Movies 2: Electric Boogaloo

Drunkalilly wrote:

As for Summer Wars, have I mentioned that here yet? It's from the director of Digimon The Movie, and is set in Ueda: the next town over from me, where Matt lives. We're definitely doing a podcast on it eventually!

Don't think so, but I'd definitely listen to that! Really liked it a lot. Link it up here when you do it.

Just finished rewatching The Terminator for the first time in over a decade.  And wow, my nostalgia actually stacked up.  

Seriously the movie stands up even today.  A few meh special effects here and there (mostly the full-body shots of the Terminator skeleton near the end), but otherwise visually damn solid stuff.  Sure enough practical effects and props >>>>>>>> cgi.  The factory sequence is still f***ing terrifying.

Pretty tightly written too.  No major issues with the script, and even some neat details like how it needs to be living tissue to time travel to tidy up why they could only send a terminator back.  

Speaking of which so many great details, like how Kyle is visibly left weak and in pain from the journey back in time from the machines time displacement machine vs the Terminator's obvious invulnerability.  Or how the terminator, when hijacking the truck, simply tells the codriver to get out rather than kill him because it's not mission related and quicker just to have him leave.   Little details like that may seem small, but it's the sort of thing that makes things believable.  

Now I'm even more excited to revisit T2 in a day or two.  If T1 aged this well. . .

The Summer Wars podcast is gonna be a while, as the area we wanted to visit and record in was pretty badly flood damaged
On the other hand, I recently re-watched and recorded a podcast on The Terminator, which remains one of the all-time greats.

For Hallowee, Rob and I watched


I never used to be all that interested in horror, but I'm getting more and more into it. Not slasher stuff and zombies, which I still find pretty boring, but creepy supernatural business. I'm loving reading Stephen King, Shen and I have been playing Project Zero and I always like learning about the creepy legends behind ghost Pokemon.

Ring is really bloody good. It has an excellently creepy and tense atmosphere, the characters act reasonably and the plot makes sense. What makes it so unique is that the entire film builds to one scare, with a constant build and release of tension. I'd love to have seen this without knowing the iconic scene in advance because it was seriously something special.

I also loved the surreal and creepy imagery in the video itself. You can easily see the line from that to modern creepypasta videos and stuff, with cursed youtube videos and game cartridges. Excellent stuff.

It also makes me kind of want to see the American one now, just to see if they pull it off. Somehow it just doesn't sound as good in my head when you replace Sadako with Samara . . .

On the other end of the spectrum, I watched (well, was made to watch) Carry On Screaming at Hallowe'en. I liked the puns, I didn't like the innuendo - so basically exactly what you'd expect my reaction to be. Overall, though, I'd just got LM3 and it felt, and feels, like one and a half hours of my life I'll never get back.

I've never seen a full Carry On movie, and I never intend to.

I did start my road to Episode IX by watching the Phantom Menace.

Honestly? I still kind of enjoy watching this one. The sword fights are fun, the pod race is great and I like Qui Gon - although I'd forgotten the extent to which he's the lead of this film. Crazy.

Watched Zombieland 2 a few weeks ago, which is more Zombieland that's either good or bad depending on your view.

This evening watched Terminator Dark Fate which is the third best Terminator movie but I still think Sarah Connor Chronicles is the best sequel to T2.

The Carry on Films are in general an embarrassment - having said that, I actually quite like Carry on Screaming!

So Judgement Day has finally passed. And you know something? The end of the sequel trilogy has brought something I never expected: relief. I'm glad it's over. I'm glad that it's finally unifying people under the "this trilogy was mishandled and a mess" banner. Even the media is seeing the writing on the wall (even if they have to use TLJ detractors as scapegoats rather than admit TLJ is what destroyed the trilogy.)

TRoS is what happens when your middle act of a trilogy derails all its characters, cuts off every single on-going storyline for subversion, and then bring in a guy infamous for being awful at closing out stories to clean up the mess. Maybe now we can begin rebuilding the franchise, starting with the Mandalorian as the foundation.

In other news I rewatched Spiderman Into the Spiderverse again the other day. Still awesome.

The lack of foresight or clear story to tell was there from TFA so give over on blaming TLJ exclusively!

Watched Jumanji The Next Level was good, and Rock etc do a great job of acting as who's meant to be in that body.

Spoiler:

Tonight saw Rise of Skywalker which I enjoyed more than the last film, still would be low in my Star Wars rank.

Spoiler:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

The lack of foresight or clear story to tell was there from TFA so give over on blaming TLJ exclusively!

The difference between the two films (because, yes, TFA is also an extremely mediocre film that is all style and nostalgia with zero substance) is that TFA could have had a good sequel made due to how open-ended it left things.  TLJ literally destroyed everything from both the OT and TFA to such a degree that, short of completely restarting the trilogy, there was no way to make a satisfying sequel to it.  

