Images from the world of Magnum Thrax, via MidJourney

I've never been able to visually realize the world of Magnum Thrax, until now. Thanks to AI rendering using MidJourney, I've been able to pump out a number of images that feel like they could come from Thrax's madcap post-apocalyptic world.

Here's one of the androids in adaptive battle armour; embedded nanites can deploy a variety of tools, weapons or tentacles as need may be:

Below is an image of ambulatory fungus, absorbing radiation. Living cleaner bots designed by one of the surviving AI hubs:

Lastly we have an android that has been cybernetically integrated into battle armour; their brain exposed within a hardened shell of cubic silicon nitrate. Otherwise fatally injured androids can be recycled back into combat service using machine parts: 

Feels very Heavy Metal somehow...

I made these images with tools from @midjourney, you can sign up for their private beta here http://bit.ly/3J2NNVs

It's amazing, but does have drawbacks. There is no structure beneath the detail, it's like a thin crust atop... nothingness. But it's still hella cool to play with.

Stellar sci-fi shows

This is my list of recent sci-fi masterpieces. They are packed with genius and beautiful banana waffles: 

The Expanse

This show is the grittiest, most down to earth in space opera I've ever seen. The complicated politics remind me of early seasons of Game of Thrones (when I cared), and get subverted by the arrival of The Protomolecule, which adds a beautiful dollop of WTF. Takes a little bit to get into, but the characters grew on me. Based on a book based on a RPG game series run by one half of the writing team (the other half was a player). Well motivated characters and the show runner Naren Shankar doesn't drop the ball at the finish line... he keeps in it in case they adapt the final 3 books in the series.

I found this show much more compelling and interesting than anything coming out of Disney.

Raised by Wolves

This show is just flat out banana pancakes. It's awesome and weird and every time you think you have it figured, it goes and does something batshit. I loved both seasons, although my jaw was often on the floor. Is it good? I have no idea, but I found it enthralling. Insanely good production values, androids, symbolism, and people turning into trees. 

What's not to like?

Apparently a lot, as it's been cancelled. We'll never see an ending, so you may not want to get invested. I'd say it's still bonkers enough to be worth a watch. Nobody else has quite pushed the limits like this show.

Severance

My outie would love this show. So would my innie. It's eerie and unsettling and despite being far out, feels painfully relevant. Anyone who's worked for a mega corporation and experienced Waffle Wednesday won't want to miss this. Directed with aplomb by Ben Stiller; I'd expected it to be more comedic, and while there are (darkly) funny moments, this is no Zoolander. It's sharp and smart and sizzling good. Watch it. You'll never look at a waffle the same way again. 

Apple is offering the first episode free to watch.

Devs

Some people find this show pretentious, and that may be so, but it's still the most stylishly directed TV show of the last decade. You feel a certain clinical detachment with staging, which at times is almost Kubrickian / play like. The story is fun, the mood eerie, the acting solid. There's one moment I profoundly disliked, which made me detest one character in particular; I'm not sure I fully understand the point the writers were trying to make. But it did make me ponder.

Tales from the Loop

Meditative, moody sci-fi, akin to Devs. Douses viewers with overwhelming melancholia and the infinite sadness of existence. But also beautiful. It's like the android says. Worth a watch. Jodi Foster directed the sublime finale. 

Westworld (Seasons 1 and 2)

This show started out with a real bang, has some great twists, and then flies off a cliff in season 3. The staging, music, acting and effects, which had been top notch, got shaky. Season 4 has got some interesting ideas bubbling, but who knows if it will gel in the end? First season is still worth a watch. You can stop there, or proceed to a more problematic season 2 (but still solid, with some great scenes).

The Mandalorian

It's the Spaghetti Western's Man with No Name in Space. It's the most radical reinvention of the Star Wars formula, heavily relying on Westerns for inspiration. The original Star Wars also referenced Westerns, but never to this degree. It's understated yet over the top. The effects are cinematic; Jon Favreau innovated a video wall that lets actors see the imaginary world they're in, rather than a great big field of green screen. Check out the reflections in Mando's armour. Baby Yoda is the cutest piece of merchandise placement this millennium (so far). 

