Bad film with amazing premise and mediocre execution that you can't stop thinking about?
Bad film with amazing premise and mediocre execution that you can't stop thinking about?
260 comments
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Timeline! The movie was completely forgettable but the concept was pretty cool. I loved the book.
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I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning 'In Time'. It had such a great premise, and I didn't even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said "fuck it, that's good enough". The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point... A movie just isn't the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I'm not sure belongs here. It's not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it didn't do better. That movie is called 'Push', with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn't that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn't a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It's just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don't seem to get those anymore.
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Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What's not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story
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nepo baby actresses
which ones
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Eragon.
There is a reason that most fans pretend the film never happened
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What film? as I look from my bed to my bookshelf with all 4 books
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Tusk
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Came here to say this. That movie showed me depths of fear I didn't know I had yet, it could have had better production values.
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Terminator Genisys
First creative use of the time travel the series ever had... And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn't an action sequence.
That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.
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Oof yeah, what were they thinking with doing that to Kyle? He was the one pure aspect of the entire franchise (a friend, a lover, a father, a sacrificial pawn) and they cheapened his sacrifice with that nonsense
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Reign of fire. Don't know if that's what you were referencing in the picture but it's immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.
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Dude yes, I was so hyped for it, but it really underdelivered
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Bits of it were good. Seems like something went wrong in production or they ran out of money or something. Some of the effects were really good and there was a real mood to the post apocalypse world but it was very uneven especially the way the entire process of civilization ending was just a montage of newspaper headlines. It's ok to be post apocalypse of you don't want to show the apocalypse but that was just cheese. Also there were the odd shots that were of just such a lower standard than the rest of the film. Like this scene where a guy climbs up a watertower and stands atop it getting ready to throw a spear and for some reason after the effects extravaganza up until that point in the film it looked a cheap television blue screen that was super awkward. I guess they wanted it to look taller than in reality and show the desolate landscape but it's so weird that after all the aerial dragon combat they'd pulled off pretty well for the most part that THAT was somehow difficult. I seem to recall storywise there was some very disappointing ending too but it's been rather too long for me to recall it now anyway.
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I'll take "Movies of the Current Decade" for $1000, Alex.
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Amazing world building and visuals that was destroyed by terrible casting and wooden acting.
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The box art put me off thisnone, but skimming the plot and it reads like an amazing visual spectacle. Might watch this one
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This was the movie I immediately thought of.
It's a terrific LOOKING movie, but the two leads had absolutely no chemistry. At first I couldn't figure out if they were partners, spouses, dating, brother & sister, etc.
The production design was spectacular, though.
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It's based on a comic series so we can read that at least
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Mickey 17 is the latest one for me.
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will definitely watch this one
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Oof is it bad? I was beating myself because I didn’t get to watch in on theatre because of its very short run. I was waiting for digital release to watch it.
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It’s not bad, but the pacing is terrible and it’s not really the movie that the trailers made it out to be. The concept and trailer made it look like a completely different movie.
I still enjoyed it, but I’d only give it a 6/10. Robert Pattinson is quickly turning into one of my favourite actors though, he’s great in it.
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For me the pacing was bad. Like they could have cut a combined 30 minutes and it would be recommendable.
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I thought it was great, premise and execution.
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The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn't some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.
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Just to ask, nobody understood the full picture of what they were making? Or was there someone who created the concept but intentional obfuscated it from everyone else via bureaucracy?
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The thing that stuck with me was: "TWO!"
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I actually liked Cube Zero for the backstory and set styles. I don’t remember much else so I’m assuming it was shit, but you can give it a try if you want.
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I think OP pretty much summed up Cube Zero. The first installment is really just a horror fiction also depicting the structure of human society.
Yeah, Cube 2 is shit. It's a scientific concept show.
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New Rose Hotel (1998) It's set in the same universe as Johnny Mnemonic, stars Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. I love Gibson stories and the short story it's based on, while not one of his best, could make a good creepy weird movie especially with that cast. Unfortunately it is one of the most boring movies I've sat through at least half a dozen times.
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Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?
Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?
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Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Unfortunately the case for a good portion of Philip K. Dick's work... Schizophrenia, amphetamines, and misogyny can do that I guess.
But when he was good... He was the best of his genre. Literally imo...
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Season 1 is based on the first book, which was made some a bunch of serials in a fiction magazine. It's honestly pretty spot on with the book and the following books and seasons are fully linear.
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Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I’m just not getting it?
