Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think a comparison with another movie that recently came out as an adaption from a comic book is the best way to explain what's wrong with Sucker Punch.
Attention (limited) spoilers for that movie, if you haven't read the comic book

In this movie :

In Sucker Punch, though,

tl;dr Sucker Punch doesn't build a story around characters. It has a scenario entirely build around the list of audience pandering that it wanted to indulge in. The other movie is doing what Sucker Punch pretend to be doing, except it has an actual story that is actually about the main character. But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Well,



That being said your point stands. The girls in Suckerpunch going from fantasy scenario to fantasy scenario not because we have any reason to believe any of them would escape to these world or these challenges but because we the audience love action beats with robots, mechs, nazis, girls in skimpy clothes etc etc....

It's not building it's imagery and story around anything within the story but instead to pander to as many nerd demographics as possible with the lowest possible common denominators.

Yes thank you, I forgot to mention that part .

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.

Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.

The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.

Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.

Disagree entirely.

1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.

2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.

3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.

Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.

1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.

2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.

3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.

Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.

But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.

 Mr Morden wrote:

But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.

As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?

OK so I just skimmed the 5 pages to catch up, but you can tell from the suggestions it's a game forum.

Where are the chick flicks? surely the notebook would be considered a classic.
Moulin rouge
mamma mia

sure they're dated now, but that's what really makes a classic IMO, those movies you'll reach for to watch again and again.

Infinity war is the new shiney thing out today, but no one can say how it will stand up to time and if it will reach "classic" statue.

zombie land should be considered a classic, it was a refreshing take on zombie movies.

Those films are too old for this discussion, though. Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Girls' Night might count, but I'm not aware of a whole lot of recent "chick flicks" existing.

 Mr Morden wrote:

But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.

It's a pretty fitting description for both, to be honest. Until you reach "fanservice", that is. Inception doesn't have anywhere the same amount of fanservice as Sucker Punch has. It's not a defining feature for Inception. Or I missed it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are the Magic Mike movies any good? Wanted to watch them but still haven't found the right occasion.

nou wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.

As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?

I really don't know - when I ask people - they come up with vague assertions that it is "Clever" or "Intelligent" but when I ask how, what aspect or what bit - they never seem to be able to articulate what it that is actually so clever or inteliigent.

I found it fairly empty myself - lots of pretty pictures but thats about it.

Re: Inception

In terms of pop culture, the movie does play with the what is reality theme. What you experience vs what is happening in "base" reality.

That you can't directly plant an idea in someone, as they can reject it as an "alien" thought. The conscious mind may reject an idea or concept that their subconscious mind would be receptive to.

How you can screw yourself playing with power you don't fully understand, like Leo's wife needing to get back to "base" reality.

How knowledge of something doesn't mean you can't potentially deceive yourself. Did the top fall over in the end?

If a person is involved with sci if, or fiction, or has a passing interest in philosophy or psychology, they've probably thought about that before. But if they haven't, they probably don't have the words to express the "smartness" of the movie that may have been thought provoking to them. Which sounds condescending, but is what it is.

28 Days Later.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
A Batman film without Bruce would be god awful. It would be nothing but action scenes and gruff one liners.

Also, an accurate Batman movie would be next to impossible to pull off realistically. The one reason Batman does not kill in the comics is plot armor. Some of the things he has done, people would not walk away from that. You definitely wouldn't see them standing up to get handcuffed and taken away. There would be blood, cries for help, and ambulances galore.

The way he drops people over the edge of buildings with their feet tied up? Yeah, at best you are getting a dislocated hip or knee. At worst, he ded. Batarang to the chest? Hope you like broken sternums and perforated lungs! Doctors sure don't! After he maims these guys, he just walks off and leaves them. Hoping they will be okay.

Non-killing Batman only works in the comics, cartoons, and whimsical shows with Adam West.

Disagree entirely.

1) Batman is a detective. Murder on the Orient Express was not all one liners and action scenes. A Batman movie should be a detective movie. Batman also does no gruff one liners. His enemies should be talking gak to him, and he should be terrifyingly silent and methodical.

2) Most Batman movies thus far have focused on the villains. You can use them to drive most of the plot, and you should. Batman is a reactionary force. The meat and potatoes of the film should be the villians, their psychosis, and how that effects their world view and their drives. Even when it's a murder mystery like Gotham by Gaslight you follow Batman as he uncovers layer by layer the villains thought process and motivations.

3) Batman doesn't kill because he makes the conscious choice to not kill. Again, Gotham by Gaslight does it really well. Batman the Animated series did it really well. There should be blood. There should be cries for help. Batman should be breaking bones and putting people in hospitals. But there is a big difference between a cracked femur and death.

Non killing batman would work 100% fine in the movies just like non-killing Spiderman. The vulture comes at him with murderous intent. The robbers use guns to hurt him. And he pulls his punches and tries to debilitate. Just write the movie to function like the comic. I don't need it to emulate real life. I just need to believe the world they are showing me. It's a comic book world where a man in a bat costume fights a guy in a refrigerator suit with a glass jar on his head. Not being a killer is the least crazy, most believable part of that world.

1 Batman the detective isn't really much of a detective. They play him up in the comics but a lot of what he does just relies on his supercomputer giving him quick lab work or Alfred doing some digging for him. This would be especially problematic if there was no Bruce Wayne bits. Bruce brings a whole new set of skills and possibilities to the table.

Except again, we have clear examples of Batman being a detective on film. Gotham By Gaslight has no super computer. Animated series used the computer to get a chemical analysis but it didn't put the pieces together or tell him what it means. You can say it doesn't work but we have seen it work. By Bruce Wayne do you mean Batman without the mask on? Let me clarify what I mean. Bruce Wayne is the mask. That persons real personality is Batman. He pretends to be Bruce Wayne to hide the fact that hes Batman. You can have Batman in the cave without the Mask on and it would be fine. Thats not Bruce Wayne stuff. Bruce Wayne stuff he hanging out with ladies and pretending to be on a cruise while talking to the police on the phone or whatever.

2 Batman is all about his rogues gallery, but a lot of them have one big flaw. They are obsessed with him in some way. It's not just the Joker, they all are. They really cannot help themselves. That is why the detective angle is so hard for him. Most of the time it starts with him doing his detective bit and then suddenly "Surprise! It was me all along!" The villain pops out of nowhere.

NOW. But not at first. And not all of them. Again, I want to see a long holloween. Long holloween has a a great mystery with murders and detective work and action beats and a criminal that is in no way obsessed with batman.

3 Batman can make the concious choice not to kill all he wants. But what it boils down to is the plot is saving those people. Untreated broken bones can easily kill. Blows to the head can kill. Blows to the chest can kill. These things can kill on complete accident. It happens. Hit a guy and he falls down wrong. Ded. Misjudge a batarang throw. Ded. That is Batmans problem, he does all of this stuff that can easily kill a person and their reasoning for nobody getting killed is "Oh, he doesn't kill." Then you look at your choice of Spiderman, who has killed before, and see he is actively using his powers not to kill. The death of Gwen Stacy changed Spiderman. He uses his powers to tie people up. He will gladly take a punch and soak it with his super strength. Batman does not have that luxury, so he has to get in quick and fast and rely on the plot armor to keep people alive.

Watch ANY movie where people don't die from blows that should have clearly killed them. It's most movies. Thats FINE. I don't need to know how a cloth suits protects batman from point blank gun shots or knifes. I can just accept that the batsuit is bullet proof. Trying to explain why batmans blows would kill is dumb. Whats worse is batman covering his stuff in guns and then actually shooting people. In spiderman 2 Spiderman punches doc oct in the head a LOT. and not soft little punches, he winds up and really nails him. He throws that giant sack of gold coins with a $ on it at him full speed. Doc Oct isn't a enhanced person like green goblin was. He's just a guy with prosthetic stuck to him because of a lab accident. He would be dead a dozen times over in that movie. But everyone lets it slide because it's a comic book and the action doesn't need to represent real world physics. People who die around you because of their actions are not your fault. Gwen got thrown off a bridge. Spiderman didn't throw her. Trying to save people and failing is not the same as you killing them.

Another question, how has a goon never killed another goon on accident in front of Batman? Shots get fired a lot at Batman.

Again, if one criminal shot another criminal, thats not on Batman.

Mr Morden wrote:

nou wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

But the other movie doesn't have "layers of dream" (soooooo deeeeeeeeep) and fanservice so I guess it won't become a classic lol.

Sounds more like a perfect description of the tedious and over hyped Inception to me.

As this is a "love it or hate it" kind of movie, may I ask you to play a devil's advocate for a bit here and briefly write what exactly do you think people so love about Inception?

I really don't know - when I ask people - they come up with vague assertions that it is "Clever" or "Intelligent" but when I ask how, what aspect or what bit - they never seem to be able to articulate what it that is actually so clever or inteliigent.

I found it fairly empty myself - lots of pretty pictures but thats about it.

greatbigtree wrote:Re: Inception

In terms of pop culture, the movie does play with the what is reality theme. What you experience vs what is happening in "base" reality.

That you can't directly plant an idea in someone, as they can reject it as an "alien" thought. The conscious mind may reject an idea or concept that their subconscious mind would be receptive to.

How you can screw yourself playing with power you don't fully understand, like Leo's wife needing to get back to "base" reality.

How knowledge of something doesn't mean you can't potentially deceive yourself. Did the top fall over in the end?

If a person is involved with sci if, or fiction, or has a passing interest in philosophy or psychology, they've probably thought about that before. But if they haven't, they probably don't have the words to express the "smartness" of the movie that may have been thought provoking to them. Which sounds condescending, but is what it is.

This condescending part of the post would be proper if everything else was true... but sadly it isn't. And if your passing interest were not into philosophy or psychology but neuroscience and psychiatry, then you would probably know, that Inception is very accurate depiction on how depressed mind dreams during anxiety episodes (including malicious "Mal" characters, chases and high rise kick scene (this was the first part of lucid dreaming I mastered years before Inception made it to theaters and were absolutely stunned that Nolan directed and edited this scene exactly how it worked for me)). Everything below this "fundamental reason" behind making Inception in the first place are tools to achieve the end goal.

And this neuroscience tropes behind Nolan original films is reccuring since Memento (I have already hinted about what Prestige is all about), while affective neuroscience is the part that Christopher added to "commissioned" work of his brother and Kip Thorne (but because this was "commissioned" and highly controlled by Thorne, it has the most questionable value. But whatever Nolan makes based on his inner need (so leaving Batman series out of this) is built like a clockwork around a core subject.

nvm.

Just a few randoms from me:

Fight Club
The Big Lebowski
Rogue One
Inception
The Watchmen Extended Version
Man on Fire
Birdman
Bladerunner 2049
Solaris (yes the George Clooney one)
LOTR - The Fellowship of the Ring
Kill Bill 1 and 2

As cheesy as it can be at times, the first Avengers is a solid classic. I am happy to see it every time I see its on TV. Just a straight up fun action film. Prob the best all around superhero movie.

Maybe Interstellar too. I hate the ending, but man... that movie went places many other Sci-fi films haven't. There have been a lot of Sci-fi films that I loved, but I can't think one another where I would put it anywhere near 2001.

I can watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean films a million times. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is amazing just for Davy Jones alone.

There's been a lot of great movies actually. The Big Short, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, Gangs of New York (for the attire and set pieces alone), Superbad, Tropic Thunder, Anchorman, Downfall, lots of good films.

I think Fight Club is already a classic. Everything else on that list is great but what is a classic really?

A classic is IMO is a perfect rendition of it's type that is at least a generation older than the present. So really every movie that is "really good" will eventually be a classic.

Hot Fuzz.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hot Fuzz.

I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.

I agree on most of the choices here, and would have put them forward but I thought we were supposed to limit ourselves to the last 10 years?

@ Nou:

It kind of sounds like you're taking what I said as an attack. It wasn't. To be clear, I was trying to propose what "Normies" (non-perjorative, just lack of better term) might think was Smart or Intelligent about a movie that received uncommon financial success for popular entertainment that scratched more than just the surface of "big ideas".

I was concerned that my saying that "Normies" hadn't thought about "big ideas" before may have come across as condescending, by placing myself above them in some kind of intellectual hierarchy.

The philosophy part interested me, and I was using psychology loosely to catch-all for brain-sciences.

When you say, if everything else were true, but it isn't, I'm not sure what you're referring to. It looks like disagreement with the ideas I'd proposed, indicating those things did not exist within the movie, which I don't think was the intention but I'm unclear as to what's going on in that paragraph. Would it be possible to rephrase?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Keaton is far superior - he has the slightly broken fragile shell down to tee.

Bale is ok at best - same as his Batman, but it lacks the finesse and insight that Keaton brought.

Remember "Batman does not live in Bruce Wayne basement, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's Attic"

This is exactly right. Burton & Keaton *understood* Batman, but Bale *looks* like Batman. Batman actually belongs in Arkham, with the other crazies.

And yeah, "I'm Batman" - that's the core of who he is. Not who he pretends to be when he wants to blow off some steam or get some exercise. Like Superman pretending to be Clark, Batman dresses up as Bruce.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
I haven't seen the director's cut, curious about those extra 17 minutes, but throughout the film the women are repressed and abused by the men (and enabling women) around them, yet still find a way to maintain a part of themselves and resist. The protagonist lands in the situation she is in defending her younger sister from rape, and then proceeds to presumably get raped throughout her tenure at the hospital/brothel she is left in. I could see some feminist message tucked away in there

So the story has plenty of rape in it and that makes it feminist? Does that mean every other WIP film is feminist too?
Even Thriller - A cruel picture feels less exploitative than Sucker Punch, and Thriller (THE MOVIE THAT HAS NO LIMITS OF EVIL) has literal pornographic inserts. But at least when Thriller does fight scene, the heroine doesn't stick to sexy poses in a sexy costume so that we can all enjoy how sexy that rape victim is. Because sexy is somehow how Sucker Punch want to frame rape victims as…
Sucker Punch is basically bringing the worst aspect of exploitative female characters from comics and video games into a live movie.

And the best thing is that even if we completely overlook this, it's still pandering to geeks in a way that's incredibly demeaning imo. “Oh you nerds like dragons I'll put some dragons! You guys like mechas I'll put some mechas! You guys like zombie nazi and can't tell WW1 from WW2 I'll put some in there! You just like all those things for their most superficial aspect so I don't need to do anything deep with it just put them there and it's enough!” Thanks for calling me a shallow idiot Mr director, I guess…

I'll stick to more honest pandering movies like Mayhem that goes to simple, honest to god power fantasy .

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Soundtrack was awesome, though.

Honestly don't remember .

Look, I am not arguing the merits of Sucker Punch's feminism. I was just giving you something to work with since you seemed so confused about what sort of feminist message might be present in that movie. Agree with it or not, I don't really care.

You have me curious, though. What is a deeper, non-superficial aspect of Mecha that needs to be examined on screen? Because knee jerk reaction? That line of yours was pretty funny.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hot Fuzz.

I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.

I loved Hot Fuzz (although World's End is by far the best of the three) but it does rely on at least some familiarity with a) stupid 80's US cop based shoot 'em up's b) English murder-mystery detective shows c) the strangeness of rural English life, so its more in the cult niche than classic

Titan AE was passable and without it we may not have got Firefly

also Hot Fuzz having Welsh Bond in reminded me The Rocketeer, an MCU movie that arrived 20 years early

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hot Fuzz.

I wasn't impressed with that - I don't think it made me laugh once. Shaun of the dead was great though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think Titan AE is a classic that most people probably don't even remember seeing. It had great music - great animation - original ideas.

I loved Hot Fuzz (although World's End is by far the best of the three) but it does rely on at least some familiarity with a) stupid 80's US cop based shoot 'em up's b) English murder-mystery detective shows c) the strangeness of rural English life, so its more in the cult niche than classic

Titan AE was passable and without it we may not have got Firefly

also Hot Fuzz having Welsh Bond in reminded me The Rocketeer, an MCU movie that arrived 20 years early

Serious burn man.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I agree on most of the choices here, and would have put them forward but I thought we were supposed to limit ourselves to the last 10 years?

@ Nou:

It kind of sounds like you're taking what I said as an attack. It wasn't. To be clear, I was trying to propose what "Normies" (non-perjorative, just lack of better term) might think was Smart or Intelligent about a movie that received uncommon financial success for popular entertainment that scratched more than just the surface of "big ideas".

I was concerned that my saying that "Normies" hadn't thought about "big ideas" before may have come across as condescending, by placing myself above them in some kind of intellectual hierarchy.

The philosophy part interested me, and I was using psychology loosely to catch-all for brain-sciences.

When you say, if everything else were true, but it isn't, I'm not sure what you're referring to. It looks like disagreement with the ideas I'd proposed, indicating those things did not exist within the movie, which I don't think was the intention but I'm unclear as to what's going on in that paragraph. Would it be possible to rephrase?

I have read your post as "that is all there is in the film which received an undeserved label of 'deep' and there is nothing else to do except being condescending towards it's fans", hence my tone. If I misread and it wasn't your intention then I apologize for throwing this back at you in such form. As to list of points that were in your post - many are in fact a part of the film, but some of them in not exactly the way you listed them in, but again, my reply was based on misreading the tone of your post. I don't want to dwell into analysis of the story arc itself, as it is secondary to what I wrote as fundamental concept behind Inception and the "bottom layer of depth". I really cannot think of any other film that deals with the very ways of how human mind dreams (not to confuse with "dreamy" movies, which there are plenty). And the whole film reads very differently depending on whether you are treating "layer 0" as reality (suposedly Cobb version) or as "layer 1" (Mal version).

As to difference between psychology and neuroscience, this is my personal trigger, because those two fileds are vastly different in their explanatory power, with academic psychology being nowadays seriously outdated and chasing it's own tail... Hope this helps sorting out my outburst.

No problem, glad we got it sorted out!

Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.

I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.

I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.

Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.

Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.

One more thing: this difference between psychology and philosphy vs psychiatry and neuroscience is partially the reason why some of Nolan fans may struggle to adequately verbalise what caused their awe. While we all have brains and are at least subconsiously aware of some of mechanism that neurosciences describe, the only language most people know on those subjects is popular psychology, which not only struggles to express neuroscience adequately, but very often confuses and misleads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
No problem, glad we got it sorted out!

Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.

I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.

I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.

Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.

Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.

Then we are on the same page now. To my defence, english is not my primary language and while I'm quite fluent at it, the positive/negative tone can sometimes be very difficult to establish for me over text medium such as this forum.

 greatbigtree wrote:
No problem, glad we got it sorted out!

Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.

I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.

I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.

Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.

Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.

I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.

Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.

Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.

That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.

So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
No problem, glad we got it sorted out!

Mr Morden had pointed out that people he knew said the film was smart / clever and couldn't explain why. I was just throwing out a list of things I could remember several years after I watched it.

I wasn't trying to be exhaustive. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even if it hashed over familiar territory for myself. I'm more interested in philosophy, than neuroscience, but I was sloppy in my word choices, so that's totally fair.

I'm insufficiently knowledgeable to talk about the correct terms on the brain-science end of things. My interest in it is superficial, despite enjoying ADD and Anxiety. I'm always worried about something, I just can't remember what it was I was worrying about before what I'm worried about now. Just a joke, I'm fortunate in that my situation is more inconvenient than debilitating. I just need to know enough to work with it, not fully understand the underlying functions.

Which is weird, now that I think of it, because I'm almost always trying to deeply understand the mechanics behind things.

Anyhow, Inception good. Sucker Punch bad, but maybe classic in the way Weird Science is a classic. You're at the right place and time in your life when you see it. Very much why Fight Club is a classic for me. Absolutely the right time and place in my life for it to make a serious impact on me.

I understand what you are saying but for me it fundmentally fails in that I have no emotional engagement with a single character wthin the film and in addition it does not hold true to its own internal rules, that one character is introduced who has the ability to rest the dream but can not do this later because suddenly the rules change to allow the set piece action sequences to work. So when someone says its "cleveer" then I look bac and think - nope - it makes little sense within its own rules and the director either will not or can not create human characters.

Watching Sucker Punch - I felt sorry for the girls, the brutality they were undergoing in the "real world" and hence could engage.

Inception left me cold - it felt dead and lifeless and hence, to me, pointless except as a acedemic exercise or just a series of pretty set pieces.

That may just be a result of my own mind set and what I "need" to enagge fully with a narative be that film, computer game, book or other medium.

So for Me Sucker Punch: Great, Inception: Nothing.

What you write here is what I expected to read from you if you ever were to elaborate on your previous post. You are correct in feeling that Nolan characters are somewhat hollow and you cannot engage, because they are such by design. Especially in Inception, where by one interpretation everyone except Cobb and Mal are mere projections of Cobb mind's traits (Mal being a flawed model of real Mal). This is another post from you, by which I would describe you not as unable to understand Nolan's works, but simply hardwired in incompatible enough manner to care for them. Would you describe yourself rather as an empatic person than analytic?

@ Nou: I get it. Forums are tough to gauge emotional content. No harm, no foul.

@ Mr Borden: I get that point of view, though I don't share it. I'm only pointing out some of the intellectual aspects that make Inception appealing to some viewers. I can absolutely agree that the characters feel flat in their world. And I will further agree that I was more connected to the characters in Sucker Punch. To me, I think the movie suffers from the presentation, more than the content. By making it about abused the women in "sexy" outfits fighting geeky tropes it became pandering. I think if they had avoided the sexy dames doing their own thing cliche and had made it more ordinary, or kept it stylized in one way, it would have been better. As it is, it felt to me more like trying to present One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest as a Burlesque performance. The seriousness of the subject matter is undermined by the presentation.