Topic: The Movie Thread

@Tjuz Disney's deep dive in to the orientalism of the Aladdin story aside - I do agree with LN - they're in it for the money. Currently they think that money is to be found by virtue signalling.

@Tjuz like i said, it's not what they are doing but HOW they are doing it

@nessisonett Totally agree that a character written first and foremost with the minority race in mind is preferable. Like you said though, Hollywood is unlikely to take risks with big budget movies if it hasn't previously been shown that such movies can be consistently successful. An entirely new IP would not get the backing that an established, popular IP would get, which is where racebending can occasionally become useful. Once they get through that initial hurdle and said movie is hopefully a success, and there end up being enough of those, then we'd start seeing more bigger budget movies with minority characters in major roles show up. It's all a very precarious situation, but for now we're making progress!

Initial reactions for Mulan.

The live-action movie is replacing Shan Yu with two new villains played by Gong Li and Jason Scott Lee.

@WanderingBullet It’s a shame the main lead sunk the movie through support for the Chinese government and police against Hong Kong. I was kinda looking forward to it as it looked like a proper wuxia movie but it’s hard to tell how much of the bad press is due to the movie or the actress. Plus, poor Shang has been removed. He’s an icon given that he’s clearly attracted to ‘Ping’ even though a crucial plot point is him not knowing she’s a woman 😂😂

@nessisonett Yeah, Shang was replaced with another new character as Mulan's love interest.

@LN78 had to google to see if F&F9 was actually called that.

@LN78 I didn't realise they were doing a 9th movie. As the 8th movie had the definite ending sounding name "The Fate of the Furious", I assumed that would be the last one outside of spin-offs.

I've generally found the Fast and Furious movies to be enjoyable in a guilty pleasure kind of way, and I'll be up for watching Fast and Furious 9 when it finally releases.

I think of The Fast and the Furious movies as the equivalent of Call of Duty in the gaming world. Annualized hormone-fueled action with enough familiarity to just keep the masses coming back for more, time after time. Lots of explosions and dude-bros flexing while they quip back and forth as they wade through a shallow sea of retreaded pop culture iconography. They print money, so they keep making them. And despite fitting the target demographic, I just can’t seem to muster any interest in seeing them.

If I were the theater chains, I’d close for a while. I can’t imagine why many people would want to go to the theaters right now anyways. Looks like MGM had the right idea with delaying No Time To Die for such a long period.

Speaking of Mulan... that's now also delayed. Not a surprise honestly, and Disney was probably waiting to simply not be the first. In other news, A Quiet Place: Part II has also been delayed and it upsets me that I now have to wait an indeterminate amount of time more to see Emily Blunt in action again. Maybe it is time to finally watch Devil Wears Prada.

@Tjuz have you seen my summer of love? It's an early Emily blunt film, well worth a watch if you are a fan

@LN78 @Th3solution That franchise just doesn't make sense anymore. It went from illegal street racing to XXX meets Mission Impossible. Hobbs and Shaw even had some sci-fi elements.

@crimsontadpoles Same. I still go watch them for some reason even though I think the movies are pretty average.

@Tjuz Did they announced the new dates for Mulan and A Quite Place II?

@ralphdibny I haven't seen My Summer of Love actually! It's a lot of her older stuff that I haven't seen. Thank you for the recommendation however. I will watch it this week to replace A Quiet Place: Part II and report back with my thoughts.

@WanderingBullet No new dates for either Mulan or A Quiet Place: Part II unfortunately. Both will be a pain in the bum to reschedule I'm sure, having spent all of their ad budget already. I doubt they can delay them for too long without it becoming stale, but it'll be hard finding space for them in an already busy fall schedule. End of summer is probably the best bet for both of them at this point.

@Tjuz I see... With Mulan, China is obviously a huge concern for Disney.

@LN78 Thank you, I'll be sure to pick that up when I have an opportunity to, I'll look forward to watching them all.

I finished up my DC watching with Justice League tonight. Yeah, it’s not great at all. I can fully understand the clamouring for the Snyder Cut as I do believe it was a decent movie buried under reshoots that turn it into an episode of Buffy circa 1997. Upper lips aside, it’s just a bit of a mess. BvS looks great in comparison now. Although I personally enjoyed BvS more than TDKR.

@nessisonett Yeah. JL is a massive shame. I knew it was going to be before going in, and the opening mobile phone footage of Superman confirms it from the get go (bad face cg - why is he wearing the new suit...).
It's Whedon at his very worst, and no-doubt rushed. I'm surprised they got him to do it given the task of reshooting and editing so much of the film considering his post Age of Ultron burnout.
Elfman's lackadaisical score doesn't help matters either.

BvS has its problems, but the extended cut remedies most of the theatrical version's narrative issues and beyond that, I think it becomes a matter of taste over quality.

@KALofKRYPTON I actually haven’t seen BvS Extended Cut. I should probably give that a watch then, although I’ll give it a while since I feel a bit burned out from all those DC movies! I was tempted to watch the animated movies but I honestly don’t know if they’re worth it or not.