Topic: The Movie Thread

@LN78 See, I really like Man of Steel, BvS certainly has problems, the theatrical version especially - but again, I really quite like it.

I like what Snyder was going for. Without the exec's getting all flustered, we might have gotten an actual Man of Steel sequel before they fell back on the always bankable Batman and rushed Snyder's vision.

I don't actually think WB will work to complete the cut. Not without significant change in the power structure. Snyder fell out with someone there, and to compete and release the cut is tantamount to confirming that they're just a bunch of cash hungry suits who were wrong to fire Snyder and continue with aplomb to chase the Avengers money.

@KALofKRYPTON @LN78 I guess if the Snyder cut is that different, with actual plot variance, then it would be strange to release it if it would alter the DCEU narrative direction and canon. But if the series isn’t going to be carried on anyways, then it might be worth a shot. Sounds like it is not likely to happen though.

@Th3solution I think it's highly unlikely to be anything but a fan undertaking, possibly with help from Snyder.

The original JL idea (well, post BvS) was a two parter. Steppenwolf was meant to try and revive Superman with the anti life equation and help turn him to Darkseid's cause. Batman's BvS nightmare was meant to be realised at the end of part 1 with part two being Superman's redemption and turn against Darkseid.

This condensed down to 1 film, which I think is where the reportedly 'unwatchable' screener came from. Snyder streamlined a lot of it, but he did shoot Darkseid scenes for JL.

@LN78 I saw that. He's lifted a lot of that from other YouTubers.
Still not sure if the Jimmy Olsen thing was a joke or whether he's not actually sure who Marc McClure is.

@RogerRoger I'd like to see it. Even in a 'workprint' version.

I think Junkie XL would've maintained the Zimmer themes and what they collaborated on for BvS. Would've been a lot better than what Elfman slapped together.

@RogerRoger Don't get me wrong. In general I really like Elfman's work, but the JL score was nothing more than workman
-like. The recycling of the Burton Batman and Williams Superman themes felt lazy and cynical for characters who had new scores and motifs in place already.

As far as I'm aware, XL completed his JL score. WB just decided not to use it to distance the film further from Snyder's work.

I like his Batman work on BvS, and like that Zimmer refused to do it but agreed to the collaboration with XL.

@RogerRoger I think Elfman only had a matter of weeks to work on the score. I think a rescore with the previous MoS, BvS and some additional bits from WW would probably fit better too.

I have seen it(!) - it's quite a thing, bit too rich for my blood. I also have nowhere to put it!

Some of you may remember that I took on the project of watching the entirety of the 22 MCU movies in quick succession in order to get a more cohesive feel for the plot of the infinity stones. It’s been a little while since I completed that cinematic journey and I realized that I didn’t post my concluding thoughts on here as I had said I would.

My apologies, as the MCU has been discussed ad nauseum so I’ll try to keep it simple and try to avoid being trite or unnecessarily repetitious.
For fans like me, I never tire of discussing and reviewing them, but I realize it’s probably the exception rather than the rule and most people are just worn out with the whole franchise. In fact I think one of the challenges for Disney going forward is to not overwork the ‘goose who’s laying the golden egg’ and find a way to keep the MCU fresh.

Even with my love of the Marvel characters and properties, I experienced a modicum of fatigue at the whole thing, as some of you may have noticed because it did take me a while to complete this Herculean task of watching them all back-to-back.

So I don’t think I’ll belabor this post with a lot of detail on the movies themselves and just paint my impressions with broad strokes. And really, I just have one main discovery that I want to portray...

First, some background. In general terms, to be a truly affecting pursuit, a movie must have character progression and be character centered and character driven. The same could be said of video games. For a narrative to stick, it should have a good character arc with meaningful conflict. Case in point — the movie Titanic comes to mind. We all went into the movie expecting to see a spectacle of a huge ship sinking and what we got was a love story about endearing characters and the shipwreck was just a backdrop. And that’s what ultimately turned the film into a 2.1 billion dollar moneymaker that sits at number 3 all time in box office revenue.

