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Messages - Stan

#1
Film & TV / Re: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
09 August, 2016, 04:53:37 PM
Quote from: Tordelback on 08 August, 2016, 12:39:36 AMYes to all of the above!  I thought Sabotage worked especially well because it built on the mythos of this series, rather than the preceeding 40 years - something this movie excels at (for example, [spoiler]Keenser getting his own 'pet' alien, a great new character in Jaylah (tragically well placed to be Chekov's replacement[/spoiler]).  It was also a funny and rather joyous sequence - it was impossible not to root for the survival of the marvel that is Yorktown, surely one of the greatest Trek creations to date.  In fact, this film gives us all the great SF spectacle that ST(2009) had replaced with brewery vats and breezeblock research outposts.

At the same time the thoughtful use of unloved Enterprise really sold the idea of the alternate timeline having a shared past with the old one.

I hadn't considered that regarding Jaylah but it's a nice little back up option if they can't really figure out another way to include her. It'd feel a little odd seeing her in a crew uniform though.

Probably my favourite part about Yorktown is how it looked like a starship fish tank in places. Good idea, whoever that was.

And as one of the few people who was actually disappointed with ST: Enterprise's cancellation, I love how they made use of that series rather than just try to milk the TOS period. They barely even messed with the prime universe either.
#2
Film & TV / Re: Alien covenant
06 August, 2016, 05:49:22 PM
An Alien film I'm kinda 'meh' on but now I'm suddenly interested because Danny McBride's in it. That shouldn't really be the pull.
#3
Film & TV / Re: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
06 August, 2016, 05:43:08 PM
Quote from: Dandontdare on 02 August, 2016, 03:06:17 PM
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 31 July, 2016, 06:14:37 PM
Not a classic by any means but bright, breast, fun and dumb in equal measure.

:o

I was a little confused by that myself.  :think:
#4
Film & TV / Re: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
06 August, 2016, 05:41:22 PM
Quote from: Magnetica on 01 August, 2016, 11:45:22 PMThe Yorktown space station is very impressive. Indeed it makes Deep Space Nine look ridiculously small in comparison - especially the promenade (in DS9).

Any excitement in the first bit of the film was ruined for me by the review I read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago which said [spoiler]the Enterprise gets destroyed by a giant swarm of "bees" [/spoiler]- yeah thanks for that.

Urban and Quinto look uncannily like DeForest Kelly and Nimoy to me. Pine seemed to look less like Kirk in this one (different hair possibly?).

That's funny because I actually thought they were making Pine more Kirk-like with the little quiffy thing, but I might just have a very particular version of the original in my head. His hair wasn't always exactly the same.

I hadn't really thought about DS9 though. It's looks like a piddling little petrol station outpost compared to Yorktown. I suppose this is a similar problem to having Robocop flying around in that massive (whatever it was called) ship in the second film. Whenever they try to go bigger and flashier with the technology etc., they risk making the prime universe look a bit out of date.
#5
Film & TV / Re: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
30 July, 2016, 03:26:04 PM
Quote from: blackmocco on 26 July, 2016, 08:30:33 PM
Well, I'm horrified to report I mostly enjoyed it. It has no brain, relies on action set-pieces when it gets itself into trouble and I have to confess, the villain made no sense to me in any way, shape or form. Didn't understand anything about what he was trying to do, why he wanted to do it or why he looked the way he did. Anyone want to help me out here, much appreciated.

Krall's motivation does seem a bit muddled. The only thing I could think of concerning this was the old quote "Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters". Clearly this doesn't generally apply to the Star Trek universe since it's quite an optimistic one. Only in the mirror universe do you really catch a glimpse of what may have happened had they fallen to decadence and tyranny. Though they did almost sleepwalk into it with Peter Weller's vision for the Federation in the last film. Krall has obviously twisted this idea in his selfish, psychopathic head because he couldn't move on from his life as a warrior crafting the Federation out of the dirt.

