Wicked93gs said:A few examples of GOOD science fiction.
3. Monsters
I read your whole post thinking you were talking about Monsters Inc.
Wicked93gs said:A few examples of GOOD science fiction.
3. Monsters
I read your whole post thinking you were talking about Monsters Inc.
Wicked93gs said:These are TERRIBLE science fiction movies:
1. Star Wars(any and all of them).
2. The Fifth Element.
3. Independence Day.
A few examples of GOOD science fiction.
1. District 9
2. Gataca
3. Monsters
I think the 5th Element was very enjoyable, showed a crapload of wicked talent (Gary Oldman, Chris Tucker, Ian Holm, and even Lee Evans). I thought it was great, and the story wasn't necessarily a regurgitated trope. I want to rewrite it for stage.
District 9 has a respectable place in sci-fi history, but I'm getting a little tired of being beaten over the head with the same message over and over. Granted, the anti-racism message is one that I think needs to be heard, but beating racists over the head with it disguised as aliens won't change their minds, and continually shoving it in the faces of people sensitive to the existence of racism is getting frustrating. Great message, needs to be heard, maybe not with EVERY sci-fi plot. Put it this way... it needs to be highlighted, but it's almost as if all these sci-fi plots all use racism as it's base conflict. I don't get the feeling that they are saying, "let's illuminate the race inequality we have," it's more like "well racism always makes a buck, so let's exploit it." It's the same reason that I don't like Elysium, even aside from the fact that Jodie Foster seems to have sold the last of her acting talent at a yard sale. (god she was terrible in that movie). It's also the reason I loved the latest reboot of Battlestar Galactica. It has the very human message of making a different flavor of people feel less-than, but it resolves, they don't beat you with it, they just show the conflict and then it resolves.
I enjoy the Star Trek franchise, mostly because I grew up with the characters. The TNG movies I think were the most entertaining. Crap movies overall, but I enjoy them as a fun sunday afternoon time waster. I find the new Chris Pine/Zach Quinto/Simon Pegg iteration to just be drunken frat boys who try to make you laugh while they save the universe.
But we TOTALLY agree on Independence Day. What a load of horse dung.
My faves:
Least faves:
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
District 9 gets somewhat of a pass on the heavyhandedness because it was made about South Africa in South Africa by a South African. If the US civil rights movement is recent history, apartheid is even more recent.
Agreed totally on Kubrick.
Wait, not even Dr. Strangelove?
He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
In reply to aircooled :
PRECIOUS
BODILY
FLUIDS
aircooled said:He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
And clearly he does not mean "2001: A Space Odyssey" which stands even today as one of the most significant films ever made.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
Its significant. Just like Citizen Kane. Neither were that good. Visually, they rank as some of the most important films of all time. But story? One is bland like dirt, and the other is blatant what-the-berkery?
Man, I hated District 9, I don't get the thrill at all.
1988RedT2 said:aircooled said:He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
And clearly he does not mean "2001: A Space Odyssey" which stands even today as one of the most significant films ever made.
2001 is a beautiful but crap movie made of a crap book.
And I don't care what anybody says, The Shining sucks as a move despite being a great book.
Duke said:In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
District 9 gets somewhat of a pass on the heavyhandedness because it was made about South Africa in South Africa by a South African. If the US civil rights movement is recent history, apartheid is even more recent.
I think it was also substantially different from typical "racism bad" movies, since they do a really good job of making the prawns ugly garbage creatures with as few redeeming features as possible to make it completely understandable why people would treat them like they do. They intentionally designed them to be revolting and offputting. Literally the exact opposite from Avatar where the Navi were designed to be as sexy and fubsy as possible.
I would not want to have one of them serving my food at a restaurant.
And then they made them sympathetic and showed how the exploitaition and mistreatment of disgusting, disdainful, and dangerous creatures is still wrong.
Duke said:In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
District 9 gets somewhat of a pass on the heavyhandedness because it was made about South Africa in South Africa by a South African. If the US civil rights movement is recent history, apartheid is even more recent.
Agreed totally on Kubrick.
Boom. Damn fine point.
aircooled said:He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
Does it make me a badder person if I say I haven't seen it yet? I can't pass judgement on a film I've yet to see.
Here's a weird series that's in a sci-fi setting but not really sci-fi : Ascension
If you haven't watched it, I recommend it
1988RedT2 said:aircooled said:He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
And clearly he does not mean "2001: A Space Odyssey" which stands even today as one of the most significant films ever made.
Significant, yes. But Kubrick has this way of taking 3 hours to tell a story that could have taken less than half the time. Full Metal Jacket was one of his shortest, and it still lost me with multiple 10 minute periods of drivel that does nothing to drive the story. I sat through it thinking about how spent the last 10 minutes listening to a drill sergeant screaming for so long that when we returned to the actual story I had to wake up and remember the plot that had been "drilled" out of my head.
Eyes Wide Shut - awful
Clockwork Orange - just capitalized on the popularity of Mescaline and LSD at the time
Lolita - as close as Kubrick could get to porn in the 60s
The Shining - quite possibly the worst since it paired Stephen King (the novelist who likes to punish you with 15 of its 17 chapters with abject boredom) with Kubrick (the director who likes to punish you with turning it into 3 hours of irrelevant drivel)... and yet it's about the only Kubrick I can watch without wishing for an industrial shop-vac to rip my eyes out of their sockets.
