Topic: The Movie Thread

@RogerRoger Yeah, that’s very true. Much like the MCU, we take it for granted the consistent quality of the Pixar output, so when we get to dissecting one of the movies, we forget that it’s still probably better than half the stuff out there. A bad Pixar film is still a great film!

Went to the cinema for the first time since COVID began to watch Ghostbusters Afterlife.

I thought it did a good job of passing things on to a new generation & vibe (even if that vibe was just Stranger Things: Ghostbusters Edition, what with a small group of tweens/teens unravelling a supernatural conspiracy in small town America) while tying it in & paying respects to the originals (though I can see some thinking it ultimately leans into the original's story a bit too much, I for one enjoyed every second of it).

So I've been playing Kingdom Hearts 3 lately and in preparation for it, I was planning on watching all the movies that show up in the game before playing it. I already watched Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Pirates of the Caribbean when growing up and earlier this year I watched Frozen and quite liked it. So the only two movies left for me were Tangled and Big Hero 6 and I had completely forgotten to watch those two before I started up KH3. Luckily, a friend of mine let me use her Disney+ account and so I'm going to watch those two movies (as well as what else that might interest me on the service).

Today I finished watching Tangled and overall, I really liked the movie. When it comes to Disney movies, I just hate it when they sing so many songs in them. But in the case of Tangled, they were actually pretty good and some of them weren't too long either. Frozen was worse in that regard though. Anyway, I also thought the characters were very likeable and the story overall was memorable. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting all the characters again in Kingdom Hearts 3.

Next up is Big Hero 6. Looking forward to watching it tomorrow!

@LtSarge Big Hero 6 is an under rated movie I think. It’s quite unique.

@LtSarge totally agree with @Th3solution, the kilgore household are massive Big Hero 6 fans. Id actually rate it as one of my fave Disney movies actually!

Finally got around to watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Wow, what a great movie. It was much better than I was expecting.

Putting aside the rather clear attempts to tap into a global market, I was thoroughly entertained and amazed my the cinematography, choreography, and special effects. I really liked the visual art style and themes of the film. Probably it’s biggest drawback is the acting, which is a little inconsistent. The jokes don’t always land and the sidekick Katy… well, let’s just say the movie would have been better with that entire character omitted. Nevertheless, it’s in the upper echelon of MCU movies in my opinion. What are we up to now?… 26? So maybe around top 10 -15.

@Th3solution Aww, I like Awkwafina! I do think she probably should have been allowed to write her own lines though, comedians always sound slightly off when written by somebody else for a movie.

@Th3solution @colonelkilgore Just finished watching Big Hero 6 and it was great! I really enjoyed it and it was rather refreshing to watch a Disney movie where the characters weren't singing every 20 minutes lol. I also thought having a mixed setting of San Fransisco and Tokyo was really cool. Very interesting to see different cultures mixed together. Also liked the Stan Lee reference in the movie, I think it really solidifies that Marvel is a part of Disney now. Speaking of which, I didn't realise that Disney acquired Marvel back in 2009 because this movie came out in 2015 and I thought it was fairly recently that Marvel was acquired. Anyway, great movie and once again I'm looking forward to meeting all these characters again in Kingdom Hearts 3!

Now that I'm done watching the Disney movies that show up in KH3, I've been interested in watching the MCU movies that you need to watch before Avengers Endgame (or Infinity War as well but I've already watched that movie). Could you guys tell me which movies I need to watch before then? Like Iron Man, Thor, Captain America etc. I think Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange also show up in Infinity War, so I may need to watch them too.

@LtSarge You basically need to watch every single MCU movie first. It has characters from all of them up until Infinity War.

@LtSarge yeah, as @nessisonett said, watch them all… there are SO MANY ingenious little pay-offs to seemingly insignificant throwaway moments in the films that came before. Endgame absolutely slayed me on my first viewing… there were points where I thought I was on the verge of a heart attack.

@LtSarge also, I’ve never played (considered even) the Kingdom Hearts games. The last thing I need is another lengthy series to add to the backlog… but the fact you were willing to watch movies just for preparation for one of the games has intrigued me somewhat.

@colonelkilgore As someone who went to see every single Marvel movie in the cinema until Covid, Endgame was such a payoff. I think I was about 7 when Iron Man came out and they were pretty much the only movies I went to see in the cinema for years.

