m_s0

haraldo23 said:

Thanks! I’m just using them as a way to come out of the closet as an artist and see how people react to my work.

The people are pleased.

Continue.

No, seriously, these are really, really good. You seem to have a strong angle preference - not that there’s anything wrong with that considering how well you’ve been using it thus far 😃 C3PO is my favorite - wouldn’t mind hanging that piece on my wall.

Is the uniform color palette intentional, or is it a byproduct of how (/how quickly) you’re doing these?

DuracellEnergizer said:

ray_afraid said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

And all this time I thought the Soviets had nothing of value to offer the world. . . .

So… You’re not into art, design or movies?

I’m not into Marxism or its derivatives.

Anyway, hyperbolic statement, was hyperbolic Anyway.

That’s a crucial (constraining) factor, actually. Both ways.

DuracellEnergizer said:

suspiciouscoffee said:

Stalker (1979)

I won’t pretend to fully understand it–to try would take me probably 100 watches–but I loved every frame. For nostalgic purposes, I may not ever call a movie other than Star Wars my “favorite,” but this might be the greatest film I’ve ever seen.

*googles film*

*adds to watchlist*

If you haven’t heard of the man, just go watch all of Tarkovsky’s films right now. His body of work really is something to behold. You lucky bastard.

And he was buddies with Konchalovsky who you might know for movies such as Runaway Train or Tango & Cash. It blows my mind that the guy who co-wrote Andrei Rublev also did Tango & Cash. I’d recommend tumbling further down the Soviet rabbit hole (Konchalovsky has a brother who’s also an acclaimed director: Nikita Mikhalkov), because there are real gems to be discovered there.

SilverWook said:

Perhaps we should make an Orville thread before the kvetching really starts?

I was referring to episode 3 of Discovery. Raw reaction, sorry if it wasn’t clear.

The Orville is flawed, but it has heart. Discovery is just… desperately, pointlessly contrarian, I guess? Also terribly written. And to think I thought the first two episodes were bad…

Oh, no. Please, no more. Let it end. Make it stop.

DominicCobb said:

I don’t know how you can call her uninteresting. I think her backstory is pretty fascinating at the least, and she’s been put into a position that could prove compelling.

On paper perhaps. It really should have been fascinating if you break everything down, and they might turn it around still, but for the time being, as a viewer, I’m in a position of having to force myself to watch any more of Discovery. They sacrificed storytelling for meaningless spectacle and it paid off going by the overall positive reviews/buzz, but I feel whatever good intentions or ideas might be buried in there - on paper - are wholly let down by their execution.

dahmage said:

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but I do think you need to give Discovery a few more episodes to find its footing. It would be nice if that wasn’t the case but it seems like it is.

Yes, I’m far from judging the entire show on the basis of the first two episodes alone, especially given the story structure, but man, I am not excited to continue watching at this point. Here’s hoping Jason Isaacs (hello) will be more than a bit player in the background. I guess that’s the one thing I can latch on to.

dahmage said:

I don’t really laugh at much of the attempt at slapstick humor in the Orville , but I do find the overall pacing and theme of the episodes to be more of the track I like than Discovery has been.

One good thing I can say is that there are genuinely clever riffs on Trek tropes peppered throughout the episodes. Often they get dragged out in typical Family Guy fashion (Shakespeare in ep. 4) to the point where they lose their impact somewhat, but they are there. Ideally, The Orville could evolve, cut back on the cringe and gain restraint in the humor (‘humor’) department, but I don’t think it will.

TV’s Frink said:

I didn’t even know what you guys were talking about with Orville. Now that you mentioned Seth Mcwhatever, I realized it’s that show I keep seeing commercials for that looks like an awful ripoff of Galaxy Quest. Also it has Seth Mcwhatever sitting in a captain’s chair.

I seem to remember someone claiming that it’s much better than the commercials would lead you to believe, but I’m too old and (therefore) too close to death to waste time on anything Seth Mcwhatever is involved in.

That’s exactly what I thought. And I wasn’t convinced by the first episode, either, even though it wasn’t what was teased in the promos/trailers (i.e. the usual painful Family Guy-esque fare). I caved in and watched the second episode and got hooked from there on. The Orville still has some of that trademark ‘humor’, but it’s not a comedy show and above all, it’s VERY serious in its dedication to old school Star Trek, and to the idea of an intelligent episodic sci-fi show - with a lighter twist.

