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4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Prometheus gets a bad wrap because it wasn't what people expected or wanted. I'd encourage everyone to watch this video then give the film a second chance if you didn't like it:

 

Yeah, no. 

Vickars being a droid: one conversation, at any time in her existence, "Menstruation? What on earth is that?" Also, Ripley was able to shove Ash against a wall without much trouble and she's not an android. Droids are utterly shove-able until they decide to fight back. Also Vickars get's smushed at the end so who cares?

A medical pod that's designed to only operate on a man (why?) is able to perform a surgery involving an organ that only women have. How lucky. 

The biggest problems with prometheus and the greatest strengths of Alien were the characterizations. 

Alien:

Parker and Brett? Yeah, A lot plant operations and maintenance people are like that. Dallas: the weary leader who's not that interested in adventure. Kane: more intelligent, curious and adventurous than the job requires. Ripley is the career-minded executive officer who can recite the manual from memory. etc. They all nailed it.

Prometheus: 

Weyland: There was a promotional bit of material that I guess was supposed to be the prologue to the film where he gives a TED talk.  It looks like no TED talk I've ever seen. It's Guy Pierce standing on stage bragging about how awesome he is.

Holloway: The Engineers are all dead and  he goes back to the ship and has a sad. Are you fucking kidding me? All the prehistoric maps they've discovered pointed to that place so there must be something important there. They've been there one day and, on the tiny speck of the planet they've surveyed, they've made some of the most amazing discoveries of all time. Literally any direction you look on that planet you're going to find something of scientific interest. The archaeologist who's made the greatest archaeological discovery in history is crestfallen. Boo hoo. And why doesn't he report the parasite in his eye to the rest of the crew? Like, "Yeah, remember when we took our lids off in the alien structure? Maybe not the best idea."

Shaw: Scientists, even scientists who are persons of faith, don't talk like that. Like,"Hey, all these really specific ancient cave paintings pointing to a place in the sky that actually exists, might be interesting." Not, "I constructed this "Ancient Aliens / Chariots of the Gods" narrative out of some interesting but highly ambiguous prehistoric cave drawings and I believe it because I choose to. Give me trillions to fund a mission to this place."

The Geologist with the map making tech can't find the exit. He's also miffed because the rocks aren't interesting or something. Also he's a total bad ass because why not. The Xenobiologist who encounters a hostile alien snake thing wants to pet it. Clearly they didn't read the manual.

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2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I don't like Prometheus because of stupid plot moments and poor editing, not because the story wasn't what I expected.

"Hey guys, this mysterious alien pod is opening!  I'm going to stick my face right over it!"

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1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The Geologist with the map making tech can't find the exit. He's also miffed because the rocks aren't interesting or something. Also he's a total bad ass because why not. The Xenobiologist who encounters a hostile alien snake thing wants to pet it. Clearly they didn't read the manual.

When you read that back in just sounds like we forgave Alien for some similar mistakes. And to be fair, someone with excellent map technology is probably the last person you want to lead you out of something once it goes down. Ever been in a car with someone who over relies on Google maps?

The last bit though is legit something I'll never understand. It's the worst part of the movie.

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2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Yeah, no. 

Vickars being a droid: one conversation, at any time in her existence, "Menstruation? What on earth is that?" Also, Ripley was able to shove Ash against a wall without much trouble and she's not an android. Droids are utterly shove-able until they decide to fight back. Also Vickars get's smushed at the end so who cares?

A medical pod that's designed to only operate on a man (why?) is able to perform a surgery involving an organ that only women have. How lucky. 

The biggest problems with prometheus and the greatest strengths of Alien were the characterizations. 

Alien:

Parker and Brett? Yeah, A lot plant operations and maintenance people are like that. Dallas: the weary leader who's not that interested in adventure. Kane: more intelligent, curious and adventurous than the job requires. Ripley is the career-minded executive officer who can recite the manual from memory. etc. They all nailed it.

Prometheus: 

Weyland: There was a promotional bit of material that I guess was supposed to be the prologue to the film where he gives a TED talk.  It looks like no TED talk I've ever seen. It's Guy Pierce standing on stage bragging about how awesome he is.

Holloway: The Engineers are all dead and  he goes back to the ship and has a sad. Are you fucking kidding me? All the prehistoric maps they've discovered pointed to that place so there must be something important there. They've been there one day and, on the tiny speck of the planet they've surveyed, they've made some of the most amazing discoveries of all time. Literally any direction you look on that planet you're going to find something of scientific interest. The archaeologist who's made the greatest archaeological discovery in history is crestfallen. Boo hoo. And why doesn't he report the parasite in his eye to the rest of the crew? Like, "Yeah, remember when we took out lids off in the alien structure? Maybe not the best idea."

Shaw: Scientists, even scientists who are persons of faith, don't talk like that. Like,"Hey, all these really specific ancient cave paintings pointing to a place in the sky that actually exists, might be interesting." Not, "I constructed this "ancient alien / Charriots of the Gods" narrative out of some interesting but highly ambiguous prehistoric cave drawings and I believe it because I choose to. Give me trillions to fund a mission to this place."

The Geologist with the map making tech can't find the exit. He's also miffed because the rocks aren't interesting or something. Also he's a total bad ass because why not. The Xenobiologist who encounters a hostile alien snake thing wants to pet it. Clearly they didn't read the manual.

And the editing, too. Like when geologist guy comes back as a weird monster and they have that fight in the cargo bay. It was so disjointed, something that Ridley sadly did in pretty much every movie from Kingdom of Heaven on that has fight scenes. And it was made worse by the rest of the characters not giving a shit. It felt like a studio-mandated action scene. We give you the weird surgery scene, you give us more flame throwers and jumping monsters.

