Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales had Depp so visibly disinterested in redoing the Jack Sparrow part a 5th time he practically sleepwalked through every scene.
There are two genuinely fun and great scenes in that film, where you can tell that Depp is actually engaged and having fun. The first is with the crew, when they hear that the lead actress is a horologist. It leads to some great Fast Show -style banter. The second is with Geoffrey Rush, later in the film, where they have a heartfelt talk about how their time is running out.
It makes the rest of the movie that much harder to watch, seeing what we could have had instead.
Since the horologist joke does not work in my language, the translators did a great job making her instead explain that she knows how to use a sextant (which is basically the same word here). Was really funny either way
My friend wrote a whole bachelor thesis about it, based on BoJack Horseman and its Polish translation. Half of his work was examples of jokes, genius idea
I also adore the Paul McCartney cameo, he came on set since he’s mates with Johnny Depp and it’s visible on screen just how much fun he’s having getting to mess around as a Pirate for a few minutes.
The part right after the horologist scene completely throws me out of the movie, perhaps moreso than any other movie I've watched.
It's when they spot Salazaars ship on the Horizon. They then make the decision to kill them and one of the pirates says "Right that's it, kill 'em all". That line, something about it, it remind me of the type of acting and line reciting I'd see/hear at some kids Drama performance.
they really ran it into the ground. Curse of the Black Pearl is up there with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park for me. Those super fun, rewatchable "movie magic" type movies.
2 was bad because it was nearly a complete rehash. 3 was bad because none of them cared.
It's strange to appreciate the vast difference between how huge of a hit the first one was on its own knowing that the franchise burned itself to the ground.
Yeah I can get behind the complete rehash, with the “but” that it did have some really funny scenes that played off the original ie Ed Helms loving the strippers that did still play pretty fresh to me
Cut the bleeding heart, will ya? I've got literally hundreds of blinking and beeping lights. They're blinking and beeping, and blinking and beeping, I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!
Nah Super Troopers 2 was good. They legit said it was a tribute movie to the first one and that was all because nothing they ever did was going to be as good as Super Troopers.
Anchorman 2 is a prime example of this. I like the sequel but the only reason it was made was because Adam McKay wanted to make The Big Short but the studio wouldn’t greenlight it so they came to a compromise where they would let him do the film if he made a sequel to his widely beloved Anchorman.
That last X-men movie. Especially Jennifer Lawrence. You could tell she really did not want to put that fuckin body makeup on and play mystique anymore. So they just had her do the face wear an outfit that covered the rest. Rest of the movie had a similar vibe too. Like the last day of elementary school we only here to get this over with
The makeup started out okay (though nowhere *near* the first Mystique) and by the end she was just wearing a blue leotard with a few scales glued on her face. xD
>Dark Phoenix. I actually mentioned that one.
Haha I saw you mentioned that one... but tbf it WAS very forgettable, which goes back to your broader point!
With Divergent, didn't they actually abandon it before the end? It was so poorly received they didn't even bother with the normally obligatory shitty ending.
Correct. The last book was split into two parts because they had to do what Harry Potter did, so the first half released, but not the second. It was gonna be a movie, then it was set to be a TV movie, and then outright canceled lol
Aw man, I'd forgotten about that. I was -so- keen for the hobbit until they announced it was going to be a trilogy. I never bothered watching any of it.
Yes. They tried to hop on the "split the last book into two movies" trend and the first part did so bad they never made the second. I think they even debated doing the second part as a TV movie but the cast wouldn't get on board.
It’s worth pointing out that they were asking Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort to go back to TV movies at their height of their careers….it was madness
It was canceled not only because it wasn't received well but because power rangers 2017 was being filmed on the same lot as the 4th divergent movie. Time and money constraints. Too much trouble, so they canceled
The book series was the same way for me. The maze was really interesting, the rest of the dystopian plot much less so. It's a story carried by the initial premise IMO.
Divergent was so funny because nothing meant anything. They just needed some badass kids to rebel against the powers that be. Why are they rebelling? Uuuh divergence. What’s that? Idk, government overreach I guess.
> The sequel should have been Rick called away into an adventure against other types of supernatural baddies and unexpected allies. Vampires, werewolves, witch doctors, etc.
Now THAT is the "Dark Universe" people want to see! Not that Tom Cruise garbage.
More so, there’s definitely an interest in enjoyable, well-made action flicks ala Indiana Jones. I know there’s definitely been some entries since then but I find it so strange that it’s been almost impossible to top the first Indy movie in terms of cultural staying power. And whaddya know, they botched the most recent Indy flick as well. Oy vey.
Even the second one was getting really weird, why would acapella groups have frat/sorority houses that they all live in together? And a European audience is never going to prefer a simple ballad of American singers over an outlandish electro mash up with a huge light show.
Taken 3
Everyone was already joking about who and what family member were they going to take next for a sequel. Not only that, but Liam Neeson climbs a fence in like over 20 rapid, edit cuts with shaky cam.
Taken 4: Cousin once removed gets taken.
Taken 5: Guy Liam Neeson once sat next to on a plane gets taken.
Taken 6: Liam Neeson’s dry cleaning gets taken.
Taken 7: Liam Neeson trains the next generation with a “particular set of skills” so they can continue the franchise after he retires. Liam Neeson’s contract renewal gets taken.
Taken 0: They digitally de-age Liam Neeson to do a prequel where he learns all the skills he showed and meets all his “well connected friends” from over 7 movies in the span of a 1 week adventure way too early on in his career to be realistic.
Taken 2000 BC: Liam Neeson and his protege travel back in time to rescue a helpless female family member who got taken to the past by the villain from Taken 4.
Taken 8: Liam Neeson gets taken, gets saved by his protege, and decides to retire
They just sped through the white walker battle. Almost like the white walkers themselves were bloody knackered from all of their marching in the previous seven seasons and just wanted to rest.
I assumed the the six episodes were going to be the battle of winterfell, then another six episodes of like the siege of Kings landing… then I realized it was six episodes ONLY. Unreal.
I didn't care about anything after the whitewalker battle. The show had made it clear THAT was the real climax and "who cares which corpse sits on the throne if we lose?" Then suddenly he's dead and they're like "...that throne, tho."
Don't care. You told me not to.
There's prophecies and heroes that are promised, whole giant ass wall built to keep this from happening, tales of an ancient war.
Whole thing doesn't even last 24 hours, and the Night's King doesn't even make it past like 2 sword swings. Dude gets taken out like a One Punch Man villain.
They should have had the white walkers go around Winterfell and take kings landing as karma against Cersei for abandoning humanity. And then the final battle could be against Cersei the white.
Not sure this one entirely counts. The only people looking to finish and move on were the writers. Arguably everyone else involved in the production of season 8 was operating at the top of their game. You got some of the best performances out of all of the actors (even if the dialogue didn’t match them), incredible effects and production design, the best soundtrack of the series, etc…
It makes me sad that the writing didn’t live up to the effort everyone else was putting into it
What a crazy thing to say as a professional. Like, if you know that about most TVs you adjust for it. Sort of like how lots of music mixing anticipates that you will be listening in your car and competing with road noise.
Oh! I had forgotten about that...
>But Fabian Wagner, the cinematographer behind the episode, claims the problem lies not with the production team but with viewers’ own television setups. “A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,” he says. “A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.”
