Watched The Thing prequel thingy. It was adequate but unnecessary.
I mean, they really tried I guess? It was ok, but I never went back and watched it again. They did some good stuff (the fillings) but I have been thinking about going back and watching the John Carpenter one again though. We rented that one on Betamax back when it first came out and watched it during a sleepover, we had to watch spider head leap (crawl?) into action a few times.
I will say they really made a solid effort to explain a lot of the things we saw in the original, like split face, the ending (beginning), the slit throat etc.
I guess for me is who wanted any of that explained? Like really a big part of a prequel for me is "why?" and the answer is usually "no reason".
For me that's like every prequel. I remember once arguing about some prequel or other being shit and going "It should be good like ...." and then I realised I'm not sure I could name a good prequel. Do any really exist?
I guess at this point we've got Better Call Saul and I've heard that's good, so that's 1.....
Prometheus
Hard disagree.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
The handful of good prequel movies out there (ignoring the ones better classified as reboots, like Casino Royale, Batman Begins, the new Apes movies, the X-Men First Class movies) are the ones where their prequelness is subtle and not a main focus of the film.
For example, The Good The Bad and The Ugly is technically a prequel. So is Temple of Doom. Paranormal Activity 2 (the best of that series) has about ten minutes of prequel in it but it’s spiritually a remake. Ouija: Origins of Evil is way better than the original but it also doesn’t have much to do with setting that one up.
I’ve heard some people praise the Schrader version of the Exorcist prequel but I haven’t seen it.
Ultimately I don’t think the issue is necessarily that prequels are inherently hard to make well. There literally just haven’t been that many of them, and nearly all of them are franchise entries, which leads to either the “this is really more of a reboot” thing or just the same old problems any franchise sequel has of how to recreate whatever magic made the original work so well.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Looking at Wikipedia's list of movie prequels, I'm gonna have to say Godfather Part II is the only good one
Honorable mention to Minions and Monsters University tho
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
Man, The Lighthouse is chock a block with Willem Dafoe just Willem Dafoeing all over the place.
I feel like I'm not getting some of the symbolism or meaning behind some of the weird shit. It was very well crafted, but also kind of lost me there at the end. And also my internet went out about two minutes before the end, so I had to Google the ending. Doesn't look like I missed much of import.
It had markedly more mermaid vagina than I was expecting.
I give it 3.5 Willem Dafoes out of 5.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The Schrader Exorcist prequel is garb. Super dull.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
A buncha behind the scenes test footage from The Thing 2011 was found a couple years ago, testing out the original animatronics that got painted over with CGI.
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
I didn't mind the 2011 prequel of The Thing. It was inessential, but most movies are inessential, whatever. It was decent, I enjoyed it, I will never watch it again.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I never saw The Thing's prequel, i feel like it probably had a good enough cast, but yeah I think part of what makes the original movie is that it's also the early 80's setting so it feels like these guys are truly isolated. It had that almost Shining feel to it, because the remote location becomes a hellscape for the people stuck there. It has the feel of a movie made back then, where the acting wasn't over the top. The way the actors react to seeing shit go down reminds me of Jaws or Alien, they are just on point the whole time.
Even harder then naming a good prequel is naming one worth watching before the original
I don't watch enough movies to make an argument for them, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good prequel.
It isn't one you should play before the originals, but I'd argue that few to any prequels are ever designed to be.
Phantom Menace clearly expects everyone watching to know about the universe going in, it waits more than an hour before it addresses that these two monk guys have telekinesis and mind control powers, and never even calls lightsabers by their name. And it'd be hard to argue that a watch of the MCU should see you start with Captain America, then Captain Marvel, then Iron Man.
I just assume that the order things were made is the order they should be watched.
edit: 'isn't not'? I swear this is my first language.
Even harder then naming a good prequel is naming one worth watching before the original
I don't watch enough movies to make an argument for them, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good prequel.
It isn't not one you should play before the originals, but I'd argue that few to any prequels are ever designed to be.
