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Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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wedgeski

I enjoy the recent trilogy for the spectacle it is--much as how I enjoyed the prequels for the same reason. This will carry me for a few watches before I lose interest. Much as I love the three-way light-sabre duel in Phantom Menace, Maul still gets punked by Obi-Wan at the end, and I can listen to Duel of the Fates any time I want...thus, I haven't watched the film in years. I suspect the same thing will happen with the latest three, especially since the series' narrative choices rubbed the shine off whatever excellent goodwill TFA earned with me.

In the end that's what grinds my gears. To have embarked on these films with no plan, no three-act structure, no metaplot under which any number of top-tier directors would have happily gone to work...it's inexplicable and, to my mind, unforgivable.

Professor Bear

For me, there was no going back for The Last Jedi after Leia Poppins.

Quote from: wedgeski on 28 December, 2020, 06:18:54 PM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 28 December, 2020, 04:28:40 PM
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 December, 2020, 03:10:57 PMIt makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight.

JJA has very definite opinions about the attention span of his audience.  I still remember how the opening shot of his Star Trek reboot is a spaceship flying through space making spaceship noises, and then a minute later another spaceship is shooting very loud space lasers, while many loud space explosions happen.  Then someone falls out of a door or something into space, which is deathly silent because there is no noise in space.
This tired old thing? Cinema plays with reality at every turn, yet somehow it's wrong when sci-fi does it.

The point, of course, was not about the representation of reality that a director chooses to utilise, but that he contradicts what he has already portrayed onscreen.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: Professor Bear on 28 December, 2020, 06:57:30 PM
For me, there was no going back for The Last Jedi after Leia Poppins.

Quote from: wedgeski on 28 December, 2020, 06:18:54 PM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 28 December, 2020, 04:28:40 PM
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 December, 2020, 03:10:57 PMIt makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight.

JJA has very definite opinions about the attention span of his audience.  I still remember how the opening shot of his Star Trek reboot is a spaceship flying through space making spaceship noises, and then a minute later another spaceship is shooting very loud space lasers, while many loud space explosions happen.  Then someone falls out of a door or something into space, which is deathly silent because there is no noise in space.
This tired old thing? Cinema plays with reality at every turn, yet somehow it's wrong when sci-fi does it.

The point, of course, was not about the representation of reality that a director chooses to utilise, but that he contradicts what he has already portrayed onscreen.

JJ Apologists might try to claim that the pew pew lazer sounds were non-diagetic. Worse than that was the whole Beastie Boys bit. They reference Star Trek a few times in their lyrics, so how does that square up? Is Adam Yauch precognitive or a time traveller? In this universe did the Beastie Boys not release their arguably most successful single, Intergalactic? It's been a while since I watched Star Trek Beyond, but didn't they just need to broadcast an FM radio signal and the Beastie Boys was all they could broadcast for reasons? With all their tech they couldn't broadcast a simple tone? Or get Spock to scream into a microphone, while having one of the temper tantrums that JJ seems to think are appropriate for the character? Or would that just be silly?

As for Star Wars, I joke that the prequels never happened, but now I have to actively try to forget the Sequels if I want to enjoy the Originals. Palpitine still being alive completely undermines Anakin rejecting  the dark side and casting down his manipulator* to save his son. Luke casting aside his lightsabre and refusing to give in to anger was pointless, since he was manipulated to contemplate murdering his teenage nephew in his sleep. The 1983 movie needs to be renamed The Cameo of a Dubious Jedi

*bUt yOu NeVEr sEe hIs bODy!
You may quote me on that.

pictsy

JJA has always sucked and I'm glad more people are waking up to his bullshit.

That said, there is always chance for redemption.  Eli Roth directed a film I really enjoyed!  There's hope for anyone.

Except Zack Snyder, he's a waste of skin.

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 December, 2020, 03:10:57 PM
Honestly, it's fucking terrible. It makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight. It looks great, and the cast are fine, but unless you're really quite drunk, or treating it as a series of largely unconnected three-minute mini-plays, you'll spend 142 minutes going "Wait... WHAT?"

Well, I remember it being panned almost universally when it came out and decided that I really didn't care enough.  Thanks for solidifying it for me.  I'll put it on my will-never-watch list under the listing pointless waste of time.

