Film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Posted on October 10, 2011 by admin

Stieg Larsson was an interesting character, worth a novel or a movie by himself. A journalist and a writer of science-fiction, a left-winger who spent part of his youth training guerrillas in Eritrea, he wrote three crime novels as a hobby and did not plan to publish them until shortly before his death. When they went out posthumously they created a sensation and in a few years the Millennium trilogy  (the name comes from the newspaper that employs the main hero, who happens to be an investigative journalist as Larsson was) became a world-wide sensation, and Larsson one of the best selling authors of the second half of the dist decade of the third millenium.

 

Stieg Larsson - source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stieg_Larsson.jpg

 

The films inspired by the books were not late to come, and luckily the Swedes were fast enough to make the first series of films. This may be my first encounter with the Scandinavian crime novels (very successful actually, many other authors from the Northern countries of Europe enjoy world-wide celebrity lately), but certainly not with the Scandinavian cinema. Director Niels Arden Oplev may have in his biography prior to this film only TV series, but he masters the atmosphere, the work with the actors, the cinematographic rendition of the landscapes of the North. Much of the action happens in winter on a frozen island, and we FEEL the cold radiating from the blueish landscape with the light always falling on a sharp angle. I doubt that anybody but a Scandinavian can ever render the feeling of men’s loneliness in a frozen landscape.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/

 

The structure of the story is actually quite standard. Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyquist) loses a libel trial to a corporate giant to be hired by another corporate tycoon (the facts are not really unrelated as you may guess) to find the truth behind the disappearance of a young girl many decades earlier. He travels to a remote island (a frozen version of Polanski’s ‘Ghost Writer’ island) and meets the first and second generation of a family that has a lot to hide and from which a criminal (or maybe more than one) is yet to be found. Remote place, a set of characters related by visible and invisible links, here we have a setting that would have made Agatha Christie happy. We are however at the dawn of the third millennium, computer and Internet age, and the character of the technologist and hacker replaced the mustached Poirot, and what a character. Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth is by herself a dark, thin, tattooed, face pierced and sexy appearance, with many hidden secrets of herself. The two fascinating characters will engage in a game that brings them close to violence, hidden secrets from the past, real dangers in the present, sex and cold, attraction and fear.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL8LI-h2WFc

(video source trailers)

 

Agatha Christie meets Hitchcock meets the Scandinavian darkness of the first films by van Trier. This film has a quality that is hard to equal in its cinematography, in its pace and building of thrill, in its chose of cast and superb acting. As much as I admire Daniel Craig as an actor and David Fincher as a director I fear that the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo comes too early and has too little chance to wipe form the memory this strange, dark and vibrant Scandinavian thriller, one of the best I have seen lately.

 

 

 

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Film: Valkyrie (Tom Cruise, 2008)

Posted on October 9, 2011 by admin

The plot to kill Adolf Hitler put together in July 1944 by a group of military was the last in a series of attempts to kill the head of the Third Reich and save what could be saved of the German honor, and spare Germany the total defeat and unconditional surrender. This is one of the most fascinating and intriguing pages of the history of World War II and any film that is inspired by this action has interesting premises to base upon despite the fact that the end is known to everybody. The plot failed and the was continued for another ten months, Adolf Hitler committed suicide and escaped human justice, but not the justice of history.

 

Claus von Stauffenberg, source http://poopdeck90210.com/ww2his/stauffenberg.htm

 

The man who led the plot and who had the courage to put a bomb in the meeting room where the commanders of the German army were gathered together with Adolf Hitler is one of the fascinating characters of history. He was a complex character, that his wife Nina von Stauffenberg who survived him for more than half a century described in the following words:

He let things come to him, and then he made up his mind … one of his characteristics was that he really enjoyed playing the devil’s advocate. Conservatives were convinced that he was a ferocious Nazi, and ferocious Nazis were convinced he was an unreconstructed conservative. He was neither (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Schenk_Graf_von_Stauffenberg)

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/

 

Claus von Stauffenberg is the principal character in Valkyrie, the historic thriller directed by Bryan Singer. Tom Cruise could have been the ideal casting, even if he is about ten years older than the age of 37 that Stauffenberg had at the time of the events. He was not, as both director and lead actor seem to focus on the action side of the story, on the details of the plot that involved activating a program designed by Hitler himself that mobilized the reserve army in the eventuality of a successful plot to the life of the Fuhrer, and on the reasons – mostly of human nature and of hazard – that lead to the failure of the plot.  The historic details are interesting, but the documentary quality is not enough to fully sustain a Hollywood production with stars of such quality, and too little of the human dimensions, dilemmas, fears of the plotters make it beyond the screen.

