# Things Everyone Hates About Modern Movies



## Louis Cypher (Nov 19, 2021)

Another chance for everyone to have a little rant
Whats yours?
I'll start with the stupid idea of starting a trailer with a little mini trailer for the trailer


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## bostjan (Nov 19, 2021)

Having a spoiler in the trailer.
Time travel in movies that are not about time travel.
Resurrection as a cover up for poor plot planning.

Actually just in general shitty storytelling that we seem to expect now.


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## Trainwreck (Nov 19, 2021)

I really hate cheap C.G.I. especially in a horror movie. I'd rather have old school makeup and bad effects then the computer generated garbage put out today. Something about it just turns me off.


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## thraxil (Nov 19, 2021)

Completely agree on the bad sound mixing.

Most of my pet peeve tropes aren't particularly new:


Every time travel plot since Back to the Future. Oh no! Changing something in the past might affect the future! We get it. Creating a convoluted timeline does not make you a clever writer.
Every alternate universe plot. Let's kill a character, or have something massive happen, but then let's pop to an alternate reality where that character still exists or the terrible event didn't happen or is preventable. I feel like it's as lazy a plot device as "but it was all a dream".
Similar to the alternate universe plot is anything that involves "nested realities". Hard to explain exactly, but the plot involves some points where the characters don't know if they're in reality or in some virtual reality/dream/hallucination/etc. Always has a "wake up" scene where they think they've come back out of it but then discover that they're still inside. Existenz, Inception, etc.
Every action movie needs a love interest. No one can save the world without falling in love or having a journey of self discovery in the process.
The climactic big hero motivational speech. You also can't save the world without stopping at a critical point when everything looks hopeless to give an inspiring speech to really remind everyone what they're fighting for and bring everyone together to do the impossible.
The edgy shocking opening scene. Within the first couple minutes, there needs to be some gratuitous extreme violence or sex scene that doesn't actually serve any plot or character development purpose. It's just there to let you know that the filmmakers are "bold" and don't care if they offend some people.
I also have a Physics degree and can't always stop myself from pointing out science that's completely wrong, so I'm basically obnoxious to watch a scifi movie with.


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## bostjan (Nov 19, 2021)

thraxil said:


> I also have a Physics degree and can't always stop myself from pointing out science that's completely wrong, so I'm basically obnoxious to watch a scifi movie with.



If I learned physics from movies:

Time travel... because ummm quantum particle something something relativity paradox, yeehaw, is possible! (Or just fly around the world facing west and ignore that inconvenient fact that there is a dateline)

Explosions in space go boom.

Cars can jump over holes without a ramp. (and sustain no damage to their suspension for that matter, ramp or no, regardless of how far they fall, as long as a major character is in them)

Everything that bumps into something else during an action scene will explode into a giant fireball.

If a 40 kg woman shoots a shotgun at a 120 kg man rushing at her, the woman will remain stationary when she fires, but the man will fly backward with a velocity of >10 m/s when the shot makes contact with him.

You can outrun explosions, as long as you are the main character.

The other day, my wife was watching a zombie movie, and the plot was that someone launched some sort of thermonuclear warhead at the city where all of the characters were situated. Two of the main characters went under an 18 wheeler and were perfectly fine when a blast a few hundred meters away occurred, even though zombies were turning to ash all around them and the screen went completely white (I'm assuming to indicate white-hot heat). Not to mention that they were close enough to the blast that the visual of the blast and audio were simultaneous. If a nuclear fusion-based warhead exploded close enough to you that you didn't notice a delay between the flash and the boom, you wouldn't detect either, because you'd be vaporized.

And, while I'm at it, not physics, but you only use 10% (or 2% in some movies) of your brain, and you'd have psychic and/or telekinetic powers if only you could use more than that.


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## odibrom (Nov 19, 2021)

Time references in YEARS on SciFi movies who's story is based on other planets and civilizations. I mean, the "year" we all know is EARTH's year. All other planets in our solar system have different length years and so will planets on different solar systems/galaxies, so WTF people? Can't these writers find a time reference that could be translated to that particular planet so it makes the story more convincing? It's on all over the bigger SciFi movies, either Star Treck, Star Wars, Dune or whatever... damn...


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## thraxil (Nov 19, 2021)

bostjan said:


> You can outrun explosions, as long as you are the main character.



And with your eardrums intact, even when the explosion is powerful enough to launch you twenty feet through the air.

Related, but apparently gunshots just aren't really that loud. You can fire a shotgun or a .45 inside a car with no ear protection and then just have a normal conversation afterwards. You can have an indoor firefight with automatic weapons for like 20 minutes and no one even has a ringing in their ears. And if you have a suppressor...


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## bostjan (Nov 19, 2021)

odibrom said:


> Time references in YEARS on SciFi movies who's story is based on other planets and civilizations. I mean, the "year" we all know is EARTH's year. All other planets in our solar system have different length years and so will planets on different solar systems/galaxies, so WTF people? Can't these writers find a time reference that could be translated to that particular planet so it makes the story more convincing? It's on all over the bigger SciFi movies, either Star Treck, Star Wars, Dune or whatever... damn...


