Well yes I add this to science fiction as well since it’s about aliens and spaceships and the origin of humans and how aliens have affected our creation. The Guyver is a 1991 scifi-action movie based on the Japanese anime series Guyver. The idea behind Guyver is that a powerful alien race came to earth in the distance past before mankind ever existed. Their experiment was to created the ultimate organic weapon and thus created mankind. With the addition of a special gene into man, they created Zoanoids – humans that can change form at will from humans to humanoid mutant creatures. The leader of the Zoanoids at present is called the Zoalord who has formed a powerful corporation called Chronos to aid in his agenda for world domination – while humanity remains ignorant of the existence of the mutants. Among the alien remains on earth was found the guyver unit – a bio boosted body armour that makes the wearer superhuman. But the Zoalord has no idea how to activate it and has his scientists working on it.

In the first movie, The Guyver, a scientist Dr. Tetsu Segawa, steals the unit from the research lab in order to give it to his contact in the CIA, agent Max Reed (Mark Hamill) but is killed before he can reach the agent. Dr. Segawa hid the unit among some trash & garbage boxes. Reed and the CIA try and find out the murder and question the scientists daughter. Sean Barker, a martial arts student, and boyfriend of Dr. Segawa’s daughter Mizky, accidentaly finds and activated the Guyver unit while being bullied by a street gang and becomes the Guyver when the unit fuses with him. With incredible strength, speed, agility and weapons along with the armour, the Guyver must protect his love interest from the Zoanoids. The only weakness in the armour is the glowing ball on the helmet – removing it causes the armour to collapse and Sean is killed and dissolved when the head goon Zoanoid does it to him. However his dna is saved in the unit and later at the Zoalord’s lab when another Zoanoid tries to fuse with the unit, Sea is recreated and fights his way out. He kills the Zoalord and his thugs but agent Reed is killed as he was exposed to Zoanoid experiments to turn him into one himself and was pulled out too quickly. Although Sean and Mizky leave safely, it is revealed that one of the Zoanoid goons has survived and that they have infiltrated the CIA as well.

This movie is so badly acted and the actors chosen are almost idiotically ham acting – especially the Zoanoids goons, which includes Michael Berryman. Mark Hammil, with a mustache, was criticized as making “an unearned paycheck for a onetime A-picture star” in a lame movie that only has some good action scenes and costumes. Jack Armstrong is useless as a hero. Vivian Wu plays Mizky and comes across as a real dumb version of the ‘lady in distress; an Oriental version of the dumb blonde who just screams and cries in the movie. And she speaks like her tongue is too big for her mouth. Jeffery Coombs also has a small role as one of Zoanoid scientists. Really bad acting but the Guyver is cool and there are some good fight scenes. 4 outta 10!

The sequel Guyver : Dark Hero came out in 1994 and is lot more serious compared to the campy feel of the original. A year later a troubled and tormented Sean (played by David Hayter) is struggling to come to terms as the Guyver. He has lost friends and his love due to his outbursts and lives alone, fighting crime but also susceptible to moments of pure rage. He sees on tv about what seems like an animal attack that people think is a bear in the woods and is drawn to an archaeological dig in Utah that turns out to be funded by Cronos. Sean makes his way to the area and meets Cori (Kathy Christopherson), one of the archeologists who agrees to take him to her father, the lead archeologist at the dig and gets him a job there. At the underground cave, student archaeologists are unearthing the cave paintings, which resemble guyvers and other alien images, similar to ones that appear to Sean in his dreams. They later unearth a fantastic looking alien spaceship that looks like it’s organic. At night Sean hears a man being killed and attacks the Zoanoid that seems to haunt the grounds.

The next day the people explore the alien ship and Crane, the lead representative from Chromos at the site, gets his hands on what the corporation wanted all along: another Guyver unit. Sean meanwhile approaches one of the room that pulsates and it talks telepathically to him; he asks for the unit to be removed but it offers him no answers. Anyways, the Chronos employees seem to be in charge and take the new guyver unit away. Cori’s father is a Zoanoid himself but is blackmailed by the corporation employees to be silent. Cori discovers that what the employees plan to do, she is caught by them and is taken away. Her father mutates and attacks the others but is outnumbered. Sean, who is looking for Coris, sees them and activates the guyver unit and fights them off and kills them. He, Cori and her father return to the dig where the Chronos gang has everyone at gunpoint. Atkins, an FBI agent under the guise of an acheologist, rescues the others but is held up the Zoanoids himself, when his fellow agents are killed. Crane asks Sean to join them but is refused and then the Zoanoids fights the Guyver & Cori’s dad. Crane uses the second guyver unit on himself and seems to become more than a match for Sean but in the end Crane is destroyed by an energy force that blasts from the Guyver’s chest.

