Topic: The Movie Thread

@Th3solution I'm sure Dark World isn't ACTUALLY a 1/10 film. It's still mostly competent filmmaking, at least on a technical level. I've seen many much worse movies. The only "real" 1/10 movies are direct-to-video dreck like Krampus: The Reckoning.

I didn't like it at all, though. Usually I can find SOMETHING I like in a movie, but nothing really seized me here.

I'll probably eventually see some of these movies again, and I'll keep your suggestion in mind when I do.

@RogerRoger Most of it yeah, certainly the highlights. The issues it usually throws up are the ones common to the prequels; those of fluctuating jedi/sith power levels and plot contrivance to 'balance' a fight. This wasn't really an issue before the prequels, for the films or the expanded universe. But once the prequels came along with the acrobatic stick bashing rather than classic sword fighting and instances of ridiculous displays of power it really did make any opposition to significant force users seem like nonsense.
Case in point, Jango Fett vs Obi Wan Kenobi in AOTC - utter, total nonsense.
Cad Bane vs Obi Wan and Quinlon Vos is also a nonsense.
Even in the sense of bringing Jedi to a manageable level for non force users to serve a story, it just leaves me in mind of the excellent creative use of team members in the JLU cartoon: they built great stories with great lower tier heroes, eschewing the likes of Superman as the story would be over in seconds.
Maul works as a crime boss, but really only a remote one.

@KALofKRYPTON Your spoiler tags have not worked!

@JohnnyShoulder they really havent!

OK. Could be me... I'm very tired, my eyes are killing me following a 3 hour contact lens fitting today, but I can't see why they haven't worked...

Thinking about it. There's nothing spoilery in there really...

@KALofKRYPTON I'll grant you "ridiculous displays of power" but as a student of fencing and general swordsmanship, the duels in the prequels were most certainly not "acrobatic stick-bashing" (and are even more impressive when you realise they weren't sped up or digitally tweaked in any way, at least in terms of the craft).

I think we're at the point where we, once again, agree that we look for different things from our entertainment. Which is cool, and it's certainly interesting to read your thoughts! I'd never heard that criticism of the prequels before (and I've heard a lot, trust me).

@RogerRoger they are absolute stick bashing, I can't think of a single lightsaber encounter in the prequels that works at all as a sword fight. Some are far better choreographed than others, the biggies (Duel of the Fates, Battle of Heroes) are just repetitious (literally) stick bashing.

@KALofKRYPTON @RogerRoger Well, you have to consider the lightsabers only have worth in their hilts, the blade is weightless so you’re going to swing it around more than a regular sword. They also were never supposed to look like normal swordfights. The only reason Lucas didn’t have them that way in the original trilogy is because he couldn’t. If he could’ve, he would’ve had a hay day with them.

@Ralizah I agree with your comments regarding Infinity War although it wouldn't get such a low score from me. I too found Thanos a bore to watch a thought casting Brolin for the role a mistake when i first heard about it. He wasn't helped by a poor script even by Marvel's standards. For me it is proof that making everything bigger doesn't always equate to the film being better.

@Jaz007 Lightsabers are meant to be incredibly difficult to weild. There are intense gravitational effects of the blade's containment system. Thats why they are usually wielded by force users.

And yes. They were meant to look like sword fights.

@KALofKRYPTON Is that in the originals (I can't remember)? Because the prequels and new trilogy and everything else Star Wars makes them easy to wield, and by look I mean they are easy to wueld. I've never seen anyone have trouble. I mean, look at Finn. Him hitting Kylo was ridiculous though. And I think they were only meant to look like swordfights originally due to technological limitations.

@Jaz007 From the (admittedly now defunct) EU. They were meant to be almost impossible to construct due to the danger of acquiring and harnessing the kyber crystals, and the gravitational forces used to contain the blade made them unwieldy to most non force users as the expectation that the only weight is the hilt would usually end up with someone maiming themselves.

That's why most similar weapons not in force user hands are/were rarely a hilt and blade - rather a blade/beam between two points.

The Finn thing is pretty explainable, he is a trained Stormtrooper - and I don't think he (or Rey for that matter) uses the lightsaber particularly easily or one handed throughout TFA.

I don't think any non-force user character uses a lightsaber throughout the prequels.

It wasn't technical limitations that decided the format of lightsaber fights for the OT; "An elegant weapon, for a more civilised age" and all that. It was meant to be sword fighting in space; Errol Flynn high adventure with a bit of flare.

@KALofKRYPTON Han was still able to use one pretty easily in Empire Strikes Back though OH and Sabine in Rebels uses one pretty well too ans neither of them are force users

@FullbringIchigo Very briefly, also - isn't a weapons noob - isn't she a Mandalorian?

