Since I wrote my bitcoin article, the BTC to dollar rate zoomed up more than 10 times its value then. From about 16 USD per coin, to about 190 USD per coin.
Some say it’s a bubble ready to burst. But there are very legitimate reasons for this spurt. People are tired of banks sucking them dry, and then using their money (tax or other) to rescue themselves from financial downfall (of their own creation). The latest events in Cypress, Greece and Spain pushed people to find alternatives to the FIAT (state issued) currencies. Alternatives that cannot be confiscated, taken, or misused by the banks or the governments. In essence, it seems the banks and the governments drove people towards bitcoin and the like.
And the worse the global financial woes get, the higher bitcoin will soar. As a side-effect it’s getting a huge press boost which in turn pushes the curiosity and interest of people sky high, which makes them want to buy or mine bitcoin, and pushes the value even higher.
The higher it gets, the bigger the volume of commerce, and the more stable it will get.
I just finished re-watching the first two seasons of Star Trek: TNG as they were released in brand new shiny Blu-ray.
The show was running between 1987-1994 and was considered to be an underdog when it first aired. The cast, the producers, everyone didn’t hold their breath for it to keep going past its first season.
It lasted much longer than that. In fact, it ran for seven seasons! More than twice as long as the original series which run 1966-1969 for mere three seasons. Good thing they didn’t consider re-doing the original series in Blu-ray. Cardboard doesn’t look better in high definition. It also yielded four full-featured films, and I regard it (the tv show, not the movies) as the best Star Trek franchise realization to date.
The show also gave room for some items that look perfectly natural today in the 21st century. Tablets, global (and space) communication, video calls and many other inventions which blended nicely into the show’s theme and also inspired generations of wide eyed kids to go and make something like what they saw on TV. Transportation via molecular disassembly and re-assembly haven’t been achieved quite yet, but we’re on our way.
It was also a big improvement over the original series. Not only by using sturdier props and sets (not always, but mostly), but also by making the characters a bit less stiff and creating a more liberal show in the confines of the conservative american television limits.
The stories that TNG followed were always very human and dramatic in nature. It also might have been one of the reasons the team behind the show didn’t foresee the success that followed. They viewed it as somewhat of a soap opera in space. And it seems like an unlikely mix.
Gladly they were wrong, and each time the show was renewed for a new season, they re-counted their blessings.
Anywho.. I finished watching the first two seasons, and started wondering – how would the old team handle their jobs 20 years later? Obviously they wouldn’t be in the same positions, but as this was done with the Original series cast, I think that bringing this team together would have a big potential for re-igniting people’s imagination and especially a generation that didn’t have the pleasure of growing up watching this show.
So, I set about checking with the cast, the stars of the show who frequent comic-cons, and trek-cons and all kinds of cons to busk in the warmth of fans adoration through all these years, and to see if they would be willing and able to take on this challenge. If they would be prepared to take part at a reunion TV film, or mini-series that shows where they are 20 years later.
I used the same text for all of them as follows:
Good day [Person's name and title], I wanted to ask – for 1-3 episodes – would you reprise the role of [Relevant character's name]?
And off it went on Twitter. I couldn’t locate all of them on twitter though, as Marina Sirtis who played the ship counsellor, Diana Troy, seems to go incognito on the web. I am still looking though.
Now all there is to do, is wait and see how and if they will respond to my little query.
Where the old currency dies out and the new currency starts living
It all started August 18, 2008, when a person or a group, known only as “Satoshi Nakamoto” registered a new domain known as Bitcoin.org.
From there, he released an initial design paper for the new cryptographic Bitcoin currency on October 21st, registered the Bitcoin client project on Sourceforge on November 9, and mined the genesis block on January 3rd.