@nessisonett yeah… it’s one of the only times a property I have absolutely loved, served up a crescendo worthy of all that came before. Phenomenal capstone!

@colonelkilgore Exactly yeah, I can’t count all the times these sort of things have ended on a bit of a damp squib but they actually stuck the landing with Endgame!

@nessisonett @colonelkilgore Well, looks like I've got quite a ways to go before I can watch Endgame then, haha. Not that it will be a problem, I'm kinda in a mood to watch movies right now (which I never am!) so I have to take this opportunity to watch as many as I can. Might even really like most of them! I think I'll start with the obvious ones like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, and work my way from there.

@colonelkilgore Don't think too much about it, it was only for the third game that I did that lol. Most Kingdom Hearts games have worlds mostly from Disney franchises like Aladdin, Peter Pan, Hercules, Little Mermaid, Tarzan and so on, you know the ones that everyone watched as a kid. So I didn't bother watching anything before playing those games. However, KH3 has so many worlds from recent movies that I knew nothing about that I felt like I needed to watch them.

Although if you really do like Disney and action RPGs then I highly recommend playing the series. It's one of a kind, there's just no other franchise where you can visit all these different Disney worlds and it's just such a magical experience.

On a side note, I have noticed that you've been playing a lot of Metal Gear Solid in recent times and one thing that series has in common with Kingdom Hearts is that both have very in-depth and complicated storylines with a crazy chronological order and so much stuff you need to remember in order to fully enjoy them. If you really liked that aspect of MGS (like I do), then I think you're going to like KH for that same reason.

@LtSarge I do gravitate to narratives of the more convoluted variety if I’m honest. Not particularly a fan of ‘classic’ Disney but I do like action RPG’s so, it’s now blipping on my radar at the very least.

Enjoy your time in the MCU buddy, there are definitely many more hits than misses.

@LtSarge You probably know this already, but there are a couple different ways to watch the MCU movies. Either in chronological order or in release order. There are advantages to each. I’m partial to the chronological order because of the frequent call-backs to prior movies it’s nice to have things fresh in your mind when you start to connect the dots, which is harder to do when you’ve separated 2 movies that are back-to-back in time sequence but separated by 4 or 5 less related movies.

However, if you watch them out of release order, there is the rare spoiler you could be exposed to, but these are usually in the post-credit scenes. (Black Widow’s post credit scene is a classic example.)

This link has both the chronological order and the release order, and also includes the TV shows and where each of them fit in, time-wise:

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-watch-the-marvel-movi...

@Th3solution I appreciate the link! I looked through both orders and honestly, both seem fairly similar all things considered besides certain movies like Captain America and Captain Marvel. So to me it seems like the best way to go about this is to watch the movies in release order. It's too bad that the Spider-Man movies aren't on there, but The Incredible Hulk is on Disney+ despite what that site says. Maybe there are regional differences? Anyway, I think having a list like this will help me spice things up instead of having to watch through all movies of a series one after the other, e.g. Iron Man 1, 2 and 3.

But yeah, the whole reason why I'm doing this is not only to catch up with the movies but also because I want to watch the TV shows and just like I've read, all of them take place after Endgame. So in order to watch them, I need to watch the MCU movies and Endgame first.

@LtSarge Yeah, come to think of it — I watched each movie first in its release order and when I did a rewatch of the whole MCU about a year ago I did it with the chronological order and it was nice as a second viewing to do it that way. Captain Marvel comes really early in chronology, but is toward the end in the release. Black Widow is also way out of place in its release. Also the GotG movies are separated in the release, whereas together in chronology. A few other minor tweaks here and there, but it’ll be good to experience them like most of us did as each one came out.

Black Widow. It was ok, but feels like it has come a few years too late and bit superfluous at this stage. I have minor quibbles like Taskmaster being wasted in the film, Ray Winston's terrible accent, and why would a Russian sleeper family speak in English with a Russian accent when no longer a sleeper family? Not a massive problem, but I found it took me out of the film a little.

On the plus side, Winston aside the cast do a good job with standouts I thought being David Harbour and Florence Pugh, with the former doing a great turn as tragic failed father former super soldier. The action scenes were fine, if a little by the numbers.

Overall I did enjoy it but it is nowhere near Marvel at their best.