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Post by Harkovast on Jan 5, 2019 0:27:44 GMT
Okay so whats interesting about L3 is that no one can agree on what shes supposed to me. A lot of progressive types applauded her as an awesome woke activist. Others were angry that she was clearly mocking progressives and activists and making them look stupid.
My theory is that the movie was originally a comedy and got reshot so I think she started out as a joke character but then they try to use her as a serious one because the tone is changed and the result is baffling.
Rogue One was pointless but I enjoyed it as an exercise in fan service. It was just getting out all the star wars toys nad banging them together. The plot, the characters, all pretty pointless but it scratched the itch for big scale star wars battling. There was a kind of dumb honesty too it. But the thing with giving people what they want, they get full up! You serve me a giant bowl of icecream, after I gorge I don't want any more ice cream. Rogue one filled me up on x wings, tie fighters and all that stuff. The future movies needed something new, but have yet to provide it in my view.
As for Solo...I just had no reason to see it. TLJ aside, who cares? I get to learn how Han became a jerk before he learned not to be a jerk. Whats the point? More tie fighters, more storm troopers more awkward references to better movies, but nothing I care about. Nothing about it motivated me to want to see it at all.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 5, 2019 1:26:02 GMT
Rouge One wasn't insulting nor did it shit on previously established lore, so it was fairly benign. It wasn't clever or anything, but it was watchable. There were a ton of missed opportunities and weirdly pointless scenes, but what can you do? I've only seen it once and that was enough for me.
I have to agree that there's no real reason to see Solo. Even if it's on the same level as Rogue One I don't feel like I'm missing anything. It would just be another movie I only see once. I like Lord and Miller and I don't mind Ron Howard when he's on his game, but I don't think I want to see a mash up of the two styles.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 5, 2019 22:58:36 GMT
A film gimic I've started to hate is the thing where a character who is bad ass in an all covering suit and mask shows up who either doesn't talk or talks through a voice modulator thing....WOMAN! IT'S A WOMAN, ISN'T? Oh I'm sorry movie, did I spoil your twist?
I called this from the freaking trailer for Incredible 2.
I didn't know who the woman was, but just from the fact a masked character with a lowered voice was there, I knew they would be revealed as a woman.
Same thing with this raider leader. I just assumed it was a woman straight away. I thought the woman would be older than 12 admittedly, so I guess that counts as kind of a surprise?
If you made star wars today, 100% boba fett AND Vader would do an "oh my god, its a woman!" reveal.
When Samus did this it was a surprise....but that was also over 30 years ago!
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Post by TempestFennac on Jan 6, 2019 5:25:48 GMT
A campaign comic called Darths and Droids did that (it turned out Vader was actually Padame because the person who was playing Anakin figured his story arc was over so he died on Mustefa with Padame being taken over by Anakin's player).
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 6, 2019 18:44:16 GMT
I had forgotten about Darths and Droids for a few years and now I just lost a bunch of time trying to catch up.
Thanks a lot.
I wonder if some of the issues with modern film is that today's moviegoers are fairly astute when it comes to spotting tropes and twists, so if you really want to "subvert expectations" it's actually really difficult. So the only real way to do that is to do something stupid or far less than what the audience is hoping for. Which might explain why there is so much pandering to the Chinese market. Not that the Chinese are dumber than western audiences, just that they haven't had exposure to western film making for 100+ years.
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Post by Canuovea on Jan 6, 2019 20:25:16 GMT
I dunno.
Pandering to audiences is a problem for the West too. It is one of the main problems with the latter seasons of Game of Thrones according to a friend of mine and I get the sense that it is true.
Plus plenty of folks who bitched about The Last Jedi loved Infinity War... when Infinity War is structurally worse, thematically worse, and far more inconsistent with the character's behaviours and capability. More asspulls. Hell even the jokes were at least as hit or miss.
Is he Thor, god of hammers? Nope. He's Thor, god of axe-hammers.
That isn't to say that there is nothing good about Infinity War, but folks were far more overhyped about it than they should have been, in my opinion. We tend to be the type to exaggerate the quality, or even lack of quality, of what we watch.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 6, 2019 22:10:50 GMT
I liked infinity wars....but yeah the fact he gets a new weapon in the next films doens't really gel. Its cool and all how he does it...but it undermines the whole message. My son was 8 and loved Thor ragnorok and he noticed that it was dumb that Thor needed a new weapon when he had alreayd unlocked his powers without a weapon.
Were there any other obvious writing problems in Infinity Wars? I dont think it was high art but it was fun. Thanos was a good villain. After so much build up I assumed he would suck, but they made him really interesting and threatening. Mind you...he acts totally differnet to how he did in his cameos. He was always smirking evilly or shouting in anger. Now hes much more calm. I think the new version of him is better, (cause shouty bad guys seem like they are losing control and smirking suggest he will be jokey like fucking shitty Ultron) but its not really consistent.
I think a lot of infinity war is like that. Its more concerned with working as a movie than workign in the bigger universe, if that makes sense. Probably a good choice. Age of Ultron did the opposite and that was horse shit.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 6, 2019 23:14:00 GMT
Infinity War was fine and fit okay in the cinematic universe they set up. It was vastly different than the comics, but Marvel has a get out of jail free card on that because it's canon that the films aren't canon in the comics.
I think one of the big gripes about the film that some people had, sometimes even calling it a "plot hole", was that Thanos' plan wouldn't work, it wasn't a long term solution. But that's not a plot hole because whether or not it actually works is irrelevant, Thanos believes it will work. He's convinced himself that it's the only solution and anyone who says otherwise is simply misinformed or is incapable of understanding the sacrifice he's trying to make.
