197 replies to this topic

[Arjan Dirkse]

Independence Day was crap...but enjoyable crap. With some good dialogue, and adequate performances by Will Smith and Goldblum and thay guy who played the president. Visuals were revolutionary for the time.

[Ogul]

It's funny though. Independence Day made over $300mil domestic, Battleship will barely make $80mil. So what's changed? Are we used to special effects/ Did they miss out on not having a big name? Were we conditioned to think the movie would be crap based on the concept? Was there too much competition? Did every potential movie goer read a review and think it wasn't worth their time?

One, competition, Battleship fell into the Avengers threshers, while I don't think anything was out when ID4 was. Two, ID4 raised the game, it was bigger and crazier than anything that came before it. Battleship looks, if anything, smaller than ID4 was, slicker CG, sure, but not at the same scale with those giant ships raining death on cities. What's Battleship got? Giant Transformer cannonballs hitting LA? It just doesn't interest me. The same will be true in fifteen years, there will be a movie that does many of the things that Avatar did, only not as well, and people will ask "was Avatar really all that good?" The bar is continually being raised.

[Lucian Von Dooom]

Battleship just looks awful. Words can barely even describe how little interest I have in it. It looks retarded.

[Robert B]

ID4 came out fourth of July weekend, which is a big leg-up. Although ID4 arguably invented the July 4 trend so it gets credit there.

I also think it came out a time when the big effects pictures just weren't that good. Here are 1996's top movies:

http://www.boxoffice...?yr=1996&p=.htm

And 1995:

http://www.boxoffice...?yr=1995&p=.htm

Sure, there was stuff I liked in there but compare that to this past decade when there's at least one huge spectacle picture every week in the summer and holiday season. The year before ID4 came out, the three biggest live-action, special-effects-based action flicks were arguably Batman Forever, Judge Dredd, and Waterworld. No wonder audiences were primed for Independence Day!

(There were also good James Bond and Die Hard pics in 1995, but those kinds of blockbusters aren't sold on special effects to the extent that things like ID4 of MIB are)

[Jim Ohara]

It begs the question: are movies getting better or worse? The usual internet moans are that most movies are crap, but maybe we're getting much more picky with the wealth of special effects available these days.

i also wonder if the internet phenomena of everyone being a movie critic means that most folks can't see a movie any more without trying to pick at the flaws. Like the Avengers threads where rather than talk about all the great stuff lots of posters feel obliged to mention the one thing they didn't like, or the one plot point they would have changed.

Of course I know Robert is an actual movie critic, but it makes me feel that maybe we're in a golden age of movies like nothing ever before but we're blind to it because we're incredibly picky. So movies like Cowboys vs Aliens and Battleship are deemed 'shit' when in years past they would have been at least 'entertaining'.

[Chris D]

It begs the question: are movies getting better or worse?

I'd say neither. I'd think that the general ration of good:mediocre:crap movies are probably about the same as the have been for decades. We bemoan all the crap now and glorify previous periods because we don't bother remembering the mediocre stuff (or most of the crap stuff unless it was monumentally terrible).

[Ogul]

It begs the question: are movies getting better or worse? The usual internet moans are that most movies are crap, but maybe we're getting much more picky with the wealth of special effects available these days.

I think overall they're about the same, the tech makes various things easier, but that doesn't make the movies automatically better. Syfy movies can use "bullet time" effects these days, to crap effect, but that doesn't mean that the Matrix was not innovative for doing it first.

Of course I know Robert is an actual movie critic, but it makes me feel that maybe we're in a golden age of movies like nothing ever before but we're blind to it because we're incredibly picky. So movies like Cowboys vs Aliens and Battleship are deemed 'shit' when in years past they would have been at least 'entertaining'.

Like Wild Wild West?

[Robert B]

It begs the question: are movies getting better or worse? The usual internet moans are that most movies are crap, but maybe we're getting much more picky with the wealth of special effects available these days.

I think the big effects pictures are undeniably getting better. But the mid-90s were kind of a weird period, a transitional period from a technology standpoint. This was after T2 and Jurassic Park but before The Matrix. I don't think people really knew quite what to do with the new technology just yet.

But it's also a numbers game. Last year nobody even bothered to see Prince of Persia even though the visuals in the trailer were pretty amazing. 15 years ago, tons of people would have seen it, because there wouldn't have been as much special-effects competition (both in theaters and at home). Look at The Mummy; tons of people saw that and it really wasn't good.

If there's a flaw right now I think it's that the effects pictures all start feeling the same. The deliver roughly the same goods. That's why people react so strongly to things like Iron Man, Dark Knight, Inception, Avatar, Star Trek, the LOTR films, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Those were more unique, perhaps more challenging, experiences.

Edited by Robert B, 22 May 2012 - 10:10 PM.

[Dave Wallace]

I'm aware of that, Snakes and Ladders is the sequel. Snakes and Escalators is the grand finale. See, it's hard to establish the snakes in the first movie because hey, who goes sliding down snakes? So you do the chutes in the first movie, and then once you establish the people falling down chutes, you can then fill those chutes with snakes. The sequel practically writes itself.

You definitely need to get Samuel L Jackson for the sequel. He's experienced with stuff like that.

[Paul F]

[Robert B]

I think you've got the wrong thread Paul but that looks pretty good! Very dramatic!

(Of course, 99% of what makes the book great is the prose itself, but still....)

[Paul F]

Ah, I'd thought this was the general movie thread. Stupid thread titles.

[Jim Ohara]

That's a gorgeous looking movie. Eagerly looking forward to it.

[Matt Holland]

Luhrman sure knows how to use color.

[Chris D]

Cool, I've been looking forward to The Great Gatsby ever since the cast was announced.

[Todd Gross]

Looks like MiB3 will be enjoying a pyrrhic victory: SUMMER SLUMP? Will Smith’s ‘MIB3′ Slows To $70M Memorial Weekend; Fifth Major Movie To Disappoint While ‘The Avengers’ Sets New $500M Domestic Speed Record

[David Chapman]

Don't know if there is a thread for The Raid but I have to say that film rocked. Best film of the year. Believe the hype.

It really did, and you really should. "Best film of the year" is pushing it a bit, but it kicked arse in a most unholy fashion.

I have to say, I quite enjoyed Battleship in a "turn your brain off" kind of way. I will also confess to making a side trip to Glasgow on my way home from Manchester to see it in the mega-silly tilt-and-vibrate seats. I wouldn't want to make a habit of such, but it was good fun once.

[JP Stafford]

It really did, and you really should. "Best film of the year" is pushing it a bit, but it kicked arse in a most unholy fashion.

I have to say, I quite enjoyed Battleship in a "turn your brain off" kind of way. I will also confess to making a side trip to Glasgow on my way home from Manchester to see it in the mega-silly tilt-and-vibrate seats. I wouldn't want to make a habit of such, but it was good fun once.

The Raid was indeed amazing. I'm really not a martial arts film kind of person. But I'm thinking of going back for a second showing. It was, in a way, beautiful.

Welsh director was a nice shock to me when I found out!

[garjones]

Welsh director was a nice shock to me when I found out!

There was a great interview with him, that I think was posted on this board, with Mayo and Kermode. His wife is Indonesian and he went there because there were few opportunities at home. There will be a US English remake and he turned it down to make the Indonesian sequel. Which is probably a good decision because those remakes, with a very few exceptions, are usually not very good.

[Paul F]

Here's the interview: