Thoughts, ramblings and other stuff

USA Today has the Save Our Show Campaign with a poll on it's website and both Agent Carter and Person of Interest are on it. This panicked me a little as I wasn't aware ratings for PoI were that bad. I knew about Agent Carter which is sad enough because it was an awesome show but I'm not prepared to let of of PoI. It the most wonderful, complex story about current stuff (government surveillance) and future (AI?human relationships). I also voted to keep Galavant because it brought me much joy but I don't feel about it as strongly as about the other two.

It looks like Tron 3 is happening and both the director of Tron: Legacy Joseph Kosinski and the two main stars Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund are back. I hope Cillian Murphy is back too so they can build on that teased confrontation between the sons of Flynn and Dillinger.

And after what happened to Hugos here are some jury picked awards. The shortlist for Artur C. Clake Award have been announced:
The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey (Orbit)
The Book Of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Canongate)
Europe In Autumn by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)
Memory Of Water by Emmi Itäranta (HarperVoyager)
The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August by Claire North (Orbit)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Picador)
I've only ready Europe in Autumn but these all look interesting.

So do the winners of BSFA Awards:
Best Novel
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit)

Best Short Fiction
The Honey Trap by Ruth E. J. Booth, La Femme (Newcon Press)

Best Non-Fiction
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers and the First World War by Edward James

Best Art
The Wasp Factory after Iain Banks by Tessa Farmer

I finally went to see Tron: Legacy and from the number of people in the cinema there were plenty of others who postponed it too.

I loved the visuals. The bikes, the planes and the game. The remaking of all the amazing parts of the Grid. All that made me stare in awe as a kid and leave the movie thinking computers are cool and I want that too. From the bike game fights to the planes the movie was worth seeing just for that. The visuals of the first one imprinted themselves on my little kid brain. The lightbeam sail still is what I imagine every time it is mentioned as a method of space travel. This new version re-imagined it in 21st century technology and it was amazing.

Well, almost all. I had two gripes with the look. One was de-aged Jeff Bridges. His look pinged my uncanny valley feeling so bad I cringed every time he was on screen. It wasn't as bad in the Grid as it was in all fake environment but the scenes from the past - they should've kept him as silhouette. And I say it as a person who liked the looks of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie. Still Jeff bridges acting was suberb and it made it easier to bare. The other thing was the famous orange-teal problem. I think sticking to red-blue or at least orange-blue of first movie would've been less cringe worthy.

I also saw it in 3D. I generally liked it but it made already dark movie even darker and sometimes all there was was darkness with some bright lines denoting objects on the grid. I don't know if anyone else had that problem - maybe it was the cinema I saw it at - but it made me want to see it in 2D. I was a little afraid 3D will make my head hurt as it is Digital 3D but it was unobtrusive and I think it just give a better depth to the game/fight scenes.

Another thing I liked were the real life scenes. I liked that there was no movie shining screen, strange revolving colours computer hacking. I liked that Sam and surprise Edward Dillinger were using actual Unix commands which, in terms of Hollywood computer science, is an incredible improvement.

( Rest is spoilers )

I had great fun watching this movie. It was exactly what I expected it to be. It was what I wanted.