The three main perspectives it follows take place at different points in and over different amounts of time but each one is internally completely linear and then they all end the season at the same point as each other. Basically, the less you’re making an effort to follow the plot the easier it is to follow because keeping track of the interconnectedness distracts you from the straightforward character stories.
This isn’t me trying to convince you to go back, to be clear, I’m just hoping this will give you some closure.
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The witcher Netflix series was a mess behind the scenes. I think some of the writers were taking it as opportunity to show off their 'abilities' and were writing OC instead of the witcher.
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1st season had 2-3 timelines going at once, no time travel (this time) just poorly executed non-linear story telling
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As far as the witcher and time travel kind of. At some point in the future there was a disaster and Earth was destroyed. However some humans and lots of monsters from alternate realities ended up in the world of the Witcher. Elves and dwarves were the original inhabitants.
Humans used a mix of genetic engineering they had and magic taught to them by the elves to make the Witchers. The Witchers helped solve the massive monster problem and the world ended up with humans mostly on top.
Witchers age very slowly and if not killed can live a very long time. Powerful magic users are basically the same. So the stories from session 1 are spread over about 80 years with some long lived characters.
The first book that season 1 is primarily based on is also different from the other books. It's a bunch of short stories that are based on classic stories. So there is Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc.
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I felt like the story was amazing for season 1. Season 2 went downhill quickly because of the easy love triangle plot line. The main saving gave was the Rufus 'Obergruppenführer Smith' Sewell amd his son toryline. I couldn't even tell you if I've seen/remember one episode of season 3.
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If you didn't actually finish high castle, it just keeps getting good weirder.
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ahhh yeah Man in the High Castle, that's one where you oughta just read the book
i'm ditto w/u on how annoying constant time displacement is in television YES EVEN ANDOR DAMMIT
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Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
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Jennifer Connelly is the best part of the movie
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I just watched this! It felt like the director wanted to go real big with it but technology just wasn't there with effects. It also tried very hard to be a mindfuck movie but also kept spoiling the twists somehow lol. Overall solid 7+ movie.
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The city itself was interesting as hell
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They Live (1988)
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I will upvote you, but i must disagree. It was executed flawlessly for 75% of the film. Hell, even the "project 2025" beat towards the end was pretty spot on.
If I may ask, what would you have done to change what you didn't like?
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The fight scene where the main character was trying to get Keith David's character to try on the glasses... that was legendary. I've never seen another (serious) fight scene come close to how hard it made me laugh. 10/10 for that. I imagine Roddy was so familiar with fight choreography from being a professional wrestler that he just got the green light to go ALL OUT and both actors nailed it.
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Please excuse all the replies, I just love discussing the movie. It's still one of my favorites, but I would love to see some other production company film a different ending and release an alternate version with a powerful ending. Think how "Arrival" (Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner) made you feel at the end. I feel like "They Live" could've been that good, but maybe it was before it's time, and they had to cater to the box office of the time.
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I wonder what the original screenplay looked like. It starts so powerfully, but takes such a vivid downturn at the end to appeal to the masses demanding shootouts and explosions. I suspect the ending was rewritten in order to get green lit for production, because the original ending might've been too cerebral for general audiences. I imagine the original ending probably made you think, and generally that's not what the masses like from their movies. Kind of ironic considering the plot of the film, don't you think?
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The premise was powerful, the plot and character development were good, but it seems like the ending of the screenplay got rewritten, and it wound up being a standard issue Rambo-style shoot em up, when it had the opportunity to end on a different, more powerful note that left the viewer thinking about how this relates to themselves, and our own society.
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The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can't even remember the plot because it was so meh.
I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that's what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.
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Came to the comments to say In Time. I always have to remind myself how bad it was, because I really like the concept, so the movie tends to be much better in my head than it actually is as I keep adding things that weren't there.
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In time, has such a awesome premise.
But what we got was a "poor little rich girl" story.
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What we got was Bonnie and Clyde. I liked it though.
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At first I thought you meant there was a movie inside a movie called Time.
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I feel like the last 30 years of Star Wars movies could qualify here
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Disneys stance is to be middle of the ground on everything. Writers or source material bring in a ton of actually interesting stuff, only to be snubbed and half assed. It happens so consistently in all their shows. It's maddening!
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Have you tried Andor yet? That show is crazy good.
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I've always felt like Star Wars the original 3 (4,5 and 6) were a product of their time. They aren't bad movies but they aren't great movies either, but for whatever reason they struck a chord with the population in the late 70's and early 80's. George Lucas should have just let them be there really was no reason to make any more of them, but money.
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There was this movie I saw once called Time Trap. I definitely would not call it good, but the premise was interesting.
Archaeology professor goes missing while exploring a cave which was once thought to be the location of the fountain of youth. His grad students go looking for him, find the cave, weird things start happening when they enter.
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Hey, I'm upvoting you and all but I gotta ask how do you do the spoiler thing? I'm using Apollo and it made me click to expand your comment so I could see the spoiler part. How did you format it?
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It took me a few tries, but the format that was recommended to me by SoleInvictus in this comment appeared to work.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14390647
Ironically it doesn't work as well in my own app because the app keeps trying to change the formatting to its own syntax, but it seems to work for the most people of all spoiler options.
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might give this one a watch!
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Imo it is way better than what OP made it sound to be, held my attention whole way through.
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Time trap was awesome. The scene when they realize the flickering lights are time passing and then they poke their heads out of the cave to see a complete departure of the old world.
The end got a lil weird tho.
Nonetheless it's a movie that will stick with you for a few days of conceptualizing.
*Time Trap was directed by Ben Foster, which I just discovered. It's also streaming for free (w ads of course) on YouTube.
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I had a series of 3 stomach surgeries and I delved into some shows I wouldn't watch. I stumbled on this one. I really loved the premise. It is one of those late night SyFy feeling movies. The end did get weird, but I like where they were going with it.
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This was the first thing I thought of when seeing the prompt. I actually love this movie and have seen it several times, but the acting is abysmal.
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The kind of spoiler tag you used is the kind that doesn't work on every Lemmy app. Fortunately, that's not a problem, as I've already seen Time Trap, and despite forgetting its name, do sometimes think about it.
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Not a film, but a TV series? It's called Jericho, and the synopsis in the Wikipedia reads:
Jericho is an American post-apocalyptic action drama television series, which centers on the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.
But yeah, the execution is mediocre at best. Both the action and the drama are unbearably flimsy and cliche, even the argument flops as metal.
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Yeah, I can't stop thinking about that show either.
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Nuts
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I remember starting watching that. I have no idea how far I got, but I don't remember a thing about it.
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Same here. Aamof I just try watching it last year. Visually, it was cool to come back to those years, but I don't think I finished season 1.
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Oh man I haven't thought of Jericho in a minute. I used to watch that after The Unit.
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Twilight. My wife made me watch the first one and it's actually got a really interesting world and hints at a lot of decent lore and possible content.
Then they fill the film with close-ups of their eyes meeting across the room for minutes on end.
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I actually liked the weird depressing grey vibe of the the first film. If it wasn't for all the vampire stuff, it'd be an interesting outsider story about boy-meets-girl with a slight supernatural vibe
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Basically every Terminator movie after T2. They have some great "what if" premises that could add so much depth to the world, but then struggle to see the vision through is a satisfying way.
T3: Let's actually show Judement Day
T4: Let's show the turning point in the war against the machines (edit: and why people follow John Connor as leader of the resistance)
T5: Exists
T6: What if all this time travel actually branched the timeline? What would it look like if one of Skynet's terminators succeeded?
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The Sarah Connor chronicles was the only sequel media that ever made sense to me
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I know, right? I was quite mad when l heard the show was cancelled after season two. I still want to know if she survived after taking a shotgun shot to this day.
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Not a movie, but a TV show. Revolution.
A sci-fi post-apocalypse show where the premise is that all of a sudden all technology (specifically anything that uses electricity) just stops working and nobody knows why. The show takes place 15 years into the apocalypse. The US has Balkanized into various regional states (although you don't learn this until later). Some regions have devolved into chaos while others have basically reverted to a steam-punk type of society. Since all modern ships use electricity, they've begun to revive large ships from the age of sail. The remnants of the US military at Guantanamo Bay eventually return to the mainland and try to reestablish a much more explicitly authoritarian control over the US. You eventually learn that what caused the global blackout was the creation of a self-replication nanotech which rapidly spread across the planet and shut off all electricity.
Great premise, but it got too much into the soap-opera CW-style of writing and didn't last more than 2 seasons.
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It was such a good show, but man did they just keep pushing it
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Yep. Sounds like what happened with Jericho. Mystery and intrigue in the starting seasons, and then just weird petty soap-opera style squabbles towards the end
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If the writers want to tell a story focused on inter-personal relationships, that's perfectly fine. There are PLENTY of people who enjoy that kind of thing. They just don't tend to be the same type of people who enjoy post-apocalyptic sci-fi puzzle-box shows. I don't know why you go through all the trouble of creating this expansive world and lore only to focus your show on character dynamics that aren't centered around the conceit of the show.
