Pitch Black II

[Joe Talmadge]

Thought everyone would be interested, I was reading a review of xXx, it mentioned that Vin Diesel's upcoming project is a follow-on to Pitch Black.

Maybe they'll have an A2 or a Hellfire with them this time, eh?

Joe

 

[Size15's]

I think perhaps they will either keep with the 9NT's, switch to UltraStingers, perhaps TigerLites, or maybe they'll have SureFire Devastators or Magnums?

I'm looking forward to both xXx and Pitch Black II

Al

 

[Graham]

I just saw Pitch Black the other week. Pretty interesting.

If there is a Pitch Black II, they should be using flamethrowers and incendiary bombs/grenades, not just torches... and Maxabeams, at that. And flares. Lots of flares..

Although a few M6s would probably go down well too..

Graham

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I thought it was an interesting premise, with promising characters, but the writing just didn't live up to its promise. Hopefully they'll do a better job this time around.

Wonder how they'll set it up. As I recall, in the original movie, the eclipse only happened every 20 something years. I figure it'll be something like: some VIP crash lands on the planet, and they recruit our man Vin from jail since he's "the only man" who could do a rescue. Somehow or other there's another eclipse even though there shouldn't be, a voila! Instant flashlight-lover's plot.

Now if they could only explain to me how, if the carnivorous birds have killed all other life forms on the planet, they could be finding food for the 20 years they are underground, that would be most gratifying

I can't help it, I just can't suspend my disbelief around this: you can't kill off the whole ecosystem and have just one species survive.

 

[DavidW]

How's this? Vin's character is put in animated suspension cell a la Demolition Man

20 years later he's released for a "job".

 

[Graham]

Originally posted by Joe Talmadge:
Now if they could only explain to me how, if the carnivorous birds have killed all other life forms on the planet, they could be finding food for the 20 years they are underground, that would be most gratifying

I can't help it, I just can't suspend my disbelief around this: you can't kill off the whole ecosystem and have just one species survive.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well, if you fall back on the "its another planet so its different" excuse, anything is possible. I guess one theory is that these things are somehow able to hibernate for the 20 or so years - might explain the huge feeding frenzy (and why they attack each other as well)- trying to get as much food as possible to last them through another 20 years of hibernation...
Not that this theory doesn't have huge holes in it - but part of most SF is the expectation that you'll suspend disbelief for the duration..

Graham

 

[Blackbeagle]

Maybe like cicada bugs? Aren't they supposed to live underground for about 17 years and only come up once to mate or something?

Personally, after watching all the sci-fi flicks, I've got to say Aliens 2 had one particularly good point. When in doubt, most things can be stopped with a flamethrower. You might have a magazine with 100 rounds, but nothing clears your way like a burst of napalm.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

Well, okay, they're underground for 20 years -- but cicadas eat during that time. The film went out of its way to give the impression that the local ecosystem was all wiped out. You'd think there's nothing alive above or below ground. What are these things eating? And the fact that such a huge mass of the carnivorous birds went after such a small amount of prey says that there wasn't much around to eat, doesn't it?

You know, when I'm watching SF, I find it easy to suspend disbelief about interstellar space travel. But the rest of the stuff has to be at least remotely plausible -- a species that has wiped out most other fauna but still manages to survive is not!

Maybe the writers will take pity on me and give me something to hold onto here -- like showing that there were prey animals about, but they sensed the coming eclipse and were hidden, or whatever.

Anyway, not trying to be the jerkoff who ruins it for everyone else, but it just irritates me

 

[BugLightGeek]

Just thought I'd say that I haven't seen Pitch Black since my wife's scared to see it and I haven't rented it yet.

However, I did see xXx and thought it was awesome (think James Bond minus all charm and manners) meets Extreme Sports.

Still...sweet movie if you like to see things blow up and lots of effect. No flashlights in it though.

Definately one for the DVD collection.