And I’ve said it on here when discussing movies and video games, but I’m a sucker for a good redemption story arc. Perhaps it says something about my deep personal psyche, a flawed human who makes mistakes, has bad things happen to him, tries constantly to be a better person, and desires to be better. A person who wants to be a hero but feels too flawed because of individual weaknesses. I like to see mighty and physically powerful characters have to rely on some deep, personal, greater strength within to succeed, because in the end, that’s all I have. I can’t fly or shoot lasers from my hand. I can’t even fire a bow and arrow straight. But I can be a vehicle for sacrifice, love, service, and integrity. I think if a story neglects the importance of the human spirit to win the conflict then it is hamstrung from the impact it can carry.

So where am I going with all this? Repeatedly the MCU movies went to the well of character redemption over and over. I think that is part of what has endeared the franchise to the populace. All the qualities I described above are seen in a majority of the individual movies, where a character is down on their luck, somehow inferior, made poor choices, was a victim of circumstance... and then overcame their personal demons in some way. So each movie is a microcosm of the greater redemptive arc, but taken as a whole (and here is where I’m getting to my point) the entire infinity stone series is the story of Tony Stark’s rise, fall, and redemption. (I don’t think many people have not yet seen End Game, but I spoiler tagged things just in case).
Each of the characters have smaller versions of their individual redemption (Steve Rogers, Natasha, Clint...)
...but in the same way that the Star Wars movies (at least episodes 1-6) are actually all just a story of the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of Anakin Skywalker, the story of the MCU is the same for Iron Man. The infinity stones and all the destruction of the universe, that’s all just backdrop, like the Titanic.

So, for example — if watched in a vacuum, the original Star Wars trilogy seems the story of a band of improbable rebels against an evil empire. Or many would consider it the story of Luke Skywalker, a small town boy who discovers he has powers that he learns to control. Only when watched in the context of the prequels do you understand Lucas’s vision of the overarching story actually being the tale of Anakin Skywalker. I see a little bit of that here with the MCU.

When viewed in this light, the whole chaos of the films becomes a little more tolerable. End Game is fraught with narrative weakness, emotional manipulation, and tons of deus ex machina; it has its fair share of over-abundant visual flare and coy one-liners — but after all the investment in what was done and said over multiple movies, we all got the satisfying payoff — the simple story of a man who has redeemed himself through self sacrifice. And with that last snap, Tony Stark has his Darth Vader moment and goodness rules the day. Despite dozens of hours of condescending banter from the egotistical playboy, Stark was able to ascend and rectify his own weaknesses..

Sure — watching all the movies together helped to be able to track the stones better, learn the nuances of back stories, and fill in the gaps in my own memory of the storyline — but I didn’t expect that my overall impression would be this. And I think it’s one reason why the movies have managed to appeal to such a broad audience; although maybe I’m giving the lay public too much credit. But either way, for me the long series struck a personal note because of that simple storytelling tactic.

Next up: The Hunger Games. (I was considering doing the DCEU all in a row or the X-Men movies in sequence, but I’m about superhero-ed out right now)

@Th3solution
Good write up! Coming down to the 'broad strokes' thing does sum them up. That is basically what 'geek culture' is now, loathed as many are at the thought of their particular 'thing' more often than not being part of a billion dollar business model.

Given the horrendous things leaking about Rise of Skywalker I'm not sure that Vader's redemption arc will be much of valid touchstone for very long.

Do the X-Men, because I'm a bit of a sadist and at least *counts 5 of those films are genuinely terrible!

@KALofKRYPTON Thanks! And regarding Rise of Skywalker... please, no. If they ruin that core piece of personal inspiration for me then I might just lose it.
And I’ll do X-men eventually, but I know there are some really tough ones in there and I value my sanity too much at present. 😅

@Th3solution As much I love the MCU, I don't think I can watch all 22 movies back-to-back. Kudos to you.haha

I definitely wouldn't watch all X-Men movies back-to-back either as they're more misses then hits in that franchise.

