Willow is a 1988 fantasy adventure film directed by Ron Howard and produced and co written by George Lucas.   The film is now 21 years old the film begins in a time of dread the land ruled by the evil queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) who fears a prophecy that states a newborn baby will have a particular birth mark and will eventually bring about her downfall.  In fear of the prophecy queen Bavmorda imprisons all the pregnant mothers in her kingdom until one of them gives birth to the confirmed baby.  The infant is born and before queen Bavmorda has a chance to kill the infant the mid wife that delivered the baby girl hides the baby in her basket and leaves queen Bavmordas castle.   Hunted by queen Bavmordas soldiers the mid wife puts the child on a raft and sending it downstream, trusting fate to run its course.  A short time later the child washes up on shore near a village inhabited by a race of dwarf like people called Nelwyns the child is discovered by the children of Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) a farmer and amateur magician.   Willow takes the child to the towns council who decide that Willow must return the child to the world of the Daikini.  The first Daikini Willow comes upon is a warrior named Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) who offers to take care of the baby.  On his way home Willow is attacked by a clan of Brownies who stole the baby from Madmartigan the Brownies take Willow to there fairy queen of the forest Cherlindrea who tells Wilow that the baby, Elora Danan has chosen Willow to be her guardian.  Cherlindrea gives Willow a magic wand and tells him to find the sorceress Fin Raziel with the help of two of Cherlindreas brownies Franjean and Rool.  Along the way they bump into Madmartigan who helps them escape from Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) queen Bavmorda’s daughter, Willow, Madmartigan and the two brownies finally meet Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) only to find that the sorceress has been turned into a brushtail possum by queen Bavmorda.  Shortly after finding Raziel Sorsha captures Willow and the others and starts the long trek back to Nockmaar castle.  Along the way Willow attempts to use the magic wond Cherlindrea gave him to turn Fin Raziel back into her human form but transforms her into a raven instead.   Willow, Madmartigan and the two brownies manage to escape but Madmartigan under the influence of the Brownies love potion becomes infatuated with Sorsha.  The group eventually finds the castle of Tir Asleen which has been put under queen Bavmorda’s spell, she has frozen all its inhabitants. Madmartigan refuses to give up hope and prepares for Sorsha’s attack while Willow once again tries transforming Raziel into human form, this time turning her into a goat.  more…

Surrogates is a 2009 science fiction film.  The film is set in 2017 where humans live in near total isolation rarely leaving the safety and comfort of their homes, thanks to remotely controlled robotic bodies that serve as surrogates.   Each one is designed as a better looking versions of their human operators, because people are safe all the time and if a Surrogate receives damage it is not felt by its owner.  The world if free from fear, pain and crime agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is an FBI agent who through the use of his own surrogate investigates the first murder in years.  Jarod a college student is the son of the man who invented the surrogates and who uses multiple surrogates of himself.  Agent Greer´s case grows more complicated when several humans are murdered because their surrogates were destroyed, something which is not supposed to happen as the human operator is supposed to be  safe from the damage done to his or her surrogate.   Greer feels detached from the world due to the use of surrogates, so in order to catch the killer he will have to physically venture outside the safety of his home for the first time in many years, in doing so enlists the aid of another agent in tracking his target down.  During the investigation his inquiries lead him to the Dreads, a group of humans led by a mysterious man known only as The Prophet (Ving Rhames) who are against the use of surrogates.  Greer and his partner Peters (Radha Mitchell) determine the identity of the murderer is a Dread named Miles (Jack Noseworthy).  Miles used a unique weapon to kill Jarod he fires the weapon at Greer who escapes death from the weapon by disconnecting himself from his surrogate as the weapon is fired and then resumes his connection to the surrogate after wards.  Even though his surrogate is badly damaged it is still able to pursue Miles before his surrogate is destroyed by the Dreads. Greer is badly hurt by the weapon despite disconnecting he is found by his wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) who acts entirely through her surrogate, she prefers interacting through her surrogate even with her husband in the privacy of their home.  Greer is taken to the hospital and survives, although he is suspended and is not allowed to use a surrogate while his actions are investigated.   At the Dread Reservation Miles is confronted by The Prophet who demands information about the weapon he has been using, Miles is then killed by The Prophet and when Greer goes into the Reservation he witnesses Miles´s funeral and approaches The Prophet.  He asks about the weapon used by Miles but gets no answer and leaves, Greer meets with Dr Canter (James Cromwell) again using one of his surrogates who suggests the weapon is military. Greer meets with a member of the military and learns that the weapon sends a computer virus into the surrogates which shuts them down but it also disables the fail safe mechanisms and kills the operator.  more…

