[QuickTidal]

I have some issues with the HOBBIT films, but overall I found I quite enjoyed them.

[Macros]

I would love to have seen what Del Toro would have done with them.

[D'rek]

QuickTidal, on 23 August 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

THE SCORPION KING is excellent, campy action fun. It's VERY much better than the 3rd MUMMY film by leaps and bounds. It's SUPER entertaining.

----------------------------------------------------

So we watched (or rather tried to watch) Guy Ritchie's KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD last night. Let me ask a question. Stylistic Guy Ritchie stuff aside (shooting a period fantasy piece like it's a fucking London Mob movie) which irritated my wife and I to no end...How do you fuck up KING ARTHUR? Honestly. It's literally such an easy story to do and do right that even some lesser films like 2004's KING ARTHUR was about 80% really good, and LAST LEGION is even good...campy though it was...

But fuck me, this movie was bad, and it screwed up any story points that make the whole make sense. But you don't have to believe me, let's list what's wrong:

1. That Camelot exists during Uther's time (newsflash, it didn't...it was Arthur who had it built)
2. That there is some Mage war? Dafuq?
3. Mordred has laid siege to Camelot while Uther rules and Arthur is a toddler...because yes...the illegitimate offspring of Arthur and his sister Morgaine, Mordred, has time travelled? No, Ritchie just wanted a villain to cover the scope of his film.
4. Vortigern is Uther's brother? No he fucking wasn't. Also, that's stupid.
5. Bedivere is already an adult when Arthur is a toddler? No,no he wasn't.
6. Uther possessed Excalibur? Not only that the he died it embedded itself in the stone again? What? No.

So the notions of the myth are all mixed up here, and this kind of makes none of them make sense to even include. There is also the forced reasoning of "Arthur should take back Camelot, because it's his ancestral home and was stolen by his Uncle after he killed his father.".....so...the LION KING? I mean fucks sake.

No, Arthur rules because it's his right when he pulls the sword from the stone...and people follow him to a kingdom he creates because he is a good and altruistic man. Who falls because he is far too trusting.

This movie is bad, and should feel bad for even fucking existing. I was so excited for this flick, and I don't think I've been this disappointed in a film in a long while.

/rant

Sounds like maybe this script was not originally a King Arthur film at all, and then some producers decided it didn't have enough appeal as an original story but a King Arthur reskin would work, so they did a Find+Replace of all the key terms?

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 23 August 2017 - 04:21 PM, said:

I would love to have seen what Del Toro would have done with them.

He would have done to them what he did to HELLBOY. He would have taken elements of the story from disparate parts of the books and mashed them up into some GDT-Tolkien thing...and called it THE HOBBIT when it very much would have been something else entirely.

Trust me when I say that If GDT had been able to make THE HOBBIT, it might be a really interesting film or set of films...but it would be even LESS Tolkien than what PJ gave us.

People complain about what Jackson did...but knowing who GDT is at his core, his HOBBIT would have taken even more crazy chances and been even more off the beaten path.

Take into consideration the fact that in HELLBOY he often opted for "big action set pieces" overblowing anything in the source material (the one that comes to mind is the opening sequence which is massively grandiose without needing to be; and changing the fact that Hellboy coming into our world was the main goal of Rasputin...as opposed to freeing the Ogdru-Jahad, which is how the movie painted it). The very same thing people levelled at PJ for THE HOBBIT (the barrel chase, the goblin tunnels, the ice fight at the end), can also very easily levelled at GDT with his HB movies where he went for spectacle over substance.

So yeah, I don't think they would have been better.

D, on 23 August 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

Sounds like maybe this script was not originally a King Arthur film at all, and then some producers decided it didn't have enough appeal as an original story but a King Arthur reskin would work, so they did a Find+Replace of all the key terms?

