TF Views

Seriously, "Rise" is good. You should see it.


As for "Transformers", if the movie were played strictly from the human perspective, the TF motives would be less important.


Dom

Dominic wrote:Seriously, "Rise" is good. You should see it.

Depending on funding. I definitely intend to.

This has been a weird year for movies. There were so many months in the early part where my girlfriend and I would be out and go, "Man, I'd like to see a movie, but there's nothing good out." Then it's like May happened and it got warmer and suddenly there's two or three awesome things coming out every weekend. I still haven't seen Captain America.

As for "Transformers", if the movie were played strictly from the human perspective, the TF motives would be less important.

And I guess that might be part of my problem. I just don't really like the justification. "What are they after?" "Gold." "Why?" "Because." A simple "I don't know," would even be acceptable, or even listing off the utilitarian uses Sparky mentioned. "They use it to build parts of their spaceships." That'd be fine.

At one point during the movie, I'd theorized that the aliens were actually some kind of police force or something, and were using the gold as bait to catch the most greedy and assholish of the human race, which could similarly lead to a good philosophical debate. I dunno, I guess that's what I was looking for out of the movie--some kind of good allegory or metaphor to plug in there and make it feel like I learned something. Make a statement. As it is, all the movie seems to say is "Cowboys are awesome and could totally kill aliens."

I think I know why I'm being a stickler on this individual point, too. The trailers for the movie kind of paint it to be an Alien/Predator/Cloverfield kind of situation, where they're going to build up and build up and build up the actual appearance of the aliens until very nearly the end. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case...and it wasn't. The first bit plays out like that but then once we get a good look at one of the aliens, they start showing up in droves. And once you get to that level, I think you need to have something to push it over the edge at the end.

It sounds like I'm really railing against the movie but I'm not. The movie was actually everything I expected it to be right up until the last ten minutes or so. I was just expecting it to go somewhere further, take that one extra step.

You know what? A good example of this is The Time Machine. It wasn't the best movie in the world (and I guess it butchered the book to some degree) but its ending totally was what I was expecting. A real "Ed Norton was Tyler Durden the whole time" or "The dude he saw get shot was him from the future" moment. WE WERE THE ALIENS THE WHOLE TIME. Just something a little more subtle, I guess. I dunno, I'm rambling.

Loved "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Loved it. Of course, I'm a sucker for Planet of the Apes movies, and the fact that they can actually have apes that look like real apes now really helps sell 'em, I think. I agree with Dom, though, for an ape uprising, I really think the people involved got off light.

Also, that kid that played Draco in the Harry Potter movies is in this. You know, I'm sure he's not a bad dude at all in real life, but good god, he comes across as loathsome on screen. Has there been a movie where this kid hasn't been a gigantic douche?

Dominic wrote: -One guy sitting next to me *really* enjoyed a few scenes a little too much. He was laughing and laughing and laughing during the uprising scenes.

You'd have hated seeing this movie with me, then. I went with my girlfriend and a couple of our friends, and the other fella and I were just cracking up with excitement and pure joy at the scenes in which the apes were running riot. Why does this thing have to be fictional? We can't get a decent ape uprising for real?

Just so y'all know, when the apes take over, I will sell out humanity first chance I get.

Oh yeah, also: The aliens in Cowboys and Aliens want gold. Fair enough, there's plenty of reasons, as Sparky pointed out, that they could have for wanting it. I think a better question is, why go for it on an inhabited planet? I mean, they have spaceships, surely they could figure out spacesuits and mining equipment. I don't know for sure that there's gold on Mars, say, but it's gotta be more cost-effective for 'em to go looking rather than dick around with the Cowboys.

Of course, if they did that, there'd be no movie, so it's best that they don't. But dang.

The guy was *really* happy when Caesar rolled the punctured cannisters through the kennel area. He was similarly gleeful when the apes were pushing the bus along.


Dom
-wonders how that guy reacted when Sentinel Prime got shot in TF3.

I wanna see Rise of the Apes. I've always thought it would make an interesting movie to see how things went from humans running the planet to Apes. As for Cowboys and Aliens, I wanna see it, but I'll probably rent it. I wanna see Green Lantern and Captain America first.

And wow, they're actually trying to make a movie based on the Battleship board game? Great. Now we live in a world where a "Robot Chicken" sketch has become reality. What's next? A movie based on Clue.... Oh wait, nevermind. This is like that time that MAD magazine accurately predicted that Worf would wind up on Deep Space Nine.

Let's see... Last movie I saw was the last Potter movie. It was as epic as I expected it to be and I really think they did the series justice. They even did a good job of making everyone look older at the end.

Shockwave wrote: What's next? A movie based on Clue.... Oh wait, nevermind.

Yeah, but Clue's a fantastic movie. What amuses me to no end is that Russell Crowe movie that's Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots in everything but name.

Have I already mentioned that I really enjoyed the last Potter movie as well? Because I did, other than a few characters I really liked getting killed off. Dammit. I mean, not like they were gonna be showing up again in anything else, but still.

You mean that Hugh Jackman movie coming up?

Ooops. Yeah. Derp.

The one I mentioned above? Yeah, that's gonna be awesome. Real Steel it's called. October or so, so it doesn't conflict with Twilight or something.

Perhaps the aliens figured the best way to get gold would be to let someone else get it for them.

Onslaught Six wrote:But none of that's really gone into. Harrison Ford's character even points this out! "That's ridiculous. What are they gonna do with it? Buy something?"

Well you have to consider for the time period, Harrison Ford's character wouldn't know about many, if any, uses for gold beyond money and jewelry. So even if she did explain exactly what the aliens wanted it for, it probably would have been wasted.

I just wish it was explained a little more, is all. Even if the Exposition Girl outright said, "I don't know why they want it either, it's just really rare," then that would at least handwave it away. As it is, Exposition Girl is just very vague about it. (After all, the cowboys don't know all that about gold. They don't even have electricity.)

I can understand that, wanting more of an explanation. I think more than likely she was intentionally vague because she knew the cowboys wouldn't understand it so she didn't bother. Although I suppose she could have explained it anyway more so for the sake of the audience...