Did you watch the series premiere of the Spielberg produced Terra Nova? What did you think? You can see what me and Roth thought in our review of the premiere episode “Genesis”.
- Dennis
3 Responses to “‘Terra Nova’ Series Premiere “Genesis” (VIDEO REVIEW) Your thoughts on the new series?”
Follow Us On Twitter!
Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel!
To be honest, from Spielberg production I expected much more. Its not really bad, but it needs to go a long way to be actually really good. There is a lot potential, but there are a lot of issues too, that production like that should have sorted out long before premiere. I can't believe that Spielberg actually approved this first episode they way we had a chance to see it. He is slapping his name on anything these days, and that is not a proof of quality anymore.
CGI is bad, considering how all this was advertised and how much it all costed. In some parts it looks like cheep movie made on SyFy (wide shots of Terra Nova, are sooooo bad, it hurts, especially if you watch in HD), dinosaurs are also half done, and at best look really uneven, not even close to things done with Jurassic Park done 18 years ago, even they also advertised it will look better even), and most of them look like they pasted them on the background.
Story for the pilot is half baked, they tried to cram a lot of things for the premiere, and some important things and more of character development got sidetracked. Adding strange drawings, time streams (this is worst thing in the story, thrown in to explain why no butterfly effect), rebel teen, sixes and so many other things. Writing was all over the place, and for the show that is in production for over a year for 13 episode only, writing should have been much, much better, more logical and polished.
On the other hand, acting is really good for most of the cast. And I am pleasantly surprised with Stephen Lang. I really hated Avatar and his character there was mix of all military cliches ever made. Here, it actually has some depth, some humor about him, humanity if you will. Family is also really good, and they are best part of the premiere.
I will give it a chance for couple more episodes to see if they will get over the pilot problems story and character wise. I don't expect for CGI to get any better, but I can look past that.
I agree with most of what you guys said. Even though it was a 2 hour premier, it seemed rushed at times. Strong performances. Several shades of LOST. The Sixers are similar to "The Others" – mysterious, menacing and with a hidden agenda. All we need now are flashbacks to the characters' previous lives on modern earth. LOL
Since they are trying to blend family drama with sci-fi action, there is the cliche of the teenaged boy who is in conflict with his father and who exists to get into trouble. Those diagrams on the rocks are what? Signs of intelligent beings who were there before? So maybe they are not the first ones there? Where did these intelligent beings go?
Steven Speilberg said he did not want Terra Nova's dinosaurs to be too similar to Jurassic Park. So I guess the best way to do that is give the new dinasaurs new strange names. LOL
Like you guys said – this show can go either way. The show has had its problems – it fired its entire writing team due to conflicts over the direction and tone of the show. Early signs are not good. The show drew less than 10 millon viewers and for such an expensive show they need alot more than that.