Topic: The Movie Thread

@RogerRoger Haha, hadn't heard about that. It's a shame it wasn't Finn and Poe, honestly: of all the flat characters and relationships in the Disney trilogy, those are the only two new characters who felt like they had a real connection. Friendship is fine; more would be fine, too. But I guess it wasn't in the cards.

Sounds like the film wasn't fetishizing the shot, even if the 'enlightened' people in the audience were.

Reminds me of this horrible thing I found in a bargain bin recently:

@RogerRoger Oh I will! But we're of two kinds whether we actually want to pay to go and see it! 😂😂
The review I saw mentioning the ever changing scale of the cats has probably tipped me over 😀

Regarding the kiss. It's the sort of thing that can as you allude, sit happily in the tapestry of a scene. Just there, no fanfare and it's perfectly fine. It's a good job the marketing shills didn't lead with it though, but I expect lessons were learned from the Russo's backpatting themselves for another moment, that should have been just left as part of the fabric of people in a scene rather than sold as a big deal.

@KALofKRYPTON Referring to that cringy bit in Endgame with the group of female heroes that practically announced their presence with trumpets and confetti?

@Ralizah no, it's up there, but I meant the Steve Rogers therapy session.
Was a good scene that played well, would've been better had one of the Russo's not cast himself as the man talking about dating then patting himself on the back for it!

One last, timely note with which to end all of these musings.

Went to HMV this morning to pick up The Rise of Skywalker soundtrack (which I'm listening to now, and it's quite good; as I thought yesterday, it's nowhere near John Williams' best work, but it's got some genuine heart). I handed it over to the girl at the checkout and she asked me whether I'd seen the film yet.

When I said I had, she asked me whether it was worth going to see, "because I liked The Force Awakens for what it was, but I was properly offended by how bad The Last Jedi was."

This girl was barely twenty, the walking definition of a millennial.

After encouraging her to go see it, and we had a bit of banter about the wider Star Wars franchise and the state of Hollywood today, I walked away wondering what all those forty-something film critics would've made of our little exchange. They probably would've interrupted her, trying to explain why she should be grateful for the nihilistic metaphors that represent her generation.

Or more likely, they'd have walked away in silence, unable to engage with our blatant wrongness.

***

@Ralizah Yeah, I think Disney bottled it with regards Finn and Poe. This single shot (which is two women, by the way; not that it should matter, but there's a bigger public acceptance of seeing female same-sex displays of affection) is something that can easily be edited out for foreign markets. I think China has surprisingly kept it in, which tells you how fleeting it is, but some Middle Eastern territories have had it removed from their screenings. It'd be tougher to edit out two central characters.

Oh God, that book. Reminds me of when I told a couple female college friends I was gay. The next weekend, they took me clothes shopping, constantly asking my opinion on a bunch of things. When I told them that a trash bag would cover their modesty just as effectively (and that a roll of twenty would be a fraction of the cost, too!) they realised their mistake.

@KALofKRYPTON I've yet to see Endgame, but my best friend has gotten NowTV for the holidays and it's being added at Christmas, and she's offered to lend me her password so that I can catch up with the Marvel movies (since Captain Marvel is on there, too). Given how much self-congratulatory puffery I've seen about "the first gay character in a major superhero movie" I think I'm gonna laugh so much when it probably turns out to be a three-second bit of easily-dismissed nonsense.

@RogerRoger That’s a pretty funny exchange with the clerk.

As far as the Marvel outings, there is plenty of patronizing political shoe-ins spread throughout the MCU, but I personally felt fine with the way most of the portrayal of the under-represented groups was done with the exception of the sequence @Ralizah mentioned, which you’ll pick out easily when you see it because of its blatant fanfare-type of presentation. The over compensatory way it’s done only cheapens the desired effect, imo, whereas most of the other progressive inclusions, like the gay characters, fit more seamlessly into the narrative flow. I realize that I can’t speak for the women and the gay community so I’ve no issue if the portray is not offensive to the groups on display. I just know when a scene or sequence feels out of place and in the case of the ‘girl power’ section, it just came across too overt. But you’ll see.

When does Disney + come to UK? You’ll have opportunity to watch any Marvel outing then too.

@RogerRoger regarding Endgame. It's absolutely fine as a scene. The dialogue is a bit sentimental, but it fits the scenario well enough. It's just not at all warranting the self-congratulatory stance 😂

Captain Marvel is one of the okay-est films you're likely to see. MCU by-the-numbers in most respects. It's not terrible, but the forced feeling of the 90s setting and the faux 'girl power' leanings make it difficult to actually like.
I don't think people not taking to Captain Marvel as a character is entirely Brie Larsen's fault, certainly she's gone out her way to make people dislike her - but the character in her current form has always struggled to get any traction.
There are a couple of moments in the film where she's genuinely just a bit of a prick, but a lot of it feels like poor direction.