Might mean that space travel is the final justification Napoleon would have needed to get metric time keeping to take. I guess we will find out in the next gigasecond or so.


thraxil said:


> And with your eardrums intact, even when the explosion is powerful enough to launch you twenty feet through the air.
> 
> Related, but apparently gunshots just aren't really that loud. You can fire a shotgun or a .45 inside a car with no ear protection and then just have a normal conversation afterwards. You can have an indoor firefight with automatic weapons for like 20 minutes and no one even has a ringing in their ears. And if you have a suppressor...


Hollywood doesn't understand guns, like at all. Let alone suppressors. I just love the James Bond sound effect everyone uses for suppressed handguns now. Sure, if you use really low powered ammo and a single-use suppressor, it is possible to fire a gun and have it sound less loud than a conversation going on a few feet away, but, according to movie-science, if I take a .44 magnum and just put a pillow over the muzzle, the gun will sound like "pew" and still be able to blow someone's head clean off of their neck.


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 19, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Might mean that space travel is the final justification Napoleon would have needed to get metric time keeping to take. I guess we will find out in the next gigasecond or so.
> 
> Hollywood doesn't understand guns, like at all. Let alone suppressors. I just love the James Bond sound effect everyone uses for suppressed handguns now. Sure, if you use really low powered ammo and a single-use suppressor, it is possible to fire a gun and have it sound less loud than a conversation going on a few feet away, but, according to movie-science, if I take a .44 magnum and just put a pillow over the muzzle, the gun will sound like "pew" and still be able to blow someone's head clean off of their neck.




That's what I liked about Sicario. The scene where he's using a suppressor, the gun is still reasonably loud, but not muffled the way it's usually depicted.


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## profwoot (Nov 19, 2021)

Anybody watching For All Mankind? I basically enjoy it but it suffers from a lot of the things folks have brought up so far. It's a [nominally] space-focused show with absolutely no concern for the physics of space, is pretty much just a soap opera with very occasional space scenes, etc.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 19, 2021)

profwoot said:


> Anybody watching For All Mankind? I basically enjoy it but it suffers from a lot of the things folks have brought up so far. It's a [nominally] space-focused show with absolutely no concern for the physics of space, is pretty much just a soap opera with very occasional space scenes, etc.


Does it have full time planar interior only gravity? That rules. Because [waves upward] thpathe.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 19, 2021)

You see this in wrestling as well, but the inability to book a good finish to a film. You’ll have a great film, then it’ll get to the finish, and it’ll just be a sloppy, poorly received pile of feces.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 19, 2021)

Bad ADR. No amount of studio trickery is going to male this additional replacement line of dialog match the sound of the rest of the dialog recorded by a boom mic in a forest.


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## USMarine75 (Nov 19, 2021)

I’d settle for the audio to be more balanced. 

I’m sick of turning the volume up to max so I can hear the whisper level conversation only to have an explosion loosen screws in my entertainment center.


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## BornToLooze (Nov 19, 2021)

bostjan said:


> according to movie-science, if I take a .44 magnum and just put a pillow over the muzzle, the gun will sound like "pew" and still be able to blow someone's head clean off of their neck.



Speaking of .44 Magnums, want to try and figure out everything wrong with the suppressed Python from Magnum Force?


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## profwoot (Nov 19, 2021)

Seabeast2000 said:


> Does it have full time planar interior only gravity? That rules. Because [waves upward] thpathe.



Here's a demonstrative example:

Upon getting to low earth orbit on a mission to the moon in a space shuttle (which by no means could ever make it to the moon), the folks in Houston announce MECO (main engine cutoff) and discuss the TLI (trans-lunar injection) burn that will happen in 19 minutes. Throughout this interval, the cut-aways continue to repeatedly show the shuttle engines burning.

There are far more egregious mistakes, but that should suffice to demonstrate the complete lack of concern from the production team. They wanted to make a typical relationship drama and decided to set it at NASA for some reason other than knowing anything about it.


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## c7spheres (Nov 20, 2021)

- I hate the fact that almost every movie starts with a ringing phone, an alarm clock, tea kettle whistling, a car horm etc. Some movies are basically just watching a bunch of people on fake phone calls.

- I hate movies that expect you to know everything about the characters and plot even though it's not a sequel, yet they never mention the characters names or history in the entire movie. Like, don't forget you're making it for someone who's never seen it or read the script before. 

- Almost every movie or TV show must also have several time wasting obligatory bar scenes. Also, everyone has a mini bar in their house but me apparently. All everyone does is drink all the time. 

- My number one pet peeve about movies is all the damn mumbling. Open you mouth, move your lips, and talk! Everyone has their throat talking mumble voice like they all took acting lessons from the same guy. Worse yet, the audio engineer's apparently also don't know how to mix for this shit. It's call center channel on a 5.1 system and, btw, with a multi million dollar budget why is there no proper stereo mix either? It's called mid range. It's where human speech sits in a mix, but they always mix massive bass and tinny highs with no mids. WTF!


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## pondman (Nov 20, 2021)

Purposely done jerky camera shots and none stop panning. 
Does my head in.


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## Bodes (Nov 20, 2021)

Sound variations for sure my number 1 pet peeve. My only arm movement during a film should be for food and drink, not the remotes volume button.

