Is it just me, or is it anytime that Peter Jackson freelances from the novel, the deviations bear a strong resemblance to Star Wars?
Minutes Watched: 3.0:17.05
Number of Montages: 13
Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 50
Start at the beginning
I still wish they had made The Hobbit first, because that’s the proper order of things (this isn’t Star Wars after all), but I like the various allusions to the Hobbit that are thrown in. These are the touches meant for the lovers of the book, and hopefully don’t detract from the story for people who haven’t read them (There are plenty of detractions coming up, anyway). And again, seeing how The Hobbit is my favorite, we’ll just hope Jackson has learned from all his mistakes. We also have just gotten our introduction to Sam, and our first glimpses of Pippin and Merry. They definitely look like hobbits.
Minutes Watched: 21.28
Number of Montages: 2
Start at the beginning
As everyone knows, I hated Inception. It’s a poorly written movie with more plot holes than the Costa Concordia.
Seeing how my treatise on all of its problems created quite the stir, we thought it would be a good idea to turn it into a series where we take a universally esteemed movie and point all the reasons why it actually sucks.
Next up, we’ll be taking a look at the Lord of the Rings movies, a trilogy even more disappointing than the Star Wars prequels. But rather than just write a blog post about it, I will be attacking the films in a more scientific manner. This Sunday just happens to be Chinese New Year, and I’ll be watching all three films* and live blogging about how bad they are.
Check in here, and on my twitter feed, for regular updates of the experiment.
*The extended versions. God Help Me!
We are totally remaking the wrong movies. People cry and complain about remakes and sequels and the lack of originality in Hollywood. But when you remake crap, you can expect glossy crap with better computer graphics. When you are remaking cheesy cartoons from the eighties or turning boardgames into feature length films, you’re going to end up with crap.
Here’s a list of the movies we should be remaking instead:
Wizard of Oz One of the greatest movies of all time. But we can all agree that it could do with some changes. Highlights of the remake will include: CGI flying monkeys, all played by Andy Serkis; Peter Dinklage as a munchkin; and a new script that’s more faithful to the original material. To be directed by Tim Burton.
Citizen Cane Possibly THE greatest movie of all time, but it’s interminable watching it now. The remake will obviously need a few set pieces, one involving a gunfight while sledding down the Alps on Rosebud, and another that’s a climactic kung fu faceoff between Charles Foster Kane and Governor Gettys. To be directed by Christopher Nolan.
Casablanca One of cinema’s greatest love stories. What better vehicle to bring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks back together. Of course we’re going to have to change the ending. To be directed by Nora Ephron.
Avatar If we’re talking remakes, why not start with the highest grossing movie of all time. In the intervening years since its release, there have been huge advances in the computer graphics industry. The best part is, we can get all the actors to reprise their original roles. To be directed by Brett Ratner.
Star Wars It’s easy to see where George Lucas went wrong. Rather than sticking with a formula that worked the first time, he tried to make new movies. Obviously Lucas should have simply remade the originals. He’s already had a lot of practice, with all the reissues, including the recent Bluray edition. To be directed by George Lucas.
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Aesop wrote:
A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep’s clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.
Appearances are deceptive.
On the surface, Watchmen was everything fanboys and comic geeks could have hoped for. After the triple disasters of previous Alan Moore related projects (V for Vendetta, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), it was widely feared the movie version of Watchmen would bastardize the story. As it turns out however, Zack Snyder goes out of his way to faithfully reproduce the source material. Visually, they are virtually identical. Certainly, parts of the story had to be trimmed, even at three hours, but he still managed to keep nearly all the major story lines, maintain the same narration and pacing, and even exactly match many of the comic’s scene compositions.
Yet, for all that, I was strangely disturbed as I watched. Something just felt wrong.
You remember watching The Phantom Menace for the first time? In pretty much every quantifiable way, it was a Star Wars movie. The opening music. The crawl. The swipes. The sound effects and John Williams score. Yet the further in you got, the more your heart sank.
It was a Star Wars movie, yes, but slowly there was the horrible realization that this movie just was not very good. In fact, the prequels are not really movies at all, but elaborate video games. What else to call them? The pod racing or R2-D2 and C-3PO on the assembly line are not really cinema. George Lucas grafted together some of his old characters and some potential new toy lines onto a two hour X-Box session.
