The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn't some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.
Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.
I actually liked Cube Zero for the backstory and set styles. I don’t remember much else so I’m assuming it was shit, but you can give it a try if you want.
Just to ask, nobody understood the full picture of what they were making? Or was there someone who created the concept but intentional obfuscated it from everyone else via bureaucracy?
Granted it's just the viewpoint of one of the prisoners but it's the one I found most intriguing.
To quote the movie: "Nobody knew what it was, nobody cared...there is no conspiracy, nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan...somebody might have known sometime before they got fired, voted out, or sold it...this is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project. You think anybody asked questions? All they want is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck."
That's awesome sci-fi right there. It's a bit campy, but it's campy in the same way that all great social commentary is, until it isn't and it's too late.
It's a terrific LOOKING movie, but the two leads had absolutely no chemistry. At first I couldn't figure out if they were partners, spouses, dating, brother & sister, etc.
The film opening is the best part, and honestly one of the best openings to a movie ever. It's such a shame the rest of the movie is hindered by the awful writing and casting.
Time trap was awesome. The scene when they realize the flickering lights are time passing and then they poke their heads out of the cave to see a complete departure of the old world.
The end got a lil weird tho.
Nonetheless it's a movie that will stick with you for a few days of conceptualizing.
*Time Trap was directed by Ben Foster, which I just discovered. It's also streaming for free (w ads of course) on YouTube.
So I just watched it on YouTube. What the hell was that ending?
Spoilers if someone is gonna watch it (I don't really know an effective way to do spoiler tags so bear with me):
They're in the cave until the sun just kinda "goes out" and is replaced by a bright green light. Some giant future human comes down and does battles with the cavemen and knocks them out with some weird shock collar thing. He takes a vial of super water before being jumped by some more cavemen and getting his mask taken off and bonked on the head a few times, which somehow kills him. Before he dies, he plays some holographic recording of a newscast about the five characters who went missing. In the final battle, they take his ladder and use it to try to escape the cave only to find some weird machine with water covering the hole where they try to climb out of. What I assume is another evolved human grabs them and outfits one girl in a weirdly sexy diving suit? To then rescue the rest of them. They all wake up in a spaceship and get reunited with their friends and the professor with his family, and presumably fly off to Mars.
My question(s) is A) what the hell is going on with future humanity B) why isn't anyone upset that the world is dead and their families are gone forever and they passed into history as another unsolved disappearance, but it's cool cause we're in space in the future C) how did they not experience the heat death of the universe in the time dilation cave? Especially when the sun went out
The kind of spoiler tag you used is the kind that doesn't work on every Lemmy app. Fortunately, that's not a problem, as I've already seen Time Trap, and despite forgetting its name, do sometimes think about it.
It doesn't, it still has some exclamation point action that might be the issue. If it helps, you should be able to copy and paste my example markdown. I gave it a try and it still works.
There, third time's the charm (or 10th, more accurately, since lemmy.world is shitting the bed right now).
I think I figured out what was going on, too. The app I use was automatically re-parsing spoiler formatting into its own syntax, but then was erroneously applying that same syntax to text when attempting to view source. So even the example you posted looked different to me when viewed in app versus on the actual site. I made the edit from the site this time and I think that should be good now.
I had a series of 3 stomach surgeries and I delved into some shows I wouldn't watch. I stumbled on this one. I really loved the premise. It is one of those late night SyFy feeling movies. The end did get weird, but I like where they were going with it.
Hey, I'm upvoting you and all but I gotta ask how do you do the spoiler thing? I'm using Apollo and it made me click to expand your comment so I could see the spoiler part. How did you format it?
I'm surprised how many people in the comments have (A) seen this movie, and (B) liked it. I didn't care for it, although I do like the basic premise.
The timing of your comment is a kind of a funny coincidence for me, because over the past few days I've been editing the next episode of my podcast, which will come out on Tuesday, and in it I mention Time Trap a couple times. Maybe the film is having a moment?
They seed the galaxy and harvest whole planets to create an immortality serum. Fantastic world concept ... but a subpar story to make a movie about within that world.
I was so hyped when I saw the trailers, because the visuals and ideas of the story they showcased were exactly my jam. But oh boy, what a dumpster fire the whole movie turned out to be.
Hot take, “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”. The radio play, books and 80s bbc show were not represented very well at all. They missed well over 75% of the jokes, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel added nothing to it, and they added plots and scenes, I think just to get more “blockbuster actors” in, that ruin the original story of the radio play. Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman/Warwick Davis and Bill Nightly were the highlights. One of the few movies I wish they would remake.
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod was spot on. He was the only one who actually read the books, and had to even tell the director to add "Froody" to the script. What a shitshow it must have been for the director not to know that....
Agreed, it was a big letdown unfortunately, compared to any of the other versions (including the text adventure!)
Shame, because Martin Freeman was perfect for Arthur, and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide was a great choice too. Though Mos Def was ok as Ford, although not on a par with David Dickson (TV) or Geoffrey McGivern (radio).
Zaphod and Trillian weren't right at all though IMO.
I quite like the movie. I mean all your points make sense and i agree, but at the same time, it's that movie that even introduced me to the books, and i now read them every year or two. The movie is far from perfect, but if you look at other things they try to convert into movies, this could've been so so much worse. Like imagine they made that movie now or somewhen in the past 5 or 10 years, it would basically be a disney marvel movie with marvel quips and: "he's right behind me isn't he's?"
Bits of it were good. Seems like something went wrong in production or they ran out of money or something. Some of the effects were really good and there was a real mood to the post apocalypse world but it was very uneven especially the way the entire process of civilization ending was just a montage of newspaper headlines. It's ok to be post apocalypse of you don't want to show the apocalypse but that was just cheese. Also there were the odd shots that were of just such a lower standard than the rest of the film. Like this scene where a guy climbs up a watertower and stands atop it getting ready to throw a spear and for some reason after the effects extravaganza up until that point in the film it looked a cheap television blue screen that was super awkward. I guess they wanted it to look taller than in reality and show the desolate landscape but it's so weird that after all the aerial dragon combat they'd pulled off pretty well for the most part that THAT was somehow difficult. I seem to recall storywise there was some very disappointing ending too but it's been rather too long for me to recall it now anyway.
Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
I really like that movie. But watch the directors cut, for the love of all that's good! It removed the narration at the beginning that gave away the whole plot. Much better that way.
I just watched this! It felt like the director wanted to go real big with it but technology just wasn't there with effects. It also tried very hard to be a mindfuck movie but also kept spoiling the twists somehow lol. Overall solid 7+ movie.
Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?
Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?
As far as the witcher and time travel kind of. At some point in the future there was a disaster and Earth was destroyed. However some humans and lots of monsters from alternate realities ended up in the world of the Witcher. Elves and dwarves were the original inhabitants.
Humans used a mix of genetic engineering they had and magic taught to them by the elves to make the Witchers. The Witchers helped solve the massive monster problem and the world ended up with humans mostly on top.
Witchers age very slowly and if not killed can live a very long time. Powerful magic users are basically the same. So the stories from session 1 are spread over about 80 years with some long lived characters.
The first book that season 1 is primarily based on is also different from the other books. It's a bunch of short stories that are based on classic stories. So there is Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc.
Witcher 3 the game is a fine place to start. I'd say you can start in any of the games and Book 1 the Last Wish, Book 2 Sword of Destiny, or Book 3 Sword of Destiny. The games were in line with the books cannon but telling there own story. The popularity of the games made Sapkowski write more and they have now diverged somewhat. Here are some notes on all of them as far as a starting place.
Last Wish (book): Short stories based on classic stories. Good intro to the world and the writing style. No main plot so it can be skipped or read later without much problems. The Sleeping Beauty story is the opening cinematic of Game 1.
Sword of Destiny (Book): More short stories but we introduce a lot of the main characters in the rest of the books.
Blood of Elves (book): This is where the main story of the Witcher starts proper. After this you should read them in order.
Witcher 1 (game): Game play is ok but I think has the most interesting ideas and storytelling. It has the choose between two bad choices and find out later what the effect is. It doesn't spoon feed you the lore and there are lots of hints about what is going on you can catch if you are paying attention. For example echinops grow where terrible crimes were committed if the crime wasn't atoned for. Every place you find a echinops growing is a clue as to the nature of what happened there.
There is another great non obvious story element that I love. I think it's more fun to know this and see how it plays out in the game. I recommend reading the spoiler but it's up to you.
::: spoiler Main Villain
Alvin the boy who almost dies in the barghest attack in part 1 is also the main villain Jacques de Aldersberg. Towards the end of the game Alvin goes back in time and grows into the adult Jacques de Aldersberg. The various things you say to Alvin will change what Jacques says during the game. And when you kill Jacques at the end you use your silver blade. He looks so upset saying "That sword is for monsters."
:::
Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings (game): Improved gameplay with much more focus on combat and combat mechanics. Better graphics. Ok story but nothing compared to 1. The combat is very hard early and is required so that can be a drawback.
Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (game): The best game as far as gameplay. Fun lots different things to do and a solid story. It's a very Ciri focused story and thus can spoil some of the books somewhat. As far as a starting place you are going to have a lot of fun but it does throw a fair amount of characters at you and expect you to know them. Also the spoiler from 1 is specifically confirmed at one point so if you don't want that beware.
The witcher Netflix series was a mess behind the scenes. I think some of the writers were taking it as opportunity to show off their 'abilities' and were writing OC instead of the witcher.
Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Unfortunately the case for a good portion of Philip K. Dick's work... Schizophrenia, amphetamines, and misogyny can do that I guess.
But when he was good... He was the best of his genre. Literally imo...
Although I liked the series, the "supernatural" elements in it really threw me off. I would still recommend the series but be clear that it is science fiction and doesn't always adhere to physical limitations as we know them, without getting any more specific than that.
Season 1 is based on the first book, which was made some a bunch of serials in a fiction magazine. It's honestly pretty spot on with the book and the following books and seasons are fully linear.
I felt like the story was amazing for season 1. Season 2 went downhill quickly because of the easy love triangle plot line. The main saving gave was the Rufus 'Obergruppenführer Smith' Sewell amd his son toryline. I couldn't even tell you if I've seen/remember one episode of season 3.
I know, right? I was quite mad when l heard the show was cancelled after season two. I still want to know if she survived after taking a shotgun shot to this day.
The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can't even remember the plot because it was so meh.
I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that's what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.
Came to the comments to say In Time. I always have to remind myself how bad it was, because I really like the concept, so the movie tends to be much better in my head than it actually is as I keep adding things that weren't there.
Not a film, but a TV series?
It's called Jericho, and the synopsis in the Wikipedia reads:
Jericho is an American post-apocalyptic action drama television series, which centers on the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.
But yeah, the execution is mediocre at best. Both the action and the drama are unbearably flimsy and cliche, even the argument flops as metal.
I love Jericho. On my third watch right now actually. Would agree that it's frequently cliché, but overall I'd say it's very good. Skeet Ulrich is transfixing.
A sci-fi post-apocalypse show where the premise is that all of a sudden all technology (specifically anything that uses electricity) just stops working and nobody knows why. The show takes place 15 years into the apocalypse. The US has Balkanized into various regional states (although you don't learn this until later). Some regions have devolved into chaos while others have basically reverted to a steam-punk type of society. Since all modern ships use electricity, they've begun to revive large ships from the age of sail. The remnants of the US military at Guantanamo Bay eventually return to the mainland and try to reestablish a much more explicitly authoritarian control over the US. You eventually learn that what caused the global blackout was the creation of a self-replication nanotech which rapidly spread across the planet and shut off all electricity.
Great premise, but it got too much into the soap-opera CW-style of writing and didn't last more than 2 seasons.
Yep. Sounds like what happened with Jericho. Mystery and intrigue in the starting seasons, and then just weird petty soap-opera style squabbles towards the end
If the writers want to tell a story focused on inter-personal relationships, that's perfectly fine. There are PLENTY of people who enjoy that kind of thing. They just don't tend to be the same type of people who enjoy post-apocalyptic sci-fi puzzle-box shows. I don't know why you go through all the trouble of creating this expansive world and lore only to focus your show on character dynamics that aren't centered around the conceit of the show.
If you're going to build this complex world, let us explore that world!
As featured in the picture, Reign of Fire. I had forgotten about it. I truly don't think there is a film out there that has represented dragons as I see them better.
I really think about Quinn's character a lot. How the world entirely changed for him on that pivotal day he discovered that male dragon, and the decades he spent running and surviving and living in fear of something that he inadvertently set in motion, and then the turning point as an adult as he confronts his fear and wields it to put an end to what he started.
What I like about him, is that he's not actually that unique -- anybody could have woken that dragon, and if Quinn hadn't been there on that day, one of his mother's coworkers would have. He's not particularly heroic as an adult either, opting to hide and scrounge for survival, and openly admitting to everyone that he's winging it on the leader front. And yet he inspires his community with fierce devotion to keeping them all alive. When he finally goes to confront the dragon, he does it almost alone, inspiring no one with his courage other than himself.
As a character I find him weirdly relatable as someone just coping with heavy trauma the best that they can
Passengers had the possibility to be really creepy, I still liked it but without seeing Chris Pratts time alone first, we would have all been confused and on guard with Jennifer Lawrence.
I think it would have been a much better film if the audience had also been kept in the dark about him opening her pod as well. That way we can also go through the range of emotions with her at the same time when she finds out.
Just start the movie from her perspective. Pod opening and Pratt is already there. He tells her his pod just opened and he's confused too. Then we get the whole "wandering the shipn for the first time" montage where they could drop subtle hints that it's not actually his first time doing any of those things.
His character is absolutely a bad person, but it's a situation we can sympathize with because being truly completely alone for any amount of time fucks with people badly. She has every right to hate him for the rest of their lives, but it turns out that if he hadn't done what he did they all would have died because of the damaged engine or whatever it was (I can't remember).
They could have made the movie much harder hitting and/or creepy for the first half, but they opted to try and make you sympathetic to his situation from the start.
It's the movie that always pops into my head when thinking about wasted potential.
Pandorum is, to me, what Passengers was trying for. The claustrophobic horror of hurting through the void, other humans being both your salvation and your tormentors, all that.
The execs ruined it to make a vehicle for some big names.
Can you imagine the creation myths that would evolve in the society that developed from the survivors? There were just a handful who had survived and experienced that descent into hell. The others had blissfully slept.
Disneys stance is to be middle of the ground on everything. Writers or source material bring in a ton of actually interesting stuff, only to be snubbed and half assed. It happens so consistently in all their shows. It's maddening!
I've always felt like Star Wars the original 3 (4,5 and 6) were a product of their time. They aren't bad movies but they aren't great movies either, but for whatever reason they struck a chord with the population in the late 70's and early 80's. George Lucas should have just let them be there really was no reason to make any more of them, but money.
Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.
Oof yeah, what were they thinking with doing that to Kyle? He was the one pure aspect of the entire franchise (a friend, a lover, a father, a sacrificial pawn) and they cheapened his sacrifice with that nonsense
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
I love Constantine, and genuinely do not get the hate that film got. Sure it was different from the comics, but it was good in its own right, and the casting and acting (with the exception of that guy from Even Steven) was spot on
I'll be that guy that enjoyed The Last Jedi explicitly because it was something different, and leaned into more of the mystical side of the force while on the "big screen."
::: spoiler Edit and spoiler just in case
I just remembered the hyperspace "weapon" moment, and both how cool it was and how much it could affect the empire. They probably didn't mean for it, but that you could effectively point and shoot a ship like that was an amazing usage.
:::
I think episode 7, 8, 9 would have been better if 7 had flipped the script rather than being a story analog to 4. Whole movie could have been largely the same, but rather than the Resistance stopping the First Order at the end, let the First Order win - let Starkiller Base succeed in blowing up the Resistance' base planet and achieve, for all intents and purposes, total victory. It would have come as a shock to viewers (especially given how close the macro plot adhered to episode 4), and they could have made the rest of the new trilogy about the scattered remnants of the resistance trying to get their shit together and field some kind of opposition against overwhelming, impossible odds.
I specifically didn’t like that scene because it’s a massive departure from the lore of all the other films. If they could just do that, why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time? Is it supposed to be that this group is the first group to try this, with the tech that has been around for at least a few centuries? If they had all died in the process I’d be more ok with that, although that also seems like a departure from how hyperspace works in the other films.
why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time?
I feel like this can at least be backed up. It should be ridiculously costly in terms of sheer resources and personnel, and therefore utterly foolish in 99% of scenarios.
We can posit that hyperspace generators should be expensive in terms of resources and credits, and should get exponentially more expensive as the ship size increases, so making "hyperspace warheads" should also be foolish...
But on the other hand, to take down something like the Death Star, I imagine such a maneuver would have seemed worth it!
I think that sums up why the last two sequel films bothered me so much: They went for emotional "woah!"s by pulling things out of nowhere unexpectedly...But then you think about it for 5 seconds and it all falls apart quick.
I was ok with using the ship as a suicidal torpedo, but I wasn't ok with a single person being able to fully maneuver the thing all by herself, or the ensuing space rip conveniently doing that V shape and getting all 3 ships.
But the bombing run at the beginning of the movie really set the tone for "Prepare to be sorely disappointed"
Constantine and Minority Report don’t belong on the list tbh. And I say that as a fan of the Hellblazer comics, and someone who doesn’t care for Tom Cruise.
I actually liked the weird depressing grey vibe of the the first film. If it wasn't for all the vampire stuff, it'd be an interesting outsider story about boy-meets-girl with a slight supernatural vibe
Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn't say it's a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What's the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don't read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
::: spoiler spoiler
But the good setup and world building is quickly over and then they both enter the gorge, and it's just an old evacuated biological lab that created super soldiers, and the whole thing instantly stops being mysterious.
They could have kept it mysterious for longer and given us some kind of twist perhaps, like they might discover they're guarding the site of an old defunct biolab, but some things don't add up, and it turns out to be the actual gates of hell. I also don't think Drasa should have dived straight in to rescue Levi. Let her hesitate for a while. Create tension. Keep them separated, him somewhere below and her in her tower (perhaps she will need to get over to his tower to reactivate the auto-turrets or do something important, she believes he's gone), and cut between showing both their struggles. Perhaps he then manages to contact her, and then a rescue effort begins.
:::
I feel like the plot undercut the otherwise cool metaphor that the gorge represented.
East and West, separated by nothing but their deepest fears. Two killers searching for human connection but unable to reach the nearest person. How fucking cool is that? You can do so much!
Then you find out that there isn't really any East/West divide, they're both working for the same bad guys. Traversal of the gorge plays like a joke instead of being a serious moment of character development. Then the ending is a bunch of run-shoot-explode.
I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning 'In Time'. It had such a great premise, and I didn't even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said "fuck it, that's good enough". The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point... A movie just isn't the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I'm not sure belongs here. It's not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it didn't do better. That movie is called 'Push', with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn't that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn't a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It's just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don't seem to get those anymore.
I thought "In Time" was a good movie. I agree that there is a lot that could be done with it, however only so much can be done in a movie. This sort of concept really lends itself to multiple movies or a series (just don't drag it out too long).
5 seasons. No more, no less. It gives the overarching story enough room to breathe and play out a solid three act structure with a wide middle. It needs to all be written and plotted out before anything gets filmed.
Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What's not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story
Different thought so I'm leaving a second comment. For whatever reason I thought We Live In Time had this premise for like a third of the movie. In hindsight I don't really know why I did. I think it's because Andrew Garfield's character took notes and seemed flustered at times? I suppose I thought this was him trying to keep things straight in his brain? No. It's just a normal story told in a noninear fashion. I loved it though.
::: spoiler Major end spoilers
What sucked is that it was about losing a loved on to cancer. We did not know this going in and out partner lost their mother to cancer a few years ago. So it hit REALLY fucking hard. There's even a line Pugh says that's something like "I don't wanna some kid who's just gonna have a dead mom because of cancer." Great movie. Bring tissues.
:::
Christian Bale faking an actually decent London accent, Gerard Butler being a loveable scot, and Matthew McCaughnehey doing his best Norse/Spartan Warrior impression?
Horrible acting all around (except Bale at times), the lead female character was basically there to soothe/flirt with the lead (wish i was joking), you can barely understand anyone, and yet really impressive set/castle and overall atmosphere. You believe you are there, and that the world is gone.
Huge gaps in logic on the hunting patterns of dragons, helicopters seem to run on infinite fuel, and the final plan to take down the main dragon is just stupid at best.... but the execution of fighting dragons in the air with nets dropped by guys without parachutes was a phenomenal air sequence.
Also, the dragon CGI holds up. You never quite see it, but when you do, you believe it's there, and the CGI team did a great job with consistency in that the dragons are always depicted expelling fluid that they ignite, and you see it every time they cast fire.
Brilliant movie, and one of the best opening 5 minutes in terms of origin story. Just a lot of bad acting, and some questionable feats in logic plot-wise.
The eternal metric of a good show hitting a point in season 3 or 4 where every episode opens 20 more questions than it answers, making me wonder if its going to Do a Lost on me and just fall apart. (ahem-Yellowjackets&Severance-ahem)
I in no way call this "mediocre"; Its just a flat our terrible low budget bullshit film that the director made as an excuse to hang out with shirtless dudes.
But years ago the guys at Red Letter Media did a segment on "Bigfoot vs D.B. Cooper", and that premise alone (what happened after D.B. Cooper landed) has lived in my brain ever since.
