Stop Blowing My Mind!
- Thread starter MovieBob
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TRON will be awesome.
If it fails, I shall lock myself away from the rest of the non-geeky world.
Again.
If it fails, I shall lock myself away from the rest of the non-geeky world.
Again.
Don't even joke abouat Blindside..seriously it should worry the crap out of us as a society that stuff like that is part of our culture. And on the geeky movie side, I'm really surprised that you didn't mention stuff like Priest or Suckerpunch!
I've actually got my own term for the existence is conflict thing. I call it the 8 Bit Lifestyle. Viewing the world around you with the simple understanding that everything in it is likely trying to murder you. Sounds very paranoid when you sum it up like that, but at its heart, it's the same vibe, and in my mind at least, it fosters an appreciation for the small victories our lives are built out of.
Let's face it. I'm 27 years old. My generation didn't have a great war to fight. My generation is typically a pretty apathetic, refuse to get out of school and get a job, developmentally stunted bunch. Small victories are what we have to work with.
Which isn't a bad thing. Seeing the effect his Great War had on my grandfather, I think I'm ok skipping it. He himself said if my father had gotten drafted for Vietnam, he wasn't going to let it happen. Something about jungle wars.
Anyway, like I said, 8-bit lifestyle, I think there's something to embracing the natural conflict in interpersonal relationships within our society. I call it 8-bit lifestyle because if anyone else remembers 8bit NES games, Mario Bros, or that gen version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that's what they were like. You had ONE life, no continues, and every ninja, turtle, or blade of grass was hell bent on murdering you.
TMNT didn't count, because Donatello was the only useful one.
-Joey
-Thinking about the Blind Side 2 makes my head hurt.
Let's face it. I'm 27 years old. My generation didn't have a great war to fight. My generation is typically a pretty apathetic, refuse to get out of school and get a job, developmentally stunted bunch. Small victories are what we have to work with.
Which isn't a bad thing. Seeing the effect his Great War had on my grandfather, I think I'm ok skipping it. He himself said if my father had gotten drafted for Vietnam, he wasn't going to let it happen. Something about jungle wars.
Anyway, like I said, 8-bit lifestyle, I think there's something to embracing the natural conflict in interpersonal relationships within our society. I call it 8-bit lifestyle because if anyone else remembers 8bit NES games, Mario Bros, or that gen version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that's what they were like. You had ONE life, no continues, and every ninja, turtle, or blade of grass was hell bent on murdering you.
TMNT didn't count, because Donatello was the only useful one.
-Joey
-Thinking about the Blind Side 2 makes my head hurt.
"We all live our lives versus the world"? So the only way you could "win" once and for all is destroying the world? Oooooouch. What's next [small](and excuse me for invoking Godwin's Law here, but that's from my personal experience with cynics)[/small] - Nazis as the good guys? Trying to derive conclusions from someone else's logic is not healthy or pretty indeed.
I have never really understood all the fuss about "the impending end of geek films" Moviebob constantly brings up. Maybe because i'm more intrested in videogaming, and here everything is currently lost to gritty brown FPSes (i.e. it's already a mess that Bob dosen't want film industry to become). Or maybe because i'm more worried about the overall state of civilization, which could be better at the moment.
I have never really understood all the fuss about "the impending end of geek films" Moviebob constantly brings up. Maybe because i'm more intrested in videogaming, and here everything is currently lost to gritty brown FPSes (i.e. it's already a mess that Bob dosen't want film industry to become). Or maybe because i'm more worried about the overall state of civilization, which could be better at the moment.
I don't know why most critics (even the nerdy ones) consider Watchmen to be better than Dark Knight. I don't consider Zack Snyder'sWatchmen to be "much edgier" or "much more intelligent" than Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. The Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore certainly was, but the transition from page to film disolved most of the depth from the work.
Certain decisions were made, I don't know whether it was by the studio or director, and these decisions created a 'style-over-substance' superhero movie. The fight scenes were given the 90's era 'EXTREME' treatment, the 'sex scene' was enlarged while the 'impotence scene' was shortened (pun intended), additional dialogue was added that did not have any reason to be (it wasn't being used to cover the missing scenes), the pacing was destroyed (Moore's work had a tick-tick-tick 'countdown' feel as it led the reader towards impending annihilation), and the ending was altered (which I could understand if the movie had done the work of adding the emotional impact to the ending that the comic had mastered). I honestly don't know whether critics (especially the nerdy ones) are not also taking the excellent source material into account when they hurl praise at the feet of this movie.
Before I face the hordes of savage internet trolls that come to 'learn me gud' about why I'm wrong, let me request that everyone go back and reread the source material and take a good, hard, honest look at the movie. I would also like to add that while I enjoyed the graphic novel Watchmen and his run on Swamp Thing I am NOT a rabid Alan Moore fanboy who thinks that the author can do no wrong (I particularly thought that From Hell could have used quite a bit more polish). Was the Watchmen a bad movie? No, but it should have been more than what it was (and it wasn't the shining gem that some people think). When given a masterpiece, anyone should be able to make a decent adaptation out of it.
