Michael Formichelli's Blog: Nero's Niche, page 5

Rogue One: A Spoiler-Free Star Wars Review

Rogue One:A Star Wars Story

By now, I'm sure almost everyone has seen it and might even have tickets to see it again, but I'll keep this review spoiler free just in case.

Overall, it was an entertaining film, but as big a Star Wars fan as I am I can't say I fully enjoyed it. The beginning was a bit choppy and had some scenes that didn't seem were needed nor fit (the informant thing), and it seemed to move a bit too fast. The characters were fun, the story was pretty cool (the droid stole the show), and there were even some cool cameos, but until the last 30 mins I was teetering on the fence about how much fun I was really having.

One thing you should be warned about, the tone is Empire Strikes Back but darker, if you can believe it. If you go into this expecting a Force Awakens feel, you'll be surprised as the movie will hit you where it hurts—repeatedly.

Now, about those last 30 mins... I won't say anything about them other than I wish more of the movie had been like them.

It's no secret that Darth Vader makes an appearance in this film, and there's some talk of him getting his own movie in the future. Judging by what happened in this one, I'd be up for seeing it.

Update: The Lull Between Drafts

Greetings all!

I've just finished Draft 2 of Eye of the Abyss, and have entered the "strange time" between drafts. I always feel weird while waiting to make further revisions. It's something like what I felt after graduating college. There's a shadow hanging over my shoulder, whispering in my ear that I should be doing something, working on something, but I know I really should be taking it easy—but that damn shadow won't shut up.

Fortunately, there's the internet and its endless supply of distractions, and holiday shopping, and... and I wish I was working on the book.

New Blog Post: Westworld & Updates Nov 2016

I know it's been one of the longest no-blogging periods I've had in a while. The main reason for this is that I've spent almost all of my writing time over these last weeks working on Book 4. I'm about 70% finished with editing the first draft a.k.a. turning draft 1 into draft 2, and whereas I am now moving at a good clip, I'm still a bit disappointed that I didn't get it finished in time for NaNoWriMo. In fact, I haven't been able to do a NaNoWriMo yet. It seems I'm always working on something when it rolls around. Alas! Perhaps next year!

Aside from editing my fingers off, I've also been obsessing over Westworld. If you haven't checked HBO's new sci-fi series out yet, I suggest you get HBO Go and get caught up asap. The series is amazing! Loosely based on the 1974 novel by Michael Crichton (who also wrote, Jurassic Park, Timeline, and a ton of stuff you probably don't even realize is his) and the movie that came after it, this latest incarnation is a tour de force of intrigue, debauchery, murder, and highly advanced robotics.

From the opening twist to the chilling ending of the first episode, the series had me, and I'm happy to say it hasn't disappointed yet. I actually long for Sunday nights since this series began. One word of advice if you do decide to put it into your entertainment rotation: Watch the symbols and characters in the background as much as you do the action before you. Something's definitely going on.

Some Notes on Killjoys Season 2 (SPOILERS)

Two Fridays ago was the season finale of Killjoys. If you haven't seen it, stop reading now. The following contains spoilers.

Also, be forewarned, this isn't a good review. Although this season had some great aspects, overall, I was disappointed.

I will also add, that whereas Killjoys hasn't been doing it for me this season, Dark Matter has been knocking it out of the park. I'll write another review about that after its season finale next week, but I also will say that every episode has had me on the edge of my seat. It's been amazing...

So, with that in mind, proceed if you dare to my review of Killjoys Season 2.


