Topic: The Movie Thread

Oh god! I think Star Wars just officially confirmed some leaks from months ago with their latest TV spot.

!WARNING! SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER BELOW
In the newest TV spot they focus on a dagger that is covered with sith writing. This is apparently linked to Rey's parentage. A while ago there was spoiler talk that the dagger was like a sith holocron that is meant to reveal that Rey is in fact Palpatine's granddaughter 🙄😂, thus explaining her power with the force. This was thought to be an abandoned plot thread as is didn't test well and had perhaps been dealt with by reshoots. Perhaps not. There's talk now that near the end of the film Rey uses parts from Leia's lightsaber (left in from another plot thread that was cut showing scenes of Luke training Leia before he went in to exile) and Luke's/Anakin's lightsaber to build her own with a 'gold' crystal.

So yeah. This film is very likely going to be the laziest of JJ's work - which is saying something!

@KALofKRYPTON ...so it isn't the Dagger of Mortis, then?

It's annoying if it isn't, because then all the perfectly-accessible, easily-explained framework for how Palpatine survived the Battle of Endor, and how important the dagger would be in defeating him in the end, has been wasted for something that's kinda like it, if you squint, but not quite as well thought-out and grounded in established canon.

Oh well. I cracked and will be (hopefully) securing tickets for the opening day, after my partner encouraged me not to miss out on the conversation and therefore promised to accompany me, so I guess I don't have long to wait and see.

John Wick 3 is coming to Netflix in the UK on NYE. I like the films (the first one more so than the second one) but I've always been a bit baffled by all the praise they get. I mean they are ok but not the best films ever made or anything. In my opinion and all that jazz.

@RogerRoger I honestly don't know enough about it. The dagger seems to be more of a macguffin to move the characters to another location than anything else - and of course, explain away not addressing anything to do with Rey's power in TLJ. The other stuff that seems certain but also from a while back is the discovery by Kylo of a multitude of dead/inactive Snoke clones on the same world as Palpatine, suggesting with equal laziness that Snoke was only ever just Palpatine's proxy 🙄

@JohnnyShoulder I really like the first film. I think I said here before that the sequels are an exercise in diminishing returns. The 2nd is OK, but the cracks are showing, and the third while perfectly entertaining and everyone on screen clearly having a blast - is a pretty weak film. The ultra secret assassins club is almost entirely overt 🙄

@WanderingBullet If there's one thing we can rely on in Bond films, it's that most of the stunts are completed as practical effects. Nowadays they'll CGI around them, like how that scaffolding and bluescreen has magically become an old archway in the trailer, but the thing itself is done for real. Awesome footage, though! Thanks for finding it and sharing it.

@KALofKRYPTON Ah, gotcha. Considering that the specific name of that dagger I mentioned has moved to the top of Google's predictive search algorithm in the past couple days, I think you're gonna find a lot of angry fan reaction videos posted when it turns out to be a new, throwaway plot device.

@RogerRoger I think that's pretty much a given regardless 😂

So.. I realize this is stating the obvious (isn’t that supposedly the mark of genius?) but seeing Frozen II struck me that the character design and animation is very much rooted in Japanese anime. Elsa and Anna are basically 3D looking female anime characters. Disproportionately large eyes, tiny noses that basically disappear unless seen from the side profile, round nearly perfectly circular faces... I’m not sure why I never really thought of it before.
Of course the Westernization of the animation tones down some physical attributes and enhances others to appeal to the core audience, but the basic character style is uncannily familiar. And on further review, most of the Disney/Pixar human female characters have this same look. Elsa is nearly the twin of Rapunzel, for example. As one writer put it, “Apparently every Disney woman is a clone/direct descendant of some primordial creature with huge round cheeks and a disturbingly small nose.” I’ve always thought the same about anime characters. Their faces all look the same. I heard once that the indistinguishable sameness of facial features amongst anime characters (even between female and male characters) is why the artists have used crazy hair colors and hairstyles to help the viewer tell them apart.

I know I’m overthinking it but watching Frozen II, it’s comical how large the characters eyes are, especially when they are young children. Somehow in the Disney Universe a person’s eyeballs actually shrink as they age. It defies logic and science.

@jacobia Saw The Invitation last night, another good reccomendation, thank you! What a well crafted movie! You can kinda work out the twist, but it didn't really effect my enjoyment of the film, as its not that type of film which hangs on a big twist. Chilling ending too!

You seen Upgrade? Is stars the same guy, Logan Marshall-Green, who looks like Tom Hardy. It got a cool Paul Verhoeven-esq style of violence about it, and feels a bit like Cyberpunk with some of the body modifications.

