Another film fuck-up imminent...

[atomic charvel guy]

new movies with special effects take all the humanity out of them. i'm not into them.
i saw the original conan on opening day in nyc on mushrooms with a bunch of my friends, it was fantastic. the sound of music
would have been fantastic that day too, but Conan is one of my favorites, i mean , my first boner came from reading my brothers Conan
magazines. I owe the big guy, and i just may boycott this new version.

[Endrik]

I dunno, special effects have been in use for more than 100 years, basically since Georges Méliès created the first fiction/narrative films, most notable of course is "Le Voyage dans la Lune" made in 1902, the first sci-fi film..
CGI's problem is that its being used to replicate something authentic and it doesn't work. Basically it's animation. And there's nothing wrong with animation and there's nothing wrong when something doesn't look authentic, the problem is when it's used the wrong way.

Glamorized violence takes humanity out of films, for example most of the garbage that Robert Rodriguez produces, violence is portrayed in a cartoonish and hip way, a thug says something clever before shooting someone's brains out, just so the proletariat can laugh at it. But when you portray something graphically (usually made by directors who hate violence) then everyone starts whining because killing a lot of people is suppose to be fun.

[Nightbat]

Hollywood is all out of ideas and blaming piracy to cover for bad movies not making enough money

"Artists" my ass

[atomic charvel guy]

I dunno, special effects have been in use for more than 100 years, basically since Georges Méliès created the first fiction/narrative films, most notable of course is "Le Voyage dans la Lune" made in 1902, the first sci-fi film..
CGI's problem is that its being used to replicate something authentic and it doesn't work. Basically it's animation. And there's nothing wrong with animation and there's nothing wrong when something doesn't look authentic, the problem is when it's used the wrong way.

Glamorized violence takes humanity out of films, for example most of the garbage that Robert Rodriguez produces, violence is portrayed in a cartoonish and hip way, a thug says something clever before shooting someone's brains out, just so the proletariat can laugh at it. But when you portray something graphically (usually made by directors who hate violence) then everyone starts whining because killing a lot of people is suppose to be fun.

Endy,
when i am talking special effects, i'm talking about bruce willis jumping off a building , grabbing on to a helicoptor that just happened to be flying by, while he unloads bullets with one hand holding an Uzi, and holding on to the helicoptor with the other hand, of course never getting hit by any of the bullets being shot at him, and then he lets go, lands on top of a trailer truck on the freeway and gets away ending the scene with one of those stupid " I knew it was going to be one of these types of days today" haa haaa haaa haa haaaa from the crowd, makes my skin crawl.

[Flatpicker]

Sucker Punch was awful. A couple of 14 year olds were given daddy's chequebook to make a movie. It looked good, but beyond that, peh

Agreed,
And the thing with that was I wanted to like Sucker Punch. The concept was really unique.
It's looks gorgeous.

It's non-nonsensical...

[atomic charvel guy]

any of you guys see "Crank" that was pretty cool, jason statham has his moments.

[toejam]

Also just saw the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but then again, it might be just footage of the London riots, he he.

I saw Rise last weekend... it's really good. It's a prequel to the Tim Burton remake of POTA (which I thought was also pretty good), but Burton had nothing to do with this one.

I do agree, the new Conan looks horrible and I won't be seeing it. Maybe I'll watch it when it finally comes on TV or DVD...

[tomanyjacksons]

Conan should've been played by Conan O'Brien. LOL

[atomic charvel guy]

Conan should've been played by Conan O'Brien. LOL

yeah Conan the barhopper

[toejam]

Conan the librarian?

[Cliff]

I agree that remakes seem mostly pointless. I suspect in most cases the idea isn't to improve on the original, but rather to make more money out of a tried-and-tested idea. The recession has hit Hollywood too. I'm sure there are still plenty of people there with good ideas, but the people with the money are particularly conservative at the moment. Big special effects movies cost a lot of money, and they want to be sure they're going to see a return.
And it's true that most big special effects movies are really just live-action cartoons. So long as you don't take them too seriously, I think they can be enjoyable. It's rare that huge special effects budgets are spent on more serious movies, but I'd guess that's becayse the studios don't typically see that kind of movie as making as much money.
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that special effects look fake because they are. After all, movies are completely fake... makeup, lighting, dialogue... I think some effects can be pretty damned convincing these days, though you can usually spot the signatures if you take the trouble to look for them. Just as you can listen to a conversation between two actors and say "real people don't speak like that".
Shameless plug time: if you're looking for a completely absurd premise for a big-budget effects movie, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSPYtlWxmho

Me and a handful of guys revamped our fluid/particle effects software to make this one possible. Whatever you think of it, it was a lot of fun!

[RacerX]

Arnold is 6' 2" and his competition weight was 240-250lbs with steriods.

Er, Arnold is barely 6'

http://www.arnoldheight.com/

http://www.arnoldheight.com/article3.html

http://www.arnoldheight.com/article4.html

[Rsmacker]

CGI looks fake because it is fake.

