I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning ‘In Time’. It had such a great premise, and I didn’t even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said “fuck it, that’s good enough”. The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point… A movie just isn’t the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I’m not sure belongs here. It’s not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it didn’t do better. That movie is called ‘Push’, with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn’t that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn’t a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It’s just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don’t seem to get those anymore.
They Live (1988)
I will upvote you, but i must disagree. It was executed flawlessly for 75% of the film. Hell, even the “project 2025” beat towards the end was pretty spot on.
If I may ask, what would you have done to change what you didn’t like?
Please excuse all the replies, I just love discussing the movie. It’s still one of my favorites, but I would love to see some other production company film a different ending and release an alternate version with a powerful ending. Think how “Arrival” (Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner) made you feel at the end. I feel like “They Live” could’ve been that good, but maybe it was before it’s time, and they had to cater to the box office of the time.
The premise was powerful, the plot and character development were good, but it seems like the ending of the screenplay got rewritten, and it wound up being a standard issue Rambo-style shoot em up, when it had the opportunity to end on a different, more powerful note that left the viewer thinking about how this relates to themselves, and our own society.
I wonder what the original screenplay looked like. It starts so powerfully, but takes such a vivid downturn at the end to appeal to the masses demanding shootouts and explosions. I suspect the ending was rewritten in order to get green lit for production, because the original ending might’ve been too cerebral for general audiences. I imagine the original ending probably made you think, and generally that’s not what the masses like from their movies. Kind of ironic considering the plot of the film, don’t you think?
I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve always wanted to. Have you researched an original screen play? You might get lucky with a leak somewhere.
The fight scene where the main character was trying to get Keith David’s character to try on the glasses… that was legendary. I’ve never seen another (serious) fight scene come close to how hard it made me laugh. 10/10 for that. I imagine Roddy was so familiar with fight choreography from being a professional wrestler that he just got the green light to go ALL OUT and both actors nailed it.
New Rose Hotel (1998) It’s set in the same universe as Johnny Mnemonic, stars Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. I love Gibson stories and the short story it’s based on, while not one of his best, could make a good creepy weird movie especially with that cast. Unfortunately it is one of the most boring movies I’ve sat through at least half a dozen times.
The Fall Guy. The show had a very simple premise (stunt crew moonlights as bounty hunters) that really couldn’t hold up after multiple seasons. The movie just floundered trying to do too much, and ended up far too inside baseball for normal viewers to really identify with.
I never watched the show, but I loved the movie. Almost every character feels competent and clever, so they do at least something that surprised me. There are a few points that hinge on details that feel a bit contrived, but I appreciated that the climax wasn’t just a physical fight between good guy and bad guy. The main characters have emotional problems that are believable and get resolved. Plus, it’s just a little campy.
I think the “inside baseball” that you mentioned gave the world more depth. It felt “lived in”.
I’ll give you that the movie does try to cram a lot into the time, though. It feels a little rushed.
Yeah, rushed is part of it as well for a full 120+min movie.
And, I should say, I also loved the movie and was disappointed to see mostly negative reviews afterward, but I get it. I initially loved the fact that 87North, the director’s own production company, is both listed in the opening credits and is the company making the movie in the movie. But as the final (contrived to look awesome, which is the point, not the actual plot points) moments wrap up, it felt like it was as much an industry commercial for the director’s own production company as it was a movie just being a movie. Maybe that’s a selling feature and I overthought it, but it sort of took me out of it.
Christian Bale faking an actually decent London accent, Gerard Butler being a loveable scot, and Matthew McCaughnehey doing his best Norse/Spartan Warrior impression?
Horrible acting all around (except Bale at times), the lead female character was basically there to soothe/flirt with the lead (wish i was joking), you can barely understand anyone, and yet really impressive set/castle and overall atmosphere. You believe you are there, and that the world is gone.
Huge gaps in logic on the hunting patterns of dragons, helicopters seem to run on infinite fuel, and the final plan to take down the main dragon is just stupid at best… but the execution of fighting dragons in the air with nets dropped by guys without parachutes was a phenomenol air sequence.
Also, the dragon CGI holds up. You never quite see it, but when you do, you believe it’s there, and the CGI team did a great job with consistency in that the dragons are always depicted expelling fluid that they ignite, and you see it every time they cast fire.
Phenomenol movie, and one of the best opening 5 minutes in terms of origin story. Just a lot of bad acting, and some questionable feats in logic plot-wise.