@JohnnyShoulder Oh cool, glad you liked it, and yeah ‘chilling’ is a great word to sum up it’s ending.
Yes, I’ve watched Upgrade, thoroughly enjoyed it too.
At the moment, I’m hyped for The Rise Of Skywalker. I think Disney really dropped the ball by not appearing to have an overall planned story for this trilogy, but I’m curiously optimistic to see how it’s all going to end.

@Th3solution I think I read somewhere that a lot of Pixar animators admitted to being huge anime fans, and it's why there are frequent nods, references, easter eggs... and heck, Big Hero 6 is a thing, too. Kinda just assumed that there was a universal "cute face" look that defined animation across cultural boundaries, but I can totally see an influence in there, absolutely.

And if that's where your mind wandered whilst watching Frozen II, methinks I needn't ask you what you thought of the actual film itself...!

@RogerRoger Haha, yeah the movie itself was about what one would expect. Hardly worth a critical dissection, but enjoyable all the same. It has the Disney magic that makes these things fun to watch with catchy tunes you’ll be humming to yourself for a few hours afterward. There are leaps in plot points that don’t make sense and even at the end, if you think about what happened too hard then it appropriately gives you an ice cream headache. But it’s fantasy and fun and thereby any lack of explanation or logic about why things happen the way they do doesn’t really hurt things too much in the end.

I don’t think the movie will get near to approaching its predecessor in popularity, but it is the quality entertainment that we’ve come to expect from the Disney machine. If you’re a fan of the Disney / Pixar products you won’t be disappointed.

And yeah, I forgot about Big Hero 6 — probably the most overly Japanese of their shows.

Speaking of Disney, I think I’ve all but decided to jump into Disney+. I can’t hold back from watching The Mandalorian. I’d been waiting until they were all released, but it’s becoming too difficult to keep from it. Also - a different Rise of Skywalker trailer was out in the theater and it didn’t do much to excite me. I’m officially at about DEFCON 2 in my preparation for a Star Wars disaster with this one. It doesn’t look good so I’m bracing myself for a letdown. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

@Th3solution I'd expect nothing more from a Frozen movie, particularly since I'm nowhere near its target audience, so that's fair enough. I'll likely have to watch it at some stage, so it's good to know in advance that I can give my brain a two-hour vacation. It's a shame Disney doesn't seem to put as much effort into their animated sequels any more, though; I remember thinking that a couple of the early Pixar follow-ups were better than the original, but I guess it's easier to just make extended toy commercials nowadays, particularly for release right before the holidays (between this and Star Wars, they've got the market cornered).

Speaking of, hope you enjoy The Mandalorian and find Disney+ worthwhile. I've mentioned elsewhere before, I think Star Wars is gonna rapidly become a small-screen franchise for me. We've had Jedi: Fallen Order be awesome and The Mandalorian is getting rave reviews, and there's a Rogue One prequel series and Ewan McGregor's return as Obi-Wan in the pipeline for next year. All of these things are what I'm excited for, as a fan.

Will you be going opening day to see The Rise of Skywalker, or will you wait a bit?

Also, another fantastic new trailer dropped today, which I just caught...

Watched it twice, simply because I love the music!

@RogerRoger I was about to post the trailer here.lol

Looks pretty good! The part where she's swinging from lightning to lightning! Didn't know she could do that! haha

But how is Steve alive, though?

The music and text also reminded me of Stranger Things.

Also, Suicide Squad 2 will apparently be R-rated.

@RogerRoger I’m seeing Rise of Skywalker probably not opening night but opening week maybe. I want to be in on it early enough to take advantage of the excitement and buzz from the uber fandom, but not too early.

I agree with you that the SW franchise has the potential to become more enjoyable on the small screen, the way things are going. I suppose it’ll be following in the footsteps of Star Trek in that regard and whatever big screen productions that occur going forward will likely require some major reinventing of the series. I’m pretty ignorant about filmmaking, but it seems strange that a TV series could be made with such high quality and yet a 2 hour movie can be flubbed to easily. Well... here I am talking like the next movie is trash already. 🙄 I’ll take my own advice and give the movie a chance before I decide to be disappointed.

That Wonder Woman movie trailer does look pretty good. And yes, the music is great. Looks like DC has a ringer.

@RogerRoger Hmmm... That's not the greatest trailer. I hope it is good though.

Gadot and Pine have good enough presence together to carry quite a lot. Odd that they don't show Cheetah though - I think that's possibly my issue with the trailer. There's lots of 'stuff', but nothing villainous. Early days I suppose.

@WanderingBullet Definitely got Stranger Things vibes, yes. Pretty sure the success of that show would've been part of the pitch for this sequel. No idea how Steve is alive; will have to wait and see, I guess!

