Movies are awesome

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andersonh1
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Spoilers below.










Dominic wrote: There is explication about how none of the dinos are pure-strain.
I caught that, and it's a good explanation. It's similar to Grant's line in JP3 about the creatures being "genetically modified theme park monsters and not dinosaurs".
However, I get the feeling that the woman killed by flying dinos was meant to be less sympathetic in early drafts.
She probably was, but her death was so drawn out and horrible that it makes her sympathetic.
Good self-commentary on the franchise, and action movies in general, with the discussions about upping the wow factor.

The subtle call-backs to the original movie's locations were a nice touch.
Agreed on both.
So much action/summer movie stupid.

-The park had been running smoothly for how many years and everybody gets stupid on the weekend that the kids show up? Really? The handlers cannot manage to cage a baby pig, and they are in charge of apex predators? The mcguffisaur's cage was that poorly designed, not even accounting for things the animal should have been predictably able to do?
Chris Pratt's character points out how poorly the Indominus has been raised and what's wrong with its cage. I think the problem lies with the secrecy under which the Indominus was developed and raised. Had Owen been in on it from the beginning, a lot of his socialization concerns and the cage design might well have been different. Let's give InGen and management credit for hiring Owen to keep the raptors under control, meaning they've learned a lot from the mistakes that Hammond made. Masrani didn't even know about the Indominus, and the first thing he did when he found out was call in the expert to evaluate.

Of course, the next thing I'd have done was to fire and prosecute the people who'd raised the dinosaur behind my back, if I was in charge. Maybe that was coming, if disaster hadn't struck. And of course he ought to have kept a closer eye on how his park was being run. And maybe there's where I might agree with you about Claire, who surely ought to have kept him apprised about the new dinosaur in the enclosure far away from the rest of the park. Business owners do delegate, and it's the responsibility of those under them to keep them in the picture, especially as a business gets larger and larger. So in that respect, she didn't do her job right. But she seems to have enjoyed being a number cruncher and little else, so that's where her mind was, and she did that well.

With regard to the disaster at the park, there's plenty of dialogue and on screen evidence that the staff and owners do a good job keeping things under control, and have done so for the decade that the park has been open. There's dialogue about a Pachy that's escaped, and the team moves in to subdue and capture it. Under normal circumstances, they've learned to run a safe park. The team that moves in to capture and subdue the Indominus are clearly organized and trained... they just don't understand what they're dealing with. The problem is the new, completely unknown killer dinosaur that has been bred that no one knows about or understands that throws the whole situation into chaos.

The "feral, unsocialized dinosaur" plotline was a part of the novel "Lost World" where Malcolm or whoever notes that the raptors have no parents to teach them, and so they run wild and don't act like normal predators. It's good to see that they're still finding ways to mine Crichton's books for ideas.
-Why exactly is the mcguffisaur's composition so classified that the park cannot even tells its game warden (the guy training the raptors) what it is made out of? Who the hell thought it was a good idea to mix the specific species that they did? (Oh, that composition explains everything about the monstrous dino. But, why would anybody make one, even when trying to up the "wow" factor?)
Some of the reasoning is easy to miss since it goes by in dialogue, but the Indominus was deliberately designed to be a killer. Claire belives it was all about the wow factor, but she didn't know about the behind the scenes military applications. Wu wasn't just designing it for Masrani. He was on Hoskins' payroll, and Hoskins was all about military applications. The implication being that Masrani would have shut down the project if he'd known about it, so they kept it secret from him.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Dominic »

She probably was, but her death was so drawn out and horrible that it makes her sympathetic
The guy at the comic shop pointed out
Spoiler
the same thing. Her death was messier than the obligatory bad guy's death.
That is partly
Spoiler
why I tend to think there were cut scenes or an earlier draft where she came across as worse.
Masrani didn't even know about the Indominus, and the first thing he did when he found out was call in the expert to evaluate.
Fair point.
Spoiler
His death was something of a shock. He was a sympathetic, comic relief, character. They typically make it through okay. Points for killing him, even if it was ruined by a toy package.
Some of the reasoning is easy to miss since it goes by in dialogue, but the Indominus was deliberately designed to be a killer. Claire belives it was all about the wow factor, but she didn't know about the behind the scenes military applications. Wu wasn't just designing it for Masrani. He was on Hoskins' payroll, and Hoskins was all about military applications. The implication being that Masrani would have shut down the project if he'd known about it, so they kept it secret from him.
Ah.
Spoiler
Hoskins and his crew were irksome.

They were nothing more than blood-drunk killers. Yeah, I disagree with the case for weaponizing animals. But, damn if the movie could have made a better case for something that we do anyway.
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Re: Movies are awesome

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Saw "Terminator: Genisys".