I remember being extremely well entertained by awesome dragons, and that’s it. Which means you’re probably correct.
What Bale’s native accent?
I know it’s a British one, I was wondering what region, since OP was talking about his London accent.
its vaguely welsh, but I actually can’t tell
Nah it’s not welsh at all, he was born there but grew up entirely in England.
Christian Bale is English. His accent in Reign of Fire is not far off his normal accent.
You are shitting me!
He’s crazy good at assimilating accents so a lot of people don’t realise. Here’s his real accent (apologies for the YouTube link).
his real accent sounds fake… I don’t believe it…
It took me a while to figure out what movie you were talking about. But it’s “dragons invade the modern world, with Christian Bale!” (I can’t remember the name)
reign of fire
Eragon: Returns
I’d watch this, but only because sometimes I need to watch bad movies
One of the movie series I was sad to see die before it even began. Read the whole series of books.
I’m a crazy, or did you completely fail to mention what movie you’re describing?
Highlander II
The Dark Tower
It’s a long list but these two were painful.
The premise of Highlander 2 was awful, too, though.
Mind you, Highlander II would’ve made more sense as a non-Highlander movie that just revolves around space aliens dealing with Earth having a planetary shield now. As a sequel to Highlander its premise was really weird.
Highlander 2 is unsalvageable. That movie sucked so bad it wasn’t even fun to watch with friends to make fun of it
Fuck The Dark Tower. That movie doesn’t exist for me. Total waste.
What was that anime where you wear a VR headset and if you die in-game, you die in real life?
Ya that one
Spy Kids 3D
Sword Art Online had a pretty decent few opening episodes, it just… for some reason decided to go full-blown Knights of Sidonia and turn itself into a weird harem anime.
I HIGHLY recommend the SAO Abridged series. It’s one of the few “parody/satire” projects that actually makes the original story better and most regard SAO Abridged as the better version as a whole.
I love TeamFourStar!
Same! I rewatch DBZ Abridged all the time! Funny enough, never actually watched DBZ or any of Dragon Ball in its entirety, but I’ve played a LOT of the games and basically know the entire story, front to back, from the games and Abridged lol
I would absolutely say Something Witty Entertainment is 100% on par with TFS. They do such a great job taking SAOs original story and making it ACTUALLY make sense, while adding a lot more comedy and sometimes some actually heart breaking moments.
Added bonus, it’s still ongoing! They basically only release one episode a year now, but I think every episode is worth the wait because they put in a lot of effort. They do some other Abridged series as well (like a newer ongoing series of My Hero Academia,) but I believe SAOA is their longest running one right now.
All I wanna do,
is see you turn into,
a Super Saiyan (•a super saiyan!•)
that’s pretty much a whole manga subgenre now
Idiocracy.
Loved the idea. Film itself… meh
I think I read that the studio insisted on changes that annoyed Mike Judge. Pootie Tang met the same fate. They should have just let professional comedians release whatever but some studio executive didn’t get the jokes and was like, “This movie won’t appeal to suburban fathers over 45.” or whatever.
In my experience, it often comes out that all of the shitty parts of comedy movies are not the fault of the creators. But comedians aren’t given creative freedom like Scorsese or whomever and also are like, “Make whatever edits you want. I made a stupid movie with my friends. You got my check?”
yeah read that Caddyshack was made in florida instead of california because they didn’t want the studios breathing down their necks.
I feel the opposite, the premise is a defence of eugenics that looks like it was written by that mother-goose ass neo-natalist nerd couple
The actual film is a decent turn off your brain stoner comedy
I am 100% convinced they had a masterpiece and then test audiences didn’t get it and they went and changed everything around and added the prologue and gave away the entire twist at the start by explicitly telling the viewer where and when we are. Also made the dinosaurs weird for … reasons…?
Wow, I watched that on opening night and there were like three people in the whole room. I don’t remember much about it, but what really bugged me was the whole start of the film. A spaceship that is designed to travel fully automatically and immediately fails when there’s a small asteroid field in its path? Absolute BS.
Oof. Having the statue of liberty there on the opening credits of Planet of the Apes
Like that, yes.
Mutant Chronicles, except i don’t think about it normally, but immediately comes to mind when somebody asks similar question. Also it wasn’t mediocre, it was incredibly bad and the second biggest disapointment movie ever for me (worst was Starship Troopers 2).
Premise seems pretty cool (mutant/zombie machine), and I guess it’s kind of a cool but forgettable action flick?