That's a good point, and a certain possibility. Though I'd never know for sure. The "mage war" thing really set me off-kilter and sounds like something from another script.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 23 August 2017 - 06:02 PM

[Traveller]

I don't want any King Arthur film until someone makes the Bernhard Cornwell version. Or better still, a tv series.

The Hobbit films were awful. Dwarves were men in wigs with big boots. All subtlety lost in favour of PJs own vision. It's probably possible to turn it into one long movie by removing all the made up crap, sticking to the book, and oh my god there was so much superfluous crap.

Including Billy Connolly riding a pig.

I tried watching the 3rd one for the second time ever the other day and I didn't even make it half way. They even fucked up the death of Smaug, ffs.

[worry]

I watched the live action Ghost in the Shell. Not as bad as I expected! Just kinda limp though. No emotional resonance. Everything just feels small/minor, and it ends with a thud. But there are some neat visuals throughout and cool, stylish scenes. Good cast, though supporting players are severely underutilized. Michael Pitt is really good in this though.

[amphibian]

worry, on 23 August 2017 - 07:47 PM, said:

I watched the live action Ghost in the Shell. Not as bad as I expected! Just kinda limp though. No emotional resonance. Everything just feels small/minor, and it ends with a thud. But there are some neat visuals throughout and cool, stylish scenes. Good cast, though supporting players are severely underutilized. Michael Pitt is really good in this though.

I came to the conclusion that it isn't white-washed, but the presentation of the movie by the makers/sellers of it ended up portraying the movie as that because they were trying to preserve the twist.

If anything, the movie bends too diverse (making Japanese characters a polyglot team from around the world).

[worry]

I actually agree, at least on the micro level, and don't blame ScarJo for taking the role (i.e. I wouldn't consider it an example of "yellow face" [I don't feel comfortable using that term, we need a new one]). On the macro level though, it was still someone in the chain of production making the decision to reserve the lead roles for white people and the supporting roles for non-white people. I don't mind the international flavor of the Section 9 crew -- apparently this takes place in a version of Hong Kong instead of Japan, though that's never mention on screen, and doesn't explain the heavy use of geishas -- but I think the dividing line between lead & supporting roles is very much par for the course in mainstream Hollywood's stabs at diversity.

[Abyss]

Traveller, on 23 August 2017 - 07:18 PM, said:

I don't want any King Arthur film until someone makes the Bernhard Cornwell version. Or better still, a tv series.

The Hobbit films were awful. Dwarves were men in wigs with big boots. All subtlety lost in favour of PJs own vision. It's probably possible to turn it into one long movie by removing all the made up crap, sticking to the book, and oh my god there was so much superfluous crap.

Including Billy Connolly riding a pig.

I tried watching the 3rd one for the second time ever the other day and I didn't even make it half way. They even fucked up the death of Smaug, ffs.

You shut up, Warcraft Billy Connolly riding his War Pig was the bestest thing in that trilogy of bad.



COME AT ME.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 24 August 2017 - 02:36 PM, said:

Traveller, on 23 August 2017 - 07:18 PM, said:

I don't want any King Arthur film until someone makes the Bernhard Cornwell version. Or better still, a tv series.

The Hobbit films were awful. Dwarves were men in wigs with big boots. All subtlety lost in favour of PJs own vision. It's probably possible to turn it into one long movie by removing all the made up crap, sticking to the book, and oh my god there was so much superfluous crap.

Including Billy Connolly riding a pig.

I tried watching the 3rd one for the second time ever the other day and I didn't even make it half way. They even fucked up the death of Smaug, ffs.

You shut up, Warcraft Billy Connolly riding his War Pig was the bestest thing in that trilogy of bad.



COME AT ME.

Hard agree!

Also, the sequence features my favourite scene in the trilogy, that of the elves leaping off dwarves shields in unison to advance into battle.

[Macros]

Fuck I hated that scene on so many levels.