Visually I can't stand inconsistencies with the CGI. Some scenes I'm thinking that the CGI team is the Bee's knees, then 2 minutes later I feel I am watching a grade 3 play-doh model flying across the scene.


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## thraxil (Nov 20, 2021)

USMarine75 said:


> I’d settle for the audio to be more balanced.
> 
> I’m sick of turning the volume up to max so I can hear the whisper level conversation only to have an explosion loosen screws in my entertainment center.



The video in the first post claims that the problem is that no one bothers taking the audio mix that was done for theatres and redoing it for home systems when they push it out to streaming services. They're probably right, but I'm pretty sure I've also experienced the problem with TV shows, and they shouldn't have any excuse.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 20, 2021)

profwoot said:


> Here's a demonstrative example:
> 
> Upon getting to low earth orbit on a mission to the moon in a space shuttle (which by no means could ever make it to the moon), the folks in Houston announce MECO (main engine cutoff) and discuss the TLI (trans-lunar injection) burn that will happen in 19 minutes. Throughout this interval, the cut-aways continue to repeatedly show the shuttle engines burning.
> 
> There are far more egregious mistakes, but that should suffice to demonstrate the complete lack of concern from the production team. They wanted to make a typical relationship drama and decided to set it at NASA for some reason other than knowing anything about it.



You know trash like "Shuttle Service FD, Moonbase PD, One Crater Lane, Space Hospital Doctor Drama" will happen in our lifetimes. 



c7spheres said:


> -
> 
> - My number one pet peeve about movies is all the damn mumbling. Open you mouth, move your lips, and talk! Everyone has their throat talking mumble voice like they all took acting lessons from the same guy. Worse yet, the audio engineer's apparently also don't know how to mix for this shit. It's call center channel on a 5.1 system and, btw, with a multi million dollar budget why is there no proper stereo mix either? It's called mid range. It's where human speech sits in a mix, but they always mix massive bass and tinny highs with no mids. WTF!



This is the worst.


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## thraxil (Nov 21, 2021)

I forgot all about computers.

Smash some monitors or control panels and that will take down a whole data center or mainframe. Conversely, if you infect a computer with a virus and cause it to crash, the monitors and control panels will explode with fire and smoke.

"Hacking" involves typing really fast while random windows pop up scrolling source code and a progress bar shows you how much time before the "firewall" catches you.

All high tech electronic security systems and door controls can be bypassed by opening up a conveniently located panel and shorting out a couple wires.


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## bostjan (Nov 21, 2021)

thraxil said:


> I forgot all about computers.
> 
> Smash some monitors or control panels and that will take down a whole data center or mainframe. Conversely, if you infect a computer with a virus and cause it to crash, the monitors and control panels will explode with fire and smoke.
> 
> ...


Why do real life computers not beep and boop constantly like the ones in movies?


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## Louis Cypher (Nov 21, 2021)

Similar to the computer thing, the way apparently you can used CCTV images to zoom in with crystal clear clarity on a number plate, ID a suspect/villian face or even something sticking out of a top pocket or bag whenever the hero needs a lead


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## bostjan (Nov 22, 2021)

Louis Cypher said:


> Similar to the computer thing, the way apparently you can used CCTV images to zoom in with crystal clear clarity on a number plate, ID a suspect/villian face or even something sticking out of a top pocket or bag whenever the hero needs a lead


Ever tried? The secret is to shout "ENHANCE!" at the computer.

Also, hacking involves guessing people's passwords and then declaring "I'm in." That's the only way hacking works, I'm convinced.


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## Xaios (Nov 23, 2021)

spudmunkey said:


> Bad ADR. No amount of studio trickery is going to male this additional replacement line of dialog match the sound of the rest of the dialog recorded by a boom mic in a forest.


The Hunt for Red October is one of my favorite movies, but there is one bit of egregiously bad ADR that pulls me right out of it. It's in the scene where the sonar tech is explaining to the captain how he might have figured out how to find the soviet sub. It's just one single line of dialog, but it sounds so vastly different to every other line from a mixing perspective that it's like being slapped.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 23, 2021)

Xaios said:


> The Hunt for Red October is one of my favorite movies, but there is one bit of egregiously bad ADR that pulls me right out of it. It's in the scene where the sonar tech is explaining to the captain how he might have figured out how to find the soviet sub. It's just one single line of dialog, but it sounds so vastly different to every other line from a mixing perspective that it's like being slapped.



My girlfriend and I shout "watch out for snakes!" whenever we notice a super bad one, as a reference to the movie, "Eeegah!" Which has that line placed so oddly in the mix.


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## Adieu (Nov 23, 2021)

Wouldn't know.

Stopped watching movies ~2005.


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## Choop (Nov 23, 2021)

There's a specific sound effect used for action/thriller movies in trailers right now that is awful. It's like that big, loud, low pitch, digitized "BROOOWWWW" sound. Not sure when it started getting used...but I want to blame the Transformers films.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 23, 2021)

I will say, gun sounds are way better than the old days though. There was ONE machine gun sound, uzi, 50 cal, whatever, same sound. Also there was ONE mandatory ricochet sound as well. Those are gone thankfully.


