The Movie Thread

[McTallshort]

Cannot believe Top Gun isn't in the cinema until bloody June! Saw the trailer last night and got all excited until I saw the release date.

 

[bushytop]

Cannot believe Top Gun isn't in the cinema until bloody June! Saw the trailer last night and got all excited until I saw the release date.

The missus and I watched the first one a couple of months back (after watching trailer 1 and getting similarly excited)... still holds up!

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

For some reason, I can't see the image you posted... which just means I want to know even more!

Didn't miss much

 

[ncurd]

Rise of Skywalker

It's a mess....reeks of a film where original director got fired and new one didn't have time to properly work on it or start from scratch like he should of...

 

[bushytop]

Rise of Skywalker

It's a mess....reeks of a film where original director got fired and new one didn't have time to properly work on it or start from scratch like he should of...

Haven't seen it yet but plan on watching it this Sunday. My two cents on the problems this new trilogy has faced (thus far) is they don't seem to have a specific outline for the trilogy... like during eps 7 & 8 they didn't 'really' know how ep 9 was going to finish.

Then add to that the fact that ep 7 was basically a cut and paste for nostalgia, ep 8 threw out a lot of the story building 7 set up... and all of a sudden you're at the final movie and it's trying to tie two disparate strands together into a satisfying whole.

It honestly amazes me quite how badly Disney have screwed up with Star Wars, when you consider how fantastic their other premium franchise is concurrently doing (Marvel). The disaster culminates in an all-timer of an idiotic statement from Kathleen Kennedy who feeling under fire during an interview stated (& I'm paraphrasing here) "it's not as simple with Star Wars, we don't have decades worth of Comic Books or 800 page novels to go back to source and build upon...". When the irony, which is lost on her is... there were decades worth of Comic Books AND novels (& video games) within the Star Wars expanded universe that they could've leaned into but the first thing they did after purchasing the franchise was to de-canonise it all. I guess this is what happens when you promote a PA to CEO.

 

[ncurd]

The disaster culminates in an all-timer of an idiotic statement from Kathleen Kennedy who feeling under fire during an interview stated (& I'm paraphrasing here) "it's not as simple with Star Wars, we don't have decades worth of Comic Books or 800 page novels to go back to source and build upon...". When the irony, which is lost on her is... there were decades worth of Comic Books AND novels (& video games) within the Star Wars expanded universe that they could've leaned into but the first thing they did after purchasing the franchise was to de-canonise it all. I guess this is what happens when you promote a PA to CEO.

First off suggesting Kennedy is a PA is pretty bad her producer credits go all way back to ET. She knows what's she doing in terms of individual films.

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0005086/filmotype/producer?ref_=m_nmfm_1

That quite is pretty wrongfooted quote and I'd like to see the original. Decanonisation had to be done as it would of locked the story but they could of used it. I think that's on JJ's head though not appointing a story overall guru is on hers. But it's some ways it is like Marvel which has been retconed and played fast and lose with it rules from the start. Star Wars is a different beast playing fast and loose in a trilogy that is continuous story creates issues. It would be like if Marvel played fast and lose with Infinity War and Endgame instead the consequences of Infinity War bleed into Endgame. But Thor 2 to Thor 3 yeah ummm no Natalie Portman so yeah they just broke up off screen.


As to plot whilst Johnson ditched elements the great hack Abrams supposedly setup (I'm not going another mystery box tirade) that was in service to the story he told within that film. You might not like what he did but as a piece of continuous narrative it's not disjointed. Abrams in Rise seams to ignore plot points of TLJ as if they never happened. And it's not like they serve his story at all he's just done it cause reasons.


And this isn't even the agregious stuff for me the films biggest problems are nothing to do with plot and theme. But the actual filmmaking itself....

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I quite liked episode 7, and though 8 was decent enough.
Have heard from people who liked the first two that this third one is really bad, though, and just generally boring.

Will probably wait until home release rather than seeing it in the cinema

 

[ncurd]

I quite liked episode 7, and though 8 was decent enough.
Have heard from people who liked the first two that this third one is really bad, though, and just generally boring.

Will probably wait until home release rather than seeing it in the cinema

All I'm seeing from the hare TLJ crowd is they are happy 'Abrams shat on Johnson', which isn't entirely true Abrams very much kept bits they didn't like too but if that's why you liked this film...

