starship troopers

Started by Jack, January 10, 2010, 07:38:35 PM

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CCC

#30
I don't mind being inspired by a films "awe" but 2001 leaves me thinking too much with too many questions then answers. Some questions are fine but i felt empty after the end of the film and none of the characters i felt for. Maybe Hal 9000, a computer of all things. A film that inspires with visuals is fine but if that all mostly of a film is then it is boring. A plot about the rise of man does nothing for me. It is basic at it's core unless you can through in some very cleaver smaller plot devices in between the larger picture but the film was nothing but the larger picture and some guys and a computer thrown in. At least in Avatar i felt for the characters to a point and what was happening around them. Was the film unique like 2001, no it was another Dances with Wolves with a exaggerated forest and colorful lifeforms and yes the effects are all it had going for it but it was a better film in the sense of characters and pace. It did not even need the battle at the end and it still would have been the same thing. The plot was very formulatic of course.

I love thinking films myself but when they leave based on a very simple plot outline and are left empty handed then no amount of visuals or camera work will ever rescue a film and i can say the same about Avatar as well. A good example of good film making is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Good plot that was well paced, characters that you felt for and grew with throughout the story arc and came to a fulfilling conclusion. In my personal opinion a far superior film then the others. I am one who dis-likes more movies then most people only because i feel there is always something missing, sure no film maker or writer is perfect but there are many clever elements that lacks in this industry.

TheBlackHole

What about Return of the Jedi?
They just issued a tornado warning and said to stay away from windows. Does that mean I can't use my computer?

Kadri

#32
I think one is art the other pop culture . Don't get me wrong i can not see films like 2001 and such all the time...mostly quit the other way around  :)
But directors like Cameron , Spielberg , Peter Jackson are more workman then artists .
For example maybe the most trying to do really good films is Spielberg .
But he has his limits. Private Ryan or Schindler's list are good films but he can not escape his popular limited aspects in those too.
He feels that he must stick his message in our eyes.
Maybe  because of this   Encounters of the Third Kind (Jaws too)  is one of his best.
Since there is no message in this film (if you try hard there is a message in every bad movie too)  .
Only humans who are searching for something . And this is good portrayed and acted .

No one of these are in the same league as Kubrick but he has his own faults. Mostly lifeles characters or too much stylistic.

I like  Kubrick . But then i have seen " The lord of the Rings" much further then 2001  :)  

Kadri.

Kadri

#33
Quote from: TheBlackHole on January 12, 2010, 09:53:17 PM
What about Return of the Jedi?

Lucas is the worst of all them . He is a worksman . Period . He has created a very limited universe and is milking it since 30 years.
See the films . 6 Films of them . How much of planets did you see in them? He is the capitalist side of Holywood .
And one of the guilty ones that we are seeing so much hyped trash now . Please don' say that i don' get it or such.
I have seen Star Wars more then maybe 40 ? 50? times. So much i loved it since i saw the İmp. Destroyer  coming from above...
No i can not defend it.

If wee see Avatar now it is his fault . The younger one in me is happy about this. But the intellectual  side...

Kadri.



Kadri

If anyone here says Transformers i will not say anything . But your film taste will not be considered much further by me  :)

Except you are under the age  of 20 ( i am most of the time too tolerant ) or so  ;)

Not that it matters on the internet but i feel better by saying so.

Kadri.

TheBlackHole

Quote from: Kadri on January 12, 2010, 10:12:26 PM
Lucas is the worst of all them . He is a worksman . Period . He has created a very limited universe and is milking it since 30 years.
See the films . 6 Films of them . How much of planets did you see in them? He is the capitalist side of Holywood .
...
I have seen Star Wars more then maybe 40 ? 50? times. So much i loved it since i saw the İmp. Destroyer  coming from above...
No i can not defend it.
1. >:(
2. >:(
3. He's milking a very limited universe? No he's not. Have you heard of the Expanded Universe?
4. I have seen all six. I've seen quite a variety of planets in them. There's a desert planet, at least 2 earthlike planets, 3 gas giants, an ice world, a volcanic planet, a swamp/rainforest one, a redwood forest moon, a jungle-ish moon, and a planet entirely covered in a city.
5. >:(
6. Yes, the Star Destroyer is cool.
7. >:(
8. You're blaming George Lucas for Avatar? Why?
They just issued a tornado warning and said to stay away from windows. Does that mean I can't use my computer?

Kadri

Please read this TheBlackHole .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_%28entertainment%29

And visual effects are more common as a selling point of films since Star Wars .
Of course it is not only his fault but he is one of the most that contributed to this.

Kadri.

Kadri

#37
If you don't mind long reading this is another take on the movie industry .

"Why Are Movies So Bad? or, The Numbers" from the year 1980

http://www.reel.com/content/reelimages/hollconf2001/kael_0905.html


Edit : TheBlackHole read the   " Cinematic influence "  section of this please :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV

Kadri.


Kadri


"Not long before she died, Pauline remarked to a friend, "When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture."
That's exactly the point. She and her foot soldiers won the battle but lost the war.
Mass taste has become acceptable taste, box-office receipts the ultimate measure of a film's worth.
The pop films Kael most loved, such as "Hud" (1963), if made today, would be considered art-house fare."

Wrote Paul Schrader about Pauline Kael .

Cheers.

Kadri.

