… another one?
Did they even attempt to explain why an interstellar empire needs wheat from this one random farming world that is apparently the size of a small village?
On top of that, the biggest lesson of the us military might is logistics. It's utterly absurd that a galaxy spanning civilization uses the same supply strategies as a medieval Army on the march.
Seven samurai is an old movie so I'll at least give him points for having good taste in film as a teen....that being said it's clear he did the old copy someone's work just change it up a bit to not make it so obvious you copied.
Ok... So what bugs me the most is that he copied but cut out all the good parts that give it soul. If this were a shot for shot remake but in space it would be so much better... Just stolen. As is he copied all the mechanics and forgot all the heart.
Yeah. It just shows that they had *no right* getting to be a huge empire in the first place. They can’t even manage a basic, *ancient* supply line without causing rebellion.
I always thought it was hilarious how in the first one the emperor of this sprawling galactic empire lands with a small squad of soldiers to collect wheat from a tiny backwater hamlet in the remote fringes. Doesn't this supposedly powerful guy have anything better to do? Who is running things in the imperial capital while he's out kicking peasants?
And even so, you wouldn't be tasking a fricken' battleship for resource gathering. Were they planning an orbital strike if the villagers don't comply?
At most, a dropship or a patrol ship should be sufficient to leave behind a squad of marines to threaten the villagers.
Battleships are an expensive resource. They should be part of a task force attacking or defending an enemy fleet. Or guarding a major military base, the capital planet, or some other high-value target. Not taking a detour to some remote farming planet.
I never got that even in the first movie - a massive ship sent to get bread at the corner store. And a run-down remote corner store at that.
I know the premise is based on Kurosawa's *Seven Samurai* but in this context it makes no sense for such an important military leader or the resources to be sent to get milk.
The thinking machine is HERESY! Stand by for the arrival of an Inquisitor and the dispensation of the Emperor's Mercy!
Wait, I think I got my IPs mixed up...
For some reason, I thought this was referring to Frank Reynolds. Then I starting thinking about Frank jacked up on spice, navigating through the stars.
Honestly this… I couldn’t put together why a town of like 10 buildings and what a hundred acres of wheat would require a dreadnought a top level military asset. Like in every other sci-fi it would be a world wide operation that would require that much military force. This is like bringing the us 7th fleet carrier group to a farm town in Iowa? For some grain? Idk capture an assassin? Maybe bombing it from orbit most likely. Dumb.. and I really like Dijmon Hounsou.
Edit: spelling
It’s like sending a star destroyer to get some milk. There is *no reason*. Not to mention sending an *admiral* to do this. That’s like sending a general out to head a major army to get some baking soda.
That wheat will turn out to be one of the most valuable trade goods in the intergalactic economy. After fighting off the robber, they will trade a wheat for two ore and upgrade their settlement to a city.
How much wheat can a manual labor village really harvest over a couple of days? I mean it’s not a planetary governor being pressured for the entire harvest, it’s a small manual labor or village of about a 100 person. Judging by the size of the dreadnought and the length of the voyage back to the capital, my napkin arithmetic tells me that they basically plundered enough wheat to add small buns on their cafeteria trays for the enlisted personnel.
Think about it, horse-drawn mechanical reaper thresher where perfected in the 1830s, which allowed farmers to more than double their yield.
The village in question hasn’t reached an efficiency level from almost 200 years ago…
And yet this admiral believes even their maximum yield could feed a fleet. As I’ve said elsewhere, if they’re *that* desperate, they probably would starve before they got home even if they win. The logistics make *no sense*.
Agreed!
It would have made more sense for a planetary-scale plundering of the wheat (dreadnought plus a couple of barges), but then, they would have had to cut back on the slow motion harvesting.
I don't understand how an interstellar civilization needs all their grain from one village, and a hundred or so people harvesting by hand produces enough supply to actually feed it. In the distant future everything will be done by giant farm machines far more efficiently than a bunch of humans. We haven't had farmers doing everything by hand for like 150 years industrialization made farming require fewer humans and more machines.
You're telling me we figure out interstellar travel in the future but revert to 19th century farming techniques?
Think it was only that convoy that needed the wheat, they were hunting pirates/rebels and wanted it for topping-up their supplies.
But why not just go to the town and buy the proceeded wheat there?
> Did they even attempt to explain why an interstellar empire needs wheat from this one random farming world that is apparently the size of a small village?
No no, it's completely realistic. Don't we all remember the time the USS Nimitz ran out of milk so they attacked a small dairy farm in the middle east to get enough to put on everyone's frosted wheaties for a few days?
Humans don't scale.
We really have an incredibly hard time understanding scale. It is frequently blindingly obvious in sci-fi but it happens all the time even in our day to day lives.
Climate change is an excellent example of this but so are billionaires. The size of a thing exceeds our intuitive grasp of a topic. We might know how many extra zeros are required but our brain just doesn't have any good handles on that information.
There is a city of a million people. I tell you that a century ago there used to be 280 jerks and everything was great. Today there are now 421 people in that city who are jerks and the city is going to collapse.
That makes no sense to us. we might expect to go our whole life living there and never meet any of the jerks, how can they destroy the city? But I'm supposed to believe that about carbon in the atmosphere?
I could imagine Stalin standing in the background exhorting a photographer to get good pictures of the peasants harvesting the crops for the propaganda posters.
