Showing posts with label artificial intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artificial intelligence. Show all posts

Star Trek Fan Collective - Borg (2001) Review

Star Trek Fan Collective - Borg (2001)
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Designed for "Trek" fans who don't want to purchase (or like myself can't afford) to buy all the of the boxed sets for all the Trek series, "Star Trek: Fan Collective Borg" Assembles 14 of the finest episodes produced by the "Trek" franchise. This set features episodes voted on at the Startrek.com website by fans. Running chronologically the set begins with the "Enterprise" episode "Regeneration" where the survivors of the Borg sphere destroyed in the film "Star Trek: First Contact" are discovered buried in the ice by a group of Federation scientists. Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) must deal with this unknown menace as the Borg proceed to try take a Federation vessel and assimilate his doctor. Next we get "Q Who?" the episode that introduced the Borg. The all powerful Q challenges Captain Picard's assertive statement that they don't need his help to get out of jams by flinging them across the galaxy to their first encounter with the Borg. Unprepared, outgunned and with the Enterprise being carved apart by the Borg Picard must decide whether or not he wants to swallow his pride and call on Q to help them escape. "The Best of Both Worlds" is a two part episode and, perhaps, Next Gen's finest hour. Written by the late Michael Piller, the Borg finally arrive and begin assimiliating entire worlds as they move towards Earth. Picard and his crew must stop the Borg but not before a key member of the Enterprise crew is kidnapped and turned into a Borg against his will threatening the Federation and all of humanity!
"I Borg" humanizes the Borg a bit. The Enterprise receives a distress call and when they arrive to help they discover the lone survivor of a crashed ship is a Borg Drone. As he spends time with the crew he wants to explore his individuality. Picard is torn because Star Fleet wants to use "Hugh" as a weapon to destroy the collective. "Descent" is another two part episode in which Lore Data's "brother" trains Borg cut off from the collective to serve him. It seems that Picard's plan to reintroduce Hugh the young Borg they saved in "I Borg" has worked all too well introducing the concept of individuality but at a terrible cost.
The Voyager episodes featuring the Borg were among the finest the show produced. Starting with "Scorpion" we're introduced to 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan)and a war brewing between Species 8472 creatures from fluidic space (from another dimension)as alien as the crew has ever encountered. Janeway agrees to help the Borg develop a weapon against the creatures in return for safe passage through the quadrant. When the crew terminate their agreement with the Borg 7 of 9 is trapped aboard Voyager. She slowly begins to rediscover her humanity. In "Drone" A transporter accident causes the advanced circutry of the doctor's mobile emitter to combine with Borg technology creating an advanced drone who calls himself One. In the two part "Dark Frontier" Captain Janeway decides to steal a transwarp coil from a Borg ship that would allow them to get home faster. 7 of 9 volunteers for the mission but elects to stay with the Borg. In "Unimatrix Zero" 7 of 9 discovers there's a collective "dream" where Borg meet to explore their individuality. Her involvement with these people threatens Voyager. In the final two hour grand finale for Voyager "Endgame" Admiral Janeway travels back to the past to offer Captain Janeway technology from the future that will allow Voyager to get home quicker. While her reasons for doing so are somewhat mysterious Captain Janeway accepts her offer. Unfortunately the Borg detect the technology and want it for themselves.
This set has text commentary tracks on "The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 & 2" by Michael and Denise Okuda as well as on "Unimatrix Zero Part 2". There's also the original commentary track by writers Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong on "Regeneration". There aren't any featurettes or documentaries on this set. A pity that there aren't any audio commentary tracks for the other "Next Generation" episodes. You'll notice that there aren't any "Deep Space: Nine" episodes here because the Borg didn't really appear on the show.
This is a great place to get your "Star Trek" fix with the show's most memorable villans. Image quality varies quite a bit as these feature the exact same transfers as the original boxed sets but overall they look pretty good. Only "Enterprise" is presented in widescreen and actually looks the best of all the series here simply because it's the most recent.

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The Borg Fan Collection has the top ten most popular Borg episodes as picked by the fans! Witness all the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Enterprise and Voyager as they defend their ships, galaxies, and their own kind. For thousands of years the Borg have been spreading throughout the galaxy, conquering, assimilating and thus destroying countless civilizations. Following every encounter, the Borg catalogue each new species with a numerical designation instead of a proper name. The goal of the Borg, in most cases, is to completely assimilate each species by incorporating their knowledge and technology into the unified Borg Collective. One by one, each living being is converted into Borg Drones. In many cases, all that remains of an assimilated civilization is the memory of its unique contributions that now resides only within the accumulated knowledge of the Borg. That and the numerical species designation. Often even the name is lost, forgotten or deleted as irrelevant. Conversely, the species designations give a sense of the long and terrible history of the Borg and the thousands of species they have encountered and absorbed.