If you're going to build this complex world, let us explore that world!
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Poor Jericho, I need to hunt down the graphic novels that supposedly gave it a proper ending.
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Yeah really fun premise slathered in boring characters.
If I recall it devolved into some CW-flavor bullshit revolving around the girl, who is her real father, why is she special. Blah blah blah.
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Interstellar is like Neo-Posadism minus Marxism. The premise was awesome. Climate apocalypse and space travel. But the movie doesn't have humanity solve either of those problems. Instead it pops it's collar and says *don't worry bro,
the marketMarxist space alienssome scientistsa famous shirtless hot actor guyfuck you who cares the green guy behind a curtain made a worm hole or something".-
I thought the bigger issue was the premise. If earth is in a climate apocalypse, and we have extremely advanced technology that lets us bring life to far out planets, then why are we leaving earth? Can’t those same technologies be applied to saving the earth people?
The whole “we have to go space” feels like manifest destiny and the desperate urge of capitalism to expand.
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What I got out of it was that plant life got diseases that killed them/made them unedible and corn was the only one holding off until the start of the movie. Also in my extremely slim understanding of planetary modification you need to release gases (carbon dioxide, oxygen etc) on a planet to create an atmosphere and it's way easier to release gases than remove them.
So their plan was to let the earth crops rot away and plant fresh ones where there is no diseases.
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I also didn't like the "I'm going to fuck off and let everyone else die" philosophy of not solving the climate issue at home.
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I have a feeling Chris Nolan goes into films with some specifically detailed poignant character moments in mind, and then he just hastily weaves a plot to tie them together. It's interesting to watch at least, but maybe too high brow(?) to call entertaining
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Not a movie, but a TV Show. The Cape.
A former detective is forced into hiding where he is trained in stage magic, sleight of hand, circuscraft, and illusions. He uses them to fight crime.
I thought it was a really interesting concept, a more down-to-earth superhero like Batman, and stuff like this can plausibly happen in real life.
Unfortunately the show was so bad it was canceled mid season and the finale was only streamed on NBC's website.
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Six seasons and a movie!
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Damn sounded hilarious
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Hot take, “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”. The radio play, books and 80s bbc show were not represented very well at all. They missed well over 75% of the jokes, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel added nothing to it, and they added plots and scenes, I think just to get more “blockbuster actors” in, that ruin the original story of the radio play. Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman/Warwick Davis and Bill Nightly were the highlights. One of the few movies I wish they would remake.
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I quite like the movie. I mean all your points make sense and i agree, but at the same time, it's that movie that even introduced me to the books, and i now read them every year or two. The movie is far from perfect, but if you look at other things they try to convert into movies, this could've been so so much worse. Like imagine they made that movie now or somewhen in the past 5 or 10 years, it would basically be a disney marvel movie with marvel quips and: "he's right behind me isn't he's?"
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Agreed, it was a big letdown unfortunately, compared to any of the other versions (including the text adventure!)
Shame, because Martin Freeman was perfect for Arthur, and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide was a great choice too. Though Mos Def was ok as Ford, although not on a par with David Dickson (TV) or Geoffrey McGivern (radio).
Zaphod and Trillian weren't right at all though IMO.
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Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.
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Except for shooting around corners and that thing with the car, those bits were cool.
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The comics were 'edgy' and somewhat needlessly abrasive, but yeah they were enjoyable
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In Time (2011). Time is currency in the dystopia in the film - paying for something decreases your lifespan, earning wages increases it.
The movie sets up a really cool class structure, wherein there are rich people born with/inheriting hundreds of thousands of years of life, and poor people barely managing to scrape enough hours to stay alive until they can earn more the next day. There are segmented areas of the city that cost years to get into.
Overall incredible premise, but the story wasn't exceptional beyond a couple of the cool mechanics you might expect based on said premise.
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In time is absolutely an idea that I wish would get revisited for a TV show.
When I was a kid, for some reason, I loved the original West World movie, which is about 20% high concept and 80% "how do we copy terminator when all we have are a bunch of random Wild West, medieval and classical back lots?"