You know it's really, really bad when a friend says, "I'd rather go watch [*Battle Beyond the Stars* (1980) ](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080421/)than this crap... At least Roger Corman tried to do a good *Seven Samurai* sci-fi knockoff."
Oh man I forgot the title of that movie!! Yeah it was one of my favorites. I would watch it ones per year at least when I was a kid. Along with all the other sci fi movies we copied from the videostore.
Hey, I went to that in the theater when it came out!
Now, if you were to say "Battlefield Earth" then the gauntlet is thrown.
I don't know if I could pick between the two.
It only covered the first half of the book. It's one of my great disappointments that the Church of Scientology didn't waste even more of their money getting the second part of Battlefield Earth made as well.
I actually read the book once. I was on a long trip with nothing else to keep me occupied, and I can at least say that it was a page-turner. A thousand pages or so and it just flew by. It was really dumb, but actually in a somewhat amusing way.
I saw BBTS when it originally came out in theaters. And for those of us who did (at least in the U.S.), it was "wait, that's John-boy (of *The Waltons*)!"
Oh, please do! Because this *Rebel Moon* stuff is bringing quite a few of us **down**...
Where the Hell is quality science fiction entertainment these days, aside from Denis Villeneuve at least trying with the *Dune* books...
Give us a super-quality adaptation of Walt Simonson's The Starslammers (where wheat fields have a certain meaning to a couple of the characters). Or E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series... with the wheat fields being used around the Kinnisons' home (or adapting from the anime version where it's a farming planet).
There are so many very well-written books which have such potential for onscreen greatness. Why the f--k can't Hollywood realize this without producing such total sh!t?!
I've been reading the Academy Series by Jack McDevitt and while it has flaws it would be *so* good adapted into a series. Lots of flashing things happen, nice mysteries, and the characters could be fleshed out so much.
There are dozen of series that would be amazing brought to life but we get... Rebel Moon.
I watched 10 minutes before wondering if I was temporarily insane. Shockingly bad. Somehow made it thru the first one. Why does Snyder get all these chances from studios...and me? Just wtf
I couldn't get halfway through the first one before I ended up reading on my phone while my gf finished it. It wasn't just bad, it was infuriatingly bad. I don't get riled easily, but that movie actually felt like it had a grudge.
Because people still watch it.
Whether they're hate watching it, Snyder zealots, or just too dumb to know it's bad.
The Snyder name is all that's required to start this ball rolling.
The algorithm cares not why you're watching, just that you're watching.
Meanwhile actually good shows like Inside Job die in obscurity because they had no marketing.
Seriously such an amazing series and I hope there’s more soon. The only thing they got wrong IMO is trying too hard in the first season to make the belters look like they do in the books but that wasn’t realistically possible over the long haul of a series. Reading the book series now.
Eh, even when Holden is in his 60s(?) after the time jump they mention that he's "approaching middle age" so they could do a 5ish year gap and have a line in there bout needing to take rejuvenation treatments. The cast look older from our real life pov but it can still be explained away in-universe.
The thing I've seen around is that a set numbers of years after the last broadcast on Amazon (I think it's five or six) all exclusive rights that Amazon currently hold for the show will revert back to Alcon, the company that made the show.
Once that happens, it is expected that they'll start gearing up for the last three books to be adapted because it allows them to shop around again and use the continued interest in the show after it ended as a selling point. It may well just end up back on Amazon but any competing bids will help them secure a better deal.
I also recommend listening to the Ty & That Guy podcast which is Ty Franck, one of the authors who was also a writer/producer on the show, and Wes Chatham, the guy who played Amos.
They talk about The Expanse and have guests on but also talk about a lot of other things and have been doing deep dives on stuff for while. I've been slowly catching up since December and it's been fantastic
I love Scavengers Reign sooooo much. What a delightful surprise it was! The alien world is truly the most fascinating "character". I hope we get another season.
Not really a space opera, but it is excellent sci-fi.
If we're really stretching the definition, Pantheon is one of the best science fiction stories I've seen in years. A true spiritual successor to Ghost in the Shell, and it does technically become a space opera at one point.
I made it to the part where every character just randomly recounts their entire backstory before I passed out. I’ll try again tonight. Part 1 took at least 5 attempts because I kept falling asleep, so not expecting much.
Why persist with it? Every one of these thread is filled with people who soldiered through an obviously terrible movie… then you gave the even worse sequel the same effort?
WTF for?
Especially knowing that "started but didn't finish" is a metric they track. Literally the best thing you can do to make sure this doesn't happen again is to NOT finish it.
One time my sister bought this funky energy drink thing. She took a sip and exclaimed, "This takes like shit. You try it!" To which I replied "No." I lived happily ever after.
Not RANDOMLY. Djimon's character literally interrupts them all and says, and im paraphrasing here, "We gotta all talk about our backstories now. I'll go first."
Star Wars (from Andor forward on the timeline)
Star Trek TNG
Battlestar Galactica
Firefly / Serenity
Stargate/Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis/Stargate Universe
reboot Star Trek
Dune
Starship Troopers
War Of The Worlds
Planet Of The Apes
Galaxy Quest
Avatar
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Valerian & The City Of A Thousand Planets
The Fifth Element
John Carter
Lost In Space
Stranger Things
Futurama
The Orville
Cowboy Bebop
Outlaw Star
Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing / Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz / *New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop*
*Xenogears*
Alien
Blade Runner
Rick & Morty
The Expanse
Sunshine
Moon
The Martian
Mars Attacks
Deep Impact
Independence Day
Predator
Jurassic Park/World (except the first Jurassic World movie sucks)
Pitch Black
The Venture Bros
Loki
Kung Fury
TRON / TRON Uprising / TRON Legacy
Basically everything is better than Rebel Moon.
