Nicker on 14/12/2013 at 03:24
Quote Posted by faetal
I've never been a fan of Hanks is the difference.
I pretty much had my fill of him after
Volunteers. But I am even getting tired of actors I like being endlessly recycled along with plots.
That's why I prefer "foreign films". I get to enjoy a story instead of admiring chops.
Quote:
Military sci-fi owes a lot to Heinlein, but this looks closer to the Starship Troopers novel than the movie itself did.
Poor uncle Bob would have had a fit if he had seen the procedural liberties taken by the film version.
Muzman on 14/12/2013 at 03:51
Quote Posted by NuEffect
Well I sure got that. It's in the trailer.
?????
Yeah that's what I thought. I don't know why we're talking about how much like Starship Troopers it is then, really. Except for fascism and exoskeletons on the surface I suppose. But that's not really the core of the film, it seems.
demagogue on 14/12/2013 at 04:48
I liked how Gravity took a more minimalist approach to scifi (>implying it's really scifi), and parts of Oblivion to an extent, at least the first half. Grand Space Opera is a bit out of place these days, or I mean overdone in the sense that the pendulum is sticking too far on that side these days. I also though Gravity and Oblivion over-indulged themselves at parts too, so they're not going on my 'best scifi of all time' lists or anything, but it makes me think I'm having a reaction against the CGI-fests & story-bloat of recent scifi, cf my ambivalence towards Avatar that contrasted with apparently everybody else around me (in IRL. TTLG was generally on the same page as me).
I mean eye-candy movies are good when I go to the theatre with family, because I'm more interested in sharing time with them & if they're happier being wowed by visual effects & story sap than I'm happier sharing it with them, which happened e.g. for Avatar and Star Trek... But for myself minimalism is going a long way.
Volitions Advocate on 14/12/2013 at 11:51
Right, Moon for instance. Fantastic film. Probably not the greatest to see at the cinema with your family.
SubJeff on 14/12/2013 at 12:38
Quote Posted by Muzman
But that's not really the core of the film, it seems.
Yep. I don't get how people always want to associate stuff with other stuff that really isn't related. Like when that London Tube announcer did some joke announcements and everyone was all "omg, it's glados". No, no it wasn't.
demagogue on 14/12/2013 at 13:28
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Right, Moon for instance. Fantastic film. Probably not the greatest to see at the cinema with your family.
Well that takes care of deciding what to watch tonight. :cool:
henke on 14/12/2013 at 15:40
Quote Posted by NuEffect
I don't get how people always want to associate stuff with other stuff that really isn't related. Like when that London Tube announcer did some joke announcements and everyone was all "omg, it's glados".
Or like that time when you associated people associating Edge of Tomorrow with Starship Troopers with people associating the London Tube announcer with GlaDOS?
faetal on 15/12/2013 at 17:12
Quote Posted by NuEffect
Really? I like him. I know he's a bit, err, interesting in RL but I've always found him to be a pretty good actor. There are a couple of people I didn't like that everyone else does until a certain point. One was Cruise; in Valkyrie it was the moment I forgot I was watching Tom Cruise and was just watching. Same thing for Denzel. I've never liked him. Never. Then I saw Training Day and about halfway through I forgot what actor I was watching and just thought "this guy is rivalling Clarence Boddiker for baddest badass badguy ever".
That's not to say I like Tom Cruise
films, but that in decent stuff he does a good job.
And you have to forgive a lot for him being in Risky Business.
I don't disagree with any of that, and despite his bizarre cult affiliations I actually enjoy him as an actor, but I'd never actually see him as a seal of quality for a film or watch a film because Tom Cruise. He's ok, not amazing, yet still seems to get some really good roles. I love Denzel though. Man on Fire remains one of my favourite films of all time (other than the fact that someone let a coked-up Trent Reznor be music coordinator and >50% of the score is songs from his new album at the time, which ended up detracting from the film a little).
Nicker on 25/12/2013 at 11:52
Sorry to resurrect this dead thread and sorry it's about a 2013 movie but I just saw Elysium and it was almost, but not quite, as disappointing as Prometheus.
It was like they got side tracked after the first draft of the script and all the roughly sketched characters just stayed that way. No arcs. No transformations, except for Spider, the backstabbing crime lord who becomes the hero of the people, without any apparent motivation. The evil ones were evil and the good ones were good. It was like they were lifted from a Saturday cartoon for preschoolers.
And the plot... Where to start?
Probably best not to. Except to mention the conveniently inept bodyguard droids, and... oh fuck it.
SubJeff on 25/12/2013 at 12:44
Yeah, the more you think about it the worse it gets. It was pretty terrible.
With regards to trailers - beware of the new full length Transcendence trailer. It's spoiler filled, as is the norm these days.