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## bostjan (Nov 23, 2021)

Tangentially related to the ADR stuff: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/your-favourite-for-television-movie-edits.329171/

I think, whatever sins movies are doing with ridiculous physics, stupid untrue old wives' tales, and cliched tropes of computers etc., television does it all worse. Movie hacker: clickety clack, Okay, I'm in. Television hacker: clickety clickety beep beep boop, [batman voice] I'm in. Movies at least have a chance at a unified vision, but shows have so many different writers and directors and the producers are so much further up in everyone's business, it just exacerbates all of the typical problems.

I'm sure some of the shows my wife is watching when I come home from work are good in their own way, but, when I walk in and the first thing I see is the silly looking CG special effects with the lighting all looking wrong and the actors looking like they have no idea where the digital effects artists are going to add their effects into the frame, it just seems like a hot mess to me. Even some shows that seem like they start out consistent and don't go too overboard with effects can very quickly go off the rails (cough GoT, cough cough Dexter) and seemingly lose their mojo. Then fans are just all the more pissed off, because, rather than investing 2 hours into a movie, they've invested months or years into a television programme.


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## bostjan (Nov 23, 2021)

Seabeast2000 said:


> I will say, gun sounds are way better than the old days though. There was ONE machine gun sound, uzi, 50 cal, whatever, same sound. Also there was ONE mandatory ricochet sound as well. Those are gone thankfully.


Are they though?
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls0824160...m_ft_dsk&sort=release_date,desc&st_dt=&page=1


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 23, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Are they though?
> https://www.imdb.com/list/ls0824160...m_ft_dsk&sort=release_date,desc&st_dt=&page=1



Yeah but I thought it was firmly Wilhelm Meme status at this point?


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## bostjan (Nov 23, 2021)

There's a youtuber who made his career by pointing out cliched stock sound effect use in movies. A lot of those are recent. The most egregious one I recall was that they used an overused stock cat sound effect when they had the same voice actor who made the original stock sound effect acting in the film, so he could have easily re-recorded something a little different.

But if you pay attention to these things, those same stupid stock sound effects are everywhere.

The classic FPS game Doom (1993) was also notorious for its use of stock sound effects. As a teenager playing the game, I didn't realize those were all old stock movie sound effects, so, for years afterward, any time I heard one of the same sounds in a film, I thought that they ripped it from Doom, but actually, Doom and whatever film just ripped the same sound from the same stock sound effect library.


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## Adieu (Nov 23, 2021)

thraxil said:


> All high tech electronic security systems and door controls can be bypassed by opening up a conveniently located panel and shorting out a couple wires.



* this is usually true though


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## spudmunkey (Nov 23, 2021)

Same with hot-wiring a car in movies. kicking open the column, and twisting two wires and touching two others may have worked before, what...1995 or something? But you aren't doing that in, like, a 2020 Audi.


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## bostjan (Nov 23, 2021)

spudmunkey said:


> Same with hot-wiring a car in movies. kicking open the column, and twisting two wires and touching two others may have worked before, what...1995 or something? But you aren't doing that in, like, a 2020 Audi.


Maybe not a nice Audi, but my shitty 2009 Chevy HHR absolutely could be hot wired like in the movies. It had to be because the stupid lock cylinder jammed every third time it was used.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 23, 2021)

Choop said:


> There's a specific sound effect used for action/thriller movies in trailers right now that is awful. It's like that big, loud, low pitch, digitized "BROOOWWWW" sound. Not sure when it started getting used...but I want to blame the Transformers films.


That was definitely a Michael Bay special. Take a stock explosion sound, then add a slow-down in the audio editor and reverb it until it just sounds like mushy boooooooooow.

Sound pet peeves really get me. The background noise used on Operation Mindcrime is STILL being used in television shows. Where the nurse is using the intercom to call the two doctors? I hear that shit everywhere and all it does is remind me I could be spending my time listening to something better.

As for the sci-fi ball dropping we see all over the place? I'm fine if you treat it like the Expanse, where travel takes time, not all ships have art-grav, not everything is perfect. I'm also fine if they just toss it all out the window and assume we've magicked up the universe. I'm not fine when they cross the streams and only SOME things, without explanation, work correctly, while others inextricably don't.

Like, some space stations have to spin for gravity. Others don't. No explanation and not even a hint that the ones that don't need to spin are next-gen and the ones that do are older. Just "here, sometimes magic, sometimes no, fuck you." Consistency matters. I wish creators would try to realize that the story isn't *JUST* character interaction. Literally every single thing on screen is part of the story in a fantasy or sci-fi. Treat it like it matters or it knocks people out of the viewing experience as they question the filmmaker's sanity or intelligence every thirty seconds when something else pops up that makes zero in-universe sense.


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## zappatton2 (Nov 25, 2021)

Not specific to modern movies, but who hangs up without saying goodbye? Shit's just rude.


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## Xaios (Nov 25, 2021)

zappatton2 said:


> Not specific to modern movies, but who hangs up without saying goodbye? Shit's just rude.


