This Year’s Sequel Power

*On the upcoming sequels for this year. Read my previous post, The Upcoming Horror for details only about sequels and non-sequels related to the horror genre.

Jurassic World :: One of my favourite movies of all-time, my childhood favourite Jurassic Park comes back to life here, and it is the first big sequel to come to us in early June itself. The sequels to the movie have been pretty good so far, and making a return after so many years, this movie is going to make a big impact; there is no doubt about that. This time, we have a working dinosaur park, but the scientists go the Doctor Faustus way and with no satisfaction, creates a hybrid dinosaur in this movie – not really the best idea for the characters on the screen, but should be a treat on the big screen in 3D.

Terminator Genisys :: One of the greatest action movies of all time, and that franchise with which we relate Arnold Schwarzenegger returns once again, and this time, we will have him doing a big role instead of being taken over like in Terminator Salvation. The franchise called Terminator always needs Arnold, and he is back as he had promised. Emilia Clarke, who has been our long time Daenerys Targaryen or the Mother of Dragons plays Sarah Connor, and this time, the war is fought on not just one time period, as there exists more than one timeline. Two more sequels are also announced, and so this is going to be big.

London Has Fallen :: I did enjoy Olympus Has Fallen a lot, and Gerard Butler is sure to handle this one with the same awesomeness. This time, the action shifts to the Great Britain, but the danger remains the same, or rather worse. With huge conspiracies all around, this movie is all set to improve on its predecessor, as a full action thriller is guaranteed. The movie does have a big chance to make the desired impact, with the release date on October 2nd – all the violence on Gandhi Jayanthi! But it is still the holiday that has turned even the worst movies into big hits.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials :: I did like the first movie, but it left too many questions unanswered, and there were so many paths left for the flick to follow, as the mystery never got close to being solved in the predecessor. I haven’t read the book, but the first movie has surely managed to make the viewers interested in the second flick with a nice end there. I have got a feeling that this is going to be very interesting, but I do wonder how this one will work without the strength of that maze. There is scope for sure, and it is once again dystopian in nature.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 :: The division of the last book by Suzanne Collins into two made sure that we were to watch the end of this move franchise adapted from the book only in this year. Well, I did love the first two books of the series and did watch the movies based on the same. But the first part of the final book is dull, and I did skip the movie based on the same. The book does have nice final moments, and the ending was something which I liked, for which I am going to recommend this one if you have been following the story of Katniss Everdeen well enough.

Hotel Transylvania 2 :: Well, the Team Vampire has called for a special mention for this movie in this blog post, and has threatened to quit in case of its absence. But we can’t allow that to happen. I am not without doubts about this one, but still we can be sure that this could prove to be a lot better than its predecessor. There seems to be full fun guaranteed, and the policy might be to follow the predecessor which had impressed the family audience even while dealing with an idea which dealt with one of the most feared villains in the history of Gothic Literature in English.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is the next big title, and with Tom Cruise in his usual avatar and Jeremy Renner for support, this one is going to be huge – the franchise has always been the big one. For the light-hearted, we have Ted 2 with Mark Wahlberg. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will bring back some of the lost nostalgia this year. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is also there with its stuff, but I haven’t been a fan of the found footage movies. ***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Pages of the respective movies mentioned here.

TeNy

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The Wheel of Time

[The following is an excerpt from an unreal conversation at the non-existent Raven Vampire Training Centre and Museum]

Vampire Bat :: Do not touch the Wheel of Time, vampire apprentice.

Vampire Crocodile :: But I thought it was a Playstation Steering Wheel.

Vampire Bat :: Dude, this is a valuable vampire artifact. Uncle Dracula used it to travel through time to bite people.

Vampire Crocodile :: You mean it is a time machine? How does it work? So Uncle Dracula is still biting people?

Vampire Bat :: Uncle Dracula causes a butterfly effect on the space–time continuum that results in the creation of multiple alternate timelines which can only be altered by changing the source code as it is often the quintessence of the human soul, and the true effect of the same is often a bite which is rather lost with its duplication, but the result often shows in the long run.

Vampire Crocodile :: What does that mean?

Vampire Bat :: It means that I am watching too many science fiction movies. Can you just go and drink some blood instead of eating my brain? Zombies eat brains, not us. You should just attend more study classes.

[Gets a cup of Blood Shake].

You can’t escape the sands of time (Pic from PoP Movie official page)

There is that story of friendship that comes out of it, for there are two; science fiction and time travel – they have been friends forever. Even as I was first introduced into the same by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, it was carried on by a few movies, and also a few video games which used such a concept. Well, even that save game option that we used in most of the computer games was also the same, because life rarely gives us a second chance otherwise. It had such significance in TimeShift which had stopping, slowing and even reversing time, one of them about which we were familiar with from the Prince of Persia franchise, and the adapted movie too; you can’t really miss out the Sands of Time, can you?

On the big screen, there is that 2002 version of H.G. Wells’ novel, the loose adaptation which was The Time Machine – it teaches about acceptance, that there are things that cannot be changed, even with such a grand possession such as a time machine, even as Back to the Future and its sequels had come up with the idea that it was easier to change the same as far as there is nothing done that is really stupid; and there is always the chance to do things some other way. It was also a really entertaining movie, and it also came up with its own versions. All of them surely needed those machines.

But a few others needed no machine. X-Men: Days of the Future Past does change the world a lot though, as things just get awesome for mutants and the planet. The Terminator did do that a number of times, three to be exact, defining the lives of humans as well as machines. Then there is Looper and Timeline, both following different paths. The Butterfly Effect had our protagonist going back in time to possess his former self for a very short period of time. Whenever he attempted to go back in time and set things right, they all misfired, and lead to those consequences which were even worse than how he wanted them to be.

It is the 2009 movie The Time Traveler‘s Wife that takes the situation to another level as the protagonist struggles with his powers which needs no machine or mutation. There is always the coming back in time to meet anoter onself. Our time travel adventures has now paused at About Time, which has its protagonist going back in time to set things right, but later realizing that he could live without it, and actually he doesn’t really change much with the going back to the past. Both the movies got Rachel McAdams as the beautiful leading lady, as Clare and Mary.

Live in the moment, so says About Time (From About Time official page)

All these movies tell one single story, abut the human desire to go back in time as set things right. All of us wishes to go back in time and change a few things which we should have done in a different manner, and we ends up believing that a different approach or act would have changed our lives for the good. There are too many things we did and said for which we repent, and from this part and our own deeds, there is no escape as it will continue to haunt us through time.

But then there is the question, the uncertainty if the same thing could have given us a better present, and the doubt should be there if our lives can be any better than it is now. The past haunts us, and may be it is time that we realize that it has no hope for us, and as the present lives with us and the future calls, may be the realization that there is no time machine or superpowers will help us more to face it rather than the realization that there are things that can’t be changed.

TeNy