@KALofKRYPTON I'm not here to split hairs at all, because I actually quite like the idea of them being a unique challenge to handle, but there are a couple examples from The Clone Wars of non-Force-users using lightsabers and using them pretty well. There's the murderer Cassie Cryar from "Lightsaber Lost" who's a Terrelian Jango-Jumper (so she's pretty athletic, and can outrun Ahsoka across Coruscant rooftops and traffic lanes) and, very briefly, the bounty hunter Cad Bane (although he's also skilled in various deadly arts). Both are immediately bested by actual Jedi in incredibly brief duels, though.

We're also forgetting this guy...

...who could spin four lightsabers around independently of one another and duel multiple Jedi at once, and beat them, but then he's a cyborg and so probably capable of various inhuman feats.

So actually, thinking about it, everybody who's used one has got some kind of an edge, I guess.

Just saw The Predator. When it first started, I thought it'd be one of those poorly-reviewed films that I'd end up liking, but it turned into a right mess by the end! It's tonally schizophrenic, the script is poorly written, there are too many characters (almost all of which suck), and the plot was terrible. And the constant flippant attitude toward murder rubbed me the wrong way. Things just kind of happen in the movie without rhyme or reason, with betrayals and reconciliations occurring because otherwise the plot would simply spin its wheels. The Predators (there are apparently a lot of these things) aren't intimidating at all. It feels like it's trying to be two or three different movies, and none of them are very good.

Good news, though: if you felt like hideous alien dogs that act like domesticated puppies were the missing element from previous Predator films, then you're in for a good time!

I mean, I had fun laughing at it. At least it's not boring like Prometheus was. I imagine I'd have been irritated if I was a Predator fan, though.

WB: The DC stuff isn't making us instant Avengers money...

Also WB: We'd better scrap the whole thing, or some of it, or most of it...

WB: And let Superman and Batman walk?

Also WB:... Yeah, yeah why not?

WB: What can we do to make instant Avengers money though?

Also WB: Deadshot spin off movie?

WB: YES!!!

FML. 😒

To be fair, the DCEU does have some fun projects on the horizon. The new Joker movie looks promising, and I'm very interested in the Birds of Prey movie they're putting together. I've only watched Wonder Woman of the DCEU movies, which was pretty bad, so I hope they're better than that at least.

@Tjuz WW was great I thought, apart from the ending.
I think it's fair to say at this point that Man of Steel is an underrated gem. BvS is unnecessarily messy, but mostly sorted with the blu ray version. Suicide Squad is very OK but suffers from being primarily a Will Smith film (as opposed to casting a lesser known actor and not anchoring the whole thing around them), and not using the reams of Joker material they shot... and recutting and reshooting to alter the tone.
Justice League is a sad shambles.

New Joker movie could be good. WW2 will probably be good, Shazam and Aquaman will both probably be good. Should all have happened before the big team up movie.

@Tjuz @KALofKRYPTON Aside from their previous missteps, I agree the stuff ahead is promising and caught my interest again. I have yet to watch Wonder Woman, but after Superman, Batman, Suicide Squad and Justice League, I didn't have a lot of faith in it. But from what I heard it's very decent, so I'll end up watching.

Then after that... Aquaman, Shazam, Wonder Woman 1984, Joker and Birds of Prey (of which I hadn't heard until reading about it here). Those look like they could end up being marvelous movies - then again, that's what I thought about Suicide Squad.

Especially Joker I hope will end up being a good film, with Joaquin Phoenix being one of my favorite actors. Very inspirational person.

@KALofKRYPTON @Kidfried I think the only thing that saved Wonder Woman from being a terrible movie is the chemistry between Gal Gadot/Chris Pine. They were great together, and both showed off some fun comedic chops. The last third of the movie was offensively terrible though, and they really wasted David Thewlis' potential (to keep it as spoiler free as possible). It also felt very oddly paced to me, and I didn't really care about any of the characters. I definitely respect it for it's success and I'm happy a female superhero movie was able to perform so well both in the box office and among audiences' feelings towards the movie. I will just never see it as a good movie.

I was actually really excited for Suicide Squad before it came out, but it sounded like the best part of that movie was the impressively done marketing. That movie may be one of the best examples (in recent history anyway) of a movie with fantastic marketing but a bad critical response. I avoided it after that. I'm not all that excited for the upcoming Aquaman movie since I don't really like Jason Momoa, but I might be open to watching it if it ends up getting great reviews.

Coincidentally, it seems like they have announced some Birds of Prey casting about an hour ago. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jurnee Smollett-Bell are set to co-star with Margot Robbie. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is absolutely fantastic, so that's some very exciting casting imo. I also read that they have been considering Justina Machado as well for the final Birds of Prey member, and I would absolutely love it if she got the role too. She's great in One Day at a Time and Jane the Virgin. I'm not really familiar with Jurnee Smollett-Bell, only really with her brother Jussie on Empire, but it seems like this movie's cast is shaping up to be pretty great.