What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Django Unchained was better.....

That bad, eh?!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

The Hateful Eight (2015)

After the rather lovely opening, you suddenly realise you're watching one of his films. Then it's a case of deja vu all over again.......

Django Unchained was better.....

How does it compare to inglourious Basterds, a film I thought was overlong, self-indulgent, and plodding?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens this morning and was disappointed. It's – and I won't go into specifics – basically a rehash of A New Hope with a few plot points from Return of the Jedi thrown in. However, at least the dogfights were good and it was great to see a return to practical effects, prosthetics, puppets and real locations rather than something made in a green room and finished off on a computer.

J.J. Abrams had a chance to do something new and exciting with the franchise, but made one of the least original sci-fi movies in years.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens this morning and was disappointed. It's – and I won't go into specifics – basically a rehash of A New Hope with a few plot points from Return of the Jedi thrown in. However, at least the dogfights were good and it was great to see a return to practical effects, prosthetics, puppets and real locations rather than something made in a green room and finished off on a computer.

J.J. Abrams had a chance to do something new and exciting with the franchise, but made one of the least original sci-fi movies in years.

Personally in the case of Star Wars i don't think something new and original was necessary. In fact all anyone really wanted was more of the same which is exactly what JJ Abrams provided. George Lucas did something new and original with the prequels and they were rubbish.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Personally in the case of Star Wars i don't think something new and original was necessary. In fact all anyone really wanted was more of the same which is exactly what JJ Abrams provided. George Lucas did something new and original with the prequels and they were rubbish.

Not seen the film but your comment doesn't say much for fans of the series...clone bores!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Personally in the case of Star Wars i don't think something new and original was necessary. In fact all anyone really wanted was more of the same which is exactly what JJ Abrams provided. George Lucas did something new and original with the prequels and they were rubbish.

The prequels were also appallingly directed, written, and acted (the scripts were even worse than The Force Awakens, in which acting was dubious at best as well, though much better than the IKEA-standard levels of emotion personified by Hadyn Christensen), with an overreliance on CGI and actors responding to tennis balls on strings rather than other actors.

Like I said, it just felt like a retread of A New Hope, even down to characters reprising ones from the same situation in the first Star Wars film and the same scenario arising again. I'm no Star Wars fan, but surely it's a case of 'if you can't do something new, why do anything at all?' At least with the new Star Trek movies, they are vastly different to those from the late 1960s and 1970s.

[keirarts]

Ray harryhausen: Special effects titan

Affectionate look at the impact of Harryhausen's work on modern film-makers. Perhaps not enough time to go really into depth but then that would take something massive...

Cormans world

seaking of which, If the Harryhausen one could have been hours longer this one could arguably run world at war length if it really went into Cormans impact on modern cinema. Once again an affectionate look at one of Hollywood's true independents. At times even manages to be quite moving...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I'm no Star Wars fan

I think that sums it up perfectly.

Those that are fans seem more than happy with the new film though.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Like I said, it just felt like a retread of A New Hope, even down to characters reprising ones from the same situation in the first Star Wars film and the same scenario arising again. I'm no Star Wars fan, but surely it's a case of 'if you can't do something new, why do anything at all?' At least with the new Star Trek movies, they are vastly different to those from the late 1960s and 1970s.

I think the motives behind the latest star wars are this. Its not so much Sci-Fi as a fantasy picture with Sci-Fi trappings, certainly not hard science. The original star wars was a film that essentially took the common themes and tropes of all story telling from Joseph Campbell's the power of myth and fused it with the aesthetic of 40's serials. Essentially the same story is told over and over with different settings ect but essentially the same stories. What fans were upset by with the prequels is while this was still there to some degree it was bogged down with political discourse as if penned by a 15 year old that was stodgy and felt out of place in Star wars. Episode VII repeats the themes of Episode IV then diverges from them at several points. Firstly this is to reassure the fans that they are back in safe hands but also to set the stage for a story that may (hopefully) distance itself from the original series while staying thematically similar. Make no mistake this is being prepped as a franchise and I suspect that the revaltions are yet to come. Therefore I posit that this is a flawed film in some regards, however many of its flaws are also present in the Lucas originals (IV, V, VI) including characters that are more broad archetypes than rounded characters, slim A-B plotting to lead onto action set pieces, and a refusal to really explain anything in great depth. Therefore it lacks the great depth of works like solaris, in trade off for actually being watch-able, and perhaps lacks the Gravitas of Christopher Nolans Interstellar but at the same time isn't trying to fool the audience into thinking its hard science when it isn't.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by keirarts

I think the motives behind the latest star wars are this. Its not so much Sci-Fi as a fantasy picture with Sci-Fi trappings, certainly not hard science. The original star wars was a film that essentially took the common themes and tropes of all story telling from Joseph Campbell's the power of myth and fused it with the aesthetic of 40's serials. Essentially the same story is told over and over with different settings ect but essentially the same stories. What fans were upset by with the prequels is while this was still there to some degree it was bogged down with political discourse as if penned by a 15 year old that was stodgy and felt out of place in Star wars. Episode VII repeats the themes of Episode IV then diverges from them at several points. Firstly this is to reassure the fans that they are back in safe hands but also to set the stage for a story that may (hopefully) distance itself from the original series while staying thematically similar. Make no mistake this is being prepped as a franchise and I suspect that the revaltions are yet to come. Therefore I posit that this is a flawed film in some regards, however many of its flaws are also present in the Lucas originals (IV, V, VI) including characters that are more broad archetypes than rounded characters, slim A-B plotting to lead onto action set pieces, and a refusal to really explain anything in great depth. Therefore it lacks the great depth of works like solaris, in trade off for actually being watch-able, and perhaps lacks the Gravitas of Christopher Nolans Interstellar but at the same time isn't trying to fool the audience into thinking its hard science when it isn't.

That probably explains why I've never really been able to get into Star Wars! When I was younger, the films just didn't hold my interest enough for me to sit down and watch them on TV and, when I was older and getting into films more seriously, I found them juvenile when compared to more darker sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Soylent Green, Silent Running, Alien, and Solaris and thought the characters and cutting techniques 'borrowed' from Kurosawa's films (particularly The Hidden Fortress).