To put it simply every single thing wrong in TLJ is its own fault, not TFA's.  

So yes, TLJ deserves every bit of criticism it gets.  TFA was just typical modern hollywood at its lamest.  TLJ was franchise-killing (certainly trilogy-killing).  

But rest assured I could rip TFA apart just like I do TLJ.  It's just not remarkable enough to warrant the time.  TFA came from a place of sheer incompetence.  TLJ came from a place of malice.

And speaking of Ruse of Skywalker (leaving the typo in because frankly ruse sums up the entire trilogy rather nicely) you gotta love how the entire story of Star Wars now is about

Spoiler:

Should've just set the trilogy 100 years after the ot and kept the connections to a few easter-eggs.

PS: You now have the mental image of ugly Palpatine naked and having sex in your head.  



Enjoy!

Keep your deviantart search history to yourself, cheers.

Believe me I was much happier living in a worldline where the words "Palpatine" and "sex" didn't exist in any possible context relating to each other. Thanks JJ!

Gets even creepier when you realise the entire plot of Rise of Skywalker basically boils down to

Spoiler:

Brrr.

I saw me a Star War last night - it was an 11pm showing on my lonesome, which was somewhat surreal.

Anyway, some thoughts!

I actually quite liked it. Don't get me wrong, it's a mess in regards to pacing and I really don't like some of the decisions it made, but the good bits had me feeling great.

The Good:

The Bad:

The Ugly:

Altogether, decent movie. If I was to list the film in my preference from most to least favourite:

Empire
A New Hope
Return of the Jedi
The Force Awakens
Rogue One
The Rise of Skywalker
The Last Jedi
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

(Not seen Solo.)

I'll be honest, I really don't understand how people can enjoy this movie, or indeed the sequel triloy as a whole, on any level.  Normally I'm more a "like what you want" type (not to be confused with debating on assertions of quality, subjective taste is different from objective criticism), but with Rise of Palpatine I just don't get it.  

Yes, on the bare surface this movie is arguably better than Force Awakens and leagues better than Last Jedi.  But when you actually think about it for two seconds it's done something that The Last Jedi tried to do and only partially achieved.  The Rise of Skywalker has destroyed the heart of the franchise.

It's very simple so I'll keep things my version brief and explain in detail if requested.  The heart and soul of Star Wars is the original trilogy.  Everything good in the franchise originates from that.  That fantastical lightning-in-a-bottle trilogy of movies.  

So what has rise of palpatine done?  Oh, nothing much.  Only completely and irreparably destroyed the mythology of the franchise.  Nothing in the original trilogy mattered.  

Han?  Deadbeat loser and dies because of it.  
Leia?  Spends her life building something only to have it destroyed and die afterwards.  
Luke?  Failed to revive the Jedi and died a coward.  
Vader?  Sacrifices his life for nothing.
The Force?  Went from good magic defeating evil magic to a stupid yin-yang allegory where evil is inevitable and good is impossible to achieve longterm.  
The final battle of Endor?  Achieves literally nothing, not even the death of the Sith/Palpatine.  

Not even the sequels themselves were safe however, because now every single thing in the ST can be answered with three words: Palpatine did it.  How did he do it?  Who the fuck even knows, the writters sure as fuck don't.  Just sit back and enjoy all the pretty lights and don't think for two seconds about the plot, the world, the characters, or anything else.  

This isn't even the Skywalker Saga anymore.  It's the Palpatine saga.  Think on that for two seconds and tell me how that is supposed to be even remotely satisfying.  The Skywalker line is gone and Palpatine basically won.  

Like I said, with all of that in mind I just do not comprehend how people could actually like this trilogy.  An excellent point was raised on a podcast I was just listening to, this trilogy meshes so badly with the original trilogy and makes it so redundant that the sequel trilogy makes more sense ignoring the original trilogy entirely.  That is the worldline we live in now.  

And you know, I've said before (here or elsewhere I don't recall) that the sequels haven't hurt my love for the originals or Thrawn trilogy.  But at this point that'd be a lie.  So much damage has been done that not even headcannoning it out saves it.  The shadow of the sequel trilogy looms over everything, and by making a direct sequel to the OT there is no escaping it.  

42 years leads to this.  What an absolute farce.  This movie is the equivalent of if Endgame had ended with Captain Marvel beating Thanos.  

Wrote considerably more than I planned to, but honestly this needed to be said.  And now, unlike my birthdays on 2017 and 2015 where going to see Star Wars was a gift to myself I'm going to go off and try to pretend the franchise doesn't exist. I was even considering rewatching the ot, but now? Just go away Star Wars. Please.

Jay wrote:

(Not seen Solo.)