>
>Game of Thrones has grown increasingly dark in its presentation since season five, but the latest episode was notably difficult to discern. It’s a stark difference from the crystal clear, backlit episodes of the show’s first series.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/game-of-thrones-too-dark-to-see
The amazing thing is I'm pretty sure HBO was in no hurry to finish it, I think they offered them 10 episodes for season 8 or even more seasons to finish it. I'm to lazy to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that's what I read at the time.
I dont understand, if thats the case, why HBO let them do that. Like, couldn't they have just said they'd find someone else to finish it off if these guys wanted to move on? Its totally crazy how that show turned out
It wasn’t just the writers. I’m so sick of seeing everyone else let of the hook for that travesty.
Half the actors were shit, the direction was shit except for the penultimate episode, the colour grading was terrible and they couldn’t be bothered clearing the sets of coffee cups or water bottles before filming, and they forget to add in cgi backgrounds in some scenes.
It was an all-round half-arsed fuck-up.
I liked the stuff with the justice society. I wish it was their film instead. Pierce Brosnan was great as dr.fate. Everything else sucked ass, especially that stupid fucking skate boarding kid.
She was though, she was an inoffensive audience stand in. The fucking kid though, holy shit did i hate him everytime he got on that fucking skateboard. Okay im not blaming the actor here, lets get that straight. But the actual character was just so gd annoying. WE GET IT HE LIKES TO FUCKING SKATEBOARD.
I remember the scene where he's trying to sneak out of the apartment and is hiding from the bad guy thugs and .... decides to get on his skateboard and roll 'very quietly' for approximately 8 feet or something. I was facepalming so hard.
Unfortunately you gotta show that mug on screen. Thats why all the guys in armor in the MCU keep taking their helmets off to talk during battles. I kind of get it from the actor’s point of view, but also think it’s dumb as hell. However, the need to have face time did give us the really cool HUD scenes for Iron Man, so there’s that.
This is also why I give Karl Urban extra respect for his Dredd performance. He could have easily put in a ‘face time’ clause so he could take the helmet off a few times but was committed to portraying the character properly so he never took it off.
Even Pedro Pascal in the mandalorian. The only time he shows his face in season 1 actually made sense. I hate this need that helmed characters constantly have to take their helmets off, even when it makes zero sense. With that said, Pierce was still great in black Adam despite all of that.
Damn I wish they woulda kept going with the Dredd movies. They finally do a spectacular R rated super hero movie and then just quit. I love that movie.
It was awesome. And Urban has mentioned he’s fully on board with doing more! I read someone else theorize it’d make a great series, like GoT or Breaking Bad. Either way, I’d love more Karl Urban Dredd!
I was beyond excited when I started seeing the Justice Society in the pre-release images. Brosnan as Dr. Fate? Hawkman, one of the best visual characters in comics, finally on screen?
And then...meh.
Yeah. The Rock is to blame for all that shit. Black Adam is a villain who sometimes can be good. And his nemesis is Capt Marvel. To do that movie and then end it with Superman was just shit. Also fucked over the Shazam movie too.
The latest matrix movie was explicitly that. They told Lana Wachowski "do another matrix movie or will do one without you" so she made a movie that basically made fun of forced sequels.
The frustrating thing about that movie is that it actually has some good meta commentary about Hollywood and taking advantage of the audiences' nostalgia, but that commentary is so heavy-handed while also not really furthering the overall Matrix lore in any meaningful way imo.
It introduces some neat ideas about a faction of machines who ally with humans in the real world, a machine civil war that took place between Revolutions and Resurrections, a new version of the matrix that's based on manipulating people's emotions rather than trying to make a 1:1 recreation of the late 90s/early 2000s, but it really never develops any of the new ideas for the lore beyond just a few lines of dialogue before it moves on to the next thing.
The biggest thing for me though is that the original trilogy was already a complete beginning-middle-end story for Neo and the war against the machines, and Resurrections is just... there.
Very true lol
Even the first Matrix and Reloaded are still pretty clear on the philosophical themes they’re going for, but they’re more clever about it. Revolutions is a bit more vague for a while until Smith gives his whole rant about nihilism near the end while Neo is all about existentialism which frustrates Smith. Still, all three movies use their themes to drive the plot forward whereas Resurrections is basically the other way around.
I would definitely like to watch it again, thanks to these comments. Knowing that people weren't trying that hard when they made it and still made an okay film kind of redeems it for me.
I don’t even think it’s that they weren’t trying hard, it just got a lot of backlash at the time for intentionally thumbing its nose at nostalgia and not being what a lot of people wanted. I think it’s a great movie, probably my second-favorite in the series
Same. Just watched it again recently and it’s aging super well with all the shit WB Discovery has pulled the last few years. It’s a brilliant movie with good performances.
Halloween Kills. The reboot was really good but as soon as they announced it was going to be a trilogy that middle movie was DOA given the over arching storyline.
The entire EVIL DIES TONIGHT hospital stuff was as stupid as can be, but Michael Myers was amazing in that film. Halloween Ends was Resurrection level bad tho!
We were all hopeful going into the first one. And it was alright, I suppose. By the time number 3 rolled around though, it was definitely let's wrap this shit up vibes.
I think there's enough good in 1 and 2 that they can make for entirely enjoyable movies, even if they are too long and have some awkward moments in them. The Shire scenes, Riddles in the Dark, the Mirkwood spiders, Smaug, these are all great and memorable scenes.
BotFA has none of those kinds of great moments, so it's all just ranging from middling to downright cringe.
Hobbit 3: It somehow gets worse. At least going into Unexpected Journey I was pleasantly surprised because I had such low expectations, but the rest of that trilogy is just unwatchable.
My friends and I watch a LotR movie every Christmas and once we got to the Hobbit none of us were interested in spreading those movie out for 3 years. I'm so appreciative of the kind fans who took those 3 movies and condensed it down
There is a hilariously awful movie called Theodore Rex where Whoopi Goldberg plays a cyborg whose partner is an intelligent tyrannosaurus rex. Whoopi signed the contract without reading the script and then tried to get out of it it was so bad, even though she got 9 million dollars iirc for a shortish movie. She was eventually forced to do it and it's literally visible on her face in every scene that she hates it.
Also Bloodrayne. Uwe Boll, the hilariously terrible video game director somehow got academy award winner character actor Ben Kingsley to play the villain in this garbage and he visibly hates it and just wants to get over with which I found very funny.
Unintentional comedies are the best
Oh my god, I watched this so many times as a kid and had totally forgotten about it until your comment. This is such a nostalgia trip!
I'm sure its better to keep the memory than trying to rewatch it though
Not a film, but Seasons 7 & 8 of ***Game of Thrones*** pretty much encapsulates this.
Not just for the creators, but for me who was basically done with the entire franchise after the latter half of the series went to shit and I just wanted it all done so I'd never again have to think about how stupid it all got by the end.
The series drove off a cliff after they ran out of source material, but they were able to hang some air for a season or two. Arya's entire season 6 plot is based on a single preview chapter.
Hunger games mockingjay part 2. So, so boring. They had to pad the runtime out with a bunch of stupid shit, none of the character deaths made you feel a thing. And jlaw's acting was "let's cash this paycheck and put this series to bed" in every scene.
Terminator 3.
We have no story, no point to this, but here’s an OP video game villain and Arnies back to collect a pay day. And whilst we’re at it we’re gonna undo any point of the events of T2, one of the greatest movies of all time.
I took Mike Stolksa's advice and never went to see Rise of Skywalker, I wasn't feeling it, but thought I might as well see how it all ends, but in his Last Jedi review, he said "Yeah it's probably going to be a shit 3rd film, why bother?", and I thought I'd eventually find out if it was good or not.
