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I'm halfway through and it's not a bad film at all. Really excellent visuals.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Is this like a Alien Nation film?

KTG17 wrote:
Is this like a Alien Nation film?

It's been years since I've seen Alien Nation so I can't really say.

KTG17 wrote:
Is this like a Alien Nation film?

pretty much,

shallow characters & plot to try and fail to give depth to an action movie. reminded me of most shadowrun games

KTG17 wrote:
Is this like a Alien Nation film?

Pretty much yeah, but fantasy creatures instead of Aliens.

It wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't good, either. I was sort of interested in the worldbuilding they did, but the actual story they told in that world was pretty shallow, at best.

 trexmeyer wrote:
IReally excellent visuals.

IMO there were a lot of scenes that were needlessly dark (literally, not thematically).

I think it was because it was at night and less lighting is an easy way to save money.

The Inferi fight scenes were really nice. I'd like to see more of them. More than anything the movie reminded me of Underworld (albeit better acting and visuals) in that it really created an interesting world setting but ended up bogged down by poor writing.

I loved all the background stuff, like the centaur cop in riot gear (riot barding, I guess?) and the dragon flying across the night sky in one of the night cityscape shots.

I actually loved the movie, and holy crap, all the f-bombs. Wife liked it too. Other than making magic super-rare, it's one of the best modern fantasy settings I think I have seen, where the fantasy stuff wasn't campy, or like many others, restricted to the shadows that only the heroes encounter but the rest of the world doesn't know about. I really want to see more Shadowrun-esque modern fantasy on t.v. and movies.

Interesting note, the actress who played the evil elf lady's female henchman (woman?) also played Rose's older sister in The Last Jedi. Talk about a breakthrough...your first two English speaking films release a week apart

Edit: This article is in Vietnamese, but it has pictures of her in both characters that are better than anything I can find on google images.

http://kenh14.vn/sau-the-last-jedi-va-bright-phai-goi-ngo-thanh-van-la-co-gai-bom-dan-20171223020951748.chn

Here's a pic of her with the wig.

 Ouze wrote:

KTG17 wrote:
Is this like a Alien Nation film?

Pretty much yeah, but fantasy creatures instead of Aliens.

It wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't good, either. I was sort of interested in the worldbuilding they did, but the actual story they told in that world was pretty shallow, at best.

Yes, I could do with another one. Or a TV series, please. I thought they did a good job of getting the backstory in without too much exposition - the visuals in the opening titles, the graffiti, etc.

It wasn't quite like Alien Nation - AN didn't have another species of aliens who were above the humans, and IIRC, the alien cops weren't looked down on by their own people as Jakoby was in this. That made for a different character dynamic here.

I really enjoyed it. Good world building. Would like to see a revisit to this world with other characters exploring more aspects of it.

So is it set in the Shadowrun verse, or just a cheap copy of it?

Looks quite fun

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
So is it set in the Shadowrun verse, or just a cheap copy of it?

Completely different, as much as urban fantasy can be, anyway. No cyber-tech stuff, it's firmly modern tech in modern 2017-era. And as far as I know from what they say, the non-human races (of which there are more than Elves and Orcs) have always been around, rather than a worldwide change like Shadowrun. About 2,000 years ago, an Orc warrior who was a nobody rose to lead an alliance of the races to defeat a Sauron-esque dark lord and the Orcs that sided with him. A bunch of terrorists from a shadow faction are trying to bring him back, and two cops who don't like each other stumble into the middle of it. Only certain people can use magic, by being able to touch and use magic wands (without being burned to dust) which are idiotically rare.

Much, much better than the Underworld movies. It would make a badass series, even without the characters from this movie.

There's a whole series worth of themes in there about how the Dark Lord was an elf, and the hero that ended his rule was an Orc, but how the Orcs are the ones still blamed for the whole thing.

Probably because it's easier to blame the Orcs who apparently don't have any wizards than the elves, who have loads, and are likely to turn you into a burning skeleton if you suggest they're the bad guys. I'm not entirely sure about who runs this country; is it roughly democratic (meaning that the sheer number of humans can shape public policy, even if the elves are the 1%) or do the elves run the place, using the humans to keep the orcs sufficiently downtrodden?

We're told that the proportion of elven "brights" is significantly higher than in humans (1 in a million, we're told) and no-one mentions orcs at all, implying there's none. However, that could simply be elven propaganda; if you tell everyone that only a tiny minority of humans can pick up a wand without exploding, then most of them won't pick one up. It's not a complete lie, since we see one guy explode, but the actual proportion of humans with the power could be higher, unless there's another less-fatal way to test for it. Or perhaps the elves just booby-trap the wands.

Shadowrun might be an influence, but saying it's "a Shadowrun movie" is simply lazy nerd-speak, I think. Even if Shadowrun didn't exist, I don't think the idea of taking Tolkienesque fantasy and bringing it into the modern day is something no-one could think of. The thing it made me think of was Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, although that's much more overtly magical and somewhat more high-tech, so still not a good comparison. The world of Flintloque, perhaps? (although that had undead and dwarves, too).

Just finished it...

Probably the first Netflix blockbuster imo.

I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars... wanting even more.

It's closer to shadowrun/dresen files than anything else.

Also, Netflix should to seasons based on Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. That should work really well!

The plot was pretty paint by numbers action flick fare but a series exploring it all would be pretty great.

 whembly wrote:
Just finished it...

Probably the first Netflix blockbuster imo.

I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars... wanting even more.

It's closer to shadowrun/dresen files than anything else.

Also, Netflix should to seasons based on Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. That should work really well!