Phantom Menace clearly expects everyone watching to know about the universe going in, it waits more than an hour before it addresses that these two monk guys have telekinesis and mind control powers, and never even calls lightsabers by their name.
I just assume that the order things were made is the order they should be watched.
Man, you're right. Anakin calls it a Laser Sword, doesn't he?
Even harder then naming a good prequel is naming one worth watching before the original
I don't watch enough movies to make an argument for them, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good prequel.
It isn't not one you should play before the originals, but I'd argue that few to any prequels are ever designed to be.
Phantom Menace clearly expects everyone watching to know about the universe going in, it waits more than an hour before it addresses that these two monk guys have telekinesis and mind control powers, and never even calls lightsabers by their name.
I just assume that the order things were made is the order they should be watched.
Man, you're right. Anakin calls it a Laser Sword, doesn't he?
I always find it funny when they do that, because of all the other properties that clearly want to say lightsaber, but have to use beam sword or laser rapier or energy blade, because they don't have the rights to the word. Star Wars does, but doesn't always want to use it.
Goddamn I did not like Prometheus. 1 and 2 were so good in wildly different directions. 3 went astray, but still had some very good moments (and some very bad ones). I think 4 had the basketball court scene and that was about it.
The only way I've found to wring any joy from Prometheus, and it is a scant supper at that, is to mentally adjust the plot such that the Weyland corporation is purposefully causing the expedition to fail by crewing it with the absolute worst, least-fit candidates possible for the mission while still looking at least mildly qualified on paper for insurance reasons and then watching what happens as a sort of black comedy.
Also, what's this about Temple of Doom being technically a prequel? It takes place before Raiders? I had no idea.
Even harder then naming a good prequel is naming one worth watching before the original
I don't watch enough movies to make an argument for them, but Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good prequel.
It isn't not one you should play before the originals, but I'd argue that few to any prequels are ever designed to be.
Phantom Menace clearly expects everyone watching to know about the universe going in, it waits more than an hour before it addresses that these two monk guys have telekinesis and mind control powers, and never even calls lightsabers by their name.
I just assume that the order things were made is the order they should be watched.
Man, you're right. Anakin calls it a Laser Sword, doesn't he?
And then Luke does in Last Jedi
Poetry
Anakin is a little kid who might not know the actual term and is just describing it as best he knows how, and Luke's line at that point in TLJ is just dripping with a ton of sarcasm. I think both occasions work in their contexts.
The only way I've found to wring any joy from Prometheus, and it is a scant supper at that, is to mentally adjust the plot such that the Weyland corporation is purposefully causing the expedition to fail by crewing it with the absolute worst, least-fit candidates possible for the mission while still looking at least mildly qualified on paper for insurance reasons and then watching what happens as a sort of black comedy.
Also, what's this about Temple of Doom being technically a prequel? It takes place before Raiders? I had no idea.
Yeah, ToD is a prequel. I didn’t realize that until long after I’d seen it many times. Before that, I’d also just kind of thought of Indy as similar to James Bond—this is his universe and here are some stories in it.
Watched The Thing prequel thingy. It was adequate but unnecessary.
I mean, they really tried I guess? It was ok, but I never went back and watched it again. They did some good stuff (the fillings) but I have been thinking about going back and watching the John Carpenter one again though. We rented that one on Betamax back when it first came out and watched it during a sleepover, we had to watch spider head leap (crawl?) into action a few times.
I will say they really made a solid effort to explain a lot of the things we saw in the original, like split face, the ending (beginning), the slit throat etc.
I guess for me is who wanted any of that explained? Like really a big part of a prequel for me is "why?" and the answer is usually "no reason".
For me that's like every prequel. I remember once arguing about some prequel or other being shit and going "It should be good like ...." and then I realised I'm not sure I could name a good prequel. Do any really exist?
I guess at this point we've got Better Call Saul and I've heard that's good, so that's 1.....
Indiana Jones and The Temple of doom...
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I liked Prometheus from the design of everything, it's a very pretty film. And I like the antagonist. But yeah, they over explain some things and left out the best part (the Jesus part) so it's only a 6.5/10 at best for me.
It comes across as a movie that feels like it has to explain the engineers and honestly, they should have deepened the mystery, not answered it
Oh god. The Prometheus chat. Every time it shows up in the movie thread, it's like a giant ouroboros circling around, rolling down a hill, easily avoided by diving perpendicular to its path of travel.
Oh god. The Prometheus chat. Every time it shows up in the movie thread, it's like a giant ouroboros circling around, rolling down a hill, easily avoided by diving perpendicular to its path of travel.
Yesssssssss...
Prequels: It's a lot like petting a space cobra, why would you even think about doing it?
Prometheus works so much better if you consider it to be its own thing and not tied to the Alien franchise.
I think it's a bad movie either way.
It's a bad movie with what would be a decent idea at it's core if it wasn't connected to Alien. Literally everything that connects it to Alien/Aliens makes the movie worse. And it's also just badly made.
But I think absent that there's a solid premise there that could have been executed well. The idea of going to meet your maker and finding out there is no grand purpose to your existence, that you are an accident or a discarded experiment or whatnot and that your creator is utterly indifferent to your existence or actively hostile to it. You tie that all together in the script with initially parallel stories about the creations that humanity brought along with them on the ship (ie - the android(s) and other such things, sentient and otherwise). We are to the androids we brought along as our creators are to us. Maybe throw in some backstories about shitty parents for the crew and milk that shit some more. Find a good specific anchor for these themes as you flesh it all out. There's lots of good possibility here.
Prometheus works so much better if you consider it to be its own thing and not tied to the Alien franchise.
I think it's a bad movie either way.
It's a bad movie with what would be a decent idea at it's core if it wasn't connected to Alien. Literally everything that connects it to Alien/Aliens makes the movie worse. And it's also just badly made.
But I think absent that there's a solid premise there that could have been executed well. The idea of going to meet your maker and finding out there is no grand purpose to your existence, that you are an accident or a discarded experiment or whatnot and that your creator is utterly indifferent to your existence or actively hostile to it. You tie that all together in the script with initially parallel stories about the creations that humanity brought along with them on the ship (ie - the android(s) and other such things, sentient and otherwise). We are to the androids we brought along as our creators are to us. Maybe throw in some backstories about shitty parents for the crew and milk that shit some more. Find a good specific anchor for these themes as you flesh it all out. There's lots of good possibility here.
And then, when confronted with their own meaninglessness and the failure of the gods they created in their heads to live up to the ideal, they can start some sort of club on the ship, maybe a club where they fight each other...
matt has a problem on
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
As part of my yearly Oscars binge, and having to do some work travel, I finally caught Joker It wasn't awful, I'd go so far as to say it was okay to goodish.
But, I am frankly stunned at all the praise this movie got. Not so much from the Internets, which is full of idiot fan boys, but from actual critics. Not only is it basically just a cribbing stuff off of a bunch of other much better movies, but it felt like the writers had, 15 random bullet points of social commentary they wanted to make, and were going to get them all in the film no matter how discordant they were.
When this microwave dinner of a movie wins Best Picture over Parasite, my resigned sigh will probably carry my soul out of my body with it.
I mean, the actual reviews of Joker were not great, just like Green Book. I'm pretty sure the nomination was for a similar reason of the voters feeling like they were being told not to watch it and as wealthy white men they'll be god damned if they'll let someone tell them what to do
I finally saw Midsommar and god damn that movie is distressing. Like, just still here being totally disturbed by the whole thing. It's been hard for me to articulate why, but I think that's because everything in that movie is designed to discomfit, but also entice. Just a phenomenally made film, and relentlessly chilling. I'm not going to watch Hereditary because it seems as though it will be more painful to watch and not much more rewarding as a film.
But damn.
One of those ones that just sticks with you.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Manhunt (Netflix) was refreshingly good, because it was John Woo just going back to his Hong Kong action roots, and since you can't really do that in Hong Kong movies anymore because commie scum, he just shifted filming to Japan. It really is a late 80's action movie only in a modern setting, in a country where the standard over-acting actually makes it feel more nostalgic, the perfect combination.
It's a loose remake of a 70's Japanese movie by the same name, which got famous in mainland China since it was shown in the country right after the country started allowing foreign stuff back in from the cultural revolution. This time we have hotshot chinese lawyer for japanese pharmaceutical company a day from leaving the company being framed for the murder of a hottie, becoming a fugitive, and then being chased by suave cool japanese detective. Interconnected is a widow of scientist from the pharma company and a duo of hitgirls and you have a nice setup for some gun-fu AND slinging katanas around, because every japanese home has a katana, a duh.
Woo is one of the only director who actually knows how to make slow-mo frames work, since he's gone back to a much more scattered editing that can only be done with action movies. You're being told the information for the fights or setup a little quicker so the action choreography doesn't suffer, and Woo's use of slow-mo doves is very classy in this film. You've got a classy Seadoo tokyo drift chase scene, a farm house shootout and cafe shootout, and the lead detective has that cocky cool borderline yakuza style that works even better with the bad engrish the film uses for the leads to communicate (it flips brazenly between japanese, mandarin, and english). Plus there's a scene where someone gets hit by a car and it's so well done I feel like it might have been a stunt gone wrong but they kept it in because it looks realistic.
I mean, the plots pretty standard in terms of fugitive teaming up to clear his name, with no real twists, but it makes more sense than Face/Off. In the final act there's a push more towards fist fights which feels bad but the film smartly returns to ptew ptews instead and all is right with the world. I'm now fully in on Japan just being the new place to film old school Hong Kong movies, it's actually the right blend of hammy acting and director freedom needed to fill that missing void in the genre. A solid good action movie that makes you remember The Killer and A Better Tomorrow, thumbs up.
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
I enjoyed Fassbender and Noomi Rapace in Prometheus. It's passable sci-fi with some entertaining performances. It suffers from the burden of expectation being connected to the Alien franchise (which produced one of the best films ever). It can be on my shelf and not in the trash.
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Remember: Video killed the radio star.
Hard disagree.
For example, The Good The Bad and The Ugly is technically a prequel. So is Temple of Doom. Paranormal Activity 2 (the best of that series) has about ten minutes of prequel in it but it’s spiritually a remake. Ouija: Origins of Evil is way better than the original but it also doesn’t have much to do with setting that one up.
I’ve heard some people praise the Schrader version of the Exorcist prequel but I haven’t seen it.
Ultimately I don’t think the issue is necessarily that prequels are inherently hard to make well. There literally just haven’t been that many of them, and nearly all of them are franchise entries, which leads to either the “this is really more of a reboot” thing or just the same old problems any franchise sequel has of how to recreate whatever magic made the original work so well.
Honorable mention to Minions and Monsters University tho
I feel like I'm not getting some of the symbolism or meaning behind some of the weird shit. It was very well crafted, but also kind of lost me there at the end. And also my internet went out about two minutes before the end, so I had to Google the ending. Doesn't look like I missed much of import.
I give it 3.5 Willem Dafoes out of 5.
There's some remarkably creepy shit in there.
It isn't one you should play before the originals, but I'd argue that few to any prequels are ever designed to be.
Phantom Menace clearly expects everyone watching to know about the universe going in, it waits more than an hour before it addresses that these two monk guys have telekinesis and mind control powers, and never even calls lightsabers by their name. And it'd be hard to argue that a watch of the MCU should see you start with Captain America, then Captain Marvel, then Iron Man.
I just assume that the order things were made is the order they should be watched.
edit: 'isn't not'? I swear this is my first language.
Rogue One is mostly well-regarded too.
And Kong: Skull Island.
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Man, you're right. Anakin calls it a Laser Sword, doesn't he?
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And then Luke does in Last Jedi
Poetry
The Godfather 2 is not a prequel imo. It's a sequel with flashbacks.
Also, what's this about Temple of Doom being technically a prequel? It takes place before Raiders? I had no idea.
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Anakin is a little kid who might not know the actual term and is just describing it as best he knows how, and Luke's line at that point in TLJ is just dripping with a ton of sarcasm. I think both occasions work in their contexts.