Bitcoin: A decentralized digital currency that enables low-cost payments without the need for central authorities and issuers. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer (P2P) currency system created in open source C++ programming code. Bitcoins can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Once a user has Bitcoins, they are stored in a digital wallet. Bitcoins can then be sent to anyone else who has a Bitcoin address. Bitcoin was developed in 2009 and based on the works of an individual or group of individuals known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
The person or people who started this revolutionary coin were only active till 2011, when they stopped communication on the Bitcoin forum and left all to his associate in developing the Bitcoin standard, Gavin Andresen.
Their motives are believed to be political, in-line with groups such as Anonymous and Wiki-leaks. As the coin bypasses government and banks control mechanisms and is used to transfer money directly from point A to point B, it is virtually impossible to collect tax on it, nor identify the involved parties in each transaction which are only identifiable by their Bitcoin address.
As banks (and governments) see this as a disturbing (though for the time being small) threat to their authority, they have been monitoring it closely for the past 2-3 years. On April 2012, a report regarding Bitcoin was done by FBI and shown concern regarding the possible criminal and illegal uses of Bitcoin in the present and the future. The banks didn’t stay far behind, and in October 2012, the European Central Bank released a 49 pages long report titled “Virtual Currency Schemes” which describes Bitcoin and similar crypto currency and the threat they pose to traditional monetary systems (AKA banks and government taxation systems).
They suggest fighting the threat by imposing limits on the virtual currency systems – realistically trying to take back the control.
It is always interesting to see any idea that makes banks and large corporations or governments scared for their financial interests.
What’s more interesting to me is seeing where this will lead to. Following the initial success of Bitcoin, several crypto currencies were born, and to name a few: Namecoin, Litecoin, Solidcoin, IXcoin and a few others. None of them gained the same or even a close valuation to that of Bitcoin. They all are variations on the same idea, but in a world where crypto currency is still brand new (when comparing to hard coin or notes), the grandaddy of those coins is still Bitcoin.
Here you can set-up an on-line wallet:
Open a new Bitcoin Wallet here
And here you can download the Bitcoin Client itself (also includes a wallet):
Bitcoins are received and sent here
When it comes to getting Bitcoins, there are two main ways: mining for them (by yourself, which is called Solo and requires more computing power generally but also rewards better, or within a pool of miners which requires less computing power but gives fractions of bitcoin each time), or buying them, which offers many ways – from contacting a private seller and meeting face-to-face with cash, and await the currency transfer, to using crypto-currency exchange websites which requires identity verification and usage of bank transfers or other similar means.
Paypal for instance, does not like bitcoin merchants and tends to ban sellers or buyers if it finds that they are using the service for that purpose. The reason (that they present it) is:
Prohibited Activities
You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
3. h) involve currency exchanges or check cashing businesses,
Or in short, they don’t care for currency exchange activity – which makes sense as it would expose them to money laundering related law suits.
But I can say from my experience, there are plenty of ways, most of them online and/or localized to buy small (usually up to 1000 coins) amounts of coins with a small fee – still it usually involves either bank transfers (local ones are usually cheap or free of charge) or various money transfer services. You do need to put a bit of faith in people as you pay first and pray later that the coins will arrive at your account (which you’ll be able to see practically immediately).
All transactions in bitcoins are final. That is also why you have to pay first and have your payment verified before you can get the coins, because once the coins fly over the world wide web, the deed is done and there’s no going back. The deals are represented simply by addresses – no names, no identifying markers or details other than addresses.
Before I finish this article, I want to clear something up: Bitcoin, as a protocol or a currency has never been hacked. There were a few incidents in which stock exchanges were hacked into and people’s accounts which contained coins were emptied out, and one or two cases where the owner of such site ran off with people’s coins, but these are all human related issues which can and do happen with physical world finances just the same. The protocol of Bitcoin itself, or the wallets have never been hacked nor cracked.
I have been exploring this coin for a couple of years on and off, and my only regret is that I didn’t buy some sooner. One of the people who bought 371000 coins when it was dirt cheap found out a year or two later that he was sitting on over a million dollars worth of coins. It’s unclear what he did with the coins though as since he had some financial trouble related to the american presidential campaign.