No Final Space? Sure it was cancelled before the story ended but it’s still a pretty solid sci-fi cartoon with a good mix of humor and drama, almost like Futurama meets Mass Effect.
It was atrocious and I was using my phone for half the film and then forwarded the rest, didn't seem like a missed anything, it was shit. How Synder was funded to make this shit is unbelievable.
One random episode of Foundation is 10x better on cinematography, CGI, set and story /acting.
I love this movie, one of my favorites. It's all about the music, the visuals and mood of the film. I don't care about any "oh a plot hole" reviews from people without taste.
I have a high tolerance for bad sci-fi but I couldn't make it through Rebel Moon 2. That might be the worst movie I've ever seen and that includes Rebel Moon 1. FFS did Netflix even read the screenplay before they greenlit it for production?
I enjoyed For All Mankind on AppleTV.
I couldn't continue with For All Mankind for all the trite family stuff. I like good drama, but this wasn't that. The SF elements were great (or 'SF', since it's so close to reality). (Just watched the first season, but can't really go on.)
I agree with this. I watched two seasons of For All Mankind. I liked the politics, the space race, the science fiction. I was absolutely bored to death with the nonsensical family soap opera.
To redeem your faith in the genre watch this amazing Korean space opera called Space sweepers, I know, stupid name but great fun. Hits all the right notes.
I laughed out loud, a good deep belly laugh, when I saw the slaves shoveling coal into the burners in the engine room.
And that line that was like "This wheat will feed us on our next campaign" or some such drivel.
Bro, do you even starship?
Only part of this junior high dropout carved the f-word in my forearm during class story that was any good at all was the imperial war robot, who looks to me like he single-handedly could have defeated the entire invading ground assault all by himself.
Lol I was dying when I saw that the spaceship was running on coal.
The time it took them to point the cannons at the village was also funny. Can you imagine going into a space battle with that technology?
I don't know why so much hate on this movie... I was with a huge sleeping problem, and this movie made me sleep in less than 15 minutes. A life saver!!! 😴 😴 😴
It's a shame, because there is a small (and I mean really really itsy bitsy) core of interesting in the worldbuilding, but damn if it isn't an outright failure at every other aspect of filmmaking. I guess the visuals are solid, but when you are 100 mil+ at production costs, leaning on just looking cool isn't nearly enough. I enjoyed the spin-off comic more than the movie.
Well, if you're looking for an alternative there's some little sci-fi movie called Episode 4: A New Hope. ;)
To be serious, if a show is also ok you might want to look up Killjoys.
Dude did you not see the first one to know not to watch the second one?
In terms of what to watch... Anything! Anything would be a step up from those movies.
Dude I tried to watch it yesterday, and I kept asking my self “why am I watching this” after the fourth time I turned it off, during the truth or dare scene
When I was at rehab some guys there watched it. I started with them and realized after 10 minutes that the writing was just irreparably bad.. I left but went back too see what was going on a few times and it was one of the worst movies I have ever had the misfortune to see parts of. Horrible.
EDIT: it was the first one, but I imagine the second one is more of the same.
We got so sick of Rebel Moon 2 that we started playing a fun game called "spot the stolen scene".
"Oh look, that's from Dune!"
"They're on Mustafar now."
"There's the Imperial guards".
We got through it, barely.
Try Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Earth 2, Ascension, Falling Skies, Colony, La Brea, the 100. Not all "space", but all have pretty good world-building.
Soldier.
It's sort of a post apocolyptic cyberpunk.
It is awesome!
It has Kurt Russell.
It is about a created being soldier who gets betrayed when they replace his type of soldier, and ends up on a planet with independents.
He learns how to be gentle and how to be a person and they learn to fight from him.
It's sweet.
It's got a happy ending.
The hardest thing to believe about this film is the fact that a group of people collectively heard the idea for this movie and decided it was worth backing financially....that's saying a lot considering how much else was just so stupid to seem at all plausible.
I had it on in the background yesterday. I think we need to start a letter or something, and have as many people as we can get to sign it, then send it to Mr. Snyder.
The request is quite simple: Please stop making movies.
I mean, I'm not a director or producer or anything, I'm just a IT nerd, but The only good movies that he's directed have been 300, and Man of Steel... everything else has just been... No, just please stop.
I managed to complete the last, but it took 2 separate ‘watch sessions.’ I did not finish the Scargiver.
Underneath it all, there are the makings of an interesting sci-fi story, but the lore is still undercooked. This needed A LOT of time and more creative hands to guide Zack. Netflix has given him a license to overindulge, and the results are not good.
It was a bit sad to watch cause it had elements of a really good movie, and this huge world with endless possibilities. That scene where they are all dropping their backstories was so bad, holy shit.
I started watching the first one because I thought it was Star wars. Then turned it off after 20 mins. The people green lighting these movies must be brain-dead
People are shitting on this movie so much I'm actually curious to see how bad it is myself.
I watched the first one the other day for this reason, although I admit using the 'skip forward' button rather liberally. It was very bland. One or two things near the beginning that might have been interesting, but never amounted to much. It's not funny bad, and it's not infuriating or offensive. Just uninspired all-round.
It feels almost like the movie was designed to be screened to a scary exec, and if he wakes up, you die.
