Movies

[futon]

I liked R1 as well. It's battle scenes somewhat followed conventional battle dynamic.

The design of the battle scenes in the other new ones tried too hard to apply a spin of romanticism, artsy, symbolism on it so it felt distorted and too unnatural to what a battle dynamic is and I'm just left thinking about the emotion triggers the writers were aiming to hit rather than letting a battle be a battle.

[Yama]

7 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

As for 25 years ago, remember all the hubbub and fanfare over Ep1?  Now a new SW show comes out and you get a collective 'yawn' if you get anything at all.  The franchise used to be special...

Well yea but that pretty much ended with aforementioned Ep1 already...

Also it's not like everything produced in good old days was so great either.

 

[Yama]

7 hours ago, futon said:

I liked R1 as well. It's battle scenes somewhat followed conventional battle dynamic.

The design of the battle scenes in the other new ones tried too hard to apply a spin of romanticism, artsy, symbolism on it so it felt distorted and too unnatural to what a battle dynamic is and I'm just left thinking about the emotion triggers the writers were aiming to hit rather than letting a battle be a battle.

Yep, it's 'But it looks cool' factor. Though, Lucas was guilty of same, and especially Prequel Trilogy battles made no sense whatsoever.

8 hours ago, NickM said:

No, be assured you're not alone in liking Rogue One.  It's the only movie of the "new bunch" that's anywhere capturing the vibe of the OG trilogy. Every time it's on, I record it and watch it.  Ol' Gareth had a great eye for visuals and action.

Well, for me positive aspect of R1 is that it doesn't really feel like previous Star Wars movies, so it has 'fresh' feel. It's also much more serious in tone than any of the Main Sequence SW movies. While Sequel Trilogy was just repeating what OT did "but bigger". And PT was trying to repeat what OT did "but lamer" 

 

[Ssnake]

I, too, liked R1.

[NickM]

13 hours ago, futon said:

I liked R1 as well. It's battle scenes somewhat followed conventional battle dynamic.

The design of the battle scenes in the other new ones tried too hard to apply a spin of romanticism, artsy, symbolism on it so it felt distorted and too unnatural to what a battle dynamic is and I'm just left thinking about the emotion triggers the writers were aiming to hit rather than letting a battle be a battle.

 

I think I get your point! MANY SW fans talk about their favorite battle is the attack on Corusant by the Separatist Fleet at the beginning RotS, but I found it so 'busy' and confusing--too much going on to keep track of. Then it turned into a saber duel between Obi Wan and Anakin vs Dooku, while all hell is breaking loose outside. Meanwhile in R1, we have 3 decent battles: Saw Guerrera's Terrs vs the Imperials to loot the kyber crystals (an urban firefight in the crowded streets of a dusty desert city); The starfighter raid on Eadu (the starfighters flying thru the rain with their lights as they weaved thru the 'fjords' looked incredible) and of course the final battle over and on Scariff==it was easy to keep track of what was happening, so you could tell how the battle was doing-strike, react and counter react. Best of all, the last fight highlighted the nameless, faceless 'red shirts' on both sides who moved the plot forward, with actual tactics: Tell me those Xwings didn't engage in SEAD to make it easier for the Ywings to attack the platform and the star destroyers. Whoever choreographed those sequences put rather a decent amount of thought into them.

Edited August 24 by NickM

[futon]

9 hours ago, NickM said:

 

I think I get your point! MANY SW fans talk about their favorite battle is the attack on Corusant by the Separatist Fleet at the beginning RotS, but I found it so 'busy' and confusing--too much going on to keep track of. Then it turned into a saber duel between Obi Wan and Anakin vs Dooku, while all hell is breaking loose outside. Meanwhile in R1, we have 3 decent battles: Saw Guerrera's Terrs vs the Imperials to loot the kyber crystals (an urban firefight in the crowded streets of a dusty desert city); The starfighter raid on Eadu (the starfighters flying thru the rain with their lights as they weaved thru the 'fjords' looked incredible) and of course the final battle over and on Scariff==it was easy to keep track of what was happening, so you could tell how the battle was doing-strike, react and counter react. Best of all, the last fight highlighted the nameless, faceless 'red shirts' on both sides who moved the plot forward, with actual tactics: Tell me those Xwings didn't engage in SEAD to make it easier for the Ywings to attack the platform and the star destroyers. Whoever choreographed those sequences put rather a decent amount of thought into them.

