Thursday, April 20, 2017

"By Dawn's Early Light" | Sci-Fi on the Lo-Fi

"By Dawn's Early Light" is not the worst sci-fi movie ever made since all experts agree "World War Z" is not only the worst sci-fi movie ever made, it's also the worst sci-fi movie which will ever be made.

The basic principle of judgment on the matter is twelve billion CGI zombies in a movie shouldn't bring more personality to the movie than the actors.


"By Dawn's Early Light" did not have CGI zombies but it was supposed to a nuke war movie except zero mushroom clouds save for one crumby painted screen.  A nuke war movie with no nuke explosions; it's revolutionary.

The reason for the discontent is there was total chaos in any kind of management in the progress of their nuke war and multiple nuke bombs were exploded but, with some ridiculously dumb luck, the nuke war was averted.  If that's not enough to get you rolfing, it ended with Powers Boothe and Rebecca de Mornay getting all smoochy as they flew off into the sunset in their B-52 bomber.

Without watching it, there's not really a way to comprehend the depth of the suck in this movie.


Ridiculously dumb luck has only one explanation.  It's got to be Divine Intervention, doesn't it.  God will stop us from destroying each other in a nuke war in spite of ourselves.  By God, we will survive that nuke war.

"By Dawn's Early Light" deserves a Hollywood star to ensure everyone is aware no-one should ever watch this movie.  It was made in the early Eighties and I haven't seen it previously since it's not in the WAG box (i.e. Worth Another Go).

Ed:  what about Rebecca de Mornay?

There's not much room for being flirty when you're the copilot of a B-52 which is bombing Russia.  She's always gorgeous but Heat Factor is near zero in this one.



There's also a QWAG box and that's for movies which are Questionably Worth Another Go.  "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" came out of that one.  It's questionable since the lead is played by a kid who was damned for life with a baby face and he's one of the TV Kids Who Will Never Ever Do Anything Wrong.  You know kids can be evil little bastards but not in the movies; no, sir.

Most of the movie is spectacular but estimable and it gets novel with the resolution of what do you do with a two-thousand year old robot.  In effect, it became how do robots die and that finale had all the sweetness any fairy tale will ever need.

Making some simulacrum of his mother come back to life was side show stuff which I don't see as all that much different from when scientists get together and here it comes, "What say we use the DNA to resurrect a mammoth, huh?"


The literary view of the movie in terms of a model of origin, conflict, resolution is ok but Jude Law was the most scintillating Gigolo Joe and he was highly cool.  The story aspect was interesting with a whole lot of special effects but the resolution is the payoff since how do robots die.

That spins it off into human mortality and half the crowd goes silent at that point.

The other half we take back to the movie since there's intrigue in cyborg types of software / hardware and it buzzes big in the science world.  For example, we have paraplegic humans who almost walk independently through mechanical cyborg support.  There is substantial research into reconnecting broken nerve connections or, in the case of transplants, ensuring nerve connections remain viable.

The only part of you which needs to stay alive for immortality is your brain and I know you have seen or heard of a sci-fi or horror film with that type of theme but that doesn't obviate the truth of it.  With fairly good likelihood we could have immense life spans if we're willing to swap out to cyborg parts at some stage in life.

Do you, don't you
Will you, won't you
Do the boogie woogie with me

Ed:  that's no boogie!

This is no guitar.  Ha!

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