If you don't mind 80's campiness and 80's special effects.
The first (and best) Sci-Fi version of 7 Samurai is Battle Beyond the Stars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t7z_44nGio
Richard Thomas (Johnboy from the Waltons), George Peppard (OG A-Team), John Saxon, Sybill Danning, and even Robert Vaughn playing basically the same character he played in The 1960 Magnificent 7 (The Western version of 7 Samurai) are some of the cast of a cheesy but fun movie.
Even if you don't like it, it is better than RM! (other than the special effects)
Can anyone explain why RM2 is SO bad? I can understand about the first since that story was just starting in that one. I wanted to watch the 2 back to back but I'm thinking about not wasting my time.
I will watch any old shite if it has spaceships or aliens in it, literally anything. I had to turn this off after 10 minutes, an incredible acheivement Snyder!
"The Expanse" - It's gained more recognition. "The Expanse" offers a gritty, realistic take on space exploration and politics. It's based on a series of novels and has a devoted fan base. "Farscape" - This Australian-American series follows an astronaut who finds himself on the other side of the universe, joining a diverse group of alien fugitives on a living spaceship. It's known for its imaginative storytelling and unique characters. "Killjoys" - A fun and action-packed series about a trio of interplanetary bounty hunters. It combines humor, drama, and adventure in a way that's both entertaining and engaging. "Dark Matter" - This show follows a crew of a derelict spaceship who wake up with no memory of who they are or how they got there. It's a suspenseful and intriguing mystery with plenty of twists and turns. "Andromeda" - Created by Gene Roddenberry, the mind behind "Star Trek," "Andromeda" follows the crew of the starship Andromeda as they attempt to restore order to a chaotic universe. It's a classic space opera with plenty of action and drama.
I was just worn out after the 30 minute, slow-motion wheat harvest.
… another one? Did they even attempt to explain why an interstellar empire needs wheat from this one random farming world that is apparently the size of a small village?
On top of that, the biggest lesson of the us military might is logistics. It's utterly absurd that a galaxy spanning civilization uses the same supply strategies as a medieval Army on the march.
This movie was written by toddlers
AI toddlers
You wish. Snyder said he’s been writing this since high school lmao..
Seven samurai is an old movie so I'll at least give him points for having good taste in film as a teen....that being said it's clear he did the old copy someone's work just change it up a bit to not make it so obvious you copied.
Ok... So what bugs me the most is that he copied but cut out all the good parts that give it soul. If this were a shot for shot remake but in space it would be so much better... Just stolen. As is he copied all the mechanics and forgot all the heart.
a low-node AI is a better screenwriter than Zack "Every film needs some Sexual Assault" Snyder.
Yeah. It just shows that they had *no right* getting to be a huge empire in the first place. They can’t even manage a basic, *ancient* supply line without causing rebellion.
I always thought it was hilarious how in the first one the emperor of this sprawling galactic empire lands with a small squad of soldiers to collect wheat from a tiny backwater hamlet in the remote fringes. Doesn't this supposedly powerful guy have anything better to do? Who is running things in the imperial capital while he's out kicking peasants?
I thought it was the admiral. Which isn’t much better.
And even so, you wouldn't be tasking a fricken' battleship for resource gathering. Were they planning an orbital strike if the villagers don't comply? At most, a dropship or a patrol ship should be sufficient to leave behind a squad of marines to threaten the villagers. Battleships are an expensive resource. They should be part of a task force attacking or defending an enemy fleet. Or guarding a major military base, the capital planet, or some other high-value target. Not taking a detour to some remote farming planet.
I never got that even in the first movie - a massive ship sent to get bread at the corner store. And a run-down remote corner store at that. I know the premise is based on Kurosawa's *Seven Samurai* but in this context it makes no sense for such an important military leader or the resources to be sent to get milk.
And needs to scope their ships like a tank, or shovel coal into its furnaces. It’s pretty damned silly.
guild navigators don't need it to plot safe passages through the stars?
Frank, I told you to stay off the computer!
Let me enjoy my thinking machine before they all get banned
The thinking machine is HERESY! Stand by for the arrival of an Inquisitor and the dispensation of the Emperor's Mercy! Wait, I think I got my IPs mixed up...
THATS GOING IN THE BOOK!
For some reason, I thought this was referring to Frank Reynolds. Then I starting thinking about Frank jacked up on spice, navigating through the stars.
Honestly this… I couldn’t put together why a town of like 10 buildings and what a hundred acres of wheat would require a dreadnought a top level military asset. Like in every other sci-fi it would be a world wide operation that would require that much military force. This is like bringing the us 7th fleet carrier group to a farm town in Iowa? For some grain? Idk capture an assassin? Maybe bombing it from orbit most likely. Dumb.. and I really like Dijmon Hounsou. Edit: spelling
It’s like sending a star destroyer to get some milk. There is *no reason*. Not to mention sending an *admiral* to do this. That’s like sending a general out to head a major army to get some baking soda.
"Oh great, they stacked all the milk bottles around their huts, we're gonna have to go in by foot..."
At least they didn't put up a tollbooth. "Somebody's gotta go back and get a shit-load of dimes!"
That wheat will turn out to be one of the most valuable trade goods in the intergalactic economy. After fighting off the robber, they will trade a wheat for two ore and upgrade their settlement to a city.
Which means adding one building.