Spaceballs is a 1987 science fiction film co written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks.  The film begins on Planet Spaceball ruled by President Skroob (Mel Brooks) has wasted all of its air and is desperate to find more,  his plan to extract all the air from planet Druidia.  They plan to kidnap Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) who is about to marry the narcoleptic Prince Valium,  set against the marriage Princess Vespa runs off the altar with her Droid of Honor Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers) and escapes into space where she is attacked by Spaceballs under the command of Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis).    King Roland (Dick Van Patten) Vespa’s father calls Captain Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his mawg (half man half dog) sidekick Barf (John Candy) and asks them to rescue his daughter from the spaceballs and bring her back home.  They agree to do this only for a million space bucks which will pay off their debt to Pizza the Hutt (voiced by Dom DeLuise).   King Roland agrees and Lone Starr and Barf save Princess Vespa and Dot Matrix from Dark Helmet by literally jamming the radar on their flagship Spaceball One and then escaping by entering light speed.   Spaceball One pursues by attempting to go faster but end up traveling at ludicrous speed and overshoots Lone Starr and the Princess.  When Lone Starr exits light speed the heroes realize they have run out of fuel and crash land on the desert Planet MoonaVega.  There they meet Yogurt (Mel Brooks) who introduces Lone Starr to The Schwartz and teaches him how to use it,  However Spaceball One has discovered their location by using an instant cassette of the movie.  Using the Schwartz Dark Helmet tricks Vespa into thinking he´s her father and captures her again and takes her back to planet Spaceball and forces her father to reveal the entry code to planet Druidia’s atmosphere.   Lone Starr and Barf rescue the Princess again and head back to planet Druidia upon arriving at Planet Druidia they witness Spaceball One transform into Mega Maid with a vacuum cleaner and begins to extract the air from the planet Druidia.   Lone Starr uses his Schwartz ring to reverse the procedure and then enters Mega Maid through her ear to the central brain area of the ship to activate the self destruct button.   Lone Starr is about to press the self destruct button when Dark Helmet appears and challenges him to fight,  they begin to duel using light saber like weapons emanating from their Schwartz rings.  Dark Helmet tricks Lone Starr into losing his ring defenseless Lone Starr hears Yogurts voice convincing him he doesn’t need the ring to use the Schwartz.   more…

WarGames was made in 1983 and is now 26 years old the movie was a box office success costing only $12 million but grossing over $74 million after five months in the United States.   The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.   A sequel WarGames The Dead Code was released direct to DVD on July 29 2008.  The film begins during a secret simulation of a nuclear attack, in one of the missile silo bunkers one of two United States Air Force officers is unwilling to turn a required key to launch a missile strike.  After this incident command of the missile silos is taken over by  NORAD and its supercomputer  WOPR which is programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war.  We then see David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and computer hacker.   After he receives a failing grade in school, he uses his home  microcomputer and modem to hack into the schools computer system using an unsecured password.   He then changes his grade and does the same for his friend and classmate Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy).   David sees an advertisement for some forthcoming computer games and has his computer dial every number in Sunnyvale California, in an attempt to find its system.   When reviewing the results he finds one system does not identify itself which he finds intriguing.   After trying a few commands he succeeds in finding a list of games starting with general strategy games like chess, checkers and poker More intrigued than ever Lightman continues to try to hack into the system without success.   Lightman enlists the help of an older hacker who explains the concept of a backdoor password and suggests tracking down Falken referenced in Falken’s Maze the first game listed.   Lightman finds out everything there is to know about Stephen Falken and learns that Falken had a son,  Joshua and subsequently uses his name as a password to gain access to the unidentified system. Unknown to David he is actually connected to WOPR the super computer in the Cheyenne Mountain military complex. WOPR was originally programmed in part by Falken to run simulations on various war fighting scenarios and attempt to find winning strategies.   The list of games Lightman found were the various scenarios. David  starts a game of Global Thermonuclear War playing as the Soviet Union selecting Las Vegas and his home town of Seattle as first strike targets.   WOPR starts running a simulation of a missile attack on the NORAD displays,   leading the human military personnel to believe that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound. more…

Gamer is a 2009 science fiction action thriller film written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  In a near future New York eccentric Ken Castle (Michael C Hall) has revolutionized the gaming industry with his invention of self replicating nanites that replace existing brain cells and allow full control of all motor functions by a third party. The first major application of this technology allows gamers to control a real person in a pseudo community. Those who work as characters in Society are paid for their participation. A second game Slayers is a multiplayer third person shooter game with death row prisoners as avatars in lethal battles. Any inmate who lives through 30 matches wins a full pardon. Simon a 17 year old gamer (Logan Lerman) has control over Kable (Gerard Butler) the most recognizable face in Slayers due to having survived 27 matches, far more than any other participant.  While Castle, now rich from the success of the two games is interviewed on a talk show an activist organization called Humanz hijacks the broadcast and claims that Castle will eventually use the nanite technology to control people against their will. After a stranger gives Kable a warning in his prison cell that the game’s mastermind plans to kill him, Kable asks Simon to relinquish control over him in the 30th match. He uses this opportunity to escape and successfully drives out of the deathmatch arena while news outlets report that he has been killed.  Kable is taken to the Humanz leader (Ludacris) who explains that the mind control technology can potentially be used without discretion on anyone, leading to the extinction of independent thought.  Kable seeks his wife out, who has been working as an avatar for Society.  more…

Fringe is an American science fiction television series co created by J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.  The series follows FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv),  mad scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his son Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) as they investigate aspects of fringe science.  All over the world a series of apparent experiments are occurring for reasons unknown, Olivia, Peter, and Walter are in charge of investigating these strange events to determine their source.  In all the cases investigated by the Fringe team Massive Dynamic  a leading global technology company has been connected to the pattern that holds the patents for a number of new and important technologies.   Their enemy is ZFT  a bio terrorist organization which is orchestrating all of the strange occurrences in order to prepare for a destructive technological singularity.  Connecting both sides together is a drug called Cortexiphan which was developed by Walter and his partner William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) now chairman of Massive Dynamic.   As children Olivia and a number of others were treated with this drug not knowing why she investigates the series ends with Olivia meeting William Bell in a parallel universe where among other differences the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the September 11 attacks,  Season 2 of Fringe is currently in production. more…