Mostly good, with some action movie dumb-assery. (It was less offensive in this regard than "Jurassic World". I actually recall "Winter Soldier" annoying me more. These problems are more or less balanced by some excellent casting, a good execution of the core premise and some good twists (one of which is revealed by the trailers).

Grade: B


Speculation about the next movie with spoilers for "Genisys":

One of the biggest unanswered questions in "Genisys" is
Spoiler
who sent the 1973 T-800 (Pops) back to protect Sarah Connor.
The answer is strongly implied on screen
Spoiler
during the flashback to Sarah's childhood.

Skynet sent the T-800.

Here is the reasoning:
Spoiler
In "Genisys", Skynet's plans require John Connor to exist and survive.


(Time travel in the "Terminator" franchise is messy, with or without multiversal bullshit theory. But, the franchise typically runs on pre-emptive or pro-active causality. So, bear with me.)
Spoiler
Skynet needs John Connor. But, presumably, Skynet cannot recall Terminators that have already been sent back in earlier movies. And, for the sake of keeping it simple, we can assume that time travellers are immune to changes caused to their native times.
Spoiler
It would make sense to send a T-800 back to protect and train Sarah Connor, thus making a viable John more likely (and available) 40-odd years later.

Here is the evidence on screen:
Spoiler
The 1973 T-800 knows an awful lot about the mechanics of time travel, including having the ability to build a time machine. But, even that T-800 does not know who sent it. Its only directive is to protect Sarah Connor.

During the flashback to Sarah's childhood, she describes the family cabin blowing up (presumably killing her mother). She is in a rowboat with her father at the time, and a T-1000 attacks them both. The T-1000 fails to kill Sarah (a 9 year old girl) on an open lake, allowing her to swim for the docks where she is saved by the 1973 T-800 (Pops). (The T-1000's inability to kill a 9-year old girl, despite having every advantage over her, is also suspicious. Even after a decade, it cannot kill a single target protected by a less advanced model of Terminator.)

When Pops picks up Sarah, he is carrying a rocket launcher. (Also, keep in mind that the T-1000 would likely favour close combat weapons and stolen side-arms, rather than planted explosives.)
-late edit: More thoughts about
Spoiler
who sent the 1973 T-800 back.
Spoiler
Along with the above, the 1973 consistently (if clumsily) tries to push Sarah Connor to "mate" with Kyle Reese, while testing Kyle (possbily to assess his fitness as a mate for Sarah.

The during the "family reunion" at the hospital, John's reaction is telling. After he recovers from the initial shock of seeing a worn down T-800. But, he seems to be realizing (if not planning) something when he muses "who sent you" about the 1973 T-800.
Last edited by Dominic on Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Movies are awesome

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I'm going to throw a classic movie review in here, both because I hadn't seen it since I was 14 and because it's my wife's favorite movie, so I sat down and watched it with her the other night and it was like watching the thing for the first time. I'm speaking of "Gone With the Wind", which many critics apparently count as one of the all-time greats. And I have to say, this was an epic movie back when they made big movies that felt vast in scope. I bought my wife the most recent blu-ray edition where they had gone back to the original film prints and done extensive restoration rather than just using some old print that's done the rounds a hundred times, and it definitely shows in the picture quality upgrade. The only downside is that matte paintings now look like matte paintings because the picture is so much clearer. I've seen the same "problem" on 1960s Doctor Who that's been restored for DVD. But it's worth it for the improved picture quality.

So, a few observations:
- the movie came out in 1939, and it depicts events during and after the Civil War. At the time, that was only about 75 years after that war had ended, meaning there were still people alive who remembered it. It also means that for those initial audiences, that war was only as distant a memory to them as World War 2 is to us today. It gives the whole thing an interesting perspective.
- The movie definitely romanticizes the old South. The horrors of the war and its aftermath are depicted in a pretty brutal way, but the cruelties of slavery are largely glossed over.
- After watching the first season of Adventures of Superman with George Reeves, I can't help but notice every scene he's in. He's one of Scarlett O'Hara's early suitors, and a very minor character, but every time he turns up I'm saying "Hey, that's Superman. With red hair. Cool." The character dies offscreen.
- Scarlett O'Hara is one of the most amazingly selfish and unlikable protagonists I've seen in a long time. She spends the whole movie pining for and chasing a married man, while being best friends with his wife. She twice marries men she doesn't love either to make someone else jealous or just for financial reasons (which may well be realistic for the time period). And after she marries Rhett Butler and has a child with him, she decides that she doesn't want any more children and so that means no more sex with the husband. Honestly, when Butler delivers the famous "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" at the end, my sympathies were entirely with him. Not that he didn't bring it on himself by chasing her, but still...
- The first half of the movie is the more interesting to me, with the Civil War taking center stage in the plot. This is the big historical epic that is really strong. The second half is mostly the story of Scarlett and Rhett, two badly damaged people who end up in a dysfunctional relationship and as such it gets very soap-operaish at times, though the actors manage to make the material work. Clark Gable in particular is very good.
- The cinematography in this movie is excellent. It's worth seeing for the visuals alone. The silhouette shots that bookend the movie come to mind, as does the scene where Scarlett enters a square filled with wounded Confederate soldiers lying in the red dirt, and the camera keeps pulling back for almost a full minute to show more and more of them, as far as the eye can see.
- My wife says what I always say about The Lord of the Rings: the book is better. I haven't read it, so I can't say. :)
- Olivia de Havilland... that is all. Vivien Leigh isn't too hard on the eyes either. Talk about some beautiful leading ladies... :mrgreen:
- Like anything from the time, the acting style is a lot more "stagey" than anything we see these days, so that takes some getting used to. I prefer more modern naturalistic acting, but that's not the way they did it back in the 30s.

I remember being very unimpressed by this movie when I was a teen. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit this time. And I imagine for audiences in 1939 who were used to black and white that this full color huge epic movie was an amazing sight. I'm not sure I'd have watched it if my wife hadn't talked me into it, but I'm glad I did.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Dominic »

That is one of those movies that I want to see because I want to say I saw it.


Back then, "big" movies were more rare, so the studios likely held them to a higher standard as part of justifying the relatively higher cost.
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Re: Movies are awesome

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This is my first post in this thread.

Gone With the Wind was filmed on my property, the condo complex I live in was part of the MGM backlot, the next complex over is named "Tara Hill" because it was where Tara was built for the film.


Saw Ant-Man on Monday, I'd give it a solid 7.5 out of 10, it was pretty good and had some unique touches other Marvel movies don't. The one area that slightly let me down was the villain, and only because he was inconsistent - at some points he was sympathetic, others he was maniacal, others he was justifiably angry, etc. - it turns out because they had him shoot scenes multiple ways intending to find the film in the edit when they didn't have a finished script, so he didn't know his character's final motivation. Oh, and for some reason they vastly underestimated the audience in a few parts, looping in wholly unnecessary extra dialogue to make sure the dumb dummies who didn't understand what a character who mastered shrinking and growing things
Spoiler
holding a tank keychain and a cut to a shot of a full-sized tank busting out of a wall with a giant keychain on its tail
meant. But Michael Douglas was good as an older Hank Pym, who let fear and doubt and anger and pain change who he was over the last 26 years, and timing was forcing him to take action. Paul Rudd was solid as Scott Lange and seemed intent on not staying in the film's way, he didn't try to force being the main star character and it almost felt like he could have gotten away with more. Evangeline Lilly as Hope Pym wasn't bad, but it took the mid-credits scene to complete her arc. The movie also was shockingly easy, it never felt rushed or slowed, it got away with everything it was attempting, and it knew to leave the audience at the 2 hour mark rather than overstay its welcome. And it looked really great, the visual effects got so much incredibly right despite the relatively smaller budget, a lot of thought was put into how it'd look to be that small - I'm not a fan of 3D, but the 5 minutes I saw in 3D last month were really good and the rest of the film would likely be just as good in 3D.
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Re: Movies are awesome

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JediTricks wrote:This is my first post in this thread.

Gone With the Wind was filmed on my property, the condo complex I live in was part of the MGM backlot, the next complex over is named "Tara Hill" because it was where Tara was built for the film.
Nice. I was fairly sure it wasn't actually shot on location in Georgia, though the way all the streets in Atlanta were red dirt/clay (which is EVERYWHERE around here) was a nice bit of authenticity.

Gone With the Wind is a movie that I think works because it's a blend of historical drama and dysfunctional romance. The characters wouldn't be as interesting to watch without the context of the war and how it affects them, and the movie might be a fairly typical period war movie without the relationship drama to liven things up. It's a good balance of both. It helps also that the war is shown to be devastating to the region. There isn't the rah-rah propoganda that you might see in a WW2 military film for example. It reminds me of Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart, if you've ever seen that movie.

And welcome to the thread!
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Re: Movies are awesome

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They probably brought in trucks of the actual authentic clay, Hollywood used to do weird stuff like that back in the day. It's what probably killed The Duke.


I'm fairly confident that while I've seen some Jimmy Stewart westerns, that's not among them.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Re: Movies are awesome

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JediTricks wrote:I'm fairly confident that while I've seen some Jimmy Stewart westerns, that's not among them.
Shenandoah isn't one of his westerns. It's the story of a family of which he is the head trying to stay neutral during the Civil War. Then his youngest son is mistaken for a Confederate soldier and captured, and he takes some of his sons out to find him, and all sorts of tragedies hit the family. I think James Best (Roscoe P Coltrane!) is in it as one of the soldiers the youngest son comes across. It's well worth seeing.
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Re: Movies are awesome

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I saw what it was about, but thought it took place in the west, my mistake.
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