There are people who enjoyed the film though I have seen that. And it's a good romp...

Honestly having watched through all the films recently current ratings best to worst.

4, 5, 8, 6, 7, 3, 2, 9, 1

Should state 1 is the only outright bad film. 9 and 2 are in the same ball park. 9 has a better script and acting, 2 in all other regards including plot 2 is better it's just the script and acting are awful....

 

[bushytop]

First off suggesting Kennedy is a PA is pretty bad her producer credits go all way back to ET. She knows what's she doing in terms of individual films.

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0005086/filmotype/producer?ref_=m_nmfm_1

That quite is pretty wrongfooted quote and I'd like to see the original.

First off, I wasn't trying to attack ANYTHING you said (or any of your key beliefs... though from your reply I would hazard a guess that your a Last Jedi fan... which is fine, we are all entitled to our opinions, likes and dislikes etc) I just thought as a life long Star Wars fan I would add my opinion to where the franchise currently is going into view the last film in the Skywalker saga.

So, to my flippant remark about Kennedy... it was merely a tongue in cheek remark with the benefit of hindsight (also intentionally very hyperbolic as all jokes with a metaphorical framework are), due to me feeling a bit annoyed that what was once my favourite piece of entertainment is now 'in my opinion' basically ready for the dumpster... and it all happened under her stewardship. It (as do all intended jokes, be they in good or bad taste) stems from the truth though (regardless of whether she progressed in her career over the subsequent years or not):

https://fortune.com/2015/09/10/kathleen-kennedy-lucasfilm-star-wars/

So as I mentioned in regards to the 'quote', I was paraphrasing, as at the time I just couldn't be bothered to look it up as I had the gist and it wasn't intended to offend (basically the whole reason for the creation of paraphrasing in the first place... but since I seem to have unintentionally gotten your panties in a 'bit' of a twist here you go:

"Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There's no source material. We don't have comic books. We don't have 800-page novels. We don't have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be."

You are most welcome ... and even after making it non-cannon they could have still picked and chosen the 'ripest fruits from the branch' from the thousands of works and re-worked them to fit their universe moving forward. I've said it before and I'll say it again but the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn was phenomenal and would've made a great sequel trilogy but no. The Dark Empire trilogy of graphic novels was also great and could've worked as a sequel trilogy... but no. Kennedy chose to work one movie at a time without any fundamental plan to climax what was once considered the greatest franchise in the history of film.

I have a feeling that this may well run and run, but know this going in... I had no intentions of causing a stink when I replied to your post, I simply (wrongly as it turns out) thought it would be like two people merely commenting on something that they both enjoy/enjoyed but it seems that my innocuous post has struck a nerve.

 

[ncurd]

Just to be clear it was flippant quote about Kennedy being essentially a PA that wound me up she had a huge amount misogyny thrown her way and after the career she had any suggestion she elevated way beyond her position is simply wrong she had way way more experience than Kevin Feige did this a common thing thrown at women and completely unfair. That doesn't mean she's handled Star Wars correctly there have clearly been mistakes I'd say with Solo and RoS everything else has been fine, people didn't like directions TLJ took but that is not issue with production. You have split out production/management decisions from creative ones. Rebels/Resistance have gone down really well and The Mandalorian does anyone not like The Mandalorian?

Lets also not pretend movie franchise production is easy otherwise everyone would be doing it. Reality is current king in town is Marvel and they are the only one really succeeding in a large scale.


When I say the quote is wrongfooted that criticism of Kennedy she absolutely could of drawn from the EU or Legends canon. I'm unsure why they decided that was a no go area but from that quote it sounds like that's all she's saying. They chose to not be bogged down at all and just have creative people create stories without having to poor over other stories. I still wouldn't claim that was a bad decision and in some ways a practical one but I don't why you would restrict it.


So should an exec-creative position for overall story been appointed? Absolutely prior to Infinity War, James Gunn was appointed in charge of Marvel's cosmic universe whilst people are giving a huge amount of latitude but as long as they X into Y place the Marvel execs don't care. That said some films (Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Age of Ultron) had a few problems while they found their feet. It does sound like Kennedy was trying to hand scripts to the next director and said 'okay this is what happened before you now go write the continuation of that story' and I think it worked for TLJ Johnson progressed the story and took it unexpected directions. The real issues came up with Trevorrow (and Miller and Lord on Solo) who was bought on board in August 2015, a year after Johnson was bough on to work on TLJ. So in some respect the idea these guy haven't worked together to form the plot is a bit false, there have been overlaps and collaboration that said its clearly a chain and not a focused plan. Anyway with Trevorrow it starts to go wrong,

August 2015 - Trevorrow appointed
Feb 2016 - pre-production begins
April 2017 - May 2019 release date announced
May 2017 - Filiming to start Jan 2018, later push back to August 2018
August 2017 - New writer bought on board to rewrite Trevorrow script
September 2017 - Trevorrow fired (creative diffrences, apparently turned in several scripts), Abrams hired as director, release pushed back to December 2019

The problem here is despite Trevorrow turning in bad scripts 18 months of preproduction had occurred that time you don't get back even if push the release by 7 months. When this stuff start happening movies almost inevitability suffer and rarely does it end well.

So yup a lot of blame at Kennedy, but also tons at Abrams who was creatively in charge of RoS and a lot issues are to do with his decisions not Kennedy's. However the production getting messed up would of been mitigated had there been a person in charge of 'story' and certainly hiring Trevirrow was a massive mistake.


I've gone on way too much....and elaborated higher but point is I don't want absolve Kennedy of making mistakes just take issue when people question her suitability for the rule in the first place.

 

[ncurd]

Oh yeah and if I'm grumpy I'm on 3 hours sleep and still coming to terms about a film I was huge psyched not adding up to anything more than an okay film.

 

[bushytop]

I've gone on way too much....and elaborated higher but point is I don't want absolve Kennedy of making mistakes just take issue when people question her suitability for the rule in the first place.

It's all good so no problem... and I agree film production is definitely not easy.

A big problem with discussing The Last Jedi is for one reason or another (& I'm not saying that your posts are explicitly doing this but it does seem to happen within the media) if you are a Last Jedi 'hater' you are automatically an alt-right misogynistic racist and if you're a Last Jedi 'apologist' you're automatically a SJW white-knighting lefty... both of which are ridiculous. Any body is simply aloud to like (or dislike) a movie for its constituent parts without any political readings (of the product or ones enjoyment there of).

The fact that Kathleen Kennedy is a woman has no bearing on her job of steering this ship (nor the fact that Johnson is a man had no impact on his directing TLJ)... I think it's the fact that she isn't really a fan of the franchise (or sci-fi fantasy in general). Working on the OG trilogy was just a job for her. In stark opposition Feige is a huge comic book fan and therefore (imho) has a 'feel' for what will 'generally' work and what won't.

Anyway, as always I will turn up and buy my ticket for a cinema seat and hope that I'll enjoy it.

 

[bushytop]

Oh yeah and if I'm grumpy I'm on 3 hours sleep and still coming to terms about a film I was huge psyched not adding up to anything more than an okay film.

Excluding the 3 hours sleep part, that is EXACTLY how I felt (still feel) about The Last Jedi.

 

[Groundhog]

Star Wars steps to success:
1. Introduce MacGuffin
2. ?
3. Sword fight!!

 

[bushytop]

Star Wars steps to success:
1. Introduce MacGuffin
2. ?
3. Sword fight!!

Kath?

 

[Groundhog]

Kath?

Hey baby are you a character from the original trilogy? Because I will ******* kill you!

 

[bushytop]

Hey baby are you a character from the original trilogy? Because I will ******* kill you!

Dayum... you got her down pat!

 

[bushytop]

Always excited for a new Nolan movie

 

[TheOvalBall]

Holy moly, i did not enjoy this film at all, even though Robert Downey jr and Tommy Lee Jones were crazy in a good way.

 

[big ginger 8]

Would watch anything Nolan does and this looks like a really interesting concept. Of course Michael Caine is in it, surprising lack of Nolan ensemble otherwise. I think Branagh is the only one with a prominent role in a previous Nolan project?

John David Washington and Robert Pattinson have some really unique career progression. Blackkklansman was really weird for me seeing Washington play a relatively somber character after being a diva receiver in Ballers.