I think that's my favourite out of the new Star Wars films. (not seen skywalker yet)

The Last Jedi















All the other shite you nerds like

Solo was decent if extremely average. The big mac of star wars movies. Edible and tasty in a trashy forgettable sort of way.

Drunkalilly wrote:

The Last Jedi


All the other shite you nerds like

Considering how many things you like that I and everyone else around here like I guess that means you hate everything besides tlj eh.

My look back on the films I've seen in 2019

1st Joker, easily the best film I've seen all year
Avengers: Endgame
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Captain Marvel
Jumanji: The Next Level
Terminator: Dark Fate
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Zombieland: Double Tap
Shazam!
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
13th Hellboy, thirteenth is generous for this as it's real bad

I've seen several films that didn't come out this year this year, including Your Name, Summer Wars, and Spider-Verse. They're pretty much all better than the stuff I watched this year that came out this year.

Not Carry On Screaming though.

For me, Spider-Verse actually did come out this year. It was fun.

I think I saw that this year but is a 2018 film to the UK

I never ended up seeing Joker in the end - one for a rental, perhaps. I did laugh about the type of fans it attracted though (not you, Mas, natch) to the point that the gaming podcast I follow has a running bit about "ooh, Joker fans won't like that news" and stuff to that effect.

I've genuinely not seen a lot of movies this year in the cinema. I usually go to the cinema with my brother but he's buggered off to Glasgow and I didn't fancy trips by myself for the most part. Endgame was probably the best thing I saw this year - lived up to the hype and then some, which I can't really say in the same way about TROS. Spidey and Cap Marvel were both good too, of course.

JayMoyles wrote:

I never ended up seeing Joker in the end - one for a rental, perhaps. I did laugh about the type of fans it attracted though (not you, Mas, natch) to the point that the gaming podcast I follow has a running bit about "ooh, Joker fans won't like that news" and stuff to that effect.

White supremacist asshats I'm guessing?

Mostly ignored the movies this year.  But not entirely.  

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Great film.  Exquisite action and animation, and a half-decent story that reminded me there was a time when Dragon Ball actually did those.  The biggest surprise though was Broly himself.  I hated the old Broly, a big dumb monster who was evil because Goku cried as a baby.  This Broly however took the concept of a berserker and actually played it well.  Gone was the bloodlust and malice, instead we see a Saiyan that has all of his species blessings to the point of their being a curse, uncontrollable rage to the point of self-destruction.  

Like Beerus in Battle of Gods Broly was more an antagonist with some bits of nuance to him rather than an out-and-out villain.  Very refreshing, and led to some actual moments of genuine care.  

Avengers Endgame

Equal parts fantastic and awful.  Some great emotional payoffs and sendoffs, but they're marred by a story that is a complete and absolute mess.  Very much part of the "don't think just enjoy the mindless spectacle" wave overtaking blockbuster cinema, and indeed the movie gets worse the more you use your brain.  Objectively I'd give it a 4 out of 10, subjectively it gets a 7.  I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I'll bother rewatching it, or indeed the MCU as a saga.  

Spiderman Into the Spiderverse

A reminder that there is still hope for modern cinema to provide fun original cinema (and yes I know this is technically a 2018 film).  Stunning visuals, great cast, and a story that keeps things relatively simple to focus on the areas that matter.  Also Kingpin as a movie villain!  Never thought I'd see the day Official Best Spidey Villain got such an honour!    Hopefully they don't mess up the sequel.  Regardless we've at least got this absolute gem to enjoy.  

The Rise of Palpatine

Okay, this one also doesn't really count.  Extensive summaries, leaked clips, and of course following the copious amounts of leaks for months before release comprise my experience of the film.  Fool me once (TFA) shame on you.  Fool me twice (TLJ) shame on you.  Fool me thrice?  Heh, not happening.  I've already made my thoughts clear before, so I'll just keep it simple.  Throwing copious amounts of CGI at me and pacing your movie so fast I don't have time to think?  That trick doesn't work on me anymore.  

And that's it for me and movies in 2019.  Most of it was blatantly terrible, painfully average, or both while defecating on once-amazing franchises (looking at you Terminator Dark Fate and your apt title), but there was some good and greatness as well.  

As for Joker, I've not once seen actual white supremacists celebrate the film.  Methinks people are still buying into the media's claptrap where they decided to try and provoke the crazies to do a shooting or several.  Honestly the media's conduct left me utterly revolted.  

Psychiatric experts are constantly saying to stop glorifying shootings and violence of that nature, so what does the media do?  Spend months trying to instigate a shooting.  

That said I'll definitely be watching it.  But not for the infamy (the media doesn't have a clue what it's talking about when it comes to reviewing fiction).  Rather because it sounds like a well-constructed dramatic affair that dares to do something different with the IP it holds.