7th Station ~TV, movies, games~

[Celedam]

For anyone who has Amazon Prime: after a few years in the wilderness, Farscape has been remastered and is available for streaming again on Amazon Prime Video…

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07PNDDZGY/

It's weird that frelling Amazon has become the go-to place for so many sci-fi series.

[Zunu]

^ Having already bought the Blu-ray set after having already bought the DVD set, (after having already pirated the bootlegs), I was going to be extremely annoyed about it being remastered AGAIN, but no, turns out it's just The Peacekeeper Wars which have been newly remastered, since they were never released in HD to begin with.

As to why Amazon is recently taking in SF castoffs, I dunno, it seems to me Netflix has a pretty extensive SF collection as well. I think a lot of SF viewers are just extremely thirsty for content, and SF shows tend to have a high rewatchability due to the fandom aspect, e.g. riffing off your favorite lines, group watches, cosplay, etc. And for older fans who have moved higher up the disposable-income bulge, there's a nostalgic aspect to it which is easily capitalized upon. Amazon probably realizes that from crunching its massive sales database.

I'd like to parenthetically add that the recent crop of superhero shows, while nice and all, doesn't really satisfy my "SF" itch. Televised SF tends to be fast and loose to begin with when it comes to [tech] but comics throw the laws of physics completely out of the window.

[Amped]

Summer of 1985 (July 4th)


Millie Bobby Brown will also be in Godzilla 2 : King of the Monsters on May 31st.

[Celedam]

^ The second season was kinda meh, but that looks amazing. They got a bigger budget, at the very least.

---

As to why Amazon is recently taking in SF castoffs, I dunno, it seems to me Netflix has a pretty extensive SF collection as well.

Mostly original series, though, because they help to build Netflix's brand as a "studio". And frankly, as good as they are, most of those original series are not worth rewatching. What makes any series (not just sci-fi) worth rewatching is the characters, the relationships between them, and how their relationships change over time. Viewers enjoy that feeling of familiarity, like they're revisiting old friends. In contrast, Netflix's original series tend to be more about story and production, like extended movies — which is fine for what it is, but otherwise… meh.

[Zunu]

True, I find myself seeking out classics on Hulu more often then whatever random thing Netflix has decided for me is cool. I also wonder, perhaps the quick fix of bingeing is a double-edged sword. The drawn out nature of network episodic TV gives fans time to discuss, guess, be surprised, theorize, in a group over time. Watching a whole series at once is a sugar rush but it's followed by emptiness, especially if your similarly interested friends are watching it asynchronously. You all have to wait to finish to avoid spoilers, but then, it's the end - the surprises have already been revealed. Or at best, there's a year-long cliffhanger. At least if you're bingeing an old classic, there's an existing fan culture to immerse yourself in afterwards.

[Celedam]

Once again I rushed to watch a movie before it expired off of Netflix. This time it was Mr. Nobody (2009)…

The last mortal in a world of immortals, Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) begins reviewing his life at the age of 118, trying to determine if he made the right decisions.

I loved it. Beautiful, existential, surreal. The trailer and description don't do it justice, and I don't think I could either without spoiling it. The ending was a genuine surprise to me, even though it seems so obvious in hindsight, and that's the best sort of surprise ending.

I can say that it's like a remix of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), Amadeus (1984), Dark City (1998), The Truman Show (1998), Amélie (2001), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). If that makes sense. Which it shouldn't until after you've watched it. The point being that elements of all of those other films have been remixed together to make this film, but it still works as its own thing.

[JonCC]

Gundam is 40 years old this year. Hello Kitty 45. So why not celebrate together?

https://www.gundamvskitty.com/

[Celedam]

"Go away, Little Jim."

Spoiler: show

Alt Shift X is famous in the Game of Thrones fan community for its in-depth videos about individual episodes, theories, predictions, history, and lore. It also has a great April Fools video every year, and this year is no exception.

[JonCC]

The only thing I know about Ultraman is that Tsuji Nozomi's husband played the role at some point.
Suffice to say I've never watched any incarnation of the show.



Pretty sure that's about to change, because the Ultraman anime that's coming to Netfix on April 1 looks really good from the footage released so far.

I'm about half way through and enjoying it so far.

Relevant for this forum (spoiler):

Spoiler: show

They included an idol into the series. They even feature a handshake event & concert which takes place at a venue very similar to Nakano Sun Plaza. It's actually well done. Starting in the episode 5 there's the premise of Ultraman investigating an undercover alien who happens to be a fan of said idol, and who takes it upon himself to hunt down and kill anonymous posters (think 2ch) who post hate about this idol online.

[erilaz]

That sounds great! I'll have to add it to My List.

That reminds me, I have DVD sets of the original 1966–67 Ultraman series and the 1967–68 Ultraseven that I bought years ago and still haven't finished watching....