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Post by samantha7 on Jun 8, 2012 0:13:59 GMT -5
I really do enjoy the show, but I have a bad habit of looking for threads that connect with other SyFy productions. In short, there is nothing new under the sun and every writer tends to borrow from another. Rowlings was a fan of Tolkien and that is evident in her work. Rather then yell plagiarism I will be thoughtful and say that the highest compliment you can pay another is to imitate them.
Some where out there a comment was made that Falling Skies is not like (V) the original series made back in the 80's. Well sorry if I am ruffling feathers, but so far it does have a major common thread, and that is the use and control of children and young adults.
Now (V) was a borrower too and I commented on this at another location. If you study (V) you will see a Hitler movement abounds right down to the flag they flew. Scary!!
Hitler and his minions used youngsters in their fight for world domination. They were easy to bring on board and in their desire to please, turned in family and friends to the third Reich regardless of the consequences. (V) was most brilliant in bringing this to their table and turned a SyFy production into an interesting history lesson. Falling Skies I suspect just might be in agreement with me.
Okay Tom, you are a history professor...start teaching....
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Post by aldenata on Jun 27, 2012 10:06:03 GMT -5
Lots of similarities to Alas Babylon and the Jericho TV series, what with normal people being thrown into abnormal situations, and trying to survive what could easily be an extinction level event, and trying to maintain something of their humanity no matter what happens. Not the kind of thing I tend to have in my worlds, but we can't all be Doom and Gloom and Stray Cat-Eating, and I actually appreciate the differing perspective. In terms of Earth being depopulated by 90%[1], that reminds me of The Stand or any other apocalyptic works by Stephan King. No surprise there, given that King is both an excellent writer (I loath his politics, but as soon as he dies I'm probably going to start calling him one of the best English-language authors in history) and a good friend of Spielberg's. I'm a pretty hardcore survivalist, and have been recommending shows like this and Jericho to some of the sheeple I know in hopes of getting them to think about TEOTWAWKI. I think it's working, though I do wish I had better material to work with. The survivors of Jericho were annoying (to the point of me hitting the mute button every time the teenagers started talking), and Falling Skies, I think, egregiously misrepresents what the aftermath of a civilization-ending event would look like.[2] Never saw the new V Series but I've heard good things about it, and I hope to watch it some time. The original one was actually based on the Upton Sinclair novel It Can't Happen Here: the director had wanted to do a miniseries about fascists taking over America, but the network would have none of it, so he did a miniseries about *alien* fascists taking over America instead. 1. Mason's words. He could have been wrong, and my fanfic predicts a mere 50% dieoff during the first part of the war. It'll be up to 90% within five years, and may go even higher before reaching some kind of equilibrium. Anti-war activist Bruce Beach predicted slightly lower numbers in the event of a global nuclear war, and they seem pretty reasonable to me. 2. Remember the first episode where they scavenged from that untouched warehouse? Ask anyone from Bosnia if unguarded food supplies would still be around six months after a war started. Jericho had its shortcomings here but at least they tried, and I think they did as much as they could get away with on daytime TV.
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