1. It's directed by Roland Emmerich who has not made a good film since Independene Day (and ID4 isn't that good).
2. If this big end of the world thing really is going to happen in 2012, hang on for another three years and watch it for free (preferably in the vicinity of a large spectacular looking building/monument).
3. It features John Cusack selling out yet again which is depressing to watch (we let Con Air go John because it was fun, but please get back to making cool films like High Fidelity).
4. There's a cute and no doubt annoying child who from the trailer appears to have a prominent role.
5. CGI
6. If you watch this tosh at the cinema this week, New Moon will be your only viewing option next week.
7. End of the world films are depressing.
8. There appears to be no option to cough up an extra £5 for the pleasure of watching the film whilst wearing a pair of silly glasses. I like to have this option, so I can have the satisfaction of not taking it.
9. Oh for feth's sake, according to wikipedia, John Cusack plays a character who is divorced from his wife. It is pratically the law in disaster movies to be divorced from your wife.
10. No mention on the cast list of Megan Fox. Slapdash casting decisions there...
11. It only has a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
12. Emmerich is planning a spin-off TV series. If the film does badly at the box office, we should at least be spared that crap.
Looking at his IMDB list there are only two movies I enjoyed that he's done: The Patriot and Independence Day. Interesting that a German such as Roland Emmerich has a fascination with American pride but hey its worked well for him I suppose.
Flashman wrote:8. There appears to be no option to cough up an extra £5 for the pleasure of watching the film whilst wearing a pair of silly glasses. I like to have this option, so I can have the satisfaction of not taking it.
Aye and not only that up until reccently our local cinema wouldn't let you take an old pair in.
Fortuantely the 'saving the enviroment' card worked out in favour of the average person this time. As some kids pointed out it was bad to the enviroment to not let folks reuse them, so to avoid looking bad they changed the rules from Nov 1st.
I might watch 2012, when it comes on Sky next year.
Altered_Soul wrote:#24: Why, god, WHY would you fly a plane UNDER the HIGHWAY, as it's completely COLLAPSING? TWICE.
Because then you can claim a 4+ cover save from falling debris
I am pretty sure Mother Nature has Move Through Cover and my guess is that the debris is actually D6" of S3 wounds. But since the plane is moving All Out, we all know how that will end.
Haven't been to the movies in 8 weeks and the only other movie I've thought about seeing is 'This is it', and that will be better on DVD.
Disaster movies are made for the big screen.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm thinking it will be similar in dopey schmaltzy ameriloving dad/daughter/son rubbish (i.e. war of the worlds and 2 days before the day after tomorrow) but I don't care. I want to see things blow up.
youbedead wrote:25. the mayan calender predicts a change to the second calender not the end of the world
QFT, you beat me to it.
I will make this #32 anyway.
Wiki wrote:1 Day = 1 K'in 20 K'in = 1 Winal 18 Winal = 1 Tun 20 Tun = 1 K'atun 20 K'atun = 1 B'ak'tun
Misinterpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is the basis for a New Age belief that a cataclysm will take place on December 21, 2012. December 20, 2012 is simply the last day of the 13th b'ak'tun, which began September 18, 1618 (1,728,000 days from the beginning of the calendar).
Sandra Noble, executive director of the Mesoamerican research organization FAMSI, notes that "for the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle". However, she considers the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event to be "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."
#33 - Watching monuments explode lost its luster after the live action version. I tossed out my copies of ID4 and Godzilla and have never seen the films since.
Cane wrote:Looking at his IMDB list there are only two movies I enjoyed that he's done: The Patriot and Independence Day.
Hang on, what? Somebody liked The Patriot? That... I mean... how?
Meanwhile, 2012 is getting two kinds of reviews. Some reviews are negative, saying its dumb but kind of fun, the rest are positive, saying it's fun but kind of dumb. If you want to go and watch extras get wiped by an ludicrously implausible geological disaster, then it'll probably be good fun.
Albatross wrote:I know mate - that totally blows my mind. That's like saying you like 'Waterworld'. Ugh.
'Waterworld' is about as historically accurate as 'The Patriot', for that matter.
Waterworld wasn't that bad. It was ludicrously expensive, they could have made the same movie for about $10 million if they cut back on the petrol explosions and that floating trading post that was in the movie for about 30 seconds. But it wasn't one of the worst movies of all time. It wasn't even the worst movie where Kevin Costner has gills.
Cane wrote:Looking at his IMDB list there are only two movies I enjoyed that he's done: The Patriot and Independence Day.
Hang on, what? Somebody liked The Patriot? That... I mean... how?
sebster wrote:
Albatross wrote:I know mate - that totally blows my mind. That's like saying you like 'Waterworld'. Ugh.
'Waterworld' is about as historically accurate as 'The Patriot', for that matter.
Waterworld wasn't that bad. It was ludicrously expensive, they could have made the same movie for about $10 million if they cut back on the petrol explosions and that floating trading post that was in the movie for about 30 seconds. But it wasn't one of the worst movies of all time. It wasn't even the worst movie where Kevin Costner has gills.
Pfft, The Patriot was far more entertaining than Waterworld but they're both hovering around the average mark.
Pfft, The Patriot was far more entertaining than Waterworld but they're both hovering around the average mark.
That's my point - they aren't the worst films ever, just excruciatingly average. And spending the GDP of a small country on 'average' is well....stupid.
I am going to wait for others to see it before I see Avatar. Right now it looks like touchy feely PC nonsense to me.
I want to see the movie where mankind kicks the beejeesus out of aliens and then takes all their stuff, and prank calls their alien houses at midnight.
Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Waterworld made $264,246,220 gross on cinema takings alone (No Tv, pay TV, Video, dvd, merchandising etc).
It cost $175,000,000 so that is a pretty damned healthy return.
Actually, my understanding is that the production costs of a film are only that and do not include marketing or distribution at all. A rule of thumb is that a film has to actually double its production cost to break even on all of its other costs. Box Office Mojo is a funny sight to peruse at how films may have failed despite adverts claiming "#1 movie of the year" Bullgak.
Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Also the new AVATAR trailer was on beforehand.
So it isn't Pocohantas in space, it is corporate loggers/miners vs forest indians.
Enjoy...
I suppose I could agree with the "seeming" part; the problem is you can't really tell what has been out of the ordinary until you step back from it. That ability will probably not be available until some time has passed. Personal perception over long periods of time also has as much to do with what you remember as what you see, which can make the fear of something becoming more common make it appear to be more common by itself.
(I wouldn't say it's really become a catastrophe at any rate, though.)
A study released Wednesday by the WMO -- a specialized climate science agency of the United Nations -- says the world is experiencing record numbers of extreme weather events, such as droughts and tornadoes.
"While the trend towards warmer globally averaged surface temperatures has been uneven over the course of the last century, the trend for the period since 1976 is roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a whole.
"Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880," the WMO warned.
Last year much of Australia was hit by the longest drought in recorded history, which devastated crop yields and sparked continual bushfires which threatened major cities.
Conversely, many parts of China and East Asia were hit by severe flooding resulting in thousands of deaths.
Hawkins wrote:46. If you want to watch a real end of the world story turn on your local news.
I don't know about that. The WWF (not the wrestlers) announced that the earth would be be in climate catastrophe in 5 years, 5 years ago yesterday.
Looking outside it seems alright to me.
So one outlandish claim from an activist organisation discredits and entire field of research? And note that they're an activist organisation, not even a group focussed on scientific climate studies.
Cane wrote:Pfft, The Patriot was far more entertaining than Waterworld but they're both hovering around the average mark.
No, Waterworld was an average movie that ran grossly overbudget. The Patriot was a remarkably horrible movie. The films commentary on the war seemed to be ‘good honest people that totally didn’t own any slaves at all didn’t want to fight but then the British went about acting like ludicrously stupid and evil goobers just like in Braveheart so Mel Gibson had to kill them just like in Braveheart’.
Braveheart, of course, took plenty of liberties with its history, but the pacing and characterisation were excellent so it works as a straight up fantasy movie. The Patriot doesn’t, because the pacing was turgid, the script very muddled, and the characters were one-note clichés.
The politics of the revolution are fascinating and I’d really like to see a good movie set during the period, but so far we’ve gotten that insufferably boring Al Pacino movie and The Patriot. And that Jeff Daniels movie, which is probably the best so far (feint praise indeed).
Hawkins wrote:46. If you want to watch a real end of the world story turn on your local news.
I don't know about that. The WWF (not the wrestlers) announced that the earth would be be in climate catastrophe in 5 years, 5 years ago yesterday.
Looking outside it seems alright to me.
So one outlandish claim from an activist organisation discredits and entire field of research? And note that they're an activist organisation, not even a group focussed on scientific climate studies.
I don't know that there's an entire field of research saying that the world is ending.
Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't know that there's an entire field of research saying that the world is ending.
(Well, a respectable field of research...)
Me either.
Didn't know any world government took it seriously, either, which makes me wonder why they would build giant boats to save people(or are they movie magic instantly built boats once everything started happening?).
There was a series on Samuel Adams not so long ago that looked pretty good - it had Paul Giamatti in it, I think...
But yeah, an accurate film on the American War of Independence would be interesting. There was treachery, corruption, extreme violence, breath-taking hubris and propaganda on BOTH sides of the conflict - the american people (or should I say British colonists) were basically caught between two opposing ruling classes, neither of whom had their best interests at heart.
Truth: Accurate fims are boring. It is OK to spend 2650000000000000000000000000 dollars (any currency) on a film just to get cheesy sfx on a rusty hull of an oil tanker. Blue aliens are sexy.
Hey, stop trash-talking Emmerich on the Godzilla case! Godzilla is hard. You had to make a believable giant-lizard-in-the-city action film based on stupid people in rubber suits knocking down cardboard sets. On film. For cinemas. O;O-----> The other example was a rubber articulated model moving at one frame an hour.
THAT for upgrading trash. And all the poor guy got is accusations of doing wierd stuff with giant lizards.
Edit: I was , for the cinematically illiterate, talking about the japanese movies made at the time on Godzilla. There about a hundred. According to them, Godzilla is powerd by a continuous atomic explosions in his heart. He could shoot atomic lasers and battle radioactive sea slime...
Jimi Nemesis wrote:
In the trailers, is that an enormous wave dostruying the himalayas? Is there enough water on the freaking planet to do that?
I don't think so. I recall reading about some sort of near-indestructible vault of grain seeds (like a gene bank for the world's food supply) that is being built in some remote Scandinavian region. The article specifically mentioned that it was sited so that even if all the ice in the world melted the entrance would still be above sea level, and it was something like <1000m elevation. The Himalayas has >100 mountains of >7,200m according to Wiki. You'd probably need 10 Anarticas melting to drown them.
I might watch 2012 in a few months when good quality versions find their way onto The Tubez.
Re: Avatar. So the main objective is just mining/resource extraction and not colonization of a habitable biosphere? They could have dropped a big rock from space, killing the natives AND clearing all that annoying vegetation as well. Problem solved, and no need for some stupid tree-hugger movie where the evil military-industrial complex once again gets its tail kicked.
I suppose Mister Turbo10k doesn't know anything about the japanese godzilla myth & movies ;-)
Fact is, that Emmerich ignored some basic rules of the godzilla universe and did a less-than-mediocre "jurassic park" rip-off with a big name to get more attention than the movie originally deserved...hell, even jurassic park 2 was better (and it really sucked monkey balls ^^ ).
Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't know that there's an entire field of research saying that the world is ending.
(Well, a respectable field of research...)
Fine, discredit my life's work, see if I care
Meanwhile, I may have misinterpreted the earlier comment about the WWF as dismissing environmental concerns, not just dismissing end of the world claims. Feel free to ignore.
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Albatross wrote:There was a series on Samuel Adams not so long ago that looked pretty good - it had Paul Giamatti in it, I think...
But yeah, an accurate film on the American War of Independence would be interesting. There was treachery, corruption, extreme violence, breath-taking hubris and propaganda on BOTH sides of the conflict - the american people (or should I say British colonists) were basically caught between two opposing ruling classes, neither of whom had their best interests at heart.
Good call, we don't get HBO here like you guys do (mostly that stuff shows up on regular cable eventually) so I'm still waiting to see Sam Adams. It does look really good.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Turbo10k wrote:Truth: Accurate fims are boring. It is OK to spend 2650000000000000000000000000 dollars (any currency) on a film just to get cheesy sfx on a rusty hull of an oil tanker. Blue aliens are sexy.
A film doesn't have to be realistic to be good, but there's plenty of films out there that are realistic and also very good. Master and Commander was mentioned in this thread, and it's a cracking good film and a very realistic depiction of naval combat of the time. Rob Roy got all the details right and was still an excellent movie. I think Jarhead is pretty well regarded in terms of accuracy, and I thought it was really good. Was Black Hawk Down really realistic, it certainly felt it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Noble713 wrote:
Jimi Nemesis wrote:
In the trailers, is that an enormous wave dostruying the himalayas? Is there enough water on the freaking planet to do that?
I don't think so. I recall reading about some sort of near-indestructible vault of grain seeds (like a gene bank for the world's food supply) that is being built in some remote Scandinavian region. The article specifically mentioned that it was sited so that even if all the ice in the world melted the entrance would still be above sea level, and it was something like <1000m elevation. The Himalayas has >100 mountains of >7,200m according to Wiki. You'd probably need 10 Anarticas melting to drown them.
I'm not sure, but is the movie showing total sea levels rising over the Himalayas, or is it just showing a wave so massive that it temporarily rose over them? Because the latter would be somewhat plausible, assuming there were planet shattering geological forces at work. I mean, I'd think any geological event so great as to cause a wave so great it could overwhelm the Himalayas would be a planet killing event, but still.
Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Also the new AVATAR trailer was on beforehand.
So it isn't Pocohantas in space, it is corporate loggers/miners vs forest indians.
Enjoy...
Did you see "Dances with Smurfs" last night?
Yeah. i think it is kinda screwed up that they are bashing a movie that isnt even out yet.
Sam Adams on DVD? I buy mine in 6 pack form (or 12 pack on occasion) in a bottle.
Would be very hard to drink in DVD format.
Waterworld was crap. Like Titanic. Very expensive to make with lots of fx but couldn't stomach more than 10 minutes of it (and I only stomached 10 mins of Titanic because the intro showing all the inner workings of the ships engine room and boilers was the best part of the almost 3 hour yawnfest).
I just watched 2012 two hours ago. OK film, plausible destruction and high quality SFX, but lacking a highly passionate storyline. In some ways, it is just a brainless succession of very well made I-trashed-your-neighbourhood scenes.
I rate it: Go watch it. Just don't wear 2012 shirts.
Damn, I would really like to see a good SciFi movie that isn't all about us "Dirty Greedy Humans". I got my fill of that crap reading/watching Lord of the Rings.
I thought humans were fairly inspiring in those movies. I mean, Aragorn was human, and he was one of the most important characters. The human nations in the movie rallied against Sauron (although some joined him).
More in the books really. How all the evil was brought about by the greed of the human kings given the rings. Plus Saruman's fall and the Steward of Gondor being such an idiot.
The best way to experience LOTR is to read the 1200 page 50th anniversary edition. Nurgleboy77 was right, all of this was caused but human greed, but not intentionally. Malekith, the god fallen from favour among his brothers, exploited human nature to turn his brother's creations against them. It worked, until he his successor got beaten up by HOBBIIIIIITS.
I really don't think you can blame Humans for being greedy when the only thing that stopped the Hobbits from taking over Middle Earth was that they never stopped preparing meals, eating, or clearing up afterwards.
Nurgleboy77 wrote:More in the books really. How all the evil was brought about by the greed of the human kings given the rings. Plus Saruman's fall and the Steward of Gondor being such an idiot.
Saruman wasn't human. Denethor WAS a douche though.
Just got back from 2012. I liked it. Does it have a weak and predictable plot? Of course it does! But visuals were Outstanding to watch on the big screen! Go see it to SEE it, not have it be some thought provoking master piece, and you'll enjoy it.
Fail? I'm sorry but i read all the posts and we got off topic like 4 times.
number 47!
.....................................................................are you serious how does that hapeen? OK SO AIR VECHILES BLOW UP APPARENTLY WHEN HIT BY WATER? ARE YOU SERIOUS REVERSE PHYSICS!
I tossed out my copies of ID4 and Godzilla and have never seen the films since.
The other example was a rubber articulated model moving at one frame an hour.