I assume they deliberately played on this theme with Kirk's side story. He felt his forebears had done so much of the work that he contemplated a desk job as Vice Admiral. You can see how these people could slip into an idle decadence and become vulnerable to a malevolent take over (see Weller again).

As for Krall's appearance, I'm as confused by that as anyone else. He seemed to be draining the life force of other living creatures to take on his new appearance. Maybe the aliens who previously lived on the planet originally looked completely different to Krall's alien form but used their technology to make themselves 'better'. Or something. I think that's something they really should've been clearer on.

Overall though, it was pretty much what I hoped for after seeing the first (somewhat disappointing) trailer. Just calm things down a little after Into Darkness. Don't try to be too clever. It's a fun little away mission on a strange new world but with all the benefits of modern production values(TM). The only things that bothered me were a couple of CGI issues. The first appearance of Kirk and Jaylah on the space bike made it look like they were floating rather than properly attached to the ground. It sounds like a small thing but it was very jarring, like something you'd expect from a video game. I was also unimpressed by the CGI henchman. Though I suppose you could argue that it made them feel more alien.

Oh, and the humour fell a bit flat in places. The one thing I'd usually trust Pegg on.

I LOVE JAYLAH.

This film also shows the right way to reference previous iterations of Star Trek without falling into the trap of mining specific plot lines or characters. It also helps if you're a fan of Enterprise in this particular instance.

Now let's start a petition to get Into Darkness removed from canon. It wouldn't actually affect the Kelvinverse in any way (that I can think of).
#6
Film & TV / Re: Is this It For Ghostbusters Two....
18 July, 2016, 11:21:28 AM
$46m domestic and $65m worldwide. So basically $33m wiped off the budget. They could really do without Star Trek coming out this weekend. Particularly as it's reviewing quite well.

The Ghostbusters release appears to be a little more spread out though, in fairness.
#7
Film & TV / Re: Is this It For Ghostbusters Two....
14 July, 2016, 10:52:24 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 14 July, 2016, 07:39:50 PMForeign films only receive 25% of Chinese box-office earnings as opposed to roughly 50% in the US - Chinese distributors/the state get the rest. Unless a film earns hundreds of millions in China - not common - it's not that big a loss.

I was thinking about that earlier but couldn't remember the percentage. Even Jurassic World's $200m China take isn't much with that taken into account. Compared to what it made overall, that is.
#8
Film & TV / Re: Is this It For Ghostbusters Two....
14 July, 2016, 07:35:55 PM
Not sure how much the lowly UK will actually add to that but it looks like the China knock back will lose them a few yuans. Though the original films did great without China so there should be no excuses in that regard if the film doesn't do well.
#9
Film & TV / Re: Is this It For Ghostbusters Two....
13 July, 2016, 01:59:53 PM
Monday seems like an odd day to release a movie. Was it an attempt to get out positive reviews before the North American opening weekend (which was not expected to be massive)?
#10
I'd rather eat a bullet than watch another Feig/McCarthy team up (without Statham to make it sorta worthwhile) but I am intrigued to see what happens at the box office. That $154m budget is pretty hefty for a guy whose most heavily praised film couldn't quite take in $300m. On the face of it though, £300m seems like a realistic target even with all the negativity. I'm not expecting a Fantastic Four type disaster regardless of a few similarities in the whole build up to this.
#11
Any chance we'll get a Case Files #2 reprint with the extra pages then? It seems a shame to have such a huge collection with the first epic missing chapters.
#12
Film Discussion / Re: Dredd (2012)
14 August, 2015, 07:54:30 PM
I suppose everyone has a different sensitivity to these things and it's something that'll annoy some people and not others. To me it just made the anticipation of the film a little anti-clamactic. The best way to understand it, I think, is to imagine them having a scene from Avengers Assemble where all the Avengers are dusting themselves down and patting themselves on the back while congratulating each other for defeating the Chitauri and saving thousands of lives, then sticking that scene right at the end of their final trailer. It'd certainly make Stark's 'sacrifice' scene a load of pants (just for starters).

