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There’s definitely mileage for us gorehounds watching stuff in date order, with as neutral a mind as we can manage.
Best way to see how things changed and evolved over time. I mean, the movie industry or at least the rating systems are far more permissive these days. Only by watching stuff in the order it was released can you get close to recreating the dubious thrill of movies getting ever more graphic in the old Ultra V.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: The violence in scream was meant to evoke the violence in the slasher movies it was sending up, misogynistic, fetishized and gratuitous. Sounds like it worked.
Maybe it needed to be exaggerated to Robocop levels of excess in order to be proper parody rather than falling into the same mold?
It never seemed to be sending up anything - half of an hour torturing a girl at the start for instance and glorying in it - repeated a number of times - but then the old snarky remark to somehow balance it,.....hmmm not buying it myself - personalyl I just found it to the same old torture porn "pretending" to be something else and i imagine enjoyed in exactly the same way.
Probably because you watched it after the age of Torture Porn, when it came out just before that hit, yet after Slashers were a big thing in Horror. Timing is everything with some of these films.
Just like there is no way you could capture the feel of watching the original Exorcist in theatre or the mass-hysteria/hype around the Blair Witch Project. Therefore, if you watch these films now..... it is hard to understand what made them so special.
The Exorcist is still just as chilling and terrifying today. Sure it may not be as shocking anymore, but the core of the story and the real, human horror of it holds up. There's a reason that the later parodies of it were focused on pea soup, heads turning around etc. and not on the desperation of a mother looking for any way to help her little girl, or a priest battling his own guilt over the loss of his mother and his subsequent crisis of faith.
The Exorcist is a character drama with supernatural elements.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/06/04 23:12:34
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
Already been mentioned, but the Hobbit movies. I was a bit skeptical at first because the Hobbit is a much lower stakes story than LOTR and I thought it might not translate as well to screen. But all the actor choices seemed good. And Del Torro was doing it, and he'd done a good job with several visually interesting fantasy films.
Then Peter Jackson was doing it again. Hmmm. Well Fellowship of the Ring was really good, and maybe he'd learned from his mistakes in TTT and ROTK?
Nope. That first film is not good at all, and it's still the best of the three by a fair margin. Someone did a Tolkien edit that removes all the stuff that is not in the books, which improves the films a fair bit and makes them one fairly long film instead of three incredibly bloated ones.
The Hobbit should have been two films, not a trilogy.
First film you have Bag End and the setting up of the story (no washing up song), the Trolls, Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Eagle rescue and meeting Beorn. It ends with the Dwarves setting out on their way to Mirkwood (final shot pans up from the company riding towards the forest, the lonely mountain visible in the distance as ominous music plays, Smaug's theme).
2nd film starts with the dwarves getting lost in Mirkwood, Bilbo saving them from the spiders, them getting captured by the elves, barrels out of bond (no orcs or ridiculous slapstick), arrive in lake town and meet Bard (who is the captain of the archer militia) and the Master, they are given a heroes welcome by the people of the town (though Bard warns that they will wake Smaug and bring ruin) and sent on their way to the mountain, Bilbo meets Smaug who then burns lake town until he is taken down by Bard (using his normal bow and his last arrow, not some ballista) who is leading the defence, Bilbo finds and steals arkenstone, battle of five armies (cut it down to something the length of the battle of amon hen or moria, basically we see what Bilbo sees until he is knocked out and do not see the end of the battle but the aftermath when he comes round), Thorin's death and funeral, Bilbo leaves for home.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/06/04 23:08:22
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Lindsay Ellis did a really good multi-part breakdown of the disaster that was the production of the Hobbit, including interviews with some of the crew (first part here: https://youtu.be/uTRUQ-RKfUs).
The high level summary was massive executive interference trying to wring the project for profit and the fact that PJ had two weeks to prepare for production after Del Toro left, compared to the nearly two years he had for LoTR.
But ultimately, yes, very disappointing. I rewatch the LoTR special edition on a regular basis, it’s one of my “comfort films”. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to watch the special edition of Five Armies once since I got it, just after release.
