Some good thoughts on Taken

[Muffit]

Hi all,

Since all too often we all have said not so nice things about the Sci-Fi channel, I thought I should give equal billing to good things when Sci-Fi does something neat. Please note if you haven't seen "Taken" yet, there are some minor SPOILERS below.

First of all, I want to say I had no intention of watching the entire 20 hours initially, not cuz it didn't sound neat to do a piece with Spielberg, but because I didn't know if I could devote so much time. But after the first time little Allie gave her wonderful musings I was hooked. I enjoyed Taken quite a bit, I wonder what you all think. I had a hunch the musing monologues were gonna be a little girl as part of the series and I was happy to find I had guessed right. Nice touch. Also, the casting was very well done. My personal fav is Mary Crawford (Heather Donahue), the conscienceless granddaughter of the heartless Colonel Crawford. Her acting was really, really good. The clever way she shook her head in disbelief at the naivete of her victims, her sardonic chuckle - like I said, I loved her performance. The little girl Allie goes without saying. You can tell there was a lot of thought that went into the characters.

I also liked the intertwined plot and how it all got tied together at the end, much like a mystery show. And I was pleasantly surprised by what seemed like Spielberg touches here and there. A little bit of Close Encounters, a little bit of Martian Chronicles, and an honest effort to embrace as many elements of the abduction phenomena as possible, all made for an intriguing show. And no dull spots like some other mini-series have when you get the feeling they were filling up time - Taken is rich throughout.

My two cents - well done Sci-Fi. How about you folks?

[jewels]

I liked what I saw of this week, better than what I saw of last, but what struck me with the final night was: Orchestral score!!!! It worked, it was beautiful and well suited. And yes, Allie's monologues were the best written little snippets of childlike philosophy I've heard on TV in eons. And the Spielberg, the aliens are really friendly thing was just a nice way to resolve what at 1st (w/Col. Crawford) was a bit disturbing.
Jewels

[thomas7g]

I'm a little less enchanted by this project. I thought it got much better with the final introduction of Allie in the 12th hour. Spielberg productions tend to do their best when dealing with children.

The first 10 hours I thought dragged on. Basically too much he was taken, she was taken, he was taken again, and again and again...he has a kid, who grows up and is taken, and taken again.... I think the first 10 hours suffered because it was too concerned with the overall story and not the individual ones. There is a quote from shakespeare, "poor players that strut and fret their hour upon the stage and are heard no more". Basically I thought they were going too fast through characters the first week and tossing them away, while at the same time not giving us a protagonist we could identify with. There were a few that had promise...but they were gone before you could get close to them.

I think they had too big of a story they needed to condense and not enough time to get it right. Maybe 75% right. I think Spielberg should have gone over the final copy and re-edited it and made it more streamline.

But the last 3 nights were pretty good. We finally got a protagonist. And it tied up alot of strings.

But one thing well ..one question I still had... Why didn't Allie have to take out her father's implant?

I don't watch much TV (not as much as I used to, say, only two years ago). However, I will say this: Taken turned me off. I watched the segment when the mother with two children procreates with the alien guy (who seems to mirror his appearance from a SF comic). It seemed quite cliched, as does the whole series (alien abductions ad infinitum, government coverups, bug-eyed aliens w/grey skin, etc., etc.)

Basically, I felt like I was watching just another clone of The X-Files... I feel that's it was just one big hype machine for SCIFI.

However, I'm happy that most of you like it.

Now I'll go back to reading, the best format SF has ever had and ever will, IMHO.

[thomas7g]

hmmm... looking at the site.... I didn't notice that the wife of the bomber pilot was played by the actress who was Darla the Vampire on Buffy and Angel.

[Muffit]

Hi all! Thanks for your thoughts! Sorry some of you didn't like it so much. Yes it treads familiar territory but I think that is really the whole point - if they're gonna do a piece on abductions it's important to stay true to the data we have from abductees. The phenomena seemed to start in WWII with the foo fighters and get worse from there, and that's how the show pretty much went. Also, the running thru characters briefly was something interesting, very similar to what Dune (the book) was alluding to but never did. Everything was selective breeding leading up to the end result, which in Dune was Paul Muad Dib and in Taken Allie. But Dune only mentioned it while Taken takes you right thru the series of characters leading to the final result. Something kinda coincidental, in Dune an accidental piece of selective breeding when Paul's mom drinks the water of life when pregnant yields Alia - not too different from the name Allie.

Most of the first week is showing you how the breeding/selection process is going, showing you the grandparents and parents of the 3 key families and what they're like. I must confess I started to get lost by the time they got to the grandkids, but luckily they thoughtfully did some flashbacks to help remind me of who was who's parent. I was sad when the two half way decent Crawford kids ending up dying while trying to be nice, but that is how life really goes, nice people often get the worst deal while not so nice people live to old age (at least it seems that way).

Thank you once again for your comments, it's always nice to give people more than one view since we are all a bit different .

Cheers!!!

Originally posted by Muffit
Yes it treads familiar territory but I think that is really the whole point - if they're gonna do a piece on abductions it's important to stay true to the data we have from abductees.

While not directly related to "Taken", I have a few questions.

Could not aliens, if they really did abduct us lowly humans, simply plant images in our minds and provide us (and therefore others) false informatoin about the whole abduction process?

Another question:

If aliens are so smart, why do they bother coming to Earth?

Just curious to see what people think.

[Muffit]

Hi Joe!

These are really good questions. Why don't we start a top level thead to discuss it? One thing I watched on TV was a question about why they go to all the trouble to put people back in bed(!)

I also saw a bit on a South America sighting which was far more dramatic than anything here. Seems that many people saw an alien running around and it was REALLY scary, not a grey. It passed by a zoo and it turned out to be a material fact that many of the animals died within days of an unknown disease, which certainly corroborates the sighting. The military chased after it and many people witnessed that too. Veeeerrrry iiinteresting!

Thanks for your comments!

Hi Muffit!

It's already started:

http://www.3dgladiators.com/forums/s...threadid=18355

Look forward to reading the comments!

[thomas7g]

The aliens didn't exactly clean up all possible proof of their activities.

What if Charlie and Lisa has ANOTHER kid?

[Darrell Lawrence]

Originally Posted by thomas7g

But one thing well ..one question I still had... Why didn't Allie have to take out her father's implant?

His fell out earlier in the mini-series.

I have this on DVD, and have watched it multi times now, because it's so damn good.

I didn't find any of the eps as dragging on or anything, as each time I watched, I picked up yet another little piece of "alien/UFO" history in each ep.

This mini gets a two thumbs up from me