After the success of Joker, I'm not surprised Suicide Squad will be R-rated.

@Th3solution Ah yes, with your whooping and cheering cinema crowds, no doubt! Here's hoping the film benefits from an element of that collective atmosphere.

Put simply, nobody cares about television. You can do whatever you like, particularly now with streaming services being free of things like network censorship and advertiser approval. We're still dealing with movie "firsts" which get announced as big deals (first female-led superhero film, first black superhero, first gay character, etc.) but those things have been on television for decades. The Mandalorian is basically Disney going "Hey, so Dave Filoni and John Favreau wanna make a show? Cool, here's some money! Off you go, have fun!" whereas The Rise of Skywalker is Disney going "We have to sell this movie to China, please older fans whilst keeping our new audience, meet merchandise tie-in targets, gain approval from our corporate partners and do so whilst everybody pays more attention to this than whatever we're putting out on Disney+ next week." Hence why you can still get action figures of Sith Troopers which've been available for two months now, whereas there's now a backlog rush to meet overwhelming demand for The Mandalorian characters nobody thought anybody would want.

So yeah, depressing analysis of the movie-making industry aside (who ever said it was supposed to be an art form, eh?) there's a lot of hope for Disney+ and Star Wars on the small screen. As for the films, I'm just glad they're giving them a break after this. They need one.

@KALofKRYPTON I think DC are still smarting from the overwhelming criticism they got by showing Doomsday in the second Batman V Superman trailer. By just showing "more Wonder Woman" and making it more about a specific tone, they're able to generate hype whilst playing it safe. Fans know who Cheetah is gonna be, and roughly how that might go down... and besides, Pedro Pascal is hot property right now, thanks to The Mandalorian, so they needed to show lots of him.

So Ghostbusters Afterlife.

I see what they're doing. I'm certain it will be a better film than the 2016 shambles - but that is scant praise.

Casting and the set up look OK enough, but New York was as big a part of those films as the cast and the car and the firehouse - so we're immediately removing the film from that familiar territory.

I dunno. One of the major facets of Ghostbusters (not so much 2) that make it such an enduring film, is that it was scary. It was a horror film made funny; the library, Dana and the chair, Venkman and Slimer - these were genuinely scary, well written and acted moments that bought a seriousness to the situations tempered by sharp, witty dialogue.

While GB2 had the wit, it didn't really have the horror, but by then we'd had 5 years of Real Ghostbusters and the guys in grey were squarely in kid/family friendly territory.

Afterlife looks like more of the same, primarily kid-friendly fare. I'm sure it'll be OK, but y'know - the lack of New York in the recent Spidey films has been pretty wounding I think.

Also, I really need someone to put out the official line that ECTO-1A was a different car and that ECTO-1 was mothballed - because it really, really bothers me! 😂

@Th3solution, @RogerRoger, in regards to the Disney-anime influence, it's generally the other way around, with classic Disney films like Snow White, Peter Pan & Alice in Wonderland, having a profound influence on the aesthetic design on the then fledgling manga/anime industry. Of course, over the years there's been some give & take, such as the infamous Lion King/Kimba controversy.

Pixar itself has never been that popular in Japan, at least compared to classic & "core" Disney properties, which is in part why it took so long to get any sort of Pixar representation in Kingdom Hearts, with Toy Story & Monsters Inc (while CG, Frozen, Big Hero Six, and Tangled, aren't Pixar films).

A bit anecdotal, but there are quite a bit of Japanese claw machine apps I play (the premise being they'll ship your winnings to you from Japan, the biggest of which being Toreba), and the Disney prizes are overwhelmingly "core" Disney, such as Mickey & co., Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin (may be in promotion with the movie, but they use the cartoon designs), and Frozen (probably to tie in with Frozen II). The only Pixar stuff I see is Toy Story merch that came out to tie in with Toy Story 4.

Interesting tidbit about Big Hero 6, is that it's actually a Marvel IP, created I think in the 90's as a response to the increasing interest in Japanese media, though Disney really changed things up for the animated film (the original actually took place in Japan, rather than the fictional "San Fransokyo", and featured other Marvel characters, such as X-Men's Silver Samurai).

@RR529 Ah, thanks for clearing that up! You're my new thing I learned for today. I guess there's a timeless simplicity to the classic Disney animated films which translates better overseas, compared to the somewhat-layered contemporary jokes and references found in modern CGI animation. I'll also admit ignorance leading me to use "Pixar" as a general catch-all term for 3D animated films, because I'm a casual viewer who can't tell the difference between all of them (kinda like how some folks wonder why Batman wasn't in Avengers Assemble).

And that's why Stan Lee was in Big Hero 6 at the end! Nice!