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
First film you have Bag End and the setting up of the story (no washing up song), the Trolls, Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Eagle rescue and meeting Beorn. It ends with the Dwarves setting out on their way to Mirkwood (final shot pans up from the company riding towards the forest, the lonely mountain visible in the distance as ominous music plays, Smaug's theme).
2nd film starts with the dwarves getting lost in Mirkwood, Bilbo saving them from the spiders, them getting captured by the elves, barrels out of bond (no orcs or ridiculous slapstick), arrive in lake town and meet Bard (who is the captain of the archer militia) and the Master, they are given a heroes welcome by the people of the town (though Bard warns that they will wake Smaug and bring ruin) and sent on their way to the mountain, Bilbo meets Smaug who then burns lake town until he is taken down by Bard (using his normal bow and his last arrow, not some ballista) who is leading the defence, Bilbo finds and steals arkenstone, battle of five armies (cut it down to something the length of the battle of amon hen or moria, basically we see what Bilbo sees until he is knocked out and do not see the end of the battle but the aftermath when he comes round), Thorin's death and funeral, Bilbo leaves for home.
While I agree overall, the washing up song was one of the few bits of the whole sorry project that actually felt like the book.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/05 08:17:14
While I agree overall, the washing up song was one of the few bits of the whole sorry project that actually felt like the book.
Riddles in the Dark was pretty damn good, it just had the bad luck of being sandwiched between the silly goblin town escape and the thematically dumb eagle escape sequence (where Bilbo proves his worth to Thorin, ending the arc of Thorin coming to appreciate Bilbo and valuing him as a member of the company in the first film of a trilogy, by tackling a massive Orc rather than, you know, his quick mind and stealthy abilities which he demonstrates in the escape from the Elves of Mirkwood).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/05 09:58:04
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
The Hobbit trilogy suffered from the expectations created by the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The he Hobbit is a much slighter story, after all; it's a childrens' story, only later crowbarred into Tolkien's great English mythology. But hardly anyone who went to see the LotR films would want to see something which should really have the tone of a Pixar film, so we got what we got - The Hobbit but grimmer, with half the appendices of LotR chucked in to pad it out.
The washing up song and the scene with the trolls were about right, the barrel-riding scene and all of the third film were way too long and should have been cut down. In the book, after all, we skip the entirety of the battle because Bilbo gets knocked out.
Also, the Battle of the Five Armies was really lacking some great stuff from the book. Where was the swarm of bats which blots out the sun, allowing the orcs to travel and fight under it unweakened?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/05 14:10:16
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The violence in scream was meant to evoke the violence in the slasher movies it was sending up, misogynistic, fetishized and gratuitous. Sounds like it worked.
Maybe it needed to be exaggerated to Robocop levels of excess in order to be proper parody rather than falling into the same mold?
It never seemed to be sending up anything - half of an hour torturing a girl at the start for instance and glorying in it - repeated a number of times - but then the old snarky remark to somehow balance it,.....hmmm not buying it myself - personalyl I just found it to the same old torture porn "pretending" to be something else and i imagine enjoyed in exactly the same way.
Probably because you watched it after the age of Torture Porn, when it came out just before that hit, yet after Slashers were a big thing in Horror. Timing is everything with some of these films.
Just like there is no way you could capture the feel of watching the original Exorcist in theatre or the mass-hysteria/hype around the Blair Witch Project. Therefore, if you watch these films now..... it is hard to understand what made them so special.
I watched it when it came out at the cinema
I AM A MARINE PLAYER
"Unimaginably ancient xenos artefact somewhere on the planet, hive fleet poised above our heads, hidden 'stealer broods making an early start....and now a bloody Chaos cult crawling out of the woodwork just in case we were bored. Welcome to my world, Ciaphas."
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos
"I will admit that some Primachs like Russ or Horus could have a chance against an unarmed 12 year old novice but, a full Battle Sister??!! One to one? In close combat? Perhaps three Primarchs fighting together... but just one Primarch?" da001
Yea Army of the dead sucked. Watch it for Green Screened Tig Nataro and the opening 15 minutes where it essentially shows you the concept the movie never lives up to.