MacFarlane really is trying here, and, what astounds me the most, is actually succeeding to a large degree. I never thought I’d be praising anything MacFarlane’s ever done, but here we are: The Orville is a good show… that will probably get cancelled soon, because people expected Family Guy in space.

Discovery - so far - is a complete chore to slog through. It’s not prime, even though that’s what they’re calling it, it’s not Kelvin, even though it clearly is modelled after those movies. And after two episodes we’ve yet to see anything resembling a pilot. Way to pad out a few minutes of backstory into two episodes which are supposed to be epic in scope, but which really seem to be of little consequence to anything in order to sell your service, CBS. It made me feel sad and tired. Poorly written, badly shot, incoherently put together (pointless overuse of dutch angles, sense of space was appalingly confusing throughout the episodes - non-existent, basically, etc.).

Worst of all, Doug Jones is just about the only decent character in there, and I am truly dreading spending another second with the boneheaded protagonist. I get where they’re taking her, but the viewer needs to care to follow her arc - otherwise this is, at best, an uninteresting exercise in writing an unsympathetic character. And even though the writers spent two entire episodes on her, they established less about her than a third-rate comedian was able to establish in a single (not very good) scene introducing the entire main cast. Wow.

tl;dr: not too impressed by ships going ‘pew-pew’.

doubleofive said:

This was the prologue to the larger story. We didn’t even see the Discovery for gods sake. This is going to be a redemption story for Burnham. I believe we’re not supposed to like her yet.

I’d say the issue goes deeper - it’s not just that she’s unlikable: she’s utterly uninteresting, and we’re getting beaten over our heads with her as if she’s supposed to be. This doesn’t gel well with the overall impression that all we’ve gotten so far out of two episodes is a lot of bad action and even more padding.

Damn. Get well, poita, and don’t worry about anything else.

Well, it was nice hoping it’s going to be someone capable of telling/wrapping a decent story up for what little that lasted.

Frankly, I’m not sure I prefer Abrams over Trevorrow at this point. I feel properly deflated.

Speaking of, I was really suprised to see Rian Johnson get a sole writing credit on TLJ, in a very good way. It’s pretty much a given for a studio picture to have multiple writers, but you can never achieve the level of cohesion a single writer can bring vs a team (much less with a ‘team’ of re-writers).

Even if that script ends up being flawed, it will still have character. Depending on your process and the story you’re looking for during that process writing can take time. Some people are fast writers, some can take ages. It’s not science, it’s art.

Lord Tobias said:

we need this thing pushed back to december 2020 or 2021

That’d be pushing back at least 3-4 other Star Wars movies as well. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

A talented writer could make this arrangement work, though, especially if he’s already got half the story and an idea where it could go from there…

They will delay IX to December. They’d be crazy not to with what’s going on with the production.

lovelikewinter said:

Is The Last Jedi done? I know it was supposed to be done in August. The real question is does Rian want to devote another two years to Star Wars?

Well, there is this, and from the time he was deep into post, so you know he’s not kidding:
https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/887864427894132736

NeverarGreat said:

m_s0 said:

Come on, Rian. You know you want to.

I am genuinely excited by this possibility.

I’ll withhold my excitement for after I see TLJ.

I’m not excited because of TLJ - I’m excited because of his other movies, all of which I absolutely love. His storytelling sensibilities just allign perfectly with my taste, so if he claims he got to make the movie he wanted to make - I’m there regardless of what that movie is. It just happens to be Star Wars this time around.

I didn’t even realize he was officially canonized as the savior of Star Wars by the fandom until they booted Trevorrow off IX and I started reading a bit.

2020 sounds futuristic, but it’s pretty much around the corner. A release this close a point where they wouldn’t need to bother striking a deal with a third party would make little sense from a business standpoint, assuming there even is any interest at all to begin with.

Come on, Rian. You know you want to.

I am genuinely excited by this possibility.

I think the writing part is the crux of the matter here - just going by how RJ described his creative process in various interviews, and by the gaps between his movies. At this point if he doesn’t do IX, I doubt he’d be writing it either. And if he does direct it, it will be his script.

Plus there’s the part where they have to scrap whatever pre-production they managed to have that was based on several aborted scripts. Alien 3, anyone?

rodneyfaile said:

My prediction:

Rian Johnson 50%
Other 30%
JJ Abrams 20%

If it were up to me, I’d ask Dave Filoni to write/direct.

