Subject:
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Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:47:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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1582 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Dave Schuler wrote:
> I like The Fifth Element, though I accept that it's darned goofy, and
> the "love is the answer" bit *is* pretty weak.
Oh, my opinion of that film goes well beyond that tiny little point. I was
twitching during the song-and-dance routine, my eyes were drawn to Gary Oldman's
hideous costume like it was a 20 car pileup, the "perfect woman" badly needed
braces...and an acting coach, the bad-guy costumes looked like the sort of
padded-suit outfits you'd see in a Godzilla movie, and the whole movie tried to
be too many things at the same time (many of them contradictory).
> Wing Commander--good call. I didn't see that one in the theater, but you're
> right that it's a major stinker.
Like I said, I watched it for the TPM trailer. I'd gotten my money's worth
before the movie even started.
> If I had to list a Star Trek film, it would probably be V. I just can't
> watch it.
I never watched any of the 6 TOS movies in the theatre, which was listed as a
criteria for this exercise. I have watched them all on TV or video, though I
refuse to watch The Motionless Picture again because it was so boring, and I
refuse to watch ST5 again because...well, I can't remember, but I know it was
bad enough that I've managed to purge nearly all of my memories of having
watched it.
> I enjoyed Nemesis enough to list it as "not bad," but I agree that it
> suffered from some major shortcomings. Still, I liked the big battle scene.
I remember slightly more about Nemesis than I do about ST5. Two of the big
things that I remember are that the Big Scary Aliens™ were given the worst
possible name that they ever could have been given. Remans? As in Remus,
brother of Romulus, the founder of Rome? C'mon, who was dumb enough to
green-light that pathetic joke? The other big problem that I remember is that
the Picard clone looked much more like a certain member of the Crusher clan than
either the young Picard that we'd previously seen in TNG or the older Picard
played by Stewart. I mean, did Picard have his lips surgically removed at some
point?
> Don't hate me, but I thought of listing Tim Burton's Batman. I admit that
> I'm not a fan of Burton, but even with that aside I was disappointed by the
> film.
I don't have a problem with that at all. I mean, I liked the first two films,
but I wouldn't add them to my DVD shelf unless I could pick them up really
cheap. He did a great job of capturing the mood of Gotham City, and Michael
Keaton was by far the most believable of the three Bat-actors, but I didn't like
how much he'd tweaked the backstory (admittedly, Batman, like Superman, has
undergone a few complete revisions of his backstory, but Burton's version didn't
really tie into any of them). Currently my favorite Batman movie is Mask of the
Phantasm, and if I could find it on DVD again, I'd probably buy it, especially
now that they're releasing B:TAS in boxed sets.
> I had read Frank Miller's treatment of Batman in the years before Batman hit
> the screen, and I wanted it to be so much more than it was.
Oh, if his treatment was anywhere near being on par with The Dark Knight
Returns, I doubt anyone would even remember the Superman series.
> And it really cheeses me that Burton's Batman is the yardstick by which all
> subsequent comic book films have been measured.
It's an odd situation that led to that. The Superman movies started out okay
and went downhill pretty fast, but to me they always seemed a bit too sedate for
comic book movies. They've later been upstaged by not one, but two different
live-action TV series, so noone really gives them more than cursory attention
when ranking comic book adaptations. The first Batman movie really captured the
feel of both the original and present-day Batman comics, as well as washing away
the stain upon his reputation that came with the uber-camp 60's TV series.
Between then and the point when the first X-Men movie was released, pretty much
every other comic book adaptation was either not a true cultural icon (Spawn,
Blade, etc) or deemed to be so abyssmal by the distributors that it either sat
on the shelf for years or went directly to video (Punisher, Fantastic Four,
etc). When people think back to the beginning of the comic book movie trend,
Batman is usually the first one that'll come to mind, followed by a long gap
wherein no other comic book character really hit it big. At this point, in
order for any movie to supplant Batman as the poster-child, it will need to be
leaps and bounds beyond anything we've already seen before, in any genre. I
mean, just think of how many movies have promised to be the "next Star Wars".
Well, you might have trouble doing that, because you probably won't even
remember most of them.
> Kudos for casting Nicholson, though.