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Yeah, it's explicit about it when it gives its date at the start. It takes place in 1935, and the opening sequence of Raiders is in 1936.
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Yeah, ToD is a prequel. I didn’t realize that until long after I’d seen it many times. Before that, I’d also just kind of thought of Indy as similar to James Bond—this is his universe and here are some stories in it.
Indiana Jones and The Temple of doom...
pleasepaypreacher.net
I think it's a bad movie either way.
It comes across as a movie that feels like it has to explain the engineers and honestly, they should have deepened the mystery, not answered it
Just the one where one guy asks questions and the other guy looks increasingly more confused.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yesssssssss...
Prequels: It's a lot like petting a space cobra, why would you even think about doing it?
It's a bad movie with what would be a decent idea at it's core if it wasn't connected to Alien. Literally everything that connects it to Alien/Aliens makes the movie worse. And it's also just badly made.
But I think absent that there's a solid premise there that could have been executed well. The idea of going to meet your maker and finding out there is no grand purpose to your existence, that you are an accident or a discarded experiment or whatnot and that your creator is utterly indifferent to your existence or actively hostile to it. You tie that all together in the script with initially parallel stories about the creations that humanity brought along with them on the ship (ie - the android(s) and other such things, sentient and otherwise). We are to the androids we brought along as our creators are to us. Maybe throw in some backstories about shitty parents for the crew and milk that shit some more. Find a good specific anchor for these themes as you flesh it all out. There's lots of good possibility here.
And then, when confronted with their own meaninglessness and the failure of the gods they created in their heads to live up to the ideal, they can start some sort of club on the ship, maybe a club where they fight each other...
It’s a spreequel.
But, I am frankly stunned at all the praise this movie got. Not so much from the Internets, which is full of idiot fan boys, but from actual critics. Not only is it basically just a cribbing stuff off of a bunch of other much better movies, but it felt like the writers had, 15 random bullet points of social commentary they wanted to make, and were going to get them all in the film no matter how discordant they were.
When this microwave dinner of a movie wins Best Picture over Parasite, my resigned sigh will probably carry my soul out of my body with it.
But damn.
One of those ones that just sticks with you.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
It's a loose remake of a 70's Japanese movie by the same name, which got famous in mainland China since it was shown in the country right after the country started allowing foreign stuff back in from the cultural revolution. This time we have hotshot chinese lawyer for japanese pharmaceutical company a day from leaving the company being framed for the murder of a hottie, becoming a fugitive, and then being chased by suave cool japanese detective. Interconnected is a widow of scientist from the pharma company and a duo of hitgirls and you have a nice setup for some gun-fu AND slinging katanas around, because every japanese home has a katana, a duh.
Woo is one of the only director who actually knows how to make slow-mo frames work, since he's gone back to a much more scattered editing that can only be done with action movies. You're being told the information for the fights or setup a little quicker so the action choreography doesn't suffer, and Woo's use of slow-mo doves is very classy in this film. You've got a classy Seadoo tokyo drift chase scene, a farm house shootout and cafe shootout, and the lead detective has that cocky cool borderline yakuza style that works even better with the bad engrish the film uses for the leads to communicate (it flips brazenly between japanese, mandarin, and english). Plus there's a scene where someone gets hit by a car and it's so well done I feel like it might have been a stunt gone wrong but they kept it in because it looks realistic.
I mean, the plots pretty standard in terms of fugitive teaming up to clear his name, with no real twists, but it makes more sense than Face/Off. In the final act there's a push more towards fist fights which feels bad but the film smartly returns to ptew ptews instead and all is right with the world. I'm now fully in on Japan just being the new place to film old school Hong Kong movies, it's actually the right blend of hammy acting and director freedom needed to fill that missing void in the genre. A solid good action movie that makes you remember The Killer and A Better Tomorrow, thumbs up.
Covenant, however.... nuke it from orbit.
Dan Lin directed the Lethal Weapon TV series.
Danny Glover is currently 73.