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Rate the latest movie you've seen.

Started by GalacticBusDriver, February 16, 2013, 12:37:09 AM

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Unbeliever

Just finished watching Star Trek: Beyond!
What a wild ride! My chin is still on the floor!
I really enjoy the cast in the latest installments of the franchise, they're all perfect for their roles. Especially Scotty's little buddy, whatever his name is. He never says a word, but I worry about him more than any of the regular crew, since the writers might see fit to kill him off.
All told, I think this is the best of a bunch of great StarTrek movies!
🖖
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Gawdzilla Sama

Idris was cool. Just not very happy.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Hydra009

#7367
Just got back from watching Dune Part 2.

How do I put this bluntly?  This movie is like a pizzeria salad sprinkled with pepperoni and a pound of saffron.


I wish I was joking.  It's visually stunning, the cast and acting is great, but man oh man was it in dire need of an editor.  Serious pacing issues is putting it mildly.  Suicide Squad (2016) was edited better.  CSPAN is edited better.  It could've been amazing, but it was just long burn with very little payoff that doesn't feel earned.  Like imagine the Lion King where over half the movie is Hakuna Matata.

edit - the Mentats and Spacing Guild don't even exist in this movie.  Again, I wish I was joking.

Gawdzilla Sama

Saw it for the third time today. Having fun. Me and Boss Lady will see it together again Friday.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Hydra009

#7369
All three of the adaptations have their strong points and their weak points, and I wish I could cobble them all together to make some sort of ultimate version.

David Lynch's version was really weird and had some great talent behind it and Feyd's death was metal AF, but was really, really weird.  Did I mention that it was really weird?

The Miniseries didn't have a huge budget (I think they reused the footage of the Harkonnen aircraft hanger exploding about a billion times), the costumes could've certainly used more work, and it was kinda goofy at some points.  But it was the best damn high school production of Dune ever!  And this longer adaptation had a lot of scenes we don't see in the other two, like the tragic death of Paul's first son.  Also, William Hurt as Duke Leto and Ian McNeice as Baron Harkonnen have yet to be topped imho.  And to be honest, I actually really like the color-coding - Harkonnen red, Atreides yellow, Sardaukar purple, etc.  Very nice visual shorthand.

The latest movie series has phenomenal special effects and visuals but it's very very light on exposition and even cuts out some very important elements, like the Spacing Guild to focus more on the religion angle.  The war for Arrakis got some screen time, but the battle to retake Arrakeen is noticeably parred-down compared to the other two, barely getting any screentime to make room for Feyd's gladiatorial bout.  Personally, I much preferred the street-to-street fighting on the miniseries version, especially the final scene with Rabban.

So how to fix this?  I would keep a lot of weirdness of the David Lynch version, the more fleshed-out scenes of the miniseries as well as its color coding, and the breathtaking visuals of the Denis Villeneuve version.  And for Shai-Hulud's sake, the words "the spice must flow" better be said out loud because the average moviegoer absolutely needs to understand that the spice comes from worms, enhances human abilities, and is  essential for space travel.  The whole galactic empire unravels without it.  I don't care if you have to have an exposition dump at the start of every film, it needs to be there somewhere!

Still the best scene to ever grace my computer screen:


The pale imitation of authority cracks me up every time.  Even the hand gestures, likely a mimicry of an actual authority figure, comes off as silly, undercutting the attempt to seem truly powerful.