Pitch Black is a science fiction movie starring Vin Diesel. This movie has a lifeform known as a bioraptor (picture included). The heads of the biological horrors look just like the heads of the bioraptors. There are three key differences though; the biological horrors are quadrupedal while the bioraptors are bipedal. The biological horrors don’t have wings while the bioraptors do have wings. Biological horrors have a short tail while the bioraptors have a long tail. Some of you may think it’s a stretch or that I’m reaching but I think the biological horrors were inspired by the bioraptors. Just an observation I’ve made, nothing more.
Huh… I think I saw that movie about a dozen times, but I must’ve completely forgotten about Steve…
Almost everything in No Man’s Sky is inspired by earlier creations. Sean Murray has straight-out said that it’s intended to be a tribute to old-school science fiction.
Back when the monstrosities arrived, my first thought was the Pitch Black beasties.
There seems to be a lot of people who dislike the Chronicles of Riddich / Pitch Black movies but I (secretly) quite liked them so I enjoyed the NMS green meanies versions when they appeared.
I’m not sure there’s anybody who dislikes Pitch Black (except people that don’t like monster movies in general, obviously).
The chronicles of Riddick is a bit of a different matter. It tries something that is rarely ever attempted, which is to switch genres within the franchise. Which I still believe is the only way forward in todays franchise driven mode of movie production. If franchises were allowed to diversify into different genres, we might actually get compelling stories again every once in a while.
So I very much admire the attempt that the chronicles of Riddick made. In execution, it was… ok. Not terrible at all, but not that great. I think the main issue is the sudden and explosive expansion of scope, which the movie just doesn’t have the time to introduce. There’s too much world background required for the story to really shine, and the one movie couldn’t take the time to lay that out. What it did worked surprisingly well considering the circumstances, but was too far removed from the very simple setup of pitch black for fans of that movie to give them anything to latch on to it, and too far out there for most other people. In my opinion, the story that the chronicles of Riddick told would have required one or two more movies in between to satisfyingly set up.
Alien/aliens is another great example of switching genres. They tried to do it with Alien 3 too but studio pressure seemed to make a mess of whatever philosophical prison story they were trying to tell.
Sadly Alien has not being allowed to switch to something else since.
I’ve only seen pitch black and the first riddick movie and loved Butcher Bay video game when it came out, was a game that had no right pushing boundaries where it did, fantastic effort.
It’s a shame he’s mostly known for fast and furious these days, he’s such a nerd id love to see him do more sci fi.
The thing about Pitch Black is that it wasn’t supposed to be a successful movie. It had a low production budget. Much of the action took place in the dark, fighting things you couldn’t see (which saved a fortune on special effects). The sets were minimal - a banged up freight container and a retired oil tank, spray painted to look a bit like derelict spaceships. They didn’t spend a lot on high-quality actors - Vin Diesel, whilst muscular, wasn’t known for his thespian skills.
On release, the critics didn’t like it. It didn’t spend a long time in cinemas, and cinema audiences were low.
It was only when it reached the home video market - VHS and DVD - that it began to take off. Ordinary people spread the word - mouth to mouth - and gradually it became more and more popular. It ended up a huge hit.
The problem then was that nobody in the industry - not the studios, not the casting directors, not the critics, not the distributors, and not the movie theatres - had believed in it. They had no idea why it became successful - and then they were tasked with doing all again.
And thus we ended up with “Chronicles of Riddick”.
… and ancient creations like dinosaurs. Even commercial establishments are fair game, witness the Dunkin planets (huge donut mineral formations).