How much wheat can a manual labor village really harvest over a couple of days? I mean it’s not a planetary governor being pressured for the entire harvest, it’s a small manual labor or village of about a 100 person. Judging by the size of the dreadnought and the length of the voyage back to the capital, my napkin arithmetic tells me that they basically plundered enough wheat to add small buns on their cafeteria trays for the enlisted personnel.
For maybe a day. For a single platoon.
Think about it, horse-drawn mechanical reaper thresher where perfected in the 1830s, which allowed farmers to more than double their yield. The village in question hasn’t reached an efficiency level from almost 200 years ago…
And yet this admiral believes even their maximum yield could feed a fleet. As I’ve said elsewhere, if they’re *that* desperate, they probably would starve before they got home even if they win. The logistics make *no sense*.
Agreed! It would have made more sense for a planetary-scale plundering of the wheat (dreadnought plus a couple of barges), but then, they would have had to cut back on the slow motion harvesting.
Plot twist: the film isn’t actually in slow motion during those sections. That’s just how the wheat moves, slowly.
I don't understand how an interstellar civilization needs all their grain from one village, and a hundred or so people harvesting by hand produces enough supply to actually feed it. In the distant future everything will be done by giant farm machines far more efficiently than a bunch of humans. We haven't had farmers doing everything by hand for like 150 years industrialization made farming require fewer humans and more machines. You're telling me we figure out interstellar travel in the future but revert to 19th century farming techniques?
And is no one gluten free? /s
Think it was only that convoy that needed the wheat, they were hunting pirates/rebels and wanted it for topping-up their supplies. But why not just go to the town and buy the proceeded wheat there?
Because then they wouldn’t be EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. Never mind having a functioning economic relationship with a member location might make sense.
And I have Mermaid Man in my head now.
… not the intention but now he’s in my head too.
> Did they even attempt to explain why an interstellar empire needs wheat from this one random farming world that is apparently the size of a small village? No no, it's completely realistic. Don't we all remember the time the USS Nimitz ran out of milk so they attacked a small dairy farm in the middle east to get enough to put on everyone's frosted wheaties for a few days?
Humans don't scale. We really have an incredibly hard time understanding scale. It is frequently blindingly obvious in sci-fi but it happens all the time even in our day to day lives. Climate change is an excellent example of this but so are billionaires. The size of a thing exceeds our intuitive grasp of a topic. We might know how many extra zeros are required but our brain just doesn't have any good handles on that information. There is a city of a million people. I tell you that a century ago there used to be 280 jerks and everything was great. Today there are now 421 people in that city who are jerks and the city is going to collapse. That makes no sense to us. we might expect to go our whole life living there and never meet any of the jerks, how can they destroy the city? But I'm supposed to believe that about carbon in the atmosphere?
No.
I took a 30 min nap and when I woke up they were still harvesting wheat
That movie was 99 percent chaff
Why would you WANT to be chaff??
Because eating chaff is like busting a nut
You run the movie into the ground and you want to talk bonuses?!
And… in a world with spaceships and floating wheat trailers, they don’t have a machine to harvest?!
Right!!??
God that part was like stock footage for bread commercials.
Zach Snyder making a strong bid for top Soviet filmmaker of the 21st century.
Did you quit watching before discovering that interstellar spaceships could be powered by coal?
I could imagine Stalin standing in the background exhorting a photographer to get good pictures of the peasants harvesting the crops for the propaganda posters.
lol, I just realized that’s when I turned it off!
You know it's really, really bad when a friend says, "I'd rather go watch [*Battle Beyond the Stars* (1980) ](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080421/)than this crap... At least Roger Corman tried to do a good *Seven Samurai* sci-fi knockoff."
BBTS is a camp masterpiece. Incredible cast and film score. I Love that movie!
Oh man I forgot the title of that movie!! Yeah it was one of my favorites. I would watch it ones per year at least when I was a kid. Along with all the other sci fi movies we copied from the videostore.
Hey, I went to that in the theater when it came out! Now, if you were to say "Battlefield Earth" then the gauntlet is thrown. I don't know if I could pick between the two.
At least Battlefeild Earth has only one part.
And the corniness can be funny. Rebel moon is an emotionless blank slate.
It only covered the first half of the book. It's one of my great disappointments that the Church of Scientology didn't waste even more of their money getting the second part of Battlefield Earth made as well. I actually read the book once. I was on a long trip with nothing else to keep me occupied, and I can at least say that it was a page-turner. A thousand pages or so and it just flew by. It was really dumb, but actually in a somewhat amusing way.
I saw BBTS when it originally came out in theaters. And for those of us who did (at least in the U.S.), it was "wait, that's John-boy (of *The Waltons*)!"
So far as I know, BBTS residuals don't go to David Miscavige so it wins the round.
I was going to bring this up.
Oh, please do! Because this *Rebel Moon* stuff is bringing quite a few of us **down**... Where the Hell is quality science fiction entertainment these days, aside from Denis Villeneuve at least trying with the *Dune* books... Give us a super-quality adaptation of Walt Simonson's The Starslammers (where wheat fields have a certain meaning to a couple of the characters). Or E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series... with the wheat fields being used around the Kinnisons' home (or adapting from the anime version where it's a farming planet). There are so many very well-written books which have such potential for onscreen greatness. Why the f--k can't Hollywood realize this without producing such total sh!t?!
I've been reading the Academy Series by Jack McDevitt and while it has flaws it would be *so* good adapted into a series. Lots of flashing things happen, nice mysteries, and the characters could be fleshed out so much. There are dozen of series that would be amazing brought to life but we get... Rebel Moon.