BlackoCatto wrote: Yea Army of the dead sucked. Watch it for Green Screened Tig Nataro and the opening 15 minutes where it essentially shows you the concept the movie never lives up to.
Frankly, the first 15 minutes would have been a much more interesting movie imo.
Watched it tonight, fell asleep 3 times during. What a pile of gak.
It is shockingly bad. I don't understand why the studios were able to make good films of this type in the 80s/90s, and now they apparently can't.
I'd also nominate the 2005 version of The Fog. Compared to the 1980 original by John Carpenter, it has a worse story, worse acting, and inexplicably, worse effects. A really pointless and charmless remake.
BlackoCatto wrote: Yea Army of the dead sucked. Watch it for Green Screened Tig Nataro and the opening 15 minutes where it essentially shows you the concept the movie never lives up to.
Frankly, the first 15 minutes would have been a much more interesting movie imo.
Its an odd failure in a genre full of enjoyable films that is fails to live upto - any of the follower (IMO) are much better watches - Resident Evil, Cockneys vs Zombie, Warm Bodies, Zombieland , tv shows like I Zombie also explore some of the same areas much more effectively.
For me it did not work as a action adventure or a heist film and was actually overlong and frankly dull in places. Unlike all of the previous - the characters were not especially likelable either. Shame really
The start was not bad - although how and why aircraft were being shot down escapes me....
I AM A MARINE PLAYER
"Unimaginably ancient xenos artefact somewhere on the planet, hive fleet poised above our heads, hidden 'stealer broods making an early start....and now a bloody Chaos cult crawling out of the woodwork just in case we were bored. Welcome to my world, Ciaphas."
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos
"I will admit that some Primachs like Russ or Horus could have a chance against an unarmed 12 year old novice but, a full Battle Sister??!! One to one? In close combat? Perhaps three Primarchs fighting together... but just one Primarch?" da001
Mr Morden wrote: The start was not bad - although how and why aircraft were being shot down escapes me....
A lot of the plot makes zero sense whatsoever, and I'm not one of those viewers who can turn his brain off readily and ignore plot holes when they keep piling up.
Spoiler:
So the underlying plot of the scheme is that some rich douche wants a sample of zombie, because doesn't someone always want to turn zombies into a bioweapon in these things? It's cliche, so whatever, except;
Someone had already made the zombie and it got out at the start of the film while being transported across the desert. This lab presumably wasn't in the Vegas city limits (there's no army base in the city and they seemed to be driving toward it for some reason), so why the feth do they need a zombie from Vegas? Maybe the original lab data was lost or destroyed to avoid a scandal, but that would be oddly smart as a thing to do to then follow up with the stupid scheme in the movie. The movie never explains it either way.
The secret guy sent into Vegas to collect the zombie bits seems to have no idea how they work. The Coyote knows more than he does. Which is weird.
Doubly weird because it seems like the plan would have had a better chance of success had they simply informed an entire team what they were doing and then simply walked them back out. The entire heist gag actually worked against the big bads actual goal, not for it. Why didn't they send in a team, grab a zombie bit, then go out beyond the barrier the zombies have never penetrated, and simply flown team out with a not junk helicopter waiting just outside? They could have been in and out in a hour and actually gotten what the stupid conspiracy wanted.
And triply weird because one scene makes it clear the military is in on this 'let's steal a zombie head or whatever' scam. So why the feth didn't they send in delta force or something? Instead, they let a third party hire a bunch of amateurs for...no reason whatsoever. It's not like they don't control the airspace or anything and could slip a team in and out.
Quadruply weird, cause they'd apparently tried the exact scam before and failed with some other dudes who I assume weren't military cause they were also trying to get the money, but that means they've tried the same scam multiple times and failed each time. And were trying again?
