Topic: The Movie Thread

@nessisonett I love Cosmic Gate!

I just watched Lightyear on D+ (released today!)

Gotta say it was freakin awesome. Absolutely loved it! Nothing will ever hold a candle to the four Toy Story films but this was a great way to revisit the series 👍👍

Hopefully gonna watch Prey this weekend. I'm really excited for it and I hope it is as good as Predator 1 and 3. I really don't want it to be a completely trash letdown like Predator 4.

@ralphdibny @RogerRoger yeah I was a little surprised to see it pop up so soon but eager to check it out. (Lightyear)
I forgot Prey was that soon, I’m cautiously optimistic that it will be good. Despite being widely derided I’m curious to see the 4th one too. To my knowledge it’s still absent from Disney + for some reason.

@LN78 yeah it's a Fox release and therefore Disney. Not sure if there has been a precedent set yet for Direct to Streaming films. The TV shows have so far not made it to physical release.

@RogerRoger @BearsEatBeets I could be wrong but I think it's 45 days from cinema to streaming which is basically no time at all in the scheme of things. I'm perfectly happy waiting 45 days for something that isn't going to have spoilers for an entire series of films (MCU)

Best of luck with the Predator run through Rog. 1 is the best imo. It's deliberately funny and also entertaining from start to finish. 2 is ok but a bit on the nose. 3 is really good but is played straight and isn't as tongue in cheek as the original. I don't even understand 4. It's just really dumb, like Terminator Genisys/Die Hard 5 levels of dumb

I just watched Prey, it was fairly decent. A million times better than The Predator (4) but nowhere near as good as Predators (3) and ultimately Predator (1). I can't compare it to Predator 2 because I haven't seen it in so long that I forget how it makes me feel when I watch it.

@RogerRoger DILLLLONNNN!!!

That's brilliant stuff! Definitely worth watching the rest of them, even the slightly less good ones and the rubbish one.

It just seems to be a thing with these brilliant old action films that have been franchised. Only Terminator got a sequel that was better than its original. 3 and 4 were entertaining enough, 5 was awful and 6 was ok. Tell a lie, Die Hard had a couple brilliant sequels before it moved into "OK" territory with Die Hard 4.0 and crashed and burned with an awful 5th film. Unfortunately it's unlikely there will be a 6th to redeem it.

Stallone's First Blood is a brilliant film. I don't remember First Blood Part 2 and Rambo 3 too well but Rambo (4) is a bit boring but still OK and Rambo 5 is entertaining enough but neither film hits the heights of the original. At least Rocky was pretty excellent all the way through, even into its Creed-quels. Rocky V isn't so bad in retrospect when it's slotted in between Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa and really it has 3-4 brilliant films either side of it.

RoboCop and Beverly Hills Cop share a similar pattern. Two brilliant films followed by a lame and castrated third film. At least RoboCop got a fairly decent remake (though I know not many people share my opinion of the remake 😀)

@RogerRoger RoboCop 2 is my favourite too! I think the most notable thing about the RoboCop remake is how much design it takes from MGS4 and Rising Revengance, I probably wouldn't have thought it was good without that!

I don't hate them really. Every time one came out for many years, I'd watch all the previous films leading up to it. But with so many disappointments, it's meant that tradition has fallen by the way side. I just don't have the time or willpower to sit through The Predator or Terminator Genisys every time a new one comes out. I don't think I will ever attempt to watch Die Hard 5 again though. I am morbidly curious to see what happens in the 45 minutes my body refuses to stay awake for but I suspect it will just be more of Bruce Willis exclaiming "Jesus!" due to a lower age rating...

First Blood is wicked by the way, I suspect you will like it. It's not really an action film, more a character study and exploration into mental health. Something the later Rambo films touched upon as part of the character but didn't really get into so much in favour of just blasting through loads of cannon fodder.

@LN78 ooo brill, need to give Heat another watch some time! I have to make time for any film over 2 hours though these days. Don't have time on a weekday evening and it's hard to dedicate even a 16th of my waking weekend hours to watching a film.

I knew my opinion of remakes would be unpopular 😅. I just think they are a different thing so I much prefer if they do something differently, but they still have to be good. I thought RoboCop was wicked and Ghostbusters was a lot better than I thought it would be.