Obviously a few years ago HBO picked it up for a show, and that first season explores some of the richest philosophy I've seen on TV, in the way only Sci-Fi can; by building characters and technology directly around their philosophical takes and stress testing them. Also simultaneously it created an incredibly compelling story and characters. All of this stemmed from the idea "what if there was a wild west theme park manned by perfectly realistic animatronics?"
In Time may not have the cult classic reputation of the first Westworld but it's got appeal and charm, while being basically only interesting in it's high concept, and therefore perfect to pull apart and explore an HBO style branching plot. I bet you could get Justin Timberlake to appear in it again too, for added audience appeal. A show like this can also explore multiple characters in different classes, and those who interact with both. It's just wasn't that suited to a movie.
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I loved the original West World movie, which is about 20% high concept and 80% “how do we copy terminator when all we have are a bunch of random Wild West, medieval and classical back lots?”
I'm sorry what? 'West World' came out in 1973, 'The Terminator' came out in 1984. Am I missing something here?
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Agree. Great premise and decent world building in the film, but it just felt like a generic action thriller after 30 mins.
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And Justin Timberlake is good at pop music
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Jupiter Ascending
They seed the galaxy and harvest whole planets to create an immortality serum. Fantastic world concept ... but a subpar story to make a movie about within that world.
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I was so hyped when I saw the trailers, because the visuals and ideas of the story they showcased were exactly my jam. But oh boy, what a dumpster fire the whole movie turned out to be.
Edit: yep, still goosebumps watching the trailer
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oh yeah, I remember liking the genetic aspect of that too. But yeah, poor story, and not Mila Kunis's best acting
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I thought if they took out the werewolf thing, it would’ve been so much better.
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Passengers had the possibility to be really creepy, I still liked it but without seeing Chris Pratts time alone first, we would have all been confused and on guard with Jennifer Lawrence.
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I think it would have been a much better film if the audience had also been kept in the dark about him opening her pod as well. That way we can also go through the range of emotions with her at the same time when she finds out.
Just start the movie from her perspective. Pod opening and Pratt is already there. He tells her his pod just opened and he's confused too. Then we get the whole "wandering the shipn for the first time" montage where they could drop subtle hints that it's not actually his first time doing any of those things.
His character is absolutely a bad person, but it's a situation we can sympathize with because being truly completely alone for any amount of time fucks with people badly. She has every right to hate him for the rest of their lives, but it turns out that if he hadn't done what he did they all would have died because of the damaged engine or whatever it was (I can't remember).
They could have made the movie much harder hitting and/or creepy for the first half, but they opted to try and make you sympathetic to his situation from the start.
It's the movie that always pops into my head when thinking about wasted potential.
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Pandorum is, to me, what Passengers was trying for. The claustrophobic horror of hurting through the void, other humans being both your salvation and your tormentors, all that.
The execs ruined it to make a vehicle for some big names.
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I love Pandorum. I have a huge FanTheory on it on reddit from years back if you want to check it out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/gmlo53/pandorum_earth_took_serious_countermeasures/
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I’ll check that out!
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As featured in the picture, Reign of Fire. I had forgotten about it. I truly don't think there is a film out there that has represented dragons as I see them better.
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I really think about Quinn's character a lot. How the world entirely changed for him on that pivotal day he discovered that male dragon, and the decades he spent running and surviving and living in fear of something that he inadvertently set in motion, and then the turning point as an adult as he confronts his fear and wields it to put an end to what he started.
What I like about him, is that he's not actually that unique -- anybody could have woken that dragon, and if Quinn hadn't been there on that day, one of his mother's coworkers would have. He's not particularly heroic as an adult either, opting to hide and scrounge for survival, and openly admitting to everyone that he's winging it on the leader front. And yet he inspires his community with fierce devotion to keeping them all alive. When he finally goes to confront the dragon, he does it almost alone, inspiring no one with his courage other than himself.
As a character I find him weirdly relatable as someone just coping with heavy trauma the best that they can
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I in no way call this "mediocre"; Its just a flat our terrible low budget bullshit film that the director made as an excuse to hang out with shirtless dudes.
But years ago the guys at Red Letter Media did a segment on "Bigfoot vs D.B. Cooper", and that premise alone (what happened after D.B. Cooper landed) has lived in my brain ever since.
It legitimately angers me that such a great high concept idea was completely wasted on what basically amounts to gay porn.
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Lmao, the reviews are somewhat illuminating
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Yep. And therein lies my frustration.
David Decoteau (or he'll sometimes use his alias "Richard Chasen") stole the perfect premise for what could have been a great shlocky low-to-mid-budget action movie. And no NO ONE can ever make it without being compared with....that....whatever it is....
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A few favorites:
- Constantine
- The Last Jedi
- Jupiter Ascending
- Minority Report
- Prometheus
- Valerian
- Logan's Run
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Constantine and Minority Report don’t belong on the list tbh. And I say that as a fan of the Hellblazer comics, and someone who doesn’t care for Tom Cruise.
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I love Constantine, and genuinely do not get the hate that film got. Sure it was different from the comics, but it was good in its own right, and the casting and acting (with the exception of that guy from Even Steven) was spot on
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Constantine and Minority Report shouldn't be on that list, IMO. The former in particular is very well executed and thoroughly enjoyable!
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I'll be that guy that enjoyed The Last Jedi explicitly because it was something different, and leaned into more of the mystical side of the force while on the "big screen."
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In response to your spoiler:
I specifically didn’t like that scene because it’s a massive departure from the lore of all the other films. If they could just do that, why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time? Is it supposed to be that this group is the first group to try this, with the tech that has been around for at least a few centuries? If they had all died in the process I’d be more ok with that, although that also seems like a departure from how hyperspace works in the other films.
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I think episode 7, 8, 9 would have been better if 7 had flipped the script rather than being a story analog to 4. Whole movie could have been largely the same, but rather than the Resistance stopping the First Order at the end, let the First Order win - let Starkiller Base succeed in blowing up the Resistance' base planet and achieve, for all intents and purposes, total victory. It would have come as a shock to viewers (especially given how close the macro plot adhered to episode 4), and they could have made the rest of the new trilogy about the scattered remnants of the resistance trying to get their shit together and field some kind of opposition against overwhelming, impossible odds.
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I was ok with using the ship as a suicidal torpedo, but I wasn't ok with a single person being able to fully maneuver the thing all by herself, or the ensuing space rip conveniently doing that V shape and getting all 3 ships.
But the bombing run at the beginning of the movie really set the tone for "Prepare to be sorely disappointed"
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The Last Jedi was a good movie, it just wasn't a good Star Wars movie.
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Show, but LOST, I remember what could've been...
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The eternal metric of a good show hitting a point in season 3 or 4 where every episode opens 20 more questions than it answers, making me wonder if its going to Do a Lost on me and just fall apart. (ahem-Yellowjackets&Severance-ahem)
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I think it's important when making a show to actually have an end in mind, yknow?
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Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn't say it's a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What's the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don't read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
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I was going to mention this, but thought it was too recent.
I thought it was pretty good until they went in. Even the way they met was pretty silly.
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the trailer didn't entice me that much, so I went ahead with the spoilers. Yeah I hate when a good mystery is ruined by over-explaining.
I still haven't forgiven Steven King for writing all those sequels to The Gunslinger
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Somebody played Enshrouded and decided to make a post-Cold War movie out of it
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Christian Bale faking an actually decent London accent, Gerard Butler being a loveable scot, and Matthew McCaughnehey doing his best Norse/Spartan Warrior impression?
Horrible acting all around (except Bale at times), the lead female character was basically there to soothe/flirt with the lead (wish i was joking), you can barely understand anyone, and yet really impressive set/castle and overall atmosphere. You believe you are there, and that the world is gone.
Huge gaps in logic on the hunting patterns of dragons, helicopters seem to run on infinite fuel, and the final plan to take down the main dragon is just stupid at best.... but the execution of fighting dragons in the air with nets dropped by guys without parachutes was a phenomenal air sequence.
Also, the dragon CGI holds up. You never quite see it, but when you do, you believe it's there, and the CGI team did a great job with consistency in that the dragons are always depicted expelling fluid that they ignite, and you see it every time they cast fire.
Brilliant movie, and one of the best opening 5 minutes in terms of origin story. Just a lot of bad acting, and some questionable feats in logic plot-wise.
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I'm a crazy, or did you completely fail to mention what movie you're describing?
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Christian Bale is English. His accent in Reign of Fire is not far off his normal accent.
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I remember being extremely well entertained by awesome dragons, and that's it. Which means you're probably correct.
What Bale's native accent?