Like what do they even have flame throwers? Going back to Alien, they were forced to make weapons, and that was the best they got.

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8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

something that Ridley sadly did in pretty much every movie from Kingdom of Heaven on that has fight scenes.

I despise the scene where they break down the wall.

There is a compact mass of men in an arc mere feet from where catapult shots are hitting. One rock falls a little short and you have a shit ton of dead on your own side. 
 

Not to mention no one on the wall is shooting at them for some weird reason. 
 

I like the rest of the movie. The end battle just really sucks. 

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6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

When you read that back in just sounds like we forgave Alien for some similar mistakes. And to be fair, someone with excellent map technology is probably the last person you want to lead you out of something once it goes down. Ever been in a car with someone who over relies on Google maps?

The last bit though is legit something I'll never understand. It's the worst part of the movie.

Alien had cargo haulers trying to understand what they were dealing with. Prometheus had scientists hired the richest man in the world. I would think he was stingy with his money and got good ones, but I guess not.

And if I remember correctly, the floating balls provided the guys back on the ship a detailed map of the structure, and the people on the ground could be tracked, and they had radio contact, so if the second rate geologist couldn't find the exit, why didn't someone on the ship guide him?

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3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Alien had cargo haulers trying to understand what they were dealing with. Prometheus had scientists hired the richest man in the world. I would think he was stingy with his money and got good ones, but I guess not.

Did the lessons of Aliens teach you nothing? Humans in this universe are not good at preparing for shit.

Quote

And if I remember correctly, the floating balls provided the guys back on the ship a detailed map of the structure, and the people on the ground could be tracked, and they had radio contact, so if the second rate geologist couldn't find the exit, why didn't someone on the ship guide him?

I thought the point was they lost all contact due to the storm. 

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16 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Alien had cargo haulers trying to understand what they were dealing with. Prometheus had scientists hired the richest man in the world. I would think he was stingy with his money and got good ones, but I guess not.

Also the company is deliberately withholding information from them. Also its kind of a big deal that Ash lets the infected Kane back on board because space cooties. And at no point does anyone say, "Hey, let's check the air in here so maybe we can take our helmets off."

On a separate note, has anyone seen Space Truckers? Stephen Dorff's best performance? Dennis Hopper? Square pigs? Charles Dance with a pull-start cyborg penis? Anyone? 

 

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7 hours ago, briantw said:

"Hey guys, this mysterious alien pod is opening!  I'm going to stick my face right over it!"

The place freaked him out a bit and his curiosity got the best of him. He couldn't predict that a greased lightning space crab was going to jump out and instantly eat through is face shield. That wasn't in the manual.

At least he used his PPE correctly. PPE that was sturdy enough to withstand the storm on LV-426 before reaching the derilect.

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I thought the point was they lost all contact due to the storm. 

The storm made them stop operations, and told those idiots to hunker down. But they got lost before they lost contact.

Anyway, now you've all done it.

 

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19 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

The storm made them stop operations, and told those idiots to hunker down. But they got lost before they lost contact.

Anyway, now you've all done it.

 

Damn, that's an old Honest Trailer. Was that the guy in the military who got recasted because he was deployed?

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Tenet was amazing. Bonkers. So Bonkers I can't even.

It's first time I watched a film where I made the conscious decision to say, "Screw it. Just go with it. Unravelling this will take multiple viewings." Did it make sense? Hell if I know. All I know is Christopher Nolan filmed a massive action sequence going backward and forward in time simultaneously and, "Fuck you if you can't keep up."  The cast iron balls on that man.

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Watched a few movies this wet cold weekend.

Saw Wrath of Man in theaters, shoot em up with Jason Statham in it. Was actually better than expected despite having a few scenes in different timelines. Seemed like these were handled well and weren't there to try to confuse you.

Watched Unhinged... ehh. Not horrible and pretty true in some spots to what you see when driving down the road. Just never know who you are driving next to!

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5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

All I know is Christopher Nolan filmed a massive action sequence going backward and forward in time simultaneously and, "Fuck you if you can't keep up."  The cast iron balls on that man.

 

 

Great on him for filming it. If only he'd edited it too.

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5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Tenet was amazing. Bonkers. So Bonkers I can't even.

It's first time I watched a film where I made the conscious decision to say, "Screw it. Just go with it. Unravelling this will take multiple viewings." Did it make sense? Hell if I know. All I know is Christopher Nolan filmed a massive action sequence going backward and forward in time simultaneously and, "Fuck you if you can't keep up."  The cast iron balls on that man.

One thing I noticed is that his films are far better on TV because you have control of the volume. I have enjoyed all of his films but someone needs to take control of voice volume away from him. 

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55 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

One thing I noticed is that his films are far better on TV because you have control of the volume. I have enjoyed all of his films but someone needs to take control of voice volume away from him. 

Most annoying thing about a lot of movies. Can barely hear a thing then it's so loud it wakes the neighborhood up.

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Great on him for filming it. If only he'd edited it too.

Well, apparently Nolan's usual editor was busy working on 1917 so he had to get someone else to edit this film (this person usually works with Noah Baumbach), which explains a few of the editorial problems that Tenet has.

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45 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Most annoying thing about a lot of movies. Can barely hear a thing then it's so loud it wakes the neighborhood up.

It's obnoxious.  How in the fuck are so few movies properly balanced in the audio department?  I have to watch so much with subtitles because I live in a giant apartment building and have surround sound.

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4 minutes ago, briantw said:

It's obnoxious.  How in the fuck are so few movies properly balanced in the audio department?  I have to watch so much with subtitles because I live in a giant apartment building and have surround sound.

See I don’t have surround sound and I always assumed that the issue would be fixed if I was to get it. So much of the balance is a mess on many movies, speech is mixed in so heavily with background noise. 

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