I didn't like the Total Recall remake very much at all though. It had some cool moments but overall was just a boring generic film and should have just been called something else and not related to the original Total Recall in any way.

Rise of the Apes was a brilliant remake actually of Conquest of the Apes. It's miles above any of the other remakes i've mentioned and one of my favourite PotA films full stop. I thought Dawn was really bad and War was OK. It's a shame they couldn't keep it up. PotA is one of my favourite film series

@ralphdibny I'm in the same mindset as @LN78 with remakes of films I grew up watching. There are very few I've seen any which deserved to even wipe the crap off the originals shoes.

@LN78 the recent Apes trilogy is incredible. The first one (directed by Rupert Wyatt) was a nice little origin story for Caesar but the subsequent sequels (by Reeves) are just… amazing movies. In fact, it’s been a few years and I really fancy another ape-a-thon.

@LN78 hope you enjoy 👊

@colonelkilgore I enjoyed first of the recent Apes movies, but thought they got worse as with each film. I really didn't like the last one.

@LN78 yeah you're right, they would be prequels to the original book and the old movies. And yup, what the hell was going through Burtons mind!

@JohnnyShoulder I can see your point, I do think Dawn... (the 2nd one) was better than War... (the 3rd one) but its so difficult to close a movie trilogy with an adequate crescendo that I think they did as good as anyone really. Although I liked the first movie well enough, it was the dark themes of the sequels that did it for me.

@LN78 @colonelkilgore @JohnnyShoulder haha fair play, I know a lot of people don't agree! I will say that the ones I've said are good are still nowhere near as good as the originals, they are just good for different reasons.

Apologies for reminding you of the GB remake though! I think it helps that I didn't watch it for years after it came out so the hype/hate train wasn't fresh in my mind at all.

Haven't seen Afterlife yet, I didn't really understand the marketing at all. It was like supposed to be nostalgic for the original GB but it was like an 80s coming of an age film, which GB was not. Seemed really random. I'm sure it's fine but I'm not in any hurry to watch it. I'll probably get around to it next time I watch through the series.

On the topic of PotA, Rise of the PotA is definitely a remake of the fourth film in the series Conquest of the PotA at the very least. They sort of go in their own direction after that that.

I actually don't mine the Burton one at all. Yeah it doesn't make a lot of sense but I think it's a really enjoyable watch.

@RogerRoger fair play, it's just one of those I think. It's a bit like Beverly Hills Cop 3 and RoboCop 3, they just forget what the character and film are all about and focus on the wrong things about them. Die Hard 5, loads of action but where is our snarky bad mouthed cop who always has a headache?

@LN78 ahh that's a shame, I do get that with some things I watch. Feels like a box ticking exercise but theyve ticked all the wrong boxes!!

I love that Key and Peele sketch where they do one of those meetings

@ralphdibny You like the Burton Apes movie?! Dear lord! 😂

Afterlife felt like a complete retread of the first film on places, just in a different setting. Just really lazy filmmaking.

There is scene in Matrix Resurrections kinda like that sketch, but it was a bit cringe to watch. Just reminded me of the Pitch Meeting videos on YouTube, except for those are actually funny for the right reasons!

My favourite thing about Prey being massively critically acclaimed is it disproving all the morons who made videos about how bad it was going to be because it stars a woman. Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, Geeks and Gamers etc, all the right wing grifters catering to that audience all talking about how the movie would bomb and looks like it’s being universally praised. Although it’s probably a stretch to expect any kind of lateral thinking from people who think PredaHer is witty.

@nessisonett really looking forward to watching it having heard all the positive reviews. I'd kinda lost hope for the franchise after the last movie but really happy that they seem to have gotten this right.

Just finished watching Prey, which was... pretty good! Not a huge Predator fan, but it's probably the best film in the series since the original, as it's pleasantly ultra-violent and adopts a 'back-to-basics' approach that works well.

Also, the dog survives until the end, which is always nice.

@nessisonett That didn't really need to be disproved, lol. We've had women helming big sci-fi-action-horror properties since Alien back in 1979.

The 'people don't want women starring in [insert long-running franchise]' line has always been bunk, but you do see it being deployed by both sides for various reasons. The reality is that people just want good entertainment.