imdb-773-34667

EDIT: After now having finished the season, I need to change my rating from 1 star to 5 stars. I would still never recommend the series to anyone, though. But should you choose to watch it, bear in mind that the story was published in 1941, long before any of us were born. It was written in a completely different time, where the world was so much smaller, and we had much less knowledge about anything. Furthermore, the author wasn't a skilled, experienced survivalist. No, as novelist George R. Stewart was probably more of a philosopher, it seems. My advice is to regard the series as a theater play. It would have worked much better as such, I think. But as a TV-series, the narrative is just too slow, with too little drama and too little action for today's world.

I already said everything in my headline above: The story is quite weak, set in a completely unbelievable future, and told like a Roland Emmerich movie. That wasn't a compliment, mind you.

During the film, you are constantly reminded of practically all sci-fi movies from the past 30 years, because so many details in the imagery seem copied from others, to put it bluntly. Not because it's an homage, but simply because there is nothing new or original to see here. All the time I was thinking: Oh, that's from "The Animatrix", and that's from "District 9", that's "Spielberg's A. I.", that's from "Pandora" and that's from "I, Robot". Besides that, another distracting factor was the lack of a believable premise for the story.

Both the CGI and editing is decent enough, and the acting is not exactly bad, despite the weak script. But none of that makes the movie any better.

Du'a Khalil Aswad was a 17-year-old Iraqi girl of the Yazidi faith, who was stoned to death in northern Iraq in early April 2007. Long before ISIS. She was the victim of an honor killing.

Why do I bring up her name?

Because actual footage of Khalil's brutal execution is used blatantly in this movie. Not to honor her memory. Not to put focus on sectarian, misogynic honor killings. No, the footage is used to depict the death of a fictional character in the film; a British teenage girl named Taylor Conger, who is killed by ISIS in the fictional story of the movie.

Why? Du'a Khalil Aswad wasn't at all fictional. What you see is sadly her actual flesh and blood. Du'a Khalil Aswad wasn't killed by ISIS either. Du'a Khalil Aswad wasn't a British teenager. Du'a Khalil Aswad didn't ask to be used as an unpaid extra while being beaten and stoned to death. Du'a Khalil Aswad didn't give Timur Bekmambetov permission to use her molested body as a movie prop.

Yet Timur Bekmambetov did. Maybe he thought nobody would ever notice? Maybe he couldn't care less about abusing some dead teenage girl? Maybe it saved him some money? Maybe he's into snuff?

However, one thing is certain: Timur Bekmambetov didn't have the decency to list her name in the credits.

Du'a Khalil Aswad.