Kubrick thought his films were this deep-track, super-elite art pieces, but truth be told I find them to be the ravings of a man obsessed with trying to be Polanski. I envision Kubrick's bed comforter being like a kid's Spiderman bedclothes, but with pictures of Roman instead.
Another fave... Arrival... and not just because I'm secretly in love with Amy Adams. It was a fantastic time-bender that all got wrapped up with a cryptic resolution. berkeleying beautiful.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:aircooled said:He said "pretty much any" Kubrick.
Clearly he does not mean Dr. Strangelove, that would make him a bad person (and we know that is not true).
"The will be NO fighting in the war room!!!"
Does it make me a badder person if I say I haven't seen it yet? I can't pass judgement on a film I've yet to see.
No, just incomplete. I haven't seen it in a while. As I remember it is pretty long and probably slow by todays standards, but definitely hits the parody nail pretty good. I suspect Peter Sellers helps a loot of course (he is all over it).
Everyone with a political bone in their body needs to watch Dr Strangelove. I think I like Seller's German scientist best.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
I wonder how many people would have the historical background to "get" it, though, today.
There's a whole lot of cold war that might not resonate today, too.
Yeah, you may be right. It's definitely a product of its time, but realistically, political absurdity has remained pretty consistent throughout the years. You do need to know about the Nazis a bit to understand the Dr, but I suspect most have some basic level of that (but maybe not the fact that a lot of the best scientists in certain areas for a while, where German.)
A quick check says it is not available on any streaming services free. All will charge a rental. Amazon is the cheapest air $2.99. I am not sure you should trust Amazon though, I hear they are trying to corrupt our precious bodily fluids...
IMO, worthy of note: My elder son watched and discussed Dr. Strangelove in a history class at his high school during his senior year.
Anything Troma is amazing. /thread
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Wicked93gs said:These are TERRIBLE science fiction movies:
1. Star Wars(any and all of them).
2. The Fifth Element.
3. Independence Day.
A few examples of GOOD science fiction.
1. District 9
2. Gataca
3. Monsters
I think the 5th Element was very enjoyable, showed a crapload of wicked talent (Gary Oldman, Chris Tucker, Ian Holm, and even Lee Evans). I thought it was great, and the story wasn't necessarily a regurgitated trope. I want to rewrite it for stage.
District 9 has a respectable place in sci-fi history, but I'm getting a little tired of being beaten over the head with the same message over and over. Granted, the anti-racism message is one that I think needs to be heard, but beating racists over the head with it disguised as aliens won't change their minds, and continually shoving it in the faces of people sensitive to the existence of racism is getting frustrating. Great message, needs to be heard, maybe not with EVERY sci-fi plot. Put it this way... it needs to be highlighted, but it's almost as if all these sci-fi plots all use racism as it's base conflict. I don't get the feeling that they are saying, "let's illuminate the race inequality we have," it's more like "well racism always makes a buck, so let's exploit it." It's the same reason that I don't like Elysium, even aside from the fact that Jodie Foster seems to have sold the last of her acting talent at a yard sale. (god she was terrible in that movie). It's also the reason I loved the latest reboot of Battlestar Galactica. It has the very human message of making a different flavor of people feel less-than, but it resolves, they don't beat you with it, they just show the conflict and then it resolves.
I enjoy the Star Trek franchise, mostly because I grew up with the characters. The TNG movies I think were the most entertaining. Crap movies overall, but I enjoy them as a fun sunday afternoon time waster. I find the new Chris Pine/Zach Quinto/Simon Pegg iteration to just be drunken frat boys who try to make you laugh while they save the universe.
But we TOTALLY agree on Independence Day. What a load of horse dung.
My faves:
- Fifth Element
- Identity
- 21 Grams
- Sin City
- Brick
- Dangerous Liaisons (Mandarin version)
- Usual Suspects
- Big Fish
- Atonement
- Circle
Least faves:
- Back to the Future
- Beauty and the Beast (or any of those outdated tropes that depict toxic/unhealthy/unrealistic relationship dynamics)
- Cloud Atlas
- Pretty much any Kubrick
I want to clarify here that racism and xenophobia, while having the same root are not quite the same issue. I won't speak to the intentions of the makers of District 9, but what I took from it definitely tended toward xenophobia rather that racism since the aliens shared few characteristics with humanity overall(same for Monsters, Monsters was obviously about xenophobia and it would be hard to draw a racism parallel there. What I liked about Monsters is that the aliens were very much alien with our reaction to them being based on our own preconceptions) the aliens in District 9 were definitely alien in the fact that they were more like individualistic ants than humans(though maybe that was just something about caste I didn't think about, but I took it as a hive-mind thing).
As far as shows, I agree the new Battlestar Galactaca was good, which is quite a feat since shows have an even harder time not devolving into garbage. I thought the show Humans did a fairly good job as well in telling a story(although this particular story has been told in a number of different movies).
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Another fave... Arrival... and not just because I'm secretly in love with Amy Adams. It was a fantastic time-bender that all got wrapped up with a cryptic resolution. berkeleying beautiful.
That was a good movie. I quite enjoyed it.
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