I didn't see a thread like this on here, so I guess I'll toss my hat in the ring since I need to get this off my chest...
I was explaining Escape From New York to a young soldier who had never seen it, so we made it a movie night thing with the unit. I had forgotten about how absolutely horrid the character Johnny was in that movie, and how absolutely awful the actor was. So much so that when the character's "arc resolved" his acting spoiled what should have been the most satisfying moment of the movie for me.
"I don't like sand, it's coarse, it's rough, it's irritating and it gets everywhere."
Develop a movie trilogy, completely screw up the writing and dialogue for the most important character, throughout *two* different actors.
A lot of films would be just... better, if it weren't for random comic relief sidekick that got shoehorned in. I guess Shortround is possibly one of the biggest examples of this.
Compel wrote: I'll get the easy answer out of the way.
"I don't like sand, it's coarse, it's rough, it's irritating and it gets everywhere."
There is definitely an (I think) valid, longstanding criticism of Hollywood that they too often choose actors for their looks over their acting ability.
But it's arguable that not even Laurence Olivier could have done much with that line!
I would nominate Jake Lloyd’s portrayal of Anakin. But, given he was just a kid, I don’t think that’s terribly fair or just.
And the rest is predominantly dodgy script and wonky directing.
Now. An actual nomination, but it’s tv.
Carla Delaveigne in Carnival Row. Specifically, her awful, unconvincing “ Oirish” accent.
Not only is it distractingly bad, but none of the other Fae have such an accent, making me wonder why she bothered.
Seriously, I can’t watch that show because of it. I’m like Manny in Black Books looking at the subutteo figure in the blokes hair. I completely tune out because of it.
I don't blame anyone's acting in the prequel movies. Given how many actually great actors there are in those films bumbling out clunky lines left and right, I think its pretty clearly a fault of the script and directing.
Jared Leto in Bladerunner 2049. Everyone else gave top notch performances, then the camera would cut to Leto and the movie would lose all steam. If the film was a bubbling jacuzzi of success, Leto was the guy deucing into the jet stream.
I got a few
Captain Marvel was completely ruined by Brie Larson and Captain Marvel. I saw Brie Larson act before and she is a great emotional actor. IDK why they gave the emotionless character to her?
The Sequel Trilogy was honestly worse off for Finn, he wasn't an interesting character and Johnny Boyega played him to whimsically to make it believable to be a former stormtrooper.
The Main guy from godzilla(2014) made it worse. I understand the need to have human characters in a monster movie. But he wasnt that good. He was kind of bland and his only motivation was "Get back to my family", His father was a better character.
Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was the worst casting of any character that comes to mind in recent history. As Mr. Morden said, I like the actor just fine, but he was absolutely atrocious.
I mean, it didn't ruin the movie, because it wasn't a very good movie to begin with? But it sure didn't make it better.
A lot of these are better examples of bad directing - Captain Marvel in general is a nice window into an alternate universe where someone other than James Gunn tries to make Guardians of the Galaxy, and Hayden Christensen is a better, more complete Anakin Skywalker in Life as a House than he ever was in any Star Wars movie.
Carla Delaveigne in Carnival Row. Specifically, her awful, unconvincing “ Oirish” accent.
Not only is it distractingly bad, but none of the other Fae have such an accent, making me wonder why she bothered..
The main elf girl in Dragon Prince hit me the exact same way (except its theoretically a Scottish accent, though it, uh, wanders...), I stalled on the show because of it.
What's worse is her bio says she's actually Scottish (or at least born in Scotland), so the accent shouldn't be as horribly grating as it is.
The fact that she's a writer for the show and voices the lead (at least lead non-child character) is a big warning sign.
hotsauceman1 wrote:Captain Marvel was completely ruined by Brie Larson and Captain Marvel. I saw Brie Larson act before and she is a great emotional actor. IDK why they gave the emotionless character to her?
The Sequel Trilogy was honestly worse off for Finn, he wasn't an interesting character and Johnny Boyega played him to whimsically to make it believable to be a former stormtrooper.
I actually liked Larson's performance. It felt more like real emotional reactions than the typically overwrought melodrama that passes for emotion in film (especially when accompanied by musical shifts so the audience Gets It).
There was never a point I was lost as to what she was feeling, and it almost always felt genuine.
Finn is a weird story. Not sure if its the actor or the writing, but he slid down to 'joke character' status really quick, after what should have been a serious introduction. It should have been a struggle to come to terms with the real world outside his brainwashing and conditioning, instead he's cracking jokes and being a goofball in minutes. It amuses me that the She-Ra reboot did essentially the same character backstory, but so much better, even while keeping the humorous reactions (though ditching the 'cringe comedy' of movie 2).
I actually liked Larson's performance. It felt more like real emotional reactions than the typically overwrought melodrama that passes for emotion in film (especially when accompanied by musical shifts so the audience Gets It).
There was never a point I was lost as to what she was feeling, and it almost always felt genuine.
Agreed - never understood the hate for her or that film - my firends and I really enjoyed all of it.
Is it Rob Schneider, or the direction? Maybe a little of column A, little of column B.
Rob Schneider is that irritating in everything he does, though. It wasn't the directing, other than for saying 'Let's put Rob Schneider in there, playing Rob Schneider's character!'
Oh Lordy. Whilst I do have a new found appreciation for that film (it is ultimately loads of fun), Fergee is still nothing more than an irritation.
Is it Rob Schneider, or the direction? Maybe a little of column A, little of column B.
It might be that Rob Schneider was doing a fantastic job in the role of Guy You Want to Punch. I just rewatched Surf Ninjas, and I think that was the point where Schneider was typecast. Before then, he was enjoyable to watch on SNL, and in various small roles. He was really funny as a stand up comedian.
I think he actually did a good job in Judge Dredd, leavening the story until the movie could finally get Stallone and Assante together, their powers combined, into Hamtron.
Finn is a weird story. Not sure if its the actor or the writing, but he slid down to 'joke character' status really quick, after what should have been a serious introduction. It should have been a struggle to come to terms with the real world outside his brainwashing and conditioning, instead he's cracking jokes and being a goofball in minutes. It amuses me that the She-Ra reboot did essentially the same character backstory, but so much better, even while keeping the humorous reactions (though ditching the 'cringe comedy' of movie 2).
She-Ra does a lot of the things the Sequel Trilogy tried to do, but blatantly better.
In part is the advantage of having an unified creative vision under Noelle Stevenson, in part is having the time of a tv show instead of only 3 movies.
I actually liked Larson's performance. It felt more like real emotional reactions than the typically overwrought melodrama that passes for emotion in film (especially when accompanied by musical shifts so the audience Gets It).
There was never a point I was lost as to what she was feeling, and it almost always felt genuine.
Agreed - never understood the hate for her or that film - my firends and I really enjoyed all of it.
A lot of the hate was directed at her because of a few political statements she made combined with the fact that she was said to be "the most powerful ever" that rubbed certain... people, the wrong way.
I'm gonna third Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor BTW, that was an AWEFUL casting choice. IMHO they should have made Lex an older jaded busniessman who in his mide had made metropolis and the world his lfies work, who was the darling of the world etc. only to in his mind be swept aside like yesterdays garbage in favor of superman.
ben afleck as batman and whoever the kid was that palyed the flash.. and the lex luthor. All terrible.. But i don't know how much of that is directors fault.
Henry cavil and gadot carried the entire cast..
Also, the newest peter parker... God... that's the worse spider man/peter parker we had. And I'm talking worse then mcquire bad in spiderman 3...
Well, dunno if its Argive's issue, but I turned off the first new Spiderfilm after about 5-10 minutes just because I couldn't stand the constant social media phone babble coming out of his mouth. Just non-stop verbal diarrhea.
I had little desire to sit through yet another spiderman coming of age film in the first place, but the frantic, non-stop yammering just stopped me cold.
ya know I'll agree with this, I'm getting a little tired of how every spidy movie is "Spidy as a teenage kid" hell Peter B Parker in Spiderverse was a refreshing take on him because he was a tired jaded vet.
Yeah I dont get why he has to be a teenager in anything.
In the OG 90s cartoon parker was at university studying serious science with a side gig of being a photographer. And he is jacked adult. And hes more mature in the that cartoon that the live action people are capable of presenting..
And I will just put it out there but I don't mind Toby Mcquires spiderman. Just not buff enough..
I'll name one many won't have thought of: Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble in the live action Flintstones movie. Regardless of what you might think of the movie as a whole (I know I'm in the minority since I love it), the casting was otherwise pretty solid. John Goodman was literally born to play Fred Flintstone, Rick Moranis made a great Barney Rubble, and Elizabeth Perkins was pretty good as Wilma. But Rosie was absolutely awful. And not just because her looks didn't match the old cartoon; her acting didn't fit the character either, and she wasn't really funny. And I'm not just a hater of Rosie O'Donnell, either; I liked her in A League Of Their Own reasonably well. She was just a poor casting choice for The Flintstones.
Tyran wrote: Because Spider-man was in high school in its original incarnation and is at its hearth a coming of age story.
Spiderverse works because it is a Miles Morales story, not a Peter Parker one.
except as others have noted. spider-man hasn't in the comics been a teenager since the 70s. Most people of the "millenial generation" grew up with spider-man as a young adult dealing with the problems inherant in being a young adult
Tyran wrote: Because Spider-man was in high school in its original incarnation and is at its hearth a coming of age story.
Spiderverse works because it is a Miles Morales story, not a Peter Parker one.
Eh? Spiderverse and Morales in general is much more a coming of age story. It has all the insecurities, lack of any responsibilities beyond school, dealing with the world as teenager, not dealing well with other heroes who are more experienced, etc.
Peter as Spiderman... doesn't really have that. For a long, long time, its been Get-Over-Ben-Already and start fighting crime while dealing a crappy job market, usually while in some way working for the villain of the arc (especially in the movie versions). Add in crappy marriages, worries about the health of an older relative, it is not in any real way a teen life experience. It very much settled into the 'not prepared to deal with real life experience' of Gen X.
If i remember, the Sam Raimi spiderman started with him in HS in the beginning of the first movie, then he was in College not to far later.
I think part of the reason is sometimes writers dont know how to write relatable adult problems, so they stick with "simple" teenage problems.
But my biggest problem with the new batch of spider movies is, spiderman in this incarnation isnt this scrappy guy who gets by with just his brains and an old celphone for parts. He is presented as smary yeah, but he is given all his toys (AND SUIT) by Tony. He doesnt want for anything, other than to prove himself. But i never remember "Proving Himself as a hero" as peters thing, Peter was always well respected among heros.
Tyran wrote: Because Spider-man was in high school in its original incarnation and is at its hearth a coming of age story.
Spiderverse works because it is a Miles Morales story, not a Peter Parker one.
Eh? Spiderverse and Morales in general is much more a coming of age story. It has all the insecurities, lack of any responsibilities beyond school, dealing with the world as teenager, not dealing well with other heroes who are more experienced, etc.
Peter as Spiderman... doesn't really have that. For a long, long time, its been Get-Over-Ben-Already and start fighting crime while dealing a crappy job market, usually while in some way working for the villain of the arc (especially in the movie versions). Add in crappy marriages, worries about the health of an older relative, it is not in any real way a teen life experience. It very much settled into the 'not prepared to deal with real life experience' of Gen X.
For a long time he has been that, but originally Peter Parker was a high school kid. It just that it has been decades since then, at least before Disney.
Fynn's character is IMO the victim of bad writing given to a mediocre actor. Fynn, as they decided to portray him with his chosen backstory was doomed to be a bad character from the start. Which is unfortunate because they could have so easily had him be a really pivotal awesome character with a lot of depth. Instead he starts out as a main character who rapidly devolves into a tertiary character.
Fynn would have been very compelling if he had been a grizzled veteran stormtrooper, who had an attack of conscience and decided he wasn't down with the First Order anymore. Make him someone with dirty hands and a dirty conscience, struggling with a warped moral compass due to decades of mental conditioning. He isn't aligned with the First Order, but he isn't quite yet a full Resistance sympathizer. Maybe he's an Empire traditionalist who is fed up with the radical ideals of the First Order, so he feels that the Resistance is the lesser of two evils to choose between. The Empire didn't, in his eyes, just mow down civilians left and right, the First Order isn't what he signed up for.
This backstory would actually make his plot contributions make sense. He knows where sensitive weakpoints are located and where important data is kept. He would also be a good action hero, because badass ex-stormtrooper. Better yet, make him an ex-Death Trooper. Really up his combat experience, capability, etc...
Instead, he is a Storm Trooper janitor who somehow made it through 10+ years of indoctrination and screening as an abject coward who somehow knows where all the weak spots and important data is. Sorry, he would not have made it past 10 years old before they found out and liquidated him.
Movie 2 could also have done something interesting with him. And I actually thought at first it was going to happen. When he wakes up from his injuries, he could have reverted to being a First Order loyal soldier. A mental failsafe maybe. Maybe a tracker in the brain leads the first order to the fleet and thats how they can track the fleet, rather than some convoluted hyperspace tracking. So we end up with a race to get rid of the tracker instead of them going to Space Vegas.
At first, I felt sorry for John Boyega getting shafted by bad writing decisions turning him into a joke character, but his subsequent whining has shown he is unworthy of any potential success he might been robbed of.
George Clooney is a guy i kinda like, haze zip against and might not mind being around for a while. That said, he is not batman material. I don't blame him, after the dark, brooding batmans brought to use by keaton, who looked less like batman but acted more like batman that clooney, and Kilmer who really had it down, the director wanted a more upbeat, relaxed batman.
Well, that's just not batman. Clooney gave the performance the director wanted, it just wasn't a batman performance.
Schwarzenegger. Again i have little against this actor. If we were stuck in an elevator for a few hours I like to think we could sit, talk and get along decently. And his Mr. Freeze, again which was what the director wanted, was utterly horrible. His ridiculous accent which was thicker than Ahnuld's natural one, his dialog ("Vatch ze numbers, batman, for zey count your doom! Vehn ze rahket reaches 40,000 feet your heart vill freeze in your chest, unt beat no moahr!") was was the definition of cringeworthy.
Uma thurman. No feelings towards her really at all, not a kill bill fan. Her laughable performance as mae West gone evil was just a factory for groans and sighs.
Everything else in that movie was a multi megaton clusterbomb of wrongness, so i can't say the actors performances ruined it all on their own.
George Clooney is a guy i kinda like, haze zip against and might not mind being around for a while. That said, he is not batman material. I don't blame him, after the dark, brooding batmans brought to use by keaton, who looked less like batman but acted more like batman that clooney, and Kilmer who really had it down, the director wanted a more upbeat, relaxed batman.
Well, that's just not batman. Clooney gave the performance the director wanted, it just wasn't a batman performance.