Tangentially related, another one of my most hated tropes is when the character on screen parrots the entire inquiry of the person they're speaking to on the phone. Obviously it's to get it across to the audience, but it's also just lazy.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 25, 2021)

zappatton2 said:


> Not specific to modern movies, but who hangs up without saying goodbye? Shit's just rude.



I saw one yesterday where the person picked up the call, never even said "hello", and the doctor calling started relaying blood test results including a suprise positive pregnancy test....and then the person just put their phone in their lap in silence, without responding.



Xaios said:


> Tangentially related, another one of my most hated tropes is when the character on screen parrots the entire inquiry of the person they're speaking to on the phone. Obviously it's to get it across to the audience, but it's also just lazy.



They are just stealing Bob Newhart's bit anyway.


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 25, 2021)

Adieu said:


> Wouldn't know.
> 
> Stopped watching movies ~2005.



You're so damn cool. Where do I sign up to be like you?


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## Adieu (Nov 26, 2021)

Xaios said:


> Tangentially related, another one of my most hated tropes is when the character on screen parrots the entire inquiry of the person they're speaking to on the phone. Obviously it's to get it across to the audience, but it's also just lazy.



Might also be from the days of absolute crap connections?


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## Louis Cypher (Nov 27, 2021)

Not just modern films this goes right back to probably the start of Hollywood but historical fact being completely ignored or rewritten in a film but the film is promoted as fact, the little caveat always being the marketing says "based on". I appreciate some changes could or need to be made for dramatic purposes but when you get basic facts completely changed then what's the point in making the film? Braveheart is the obvious example. Widely acknowledged as the most historical inaccurate film ever, but so many people think its fact


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## thraxil (Nov 28, 2021)

Another one that I was reminded of last night: The emotionally needy and insecure husband/wife/partner of the character with a high pressure, important job.

Like, the character is an FBI agent that investigates serial killers or potential terrorists. Their partner just can't understand why they don't come home in time for dinner or why they miss their kid's school play. It always comes to a head when they're in the middle of some super urgent time sensitive part of the plot and they're given a tearful "it's either the job or me!" ultimatum where they have to choose between saving lives or being there for their neglected partner.

I always just wonder who the hell their partner thought they married in the first place? My partner's just a college professor, not an FBI agent or surgeon or something where peoples lives are at stake. She often gets pulled into dealing with students' crises, or working late to meet a grant or publishing deadline and has to cancel plans at the last minute or I'll barely see her for a week while she's under a pile of work. It can be annoying, but I don't turn into a whiny little bitch about it.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 29, 2021)

thraxil said:


> Another one that I was reminded of last night: The emotionally needy and insecure husband/wife/partner of the character with a high pressure, important job.
> 
> Like, the character is an FBI agent that investigates serial killers or potential terrorists. Their partner just can't understand why they don't come home in time for dinner or why they miss their kid's school play. It always comes to a head when they're in the middle of some super urgent time sensitive part of the plot and they're given a tearful "it's either the job or me!" ultimatum where they have to choose between saving lives or being there for their neglected partner.
> 
> I always just wonder who the hell their partner thought they married in the first place? My partner's just a college professor, not an FBI agent or surgeon or something where peoples lives are at stake. She often gets pulled into dealing with students' crises, or working late to meet a grant or publishing deadline and has to cancel plans at the last minute or I'll barely see her for a week while she's under a pile of work. It can be annoying, but I don't turn into a whiny little bitch about it.


Knowing a few folks that work behind the scenes on the creative side of TV and Hollywood, more often than not those characters are a toss-away added after the main plot is complete because the execs want EVERY film or show to have a love interest conflict. So it's literally a "here, take this idea we've used ten thousand times already. It'll be a perfect fit."

Which is shitty story telling no matter where it comes from. Just once it'd be nice to see that one turned on its head, where the partner is super supportive almost to the point of annoying. I'd think that'd be a more fun plot to write and see play out.


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## thebeesknees22 (Nov 29, 2021)

Having people with low income jobs living in huge fancy houses or apartments. Like no... They will be in a tiny 500 sq ft studio, or a rundown shack. thanks.

All movies being ran by committee nowadays. Directors are nothing more than middle men for executives. Many have no real say over the edits. 

Certain countries *cough...not to mention names... Censor a lot of content that would otherwise be there, and that censoring gets applied to western movies quite heavily just so they can be marketed there.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 29, 2021)

thebeesknees22 said:


> Certain countries *cough...not to mention names... Censor a lot of content that would otherwise be there, and that censoring gets applied to western movies quite heavily just so they can be marketed there.


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 29, 2021)

Big ass houses and somehow kids still have to share rooms. Nothing modern, this has been around for a minute.


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## soliloquy (Nov 29, 2021)

I dont like that movies refuse to go over a certain threshold of time in length of the movie.
I find that the pacing for something that is 1.5 hours is WAYY to short for a sufficient character building.
But I also find that, just to compensate, they extend it to 2 hours, and all it is is fillers and still lack character development.
If they extend it to 3 hours, they get a little closer, but its still not the same, and audience seems to check out.

as such, it seems that the concept of story telling is somewhat lost on the time format that movies have to be a part of. All they seem to be obsessed with is making money, and understandably so. Though they could be making money AND art at the same time? seems too far fetched, which is irritating.




another thing i have an issue with is the FORCED lovestory, as if all life depends on love. Even if its a sausage fest (not saying anything about homosexuality in anyway) of toxic masculinity and hetro-sexual normative movie that is based on action....why is the main character falling in love? Why is the main character realizing that he/she can preform better if they have the opposite gendered person in their life?