 

(video source watch Culturerainment)

 

‘Valkyrie’ could have been a much more interesting film, a drama focused on the tragic complicity of the German military class with the criminal Nazi regime and the choice that few of them made to become traitors to their country in order to save something of the honor of the nation. Instead of that we get a docu-drama made with the expensive means of the Hollywood studios, which bows respectfully to the plotters of July 1944, but fails to bring on screen their human and true historic dimensions.

 

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From Dada to Surrealism – The Catalog

Posted on October 8, 2011 by admin

The turn of events made that I first received the catalog of the the exhibition From Dada to Surrealism dedicated to the Jewish Avant-Garde Artists from Romania organized at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. I visited Amsterdam in May, a few weeks before the opening of the exhibition so I could not see the initial installment, and as it will be also hosted starting with November at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, I will visit it only in a few weeks. However, a friend of mine from the Netherlands bought and brought me (to Quebec City from all places) the catalog created by Radu Stern, the curator of the exhibition. It’s an exceptional book, both from a graphic and content point of view, and it made for an exquisite Yom Kippur reading.

 

Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam, source http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandywax/3294207937/

 

The book is organized in three sections. The first one includes three essays written by Radu Stern – one asking and answering the question ‘Why so many Jews?’ (in the Romanian avant-garde movement), and the other two analyze the moments ‘Zurich’ and ‘Bucharest’ in the evolution of the Dada and other avant-garde currents in Romanian culture in general and graphic arts in particular. The key theme of the essays are the cultural environment and the historical conditions that pushed many of the artists of Jewish origins to detach themselves from the mainstream currents in the Romanian culture characterized by the search for the Romanian ‘national specificity’ and look for alternate ways of expressing their own personalities, their search for new means of expression and for social justice. With the raise of extreme nationalism and antisemitism in Romania in the years between the two world wars the choice of modernity and synchronicity with the developments in modern art in Europe was both an aesthetic and a political choice. The most important in the group of artists presented in the exhibition were not only synchronous with the most advanced trends in European art, but actually part of the avant-garde of the avant-garde from the period of the first world war and of the Dada movement. The current exhibition as well as the book by Andrei Codrescu Post-Human Dada Guide make a convincing case of the roots of the personal, artistic and political choices made by these Jewish artists born in Romania in their becoming leaders of the avant-garde movement. (Codrescu’s book makes one step further in pointing to the fact that the anarchistic and creative nature of the Dada avant-garde ends by entering in conflict with the Communist doctrine, fact confirmed by the ultimate abandonment of the extreme left leanings by that part of the artists who were for a while tempted by the mirage of the proletarian revolution.)

 

source http://fondane.net/2011/05/22/from-dada-to-surrealism-exhibition/

 

The second section of the book presents the works of art. As I said I have not visited the exhibition yet, so I do not know if all the works are reproduced in the catalog, but even if these are not all, the selection is superb, the graphical conditions and the format make for a very comfortable reading, and the comments of many of the works are eyes-opening. The selection of the seven artists starts with precursor Arthur Segal, continue with some of the graphical works of Tristan Tzara, and bring many of the major works of Marcel Janco (Iancu), M.H.Maxy and Victor Brauner. The last two artists in the exhibition, Paul Paun and Jules Perahim belong to the second generation of avant-garde, the one who started their careers in the 1930s and continued it under the duress of the Communist dictatorship. Actually with the exception of Maxy all the other artists ended by leaving Romania, and either starting in new directions (as Janco who became one of the pillars of the Israeli school of art) or got back to their styles in the young days (Perahim in Paris, after leaving Romania and two decades of Socialist Realist intermezzo). The only observation I would make is that the selection could have benefited from including a few of the works of Janco in Israel, or of the late Perahim works (he had an exhibition in Romania earlier this year with works of surprising good quality) which would have shown their later evolutions (only Maxy is present with two later works). But even so, the gathering is remarkable, and I cannot wait to see directly for example the early works of Victor Brauner, or the works of Maxy, a testimony how great a painter this controversial figure (later) was  in the period between the two wars.