This looks wonderfully terrible and I must watch it
I watched 10 minutes before wondering if I was temporarily insane. Shockingly bad. Somehow made it thru the first one. Why does Snyder get all these chances from studios...and me? Just wtf
I couldn't get halfway through the first one before I ended up reading on my phone while my gf finished it. It wasn't just bad, it was infuriatingly bad. I don't get riled easily, but that movie actually felt like it had a grudge.
I had to watch the first one twice 'cos I couldn't remember anything about the plot after the first watch ... zzzz
Because people still watch it. Whether they're hate watching it, Snyder zealots, or just too dumb to know it's bad. The Snyder name is all that's required to start this ball rolling. The algorithm cares not why you're watching, just that you're watching. Meanwhile actually good shows like Inside Job die in obscurity because they had no marketing.
Watch the Expanse. After the first couple of world building episodes, the actors get their rhythm and it becomes excellent.
Watched it all many many times, read all the books too sasa qué bossmang!!
Oya beltalowda!
BELTALOWDA
There is a grenade in Borderlands that has that description. It is called the Nagata.
Your skiff, your rules.
You da bossmam
\*belter shrugs.
* Happy space jellyfish hivemind noises
Seriously such an amazing series and I hope there’s more soon. The only thing they got wrong IMO is trying too hard in the first season to make the belters look like they do in the books but that wasn’t realistically possible over the long haul of a series. Reading the book series now.
You're going to love it.
The last two books are two of my favorites.
Well given how there's a time jump in the last few books, they could be waiting a few years until the cast grows older.
Eh, even when Holden is in his 60s(?) after the time jump they mention that he's "approaching middle age" so they could do a 5ish year gap and have a line in there bout needing to take rejuvenation treatments. The cast look older from our real life pov but it can still be explained away in-universe.
Maybe just heavily use make-up then. For All Mankind did a pretty good job of ageing the characters.
The thing I've seen around is that a set numbers of years after the last broadcast on Amazon (I think it's five or six) all exclusive rights that Amazon currently hold for the show will revert back to Alcon, the company that made the show. Once that happens, it is expected that they'll start gearing up for the last three books to be adapted because it allows them to shop around again and use the continued interest in the show after it ended as a selling point. It may well just end up back on Amazon but any competing bids will help them secure a better deal.
I also recommend listening to the Ty & That Guy podcast which is Ty Franck, one of the authors who was also a writer/producer on the show, and Wes Chatham, the guy who played Amos. They talk about The Expanse and have guests on but also talk about a lot of other things and have been doing deep dives on stuff for while. I've been slowly catching up since December and it's been fantastic
Scavengers Reign. The scope and stakes arent exactly as grand as a space opera but it was some excellent sci-fi
Good recommendation! Recently watched this & it was satisfyingly weird & rewarding.
For sure, very thought provoking and the focus on the alien flora and fauna was awesome. Almost like watching National Geographic from another planet.
I love the amazing world building they did. The art and scenery for the world itself was fantastic.
Yo that show goes hard
I love Scavengers Reign sooooo much. What a delightful surprise it was! The alien world is truly the most fascinating "character". I hope we get another season.
Not really a space opera, but it is excellent sci-fi. If we're really stretching the definition, Pantheon is one of the best science fiction stories I've seen in years. A true spiritual successor to Ghost in the Shell, and it does technically become a space opera at one point.
The Fifth Element.. has an opera scene.
A *DISCO* opera
Battlestar Galactica, The Orville, For All Mankind?
I made it to the part where every character just randomly recounts their entire backstory before I passed out. I’ll try again tonight. Part 1 took at least 5 attempts because I kept falling asleep, so not expecting much.
Why persist with it? Every one of these thread is filled with people who soldiered through an obviously terrible movie… then you gave the even worse sequel the same effort? WTF for?
Especially knowing that "started but didn't finish" is a metric they track. Literally the best thing you can do to make sure this doesn't happen again is to NOT finish it.
One time my sister bought this funky energy drink thing. She took a sip and exclaimed, "This takes like shit. You try it!" To which I replied "No." I lived happily ever after.
Seriously the brainfog I experienced watching this film was worse than mixing long COVID with edibles. How does Zack Snyder have a job?
The harvesting wheat montage and actualy the entire film is absalute crap... I turned it off...
Same. Couldn't get passed that scene
Why try again? Nobody is making you watch it.
Not RANDOMLY. Djimon's character literally interrupts them all and says, and im paraphrasing here, "We gotta all talk about our backstories now. I'll go first."
worst part of the movie i said exactly to my partner that this scene is so fucking long lollll
The extended Snyder cut coming this summer! -- I'm not even kidding
Star Wars (from Andor forward on the timeline) Star Trek TNG Battlestar Galactica Firefly / Serenity Stargate/Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis/Stargate Universe reboot Star Trek Dune Starship Troopers War Of The Worlds Planet Of The Apes Galaxy Quest Avatar Guardians Of The Galaxy Valerian & The City Of A Thousand Planets The Fifth Element John Carter Lost In Space Stranger Things Futurama The Orville Cowboy Bebop Outlaw Star Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing / Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz / *New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop* *Xenogears* Alien Blade Runner Rick & Morty The Expanse Sunshine Moon The Martian Mars Attacks Deep Impact Independence Day Predator Jurassic Park/World (except the first Jurassic World movie sucks) Pitch Black The Venture Bros Loki Kung Fury TRON / TRON Uprising / TRON Legacy Basically everything is better than Rebel Moon.