That is exactly what SHIELD did for Ultron.
#13
Film Discussion / Re: Dredd (2012)
14 August, 2015, 12:15:18 PM
Quote from: radiator on 14 August, 2015, 01:27:08 AM
I haven't seen it, but have heard that Fox drastically slashed the budget on the eve of filming and demanded three key action sequences be cut from the movie. Could be why (as I've heard) the film awkwardly jumps to 'One Year Later...' after the first act...

I'm now thinking The Thing's plane jump scene from the trailer was only partially finished. Hence a very small clip of it being shown on a monitor rather than giving us the whole thing. No Fantasticar team play either since that apparently wasn't finished. I really wonder if the savings they made were worth it. Particularly since the re-shoots must've cost a few bob and were completely unimpressive. Though we'll probably never know which version of the film was better.

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 14 August, 2015, 10:45:03 AM
Given the butchery and changes that happened with Ant-Man, it's pretty clear the 'Marvel' plan supersedes anything anyone else wants to do. Frankly, though, I'm getting tired with the complexity. It's starting to become effort and remind me of why I gave up with superhero comics. Also, Agents of Fucking SHIELD crossing over with Avengers 2 really pissed me off.

Easily rewritten scene that didn't need to link to Avengers 2
COULSON: Throwaway line of dialogue that tells you the ending of Avengers 2.

THANKS, COULSON! THANKS, MARVEL! It's not like your fucking movie is STILL playing in theatres! It's not like some of us have young babies and wait for rentals. Idiots.

Yeah, that's really annoying and I'm a fan of SHIELD. As well as Goaty's mention of Winter Soldier, it may have happened during Thor Dark World too (not certain). It's quite jarring and unnecessary and just makes the series feel like it's there to completely serve the movies, which it isn't even obliged to as far as I've read. I can only imagine how mess things are going to get during Infinity War.
#14
Film Discussion / Re: Dredd (2012)
13 August, 2015, 12:41:03 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 10 August, 2015, 09:09:49 PM
Quote from: Stan on 10 August, 2015, 08:39:21 PMThe only way I can see people taking a Fantastic Four film seriously (by Fox) is if they call it X-Men and have lots of X-Men in it.

I doubt they can truly do this crossover business between F4 and the X-Verse - the contracts were drawn-up several years apart at a time when big budget crossovers didn't happen, and I would presume that unless it states in each contract that one property can include characters from the other, it probably can't happen without Marvel's permission. Fox have always been wishy-washy on the situation with vague statements like how they could see how it could happen 'story-wise' but Zak Penn has said it can't be done and Simon Kinberg that they're parallel universes.

Add to that fact the only way Fox can retain the rights is to make a standalone Fantastic 4 film every 7 years and it puts Fox in a terrible situation where the only way they could rescue the brand for themselves is to bring in a huge name like James Cameron to reboot it as a big-budget spectacle piece.

Or just sell it back early to Marvel/trade it for X-Men TV rights.

I've seen a few people suggest that and I hope it's true. Some things are better left dead.

And I don't see Fox losing X-Men any time this century (even without Hugh Jackman) so Marvel may as well just bite the bullet and make the deal.
#15
Film Discussion / Re: Dredd (2012)
10 August, 2015, 08:39:21 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 10 August, 2015, 02:25:50 PM
Quote from: Stan on 10 August, 2015, 02:18:02 PM
Kinda funny that this entry hasn't been removed from the wiki page yet..

"A sequel is scheduled for release on June 9, 2017 in 3D.[93]"

The studio won't change that mantra until it's out of cinemas; they still have to pretend they're invested in this iteration of F4 and that people should see the film.

Yeah, good point. I have a hard time believing there won't be a deal at some point though. The only way I can see people taking a Fantastic Four film seriously (by Fox) is if they call it X-Men and have lots of X-Men in it.