Yeah, the opening battle in the RotS had no lead up also. Sometimes other movies open up like that. But without the leadup that sets up the objectives, the characters that participate, and some familiarity with the equipment beforehand, then the's no setup of expectations/speculations/interests in the participants that drives interest in the battle. Instead just trying to figure out whats going on. But I guess lots of people like the sense of chaos.

Yeah, exactly with the R1 battles.

[Ssnake]

12 hours ago, NickM said:

it was easy to keep track of what was happening, so you could tell how the battle was doing-strike, react and counter react.

This is one of my key criteria by which I judge the quality of war films. What at each party's aims? Is there a coherent description of how they'll get there? Is the audience oriented at any point where it's happening and to whom? What's the significance of the battle itself, why was it worth a film production?

(That can be, in the case of Hamburger Hill, to show the consequences of a purely attrition-based war strategy where the men fight about ground, but the generals do not, and what damage that creates on the morale level.)

Given the large number of war films, few pass this test and are good films at the same time.

[Yama]

18 hours ago, NickM said:

I think I get your point! MANY SW fans talk about their favorite battle is the attack on Corusant by the Separatist Fleet at the beginning RotS, but I found it so 'busy' and confusing--too much going on to keep track of. Then it turned into a saber duel between Obi Wan and Anakin vs Dooku, while all hell is breaking loose outside.

Ep3 opening is not even a proper 'battle', it's just background graphics for Anakin & Obi-Wan raid. We can't make out what happens and why, and I don't think film-makers even cared, it's just crap randomly blowing up. Only somewhat coherent battle in Prequels is the one in Naboo in Ep1, it's silly and stupid, but at least most of the time you can understand what happens and why.

And Sequel Trilogy battles are dumbed down to extreme degree, and most often are clumsily designed to give 'moments' for the characters as futon described, rather than provide some sort of illusion of actual military operation.

[Ssnake]

One thing bothering me resurfaced after rewatching R1. In the whole Star Wars universe, everybody has amazing passive language skills. There is no common language (except English for members of the human species and fish men, when recognizing traps). Everybody else grunts, howls, chirps, cackles, hisses, or creates any other kind of noise; they operate as military units in combat, and everybody understand anyone at any time.

I know, it's a show for kids, but unclear communication in combat usually comes a steep price.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There is only one explanation that springs to mind....

[Ssnake]

You know, I though about that, and how a Star Wars version might look like, some sort of an electronic earpiece. But nobody's wearing them. What's more, C3PO's one redeeming capability is being able to communicate "in more than 3 million galactic" languages and dialects. But you don't see them with the rebel alliance, anywhere, and hardly a second or third copy of Threepio in the whole series of films (if in disgustingly cheap chrome finish).

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, such a device would make 3CPO utterly irrelevant. Unless he is somehow like an information hub, handing out translations via wifi, but again, no discussion of that, or any technology evident to make it happen.

For me, this and other logic gaps are probably the best explanation of why Ive never been able to warm to star wars, whereas I could to Bladerunner or the first 2 Aliens films, or Soldier or Screamers. They were internally consistent and these arguments to some extent had been worked out. But after all, they were the adapted works of science fiction writers, whereas Lucas was apparently just making shit up on the fly. Which probably explains why he seemed to have run out of al ideas by he second film.

[Yama]

52 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

One thing bothering me resurfaced after rewatching R1. In the whole Star Wars universe, everybody has amazing passive language skills. There is no common language (except English for members of the human species and fish men, when recognizing traps). Everybody else grunts, howls, chirps, cackles, hisses, or creates any other kind of noise; they operate as military units in combat, and everybody understand anyone at any time.

I know, it's a show for kids, but unclear communication in combat usually comes a steep price.

I think most of the galaxy has passive understanding of wookie language as a result of natural selection. Not understanding what a wookie says increases the odds of having your arms ripped off, thus putting you into selective disadvantage.

[Ssnake]

But it's not limited to Wookie rage screams. All kinds of annoying critters without appreciable evolutionary selection value are being understood just as fine.