It did carry the disadvantage of setting precedent on killing every Bat-villain
by the end of the movie. He didn't want to ever be dragged back to film a
sequel, so he insisted that the Joker's death be built into his contract.
Ironically, he had so much fun in the role that he later expressed a desire to
reprise his (dead) character.
> I didn't get to see AOTC at Imax, but I hear that the battle was very
> impressive on the uber-screen. I think I get the plot okay, and I don't
> mind the politics, so that's not too much of an obstacle for me.
The action sequences were all pretty much left intact, so yes, they are all
pretty cool to watch on a multi-story screen, but many of the more important
plot points happen during the slower scenes, and those were where all the cuts
were made. It's possible to follow the plot pretty well if you'd already seen
it a few times in its original full-length cut, but if that was your first
viewing, you'd miss key plot points and be left wondering why certain things
didn't make sense to you.
> My complaints about TPM are relatively few:
> 1. JarJar: Hate him, hate him, hate him. Nothing can sway me on this.
I've lost track of the number of people who said they used to think that very
same thing until they watched it in a theatre packed full of really little kids.
Jar-Jar hitting the screen is reportedly like pumping tranquilizers into the air
system.
I don't like him, but I don't hate him. I guess I'm willing to take his role in
Ep2 into account when rating his worth in TPM.
> 2. Jake Lloyd: A cute enough kid, but he should have had more guidance
> from Lucas or from some kind of acting coach.
He's a kid playing a kid. Not every child actor is going to be Haley
Joel-Osmont, and not every kid character is going to need that level of acting
ability for a believable performance. Lots of kids are real dorks, if you judge
them by the same standards that are applied to adults. I think his timing could
have used some improvement, but beyond that, I think his performance comes
across as a typical kid trying to pose as an adult.
> My complaints about AOTC are likewise pretty few:
> 1. Hayden Christiansen: His whole Sociopathic Obsessive Love-
> Stalker performance was so overwrought as to be unwatchable
Anakin has been obsessing over Padme for ten years, after having only seen her
for a few days. He _is_ a sociopathic obsessive stalker, and that's going to be
a major component of his downfall (no spoiler info, just the bright flashing
signs that were presented to us in AOTC). And her initial instinct shows that
some part of her mind, at least, realized that.
> 2. The Love Story: Wholly unconvincing and generally creepy
Have you ever seen teenagers who are newly in love? It's rarely something that
would inspire romantic epics. As for being creepy, I think that was
intentional.
Now, I'm not saying that Lucas couldn't/shouldn't have found actors who could do
a better job of portraying Anakin and Padme, or better directors to film the
movies, but I think there are a dearth of middle-aged guys who are using the
actors as scapegoats for the fact that they didn't have the same jaw-dropping
experience that they did when they saw the original trilogy when they were young
enough to be impressed by the Smurfs.
> Lucas has a real problem with writing convincing dialogue, but he's always
> been that way; either you accept his writing or you don't.
I've got a couple of behind-the-scenes videos of the original trilogy, and there
are at least a couple of instances where some of the main hero actors are
commenting on how they'd told Lucas up front that his dialogue couldn't possibly
work...until they saw the result on the screen.
> Generally I can get past it, except for rare moments that burst my
> tolerance: "Your skin is so soft, not like sand." Dear mercy, where's my
> airsickness bag when I need it?
Hey, it's not like the Jedi order runs classes to teach their students how to
score dates. He's a teenager who's spent over half of his life living with
warrior monks who have rules against that sort of thing. He'd have to come up
with his own pick-up lines from scratch.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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| (...) Nonsense! Everything was true, especially the contradictory parts, which were also false! RE: Song-and-dance routine: You mean the Diva? Yeah, I don't have much to say about that, except to wonder if she's related to Bib Fortuna. I liked the (...) (20 years ago, 24-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
| | | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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| (...) This is one of those goofy movies that if you take it seriously at all you'll just hate it. It's one of those bad movies that I enjoy. I find Mar Attacks hilarious, but most other people just absolutely despise it. I suppose you had to be a (...) (20 years ago, 25-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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| (...) I like The Fifth Element, though I accept that it's darned goofy, and the "love is the answer" bit *is* pretty weak. Wing Commander--good call. I didn't see that one in the theater, but you're right that it's a major stinker. If I had to list (...) (20 years ago, 24-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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