 

Victor Brauner - Portrait of Andre Breton, source http://imaginarypart.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/jewish-identity-and-radical-modernity/

 

The last section in the catalog is documentary and includes detailed biographies of the seven artists and a historical chronology by Mijke Derksen which traces in parallel the history of the Jewish presence in Romania with the milestones of the evolution of the avant-garde and the biographies of the artists present in the exhibition. These are very useful for the overall putting in context that this exhibition succeeds to make. One information missing is whether the figures of the Romanian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust (280,000 to 380,000) include the Jews from Northern Transylvania occupied by Hungary during the war, most of them deported to the death camps. Also mentioning the number of Jews currently living in Romania (below 10,000) would have added to the overall picture of a country where Jews lived for centuries and brought such an important contribution in art and other fields.

 

M.H.Maxy - Electrical Madonna, source http://www.arttown.nl/Actueel-729.html?language=_L2

 

The exhibition opens in November at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Until then a virtual tour of the exhibition with some of the exposed works and more commentary is available at http://exhibitions.europeana.eu/exhibits/show/dada-to-surrealism-en.

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Gmar Hatima Tova

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

It’s the eve of Yom Kippur and the Jewish world prepares for the fasting and the prayers. As I start to build a tradition also for the Jewish holidays on ‘The Catcher in the Sand’ here are a few works of art and pieces of music inspired by The Day of Atonement, as well as youTube clips related to the way Yom Kippur is happening in Israel.

 

 

(source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gottlieb-Jews_Praying_in_the_Synagogue_on_Yom_Kippur.jpg)

 

One of the most famous paintings inspired by Yom Kippur is ‘Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur’ by the Jewish Galician painter Maurycy Gottlieb. The gathering of the Jews in the synagogue, their passion to prayer, the overall atmosphere has both historical accuracy as well as a timeliness that crosses the centuries.

 

(source http://www.judaicaposters.com/pages/jp303.html)


Here is another work inspired by Yom Kippur painted by the Hungarian-born painter Isidor Kaufmann.

 

(video source rebezra)

 

Today in Israel the traditions differ from the different communities that returned from exile. In Jerusalem Sephardic community a month of Slikhot (Forgiveness) prayers culminate in the eve on Yom Kippur (by the time I am writing this blog entry) with a huge gathering and a community prayer at the Western Wall.

 

(video source damcenenroe)

 

You may know one of the famous songs of Leonard Cohen  ‘Who by Fire’. Here is a version recorded with the great jazz saxophonist Sony Rollins in 1989.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI7cB0CngJQ

(video source jordannnnnn)

 

The song is actually an adaptation of a Yom Kippur prayer. Here it is in another version sang by Leonard Cohen, with the Hebrew and English words.

 

(video source Bigratus)

 

The most famous text related to Yom Kippur is Kol Nidre, the declaration of repentance and the pledge taken at the opening of the service in the synagogue. In the traditional service the text is in Aramaic. It inspired a number of musical pieces. A traditional variant is featured in the first spoken (and sang) film The Jazz Singer (1927) by Al Jolson (Asa Yoelon). The story of the song in the famous film is described in a New York Times article.

 

(video source lynnharrell)

 

The Kol Nidrei for cello & orchestra, Op. 47, Composed by Max Bruch is the most famous classical music variant. Last year I brought here the splendid interpretation of Jacqueline du Pres, here is another exquisite rendering by Lynn Harrell at the Papal Concert to commemorate the Holocaust as the Vatican in Rome on April 7, 1994.

 

(video source rapunzelrow)

 

On a lighter note, not everybody fasts and prays on Yom Kippur in Israel.  As traffic completely stops kids on bicycles (and not only kids) take control of the streets for one full day.

 

Gmar Hatima Tova – May you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for Good

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Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

A life of invention, a career  that changed the industry and our lives.

 

source http://thegadgetsite.com/tag/steve-jobs/

 

Best homage I read this morning is the portfolio of his inventions that is being drawn by NYT


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html?smid=fb-nytimes

 

His vision combined technical thinking with the extraordinary capability of anticipating the needs of customers tomorrow.

 

May his memory be blessed.

 

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A Crime Novel by Batya Gur

Posted on October 5, 2011 by admin

This is my first encounter with the novels of Batya Gur, one of the best known Israeli crime fiction writers. She was the author of six novels whose hero is the Jerusalem police detective Michael Ohayon. The title in Hebrew is HaMerhak HaNahon which would literally translate by The Right Distance, but each translation in other languages re-invented the title its own way. The English edition was named Murder Guet: a musical case, and the title of the French translation that I read is Meurtre au Philharmonique (in the Livre de Poche series).

 

source http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Batya_Gur_2003.jpg

 

Let me first say that beyond the genre she wrote in Batya Gur was a good novelist. It’s not that I have any disregard for crime novels or for any other literary genre, as I first judge books according to the quality of their writing and the truth of their characters. Meurtre au Philharmonique allows for a travel in time, despite the fact that the story happens just 15 years ago. And yet, so many things changed in this country in the last 15 years, that the story of two murders in a family of musicians in Jerusalem written by Batya Gur could have rather happened in a different country on a different continent and many decades apart from today. We do have in the overall atmosphere of the civilized and culture-prone city and in the characters that seem to have each of them some kind of born style of nobility from the main character of police detective Ohayun, to the family of musicians and second generation of Holocaust survivors Van Helden, and even in the more popular characters like the Ohayun’s colleague Balilti as a reflection of another Israel with better human relations, with less conflicts. Even the political situation is completely absent from the story, which could well have happened in any other civilized city in the Western hemisphere. I wonder how and if Batya Gur would have written such novels nowadays.

 

source http://www.amazon.fr/Meurtre-au-philharmonique-Batya-Gour/dp/2253148253

 

The first almost one hundred pages have actually nothing detective in them, but say a lot about the loneliness of men dedicated to their professions and about the need to get salvation through the discovery of a child and by answering the fragility and need for protection. Despite the detective story being restored in its rights as the book advances the mood of melancholy and the personal dilemmas of the main character stay in the attention of the author and of the readers all the time. There is a formula in each of Gur’s books and this is related to the hero entering a specific profession or institution, learning its secrets, and solving the mystery based on the understanding of the new world that he entered, but also, or most of all of the human nature. This book is no exception and the new world to explore is here the one of the classical music. Batya Gur succeeds to build its story around the music the characters hear or play, even the chapters have names of parts in musical composition. This is another strong aspect of this well written book, which can be satisfying for music lovers, for fans of crime stories or just for people who like to read good books.

 

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Themerson & Themerson

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

I knew nothing about Stefan and Franciszka Themerson before seeing the documentary directed by Wiktoria Szymanska on ARTE TV. The film starts by filming the couple of artists – he was a writer, a composer and a film maker, she was a painter and illustrator at their old age, settled in Britain. It was the end of a long road that took them from their native Poland where they began as avant-garde artists in the 1920s, to Paris, the capital of arts in the 30s. When war broke Franciszka flew to England, Stefan stayed for a while in occupied France (that was the only time when they were separated after they had met), then joined her. They made films with the Polish propaganda studios during the war, and then stayed in England for the coming decades.

 

source http://deckert-distribution.com/film-catalogue/art-music-culture/themerson-themerson/

 

In the dull after-war British landscape they created colorful and merry art, were in the center of the artistic and intellectual life and opened an editing house Gaberbocchus Press. Here they translated and made known to the English readers some of the earlier decades French experimental writers and poets like Alfred Jarry and Guillaume Apollinaire. In the 60s Franciszka worked stage sets for theater in Sweden, and then the two moved for a few years in the Netherlands. They spent their final years in England, and died a few months apart one of the other.

