Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Hollywood blockbusters are getting more and more ridiculous
I mean, they've never been pinnacles of art, but it's like they're having some contest in infantilism. At first it was superhero comics, and everyone was, oh yeah, but they weren't that bad actually. Then there were more superhero comics. Then the Transformers, and the whole nerddom is having orgasms over a film based on a set of fucking toys I grew out of in primary school. So okay, it was pretty, that film, now tell me how the fuck does it make a film that much of a thing. Then GI Joe. And now the fucking Battleship film, based on the same fucking game I played on a sheet of notebook paper. What's gonna be next, fucking Tetris?
Seems those folks who make fake trailers for Pac-Man, Tetris or Minesweeper were onto something.
Comments
Let us not forget the recent movie lockout, about a jailbreak in an orbital prison. The only way it could have been more ridiculous is if it had sharks in space suits flying around the place.
I don't see why it should surprise us that they made movies out of the superheroes. They're perfect for the silver-screen. Likewise, everybody harps on Transformers for being "based on a bunch of toys," but there was also the highly successful (overall) run of various cartoons, some of which were actually good and deserving of praise (not most of them, though).
The Battleship thing is silly, though. I imagine the pitch for it went something like "hey guys, do you think this is ridiculous enough to get an epic opening weekend before it bombs?" "Sure dude, slap some Transformers-style CGI and a superfluous romance subplot on it so we can stick a hot chick in and it's gold."
Then again, they made a movie out of Twilight. Battleship is probably more deserving of existence than Twilight. So maybe it really is that bad...
A man is trapped at the bottom of a gigantic well while concrete blocks of various shapes slowly descend to crush him. He must use the different shapes to his advantage by using the block clusters on the ground as makeshift stairs. Try as he might to escape, the blocks on lower levels ultimately crumble under the weight of the others, leaving him trapped in a Sisyphan loop of endless ascension.
Saw 8: This Time the Game is a Game.
To be fair, the Battleship movie is nothing like Battleship except for brand recognition. Then again, it's movie execs using fucking Battleship for brand recognition, so eh.
I can't wait until movie studios make a political Wall Street drama based on Monopoly.
You can search the youtube for those fake trailers I mentioned, BTW.
Battleship is explicitly getting the movie because board game sales are down and Hasbro wants to see if it'll sell more units once it gets a movie. There are plans for a number of Hasbro movies including Monopoly and Candyland.
Incidentally, one of the Hasbro properties that the movie rights to were sold was Magic: The Gathering, though (fortunately? unfortunately?) it looks like that one isn't happening.
And I'm sure, as was the case with the Transformers movies, the US military was eager to have a plot to show off their tech blowing up unambiguously evil stuff.
All the military extras in the movie were actual military personnel, courtesy of massive dick-sucking of the Pentagon on the part of Michael Bay. So, yup.
Follow-the-leader isn't bad if it allows stuff to be made that would not be made otherwise. As much as it galls me to hear Warm Bodies constantly referred to as "that Twilight ripoff," there is no way it could have been adapted on its own merits. It's just too off-the-wall, and it's fortunate Twilight made it seem less weird than it really is.
(Though I will definitely rage if that particular adaptation turns out to be in name only . . .)
I actually disagree. I think superheroes fit far better on TV, where they're allowed to, you know, do multi-part arcs like the genre usually does.
With that said, considering the last live action TV superhero outing we've had was (I think) Smallville, I'm not exactly on a rush for another one, and studios ain't either.
Also, you're allowed to swear, Gacek. See: Fuck fucker fuckity fuckerino.
Honestly, though, I don't see what's inherently bad about a Transformer movie. Mind, I do think the recent outings are as goddamn awful as a woman in a gay bar, but I definetly think that it's because Bay was behind them and not because they were Transformer movies in the first place.
Obligatory:
Eh. I dunno. TV would let you do the episodic thing, but they can never really live up to the standards of special effects with their shitty budgets. Iron Man wouldn't have been but a footnote if it'd been a TV thing and not a blockbuster movie.
Also obligatory:
I'd watch it.
I don't think that being on TV means bad special effects. Well, being on American network TV does, but seriously why are you watching american network tv.
With that said, they'd be obviously worse, relatively speaking, but honestly, I think a trade-off between better pacing and character development + not waiting two years for continuation make it totally worth it.
Do you mean the network that used to have Dr. Phil and Ophrah? That was shut down a year ago. Or do you mean AMC? Because if you do, I'm afraid we can't be friends anymore, because they have Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
Because I live in America. :P
Eh. I'll believe it when I see it. Smallville never really impressed me, though granted I was never much of a Superman fan to begin with.
AMC is cable, not network.
It helps a lot that Smallville was goddamn awful, don't worry.
Honestly, the only actually good TV outing the superhero genre has had was the DCAU (If you want to count it as a whole. And to be honest, I do.) but I do think it's potentially better than movies, if put in the right hands. Or at least, the movies we've had right now.
saved
I don't really care that much about comics and superhero movies/TV shows, but I really liked how The Avengers was set up. Give (most of) the heroes their own introduction movies, and then put them into a movie together. probably a best way to do a crossover movie.
Stuff like Battleship gets made entirely from brand name recognition because brand recognition is one of the safest ways to make it look like you know what you're talking about. If you license a movie and it bombs, that can be passed off as bad luck with a few convincing graphs of the original product's popularity. If you make up a completely original movie and it bombs, you're not going to get to make any more movies.
I don't mind if it's a merchandising movie. Hell, one of my favorite movies was based on a five minute Disneyland ride. It's just like...please bother writing instead of shitting words onto a screenplay, y'know?
^^ INUH has it perfectly. It's like how game companies know DRM won't stop them from losing sales to piracy, but they include it anyway--what matters isn't the end result, but whether they can convincingly claim that they have no idea why the end result wasn't what it should have been.
The thing is brand recognition also grants the greenlighters a modicum of defense from the powers that be. Let's say the Battleship movie flops.
"Gee, sir. I have no idea why. You've seen the numbers. Everyone loves the battleship game. When I say you sunk my battleship everyone gets the joke. There's no reason it shouldn't have succeeded."
That said, so long as you can actually make a good script from the source material no matter how dubious I'm down with it. The best movie of 2007 was about a guy in Dracula cosplay beating up an S&M clown because he misses his mommy.
It's not what the movie's about, but how it's about it.
Incidentally, how many people here are drawing on MovieBob?
-raises hand-
Hahaha, it's better to ask who doesn't. And count me on the never disliked Smallville camp.
It would be disingenuous for me to say I'm not drawing on Moviebob, but Moviebob himself is drawing off people like Ebert and Spielberg.
Nothing comes from vacuum.
^^Very true. I only mentioned it because I recognized "Gee, sir, I have no idea why. You've seen the numbers..." :P
As INUH and Malk have said, a lot of this comes down to people trying to cover their arses. In fairness to them, studios are basically placing multi-million dollar bets on these films making enough money, and if you were doing that, you'd be trying to cover your arse too.
I think the interesting point here is really whether these films are popular because that's what Hollywood serves up, or because people genuinely want to see this kind of film nowadays.