Steven Spielberg Presents "Taken" (1 Viewer)

[Chuck C]

Spielberg produced this mini-series about alien-abduction/Rowsell incident which premeires on the sci-fi channel on Dec 2.
http://taken.scifi.com/index_main.html
So if showing Braveheart didn't boost sci-Fi's ratings, maybe "Taken" will!

 

[Brad Grenz]

I'm actually pretty interested in this. There's been a heavy advertizing campaign for it as well.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Chuck C wrote:

If it's anything like most Spielberg-backed tv shows, "taken" is how you'll feel after ten hours of it.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

If it's anything like most Spielberg-backed tv shows, "taken" is how you'll feel after ten hours of it.

Yeah, I'm sure all the reviewers who gave the mini-series positive reviews after watching it feel "taken".

 

[cwhite]

Personally, I'm tired of the heavy saturation ad campaign on Sci-Fi. And tonight, the channel is running 23 hours of The X-Files solely on the alien on earth theme. Does anyone actually believe that Spielberg can re-make The X-Files and do it better than Chris Carter?

 

[Brad Grenz]

Does anyone actually believe that Spielberg can re-make The X-Files and do it better than Chris Carter?

Yeah, cause Carter invented alien abduction sci-fi. I mean really, what experience does Speilburg have with the subject? Oh, wait. I guess there's Close Encounters. Wow, and it neatly predates the X-Files, doesn't it?

Can he do the subject better than Chris Carter? Based on the last four seasons of the X-Files, I'd say easily. Better than the X-Files when it had James Wong and the Morgans around? That remains to be seen.

 

[Jordan_E]

But TAKEN is a big committment! Almost have to go into it like committing yourself to watching 24, miss an episode and you're screwed.

 

[Will_B]

Everyone feeling cynical, then?

I've heard good reviews on the first 3 or 4 episodes which have already been screened for critics. There was a nice interview with the screenwriter in last Sunday's New York Times (Arts section, near the back) where he talked about Steven's input on the shape of the story.

Should be interesting. Remember Spielberg had planned for years to make his film Night Skies, but the scope was too big... so now we get this - a multigenerational story.

And it should be different than X-Files in that this one is based on the real mythos of the alien encounter subject, not on "evil black oil from space." That said, from what I hear, this show is going to present all the so-called "high strangeness" experiences that are sometimes reported, so it should be pretty intense.

I'm expecting this to be more like a Steven King miniseries than an X-Files.

I think it may make sense to tape it all, so one can fast forward through the commercials. Should be able to reduce that 20 hours to 15.

 

[Wayne W]

I'm not going to watch Taken on Sci-Fi. I'll wait for a DVD release or another airing on another channel. After I watch the rest of the Farscape episodes starting in Jan. I'm through with the Sci-Fi channel for good. Screw 'em.

 

[Jason Seaver]

"But what did I do??"

-Wayne's Nose

 

[Joel C]

FYI, if you don't have time during the week, the entire series is being repeated twice in a row on Saturday.

 

[Will_B]

Get out the L-750s and set player to SLP!

 

[DwightK]

Tivo'ing Taken.

I watched that one hour special PsiFi ran recently on the making of and that solidified my desire to watch.

 

[derek]

ReplayTV'ing Taken. Heavily advertised...yep...looks like SciFi spent all that money they had for Farscape :frowning: promoting this. My copy of the Washington Post Sunday sales circular was wrapped in a 'Taken' package.

 

[Will_B]

They also had a six city tour of a tourbus with an exhibit that would set up in the lots of malls. It had video clips of the shows, and exhibits of creatures, etc. Vivendi/Universal is behind this effort in a big way.

Myself, I don't have cable.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I think I'll wait for the DVD's, that way I can watch them at my own pace and I don't have to put up with the constant commercials and crappy picture quality from DirecTV.

 

[David Rogers]

Planning to tune in, but I've been burned by tv movies before. This is just another TV movie, even if a cable channel did it and Spielberg was involved. His involvement may very well have been limited to having looked at a few letters or proposals though, so I'm definitely not assuming it will be as good as Spielberg is when he's lensing.

Hopefully it will be written well and be engaging. If not, see yas.

(cross fingers)

 

[LennyP]

This is gona be awesome, 15 hour sci-fi "mini"series? That's all I need to know!

What I'm wondering is whether this will be later released on a nice DVD set, like the Dune miniseries, so whether I should bother digitally recording every episode and putting it on DVD or not...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Planning to tune in, but I've been burned by tv movies before. This is just another TV movie, even if a cable channel did it and Spielberg was involved.

Yes, but if you recalled the last "TV movie" as you put it that Spielberg was involved in was the critically and popularly acclaimed Band of Brothers which recently came to DVD to rave reviews.

 

[ScottL]

I am watching it right now. Did anyone else seem to remember the scene where the girl(who's car shortly stops working and gets the hood blown off) is going around the corner in the vehicle. Doesn't that shot look exactly like the shot from Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfus and other families are watching the lights go across the valley??

Perhaps I am crazy.

Scott