Ice Planet

Just saw this one. Although I was really expecting a bad movie, in the beginning I thought I was wrong. Some very well done fx fooled me for a few minutes... It's a shame too. The acting was OK most of the time, the photography is good, the special effects are really decent, and the only thing lacking was a coherent plot that would make sense. The end is *really* incomprehensible and it looks as though it's a pilot movie for a series or something. Not worth watching unless you're really into this stuff.

If you want to see a mixture of the '50's and '60's Sci-Fi scripts and special effects with modern techniques, then go see the movie. Probably a low budget movie, since they couldn't afford a better scenario, as it starts with a story of a war (what's new?) between two terrestrial factions and it ends with some 1000 people on a strange planet, starting a new life... The connection between the key elements of the story is weak, the people inside are not interesting (old models of heroes from Star Trek, mostly, some elements of the oldies - "The forbidden planet"; "Time Machine") as well as not original at all, as if the movie-makers discovered the bicycle at the beginning of the 21 century... Sorry to say, no logical story, cheap FX, actors are not convincing at all; and the story is not even funny, to recommend it for kids. If I take into account its complexity, I'd recommend it to 10-11 years old kids. It is one of those movies that made you think why you have spent 2 hours of a lovely night for nothing?

don,t waste your time,and money its garbage never seen such bad acting like in this one. so much unknown actors in such a bad production you have been warned

This starts with a voice over stating that 30 years earlier there was a world wide war between The Union and The Consortium that left 10 per cent of the Earth's population . This leads to a mental image of a labour dispute getting out of hand . You'll have to use your own mental image for this war because an obvious montage isn't used . Actually there is a vague internal logic for world wide wars happening when mankind has developed interstellar travel because who's going to start world war 3 when everyone is confined on Earth ? There's also a logic to have an extremely cosmopolitan crew on a spaceship . After all China , India and possibly Brazil will be superpowers in the late 21st century so there is a bit of thought given to the future premise . Alas thought doesn't seem to be given to anything else

While watching ICE PLANET I had the gut instinct that I was watching a pilot to some TV show . Everything about the way shots are framed to the not very special effects and the segments where the screen fades to black gave me the impression I was watching a feature length TV pilot . Even the premise of a human colony being attacked by mysterious aliens reminded me of a previous TV series SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND . I went on Wikipedia and guess what ? This was indeed a pilot for a TV series that was never produced

This leads to a fundamental problem and that is that ICE PLANET never feels like a story in its own right . There's just a basic exposition that sets things up and there's a host of characters who have a backstory just waiting to burst out . Of course if you're going to go to a full series characters and situations will be embellished and built upon but if it doesn't this means you're watching something that is terribly unsatisfying in its own right which is something commentators on this page have mentioned . Perhaps the fact that this pilot didn't go to a series tells you something ?

If not for the special effects and the sets, I would have given this movie not a 3 but a 1. There's hardly any explanation what the story or the plot are about. I have seen the whole movie and I really have no clue why this movie was made. Or what this movie was about.

Weird combination of plot less Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars, Galaxy Quest, Stargate, Starship Orion, Starship Troopers and a whole lot of other space opera with space fights, silly uniforms, actors who have no idea what role they are supposed to be playing or what the texts mean they are saying. Technobabble galore... (even the subsonic).

The end was weird, was it an end? What happened there? It was a clueless ending. One thing was clear though: it was supposed to be followed by a TV series. I'm glad it wasn't.

I lost 85 minutes of my life. No idea why I did that.