And my personal favorite is the completely unnecessary daughter character. Who is super concerned about a mom and her kids, so concerned that she abandons the kids as a city they're near is about to be nuked to go looking for the mom. It's bizarre how she thinks nothing of that, nor does anyone else. Who the feth is looking out for those kids while she's being self-righteously suicidal?
The entire plot of the film really stops making sense very quickly and the characters do a lot of really stupid gak. My favorite is the fist fight. I started laughing at that, because WTF how dumb are you trying to fight a zombie with your bare hands and arms?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/06 15:13:44
Valkyrie wrote: Another vote for Us. I enjoyed Get Out but Us was just riddled with plot holes.
While thinking of book adaptations, I have to mention Mortal Engines. The trailer got me into the books, and I loved them. The movie on the other hand was an awful adaptation. While they inevitably have to cut some of the plot out due to timing, there's very, very little resemblance to the original plot or characters.
Fantastic visuals, awful movie.
For me the point at which I had no faith that the Mortal Engines movie would be anywhere near good as the books was as soon as Hester was revealed in the trailer. Her facial scars are downgraded from a missing eye, mouth permanently twisted into a sneer, and a destroyed nose into having both eyes, intact nose, mouth perfectly functional and some superficial scarring on her chin and cheek. Her appearance in the book is a visual metaphor of her soul, split in half between the good in her and the violence inflicted upon her which she has internalised into hatred of pretty much the entire world around her.
They discarded that kind of visual storytelling when adapting it into a visual medium. The whole point is that Tom sees past that outer ugliness to the true Hester inside. That doesn't work when she isn't ugly to begin with. It's basically doing the whole "ugly high schooler takes off her glasses and lets her hair down and now she is gorgeous, even though she wasn't actually ugly before because we couldn't actually cast a not stereotypically attractive actress in the lead role of our film."
Exactly that. They also ruined Tom's character; in the books he's presented as more of a shy weakling with no real aspirations due to his upbringing. In the movie he seems to be the typical slick cool-guy/secret savant.
Valkyrie wrote: Another vote for Us. I enjoyed Get Out but Us was just riddled with plot holes.
While thinking of book adaptations, I have to mention Mortal Engines. The trailer got me into the books, and I loved them. The movie on the other hand was an awful adaptation. While they inevitably have to cut some of the plot out due to timing, there's very, very little resemblance to the original plot or characters.
Fantastic visuals, awful movie.
For me the point at which I had no faith that the Mortal Engines movie would be anywhere near good as the books was as soon as Hester was revealed in the trailer. Her facial scars are downgraded from a missing eye, mouth permanently twisted into a sneer, and a destroyed nose into having both eyes, intact nose, mouth perfectly functional and some superficial scarring on her chin and cheek. Her appearance in the book is a visual metaphor of her soul, split in half between the good in her and the violence inflicted upon her which she has internalised into hatred of pretty much the entire world around her.
They discarded that kind of visual storytelling when adapting it into a visual medium. The whole point is that Tom sees past that outer ugliness to the true Hester inside. That doesn't work when she isn't ugly to begin with. It's basically doing the whole "ugly high schooler takes off her glasses and lets her hair down and now she is gorgeous, even though she wasn't actually ugly before because we couldn't actually cast a not stereotypically attractive actress in the lead role of our film."
Exactly that. They also ruined Tom's character; in the books he's presented as more of a shy weakling with no real aspirations due to his upbringing. In the movie he seems to be the typical slick cool-guy/secret savant.
I enjoyed the movie but had not read the books.
Sounds like the same thing as "horribly disfigured love interest" in Ready Player One....hmmm
I AM A MARINE PLAYER
"Unimaginably ancient xenos artefact somewhere on the planet, hive fleet poised above our heads, hidden 'stealer broods making an early start....and now a bloody Chaos cult crawling out of the woodwork just in case we were bored. Welcome to my world, Ciaphas."