And it is the same feeling I get watching the string of musical biopics that have appeared recently. Movies like Ray and Walk The Line feature fantastic performances and classic music, but they fail as movies. Rather than tell a great story, they get stuck trying to cram in all the important events in a person’s life. Real life does not in general make a great movie. Contrast them with I’m Not There, a biography that uses a person’s life as a starting point and crafts an interesting, groundbreaking movie.
Watchmen, for all its visual glory, has made the same mistake. The first hour of the movie lacks any real tension, because they are too busy using the comic book as a story board. Rather than try to make a trailblazing movie to match the original’s legacy, the filmmakers just regurgitated the graphic novel. That story is meant to be read, it does not work as well as a movie without some serious refashioning.
It does not help that the performances are almost universally atrocious. But even if the casting director had done a better job, it would not have prevented Watchmen from being unmasked as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
We are irate with Wired Magazine right now. Normally one of our favorite magazines, they have failed miserably when it comes to to their list of the greatest science fiction movies of all time.
They have a comprehensive list of movies, but its lack of ordinals means that we have no actual context.
Imagine you are sitting around with friends, and the following conversation occurs:
“I’m in the mood for some science fiction.”
“Sounds good. What should we watch.”
“Nothing too awesome. But it needs to be mildly fantastic.”
“I agree. How about the 8th greatest science fiction movie of all time.”
Simple right? Except how are you supposed to know what the 8th greatest science fiction movie of all time is if magazines like Wired fail to inform you.
I have been forced to interrupt my list of the best webcomics in order to quickly rectify the situation. What follows are the 14 Greatest Science Fiction Movies In The Known Multiverse:
#14 The Road Warrior
With The Road Warrior at #14, we don’t have to wait to use the word dystopian.
#13 The Iron Giant
All of you who failed to see this in the theater, shame on you. It’s because of poor choices like this that we end up with Transformers II and G-Force 3-D (Just wait).
#12 Back To The Future
Does for time traveling what The Time Traveler’s Wife does for the spouses of time travelers.
#11 Aliens
Can anyone think of a better sequel in which a new director entered, transformed it according to his own personal vision, and then left the franchise to make the highest grossing movie of all time?
#10 2001: A Space Odyssey
The original was better, but Kubrick gets extra points for spawning the Macintosh commercial.
#9 Terminator
Featuring the first, and most certainly the best, of the Governator’s one-liners.
#8 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
I especially appreciate that Spielburg took the time to explain the title, in the title.
#7 Terminator 2
Some people like the original better. They are wrong.
#6 Blade Runner
I always found the most frightening part of Blade Runner the giant advertisements overlooking the city like the corporate eyes of Sauron. How sad that it would also be the most prescient.
#5 Alien
A Hitchcock homage set in outer space.
#4 The Matrix
For about a 6 week period, Keanu Reeves was actually considered cool.
#3 Return Of The Jedi
Just because the prequels sucked doesn’t mean the originals did too.
#2 Star Wars
It forever changed not only the genre of science fiction, but the entire movie industry. And like a true first love, we had our collective hearts broken in 1999.
#1 The Empire Strikes Back
Not just the greatest science fiction film, but the most fantabulous 124 minutes ever committed to celluloid.
Lyric Of The Day:
I look out of my window at night
I see the stars and I’m filled with fright
I got a feeling someone’s looking
It ain’t the aliens at the foot of my bed
It’s more the ale inside my head
I got a feeling something’s cooking
Science friction burns my fingers
Electricity still lingers
Hey put away that ray, how do you martians say
I love you
I read my comics from front to back
I’ll be ready for any attack
I got a feeling someone’s looking
“Science Friction”
-XTC
If you are a fan of science fiction, then you realize that we are headed towards a fully booted future.
Flash Gordon wore boots. Captain Kirk wore boots. Han Solo and Luke Skywalker both wore boots. Apparently, everyone is going to be wearing boots.
How is it that all these fashion prognosticators are so certain that future generations will decide that leather boots are the best fit for piloting star craft and fighting aliens?
I suppose because they are also the best fit for flying and fighting super villians.
@transnormalcy RT @AnnTran_: Every single person I know who is successful at what they do is successful because they love doing it-Joe PennaOptimized by SEO Ultimate
