Isaac Asimov's Nightfall
Movie: Isaac Asimov's Nightfall (2000)
Watched with: Angelo
In between smoking joints with Thoreau or whatever, Ralph Waldo Emerson once mused, "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!"
Thoreau was too busy starring at some ants or something to really listen, but a century later, Isaac Asimov wrote a short story based on that premise, about a civilization with a bunch of suns that goes crazy when they experience a millennial nightfall.
This was then expanded into a Roger Corman-produced TV movie in 2000 (apparently the third film adaption of the story, though all the internet will tell me about the other versions is that they suck). For added hilarity, Kung-Fu's David Carradine stars.
The problem with this whole business is that basically that Emerson quote sums up the entire thing. Once upon a time it wasn't night for a long time and then it was and everyone went crazy. Curtain.
They drag that out to an hour and a half by having Carradine lead "the university" in conflict with a powerful religious group, while his daughter and a monk from the group go off to the desert for archaeological purposes and promptly bone. But it's just not enough material to fill out even the meager running time.
Two weird little things:
--It's shot on some kind of strange film stock that makes it look like it was made in like 1975. Before looking at the box, we established the general era of its production based on the hairstyles (Jennifer Aniston hair seeming to have reached a galaxy far far away), but it was odd.
--This movie continues the annoying movie tradition of having non-white (Indian and misc. Asian, for the most part) extras while having almost all of the important roles go to whiteys. The main antagonist appears to be Indian, and I guess David Carradine's a quarter Chinese or something, but all around, it comes off as vaguely prejudicial and just dopey.
Watched with: Angelo
In between smoking joints with Thoreau or whatever, Ralph Waldo Emerson once mused, "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!"
Thoreau was too busy starring at some ants or something to really listen, but a century later, Isaac Asimov wrote a short story based on that premise, about a civilization with a bunch of suns that goes crazy when they experience a millennial nightfall.
This was then expanded into a Roger Corman-produced TV movie in 2000 (apparently the third film adaption of the story, though all the internet will tell me about the other versions is that they suck). For added hilarity, Kung-Fu's David Carradine stars.
The problem with this whole business is that basically that Emerson quote sums up the entire thing. Once upon a time it wasn't night for a long time and then it was and everyone went crazy. Curtain.
They drag that out to an hour and a half by having Carradine lead "the university" in conflict with a powerful religious group, while his daughter and a monk from the group go off to the desert for archaeological purposes and promptly bone. But it's just not enough material to fill out even the meager running time.
Two weird little things:
--It's shot on some kind of strange film stock that makes it look like it was made in like 1975. Before looking at the box, we established the general era of its production based on the hairstyles (Jennifer Aniston hair seeming to have reached a galaxy far far away), but it was odd.
--This movie continues the annoying movie tradition of having non-white (Indian and misc. Asian, for the most part) extras while having almost all of the important roles go to whiteys. The main antagonist appears to be Indian, and I guess David Carradine's a quarter Chinese or something, but all around, it comes off as vaguely prejudicial and just dopey.
posted by Kane Lynch at
2:23 AM
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