What id love to see is people of the opposite gender being friends. strictly platonic, and absolutely healthy relationship that is built on support/love/etc but its 100% platonic both ways. 




also, id like to see normal looking people. Why cant someone who doesn't have an 8-pack abs gets the girl/guy? Why cant someone with braces or pimples or scars, or wrinkles, or 'extra' weight or something actually win?


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## bostjan (Nov 29, 2021)

What about the sitcom trope of the perpetual noob.

That is:

Character gets new job. Old salty coworkers don't trust new character to do a good job. Everyone makes fun of character for being a noobie. Pilot episode, character proves themself by doing something unexpected and extraordinary. Second episode, old employees are impressed, but still don't trust main character to do a good job. Character pulls off similar hat tricks and continually and consistently shows wisdom. 20+ seasons in main character is still treated as a noob by everyone.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 29, 2021)

bostjan said:


> What about the sitcom trope of the perpetual noob.
> 
> That is:
> 
> Character gets new job. Old salty coworkers don't trust new character to do a good job. Everyone makes fun of character for being a noobie. Pilot episode, character proves themself by doing something unexpected and extraordinary. Second episode, old employees are impressed, but still don't trust main character to do a good job. Character pulls off similar hat tricks and continually and consistently shows wisdom. 20+ seasons in main character is still treated as a noob by everyone.


10,000 sitcoms do this with husband/wife teams and it's ALWAYS the dude that's a complete imbecile and deserves to be continually mocked and humiliated because he trips over his own nose hairs just getting the morning paper.

I think the only show that ever really got the dynamic right was Married with Children, where everybody in the family was a complete god damned idiot and somehow it all worked anyway. Come on, we've all met a family that was like the Bundy clan at some point in our life. Heck, some of us were IN that family.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 29, 2021)

bostjan said:


> What about the sitcom trope of the perpetual noob.
> 
> That is:
> 
> Character gets new job. Old salty coworkers don't trust new character to do a good job. Everyone makes fun of character for being a noobie. Pilot episode, character proves themself by doing something unexpected and extraordinary. Second episode, old employees are impressed, but still don't trust main character to do a good job. Character pulls off similar hat tricks and continually and consistently shows wisdom. 20+ seasons in main character is still treated as a noob by everyone.



You just blew up Scrubs I tihnk.


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## soliloquy (Nov 29, 2021)

bostjan said:


> What about the sitcom trope of the perpetual noob.
> 
> That is:
> 
> Character gets new job. Old salty coworkers don't trust new character to do a good job. Everyone makes fun of character for being a noobie. Pilot episode, character proves themself by doing something unexpected and extraordinary. Second episode, old employees are impressed, but still don't trust main character to do a good job. Character pulls off similar hat tricks and continually and consistently shows wisdom. 20+ seasons in main character is still treated as a noob by everyone.




Id argue with this point, and raise you a show like SuperStore. 
having personally worked in small retail stores, and big retail stores, along with small and big offices and corporation, i think there is something to what they show. We know that big corporations are super slow to adapt and change. They dont want to change. As such, all the old guard folk are of that same mentality that 'change = bad'. 
bringing in the rookie/newblood/noobie/etc is one way to show people that change isn't always bad. 
and mixing new blood with the old also helps change views. But change them too much, and the noob is fired because they ruffle a few too many feathers. 

likewise, even corporations that claim to have an 'open door policy' really dont when these same employees raise their concerns, only to be met with fewer hours, and eventually people are forced to leave. 

but they are always so attractive (the shows, i mean) because we can relate to them pretty well.

Office, for example, I personally cant stand as everyone is a complete idiot, and I refuse to believe a company can survive on idiots. But the same is also true for Parks n rec; Brooklyn 99 and other work place comedic shows. The formula of that said comedy is that its a company run by idiots, for idiots. 

we like to hate on customers. we like to hate on employees. we like to hate on people who arent us. 

but i do find that comedic shows, in general, really demand their audience to lower their IQ to watch them as thats the only way they are sort of tolerable. I mean, imagine if the Office really is full of serious people. You cant really have a show that is entertaining if all they talk about is bottom line and spread sheets.


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## Louis Cypher (Nov 30, 2021)

thebeesknees22 said:


> Having people with low income jobs living in huge fancy houses or apartments. Like no... They will be in a tiny 500 sq ft studio, or a rundown shack. thanks.


Hollywood movies set in the UK are a fcuking nightmare for this, list is way too long but RomComs are usually the worst, the idea that Hugh Grant in Notting Hill who runs a very unsuccesful travel book shop in Notting Hill yet can afford to own a town house on the same street is just crazy, 2 bed place in that part of London is well over a million ffs


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## Anquished (Nov 30, 2021)

They ruin old movies for me. 

