SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
Jim Sadur
This version of Red Dwarf is strictly a worthless footnote. The script is almost completely cribbed from the original British episode "The End" with a poorer cast, flat performances and nothing original to speak of.It is astonishing that Someone thought it useful to Americanize what was already a classic comedy on both sides of the Atlantic. That Someone must think all Americans are parochial morons who would be alienated by the original. This is yet another failed attempt to de-Anglicize a British hit. At least this version died before being officially aired.
Phracture
No wonder this never got past the pilot! The characters (with the exception of Kryten) are generic looking, acting, and speaking with none of the wackiness of the UK version; UTTERLY uninteresting.The jokes fall flatter than an amoeba in a centrifuge. Even the jokes ripped straight from the UK version are delivered so badly they don't even elicit a smile.No understanding whatsoever of UK RD's "trench humor". The music adds nothing.The whole mess is just... PUTRID BEYOND WORDS!Ho1ywood* just cannot seem to make any kind of comedy except banal machine-gun-rapid "spray stupid sex jokes and hope a few work", sort. Compared to this the minute long "Pigs in Space" segments of the Muppet Show were absolute masterpieces!* misspelling intentional
lordzaphodb
I watched both the first and second pilots on youtube (go to youtube.com and type in Red Dwarf pilot). The first one was utter garbage, the only saving graces were the captain, Tau (played by a woman, she was very good). And, of course Holly. The actors playing Lister and Rimmer looked like they were choking on lines wrapped in painful barbed wire. The actor playing the Cat was utterly, unbelievably bad. And, poor Kryten (the original British actor), though good, looked bored with the whole affair. The sets looked OK, but the special effects were stock British Dwarf. Now on the other hand, the second pilot looked much better. My favorite there was Terry Farrel (later to play Dax on Star Trek Deep Space Nine) playing the Cat. She was fantastic. The actor playing Lister was pretty good in this one, guess he did a bit of practicing between pilots. But, the actor playing Rimmer was stumbling dreadfully on the character. Holly was very good in this one as well. American television has been guilty of stealing British sitcoms for decades. Three's Company, All in the Family, even Sanford and Son started out as British comedies, though translated well for American audiences. But, Red Dwarf is one of those shows that lose's everything it is in translation. This project was doomed from the start. It might have been promising if it was not translated, just imported. I give the first pilot a 1 out of 10. But,the second pilot I'll be nice and give a 4, if not just for Holly and The Cat.
Nick G
I've seen both of the US pilots (the pilot and the promo) in rather fuzzy videos I downloaded off a website (which has since been ordered to remove all its downloads for legal reasons). This pilot has quite a few problems and some redeeming features, which I'll go through now.One major problem is the casting, and this applies to both pilots. As talented an actor as he is, Craig Bierko does not fit the image of Lister. The ideal Americanised Lister would have been someone less good-looking, who is preferably Hispanic. And the man who played First Officer Munson really annoyed me, for some reason. Apart from them, though, I have no problem with the cast for the first pilot. It's the second pilot (the promo) in which the cast needed serious alteration. I can't for the life of me understand why they replaced Hinton Battle with Terry Farrell. Hinton Battle was fantastic as the Cat, just as good as Danny John-Jules, and perfectly captured the Cat's character. Whereas Terry Farrell played a completely different Cat character: a fearless feline woman with a go-it-alone attitude. There was no real point in the change. And, as either Rob Grant or Doug Naylor said, "It's not funny if she says 'Hey, I'm fabulous-looking' because she is."And there's also the replacement of Chris Eigeman with Anthony Fuscle. Don't get me wrong, Anthony Fuscle was good. But Chris Eigeman was better.The second problem is that the first pilot is just 25 minutes long, including the credits sequences. The original BBC pilot was 30 minutes long, and with the added plot lines of Kryten's involvement, Lister and Kochanski's breakup and the "you gotta..." thing at the end, the pilot really ought to have been lengthened. In fact, it would have been better as a one-hour special (with about 45 minutes of content) - that way they might have been able to flesh out Rimmer's character a bit more, and make his resurrection as a hologram have more impact. The second pilot isn't meant to have a plot, really, it's just meant to be an introduction, but that left me a bit unsatisfied at the end. The third and fourth problems are the replacement of Rimmer's "H" with a silver sphere, and the theme music. Thankfully they were both changed in the second pilot. Now for the good points. The first pilot puts its 25 minutes to fairly good use. Robert Llewellyn, as always, is absolutely amazing as Kryten, and Jane Leeves plays a very good Holly (I suppose it's fortunate that the pilot never took off, though, because she wouldn't have been able to play Daphne on Frasier). The rehashed jokes are delivered fairly well, and the new jokes are for the most part very good (for example, Lister's line about his baseball cards and Kryten on reading the FIRE EXIT sign). The ending, with the "you gotta..." thing is very interesting indeed, as is Holly's video diary. Also, in the second pilot, the newly filmed "From Future Episodes" parts at the end is quite funny. So, in closing, Red Dwarf USA doesn't really measure up to the original BBC version. But, when judged on its own merits, it makes an okay TV show.