Finally I can define it....

nicked on 18/3/2007 at 14:15

well, that's just not true. whether you liked it or not, Riddick has a heck of a lot of backstory and un-plot-related meanderings. Just watch the extras on the DVD. There's 2 more films planned (although they may well never get made), and in fact, so much backstory that watching Chronicles of Riddick can be kinda confusing in places, as you're unaware of a custom of the society you're watching.

There's the necromongers with their worship of death, unexplained powers drawn from the Underverse, strange archaic machinery, and thirst for conquest.

There's Judi Dench's Ethereal, mysterious and possibly benign, but with little onscreen explanation.

There's New Mecca on Helion, a supposedly Utopian society with many cultural references to the middle east.

There's a huge wealth of knowledge about crime and punishment, with the mercenary culture and the variety of hellhole prisons.

There's a lot of intelligent scientific thought behind the natural elements of the world - planets are wildly different based on proximity to stars, materials, planetary movements etc.

Although the film wasn't particularly successful, there was a hell of a lot of thought put into the universe.

DreadLord on 18/3/2007 at 17:36

Well, OK then, it seems to be a "real" fictional universe....

Still, though it seems that they put a lot of thought into the world design, unlogic and unrealistic parts in the plot are always mirrored in the visual design. IMO this is also true for this movie, though it does has plausible stuff...

nicked on 18/3/2007 at 19:49

true, a lot of Riddick is a bit impractical so it seems a bit fake.

I think what killed the film was an over-complicated premise, but over-simplistic story, and a vast overestimation of the target audience.

DreadLord on 21/3/2007 at 15:48

If you are interested I would recommend the wikipedia sites about the half-life-(2)-universe:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_%28Half-Life_2%29)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanoid_and_synthetic_Combine_in_Half-Life_2#Humanoid_Combine)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Combine_combat_technology_in_Half-Life_2)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Combine_non-combat_technology_in_Half-Life_2)

It´s very accurate and well done - if you dont know the universe, you will learn, why it has this incredible atmosphere and realism when you are reading this.

Even though I have played the game I and cared much about all the details I still learned many new things on these sites.

An intersting thing is, that though everything is really fleshed out in this universe there are no cutscenes and/or books/textfiles at all...

like in the cradle you will learn about the history and all the backgrounds by putting all the small pieces together while it is quite possible that you dont find all of them.....

The primary source are conversations and speaker anouncements.
but IMO even by analysing the combine visual design you will learn some details about the way ther system works....and I think in this regard the Half-Life universe is even superiour to many sci-fi blockbusters. It seems that in most movies they do care more about that it looks "just" cool instead of "realistic". Take the matrix-trilogy for example: The design of the machines is way too stylized....I think thats also true for Riddick.