Rewatching old Horrors and modern CGI has just made older works look ridiculous.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 30, 2021)

Anquished said:


> They ruin old movies for me.
> 
> Rewatching old Horrors and modern CGI has just made older works look ridiculous.


Yeah, I’ll take proper special effects over video game graphics.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 30, 2021)

Anquished said:


> They ruin old movies for me.
> 
> Rewatching old Horrors and modern CGI has just made older works look ridiculous.



are you talking about older CGI or older practical effects?


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## Anquished (Nov 30, 2021)

Seabeast2000 said:


> are you talking about older CGI or older practical effects?



Both to a degree. 

Older CGI for definite as it just looks Playstationy when you're used to films with more modern CGI. 

As for practical effects I guess its more that they had to be cleverer back in the day as they were limited on what they could do, whereas now we can slap modern CGI over it instead.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 30, 2021)

soliloquy said:


> Office, for example, I personally cant stand as everyone is a complete idiot, and I refuse to believe a company can survive on idiots. But the same is also true for Parks n rec; Brooklyn 99 and other work place comedic shows. The formula of that said comedy is that its a company run by idiots, for idiots.



In all honesty, I love the Office, both versions, for the same reasons. I've literally worked in offices that seem to be populated completely by idiots for decades. The company I've been with the last twenty-two years is successful DESPITE the fact everybody acts like their head is firmly planted up their backside. Discussion with coworkers inevitably leads to the conclusion that if any of us acted like adults every once in a while we'd all be 10 times more successful than we are.

But where's the fun in that?


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## bostjan (Nov 30, 2021)

Anquished said:


> They ruin old movies for me.
> 
> Rewatching old Horrors and modern CGI has just made older works look ridiculous.


I'd take any low budget practical effects over low budget CGI any day. At least the practical effects show some level of creativity.

//
Part of what I loved about the original Star Wars film was that everything looked old and broken down and filthy. Every time George Lucas had them updated, the universe looked cleaner and more organized and I hated the new look every time.
I can resonate with the idea that an artist is never done with his or her or their art, but it's frustrating when the artist's self-perceived mistakes are the parts that speak to the audience.

//
Leave some mystery. For example, you are making a movie about zombies. You _have_ to do an origin story that includes 2,4,5-trioxin or some ridiculous virus or whatever, and I guarantee that it'll make zero sense once it's all put together. I guess someone could do this and consult actual biologists to try to make something of an explanation that doesn't sound absolutely ridiculous, but then it'd be way too boring for the average movie-goer. The obvious solution to this is to... wait for it... _not_ try to explain everything. Look, this is art in motion, you should be willing to let the viewer's imagination fill in some gaps. IMO, the original black and white _Night of the Living Dead_ is, by far, the best offering in the genre of zombie films. That film didn't try to explain anything, and it was glorious.

For that matter, I don't need another movie explaining how Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider or how Bruce Banner was shot with gamma rays or whatever. Just make an entertaining movie. The less you have to dryly explain to me, the better.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 30, 2021)

Append my previous "things I hate about modern films" post with "CGI." I'll take proper special effects any day.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 30, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Leave some mystery. For example, you are making a movie about zombies. You _have_ to do an origin story that includes 2,4,5-trioxin or some ridiculous virus or whatever, and I guarantee that it'll make zero sense once it's all put together. I guess someone could do this and consult actual biologists to try to make something of an explanation that doesn't sound absolutely ridiculous, but then it'd be way too boring for the average movie-goer. The obvious solution to this is to... wait for it... _not_ try to explain everything. Look, this is art in motion, you should be willing to let the viewer's imagination fill in some gaps. IMO, the original black and white _Night of the Living Dead_ is, by far, the best offering in the genre of zombie films. That film didn't try to explain anything, and it was glorious.


Fun fact: Trioxin is actually part of what makes up Agent Orange. The original Night of the Living Dead is okay. I find the '68 Barbara to be annoying (I much prefer the post Ripley influenced '90 Barbara), and everyone gets the wrong impression about the film, regardless of how many times Romero and Russo have dismissed it.


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## TheBlackBard (Nov 30, 2021)

I don't know, when it comes to CGI a lot of that shit looks fake as hell these days, and I'd still struggle to find today, something CGI that comes close to what Jurassic Park did in 1993 in terms of effects. Another example of where practical effects easily ruled over CGI, and in the same series no less, is The Thing. The 1980's movie looks infinitely better than the shit they released in 2011, and yes I know I know, it was supposed to have practical effects, but you know what, it doesn't, so it counts, goddamn it.


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## bostjan (Nov 30, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Fun fact: Trioxin is actually part of what makes up Agent Orange. The original Night of the Living Dead is okay. I find the '68 Barbara to be annoying (I much prefer the post Ripley influenced '90 Barbara), and everyone gets the wrong impression about the film, regardless of how many times Romero and Russo have dismissed it.


...ish.