 

source http://strawdogs.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/franciszka-themerson/franciszka-themerson-4/

 

Here is one of drawings created by Franciszka typical to the style she used in the many book illustrations that she created.

 

(video source richubertson)

 

The first minutes of the documentary filmed presented by ARTE can be seen here. The film traces the lives of the two artists, their multiple directions and means of expression, their careers with ups and downs but first of all it is a love story of two charming people who seem to have radiated goodness and joie de vivre – the joy of living and creating to all who met them and now remember them dearly.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mh30f1K9_s&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLC00A9264435DA523

(video source BolVVVerk)

 

Calling Mr. Smith (you can see it above) is the first of the two films made by the Themersons in England during the war. It tells about the atrocities committed by the Nazis in occupied Poland.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_pe29WgQM

(video source sellarco)


Here is Oko I Ucho (The Eye and The Year), the second film made during the war at the Polish Studios in London in 1944/45, an example of experimental animation inspired by four songs by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowsky.

 

sourcehttp://www.themersonarchive.com/pageCmed.htm

 

Franciszka’s style change towards the end of her life, she painted om larger canvases on almost abstract representations in a more dramatic mood. Here is ‘And so it goes’ – painting from 1977.

Seeing this documentary made me think that some of the avant-garde artists of the 20th century resemble the Renaissance artists in their multiple means of expression, their holistic view of the world, their thirst of exploring, discovering imagining. The Themerson Archives Web site allow all of you to learn more about these two wonderful artists and people – http://www.themersonarchive.com/index.htm

Posted in art, documentary | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Film: Source Code (Jake Gyllenhaal, 2011)

Posted on October 2, 2011 by admin

Source Code is a rare kind of a film nowadays. A techno-thriller with brains and soul. No easy task, but apparently not a first for director Duncan Jones whose previous film Moon (which I did not see yet) has a large number of fans. This second full feature film establishes him as one of the most interesting directors in a genre which is not lacking opportunities in Hollywood, it is missing exactly the intellectual quality and the emotions that he is bringing on the set.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945513/

 

The main hero of the story is a US officer fighting in Afghanistan who wakes up in a train speeding to Chicago in the company of an attractive young woman and soon realizes that his identity and appearance have changed. A few minutes later the train explodes in a terror attack, and he wakes up in his own skin in the constrained space of what looks like a space capsule, to be briefed and learn that he has just lived the last eight minutes in the life of another person. By means of a combination of quantum physics and computer engineering he will be able to return several times in the speeding train and re-live the same events accumulating the knowledge from the previous instances, in alternate runs of the reality, with the goal of finding the terrorist and preventing a second much more damaging attack. Inevitably he will fall in love with the young woman in front of him and tray to save her life and the lives of the other people in the train. It is just that succeeding would actually sliding in a different reality or a parallel universe, name it as you wish.

 

(video source hollywoodstream)

 

Science in movies would almost in all cases fail you in technical universities exams, and the one in Source Code would probably not rank better if put under academic scrutiny. It has however two qualities that are important for the film – they allow for the repetition in a constrained space which provides the unity of space and time so dear to writers of good story since the Greek tragedies, and it is exposed gradually and learned by the main hero at the same time as the viewer, which helps us identify with the dilemmas and emotions of the character. Jake Gyllenhaal is an excellent choice for the role and all the other characters support him like a web threaded around his fight against the time to discover the truth and the moral and emotional choice that he makes in the final. A well made film, not too long, not too expensive (but not lacking a few spectacular moments), smart and sensible. One of a rare kind nowadays, did I already say it?

