Taken...um...that was it?
Gigabites
did like the decade by decade generation by generation progression. The
way America was portrayed in the '50s, with the all the silly communist
paranoia and tactile feel of old technology. Overall, I thought it was
OK. I thought the dialog was at times dragging and some events puzzling
but you get the general idea after each night.
What I didn't like wasn't so much the mini-series as a whole, just
certain aspects of it.
1. originally it was marketed as a mini-series about people being
abducted...people as in plural and each distinct. I was under the
impression that there would be different stories about how people from
all over the globe have been taken at least since the '40s. I thought
each episode would focus on one story and there would be some sort of
culmination in the last episode where their lives are shown intertwined
in an amazing way...or something. The army guys in the begining that were
um, "probed" and how a survivor dealt with life afterwards is close to
what I imagined what the series was about. I thought each episode would
show the lives of a abductee in each era. Instead we get young adults who
have to endure some sort of "vasaline on the lense"/soft focus floaty
forced copulation". I want to be abducted!!
2. The aliens were shown more like animals than higher evolved beings.
Only at the end thru the Eric Close character did we see any glimpse of a
more evolved race. In ways, the alien(s) in the movie Contact was handled
better, hell, the wormhole aliens in Farscape and Thor's race in SG-1
were handled better. I would like for once to see the whole abduction
thing from the aliens POV. But not in that cheesey condescending Star
Trek way but in a Jane Goodall, way. Mat Frewers character said it best
"there are no gods here, they are looking for meaning just like we are".
I like that, it makes sense. It would be also cool to show the folly and
foibles of humanity as well as our weakness and the strength of our
humanity that helps us overcome them. But what did we get? Rave aliens
that stuck to walls like those sticky wacky wall walkers.
3. The syrupy sick way too long beam-me-up-Scotty ending. The aliens were
able to beam up the recording stick pretty quick but took an agonizingly
long time to pick up the kid.
4. Did they declaw the military? Every step of the way they were easily
fooled by ...well, everyone. Heather Donahue's character gets escorted to
a secure area only to give them the slip (what, no women in the military
who won't fall for that "you didn't have a sister did you" ploy) and end
up in a super secret high security area? And no one mentions "hey, didn't
we escort your skinny butt outta here?" Everytime that commander puffed
up his chest and barked some directive, she just went and did what ever
she pleased. Um... what happened to detainment for security reasons?
5. Creepy child voiceover/narrations.
The small nits I have would be:
1. That tracker tag thing, was it in the same location in the middle of
their brains as the father and son in the beginning? So did that thing
drop/tunnel straight thru people's brain and bone to be expelled thru the
nasal cavity? Isn't something the size of a pencil lead burrowing thru
your brain, um...bad?
2. With Eric Close, I was having Dark Skies flashbacks. I keep expecting
him to talk about how his wife and him was abducted in the '50s and now
they are holding his son captive.
3. Why did Heather Donahue's character just loc'd up and popped a cap in
Max Headrooms dome? She loved him, but was a bit obsessed...did she have
to ghost him? what happened to frantic crying to get her way? Or at the
very least a scene of Matt Frewer falling down unconscious with a shot of
her stnding above him holding the toilet tank lid?
4. Was the house the airforce guy's kid blew up the same house that the
failed experiemnt 1/2 bred kid's house that they set on fire? If so, why
did the son have to blow it up? I was burned..
I'm sure I have others but it's 3:30am...