Sean, who had learned about the origins of how the Guyver units came to be, about the aliens coming to earth and creating both the Zoanioids and the humans, sends the spaceship back into space, much to agent Atkins chagrin. Coming to terms with his origins and more at peace with who he is now, Sean leaves the dig area with Cori.

The second movie is much more fun, more violent and bloody and has awesome fight sequences. 7 outta 10! The Guyver is cool and I hope they remake this movie series sometime with a bigger budget and better cast & storylines.

With reports out that the trio of main actors from the original triology of Star Wars movies – Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia and Mark Hammill as Luke Skywalker – will reprise their roles in the 7th movie of the franchise, there are comments both for and against this move. An aging trio will be looked upon to act as a transitory bridge from the old trilogy to the new one with the first movie, episode VIII supposed to come out in 2015. And while a lot of fans seem to love that idea, I am not so sure of it myself.

Well if the 3 had minor supporting roles which are more like a nod to the franchise’s origins I think that might work. The main cast of much younger characters could be the children (or grandchildren) of Han & Leia and uncle Luke having trained them in Jedi school. It’s actually been way too long from Return of the Jedi (1983) to now to actually have them in it and be the main storyline – as much as some of us would have wanted them to be. The only clear way I see is to have them play character roles, perhaps even have then appear throughout the next 3 movies who advice and help but not be the main heroes.

I’m looking forward to more movies from that franchise but am skeptical as to how well it’s going to be done. Having said that I’m not one of those who hated the prequel trilogy and that’s also because I don’t happen to worship the original trilogy. They aren’t that  great! even though I do like them a lot. So let’s see what’s gonna happen.

Update:  On February 5 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed the development of two stand-alone films, each individually written by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. On February 6, Entertainment Weekly reported that Disney is working on two films featuring Han Solo and Boba Fett.

I have loved the first two Men In Black movies and seen them several times on cable since their releases. Set 15 years after the first movie and 10 after the second (as in true release) Men In Black 3 is the second sequel and most successful in terms of revenue. Released in May of last year, the movie sees Barry Sonnenfield and Steven Spielberg returned as director and executive producer respectively with Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones returning as Agents J & K with Josh Brolin appearing as a younger version of K. Jermaine Clement plays past & present versions of the villain Boris The Animal, Emma Thompson, Alice Eve & Michael Stuhlberg have supporting roles.

So what do we have in MIB3:

• Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum security prison base on the moon by having his girlfriend (Nicole Scherzinger and does she really have such bodacious bosoms) deliver a cake to him, in which hidden is his organic and alive weapon. He seeks revenge on earth and especially on agent K who captured him back in 1969. Boris also lost his left arm in the confrontation with K. K is also responsible for the deployment of the ArcNet, a defense system that protected Earth from invasion and ultimately led to the Boglodites’ extinction.
• Agents J & K have a confrontation with Boris who withdraws but warns K that he is “already dead”. When J tries to do research on Boris back at the MIB hq, he finds that some of the information is denied to him. When questioned he is told by both K and, new head of MIB, O to leave it alone.
• Boris gets a device to travel back in time to 1969 o help his past self kill K and prevent the ArcNet’s deployment. As a result J finds himself in an alternate reality (J is the only one who remembers the two realities) where K has been dead for 40 years and there is an imminent Boglodites invasion with no ArcNet to protect earth. Using a similar device to travel to 1969 and save his partner. He meets up with agent K’s younger self (Josh Brolin) who mistrusts him but when J tells him the truth he is convinced. The get the ArcNet, in the form of a small disc-shaped device, from an alien named Griffin and protect him from an attack by Boris.
• J, K & Griffin travel to Cape Canaveral in Florida, where the Apollo 11 rocket is preparing to lift off and land the first humans on the Moon. K has to plant the device on the rocket and once it is in earth’s orbit the device will auto-activate.   Griffin uses his abilities to convince the local military personnel, which includes a colonel, to allow them access and aid them in their mission. Both the versions of Boris attack the agents while they are reaching the top of the rocket’s support structure. J knocks off the current version of Boris from the top of the structure while K shoots off the younger version’s arm and and he too falls off the structure, and place the ArcNet device on the rocket just before it launches. Future Boris is incinerated by the rocket’s exhaust.
• As J makes his way to meet K, he sees the past version of Boris ambush K and the colonel and shoots the colonel dead. K then kills Boris and turns around to see the colonel’s young son amed James approaches the scene looking for his father. K, who neuralyses and comforts the child, and J who sees them from afar realizes that the young boy is J. Sad at seeing his real father’s death J is comforted to know that K was a kind of surrogate dad to him.  returns to the present day, where K is still alive, and joins him at a diner, subtly thanking the older agent for all that he has done for him. As the movie ends, we see a smiling Griffin sitting in the same diner.

Most critics & fans have praised the performance of Josh Brolin which was shrewd casting I must say. I enjoyed the movie but miss the fun of the first one. Still enjoyable and I give it a 7.5 outta 10!