Another issue that folks had was that we know a lot of these deaths will be undone by the fact that we know they are going to appear in movies in the future. Okay... so? Knowing a character is doomed or saved beforehand doesn't necessarily ruin a story. You can still watch a film or read a book after knowing the outcome, otherwise you'd never watch a movie more than once. We can't judge a film based on what the future holds for the franchise, we have to judge it on how well it has done in it's own film. Does it tell a good story? Is it consistent in its own universe?
I can still enjoy Alien and Aliens even knowing that Prometheus is going to happen in the future (or past? or whatever).
The Thor/Stormbreaker thing was a bit of a letdown. Though I can't really see what his thunder powers were going to do against Thanos when they were all but useless against Hela. Probably what might have been better would have been to have Thanos kill Thor at the beginning of the movie and have Loki be the one to survive. Cuz we've pretty well explored the character of Thor, but it would be interesting to put Loki in a position to be the hero everyone is hoping will come through in the end. Plus, killing Loki again is starting to feel Death Star. The guy has a revolving door to the afterlife. Not to mention I'm sure Loki's plan to defeat Thanos wouldn't be a bigger hammer.
Though I get the impression that Loki is going to play a big part in the sequel, so there might be a reason for all of that.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 7, 2019 1:18:15 GMT
Yeah why would I expect the villains plan to work to make the world better? I mean if the villain has real sensible solutions to societies problems...hes not a villain! I understood what Thanos wanted and why and how he saw things, which made it interesting. He didn't have selfish or even malicious motivations, he honestly believed he was the only one helping people and saving them from themselves (though he was also a total dick!) The bit where Gamora said "you can't know that" and he says "Im the only one that knows that!" Kinda summed him up. When he was on his own planet he had been unable to convince people of the danger, so now he has given up trying to persuade anyone and he's just going to do what he thinks is best regardless.
He wasn't an evil version of the hero in the bigger scarier costume so that's a big improvement over what marvel normally does!
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Post by Canuovea on Jan 7, 2019 4:48:48 GMT
It being undone, probably, doesn't bother me.
There are other things that bothered me. You set this whole thing up and it doesn't maintain consistency with what came before? Thor is a good example of that, but not really the only one.
Overall, it was okay. A lot of stuff I didn't really buy, but it was fine I guess. Too late to go over it all now.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 7, 2019 8:24:47 GMT
I wasn't annoyed by the knowledge that they would mostly come back to life. I mean thats getting annoyed tha thte baddie who is winning at the end of the cliff hangar will ultimately get defeated.
I can see why people were worked up cause its shocking at the time, but it was silly when people were getting upset like it wouldn't just get undone. I mean they have magic where you click your fingers and change stuff!
Maybe this is just me being a racist...but I always thought Wakanda was really silly. It doesn't seem to make any sense at all but everyone acts like its such an amazing idea and such a wonderful place now. They have an absolute monarch who is chosen by trial by combat!
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Post by TempestFennac on Jan 7, 2019 8:55:42 GMT
I don't know anything about Wakanda other than what you just said but it sounds pretty regressive if their government type (and how the king is chosen) is anything to go by.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 7, 2019 18:16:40 GMT
Also the whole moral of it gets messed up. Wakandans are a closed society that keep out all foreigners and outside cultural influences...and because they did this they are the most technologically advanced nation in the world. If Wakandans were white this would be the alt right's wet dream fantasy nation! You can see my views on this with the golta in harkovast. They don't profit from isolating themselves (and their advanced tech is based on their magic.)
It all just feels a bit dumb to me, so its weird to see people telling me how amazing the concept it.
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Post by Canuovea on Jan 7, 2019 19:59:49 GMT
Wakanda isn't technologically advanced because they're isolationist, they're isolationist because they're technologically advanced. And they're technologically advanced because they kinda just lucked into vibranium. The Black Panther movie ended with Wakanda deciding that it would stop being isolationist because that doesn't actually help anyone.
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Post by Harkovast on Jan 7, 2019 21:45:01 GMT
At the end Black Panther decides to set up the first ever social out reach to help the outside world...in the hood in America.
I get that Wakandans don't like white people much (for some reason) but that's such a strange thing to do when you think about it. Couldn't they find any poor black people nearer to home? I mean I've heard (and stop me if this sounds crazy) that there are a few poor people in Africa. And I think they might be a lot poorer than poor people in America. You don't die of malnutrition in America!
Its got that "americans wrote this" vibe where things Americans care about are seen as very important in the setting, when to outsiders they would seem kind of irrelevant. Racism and inequality is bad and all, but compared to most people in poor countries, being black in America is prety good! American cops don't shoot so many people that you are better off in Somalia! It just seems so strange that Wakanda would choose the richest, most powerful nation on earth (okay, second after Wakanda) to be the one they want to help! Are they just starting with the smallest problems an building up to the big ones?
I will admit, Ive just seen clips and people talking abotu it etc rather than sit down and watch the film properly, so maybe in context the film is awesome, but I'm keen on world building and the world building there doesn't seem all that well thought through. People liking the film seem to come out seeing Wakanda as aspirational, like its some wonderful goal to strive for, but it really ought to be presented as pretty bad. The idea of a hidden secret country is cool, but I'd want a more harsh look at it and what that would rally mean.
The fact their economy is based on just one thing would do the same as the lack of trade, it would ultimately make them poorer. Look at Saudi Arabia. Their one super resource serves to make them backward as it lets corrupt leaders consolidate power. There is no way the royal family wouldn't be total tyrants.
Their king is also their pope and he has super powers! That's horrifying! I am sure the poor Wakandans would vote for something else...if they could vote...and they can't. And a man in armoured cat pjammmas will kick the shit out of them if they try.
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