I played a lot of tabletop and card games in this universe in 90’s so i was pretty excited for a movie, and while it was forgettable (but also bad) action flick its main fault was that it has basically nothing in common with the Mutant Chronicles universe.
It’s like getting “Lord of the RIngs” movie, but about some gang war in a village southeast of Umbar.
It’s like getting “Lord of the RIngs” movie, but about some gang war in a village southeast of Umbar.
I mean. I would watch that.
In this case i would like to recommend some books for you:
- The Last Ringbearer by Kirill Yeskov
- Ring of Darkness series by Nik Perumov
Basically unlicenced Middleearth fanfics written by Russian authors but a good ones and getting officially published in multiple countries.
thanks, starred your comment!
Jupiter Ascending
They seed the galaxy and harvest whole planets to create an immortality serum. Fantastic world concept … but a subpar story to make a movie about within that world.
I was so hyped when I saw the trailers, because the visuals and ideas of the story they showcased were exactly my jam. But oh boy, what a dumpster fire the whole movie turned out to be.
Edit: yep, still goosebumps watching the trailer
I thought if they took out the werewolf thing, it would’ve been so much better.
And all the stuff about the genetic lottery, there being so many humans that eventually a perfect match gets born randomly is a cool premise.
I wish Jupiter Ascending could have some sequels to spend going full space soap opera.
I know! The idea that a perfect clone/cop could be born was amazing. If only they would make a movie about … oh yeah, I forgot. They did.
oh yeah, I remember liking the genetic aspect of that too. But yeah, poor story, and not Mila Kunis’s best acting
The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don’t think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero’s journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
Never watched it, but am intrigued. How so?
Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.
if you went this long without watching it I won’t spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.
I love Rian Johnson’s other work, especially Brick and Knifes Out.
I also love Star Wars.
I thought TLJ was dreadful though. He was just a really bad fit for it IMO. Has nothing to do with not being open to change, but it has to be the right change. “Can you hear me now?” gags and Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Agreed big time. This felt less like “cleverly unexpected” and more just a total disrespect for the source material.
“Hey remember the symbol of hopeful optimism you followed through trials and tribulations for 3 movies a long time ago? He’s now a cynical burnout drunk uncle lol. Isn’t that sooo unexpected but relatable and grim? SUBVERTED! I’ll take my Oscar now…”
It felt like if some grimdark-TV-bros got ahold of a sequel to the LOTR trilogy, and we were to suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy. “Didn’t expect that, did you?? Lol!”
…Then being told your expectations were childish and stupid when you find yourself upset by this. Lol
suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy.
This is hilariously horrifying to imagine! 😁
Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it’s actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
It’s a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don’t really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn’t anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I’d defend this movie far more if it didn’t do this. But it didn’t only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can’t collide with things ‘in hyperspace’, but only as you’re going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn’t she just splat against the cruiser’s shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don’t find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can’t be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn’t be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
As far as I know all droids in Star Wars have free will.
Han Solo gambled and won the Falcon from Lando (who appears well off), it was definitely too expensive for him to have bought normally.
I think the hyperspace battering ram is funky, but I believe it was less that it was a good tactical idea and more of the First Order being extremely arrogant by not having their shields up, not using a tractor beam, and not just sending a smaller ship forward to close the gap and blowing it up.
I think the movie wanted to show that they were savoring the victory and were willing to draw it out as they believed the rebels were drowning in hopelessness.
So actually to add onto this, this was bothering me so I had to look into it further:
I was very incorrect - Hyperspace isn’t a pocket dimension per se and you can hit things while moving through hyperspace. The reason they ‘sometimes’ get past shields is because shields have a refresh rate so it may be able to phase through if you get it just right.
I’m more with you on this now, its a little ridiculous that no ones really tried to weaponize hyperdrive engines.
I think I’m really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and didn’t have Campbell to advise with. Introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I’m an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I’m no story teller so I couldn’t fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but “Baby Yoda” represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero’s Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn’t improve any of the sequels, so maybe I’d like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.
Out of curiosity, have you seen Andor at all?
I won’t push you to watch Star Wars since it seems like you’ve landed where you have for good reason, but if in the event you were looking to give any piece of Star Wars media another chance, Andor is the one I’d choose.
Over Mandalorian?
Absolutely. But that’s just my preference.
Mandalorian is really just a spaghetti western with a Star Wars skin. It has cool moments, but also doesn’t take itself too seriously, a mix of action and comedy, and though the individual episode plots are contrived, they know the more important things is really just spending time with the characters. But if you don’t like the characters, then the whole thing kinda falls apart, like what happened with the boring Boba Fett spinoff.