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The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don't think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero's journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
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It's a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don't really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn't anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I'd defend this movie far more if it didn't do this. But it didn't only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
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As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can't collide with things 'in hyperspace', but only as you're going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn't she just splat against the cruiser's shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
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i love TLJ so much i skipped the rest of the movies
if you also like TLJ you should watch Kagemusha and When the Last Sword is Drawn and 13 Assassins
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Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise. -
I think I'm really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and had Campbell to advise with. After that it was all introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I'm an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I'm no story teller so I couldn't fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but "Baby Yoda" represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero's Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn't improve any of the sequels, so maybe I'd like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
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Out of curiosity, have you seen Andor at all?
I won't push you to watch Star Wars since it seems like you've landed where you have for good reason, but if in the event you were looking to give any piece of Star Wars media another chance, Andor is the one I'd choose.
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There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.
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How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could've used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie "killed his character"
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I'm also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I'm not sure if that falls under "better execution"
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I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it's actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
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Quite a few MST3K films have a decent premise IMO, but lacked either the budget or the talent to make enough of them.
Eg Time Chasers (which isn't really all that bad), The Skydivers, Moon Zero Two, Rocket Attack USA, Stranded in Space, and perhaps even Manos: The Hands of Fate.
With the right people, I think those and others could have been very decent movies.
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No Country For Old Men - a slice of life movie about living in Texas.
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No way it’s mediocre 😆
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What was that anime where you wear a VR headset and if you die in-game, you die in real life?
Ya that one
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that's pretty much a whole manga subgenre now
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What Sword Art Online Alternative. Amazing plot and characters.
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Sword Art Online had a pretty decent few opening episodes, it just.... for some reason decided to go full-blown Knights of Sidonia and turn itself into a weird harem anime.
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Spy Kids 3D
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The live action transformers movies.
Although I almost never think about it.
And I only saw the first thirty minutes of the first movie.-
I've watched all of them. I was a TF fan as a kid. I watched it every morning before school and on Saturday mornings. The movies just....I don't know. The first one was the best of the live action. Bumblebee maybe. All of them felt more machine like, except the stupid peeing...wtf...
That said, they were not great. The story, on concept, seemed ok. The execution sucked. The acting was not great. The tropes were un needed, didn't even really fit in, and just plain stupid at best. Mostly they were irritating. Like someone dragging their nails on a chalk board in the middle of a mediocre movie.
The last couple felt more like an attempt at hero porn. [que "heroic" music, lame Walberg lines where he wields some weapon that makes no sense, then lots of booms. Don't forget the meaningless jumping, falling all over the place, and special forces that lean more on the special than forces.]
The only good thing that came out of them was the limited re release of the OG toys. I managed to finally snag an Optimus and a couple others.
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The best thing about the cartoon was Optimus Prime being 'best tv dad', megatron/galvatron's evil laugh and speeches, soundwave's voice, starscream scheming, starscream being killed off for being a whiny backstabber too many times, the art, the touch and the fact that all of the supporting cast that were good in their own right.
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I watched it until the Megan Fox car breakdown scene and figured it wouldn't get better than that and stopped there. I don't remember anything else from the movie.
I admit that it surprised me it did well enough for sequels, when better films didn't, but I guess that's The Public for you.
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Highlander II
The Dark Tower
It's a long list but these two were painful.
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Fuck The Dark Tower. That movie doesn't exist for me. Total waste.
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Mind you, Highlander II would've made more sense as a non-Highlander movie that just revolves around space aliens dealing with Earth having a planetary shield now. As a sequel to Highlander its premise was really weird.
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The premise of Highlander 2 was awful, too, though.
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Highlander 2 is unsalvageable. That movie sucked so bad it wasn't even fun to watch with friends to make fun of it
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The Man from Earth
B4
Triangle
Time Lapse
Daybreakers
Evolution
Knowing
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Knowing is soooo frustrating. Great premise, Nic Cage Nic Caging tha fuck out of everything. Then it seems like the writer hit a block and turned to a random word generator that spit out "space angels" and called it a day.
Still 2/3 of an interesting movie.
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The Man From Earth is definitely one I think about. The things he must have seen, must have done, that over time shaped him into who he was. Is he the embodiment of mankind, as well as its own self-hatred? The religious stuff was a bit much. I still haven't seen the sequel, with genuine anxiety to.
Daybreakers is also a good one. A bit deus-ex with the "solution" at the end, but very good thought experiment
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S Darko was interesting because at it's core it's about the fact that women have to deal with twice as much bullshit
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The Fall Guy. The show had a very simple premise (stunt crew moonlights as bounty hunters) that really couldn't hold up after multiple seasons. The movie just floundered trying to do too much, and ended up far too inside baseball for normal viewers to really identify with.
