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jedimom
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1239 Posts |
 Posted - 09/22/2005 : 7:21:40 PM
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Can we count TV movies? Okay, thanks.
TONY HILLERMAN'S "SKINWALKERS"!!!!!
GodDAMN I hate the morons who butchered this story.
Great cast, more than adequate budget, quite competent producer (judging from her previous work)--and THIS is the best they can do???
Read the book, I implore you, and see how the scriptwriters removed everything that made it a great story, and added in random crap that completely screwed it up.
Also, minus the comments on cast and producer, the same goes for SciFi's "Earthsea".
"Oh, that is so lame! You will pay for your use of inappropriate dialogue!" --Mojo Jojo, "Power Prof" |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 7:51:25 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by dconner
As you say, the movie has other problems, but the latter two, I think, stem from making a defensible decision on the first, but then not thinking through all the logical ramifications.
As I understand it, Verhoeven considered and rejected power armor for aesthetic and/or dramatic reasons (and probably budgetary reasons, too.) Which, cool as Heinlein's power armor is, that's a defensible move. But... it has implications you need to deal with, but the movie doesn't:
1. If the humans are downgraded, you need to downgrade the bugs too. OK, here, they thought things through that much, at least. But... if the bugs are basically just dumb critters, how are they a serious threat to Earth? Um, because they can somehow launch extremely powerful and accurate interstellar farts....
2. One feature of Heinlein's MI is that it was really a combined-arms package in one weapon platform. The MI performs the usual infantry tasks, but also provides its own armor, artillery and air support (up to and including nuclear weapons.) If you're going to make the MI more like regular infantry, then they're going to need *some* sort of separate armor and artillery, maybe fine-tuned orbital bombardment, etc. If not, the tactics don't make any sense.
Ultimately, it's a fairly common problem with adaptation. There are often good dramatic reasons to change things, but frequently, if you change that one thing, it also means you need to change some dependent bits to make everything hang together.
Good points. Yeah, I heard that he didn't want the actors' faces covered by helmets (then of course he picks B-rate actors). The budget problems though don't make sense if you consider that having the armor means troops spread over much larger distances. What am I doing, I'm trying to think when Verhoeven obviously didn't. I just think that with some effort and ingenuity, a decent director and script writer could have overcome the difficulties and put together a film that had franchise written all over it.
For instance (sorry I can't stop), putting the actors in the armor gives you the opportunity to explore the isolation the individual soldier is going to feel.
The ROPe gives you three options, convert, submit, or die. There is a fourth, resist. |
Edited by - Terrahawk on 09/22/2005 7:53:57 PM |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 8:15:10 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by PaulaJohnson
It was kind of a "Hawk the Slayer" conundrum, though - great music, but it doesn't match anything, and what the hell is it doing in THIS movie?
**cough cough** Ladyhawke. |
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Marlowe
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
445 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 8:49:36 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by dconner
1. If the humans are downgraded, you need to downgrade the bugs too. OK, here, they thought things through that much, at least. But... if the bugs are basically just dumb critters, how are they a serious threat to Earth? Um, because they can somehow launch extremely powerful and accurate interstellar farts....
I think that's justifiable if you view the movie was as a satire of the fascist military state- the bugs aren't really a threat in the long run, and the humans are the ones who invaded their space in the first place, because in order for the military faction to keep their level of power, they need to have a constant enemy. It helps that it's an enemy no regular human can communicate directly with.
Obviously this a big departure from the book, and it's perfectly reasonable to criticzize Verhoeven for making the satire too subtle or inane, but I do think that there was some thought behind the decisions that veer from the source material. (I actually like the movie quite a bit, to be honest. But if you take it a straight action sci-fi flick, it is pretty darn stupid.)
http://www.badmovieplanet.com/duckspeaks |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 8:55:57 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Terrahawk
Yeah, I heard that he didn't want the actors' faces covered by helmets (then of course he picks B-rate actors).
I'd once heard this is the reason why lead characters in air combat movies do the majority of their flying with their masks off. The reasoning was divvied up between the vanities of the actors, and the belief that the audience wouldn't be able to tell the characters apart otherwise.
Since Starship Troopers came up, it occured to me there's no way Verhoeven couldn't have botched it. When you try to retell a story while changing around the plot's essential message and motivations of the characters, and basically throw out everything except the names and general course of events, you've practically guaranteed it'll be screwed up. Verhoeven's anti-war anti-fascism message was shallow and toothless to begin with, but putting it in the context of Heinlein's story of social responsibility adds incoherence to the package. (Check out the commentary if you ever see the DVD - half the time it seems Verhoeven himself can't remember what his point was from one scene to the next.)
Better to just build a new movie from scratch, especially since anyone who came to see a faithful adaptation is assured to leave the theater disappointed or angry, and everyone else won't care what it's based on, if anything.
