Nightfall

Okay, in Asimov's story, a technologically secure and superficially confident society falls to ruin because they burn books and civilization itself in the one night they experience in a 1000 years.

In the movie, a superstitious voodoo society on the verge of collapse is made no worse by the first night in a thousand years.

The written story can be compared to the Heart of Darkness -- oh, the horror of letting go of reason.

In the movie, the poorly acted characters go from nowhere and nothing to nowhere and nothing.

To have a story, something must happen. One would think that the first nightfall in centuries would be something. But, the film-makers manage to make this something into something boring.

For a long time nothing happened, then, suddenly and without warning, nothing continued to happen.

I am a hard core science fiction fan and an Asimov fan in particular. In fact Nightfall was the first science fiction book I ever read. I have reread it many times and always remembered it fondly... Until now. I can't believe the people that made this film got the legitimate authorization to butcher such a wonderful story. The acting was horrible although I suspect that was mostly due to a lousy script. The special effects should have been left out to further improve this movie. Worst of all I actually bought it thinking Asimov's estate wouldn't let them make too bad a movie.. Right? WRONG!! That said. I hope they do a better job with I. Robot currently in the works. Looks like a bigger budget what with will smith etc...

What is it about Nightfall that singles it out for appaling movie treatment? The original regularly tops lists of votes for the greatest science fiction short story ever written (not a judgement Asimov himself concurred with, by the way). Why does it only get filmed by people with no talent and no money? A bad film of Nightfall already got made in 1988. Why on earth would anybody remake *that*? Why doesn't someone say, "This is a good story. Why not lets make a good movie out of it?" instead of "Someone made a bad movie out of this, lets make another one." Isn't there a decent scriptwriter and a good director who both happen to be fans of Asimov?

Judging by looking at this movie, the film-makers must have thought they had gold. The original source material seemed good enough to create and interesting and deep thought provoking sci-fi movie with. I seemed however like they had no idea how to handle its concept properly. Instead they threw in some adventure and lame action to make the movie a good and interesting one but the end result is far from satisfying.

It's an obviously cheaply made movie, with low production values, which can be seen back in its small sets and the unimaginative look of the overall movie, which is especially disappointing for a movie of its sort. Yes you can call this a typical straight to DVD B-movie.

What makes the movie all the more worse are the acting performances. Some people should just never be allowed to work in the movie business. This movie does really have some untalented people uttering their lines in front of the camera in it. The movie still has David Carradine though, which always adds some pleasure to any movie.

The movie is just never any exciting or spectacular to watch. The movie could had raised some thought provoking elements and themes but at fails at every attempt to do so. The action and more adventurous elements of the movie are also far from good enough to still consider this movie a watchable one.

The story is being told too messy and without any imagination really. Seems like director Gwyneth Gibby has no passion for the genre really and also certainly no experience in it.

There really is no reason why you should ever watch this clumsy little movie.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I first read Isaac Asimov's sci-fi story, Nightfall, in the 1980s when I was asked to help find financing to make a film version by the person who then owned the movie rights. I read the book and was moved... Asimov's story says much about the nature of scientific knowledge and religious superstition, and it says much about how we are locked into our world and often not able to transcend it. At the end, the scientists of the day discover that the religious nuts were right all along about one basic fact... but their interpretation of this fact was quite wrong. Asimov had a long and prolific career as a writer of sci-fi but Nightfall, written when he was only nineteen was one of his more (most?) famous stories.

I couldn't raise the money for its filming and lost track of the project. So I was excited to see the film. What a disappointment. It had been filmed in India (is that we they got the money finally?) and the story greatly expanded. It had been made into a love story - it did not explore the nature of knowledge at all. The lead actress was quite unconvincing, pathetic, actually. I had my whole family watch the movie with me and was quite embarrassed. They kept asking me what I thought but I would say nothing as they would have all walked out... I kept hoping is would improve. But it didn't.