Hopefully without the ... unusual sexuality. I missed all that when I first read the books (I was 11, I think), but now ... it's distracting at best.

The movie was good, nothing oustanding, but the world-building was really, really interesting. I'll love to see more in the same universe.

Lots of movie reviewers are slaughtering this - "the first movie designed by algorithm lol I are totes witteh cos it's on Netflix yeh" etc - and...yeah, I don't get it. Why they're so amped to gak on it I mean - it's not the greatest story ever put to film, but it was fun to watch with an interesting premise and did a solid job of combining cop movie and fantasy tropes, and I closed out the browser window actually interested to see what they do with the sequel.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

KTG17 wrote:
Is this like a Alien Nation film?

Pretty much yeah, but fantasy creatures instead of Aliens.

It wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't good, either. I was sort of interested in the worldbuilding they did, but the actual story they told in that world was pretty shallow, at best.

Yes, I could do with another one. Or a TV series, please. I thought they did a good job of getting the backstory in without too much exposition - the visuals in the opening titles, the graffiti, etc.

It wasn't quite like Alien Nation - AN didn't have another species of aliens who were above the humans, and IIRC, the alien cops weren't looked down on by their own people as Jakoby was in this. That made for a different character dynamic here.

You should rewatch alien nation the alien cop was looked down upon and no one wanted to partner with him, the only reason the "hero" did was because his partner just got shot up by an alien and he wasn't being allowed to investigate it. I think most of wills and jakoby's dialog was lifted straight from alien nation


Automatically Appended Next Post:
what I didn't get though, is how after jakoby dies, the other orks start worshiping him. they just got done killing him, a elf saves him, now he's some sort of leader? made no sense to me. you'd think the orks would just kill him again, because that would be orky

sirlynchmob wrote:

what I didn't get though, is how after jakoby dies, the other orks start worshiping him. they just got done killing him, a elf saves him, now he's some sort of leader? made no sense to me. you'd think the orks would just kill him again, because that would be orky

They mention it many times. 1) there is a prophecy. 2) An unblooded ork did the same thing and then united the 7 (9?) races.

sirlynchmob wrote:
You should rewatch alien nation the alien cop was looked down upon and no one wanted to partner with him, the only reason the "hero" did was because his partner just got shot up by an alien and he wasn't being allowed to investigate it. I think most of wills and jakoby's dialog was lifted straight from alien nation

You should reread my post. I was talking about the orc getting abuse from other orcs, not from human officers. I don't recall the alien policeman in AN having that problem, although I could be wrong. I've not seen AN in 20 years.

I wonder what the other races are? Humans, orcs, elves, centaurs, ???

Pretty sure the Orc gang boss guy mentions that Dwarfs were at the "all-species" block parties back where he used to live.

 Lance845 wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

what I didn't get though, is how after jakoby dies, the other orks start worshiping him. they just got done killing him, a elf saves him, now he's some sort of leader? made no sense to me. you'd think the orks would just kill him again, because that would be orky

They mention it many times. 1) there is a prophecy. 2) An unblooded ork did the same thing and then united the 7 (9?) races.

they weren't in a prophecy, it was a stolen corolla yes an ork did it 2000 years ago, but they never said that ork died and was brought back by a renegade elf. There might have been a prophecy, but it was never specifically mentioned so it didn't seem to be common knowledge, and if jakoby didn't know it, he just assumed there could be one, I doubt the other orks knew any differently. so I still find the orks change of heart about killing jakoby really odd.


there were also fairies and dragons.

and thinking about it being xmas today, I can't help but chuckle, jesus was the dark lord he came 2000 years ago and his followers are awaiting his return

I just assumed that Orcs in this setting are very tribal and extremely superstitious/spiritual, hence why most of them are in gangs, and the blatant use of magic shocks them hard.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Lots of movie reviewers are slaughtering this - "the first movie designed by algorithm lol I are totes witteh cos it's on Netflix yeh" etc - and...yeah, I don't get it. Why they're so amped to gak on it I mean - it's not the greatest story ever put to film, but it was fun to watch with an interesting premise and did a solid job of combining cop movie and fantasy tropes, and I closed out the browser window actually interested to see what they do with the sequel.

Just like Warcraft. The movie was wasn't a master piece, ok. Being fair I'll give it a 5,5 or a 6. But they gived him 32 in Metacritic. WTF? And then, they suck the dick of Disney giving The Force Awakens a 8,1 in Metacritic. When its a worse version of episode IV.
Movie critics are the worst. I just ignore them.

I can't remember the last time I saw a film get such a wide variety of reviews.

Personally I quite enjoyed it as the piece of entertainment it was. A good training day-esque story and script, some excellent set pieces and action, but I think most importantly it was quite fresh and original (although as people have said, a bit Alien Nation). It also didn't completely turn into the Will Smith show, as some of his films can become.

I think where it has possibly drawn a lot of heat is in the not-so-subtle commentary on racism and relations in society. A lot of the media (rather than film press) seems to have given a review depending on what side of the political fence they sit on, as everything seems to be these days. But, I think the film is well worth watching if you just view it as a piece of entertainment, and you get to see a police centaur (which is one of the coolest things I have seen this year).

To be honest I just loved him for taking the typical fantasy genre (Dark lord with orcs vs alliance of races, etc...) and putting it in a contemporary vision of a world with that kind of story has his past history.

 Lance845 wrote:
I really enjoyed it. Good world building. Would like to see a revisit to this world with other characters exploring more aspects of it.

Yes indeed. Loved it. Joel is really pushing the anti bigotry movies in a quiet way.