It made zero military sense.
It looked dumb

It was awful. How Jackson managed to ruin a battle like the battle of the 5 armies is beyond me but man he destroyed it, that sequence had so much fucking potential and it was just so poorly fucking executed

[Abyss]

Macros, on 24 August 2017 - 03:53 PM, said:

... How Jackson managed to ruin a battle like the battle of the 5 armies is beyond me ...

If you believe the rumours, it likely didn't help that it wasn't scripted and he was just making shit up as they shot.

[Macros]

I went and hunted down the Hobbit thread.

My opinion was similar enough on watching it

I'm well aware parts of it weren't even storyboarded or ran through. He just loaded the book into a cannon then blasted it over the heath, ran around giggling like a little girl picking up random words.
Words he then put into a blender that he had shat in.

PJ, did not learn his lesson when some of the stars had to reign his nonsense in during LotR filming.

[Slow Ben]

Those movies went from meh to a trailer park dumpster fire fast.

What makes them even worse is we saw what PJ was capable of with LotR...then we got that.

[Salt-Man Z]

My wife and I are huge fans of the LotR films, but we ended up waiting until DVD for The Hobbit. We all but fell asleep during An Unexpected Journey, and have zero interest in seeing any more. (Our son owns the trilogy BD, and I catch snippets of it every now and then, but...nope.)

Add Rogue One to the Prequels That Didn't Suck list.

[acesn8s]

QuickTidal, on 23 August 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

So we watched (or rather tried to watch) Guy Ritchie's KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD last night. Let me ask a question. Stylistic Guy Ritchie stuff aside (shooting a period fantasy piece like it's a fucking London Mob movie) which irritated my wife and I to no end...How do you fuck up KING ARTHUR? Honestly.

/rant

You make a movie called First Knight.

[QuickTidal]

acesn8s, on 25 August 2017 - 04:48 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 23 August 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

So we watched (or rather tried to watch) Guy Ritchie's KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD last night. Let me ask a question. Stylistic Guy Ritchie stuff aside (shooting a period fantasy piece like it's a fucking London Mob movie) which irritated my wife and I to no end...How do you fuck up KING ARTHUR? Honestly.

/rant

You make a movie called First Knight.

Oh yeah, that one was super bad too!

[acesn8s]

QuickTidal, on 25 August 2017 - 05:15 PM, said:

acesn8s, on 25 August 2017 - 04:48 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 23 August 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

So we watched (or rather tried to watch) Guy Ritchie's KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD last night. Let me ask a question. Stylistic Guy Ritchie stuff aside (shooting a period fantasy piece like it's a fucking London Mob movie) which irritated my wife and I to no end...How do you fuck up KING ARTHUR? Honestly.

/rant

You make a movie called First Knight.

Oh yeah, that one was super bad too!

[middle-aged man grumble]Should have stopped after Excalibur...[/middle-aged man grumble]

[Traveller]

Macros, on 24 August 2017 - 03:53 PM, said:

Fuck I hated that scene on so many levels.

It made zero military sense.
It looked dumb

It was awful. How Jackson managed to ruin a battle like the battle of the 5 armies is beyond me but man he destroyed it, that sequence had so much fucking potential and it was just so poorly fucking executed

Agreed. So much bad... remember when the huge armoured orcs charge into Dale after the walls are breached - and get physically knocked over by stones thrown by hobbits?

(And why oh why did they give so much/any screen time to that guy Alfrid?)

That bit with Galadriel made no sense either. She went all 'dark' like they were reinacting the scene from lotrs with the ring as the catalyst - but fighting Sauron she should have been an opposing power of light.

Ah well should probably stop the bashing now. A do still think a single clever film would have been much more enjoyable, with an extended cut - but hey, much less money to be made.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 25 August 2017 - 09:30 PM

[Slow Ben]

Kinda disappointed in Guardians 2. Beginning and ends were great, but draaaaggggeeed in the middle. But to be fair, baby Groot made up for almost all the downsides.


I'll need to watch it again without the ole lady and her sister jibberjabbering in the kitchen through the whole thing.