generalfrevious

Darth Id said:

generalfrevious said:

If a film has no interesting characters and/or poorly written dialogue, it cannot be a good film. Honestly, has anyone heard words like "welcome to the suck", "true dat", or "kewl" when you were growing up as a kid? Or when anyone was a high school/college student, did anyone have pretentious discussions about robots or the "moment seizing you"?

 Sooooo....are you suggesting that the filmmakers actually went back in time 12 years and were thereby able to transplant anachronistic slang into the entire past of this kid, or wat?

 Bad dialogue is still bad dialogue.

DominicCobb said:

Yes.

 Can you elaborate for me On your yes?

SilverWook said:

DominicCobb said:

generalfrevious said:

On a side note: if you factor out the 12 years gimmick, is Boyhood as great as moat critics say it is?

Boyhood is a great film whether you decided to not like it because of one asshole's stupid review or not. And the 12 years concept is not a gimmick, and is, in fact, crucial to the experience of the film. 

But I don't see how Boyhood has anything to do with Star Wars (well, besides the two scenes where they talk about Star Wars).

 There were rumors going around in the 90's that Stanley Kubrick was secretly filming a young actor as he grew up for what eventually became A.I., so it's not a new idea.

If a film has no interesting characters and/or poorly written dialogue, it cannot be a good film. Honestly, has anyone heard words like "welcome to the suck", "true dat", or "kewl" when you were growing up as a kid? Or when anyone was a high school/college student, did anyone have pretentious discussions about robots or the "moment seizing you"?

Danfun128 said:

Don't you mean first entirely CGI character in a live action movie?

 Yes, thank you.

Another thought: Michael Bay is more powerful and influential today than he was 15 years ago. If he lives to be 90, there could be several more decades in his reign of cinematic terror. I'm horrified that in 2050 he will be considered our country's greatest living director, in spite of destroying more IP's to resemble his Transformer movies.

Jar Jar Binks, as much as we hate him, was still the first entirely CGI character in film history. it doesn't mean this was a good innovation, but it one that happened anyways.

On a side note: if you factor out the 12 years gimmick, is Boyhood as great as moat critics say it is?

What about Boyhood? If you think about it, the similarities are quite eerie:

1. Both take place over a twelve year period, with the main character growing up from a annoying little kid to whiny teenager.

2. They both have flat cinematography and badly written dialogue (true dat)

3. Both are overlong with very little happening within the movie.

4. Both have massive hype focused on one gimmick (12 year shooting period, entire film done in CGI)

5. Side characters are more interesting than main character

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Darth Id said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The thought of the PT being "influential" is depressing indeed.

Well this should lift your spirits: it wasn't and isn't.

It was universally reviled and is now forgotten.

 AH, good!  What a relief - that was a close one.

No, every Prequel got mixed reviews at release and only after a few months or years did they become universally reviled. But yes, no one remembers them besides being bad movies.

The problem: studio executives don't live in the real world, and can't realize that the prequels are awful and no one wants more of them. All they see is the $450 million Episode I made.

Remember, the films that could have been the Alien, Star Wars, or Terminator of the 2010s have been aggressively stifled by the studio system. The best films being made today are from filmmakers who were working in the 80s and 90s at the latest. Once those directors leave the scene, cinema will be dead within 20 years. It's not that the public always chooses the safe and familiar on instinct, it's because the safe and familiar have been the only options for decades. Hollywood doesn't want another Heaven's Gate, and are willing to destroy the art form forever.

Anchorhead said:

If it's strictly the style over substance trend, Independence Day, Armageddon, and the Matrix trilogy are every bit as responsible.

But these were original properties; modern style over substance films would be based on some comic book superhero, a remake of a forgotten 80s/early 90s movie, or a young adult novel series. Plus, they weren't trying to make cinematic universes out of Amadgeddon or Independence Day. Even the Matrix was just your average movie trilogy in the vein of Back To The Future.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The thought of the PT being "influential" is depressing indeed.

What about Ang Lee's Hulk? Somethingawful says it has actually influenced more superhero films than you think. Remember when we all though the Matrix was going to influence movies for decades to come? In the long run it was the Phantom Menace that big budget fis are following these days: too much CGI and not any substance.

DominicCobb said:

I could spend all day listing exciting directors still working today. Snyder and Bay are far from "all we have." They're actually very easy to ignore.

Snyder and Bay make more money at the box office than all those other "exciting directors" combined. Even though these other less profitable directors will be remembered forever in film history, hollywood executives ignore history when money is involved. And when the people in charge continuously ignore the talent and bend over backwards for the hacks, that means less exciting directors for the future, hence the decline of cinema.