Andor is a spy drama which goes all in on the gravity of its plot. It’s not lighthearted, doesn’t have goofy moments or mascot characters, and despite taking place immediately before the original trilogy, it’s not riding the coattails of nostalgia. An almost 100% human cast with no helmets or painted skin also makes it easier for the quality of acting to really shine on the screen.
Merely being different doesn’t inherently make one better than the other, but what makes Andor stand apart for me at least is that it is the only Star Wars property I know of that was not at all made for children. Not that it’s crass or gory or full of profanity, but it tackles topics like fascism and genocide that could never be as thoroughly explored in any other Star Wars property intended for children.
Andor is an incredible espionage thriller and I do absolutely love it.
This is also why I liked Rogue One and also the series “Rebels.”
It made the Empire believable, and the Rebels really are an insurgency, the galactic situation is dire and against overwhelming odds. It doesn’t just feel like a hero fantasy.
(Rebels can sometimes, it’s geared to a younger audience, but it takes itself surprisingly seriously in a great way.)
Sold. I’ll watch it.
I’m also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I’m not sure if that falls under “better execution”
I mean it’s a high budget Disney film, the script should be the only place for improvement.
True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they’re always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots
with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero’s journey ad nauseam
This seems counter to most complaints I’ve seen about the movie that they just rehashed the original trilogy.
That is an apt criticism of TFA and TRoS, but not TLJ at all.
TLJ takes a bunch of the exact same elements from the original trilogy including the young jedi training in a remote location, the empire/first order finding the secret rebel base with the main characters escaping at the last moment, the protagonist being captured by their rival and being brought before the sith leader where they wind up battling, the protagonist finding out that they’re related to their rival, the hermit jedi master sacrificing themselves etc, etc, etc. The last trilogy is just a recycling of the original to the point that they had to add stupid dialog like “it’s salt” in a vain attempt to convince people that they aren’t just copy and pasting major plot points from the original
TFA and RoS are rehashes, TLJ is a deconstruction
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the “deconstruction” argument:
“Challenging the Chosen One narrative”
Rey’s parents were “nobody” yet so were Luke Skywalker’s parents. The final film is titled “The Rise of Skywalker” on her path to becoming the chosen one.
“Revisiting Luke’s Heroism”
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
“Undermining Jedi Ideals”
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film’s creator’s not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
“Exploration of Failure and Complexity”
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
“Subverting Expectations”
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn’t subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the “good guys” come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don’t see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
i ain’t arguing with a machine
Well, I mean nobody has actually made any defense for the movie here other than repeating the word “deconstruction” without elaborating any further, and I’m not going to do a deep dive and write out a counter argument to my own position, so the machine will have to do. For all we know this is the same machine that Disney used to recycle these old plot points for TLJ 😆
Only losers and goobers use AI to make their argument for them. Try thinking like a real human.
I didn’t use AI to make my argument for me. I used AI to make their argument since nobody was willing to actually make an argument outside of saying the movie is a “deconstruction” three separate times without stating what they mean or how it isn’t just a blatant ripoff of the older films.
i love TLJ so much i skipped the rest of the movies
if you also like TLJ you should watch Kagemusha and When the Last Sword is Drawn and 13 Assassins
How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could’ve used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie “killed his character”
I really hate what they did to Luke’s character. It felt like they deliberately trashed him and everything he stood for so some random nobody gimmick character doesn’t look as 2-dimensional. :(
The Ben Swolo memes were hilarious though.
The live action transformers movies.
Although I almost never think about it.
And I only saw the first thirty minutes of the first movie.I’ve watched all of them. I was a TF fan as a kid. I watched it every morning before school and on Saturday mornings. The movies just…I don’t know. The first one was the best of the live action. Bumblebee maybe. All of them felt more machine like, except the stupid peeing…wtf…
That said, they were not great. The story, on concept, seemed ok. The execution sucked. The acting was not great. The tropes were un needed, didn’t even really fit in, and just plain stupid at best. Mostly they were irritating. Like someone dragging their nails on a chalk board in the middle of a mediocre movie.
The last couple felt more like an attempt at hero porn. [que “heroic” music, lame Walberg lines where he wields some weapon that makes no sense, then lots of booms. Don’t forget the meaningless jumping, falling all over the place, and special forces that lean more on the special than forces.]
