2013 in Film

[benji]

A lot of the film seems to be there on that justification. Which is odd because Abrams has been insistent he doesn't care about Trek fans and wanted to remake Star Wars, er I mean, "make films for everyone." And thus I could see value in remaking Wrath of Khan to be more accessible and with a modern budget, although not this soon but this is in many ways almost the opposite. All that included fan service is basically irrelevant and shoehorned in with no thought to it. So, like the first film with its needless ties to the original continuity (which introduces at least half the plot holes) you again wind up with a film that's both insufferable in its plot construction and utterly baffling in design.

Consider you don't know about Khan, then why is the reveal that Harrison is Khan any kind of shocking reveal? Isn't mystery terrorist John Harrison just as frighting? Notice that they bring back Old Spock not just for the fan service but to emphasize that Khan is bad because they never explain WHO Khan is and why he's got some SEKRET EVAL PLAN. (Which involves him magically teleporting to the Klingon homeworld to help start a war even though he wants to stop Marcus because...) You know despite Starfleet probably having a buttload of records about the Eugenics Wars and all. Plus Kirk even looks up something in the film, he didn't think to pull up Wikipedia again?

Spock's gambit with the torpedoes is maybe the best part in the film. And really the only aspect that comes close to TWOK since that film is all about trying to OUTSMART Khan, not OUTPUNCH him.

Oh, and Kirk telling Scotty to immediately stun Khan. Actually that entire section of the film (from Robocop telling Kirk he would have killed his entire crew anyway to when Spock detonates the torpedoes) is probably the best part of the Abramsverse so far except for the Old Spock shit. Spock should have just logic'd it out and prepped a contingency ala VI. That section is close to Bane's heist in TDKR as the "yesssss, we're so close here dopes why are you going to screw it up?" moment where I start to disbelieve and think they might accident themselves into a good [whatever the IP is] film and good film together.

This wasn't as bad as I expected, but also in someways even worse. (My spoilers are pretty spoiler but do explain why I hope if you've seen it.) Final Score: I'll say...three stars out of five. Or 9.5/10 on my upcoming video game review site scale. (9, 9.25, 9.5, 9.75, 10)

One weird part is that it comes in just a little over two hours, but unlike many other modern films that feels like they'll never end I wouldn't have minded another 15-20 minutes of this. Another weird part? TWOK is less than two hours long. (VI and First Contact are even shorter!) But it doesn't feel that way. Something something good scripting something something understanding pace.

If you aren't a Trek fan, and/or thought the first Abrams Trek was a four or five star (or think similar things for stuff like The Dark Knight), this is a four star at least. (And boy do I have a five star film for you with the same characters...)

And I should go back to bump my old stupid thread about film franchises to update the rankings.

Looking forward to Man of Steel in a couple weeks. I'm interested in how that plays out because Superman is such a difficult character to make emotionally relevant and after mainlining his pre-Flashpoint post-Infinite Crisis canon a couple months back I'm still sorta wondering how you can truly pull off such a thing especially without the context New Krypton lived on. Donner seemed to have some understanding of it, and despite the hate Returns gets now, I thought it had some useful components. The one thing is I don't think this needs to be the "Nolan" reboot, it should be the "Burton" reboot. Once you figure out the core character then everyone else can rip it off or toy with it.

I have some dumb ideas that I think would be pretty hot follow ups to this first one taken from a couple of the comic storylines. (I wouldn't resolve it at the end of the third part personally, but you could call Bale back up and rip off parts of The Dark Knight Returns along with other stories to tie the two together and send the Nolanverse off with a fifty billion dollar gross film. Then Warner could finally put their shit together for a Justice League one in a new universe ala Marvel's.)

[shadowgrin]

Since I had already read the plot from Wiki even before the movie was out thanks to some dope, I decided to read that link.

Hilarious.


My reaction was the same when I read the part where Kirk's hanging around the warp drive room up to the switcheroo.

[Lean]

I think it's pretty good. The Mandarin twist was quite nice but I hope the 'paid actor' gig was done in better taste. I don't know, I kinda felt the Mandarin character was put to waste. I kinda wished they'd stick with having the Mandarin as a terrorist.

Yeah i kept expecting the "actor" to be an act and Mandarin to actually be a terrorist just fucking with Tony Actually though, the further away I get from seeing it, the more I like Iron Man 3. It was what it needed to be and developed Tony's character more than the other two movies combined.

Plus the fact that there's this couple that talks about the movie as it happens made me not enjoy the film fully. Girl asks what's happening when Pepper fell to the explosion then the son-of-a-bitch replied "oh she's still alive because of Extremis" made me react and told them to shut up. It didn't stop them though.

[benji]

If you've seen "Into Darkness", see "Wrath of Khan" by any means necessary. Especially if you never have before.

Rewatching the latter again I cannot believe how amazing this film is.

It's almost American Psycho levels in terms of rewatch value. It's borderline perfect. I'm wanting to alter my rating seeing the actual comparison. Like holy shit Kirk makes the same offer to Marcus he does to Khan.

[benji]

Last Man of Steel trailer apparently:

phpBB [video]

Best by far.

[shadowgrin]

Perry Black!

[deihatein]

I]saw World War Z yesterday. It was enjoyable but not really different from all the Zombie stories that have been showing around lately.

From the title I expected it was going to be a film with a world war 2 setting. Guess you get something different if you don't watch the trailer.

[shadowgrin]

[Oznogrd]

Saw Lone Ranger recently?

Why is it getting slammed? Its literally Pirates again with an old West setting

[shadowgrin]

I'll probably see it just to relive a part of my childhood.
Lone Ranger videogame on the NES also taught me about poker.
Good times.

[Sauru]

this place needs way more movie based threads. Sauru demands more movie chat on the NLSC

[benji]

Why is it getting slammed? Its literally Pirates again with an old West setting

The last couple films in that series didn't exactly garner good reviews either...

Plus this one has been expected to bomb since it had production troubles and budget problems and got delayed like ten times. They spent close to $400 million expecting to make Pirates type money. Reviewers love to get out in front of existing narratives to show how smart and right they are.

[Sauru]

has anyone actually seen the movie? does it suck or is it a movie that bombed even though its fairly good? my guess is it sucks

[Oznogrd]

has anyone actually seen the movie? does it suck or is it a movie that bombed even though its fairly good? my guess is it sucks

I saw it with the g/f's family. Sure alot of it makes no sense, and no questions really get answered by the end of the flick but its the fucking Lone Ranger. Yes it's ridiculous. Yes it's over the top, but why would you expect different?

I stand by my original statement: Its literally Pirates in an old west setting without some of the great side characters. The only characters with any sort of interesting arc are Tonto and the Lone Ranger himself. Its a little slower paced than Pirates as there's not 1 amazing character (jack) and a set of not so amazing characters (Elizabeth/Will Turner) with different storylines that end up connecting.

I need to write the review for my blog still, been lazy lately.