Season 2 had a lot of little improvements over Season 1. First among them was the title song and new intro. My wife and I have both held that the music is the worst part of Killjoys, and although the new intro is a bit campy, it's light-years better than what came before. The other big improvement was the direction of the story. Delving into Khlyen's past and the history of the Scarbacks was absolutely fascinating—

And that's what has made this season finale particularly painful. I feel like the series has killed off every interesting character it had (aside from John). With Khlyen dead, Potter dead, and even Delle Seyah Kendry presumably dead (in a most satisfying fashion), I can only see Season 3 as being a painful venture that might end the series. Whereas I thought Potter's character was interesting, complex, and relatable, Dutch, for me, has been the most unwatchable character on the show. I never bought her "I'm a super-badass assassin" bit because Dutch fights like a slow, hot mess. She lacks the grace and precision of a skilled assassin (it might help if Hannah John-Kamen spends more hours training during this off-season) and the character has made consistently bad decisions like flying Lucy into a ship-destroying field over Red 17 because she believed "she'll make it" despite all evidence to the contrary. I also can't imagine this me vs. myself they're building up to is going to be anything but painful to watch unless they get some seriously good fight choreography going.

By contrast, Dark Matter doesn't have the best fight choreography either, though it is better than Killjoys, but the key difference is that the show has done a much better job of connecting me to its characters and making them into the legends they're supposed to be. Two is a complete badass, and Melissa O'Neil pulls it off beautifully with her facial expressions, body-language, and even the way she walks. Paying attention to the little details like this is want makes Dark Matter such a good show, and I wish Killjoys had done the same.

On a final note, I have been surprised in the past. Maybe Ms. John-Kamen will be a better villainess than she is a hero, and maybe Season 3 will burst through my expectations and be awesome. I hope so, but I won't be holding my breath.

Disappointments & Exciting News: A Science Update

If you follow science, and specifically space science, then you know the last couple of weeks have been pretty exciting.


Artist Conception of Proxima Centauri b
By ESO/M. Kornmesser (https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso...)
 [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons
First off, we found out that Proxima Centauri has an Earth-like planet in its habitability zone, Proxima Centauri-b (this doesn't mean it's blue and watery, just that it's the same size and planet type as we are). Its location means that we can one-day visit it with current and emerging technology within a human lifetime. There's already a plan to do so which could involve the Planetary Society's lightsail project, or perhaps Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner's plan (much the same). This means that as early as 2060, we could see the surface of another world.


Allen Telescope Array
Photo Credit: By Colby Gutierrez-Kraybill (DSC_0442)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)],
via Wikimedia CommonsSecond, we then got an alien-like signal from HD164595, a system about 29 parsecs (~94.5 light years) from Earth. The signal was confirmed by SETI, and got everyone (myself included) excited, but unfortunately it looks like it was a Russian satellite and not aliens... this time. The important lesson out of this one is to remember that false alarms are going to happen since we've filled the space around earth with "noisy" satellites, but to keep looking because we haven't even come close to surveying the whole sky (to quote the SETI League's website: "we've seen less than one fifteen millionth of our own Milky Way galaxy.". So basically we've looked at a drop of water in a bucket so far. It's still too early to declare us alone.




EM Drive Engine
By David A. Brady, Harold G. White, Paul March, James T. Lawrence,
and Frank J. Davies. Eagleworks Laboratories,
 NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center [Public domain],
 via Wikimedia CommonsAnd lastly, there was an article I just read today from Physics-Astronomy.com that stated the "impossible' EM Drive—that's the drive system that uses only microwaves as thrust, no fuel—has been confirmed to work yet again (I think we're up to 4 independent confirmations, including NASA). This is somewhat amazing because, by the classical understanding of Physics, the EM drive is like getting in a box, pushing on one wall, and expecting to accelerate. It shouldn't work, and yet it does seem to. If this winds up being something real, and being scaleable, it means we won't need fuel (the majority of the weight of any spacecraft) to go to other worlds, just electricity. It would revolutionize space exploration, and might make human colonization of the solar system (and maybe one day other stars) something much more practical than it is now.

To give you an idea, if the EM Drive works, it's said it can make the Earth-Mars trip in 70 days (vs. the 6 months it would take with today's technology). Honestly, I wish I'd read about this when I was writing the "rules" for my Orion Spur series, I would've used its future version.