@Th3solution Thankfully, ROTJ won't change. Actually no, our experiences of it won't change since George set a precedent for alterations. But the RoS leaks concern a version of parts of the film that Iger (and test audiences) didn't like - so it's possible that it hasn't made it in to the release. But I doubt it.

Now, careful here on in everyone ***MAJOR POTENTIAL RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILER BELOW***

@KALofKRYPTON Interesting. Several internet leaks and early spoilers for Episode 7 and 8 ended up being red herrings, so we’ll see. I’m continuing to have an open mind, but will prepare myself emotionally for possible disappointment. 😄

@Th3solution As I say, word is that these were from test screenings that occurred months ago, and that the result of those screenings was Iger instructing Abrams and Kennedy to change the film.
There's more to that scene if you want to read - but I think it is what resulted in reports of Lucas being brought back in to consult to try and fix the ending and flow of the film.

@KALofKRYPTON Ah, I didn’t know it had come to that. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall there! Watching Lucas come in to clean up the mess would have been a sight to behold! 😂

@Th3solution I would say that what Lucas is rumoured to have done isn't much better. He's falling back on some of the more bonkers ideas from his early Star Wars versions.

Now, careful here on in (again) everyone ***MAJOR POTENTIAL RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILER BELOW***

Midway (Theatre) - Film retelling the events of the Battle of Midway during WWII.

It isn't a heavy or sombre war story in any way. Largely focusing on a group of airmen (though it does feature an intelligence officer on the strategy side of things as a subplot), the battle is recreated as a big budget CGI thrill ride with a raucous, rah rah, attitude.

That said, if you can get over it's depiction of the war, the thrilling air combat, as embellished as it is, is exciting, and as a long time fan of things like Ace Combat, I enjoyed it.

Apparently Joker 2 is in pre production...

@LN78 The newer Star Wars stuff:

Now, careful here on in (again) everyone ***MAJOR POTENTIAL RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILER BELOW***

According to the newer leaks, the Lucas thing with the secret Skywalker is either bogus or they chucked it out. Most of the what I put before stands, but the sequence of the 'throne room' scene is different. Palpatine is on life support and Rey confronts him. He introduces his new clone body which is Matt Smith. Kylo is barred from the throne room by the Knights of Ren. He's thrown away his lightsaber by this point and Rey teleports Leia's lightsaber (it's not clear if Rey just has it - or if Leia is meant have been there) to him and he kills the Knights. The star destroyer fleet all have Death Star cannons and are reliant on the flagship. That's the ship that the space horses are riding on as Finn leads an attack on it because ships can't destroy it for some reason. The First Order/Resistance team up is still a thing. Palpatine uses force lighting from the throne room to disable the entire(!) resistance fleet, destroying the Millennium Falcon - killing Lando, Chewie, C3PO, Leia(?) and R2. Rey and Kylo try to fight Palpatine, Kylo is killed and sent flying in to an abyss and Palpatine shoots force lightning at Rey, this is apparently when she 'channels' previous Jedi (Ghosts perhaps) and deflects it back and kills him. Rey uses force lightning herself to disable the Imperial Fleet and the resistance finishes them off. Rey takes the Skywalker name as a title of sorts and there's an ending on Tatooine. So yeah, still sounds pretty bad.

@LN78 Maybe. I think the tales of the reshoots and re-edits are real though, and all JJ seems able to do is recycle things that have already been done, failing that just throw as much as possible on to the screen. He simply can't make a film without visual escalation. JJ also confirmed in interviews as recently as late October that the film wasn't actually finished.

There's talk of Kathleen Kennedy being ousted and Favreau taking over Star Wars as a whole. Though what they actually do movie-wise from here on out is anybody's guess. There's an article out there about predicting box office numbers based on trailer views. Based on that, TROS could potentially 'only' make half of what TLJ did, which only made half of TFA. Literal diminishing returns!