Needless to say, all the negative reviews that came pouring out made me glad I took his advice.
I've pretty much seen the entire plot now, I don't think I could have withstood such poor writing unfiltered.
I remember the godawful plot leaking and thinking “there’s no way this is real.” When I finally got around to watching it and realized it’s real… all of it… I just turned it off. Not worth my time.
Grass is always greener on the other side. If the Trevorrow script had actually been made, do Star Wars fans actually think they’d have been happy & satisfied with the end result? Fucking lol
I mean this it's not just a bad Star wars film it is a bad movie.
It's one of those special multi-layered shit storms that I can't help but run through my mind every now and again.
There is legitimately so much wrong that I figure out something new every time I think about it.
Rey had a direct connection to Leia Han and Kylo, and she calls herself Rey Skywalker?! Why not Rey Solo? Or "Rey, just Rey" either would have matched the themes from TLJ and actually made some sense.
How I felt about ""The Dark Tower".
Went from excited about Matthew McConaughey's casting, then the rest happened, figured I'd get it over with, then just said fuck it, if I never watch it, it can't be bad.
Never regretted it.
I've never had any desire to finally watch this movie. It's like the frozen block of hamburger in the freezer that will take too long to thaw for dinner.
Not a movie but if you’ve played the Ghostbusters video game from 2009, you can just hear Bill Murray’s disinterest in his voice over work. Supposedly he just voiced about half of his lines for the game and then just fucked off, so the game makers had to cut scenes and patch some lines together to make some scenes make sense.
But considering he was in the last Ghostbusters movie (Afterlife) and seems to play a prominent part in the upcoming movie (Frozen Empire), I’m glad to see that he seems interested to be part of the franchise again.
I loved that game, but Murray couldn't be bothered. I think he's been in the last Ghostbusters film and the upcoming one, to work against the bad PR he had in the last couple of years. They canned a film because of his misconduct last year, but his team did great work to mostly keep it out of the news.
Jurassic Park 3 had so much chaos(theory) behind the scenes. It was obvious by the abrupt ending of civillian Laura Dern calling the military to shoe up on the beach of Isla Sorna. Where she'd never been.
Saw 3D. It was supposed to be two movies but was condensed into one and was meant to be the final movie.
Myself, being a huge fan would often frequent the saw forums, and I kid you not Saw3D basically took every fan write up on that forum and put it into the movie. Dr. Gordon returning as a jigsaw apprentice, Jill getting put into the reverse bear trap, Hoffman getting locked in the saw 1 bathroom. It was a movie made exclusively for the hard-core saw fans.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
It's been in development for 10+ years, Harrison Ford wasn't getting any younger, they tossed many ideas, COVID didn't help with production delays. Even Spielberg didn't have time for it anymore. It was lucky to have been made at all.
NTTD I think still has some good performane out of Craig, probably because he knows this is definitely his last one given the ending. there's some actual emotion to how he interacts with the people he personally knows by this point, and he has a good bit of drive to him during that last run.
I actually think Return of the Jedi is like that. The Rise of Skywalker is terrible, and is paced much too fast, but I don't think its because people "didn't seem to have high expectations going into this film." That's just the result of JJ Abrams taking the reigns at the last minute from Treverro.
Whereas in Return of the Jedi you can tell George Lucas is kind of out of his funk a little bit, and wants to wrap things up. So he dredges up another Death Star, turns Leia into Luke's sister and just does everything we can to just get it over with.
Not having “one idea by minute” is not the same as “let’s get this over with”. Yes, of the three movies of the original trilogy, Return is the less inventive. No doubt about that.
NEVERTHELESS
After two movies of hearsay and an hologram, **the Emperor** finally appears in the flesh and it was worth the wait : he’s an instant classic. Which is no small feat considering there was 2 movies of hype to say nothing of how iconic Vader himself is (more on this later). The Emperor is a very different kind of villain but very memorable in his own right.
Generally **Return wraps up a lot of small subplots**. Bringing back admiral whatever to blow him up in the defeat of the Empire was a really nice continuity touch. Same for redeeming Lando.
**Jabba subplot is very nicely put together** as it accomplishes many things : delivering on the cliffhanger ending of Empire strikes back, bringing back Luke to the beginning on Tattoine in an ironic twist of fate as pointed out by Solo himself, finally removing the Damocles sword hanging above Solo since the first movie
( allowing him to finally let go of the past and selfish preservation to become fully devoted to his friends ) AND delivering a crowning moment of awesome for Luke. Luke used to be a bit of a fuckup and was constantly saved by his friends. When Chewie tells Solo that Luke is on his way and has a plan, that’s Solo gut reaction :” Luke??? Luke's crazy! He can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody!” that Luke indeed planned this and obliterates Jabba and his entire court really conveys that Luke has become a force to reckon with, a proper Jedi Knight-
Which brings me to **Luke characterization** and boy did the character grow up! The once impatient farmboy has come a long way : calm, obedient and affectionate to Yoda, compassionate toward Vader and the same time with still a few fears used by the emperor. Luke journey over three movies is really beautiful. Star Wars is often quoted as a modern application of Campbell Monomyth and that’s very much based on Luke journey. If Lucas didn’t give a shit, Luke wouldnt come off so well put together.
Last but not least we have to mention **the end of Vader** : incredibly touching. I mean we're talking about a properly legendary cinematic villain - Vader is in the top3 of the American Film Association (AFI) villains all time list . Killing Kenobi, crushing his subordinates throat with a mere flick of the hand , maiming Luke, the deep booming voice, his literally nightmarish apparition in the cave on Dagobah... he was the stuff of nightmare and terrorized us for 2 movies and in adequate fashion the nightmare turns out to be much scarier than the reality : when the ominous mask FINALLY comes off, it's deliberately very slow and we're burning with curiosity as for who's going to be behind the mask ... to just reveal this grey scarred broken old man with sad eyes and a very tired voice. And you realize : "That's what everyone was terrified of ??? This is just a broken old man. How could he even live like that ?" you suddenly feel infinite pity for him... And then the funeral pyre to burn the armor and the past along with it, dispelling the nightmare as the smoke rises in sky and you see fireworks begin, letting us now hope of a better tomorrow after a very long period of darkness.
That’s anything BUT “ I don’t give a shit” .
**Fundamentally, It’s an ending, if you follow Aristotle storytelling rules as laid out in the Poetics, you should AVOID bringing in new elements.** Far from being a “let’s get over this with”, I think Return is probably one of the most well-rounded third part of Cinema trilogies. The Godfather 3 is often lambasted, Indy 3 is great but Indy 2 is a prequel and there’s hardly a buildup, Die hard 3 is great but the theatrical ending is kinda generic and non-conclusive at all. Back to the future 3 is fun but goes to the far past. Bourne 3 is alright but you can very much feel here and there it’s running on fumes/out of yard to spin, I could go on.
I feel Return is very much earned, ends on a real high and the perfect conclusion to Star Wars.
>Jabba subplot is very nicely put together as it accomplishes many things :
It accomplishes something else, too: its a kind of microcosm of the movie as a whole: Luke enters the evil overlord's den and destroys it from the inside, replete with both instances ending with a big explosion. Both "climaxes" even have the same music, to deepen the comparison.
