As rousing as the flight sequences are, they are all simply digital flights of fancy that have as much substance as the clouds they fly through. They are very beautifully done, but everyone knows they aren’t really there. One of the reasons the flights in the first Top Gun were a big draw was that it was real flying. To put it in terms Hall can appreciate, it is the difference between real ghosts and floating sheets. I am not expecting anyone to go out on an indie budget and shoot real planes. I am just saying the paint-with-numbers appeal only shines so far. The only way to excel in the artificial art design realm is to create base visuals that are not like the bigger budget films.
At this point, everyone has seen a thousand starships, as numerous and alike as the asteroids in the beginning credits of Fugitive From Asteron. Customize your asteroids, just like they did in those same opening credits (it’s pretty nifty). That being said, Hall uses effects more subtly than usual. It seems like the CGI-AI is being used to embellish instead of fill the pool. Instead of plastering everything with digital FX like a wedding cake, it is used more sparingly in key spots that increase the pop when it is applied. If this isn’t the case and everything I was looking at was artificial, then you fooled me like I was in a Philip K. Dick novel.
“…a lot smarter than your average shower of laser fire, with writer LaGreca mixing a lot of depth into her starry sky.”
Fugitive From Asteron has a philosophical subtext that resounds with a bigger audience than ever. The original idea in LaGraca’s novel has bloomed into a planetary rallying call for the masses. Because now more than ever, society’s divisions have dropped in response to a flood of mismanagement and corruption. Everyone has been made equal by the same crushing price increases, just like poverty making all equal on Asteron. Also like Asteron, many feel people’s ability to express dissent and take part in elections is being fought tooth and nail. It’s like the country was drowning; God sent two boats, then the federal government took both for themselves and painted them gold.
The picture of independents versus meddlers that Fugitive From Asteron paints has never been clearer. There are those that work and strive for betterment, bettering us all. Then there are those with neckties and soft hands who never work, looking for ways to tie everything up in this new endless red tape to jump rope with, all the while putting your money in their pockets. But Hall hasn’t delivered a stardust polemic, as this is a very entertaining trip to planet popcorn. The third act has some decent twists, and there is also a bug-eyed monster that is truly sick, like the kids say. Like all good science fiction, Fugitive From Asteron takes us to a better world than the one that confines how high we can fly.
"…has a philosophical subtext that resounds with a bigger audience than ever."