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos
"I will admit that some Primachs like Russ or Horus could have a chance against an unarmed 12 year old novice but, a full Battle Sister??!! One to one? In close combat? Perhaps three Primarchs fighting together... but just one Primarch?" da001
1. If you’re not gonna do Bane, don’t use the name.
2. An American city held hostage? Really?
3. I’m sorry Master Bruce, but your knee is knackered. You’ve buggered up all the cartilage. Until you need to make that leap out the trapdoor...not long after you’ve recovered from being paralysed....
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Loved the first film, the second had me hyped by the trailers and then when I saw it, it was just... bleh. At least the sound track was still damn good. But that was it's only saving grace.
My beloved 40K armies:
Children of Stirba Order of Saint Pan Thera
Loved the first film, the second had me hyped by the trailers and then when I saw it, it was just... bleh. At least the sound track was still damn good. But that was it's only saving grace.
Hey now, it did also give us one of the best worst line deliveries ever
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/07 09:12:07
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Loved the first film, the second had me hyped by the trailers and then when I saw it, it was just... bleh. At least the sound track was still damn good. But that was it's only saving grace.
Johnny Cage getting his neck snapped. I could watch that on infinite repeat.
The Exorcist is still just as chilling and terrifying today. Sure it may not be as shocking anymore, but the core of the story and the real, human horror of it holds up. There's a reason that the later parodies of it were focused on pea soup, heads turning around etc. and not on the desperation of a mother looking for any way to help her little girl, or a priest battling his own guilt over the loss of his mother and his subsequent crisis of faith.
The Exorcist is a character drama with supernatural elements.
The Excorcist is one of those movies which has to be watched alone, or in a small theatre with not too many people. If you watch it with a group of friends, all the commentary, eating popcorn, people getting up for drinks/bathroom breaks distract you from the minute detail which the movies appeal is based on.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AndrewGPaul wrote: The Hobbit trilogy suffered from the expectations created by the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The he Hobbit is a much slighter story, after all; it's a childrens' story, only later crowbarred into Tolkien's great English mythology. But hardly anyone who went to see the LotR films would want to see something which should really have the tone of a Pixar film, so we got what we got - The Hobbit but grimmer, with half the appendices of LotR chucked in to pad it out.
The washing up song and the scene with the trolls were about right, the barrel-riding scene and all of the third film were way too long and should have been cut down. In the book, after all, we skip the entirety of the battle because Bilbo gets knocked out.
As much as I think Jackson is an overrated director, the studios premise that Hobbit should out-epic the LotR films (even though source material is less than 1/3 of LotR with much more childish tone) set the whole thing up for inevitable failure.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/11 08:28:18
Loved the first film, the second had me hyped by the trailers and then when I saw it, it was just... bleh. At least the sound track was still damn good. But that was it's only saving grace.
Hey now, it did also give us one of the best worst line deliveries ever
There are people here who may never have seen that movie, and never had planned to. People who could have died safe from ever having seen that part of the movie. Now thanks to you some people who could otherwise4 have died without ever experiencing that scene have seen it.
How can you live with yourself knowing that?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/11 13:49:40
"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
Loved the first film, the second had me hyped by the trailers and then when I saw it, it was just... bleh. At least the sound track was still damn good. But that was it's only saving grace.
Hey now, it did also give us one of the best worst line deliveries ever
I wonder if The Hobbit trilogy failure is due mainly from its being based on a stellar piece of literature? Yes, I did read the Hobbit super long ago, so only recalled minor plot points. Sure, the movies had bloated and meaningless parts added to fluff it up.
But, my main questions are: If you did not read the books, would you have thought the films as big a failure as you do? What does your buddy think of them, if he never read the book? Aren't a good percentage of the hated films here based on book where a vivid description and story have been drawn and expectations set?
Army of the Dead, which beyond a few good gore fest scenes, was total gak and I had zero expectation going in with no book to reference.
Sometimes I wonder if the writer and director are on the same page in some movies, but when it is the same medicore-talent person both writing and directing? God save us all...
No, I don't think expectation has anything to do with it. I'm not a huge fan of the book or anything, but I found that first film miserably dull. There's more padding than fun and its just not a tale with enough depth for that kind of runtime.
Children of Stirba 
Order of Saint Pan Thera 
