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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 8, 2023 18:05:52 GMT -5
.. and the bar must be so, so low right now. The positive reviews are usually something like how it is only 90 minutes, good for kids, doesn't have overt political messages (Nintendo had to intervene to keep stuff on track apparently), and while those things are good, for that to be the new outstanding metric... weird. It is like a great restaurant review saying "their food is edible!"
I probably won't watch it. I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo, but not every great game means a great movie.
But, Disney is having a hard time right now. They've been going through Lucasfilm properties one by one and toasting them. Nothing in the Star Wars world has been holding anyone's interest. The latest Indiana Jones movie previews looked awful and laden with weird revisionist things (it appears that it involves a young woman who outsmarts Indy and has to save him from his dumb, old white male self, but that is just speculation). They've gone through several reshoots and screened multiple endings for test audiences and none of them liked any of them. That is part of why newer movies can be crazy expensive and still look so cheap, by the way - they finish it, realize they wrote a crap movie and have to reshoot stuff and per minute, reshoots are much more expensive. Creativity is nonexistent.
Some people smarter than me think this will kick off something like a "Nintendo Cinematic Universe". I wish them well, I just wish someone would make movies that weren't just pulling nostalgia strings. A Legend of Zelda movie is probably not going to be as interesting as we think, since as with Super Mario, the "story" is usually broad, generic strokes that allows a player to fill in the blanks themselves and with their own personality. It feels more interesting when you play it. Metroid started as an Alien copy but with exploration elements, that could conceivably be good, but who knows. The trend now is that if there are enough sci-fi world building cliches to play with, writers get distracted and forget to write a story. What else? Even games that had great story arcs won't be terribly interesting as movies.
I dunno. If the movies are halfway decent, maybe someone who works on them can go on and do something original and interesting, and any competition to Disney is probably a good thing for the industry as a whole.
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Post by Taildragger on Apr 8, 2023 19:20:03 GMT -5
Too old to have been "a gamer" as a yoot, so zero interest in such a movie on my part.
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krrf
Wholenote
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Post by krrf on Apr 9, 2023 6:38:07 GMT -5
The reason people are responding is due to the lack of "the message". This is another reason why Maverick made such big money. You can't hardly sit down to watch any show/movie without some political agenda being pushed on you (right or left). At this point I just want mindless entertainment that distracts me for a few hours, not something that tries to make me feel guilty.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 9, 2023 11:21:52 GMT -5
The reason people are responding is due to the lack of "the message". This is another reason why Maverick made such big money. You can't hardly sit down to watch any show/movie without some political agenda being pushed on you (right or left). At this point I just want mindless entertainment that distracts me for a few hours, not something that tries to make me feel guilty. It is fascinating how you can have a movie that doesn't seem to have all that interesting of a story or world, doesn't aim to be much more than a bunch of fun for kids under 10 with celebrity cameos, and simply removing "The Message" (which I always hear in my head with a Scottish accent) can raise the quality level so high. It sounds like Miyamoto (Mario creator at Nintendo) was involved, and he has never gotten too high on his own supply thinking the story is more than it is, so that probably helped a bit.
I've given this way, way too much thought in the past few years. It hasn't been immediately obvious why a movie can't have "The Message" and also be good. Sergei Eisenstein was making Soviet propaganda films, and they're considered some of the best movies ever made, or at least some of the most significant in the development of film. Surely movies with "The Message" can be in a movie while it is still an artistic success, like Battleship Potemkin?
The problem seems to be that "The Message" is never about reaching goals, it is about perpetual grievance. A clear sense of a successful message is impossible, it can only complain about the inadequacy of what came before and then there is a lack of ideas to put forward.
I posted a while back about a kick I was on with Korean dramas. The fact that these aren't being embraced by Hollywood proves the point, I think. Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a VERY likeable, accessible show about a young woman with autism at her first job out of law school at a major law firm. The show, from a craft perspective, is perfect. Likeable, believable characters, strong story arcs, world building, a clean pace that never feels slow, drawn out, or like there are plot holes, strong themes, thoughtful morals and messages, everything. In American political language, this is a show about the success and eventual acceptance of a neuro-divergent non-white woman. Wouldn't this be solid gold here? Not really. Critics here either just don't care about the show, or complain that "they should have hired a neuro-divergent actress", which is extra absurd if you watch the show and realize the actress they have is giving the best autistic character performance you'll probably ever see.
