The Movie Thread Reloaded

[Omega]

Saw Shin Godzilla finally and hate to say it but Japan somehow made a stupider Godzilla movie than the two american ones combined. Even the one with the Zombie Ghost Godzilla was more entertaining and thought out than this.

[Pat]

Saw Shin Godzilla finally and hate to say it but Japan somehow made a stupider Godzilla movie than the two american ones combined. Even the one with the Zombie Ghost Godzilla was more entertaining and thought out than this.

I kind of liked Shin Godzilla. Though it's less a monster movie, and more a disaster response movie celebrating the bureaucracy.

Reminds me a lot of the anime Gate (rah-rah military), or How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom (which gets really bad).

[Omega]

I liked the Heisei era series. The SDF overall got their heads handed to them. But eventually got to the point they could just about break even and get him to go away for a while. Usually at great cost. They were also frequently stuck in a "lesser of two evils" conundrum and indirectly siding with Godzilla to deal with something potentially worse.
Then things go more or less back to heck with the Millennium set of movies and build up again.

[HappyDaze]

Anybody watch the first episode of Halo?

It wasn't bad, overall. They're doing their own thing with the lore.

Notes:

Five hundred years inna future, when we have FTL...colonists are still using modern day AKs and pickup trucks. Not "a futuristic take on an AK-47 and a pickup." Off the shelf stuff you can buy today.

The theme music sucked hard. Hard, hard, hard. "Hey, I know - let's take that iconic monk bit at the beginning, but fuck it up."

Covenant show up early, no grunts. The Elites looked okay to my eyes.

Master Chief and the other members of his team looked pretty good. He keeps his helmet on for most of the episode. I'm not happy with that and I'm less happy with the horseshit excuse Pablo Schreiber gave for it - "His helmet always had to come off for the audience to connect." Ass, no. Karl Urban made it work in Dredd, and Pedro Pascal made it work for a whole season in The Mandalorian and you know damned well how mindblowingly popular that was.

Cortana doesn't show up in this episode. She's mentioned once.

The plot wasn't bad. Acting wasn't awful. I'll watch episode two.

Something about the look didn't feel quite right to me. I can't explain it, but the people that were real looked like CGI and the CGI looked about the same. Maybe that's what they were going for--if you can't make the CGI look completely real, then make the completely real look indistinguishable from the CGI?

[Omega]

Why is it that the little miniseries that barely touches on Halo stuff till the last 2 episodes is more Halo than this Halo series???

[Trond]

Anybody watch the first episode of Halo?

It wasn't bad, overall. They're doing their own thing with the lore.

Something about the look didn't feel quite right to me. I can't explain it, but the people that were real looked like CGI and the CGI looked about the same. Maybe that's what they were going for--if you can't make the CGI look completely real, then make the completely real look indistinguishable from the CGI?

I just noticed fairly bad CGI in general. Fairly bad acting as well; this really struck me several times, so I wasn't impressed. Parts seemed like they were actually going for the computer game look intentionally. I don't think this will really work either; you might as well play the games if you want to see more of that. I know nothing about the Halo games though so....

[Ghostmaker]

Why is it that the little miniseries that barely touches on Halo stuff till the last 2 episodes is more Halo than this Halo series???

Are you referring to the webseries Forward Unto Dawn, which followed the military cadets?

[Omega]

Why is it that the little miniseries that barely touches on Halo stuff till the last 2 episodes is more Halo than this Halo series???

Are you referring to the webseries Forward Unto Dawn, which followed the military cadets?

Yes. Once the attack started it got pretty interesting. Brief, but interesting.

[Ghostmaker]

Why is it that the little miniseries that barely touches on Halo stuff till the last 2 episodes is more Halo than this Halo series???

Are you referring to the webseries Forward Unto Dawn, which followed the military cadets?

Yes. Once the attack started it got pretty interesting. Brief, but interesting.

What amused me about that series was that they either deliberately ignored, or missed, a vital aspect. The Corbulo Academy is named after Gnaeus Domitus Corbulo, a Roman general and brother in law to Caligula. The school's motto, 'Axios' (I am worthy) is invoked often.

What isn't brought up is that Corbulo died (by his own hand) because he got tangled up in political maneuvering (namely, two attempts to depose Nero). That was why he died; Nero decided he was too dangerous to keep around and had him commit suicide.

[Omega]

Who knows. They likely selected the name based on the fact was a general and possibly the motto. And anything else was irrelevant.

Usually these things happen just because the name sounds interesting or exotic.

[Lurkndog]

Speaking of older movies, I recently watched the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers again. I hadn't seen it in years and it was much better and scarier than I expected. Proof that re-makes don't always suck or just retread the same old story with different faces.

The 1970s Body Snatchers has its moments (like Kevin McCarthy's cameo), but it has the critical flaw that all of the characters are unlikeable San Franciscans. In the 1956 original, I liked the small town locals way more. Especially Dana Wynter.

[Lurkndog]

I watched the first episode of Marvel's Moon Knight series. Didn't like it. The problem is, as a viewer, and with a vague knowledge of the comic book, I figured out what was going on pretty much instantly. Unfortunately, the viewpoint character was clueless and useless the whole episode, and as a result I got really tired of him, and the storyline just went around in circles the whole time. 

I pretty much want Wu or Doctor Strange to show up, push loserboi's spirit out of Moon Knight's body, and send him straight to hell. (He doesn't have to suffer in hell, he can just work there and make everyone else suffer for eternity.)

[Omega]

Speaking of older movies, I recently watched the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers again. I hadn't seen it in years and it was much better and scarier than I expected. Proof that re-makes don't always suck or just retread the same old story with different faces.

The 1970s Body Snatchers has its moments (like Kevin McCarthy's cameo), but it has the critical flaw that all of the characters are unlikeable San Franciscans. In the 1956 original, I liked the small town locals way more. Especially Dana Wynter.

That was my problem with it as well when saw it at the Drive-In. The characters lack just about any points in their CHA scores. But then most characters in modern and post modern horror movies have an annoying tendency to.

[Omega]

I watched the first episode of Marvel's Moon Knight series. Didn't like it. The problem is, as a viewer, and with a vague knowledge of the comic book, I figured out what was going on pretty much instantly. Unfortunately, the viewpoint character was clueless and useless the whole episode, and as a result I got really tired of him, and the storyline just went around in circles the whole time. 

I collected Moon Knight for a good while when it came out and this just is not Moon Knight. But its Marc Spector himself they really screw up. So far it plays like they cribbed notes from the Fist of Khonshu arc and his later breakdown. And if the first episode and the writers and actors comments are any indicator. The focus is pushed more to this split personality gag than the superheroing.

[Lurkndog]

I collected Moon Knight for a good while when it came out and this just is not Moon Knight. But its Marc Spector himself they really screw up. So far it plays like they cribbed notes from the Fist of Khonshu arc and his later breakdown. And if the first episode and the writers and actors comments are any indicator. The focus is pushed more to this split personality gag than the superheroing.

Yeah, in the Moon Knight that I read, long ago, Moon Knight's gimmick was that he maintained a bunch of fake identities. He could go around as a cabbie, for instance, and get the "word on the street." Switching IDs also made him very difficult for the bad guys to track down. He wasn't crazy, though, just a master of disguise.