I hope that Movie Bob will one day astound us readers with a treatise on why Watchmen was better than Dark Knight and not just state that it is like it's an accepted fact. It could very well be that there are a few things about those movies that I hadn't considered.
Anyone have any ideas?
Certain decisions were made, I don't know whether it was by the studio or director, and these decisions created a 'style-over-substance' superhero movie. The fight scenes were given the 90's era 'EXTREME' treatment, the 'sex scene' was enlarged while the 'impotence scene' was shortened (pun intended), additional dialogue was added that did not have any reason to be (it wasn't being used to cover the missing scenes), the pacing was destroyed (Moore's work had a tick-tick-tick 'countdown' feel as it led the reader towards impending annihilation), and the ending was altered (which I could understand if the movie had done the work of adding the emotional impact to the ending that the comic had mastered). I honestly don't know whether critics (especially the nerdy ones) are not also taking the excellent source material into account when they hurl praise at the feet of this movie.
Before I face the hordes of savage internet trolls that come to 'learn me gud' about why I'm wrong, let me request that everyone go back and reread the source material and take a good, hard, honest look at the movie. I would also like to add that while I enjoyed the graphic novel Watchmen and his run on Swamp Thing I am NOT a rabid Alan Moore fanboy who thinks that the author can do no wrong (I particularly thought that From Hell could have used quite a bit more polish). Was the Watchmen a bad movie? No, but it should have been more than what it was (and it wasn't the shining gem that some people think). When given a masterpiece, anyone should be able to make a decent adaptation out of it.
I hope that Movie Bob will one day astound us readers with a treatise on why Watchmen was better than Dark Knight and not just state that it is like it's an accepted fact. It could very well be that there are a few things about those movies that I hadn't considered.
Anyone have any ideas?
You can have a go at the people getting annoyed at all the geekdom in Hollywood right now but dont forget, we are all doing it with crap like Twilight. The suites in Hollywood (God I sound like a proper hippie dick right now) apply that stupid chain logic to EVERYTHING!!! They see that Twilight and other preatty boy movies do well and so use that logic and BOOM another film with Robert Patison or Zack Efron.
Hollywood really needs to back off with the over promotion. All it does is cause hate. Im not saying Twilight and other such films are good (Im really, REALLY not) im just saying theres no need for the hatred as its just fan service for fan girls.
Hollywood really needs to back off with the over promotion. All it does is cause hate. Im not saying Twilight and other such films are good (Im really, REALLY not) im just saying theres no need for the hatred as its just fan service for fan girls.
I'm honestly getting a little tired of these funky geek movies.
Throwing in geek references in movies doesn't by definition make them good. And centering movies around 70's cult classics makes them just plain bad, Mr. Tarantino.
So I won't be mourning the apparent death of the geek movie.
Throwing in geek references in movies doesn't by definition make them good. And centering movies around 70's cult classics makes them just plain bad, Mr. Tarantino.
So I won't be mourning the apparent death of the geek movie.
Scott Pilgrim suffered from bad advertising, I thought it looked kinda childish at first and it wasn't until i read the reviews that it started to make sense. I mean how would hollywood market a protagonist whose main artistic triumph is being a bit of a dick at the start?
Like various indistries I'm now acting under the assumption that most people are idiots content to watch/play mass produced gruel.
Like various indistries I'm now acting under the assumption that most people are idiots content to watch/play mass produced gruel.
Truth: Most "geeky" movies utterly and completely fail at the Box Office, it's just that there are some exceptions to the rule that were insanely successful (mostly thanks to it's non geek factors), that Hollywood Producers misinterpreted as being a hint at what "the new thing" would be.
It's less that the "Public" is getting fed up by geeky movies, it's more like they had no real interest in "geeky things" to begin with. It's just that those who are interested in such movies begin to grow tired of it.
It's less that the "Public" is getting fed up by geeky movies, it's more like they had no real interest in "geeky things" to begin with. It's just that those who are interested in such movies begin to grow tired of it.
I would argue this is not so much the rise and decline of geek culture, but the rise and decline of comic book superhero culture. Science fiction, fantasy and horror have all been fairly successful genres of film and television since at least the 1950s, and especially since the mid-70s. They go through cycles of popularity and obscurity as well, but tend to bounce back in some way, even if it's a new subgenre. Inception is by any definition of the word, a science-fiction film, and it was immensely popular, and wasn't based on a comic book or video game. It's like Nolan made a cerebral sci-fi film of ideas from the 1970s, but with modern special effects and good acting.
The past 10-15 years have been the first real successful iteration of superhero stories in mainstream film after so many fits and starts. Partly because the technology is finally there to render them, and partly because filmmakers who grew up with them are now making movies. But it was going to end eventually, because superhero stories have limited appeal.
Why? Bob brought this up tangentially in one of his Game Overthinker videos, but basically comic books have been catering to the same 25-50 year old male demographic since the mid-80s, and indulging way too much in the "grim and gritty" anti-hero stories of the 1990s Dark Age. These are not how you cultivate the next generation of comic book fans. Luckily, the current and upcoming class of comics creators seem to get it, most recently and notoriously, Darwyn "stop catering to the perverted needs of 45 year old men" Cooke [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMZl0FJsx4], but also the Marvel Adventures line, the more recent DCU animated adaptations, and so on. So even if the current trend for capes peters out in the next year or so, hopefully we'll see it rise again in another decade when today's preteen fans become the media tastemakers.
The past 10-15 years have been the first real successful iteration of superhero stories in mainstream film after so many fits and starts. Partly because the technology is finally there to render them, and partly because filmmakers who grew up with them are now making movies. But it was going to end eventually, because superhero stories have limited appeal.
Why? Bob brought this up tangentially in one of his Game Overthinker videos, but basically comic books have been catering to the same 25-50 year old male demographic since the mid-80s, and indulging way too much in the "grim and gritty" anti-hero stories of the 1990s Dark Age. These are not how you cultivate the next generation of comic book fans. Luckily, the current and upcoming class of comics creators seem to get it, most recently and notoriously, Darwyn "stop catering to the perverted needs of 45 year old men" Cooke [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMZl0FJsx4], but also the Marvel Adventures line, the more recent DCU animated adaptations, and so on. So even if the current trend for capes peters out in the next year or so, hopefully we'll see it rise again in another decade when today's preteen fans become the media tastemakers.
You're confusing the movie Watchmen with the comic. The movie was not smarter than Dark Knight. As a touchstone, Inception is more cerebral than either.
Grindhouse failed because Deathproof sucked. Tarantino is only good when he reins in his self-indulgence.
Hopefully the geek boom will last long enough to get At the Mountains of Madness made. After I finally get a class-A Lovecraft story on the big screen, I'll be happy.
I lied. After Preacher and Dark Tower become movies, then I'll be satiated. The Invisibles is the definition of unfilmable.
Here's a prediction: Blood Meridian will be the best movie of 2011.
Grindhouse failed because Deathproof sucked. Tarantino is only good when he reins in his self-indulgence.
Hopefully the geek boom will last long enough to get At the Mountains of Madness made. After I finally get a class-A Lovecraft story on the big screen, I'll be happy.
I lied. After Preacher and Dark Tower become movies, then I'll be satiated. The Invisibles is the definition of unfilmable.
Here's a prediction: Blood Meridian will be the best movie of 2011.
Correction: Al Gore is not a science nerd. Nerds actually try to understand their passion whether it be comics, science, wargames, etc...
Al Gore has been good at hyping up something environmentalists have been trying to scare us with since glaciers failed to cover the earth in the '70s, and turning a profit doing it.
As for nerd/geek movies, Hollywood doesn't seem to understand the fanbase. Nerds and geeks are very passionate about their chosen subject and when you put them on an internet forum or in a convention hall it is very easy to overestimate interest in a given movie project. And to be honest coming in fifth at the box office is not a bad thing, it is just that Hollywood and other corporate types have apparently come to believe that anything less than being record setting first place at the box office showings are viewed as a failure.
Al Gore has been good at hyping up something environmentalists have been trying to scare us with since glaciers failed to cover the earth in the '70s, and turning a profit doing it.
As for nerd/geek movies, Hollywood doesn't seem to understand the fanbase. Nerds and geeks are very passionate about their chosen subject and when you put them on an internet forum or in a convention hall it is very easy to overestimate interest in a given movie project. And to be honest coming in fifth at the box office is not a bad thing, it is just that Hollywood and other corporate types have apparently come to believe that anything less than being record setting first place at the box office showings are viewed as a failure.
TRON would be a good litmus test for the strength of this Geek Age.
I have a feeling it won't be a complete box office smash
Plus i saw the original TRON when i was 10 and it blew my mind how awesome the graphics were. For the life of me i can't remember what actually was the plot, but man were those Lightcycles and floating gantry cranes Great!
I have a feeling it won't be a complete box office smash
Plus i saw the original TRON when i was 10 and it blew my mind how awesome the graphics were. For the life of me i can't remember what actually was the plot, but man were those Lightcycles and floating gantry cranes Great!
Y'know, I actually hope that the superhero movies die down a little. Sure, they're fun, but they're starting to feel similar to each other. They're great for a change of a pace, but I want Hollywood to stop doing this "me, too!" mentality of actually creating movies that people want to see. Wee need more movies like Inception to be filmed, and we're not going to get them when studios are churning out the same things again and again.
It's part of the reason why I don't go to the movies for live-action comedies anymore. Every premise just looks the damn same.
It's part of the reason why I don't go to the movies for live-action comedies anymore. Every premise just looks the damn same.
Well yeah, this is the nature of the entertainment industry, one kind of style has it's day in the sun and the over all mood shifts. I think we've at least got another couple of years of sheer Geek bliss in the cinema though.
Personally if it is starting to wain, I think, a second Tron, is a great way to cap it all off.
Personally if it is starting to wain, I think, a second Tron, is a great way to cap it all off.