CCC

Makes sense about the art vs pop culture. I for one am more interested in real artists then what society deems popular because most of what is stinks. Probably why people like me are outcasts and listens to ambient music.    ;D

I think Kubrick can point a camera, light a scene and get it right. The guy was a perfectionist much like Chaplin who i believe both would have contests on how may times a scene would be re-filmed.  ;D  Cameron for Avatar had an artistic vision even though his vision was greatly inspired by the world around him and the past. I can in that sense consider him an artist. For the others, i would say less so. What i like about Spielberg at least the way he used to be is he can take his actors and make them seem like ordinary people who are caught up in events bigger then themselves and react accordingly. Jackson is a workhorse indeed but who would have thought this is the guy that made Bad Taste.    ;D

Private Ryan or Schindler's List he felt very passionate about those due to the subject matter he deeply felt for. This is why he wanted those moments to impact the audience such as they did. Jaws was great and the only good one.   ;D

Kubrick was a filming genius in many ways but as said he does have limitations.

It has been a few years sense i had seen LOTR again. Not to big in the film like i used to be even though they are well made films but i think i tend to feel there is so much going on that is is hard to remember any memorable moments from any of the three films.

What worked for Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and some of Return of the Jedi is Lucas was held back from having absolute control of the production and that is a good thing to. He can not direct any actor no matter who they are. Case and point are all of the pre-equals. Star Wars was better acted by his direction in the distant past but not nearly as well as Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand for the others. Lucas however was heavily inspired by Flash Gordon, fairy tales and Akira Kurosawa and you see a lot of the all throughout the universe which is not a bad thing but i do also feel it is a limited universe and has been overdone. Did we need to know about Anakin's past and how the Empire came to power, not really. Best to leave some things alone. If more were to made anyways i think what would have made for better films would have been the Timothy Zahn books. Hollywood seems to have this obsession with pre-equals and re-makes. Why not move forward.

Star Wars worked well at the time it was released because Lucas was doing it at the right time when these types of productions were new, experimental and exciting that no one has ever seen before. Any other decade and Star Wars would probably not have been a success. Then let's have Star Trek TMP and Alien, Ridley Scott's play on the sci-fi film rise. What made Star Wars form additional ideas was not so much Lucas but the people who worked around him, the conceptual artists, matte painters, sculptors and so on. Lets not forget massive piles of RPG supplements and endless piles of novels. I don't think his material is anything revolutionary or vastly unique as was the youthful ''awe'' of the time of Star Wars' debut.

I think if done right films if this genre can be fun and intellectual but it seems very difficult to cleverly blend the two.


CCC

Oh, Starship Troopers.     ;D

"Kill Them All."

What Verhoven did was silly when this is the guy who did Robocop. A near future, gritty crime film whom i felt for Murphy AKA Robocop. Poor guy.    :(

Kadri

I think we are not so far from each other as it seemed in the first CCC  ;)

Kadri.

CCC

Quote from: Kadri on January 13, 2010, 01:41:17 AM
I think we are not so far from each other as it seemed in the first CCC  ;)

Kadri.

Well, one never knows.    ;)

Seth

hehehehe
what a serious talking about not so serious movies, guys ^^

Star Wars is fuckin' great (at least the first three movies) even if the story is old like litterature : the knight saving the princess...
great specail FX, great characters, great universe. you definitely can't say Lucas created a "small" universe. that is totally wrong. everything is precisely detailled in several books and all. I think it is a mistake to criticize Lucas' universe just because the guy made a lot of money with it ;)

2001 ? yeah... Kubrick... movie for intellectual brain perhaps... be honest, it is like a neverending day. You can take a nap and when you wake up, the movie is still on and nothing changed on the screen... you can say that it is about races, human kind and all... it is boring guys :D

Star Trek ? hahaha

Aliens ? yeaaaah the first was so gooood ! but... moving camera, shitty FX, and you could tell what is coming next during the movie... everything was very conventionnal after all... and the sequels were... so bad...


You keep talking seriously about a genre that i think is just for entertainment. come on Guys !!! Avatar has a story that a 4 child boy can create but it is very nice to watch.
tell me that you were bored during the movie !

Sci-Fi Movies are not for some intellectual brainstorming, they exist for you to have a good time. If you want some brainsdtorming, buy a science book.

And i really think Starship Troopers was a good one, joking about american society and sci-fi "serious" movies. but the book was far better of course.

CCC

#44
True but i enjoy being critical of everything, serious or not. I can even criticize a comedy like American Pie.  ;)  It helps my brain stay fresh but indeed i do understand some film is there merely for entertainment and i can understand that. I can laugh my butt off watching re-runs of Airplane II.    ;D

What books? Books that Lucas wrote? For me i have nothing against banking on ones success. More power to your capital i say. Small as in simplistic terms in my opinion but this does not have to be a entirely bad thing, i mean not everything has to be larger then life. I just want a good story. Star Wars is really for the kids. I still get a nostalgic felling for the originals but that is the kid in me but never in my adult side i would ever write like that. I'd prefer films that has more substance over style and has plot twists and false climaxes.

To be honest if i were a screen writer i'd write both family and gridy adult films. I still at 33 watch Donald Duck cartoons but also enjoy rated R stuff if well done.

Well, yeah 2001 is a boring plot, character and premise wise but visually it is fascinating.

Hey, i love The Wrath of Kahn. That was well made.

I like Aliens. Cameron's take was kick ass but i can understand it was less scary then the first. It had good characters as well. Hudson was bad, too bad he dies. Ridley Scott however is a darn good realist and a very good art director. I'd love to meet the man.

Sci-fi can be both entertaining and serious. You can have thought provoking stories that can be entertaining as well. Blade Runner, Close Encounters, Contact, West World, Soylent Green, Dune, i like both, a good balance between the two if done right. Avatar could have easily been the story a kid could write, i agree which is one of the reasons i did not like it. Visually it was grand but not very original with it's material and very simplistic overall. Hard-core sci-fi bores the heck out of me.

I suppose Starship Troopers could be looked at as satire. I had never thought of that if that was Verhoven's intent.