The Volume video screen wall uses the Unreal video game engine with real time updates. Probably the greatest effects innovation since... computer graphics? Green screen?

The making of video is to be seen to be believed:

My advice? Don't watch Book of Boba Fett or Kenobi. They look great but the characters are lacking.

They Live: Obey!

The movie is a bit of a hash, and Carpenter didn't have much of a budget to play with. The underlying ideas and themes, however, are powerful stuff. I feel like they could have really expanded upon them. Sure, it may seem cheesy and didactic now, but when I first saw it, I loved it.

Don't look at that totally gratuitous, five minute long alley fight!

Never mind the deflating ending!

The best part, for me, comes after Rowdy Roddy Piper (I have no idea what his character's name is) discovers a box of sunglasses. He has no idea what they do, but he knows they're important. Cops trashed a homeless camp searching for them. He buries the box in a trash can, and slips a pair of the cool shades on. 

Then he walks out into a street transformed.

What he beholds is not our usual world of slick advertising, with beautifully lit beautiful models surrounded by elegantly framed products. 

Instead, he sees a stark world in black and white, filled with messages like: 

Obey.

Marry and reproduce.

Stay asleep.

Consume.

Conform.

Watch TV.

Buy.

Roddy can't believe his eyes.

Then he sees a man buying a magazine, only this guy's face is stripped of the flesh, and has weird orb like eyes. It's a nightmare visage, skull like. And this horror reacts to Roddy's incredulous stare with indignation, and says, "What's your problem?" 

Good ol' Roddy can't believe his eyes.

Without the glasses though, rich douchebag looks like a normal human being: 

BAM! 

It's wonderful stuff, poking fun at not only our own larger social foibles, but the empathy challenged psychopaths who often dominate corporate board rooms and slip into police forces despite psychological checks. 

Those without empathy are the true reptilians in our society. 

Keep your bubble gum supplies at hand, for They live... among us!

Matrix within a Matrix debunked

I've always thought that Zion was a catch basin for those who couldn't accept the main Matrix program. 

After all, it presents the perfect scenario for skeptics and conspiracy theorists: a future in which they are persecuted and manipulated, with a clear enemy to fight against. 

That would distract them seeking out the ultimate truth: that they still have not emerged into The Real. 

This theory was pretty wide spread, apparently. 

It makes so much sense to me, I was convinced it was the case. 

Yet, if it were actually a thing, the Wachowski's would have put in a nod to it in the latest film. 

They did not. 

So much for my movie interpretation skills!

Matrix Resurrections: The poison pill anti-sequel sequel

Neo with hand out. Is he trying to tell us something?

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

I had high hopes for Matrix Resurrections. It paired Lana Wachowski (and Aleksandr Hemon) with David Mitchell, the writer of Cloud Atlas. I saw the film adaptation of that in the theatre, and while it didn’t quite work for me (maybe I didn’t really get it), I was blown away by how wildly ambitious it was. The Wachowski’s take big chances, which I really admire. 

 

Lana Wachowski also said she made the film as a way of processing grief over the death of her parents. 

 

Whoa. 

 

That sounds like one heck of a solid emotional core for a film.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t what I was hoping for (not that this is relevant, but hey… subjectivity). 

 

Resurrections is two movies in one, giving you more bang for your cinematic buck: it’s a metatextual commentary on the film industry loosely tied into a continuation of the story concluded in Revolutions.

 

The metatextual commentary is fascinating (even as a primal scream of frustration) but the continuation of the story… not so much.

 

It begins with a redo of the first movie’s opening sequence: agents closing in on Trinity. This time, Agent Smith is a younger Morpheus (what?), and the entire sequence is being observed by an interloper named Bugs. She seems to be our new protagonist, and sports blue hair. She knows the whole story of the Matrix, so she’s perplexed seeing a rehash of earlier events.