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Caprica (2009) Review

Caprica (2009)
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I was extremely skeptical when I heard about the proposed prequel to the greatest television science fiction saga of this generation. Attempting to cash in on the success of Battlestar Galactica so soon after the series ended seemed like a losing proposition doomed to mar an amazing franchise. Well, consider those fears alleviated. The first taste of "Caprica" is absolutely amazing. With no space battles and the themes of humanity's destruction and survival at the hands of their own creation already done to death, I feared for a lack of compelling material to further immerse me in the pre-genocide human society of the twelve worlds. All politics and no spaceships makes science fiction a dull genre. But what BSG did for the space opera, "Caprica" is set to do for cyberpunk. If BSG was Star Trek and Babylon 5, "Caprica" is Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix. I am beyond impressed.
The story unfolds as a terrorist attack by a youth seeking to draw attention to his monotheistic cause (most worship the old Greek gods). The result tears two families apart and in half a century's time will lead to the destruction of human society. But before that there is one hell of a story to be told. The themes on the social commentary buffet so far includes a much more bold dialogue on religion then even BSG gave us, a different angle on the definition of human as we know it, a frank look at a racist society, and an exploration of the logical extremes of future virtual existence. This is to say that once the internet and virtual reality become compatible, one hell of a can of worms will be opened.
Since this series premiere comes to us in movie form, the gods have shined upon us. As far as it's predecessor pushed the sexual envelope for a tv show, "Caprica" has easily bested it here. I don't know how they are going to cut this for television. There is abundant nudity, group sex, and some serious girl-girl going on in this film. Virtual human sacrifice in underground virtual hacker clubs speaks volumes about the social issues to be confronted and is damned disturbing. There is one violent death featuring a but of arterial spray as well. Still think science fiction is for kids? The idea of creating a virtual copy of yourself by hacking the information in your own brain and uploading it to a digital avatar, thereby achieving a brand of immortality is brilliant and the Frankenstein complex that leads a father who lost his daughter to cross lines that should never be crossed is stroke of absolute genius.
Familiarity with it's parent show will certainly deepen your appreciation of "Caprica", but it is not at all necessary. This is great science fiction, period. Now's your chance to get on board with what promises to be the best series in coming years. Don't miss it. Battlestar maniacs will get to see one of that show's enduring heroes in his formative years and witness the birth of the first Cylon in a heart-rending accident. But at it's heart this show -like Galactica- is about two things: massive universal concepts of humanity, and intimate relationships with the characters who inhabit this work of fiction. One cannot improve on that formula. There is no television show, no movie, nothing in entertainment that I am currently looking forward to more then this. If you are a fan of adult science fiction in any way, then this is what you need to be watching. And that goes double for BSG fans.

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An astonishing breakthrough is taking shape on the planet Caprica. The rapidly evolving spheres of human and mechanical engineering have collided, along with the fates of two families. Joined by tragedy in an explosive instant of terror, two rival clans led by powerful patriarchs, Joseph Adama (Esai Morales, Jericho) and Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz, The Butterfly Effect) duel in an era of questionable ethics, corporate machinations and unbridled personal ambition as the final war for humanity looms.The latest phenomenon from the executive producers of Battlestar Galactica (Ronald D. Moore and David Eick), set in a time over 50 years earlier, Caprica is entirely its own world - provocative, thrilling and startling relevant to our own.

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Red Dwarf: Series II (1989) Review

Red Dwarf: Series II (1989)
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After watching the first season of Red Dwarf, I wasn't expecting very much from the second season. I figured it'd be more of the same...cheap sets, the slob and the neat freak, and some crazy cross between James Brown and a feline bouncing around on screen.
I was right...it's all that and more. But I was wrong to think it would be boring. The show actually takes the time to explore the characters and really get into their heads. In season 2, the show hits its stride.
David Lister (Craig Charles) is still Lister, but he's more subdued. Someone finally realized that watching a slob be a slob is funny in small doses. Which is good, because Lister got on my nerves after awhile. More screen time is given to Arnold Judas Rimmer (Chris Barrie), the real star of the show. It's easy to figure out why Lister is a pig, but the uptight Rimmer is much more intriguing. We delve into his neuroses as well as his past. And Cat (Danny John-Jules) exists primarily as Lister's foil. His quieter screen presence helps let the show be funny rather than distracting.
It is in this season that we first meet Kryten the android (David Ross), a manservant who isn't too good at determining the liveliness of his hosts. We learn about Lister's love life, the death of Rimmer's father (a touching scene that's played straight even though everyone's long dead anyway), watch the blokes play in a virtual reality game, mess with time travel, and enter a parallel universe where women rule.
I can't harp on this point enough: a lot of other science fiction shows ripped off Red Dwarf. Lister gets pregnant by a female, just like Charles Tucker in "Unexpected" on Star Trek: Enterprise. The holographic game is just like the movie eXistenz, right down to the "are we still in the game" twist. And don't even get me started on the time travel plot.
Red Dwarf isn't afraid to mess with its characters something serious. Lister feels bad for Rimmer's lack of a love life, so he transplants a few months of his own romance into the hologram's memory. What a mind-screw that is! Speaking of messing with their minds, Holly at one point decides to play the meanest practical joke in history. Only Red Dwarf has the courage to pull off entire episodes that are fake or inconclusive.
Indeed, Red Dwarf often ends without any solid conclusion. Characters wander off into the bowels of the city (where the heck DID that android go?) and storylines are dropped, only to be picked up in later episodes. Having been exposed the first two seasons of Red Dwarf for the first time ever, I'm looking forward to the show's evolution.
It may be wacky, it may sometimes not make sense, but Red Dwarf's influence on science fiction should not be underestimated. All that, and it's really funny too.

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Boldly going where no one in their right mind would ever go, this popular cult sci-fi spoof takes you on a joyride three million years into the future. Those ubiquitous anti-heroes of space travel - Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten - are coming to DVD for the first time ever!

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