I FREAKING CALLED IT

[all_unnecessary]

Only indirectly here on LJ, but earlier tonight, I REALLY CALLED IT (before watching tonight's ep, that is) while waiting for the ep to load and watching last week's again, I SAID TO MY FRIEND: THE BLACK HOLE, they're referencing Disney's The Black Hole in the design of the colony, and the scene w/ Kara in the room with Sammy The Hybrid right before she tries to shoot him DIRECTLY REFERENCES a scene at the end of said film. There's more to come with that, I said. ! AND I WAS RIGHT. huh!






Funny thing is, I couldn't decide at the time whether Starbuck or Boomer took the role of the monster. I thought to myself, HELL IS NOW YELLOW.





I feel I have more to say about the Disney film (painfully chock full of reification and utopia). And as we have seen tonight, it will have more bearing still on our dear little show. Singularity, bitches! Finitude, perhaps the most remarkable popular image of finitude in post-classical Newtonian physics. In fact terribly frightening to Newtonian physics. It has an absoluteness to it that, as far as I understand teh science (apparently not much, statistically speaking), is dreamt of as nightmare: a gravitational force that trumps all the established orbits, all the mechanical snicking into place of geometers and their computers (women, mostly).

Flammarion had a hard time with Einstein, it seems: "A space with a shape, curved! Mr. Einstein, you know that space-time, the fourth dimension, is already in the Encyclopédie de Diderot et D’Alembert. But it has not a shape! "

Anyway. Two quotes, and I really am off to bed:

REINHARDT: Nothing much ever changes, same news, different names. [To MR. BOOTH:] You still write for the same paper? Still on strike?

REINHARDT: The risk is incidental compared with the possiblitly to possess the great truth of the unknown. There, long cherished laws of nature simply do not apply. They vanish.
ALEX: And life?
REINHARDT Life? Life forever.

Second Empire, right?

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Ernest Borgnine as a priest? Or is that just some spacy collar?

Spacy collar

[all-unnecessary.livejournal.com]

and he's a JOURNALIST (and craven and doesn't survive).

you rule

[snake-oiler.livejournal.com]

wow, good spot. i don't even recall that scene at all --that's what i get for watching BSG with margarita-in-hand each week. now, they've TWO HOURS left to wrap this whole frakking thing up. i better get my answers!

i remember seeing "The Black Hole" in the theater when it came out in '79. my dad took us to the afternoon show, and he fell asleep and started snoring. the movie started off looking good but by the end us kids were disappointed. i think we spent the rest of the day riding bikes and playing tag.

Re: you rule

[all-unnecessary.livejournal.com]

Its action sequences were largely ridiculous rip-offs of Star Wars (PEW PEW LAZOR NOIZE; puke-worthy love subplot; the fkn shooting contest with the dandy robot; etc.). I enjoy it much more now than I did as a kid, because of its production (last big film made in the studio system - i.e. sequences/effects done in-house), the characterization of Reinhardt (he's so freakin nineteenth century!), and its visual aesthetic: the Eiffel Tower as battlestar. Oh and the nefarious bits of the John Williams score remind me of Saint-Saên's Danse Macabre:



And the triuphant/good-guy theme sounds just like the old bsg theme. :P

trente années terrestres

[jones-casey.livejournal.com]

décidemént, ce reinhardt aime se prendre pour dieu?

i didn't want to read this post because of bsg spoilers, but i've read it now.

i also like the visual aesthetic but i didn't dig the ending or any of the actors besides schell.

i need to get caught up on bsg so i can read the more you have to say about the film.

"le changement est rare. mêmes histoires, nouvelles têtes. vous écrivez pour le même journal? toujours en grève?"

Re: trente années terrestres

[all-unnecessary.livejournal.com]

Yah, it's a crap film, in almost all respects. I only adore it for its visuals - watching it with French subtitles would be v. amusing!

It's a thing of beauty, if you ignore the plot, almost all of the acting (I do like M. Schell), and every bit of the score but the hell-theme (which reminds me very much of Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, a favorite). Visually, it's just really stunning, nein? When the lights come on as the little ship is cruising by: nineteenth century iron construction (arcades in space). When the asteroid is barreling down that channel; the face masks of the crew; the black hole itself. The star-field, too, is just really beautiful (see the extra features for more on that).

Such an interesting rendering of the hellish aspects of infinity (and I'd argue it's a 19thC infinity).

Anyway.

Re: trente années terrestres

[jones-casey.livejournal.com]

i like your anyways.

yeah the matte artist & his dad were both really talented. and the asteroid scene outdoes many effects today. the face masks of the crew recall a lot of things, like the prisoner, eyes wide shut, masque of the red death, and your pink-robed "hi there!" icon. in another universe a much better movie was made expanding upon the best elements of this one, i'm sure. it probably involves an adaptation of là-bas; black mass meets black hole.

in another universe

[all-unnecessary.livejournal.com]

Yah, I was hoping BSG might toss me a little bone there, but they've proven quite clearly that they had no desire to engage in any meaningful way with the tropes of science fiction.

But I like the idea of Là-bas meets Disney's The Black Hole. You know that was a lightly fictionalized account of a real feud? Now that's a subject I'd love to see the National Treasure franchise tackle! Nicholas Cage races against some French Baddie to clear the name of de Guaita (who turned out to be some third cousin twice removed of his grandfather).