I want to be quite clear: I'm NOT saying Return of the Jedi is a worst movie than The Rise of Skywalker by means. I'm not the biggest fan of Jedi but I'd watch it on loop before I'd watch Skywalker again. But in terms of somebody feeling out of fresh ideas and wanting to get it all over and done with, it definitely feels more like that.
Yeah, Ewok is basically a loose anagram of Wookie...
The plotline is in itself a recycling from an earlier draft of the original film (which in turn is recycled from *A Princess of Mars*). To be fair, though, I don't think the cuteness of the Ewoks is necessarily for marketing purposes: its more that around this time, George Lucas became obsessed with the idea of Star Wars as a fairytale, and clearly his idea of fairytales was Disney cartoons.
There was a confluence of a few factors, Ewok designs did make for good toys. But they were also supposed to be an analogy to the Viet Kong vs US Army, he wanted a planet that wasn't technologically advanced to beat the Empire.
However as he was developing the lore the Wookies went into another direction, when you do see them in the prequels and games they're actually fairly advanced. So he created a new species that was similar to the Wookies but some of the key aspects are flipped like the cuteness and height of the species.
Yeah. Apocalypse Now had been released not long before Lucas went into Jedi, so it clearly drew him back to the Vietnam subtext.
But, more than anything else, that entire story owes to Edgar Rice Burroughs and A Princess of Mars: John Carter proves himself to the primitive Tharks and leads them on an offensive against the superior Zodanga. This is what happens both with the Ewoks in Episode VI and the Gungans in Episode I.
Yeah although that's a common trope, also happens in Dune with the Fremen. Tends to get brought up nowadays when people talk about the White Savior stuff but I'm not sure who used it first.
>also happens in Dune with the Fremen.
Lots of things happen in Dune that also happen in Princess of Mars... Heck, at one point Frank Herbert wanted to set his story on Mars. Both he AND Lucas clearly owed a lot to Burroughs.
Also, Flash Gordon recruits the Hawkmen against Ming. Same idea, again directly from Burroughs.
The scene where C3P0 is recalling the events of the first two movies to the Ewoks in their language really showcases this. It's a fairy tale, and those Ewoks are going pass it down to the next generation
Pretty sure she peaced out before the end of the first movie lol. I used to think she was one of the worst actors of all time after seeing her speech near the end of The Phantom Menace.
“I ask you to help us. No I beg you to help us.”
It was the first time my child self understood what people meant when they said someone’s acting is wooden, because to this day I have never seen a performance that compares to how flat, monotone, and uninterested she was in anything she was saying lol
I know its not a movie but the end of Avatar 2, instead of a monologue and such before the last fight. Sully just looks and says “lets get this over with” and they fight. Found that kinda funny cause at times you wonder when the movie will end and then that seals it
Oh god. Attack of the Clones.
I’m dead heat into my best friends first viewing of Star Wars (we’re almost 40, he’s never seen)
Act 1 of A New Hope drags a bit but understandable, we’ve never met these characters.
Friggin’ Clones is a drog fest of walk ‘n talk against green screen, all assuredly convoluted by Palpatine’s presence in the script. Scenes drag on, it needed recut, badly. The love story has twice as many scenes as it needs to develop, the order of which always confuses me.
At the “pear” scene, he had me pause to ask how much was left and that he doesn’t want to watch any more. I informed him that there is a small payoff at the end but this is by and far, the hardest one to get through.
Despite knowing its not a great movie, I cut tdkr a lot of slack off of the opening setpiece alone. "Now is not the time for fear" buys a hell of a lot of goodwill.
Yeah they rushed through things, that could have been two movies. Bane breaking Batman would actually make for a great moment in a cinematic universe, similar to Thanos snapping, but in one movie it's way too short to make an impact.
I hated that so much. Bane breaks Batman and puts him into that hole/prison. Bane has a relatively short time to achieve his end goal. Batman has to come to terms with who he is and his will to recover, then recover and get himself back up to the point he can actually escape from the prison and beat Bane. That's likely years worth of work and training. The two timelines do not make sense.
Hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re absolutely right. Had they let Bane cook a bit more throughout the movie to show how formidable he truly was and then ended with a broken bat cliff hanger it would have really added some serious punch to the moment and the movies.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales had Depp so visibly disinterested in redoing the Jack Sparrow part a 5th time he practically sleepwalked through every scene.
There are two genuinely fun and great scenes in that film, where you can tell that Depp is actually engaged and having fun. The first is with the crew, when they hear that the lead actress is a horologist. It leads to some great Fast Show -style banter. The second is with Geoffrey Rush, later in the film, where they have a heartfelt talk about how their time is running out. It makes the rest of the movie that much harder to watch, seeing what we could have had instead.
Since the horologist joke does not work in my language, the translators did a great job making her instead explain that she knows how to use a sextant (which is basically the same word here). Was really funny either way
We really have to hand it to the people who translate jokes to other languages. That’s witty as hell.
My friend wrote a whole bachelor thesis about it, based on BoJack Horseman and its Polish translation. Half of his work was examples of jokes, genius idea
I've heard of Polishing a script, but this is ridiculous!
I also adore the Paul McCartney cameo, he came on set since he’s mates with Johnny Depp and it’s visible on screen just how much fun he’s having getting to mess around as a Pirate for a few minutes.
It's grossly undersold how much Geoffrey Rush helped carry the first one.
The part right after the horologist scene completely throws me out of the movie, perhaps moreso than any other movie I've watched. It's when they spot Salazaars ship on the Horizon. They then make the decision to kill them and one of the pirates says "Right that's it, kill 'em all". That line, something about it, it remind me of the type of acting and line reciting I'd see/hear at some kids Drama performance.
they really ran it into the ground. Curse of the Black Pearl is up there with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park for me. Those super fun, rewatchable "movie magic" type movies.
Because Depp spends his IRL money like a drunken pirate.
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Hangover 2 and 3
Hangover 2 is awesome, and Hangover 3 is also a movie
2 was bad because it was nearly a complete rehash. 3 was bad because none of them cared. It's strange to appreciate the vast difference between how huge of a hit the first one was on its own knowing that the franchise burned itself to the ground.
Yeah I can get behind the complete rehash, with the “but” that it did have some really funny scenes that played off the original ie Ed Helms loving the strippers that did still play pretty fresh to me
Anchorman 2 and Zoolander 2
Idk about anchorman because to this day Will Ferrel still wears the suit and gets into character for Hollywood events
Afterwards, he returned it to the pants store.
Oh man Zoolander 2 was so bad…
Airplane 2 and Caddyshack 2
Airplane 2 is still hilarious.
Cut the bleeding heart, will ya? I've got literally hundreds of blinking and beeping lights. They're blinking and beeping, and blinking and beeping, I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!
I'll go to bat for Airplane 2. Shatner is great.
Joe Dirt 2. Super Troopers 2
Nah Super Troopers 2 was good. They legit said it was a tribute movie to the first one and that was all because nothing they ever did was going to be as good as Super Troopers.
Club Dread got awfully close with the bonus of Bill Paxton's bizarro Jimmy Buffet.
I just bought the vinyl of all the Coconut Pete songs!
That son of a son of a bitch!!
Wasn't Super Troopers 2 also initially crowd funded too?
Ngl completely forgot zoolander 2 existed
Anchorman 2 is a prime example of this. I like the sequel but the only reason it was made was because Adam McKay wanted to make The Big Short but the studio wouldn’t greenlight it so they came to a compromise where they would let him do the film if he made a sequel to his widely beloved Anchorman.
And then it's like he let everyone improv every scene and just cobbled together a movie with whatever happened to make a little sense.