 

[Graham]

Originally posted by Joe Talmadge:
Well, okay, they're underground for 20 years -- but cicadas eat during that time. The film went out of its way to give the impression that the local ecosystem was all wiped out. You'd think there's nothing alive above or below ground. What are these things eating? And the fact that such a huge mass of the carnivorous birds went after such a small amount of prey says that there wasn't much around to eat, doesn't it?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well, this is something that I find sort of interesting - trying to think of ways how this kind of thing could work..

There are various possibilities, but I have no idea whether the writers actually thought things through to this extent.
One is that there may be other subterranean life forms, just as competitive, but which don't come out above ground.
Also, we only see one small part of the planet in the film - I don't know if it is certain that the whole planet is barren.
Finally, if the creatures have wiped out all other life (which they haven't, exactly - they did find some small glowing worms or something..), then they may be gradually dying out.
In the absence of any other source of food, they probably attack/eat each other (which they do in the film), so eventually they too will die out, or be reduced to some equilibrium depending on how fast they breed.

Graham

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I actually find this conversation kinda fun. Perhaps the producers should be made aware that we at candlepowerforums are going to try to find explanations for their apparent complete lack of understanding of nature

One is that there may be other subterranean life forms, just as competitive, but which don't come out above ground.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well, following a reasonable set of rules on life, we know that the top of the food chain will be vastly outnumbered by the bottom of the food chain. At the very bottom, there needs to be a huge amount of lifeforms that convert heat or light to biomass. Hard to imagine any other way. The birds can't be surviving on plants that use light, since the birds can't be in the light. On earth, the only creatures that survive just on heat are below the ocean. Hard to imagine an ecosystem under the earth, based on heat, that's at all realistic. In short, we have a huge amount of top-of-the-food-chain predators, we have the movie clearly trying to show us that everything else is dead (except a few glow worms), and we have no sign of even bottom-of-the-food-chain lifeforms (e.g.,plants) much less the intermediate lifeforms required to keep a balanced ecosystem.

Finally, if the creatures have wiped out all other life (which they haven't, exactly - they did find some small glowing worms or something..), then they may be gradually dying out.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But again, have we ever seen anything like that in nature, where a species can just wipe out its food sources but continue to thrive itself, until there are many predators and no prey?

I think there are a few possible things that can save us here. One is, as you suggest, that we didn't see the entire planet, so maybe there are lifeforms elsewhere. Another plausible storyline might be that people who came to the planet in the past created the birds through genetic engineering, creating thousands then losing control. Now maybe we do have a situation where the planet can be relatively wiped out.

Now don't get me started one the plausibility of a three-star system with earth-like planets in a stable orbit

Or how that orbit can be such that there's never a night time on any part of the planet.

 

[Graham]

The genetic experiment gone wrong theory is actually pretty good..

But again, we really don't know through the movie what else is underground - there may be all sorts of things under there, and again, we really don't know about what these predators do during the 22 years between eclipses. They could be completely dormant, only beginning to awake as the eclipse approaches, and during this time start feeding. Again, given the 22 year cycle there may be other forms of life which sprout up during the 22 years, and get almost wiped out during the eclipse, and repeat.

It may be that other parts of the planet aren't quite so barren.

But the genetic experiment sounds good..

Graham

 

[Size15's]

What happened to the flashlights?

Moving to the Cafe...

Al

 

[Greta]

Originally posted by ChrisM:

However, I did see xXx and thought it was awesome (think James Bond minus all charm and manners) meets Extreme Sports.

Still...sweet movie if you like to see things blow up and lots of effect. No flashlights in it though.

Definately one for the DVD collection.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I went to see xXx tonight. WOW!... WOW WOW WOW!!! What an awesome movie!! Chris, your description was dead on. What did you think of Ramstein in the beginning? Those CD's are forbidden to be played in my house. My husband and daughter have to go to their trucks to listen. But after watching them perform... WOW!! That was unbelievable! Ok, so I'll let them buy the soundtrack for the movie and play it in the house. I can see a definate future for Vin as Xander Cage from here on out. The new trend in action hero type movies. Definately one for the DVD collection... but only once we get the big screen and surround sound. Wouldn't be the same any other way...