Time will tell where Bitcoin is headed, but if the current financial disasters taught us anything is that banks and government controlled currencies are only as trustworthy as the people in those establishments, and trusting politicians or bankers these days proves to be a grave mistake.
This one is another one of the most anticipated games of 2012. Many previews and interviews with the developers talked about the mechanisms behind the game (crowd handling mostly) as well as the top notch graphics.
Plot
Is the assignment just or are you used as a tool for nefarious ends?
The game revolves around the missions of a secret assassin that holds no name, only a numbered code: 47.
You play this chameleon-like hitman as you go around dispensing little dishes of death to the targets you’re assigned. As you work for a shadowy agency called “The Agency” (so original!), sometimes the hit choices are questionable, but you’re a professional who is not supposed to doubt the assignment. But this time, it gets personal, as you’re asked to eliminate your long time friend and handler in the Agency, and questions start to mount up as to the real reasons behind the assignment.
Game Play
Be careful not to make too much noise or be in someone’s field of view.. it’s hazardous to your health
The game is heavily reliant on stealth and skulking around. But the enemies are quite observant and you can easily get caught. To help with that, you get a sort of radar placed on the bottom left corner of the screen which shows you the enemies near by, their movements and on top of that, you get a visual indication of whether you’re observed or not, and to what degree.
You better watch those signs, because otherwise it won’t take long for you to be spotted and terminated. In addition to those aids, you have the ability to take on many different costumes from fallen enemies or dressing rooms.
And also use some objects for noisy distraction, or quiet kills of approaching enemies. The artificial intelligence of the game is pretty good, though not at the same level throughout the game.
I did encounter times where I was crouching behind a table, and a bad guy was searching for me, and looking directly at me from the side, but not noticing me. But that’s not a common occurrence.
The game saves at checkpoints where you have to stand on a glowing marker and choose to save, or after certain mission accomplishments automatically.
Graphics
Settings are detailed, with lots of shadows, lighting and colors
This game has been in the making for quite a few years, and it’s evident in the attention to details. Great usage of the graphics “Glacier 2″ means that the shadows and games of lighting are all flowing smoothly, and details are all there, from dilapidated house fronts, to caves with many hiding spots and pitfalls, and also interiors which don’t skimp on eye candy. That includes both the people and the objects in the game.
Sound
In a stealth game, keeping quiet is crucial
No qualms in that department. Music is spot on, sound effects are well placed and shots are resounding unless you have a silencer in place. Sound plays a big part in the game as you have to listen all the time for clues in people’s conversations as well as use noise as an aid to help you allude capture. The grand explosions also give a satisfactory feeling of mission well done.
Stability
Happened way too often for comfort
Sadly, even with all the man hours put into this elaborate game, somewhere along the way the quality control messed up. This game is not stable. It crashes sometimes at the drop of a hat, and I suspect it strains the display adapter causing the card to overheat. At first it was an issue with the installation which required a component that was missing, but didn’t bother to install it or let it be known that anything is missing. Then it just crashed mid-game. Eventually I was able to finish the game, but it made me not want to repeat the experience as I was tired of dealing with the instability.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Hitman 5 is a good, beautiful and meticulous game which offers you a better than ever experience as a trained assassin with plenty of gore and several options to go through the game (you can choose to go through it without killing anyone but your mark, but it’s pretty difficult as it is). However, the technical issues sometimes overshadow the game’s huge premise. I would recommend it, but remember that even with the latest patches, the game is not completely stable.
Martin Freeman in the first of two (long) parts of the Hobbit
Last night went to watch this first, long part of the two-parts Hobbit film adaptation.
First, if you compare it to the Lord of the Rings Saga, I liked it much better. Maybe because the plot is more straight forward, and it doesn’t feel like they tried to cram a long long tale into a very small space.
Or because the technology had advanced in the 10 years that passed since the last part of the three LOTR films came out. The height difference looks more natural, and the graphic effects mesh much better with their surroundings.