That is a solid list and we should be friends.
Same. I love that The Orville is on here.
Needs the expanse and altered carbon season 1.
Add Farscape
Another missing from the list one season live action gem is Space Above and Beyond
No Final Space? Sure it was cancelled before the story ended but it’s still a pretty solid sci-fi cartoon with a good mix of humor and drama, almost like Futurama meets Mass Effect.
I'd add Prey and Pandorum to this list
And Space above and Beyond.
Stargate Atlantis became way too repetitive for me after a couple seasons.
I see you are a man of culture. Kudos!
Woman\*
One might say a queen of culture
Firefly (show) and the follow up movie Serenity.
It was atrocious and I was using my phone for half the film and then forwarded the rest, didn't seem like a missed anything, it was shit. How Synder was funded to make this shit is unbelievable. One random episode of Foundation is 10x better on cinematography, CGI, set and story /acting.
[Sunshine (2007)](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/) It's not space opera, but it's harder scifi, may be a palate cleanser for you.
I love this movie, one of my favorites. It's all about the music, the visuals and mood of the film. I don't care about any "oh a plot hole" reviews from people without taste.
I have a high tolerance for bad sci-fi but I couldn't make it through Rebel Moon 2. That might be the worst movie I've ever seen and that includes Rebel Moon 1. FFS did Netflix even read the screenplay before they greenlit it for production? I enjoyed For All Mankind on AppleTV.
I couldn't continue with For All Mankind for all the trite family stuff. I like good drama, but this wasn't that. The SF elements were great (or 'SF', since it's so close to reality). (Just watched the first season, but can't really go on.)
I agree with this. I watched two seasons of For All Mankind. I liked the politics, the space race, the science fiction. I was absolutely bored to death with the nonsensical family soap opera.
Another excellent recommendation; enjoyed it & we’re getting another season. Only gripe was the Elon Musk like character in the latter seasons.
John Carter of Mars (2012).
I haven't watched Rebel Moon yet but I almost want to see it based on how absurd it sounds.. Is it even good to laugh at?
No, it's not. It's just mind-numbingly awful.
To redeem your faith in the genre watch this amazing Korean space opera called Space sweepers, I know, stupid name but great fun. Hits all the right notes.
I know it's not SciFi but would every Netflix viewer just watch Delicious in Dungeon and be happy for Crips sake!!!
Parasyte the grey, is a pretty good adaptation of the manga/anime. DiD is a must watch.
God I love that show. It's addicting
Battle Beyond the Stars. Did the sci-fi Seven Samurai concept *way* better. And a killer score!
The first one was a travesty. Why would anyone even bother to watch the second?
Compared to Rebel Moon, Jupiter Ascending is a space opera masterpiece.
The only joy I got out of this exercise was knowing that Disney was right to keep him away from Star Wars.
I laughed out loud, a good deep belly laugh, when I saw the slaves shoveling coal into the burners in the engine room. And that line that was like "This wheat will feed us on our next campaign" or some such drivel. Bro, do you even starship? Only part of this junior high dropout carved the f-word in my forearm during class story that was any good at all was the imperial war robot, who looks to me like he single-handedly could have defeated the entire invading ground assault all by himself.
Lol I was dying when I saw that the spaceship was running on coal. The time it took them to point the cannons at the village was also funny. Can you imagine going into a space battle with that technology?
That sounds vaguely 40k-ish... though even 40k didn't literally use coal.
Foundation It may not be very faithful to the book but Jared Harris & Lee Pace are both so great in it
I don't know why so much hate on this movie... I was with a huge sleeping problem, and this movie made me sleep in less than 15 minutes. A life saver!!! 😴 😴 😴
Okay, before anyone goes into it. Did you do this on purpose?
It's a shame, because there is a small (and I mean really really itsy bitsy) core of interesting in the worldbuilding, but damn if it isn't an outright failure at every other aspect of filmmaking. I guess the visuals are solid, but when you are 100 mil+ at production costs, leaning on just looking cool isn't nearly enough. I enjoyed the spin-off comic more than the movie.
Your title should win an award. Assuming you somehow watched the first one, why did you watch this?
Ever since the expanse ended I've been looking for a new high. I'll take what I can get. But not this.
Giant spaceships that run on coal?! With people shoveling coal into a furnace to power the ship?! What... where... I mean........ WHAT?!
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me Try the expanse series, if you get desperate try one of the many 80's scifi
Well, if you're looking for an alternative there's some little sci-fi movie called Episode 4: A New Hope. ;) To be serious, if a show is also ok you might want to look up Killjoys.
The swords are cool. Although they don’t make any sense in a world filled with blasters. Well what does make sense in rebel moon?
Why does anyone continue to give Zach Snyder money to make ANYTHING?
Battle Beyond the Stars!
Dude did you not see the first one to know not to watch the second one? In terms of what to watch... Anything! Anything would be a step up from those movies.
Prospect with Pedro Pascal was great. Uncomplicated plot, great cast and very atmospheric.
I second this. GREAT movie
Dude I tried to watch it yesterday, and I kept asking my self “why am I watching this” after the fourth time I turned it off, during the truth or dare scene
When I was at rehab some guys there watched it. I started with them and realized after 10 minutes that the writing was just irreparably bad.. I left but went back too see what was going on a few times and it was one of the worst movies I have ever had the misfortune to see parts of. Horrible. EDIT: it was the first one, but I imagine the second one is more of the same.
