Tag Archives: Terra Nova

TV Review: Terra Nova Episode 1 – “Genesis” Part 1 and Part 2

One thing is for certain about 2149…. the future sure is going to suck. The whole place is overpopulated and filthy with pollution. The air is so bad you have to wear a re-breather mask and if you have more than two kids you’re in some big ol’ trouble. It just so happens that’s what happens with the Shannon family. After the police find out that the Shannon’s have one more kid that they are allowed they arrest fellow officer Jim Shannon who made the mistake of also decking three of the officers who tried to take his youngest daughter Zoey. After spending two years in the local prison known as Golad, the Shannons are selected to be a part of the Terra Nova project and after a little more lawbreaking they are together once more as a family albeit 35 million years ago.

The Terra Nova project is simple really. There was a rip in the fabric of time space that led back 35 million years and the people of 2149 took advantage of this to save our civilization. This may leave you to wonder as I did – Wouldn’t we just destroy our own timeline and cause those who settled the past to vanish from existence with our meddling? No, because luckily this is all quashed by one of the Shannon children explaining to the other that the only reason their actions don’t affect the future is because it’s not the same time stream they are in on the Terra Nova settlement.

The first part of Genesis was okay, mainly serving the purpose to introduce everyone and everything including the Shannon kids, one of which is a typical teenager with all of the angst to go with it. The best character to be introduced in my opinion is that of Nathaniel Taylor, leader of the Terra Nova settlement and played by none other than our resident party crasher Stephen Lang. From the previews you would be lead to believe that he is playing the same character of Colonel Quaritch from Avatar but Taylor is a bit different. Though he has the same toughness and rigidness of Quaritch, he lacks the ruthlessness and knows how to be a fair and just leader. I enjoyed seeing Stephen Lang in action in the second part of the season premiere, which was a helluva lot better than the first.

After seeing the teenagers playing around and being teenagers and the little girl feeding the plant eating brachiosaurs (Groan), we finally get some action. I suppose it goes to show us that even in a world where humans can start from scratch, they will still fight and kill one another. It’s in part two that we are introduced into the “sixers”, a group of settlers that broke off from the Terra Nova settlement to start their own.

They’re called sixers because each group that comes into Terra Nova is known as a pilgrimage and the sixth one happened to contain those who split from the settlement. This changes the whole dynamic of the show for me because I was terribly afraid that we were just going to see little problems between people in the settlement constantly and teenagers getting lost and running from Dinosaurs each week. But it appears that we’ll have a few little storylines to follow each week from here on out. The conflict with the sixers is first and foremost for me, but there is also the geometrical writings on the wall that Jim Shannon’s son Josh found with his new friends and Taylor’s son who went missing a long time ago. My guess is that it will eventually turn out that he is a sixer, possibly even the leader. Actually a couple of those were surprisingly revealed by the end of the episode but I won’t spoil it for you.

I give the premiere a 4 out of 5. It kept me pretty entertained for two hours and even though I know it won’ t be constant dinosaur attacks like we’ve had in this premiere I’m hopeful they can give us something equally as bad ass over the course of the season. The actors were excellent, even the semi-annoying teens. Even though Taylor is my favorite character he is by no means the main character. The main focus is the Shannon family and their patriarch Jim Shannon is definitely my second favorite character, played by Jason O’Mara. It was a good thing he was given the opportunity to be a cop again because if he was part of the agriculture team for more than a quarter of the episode I’d probably of puked. With a lack of masculinity on TV that our dear Dr. Kronner rants and raves about on Grizzly Bomb, it was nice to see a dad doing everything for his family to keep them together while not being a complete bumbling fool who is constantly in touch with his feelings and all that nonsense. I’ll be tuning in next week fo’ sho’.

Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies

A whole lot of people have to be getting burned out on alien invasion storylines. We’ve had more than our fair share of them just in the last six months and still have Super 8 and Cowboys and Aliens coming our way.

Could it be that the movie studios are all alien operations trying to catch us off guard for an invasion? Maybe. But I still think if an interesting new piece of alien entertainment comes our way it can’t hurt to check it out, because let’s face it: We’re screwed if there is an invasion coming.
So now we have Falling Skies, an alien invasion that starts off six months into the whole ordeal. It focuses on the people left fighting on against these invaders and trying to stay unified with most of the civilized world in ruins.

I suppose what sets this alien show apart from the others is that it takes place after the initial attack and invasion. Most of the recent ones and a couple older movies take place over a couple of days since they are only two-hour movies, (Independence Day, Skyline, Battle: LA) so it will be nice to see the remaining humans striving to survive and figuring out what the aliens are after besides kicking our asses over the course of ten episodes.

The effects, like the similarly Spielberg produced Terra Nova, look pretty darn decent for a T.V. show. It seems summer carrying into fall we will have a couple new Sci-Fi shows to sustain us with Falling Skies and Terra Nova since V will most likely be canceled.

So what does everyone think? Does this Spielberg produced project look any good? Is it going to be another War of The Worlds, this time dragged out over ten hours? This could be Spielberg making up for that boring piece of crud. Bore of the Worlds…. heh heh heh.

Sound off below in the comments section or be annihilated!

It has to be better than this… right?

TERRA NOVA is Going to Crash Your Par-Tay This Fall!

During the Superbowl, I was very unimpressed with the movie previews we were treated to during the commercial breaks. Captain America seemed to be the only one that really stood out, but that was a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ affair. But there was a TV preview that looked exceptional, it was called Terra Nova.

At first glance it looked like a movie, and being it was produced by Steven Spielberg you can’t help but think it’s going to be an instant hit. Initially I was surprised to see it was made for TV and not a major theater release. And I’m fine with it being on TV so as long as the production value is top-notch and there is a good cast.

The production value will remain to be seen past the trailer, but the quality cast is already evident upon seeing THE Stephen Lang, whom many know as ‘Colonel Quaritch’ from James Cameron’s Avatar. Here at Grizzly Bomb though, he is honorably known as the Party Crasher!

The story of Terra Nova revolves around a family living on Earth in the year 2149. The Earth at this point is a dying planet due to war, pollution and Justin Bieber overload.

Bieber – Ended!

A family, the Shannons, are then transported back in time 85 million years to the prehistoric era when dinosaurs roamed the earth. There they find themselves among a colony of humans called Terra Nova.

The Superbowl trailer teased not only with the show but also a sneak preview in May. However, according to an article at IGN the show will not be seen at all until fall this year. Not even a preview due to the effects not being finished. As much as I want to see Stephen Lang crashing a dinosaur’s par-tay, it would be best if they didn’t present us a preview with half-assed effects, that would just kill it for us.

But have no fear, if you’re in need of a Party Crasher fix, he will be with us soon enough in August when he destroys Conan the Barbarian!