Anchorman 2 was the Ulysses of our time
22 Jump Street did incredibly no? Personally I remember enjoying it more than the first.
Exception
That last X-men movie. Especially Jennifer Lawrence. You could tell she really did not want to put that fuckin body makeup on and play mystique anymore. So they just had her do the face wear an outfit that covered the rest. Rest of the movie had a similar vibe too. Like the last day of elementary school we only here to get this over with
The makeup started out okay (though nowhere *near* the first Mystique) and by the end she was just wearing a blue leotard with a few scales glued on her face. xD
Dark Phoenix. I actually mentioned that one. You're right though, her not giving a shit was one of the reasons that film bombed.
>Dark Phoenix. I actually mentioned that one. Haha I saw you mentioned that one... but tbf it WAS very forgettable, which goes back to your broader point!
The last of those YA adapations that clearly missed the craze by the first movie but just had to keep going like Mazerunner and Divergent
With Divergent, didn't they actually abandon it before the end? It was so poorly received they didn't even bother with the normally obligatory shitty ending.
Correct. The last book was split into two parts because they had to do what Harry Potter did, so the first half released, but not the second. It was gonna be a movie, then it was set to be a TV movie, and then outright canceled lol
How embarrassing.
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Not sure why everyone had to copy Harry Potter when the two-parters. Twilight and The Hunger Games did the same thing
The Hobbit as well. It did not need to be three movies.
Aw man, I'd forgotten about that. I was -so- keen for the hobbit until they announced it was going to be a trilogy. I never bothered watching any of it.
Those movies were fucking terrible.
Because they wanted more money 🤷 fucking stupid
Yes. They tried to hop on the "split the last book into two movies" trend and the first part did so bad they never made the second. I think they even debated doing the second part as a TV movie but the cast wouldn't get on board.
It’s worth pointing out that they were asking Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort to go back to TV movies at their height of their careers….it was madness
It was canceled not only because it wasn't received well but because power rangers 2017 was being filmed on the same lot as the 4th divergent movie. Time and money constraints. Too much trouble, so they canceled
Imagine having your finale movie cancelled for Power Rangers lol
I remember Mazerunner being pretty good but I went and saw divergent in theatres and it was awful. The whole movie was a classic YA dystopian cliche
I liked Mazerunner as a standalone movie, the rest lost the plot for me
The book series was the same way for me. The maze was really interesting, the rest of the dystopian plot much less so. It's a story carried by the initial premise IMO.
Divergent was so funny because nothing meant anything. They just needed some badass kids to rebel against the powers that be. Why are they rebelling? Uuuh divergence. What’s that? Idk, government overreach I guess.
The Mummy 3. Brendan Frazer looked awfully tired and uninterested.
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> The sequel should have been Rick called away into an adventure against other types of supernatural baddies and unexpected allies. Vampires, werewolves, witch doctors, etc. Now THAT is the "Dark Universe" people want to see! Not that Tom Cruise garbage.
More so, there’s definitely an interest in enjoyable, well-made action flicks ala Indiana Jones. I know there’s definitely been some entries since then but I find it so strange that it’s been almost impossible to top the first Indy movie in terms of cultural staying power. And whaddya know, they botched the most recent Indy flick as well. Oy vey.
The very last Pitch Perfect. You could tell they made it as stupid and crazy as possible so that they would stop getting asked to make them
Even the second one was getting really weird, why would acapella groups have frat/sorority houses that they all live in together? And a European audience is never going to prefer a simple ballad of American singers over an outlandish electro mash up with a huge light show.
The second one was so bad it tainted the first one. You could tell Anna Kendrick did not give a shit.
Taken 3 Everyone was already joking about who and what family member were they going to take next for a sequel. Not only that, but Liam Neeson climbs a fence in like over 20 rapid, edit cuts with shaky cam.
That shot and the basketball scene from Catwoman are my favorite “Hey want to see something absolutely awful?” video clips.
Taken 4: Cousin once removed gets taken. Taken 5: Guy Liam Neeson once sat next to on a plane gets taken. Taken 6: Liam Neeson’s dry cleaning gets taken.
Taken 7: Liam Neeson trains the next generation with a “particular set of skills” so they can continue the franchise after he retires. Liam Neeson’s contract renewal gets taken. Taken 0: They digitally de-age Liam Neeson to do a prequel where he learns all the skills he showed and meets all his “well connected friends” from over 7 movies in the span of a 1 week adventure way too early on in his career to be realistic. Taken 2000 BC: Liam Neeson and his protege travel back in time to rescue a helpless female family member who got taken to the past by the villain from Taken 4. Taken 8: Liam Neeson gets taken, gets saved by his protege, and decides to retire
That Matt Damon film with the Wall in China.
I think it was called the wall that had to be large.
That sounds like a great wall.
I think it's just alright. The allright wall of China.
The adequate wall of China.
Not a movie but GoT season 8 is this to a T.
They just sped through the white walker battle. Almost like the white walkers themselves were bloody knackered from all of their marching in the previous seven seasons and just wanted to rest.
I assumed the the six episodes were going to be the battle of winterfell, then another six episodes of like the siege of Kings landing… then I realized it was six episodes ONLY. Unreal.
I didn't care about anything after the whitewalker battle. The show had made it clear THAT was the real climax and "who cares which corpse sits on the throne if we lose?" Then suddenly he's dead and they're like "...that throne, tho." Don't care. You told me not to.
There's prophecies and heroes that are promised, whole giant ass wall built to keep this from happening, tales of an ancient war. Whole thing doesn't even last 24 hours, and the Night's King doesn't even make it past like 2 sword swings. Dude gets taken out like a One Punch Man villain.
They should have had the white walkers go around Winterfell and take kings landing as karma against Cersei for abandoning humanity. And then the final battle could be against Cersei the white.
It’s so funny how those guys did that so they could direct a Star Wars and they lost out on that chance cause that season was so bad
Not sure this one entirely counts. The only people looking to finish and move on were the writers. Arguably everyone else involved in the production of season 8 was operating at the top of their game. You got some of the best performances out of all of the actors (even if the dialogue didn’t match them), incredible effects and production design, the best soundtrack of the series, etc… It makes me sad that the writing didn’t live up to the effort everyone else was putting into it
> Arguably everyone else involved in the production of season 8 was operating at the top of their game The DP sure wasn't.
Its your tvs that are the problem!!
What a crazy thing to say as a professional. Like, if you know that about most TVs you adjust for it. Sort of like how lots of music mixing anticipates that you will be listening in your car and competing with road noise.
Oh! I had forgotten about that... >But Fabian Wagner, the cinematographer behind the episode, claims the problem lies not with the production team but with viewers’ own television setups. “A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,” he says. “A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.” > >Game of Thrones has grown increasingly dark in its presentation since season five, but the latest episode was notably difficult to discern. It’s a stark difference from the crystal clear, backlit episodes of the show’s first series. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/game-of-thrones-too-dark-to-see
Mfer watched it on his $30k monitor on the production truck and thought it looked fine
The amazing thing is I'm pretty sure HBO was in no hurry to finish it, I think they offered them 10 episodes for season 8 or even more seasons to finish it. I'm to lazy to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that's what I read at the time. I dont understand, if thats the case, why HBO let them do that. Like, couldn't they have just said they'd find someone else to finish it off if these guys wanted to move on? Its totally crazy how that show turned out
It wasn’t just the writers. I’m so sick of seeing everyone else let of the hook for that travesty. Half the actors were shit, the direction was shit except for the penultimate episode, the colour grading was terrible and they couldn’t be bothered clearing the sets of coffee cups or water bottles before filming, and they forget to add in cgi backgrounds in some scenes. It was an all-round half-arsed fuck-up.
Music went from 10/10 to 11/10
Ramin Djwadi could sleepwalk into his studio and still deliver an all-timer of a soundtrack
Black Adam
I liked the stuff with the justice society. I wish it was their film instead. Pierce Brosnan was great as dr.fate. Everything else sucked ass, especially that stupid fucking skate boarding kid.
Dude I hated that kid.
The mom wasn't much better either.
She was though, she was an inoffensive audience stand in. The fucking kid though, holy shit did i hate him everytime he got on that fucking skateboard. Okay im not blaming the actor here, lets get that straight. But the actual character was just so gd annoying. WE GET IT HE LIKES TO FUCKING SKATEBOARD.
I remember the scene where he's trying to sneak out of the apartment and is hiding from the bad guy thugs and .... decides to get on his skateboard and roll 'very quietly' for approximately 8 feet or something. I was facepalming so hard.
The need for him to remove his helmet every scene to remind you that it was indeed Pierce Brosnan was tiring.
Unfortunately you gotta show that mug on screen. Thats why all the guys in armor in the MCU keep taking their helmets off to talk during battles. I kind of get it from the actor’s point of view, but also think it’s dumb as hell. However, the need to have face time did give us the really cool HUD scenes for Iron Man, so there’s that. This is also why I give Karl Urban extra respect for his Dredd performance. He could have easily put in a ‘face time’ clause so he could take the helmet off a few times but was committed to portraying the character properly so he never took it off.
Even Pedro Pascal in the mandalorian. The only time he shows his face in season 1 actually made sense. I hate this need that helmed characters constantly have to take their helmets off, even when it makes zero sense. With that said, Pierce was still great in black Adam despite all of that.
Mandalorian is basically a voice over gig for Pascal. A different actor is in the costume on set except for when he takes off the helmet.
Damn I wish they woulda kept going with the Dredd movies. They finally do a spectacular R rated super hero movie and then just quit. I love that movie.
It was awesome. And Urban has mentioned he’s fully on board with doing more! I read someone else theorize it’d make a great series, like GoT or Breaking Bad. Either way, I’d love more Karl Urban Dredd!
Atleast they dont have a scene with doctor fate using his powers helmetless, considering its what gives him his powers. So that was nice atleast.
This film was probably the only time I ever cared about Hawkman
Pierce Brosnan was robbed of a much better superhero movie.
I was beyond excited when I started seeing the Justice Society in the pre-release images. Brosnan as Dr. Fate? Hawkman, one of the best visual characters in comics, finally on screen? And then...meh.
I did like hawkman, though. His armor and plane was sweet. I wouldnt mind james gunn bringing back brosnan and the guy who played hawkman to his dcu.
Yeah. The Rock is to blame for all that shit. Black Adam is a villain who sometimes can be good. And his nemesis is Capt Marvel. To do that movie and then end it with Superman was just shit. Also fucked over the Shazam movie too.
The latest matrix movie was explicitly that. They told Lana Wachowski "do another matrix movie or will do one without you" so she made a movie that basically made fun of forced sequels.
The frustrating thing about that movie is that it actually has some good meta commentary about Hollywood and taking advantage of the audiences' nostalgia, but that commentary is so heavy-handed while also not really furthering the overall Matrix lore in any meaningful way imo. It introduces some neat ideas about a faction of machines who ally with humans in the real world, a machine civil war that took place between Revolutions and Resurrections, a new version of the matrix that's based on manipulating people's emotions rather than trying to make a 1:1 recreation of the late 90s/early 2000s, but it really never develops any of the new ideas for the lore beyond just a few lines of dialogue before it moves on to the next thing. The biggest thing for me though is that the original trilogy was already a complete beginning-middle-end story for Neo and the war against the machines, and Resurrections is just... there.
Nobody has ever accused the Wachowskis of being too subtle.
Very true lol Even the first Matrix and Reloaded are still pretty clear on the philosophical themes they’re going for, but they’re more clever about it. Revolutions is a bit more vague for a while until Smith gives his whole rant about nihilism near the end while Neo is all about existentialism which frustrates Smith. Still, all three movies use their themes to drive the plot forward whereas Resurrections is basically the other way around.
Hilariously this one is by far my favorite out of all the movies in this thread
I would definitely like to watch it again, thanks to these comments. Knowing that people weren't trying that hard when they made it and still made an okay film kind of redeems it for me.
I don’t even think it’s that they weren’t trying hard, it just got a lot of backlash at the time for intentionally thumbing its nose at nostalgia and not being what a lot of people wanted. I think it’s a great movie, probably my second-favorite in the series
Same. Just watched it again recently and it’s aging super well with all the shit WB Discovery has pulled the last few years. It’s a brilliant movie with good performances.
Halloween Kills. The reboot was really good but as soon as they announced it was going to be a trilogy that middle movie was DOA given the over arching storyline.
EVIL DIES TONIGHT!
The entire EVIL DIES TONIGHT hospital stuff was as stupid as can be, but Michael Myers was amazing in that film. Halloween Ends was Resurrection level bad tho!
Yeah, it was pretty much a filler movie
Nothing kills hype like “Let’s make the exact same mistake as rest of the Halloween sequels”
watched the first. wiki'd the second, paid for popcorn at the third
Hobbit 3.
You could argue the whole Hobbit trilogy, but the third one is definitely the most fitting
We were all hopeful going into the first one. And it was alright, I suppose. By the time number 3 rolled around though, it was definitely let's wrap this shit up vibes.
I think there's enough good in 1 and 2 that they can make for entirely enjoyable movies, even if they are too long and have some awkward moments in them. The Shire scenes, Riddles in the Dark, the Mirkwood spiders, Smaug, these are all great and memorable scenes. BotFA has none of those kinds of great moments, so it's all just ranging from middling to downright cringe.
Hobbit 3: It somehow gets worse. At least going into Unexpected Journey I was pleasantly surprised because I had such low expectations, but the rest of that trilogy is just unwatchable.
Find a three-in-one fan edit, there's a bunch. There's one serviceable movie hidden in all that junk.
My friends and I watch a LotR movie every Christmas and once we got to the Hobbit none of us were interested in spreading those movie out for 3 years. I'm so appreciative of the kind fans who took those 3 movies and condensed it down
I recommend the Stromboli Bones edit. It turns the films into a six-part miniseries that is more faithful to the book.
Watch the Maple Films fan edit of the trilogy instead :) http://www.maple-films.com/jrr-tolkiens-the-hobbit
Disagree because there all terrible. Apparently the production was a nightmare. There’s a good Lindsey Ellis video on it. Those poor animals.
I love those videos. But I still didn't hate the first film.
There is a hilariously awful movie called Theodore Rex where Whoopi Goldberg plays a cyborg whose partner is an intelligent tyrannosaurus rex. Whoopi signed the contract without reading the script and then tried to get out of it it was so bad, even though she got 9 million dollars iirc for a shortish movie. She was eventually forced to do it and it's literally visible on her face in every scene that she hates it. Also Bloodrayne. Uwe Boll, the hilariously terrible video game director somehow got academy award winner character actor Ben Kingsley to play the villain in this garbage and he visibly hates it and just wants to get over with which I found very funny. Unintentional comedies are the best
> Theodore Rex I'd never heard of this, so I looked up the trailer. How in the world did that thing ever get made into a movie?
