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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

After Earth (2013)

Here’s another film by M. Night Shyamalan that was produced in collaboration with Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and others. It stars Smith and his son, Jaden on a far future Earth that has been overrun by a variety of dangerous genetically modified and evolved organisms.

The plot is rather simple, basically about a father and son relationship and facing adversity, but the characters are deep and multi-dimensional. And there are plenty of symbols and metaphors throughout. There’s a lot of action, of course, but this is not some formula, Mac-Hollywood scifi movie with a bunch of CG and non-stop chase scenes. It’s a real character study with a deliberate pace.

It’s rare to find a young actor who can pull off a role like this – young actors usually don’t have enough experience to give great performances -- but Jaden gives a convincing performance. In part, I think it’s because throughout most of the film his character is experiencing fear and facing challenges, which I believe is basically what Jaden, as a young actor, was likely experiencing during the filming of this major, high-stakes project.

Technically, the film has all the world-class production value of a Shyamalan film, so I don’t think you will be disappointed with this one.


@Pat
What exactly is your metric for "retro"? That movie's not even 10 years old.

@jameswynn

>"What exactly is your metric for "retro"? That movie's not even 10 years old."

I include anything that is at least ten years old. After Earth was shot in early 2012 and released in early 2013. (Of course there is no fixed definition for that term.)

I also include very old silent films in the series that some would consider too old to be retro.

I've included a disclaimer before about this, as I did in Cloud Atlas (2012) (qoto.org/@Pat/1085234470913944), but most folks who follow the series understand what it's about, and I didn't mention it on this one.

Here's an (out of date) Index of films in the series:
qoto.org/@Pat/1092907173982131

More recent films in the series can be found at or .

Thank you for your comment.

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@jameswynn

I just updated the index to include all films to date...

qoto.org/@Pat/1099584380547834

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