The only good thing that came out of them was the limited re release of the OG toys. I managed to finally snag an Optimus and a couple others.
Look I’m a simple man, I can’t get enough of Optimus Prime’s stellar voice work. :D
It’s not an incredible franchise. But hey I think they had some fun with a series that was basically designed to sell 80’s toys lol.
The best thing about the cartoon was Optimus Prime being ‘best tv dad’, megatron/galvatron’s evil laugh and speeches, soundwave’s voice, starscream scheming, starscream being killed off for being a whiny backstabber too many times, the art, the touch and the fact that all of the supporting cast that were good in their own right.
I watched it until the Megan Fox car breakdown scene and figured it wouldn’t get better than that and stopped there. I don’t remember anything else from the movie.
I admit that it surprised me it did well enough for sequels, when better films didn’t, but I guess that’s The Public for you.
It didn’t. I managed to stay until one of the autobots had to take a leak. I was too insulted at that point. Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore, but of course the guy has to stammer and stumble and try to impress the dead weight.
Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore
Well, I wasn’t looking at her for her acting. Some people are just nice to look at.
By absolute bore I also include her looks. I understand she is supposed to be pretty, but stone-faced is not my thing. Even with her licking-lip image I imagine her eyes staring at the latest gucci dress laced with diamonds or maybe even Bumblebee, but not a man.
Ah, you’re clearly not objectifying women enough!
Do I need to qualify that so people know it’s a joke? I feel as if I need to qualify that.
Whether it’s a joke or not, my opinions on this issue is too strong for me to not ask this out loud. What makes stone faced women still hot?
Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager is another one.
Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What’s the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don’t read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
spoiler
But the good setup and world building is quickly over and then they both enter the gorge, and it’s just an old evacuated biological lab that created super soldiers, and the whole thing instantly stops being mysterious.
They could have kept it mysterious for longer and given us some kind of twist perhaps, like they might discover they’re guarding the site of an old defunct biolab, but some things don’t add up, and it turns out to be the actual gates of hell. I also don’t think Drasa should have dived straight in to rescue Levi. Let her hesitate for a while. Create tension. Keep them separated, him somewhere below and her in her tower (perhaps she will need to get over to his tower to reactivate the auto-turrets or do something important, she believes he’s gone), and cut between showing both their struggles. Perhaps he then manages to contact her, and then a rescue effort begins.
Somebody played Enshrouded and decided to make a post-Cold War movie out of it
the trailer didn’t entice me that much, so I went ahead with the spoilers. Yeah I hate when a good mystery is ruined by over-explaining.
I still haven’t forgiven Steven King for writing all those sequels to The Gunslinger
I feel like the plot undercut the otherwise cool metaphor that the gorge represented.
East and West, separated by nothing but their deepest fears. Two killers searching for human connection but unable to reach the nearest person. How fucking cool is that? You can do so much!
Then you find out that there isn’t really any East/West divide, they’re both working for the same bad guys. Traversal of the gorge plays like a joke instead of being a serious moment of character development. Then the ending is a bunch of run-shoot-explode.
I was going to mention this, but thought it was too recent.
I thought it was pretty good until they went in. Even the way they met was pretty silly.
Hot take, “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”. The radio play, books and 80s bbc show were not represented very well at all. They missed well over 75% of the jokes, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel added nothing to it, and they added plots and scenes, I think just to get more “blockbuster actors” in, that ruin the original story of the radio play. Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman/Warwick Davis and Bill Nightly were the highlights. One of the few movies I wish they would remake.
I quite like the movie. I mean all your points make sense and i agree, but at the same time, it’s that movie that even introduced me to the books, and i now read them every year or two. The movie is far from perfect, but if you look at other things they try to convert into movies, this could’ve been so so much worse. Like imagine they made that movie now or somewhen in the past 5 or 10 years, it would basically be a disney marvel movie with marvel quips and: “he’s right behind me isn’t he’s?”
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod was spot on. He was the only one who actually read the books, and had to even tell the director to add “Froody” to the script. What a shitshow it must have been for the director not to know that…
That director doesn’t sound froody
Oh hey Zaphod, yeah he was not a frood indeed
Agreed, it was a big letdown unfortunately, compared to any of the other versions (including the text adventure!)
Shame, because Martin Freeman was perfect for Arthur, and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide was a great choice too. Though Mos Def was ok as Ford, although not on a par with David Dickson (TV) or Geoffrey McGivern (radio).
Zaphod and Trillian weren’t right at all though IMO.