Another show I loved was Hotel del Luna... a very strange, mish-mash of genre, premise and world building. It is basically a gender swapped Beauty & The Beast set in Korea, so the "Beast" is played by a petite Korean pop star, with the stage name IU. They successfully make her a scary, intimidating figure for the first 5-6 episodes, with the man as the vulnerable one that has to be protected. Isn't this what Kathleen Kennedy has been trying to do? Have believably strong female characters? Her team SHOULD be ENTHRALLED with this show, watching it as a group and taking very careful notes. They should be flying out the writers from Seoul (a pair of sisters, so it is female written as well) with translators to ask them questions. As far as I can tell, no one here knows the show even exists, even though it is on Netflix and available to anyone who wants to watch.
Indian movies are the same - plenty of very strong women in those movies. If you want to see an adaptation of Taken (as in the famous Liam Neeson role) with the lead changed to an Indian woman, check out Mardaani. It is a far more interesting movie, with lots of themes about women and women's rights being explored that the original never touches... but not an easy watch.
Again, it is perpetual grievance. It is why Jennifer Lawrence insisted in an interview that there were no action roles for women prior to her in The Hunger Games. They don't want to bask in the success of the Alien franchise or Kill Bill... they just want to whine. If all they do is whine, they can't produce anything of value. That's my best hypothesis at this point, anyway.
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Post by tahitijack on Apr 9, 2023 11:38:03 GMT -5
AIR
Everyone seems to be talking about the expected blockbuster of this spring. Which about Nike putting all their chips on the table to sign Michael Jordan to a little shoe deal...and the rest is history as they say. Footnote to this movie is that MJ does not actually appear or have a role in the film. But his parents, especially his mother, do.
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Post by Mfitz804 on Apr 10, 2023 1:16:10 GMT -5
.. and the bar must be so, so low right now. The positive reviews are usually something like how it is only 90 minutes, good for kids, doesn't have overt political messages (Nintendo had to intervene to keep stuff on track apparently), and while those things are good, for that to be the new outstanding metric... weird. It is like a great restaurant review saying "their food is edible!"
I probably won't watch it. I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo, but not every great game means a great movie.
But, Disney is having a hard time right now. They've been going through Lucasfilm properties one by one and toasting them. Nothing in the Star Wars world has been holding anyone's interest. The latest Indiana Jones movie previews looked awful and laden with weird revisionist things (it appears that it involves a young woman who outsmarts Indy and has to save him from his dumb, old white male self, but that is just speculation). They've gone through several reshoots and screened multiple endings for test audiences and none of them liked any of them. That is part of why newer movies can be crazy expensive and still look so cheap, by the way - they finish it, realize they wrote a crap movie and have to reshoot stuff and per minute, reshoots are much more expensive. Creativity is nonexistent.
Some people smarter than me think this will kick off something like a "Nintendo Cinematic Universe". I wish them well, I just wish someone would make movies that weren't just pulling nostalgia strings. A Legend of Zelda movie is probably not going to be as interesting as we think, since as with Super Mario, the "story" is usually broad, generic strokes that allows a player to fill in the blanks themselves and with their own personality. It feels more interesting when you play it. Metroid started as an Alien copy but with exploration elements, that could conceivably be good, but who knows. The trend now is that if there are enough sci-fi world building cliches to play with, writers get distracted and forget to write a story. What else? Even games that had great story arcs won't be terribly interesting as movies.
I dunno. If the movies are halfway decent, maybe someone who works on them can go on and do something original and interesting, and any competition to Disney is probably a good thing for the industry as a whole.
I mean, the Mandolorian is hugely popular and The Last Jedi grossed over a billion dollars, so I’m not sure how accurate that is re: Star Wars. |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Apr 10, 2023 10:38:10 GMT -5
.. and the bar must be so, so low right now. The positive reviews are usually something like how it is only 90 minutes, good for kids, doesn't have overt political messages (Nintendo had to intervene to keep stuff on track apparently), and while those things are good, for that to be the new outstanding metric... weird. It is like a great restaurant review saying "their food is edible!"
