Falling Skies

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

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Anyone watch Falling Skies? I don't have cable, but I saw a few episodes while on vacation last year. Just picked up the first season on DVD, and would like to hear your reviews of how the second season started out last night.

The alien invasion storyline has been done to death, but I like this series.
 
I've been watching since the beginning. Great show! I like how the different characters play against eachother in how their views are in surviving and resisting.
 
It has all the cliches and all the stereotyped characters, but I have seen much worse.

Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen second season premier "Worlds Apart."


falling-skies-finale-alien.jpg









The Aliens have read Thucydides, and an Overlord takes the part of an Athenian in the Melian dialogue:

You know as well as we do that right . . . is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20110606160350/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/melian.htm

Tom replies that they should be cautious in generalizing from history, because "our history" (the Human–Alien war) "has not been written." Astonishingly good comeback from Professor Tom Mason, he of the History Channel cliche fest. I hope it means there is better writing to come in season two.
 
silenthunterstudios said:
The alien invasion storyline has been done to death, but I like this series.
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In the first season they skipped past the actual invasion part, I felt cheated but I guess that saved them a lot in special effects costs.

The first season started off slow, just arguing among the people. Then when they started attacking machines and aliens it got more interesting. One interesting aspect of the first season- why would an alien with 6 legs (8 legs?) create a robot with only 2 legs? PEOPLE with 2 legs create robots with 2 legs, an alien should create a robot with as many legs as he has.

The movie "Super 8" came out at about the same time and had an alien that was surprisingly close to the aliens in "Falling Skies".

I've been on Netflix watching the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica and that whole series was very good. I've spotted a few interesting knives on it too. Now I've started watching Farscape but it isn't nearly as interesting to me.
 
bdmicarta said:
In the first season they skipped past the actual invasion part, I felt cheated but I guess that saved them a lot in special effects costs.
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Robert Rodat discussed this in an interview.

http://www.screenjunkies.com/tv/tv-news/falling-skies-creator-robert-rodat-talks-alien-invasions-working-with-spielberg/

Q: It’s pretty hardcore starting out with the kids telling the story of how all their parents were killed by aliens.

RR: You know, people have accused me of making that, have said is that a budgetary issue?

Q: Oh, it comes across as a dramatic issue.

RR: I hope so because I sat down at the beginning, in the initial outlines I actually had a five page montage of the actual invasion. I wrote a few drafts of it and I looked at and say, “Ay-yay-yay, I’ve seen this before. There’s no emotion to this. It feels like one of those montages.” The children’s thing was a happy accident that was cost effective, but I think it’s much more emotional than one of those montages and cost $1.5 less.
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bdmicarta said:
One interesting aspect of the first season- why would an alien with 6 legs (8 legs?) create a robot with only 2 legs? PEOPLE with 2 legs create robots with 2 legs, an alien should create a robot with as many legs as he has.
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That's a teaser to draw you in and set you up for bipedal Overlords at the end of season one. The real question is, why would alien bipeds design bipedal battle mechs instead of four, six or eight-legged vehicles? My guess is they relaxed from studying human history (which can be heavy sledding) by playing BattleTech and reading Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

bdmicarta said:
I've been on Netflix watching the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica and that whole series was very good. I've spotted a few interesting knives on it too. Now I've started watching Farscape but it isn't nearly as interesting to me.
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Farscape requires high muppet tolerance. Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica "reimagined" were (to me) the great space operas. IMO Falling Skies owes a lot to Jeremiah.
 
I think everyone but me is sick of this series, but since this is Bladeforums, I am resurrecting this thread to mention that the late Espheni NORAD commander carried the biggest damn switchblade I've seen since the Checkered Demon in Zap Comix.

latest


He/She paid the usual price for bringing a knife to a gunfight.

What this series really needs in Sean Connery . . . and better writing wouldn't hurt.


Malone: Why do you want to join the Earth Resistance?

Cochise: To protect the property and citizenry of...

Malone: Oh, please, don't waste my time with that bullshit. Where are you from, Cochise?

Cochise: The second star to the right.

Malone: Cochise? Cochise, that's your name? What's your real name?

Cochise: That is my real name.

Malone: Nah, what was it before you changed it?

Cochise: Cheechock il Sneetch-nitch Chatico

Malone: Geez, I knew it! That's all you need, one thieving bubblehead on the team!

Cochise: What's that you said?

Malone: I said that you're a lying member of a no-good race.

Cochise: [As Malone draws back his arm with a flat sap, Cochise presses a ray gun under his chin] Much better than you, you stinking Irish %&$# pig.
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Those who gave up on this series may still like to know that on September 30, the human militias of Earth — assisted by the Volm and a near-extinct alien race, the Dornia — finally defeated the Espheni Overlord invaders and their Queen. Tom Mason was subsequently elected president of the resurrected United States.

Loyal fans were rewarded with two pieces of series backstory:

  1. The invasion was motivated by Earth's "incredible strategic value" as the sole inhabitable planet in the Milky Way galaxy.
  3. The invasion was also a grudge match, the Espheni having previously invaded Earth during the 6th century CE. Their first invasion was defeated by Dark Age humans — presumably forces of the Eastern Roman Empire led by Flavius Belisarius — who subsequently ate the Espheni sub-queen's flesh.
Bad writing was Falling Skies' downfall.
 
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I'm still buying the last season on DVD. Thanks for the synopsis Mojado. I saw two episodes on vacation, one where Weaver was taken captive, and one where Mason's oldest son was taken captive by the mensa biker, who appears to have finally gone over the deep end. I don't know why Mason didn't just kill him seasons ago, but I guess he served a purpose like Gollum.
 
I had to skip most of this as I'm waiting for the final 2 seasons on Amazon Prime. I liked seasons 1-4, and find I enjoy it more than Walking Dead.
 
Awesome show! I love almost all SciFi though! Wish they never cancelled Firefly!
 
bt93 said:
I had to skip most of this as I'm waiting for the final 2 seasons on Amazon Prime.
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Ditto.
I don't watch a lot of TV, so I totally missed this series when it was on - but I came across it on Prime, and have watched the seasons they have available.
 
I barely glanced through this thread, for fear of coming across any spoilers, but just wanted to add that my wife and I found this about a month ago, and are zooming through the episodes. We're at S 2 EP 5 right now. One of the few shows I can safely watch with my kids, (who aren't scared of aliens), as in, low sex, language, and the violence isn't too bad, and Family is a strong plot line, throughout.

Plus, we've loved Noah Wiley since his ER days.
 
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