An Oldie but Goodie: Strange Days, 90's Cyberpunk, and Still Relevant

I wonder how many of you reading this have seen the 1995 movie Strange Days?
From its box office take, probably not many. It's a shame, it really is, because the movie is great (and much like Dredd, a victim of bad marketing and poor assumptions). It stars Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, and Vincent D'Onofrio. Set in what was then the future world of 1999, the movie centers around Lenny Nero, an ex-cop turned black-market experience dealer who stumbles across evidence of a racially motivated killing that could send a city getting ready to celebrate the turning of the millennium into chaos.

Wait a minute, did I just write "experience dealer?" Why, yes I did. What Lenny deals in are people's memories and experiences, recorded by the revolutionary technology called SQUID (Super-conducting Quantum Interface Device), which records the experiences of the individual wearing it in digital form for later playback. In the world of Strange Days SQUID recordings are supposed to be restricted to federal and police use, but that doesn't stop people like Lenny from making a buck off of it—not that he's very good at it.

Lenny may be the ultimate salesman, but he's a loser at almost everything else he does, including handling the money he makes and the relationships he tries to have. However, despite his failings as a person, Lenny still has the desire to help people that made him join the police force in the first place, which is why when he stumbles across a SQUID clip showing a heinous crime and his friends start dying, he can't just ignore it.

Written by James Cameron, Strange Days holds up to the test of time. For those of us who lived through the 90's, it'll be something of a blast from the past with a futuristic twist, and for those that didn't, many of the themes explored in Strange Days are (sadly) still plaguing society today (racism, police abuse, etc.) In some ways the film is even more poignant as its premise revolves around the use of escapism style virtual reality and the ability for an average citizen to record crimes committed by authority figures. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you pick it up, and if you have, it's definitely worth a rewatch.

Random Thoughts at the End of July/Beginning of August 2016

Just thought I'd check-in this week.

So, here's what's going on:

-I saw Star Trek Beyond opening weekend. Yes, I liked it very much, and yes I want to do a review, but no, I haven't sat down and made myself do it yet. So far, most of my writing effort has gone into finishing Book 4. It occurs to me I'm sad to be writing the end of the story, but yeah, it'll free me up for a lot of other stuff that I'm looking forward to doing.

-Dark Matter and Killjoys are back on! (And have been for a while). I've been enjoying both, though my preference is still for Dark Matter. I'm planning on a post on this soon.

-I'm still working on Book 4: Deep Hydra, and I actually just finished a tough chapter. Getting all of the pieces to fit together in a way that both ties off plot lines and is fun to read took a bit more effort than normal for this last bit—in fact, that's been the story for all of the chapters for the last few weeks—but I'm getting there! I should have about 4-5 more chapters to write and then the first draft of Deep Hydra will be finished! And then? Rest to let things percolate and give me fresher eyes when I come back to it... and then editing!

-I've got a short-form story brewing in the back of my mind. Won't say too much now, but it's going to be about one of the characters' (not a main) pasts from the series. I think it'll add some depth to the history of the universe, and be fun too.

-I'm also thinking about taking a photography class this fall. I last had photography in high school, but I grew up with a dark room in the house which I got to help with a bunch of times and have always liked it. I figure that maybe it's time to take things to the next level. We'll see if I can fit it in my schedule. It could be a lot of fun.

And that's about it.

Book Review: The Life Engineered by J-F Dubeau

The Life Engineered by J-F Dubeau
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I had issues trying to get into the story of this. I got about 52% into it and realized I still didn't fully understand why humans had vanished, so I went back and re-read the beginning. Then I realized that the premise of the story didn't make sense to me. In a world where interstellar travel is possible, and as commonplace as it is in this story, humans vanishing for the reason stated in the beginning simply makes no sense. I may have missed something, but I got the sense that the author really wanted this world set-up without thinking through how to make it logically.

The story itself isn't bad, but there were too many Capeks too fast to really connect with, and the names seemed a bit uninspired to me. I gave it two stars because the writing isn't bad, and the beginning sequence with the police and the hostage situation is really really good, but the rest of the book just didn't hold the same allure for me.