Turns out, it’s a 'modal', a training subprogram that endlessly runs a single scenario. Kind of like how fictional characters in mass media are forever trapped in an endless sequel/reboot cycle.

 

Clever! 

 

We go on to find Neo, now mere Thomas Anderson, at a software company (Deus Machina), where he’s the star programmer who created the revered Matrix video games. Agent Smith is his manager/partner. 

The Matrix: the video game

 

Clearly Anderson is an avatar for Lana Wachowski. 

 

Several drones are introduced, including Jude (Judas?), a sycophantic, blinkered, obnoxious and base being who is… I forget. The Creative Director? 

 

Neither Smith nor Anderson are aware of their previous life; it’s all just part of a video game now. 

 

Smith informs Lana/Anderson that Warner Brothers isn’t interested in the new game (‘Binary’) that Anderson’s working on; instead, they want a sequel to The Matrix trilogy. And they’ll do it without them if they don’t go along. The seated Lana/Anderson is stressed and appalled and begins clawing at his/her knees.

 

This kicks off a series of scenes that dive down the rabbit hole of the film making sequel sausage machine, where marketers present research documents (the two key words audiences associate with The Matrix are original and fresh, so make an unnecessary sequel… original and fresh. What?), and the development team engages in ‘brainstorming’ sessions, in which people throwing around obnoxious statements without thought or consideration. It’s the corporate idea of creativity and it’s nausea inducing.

 

They’re the most powerful in the film because they’re actually saying something. I bet they’re Lana Wachowski’s opinion of real life meetings with Warner Brothers, and oh boy, she was NOT happy with Warner Brother’s threat to make sequels against her (and her sister’s) wishes. 

 

Sure, Warner’s owns the property, and from a legal perspective I’m sure they’ve got plenty of lawyers to justify making a sequel (along with profit projections), but from a creative viewpoint I totally understand the Wachowski’s not being happy about it. As an audience member, I’m not happy about it either.

 

I’m also part of the problem, because I go and see sequels in the vain hope they’ll recapture the magic of the originals. The Same But Different! Rarely do you see a sequel switch into another genre (Alien to Aliens). The latest Star Wars sequels seemed to be generated by putting the first trilogy in a blender and hitting puree. They become meaningless recycled gibberish.

 

As an artistic statement, The Matrix films concluded with Revolutions. But the story cannot end because, thanks to people like me, studios can make money milking dead cows.

Walk (fly) away from explosions

Matrix Resurrections isn’t the red pill, it isn’t the blue pill: it’s the poison pill. 

 

It deliberately undermines itself and the originals, attacks the sequel machine, avaricious film corporations, obnoxious fans who completely misinterpret meaning, and obnoxiously inserts frames from the earlier trilogy as nostalgia pellets… akin to what a rabbit would drop. 

It feels like the film is trolling the audience. It’s our fault movie characters are caught in these endless, torturous loops, each more awful than the last. 

 

The Matrix was storyboarded up the wazoo. The new film? It was shot on the fly, and it shows. It looks like the high budget version of home video.

 

The epic aspects of the Matrix are pointedly deflated. Morpheus-Smith appears to Lana/Neo in a lavatory, lamely quoting his earlier self and desperately grasping for gravitas that isn't there. It's like Luke tossing away his lightsaber. 

 

Is Wachowski annihilating aspects of the original she feels we incorrectly latched on to? The original series fetishized violence; is that why it’s deemphasized/poorly done here?

 

People excuse Keanu’s lackluster fight scenes by blaming his age, which is nonsensical, because he kicks ass in John Wick. Here, Neo just holds out his hands to stop bullets; it's his power move. Over and over and over and over again.

Neo does this. A LOT.

 

The fight scenes in Cobra Kai are more compelling, at a tiny fraction of the cost. 

The Resurrection characters make a point of saying they no longer need to escape through phone lines, but they don’t establish new rules. Which makes the chase scene at the end confusing: what are they trying to escape to. 