Schwarzenegger. Again i have little against this actor. If we were stuck in an elevator for a few hours I like to think we could sit, talk and get along decently. And his Mr. Freeze, again which was what the director wanted, was utterly horrible. His ridiculous accent which was thicker than Ahnuld's natural one, his dialog ("Vatch ze numbers, batman, for zey count your doom! Vehn ze rahket reaches 40,000 feet your heart vill freeze in your chest, unt beat no moahr!") was was the definition of cringeworthy.
Uma thurman. No feelings towards her really at all, not a kill bill fan. Her laughable performance as mae West gone evil was just a factory for groans and sighs.
Everything else in that movie was a multi megaton clusterbomb of wrongness, so i can't say the actors performances ruined it all on their own.
I think they were trying to go back to the 60’s campy Adam West batman, and just not hitting the mark. But I only saw the movie once. Was dragged to it by a group of friends. On the bright side, I used the fact that I was subjected to it to drag everyone to see a Godzilla flick on the big screen, so at least it had some value.
How many movies mentioned in this thread actually would have been exceptional without the characters that got under your skin...for whatever reasons?
The premise is different than saying 'better without X', and I honestly can't think of films that fit the bill for me personally. If there are genuine issues with a given character, the problems with the movie very likely extend beyond that single character. Frankly, I see a lot of mediocre or worse films being mentioned here, so...
Compel wrote: I'll get the easy answer out of the way.
"I don't like sand, it's coarse, it's rough, it's irritating and it gets everywhere."
Develop a movie trilogy, completely screw up the writing and dialogue for the most important character, throughout *two* different actors.
A lot of films would be just... better, if it weren't for random comic relief sidekick that got shoehorned in. I guess Shortround is possibly one of the biggest examples of this.
My GF named our dog Dr. Jones / Indy because of short round lol. Apparently he made the movie for her
Grey Templar wrote: Fynn's character is IMO the victim of bad writing given to a mediocre actor. Fynn, as they decided to portray him with his chosen backstory was doomed to be a bad character from the start. Which is unfortunate because they could have so easily had him be a really pivotal awesome character with a lot of depth. Instead he starts out as a main character who rapidly devolves into a tertiary character.
Fynn would have been very compelling if he had been a grizzled veteran stormtrooper, who had an attack of conscience and decided he wasn't down with the First Order anymore. Make him someone with dirty hands and a dirty conscience, struggling with a warped moral compass due to decades of mental conditioning. He isn't aligned with the First Order, but he isn't quite yet a full Resistance sympathizer. Maybe he's an Empire traditionalist who is fed up with the radical ideals of the First Order, so he feels that the Resistance is the lesser of two evils to choose between. The Empire didn't, in his eyes, just mow down civilians left and right, the First Order isn't what he signed up for.
This backstory would actually make his plot contributions make sense. He knows where sensitive weakpoints are located and where important data is kept. He would also be a good action hero, because badass ex-stormtrooper. Better yet, make him an ex-Death Trooper. Really up his combat experience, capability, etc...
Instead, he is a Storm Trooper janitor who somehow made it through 10+ years of indoctrination and screening as an abject coward who somehow knows where all the weak spots and important data is. Sorry, he would not have made it past 10 years old before they found out and liquidated him.
Movie 2 could also have done something interesting with him. And I actually thought at first it was going to happen. When he wakes up from his injuries, he could have reverted to being a First Order loyal soldier. A mental failsafe maybe. Maybe a tracker in the brain leads the first order to the fleet and thats how they can track the fleet, rather than some convoluted hyperspace tracking. So we end up with a race to get rid of the tracker instead of them going to Space Vegas.
At first, I felt sorry for John Boyega getting shafted by bad writing decisions turning him into a joke character, but his subsequent whining has shown he is unworthy of any potential success he might been robbed of.
Finn is by far the best character in the new (terrible) trilogy.
It's Kylo Ren that was a huge disappointment: the character is awful and you can predict his entire storyline since the first minute he appears on the screen, not to mention that the actor is too old for the role. Daisy Ridley, who also portrays a very bland character, looks like a child next to him.
To me the character that almost ruined a masterpiece is John Connor in T2. Movie is awesome on any possible level but I can't stand that kid, to the point that I wished for some director's cut in which the T1000 manages to kill him. It's also one of the main reasons why I loved Dark Fate, where the annoying character that almost ruined the movie was Sarah Connor instead. In that case the problem it's not the actress or the performance, it's the character that was poorly written and totally unnecessary for the plot.
The funny thing about Spiderman is that he's essentially had two origin stories. Night of the Goblin basically reboots the series with a new trauma while wiping out most of the existing supporting cast and significantly altering the motivation of the remaining characters. The movies like to focus on the first arcs of the character but many of us grew up only really knowing the second that Marvel hasn't fully known what to do with.
It's Kylo Ren that was a huge disappointment: the character is awful and you can predict his entire storyline since the first minute he appears on the screen, not to mention that the actor is too old for the role. Daisy Ridley, who also portrays a very bland character, looks like a child next to him.
I disagree on the second movie, I wasn't expecting that one.
But the first one and specially the third one? yeah extremely predictable.
Anything Johnny Depp has been in except Pirates would have been better with another actor.
I can't blame any of the prequel trilogy on the actors. You've got legit oscar winners in them left and right and the acting is terrible. That's directing/screen writing all the way.
Aladdin remake with Will Smith as the Genie. I just didn't like him int he role. Part of that is taking over for Williams but another part is he just didn't feel right.I like that movie otherwise.
TV show wise the whiny annoying kid in Cobrai Kai. Dude kills every scene he's in for me.
gorgon wrote: How many movies mentioned in this thread actually would have been exceptional without the characters that got under your skin...for whatever reasons?
The premise is different than saying 'better without X', and I honestly can't think of films that fit the bill for me personally. If there are genuine issues with a given character, the problems with the movie very likely extend beyond that single character. Frankly, I see a lot of mediocre or worse films being mentioned here, so...
I actually enjoyed the cast in Batman vs Superman I liked Angry Batman, happy with Superman, Wonder Woman was awesome but Loopy Lex ruins every scene he is in.
Make him a dangerous, power hungry manipulator rather than manic capering idiot-child and it would have been a much much better film.
gorgon wrote: How many movies mentioned in this thread actually would have been exceptional without the characters that got under your skin...for whatever reasons?
The premise is different than saying 'better without X', and I honestly can't think of films that fit the bill for me personally. If there are genuine issues with a given character, the problems with the movie very likely extend beyond that single character. Frankly, I see a lot of mediocre or worse films being mentioned here, so...
I actually enjoyed the cast in Batman vs Superman I liked Angry Batman, happy with Superman, Wonder Woman was awesome but Loopy Lex ruins every scene he is in.
Make him a dangerous, power hungry manipulator rather than manic capering idiot-child and it would have been a much much better film.
They had so many other options for people who could have played this role well too. Bryan Cranston would have killed it.
I feel like Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is a big one for me in the more recent X-Men movies, J-Law isn't a terrible actress, but she didn't seem like she was playing Mystique at all given her characterization. Also, it's kinda hard to follow up Rebecca Romijin's take, J-Law's face was something I couldn't take seriously in her blue form. Sophie Turner as Jean Grey is another bad cast, since she basically can't act outside of one emotional range of outside of constipated angst. If you did watch the newer movies, it was just for Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy.
I actually like the second marvel film. I think the abomination was perfect and even Liv Tyler is passable. And I do like Ed Norton in many of his other films (recently watched Motherless Brooklyn and its enjoyable). But Ed doesn't click with what's going on here and almost anyone would have been better.
gorgon wrote: How many movies mentioned in this thread actually would have been exceptional without the characters that got under your skin...for whatever reasons?
The premise is different than saying 'better without X', and I honestly can't think of films that fit the bill for me personally. If there are genuine issues with a given character, the problems with the movie very likely extend beyond that single character. Frankly, I see a lot of mediocre or worse films being mentioned here, so...
I actually enjoyed the cast in Batman vs Superman I liked Angry Batman, happy with Superman, Wonder Woman was awesome but Loopy Lex ruins every scene he is in.
Make him a dangerous, power hungry manipulator rather than manic capering idiot-child and it would have been a much much better film.
I don't like everything about the performance either, but I think I'd argue that the character was written that way and that it served the story. Which pushed that Bruce, Clark, and Lex were all formed by their experiences with their parents. This comes up in dialogue throughout the film ("I bet your parents taught you..." etc). The script also revealed that Lex had an abusive, domineering dad, which obviously warped his world view. Seems clear that the existence of a vastly superior being triggered his daddy issues after he'd worked so hard to surpass his father, etc.
So are the issues really about the performance or casting alone? If you lift out that variable, is the film 'fixed'? Or are there probably deeper issues?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hulksmash wrote: I can't blame any of the prequel trilogy on the actors. You've got legit oscar winners in them left and right and the acting is terrible. That's directing/screen writing all the way.
Also, maybe even the story concept of starting Anakin as a younger child. Lots to consider there beyond "Jake Lloyd sucks."
The BvS story would have been a lot better with a whole different lex luthor.
I'd have liked to see luthor as sort of a anti hero sharing batman's view that the world cannot trust its fate to one alien and who honestly be,lieved he and he alone due to his intellect was "The One" who could save humanity.
Maybe make lex's backstory that his parents were irresponsible idiots and he had to be the head of the house at an early age due to his superior intellect, and had developed a superiority complex that was in some ways justified.
It might have been enough to make batman have a realization about himself.
But make luthor sincere in his desire to protect humanity,but maybe for his own egotistical reasons and believe he is the only one who can do it, that would have been a more interesting character.
gorgon wrote: How many movies mentioned in this thread actually would have been exceptional without the characters that got under your skin...for whatever reasons?
The premise is different than saying 'better without X', and I honestly can't think of films that fit the bill for me personally. If there are genuine issues with a given character, the problems with the movie very likely extend beyond that single character. Frankly, I see a lot of mediocre or worse films being mentioned here, so...
I actually enjoyed the cast in Batman vs Superman I liked Angry Batman, happy with Superman, Wonder Woman was awesome but Loopy Lex ruins every scene he is in.
Make him a dangerous, power hungry manipulator rather than manic capering idiot-child and it would have been a much much better film.
I don't like everything about the performance either, but I think I'd argue that the character was written that way and that it served the story. Which pushed that Bruce, Clark, and Lex were all formed by their experiences with their parents. This comes up in dialogue throughout the film ("I bet your parents taught you..." etc). The script also revealed that Lex had an abusive, domineering dad, which obviously warped his world view. Seems clear that the existence of a vastly superior being triggered his daddy issues after he'd worked so hard to surpass his father, etc.
So are the issues really about the performance or casting alone? If you lift out that variable, is the film 'fixed'? Or are there probably deeper issues?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hulksmash wrote: I can't blame any of the prequel trilogy on the actors. You've got legit oscar winners in them left and right and the acting is terrible. That's directing/screen writing all the way.
Also, maybe even the story concept of starting Anakin as a younger child. Lots to consider there beyond "Jake Lloyd sucks."
Jake loyd was bullied and beaten by other kids for playing Anakin, he grew up with a lot of anger issues over the hate thrown at him over it, and is now an adult with serious mental, criminal and drug issues. I hope the "Let's hate Jake Loyd" crowd is proud of themselves.
Grimskul wrote: I feel like Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is a big one for me in the more recent X-Men movies, J-Law isn't a terrible actress, but she didn't seem like she was playing Mystique at all given her characterization.
I don't think that's down to J-Law so much as just that the director chose to take the character in a very different direction to her comics incarnation, supposedly due to her popularity with the fans after the first movie.
Sophie Turner as Jean Grey is another bad cast, since she basically can't act outside of one emotional range of outside of constipated angst. If you did watch the newer movies, it was just for Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy.
I have no particular issue with Sophie Turner, but Jean Grey was always one of my least favourite characters anyway. It would certainly have been much less of an issue if they had chosen a different story arc that focused on other characters rather than wasting a movie rehashing the Dark Phoenix saga.
insaniak wrote: [
I have no particular issue with Sophie Turner, but Jean Grey was always one of my least favourite characters anyway. It would certainly have been much less of an issue if they had chosen a different story arc that focused on other characters rather than wasting a movie rehashing the Dark Phoenix saga.
That's a large part of why Dark Phoenix doesn't translate well to film (also getting the same guy to try the same stupid version of the story that didn't work the first time...) but I digress. I big part of why the original comic was a big deal was that Jean was boring. She was a nothing character that mostly served as a romantic interest/mother hen for the team. That's what made turning her into the villain such a huge moment in comics.
Matt Swain wrote: The BvS story would have been a lot better with a whole different lex luthor.
I'd have liked to see luthor as sort of a anti hero sharing batman's view that the world cannot trust its fate to one alien and who honestly be,lieved he and he alone due to his intellect was "The One" who could save humanity.
Maybe make lex's backstory that his parents were irresponsible idiots and he had to be the head of the house at an early age due to his superior intellect, and had developed a superiority complex that was in some ways justified.
It might have been enough to make batman have a realization about himself.
But make luthor sincere in his desire to protect humanity,but maybe for his own egotistical reasons and believe he is the only one who can do it, that would have been a more interesting character.
Fine, but would that actually change the way the film was received by critics or audiences?
Personally I think the issues started at conception, when they decided on the 'V' in BvS, and gave Snyder full control to treat it like his passion project. The decision to feature good guys beating each others' brains just created hurdles, and arguably dictated Lex's role to some degree.
I just don't see individual characters in films as existing in vacuums often...if ever. If there are significant problems with a given actor or character, then there are probably other problems with the direction, script, story, etc.
Matt Swain wrote: The BvS story would have been a lot better with a whole different lex luthor.
I'd have liked to see luthor as sort of a anti hero sharing batman's view that the world cannot trust its fate to one alien and who honestly be,lieved he and he alone due to his intellect was "The One" who could save humanity.
Maybe make lex's backstory that his parents were irresponsible idiots and he had to be the head of the house at an early age due to his superior intellect, and had developed a superiority complex that was in some ways justified.
It might have been enough to make batman have a realization about himself.
But make luthor sincere in his desire to protect humanity,but maybe for his own egotistical reasons and believe he is the only one who can do it, that would have been a more interesting character.
Fine, but would that actually change the way the film was received by critics or audiences?
Personally I think the issues started at conception, when they decided on the 'V' in BvS, and gave Snyder full control to treat it like his passion project. The decision to feature good guys beating each others' brains just created hurdles, and arguably dictated Lex's role to some degree.
I just don't see individual characters in films as existing in vacuums often...if ever. If there are significant problems with a given actor or character, then there are probably other problems with the direction, script, story, etc.
With a Luthor that is as described before by matt swain - each scene with the current Loopy Lex would have been very different and would have changed the film dramatically IMO for all who saw it.
Although alot of the blame for how shockingly bad this portrayal was lies with the actor who apparently was given complete freedom - much aslo needs to be laid at the feet of the Director who presumably directed the scenes with a capering idiotic and nonsensical character and said "yep thats what I wanted".
The problem has always been that Snyder is a fan of the deconstructionist super hero stories but not of the stories they deconstruct. His work has passion and talent for what he's adapting but without reverence for the core ideas, he lacks an understanding of what there is to subvert and ends up creating something that feels more like a means spirited parody.
insaniak wrote: [
I have no particular issue with Sophie Turner, but Jean Grey was always one of my least favourite characters anyway. It would certainly have been much less of an issue if they had chosen a different story arc that focused on other characters rather than wasting a movie rehashing the Dark Phoenix saga.
That's a large part of why Dark Phoenix doesn't translate well to film (also getting the same guy to try the same stupid version of the story that didn't work the first time...) but I digress. I big part of why the original comic was a big deal was that Jean was boring. She was a nothing character that mostly served as a romantic interest/mother hen for the team. That's what made turning her into the villain such a huge moment in comics.
Well partly that* but also the years of build-up. Her 'turn' is after multiple years of background buildup (psychic seduction/manipulation), and her villain arc is 10 months of comics. You can't replicate that in a single film... though they could have at least tried something other than the director's terrible option. An innate 'dark side' imprisoned by Xavier is all sorts of levels of squick.
*which is mostly 1970s inability to do much with female characters, both from culture and censorship.
insaniak wrote: [
I have no particular issue with Sophie Turner, but Jean Grey was always one of my least favourite characters anyway. It would certainly have been much less of an issue if they had chosen a different story arc that focused on other characters rather than wasting a movie rehashing the Dark Phoenix saga.
That's a large part of why Dark Phoenix doesn't translate well to film (also getting the same guy to try the same stupid version of the story that didn't work the first time...) but I digress. I big part of why the original comic was a big deal was that Jean was boring. She was a nothing character that mostly served as a romantic interest/mother hen for the team. That's what made turning her into the villain such a huge moment in comics.
Well partly that* but also the years of build-up. Her 'turn' is after multiple years of background buildup (psychic seduction/manipulation), and her villain arc is 10 months of comics. You can't replicate that in a single film... though they could have at least tried something other than the director's terrible option. An innate 'dark side' imprisoned by Xavier is all sorts of levels of squick.
*which is mostly 1970s inability to do much with female characters, both from culture and censorship.
Exactly. Doing the Phoenix saga would have required laying foundations in X1/X2, and then continuing the process through all the other X-movies until it came to a final conclusion in the Dark Phoenix movie. It wouldn't have to follow the comic plotlines beat for beat, but it needed to happen as a slow build and not an 'all at once' occurance.
Ahtman wrote:The original Nightmare on Elm Street was just fine with Depp in it.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:YeH, he made a big splash in that movie.
Oh, you.
So far as Sophie Turner, I have seen nothing from any of her performances to indicate she has any talent or charisma. Dark Phoenix was doomed to failure anyway for reasons already described, but she certainly contributed very little to improve it.
So far as Sophie Turner, I have seen nothing from any of her performances to indicate she has any talent or charisma.
Her Sansa is one on my favorite characters in Game of Thrones. Much better than Emilia Clarke for sure, which IMHO can't act at all bust she's prettier and extremely funny and charismatic during interviews.
Speaking of GoT I think the worst actors that almost ruined the show are ironically the two that are most loved by the fans, Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington. Both characters are well written but all the interest in him basically died after the battle against the wildlings in season 4 or 5, while she has no expression in the entire tv series. Just like in Terminator Genysis or Solo, but those movie are terrible for multiple reasons; it's certainly not her (dull) performance that ruined them.
I don’t think Emilia Clarke is particularly a bad actor; I think she was very well suited to the early seasons when Daenerys is a lost girl finding her way. She just doesn’t have the power/presence for High Queen. Same for Sarah Connor; Linda Hamilton had (has?!) an intensity in that role that she just can’t match.
Tyran wrote: Emilia Clarke wasn't what ruined GoT.
That wasn't a problem of actors, but of writing.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended. IMHO they should have put her to that path way earlier, the mad queen twist is one of the best ideas in the more recent seasons of GoT, even if poorly developed.
I'm telling something different: I couldn't stand her character from day 1, not just season 8. Maybe because her storyline was never connected to all the other characters for a long time, but I've always considered the worst part of the show every moment she was on screen.
And the fact that I couldn't stand her pretty much in anything she's starred (with the exception of Me Before You) despite being very funny and interesting outside acting makes me think she's a very bad actress.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended.
True, but I also didn't like how every other storyline ended.
Or are you telling me you liked Jaime throwing his entire character growth to the trashcan to die together with Cersei? Or the White Walkers plot being resolved in episode 3 (because apparently Arya mastered tactical teleportation) instead of being the final boss?
Tyran wrote: Emilia Clarke wasn't what ruined GoT.
That wasn't a problem of actors, but of writing.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended. IMHO they should have put her to that path way earlier, the mad queen twist is one of the best ideas in the more recent seasons of GoT, even if poorly developed.
I'm telling something different: I couldn't stand her character from day 1, not just season 8. Maybe because her storyline was never connected to all the other characters for a long time, but I've always considered the worst part of the show every moment she was on screen.
And the fact that I couldn't stand her pretty much in anything she's starred (with the exception of Me Before You) despite being very funny and interesting outside acting makes me think she's a very bad actress.
I was seeing that path from day one too. She essentially cheated in her every victory. Gets army for free through loophole, gets city for free, through loophole. gets Dothrakie, through loophole. And the entire time she is being built up by her followers as this god queen, i knew the second she would face resistance, she would change.
I see lots of posts about bad actors ruining a movie; how about the other half of the subject - bad characters ruining a movie?
Avoiding the obvious target (TLJ), I'll head over to a different low-hanging fruit, The Hobbit, and the elf maiden there explicitly there for the needless romance subplot. Watched it once, and once was too much because of that awful change.
Any movie that has Robert Downey Junior in it, I automatically lose any interest in watching. It was bad enough having to see his face plastered on every cinema wall and posters or commercials. I suppose this also applies to most of Hollywood, I get the feeling I am watching a herd of sheep milling around in a field, rather than seeing professional actors who take pride in their occupation.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended.
True, but I also didn't like how every other storyline ended.
Or are you telling me you liked Jaime throwing his entire character growth to the trashcan to die together with Cersei? Or the White Walkers plot being resolved in episode 3 (because apparently Arya mastered tactical teleportation) instead of being the final boss?
Gonna split hairs somewhat, but for me the problem wasn’t bad writing. It was a lack of writing.
All the time it was adapting the books. It was ace. But when that material started to run out, it did go downhill. And that’s solely on GRRM for not getting on with it.
Consider. The show runners were hired for an adaptation. Taking someone else’s writing and translating to a different media is not the same as writing it all from scratch.
It’s like asking someone to copy say, the Mona Lisa (used here as a commonly known artwork). Then, that done, asking the same artist to create a new painting in the style of Da Vinci.
Vulcan wrote: I see lots of posts about bad actors ruining a movie; how about the other half of the subject - bad characters ruining a movie?
Avoiding the obvious target (TLJ), I'll head over to a different low-hanging fruit, The Hobbit, and the elf maiden there explicitly there for the needless romance subplot. Watched it once, and once was too much because of that awful change.
The Hobbit movies did unseemly things to the source materials.
But I’m not sure where to lay the blame. It feels like someone was handed the Hollywood Blockbuster Checklist (tm) and told to make sure all the boxes were ticked. And make it a trilogy. We know Peter Jackson could do a true rendition, and do it well. While some things in the LoTR movies bug me, I understand why they were done. Movies are different animals from books. And they were more “bending” the books to halp make things happen.
The Hobbit movies invented stuff whole cloth. For no other reason than to tick “romantic interest” or “chase scene” off a list. I get adding the stuff with the White Council. Tose events happened in the timeframe, just off camera in the books. But most of the other crap? No need. Could have shaved a whiole movie worth of the it out and they would be better for it.
Vulcan wrote: I see lots of posts about bad actors ruining a movie; how about the other half of the subject - bad characters ruining a movie?
Avoiding the obvious target (TLJ), I'll head over to a different low-hanging fruit, The Hobbit, and the elf maiden there explicitly there for the needless romance subplot. Watched it once, and once was too much because of that awful change.
The Hobbit movies did unseemly things to the source materials.
But I’m not sure where to lay the blame. It feels like someone was handed the Hollywood Blockbuster Checklist (tm) and told to make sure all the boxes were ticked. And make it a trilogy. We know Peter Jackson could do a true rendition, and do it well. While some things in the LoTR movies bug me, I understand why they were done. Movies are different animals from books. And they were more “bending” the books to halp make things happen.
The Hobbit movies invented stuff whole cloth. For no other reason than to tick “romantic interest” or “chase scene” off a list. I get adding the stuff with the White Council. Tose events happened in the timeframe, just off camera in the books. But most of the other crap? No need. Could have shaved a whiole movie worth of the it out and they would be better for it.
/oldnerdrant
Plus, I believe Del Toro did most of the Pre-Production work, but then could not finish for some reason. Jackson was called in to pick up the pieces.
A bit like Snyder started Justice League, but Wedon finished the film.....
Vulcan wrote: I see lots of posts about bad actors ruining a movie; how about the other half of the subject - bad characters ruining a movie?
Avoiding the obvious target (TLJ), I'll head over to a different low-hanging fruit, The Hobbit, and the elf maiden there explicitly there for the needless romance subplot. Watched it once, and once was too much because of that awful change.
Still baffled exactly how the Hobbit films became such a fumble, suspect trying to hammer the tale into prequel shape was a big part of it and stretching to three films, but to circle back on topic any character Martin Freeman plays, he's the bloke version of Jennifer Aniston wherein everything he does is repurposed Tim from The Office
Plus, I believe Del Toro did most of the Pre-Production work, but then could not finish for some reason. Jackson was called in to pick up the pieces.
And wasn't given time to do his own pre-production, so far too start filming on the fly.
I read an article a while back that mentioned that the battle of five armies was basically just a bunch of random battles scenes filmed by Andy Serkis while Jackson was busy elsewhere, that they hoped they would be able to stitch into a coherent sequence later, because they didn't have time to plot out the whole thing.
A bit like Snyder started Justice League, but Wedon finished the film.....
I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
Not to get too deep into the Snyder Cut business, but you could always put the emphasis of 'vocal' on the concept of 'vocal minority.'
I don't follow any Snyder Cult people on Twitter, but I do follow various comic writers, artists etc. Whenever ANY of them made any reference to live action superheroes that could even be linked to the Snyder Cut in the TINIEST of way, they'd get people barraging them. - It got to the point that I was really starting to recognise the account names of the worst of them.
Weirdly, many of them were apparently 'producers' of the Snyder Cut... Somehow... Never really cared enough to follow it up.
Long term though, there really is going to be some interesting parallels in the history of cinema when it comes to Justice League and the Hobbit, but I imagine it will be a long time, if ever, before the details open out in the air.
As for the Hobbit, I'd have been the first in the line to complain about the movies, how disappointing and awful and terrible they are compared to my beloved Lord of the Rings.
But then, a few years ago, I saw this Behind the Scenes video on the movie.
And my opinion completely changed on it and, the truth is, I can kind of enjoy the movies now, because I don't have these sky high expectations, I've seen the stress and the environment everyone was working under to make them and, well, I just guess I have a lot more empathy for it now, so I can appreciate all the work they put in to even just get the movies out of the door.
Compel wrote: I'll get the easy answer out of the way.
"I don't like sand, it's coarse, it's rough, it's irritating and it gets everywhere."
There is definitely an (I think) valid, longstanding criticism of Hollywood that they too often choose actors for their looks over their acting ability.
But it's arguable that not even Laurence Olivier could have done much with that line!
Low-hanging fruit but yes, this exactly the example that sprang to mind for me
I actually thought the child actor was much better, but teenage Vader... what a wasted opportunity!
I don't see how a Snyder cut is supposed to fix the major issue of the Justice League: That DC didn't want to take the time needed to establish the characters aside of Superman.
With The Hobbit, one of the biggest problems to me was that a lot of the action scenes would have been a better fit for Pirates of the Caribbean than Lord of the Rings. Rather than being tense and exciting, they were downright zany too much of the time. Also Tauriel was a lame addition; while Evangeline Lilly is certainly easy on the eyes, the whole romance subplot was not only contrived for the movie, but it just felt so...forced. However, she is not what ruined that trilogy; it was a combination of factors, including poor writing, ropey CGI, stupid story additions, and massively over-the-top action/chase scenes.
All that being said, there were some things in those movies that were absolutely amazingly well done. Smaug may have been CGI, but unlike a lot of the Orc characters he's actually GREAT CGI and looked like he jumped from the pages of the book, plus Benedict Cumberbatch did an amazing job voicing the character. The sets and props, overall, were stellar, with a crazy amount of attention to detail that we expect from Weta Workshop after how well they did on The Lord of the Rings. And overall, the casting was pretty solid, too, I thought (my only minor gripe was that Thorin looked a bit too young, but the actor played the character reasonably well so I let it slide).
Tyran wrote: I don't see how a Snyder cut is supposed to fix the major issue of the Justice League: That DC didn't want to take the time needed to establish the characters aside of Superman.
One of the funny things about that is that there's an animated movie that basically IS Justice League, and might even end up being *closer* to the final Snyder Cut than Josstice League...
It's not the BEST of movies out there, and I've got plenty of issues with some characterisation (Looking at you Diana), but Justice League: War basically did most things the live action movie did, but better, AND had to introduce not just more characters than JL, but the whole rebooted universe as well.
You'd watch the movie, you could work out exactly who Shazam was, Cyborg was, why you should care about them. You learned everything major about the Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan, through one conversation with Batman in a sewer.
Like I said, it wasn't a perfect movie by any means, but several of the characters had actual *arcs* in the story and it didn't need to be a 6 hour miniseries.
Compel wrote: Not to get too deep into the Snyder Cut business, but you could always put the emphasis of 'vocal' on the concept of 'vocal minority.'
I don't follow any Snyder Cult people on Twitter, but I do follow various comic writers, artists etc. Whenever ANY of them made any reference to live action superheroes that could even be linked to the Snyder Cut in the TINIEST of way, they'd get people barraging them. - It got to the point that I was really starting to recognise the account names of the worst of them.
Weirdly, many of them were apparently 'producers' of the Snyder Cut... Somehow... Never really cared enough to follow it up.
Long term though, there really is going to be some interesting parallels in the history of cinema when it comes to Justice League and the Hobbit, but I imagine it will be a long time, if ever, before the details open out in the air.
As for the Hobbit, I'd have been the first in the line to complain about the movies, how disappointing and awful and terrible they are compared to my beloved Lord of the Rings.
But then, a few years ago, I saw this Behind the Scenes video on the movie.
And my opinion completely changed on it and, the truth is, I can kind of enjoy the movies now, because I don't have these sky high expectations, I've seen the stress and the environment everyone was working under to make them and, well, I just guess I have a lot more empathy for it now, so I can appreciate all the work they put in to even just get the movies out of the door.
Wow that was a great watch!
I never knew how fudged the whole situation was. Its such a shame they did not get PJ to run things from the start and put in the prep he needed.
LOTR trilogy is a timeless masterpiece, as good now today as it was nearly 20 years ago (20 years!!!)
The hobbit is a souless jumbled mess of what corporate overlords who are only interested in $$ think will sell, rather than making a good film.
The source material Is like a 300 page book.. it should never have been forced into 3 films.. its madness..
Taurial could have worked as a romantic interest for Legolas, and it seems like they might have originally been thinking about it. But instead they went with something so antithetical to the setting. I'm surprised that the Tolkien estate allowed it honestly, they are famously strict with the IP.
They could have gotten a story that checked all their boxes without breaking the setting too, which is a shame. Really, given the interaction we see between Taurial and Thranduil it really seems like that was originally the intended story and they even filmed one scene with it. Then it got changed, but they still used that one scene.
There was a story in there, it just got lost amongst all the material.
It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm probably way off base but... I believe Legolas had unrequited feelings for Tauriel, who did not share them. Thranduil was encouraging this match, because politics.
However, Tauriel fell for Fili, his death breaking her heart. And Legolas, apparently being the red pill type went, "ARGH, DAMN YOU DWARFS, This is YOUR FAULT. I hate you FOREVER."
Thus explaining his general jerkiness at the start of Fellowship to Gimli.
Vulcan wrote: I see lots of posts about bad actors ruining a movie; how about the other half of the subject - bad characters ruining a movie?
Avoiding the obvious target (TLJ), I'll head over to a different low-hanging fruit, The Hobbit, and the elf maiden there explicitly there for the needless romance subplot. Watched it once, and once was too much because of that awful change.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's the character or the actor. Case in point? Rufio from the movie "Hook." I literally cheered when that brat got stabbed. Some time later I put myself through the torture that was the live action "Fist of the North Star" movie, and I was treated to a rendition of Bat that was every bit a repeat of Rufio by the same actor. He didn't reprise that character type in "But I'm a Cheerleader", which leads me to think he does have at least SOME range, but for whatever reason BOTH of those other characters ride the same archetype and brought down the film experience for me.
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insaniak wrote: I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
I think people complained about that film mainly because pop media was telling them they should complain about that film. Nolan did a darker take on the entire Batman mythos with what may be the gakiest Batman ever filmed and the moviegoers did fething backflips, and don't get me started on how he reapproached villains to the point of being completely different takes on the characters yet we have to hear people bitch that the same thing was done to Lex Luthor. I think there's a massive double standard there, and I'm personally glad we'll get a Snyder cut despite being stuck behind a pay wall I'm not looking forward to having to address.
I think people complained about that film mainly because pop media was telling them they should complain about that film.
It really wasn't very good, though. Steppenwolf is an astoundingly boring villain, Batman was severely under-utilised (although I might be biased there), and the entire movie essentially amounted to 'Gather a team of heroes who will then wait around for Superman to come save the day. Yay!'
The only thing that made it watchable for me was the liberal sprinkling of Whedon-esque one-liners. So I'm not particularly optimistic about the Snyder rework actually being better.
Nolan did a darker take on the entire Batman mythos with what may be the shittiest Batman ever filmed and the moviegoers did fething backflips, and don't get me started on how he reapproached villains to the point of being completely different takes on the characters yet we have to hear people bitch that the same thing was done to Lex Luthor. I think there's a massive double standard there, and I'm personally glad we'll get a Snyder cut despite being stuck behind a pay wall I'm not looking forward to having to address.
It's not a double standard at all. People expected Batman to be dark. It fits the character. The lack of that darkness was a very large part of what people hated about the Schumacher movies, and Nolan's only error (aside from whatever the feth was going on with Bane's voice) was in making Batman too one-dimensional, focusing on his physical attributes and ignoring the cerebral.
But that same dark approach doesn't work for every hero. Making a Superman story as if it's a Batman movie is a terrible idea, because Superman should have a very different outlook. I don't even like Superman, but even I found Man of Steel just painful for the way it handled the character. Moreso because you got glimpses of how well Cavill could do the character if he was allowed to do it properly.
I think people complained about that film mainly because pop media was telling them they should complain about that film.
Rubbish. People complained about the film because it was legitimately a bad film.
Character arcs were non-existent, the threat was a canned cliche, the action was dull, the cgi was indifferent, the sets were boring and poorly lit, the writing was indifferent, the actors were boring.
There really isn't anything to recommend it as a film, a story, or even vague entertainment for its extremely excessive runtime.
Compel wrote: There was a story in there, it just got lost amongst all the material.
It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm probably way off base but... I believe Legolas had unrequited feelings for Tauriel, who did not share them. Thranduil was encouraging this match, because politics.
However, Tauriel fell for Fili, his death breaking her heart. And Legolas, apparently being the red pill type went, "ARGH, DAMN YOU DWARFS, This is YOUR FAULT. I hate you FOREVER."
Thus explaining his general jerkiness at the start of Fellowship to Gimli.
Because that needed explaining.
Seemed like Thranduil was actively discouraging the match.
Tyran wrote: Emilia Clarke wasn't what ruined GoT.
That wasn't a problem of actors, but of writing.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended. IMHO they should have put her to that path way earlier, the mad queen twist is one of the best ideas in the more recent seasons of GoT, even if poorly developed.
I'm telling something different: I couldn't stand her character from day 1, not just season 8. Maybe because her storyline was never connected to all the other characters for a long time, but I've always considered the worst part of the show every moment she was on screen.
And the fact that I couldn't stand her pretty much in anything she's starred (with the exception of Me Before You) despite being very funny and interesting outside acting makes me think she's a very bad actress.
I was seeing that path from day one too. She essentially cheated in her every victory. Gets army for free through loophole, gets city for free, through loophole. gets Dothrakie, through loophole. And the entire time she is being built up by her followers as this god queen, i knew the second she would face resistance, she would change.
Unlike say Jon Snow who lost every battle he ever fought but still lauded by all and always had to be saved by someone or who wondered about north of the Wall until he could get a Dragon killed, or who told his sisters the one thing the woman he said he loved told him not to? or always protected his best mate fat useless Sam so he coudl ignore any and all rules of the NW and become part of the stupidest most useless Small council in thrall to a inhuman manipulator who apparently was just setting up everyone else to die. The last few seasons were a complete gak fest with the last half an hour making zero sense except to give GRM his proxy Sam the best ending he could. Snow would have been cut down like a traitorous dog by the Dothraki or the Unsullied as soon as they discovered what he did, then the Dothraki would have gone on the rampage without Dany controlling them.
Dany suffered through loss of husband and child, managed to survive, and used everything she could to make her way in the world, often making the world a better place for many (ask the thousands of slaves she freed) - she used no more loopholes than any other character could or would who had any interest in survival.
She also did nothing that any normal general would not have done - she lost so much because the writters had Tyrion constantly give her poor and foolish advice. If she had burned the Red Tower when she arrived for instance, there would not have been so much dead - thats all on Tyrion. She should have listened to Grandmother Tyrell and been the Dragon from the begining and took the kingdoms as her ancestors did.
Of coruse the writers had to fill up several seasons so they had to make her fail by listening to stupid advice and having stealthy teleporting pirate fleets with dragon seeking missiles.
Can we all not agree that, as insufferable as both those two were (and my love of the whole affair cratered the moment I realised they were the centre pieces of everything - seriously why would you make the two most annoying and uninteresting characters the focal point?), the later seasons of GoT had far more problems than just two actors lumped with two god-awful characters.
Tyran wrote: I don't see how a Snyder cut is supposed to fix the major issue of the Justice League: That DC didn't want to take the time needed to establish the characters aside of Superman.
One of the funny things about that is that there's an animated movie that basically IS Justice League, and might even end up being *closer* to the final Snyder Cut than Josstice League...
It's not the BEST of movies out there, and I've got plenty of issues with some characterisation (Looking at you Diana), but Justice League: War basically did most things the live action movie did, but better, AND had to introduce not just more characters than JL, but the whole rebooted universe as well.
You'd watch the movie, you could work out exactly who Shazam was, Cyborg was, why you should care about them. You learned everything major about the Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan, through one conversation with Batman in a sewer.
Like I said, it wasn't a perfect movie by any means, but several of the characters had actual *arcs* in the story and it didn't need to be a 6 hour miniseries.
The New 52 was clearly Geoff John's attempt to replicate Marvel's success with the Ultimates. Make a comic line designed from the ground up to be the blueprints for direct film adaptations. The main problem is just that it got shoehorned on top of studio mandates built on the success of the Dark Knight films. The animated films managed to show the potential of those arcs by being pretty clean adaptations from a clean slate.
Whedon's JL is definitely a "worse than Hobbit" situation. My favorite part of the whole film is that his name appears on screen with the words "I tried" in the opening credits. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a film that starts with an apology from the creator before. It's the worst kind of hashed together studio mandated requirement laden messes out there and at no point really had a chance.
The Snyder Cut will be "better" if only because it will be artistically consistent. That doesn't mean it will be "good". One of the great oddities about Snyder in general is he's got all the skills to put together a great film. Shot composition, cinematography, even his themes are strongly worked into the narrative. He stumbles because too often he focuses on style and symbolism over narrative structure and his characters often come across as emotionally detached and lacking real purpose. It's possible the film will be something great, but there's really no telling. His strengths have always made for great trailers.
insaniak wrote: But that same dark approach doesn't work for every hero. Making a Superman story as if it's a Batman movie is a terrible idea, because Superman should have a very different outlook. I don't even like Superman, but even I found Man of Steel just painful for the way it handled the character. Moreso because you got glimpses of how well Cavill could do the character if he was allowed to do it properly.
*PSST* Man of Steel really isn't a dark movie or handled like a Batman film.
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LunarSol wrote: The Snyder Cut will be "better" if only because it will be artistically consistent. That doesn't mean it will be "good". One of the great oddities about Snyder in general is he's got all the skills to put together a great film. Shot composition, cinematography, even his themes are strongly worked into the narrative. He stumbles because too often he focuses on style and symbolism over narrative structure and his characters often come across as emotionally detached and lacking real purpose. It's possible the film will be something great, but there's really no telling. His strengths have always made for great trailers.
I agree with this. At this point, I think people are interested in seeing a coherent vision rather than a Frankenstein monster of a film. I don't know if it'll be good, but it'll be a lot different, and that makes it interesting at least.
I do wonder if any improvements that will be made from a coherent vision might end up undone after Snyder packs in more stuff...possibly to set up other HBO Max efforts as rumored.
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Henry wrote: Can we all not agree that, as insufferable as both those two were (and my love of the whole affair cratered the moment I realised they were the centre pieces of everything - seriously why would you make the two most annoying and uninteresting characters the focal point?), the later seasons of GoT had far more problems than just two actors lumped with two god-awful characters.
YES. Plenty of writing decisions that helped feed the problems with those characters.
insaniak wrote: I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
I assume that in 10 years, we're going to hear Star Wars fans talking about the genius of TLJ. Look at the rehabilitation the prequels have gotten over the last few years.
We already do. TLJ is a divisive movie, hated and loved by many. The one that is going to be harder to rehabilitate is RoS, as at best it is regarded as a "meh", while many just hate it.
Tyran wrote: Emilia Clarke wasn't what ruined GoT.
That wasn't a problem of actors, but of writing.
I assume probably you say so because you didn't like how her storyline ended. IMHO they should have put her to that path way earlier, the mad queen twist is one of the best ideas in the more recent seasons of GoT, even if poorly developed.
I'm telling something different: I couldn't stand her character from day 1, not just season 8. Maybe because her storyline was never connected to all the other characters for a long time, but I've always considered the worst part of the show every moment she was on screen.
And the fact that I couldn't stand her pretty much in anything she's starred (with the exception of Me Before You) despite being very funny and interesting outside acting makes me think she's a very bad actress.
There is a very clear point roughly half way through the show when they fully stopped following the books and went all in on doing their own thing that the writing got CRAZY bad. And it was all down hill from there. For pretty much everyone. With some 2 maybe 3 exceptions every character who had depth in the earlier seasons got gutted of all their depth the longer the show went. Danny is a character that should have had a lot of depth. Being pulled in different directions before she asserts herself. But the writing never really managed to pull that after after the scene where she took the unsullied.
Tyran wrote: I don't see how a Snyder cut is supposed to fix the major issue of the Justice League: That DC didn't want to take the time needed to establish the characters aside of Superman.
One of the funny things about that is that there's an animated movie that basically IS Justice League, and might even end up being *closer* to the final Snyder Cut than Josstice League...
It's not the BEST of movies out there, and I've got plenty of issues with some characterisation (Looking at you Diana), but Justice League: War basically did most things the live action movie did, but better, AND had to introduce not just more characters than JL, but the whole rebooted universe as well.
You'd watch the movie, you could work out exactly who Shazam was, Cyborg was, why you should care about them. You learned everything major about the Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan, through one conversation with Batman in a sewer.
Like I said, it wasn't a perfect movie by any means, but several of the characters had actual *arcs* in the story and it didn't need to be a 6 hour miniseries.
The New 52 was clearly Geoff John's attempt to replicate Marvel's success with the Ultimates. Make a comic line designed from the ground up to be the blueprints for direct film adaptations. The main problem is just that it got shoehorned on top of studio mandates built on the success of the Dark Knight films. The animated films managed to show the potential of those arcs by being pretty clean adaptations from a clean slate.
Whedon's JL is definitely a "worse than Hobbit" situation. My favorite part of the whole film is that his name appears on screen with the words "I tried" in the opening credits. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a film that starts with an apology from the creator before. It's the worst kind of hashed together studio mandated requirement laden messes out there and at no point really had a chance.
The Snyder Cut will be "better" if only because it will be artistically consistent. That doesn't mean it will be "good". One of the great oddities about Snyder in general is he's got all the skills to put together a great film. Shot composition, cinematography, even his themes are strongly worked into the narrative. He stumbles because too often he focuses on style and symbolism over narrative structure and his characters often come across as emotionally detached and lacking real purpose. It's possible the film will be something great, but there's really no telling. His strengths have always made for great trailers.
I don't agree with that assessment of the New 52. Geoff Johns has been on record of saying he doesn't like classic characters changing. "Keep the classic characters classic". So HIS green lanturn was Hal Jordan and he didn't like all that going mad, becoming paralax, eventually repenting and becoming the spectre stuff. The New 52 was him resestablishing a status quo that to him is an unchanging imutable status quo. Batman gets younger because old batman isn't status quo. Aquaman looses the beard and the hook hand and returns to an orange and green skin tight onesy because being awesome armored hook hand wasn't status quo.
Geoff Johns is pretty much everything wrong with DC comics and the constant reboots. Everytime a change makes a character adapt and change too much it's time to burn the whole universe down to reestablish the characters how he remembers them best.
Wheddon is a total hack.
JL Snyder Edition will be better like you say. The Shiniest Turd still goes in the toilet.
Well, this may be a bit off from what the OP intended, but sometimes an actor does something IRL that makes it hard for me to like a movie he's in.
Main case in point, Stephen Collins, in STTMP. Years after he did STTMP he was exposed as and confessed to being a molester.
Now it makes it a little hard to watch STTMP with him in it, and especially since he ends up transforming to a higher form of life and transcending the universe.
His career ended in 2014 with no roles past that data. One of his last roles was like tony stark's father in an avengers cartoon. I'm surprised his voice hasn't been replaced since it was a kid cartoon.
I did not burn my STTMP dvd like at least one guy said he did when they came out, but it does make it a little harder to watch it.
If it were technically and financially feasible to digitally replace him with another actor i'd be happy to see it done.
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Compel wrote: I'll get the easy answer out of the way.
"I don't like sand, it's coarse, it's rough, it's irritating and it gets everywhere."
Develop a movie trilogy, completely screw up the writing and dialogue for the most important character, throughout *two* different actors.
A lot of films would be just... better, if it weren't for random comic relief sidekick that got shoehorned in. I guess Shortround is possibly one of the biggest examples of this.
Frankly willie, the helpless screaming object, made that move unbearable for me. I could stand the kid. Not her. But then again she was just one major bomblet in that wrongness clusterbomb of a movie.
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Just Tony wrote: I didn't see a thread like this on here, so I guess I'll toss my hat in the ring since I need to get this off my chest...
I was explaining Escape From New York to a young soldier who had never seen it, so we made it a movie night thing with the unit. I had forgotten about how absolutely horrid the character Johnny was in that movie, and how absolutely awful the actor was. So much so that when the character's "arc resolved" his acting spoiled what should have been the most satisfying moment of the movie for me.
You mean the guy who had a bit part injecting snake with the bombs?
Matt Swain wrote: Well, this may be a bit off from what the OP intended, but sometimes an actor does something IRL that makes it hard for me to like a movie he's in.
Main case in point, Stephen Collins, in STTMP. Years after he did STTMP he was exposed as and confessed to being a molester.
Now it makes it a little hard to watch STTMP with him in it, and especially since he ends up transforming to a higher form of life and transcending the universe.
His career ended in 2014 with no roles past that data. One of his last roles was like tony stark's father in an avengers cartoon. I'm surprised his voice hasn't been replaced since it was a kid cartoon.
I did not burn my STTMP dvd like at least one guy said he did when they came out, but it does make it a little harder to watch it.
If it were technically and financially feasible to digitally replace him with another actor i'd be happy to see it done.
I can mostly leave a disconnect there. I mean, Thriller didn't stop being a good album after MJ's... behavioral issues, so I won't rule out a movie performance by someone who may have done something questionable.
Just Tony wrote: I didn't see a thread like this on here, so I guess I'll toss my hat in the ring since I need to get this off my chest...
I was explaining Escape From New York to a young soldier who had never seen it, so we made it a movie night thing with the unit. I had forgotten about how absolutely horrid the character Johnny was in that movie, and how absolutely awful the actor was. So much so that when the character's "arc resolved" his acting spoiled what should have been the most satisfying moment of the movie for me.
You mean the guy who had a bit part injecting snake with the bombs?
Oh, no no no. That guy's an Oscar winning actor compared to whomever played Johnny. I'm talking about The Duke's second in command. The one that Brain stabs near the end of the movie.
Matt Swain wrote: Well, this may be a bit off from what the OP intended, but sometimes an actor does something IRL that makes it hard for me to like a movie he's in.
Main case in point, Stephen Collins, in STTMP. Years after he did STTMP he was exposed as and confessed to being a molester.
Now it makes it a little hard to watch STTMP with him in it, and especially since he ends up transforming to a higher form of life and transcending the universe.
His career ended in 2014 with no roles past that data. One of his last roles was like tony stark's father in an avengers cartoon. I'm surprised his voice hasn't been replaced since it was a kid cartoon.
I did not burn my STTMP dvd like at least one guy said he did when they came out, but it does make it a little harder to watch it.
If it were technically and financially feasible to digitally replace him with another actor i'd be happy to see it done.
I can mostly leave a disconnect there. I mean, Thriller didn't stop being a good album after MJ's... behavioral issues, so I won't rule out a movie performance by someone who may have done something questionable.
Just Tony wrote: I didn't see a thread like this on here, so I guess I'll toss my hat in the ring since I need to get this off my chest...
I was explaining Escape From New York to a young soldier who had never seen it, so we made it a movie night thing with the unit. I had forgotten about how absolutely horrid the character Johnny was in that movie, and how absolutely awful the actor was. So much so that when the character's "arc resolved" his acting spoiled what should have been the most satisfying moment of the movie for me.
You mean the guy who had a bit part injecting snake with the bombs?
Oh, no no no. That guy's an Oscar winning actor compared to whomever played Johnny. I'm talking about The Duke's second in command. The one that Brain stabs near the end of the movie.
Oh yeah,I remember him. He was basically playing the definition of "Batgak insane" guy. I think that's all he was supposed to be, be batgak insane, the look, the talk, the act.
They filmed that bridge scene on a bridge i've been past many times...
insaniak wrote: I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
I assume that in 10 years, we're going to hear Star Wars fans talking about the genius of TLJ. Look at the rehabilitation the prequels have gotten over the last few years.
Really who thinks the prequals are any good? and why?
TLJ is an absolute gak storm of every way not to make a movie, but the prequals are not much better.
insaniak wrote: I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
I assume that in 10 years, we're going to hear Star Wars fans talking about the genius of TLJ. Look at the rehabilitation the prequels have gotten over the last few years.
Really who thinks the prequals are any good? and why?
TLJ is an absolute gak storm of every way not to make a movie, but the prequals are not much better.
Yeah, usually the prequels are better known for their memes about sand and jar jar than anything else. It's only looked at fondly because it led to a whole explosion of additional material for the Clone Wars and new characters, including the amazing 2003 animated clone wars series followed by Filoni's version. RoTS is usually the only one people say they're an explicit fan of, outside of one-off moments like the fight between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul.
It's a seriously bad sign when all you get from the sequel trilogy is literal rehashes of ideas/designs from the OT. The Resistance has nothing that makes them stand out from the Rebel Alliance besides being more incompetent, and the First Order are basically just edgy Empire cosplayers.
Grimskul wrote: the First Order are basically just edgy Empire cosplayers.
That is, literally the point.
There's people that like the prequel films I suppose, but most praise you hear these days are just from people that enjoy the prequel setting due to the work put in by the Clone Wars cartoon.
Hayden Christensen was (for me at least) a big part of what ruined Episodes II and III of Star Wars.
There were other things: the age-gap between Anakin and Padmé in episode I, JarJar, the over-use of light sabers blah blah but seriously, Hayden Christensen was terrible as Anakin. Ruined it.
Loved him in jumpers, but he ruined Star Wars II and III for me :(
insaniak wrote: I still find it somewhat amusing that the entire internet was complaining about Snyder's dark take on the DC universe...then Justice League came out, and everyone was suddenly demanding Snyder's version.
I assume that in 10 years, we're going to hear Star Wars fans talking about the genius of TLJ. Look at the rehabilitation the prequels have gotten over the last few years.
Really who thinks the prequals are any good? and why?
TLJ is an absolute gak storm of every way not to make a movie, but the prequals are not much better.
When I've seen it (which isn't often), its mostly (but not all) younger folks on the internet who grew up with them or others where that's their first experience with Star Wars.
There were also a fair number of media websites that pulled a 'Well, actually...' and tried to extoll the virtues of the prequels as well, whether it was for click-bait and advertising revenue, but sometimes people are influenced by 'insiders' with 'real talk.'
And honestly it can be easy to nitpick the roughness of the original trilogy where they were building the effects by hand as they filmed, as opposed to the 'smoothness' of the prequels, and try to turn that into an argument about movie-making proficiency. Personally I think the latter look shallow and empty, because the prequels trades story and character for effects, but there are a lot of people out there now that are so used to digital effects that they look at it as the entire craft of movie-making.
Grimskul wrote: the First Order are basically just edgy Empire cosplayers.
That is, literally the point.
There's people that like the prequel films I suppose, but most praise you hear these days are just from people that enjoy the prequel setting due to the work put in by the Clone Wars cartoon.
I'm fine or up for it if they want them to be effectively the Neo-Nazis to the Third Reich that the Empire was, but you gotta have more substance or threat to them beyond being told they're a threat "just because".
Kylo Ren gets defeated by a complete novice and is an ineffective tantrum-prone villain that doesn't do anything but kill parental/mentor figures.
Hux is an incompetent opportunist/traitor.
Phasma is a one-note useless commander that sells out her faction to save her own skin. So much for the indoctrination for becoming a stormtrooper apparently. Also basically does nothing in the movies.
Snoke is just kinda there as a setpiece that dies after doing literally nothing before being invalidated by Palpatine's appearance in the next movie.
Like, it's fine if you have one or two incompetent villains that the heroes triumph over, but when you have an entire cast of villains whose role is to just to fail and do nothing, there's no threat at all in the movie or sense of tension.
I've always argued that Hux should have been the hypercompetent commander that is forced to work with Kylo Ren by Snoke to rein in Kylo's destructive impulsivity. Hux would be effectively the reason why the heroes are being outplayed tactics/strategy wise while Kylo dominates the physical role of contending in lightsaber duels against Rey. It would also make their competition for approval from Snoke more understandable if Kylo was valued for his force potential while Hux was favoured thanks to his strategic brilliance. This way you have an actual foil and balance for each character rather than making the First Order leadership act like a bunch of idiots who win because the plot demands it so.
Phasma should have been the main villain for Finn to have a reason to be in the movies, where she's there as a constant reminder of the trauma and brainwashing he suffered at the Stormtrooper Corps while she seems him as her only failure that she has to eliminate.
What would have really made the First Order more interesting was to put them in the position that the Rebellion was in. Acting as terrorist cells with Core World sympathizers would have made it way more plausible as to why the Resistance was made to counter them over just having the New Republic military handle them. It also ties in the Neo-Nazi theme a lot easier than flat out ruling their own worlds with an entire army on their own. Having them blend in with regular people and having a more guerilla Storm trooper style made of appropriated/scavenged Imperial gear would show a distinct design while still having a homage to the Empire they are drawn from.
As it is, the First Order fails both as a distinct faction and in terms of having any real characterization for its villains.
Oh, no no no. That guy's an Oscar winning actor compared to whomever played Johnny. I'm talking about The Duke's second in command. The one that Brain stabs near the end of the movie.
Do you mean the punk blonde guy with that impossible hair cut? Character's called Romero, and in real life he was the father of Portia Doubleday, one of the protagonists of Mr Robot. I've always found him odd but not at the point of ruining the movie, which IMHO is close to absolute perfection.
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XeonDragon wrote: Hayden Christensen was (for me at least) a big part of what ruined Episodes II and III of Star Wars.
There were other things: the age-gap between Anakin and Padmé in episode I, JarJar, the over-use of light sabers blah blah but seriously, Hayden Christensen was terrible as Anakin. Ruined it.
Loved him in jumpers, but he ruined Star Wars II and III for me :(
Yeah, people complained about Jar Jar but Anakin was way more annoying. He was ok as a kid but in Ep II or III highly contributed to ruin the movies. Both character's and actor's fault I think.
As it is, the First Order fails both as a distinct faction and in terms of having any real characterization for its villains.
I don't disagree, but I didn't feel this way after TLJ. Part of the reason I enjoy that one is just that it left the villains in an exciting place. Kylo had evolved into a real villain, succeeding where Vader had failed but still failing where Vader had failed. Largely unopposed but literally and figuratively haunted by his failings. He's left with infinite potential that's simply squandered in Rise. He could have ended as a truly great villain, but we got left with a tired and utterly vapid redemption arc(?) instead.
I know Snoke doesn't "do" anything, but his one appearance is one of my favorite scenes in the franchise and shows the Dark Side as so much more than "Jedi with sparky fingers". The complete overwhelming mental and telekinetic oppression he displays is the sort of thing I'd have LOVED from Palpatine in the prequels and I love that he's defeated by Kylo really "mastering" the Dark Side not by throwing bigger lightning but by understanding it well enough to manipulate it to Snoke's end. TLJ gives Kylo so much potential and its all sadly just squandered in Rise.
XeonDragon wrote: Hayden Christensen was (for me at least) a big part of what ruined Episodes II and III of Star Wars.
There were other things: the age-gap between Anakin and Padmé in episode I, JarJar, the over-use of light sabers blah blah but seriously, Hayden Christensen was terrible as Anakin. Ruined it.
Loved him in jumpers, but he ruined Star Wars II and III for me :(
Yeah, people complained about Jar Jar but Anakin was way more annoying. He was ok as a kid but in Ep II or III highly contributed to ruin the movies. Both character's and actor's fault I think.
I'd have loved to have had Hayden in Ep1. It would have given him a chance to play the character outside of the stilted "lovestruck but emotionally repressed" role he got tossed into. Had he started in one as a character more in the template of Han, I think he would have had a much better chance of pulling it off. I'm not sure that anything could have saved 2 though. It's.... unbearable.
Ok so, since we are on TLJ, im going to say Rose actively ruined the movie, mainly for her characterization & role in her. She was too quirky at first for me. But then she was made to fill the two roles already being filled in the previous movie. She was meant to be Finns anchor to the resistance, when that was meant to be Poes job, but they abandoned that for some reason(too gay?) and she was his Love interest, because they decided to go the Reylo route. But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Ok so, since we are on TLJ, im going to say Rose actively ruined the movie, mainly for her characterization & role in her.
She was too quirky at first for me. But then she was made to fill the two roles already being filled in the previous movie. She was meant to be Finns anchor to the resistance, when that was meant to be Poes job, but they abandoned that for some reason(too gay?) and she was his Love interest, because they decided to go the Reylo route.
But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.
She is a terrible character but thats just TLJ - nothing is done well with all the plot, motivations and characters written in crayon by people who apparently did not care about either - or maybe they gave it to a bunch of chimps whilst they had lunch.
I very much doubt an actress at her level had any input into her character I would assume she was just happy to be in a massive budget film
I can;t think of a "good "character in TLJ - Rey has possibilities but is not great but everyone else - UGhhh.
But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.
This is technically DJ's dialog, though I consider it the clunkiest part of the movie. Rose's equally clunky soapbox is about the people powerful enough to sit out the conflict and profit off whoever wins. This whole subplot kind of fails to get its ideas across like it should, but is kind of the crux of what's wrong with the ST. There's a central arc to the Resistance that every film touches on but uniquely fails to express correctly:
EP7: The Republic has ignored how much of a threat the First Order has become. In response, Leia calls in favors from the wealthy elite to fund a Resistance to sabotage their growth and oppose their expansion. By the end of the movie they succeed in destroying Starkiller base, but not before it decapitates the Republic.
EP8: The Resistance attempts to flee retaliation for the destruction of Starkiller base, but finds itself unable to shake its pursuers. They take shelter and put out a call to the wealthy elite that support them to make a stand against the First Order but they choose instead to let the Resistance die and back the winner.
EP9: The First Order is toppled not by a large military force but a collection of citizens standing up to tyranny inspired by the stories of the heroes of the OT.
Unfortunately, EP7 kind of doesn't bother to explain anything at all. EP8 probably does the best job but can't decide if it wants to make it a big surprise or an exposition dump and kind churns out both awkwardly. EP9 basically abandons it until the end where it becomes super hamfisted and dumb. It's one of the big losses for me from the Trevorrow script, which seemed to do a lot more with the idea.
So, I very much preferred The Last Jedi of the three sequel films, even though it had problems (looking at you casino planet). The development between Rey & Kylo was very interesting, blurring the lines between dark and light, I like Kylo's villain motivation of "burn the past, both the Jedi & the Sith were wrong", which also ties nicely into Yoda basically saying the same thing (although undermined by Rey having the Jedi bibles anyway...)
I think TLJ is the only one that attempts to do anything interesting with the setting. It could honestly be my favorite film in the franchise if it was paced better. TFA is the best paced and probably most rewatchable of the bunch though, IMO. It's kind of a palette swap though.
Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...
I don’t know if the actress or the writers decided to lean hard into making that character unlikeable, but I think the actress nailed what they were going for.
Personally i'm not a huge star wars fan, i like a few things and a few ships and characters and when i was a kid i worshiped it, but as i aged it just got more and more meh to me.
I do believe the fhandom has become toxic, possibly the most toxic in all fhandom.
I heard as rumor that kylo ren was written to be as reflection of the toxic fhandom, essentially a tantrum throwing ranting child lashing out mindlessly at all around him as a way of saying this is what the toxic fans are like. I don;t know if it's true but I kinda hope it is.
Yeah, people complained about Jar Jar but Anakin was way more annoying. He was ok as a kid but in Ep II or III highly contributed to ruin the movies. Both character's and actor's fault I think.
As others mentioned earlier, it's hard to blame the actors, given some of the talent present in the prequels who come across awfully flat. Natalie Portman has mentioned in interviews that she struggled to find work for some time afterwards, because everyone thought she was a terrible actor based on the prequels.
The problems with Anakin are entirely down to the script and George's complete lack of character direction. He tends to put all of his effort into setting up backgrounds and effects, but struggles with writing dialogue that actual people would say, and when directing actors he just points them at the set and says 'Go'. A better director would have put more effort into showing both sides of Anakin's character to make him likable, and developed his descent more sensibly, so that you actually felt bad when he finally fell.
As it is, I think when my daughters are old enough for the prequels, we'll have to take a detour through the Clone Wars cartoon in between Eps 2 and 3, so that they get a chance to actually like Anakin for a while.
One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".
MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.
I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.
Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:
Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.
Yeah, no mary sueism there.
To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.
Tyran wrote: Regarding Anakin, kinda hard to like a character that seems to regularly kill children.
I kinda forgave him for killing the tusken camp given what they had done to earn it. The jedi massacre was unforgivable. He got into force heaven after that just for saving his own son? Yeah, not if i was keeping the gate.
Tyran wrote: Regarding Anakin, kinda hard to like a character that seems to regularly kill children.
I kinda forgave him for killing the tusken camp given what they had done to earn it. The jedi massacre was unforgivable. He got into force heaven after that just for saving his own son? Yeah, not if i was keeping the gate.
Had he only killed the adults, I could had forgiven him for that, but I cannot forgive killing the children.
Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...
Yeah, younger me got blind sided by her..........assets. But watching it with my mom, i see her as not only un likable, but really mean, especially Her relationship with howard seems incredibly toxic to the point of an outward obaserver i would think she is a beard and resentful of it.
Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...
Yeah, younger me got blind sided by her..........assets. But watching it with my mom, i see her as not only un likable, but really mean, especially Her relationship with howard seems incredibly toxic to the point of an outward obaserver i would think she is a beard and resentful of it.
I think part of the problem was that she and Amy Farrah Fowler both started it as odd and slightly insecure medical scientists who got a little too excited for their experiments. I believe Rauch was in part hired due to her facility with voices (Howard’s Mother), which became something of a crutch later on. So, when it came time to differentiate her character from Farrah Fowler, she developed along almost the opposite line. It makes sense that she would gain more confidence in a stable relationship and after promotion to a well-paid job with some power, and that her established personality would make the best (worst) of that. However, either the writers or actress took it to cartoonish levels, and then completely altered the relationship with Howard to lean into making Bernadette a manipulative psychopath. It feels like the actress just wanted to play a villain.
Automatically Appended Next Post: They played it for laughs that everyone was terrified of her. Give the show a different soundtrack and she’s pretty much The Purple Man.
I think Also, Amy's anger and chiding of her partner is a bit more justified, he doesnt do anything for the relationship and is pretty much in it just because he wants Amy(It also doesnt help they got into it when Sheldon was fully flanderized, he had not problems with sex and stuff at the beginning)
However, Bernadette gets mad at Howard for just, being himself, his quirky weird self, yeah he can be immature from times, but what geek kinda isnt? She seems to hate howard for, being Howard.
Oh, no no no. That guy's an Oscar winning actor compared to whomever played Johnny. I'm talking about The Duke's second in command. The one that Brain stabs near the end of the movie.
Do you mean the punk blonde guy with that impossible hair cut? Character's called Romero, and in real life he was the father of Portia Doubleday, one of the protagonists of Mr Robot. I've always found him odd but not at the point of ruining the movie, which IMHO is close to absolute perfection.
To my credit, it's been a while since I've been willing to watch it because I found that guy's character so cloying. So his name is Romero, I could have sworn Brain called him Johnny in the scene where he rescues the President. Ultimately it doesn't change the fact that his acting was so terrible. Like, I don't know WHAT he was aiming for, but he failed at every angle. Scary? Nope. Intimidating? Nope. Watch the ridiculous way he takes his sunglasses off when the suitcase is shot open. That incredibly stupid non-acting overaction crept into literally every aspect of his performance. The only thing he DIDN'T fail at was dying.
Wait, scratch that. His acting was so bad that it even brought down any semblance of satisfaction one could get from seeing him get his comeuppance.
Seriously, to hell with that guy and any movie he's in. I don't care if they finally did a movie about the battle of Rynn's World, if they cast that clown in it I would boycott it.
Matt Swain wrote: One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".
MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.
I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.
Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:
Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.
Yeah, no mary sueism there.
To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.
Let's examine the key difference between Luke and Rey.
First movie, Luke comes off the farm and hops into a fighter, yes... but only after Biggs vouches for his piloting skill. Luke's ship takes two hits in the battle and he nearly dies as Darth Vader chases him down in the trench and he is only saved by Han's intervention.
Second movie, Luke gets some training and faces Vader with lightsabers. It quickly becomes clear Vader is playing with him, and when Vader gets serious it takes him about thirty seconds to beat Luke decisively.
Third movie, Luke gets some insight and practice, then faces Vader again, holds his own against Vader, and only manages to beat him by flirting with the edge of the Dark Side. Then Palpatine pimp-slaps him to the ground...
Now let's look at Rey. Rey comes off the scrap heap, hops into the Millennium Falcon, and successfully dogfights several TIE fighters. She gets no training in the Force, but manages to block Kylo Ren's mind probe, mindtrick a stormtrooper, and at the climax of the movie she beats Kylo Ren so decisively that the director has to pull a convenient fissure out of his backside to keep her from killing him.
This is why Rey is considered a Mary Sue. No training at all, and yet she accomplishes in ONE movie what Luke needed THREE to do.
How to solve it? DEAD SIMPLE. Rey's flashback shows her being left on Jakku, not with what's-his-face, but with Ahsoka Tano. Now we see she was clearly trained by Ahsoka, not just in the Force, but probably also in more prosaic skills like piloting (possibly even on the Falcon itself, since it was there on the planet with them), repair, and even scavenging parts. Now all that stuff she does becomes plausible. Still unwise from a narrative sense, in that it pretty much eliminates Kylo Ren as a serious villain for the rest of the trilogy, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at Disney.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Ok so, since we are on TLJ, im going to say Rose actively ruined the movie, mainly for her characterization & role in her.
She was too quirky at first for me. But then she was made to fill the two roles already being filled in the previous movie. She was meant to be Finns anchor to the resistance, when that was meant to be Poes job, but they abandoned that for some reason(too gay?) and she was his Love interest, because they decided to go the Reylo route.
But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.
Rose was fine to me. If anything I didn't like how her character completely disappeared from the story in EP IX.
Before Rose, TLJ was ruined by a terrible screenplay and terrible characterization (and sometimes actor's performance) of Rey, Kylo Ren and Luke. They, and Johnson's poor writing, actually ruined the movie, not Rose. I've also never like Leia in the new trilogy but I really can't be harsh on Carrie Fisher.
Kylo Ren is probably the reason why I consider the new trilogy pretty low, IMHO he competes with Hayden's Anakin to be the worst character in the entire SW universe, and it's a shame as I like the actor.
Manchu wrote: Nah, Adam Driver’s performance as Kylo Ren is the only consistently good thing about the Disney Trilogy.
Really? First of all I consider it a true miscast: guy looks like 15yo older than Rey (oh it actually almost is), a child in comparison, and they have 0 chemistry together.
The character is basically a parody of Anakin, the other worst character in the SW universe himself, a jedi-dark jedi boy who constantly struggles between good and evil and ultimately he somehow redeemes himself. No thanks, the character was bad since the beginning, no chance of making it good and Adam Driver couldn't make the miracle. Lots of random silliness from his performance too, like the illogical and hilarious scenes in which he destroys the elevator or talk to Vader's helmet, but I don't think it's Driver's fault. I can't stand Kylo Ren basically in every scene he is in, across all three movies.
I liked Poe, Finn and even Rose among the new characters. They all seem appropriate and "fresh" for a SW movie. Han Solo wasn't bad either, definitely better than Luke and Leia.
Snoke, Palpatine and the general portrayed by Gleeson were also terrible at the worst levels but at least they aren't main characters.
Sure, Kylo is a tryhard. He also has huge entitlement issues. His biggest problem is his inability to get over himself. But you know what? All that makes perfect sense when you think about who raised him ... or, rather, failed to do so. Luke, Han, and Leia were all cool kids but they grew up to be major feth ups and absolutely garbage parents.
You say he’s a parody of Anakin but in reality this is a much, much, much more coherent portrayal of what the dark side is all about.
I kinda hate Big Bang Theory in general, but I always figured that Bernadette was being portrayed entirely as she was supposed to be. Like, she's supposed to be an intentional reflection of Howards mother.
Matt Swain wrote: One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".
MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.
I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.
Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:
Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.
Yeah, no mary sueism there.
To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.
Let's examine the key difference between Luke and Rey.
First movie, Luke comes off the farm and hops into a fighter, yes... but only after Biggs vouches for his piloting skill. Luke's ship takes two hits in the battle and he nearly dies as Darth Vader chases him down in the trench and he is only saved by Han's intervention.
Second movie, Luke gets some training and faces Vader with lightsabers. It quickly becomes clear Vader is playing with him, and when Vader gets serious it takes him about thirty seconds to beat Luke decisively.
Third movie, Luke gets some insight and practice, then faces Vader again, holds his own against Vader, and only manages to beat him by flirting with the edge of the Dark Side. Then Palpatine pimp-slaps him to the ground...
Now let's look at Rey. Rey comes off the scrap heap, hops into the Millennium Falcon, and successfully dogfights several TIE fighters. She gets no training in the Force, but manages to block Kylo Ren's mind probe, mindtrick a stormtrooper, and at the climax of the movie she beats Kylo Ren so decisively that the director has to pull a convenient fissure out of his backside to keep her from killing him.
This is why Rey is considered a Mary Sue. No training at all, and yet she accomplishes in ONE movie what Luke needed THREE to do.
How to solve it? DEAD SIMPLE. Rey's flashback shows her being left on Jakku, not with what's-his-face, but with Ahsoka Tano. Now we see she was clearly trained by Ahsoka, not just in the Force, but probably also in more prosaic skills like piloting (possibly even on the Falcon itself, since it was there on the planet with them), repair, and even scavenging parts. Now all that stuff she does becomes plausible. Still unwise from a narrative sense, in that it pretty much eliminates Kylo Ren as a serious villain for the rest of the trilogy, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at Disney.
I think you're overlooking the fact this occurs in the star wars universe. Apparently when one side of the force is waning, it gets a ringer to bring it back in play and keep the endless cycle going. So the jedi were on top for a long time so a 'chosen one' was sent to restore balance to the force, and yep, he did, by boosting the dark side.
The luke gets plopped in as the guy to bring the light side back. So along comes kylo. So the light side gets a ringer on their side. Maybe the light side will be on top for a while until the dark side gets its next champion.
All this makes me wonder if force users really have free will, or does the force make them go light or dark to keep the cycle going? If one side is dominant for a while, the other apparently gets a paladin to bring it back to prominence. Is that person fated to be on one side without any choice, or does the force pick people who were most likely to choose one side and kind of tip them in the direction they were already inclined towards? If Anikin really had no choice about becoming Mr. Dark Side is that why he got into force heaven despite his horrible crimes? Hmmm, makes one wonder...
But as to rei, her force powers seemed to be reactive to her situation. She siurvived by scavenging tech gear so maybe the force gave her an innate ability to understand machines and use them.
When exposed to a force power, it seemed to trigger hers to go active. Ren tried to mind probe her, her force powers responded reflexively to block him. Having been exposed to an attempt at mind powers, she developed her own in response. When ren used force pull near her, her force powers mimicked his.
Plus rei was palpatine's granddaughter, and it looks like palpy was the most potent force user in the storyline. Since force owers seem to go in family bloodlines it's not inconsistent hers would be high level.
You know, I have thought a lot about the actual topic of movies ruined by a bad performance, and I honestly can not think of a single movie.
Most of the reason a movie is bad is because their is a grouping of things that all go together to make it bad. Nowadays, I am pretty excited to find competent and workman like movies, as so many just feel sloppily put together by committee.
Kylo is probably the best written character in all of the films up until Rise. I can't say I "got" him immediately the first time I saw the film, but seeing him in the forest trying to summon anger he just doesn't have any reason to have really makes the whole thing click in place for m.
And yes, Rey beats him at the end of 7. He's also limping through the fight with a massive bowcaster wound in his side (there's a reason the movie makes a huge deal about how hard it hits earlier in the film when Han uses it).
Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?
Seinfeld - Jerry Seinfeld - he was the weakest of the ensemble and actually painful to watch him in every scene against the others, except when they showed him doing his stand-up.
Of course, he is not the only actor that surrounded themselves with greater talent...
Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?
I would have loved Rey becoming a true villain slaying Kylo and getting into the dark side, and ultimately defeated by Finn helped by the ghosts of past jedi; that would have saved the trilogy. Instead no, we saw the main villain redeeming himself at the end. Again.
Compel wrote: I kinda hate Big Bang Theory in general, but I always figured that Bernadette was being portrayed entirely as she was supposed to be. Like, she's supposed to be an intentional reflection of Howards mother.
So then...Howard’s going to bail in a few years and leave her to screw up the kids royally?
Easy E wrote: Most of the reason a movie is bad is because their is a grouping of things that all go together to make it bad. Nowadays, I am pretty excited to find competent and workman like movies, as so many just feel sloppily put together by committee.
Same! And even the ones assembled by committee can sometimes still be yeoman’s work. I just re-watched Pacific Rim Uprising, which I had not seen since it came out. I recall hating it after leaving the theater but having re-watched it, it is a genuinely solid B-movie.
Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?
I would have loved Rey becoming a true villain slaying Kylo and getting into the dark side, and ultimately defeated by Finn helped by the ghosts of past jedi; that would have saved the trilogy. Instead no, we saw the main villain redeeming himself at the end. Again.
I really like Finn's role in the Trevorrow script, leading a Stormtrooper rebellion. That's one of the many missed opportunities.
I don't think that script really knew what to do with Kylo and Rey though either sadly. I for one, was really hoping the actual final reveal there was that Luke had found Rey abandoned by her junkie parents and brought her back to the academy. Kylo, during his rampage finds her and in a "failed Vader" moment hides her on Jakku instead of killing the youngling. The best part being that we'd learn this from Luke who gets to taunt Kylo with the realization that he created his own foil.
I do think they needed to close out on something profound about the nature of the Dark Side though and unfortunately I think it was hard to do justice without Carrie Fisher. Ultimately though I think the big mistake was trying to kill Ben off. His character needed to end on more of a note of penance. A Jedi exile with some kind of altered connection to the Force that removes him as a threat but allows him to seek atonement through his connections to the darkness.
Easy E wrote: I really hate TLJ as it does not "Get" Star Wars at all and actively spits on the fans for liking Star Wars for what it is.......
..... BUT.....
..... It was the most interesting of the new movies by far. It was the only one that actually had something to say in any meaningful way.
So, I am torn like an old Sweater.
I hate TLJ due to its beyond poor charcters, plot and pacing and confused about the idea it had something to say?
The Original trilogy is just a fun adventure story - little more than that, the prequal is a duller, worse version. The sequals start wtih a poor mans Star Wars and then decend into the depths of poor filmaking in the TLJ
I saw no message, quality or attempt to "say something" - whatever that means in TLJ? What was it trying to say?
Honestly, the failing of the ST is that it didnt try to be anything at all.
It was made to be watched by everyone, be enjoyed by everyone. It didnt try to be about anything. It didnt try to tell a story other than good and evil and good winning.
It was bad because it was made to literally be just films made to cash in on Star Wars
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Compel wrote: I kinda hate Big Bang Theory in general, but I always figured that Bernadette was being portrayed entirely as she was supposed to be. Like, she's supposed to be an intentional reflection of Howards mother.
Howards moether was meant to be a joke character used for jokes.
Bernadette is an actual person.
I think you're overlooking the fact this occurs in the star wars universe. Apparently when one side of the force is waning, it gets a ringer to bring it back in play and keep the endless cycle going. So the jedi were on top for a long time so a 'chosen one' was sent to restore balance to the force, and yep, he did, by boosting the dark side.
The luke gets plopped in as the guy to bring the light side back. So along comes kylo. So the light side gets a ringer on their side. Maybe the light side will be on top for a while until the dark side gets its next champion.
All this makes me wonder if force users really have free will, or does the force make them go light or dark to keep the cycle going? If one side is dominant for a while, the other apparently gets a paladin to bring it back to prominence. Is that person fated to be on one side without any choice, or does the force pick people who were most likely to choose one side and kind of tip them in the direction they were already inclined towards? If Anikin really had no choice about becoming Mr. Dark Side is that why he got into force heaven despite his horrible crimes? Hmmm, makes one wonder...
But as to rei, her force powers seemed to be reactive to her situation. She siurvived by scavenging tech gear so maybe the force gave her an innate ability to understand machines and use them.
When exposed to a force power, it seemed to trigger hers to go active. Ren tried to mind probe her, her force powers responded reflexively to block him. Having been exposed to an attempt at mind powers, she developed her own in response. When ren used force pull near her, her force powers mimicked his.
Plus rei was palpatine's granddaughter, and it looks like palpy was the most potent force user in the storyline. Since force owers seem to go in family bloodlines it's not inconsistent hers would be high level.
The problem with that is... well, all the Sith Lords trained apprentices and the Jedi Masters trained padawans for MILLENNIUM. Obi-Wan required training to consciously use force powers; Anakin required training to consciously use force powers; Ahsoka Tano required training; Luke needed training; Kylo Ren required training; we presume Yoda and Palpatine and Mace Windu and Qui-Gon and all the rest of the Sith and Jedi required training to consciously use force powers. Note that the people you point out as 'chosen Force balancers' are all on that list...
EXCEPT REY.
Rey uses force powers consciously with no training and no explanation. She also flies the Millennium Falcon every bit as well as Han Solo or Lando Calrissian the (presumed) fist time she gets into it. Yeah, she's shown to be able to fight well with a quarterstaff. That gives her zero experience fighting with a lightsaber, and yet she beats the main villain of the trilogy within minutes with this weapon she's never used in a fight before, a weapon that is very awkwardly balanced and has immense potential to harm or even kill an inexperienced wielder.
Seriously. Take a broomstick and swing it around a bit. Then get a big Maglight (with batteries), tape a yardstick to it and swing THAT around. Handles completely differently, yes? All that weight in the handle tends to drag the 'blade' around in unexpected directions. If your combat reflexes are geared toward using a quarterstaff, you're going to use that lightsaber in a similar way and likely remove parts of your anatomy.
But Rey 'downloads the Force' and not only survives, but wins decisively.
Really, that sort of BS makes the sequel trilogy in general, and TFA in particular, feel like someone's playing a Matrix-style videogame of Star Wars and enabling cheat codes whenever challenged by the game.
The ST is just about inherited legacy. Expectation. Fandom and how those things can twist us into the worst versions of ourselves. The two main stars are literally OT superfans.
7 probably does the cleanest job of that, even if it plays it way too safe, 8 spins it back the other way and tries too hard to subvert it, and 9 ends up sitting on the fence having thoroughly given up.
LunarSol wrote: The ST is just about inherited legacy. Expectation. Fandom and how those things can twist us into the worst versions of ourselves. The two main stars are literally OT superfans.
7 probably does the cleanest job of that, even if it plays it way too safe, 8 spins it back the other way and tries too hard to subvert it, and 9 ends up sitting on the fence having thoroughly given up.
Probably the best explanation of the ST so far. KT, JJ, and RJ actively and pointedly making fun of those stupid geeks and their stupid movies. The 2010's equivalent of the jocks and preppies that made fun of Star Wars fans back in the late seventies and through the eighties because we were different. Now the whole thing makes perfect sense.
The sooner they expel the ST from being canon, the better. As is, it passively undermines the Skywalker narrative of Anakin balancing the force of the first two trilogies and actively ruins any post OT creations since it inevitably leads to the ST.
LunarSol wrote: The ST is just about inherited legacy. Expectation. Fandom and how those things can twist us into the worst versions of ourselves. The two main stars are literally OT superfans.
7 probably does the cleanest job of that, even if it plays it way too safe, 8 spins it back the other way and tries too hard to subvert it, and 9 ends up sitting on the fence having thoroughly given up.
Probably the best explanation of the ST so far. KT, JJ, and RJ actively and pointedly making fun of those stupid geeks and their stupid movies. The 2010's equivalent of the jocks and preppies that made fun of Star Wars fans back in the late seventies and through the eighties because we were different. Now the whole thing makes perfect sense.
No less insulting, mind you...
Well thankfully nerd-dom really distinguished itself with its thoughtful, totally not man-child-hissy-fit-nerd-rage reactions to those films. Really showed those bullies that geeks aren’t a weird obsessive lot.
Grimskul wrote: The sooner they expel the ST from being canon, the better. As is, it passively undermines the Skywalker narrative of Anakin balancing the force of the first two trilogies and actively ruins any post OT creations since it inevitably leads to the ST.
That really isn't a reasonable expectation. It is canon now. The best you can really hope for at all is they start ignoring the 'skywalker era' entirely for their new 'centuries ago' period.
But there is too much money wrapped up in the three trilogies and associated properties, so they'll keep awkwardly providing content for it.
LunarSol wrote: The ST is just about inherited legacy. Expectation. Fandom and how those things can twist us into the worst versions of ourselves. The two main stars are literally OT superfans.
7 probably does the cleanest job of that, even if it plays it way too safe, 8 spins it back the other way and tries too hard to subvert it, and 9 ends up sitting on the fence having thoroughly given up.
Probably the best explanation of the ST so far. KT, JJ, and RJ actively and pointedly making fun of those stupid geeks and their stupid movies. The 2010's equivalent of the jocks and preppies that made fun of Star Wars fans back in the late seventies and through the eighties because we were different. Now the whole thing makes perfect sense.
No less insulting, mind you...
Well thankfully nerd-dom really distinguished itself with its thoughtful, totally not man-child-hissy-fit-nerd-rage reactions to those films. Really showed those bullies that geeks aren’t a weird obsessive lot.
Tell the jocks that being the quarterback of the high-school football team isn't the be-all, end-all of existence sometime if you want to see a 'thoughtful, totally not man-child-hissy-fit rage reaction'....
Sure, I love to bash Star Wars as much as the next nerd..... but can we be done with it now. If we want to keep beating on Star Wars, maybe a new thread?
I would love to nominate some other movie or role for us to talk about.... but I really can't. You see, I feel that most Actors are at the whims of the director, editors, and scripts. There is only so much you can do with a bad script.
How about this, in the movie Haywire Gina Carano is the main character. However, I just do not think she has the chops to pull it off yet.
Ok totally diferrent matter.
Mike Baxter in Last Man Standing. All the characters and actors are funny and hilarious. The writers are clearly a funny and talented lot.
However with it clearly being a vehicle for Tim Allens political views(He even has a straw man liberal SIL to tear down) and with allen writing too, barring a few episodes, he is always written to bein in the right and to be the good all american man.
I would love that show if it wasnt for Tim/Mike
Easy E wrote: Sure, I love to bash Star Wars as much as the next nerd..... but can we be done with it now. If we want to keep beating on Star Wars, maybe a new thread?
I would love to nominate some other movie or role for us to talk about.... but I really can't. You see, I feel that most Actors are at the whims of the director, editors, and scripts. There is only so much you can do with a bad script.
How about this, in the movie Haywire Gina Carano is the main character. However, I just do not think she has the chops to pull it off yet.
In fact she's not a real actress but actually I don't really dislike her, she's excellent for B movies or cameos. I was satisfied with her performance in Almost Human, The Mandalorian, Deadpool, Fast and Furious and Knockout.
She'll never be any good for an oscar winning movie or a protagonist role in a big franchise but I think she has proven that she can get appropriate roles for her acting qualities.
LunarSol wrote: Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?
No, that was a completely reasonable ask. My ask is a little more daring: Luke and Force Ghost Anakin in Episode VIII.
As for a film “ruined” by a bad performance? I don’t really think that’s a thing. A bad performance can detract from a film but it takes a confluence of issues to really ruin one. For example, Natalie Portman is awful in Annihilation. But the script sure isn’t helping the actress on that one, either. And the confused, directionless final act is the real stake-through-the-heart for the film. Same actress is really bad in the first Thor movie but, again, there’s alot more going wrong there than just Portman being boring.
I think at best a certain casting or performance can detract from a film but I agree with Eric that this one thing isn’t going to really by itself sink a film.
LunarSol wrote: I don't blame anyone's acting in the prequel movies. Given how many actually great actors there are in those films bumbling out clunky lines left and right, I think its pretty clearly a fault of the script and directing.
Totally Agree. Ewan and Portman are both well above average actors. "Well hello there!" that is just a dumb line no matter how bad you slice it.
Sometimes a bad actor can make a movie great...like Nick Cage in "Kick Ass".
No single actor ruins TLJ (or indeed the prequals) - its a combination of terrible characters, lazy writing, awful pacing and shockingly bad Director that combines to congeal in a dire mess that makes no sense in terms of its own internal narrative. Stuff just happens cos thats the next scene. So its not really relevant to the OP - its all bad so any bad performances are subsumed in one mass of gak.
totally not man-child-hissy-fit-nerd-rage reactions to those films
Of course many who voiced their dislike actually had to pay to go and see it unlike the critics whose job it is to do so and who universely worshipped it.
(Still waiting for someone to tell me anything that it tired to "say something"....which sounds like something the paid critics parroted)
It was made to be watched by everyone, be enjoyed by everyone. It didnt try to be about anything. It didnt try to tell a story other than good and evil and good winning. It was bad because it was made to literally be just films made to cash in on Star Wars
Except it wasn't - its a tedious and dull film that plods along and occassionally something happens to keep awake - jusy about.
TLJ is very different to Superman vs Batman where one character is awful in every scene he is in - which was apparently the actors choice but the Director must have been complicit and said yep "thats the Lex Luthor" I want in my film/story.
There is also the actor or actress that good or bad still ruins it for a person - I do not enjoy Jim Cary - but that just means I don't watch his films so in that sense they are ruined for me by his prescence but thats a ultra personel viewpoint - although I am sure that others have "that" actor or actress they dont want to watch? Seems so from the thread.
TLJ tried to say a few things. It tried to re-mystify the force and remove the unfortunate bloodline aspect to it. It tried to demonstrate that the masters must never believe that have learned everything/cannot be surpassed. It tried to say something about who really benefits from unending political (religious?) conflict. It tried to say something about putting unhealthy trust in larger than life heroes.
Now, it failed, but at least it tried. I give it three happy face stickers out of five just on effort alone. TLJ: best of the sequel trilogy, an embarrassing failure.
How the hell did this turn into almost exclusively a Sequel Trilogy hate thread?
And I love this forum, for the record. Who would have imagined that as many times as Mr. Morden and I have clashed over "Loopy Lex" that we'd find common ground in a mutual hatred of Jim Carrey.
Just Tony wrote: How the hell did this turn into almost exclusively a Sequel Trilogy hate thread?
And I love this forum, for the record. Who would have imagined that as many times as Mr. Morden and I have clashed over "Loopy Lex" that we'd find common ground in a mutual hatred of Jim Carrey.
As I said I don't think the Star Wars sequals are that relevant as its a group effort to make thme as bad as they are rather than one persons contribution.
Are we talking just Batman Forever and beyond Jim Carey or all of his performances?
All those I have seen which is not that many as now I am ageing I seldom watch things I don't enjoy - not enough time left.
However I would not say i hate him - just don't like his style same as I won;t watch a Christpher Nolan film because I don't like them
Mr Morden wrote: All those I have seen which is not that many as now I am ageing I seldom watch things I don't enjoy - not enough time left.
Some of his stuff really hasn't aged well at all. I leave you to process how the "I kissed a man!" scene works for you in the modern age.
But... The Truman Show and Liar Liar are both excellent films. A lot of good comedy from men comes from using the man-child as the focus. When you take too much child and not enough man you end up with most of Carrey's offerings (also see Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, etc.). These two movies emphasise the man with just enough child showing through. They're warm movies with strong scripts, tight themes and excellent supporting casts, and they keep Carrey restrained enough that his humour shows but doesn't dominate the story.
Yeah, he's basically alright when he isn't the one in charge and dominating the production. Which basically means his earlier work and anything coming out recently is going to be hot garbage.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Are we talking just Batman Forever and beyond Jim Carey or all of his performances?
Aside from a couple of serious roles, is there a difference?
I enjoyed him in Ace Ventura 2. Most of my friends thought he was perfect for The Mask, although that was honestly when I started to tire of his ‘unsanctioned buffoonery’.
Around the Truman Show is when it felt like he crawled up his own rear and started producing more cringe than joy.
A little late to the discussion but it warms my heart how many people in this thread hated Bernadette's character in BBT. I stopped watching the show shortly after she became a series regular. Not just because of her, as I think the show really took a nose dive after that amazing second season, but she was definitely a huge part of why I stopped. I just couldn't stand her at all, and the couple of times in the past I've gauged fan reaction to her online I was absolutely bewildered how many people liked her character.
LunarSol wrote: I always found it a little mean spirited. Look at these weird people to laugh at kind of humor.
It’s a little dispiriting when you can draw a 1-1 mapping of three of the four characters onto one’s self and friends. And the fourth wasn’t too far off.
Mr Morden wrote: No single actor ruins TLJ (or indeed the prequals)
Indeed, I would argue the actors, in general, did the best they could with the garbage scripts they were handed and the mediocre direction they received. The problem was 'their best' was not ever going to be enough to save the ST from the rest of it's problems.
creeping-deth87 wrote: A little late to the discussion but it warms my heart how many people in this thread hated Bernadette's character in BBT. I stopped watching the show shortly after she became a series regular. Not just because of her, as I think the show really took a nose dive after that amazing second season, but she was definitely a huge part of why I stopped. I just couldn't stand her at all, and the couple of times in the past I've gauged fan reaction to her online I was absolutely bewildered how many people liked her character.
I got to the end of TBBT, there was enough 'good' stuff to laugh at, but was getting fed up with the characters meanness to each other. Sure, they're sitcom characters, and maybe professional scientists here can weigh and say it happens all the time but two particularly irksome moments were 1) Sheldon taking credit for Leonard's breakthrough idea in a press interview and 2) the other three sabotaging Sheldon's arctic experiment (rendering the expedition at huge waste of time and money), yet it's Sheldon who everyone agrees is a fool. Wouldn't the other three be, you know, fired?!
Also, despite being the victim of bullies in their past, they're quick to be cruel to others like Zack and Stuart.
I’d have been more upset if Stuart weren’t the Hans Moleman of TBBT.
Zack was just a positive guy who actually treated them well, just lacking in comprehension. Leonard was jealous of him, Sheldon was an A-hole to everyone, and from I remember Raj was friendly with him. Howard and Bernadette aren’t nice people by the end, and I think Amy flirted with him somewhat. Penny....well, they had a weird relationship.
In the new Star Trek movies, I really struggled with Simon Pegg as Scottie. It really didn't work for me. I love Simon Pegg, especially in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, but he could not manage Scottie. Which is a shame, as I though Kirk, Spock and Bones were very well cast (I love Karl Urban in general though). He didn't quite ruin the movie completely, but he was damn close.
What was even worse was Scottie's ridiculous little sidekick in the next one. Really dumb.
Fifty wrote: In the new Star Trek movies, I really struggled with Simon Pegg as Scottie. It really didn't work for me. I love Simon Pegg, especially in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, but he could not manage Scottie. Which is a shame, as I though Kirk, Spock and Bones were very well cast (I love Karl Urban in general though). He didn't quite ruin the movie completely, but he was damn close.
What was even worse was Scottie's ridiculous little sidekick in the next one. Really dumb.
Can't argue with that - I completely agree - he just seemed out of place but also agree it did not really damage the film just a Oh he is back when on screen.
A little while ago I defended some of Jim Carrey's work. Like most actors he can produce something worth while when a director gets hold of him and does what they're supposed to do, which is direct the actors.
Then you get films like Sonic. It's not a great film. It's not even good. I'd say it was the wrong side of meh, worth watching just as a curiosity. The acting is poor, the CGI is functional, the humor isn't clever enough to be noteworthy and the camera work is... urrgh. There's an expositional scene early on where we're introduced to the hero and his wife and it's cringingly bad. But over-all the film isn't a disaster, its just not good.
Apart from every single scene with Carrey. He's awful. Nothing he does is new or interesting. It's the same crap he's been doing for years. There's a scene where he's on the hero's doorstep about half an hour in and it's the most unimpressive Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey thing you are likely to see. Replacing him with someone else wouldn't have saved the film. But at least it would have made the film better.
Personally i hated jim carrey for a long time. He started out on a show called "In living color", a show made by the Wayans brothers who do things that would be labeled hate speech if they were white.
He did a skit mocking reginald denny, the innocent truck driver pulled from his truck, savagely beaten and left with permanent brain damage during the rodney king riots.
Yes, i hated him for that and don't apologize for it.
He tends to play loud, offensive characters who like to run down people, and you often want to see his character get punched out.
I understand that IRL he has changed a lot over the years and donates a lot to charity, advocates for the poor, etc.
So I have seriously mixed feelings on him. But in general i don't like his roles or acting.
Not to mention, IRL Carrey had a complete mental break down and basically became a recluse hermit due to his mental health issues.
Sonic was his attempt at "coming back" and I actually heard some okay stuff about it from others. I have not personally seen it though, and Henry is clearly not a fan.
How could they tell? His default personality is basically homeless nutter who just snorted 3 lines of coke and chased it down with enough meth to choke a horse.
Grey Templar wrote: How could they tell? His default personality is basically homeless nutter who just snorted 3 lines of coke and chased it down with enough meth to choke a horse.
When he has to be "on" sure. Just like Robin Williams. Of course, we all know when he wasn't "on" things were different for him.
Fifty wrote: In the new Star Trek movies, I really struggled with Simon Pegg as Scottie. It really didn't work for me. I love Simon Pegg, especially in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, but he could not manage Scottie. Which is a shame, as I though Kirk, Spock and Bones were very well cast (I love Karl Urban in general though). He didn't quite ruin the movie completely, but he was damn close.
What was even worse was Scottie's ridiculous little sidekick in the next one. Really dumb.
I hated scotty being turned from a strong, confident, friendly man into a spazzy geek and dweeb. But that's part of the war on intelligence the media is waging. And yes, call is a conspiracy theory, but i believe there is a media war on intelligence in america.
Matt Swain wrote: But that's part of the war on intelligence the media is waging. And yes, call is a conspiracy theory, but i believe there is a media war on intelligence in america.
This is not exactly new. The mad scientist cowardly hides behind his machines because he can't face the stalwart hero in face-to-face combat is merely the modern incarnation; in ages past it was the evil wizard. Knowledge and intelligence is demeaned; strength and physical prowess praised. That's why scientists get paid under $100K and teachers get paid even less, while professional athletes make millions to play games. The common man can understand and respect strength; he's incapable of understanding and therefore respecting knowledge and intelligence.
I'd expect most gamers have personal knowledge of how jocks get respect even if he's dumb as a box of rocks, while highly intelligent nerds and geeks get harassed and bullied.
Eh... probably depends more on your particular circumstances. In college no one would dare to bully the smart ones, because it was "common" knowledge those guys and gals were going to be our bosses. Of course I acknowledge college is the definition of a pro-intellectualism population, so not the best universal sample.
Going back to the media, depends on the media in question. Media meant for mass consumption (like the new Star Trek movies) will use such tropes to facilitate consumption: they are tropes for a reason. But on the other hand children animation tends to be much better written and makes intelligence a desirable trait, after all we want children to study. You cannot rely on tropes when it comes to kids.
Matt Swain wrote: But that's part of the war on intelligence the media is waging. And yes, call is a conspiracy theory, but i believe there is a media war on intelligence in america.
This is not exactly new. The mad scientist cowardly hides behind his machines because he can't face the stalwart hero in face-to-face combat is merely the modern incarnation; in ages past it was the evil wizard. Knowledge and intelligence is demeaned; strength and physical prowess praised. That's why scientists get paid under $100K and teachers get paid even less, while professional athletes make millions to play games. The common man can understand and respect strength; he's incapable of understanding and therefore respecting knowledge and intelligence.
I'd expect most gamers have personal knowledge of how jocks get respect even if he's dumb as a box of rocks, while highly intelligent nerds and geeks get harassed and bullied.
In the 50's scientists were often respected as man's only hope to survive against the alien invader atomic mutant or other menace.
The Professor pretty much single-handed my turned Gilligan’s Island into an industrial powerhouse and the 42nd largest economy in the world, attracting such luminaries as the Harlem Globetrotters, that famous band, The Mosquitos, Jamie Farr probably...
Matt Swain wrote: But that's part of the war on intelligence the media is waging. And yes, call is a conspiracy theory, but i believe there is a media war on intelligence in america.
This is not exactly new. The mad scientist cowardly hides behind his machines because he can't face the stalwart hero in face-to-face combat is merely the modern incarnation; in ages past it was the evil wizard. Knowledge and intelligence is demeaned; strength and physical prowess praised. That's why scientists get paid under $100K and teachers get paid even less, while professional athletes make millions to play games. The common man can understand and respect strength; he's incapable of understanding and therefore respecting knowledge and intelligence.
I'd expect most gamers have personal knowledge of how jocks get respect even if he's dumb as a box of rocks, while highly intelligent nerds and geeks get harassed and bullied.
Lets be honest here though about Athletes, you have to start at a very young age to make it in even minor league sports. there is a cut off, I can, right now, never become a fottball player, but i can a teacher.
All are worthy of respect, but do not try to insult athletes and the work they do just to bring up teachers and scientists.
and Scientist is a very nebulous term. What is a scientist? what jobs are they doing? Research Assistant? Head Researcher? Where are they doing it? College? Private labs?
Matt Swain wrote: But that's part of the war on intelligence the media is waging. And yes, call is a conspiracy theory, but i believe there is a media war on intelligence in america.
This is not exactly new. The mad scientist cowardly hides behind his machines because he can't face the stalwart hero in face-to-face combat is merely the modern incarnation; in ages past it was the evil wizard. Knowledge and intelligence is demeaned; strength and physical prowess praised. That's why scientists get paid under $100K and teachers get paid even less, while professional athletes make millions to play games. The common man can understand and respect strength; he's incapable of understanding and therefore respecting knowledge and intelligence.
I'd expect most gamers have personal knowledge of how jocks get respect even if he's dumb as a box of rocks, while highly intelligent nerds and geeks get harassed and bullied.
In the 50's scientists were often respected as man's only hope to survive against the alien invader atomic mutant or other menace.
Yes, there was a brief shining moment where the scientist started to gain more respect. That ended pretty quickly and was well and truly over by the eighties.
I think it has a lot to do with the trend for real self-proclaimed scientists to be incredibly insufferable buttmunches who look down on everyone else who isn't as "intelligent" as they are. Its particularly bad among the various celebrity scientists who have egos the size of whole galaxies.
Grey Templar wrote: I think it has a lot to do with the trend for real self-proclaimed scientists to be incredibly insufferable buttmunches who look down on everyone else who isn't as "intelligent" as they are. Its particularly bad among the various celebrity scientists who have egos the size of whole galaxies.
Pretty much. Just because you're recognized in your field doesn't mean you have charisma nor the interpersonal skills to have the tact to at least be publically/outwardly respectful to others. It's funny because the really smart scientists are the ones who realize how little they actually know in the grand scheme of things and are often made humble by their achievements/discoveries. It's only made worse now with social media being as prevalent as it is, and you can see how a lot of them even sell out to the latest fads/trends to stay relevant.
Matt Swain wrote: In the 50's scientists were often respected as man's only hope to survive against the alien invader atomic mutant or other menace.
Just got done rewatching the original The Day the Earth Stood Still. Even there, in 1951, the scientist character says that scientists are all too often ignored.
Grey Templar wrote: I think it has a lot to do with the trend for real self-proclaimed scientists to be incredibly insufferable buttmunches who look down on everyone else who isn't as "intelligent" as they are. Its particularly bad among the various celebrity scientists who have egos the size of whole galaxies.
Yeah, ghawd forbid we listen to intelligent educated people who have no 'charisma', let's let idiots and psychopaths lead us to disaster because they have charisma.
In that case the problem it's not the actress or the performance, it's the character that was poorly written and totally unnecessary for the plot.