It legitimately angers me that such a great high concept idea was completely wasted on what basically amounts to gay porn.
David Decoteau (or he'll sometimes use his alias "Richard Chasen") stole the perfect premise for what could have been a great shlocky low-to-mid-budget action movie. And no NO ONE can ever make it without being compared with....that....whatever it is....
The original Purge. I thought all the background stuff and setting were super interesting, but the film itself was a generic home invasion movie. The sequel expanded on all the stuff I was interested in, though.
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I've seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don't know who looked at Cat's and was like, "Yup, we need CGI." It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let's make a nightmare.
The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don't think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero's journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
TLJ takes a bunch of the exact same elements from the original trilogy including the young jedi training in a remote location, the empire/first order finding the secret rebel base with the main characters escaping at the last moment, the protagonist being captured by their rival and being brought before the sith leader where they wind up battling, the protagonist finding out that they're related to their rival, the hermit jedi master sacrificing themselves etc, etc, etc. The last trilogy is just a recycling of the original to the point that they had to add stupid dialog like "it's salt" in a vain attempt to convince people that they aren't just copy and pasting major plot points from the original
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the "deconstruction" argument:
"Challenging the Chosen One narrative"
Rey's parents were "nobody" yet so were Luke Skywalker's parents. The final film is titled "The Rise of Skywalker" on her path to becoming the chosen one.
"Revisiting Luke's Heroism"
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
"Undermining Jedi Ideals"
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film's creator's not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
"Exploration of Failure and Complexity"
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
"Subverting Expectations"
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn't subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the "good guys" come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don't see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
Well, I mean nobody has actually made any defense for the movie here other than repeating the word "deconstruction" without elaborating any further, and I'm not going to do a deep dive and write out a counter argument to my own position, so the machine will have to do. For all we know this is the same machine that Disney used to recycle these old plot points for TLJ 😆
I didn't use AI to make my argument for me. I used AI to make their argument since nobody was willing to actually make an argument outside of saying the movie is a "deconstruction" three separate times without stating what they mean or how it isn't just a blatant ripoff of the older films.
Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.
I think I'm really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and had Campbell to advise with. After that it was all introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I'm an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I'm no story teller so I couldn't fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but "Baby Yoda" represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero's Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn't improve any of the sequels, so maybe I'd like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
Andor is an incredible espionage thriller and I do absolutely love it.
This is also why I liked Rogue One and also the series "Rebels."
It made the Empire believable, and the Rebels really are an insurgency, the galactic situation is dire and against overwhelming odds. It doesn't just feel like a hero fantasy.
(Rebels can sometimes, it's geared to a younger audience, but it takes itself surprisingly seriously in a great way.)
I'm also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I'm not sure if that falls under "better execution"
True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they're always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots
How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could've used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie "killed his character"
I really hate what they did to Luke's character. It felt like they deliberately trashed him and everything he stood for so some random nobody gimmick character doesn't look as 2-dimensional. :(
It's a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don't really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn't anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I'd defend this movie far more if it didn't do this. But it didn't only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can't collide with things 'in hyperspace', but only as you're going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn't she just splat against the cruiser's shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don't find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can't be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn't be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
So actually to add onto this, this was bothering me so I had to look into it further:
I was very incorrect - Hyperspace isn't a pocket dimension per se and you can hit things while moving through hyperspace. The reason they 'sometimes' get past shields is because shields have a refresh rate so it may be able to phase through if you get it just right.
I'm more with you on this now, its a little ridiculous that no ones really tried to weaponize hyperdrive engines.
As far as I know all droids in Star Wars have free will.
Han Solo gambled and won the Falcon from Lando (who appears well off), it was definitely too expensive for him to have bought normally.
I think the hyperspace battering ram is funky, but I believe it was less that it was a good tactical idea and more of the First Order being extremely arrogant by not having their shields up, not using a tractor beam, and not just sending a smaller ship forward to close the gap and blowing it up.
I think the movie wanted to show that they were savoring the victory and were willing to draw it out as they believed the rebels were drowning in hopelessness.
I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it's actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.
if you went this long without watching it I won't spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.
I love Rian Johnson's other work, especially Brick and Knifes Out.
I also love Star Wars.
I thought TLJ was dreadful though. He was just a really bad fit for it IMO. Has nothing to do with not being open to change, but it has to be the right change. "Can you hear me now?" gags and Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Agreed big time. This felt less like "cleverly unexpected" and more just a total disrespect for the source material.
"Hey remember the symbol of hopeful optimism you followed through trials and tribulations for 3 movies a long time ago? He's now a cynical burnout drunk uncle lol. Isn't that sooo unexpected but relatable and grim? SUBVERTED! I'll take my Oscar now..."
It felt like if some grimdark-TV-bros got ahold of a sequel to the LOTR trilogy, and we were to suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy. "Didn't expect that, did you?? Lol!"
...Then being told your expectations were childish and stupid when you find yourself upset by this. Lol
suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy.
Oof is it bad? I was beating myself because I didn’t get to watch in on theatre because of its very short run. I was waiting for digital release to watch it.
It’s not bad, but the pacing is terrible and it’s not really the movie that the trailers made it out to be. The concept and trailer made it look like a completely different movie.
I still enjoyed it, but I’d only give it a 6/10. Robert Pattinson is quickly turning into one of my favourite actors though, he’s great in it.
I also think they left a lot unexplored with the whole concept. Like cut back on the relationship and politics stuff and focus on what it means to be Mickey/clone.
Sword Art Online had a pretty decent few opening episodes, it just.... for some reason decided to go full-blown Knights of Sidonia and turn itself into a weird harem anime.
I HIGHLY recommend the SAO Abridged series. It's one of the few "parody/satire" projects that actually makes the original story better and most regard SAO Abridged as the better version as a whole.
Same! I rewatch DBZ Abridged all the time! Funny enough, never actually watched DBZ or any of Dragon Ball in its entirety, but I've played a LOT of the games and basically know the entire story, front to back, from the games and Abridged lol
I would absolutely say Something Witty Entertainment is 100% on par with TFS. They do such a great job taking SAOs original story and making it ACTUALLY make sense, while adding a lot more comedy and sometimes some actually heart breaking moments.
Added bonus, it's still ongoing! They basically only release one episode a year now, but I think every episode is worth the wait because they put in a lot of effort. They do some other Abridged series as well (like a newer ongoing series of My Hero Academia,) but I believe SAOA is their longest running one right now.
New Rose Hotel (1998) It's set in the same universe as Johnny Mnemonic, stars Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. I love Gibson stories and the short story it's based on, while not one of his best, could make a good creepy weird movie especially with that cast. Unfortunately it is one of the most boring movies I've sat through at least half a dozen times.
Mind you, Highlander II would've made more sense as a non-Highlander movie that just revolves around space aliens dealing with Earth having a planetary shield now. As a sequel to Highlander its premise was really weird.
I am 100% convinced they had a masterpiece and then test audiences didn't get it and they went and changed everything around and added the prologue and gave away the entire twist at the start by explicitly telling the viewer where and when we are. Also made the dinosaurs weird for .... reasons...?
Wow, I watched that on opening night and there were like three people in the whole room. I don't remember much about it, but what really bugged me was the whole start of the film. A spaceship that is designed to travel fully automatically and immediately fails when there's a small asteroid field in its path? Absolute BS.
I've watched all of them. I was a TF fan as a kid. I watched it every morning before school and on Saturday mornings. The movies just....I don't know. The first one was the best of the live action. Bumblebee maybe. All of them felt more machine like, except the stupid peeing...wtf...
That said, they were not great. The story, on concept, seemed ok. The execution sucked. The acting was not great. The tropes were un needed, didn't even really fit in, and just plain stupid at best. Mostly they were irritating. Like someone dragging their nails on a chalk board in the middle of a mediocre movie.
The last couple felt more like an attempt at hero porn. [que "heroic" music, lame Walberg lines where he wields some weapon that makes no sense, then lots of booms. Don't forget the meaningless jumping, falling all over the place, and special forces that lean more on the special than forces.]
The only good thing that came out of them was the limited re release of the OG toys. I managed to finally snag an Optimus and a couple others.
The best thing about the cartoon was Optimus Prime being 'best tv dad', megatron/galvatron's evil laugh and speeches, soundwave's voice, starscream scheming, starscream being killed off for being a whiny backstabber too many times, the art, the touch and the fact that all of the supporting cast that were good in their own right.
I watched it until the Megan Fox car breakdown scene and figured it wouldn't get better than that and stopped there. I don't remember anything else from the movie.
I admit that it surprised me it did well enough for sequels, when better films didn't, but I guess that's The Public for you.
It didn't. I managed to stay until one of the autobots had to take a leak. I was too insulted at that point. Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore, but of course the guy has to stammer and stumble and try to impress the dead weight.
By absolute bore I also include her looks. I understand she is supposed to be pretty, but stone-faced is not my thing. Even with her licking-lip image I imagine her eyes staring at the latest gucci dress laced with diamonds or maybe even Bumblebee, but not a man.
Whether it's a joke or not, my opinions on this issue is too strong for me to not ask this out loud. What makes stone faced women still hot?
Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager is another one.
Beauty? You don't find women (people?) attractive if they're not expressive; that's fine. Everyone has their own aesthetics, and that's great. A lot of people wouldn't get laid if there was only one standard of beauty.
The fact that it all came from just brainstorming while baked on a podcast and then just doing the thing is what I respect about it. It didn't need to be something that the majority of people would like. It stuck to the layout basically completely, and didn't give a fuck. Was also cool that the actors really committed to the bit.
I will upvote you, but i must disagree. It was executed flawlessly for 75% of the film. Hell, even the "project 2025" beat towards the end was pretty spot on.
If I may ask, what would you have done to change what you didn't like?
The fight scene where the main character was trying to get Keith David's character to try on the glasses... that was legendary. I've never seen another (serious) fight scene come close to how hard it made me laugh. 10/10 for that. I imagine Roddy was so familiar with fight choreography from being a professional wrestler that he just got the green light to go ALL OUT and both actors nailed it.
Please excuse all the replies, I just love discussing the movie. It's still one of my favorites, but I would love to see some other production company film a different ending and release an alternate version with a powerful ending. Think how "Arrival" (Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner) made you feel at the end. I feel like "They Live" could've been that good, but maybe it was before it's time, and they had to cater to the box office of the time.
The premise was powerful, the plot and character development were good, but it seems like the ending of the screenplay got rewritten, and it wound up being a standard issue Rambo-style shoot em up, when it had the opportunity to end on a different, more powerful note that left the viewer thinking about how this relates to themselves, and our own society.