Watched Rise of the Skywalker earlier today. AlI I can say is that it wasn't very good.....

@RogerRoger I didn't even notice there was a gay character in Endgame. Or I may have just forgotten about it. I thought it was much better than Infinty War. Captain Marvel was fine, nothing more but nothing less. I think some people tend to read too much into these things and try to find hidden agendas within a film. When I hear what some people have come up with I just scratch my head and move one. Sometimes it's like I've watched a totally different movie lol.

@Th3solution @KALofKRYPTON @JohnnyShoulder Thanks for all the Marvel thoughts, folks. I'm looking forward to catching up with these past couple of films, especially since Endgame was such an all-encompassing piece of popular culture (and I wanna be able to read back over the excellent analysis provided by @Th3solution with the requisite level of understanding). Whatever fleeting moments of "woke" point-scoring they may contain, I'm sure to enjoy watching them regardless.

Disney+ is due to be made UK accessible in March 2020. Not too far away now, but I'll be preoccupied with running headlong at Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian upon its arrival, so its Marvel content will have to wait even longer for a look-see.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Rise of Skywalker in theaters (I'm more of a casual fan, so don't have particularly strong feelings either way about any of the films, though admit the first trilogy feels the best), though as I'm not a big fan of large crouds I'll probably wait until the home release.

Anyhow, I started up the single player mode of Star Wars Battlefront 2 this morning.

It looks absolutely stunning & is suprisingly difficult (though that may be due in part to the fact I don't play too many shooters, and am playing in 3rd person), though a bit glitchy (on many occasions enemies would go in and out of walls, one of which was responsible for one of my deaths, when I thought I had cleared a room I was suddenly being shot at again & before I died I found an arm sticking out of a wall shooting me).

Anyhow, here's the Yahoo article about the lesbian kiss scene in the new film (this seems to be their biggest takeaway from the film, as it's their most prominent article about it since it's release), and how apparently there's major disappointment amongst the fan base (with tweets!) that it didn't go deeper.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/star-wars-rise-of-skywalk...

@LN78 I'm not too keen on the two part finale, but maybe to undo the mess that the previous film created TRoS needed to be in two parts?

@LN78 Yeah, I think you've just hit upon several good reasons for its breakneck pace; whilst yes, it makes commercial sense to release shorter movies, I think JJ Abrams' particular brand of storytelling has always fallen apart whenever you stop and think about it, so not giving anybody the chance to do so could be deliberate. I was certainly a tad overwhelmed by the first half especially, and then kinda adjusted so that the second half felt a little more comfortable.

But yes, apparently there are deleted scenes aplenty, including physical appearances from some who were subsequently relegated to being voice cameos (you'll know the scene I mean).

I also think that the franchise dictated the impossibility of "Episode IX, Part I" and "Episode IX, Part II" because of its trilogy of trilogies structure, but I certainly wouldn't have minded a three-hour film if it helped things feel a little less rushed. Maybe there'll be a Director's Cut someday.

Wait, did we just agree on something Star Wars related? [falls off chair]

Just saw the trailer for the new Mulan. It looks like it could be good, it’s not a shot-for-shot remake like the others (not necessarily a bad thing at all for those movies), but given that they’re not including Mushu, I’m really not so sure about the Huns having a witch. If they were gonna remove Mushu and such they should have done away with the magic entirely, if not, there should be a Mushu even Eddy Murphy doesn’t voice him.

I also saw Star Wars. I may write a more detailed account later, but it was mediocre for for the most part, but the end was truly horrendous. I had low expectations of the end and heard it was bad. I was still upset leaving the theater at how incredibly bad it was. It made no sense and broke Star Wars in so mays ways. They turned it I to DBZ with palpating’s rediculous lighting stike. They didn’t even have the decency to make him say “UNLIMITED POWER!” As he did it.

@Jaz007 I hope there's no singing in Mulan. Not really a big fan of musicals, in cartoons is okay but not in live-action movies/series. You should watch Screen Rant's Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Pitch Meeting. It's hilarious. The Avengers: Infinity War Pitch Meeting is also very funny.

@WanderingBullet Ha ha yeah I like those Pitch Meeting vids too. The Wonder Woman one was quite good too.

@JohnnyShoulder Cool, will go watch that. Only started watching their videos a couple a days ago.

@Arugula Wait ... what? You mean the popular song from the movie Frozen? How did you manage to survive in this world the last 6 years and not hear that song (or see the movie for that matter)? That was the most overplayed song from 2013-2015.

@Arugula I dropped a Frozen 2 mini-review a couple weeks ago, but if you go in to these films completely untainted by public perception and the over-saturation of the music and characters, then you’ll most likely really enjoy them. Even as a testosterone fueled male nerd who loves sports, video games, rock music, and barbecue, I can’t deny the catchy amazing tunes, spot on humor, and overall fun of the Frozen movies. You’ll lose a corner of your man-card, but they’re worth a watch if you have any interest at all in animated Disney.