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….caught the first episode on Sci Fi the other night. considering this is the kind of thing i had the impression that Sci Fi channel thought us fans would prefer rather than the likes of Farscape, i don’t think they thought long or hard enough- nor past the size of their wallets. half the camera work looked like they just had some guy running around with the thing on his shoulder. it was jerky and difficult to focus on at times. it was the sort of thing that would have made me dizzy if i watched too much. the effects were a little sad, and most of the characters weren’t that interesting. at this precise moment i can’t see how much mileage they can get out of the whole idea- and i’m not in a rush to find out. wasn’t impressed. 🙁
Ok, I am taking a guess that this is a take off of the movie. If so, the only thing that kept me interested was Judd (I think) running down the street in her panties 😆 – I think they would soon run out of material in a series…..
The series, Tremors is on very shaky ground.
I’ve not seen anyone who has actually said they liked it yet.
Personally I hated the films and would most certainly not watch the TV series.
Ho Hum 🙁
”snooklepie” wrote:half the camera work looked like they just had some guy running around with the thing on his shoulder. it was jerky and difficult to focus on at times. it was the sort of thing that would have made me dizzy if i watched too much.
This is a new fad in television production, the all-handheld camera versus the “on-cart” style and/or steadicam work. One reason for the fad is it’s cheaper – you don’t need steadi-cam certified people to be your camera crew.
I have seen parts of this seveal times. theSpouse *will* turn on the strangest stuff and then ignore it. It is terrible, corny, cheap and silly.
I have to admit, I quite enjoyed the films, and was really looking forward to the series.
But, in spite of some good actors in it (Doc Brown, Bert Gummer), it just isn’t holding my interest.
I feel the same as you sgtdraino. I was very excited about the show when I first heard about it. I even serioulsy considered doing a sadguide, before it aired. But the show sucks… a lot. I kept watching for train wrec purposes. To those is Britain: “Stop Now!”. I watched it to see how much worse it would get. It gets far worse. It hit bedrock, then kept on going down until it broken through on the other side of the planet. This show barely even has potential to be watched MST3K sytle.
The Tremors movies, and the television series rested on two foundations.
One was an almost Campbell style portrait of a group of individualists living in prickly proximity to each other, yet who were competent, agile and able to work together to meet the demands of a crisis.
John W. Campbell was an editor who took science fiction out of the pulps and into a more realistic frame. His SF characters were frequently professionals, Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, who were confronted by problems that they had to solve. Often, although they were all strongly individualists, the solutions came from working together, thinking and acting flexibly, and reacting or anticipating a changing situation. Instead of thrilling super science where the hero could just pull a mega-seizmo-zap ray out of his pocket to vanquish the invading alien horde, Campbell’s characters had to think their way out of a situation, and use the materials and skills available at hand. Campbell’s style of Science fiction persisted from the 50’s to the early 70’s as a dominant thread, and its still around today. SF, however, has diversified into several subgenres and concerns, and Campbell is now seen as pretty old fashioned.
The Tremors cast is consistently a throwback to classic Campbell, with one major exception. Instead of being upper echelon… experts, professionals, etc., they’re borderline outcasts, marginal characters, working class stiffs, shopkeepers, borderline ranchers, grifters etc. They’re still all capable individualists, but the sense is that the modern world doesn’t really have a place for individualists. So they’ve been pushed to the margins of society. At best, they’re a blue collar version of Campbell’s heroes.
Nevertheless, they’re each smart, capable and adaptive. Confronted with a situation, they deal with it. They learn, adapt, try things, learn and try new things. They’re good at figuring out whats going on, and improvising a way to deal with the situation.
Although individualists, one of the things that is most appealling about them is their ability to come together, to work together despite their differences, and even to make those differences an asset.With the potential exceptions of the second, and possibly the fourth movies, the Tremors movies and series had some of the best ensemble casts that we’ve seen lately in sci fi, in terms of interesting characters who behaved intelligently, were likeable, distinctive and worked together.
The other strength of Tremors was in its monster. The Giant Worm/Graboid was a desert equivalent of the Shark from Jaws. But it didn’t sit on that strength, but built on it. This was not only a brand new monster, surreal and dangerous, it was a smart monster, which continually learned.
The original movie at times played almost like a chess game, with humans and monsters making moves, checking each other, and then making counter moves, constantly upping the ante. Of course, at the end of the first movie, the creatures strengths and limitations were clear.
Which created a problem that the succeeding films and series never fully solved. Basically, where to go from there.
In the second movie, its established that once you know whats going on, and what their weaknesses are, and have a chance to prepare, then graboids are fairly easy to kill safely. So, in the second and third movies, they introduced new variations on the Graboid, to sort of upset the board and allow for a new chess game.
The second movie arguably had the better spin off monster, but in configuring the protagonists as experts, weakening the ensemble and taking the setting out of Perfection, a lot of charm went out of it.
The third movie returned to Perfection, and the charming ensemble, and worked better. But the monster was slightly goofy. Not perhaps a bad thing in a horror/sci fi comedy. But definitely it played more broadly than the third.
Three distinct incarnations of the monster were all anyone could reasonably expect. So the series was definitely handicapped. Obviously, it was doomed to run out of steam. So a lot of the episodes, simply seemed to recycle the existing tropes – two episodes devoted to attacks of Shriekers, one episode for the return of an Ass Blaster, three or four episodes devoted to El Blanco. That’s going to wear thin fast…. The essence of these creatures was their ability to surprise us, and the surprises had run out.
The series attempted to prolongue itself by introducing a new plotline… Mixmaster and new generations of unrelated plant/animal/bacteria monsters. Sometimes these worked better, as with the ghost bacteria, or the plant/animal complex, there was a basically successful attempt to tell John W. Campbell type stories, and on the whole it worked. Sometimes, as with 4-12 it just didn’t come off.
The fourth movie attempted to find a fresh approach by literally remaking the original movie, going back to the ‘characters figuring it out’ motif, that frequently worked well for the Tremors franchise. Here, however, the characters were to figure out the graboids because it was set 100 years previously. I’d call it a mixed success.
Ultimately, I think that Tremors as a long term franchise was doomed simply by its format. The human ensemble cast was too strongly rooted in Perfection, and there wasn’t enough foundation to plausibly justify continuing adventures… at least not in the format they had.
And on the side of the monster, it was a great monster, but an essential of the monster is mystery, and all of that had faded. The scripts had to resort to shopworn gags to try and keep things fresh…
I remain sympathetic to the Tremors franchise, and find a lot to enjoy in it. But I think that the premise was ultimately limited and that it simply wore itself out. It’s not more complicated.
”Valdron” wrote:I remain sympathetic to the Tremors franchise, and find a lot to enjoy in it. But I think that the premise was ultimately limited and that it simply wore itself out. It’s not more complicated.
Agreed; I only like the movie version for the leading lady and the fact the local was a bit odd for sci-fi.
Ian Fleming said that the star of his novels were the villains and referred to Bond as “that cardboard cutout”. with only a boring monster for this series…..you pretty much limit your plot lines.
Well they had enough to go on. Graboids, Shriekers, Ass-Blasters, Mix Master, And Evil Developer Guy. 😆
But I guess they started off badly and couldn’t come back. Like others they end up as a one-season series.
We’d pretty much seen it all before.
I mean the Graboids, Shriekers and Assblasters had all been featured in the previous movies.
That really left only the Mixmaster monsters.
Really, I think that it was simply that the premise was thin, and just ran out of steam quickly.
But then again, who knows. Highlander managed to get four movies, and three television series out of chopping off peoples heads.
I’d rather watch an episode of Mutant X while being tortured with needles and razorblades than watch another episode of that garbage. I mean I liked the first film but the others and now a series. Great Idea for a one off film but not for a whole series.
I gave the show a chance and all I see is a big breasted woman jump in a water tank while running from an ass blaster, when she started acting like some over the top macho woman I turned over….
Actually, Wolf…. that’s a little bit more than we needed to know about your sex life.
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