 

The metatextual aspect of the film has much greater passion. 

I’d rather see a documentary by Lana about the whole Matrix phenomenon and her journey through the film industry, than this. 

 

The sequel… I get the desire to bring Neo and Trinity back. Hey, they become 'a binary' (wasn’t that Anderson’s new game?)! I enjoyed the idea of long lost love, of cosmic connection inevitably bringing two people together. But the rest of it doesn’t hold water, and devolves into a meaningless chase scene, where I don’t understand the stakes, where they’re going or why. 

They don’t need a phone line… so where are they going again?

Is the 'swarm' idea a commentary on social media mobbing? Herd mindedness? Zombie movies? 

I don't know and don't really care.

 

The Analyst was a step down from The Architect. I detected real anger coming through his character, contempt for both his POV and the target of his frustrations (us). Nasty as he is (and he turns conspicuously misogynist in the last scene), he’s not wrong about people believing our emotions validate our actions, and us being immune to facts when feelings run hot. 

I am as guilty of this as the next person.

 

It’s difficult to escape subjectivity (and hey, that’s what this review is). 

 

I cannot recommend seeing Resurrections in a theatre. On the other hand, I would be very interested in watching it again on TV, with a director’s commentary track. 

 

(As I walked to my favourite café to write this review, a black cat crossed my path. I’ve walked this path for 10 years, and that’s never happened before. It made me laugh. A glitch in... you know.)

 

The leap of faith I couldn't make

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matrix Resurrections trailers

The trailers are looking fantastic. They suggest heavy themes (Neo in therapy!), of lost loves and realities and lives (Chance meeting Trinity in a cafe!), and then goes whole hog into action jackson. 

The second trailer mixes footage from the first films with the new one: realities are mixing, new versions overwriting the old. 

Could be amazing, or... it could be like Lucas' story rhyming, where he blows up a Death Star every other stanza. 

Which way will it go?

Fingers crossed...

We know Morpheus has been replaced by a younger, better looking actor; the formerly suave Merovingian is now a bum, and Neo has an extra thick chord sticking out of the back of his head when he was in his battery pod.  

But what does it mean? Not a clue. 

My guess? The new Matrix is nearing collapse and requires a reboot, yada yada, unexpected complications. Then suddenly everything is subverted in the best possible way. 

We know the machines are keeping an eye on Neo this time with Doogie-therapist, and keeping him pacified with big blue pills. Which means... the machines may not be onboard with Neo doing his choice/reboot thing. 

Morpheus 2.0 is back provoking Neo again in the fight simulator, more annoying than ever. 

Peace between humans and machines has broken down.

Maybe the Oracle, seen reading Alice in Wonderland in the trailer, can shed some light. And if she's back, so is... The Architect?

We will see! Fingers crossed it will rock!

I have to say I loved all four films in the original Matrix trilogy.

You did not read that wrong: I love the whole set, not just the first film.

Everyone says it derailed, that it went to hell, that the sequels were failures.

They are like Jon Snow: they know nothing.

They’re challenging in ways that action flicks aren’t. No, they aren’t perfect, but what is?

Macho dudes shooting macho guns across macho realities

To me, they were engaging on both the superficial action level and a deeper one. 

The Wachowski's had something to say with the trilogy and their Trinity: Neo (One), Trinity and… Smith. 

Neo is tied to Trinity by the bond of love, whereas Smith is tied to Neo by hate. 

Neo's faith and hope, while Smith is cynicism and faithlessness. 

The Matrix simulation contained millions of minds. The ‘real’ world, however, was never real: it was a catch basin for those minds that the matrix rejected. Why? As the simulation progresses in time, the number of rejects rises, destabilizing the system and making a reset necessary.  

We have never actually seen the real real world, whatever that might be.

Business douchebag in the first trailer gets the no-mouth treatment in the second

 

That’s why Neo has super powers in both. 