I rather like Terrahawk's last suggestion. The book does touch a little on the cap trooper's sense of vulnerability as he drops in, then lands and typically finds himself miles away from his comrades, and in the case of the opening raid, hoping he can make it to retrieval before ending up stranded on a hostile alien world. Accenting something like that could put a slightly fresh take on the material, while keeping it consistent with the rest of the story and making it accessible to established fans of the title. |
Edited by - GalahadPC on 09/22/2005 9:05:29 PM |
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ELOrocks17
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
131 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 9:51:55 PM
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War of the worlds (2005)
Its pretty crappy when a movie about an alien invasion takes a back seat to a dysfunctional family and thier problems. Did Tom Cruise really have to throw that freekin peanut butter sandwich against the wall? |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2005 : 10:29:16 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by ELOrocks17
War of the worlds (2005)
Its pretty crappy when a movie about an alien invasion takes a back seat to a dysfunctional family and thier problems. Did Tom Cruise really have to throw that freekin peanut butter sandwich against the wall?
He wanted to jump on the couch, but Spielberg told him to rein it in.
I have a feeling Minority Report may end up going down as a botched job. Everything about it was well done, but it left me cold. I didn't buy its "pre-crime" scenario, it lost its nerve at the end, the unveiling of the real villain was something we'd all seen before.... Overall, [b]A.I.[/b[ was much better; at least it had the courage to follow through to its logical conclusion (which was pretty dark when you think about it). |
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 02:35:22 AM
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Plenty of good choices already covered so let me toss in a vote for the third act to the movie RANSOM. One of the best thrillers I'd ever seen until the obligatory (because Ron Howard simply cannot help himself) happy ending that wrapped everything up so nicely. The perfect ending to that film would have been Gary Sinise (the person actually responsible for the kidnapping) being hailed a hero for "thwarting" the kidnapping and taking the reward money offered to him by Mel Gibson's character while Gibson does get his son back but still ends up in jail for the white collar crimes he not only committed, but outright admitted to in front of an FBI agent. But no, Ron Howard needed a happy ending so instead we get that ridiculous showdown on the street complete with guys smashing through a window, and then as the ultimate insult, the FBI essentially pat Gibson on the back and let him off the hook. When I walked out of the theater after the film I felt not only cheated but insulted too. Really ticked me off.
Now Playing in Foyeurism at Schlocktoberfest.Com:
STEALTH BOMB - Wanna guess which summer blockbuster I blow out of the sky in this one?
Plus: B-WARE THE BLOG is alive at http://www.livejournal.com/users/foywonder |
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Victoria Silverwolf
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
80 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 03:37:19 AM
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The Made-For-PBS-But-Wound-Up-On-MST3K version of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
The same folks at PBS had made a darn good version of LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, so I was looking forward to their next effort at adapting some modern science fiction. Wow, did it go wrong. I believe it killed off the whole series of SF adaptations that were planned.
Reality is a crutch for people who can't face up to science fiction. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 07:02:33 AM
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| Ransom was a remake. Unfortunatly I've never seen the whole thing. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 07:13:33 AM
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There was a spy movie in the mid Sixties (I tuned in late and don't know the title) where the British Secret Service con an ex-sniper into killing a Russian scientist. They CLAIM that it's too risky to use a regular agent because he would be spotted, but they come up with a complicated plot that involved a couple of DOZEN of agents! And the plot itself is so convoluted that there are SO MANY ways in wich it could go wrong. One scene even has them trying to switch the shoulder-stocked pistol the sniper was supposed to use for a RIFLE. As if he wouldn't have noticed the diffrence and wondered what was going on!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Monkey
Archdeacon of Jabootu
Ireland
17 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 08:22:49 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by John Nowak
quote:
Originally posted by Monkey
Am I the only person in the world that enjoyed van helsing?
Yes.
Just kidding. What bothered me about the film was its relentless predictability. You watch it and forget it before you can leave the theater. There just wasn't anything clever or unexpected in it.
I can't argue with what you're saying. I think that before I saw the film my expectations had been set so low that I couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised. |
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tam1MI
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
558 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 1:40:30 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by zombiewhacker
quote:
Originally posted by PaulaJohnson
It was kind of a "Hawk the Slayer" conundrum, though - great music, but it doesn't match anything, and what the hell is it doing in THIS movie?
**cough cough** Ladyhawke.
Also **cough cough** Sheena. |
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jedimom
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1239 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 2:16:44 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Victoria Silverwolf
The same folks at PBS had made a darn good version of LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven,
Didn't they though? I loved that one. A great example of what can be done if you respect the material (and hire the author as creative consultant, and listen to her!).
And that was quite a difficult novel to adapt, because the plot involves reality changing retroactively several times!
"Oh, that is so lame! You will pay for your use of inappropriate dialogue!" --Mojo Jojo, "Power Prof" |
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John Nowak
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1017 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2005 : 6:52:38 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Monkey
I can't argue with what you're saying. I think that before I saw the film my expectations had been set so low that I couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised.
That's an excellent point. I think expectations have a much bigger effect on people than they usually admit.
I wonder if an advertising campaign claiming the movie is awful would lower expectations to the point where everyone who sees the film loves it, and word of mouth makes it a hit?
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We've always been united in stupidity. That's why there is no hope. But, then again, when has that ever stopped us?
-- hbrennan |
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