Handman said:

generalfrevious said:

Or they don't reach your city to make room for the latest Marvel Universe spinoff. Compared to today, the dark ages of the 1950s and early 60s look downright charming.

 Oh, c'mon, movies in the 50s and 60s couldn't have been that bad, right?

 I know, that era had Hitchcock's best films, hence why I said the era was charming. That was when theaters went out of business because people were watching television instead.

But who do we have now that is as good as Hitchcock? Christopher Nolan? All we have now are Zack Snyder and Michael Bay, who are in George Lucas' footsteps.

Or they don't reach your city to make room for the latest Marvel Universe spinoff. Compared to today, the dark ages of the 1950s and early 60s look downright charming.

Doesnt matter anyway, because Episode I ushered in the hellish era movie fans live in today, even if it's influence might be scant. The 2010s alone is probaby the worst decade for cinema ever; it will be surpassed only by whatever atrocities constitute 2020s Hollywood.

Anchorhead said:

generalfrevious said:

Yeah but a blockbuster film from 1980 is vastly different to one from 2015 because they still based their films on original ideas. ...... today we have the Internet, so they have to exploit existing franchises to get people off youtube for three hours. And the prequels were one of the first recognizable brands for studios to use.

 

There have been a fair number of blockbusters in that span of time that weren't exploited franchises.  No doubt that's much more the case the past five years or so, but to lump the 90s and 00s in there isn't necessarily fair.

 Blockbusters of the 90s are closer to my 1980 conception of blockbusters, especially films like Jurassic Park and Toy Story. Films made in the 00s are basically more similar with present day blockbusters, especially when you factor in the oversaturation of superhero films that really began after the 90s ended, and especially after the Phantom Menace made $450 million domestically. So the problem doesn't start in the last five years, it started in the last fifteen years. So it's been going on for a very long time by now, and is only going to get in worse as Hollywood shifts its focus to overseas markets like China, and they sink more money into reboots to films released a year or two before. By the end of the decade tentpole films could be costing $300-400 million at least.

One of the biggest problems in Hollywood today is that they waste $250 million on one tent pole film instead of dozens of low budget, character driven films. It doesn't help that ticket prices have risen exponentially in the last 20 years, and "studio accounting" can call any film a financial failure on a whim, plus theaters are forced give 90% of the box office money to the studios forcing them to charge four bucks for tap water just to stay in business. Since going to the movies has gotten more and more expensive seemingly by the week, less people are going to theaters and forcing studios to dump everything but the most marketable films, since streaming has destroyed the DVD market that would have supported those niche films.

in other words, film fans are in the dark ages, and will get worse through compound interest decade by decade, until Hollywood collapses long after it should have.

Yeah but a blockbuster film from 1980 is vastly different to one from 2015 because they still based their films on original ideas. Back in the early years of the blockbuster the only competition was from three tv channels, while today we have the Internet, so they have to exploit existing franchises to get people off youtube for three hours. And the prequels were one of the first recognizable brands for studios to use.

Man of Steel could be one example; you have a mopey violent protagonist (Anakin), excessively long action sequences and hamisted political allegory, trailers that end up better than the movie, and pushing in films no one wants to see but will make hundreds of millions of dollars anyways. 

But one thing: they still had to be good movies. Beginning with the Phantom Menace, brand recognition became the primary factor in a movie's success (and opening weekend at the box office).

I've been thinking that a lot of big budget "tentpole" movies have a lot in common with the hype, emphasis on CGI, and lack of substance of the Star Wars prequels. Is this too much of a stretch, or am I actually on to something?

Whatever George is, most tentpole blockbusters today look more like the PT than  anything else. Once again he has influenced modern day cinema than any other person in the last 15 years.

At least Star Wars can look down on the Matrix and laugh: they made only one good movie and ruined themselves within four years. It took Star Wars at least six (or sixteen) years to do that!

What we really need is a new show that would be as good as TOS or TNG. Why don't they make a new series set after the TNG/DS9/Voyager time period?

Doesn't matter anyways. There is no way the director of Tokyo Drift is going to bring Star Trek back to its roots and turn the franchise around.

pittrek said:

Possessed said:

Abram's movies aren't even bad.  Different, yes.  Completely and totally different.  Not even the same feeling.  Feels more like star wars than star trek, yes.  Bad?  No.  Fun?  Yes.

 I always say they're good action movies, but horrible Star Trek movies

 At least I didn't get angry to the point of violence at Voyager/Emterprise or the cast and crew. STID, however, did.