fish and reptiles feel very little emotions. Robots feel zero emotions. But for some reason our society thinks that displaying no emotions is the epitome of being human. When in fact, strong and complicated emotions are a trait of only the most intelligent of species and should be something to be recognized as a fact, if not embraced as a very human trait. I would WANT someone to feel strong emotions in the face of the situation that happened in this movie.

I took a point off for perpetuating the myth that "crazy" people are violent. They gave zero though to that aspect of it. Could they not afford to buy a basic abnormal psych 101 textbook?

Jake G. Was awesome as always.

I really like this series, but have to give it a 7.

In some aspects, I'd give this a 9 or 10 stars. Very interesting concept and plot. I'm partway through season 3 and I can't wait to find out more of what happens. (Philip K. Dick is one of my top 3 favorite authors. I've read the book, but have no recollection of it.)

The storytellers are great at making you care about people quickly, even ones who are generally horrible. I'm no great critic of acting, but to me the acting is very good, in some cases excellent.

The down sides are:

1) The lighting in seasons 1 and 2 was so dark you couldn't see what was happening much of the time. I don't like in most American shows where it's always daytime bright regardless of setting or time of day, but this goes way too far the other way.

2) It is rather slow-moving, yet then at times, they just skip forward and show people in new situations without any explanation. Seems like they cut out scenes and forget that those scenes were actually necessary. Once they even showed a scene in recap that was never in the previous shows.

3) Related to #2, they also aren't good at relaying the passage of time. Has it been a couple of days or months or years since we last saw the people in this scene? And for one group of people, it will seem like a couple of weeks, then for another group it seems as if months have passed. (I've seen this defect in only a couple of other series, one of them being later seasons of Heroes.)

The above brought this down from a 9/10 to a 7 for me. I REALLY wish I could give it a 9, because I love this series.

Final note: Don't ever, ever listen to the opening theme song. It is the most annoying thing I've ever heard. Worse than a dentist's drill or fingernails on chalkboard.