I actually really wanted to watch the film at a ATMOS supporting theatre. ATMOS is a new Dolby technology that supports 64 discrete speakers – providing a very accurate (and loud) 3d sound experience. Unfortunately, I waited too long, and missed the train on that one.
But never the less, the sound was excellent. Sometimes I would look around to make sure the sounds belonged in the film and not a person at the theatre.
The film itself follows the book quite accurately, so if you haven’t read the book yet, run and get it and read it till you finished. It’s that good.
Be warned, this part stretches for 170 minutes. So if you have a small bladder, better take care of it before you go in. Some say it makes the film tedious, I don’t subscribe to that line of thought and I’m happy that they skimped on the editing (virtual) scissors rather than compromise till the film looked like a cliff notes version of the original book.
Also, there are a few songs in the film – same as in the book. But they made it blend pretty nicely with the plot, so it didn’t feel too musical-ish, but contributed to the comical hue of the scenes.
After watching the film, I can understand why Peter Jackson chose to break it into two parts. He learned his lesson from LOTR which was a good exercise in cutting a gigantic saga into 3 films, when it should have been more like 6 or 8. (or maybe just a high production mini series)
This is a change from my opinion before – which was that this is a milking of the cash cow that is J.R.R Tolkien book-to-film adaptations.
The Hobbit left me smiling, and at awe. The tale of the home loving hobbit who dared to venture so far outside of his comfort zone, made friends, fought battles, and had an epic journey is a great story, and is told really well on the gorgeous backgrounds of New Zealand.
My advice: go and watch it! it’s well worth it even if it’s long.
Camera that takes the photographer’s photo and adds it the photo
This is how it looks from outside
• The Not One Less camera concept features a backward-facing camera in addition to the standard forward-facing lens. This allows the photographer to pose at the same time as the other subjects are making their best duck faces, then the picture snapper’s face is sort of awkwardly inserted into the corner of the photo. The concept is a little silly, but we can imagine it being a fun way to capture reactions to scenery, landmarks, and events – something that now requires the uncomfortable act of holding the camera at arm’s length and trying to take a picture of yourself and the background.
• And this one is the Augmented Reality Window Game for Boredom-Free Journeys. A project called “Touch the Train Window” could bring an unusual kind of fun to long journeys using augmented reality. Touch the Train Window is a kind of simple game from Japanese AV collective Salad that lets passengers add virtual objects to the landscape as they roll on by. The system uses a Kinect, an iPhone, a laptop running openFrameworks, a GPS module and a projector to create virtual objects that really look like they are a part of the passing landscape. Users can touch the window to add hot air balloons, horses, birds or other fun-to-watch things to their surroundings. It’s sort of like a “create-a-scene” sticker book for grownups. The GPS module measures the speed of the vehicle as well as the distance to nearby landmarks, adding to the realism of the created scene. All of the equipment required for the game is very cumbersome right now, but as the components shrink with subsequent generations the hardware might someday be small enough to install in a car. Of course, whether it’s in a car or a train, a game like this pretty much guarantees that fights over the window seat will get a lot more intense.
So hungry, I could eat the wrapper! oops, I did eat the wrapper!
• What the photo says.. the guys at Brazilian fast food chain Bob’s burgers (no not that Bob’s Burgers) recently did a promotional stunt featuring edible wrappers (presumably made of rice paper) on their burgers. Apparently, the point of the campaign is to show that the food is so irresistible that consumers can’t be bothered to take the time to take off the wrappers. But, it is a great idea by itself. Green, tasty (could be made in flavours to compliment the meal), and doesn’t leave traces! here’s a video:
That’s it for now. Oh, just wanted to say thanks to gajitz.com for the first two items, and to technabob.com and cynical-c.com for the third!
As Intel and AMD grew close to the physical limit of the smallest transistor they could build, they had to find ways of packing more transistors and continue to increase computing power. Their solution was to add more processing units – all working together in tandem, and sharing some of the cache memory provided.
