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David McK (3695 KP) rated Death Troopers (Star Wars) in Books

Jan 30, 2019

Take a classic Space Opera saga (Star Wars), add a soupcon of horror (Aliens), and a large dose of Zombies (Resident Evil), and what do you have?

This book.

The plot? An Imperial prison barge breaks down, and then comes across a seemingly abandoned Star Destroyer out in the wastes of space. It transpires that the Destroyer is not abandoned after all, and that it had been carrying out bio-weapon experiments ...

Definitely felt like the author was (heavily) inspired by the Resident Evil games/films: the Zombies are such not as the living dead back-to-life of Romero, but as a result of a engineered virus. The Aliens link I mentioned comes in on the 'set-on-prison-<s>planet</s>barge' setting, and I'm also not entirely sure why he felt the need to drop Han Solo and Chewbacca into the mix, unless that was just so you would know it is a Star Wars novel?

Not the best Extended Universe book.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Aeronauts (2019) in Movies

Nov 9, 2019 (Updated Nov 9, 2019)

The Aeronauts (2019)

2019 | Adventure, Drama

7.3

(11 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Not-really-based-on-fact balloon-centric drama turns out to be predictably lightweight. A meteorologist (historical character) and a female balloon pilot (fictitious) embark on an expedition into the sky to see if the weather can predicted.

Two people get into a balloon; they go up, they come back down again. There is a bit of jeopardy along the way, and moments which may give people with a fear of heights a funny turn, but it all feels oddly low-octane and polite. The film is given extra ballast by extended flashbacks to what led them up to this point, but this is quite ordinary bonnet opera stuff. You do wonder what kind of film this is meant to be: not enough depth for a genuine drama, not enough action for an adventure. Works hard to tick all the diversity boxes, naturally. Looks great and the score is impressive, but I came out wondering what the point of it was.