I don't really care that the new Star Wars trilogy was largely crap.  Star Wars has been over-hyped for decades now.  Maybe it will temper the praise I don't see it having earned.  As far as I can tell there have been some very well made spinoffs for the franchise recently.  I don't think I need to watch bad films and I don't need Star Wars to complete my life.  That's what comics are for.

Quote from: Funt Solo on 28 December, 2020, 04:55:28 PM
...Ryan Reynolds getting beaten to a bloody pulp in a hyper-violent main street fantasy.

A Ryan Reynolds vehicle were he does his Ryan Reynolds thing?  Count me on board.  I've even watched R.I.P.D.  Twice.  I'll probably watch it again, sometime.  Jeff Bridges is fun in it.


Professor Bear

Quote from: Mister Pops on 28 December, 2020, 07:42:34 PM
JJ Apologists might try to claim that the pew pew lazer sounds were non-diagetic.

I just assumed he copied the low-noise space bits from Battlestar Galactica and knew that his audience wouldn't remember as far back as three minutes ago on account of having been on their phone since then.

TordelBack

Quote from: Mister Pops on 28 December, 2020, 07:42:34 PM
Worse than that was the whole Beastie Boys bit. They reference Star Trek a few times in their lyrics, so how does that square up? Is Adam Yauch precognitive or a time traveller? In this universe did the Beastie Boys not release their arguably most successful single, Intergalactic?

A noted before in these halls, it's clear that at least one of the Adams was on that LA bus with Kirk and Spock in 1986, overheard their conversation, extrapolated from and incorporated it into the Beastie's later work. More generally, Star Trek is full of things that shouldn't or wouldn't exist without Star Trek, this is hardly a first (the name of the test-model shuttle Enterprise, for just one example).

As to the specific use of Sabotage in ST:Beyond, it was the track that young Kirk listened to as he drove another vintage jalopy, hence his approval, and it was the specific character of "beats and shouting" that disrupted swarm communications, not just the signal.

For my money ST:Beyond, while tenuously strung-together nonsense, is the only one of the reboot movies that feels like Star Trek, so I'm prepared to extend it all kinds of leeway.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: TordelBack on 28 December, 2020, 11:13:00 PM
For my money ST:Beyond, while tenuously strung-together nonsense, is the only one of the reboot movies that feels like Star Trek, so I'm prepared to extend it all kinds of leeway.

Agree. My favourite of the three, by some margin if I'm honest.
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Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: TordelBack on 28 December, 2020, 11:13:00 PM
...it was the specific character of "beats and shouting" that disrupted swarm communications, not just the signal.

Like I said "reasons". If it was that specific, I would suggest that Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuthin' to fuck with. "Wu-Tang killer bees, we are the swarm", would have been nicely thematic. Maybe the fast and furious guy* who directed it had Hip-Hop knowledge just as deep as his Star Trek knowledge.

Quote from: TordelBack on 28 December, 2020, 11:13:00 PM
For my money ST:Beyond, while tenuously strung-together nonsense, is the only one of the reboot movies that feels like Star Trek, so I'm prepared to extend it all kinds of leeway.

Yes, I agree it is the best of the reboots...

*Could be wrong about that, don't care to check
You may quote me on that.

pictsy

Quote from: Mister Pops on 29 December, 2020, 02:43:49 AM
*Could be wrong about that, don't care to check

Justin Lin directed Fast and Furious movies 3-6 and is set to return for 9 and 10.

If Star Trek Beyond is anything like the FaF films he worked on then it is fun but very stupid.  I haven't seen Beyond, but frequently had it recommended... by people who know I hate the reboot.

repoman

Had a bad day of film watching yesterday.

Dawn of the Dead (1978).  Oddly I'd never watched it before.  Didn't like it at all.  The problem was the horrible editing (it was the director's cut) and the utterly laughable zombies.

I was bored and irritated which is never good when watching a film.

Wonder Woman 84.  Dull, too long, badly written, Gal Gadot isn't an actress, enormous plot holes and the lamest bad guy from a super hero film ever.  Roughly as bad as the other Wonder Woman film.

Professor Bear

I watched Wonder Woman 1984, and I could follow it okay despite not seeing the previous one thousand nine hundred and eighty-three films.  The problem with this joke of course is that if you've watched all the DCU movies before this one, it does actually feel like there's been that many (and there might soon be that many if Zack Snyder insists on taking his revenge on the world by remaking them all), and this one drags a lot, too.
It was only when the action scenes - in which Wonder Woman is Spider-Man now for some reason - started that I realised there were no musical numbers, because this thing is like a Bollywood superhero movie more than anything else I've seen in years.  Just not in a good way.
I guess if it had the musical numbers I might have liked it more, if only because I would know that it knew how stupid it was, but there's some troubling subtext in here about that is never quite unpacked and ratified with the supposedly compassionate and warm person at the center of the story, such as how exactly does this person lecture anyone when her mission is exporting Themyscira's philosophy of an isolationist, martial society which ritualises violence, seems to have drafted its entire population into its military, and which teaches its children that they must fear the Other outside their walls who are perpetually warlike and would be pitiable if not for how dangerous and lesser they are?  "The enemy is both weak and strong" - I mean, come on now.
We keep hearing about compassion from Diana, but it's just words, which is a shame because I actually quite liked the idea of ending one of these seemingly endless superhero films on something other than a giant space machine menacing the world and having to be dropped on the baddie's head, but there's a character in this movie who seems like they really should have been the one talking the baddie down off the ledge (his son) rather than Diana, a demigod who is already fully-formed as a character when the film starts and thus has no real need to grow from her experiences.  Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of a hero as a film's moral compass, too, but there's that small matter of The Fascism that never gets addressed before the hero shows up dressed head to toe in glittering gold like something out of an Aryan wet dream.  I will also never forgive the makers for having her show up with giant stupid wings yet never find a pretext for the actor to utter the words "Gordon's Alive".  For fuck's sake, this is basic cinema.
Anyway, did I actually like it?  The first half is okay, if very low-key silly and not much to do with Wonder Woman, but the second half is more openly dumb, concerning an orbital death ray laser that shoots wishes and is powered by the Mandolorian in a Quantum Leap Accelerator, and I do love me some orbital death ray action - the final act of Die Another Day was the best part - so I did like the willful stupidity of it all, but all told, it felt like a lesser movie than the previous Wonder Woman outing.
A perfectly passable superhero film, but unremarkable and entirely forgettable.

von Boom

Quote from: Professor Bear on 30 December, 2020, 12:25:40 AM
  I will also never forgive the makers for having her show up with giant stupid wings yet never find a pretext for the actor to utter the words "Gordon's Alive".  For fuck's sake, this is basic cinema.
:o That's in the Hollywood Primer.

JOE SOAP

#14862
Quote from: Professor Bear on 30 December, 2020, 12:25:40 AM
... there's some troubling subtext in here about that is never quite unpacked and ratified with the supposedly compassionate and warm person at the center of the story, such as how exactly does this person lecture anyone when her mission is exporting Themyscira's philosophy of an isolationist, martial society which ritualises violence, seems to have drafted its entire population into its military, and which teaches its children that they must fear the Other outside their walls who are perpetually warlike and would be pitiable if not for how dangerous and lesser they are?  "The enemy is both weak and strong" - I mean, come on now.

You mad!!! An actor doesn't get a Producer credit just so's someone can piss on their parade.

broodblik

Watch the latest Wonder Woman in the theatres and I was extremely disappointed in the movie. The main plot was just underwhelming and just not interesting enough to keep me wanting more. It is not that it was a bad movie it just could not get into the villains of the movie. After he first movie I was really looking forward to this, but I do not think it is a worthwhile venture trying to watch this is the movies. If you have HBO Max rather watch it via that media.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

pictsy

I've got a friend that has started pestering me to see the new Wonder Woman to see what I think of it.  I'm guessing there is a suspicion I won't like it.  I don't think the first one was especially good.  I'm really tired of the Superhero thing now.  I'm not keen on watching anything Superhero related.

Dellamorte Dellamore a.k.a Cemetery Man

Wow.  This film is nuts!  The film is definitely about death and love.  Every moment when I think I've got a handle on where the film is going, it pulls the rug from under me.  It's a lot of fun and has no plot.  I don't think it even has a narrative.  It just happens.  Seems quite fitting considering its themes.