How to Spend $20

By David Mumpower

June 1, 2011

David Lynch must be spinning in his...living room.

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For those who like their titles great and their movies atrocious: Drive Angry 3D

The title says everything here. Someone sitting in a studio boardroom said, “Gee, I’d sure like some of that Fast and Furious money”. Then, someone else suggested casting Nicolas Cage in the place of Vin Diesel and the conversation got away from them. Critically disliked and genuinely despised by normal movie-goers, Drive Angry 3D is the latest proof that Nicolas Cage must be stopped. Now that he’s broke, he’s gotten even less choosy about his movie scripts, which is akin to Lindsay Lohan determining that what she needs is more negative publicity.

There is one surprising aspect to this conversation, though. For all of the negativity directed at this feature due to its star and its overwhelming lack of imagination, most people do agree that the 3D effects in it are quite good. So, if you have a shiny television and Blu-Ray player capable of showing off the effects, this is a very good cheesy movie option that you can mock incessantly while you proudly display your home theater. Personally, I’d still suggest Avatar, but all of your friends have seen that by now.

For those who like to make up your own ending: Stargate Universe Complete Final Season

Stargate Universe was intended to be the program that filled in the vacuum left by the end of Battlestar Galactica. It had the Stargate bloodlines that had created 15 seasons worth of programming for SyFy and its much better predecessor, The Sci-Fi Channel. It also took the premise of BSG, putting a team of humans in an unending series of new, foreign environments, each of which could prove fatal. They even introduced the premise that another race was stalking them in hopes of eventually exterminating humanity. Combined with a star studded cast (by cable television standards), there was every reason to believe that Stargate Universe would be a network staple for the foreseeable future.

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Alas, people were a bit tired of Battlestar Galactica by then, as indicated by the fading ratings of Caprica. That show managed only 800,000 viewers per new episode at the end of its run. And people were even more tired of Stargate after those 15 seasons of roughly the same ideas regurgitated repeatedly. A fresh take on the premise using a blueprint that had been recently triumphant seemed like a smart play on paper, but it failed completely in execution, at least in terms of ratings. Like Caprica, Stargate Universe frequently fell in the 800,000 viewers range during its second season, nowhere near a large enough viewing audience to justify the expense.

This is a shame, because Stargate Universe season two includes a lot of great television. Several of the episodes explore standard science fiction premises from a fresh perspective. Particularly noteworthy is The Hunt, an episode where two members of the crew wind up trapped in the hunting den of a massive creature whose intellect exceeds that of the soldiers trying to save them. Similarly, the concept of time travel is explored when the members of the Destiny meet a group of people who prove to be their great, great, great (etc) grandchildren from a few thousand years later. In this manner, the producers of the show were able to demonstrate a satisfactory lifetime for most of the crew at the point in time when they came to the realization that the series would be cancelled. Alas, they still did not have enough time to map out a satisfying end game, which means that if you want to watch season two in hopes of resolution, you are out of luck. The show almost dares SyFy not to wrap up Stargate Universe with a made for cable movie at some point down the line. Without this, the show will stand as completely undefined in terms of the fate of the crew.

Watching the two seasons of Stargate Universe feels like watching the first two acts of a movie that shows the promise of greatness. Then, the projector tears up and no matter knows what happens in the end. I call this my Avatar movie-going experience, only stretched out for a few more hours. I recommend Stargate Universe as a show and particularly enjoyed season two. Still, you should accept in advance that you will be cliff-hung if you watch it. Blame SyFy.

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