Hacker Cinema
Impossible Planet
2019 · TV series · documentary · 1 season
Our planet generates an incredible amount of natural phenomena. From luminescent, electric-blue waves crashing ashore to mysterious fairy circles as far as the eye can see, all are seemingly miraculous in their existence. Some can be reasonably explained, but others baffle even the most experienced of scientists. This series takes us on a journey around our vast planet to discover just how strange and unaccounted for our world can be. Welcome to our Impossible Planet.
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2 comments on Hacker News
See, I had a very different reading of the end of the Impossible Planet. The old lady and the guy died but in their dying brains they finally "went to Earth", the imperfectly remembered yet angelic place of her rose tinted memories.
The one I didn't like was the one where the smartphone helpdesk gaslights the teenager. I'm willing to suspend disbelief a bit that the teenager won't recognise what's happening, but the end didn't work. She should have died! Every day that she's alive is another day where she might talk about her experience and have someone else go "Wait, that doesn't make sense..." Instead she's doing presentations and inviting people to hear her story!
My only minor quibble is that the ending is a little too easy to guess on most of them. The Lesbian Space Cop/Distraught CEO episode was the best for this, it kept you guessing for a right long time.
Speaking of, I was quite disappointed with the new "Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams" show, now on Amazon. They are decidedly not faithful to the short stories they're based on, and in several cases choose a conclusion that is diametrically opposite to what PKD intended.
In "Impossible Planet" they go for a weirdly romantic ending that is the opposite of the story, and turns it into some kind of wish fulfillment fantasy.
"Autofac" starts great, but then introduces a twist that makes no sense. Dick's story is extremely dark (taking the automatic, unstoppable factory idea to its logical next step), and the final ending essentially makes the whole premise pointless, turning a smart comment on runaway consumerism and automation into a cheap thriller about love conquering all.
Film adaptations have generally been unable to make something faithful to PKD. I just wish someone would have the balls to do it, because it could be fantastic.