Smith’s cynicism infects the whole matrix simulation, turning it into a bleak landscape of inescapable mono-thought, hate filled and cynical, until Neo returns daylight.

Robot harvesting 'eggs' (human pods)

The Wachowski’s are smart, ambitious filmmakers. They take big risks with their films, and sometimes they don’t work out as well as one might have liked. 

I’m hopeful that the new Matrix film, Resurrections, has something to say. 

The first trailer starts out incredibly strong, then descends into spectacular action rehash. Maybe they don't want to give too much away...

Merovingian is back, and he's looking worse for wear

Going by Lana’s comments, which tie the new film to personal events, suggest that yes, it’s going to have meaning beyond cash grab. But it also likely won't be what we expect.

"Maybe this story is not the one we think it is..."

Wachowski also told EW: "Art is a mirror. Most will prefer to gaze at the surface, but there will be people like me who enjoy what lies behind the looking glass. I made this movie for them."

Sounds good to me.

Ruins of a future city

Final Season of The Expanse inbound!

I love The Expanse. 

It’s gritty and uncompromising. Reminiscent of Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, it has a very down to earth (in space!) feel to it. 

Like BSG, there's a large cast of characters, and initially the Expanse cast is a little harder to get into. Hell, it’s difficult to tell who the main characters even are. That sorts itself out quick, but it can still be a barrier to getting into the show. 

I highly recommend sticking it out for at least 4 episodes before deciding to drop the show. Trust me. It’s worth the investment.

One advantage The Expanse has over BSG: it does have a plan. The whole program is one great overarching story, beginning to end, a grand narrative that’s been plotted in advance by a series of books (which are not actually finished yet… deja GOT). 

I have faith they’ll be able to bring the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion, although how I have no idea. So many threads! So many mysteries! Again, a little deja GOT. 

I’m not sure how much I can even really say about the program without giving important details away. 

I can say that the books were written in a highly unusual fashion. Also, the characters prove themselves to be awesome. They act intelligently, with solid motivations. 

The two are connected.

The reason why they have greater integrity? They're based on RPG player characters.

I shit you not: the book(s) were written based on role playing game sessions.

A writer (I believe it was Daniel Abraham) joined sessions being run by a fellow who was developing his own sci-fi game (and universe) named Ty Franck. Abraham thought it a blast,  that it would make a really good book series, and a collaboration was born (along with James S. A. Corey, their combined pen name).

My understanding is that there was originally going to be one more main character (the healer/doctor/medic), but he dropped out of the game (too busy to play). As a result, his poor character was unceremoniously decapitated while sitting in a prison cell during a space battle. 

That'll teach him.

What an interesting idea, though! Using the combined brain power of a team of players to test your plot. To show what people in that situation (or imagining themselves in that situation) would do. 

Brilliant! 

There are many shows where characters devolve into plot plotters, shuffling around not because they have any character need, but because the plot requires it. This creates unsatisfying stories, and I know (as an attempted author) it can be a real problem. 

Sometimes characters take on agency of their own, and disobey and derail your plot, all without needing external people to actually embody them. So... just think how much more authentic actions would be if taken by… real people! 

That’s just one of the unusual angles in The Expanse.

The science in the show is far more rigorous than in Star Trek (which isn’t difficult, admittedly, Trek is more sci-fantasy), and (possibly) a bit more than BSG. Except when you bring in the, um, yeah, stuff later in the series... but even then it's presented really well. 

So it's not entirely realistic. Travel time is compressed (oh, GOT) and some mundane concerns have been glided over, as there’s a lot to consider with space travel and colonies. Still, it takes a lot more into consideration than I’m used to in run of the mill sci-fi.

You get the sense that the people behind the show really Give A Shit. 

This show has a dedication to craft and authenticity that is unrivalled in sci-fi. It's the best sci-fi TV show on television, hands down. 

Thoroughly engaging, highly recommended.

And there’s still time to get a go on it before the final season arrives. Give it a try, you won't be sorry. 

I’m stoked!