"The Beyond" - One Step Too Far?

Sometimes it's better to rein in ambition. You have, however,  to admire the ambition of the film "The Beyond" - it has kept me enthralled through three viewings. So many good ideas, so much speculation but each viewing exposed its quite serious flaws. But before itemising them let's look at what is good about the film.

The pace. What is wrong with the slow development of a plot. Here it emphasised the complacency of the Space Agency. It accelerated when it needed to -  the appearance of the black spheres around the world and, later, the imminent obliteration of Earth etc.

Technology - I was completely convinced by all that. The multiscreen, scrolling gigabytes of info. The, what I thought were, brilliant imagining of the linkage between a cyborg body and human brain. Using the Robocop idea of linking an organic brain with a cyborg body. The near Earth space shots - really convincing. The idea that some alien force would shatter the moons of Saturn etc and use them as ballistic missiles to wipe out Earth. That is an idea to watch out for!

I just liked the fairly professional middle class, educated setting - it rung true. I liked the documentary feel of much of the film: you don't need to spend big bucks and have hyper action to tell a good story.

Also there's nothing wrong with piggy backing on other films. "RoboCop", "Arrival", "2001" and "2020" along with "When Worlds Collide". 

So what was wrong? First, I suspect you could design a probe that downloads data incredibly quickly - like the brain of Human 2.0. Also, since Human 2.0 was spat out, why not wait to see if our aliens would have spat out a probe.

Our Space Agency guys were way too keen to chop up humans. Which brings me to one of my biggest concerns. Now I know, Apollos 7,8,9,10 and 11 were fired off in a period of 9 months but frankly given what we knew and didn't know about that "wormhole" and the appearance of mega black balloons across the globe, I'd have been more circumspect in going hell for leather and swapping brains left, right and centre. What was the window? A week or two?

I'm sure that our Space Agency top executives had regular chats with the Government, the UN etc but there was nothing in the film to indicate that. But then would you bother with the bureaucracy?

The paraplegic volunteer was a bit too obvious. Frankly, he and the cosmologist who was also cyborged were far too easily convinced. Especially after the transplant team seemed to have forgotten all they knew about organ rejection.

 And  two of the biggest questions. Why and who were so keen to wipe us out and who were these godlike aliens keen to keep humanity alive? No satisfactory explanations.

But the biggest questions is: why, if all you need is your brain, do you have to go through a full astronaut medical and training? Just to use up NASA stock film?

 I ask that 'cause, were it not for that I'd be the first in line to have a brain/cyborg meld.