zeke
Trail Wise!
Peekaboo slot 2023
Posts: 9,894
|
Post by zeke on Dec 27, 2019 16:34:09 GMT -8
OK, we talk about all sorts of things over the Winter. How many of you are keeping track of the sci-fi series The Expanse? I read the books this past Summer, then after that discovered there was a TV series. I binged the 3 seasons in Oct, then caught the 4th season when it was available mid December. IMO, it is faithful to the books, or enough so that it no longer matters. I know there is a Season 5 being filmed already, and that there were 8 books with at least one more coming. So far, each TV season is following one book mainly. Could be 8-9 seasons of the series.
I find the characters interesting, and with human faults. The science is set a couple of hundred years in the future, so it seems plausible. Seems to me there would be more advances in electronics than what has been represented in either the books or the film. The shipboard recycler might be the most interesting advancement to me.
|
|
gabby
Trail Wise!
Posts: 4,539
|
Post by gabby on Dec 27, 2019 17:29:50 GMT -8
The wife and daughter are watching it together, but I don't have the faintest idea what it's all about.
I think they're watching it on Amazon now.
|
|
|
Post by johntpenca on Dec 27, 2019 17:49:46 GMT -8
First I've heard of it.
|
|
zeke
Trail Wise!
Peekaboo slot 2023
Posts: 9,894
|
Post by zeke on Dec 27, 2019 17:51:14 GMT -8
johntpenca All 4 seasons are now available on Amazon prime video. A person could watch all of them with a one month subscription.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2019 18:51:25 GMT -8
My wife and I been watching The Expanse since episode 2 Season 2.
|
|
swiftdream
Trail Wise!
the Great Southwest Unbound
Posts: 569
|
Post by swiftdream on Dec 28, 2019 13:26:08 GMT -8
I’ve seen it advertised and now that you bring it up I’ll check it out. We got Amazon Prime three years ago just for streaming all the tens of thousands of movies and series shows for a very low price when we cut out cable. They do have amazing content. That cut our TV bill down to a fraction. We may watch it an hour and a half late at night in winter and only one hour in summer. The eyes get too tired to read at a certain point.
Amazon has its own movie studios and the shows are getting better. But they offer a bunch of older stuff that we never saw back when and some of those are excellent too.
Their recent movie, The Aeronauts was good too, based on actual events.
|
|
|
Post by bradmacmt on Dec 28, 2019 13:42:01 GMT -8
Their recent movie, The Aeronauts was good too, based on actual events. Well, yes and NO. The lead female character was 100% fictitious, while being 100% central to the movie. Lame...
|
|
|
Post by Lamebeaver on Dec 28, 2019 14:03:49 GMT -8
The lead female character was 100% fictitious, While the balloonist in the original story was male, the female character was loosely based on Sophie Blanchard.
|
|
swiftdream
Trail Wise!
the Great Southwest Unbound
Posts: 569
|
Post by swiftdream on Dec 28, 2019 14:26:58 GMT -8
Their recent movie, The Aeronauts was good too, based on actual events. Well, yes and NO. The lead female character was 100% fictitious, while being 100% central to the movie. Lame... I’m well aware the lead female character was actually male in the original event but the change didn’t make it lame or a bad movie. She was entertaining and very interesting in that role. And they got married after they landed so I kind of like that better than if two guys would have fallen in love. Face it Brad, most movies take liberties that make a better screen play.
|
|
|
Post by Sleeping Bag Man! on Dec 29, 2019 14:46:52 GMT -8
I stumbled across the series recently, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't know if I've enjoyed it so much because it actually IS this good, or if it just contrasts favorably to the modern "JJ Abrams Mystery Box" style of writing, where plots, characters, motivations, mysteries, etc, are frequently not explained, resolved, or connected. I'd sign up for 2 months of Amazon Prime, just to watch this, before I'd buy 1 movie theater ticket to the new Star Wars turd.
|
|
reuben
Trail Wise!
Gonna need more Camels at the next refugio...
Posts: 11,213
|
Post by reuben on Dec 29, 2019 15:46:32 GMT -8
The lead female character was 100% fictitious The entire story is 100% fictitious.
|
|
swiftdream
Trail Wise!
the Great Southwest Unbound
Posts: 569
|
Post by swiftdream on Dec 29, 2019 16:12:09 GMT -8
“Directed by Tom Harper, the movie is inspired by the true story of Victorian scientist James Glaisher and the aeronaut Henry Coxwell. (In the film, Coxwell is replaced by a fictional aeronaut named Amelia Wren.)
In 1862, Glaisher and Coxwell ascended to 37,000 feet in a balloon – 8,000 feet higher than the summit of Mount Everest, and, at the time, the highest point in the atmosphere humans had ever reached.”
The event did happen but there is historical fiction to make the screenplay.
I think the key is that it is based on actual events. It is not a documentary. Apocalypse Now was based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a symbolic work of fiction. I read that book but there were no helicopters in it, nary a surfboard to be seen and nobody but nobody liked the smell of napalm in the morning yet the film, like the book, was an amazing piece of work.
|
|
|
Post by ecocentric on Jan 1, 2020 9:26:11 GMT -8
I've followed The Expanse since season 1. I watched the entire series again in preparation for the latest season. It is worthy of rewatching because of how much is packed into the story. I think it is one the best science fiction series that I know of. I particularly like how the laws of physics and orbital mechanics are integral parts of the plot. The Belter creole language is hard to follow, but like the rest of Belter culture a logical result of settling the new frontier. The social tensions, projected economics, and imagined technology are all examples of masterful world building. If aspects of the plot and the James Holden character seem familiar, the name they give their acquired Martian gunship, the Rocinante, is a clue to the historical classic novel that inspired them. All of the characters are well developed, with flaws and virtues that make them seem real and contribute to making the story seem real, despite the setting and the science fiction elements that are alien enough to challenge anyone's imagination.
In comparison, Lost In Space has lots of action, tension, and character development. The story is exciting and the graphic effects provide an imaginative setting, but the "world" relies more on imagination and falls a little short on scientific verisimilitude. Spoiler, there aren't any solar systems between here and Alpha Centauri, to point out one of several. If you relate to Star Trek more than Star Wars, both examples of elaborate world building, you probably know what I mean. The real challenge to creating science fiction is to make the story as scientifically accurate, as far into the actual future as possible. Star Wars and Dune are so far removed from our world in time and space as to be just fantasy. David Brin, an astrophysicist who worked for the JPL, took on that challenge in his novel Earth written in 1990 as a projection of our world in 50 years. It has held up very well despite every year having brought surprising new discoveries.
|
|
GaliWalker
Trail Wise!
Have camera, will use.
Posts: 3,717
|
Post by GaliWalker on Jan 1, 2020 9:41:30 GMT -8
I’m a huge fan. I zipped through the books - can’t wait for the 9th - and then started the TV series. I think it’s the best SciFi show I’ve ever seen.
|
|