But really who the fuck cares,

Me. And, I suspect, millions of other people who'd like to go and spend the odd evening at the pictures, but can't muster the enthusiasm any more. The very people the industry is missing as we spend our money elsewhere. It seems to be kids (and their reluctant parents) going to the pictures these days.

There's obviously a place for special effects, like someone else said, a film is make-believe anyway, but I still say that they should be used carefully, rather than slapped all over the place, just to help spunk the budget. More fx doesn't mean a better movie, surely that's not rocket science?

Best film I've seen over the past few years? "Gladiator", without a doubt. It suffers from having a bit of a dodgy re-write in the middle, thanks to Oliver Reed croaking, but on the whole, it's truly a blockbuster. I can sit and watch that time and time again. The opening battle in the forest in Germania is superb, really atmospheric, it pulls you in without any really over-shaky camera work, or people suffering cartoon deaths, and you can forget about Mr Fuckstick next door with his fucking big tree, your car tax, the price of petrol etc etc for a couple of hours while you watch a fantasy spun in a way that looks just like it might have been back then.

There's obviously special effects in the film, but none that stand out as being so blatant that they break the spell (OK, those fucking tigers come close). In actual fact, when I went to Rome last year, I was looking forward to seeing the Colisseum, mostly thanks to that film. I know that it, and the crowds, were special effects, the thing is a ruin, obviously, but still, I was actually disappointed to step into that place and find there's no fucking floor. Now, that shows how a movie can, and should affect a person, if done right.

The thing is, there's nothing that springs to mind in that film which makes me cringe before I see it for the 456th time, it's as close to real as I'll ever see the Colisseum in all it's glory.

But even things that are unreal should be made so that I believe them IMHO. Look at "Alien". I have no idea if anyone can hear you scream in space (they can't apparently), but I feel a lump in my throat every time John Hurt starts to feel his dinner repeating on him.
Even though the first glimpse of the creature is pure comedy, it looks like a fucking muppet, before zipping across the room like SPG in the Youg Ones ("C.U. Teddy Bear, c'mere!" SMACK!), all that is pushed aside by the ensuing tension. Brilliant. Even the man in an Alien costume doesn't kill it, and it's still watchable after all these years, even if, like "The 6th Sense", it's never the same after the first time you see it.
And I'd like to thank my Mother for spoiling that one for me by announcing half way through "Hey, you know what? I think he's a ..." (left blank in case some poor bastard hasn't seen it). All of us, sat in the lounge, in a rare get-together in the family home, sighed, the spell broken, everyone went back to their real lives, leaving Ma & Pa in their house watching telly.

I will give an honorable mention to "Kingdom of Heaven" here, another great film, which makes use of CGI sensibly. It should be pointed out though that the film that was released is absolutely shite compared to the Director's Cut. Normally I think it's just the odd boring scene that was chopped out of a film, but in this film, it's massive chunks of STORYLINE. What the fuck went on there? Once you've seen the Director's Cut, the standard release makes even less sense than before. I can't believe they even bothered with the standard version, no wonder it didn't exactly get rave reviews and set the box office alight. I only saw the standard film on telly a couple of years ago, and only because there was NOTHING else to watch on. I saw the Director's Cut some months after that and was stunned, it's a completely different film, the sort of film that would entice me back to the cinema. I didn't even know they had cut loads of it for the standard release before seeing the longer one!

Soooo, fuck "Conan the Barbarian" remake, how can anyone make a perfect film any better? Plastic hands floating in soup, James Earl Jones' mullet, Nigel Tufnell as one of JEJ's sidekicks, none of them spoil a true classic. I still intend to get a blonde to put on black camo make-up over half of her face, like Sandahl Bergman when they go and kill that big snake, it actually gets my cock rock hard. (Am I a pervert? No, don't tell me...)
"Terminator" - fantastic, imagine how that could be spoiled with CGI, they could make it totally unwatchable!

I suppose I'll be cursing in a year or so, when I get home and see "Conan..." is on telly, settle down with a couple of beers, ready to quote Arnie, word for word, and then find it's the shitty remake. (I once sat up till 4am, excited that "The 3 Stooges" were on telly, only to find it was a fucking cartoon. This was pre-VCR programmable days. I made some noises Mo, Larry & Curly would have been proud of)

Hmmm, where's Snoogans, I thought he'd be all over this thread like a rash?
Ah, hang on, he's camping outside "The Regal" waiting for "Rise..." which opens today...

[Rsmacker]

Er, Arnold is barely 6'

http://www.arnoldheight.com/

http://www.arnoldheight.com/article3.html

http://www.arnoldheight.com/article4.html

With a 2" willy.

[atomic charvel guy]

smacker did you like alexander? i thought it was a little overblown Oliver stone style, but it was cool. not a huge colin farrel fan at all
but he wasn't bad in that, and he was alright in a movie called In Bruges.