Since then, the race for more cores has only intensified, and spread from the general purpose CPUs to the more targeted GPUs of the two big market leaders: Nvidia and AMD/ATI. Their approach allowed for many more highly specialized processing units on the graphics card, allowing for massive (in some cases, counted in hundreds) parallel computing for the sole purpose of pushing 2D graphics and polygons on ultra high definition screens.
The big problem with this technology is, that the software side of the equation was (and still is) much slower to catch up with the development. Today, the usage of multiple cores, as well as large RAM amounts, and 64 bit operating systems (required in order to take advantage of both memory limitations of 32 bit Operating systems, and for their better support of multi-core) are not taken advantage of by most programs. The reasons are many, but mainly due to the need to do extra programming of separate versions of the same program for 64 bit and multi-core support.
But this is all in the process of changing. Microsoft, as a software world leader is pushing for the software world to move completely into 64 bit computing. Intel and AMD (but mostly Intel are pushing for the same, as it will remove some of the limitations from the ever-going race for speedier processors. With both the hardware and software leaders pushing for this goal, 32 bit operating systems and computing platforms will become a thing of the past. And then, the majority of software programming will be done for 64 bit and multi-core platforms.
It might not be in the interest of the consumer, as it will keep the cost of home computing at about the same level (instead of being driven down), but performance and (of course) revenue for those companies products will go up.
Where are we headed? Well, the thing is, you can’t keep adding cores and memory and hope for the best. the more cores you add, the more energy is consumed – even when every time you make the process smaller and more energy efficient. At some point, something have to give. It creates issues of overheating, and bottlenecks when the memory modules or other peripherals don’t live up to the CPUs expectations. The next step will be the next technology. Quantum, and biological computing.
The average Joe consumer does not need 64 bit or multi-core. Office, and most other applications and even games do not take advantage of more than 2 cores at best. And memory usage sweet-spot stops at about 2-4GB for 32 bit Operating systems, and 4-8GB for 64 bit ones.
The people who root for this progress are pointing to Bill gates’ misquoted statement back in the day of “640K ought to be enough for anybody”, as well as for the need of technology to advance as far as it can go. There’s no doubt there. If a technological advance can be achieved and will be able to add value to human life, then by all means, push through.
But that’s not really the case is it? The PC industry is like a 3 legged horse with bulging muscles, but an inherent tendency to fail at high speed. It links back to the mismatch between software and hardware advancement. If the software cannot keep up with the hardware racing forward, then what is the use of running so far ahead, just to use this super fast horse as a way to pull behind an old battered cart?
PC games didn’t even start on PC. Personal Computers were meant for work, spreadsheets, word processors, number crunching, but not games.
For that, before home game consoles came to be, there were the video arcades. Large stuffy halls filled with big noise boxes into which you could push a coin and play a game, usually standing up, at least till racing games made an entrance with driver cockpits and sometimes hydraulics to simulate braking and turns.
But then PCs became cheaper, and started making their ways into homes and not just offices. And after the small tv-connected computers that preceded them, it was quite a difference.
At the beginning, with the early 8088 and 8086 CPUs, they were pretty weak, and of course, display technology was very very expensive, so there were only black and white displays (Monochrome, which were somewhat sharper thanks to it), or for the more fortunate or rich, the CGA displays which allowed up to 4 shades of grey, green, or purple – depending which monitor you picked.
I had that monitor connected to my first PC. Later, EGA entered the scene, and while being very expensive (about 1000 USD), it opened the world to dazzling 8 or 16 colors on the screen at once!
That was a completely different story, and all those dim looking graphics took a whole new meaning. From there it was VGA (640*480 up to 1024*768 resolutions), SVGA, and after that it was onto super high resolutions from the world of TVs and cinema – HD ready, and Full HD and all that’s in between.
The advance of this colourful technology got people hungry for more complex and beautiful imagery and animation (graphics) as well as plots and game mechanics.