I probably won't watch it. I have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo, but not every great game means a great movie.
But, Disney is having a hard time right now. They've been going through Lucasfilm properties one by one and toasting them. Nothing in the Star Wars world has been holding anyone's interest. The latest Indiana Jones movie previews looked awful and laden with weird revisionist things (it appears that it involves a young woman who outsmarts Indy and has to save him from his dumb, old white male self, but that is just speculation). They've gone through several reshoots and screened multiple endings for test audiences and none of them liked any of them. That is part of why newer movies can be crazy expensive and still look so cheap, by the way - they finish it, realize they wrote a crap movie and have to reshoot stuff and per minute, reshoots are much more expensive. Creativity is nonexistent.
Some people smarter than me think this will kick off something like a "Nintendo Cinematic Universe". I wish them well, I just wish someone would make movies that weren't just pulling nostalgia strings. A Legend of Zelda movie is probably not going to be as interesting as we think, since as with Super Mario, the "story" is usually broad, generic strokes that allows a player to fill in the blanks themselves and with their own personality. It feels more interesting when you play it. Metroid started as an Alien copy but with exploration elements, that could conceivably be good, but who knows. The trend now is that if there are enough sci-fi world building cliches to play with, writers get distracted and forget to write a story. What else? Even games that had great story arcs won't be terribly interesting as movies.
I dunno. If the movies are halfway decent, maybe someone who works on them can go on and do something original and interesting, and any competition to Disney is probably a good thing for the industry as a whole.
I mean, the Mandolorian is hugely popular and The Last Jedi grossed over a billion dollars, so I’m not sure how accurate that is re: Star Wars.
Compared to what has been spent and what reasonable expectations are, it kinda is. They've lost the engagement of fans, and a lot of people are either hate watching or just along for the ride. The sequels got less money progressively as they were released, the opposite direction you want to go. No one really cares about those characters, most hope they'll ret-con them out. We can make fun of angry nerds all we want, but ticking off your entire core fan base is not a good idea, especially since the entire point of beating old property dead horses is to cash in on a reliable, preexisting fan base that you know will turn out. They announced a return of Daisy Ridley as Rey, and it was received with more groans than cheers. The Mandalorian was pretty successful to start, but has jumped the shark and is dead in the water. Viewership numbers are way, way down. They recently had big cameos from Lizzo and Jack Black, and from what I hear it is approaching Star Wars Christmas Special level.
There were a lot of failed efforts, too. Rogue One was well liked, but Solo (the Han Solo origin story thing) was hated and lost money. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series was apparently awful and no one is talking about it, Andor was supposed to be great and no one likes that. Have you heard anyone say anything positive about Book of Boba Fett? They keep having fits and starts, announced projects that go no where, things like some sort of stand alone Lando Calrissian project no one wants to watch. As I mentioned, lots of stuff ends up with reshoots and going way over budget, and when revenue is really low from ticket sales, none of this bodes well. Indy 5 will have to gross close to $1B world wide for Disney to consider it profitable when it considers everything it has invested in it, but the latest trailer looks like it is going to be met with the same groans and gripes as anything else.
They lack so much direction for storytelling right now that hate watching is pretty much all they're going to get. Even with things like merchandising, you can tell that people are carefully choosing what they buy to get things that are pre-Disney (original Trilogy themed things, not stuff with Rey on it)... yeah, they're still making money, but it is going to tell you a lot about the spending habits of the fan base and what you can expect in the future. Some will hang on, some will tune in because they see the brand and expect something reliably entertaining, but that is going to go down and down as time goes on. The episodic movies benefited from the adrenaline rush of getting to see Star Wars on the big screen again and with the return of OT actors, but that ship has sailed. They aren't going to get that again.
Then, there was the Willow series. Writing and production of that was mostly lots of ego-drama and diversity ranting among the leadership, some capable adults were brought in as ringers to try to calm things and make things work, but they ended up having to be paid to stay at home because the most dramatic voices ended up winning the day. At the end of it, they never wrote anything remotely comprehensible, and the show was unwatchable... even critics who had to watch the show for their jobs couldn't finish it. They just watched a few episodes and had enough to go on to review it and moved on with life.
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