 

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Film: Knight and Day (Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz – 2010)

Posted on October 1, 2011 by admin

Knight and Day was one of the 2010 summer blockbusters. With a plot line that is one of the less credible action stories ever seen on screens there was not much alternative left for director James Mangold but to play on the combination between the special effects and the charm and chemistry of the two mega-stars in the cast – Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. To a great extent he succeeded.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013743/

 

There can be no pretensions of credibility in a plot in which in order to get hold of a device the size of a battery (oh, it is actually a battery!) the bad guys simply make so that a whole commercial flight is populated by their men – passengers, pilots, stewardesses with the exception of our heroes, of course, who will kill everybody and land the plane relatively safely with no prior training or book of instructions. So as a viewer you better focus on the well choreographed actions scenes and on the ever changing landscape, with countries and continents changing at a pace that would make the envy of James Bond.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9KJDRXXrB8

(video source TheTubeTrailers)

 

While actions scenes are good, they are not enough to explain that this film has charm and humor and makes for a good entertainment. The rest is especially added by the performances given by Cruise and Diaz, who enjoy themselves and seem to enjoy working with each other. The two actors are towards the end of the period when they can play the action people with romantic interest, Cruise is doing it for 25 years (since Legend and Top Gun more precisely) and Diaz for a shorter period, but it may be one of their last occasions for such casting.  The film does not take itself too serious at any moment and this is why we can enjoy its lighter touch.

 

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“V” is for Visitors

Posted on September 30, 2011 by admin

In 1984 when we escaped the ‘1984’-shaped Communist Romania and became free people one of our first sources of fascination and the only entertainment we could afford as new immigrants was the TV. Coming from the 2-hours-a-day programs filled with propaganda the (then) only Israeli TV channel broadcasting all day long in colors seemed heaven. We did not understand much Hebrew, so films and TV series were some of our main points of interests. Most series combining science-fiction and action like A-Team, Manimal or Wonder Woman and re-runs of the older series of Star Treak which I was so lucky to see, having missed the Captain Kirk and Captain Picard phenomena during all those years. One series step apart with a somehow darker vision of the contacts between human and alien species and the title was simply V. The V was for Visitors and they were in this case a cruel race of reptilians who were hiding their identity under well fabricated human skins and whose superior technology allowed them to invade planet Earth and put humanity in bondage. Of course, mankind fought back.

 

source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307824/

 

The remake of the 1984-85 series brings the Visitors to the present. The Visitors do not invade in the 21st century, they just put huge spaceships atop the big cities of the world and make spectacular demonstrations of their might and apparent good will. As expected most of the humans are inclined to collaborate, and only a handful of people see the true nature of the visitors and decide to fight back. As one can expect the graphics in the new series are spectacular, we are in the post 9/11 world where terrorism is fought with earthly and sometimes alien technology, and and the special effects support well a paced action line which plays all the time on the uncertain balance between the longer story line and the need to provide enough story, substance and conflict resolution in the 45 minutes of each episode. The build-up of the characters is excellent and it is supported by good acting so we soon start to care about FBI officer Erica Evans (Erica Mitchell) and her son Tyler (Logan Huffman), V-deflector Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut), his human lover Valerie (Lourdes Benedicto) and father Jack Landry and learn to mistrust, fear and hate the Visitor’s Queen Anna (Morena Baccarin), and we watch with interest the evolution of a few characters that oscillate between the interests of the two species like TV anchor Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) and Anna’s daughter Lisa (Laura Vandervoort).

 

(video source segurodental1)

 

The ambitions of the series goes however beyond the pure action story and even the longer thread of the conflict between species. Some critics read in the plot an allegory of the American politics which I was not to fast to decipher. What was obvious to me however especially in the second season was the moralistic and even religious line taken by the authors in defining the differences between the species as lying mostly in the existence of feelings like compassion and love with the concept of ‘soul’ representing their incarnation in one concept. I think that the religious terminology got too explicit at some point and a more abstract definition of the concepts of Good and Evil would have looked better, but overall the show gained amplitude and led to some emotional moments as it advanced in its second season. I can regret even more the decision to take the show off the screens exactly when it became more interesting and broadened its plot with a new chance for the freedom fighters and a new secret organization becoming part of what seemed to become a hopeless fight to save mankind. Sometimes commercial realities kill dreams exactly when they start being more exciting.

 

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