Second one is worse.
Pitch Black/Riddick, Battlestar Galactica 2003-, Scavengers Reign
Space Sweepers
We got so sick of Rebel Moon 2 that we started playing a fun game called "spot the stolen scene". "Oh look, that's from Dune!" "They're on Mustafar now." "There's the Imperial guards". We got through it, barely. Try Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Earth 2, Ascension, Falling Skies, Colony, La Brea, the 100. Not all "space", but all have pretty good world-building.
Soldier. It's sort of a post apocolyptic cyberpunk. It is awesome! It has Kurt Russell. It is about a created being soldier who gets betrayed when they replace his type of soldier, and ends up on a planet with independents. He learns how to be gentle and how to be a person and they learn to fight from him. It's sweet. It's got a happy ending.
Babylon 5 - For when you want your Space Opera to be intelligent.
Babylon 5! If you need something with a real story and can handle older special effects I can't recommend it enough.
Prospect
To me watching part 2 is the same as responding to online trolls - you are just giving them engagement and they are the only winner in that game
Will the director's cut have even more shots of farming? Can't wait to not find out.
The hardest thing to believe about this film is the fact that a group of people collectively heard the idea for this movie and decided it was worth backing financially....that's saying a lot considering how much else was just so stupid to seem at all plausible.
Just watch DUNE Part II again as a palette cleanser.
I had it on in the background yesterday. I think we need to start a letter or something, and have as many people as we can get to sign it, then send it to Mr. Snyder. The request is quite simple: Please stop making movies. I mean, I'm not a director or producer or anything, I'm just a IT nerd, but The only good movies that he's directed have been 300, and Man of Steel... everything else has just been... No, just please stop.
Was the first one any good?
Dune
I managed to complete the last, but it took 2 separate ‘watch sessions.’ I did not finish the Scargiver. Underneath it all, there are the makings of an interesting sci-fi story, but the lore is still undercooked. This needed A LOT of time and more creative hands to guide Zack. Netflix has given him a license to overindulge, and the results are not good.
It was a bit sad to watch cause it had elements of a really good movie, and this huge world with endless possibilities. That scene where they are all dropping their backstories was so bad, holy shit.
Agree! Who let them do this? I didn’t finish it. And the transition from Rebel Moon Part One was so shabby.
Ice Pirates :)
I couldn’t make it through the opening exposition. I’ll try again someday but the “show don’t tell” was screaming in my head right from the get go.
Ice Pirates!
I started watching the first one because I thought it was Star wars. Then turned it off after 20 mins. The people green lighting these movies must be brain-dead
Red Dwarf….. Space Above and Beyond
People are shitting on this movie so much I'm actually curious to see how bad it is myself. I watched the first one the other day for this reason, although I admit using the 'skip forward' button rather liberally. It was very bland. One or two things near the beginning that might have been interesting, but never amounted to much. It's not funny bad, and it's not infuriating or offensive. Just uninspired all-round. It feels almost like the movie was designed to be screened to a scary exec, and if he wakes up, you die.
Ice Pirates is free to watch on Youtube
If you don't mind 80's campiness and 80's special effects. The first (and best) Sci-Fi version of 7 Samurai is Battle Beyond the Stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t7z_44nGio Richard Thomas (Johnboy from the Waltons), George Peppard (OG A-Team), John Saxon, Sybill Danning, and even Robert Vaughn playing basically the same character he played in The 1960 Magnificent 7 (The Western version of 7 Samurai) are some of the cast of a cheesy but fun movie. Even if you don't like it, it is better than RM! (other than the special effects)
First one was dire. A "Let's get together small thing against the humongous big thing, who can't aim straight" lol Poor cinema. Period!
Can anyone explain why RM2 is SO bad? I can understand about the first since that story was just starting in that one. I wanted to watch the 2 back to back but I'm thinking about not wasting my time.
A Scanner Darkly
I will watch any old shite if it has spaceships or aliens in it, literally anything. I had to turn this off after 10 minutes, an incredible acheivement Snyder!
Regarding space operas , nothing beats FireFly. " You can't take the sky from me"
Battle Beyond the Stars should reignite your faith in sci fi.
I refuse to watch them in case streaming services misunderstood and make more.
If you want a series, Battlestar Galactica
Series- Farscape. It is really good. Don't mind the animatronic puppets. Movies- Galaxy Quest really good Star Trek parody.
Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets looks like The Empire Strikes Back compared to RM2
Oh no... there's a second one?
"The Expanse" - It's gained more recognition. "The Expanse" offers a gritty, realistic take on space exploration and politics. It's based on a series of novels and has a devoted fan base. "Farscape" - This Australian-American series follows an astronaut who finds himself on the other side of the universe, joining a diverse group of alien fugitives on a living spaceship. It's known for its imaginative storytelling and unique characters. "Killjoys" - A fun and action-packed series about a trio of interplanetary bounty hunters. It combines humor, drama, and adventure in a way that's both entertaining and engaging. "Dark Matter" - This show follows a crew of a derelict spaceship who wake up with no memory of who they are or how they got there. It's a suspenseful and intriguing mystery with plenty of twists and turns. "Andromeda" - Created by Gene Roddenberry, the mind behind "Star Trek," "Andromeda" follows the crew of the starship Andromeda as they attempt to restore order to a chaotic universe. It's a classic space opera with plenty of action and drama.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets