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 Henry wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
And it had the balls to do a 'bad' ending, which again I always find impressive that the film makers have managed to get past the big studios and focus groups.

I've seen criticisms of Rogue One where people were disapointed because they already knew the outcome before watching the film (rebels get the information and a lot of people die).

That's like suggesting Downfall is a disappointing movie because we know it's going to finish with Hitler eating a bullet sandwich.

Many years ago, I remember reading about Barry Norman (RIP) and the TV show 'Film 1997'(?), and the BBC getting complaints because he had given away the ending of Titanic during the review..

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Crystal Skull was indeed a huge disappointment. For me it wasn't just that the script was just randomly bad and then suddenly aliens (Indie was better with subtle magics than lol aliens); it was that Harrison was badly cast in the film. They sort of wanted him to be the old action hero, yet he's really not any more.

He did far better in Cowboys and Aliens as a grumpy old general turned rancher. In that film he fits the role because the character is already old so we don't expect wild flying through the air on whips and such. He's not trying to out-run bullets etc....

We need a film with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford being grumpy country folk at each other.

A Grumpy Old Men Re-boot set in the West instead of Minnesota.......


The ending of Crystal Skull was to OTT. Sure Raiders, Last Crusade, and Temple are not subtle either; but they are not as OTT as Crystal Skull is. I was able to ignore the Fridge scene, the metal filings, etc. But once I had to see them all together and then the OTT ending..... it was too much all together.

The biggest problem I had with KotCS, over and above the various stupid things, was that Indi didn’t know what was going on; in all the other films he knows the history/mythology/stories and is guiding the other characters (and you) through the story. Without that, it just bumbles aimlessly around.

Crystal Skull didn't bother me, but it helped I binged the originals the day before I saw it. The end really wasn't any more random than the others, just with too much VFX work and the fridge is the same kind of silly nonsense as jumping out of the plane on the raft in ToD. The movie is overstuffed and has a little too much going on, but I really enjoy watching Harrison Ford play Sean Connery.

That's not to say its a classic or anything, but I consider it the third best movie. It doesn't rank up with Raiders or Crusade, but if for some reason I HAD to watch Skull or Temple of Doom instead of something better, I'd go with Crystal Skull.

The effects were definitely over the top, but I do find 'alien spaceship' easier to swallow than 'earthly manifestation of divine power that would change the entire worldview of the characters and the entire world' that ended the other three films.

When people talking about Crystal Skull remark on how unbelievable they found the ending (not the bad science or the bad characters), I just look at them funny.

The original IJ trilogy was based on things like Allan Quartermain and a lot of thoise republic jungle/arabia aventure serials from the 30's and 40's, so you had mysticism and nazis.

KotCS was based on 50's stuff, so you had aliens and commies added in.

Personally I'd watch CS over ToD just because the female lead wasn't an insult to everyone with a XX chromosome and actually far more likable all around.

Speaking of CS, I have a question that may not have an actual answer: When jones is trying to save the traitor, did the traitor see indy tryingto save him despite how worthless he was and let go of the whip voluntarily to keep indy from being pulled in with him, having one last fit of conscience, or was he simply pulled off by overwhelming force?

I'm not sure if he just realized his life wasn't worth indy risking his for and let himself go as one last decent act or was simply sucked in. Any impressions on this? One last act of decency on a bad person's part of just pulled in by force?

One other thing: What happened to shia lebouf (sp?) I heard if/when they make indy 5 he won't be in it playing indy's bast...er, son, again. (They kinda glanced over the stigma a fatherless boy would suffer in the 50's.) He was a big star for a few years then just disappeared.

 Col Hammer wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, that is certainly a hot take where Crystal Skull isn't the worst of the Indiana Jones films

I think one of the most disappointing films I've seen recently was the Tomb Raider reboot film. They were handed what could have been a really good adventure film in the form of the reboot game. Just take the best set pieces from the game (such as the plane crash, that first encounter with the Oni etc.), trim down the plot a bit and tweak it to tie it together in a feature film length and job's done.

But no, they wasted minutes riding around London on bicycles, more minutes fighting around Hong Kong, stripped out all the extra characters like Sam, Roth and Noah, stripped out all of the epic set pieces and, to top it all off, also removed any supernatural elements from the story along with a huge change in the nature of Himiko which also destroys the idea of being trapped on the island in the first place.

So much wasted potential.

Yeah, I hated it that they removed supernatrural from Tomb Raider universe for no reason. There has always been supernatural elements in Tomb Raider.
yes, this was another movie I was hopeful for and was disapointed. Why the director/writer always feels like he/she knows better than the source material? Make changes for just the sake of making changes? Bah.

Personally I don't like survivor with a bow Lara as compared to Cocky gun toting Adventuer Lara but I agree the film was mediocre and the start "Poor little rich girl" biker bit was truly awful.

I did find the twist with the Himiko quite interesting, plus the star of Into the badlands I enjoy, the action was ok but the film felt it was lacking something throughout.

 Lance845 wrote:
Again, it's not a video game. Force push, force pull, force choke. Deflecting objects with the force. Lifting an x wing. These are not different powers. This is just a person using the force to reach out to influence the world around them since it exists all around them and within all things.

Influencing minds? It's the same thing to a different effect.

Force healing? It's just the same thing to a different effect.

Force Lightning? It's just the same thing to a different effect.

There isn't a list of force powers that a person in the world needs to invest in individually. There is just the force and your understanding of it that allows you to impose your will on it or you clearing your mind to allow the force to work through you.

You can't list the books you like that are no longer in cannon to justify your interpretation of it. The amount of books in the EU is vast with NO oversight. Books in the EU are not just out of canon. They are contradictory of each other. It's almost as bad as 40ks lore in terms of none of it being able to be used as a base line for anything.

'Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.'
'No. No different. Only different in your mind.'

The idea that the Force is a living energy that can be instinctively wielded by an untrained wild talent is woven throughout the original trilogy. It was in the things that came after - the prequel trilogy, EU books, video games, etc. - that the Force became codified and measurable and something requiring years of grinding and leveling up at 'Jedi/Sith academy.' Some folks are attached to the former concept...others have a lot of expectations around the latter. And that's why people still debate Rey with passion. I mean, some of it clearly IS sexism, but I think a lot of it deals with what part of the massive SW IP you're most attached to.

Personally, I loved what Rian Johnson did. It reminds of Robin Williams' character in A Dead Poet's Society telling his students to rip out the sections of their textbooks that attempted to 'measure' poetry. The EU books and prequels were (to me) pretty much the same kind of 'excrement', to use RW's words. But...different strokes for different folks.

People keep throwing the whole sexism thing into SW, like slavegirl leia was an insult to women. Uh, yeah, remember she single handedly strangled jabba to death for what he'd done to her. If that's not a powerful female character what is? Sure, jabba with his goons enslaved and degraded her with that outfit, but when it was just him and her, she took slugboy down for keeps.

In TROS we had the opposite happen. Guys had xxxxxed and moaned for the last 2 movie that rey was a "mary sue" (As if Luke wasn't a marty stew) and she was "unrealistically" powerful in a star wars movie.

So, I guess to shut these guys up they had the final fight between her and Kylo, an kylo beat her. He won the fight, but then leia pulls some long distance force magic to freeze him for a few seconds and rey runs him thru.

Then saves him.

Ok, they gave the guys xxxxxing about rey being a mary sue a bone, he clearly beat her in a fair fight.

Look, star wars was never sexist. Leia was a strong character, even darth vader could not torture information out of her FFS!

The worst portrayel on women in it was padme,who "lost the will to live" when she had newborns to care for, but people don't talk about that and instead whine about slavegirl leia, who was a far stronger character than padme.

When people xxxxxed about rey being an op mary sue they dialed her back a bit and let kylo defeat her in fair combat, and people still say she was an OP mary sue.

Ok tired rant over. Really, if you want a good star wars story walk past the theater and into a bookstore.

Voss wrote:
The effects were definitely over the top, but I do find 'alien spaceship' easier to swallow than 'earthly manifestation of divine power that would change the entire worldview of the characters and the entire world' that ended the other three films.

When people talking about Crystal Skull remark on how unbelievable they found the ending (not the bad science or the bad characters), I just look at them funny.

I saw this movie for the first time with a rather devout atheist for the first time who came out of the film ranting about how unrealistic the ending was compared to the originals. This.... confused me.... greatly, and probably has as much to do wither tempering my thoughts on the film as watching the originals the day before.

The bad thing about the crystal skull is everything that had anything to do with Shia Lebuff.

feth that guy.

 gorgon wrote:

'Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.'
'No. No different. Only different in your mind.'

The idea that the Force is a living energy that can be instinctively wielded by an untrained wild talent is woven throughout the original trilogy. It was in the things that came after - the prequel trilogy, EU books, video games, etc. - that the Force became codified and measurable and something requiring years of grinding and leveling up at 'Jedi/Sith academy.' Some folks are attached to the former concept...others have a lot of expectations around the latter. And that's why people still debate Rey with passion. I mean, some of it clearly IS sexism, but I think a lot of it deals with what part of the massive SW IP you're most attached to.

Personally, I loved what Rian Johnson did. It reminds of Robin Williams' character in A Dead Poet's Society telling his students to rip out the sections of their textbooks that attempted to 'measure' poetry. The EU books and prequels were (to me) pretty much the same kind of 'excrement', to use RW's words. But...different strokes for different folks.

I think the gamefication of the Force is probably the worst thing to happen to the franchise. I've ranted about this at length elsewhere, but Dark Side Points drive me up the wall. I put a lot of blame on the prequel's failure to make Anakin's fall truly compelling, as despite it being such a prominent plot device in the series, all we've ever really gotten was "tempted but ultimately redeemed" or "comically non-cannon I'm a bad guy now, die!" stuff. TLJ is the first time since RotJ that the Dark Side has felt like it might get properly explored, but RoS squashed any hope of that happening for me. :(

 LunarSol wrote:
a rather devout atheist for the first time who came out of the film ranting about how unrealistic the ending was compared to the originals. This.... confused me.... greatly,

Strolling past the observation there's no such thing as a devout atheist...

Atheists like fantasy stories as much as anyone else. Fantasy stories have their own rules to work in and when those rules get broken it becomes unrealistic. The Indiana Jones universe has mystic powers that aren't mainstream and are unknown but most of the population. That fits in with the realism of the Indiana Jones universe. Alien magic doesn't and your friend found that unrealistic. I can't know your friend's mind but this would be my understanding. It's verisimilitude.

It's why "boring conversation anyway" is a joke that fits into the Star Wars universe but the dreadful "yo mamma" joke at the start of TLJ is belief breakingly unrealistic.

 Henry wrote:

Strolling past the observation there's no such thing as a devout atheist...

Yeah, I was failing to find a better descriptor. Insistent?

Committed.

Darn... I'm having trouble picking.

I never watched the Matrix again after seeing that third movie.

After seeing Attack of the Clones in theatres I went from a nerd who consumed every piece of Star Wars media he could get his hands on to a nerd who... didn't, at all; at least until X-Wing miniatures roped me back in.

Terminator 3 was the first movie I went to the mall to see myself after moving to a new city. Got confused by the bus schedule, nearly got hit by a truck, and honestly I'm still not sure if that would have been worse than seeing that movie.

Nuance matters. Execution matters. Some people are less sensitive to lack of both of those than others. Two scenes that seem just as plausible to you can span a world of difference to others.

 Matt Swain wrote:
One other thing: What happened to shia lebouf (sp?) I heard if/when they make indy 5 he won't be in it playing indy's bast...er, son, again. (They kinda glanced over the stigma a fatherless boy would suffer in the 50's.) He was a big star for a few years then just disappeared.

LaBeouf took his Transformers money and took it into the indie scene: live performance art, public drunk and disorderlies, the occasional small to midsized drama film (including a pretty fantastic supporting role in Fury).

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Nuance matters. Execution matters. Some people are less sensitive to lack of both of those than others. Two scenes that seem just as plausible to you can span a world of difference to others.

Indeed. I remember seeing Deep Blue Sea at the cinema with a friend. Out of all of the issues with that movie, the one that killed it for him was sharks swimming backwards, something that didn't phase me anywhere near as much as how tediously predictable it was. And given my rather 'brain-switched-off' approach to movie watching, if I'm finding it predictable, that's saying something...

No Country for Old Men.

Was really excited to see this, then got to the end of the film in the cinema and looked along the seats to see a row off people with puzzled looks on their faces asking "was that it?". It was so unimpressive the only part of the movie I can recall for certain was just how disappointing it was.

To be fair to Deep Blue Sea, I think it was trying to go for that good-bad target so few movies ever achieve on purpose. It being predictable may have been intended as a feature.


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 Henry wrote:
No Country for Old Men.

Was really excited to see this, then got to the end of the film in the cinema and looked along the seats to see a row off people with puzzled looks on their faces asking "was that it?". It was so unimpressive the only part of the movie I can recall for certain was just how disappointing it was.

Sounds like it nailed the book, then.

You know one day someone will video a shark swimming backwards and all those people who hate that being part of Deep Blue Sea will have to rethink things

Thing is I'm totally fine with that because its pointed out moments later in the film that sharks don't do that. The film does something naturally abnormal and points it out as being abnormal. Which kind of goes with the sharks behaviour being totally unshark-like in general.

It's called hanging a lantern or hanging a lampshade on it. If you do something crazy and then the people in the movie acknowledge that it's crazy the audience tends to agree with the characters and accept it.

I have a list, and I don't know which is the biggest letdown.

Natural Born Killers
Spice World
Ghostbusters (2016)
Force Awakens
The Happening
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Haunting (Liam Neeson version)
Nightmare on Elm Street reboot
John Carpenter's Vampires 2
Little Women (2019)


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 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
One other thing: What happened to shia lebouf (sp?) I heard if/when they make indy 5 he won't be in it playing indy's bast...er, son, again. (They kinda glanced over the stigma a fatherless boy would suffer in the 50's.) He was a big star for a few years then just disappeared.

LaBeouf took his Transformers money and took it into the indie scene: live performance art, public drunk and disorderlies, the occasional small to midsized drama film (including a pretty fantastic supporting role in Fury).

I really like how LaBeouf tried getting political for a while and a cult following trolled him at every step. He put anti-conservative flags up at "secret locations" and livestreamed them. It took only a couple days for people to locate them using star maps and when the sun set to find them and steal them.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Spice World

What the hell kind of expectations could you possibly have going in to a Spice Girls movie?!?!?!?!??!


On the subject of Shia, he did manage to do "Peanut Butter Falcon" which is honestly a more humanitarian feat than I would have given him credit for.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
(including a pretty fantastic supporting role in Fury).

I think Fury proved Shia can act. But the Transformers movies, and CS imo, were never about casting good actors. Spectacle movies rarely are. Fury kind of fell into that blurry zone between a hardcore drama and a spectacle film. I was kind of disappointing in it when it came out mostly because I found it couldn't pick a lane and suffered for it, but Shia definitely gave one of the movie's better performances.

EDIT: Though, at the same time Fury proved Shia is kind of fething crazy, and more so than the typical method actor crazy. Dude pulled out a tooth for his role and didn't bath for weeks.

Transformers proved Shia can act. The problem with his performance wasn't that it was bad, just that the character was intensely annoying.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To be fair to Deep Blue Sea, I think it was trying to go for that good-bad target so few movies ever achieve on purpose. It being predictable may have been intended as a feature.
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Henry wrote:
No Country for Old Men.

Was really excited to see this, then got to the end of the film in the cinema and looked along the seats to see a row off people with puzzled looks on their faces asking "was that it?". It was so unimpressive the only part of the movie I can recall for certain was just how disappointing it was.

Sounds like it nailed the book, then.

I agree. I know a lot of people made a fuss about him but really not a fan of Cormac McCarthy. The Road is probably the single most depressing thing I have ever read, and not even in the manner of something like The Boy in the Stiped Pajamas (which made you sit and swallow a lump in your throat afterwards) - it was just bloody awful.

How about Fantastic four? I was incredibly disappointed that as bad as the last 2 were the reboot managed to be a xxxxton worse in every way.

While appeasing the chinese might very well be a factor, Tilda Swinton is also a VERY good actress and does a great job with the part while the Ancient One was one of those 70s racial stereotype characters. There are no doubt layers to the reasons to cast the AO different and I think the product that came out was better for it.