Krynn72
The Freeman
- Joined
- May 16, 2004
- Messages
- 26,095
- Reaction score
- 926
A slow search (took like 8 minutes to calculate) revealed no threads about this show. I just finished watching the first season (only one to air so far) and I've gotta say, it was surprisingly good. It reminds me a lot of The Walking Dead, only I like it 1000 times more. Its the same kind of premise, civilization is gone after some catastrophe, and groups of people are struggling to survive. In this case its an alien invasion rather than a zombie outbreak, and the group sizes are much larger. I'd say its pretty much better than TWD in all respects except for one.
-Despite the larger group size (~300 people in the one the show revolves around) and even the primary entourage being bigger than in TWD, the characters are much more believable and relate-able. This is aided by the fact that the show had a normal length season, so you could get to know them, rather than the story rushing everything along like the 6 episode TWD season.
-Acting is far superior. With the more relate-able characters, this makes any conflicts between them feel sincere, rather than forced like in TWD. On a whole, the dialog is much more believable and natural, I think.
-Plot is actually good. While TWD tries to be character driven (and generally fails at it), Falling Skies is more story driven. The plot is actually going somewhere, and is believable. The group is part of a resistance movement, and it has a military organization, with officers, orders to follow, etc, plus a civilian component making the whole group a kind of self sustaining, migrating community. This kind of organization is much more believable and intriguing to me than just roving bands of unorganized bandits essentially, with no desire to set up any semblance of a society or civilization.
-An enemy that's actually interesting. The aliens in FS aren't brainless kill-machines like zombies are. They have motives and actions that are comprehensible and reasonable. In keeping with the military themes of the show, they actually show valid tactical decisions, attacking and withdrawing where appropriate, using the environment to their advantage (like recycling scrap metal, and re-purposing man made bullet casings, things an invading force with stretched supply lines would actually do). They don't just throw themselves at the humans and hope to kill more than they lose, but they actually try subversion tactics and such. There is also a hint of compassion introduced into the aliens, so its not like they're pure evil incarnate. All this leads to more intriguing adversaries than what the TWD offers with their enemies being shambling corpses with an intelligence lower than most animals.
-And finally we get to the exception. The one area that disappointed me with Falling Skies, and which impressed me with TWD, is the aesthetic execution of the enemies. TWD has some of the best make-up and CGI I've seen for a cable tv show. Falling Skies on the other hand has moments of greatness spread out through a lot of iffy, and sometimes down right bad looking CGI. All the Aliens, as far as I can tell, are fully CGI, no puppets or anything like that. In moments where they're moving slowly, they look fine, and there this one instance where it actually looks really good. But in action scenes they always look bad, because of goofy looking, unrealisticly fast animation. The design of the alien mechs also leaves something to be desired.
So anyways, if you like TWD, you should watch Falling Skies as well, they're similar enough to be relevant to your interests, and FS is good enough that I feel confident in recommending it. If you wanted to like TWD but just couldn't, like me, watch Falling Skies instead. Season 2 starts next summer.
-Despite the larger group size (~300 people in the one the show revolves around) and even the primary entourage being bigger than in TWD, the characters are much more believable and relate-able. This is aided by the fact that the show had a normal length season, so you could get to know them, rather than the story rushing everything along like the 6 episode TWD season.
-Acting is far superior. With the more relate-able characters, this makes any conflicts between them feel sincere, rather than forced like in TWD. On a whole, the dialog is much more believable and natural, I think.
-Plot is actually good. While TWD tries to be character driven (and generally fails at it), Falling Skies is more story driven. The plot is actually going somewhere, and is believable. The group is part of a resistance movement, and it has a military organization, with officers, orders to follow, etc, plus a civilian component making the whole group a kind of self sustaining, migrating community. This kind of organization is much more believable and intriguing to me than just roving bands of unorganized bandits essentially, with no desire to set up any semblance of a society or civilization.
-An enemy that's actually interesting. The aliens in FS aren't brainless kill-machines like zombies are. They have motives and actions that are comprehensible and reasonable. In keeping with the military themes of the show, they actually show valid tactical decisions, attacking and withdrawing where appropriate, using the environment to their advantage (like recycling scrap metal, and re-purposing man made bullet casings, things an invading force with stretched supply lines would actually do). They don't just throw themselves at the humans and hope to kill more than they lose, but they actually try subversion tactics and such. There is also a hint of compassion introduced into the aliens, so its not like they're pure evil incarnate. All this leads to more intriguing adversaries than what the TWD offers with their enemies being shambling corpses with an intelligence lower than most animals.
-And finally we get to the exception. The one area that disappointed me with Falling Skies, and which impressed me with TWD, is the aesthetic execution of the enemies. TWD has some of the best make-up and CGI I've seen for a cable tv show. Falling Skies on the other hand has moments of greatness spread out through a lot of iffy, and sometimes down right bad looking CGI. All the Aliens, as far as I can tell, are fully CGI, no puppets or anything like that. In moments where they're moving slowly, they look fine, and there this one instance where it actually looks really good. But in action scenes they always look bad, because of goofy looking, unrealisticly fast animation. The design of the alien mechs also leaves something to be desired.
So anyways, if you like TWD, you should watch Falling Skies as well, they're similar enough to be relevant to your interests, and FS is good enough that I feel confident in recommending it. If you wanted to like TWD but just couldn't, like me, watch Falling Skies instead. Season 2 starts next summer.