I wonder what the original screenplay looked like. It starts so powerfully, but takes such a vivid downturn at the end to appeal to the masses demanding shootouts and explosions. I suspect the ending was rewritten in order to get green lit for production, because the original ending might've been too cerebral for general audiences. I imagine the original ending probably made you think, and generally that's not what the masses like from their movies. Kind of ironic considering the plot of the film, don't you think?
Mutant Chronicles, except i don't think about it normally, but immediately comes to mind when somebody asks similar question. Also it wasn't mediocre, it was incredibly bad and the second biggest disapointment movie ever for me (worst was Starship Troopers 2).
I played a lot of tabletop and card games in this universe in 90's so i was pretty excited for a movie, and while it was forgettable (but also bad) action flick its main fault was that it has basically nothing in common with the Mutant Chronicles universe.
It's like getting "Lord of the RIngs" movie, but about some gang war in a village southeast of Umbar.
Quite a few MST3K films have a decent premise IMO, but lacked either the budget or the talent to make enough of them.
Eg Time Chasers (which isn't really all that bad), The Skydivers, Moon Zero Two, Rocket Attack USA, Stranded in Space, and perhaps even Manos: The Hands of Fate.
With the right people, I think those and others could have been very decent movies.
The Fall Guy. The show had a very simple premise (stunt crew moonlights as bounty hunters) that really couldn't hold up after multiple seasons. The movie just floundered trying to do too much, and ended up far too inside baseball for normal viewers to really identify with.
Yeah, rushed is part of it as well for a full 120+min movie.
And, I should say, I also loved the movie and was disappointed to see mostly negative reviews afterward, but I get it. I initially loved the fact that 87North, the director's own production company, is both listed in the opening credits and is the company making the movie in the movie. But as the final (contrived to look awesome, which is the point, not the actual plot points) moments wrap up, it felt like it was as much an industry commercial for the director's own production company as it was a movie just being a movie. Maybe that's a selling feature and I overthought it, but it sort of took me out of it.
Mortal Kombat (2021) opened with a great "feudal China with elemental magic" clan story that could have been an amazing movie, but then they jumped forward in time and everything after that was a let down.
The Man From Earth is definitely one I think about. The things he must have seen, must have done, that over time shaped him into who he was. Is he the embodiment of mankind, as well as its own self-hatred? The religious stuff was a bit much. I still haven't seen the sequel, with genuine anxiety to.
Daybreakers is also a good one. A bit deus-ex with the "solution" at the end, but very good thought experiment
Knowing is soooo frustrating. Great premise, Nic Cage Nic Caging tha fuck out of everything. Then it seems like the writer hit a block and turned to a random word generator that spit out "space angels" and called it a day.
If I remember, it was about this asteroid called "The Biosphere" that got hollowed out and sent on relativistic speeds through deep space to seed other solar systems with human colonies. The inside of it was set up like a giant rural town with massive skies, and a foot print the size of New York. And that's a cool ass premise.
But the book was so fucking milquetoast and bland. I could not tell you anything about the protagonist, their challenges, or anything.
I think I read that the studio insisted on changes that annoyed Mike Judge. Pootie Tang met the same fate. They should have just let professional comedians release whatever but some studio executive didn’t get the jokes and was like, “This movie won’t appeal to suburban fathers over 45.” or whatever.
In my experience, it often comes out that all of the shitty parts of comedy movies are not the fault of the creators. But comedians aren’t given creative freedom like Scorsese or whomever and also are like, “Make whatever edits you want. I made a stupid movie with my friends. You got my check?”
Passengers (2016) is a shit film with an excellent premise but I never think about it, in fact it reminds me of its opposite, a superb film with a ridiculous premise called Sunshine (2007)
First movie I saw in theaters that disappointed me.
Too much dinosaurs running around trying to kill everyone without standing still and asking why this is happening.
A quick jab towards the old man that the park is not considered ready for opening yet is not enough, or that he's packaging stuff?
The Goldblum character's logic failed to intrigue me. He would have been much better to ask the old man questions about park safety and genetic engineering safety that could be scrutinized instead of full on attacking him about commercialization.
It made the kids more interesting than the adults.
I forgot what the relationships between the two main characters and the children were, but I believe they were divorced and the kids were theirs?
At the very least they should have had some character development. Have them both end up with new partners or something and show what makes the new pairs better than the old one.
I watched a recent review from TheNostalgiaCritic about this film, and he does touch upon a lot of what you said about the strange motivations of all the characters that led up to the Dinosaurs escaping. That being said, I liked it and would say it is iconic in both story and genre (semi-horror kid-friendly family film aimed at adults?)
I saw the Siskel and Ebert review and I agree with their point that there was a lack of awe in the movie that E.T. and close encounters of the third kind had.
This movie had dinosaurs being dangerous at almost all times. Only a moment after they awed a stampede was heading for them.
The danger felt convoluted. Tacked in.
And it would have been a good time to question the old man about park safety.
The old man never get punished for his reckless behavior. I don't get why my downvoters would disagree with me. Would you downvoters really have acted so calmly against the old man when the park goes haywire?
The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn't some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.
Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.
I actually liked Cube Zero for the backstory and set styles. I don’t remember much else so I’m assuming it was shit, but you can give it a try if you want.
I think OP pretty much summed up Cube Zero. The first installment is really just a horror fiction also depicting the structure of human society.
Yeah, Cube 2 is shit. It's a scientific concept show.
Yeah it's not a bad film at all really, but even just within the horror/scifi genre it can't compete with higher budget films for popularity.
Just to ask, nobody understood the full picture of what they were making? Or was there someone who created the concept but intentional obfuscated it from everyone else via bureaucracy?
Granted it's just the viewpoint of one of the prisoners but it's the one I found most intriguing. To quote the movie: "Nobody knew what it was, nobody cared...there is no conspiracy, nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan...somebody might have known sometime before they got fired, voted out, or sold it...this is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project. You think anybody asked questions? All they want is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck."
That's awesome sci-fi right there. It's a bit campy, but it's campy in the same way that all great social commentary is, until it isn't and it's too late.
Ok the last time I watched it was well before being exposed to corporate culture. That’s awesome.
The thing that stuck with me was: "TWO!"
You should watch the circle.
Yeah, I even think Cube² was better.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Amazing world building and visuals that was destroyed by terrible casting and wooden acting.
It's based on a comic series so we can read that at least
The box art put me off thisnone, but skimming the plot and it reads like an amazing visual spectacle. Might watch this one
This was the movie I immediately thought of.
It's a terrific LOOKING movie, but the two leads had absolutely no chemistry. At first I couldn't figure out if they were partners, spouses, dating, brother & sister, etc.
The production design was spectacular, though.
The film opening is the best part, and honestly one of the best openings to a movie ever. It's such a shame the rest of the movie is hindered by the awful writing and casting.
Still definitely worth watching if you ask me, but yeah those main characters are... Not amazing.
Time trap was awesome. The scene when they realize the flickering lights are time passing and then they poke their heads out of the cave to see a complete departure of the old world.
The end got a lil weird tho.
Nonetheless it's a movie that will stick with you for a few days of conceptualizing.
*Time Trap was directed by Ben Foster, which I just discovered. It's also streaming for free (w ads of course) on YouTube.
So I just watched it on YouTube. What the hell was that ending?
Spoilers if someone is gonna watch it (I don't really know an effective way to do spoiler tags so bear with me):
They're in the cave until the sun just kinda "goes out" and is replaced by a bright green light. Some giant future human comes down and does battles with the cavemen and knocks them out with some weird shock collar thing. He takes a vial of super water before being jumped by some more cavemen and getting his mask taken off and bonked on the head a few times, which somehow kills him. Before he dies, he plays some holographic recording of a newscast about the five characters who went missing. In the final battle, they take his ladder and use it to try to escape the cave only to find some weird machine with water covering the hole where they try to climb out of. What I assume is another evolved human grabs them and outfits one girl in a weirdly sexy diving suit? To then rescue the rest of them. They all wake up in a spaceship and get reunited with their friends and the professor with his family, and presumably fly off to Mars.
My question(s) is A) what the hell is going on with future humanity B) why isn't anyone upset that the world is dead and their families are gone forever and they passed into history as another unsolved disappearance, but it's cool cause we're in space in the future C) how did they not experience the heat death of the universe in the time dilation cave? Especially when the sun went out
The kind of spoiler tag you used is the kind that doesn't work on every Lemmy app. Fortunately, that's not a problem, as I've already seen Time Trap, and despite forgetting its name, do sometimes think about it.
I believe this is what you're looking for:
::: spoiler Visible Text
hidden content goes here
:::
Looks like:
::: spoiler Visible Text hidden content :::
Thanks! Does that look any better now?
It doesn't, it still has some exclamation point action that might be the issue. If it helps, you should be able to copy and paste my example markdown. I gave it a try and it still works.
There, third time's the charm (or 10th, more accurately, since lemmy.world is shitting the bed right now).
I think I figured out what was going on, too. The app I use was automatically re-parsing spoiler formatting into its own syntax, but then was erroneously applying that same syntax to text when attempting to view source. So even the example you posted looked different to me when viewed in app versus on the actual site. I made the edit from the site this time and I think that should be good now.
Looks great, bravo!
This was the first thing I thought of when seeing the prompt. I actually love this movie and have seen it several times, but the acting is abysmal.
might give this one a watch!
Imo it is way better than what OP made it sound to be, held my attention whole way through.
I had a series of 3 stomach surgeries and I delved into some shows I wouldn't watch. I stumbled on this one. I really loved the premise. It is one of those late night SyFy feeling movies. The end did get weird, but I like where they were going with it.
Hey, I'm upvoting you and all but I gotta ask how do you do the spoiler thing? I'm using Apollo and it made me click to expand your comment so I could see the spoiler part. How did you format it?
I'm surprised how many people in the comments have (A) seen this movie, and (B) liked it. I didn't care for it, although I do like the basic premise.
The timing of your comment is a kind of a funny coincidence for me, because over the past few days I've been editing the next episode of my podcast, which will come out on Tuesday, and in it I mention Time Trap a couple times. Maybe the film is having a moment?
Jupiter Ascending
They seed the galaxy and harvest whole planets to create an immortality serum. Fantastic world concept ... but a subpar story to make a movie about within that world.
oh yeah, I remember liking the genetic aspect of that too. But yeah, poor story, and not Mila Kunis's best acting
And all the stuff about the genetic lottery, there being so many humans that eventually a perfect match gets born randomly is a cool premise.
I wish Jupiter Ascending could have some sequels to spend going full space soap opera.
I know! The idea that a perfect clone/cop could be born was amazing. If only they would make a movie about ... oh yeah, I forgot. They did.
I thought if they took out the werewolf thing, it would’ve been so much better.
I was so hyped when I saw the trailers, because the visuals and ideas of the story they showcased were exactly my jam. But oh boy, what a dumpster fire the whole movie turned out to be.
Edit: yep, still goosebumps watching the trailer
Hot take, “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”. The radio play, books and 80s bbc show were not represented very well at all. They missed well over 75% of the jokes, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel added nothing to it, and they added plots and scenes, I think just to get more “blockbuster actors” in, that ruin the original story of the radio play. Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman/Warwick Davis and Bill Nightly were the highlights. One of the few movies I wish they would remake.
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod was spot on. He was the only one who actually read the books, and had to even tell the director to add "Froody" to the script. What a shitshow it must have been for the director not to know that....
That director doesn't sound froody
Oh hey Zaphod, yeah he was not a frood indeed
Clearly did not know where his towel was.
Agreed, it was a big letdown unfortunately, compared to any of the other versions (including the text adventure!)
Shame, because Martin Freeman was perfect for Arthur, and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide was a great choice too. Though Mos Def was ok as Ford, although not on a par with David Dickson (TV) or Geoffrey McGivern (radio).
Zaphod and Trillian weren't right at all though IMO.
I quite like the movie. I mean all your points make sense and i agree, but at the same time, it's that movie that even introduced me to the books, and i now read them every year or two. The movie is far from perfect, but if you look at other things they try to convert into movies, this could've been so so much worse. Like imagine they made that movie now or somewhen in the past 5 or 10 years, it would basically be a disney marvel movie with marvel quips and: "he's right behind me isn't he's?"
Reign of fire. Don't know if that's what you were referencing in the picture but it's immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.
Wait, but Reign of Fire is the best dragon vs. helicopter movie ever made!
Dude yes, I was so hyped for it, but it really underdelivered
Bits of it were good. Seems like something went wrong in production or they ran out of money or something. Some of the effects were really good and there was a real mood to the post apocalypse world but it was very uneven especially the way the entire process of civilization ending was just a montage of newspaper headlines. It's ok to be post apocalypse of you don't want to show the apocalypse but that was just cheese. Also there were the odd shots that were of just such a lower standard than the rest of the film. Like this scene where a guy climbs up a watertower and stands atop it getting ready to throw a spear and for some reason after the effects extravaganza up until that point in the film it looked a cheap television blue screen that was super awkward. I guess they wanted it to look taller than in reality and show the desolate landscape but it's so weird that after all the aerial dragon combat they'd pulled off pretty well for the most part that THAT was somehow difficult. I seem to recall storywise there was some very disappointing ending too but it's been rather too long for me to recall it now anyway.
Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
The city itself was interesting as hell
I really like that movie. But watch the directors cut, for the love of all that's good! It removed the narration at the beginning that gave away the whole plot. Much better that way.
I just watched this! It felt like the director wanted to go real big with it but technology just wasn't there with effects. It also tried very hard to be a mindfuck movie but also kept spoiling the twists somehow lol. Overall solid 7+ movie.
Just joking. I really liked the movie for its style and the frightening bad guys in all sizes. Also Kiefer Sutherland with a mad scientist touch.
Jennifer Connelly is the best part of the movie
Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?
Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?
As far as the witcher and time travel kind of. At some point in the future there was a disaster and Earth was destroyed. However some humans and lots of monsters from alternate realities ended up in the world of the Witcher. Elves and dwarves were the original inhabitants.
Humans used a mix of genetic engineering they had and magic taught to them by the elves to make the Witchers. The Witchers helped solve the massive monster problem and the world ended up with humans mostly on top.
Witchers age very slowly and if not killed can live a very long time. Powerful magic users are basically the same. So the stories from session 1 are spread over about 80 years with some long lived characters.
The first book that season 1 is primarily based on is also different from the other books. It's a bunch of short stories that are based on classic stories. So there is Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc.
I own the Witcher 3. Should I start there? Cause you just made me very interested.
Witcher 3 the game is a fine place to start. I'd say you can start in any of the games and Book 1 the Last Wish, Book 2 Sword of Destiny, or Book 3 Sword of Destiny. The games were in line with the books cannon but telling there own story. The popularity of the games made Sapkowski write more and they have now diverged somewhat. Here are some notes on all of them as far as a starting place.
Last Wish (book): Short stories based on classic stories. Good intro to the world and the writing style. No main plot so it can be skipped or read later without much problems. The Sleeping Beauty story is the opening cinematic of Game 1.
Sword of Destiny (Book): More short stories but we introduce a lot of the main characters in the rest of the books.
Blood of Elves (book): This is where the main story of the Witcher starts proper. After this you should read them in order.
Witcher 1 (game): Game play is ok but I think has the most interesting ideas and storytelling. It has the choose between two bad choices and find out later what the effect is. It doesn't spoon feed you the lore and there are lots of hints about what is going on you can catch if you are paying attention. For example echinops grow where terrible crimes were committed if the crime wasn't atoned for. Every place you find a echinops growing is a clue as to the nature of what happened there.
There is another great non obvious story element that I love. I think it's more fun to know this and see how it plays out in the game. I recommend reading the spoiler but it's up to you.
::: spoiler Main Villain Alvin the boy who almost dies in the barghest attack in part 1 is also the main villain Jacques de Aldersberg. Towards the end of the game Alvin goes back in time and grows into the adult Jacques de Aldersberg. The various things you say to Alvin will change what Jacques says during the game. And when you kill Jacques at the end you use your silver blade. He looks so upset saying "That sword is for monsters." :::
Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings (game): Improved gameplay with much more focus on combat and combat mechanics. Better graphics. Ok story but nothing compared to 1. The combat is very hard early and is required so that can be a drawback.
Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (game): The best game as far as gameplay. Fun lots different things to do and a solid story. It's a very Ciri focused story and thus can spoil some of the books somewhat. As far as a starting place you are going to have a lot of fun but it does throw a fair amount of characters at you and expect you to know them. Also the spoiler from 1 is specifically confirmed at one point so if you don't want that beware.
The witcher Netflix series was a mess behind the scenes. I think some of the writers were taking it as opportunity to show off their 'abilities' and were writing OC instead of the witcher.
If you didn't actually finish high castle, it just keeps getting good weirder.
Unfortunately the case for a good portion of Philip K. Dick's work... Schizophrenia, amphetamines, and misogyny can do that I guess.
But when he was good... He was the best of his genre. Literally imo...
Although I liked the series, the "supernatural" elements in it really threw me off. I would still recommend the series but be clear that it is science fiction and doesn't always adhere to physical limitations as we know them, without getting any more specific than that.
Season 1 is based on the first book, which was made some a bunch of serials in a fiction magazine. It's honestly pretty spot on with the book and the following books and seasons are fully linear.
I felt like the story was amazing for season 1. Season 2 went downhill quickly because of the easy love triangle plot line. The main saving gave was the Rufus 'Obergruppenführer Smith' Sewell amd his son toryline. I couldn't even tell you if I've seen/remember one episode of season 3.
The Sarah Connor chronicles was the only sequel media that ever made sense to me
I know, right? I was quite mad when l heard the show was cancelled after season two. I still want to know if she survived after taking a shotgun shot to this day.
The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can't even remember the plot because it was so meh.
I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that's what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.
In time, has such a awesome premise.
But what we got was a "poor little rich girl" story.
What we got was Bonnie and Clyde. I liked it though.
Came to the comments to say In Time. I always have to remind myself how bad it was, because I really like the concept, so the movie tends to be much better in my head than it actually is as I keep adding things that weren't there.
At first I thought you meant there was a movie inside a movie called Time.
Not a film, but a TV series? It's called Jericho, and the synopsis in the Wikipedia reads:
But yeah, the execution is mediocre at best. Both the action and the drama are unbearably flimsy and cliche, even the argument flops as metal.
Nuts
I remember starting watching that. I have no idea how far I got, but I don't remember a thing about it.
Same here. Aamof I just try watching it last year. Visually, it was cool to come back to those years, but I don't think I finished season 1.
I love Jericho. On my third watch right now actually. Would agree that it's frequently cliché, but overall I'd say it's very good. Skeet Ulrich is transfixing.
Did you read the season 3 in comic books? I was surprised about the following they've got as I was reading that Wikipedia entry.
yeah but it's been aaages, I forgot about what happened in those.
Not a movie, but a TV show. Revolution.
A sci-fi post-apocalypse show where the premise is that all of a sudden all technology (specifically anything that uses electricity) just stops working and nobody knows why. The show takes place 15 years into the apocalypse. The US has Balkanized into various regional states (although you don't learn this until later). Some regions have devolved into chaos while others have basically reverted to a steam-punk type of society. Since all modern ships use electricity, they've begun to revive large ships from the age of sail. The remnants of the US military at Guantanamo Bay eventually return to the mainland and try to reestablish a much more explicitly authoritarian control over the US. You eventually learn that what caused the global blackout was the creation of a self-replication nanotech which rapidly spread across the planet and shut off all electricity.
Great premise, but it got too much into the soap-opera CW-style of writing and didn't last more than 2 seasons.
Ah yes, the Lost-likes.
Manifest, Fast Forward, Continuum, Revolution, Terra Nova... loved them all. All of them canceled.
Yep. Sounds like what happened with Jericho. Mystery and intrigue in the starting seasons, and then just weird petty soap-opera style squabbles towards the end
If the writers want to tell a story focused on inter-personal relationships, that's perfectly fine. There are PLENTY of people who enjoy that kind of thing. They just don't tend to be the same type of people who enjoy post-apocalyptic sci-fi puzzle-box shows. I don't know why you go through all the trouble of creating this expansive world and lore only to focus your show on character dynamics that aren't centered around the conceit of the show.
If you're going to build this complex world, let us explore that world!
Poor Jericho, I need to hunt down the graphic novels that supposedly gave it a proper ending.
Yeah really fun premise slathered in boring characters.
If I recall it devolved into some CW-flavor bullshit revolving around the girl, who is her real father, why is she special. Blah blah blah.
As featured in the picture, Reign of Fire. I had forgotten about it. I truly don't think there is a film out there that has represented dragons as I see them better.
I really think about Quinn's character a lot. How the world entirely changed for him on that pivotal day he discovered that male dragon, and the decades he spent running and surviving and living in fear of something that he inadvertently set in motion, and then the turning point as an adult as he confronts his fear and wields it to put an end to what he started.
What I like about him, is that he's not actually that unique -- anybody could have woken that dragon, and if Quinn hadn't been there on that day, one of his mother's coworkers would have. He's not particularly heroic as an adult either, opting to hide and scrounge for survival, and openly admitting to everyone that he's winging it on the leader front. And yet he inspires his community with fierce devotion to keeping them all alive. When he finally goes to confront the dragon, he does it almost alone, inspiring no one with his courage other than himself.
As a character I find him weirdly relatable as someone just coping with heavy trauma the best that they can
Passengers had the possibility to be really creepy, I still liked it but without seeing Chris Pratts time alone first, we would have all been confused and on guard with Jennifer Lawrence.
I think it would have been a much better film if the audience had also been kept in the dark about him opening her pod as well. That way we can also go through the range of emotions with her at the same time when she finds out.
Just start the movie from her perspective. Pod opening and Pratt is already there. He tells her his pod just opened and he's confused too. Then we get the whole "wandering the shipn for the first time" montage where they could drop subtle hints that it's not actually his first time doing any of those things.
His character is absolutely a bad person, but it's a situation we can sympathize with because being truly completely alone for any amount of time fucks with people badly. She has every right to hate him for the rest of their lives, but it turns out that if he hadn't done what he did they all would have died because of the damaged engine or whatever it was (I can't remember).
They could have made the movie much harder hitting and/or creepy for the first half, but they opted to try and make you sympathetic to his situation from the start.
It's the movie that always pops into my head when thinking about wasted potential.
Pandorum is, to me, what Passengers was trying for. The claustrophobic horror of hurting through the void, other humans being both your salvation and your tormentors, all that.
The execs ruined it to make a vehicle for some big names.
I love Pandorum. I have a huge FanTheory on it on reddit from years back if you want to check it out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/gmlo53/pandorum_earth_took_serious_countermeasures/
Me, too.
Can you imagine the creation myths that would evolve in the society that developed from the survivors? There were just a handful who had survived and experienced that descent into hell. The others had blissfully slept.
I’ll check that out!
I feel like the last 30 years or Star Wars movies could qualify here
Disneys stance is to be middle of the ground on everything. Writers or source material bring in a ton of actually interesting stuff, only to be snubbed and half assed. It happens so consistently in all their shows. It's maddening!
Have you tried Andor yet? That show is crazy good.
Oh yeah it's awesome, definitely is able to commit to their ideas and ideals
I've always felt like Star Wars the original 3 (4,5 and 6) were a product of their time. They aren't bad movies but they aren't great movies either, but for whatever reason they struck a chord with the population in the late 70's and early 80's. George Lucas should have just let them be there really was no reason to make any more of them, but money.
Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.
Except for shooting around corners and that thing with the car, those bits were cool.
The comics were 'edgy' and somewhat needlessly abrasive, but yeah they were enjoyable
Terminator Genisys
First creative use of the time travel the series ever had... And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn't an action sequence.
That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.
Oof yeah, what were they thinking with doing that to Kyle? He was the one pure aspect of the entire franchise (a friend, a lover, a father, a sacrificial pawn) and they cheapened his sacrifice with that nonsense
Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
A few favorites:
I love Constantine, and genuinely do not get the hate that film got. Sure it was different from the comics, but it was good in its own right, and the casting and acting (with the exception of that guy from Even Steven) was spot on
Constantine and Minority Report shouldn't be on that list, IMO. The former in particular is very well executed and thoroughly enjoyable!
I'll be that guy that enjoyed The Last Jedi explicitly because it was something different, and leaned into more of the mystical side of the force while on the "big screen."
::: spoiler Edit and spoiler just in case I just remembered the hyperspace "weapon" moment, and both how cool it was and how much it could affect the empire. They probably didn't mean for it, but that you could effectively point and shoot a ship like that was an amazing usage. :::
I think episode 7, 8, 9 would have been better if 7 had flipped the script rather than being a story analog to 4. Whole movie could have been largely the same, but rather than the Resistance stopping the First Order at the end, let the First Order win - let Starkiller Base succeed in blowing up the Resistance' base planet and achieve, for all intents and purposes, total victory. It would have come as a shock to viewers (especially given how close the macro plot adhered to episode 4), and they could have made the rest of the new trilogy about the scattered remnants of the resistance trying to get their shit together and field some kind of opposition against overwhelming, impossible odds.
In response to your spoiler:
I specifically didn’t like that scene because it’s a massive departure from the lore of all the other films. If they could just do that, why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time? Is it supposed to be that this group is the first group to try this, with the tech that has been around for at least a few centuries? If they had all died in the process I’d be more ok with that, although that also seems like a departure from how hyperspace works in the other films.
I feel like this can at least be backed up. It should be ridiculously costly in terms of sheer resources and personnel, and therefore utterly foolish in 99% of scenarios.
We can posit that hyperspace generators should be expensive in terms of resources and credits, and should get exponentially more expensive as the ship size increases, so making "hyperspace warheads" should also be foolish...
But on the other hand, to take down something like the Death Star, I imagine such a maneuver would have seemed worth it!
I think that sums up why the last two sequel films bothered me so much: They went for emotional "woah!"s by pulling things out of nowhere unexpectedly...But then you think about it for 5 seconds and it all falls apart quick.
I was ok with using the ship as a suicidal torpedo, but I wasn't ok with a single person being able to fully maneuver the thing all by herself, or the ensuing space rip conveniently doing that V shape and getting all 3 ships.
But the bombing run at the beginning of the movie really set the tone for "Prepare to be sorely disappointed"
What a stupid, stupid, stupid design for a 'space' bomber. Just utterly stupid. I can't say stupid enough.
They really took original Star Wars' "WWII in Space" battles to the ridiculous extreme there, for sure lol.
The Last Jedi was a good movie, it just wasn't a good Star Wars movie.
Nah, even if it wasn't Star Wars, it'd be 6/10 at best
Bruh Constantine is one of my favorite films ever. It's so fucking awesome!
Keanu reeves is such a weird casting choice. He's playing a guy from manchester and all he can do is play himself, like in every movie he does.
Keanu just can't shake the Messiah image after played Neo in The Matrix. Ever! It's too weird to see him playing Constantine.
In contrast, the Constantine played by Matt Ryan in TV franchise Arrowverse was spot on.
Constantine and Minority Report don’t belong on the list tbh. And I say that as a fan of the Hellblazer comics, and someone who doesn’t care for Tom Cruise.
Not a movie, but a TV Show. The Cape.
A former detective is forced into hiding where he is trained in stage magic, sleight of hand, circuscraft, and illusions. He uses them to fight crime.
I thought it was a really interesting concept, a more down-to-earth superhero like Batman, and stuff like this can plausibly happen in real life.
Unfortunately the show was so bad it was canceled mid season and the finale was only streamed on NBC's website.
Six seasons and a movie!
Damn sounded hilarious
I'll take "Movies of the Current Decade" for $1000, Alex.
Cabin in the woods
Hot take.
I loved cabin in the woods!
Twilight. My wife made me watch the first one and it's actually got a really interesting world and hints at a lot of decent lore and possible content.
Then they fill the film with close-ups of their eyes meeting across the room for minutes on end.
I actually liked the weird depressing grey vibe of the the first film. If it wasn't for all the vampire stuff, it'd be an interesting outsider story about boy-meets-girl with a slight supernatural vibe
The third and fourth books actually start to introduce some really wild lore and world-building. Shame it was wasted on such a terrible main plot.
I just couldn't stop laughing when it looks like Edward is trying not to shit his pants every time he sees the girl.
Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn't say it's a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What's the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don't read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
::: spoiler spoiler But the good setup and world building is quickly over and then they both enter the gorge, and it's just an old evacuated biological lab that created super soldiers, and the whole thing instantly stops being mysterious.
They could have kept it mysterious for longer and given us some kind of twist perhaps, like they might discover they're guarding the site of an old defunct biolab, but some things don't add up, and it turns out to be the actual gates of hell. I also don't think Drasa should have dived straight in to rescue Levi. Let her hesitate for a while. Create tension. Keep them separated, him somewhere below and her in her tower (perhaps she will need to get over to his tower to reactivate the auto-turrets or do something important, she believes he's gone), and cut between showing both their struggles. Perhaps he then manages to contact her, and then a rescue effort begins. :::
the trailer didn't entice me that much, so I went ahead with the spoilers. Yeah I hate when a good mystery is ruined by over-explaining.
I still haven't forgiven Steven King for writing all those sequels to The Gunslinger
I was going to mention this, but thought it was too recent.
I thought it was pretty good until they went in. Even the way they met was pretty silly.
Somebody played Enshrouded and decided to make a post-Cold War movie out of it
I feel like the plot undercut the otherwise cool metaphor that the gorge represented.
East and West, separated by nothing but their deepest fears. Two killers searching for human connection but unable to reach the nearest person. How fucking cool is that? You can do so much!
Then you find out that there isn't really any East/West divide, they're both working for the same bad guys. Traversal of the gorge plays like a joke instead of being a serious moment of character development. Then the ending is a bunch of run-shoot-explode.
I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning 'In Time'. It had such a great premise, and I didn't even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said "fuck it, that's good enough". The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point... A movie just isn't the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I'm not sure belongs here. It's not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it didn't do better. That movie is called 'Push', with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn't that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn't a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It's just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don't seem to get those anymore.
I thought "In Time" was a good movie. I agree that there is a lot that could be done with it, however only so much can be done in a movie. This sort of concept really lends itself to multiple movies or a series (just don't drag it out too long).
5 seasons. No more, no less. It gives the overarching story enough room to breathe and play out a solid three act structure with a wide middle. It needs to all be written and plotted out before anything gets filmed.
Will check out both, thanks for this
Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What's not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story
which ones
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Roberts
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Johnson
Different thought so I'm leaving a second comment. For whatever reason I thought We Live In Time had this premise for like a third of the movie. In hindsight I don't really know why I did. I think it's because Andrew Garfield's character took notes and seemed flustered at times? I suppose I thought this was him trying to keep things straight in his brain? No. It's just a normal story told in a noninear fashion. I loved it though.
::: spoiler Major end spoilers What sucked is that it was about losing a loved on to cancer. We did not know this going in and out partner lost their mother to cancer a few years ago. So it hit REALLY fucking hard. There's even a line Pugh says that's something like "I don't wanna some kid who's just gonna have a dead mom because of cancer." Great movie. Bring tissues. :::
Slaughterhouse Five (the book) did this fairly well, though the movie isn't much better than Madame Web.
The premise is get crossfaded and enjoy the ride. The execution is flawless.
Christian Bale faking an actually decent London accent, Gerard Butler being a loveable scot, and Matthew McCaughnehey doing his best Norse/Spartan Warrior impression?
Horrible acting all around (except Bale at times), the lead female character was basically there to soothe/flirt with the lead (wish i was joking), you can barely understand anyone, and yet really impressive set/castle and overall atmosphere. You believe you are there, and that the world is gone.
Huge gaps in logic on the hunting patterns of dragons, helicopters seem to run on infinite fuel, and the final plan to take down the main dragon is just stupid at best.... but the execution of fighting dragons in the air with nets dropped by guys without parachutes was a phenomenal air sequence.
Also, the dragon CGI holds up. You never quite see it, but when you do, you believe it's there, and the CGI team did a great job with consistency in that the dragons are always depicted expelling fluid that they ignite, and you see it every time they cast fire.
Brilliant movie, and one of the best opening 5 minutes in terms of origin story. Just a lot of bad acting, and some questionable feats in logic plot-wise.
Christian Bale is English. His accent in Reign of Fire is not far off his normal accent.
You are shitting me!
He’s crazy good at assimilating accents so a lot of people don’t realise. Here’s his real accent (apologies for the YouTube link).
his real accent sounds fake.... I almost don't believe it...
I'm a crazy, or did you completely fail to mention what movie you're describing?
https://lemmy.ml/post/30029796/18578529
I remember being extremely well entertained by awesome dragons, and that's it. Which means you're probably correct.
What Bale's native accent?
https://lemmy.ml/post/30029796/18578697
I know it's a British one, I was wondering what region, since OP was talking about his London accent.
its vaguely welsh, but I actually can't tell
Show, but LOST, I remember what could've been...
The eternal metric of a good show hitting a point in season 3 or 4 where every episode opens 20 more questions than it answers, making me wonder if its going to Do a Lost on me and just fall apart. (ahem-Yellowjackets&Severance-ahem)
I think it's important when making a show to actually have an end in mind, yknow?
I really liked the Dharma Initiative aspect of it, was hoping that they'd go somewhere with it....
I think it'd be cool for someone to make a videogame based off it now
Telltale Games style, or something else?
Honestly like anything, love a good survival horror/mystery personallly
I in no way call this "mediocre"; Its just a flat our terrible low budget bullshit film that the director made as an excuse to hang out with shirtless dudes.
But years ago the guys at Red Letter Media did a segment on "Bigfoot vs D.B. Cooper", and that premise alone (what happened after D.B. Cooper landed) has lived in my brain ever since.
It legitimately angers me that such a great high concept idea was completely wasted on what basically amounts to gay porn.
Lmao, the reviews are somewhat illuminating
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3588938/reviews/
Yep. And therein lies my frustration.
David Decoteau (or he'll sometimes use his alias "Richard Chasen") stole the perfect premise for what could have been a great shlocky low-to-mid-budget action movie. And no NO ONE can ever make it without being compared with....that....whatever it is....
The original Purge. I thought all the background stuff and setting were super interesting, but the film itself was a generic home invasion movie. The sequel expanded on all the stuff I was interested in, though.
CATS
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I've seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don't know who looked at Cat's and was like, "Yup, we need CGI." It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let's make a nightmare.
The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don't think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero's journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
This seems counter to most complaints I've seen about the movie that they just rehashed the original trilogy.
That is an apt criticism of TFA and TRoS, but not TLJ at all.
TLJ takes a bunch of the exact same elements from the original trilogy including the young jedi training in a remote location, the empire/first order finding the secret rebel base with the main characters escaping at the last moment, the protagonist being captured by their rival and being brought before the sith leader where they wind up battling, the protagonist finding out that they're related to their rival, the hermit jedi master sacrificing themselves etc, etc, etc. The last trilogy is just a recycling of the original to the point that they had to add stupid dialog like "it's salt" in a vain attempt to convince people that they aren't just copy and pasting major plot points from the original
TFA and RoS are rehashes, TLJ is a deconstruction
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the "deconstruction" argument:
"Challenging the Chosen One narrative"
Rey's parents were "nobody" yet so were Luke Skywalker's parents. The final film is titled "The Rise of Skywalker" on her path to becoming the chosen one.
"Revisiting Luke's Heroism"
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
"Undermining Jedi Ideals"
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film's creator's not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
"Exploration of Failure and Complexity"
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
"Subverting Expectations"
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn't subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the "good guys" come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don't see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
i ain't arguing with a machine
Well, I mean nobody has actually made any defense for the movie here other than repeating the word "deconstruction" without elaborating any further, and I'm not going to do a deep dive and write out a counter argument to my own position, so the machine will have to do. For all we know this is the same machine that Disney used to recycle these old plot points for TLJ 😆
Only losers and goobers use AI to make their argument for them. Try thinking like a real human.
I didn't use AI to make my argument for me. I used AI to make their argument since nobody was willing to actually make an argument outside of saying the movie is a "deconstruction" three separate times without stating what they mean or how it isn't just a blatant ripoff of the older films.
Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.
I think I'm really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and had Campbell to advise with. After that it was all introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I'm an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I'm no story teller so I couldn't fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but "Baby Yoda" represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero's Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn't improve any of the sequels, so maybe I'd like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
Over Mandalorian?
Sold. I'll watch it.
Andor is an incredible espionage thriller and I do absolutely love it.
This is also why I liked Rogue One and also the series "Rebels."
It made the Empire believable, and the Rebels really are an insurgency, the galactic situation is dire and against overwhelming odds. It doesn't just feel like a hero fantasy.
(Rebels can sometimes, it's geared to a younger audience, but it takes itself surprisingly seriously in a great way.)
I'm also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I'm not sure if that falls under "better execution"
I mean it's a high budget Disney film, the script should be the only place for improvement.
True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they're always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots
How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could've used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie "killed his character"
I really hate what they did to Luke's character. It felt like they deliberately trashed him and everything he stood for so some random nobody gimmick character doesn't look as 2-dimensional. :(
The Ben Swolo memes were hilarious though.
It's a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don't really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn't anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I'd defend this movie far more if it didn't do this. But it didn't only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can't collide with things 'in hyperspace', but only as you're going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn't she just splat against the cruiser's shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don't find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can't be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn't be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
So actually to add onto this, this was bothering me so I had to look into it further:
I was very incorrect - Hyperspace isn't a pocket dimension per se and you can hit things while moving through hyperspace. The reason they 'sometimes' get past shields is because shields have a refresh rate so it may be able to phase through if you get it just right.
I'm more with you on this now, its a little ridiculous that no ones really tried to weaponize hyperdrive engines.
As far as I know all droids in Star Wars have free will.
Han Solo gambled and won the Falcon from Lando (who appears well off), it was definitely too expensive for him to have bought normally.
I think the hyperspace battering ram is funky, but I believe it was less that it was a good tactical idea and more of the First Order being extremely arrogant by not having their shields up, not using a tractor beam, and not just sending a smaller ship forward to close the gap and blowing it up.
I think the movie wanted to show that they were savoring the victory and were willing to draw it out as they believed the rebels were drowning in hopelessness.
I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it's actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
Never watched it, but am intrigued. How so?
Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.
if you went this long without watching it I won't spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.
I love Rian Johnson's other work, especially Brick and Knifes Out.
I also love Star Wars.
I thought TLJ was dreadful though. He was just a really bad fit for it IMO. Has nothing to do with not being open to change, but it has to be the right change. "Can you hear me now?" gags and Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Agreed big time. This felt less like "cleverly unexpected" and more just a total disrespect for the source material.
"Hey remember the symbol of hopeful optimism you followed through trials and tribulations for 3 movies a long time ago? He's now a cynical burnout drunk uncle lol. Isn't that sooo unexpected but relatable and grim? SUBVERTED! I'll take my Oscar now..."
It felt like if some grimdark-TV-bros got ahold of a sequel to the LOTR trilogy, and we were to suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy. "Didn't expect that, did you?? Lol!"
...Then being told your expectations were childish and stupid when you find yourself upset by this. Lol
This is hilariously horrifying to imagine! 😁
Mickey 17 is the latest one for me.
Oof is it bad? I was beating myself because I didn’t get to watch in on theatre because of its very short run. I was waiting for digital release to watch it.
It’s not bad, but the pacing is terrible and it’s not really the movie that the trailers made it out to be. The concept and trailer made it look like a completely different movie.
I still enjoyed it, but I’d only give it a 6/10. Robert Pattinson is quickly turning into one of my favourite actors though, he’s great in it.
Have you seen him in Good Time? One of my favorite movies ever.
Big agree. Good Time turned me into a huge Pattinson fan.
I haven’t, but I’ll add it to the list now. Thanks :)
I thought it was great, premise and execution.
Yeah I liked it, thought the lead did a great job.
There was an odd disconnect between first and second part imo.
Yeh this was it - great acting by Robert, but the first half of the movie was what the trailers made us think the whole movie was going to focus on.
For me the pacing was bad. Like they could have cut a combined 30 minutes and it would be recommendable.
I also think they left a lot unexplored with the whole concept. Like cut back on the relationship and politics stuff and focus on what it means to be Mickey/clone.
It's good. Honestly I think Ruffalo being in there less would do it some good. Make the scenes he's in stick out more.
The movie just sort of goes all over. I like movies like that though.
will definitely watch this one
What was that anime where you wear a VR headset and if you die in-game, you die in real life?
Ya that one
Sword Art Online had a pretty decent few opening episodes, it just.... for some reason decided to go full-blown Knights of Sidonia and turn itself into a weird harem anime.
I HIGHLY recommend the SAO Abridged series. It's one of the few "parody/satire" projects that actually makes the original story better and most regard SAO Abridged as the better version as a whole.
"You see, there's no need to wonder where your God is! Cause he's right here. And he's fresh out of mercy."
I love TeamFourStar!
Same! I rewatch DBZ Abridged all the time! Funny enough, never actually watched DBZ or any of Dragon Ball in its entirety, but I've played a LOT of the games and basically know the entire story, front to back, from the games and Abridged lol
I would absolutely say Something Witty Entertainment is 100% on par with TFS. They do such a great job taking SAOs original story and making it ACTUALLY make sense, while adding a lot more comedy and sometimes some actually heart breaking moments.
Added bonus, it's still ongoing! They basically only release one episode a year now, but I think every episode is worth the wait because they put in a lot of effort. They do some other Abridged series as well (like a newer ongoing series of My Hero Academia,) but I believe SAOA is their longest running one right now.
All I wanna do,
is see you turn into,
a Super Saiyan (•a super saiyan!•)
that's pretty much a whole manga subgenre now
What Sword Art Online Alternative. Amazing plot and characters.
The ideas behind They Live are fascinating and deserved better treatment than a 20-minute alley fight about sunglasses.
Timeline! The movie was completely forgettable but the concept was pretty cool. I loved the book.
I concur. The potential was awesome, but the movie very forgettable.
Is this the one where they go back and "complete" and archeological site?
New Rose Hotel (1998) It's set in the same universe as Johnny Mnemonic, stars Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. I love Gibson stories and the short story it's based on, while not one of his best, could make a good creepy weird movie especially with that cast. Unfortunately it is one of the most boring movies I've sat through at least half a dozen times.
Highlander II
The Dark Tower
It's a long list but these two were painful.
Mind you, Highlander II would've made more sense as a non-Highlander movie that just revolves around space aliens dealing with Earth having a planetary shield now. As a sequel to Highlander its premise was really weird.
Fuck The Dark Tower. That movie doesn't exist for me. Total waste.
Highlander 2 is unsalvageable. That movie sucked so bad it wasn't even fun to watch with friends to make fun of it
I am 100% convinced they had a masterpiece and then test audiences didn't get it and they went and changed everything around and added the prologue and gave away the entire twist at the start by explicitly telling the viewer where and when we are. Also made the dinosaurs weird for .... reasons...?
Oof. Having the statue of liberty there on the opening credits of Planet of the Apes
Like that, yes.
Wow, I watched that on opening night and there were like three people in the whole room. I don't remember much about it, but what really bugged me was the whole start of the film. A spaceship that is designed to travel fully automatically and immediately fails when there's a small asteroid field in its path? Absolute BS.
Downsizing
First 20 minutes (give or take) seemed like a solid start. But then they did absolutely nothing with the concept.
The live action transformers movies.
Although I almost never think about it.
And I only saw the first thirty minutes of the first movie.
I've watched all of them. I was a TF fan as a kid. I watched it every morning before school and on Saturday mornings. The movies just....I don't know. The first one was the best of the live action. Bumblebee maybe. All of them felt more machine like, except the stupid peeing...wtf...
That said, they were not great. The story, on concept, seemed ok. The execution sucked. The acting was not great. The tropes were un needed, didn't even really fit in, and just plain stupid at best. Mostly they were irritating. Like someone dragging their nails on a chalk board in the middle of a mediocre movie.
The last couple felt more like an attempt at hero porn. [que "heroic" music, lame Walberg lines where he wields some weapon that makes no sense, then lots of booms. Don't forget the meaningless jumping, falling all over the place, and special forces that lean more on the special than forces.]
The only good thing that came out of them was the limited re release of the OG toys. I managed to finally snag an Optimus and a couple others.
The best thing about the cartoon was Optimus Prime being 'best tv dad', megatron/galvatron's evil laugh and speeches, soundwave's voice, starscream scheming, starscream being killed off for being a whiny backstabber too many times, the art, the touch and the fact that all of the supporting cast that were good in their own right.
Look I'm a simple man, I can't get enough of Optimus Prime's stellar voice work. :D
It's not an incredible franchise. But hey I think they had some fun with a series that was basically designed to sell 80's toys lol.
I watched it until the Megan Fox car breakdown scene and figured it wouldn't get better than that and stopped there. I don't remember anything else from the movie.
I admit that it surprised me it did well enough for sequels, when better films didn't, but I guess that's The Public for you.
It didn't. I managed to stay until one of the autobots had to take a leak. I was too insulted at that point. Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore, but of course the guy has to stammer and stumble and try to impress the dead weight.
Well, I wasn't looking at her for her acting. Some people are just nice to look at.
By absolute bore I also include her looks. I understand she is supposed to be pretty, but stone-faced is not my thing. Even with her licking-lip image I imagine her eyes staring at the latest gucci dress laced with diamonds or maybe even Bumblebee, but not a man.
Ah, you're clearly not objectifying women enough!
Do I need to qualify that so people know it's a joke? I feel as if I need to qualify that.
Whether it's a joke or not, my opinions on this issue is too strong for me to not ask this out loud. What makes stone faced women still hot?
Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager is another one.
Beauty? You don't find women (people?) attractive if they're not expressive; that's fine. Everyone has their own aesthetics, and that's great. A lot of people wouldn't get laid if there was only one standard of beauty.
Tusk
Came here to say this. That movie showed me depths of fear I didn't know I had yet, it could have had better production values.
this is a kevin smith movie tho
The fact that it all came from just brainstorming while baked on a podcast and then just doing the thing is what I respect about it. It didn't need to be something that the majority of people would like. It stuck to the layout basically completely, and didn't give a fuck. Was also cool that the actors really committed to the bit.
They Live (1988)
I will upvote you, but i must disagree. It was executed flawlessly for 75% of the film. Hell, even the "project 2025" beat towards the end was pretty spot on.
If I may ask, what would you have done to change what you didn't like?
The fight scene where the main character was trying to get Keith David's character to try on the glasses... that was legendary. I've never seen another (serious) fight scene come close to how hard it made me laugh. 10/10 for that. I imagine Roddy was so familiar with fight choreography from being a professional wrestler that he just got the green light to go ALL OUT and both actors nailed it.
Please excuse all the replies, I just love discussing the movie. It's still one of my favorites, but I would love to see some other production company film a different ending and release an alternate version with a powerful ending. Think how "Arrival" (Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner) made you feel at the end. I feel like "They Live" could've been that good, but maybe it was before it's time, and they had to cater to the box office of the time.
The premise was powerful, the plot and character development were good, but it seems like the ending of the screenplay got rewritten, and it wound up being a standard issue Rambo-style shoot em up, when it had the opportunity to end on a different, more powerful note that left the viewer thinking about how this relates to themselves, and our own society.
I wonder what the original screenplay looked like. It starts so powerfully, but takes such a vivid downturn at the end to appeal to the masses demanding shootouts and explosions. I suspect the ending was rewritten in order to get green lit for production, because the original ending might've been too cerebral for general audiences. I imagine the original ending probably made you think, and generally that's not what the masses like from their movies. Kind of ironic considering the plot of the film, don't you think?
I've never seen the movie, but I've always wanted to. Have you researched an original screen play? You might get lucky with a leak somewhere.
I haven't, but I wouldn't even know where to start.
Equilibrium
Mutant Chronicles, except i don't think about it normally, but immediately comes to mind when somebody asks similar question. Also it wasn't mediocre, it was incredibly bad and the second biggest disapointment movie ever for me (worst was Starship Troopers 2).
Premise seems pretty cool (mutant/zombie machine), and I guess it's kind of a cool but forgettable action flick?
I played a lot of tabletop and card games in this universe in 90's so i was pretty excited for a movie, and while it was forgettable (but also bad) action flick its main fault was that it has basically nothing in common with the Mutant Chronicles universe.
It's like getting "Lord of the RIngs" movie, but about some gang war in a village southeast of Umbar.
I mean. I would watch that.
In this case i would like to recommend some books for you:
Basically unlicenced Middleearth fanfics written by Russian authors but a good ones and getting officially published in multiple countries.
thanks!
Hey, War of the Rohirim was actually pretty alright! :p
Quite a few MST3K films have a decent premise IMO, but lacked either the budget or the talent to make enough of them.
Eg Time Chasers (which isn't really all that bad), The Skydivers, Moon Zero Two, Rocket Attack USA, Stranded in Space, and perhaps even Manos: The Hands of Fate.
With the right people, I think those and others could have been very decent movies.
The Fall Guy. The show had a very simple premise (stunt crew moonlights as bounty hunters) that really couldn't hold up after multiple seasons. The movie just floundered trying to do too much, and ended up far too inside baseball for normal viewers to really identify with.
Yeah, rushed is part of it as well for a full 120+min movie.
And, I should say, I also loved the movie and was disappointed to see mostly negative reviews afterward, but I get it. I initially loved the fact that 87North, the director's own production company, is both listed in the opening credits and is the company making the movie in the movie. But as the final (contrived to look awesome, which is the point, not the actual plot points) moments wrap up, it felt like it was as much an industry commercial for the director's own production company as it was a movie just being a movie. Maybe that's a selling feature and I overthought it, but it sort of took me out of it.
Mortal Engines
Mortal Kombat (2021) opened with a great "feudal China with elemental magic" clan story that could have been an amazing movie, but then they jumped forward in time and everything after that was a let down.
The Man from Earth
B4
Triangle
Time Lapse
Daybreakers
Evolution
Knowing
The Man From Earth is definitely one I think about. The things he must have seen, must have done, that over time shaped him into who he was. Is he the embodiment of mankind, as well as its own self-hatred? The religious stuff was a bit much. I still haven't seen the sequel, with genuine anxiety to.
Daybreakers is also a good one. A bit deus-ex with the "solution" at the end, but very good thought experiment
Knowing is soooo frustrating. Great premise, Nic Cage Nic Caging tha fuck out of everything. Then it seems like the writer hit a block and turned to a random word generator that spit out "space angels" and called it a day.
Still 2/3 of an interesting movie.
Not a film, but a novel:
Starflight 3000 by R.W. Mackelworth
If I remember, it was about this asteroid called "The Biosphere" that got hollowed out and sent on relativistic speeds through deep space to seed other solar systems with human colonies. The inside of it was set up like a giant rural town with massive skies, and a foot print the size of New York. And that's a cool ass premise.
But the book was so fucking milquetoast and bland. I could not tell you anything about the protagonist, their challenges, or anything.
The Last Jedi. Bombers in zero gravity but it's Star Wars, you continue to watch no matter what.
Idiocracy.
Loved the idea. Film itself... meh
I think I read that the studio insisted on changes that annoyed Mike Judge. Pootie Tang met the same fate. They should have just let professional comedians release whatever but some studio executive didn’t get the jokes and was like, “This movie won’t appeal to suburban fathers over 45.” or whatever.
In my experience, it often comes out that all of the shitty parts of comedy movies are not the fault of the creators. But comedians aren’t given creative freedom like Scorsese or whomever and also are like, “Make whatever edits you want. I made a stupid movie with my friends. You got my check?”
yeah read that Caddyshack was made in florida instead of california because they didn't want the studios breathing down their necks.
The punisher 2004. It's fun.
Battlefield Earth. It's a get drunk and veg kinda movie for me. It fucking sucks. But I like it.
Passengers (2016) is a shit film with an excellent premise but I never think about it, in fact it reminds me of its opposite, a superb film with a ridiculous premise called Sunshine (2007)
many
Jurassic park
First movie I saw in theaters that disappointed me. Too much dinosaurs running around trying to kill everyone without standing still and asking why this is happening.
A quick jab towards the old man that the park is not considered ready for opening yet is not enough, or that he's packaging stuff?
The Goldblum character's logic failed to intrigue me. He would have been much better to ask the old man questions about park safety and genetic engineering safety that could be scrutinized instead of full on attacking him about commercialization.
It made the kids more interesting than the adults.
I forgot what the relationships between the two main characters and the children were, but I believe they were divorced and the kids were theirs?
At the very least they should have had some character development. Have them both end up with new partners or something and show what makes the new pairs better than the old one.
I watched a recent review from TheNostalgiaCritic about this film, and he does touch upon a lot of what you said about the strange motivations of all the characters that led up to the Dinosaurs escaping. That being said, I liked it and would say it is iconic in both story and genre (semi-horror kid-friendly family film aimed at adults?)
I saw the Siskel and Ebert review and I agree with their point that there was a lack of awe in the movie that E.T. and close encounters of the third kind had.
This movie had dinosaurs being dangerous at almost all times. Only a moment after they awed a stampede was heading for them. The danger felt convoluted. Tacked in. And it would have been a good time to question the old man about park safety.
The old man never get punished for his reckless behavior. I don't get why my downvoters would disagree with me. Would you downvoters really have acted so calmly against the old man when the park goes haywire?