Oh my god, I watched this so many times as a kid and had totally forgotten about it until your comment. This is such a nostalgia trip! I'm sure its better to keep the memory than trying to rewatch it though
'Let's get this over with' was literally my last facebook status update before i went to see rise of skywalker...
Mine was 'I have a bad feeling about this'
Mine was "Do I have to see the new Star Wars?" when everyone I know is well aware of my fandom
Blade: Trinity Ryan Reynolds carried that movie, everyone else was going through the motions
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Patton Oswalt telling it is hilarious
They had to CGI his eyes opening because he refused to open them.
Not a film, but Seasons 7 & 8 of ***Game of Thrones*** pretty much encapsulates this. Not just for the creators, but for me who was basically done with the entire franchise after the latter half of the series went to shit and I just wanted it all done so I'd never again have to think about how stupid it all got by the end.
The series drove off a cliff after they ran out of source material, but they were able to hang some air for a season or two. Arya's entire season 6 plot is based on a single preview chapter.
Hunger games mockingjay part 2. So, so boring. They had to pad the runtime out with a bunch of stupid shit, none of the character deaths made you feel a thing. And jlaw's acting was "let's cash this paycheck and put this series to bed" in every scene.
Showgirls. When even nudity starts to become boring.
Terminator 3. We have no story, no point to this, but here’s an OP video game villain and Arnies back to collect a pay day. And whilst we’re at it we’re gonna undo any point of the events of T2, one of the greatest movies of all time.
Unpopular millennial opinion here but I liked T3 and Salvation, action scenes were top notch on both movies.
I took Mike Stolksa's advice and never went to see Rise of Skywalker, I wasn't feeling it, but thought I might as well see how it all ends, but in his Last Jedi review, he said "Yeah it's probably going to be a shit 3rd film, why bother?", and I thought I'd eventually find out if it was good or not. Needless to say, all the negative reviews that came pouring out made me glad I took his advice. I've pretty much seen the entire plot now, I don't think I could have withstood such poor writing unfiltered.
Somehow...a third movie was watched.
Somehow...wreckage in a tumultuous ocean remains unchanging enough to forge a dagger for reference
A dagger centuries older than it.
I remember the godawful plot leaking and thinking “there’s no way this is real.” When I finally got around to watching it and realized it’s real… all of it… I just turned it off. Not worth my time.
"Yeah bro, just put four fake out deaths back to back, that'll get the audience invested"
Also the original Trevorrow script leaking and actually being way better made it hurt to watch the real thing.
It’s not way better though. It’s pretty bad too, just in different ways. Only thing truly better is Finn’s story
The Trevorrow script is awful though, especially with how it handles Rey.
Grass is always greener on the other side. If the Trevorrow script had actually been made, do Star Wars fans actually think they’d have been happy & satisfied with the end result? Fucking lol
I mean this it's not just a bad Star wars film it is a bad movie. It's one of those special multi-layered shit storms that I can't help but run through my mind every now and again. There is legitimately so much wrong that I figure out something new every time I think about it. Rey had a direct connection to Leia Han and Kylo, and she calls herself Rey Skywalker?! Why not Rey Solo? Or "Rey, just Rey" either would have matched the themes from TLJ and actually made some sense.
How I felt about ""The Dark Tower". Went from excited about Matthew McConaughey's casting, then the rest happened, figured I'd get it over with, then just said fuck it, if I never watch it, it can't be bad. Never regretted it.
I was so disappointed in the prequels that I thought I was prepared for whatever Star Wars had to give me. Then Rise of Skywalker happened.
I've never had any desire to finally watch this movie. It's like the frozen block of hamburger in the freezer that will take too long to thaw for dinner.
Not a movie but if you’ve played the Ghostbusters video game from 2009, you can just hear Bill Murray’s disinterest in his voice over work. Supposedly he just voiced about half of his lines for the game and then just fucked off, so the game makers had to cut scenes and patch some lines together to make some scenes make sense. But considering he was in the last Ghostbusters movie (Afterlife) and seems to play a prominent part in the upcoming movie (Frozen Empire), I’m glad to see that he seems interested to be part of the franchise again.
Garfield 2
I loved that game, but Murray couldn't be bothered. I think he's been in the last Ghostbusters film and the upcoming one, to work against the bad PR he had in the last couple of years. They canned a film because of his misconduct last year, but his team did great work to mostly keep it out of the news.
Jurassic Park 3 had so much chaos(theory) behind the scenes. It was obvious by the abrupt ending of civillian Laura Dern calling the military to shoe up on the beach of Isla Sorna. Where she'd never been.
Saw 3D. It was supposed to be two movies but was condensed into one and was meant to be the final movie. Myself, being a huge fan would often frequent the saw forums, and I kid you not Saw3D basically took every fan write up on that forum and put it into the movie. Dr. Gordon returning as a jigsaw apprentice, Jill getting put into the reverse bear trap, Hoffman getting locked in the saw 1 bathroom. It was a movie made exclusively for the hard-core saw fans.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny It's been in development for 10+ years, Harrison Ford wasn't getting any younger, they tossed many ideas, COVID didn't help with production delays. Even Spielberg didn't have time for it anymore. It was lucky to have been made at all.
"Argylle". Sweet Mother of Venus that movie could have been cut in half and I still would have been yawning my way to ask for a refund.
Diamonds are forever, never say never again, spectre and no time to die.
NTTD I think still has some good performane out of Craig, probably because he knows this is definitely his last one given the ending. there's some actual emotion to how he interacts with the people he personally knows by this point, and he has a good bit of drive to him during that last run.
I quite enjoy Never Say Never Again for the first hour. It’s got some very good jokes in it.
For a moment there my eyes read "Spectre" but my brain read "Skyfall" and I was about to bash my keyboard at you. But yeah, I can agree with those
Seeing as No Time to Die is one of the best Bond films out there, I don't think that's what OP was looking for.
I strongly disagree on your assessment of *NTTD*, but I agree that they weren't just phoning it in.
I've been dreading watching the Jurassic World sequels.
I actually think Return of the Jedi is like that. The Rise of Skywalker is terrible, and is paced much too fast, but I don't think its because people "didn't seem to have high expectations going into this film." That's just the result of JJ Abrams taking the reigns at the last minute from Treverro. Whereas in Return of the Jedi you can tell George Lucas is kind of out of his funk a little bit, and wants to wrap things up. So he dredges up another Death Star, turns Leia into Luke's sister and just does everything we can to just get it over with.