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I never watched the show, but I loved the movie. Almost every character feels competent and clever, so they do at least something that surprised me. There are a few points that hinge on details that feel a bit contrived, but I appreciated that the climax wasn't just a physical fight between good guy and bad guy. The main characters have emotional problems that are believable and get resolved. Plus, it's just a little campy.
I think the "inside baseball" that you mentioned gave the world more depth. It felt "lived in".
I'll give you that the movie does try to cram a lot into the time, though. It feels a little rushed.
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Yeah, rushed is part of it as well for a full 120+min movie.
And, I should say, I also loved the movie and was disappointed to see mostly negative reviews afterward, but I get it. I initially loved the fact that 87North, the director's own production company, is both listed in the opening credits and is the company making the movie in the movie. But as the final (contrived to look awesome, which is the point, not the actual plot points) moments wrap up, it felt like it was as much an industry commercial for the director's own production company as it was a movie just being a movie. Maybe that's a selling feature and I overthought it, but it sort of took me out of it.
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Idiocracy.
Loved the idea. Film itself... meh
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I feel the opposite, the premise is an endorsement of eugenics that looks like it was written by that mother-goose ass neo-natalist couple
The actual film is a decent turn off your brain stoner comedy
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I think I read that the studio insisted on changes that annoyed Mike Judge. Pootie Tang met the same fate. They should have just let professional comedians release whatever but some studio executive didn’t get the jokes and was like, “This movie won’t appeal to suburban fathers over 45.” or whatever.
In my experience, it often comes out that all of the shitty parts of comedy movies are not the fault of the creators. But comedians aren’t given creative freedom like Scorsese or whomever and also are like, “Make whatever edits you want. I made a stupid movie with my friends. You got my check?”
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yeah read that Caddyshack was made in florida instead of california because they didn't want the studios breathing down their necks.
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I am 100% convinced they had a masterpiece and then test audiences didn't get it and they went and changed everything around and added the prologue and gave away the entire twist at the start by explicitly telling the viewer where and when we are. Also made the dinosaurs weird for .... reasons...?
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Wow, I watched that on opening night and there were like three people in the whole room. I don't remember much about it, but what really bugged me was the whole start of the film. A spaceship that is designed to travel fully automatically and immediately fails when there's a small asteroid field in its path? Absolute BS.
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Oof. Having the statue of liberty there on the opening credits of Planet of the Apes
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Like that, yes.
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Mutant Chronicles, except i don't think about it normally, but immediately comes to mind when somebody asks similar question. Also it wasn't mediocre, it was incredibly bad and the second biggest disapointment movie ever for me (worst was Starship Troopers 2).
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Premise seems pretty cool (mutant/zombie machine), and I guess it's kind of a cool but forgettable action flick?
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I played a lot of tabletop and card games in this universe in 90's so i was pretty excited for a movie, and while it was forgettable (but also bad) action flick its main fault was that it has basically nothing in common with the Mutant Chronicles universe.
It's like getting "Lord of the RIngs" movie, but about some gang war in a village southeast of Umbar.
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many
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Jurassic park
First movie I saw in theaters that disappointed me. Too much dinosaurs running around trying to kill everyone without standing still and asking why this is happening.
A quick jab towards the old man that the park is not considered ready for opening yet is not enough, or that he's packaging stuff?
The Goldblum character's logic failed to intrigue me. He would have been much better to ask the old man questions about park safety and genetic engineering safety that could be scrutinized instead of full on attacking him about commercialization.
It made the kids more interesting than the adults.
I forgot what the relationships between the two main characters and the children were, but I believe they were divorced and the kids were theirs?
At the very least they should have had some character development. Have them both end up with new partners or something and show what makes the new pairs better than the old one.-
I watched a recent review from TheNostalgiaCritic about this film, and he does touch upon a lot of what you said about the strange motivations of all the characters that led up to the Dinosaurs escaping. That being said, I liked it and would say it is iconic in both story and genre (semi-horror kid-friendly family film aimed at adults?)
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I saw the Siskel and Ebert review and I agree with their point that there was a lack of awe in the movie that E.T. and close encounters of the third kind had.
This movie had dinosaurs being dangerous at almost all times. Only a moment after they awed a stampede was heading for them. The danger felt convoluted. Tacked in. And it would have been a good time to question the old man about park safety.
The old man never get punished for his reckless behavior. I don't get why my downvoters would disagree with me. Would you downvoters really have acted so calmly against the old man when the park goes haywire?
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