Thoughts on Star Wars: Rogue One

I still get chills when I see that shimmering logo: Star Wars around any title, and even watching a trailer with the sound off (my wife was still asleep this morning) I can hear the sad, longing sound of Binary Sunset as a prelude to the excitement of the theme.

I read this morning that the next Rogue One trailer is going to feature one of my favorite characters of all time, Darth Vader. It's great to see him coming back to the screen, though part of me is a bit sad because we'll only ever get to see new Darth Vader material in "flashback" movies—but I'm also consoled by the fact that if Rogue One does well, and if it is as good as it looks, we'll probably get more. The period of the Rebellion in Star Wars is one which hasn't been explored as in-depth as that of the Republic at this point (i.e. it hasn't had as many EU series on TV and in film at this point as the Clone Wars, etc.) So there's a lot of room for story telling, and since Darth Vader is the big-baddie of the time period it's likely we'll see a lot more of him (woot!).

If you haven't watched Star Wars:Rebels, you should. Go now and get caught up. It's done by some of the same people who did Star Wars: The Clone Wars (animated series), and both are quite excellent. Rebels explores the twilight years of the Jedi. They've been broken by Order 66, and are being hunted down and destroyed by the emperor's inquisitors, and of course, Darth Vader himself. We get to see a few old friends return in this series (I won't give it away), and we get to see how the Rebellion formed in the first place, which is a cool story in itself. The two are kind of companion pieces, at least it seems that way to me, as one tells the beginning of the Rebellion and the other tells the beginning of the Empire's end. I'm happy to see Disney exploring this rich time period with such excellent material, and have high hopes for Rogue One.

The new trailer comes out next week. Something tells me, it's gonna rock.

Below is the first Rogue One Trailer for your enjoyment.

Internet Inside: Thoughts on the Future of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Humanity

I just finished reading a tor.com article by Leah Schnelbach titled "Ranking the Cyber Cinema of the 1990's!" and I completely loved it. Not only did it take me back, but it reminded me of a lot of the movies I grew up on that have contributed to my views on the Internet, sci-fi, and the cyber-culture that we're living in now. Ms. Schnelbach breaks down the films into a summary and evaluation of just how cyberpunk they are and their abilities to predict the world we're living in now, and it's definitely worth your time.

It's also a timely piece, considering we seem to be standing on the precipice of a new age.

With the Occulus Rift now available, and other companies such as SONY putting out VR products soon, it seems we've finally arrived at the future predicted by the 1980's and '90's, where we'll soon be living in digital space. Just how extensive the virtual world will become will depend on a few things, but if we include augmented reality in our definition (think Google Glass), then I see it being even more prevalent than smartphones.
Photo By Leonard Low from Australia (Concept for augmented reality mobile phone)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons
Think about how addictive instant access to information and social media are. How many of us haven't heard of Facebook, or Wikipedia? Now imagine that being integrated into your world in an even more intimate way than our smartphones are capable of now. Imagine looking at something in front of you and receiving its Wikipedia page on the side of your vision, or saying "cake recipe #1" and having it scroll down the left side, or better yet, saying "call Ellie" and having a window open before you with the face of your loved one. All of this is right around the corner and in development now.

Don't like wearing glasses? No problem, developers are working on AR (Augmented Reality) contact lenses, and I don't doubt that in 10-20 years we'll have lens implants that will allow us to swap out our "crappy" biological lenses for better-than-natural vision that will include AR as a standard upgrade.

It seems the 'net is destined to become a part of us, more so than it already is. There's no doubt that it's going to be pretty cool, at least in some respects, but I also have to wonder about what we will become as we plunge into this new digitally-enhanced world. The Internet has, in many ways, magnified all that we are—the good as well as the bad. We use it to share ideas, reconnect with old friends, and develop cool new technologies, but we also use it to abuse and tear each other down. This is not new, of course, we've always done this, but watching people on the internet is a bit like watching humanity on steroids and speed standing in front of a mirror. What will we become when the 'net is literally inside us 24/7? No one can say for sure, but I bet it's going to be both horrifying and awesome at the same time.

As a lover of technology and a futurist, I say bring it on.