[Skywalkre]

Eh, speaking as an American (where learning a second language is rare) I just see multilingualism in SW as a natural byproduct of a less structured society with lots of species/languages intermixing.  You Europeans are far more likely to know multiple languages and for good reason.  Historically it was more common to pick up multiple languages.  SW is no different in this regard (and note all the SW characters who don't understand certain driods or foreign languages, hence why C-3PO has his place).

[NickM]

17 hours ago, Ssnake said:

You know, I though about that, and how a Star Wars version might look like, some sort of an electronic earpiece. But nobody's wearing them. What's more, C3PO's one redeeming capability is being able to communicate "in more than 3 million galactic" languages and dialects. But you don't see them with the rebel alliance, anywhere, and hardly a second or third copy of Threepio in the whole series of films (if in disgustingly cheap chrome finish).

 

My favorite space sim shooter, the Freespace franchise has the aliens we were first at war with, but then allied with have 'modulator device': we hear their 'actual' language but an AI Robotic English voice is superimposed over it.  And on some of the occasions, we fly as the aliens and have to interact with humans, the same happens except the 'Alien' language is some Latin language (Spanish? Portuguese?) with the AI English superimposed.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Astonished they allowed this post Hayes code...

 

[Ssnake]

Okay, watched Alien: Romulus last night. Wasn't as bad as I feared it might be. Wasn't "great!" either. Probably somewhere between Alien³ and Alien 4, which at least is a substantial step up from the Alien vs Predator and Prometheus junk we've been fed the last decades.

I'd say, it's a bit of a fan film. There's visual quotes from all the other films, there's story elements from them all, I don't think I recognized anyone from the cast from a previous film (but maybe that says more about me). Think of the Rogue One of the Alien franchise, except it doesn't plug an important hole in the story arc. It was as close to an artistic bankruptcy as you can get while still producing something passable.

[Yama]

This looks like it might be fun. Somewhat similar premise to 6th Day.

Moana 2 coming out in December:

Original did fine in theatres, didn't think it would warrant a sequel. But apparently it has been a hit in streaming services, and the songs are really popular. So why not. First one had great scenery and setting, but was somewhat thin on writing.

 

 

[Ssnake]

Been a bit on a Frankenheimer binge lately. The original Manchurian Candidate, well, I'm glad they remade it with Denzel Washington a decade ago, this hasn't aged too well. The rest though, still good. Grand Prix changed the way how car scenes were filmed forever. Ronin basically was a reprise of the lessons learned in Grand Prix, with, still, I think the best city car chase ever filmed. Black Sunday has aged, but still is worth watching.

Birdman of Alcatraz impressed me as a kid, haven't rewatched it yet, through. Haven't yet seen The Train, Seconds, nor Seven Days in May. There's more, but these seem to be the highlights of his work, and so far it's not a bad line-up.

[TrustMe]

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Been a bit on a Frankenheimer binge lately. The original Manchurian Candidate, well, I'm glad they remade it with Denzel Washington a decade ago, this hasn't aged too well. The rest though, still good. Grand Prix changed the way how car scenes were filmed forever. Ronin basically was a reprise of the lessons learned in Grand Prix, with, still, I think the best city car chase ever filmed. Black Sunday has aged, but still is worth watching.

Birdman of Alcatraz impressed me as a kid, haven't rewatched it yet, through. Haven't yet seen The Train, Seconds, nor Seven Days in May. There's more, but these seem to be the highlights of his work, and so far it's not a bad line-up.

 

The Train is a WW2 classic. The ending is great.

The Birdman of Alcatraz is another good Burt Lancaster one.

Ronin's car chase scene is not a good as Steve Mc Queens Bullitt car chase scene. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062765/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_bulli

Edited September 24 by TrustMe

[sunday]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

The Train is a WW2 classic. The ending is great.

One of the best railway-related movies ever.

[lucklucky]

Yeah, i prefer Bullitt too.

[TrustMe]

46 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

Yeah, i prefer Bullitt too.

There's no talking for about 10 minutes just the roar of engines   

 

 

 

 

[bojan]

8 hours ago, sunday said:

One of the best railway-related movies ever.

Emperor of the North Pole and Runaway Train