It’s what drove the PC technology to where it is today, levels of performance that belonged to room-sized computers mere 5-6 decades ago. And it still drives the industry today in much the same way. Some say that today the games over-focus on the looks rather than the plot.
It’s not untrue. If you look at the shelf (virtual or real) of a computer game store, you’ll see plenty of sequels and many eye-popping graphics-rich first person shooters that mostly seems to be clones of one another.
But not all. There are always gems that pop up now and then. The independent game industry is one of the driving forces today that helps keep the big wig game producing companies such as EA in check.
Another is the audience itself. You simply can’t keep running on franchises forever, especially as those franchises are usually Big dollar budgets and are expected to keep becoming bigger, better, and more challenging every new reiteration that comes out.
Today, there is also the big (and quite recent) advantage of crowd funding. Through web sites such as Kickstarter, and Indiegogo, family operations, private people, or game developers who tired with the corporate world can go to their target audience directly and ask them to take a leap of faith and put money on the game that a big company would simply refuse to back up – for pure financial reasons.
How does the future looks like? With multi-core processing and new technologies being absorbed into the consumer market (such as previously exotic HUD eye assisted control, camera electric and sonic gesture tracking), as well as AI that goes further than before with natural voice recognition and more intelligent character reactions and plot lines, not to mention the ever evolving graphics, the holy grail of realistic (some say ultra-realistic) looking computer games is not that far away any more.
I think that within 10 years, the world of gaming will look like some of the Science fiction series we watched and loved as kids, and the distance between a computer game and a professional simulation and actual action (flight,driving or any other) will be smaller than ever before.
Recently, as a result of doing a lot of technology related reading (for work), I have started giving some thought as to where we are headed in terms of personal computing.
There is a shift in the paradigm. A change in the standard line of thought. So far, it has been the PC that reigned supreme, and all other computers followed.
But a change started when touch cell phones and especially smartphones came into play. People found that small hand-held devices could provide them a big chunk of what they needed either for work or for leisure.
Even laptops and notebook PCs are taking a hit in that respect, and it’s all a part of a trend that only grows stronger, where global PC sales are going down, while sales of tablets and smartphones are going up.
The world leading brand companies have noticed this trend for a few years now, and their tactic to fight it has been to push forward Ultrabooks as well as try and sell more all-in-one PCs with elements taken from the portable devices world – such as touch screens. Microsoft lent them a hand in that area by recently releasing Windows 8 and its variants into the wild.
It may be too little, too late. It’s true that there is no real alternative to a big screen and a proper keyboard (even though some other input options are already on their way to the market) when it comes to typing or doing real work. (I type this post on a desktop, simply since it’s the most convenient option between my laptop,tablet,desktop or smartphone)
But what people are starting to understand, maybe subconsciously, is that technology is at a real turning point. We are no longer tied to one option or one solution. With introduction of hybrid solutions such as Asus Padphone 2, people can work with their phone, and also use it as a tablet. Now, what stops us from using our smartphone, and when the time comes, dock it into a smart docking station which turns it into a full fledged laptop or even a desktop? The technology is here to allow this.
I believe that in the coming years, companies that see their PC market share shrinking, will come out with such hybrid solution, because the public will ask for it, one way or another.
The modular solution is the best, as long as you are not forced to make too many engineering compromises along the way.
Currently, smartphones and most tablets are using ARM processors, and desktops and laptops are using x86 processors. This creates a barrier since you cannot run programs or same operating systems on both. But I foresee that this will change. Today smartphone CPUs are already more powerful than the PC CPUs of 10 years ago. It won’t be long before they are close to today’s PC CPU performers.
Also, you can put a low-power CPU in a smartphone, to save battery life and avoid fire hazard, but a complimentary unit will reside on the docking station which will boost performance for when you’re home or want to work at laptop level. It’s all about Lego-like mindset.
Those who won’t adapt, will be gone. It’s a simple matter of time and economic constraints. The world always wanted smaller and faster, but now it also wants Big and useful at the same package deal.