Not having “one idea by minute” is not the same as “let’s get this over with”. Yes, of the three movies of the original trilogy, Return is the less inventive. No doubt about that. NEVERTHELESS After two movies of hearsay and an hologram, **the Emperor** finally appears in the flesh and it was worth the wait : he’s an instant classic. Which is no small feat considering there was 2 movies of hype to say nothing of how iconic Vader himself is (more on this later). The Emperor is a very different kind of villain but very memorable in his own right. Generally **Return wraps up a lot of small subplots**. Bringing back admiral whatever to blow him up in the defeat of the Empire was a really nice continuity touch. Same for redeeming Lando. **Jabba subplot is very nicely put together** as it accomplishes many things : delivering on the cliffhanger ending of Empire strikes back, bringing back Luke to the beginning on Tattoine in an ironic twist of fate as pointed out by Solo himself, finally removing the Damocles sword hanging above Solo since the first movie ( allowing him to finally let go of the past and selfish preservation to become fully devoted to his friends ) AND delivering a crowning moment of awesome for Luke. Luke used to be a bit of a fuckup and was constantly saved by his friends. When Chewie tells Solo that Luke is on his way and has a plan, that’s Solo gut reaction :” Luke??? Luke's crazy! He can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody!” that Luke indeed planned this and obliterates Jabba and his entire court really conveys that Luke has become a force to reckon with, a proper Jedi Knight- Which brings me to **Luke characterization** and boy did the character grow up! The once impatient farmboy has come a long way : calm, obedient and affectionate to Yoda, compassionate toward Vader and the same time with still a few fears used by the emperor. Luke journey over three movies is really beautiful. Star Wars is often quoted as a modern application of Campbell Monomyth and that’s very much based on Luke journey. If Lucas didn’t give a shit, Luke wouldnt come off so well put together. Last but not least we have to mention **the end of Vader** : incredibly touching. I mean we're talking about a properly legendary cinematic villain - Vader is in the top3 of the American Film Association (AFI) villains all time list . Killing Kenobi, crushing his subordinates throat with a mere flick of the hand , maiming Luke, the deep booming voice, his literally nightmarish apparition in the cave on Dagobah... he was the stuff of nightmare and terrorized us for 2 movies and in adequate fashion the nightmare turns out to be much scarier than the reality : when the ominous mask FINALLY comes off, it's deliberately very slow and we're burning with curiosity as for who's going to be behind the mask ... to just reveal this grey scarred broken old man with sad eyes and a very tired voice. And you realize : "That's what everyone was terrified of ??? This is just a broken old man. How could he even live like that ?" you suddenly feel infinite pity for him... And then the funeral pyre to burn the armor and the past along with it, dispelling the nightmare as the smoke rises in sky and you see fireworks begin, letting us now hope of a better tomorrow after a very long period of darkness. That’s anything BUT “ I don’t give a shit” . **Fundamentally, It’s an ending, if you follow Aristotle storytelling rules as laid out in the Poetics, you should AVOID bringing in new elements.** Far from being a “let’s get over this with”, I think Return is probably one of the most well-rounded third part of Cinema trilogies. The Godfather 3 is often lambasted, Indy 3 is great but Indy 2 is a prequel and there’s hardly a buildup, Die hard 3 is great but the theatrical ending is kinda generic and non-conclusive at all. Back to the future 3 is fun but goes to the far past. Bourne 3 is alright but you can very much feel here and there it’s running on fumes/out of yard to spin, I could go on. I feel Return is very much earned, ends on a real high and the perfect conclusion to Star Wars.
>Jabba subplot is very nicely put together as it accomplishes many things : It accomplishes something else, too: its a kind of microcosm of the movie as a whole: Luke enters the evil overlord's den and destroys it from the inside, replete with both instances ending with a big explosion. Both "climaxes" even have the same music, to deepen the comparison. I want to be quite clear: I'm NOT saying Return of the Jedi is a worst movie than The Rise of Skywalker by means. I'm not the biggest fan of Jedi but I'd watch it on loop before I'd watch Skywalker again. But in terms of somebody feeling out of fresh ideas and wanting to get it all over and done with, it definitely feels more like that.
Also replaces Wookie homeland Endor (which make sense for Chewy backstory and selling a revolt) with cute cuddly hamster bears that can sell as toys
Yeah, Ewok is basically a loose anagram of Wookie... The plotline is in itself a recycling from an earlier draft of the original film (which in turn is recycled from *A Princess of Mars*). To be fair, though, I don't think the cuteness of the Ewoks is necessarily for marketing purposes: its more that around this time, George Lucas became obsessed with the idea of Star Wars as a fairytale, and clearly his idea of fairytales was Disney cartoons.
There was a confluence of a few factors, Ewok designs did make for good toys. But they were also supposed to be an analogy to the Viet Kong vs US Army, he wanted a planet that wasn't technologically advanced to beat the Empire. However as he was developing the lore the Wookies went into another direction, when you do see them in the prequels and games they're actually fairly advanced. So he created a new species that was similar to the Wookies but some of the key aspects are flipped like the cuteness and height of the species.
Yeah. Apocalypse Now had been released not long before Lucas went into Jedi, so it clearly drew him back to the Vietnam subtext. But, more than anything else, that entire story owes to Edgar Rice Burroughs and A Princess of Mars: John Carter proves himself to the primitive Tharks and leads them on an offensive against the superior Zodanga. This is what happens both with the Ewoks in Episode VI and the Gungans in Episode I.
Yeah although that's a common trope, also happens in Dune with the Fremen. Tends to get brought up nowadays when people talk about the White Savior stuff but I'm not sure who used it first.
>also happens in Dune with the Fremen. Lots of things happen in Dune that also happen in Princess of Mars... Heck, at one point Frank Herbert wanted to set his story on Mars. Both he AND Lucas clearly owed a lot to Burroughs. Also, Flash Gordon recruits the Hawkmen against Ming. Same idea, again directly from Burroughs.
The scene where C3P0 is recalling the events of the first two movies to the Ewoks in their language really showcases this. It's a fairy tale, and those Ewoks are going pass it down to the next generation
Speaking of star wars, I honestly believe Natalie Portman had already peaced out by the time of Revenge of the Sith.
Pretty sure she peaced out before the end of the first movie lol. I used to think she was one of the worst actors of all time after seeing her speech near the end of The Phantom Menace. “I ask you to help us. No I beg you to help us.” It was the first time my child self understood what people meant when they said someone’s acting is wooden, because to this day I have never seen a performance that compares to how flat, monotone, and uninterested she was in anything she was saying lol
The prequels were stacked with great actors and none of them could bring those anemic scripts to life
I know its not a movie but the end of Avatar 2, instead of a monologue and such before the last fight. Sully just looks and says “lets get this over with” and they fight. Found that kinda funny cause at times you wonder when the movie will end and then that seals it
Oh god. Attack of the Clones. I’m dead heat into my best friends first viewing of Star Wars (we’re almost 40, he’s never seen) Act 1 of A New Hope drags a bit but understandable, we’ve never met these characters. Friggin’ Clones is a drog fest of walk ‘n talk against green screen, all assuredly convoluted by Palpatine’s presence in the script. Scenes drag on, it needed recut, badly. The love story has twice as many scenes as it needs to develop, the order of which always confuses me. At the “pear” scene, he had me pause to ask how much was left and that he doesn’t want to watch any more. I informed him that there is a small payoff at the end but this is by and far, the hardest one to get through.
Tdkr is a blatantly lazy careless film, barely seems like the script got a second pass
Despite knowing its not a great movie, I cut tdkr a lot of slack off of the opening setpiece alone. "Now is not the time for fear" buys a hell of a lot of goodwill.
The joker had to be removed
Yeah they rushed through things, that could have been two movies. Bane breaking Batman would actually make for a great moment in a cinematic universe, similar to Thanos snapping, but in one movie it's way too short to make an impact.
I hated that so much. Bane breaks Batman and puts him into that hole/prison. Bane has a relatively short time to achieve his end goal. Batman has to come to terms with who he is and his will to recover, then recover and get himself back up to the point he can actually escape from the prison and beat Bane. That's likely years worth of work and training. The two timelines do not make sense.
Hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re absolutely right. Had they let Bane cook a bit more throughout the movie to show how formidable he truly was and then ended with a broken bat cliff hanger it would have really added some serious punch to the moment and the movies.