I’ve been wondering about that. In a way, Rian Johnson is probably much closer to IX than just about any other pick could be (save people like Kasdan etc), and he’d be capable of picking up the pieces much faster than anyone else. He clearly has considered a follow-up as well, seeing as he wrote a treatment for IX at some point. Question is, how developed those ideas are, and whether he’d be interested in what effectively is a rush job. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d shoot without a script, heavy preparation, or without consideration in regard to his storytelling. Which is the reason his films are as good as theya are, and one of the primary reasons why you’d want him to helm this project: he’s got the best kind of filmmaking clout possible right now. It just might not be feasible on this timeframe.

JJ wouldn’t mind as much for sure as he’s not a storyteller - he makes things go ‘boom’ in-between some talky bits.

Whatever the ultimate choice ends up being Rian Johnson’s probably having some REALLY interesting conversations with LucasFilm right now.

Cobra Kai said:

ChainsawAsh said:

That was a really nice interview.

Love that Marcia called out the trench run as making no sense. That’s hilarious.

They weren’t talking about the entire trench run scene making no sense, but rather the specific moment where Han shows up in the trench, because as Marcia said there was no setup for that moment, but it still worked nonetheless.

Sometimes you just need to put your technician hat down and trust the Force, I guess.

Good to see the entire series, and especially this one.

SilverWook said:

Hardly a surprise. I’m all for it if they come up with a good script and Ewan is on board.

If they go with him that’d be a pretty good indicator we won’t be getting Star Wars Babies - at least not for the entire duration of the film, I guess?

I wouldn’t worry about the script - it’s guaranteed to be a complete mess, and even that won’t matter if the studio decides to step in during post-production and re-shoot half of the thing anyway. Par for the course for all those studio tentpoles.

I’d say it’s more important they get someone who cares about the material, and can actually wrangle this thing into existence. Daldry could perhaps manage the latter, but I don’t see him as the former. And there’s also the part where he makes movies that give a new definition to the term ‘bland.’

Rogue One ended up being a mess, but at the end of the day its strongest aspect was Edwards’ direction, and what came through of his approach.

SilverWook said:

It was probably remastered to cash in on the new MMPR movie that came out this year.

If only there was a new Star Wars movie for Disney/LucasFilm to cash-in on. Or even better: a bunch of 'em.

Oh, wait…

Incidentally, I saw the 1995 Power Rangers movie in the theater not long ago. It was (still) a blast.

I really liked Rush, which he did a few years back. For all its flaws, it was efficient and fun. Clearly a product (the operative word for the entirety of his body of work, basically) tailor-made for a mass-audience, but it had some heart to it.

TV’s Frink said:

For a one-off movie?

Is this a one-off movie like Rogue One?

Rogue One was limited by the premise, and it was intended to test the waters. A young Han Solo movie pretty much begs for sequels. I haven’t seen (or looked for, frankly) any sequel speculation, but keeping in mind the franchise mentality I’d say it’s a safe bet.

I know I wouldn’t sign the guy for this part without a few clauses addressing sequels, reshoots and whatnot.

SilverWook said:

Alderaan said:

Ron Howard is a lock to reshoot at least 51% of the movie.

There is no way Disney is going to release HAN SOLO: THE STORY YOU ALREADY KNOW directed by Alan Smithee.

Provided none of the cast has other commitments past what was supposed to be the end of shooting just three(?) weeks away before this happened. A major reshoot is going to screw up the release date either way.

The DGA retired Mr. Smithee many years ago. Not sure what the alias is these days.

They probably have that written into their contracts. These are long-term franchise deals, not just simple movie contracts, I’d imagine.

generalfrevious said:

Well, if they are going to fire Lord and Miller, why not get rid of that offensive hack Trevorrow while they’re at it?

Oh wait, this is Lucasfilm. Of course they are going to make the wrong decision and put a cherry on top.

Taking into account what Jurassic World made the only way Trevorrow would be replaced at this point is if he had a literal fist fight with Kathleen Kennedy. Even if everything he’s involved in until IX is a complete disaster, the guy still made a billion bucks and proved he can work within a metric-driven corporate system.

All debates aside, all of this kinda makes me worry for Rian Johnson. He’s a smart guy and I don’t doubt he can make it work just to say he did a Star Wars movie, but I’m interested in seeing his take on Star Wars, and not just a Star Wars movie he gets directing credit for. I do hope that at the very least this project opens up a few new avenues for him as a filmmaker.

Oh, and Ron Howard is a reasonable choice for a mercenary. Smart, even. But it makes me even less excited for the movie than I already have been.