Prices are being driven down by third world countries such as India – they just announced a 20 dollar tablet!
This is ground breaking, as just a few years back, engineers were struggling to build a 100$ laptop for poor country school children. 20$ price tag puts accessibility to computing almost everywhere. It will make it easier for people to survive in an ever more ferocious job market if they have the opportunity to learn and hone their skills from an early age.
But low prices are just a part of the story. You always got more bang for your buck as new generation of computers came along making the last one practically obsolete. Companies are fighting now harder than ever to fend Moore law just a little bit further, and they’re fighting a losing battle.
That’s why Intel took the multi-core road even though people still barely use the extra power it offers (lack of software support which will take a while to catch up).
Today you can see pentium or higher class CPUs in washing machines and refrigerators (those are more justified with the slew of internet supporting units in Japan and Korea). It’s mind boggling at times.
Do you know what really drives the need for speed for computer manufacturers? It has and always have been video games. Without those, people would have stayed with 1990 level PCs and been perfectly happy with them. They did spreadsheets, word processing, and other simple tasks quite well. But the game industry demanded more. More power, more memory, more speed and better multimedia capabilities.
And here is a little taste of the future:
Is it good or bad? It’s neither. It’s supply and demand. If people didn’t need or want to play games, companies wouldn’t race endlessly into the future creating machines that can do unimaginable fits for mere hundreds of dollars. The PC of today is the Cray supercomputer of just a few years back. Where do you think they took multi-core computing from?
One guy, one fake wife, and one girlfriend. what to do?
Okay, I’ll start by saying don’t expect an exact replica of the original storyline with new actors. It’s not that, even though some things were carried over from the original film.
The acting is fine. With Colin Farrell which I don’t like much, but does a decent job as the clueless (at first) Doug Quaid, Kate Beckinsale which takes on herself the role of the fake wife, Lori – originally portrayed by a younger Sharon Stone in the first movie incarnation, and finally, Jessica Biel, who plays the resistance connected Melina.
There are some inconsistencies, and I know it’s funny to say that about a science fiction movie, but I expect believability in those too. At least when it concerns events throughout the film that don’t mesh up.
The writers/producers tried to make people doubt everything a-la Inception. Maybe it would have worked with a tighter script and a movie that’s not a remake, but it doesn’t work here other than leave you with a bit of a bitter taste of WTF at times.
The storyline deviates from the original in that the plot is not on Mars for starters but on a post-apocalyptic earth, where the remaining population resides in a non-toxic area of today’s western europe – called in the movie “The United Federation of Britain” (but suspiciously has no hint of british accent as everyone there speak in an american accent aside for Colin Farrell’s australian accent), as well as in “The Colony” which encompasses the continent of Australia. Doug is a (apparently) factory worker that finds out his life is nothing like he thought it is, but a series of memories implanted to make him think he’s someone else.
The future of toxic dumping?
From there it’s a rolling wave of pyrotechnics with levitating car chase, half-ruined cities, the nice idea of an elevator that takes you through the earth’s core from The United Federation of Britain to The Colony within 17 minutes. Wouldn’t want to give too much else away, but it is a nice rolling (but somewhat long) action movie.
I loved the original movie back in 1991 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, as it was one of the biggest action-scifi movies of it’s time, even with the visual effects that may be seen today as absurd – the plot was tight and the action amazing.
This one, even with the attempt to surprise an audience that seen a previous version of it, fails to give any good reason (aside from good visual effects, and money making for the producers) to go watch it. It will be, I think, a good DVD/Bluray release, but aside from being a time filler for when you have nothing better to watch, It’s not really a movie you’ll remember, or want to watch again.
It does have good sound, good visuals, and a decent plot if you haven’t watched the original one. But the differences, in my opinion, don’t justify the cost of a ticket. Better save your money for big block busters rather than remakes.
I hope you enjoyed my little review, and come back again!
Don’t forget to like,comment, +1 or any of the other available options!