No doubt the movie's script people were alluding to 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (the chemical in the link you posted), but they are also obviously alluding to dioxins. That's kind of what I was getting at before. For anyone literate in chemical naming conventions, 2,4,5-trioxin sounds like "buzz-term mumbo jumbo." It's like if you were writing a scifi story in the 60's and wanted to combine two scary-sounding things, say lasers and hydrogen bombs and made some sort of weapon called a lasrogen-disruptor beam. It makes no fucking sense, but still contains things that sound like science stuff. If they were writing a script in 2020, they would have called the zombie virus coronafluenza or covidnado or quakevid-2020 or whatever. Actually, films still do this thing and it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Every time they try to explain something by cutting to a CG animation of molecules and a character playing mad-libs with the words "quantum," "tunneling," "relativity," "boson," etc.

As for the 1990 film versus the original... IDK. The original is pretty bleak and the remake reversed that. Other than that, they did okay. Yeah, I agree that 1960's Barbara was annoying, but, honestly, it didn't bother me. Some people put into situations like that go into emergency mode and GSD, and others just go insane and get frantic. I feel it's accurate. Both films portray that the real villain is the people, not the ghouls, but only one of the two films portrays the idea that the universe eventually kills everyone, often in the most ironic way, and often without anyone else noticing the irony.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 30, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Leave some mystery. For example, you are making a movie about zombies. You _have_ to do an origin story that includes 2,4,5-trioxin or some ridiculous virus or whatever, and I guarantee that it'll make zero sense once it's all put together. I guess someone could do this and consult actual biologists to try to make something of an explanation that doesn't sound absolutely ridiculous, but then it'd be way too boring for the average movie-goer. The obvious solution to this is to... wait for it... _not_ try to explain everything. Look, this is art in motion, you should be willing to let the viewer's imagination fill in some gaps. IMO, the original black and white _Night of the Living Dead_ is, by far, the best offering in the genre of zombie films. That film didn't try to explain anything, and it was glorious.


This is something that drives me crazy about a lot of modern horror, especially slasher flicks. The people being attacked aren't going to know the entire back story of whatever's coming after them, so why the fuck does the audience need to know? Maybe, if you do a good enough job at telling a compelling story that you get a following and can build the universe through sequels you can worry about an explanation. Or not. But tell the damn story.

Oh, and also, maybe don't make every character in the film a despicable piece of human excrement that you're hoping dies horribly. One of those is fine. An entire cast of them is ridiculous. Not every group of friends are back-stabbing assholes in the real world, why should they all be that way in stories?


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 30, 2021)

bostjan said:


> As for the 1990 film versus the original... IDK. The original is pretty bleak and the remake reversed that. Other than that, they did okay. Yeah, I agree that 1960's Barbara was annoying, but, honestly, it didn't bother me. Some people put into situations like that go into emergency mode and GSD, and others just go insane and get frantic. I feel it's accurate. Both films portray that the real villain is the people, not the ghouls, but only one of the two films portrays the idea that the universe eventually kills everyone, often in the most ironic way, and often without anyone else noticing the irony.


None of the two films portray that the universe eventually kills everyone, because that is not the point of NOTLD. It is the setup for Dawn and Day to lead to that. Regardless, my point that 68 had nothing to do with race (which most people insist it does) still stands.


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## Xaios (Nov 30, 2021)

soliloquy said:


> Office, for example, I personally cant stand as everyone is a complete idiot, and I refuse to believe a company can survive on idiots. But the same is also true for Parks n rec; Brooklyn 99 and other work place comedic shows. The formula of that said comedy is that its a company run by idiots, for idiots.


I don't think Parks & Rec belongs in that list. While the main characters in that show are certainly goofy and have their own baggage, they are also frequently shown to be actually quite competent. The worst that could be said about them most of the time is that they're opportunistic or bullheaded.

Let's look at the tape:

Leslie: Basically the Superman of civic employees, if an utter bulldozer who needs it to always go her way. _Ludicrously_ competent, and cares deeply about both the quality and higher purpose of her work.
Ron: Hardcore libertarian who, despite being there because he's on a personal crusade to neuter government by _not_ working as to intentionally be a drain on its resources, legitimately values hard work and personal excellence, and respects the work Leslie does even if he disagrees with what she's doing it for.
Ben: An excellent accountant who learned the hard way about getting yourself in too deep. Also moderately neurotic and doesn't handle pressure well.
Chris: A human dynamo, excellent consensus builder who can see the long game, and possibly the only person who cares about the people who work with him as much as Leslie.
Ann: Easily the most normal person on the show. Evidently a good nurse.
April: Only does a bad job because she's a) too young to care, and b) was _intentionally_ hired to do a bad job by Ron. Actually does good work when motivated to do so.
Andy: Probably the character that comes closest to the "too stupid to work here" trope, but I'd argue it's because he's doing work for which he's not personally well suited. He eventually finds his calling (kid's performer and charity idea-man) and is generally quite successful in it.
Tom: Very competent, but only works in government in order to develop networking, and is initially obsessed with the image of success without wanting to put the work in. Eventually does put the effort in, has some mild success... and then fails. Even then, he's such a savvy marketing man that he turns that failure into a whole different success.
Gerry/Gary: The whole premise of his character is that he's the butt of the joke about being a bumbling moron (which is sometimes but certainly not always true) despite being generally very competent, _and_ has an excellent home life. He also ends up becoming a long-serving mayor of Pawnee in the end, rewarding him for his years of being the heel.
Donna: We don't really know enough about her performance to gauge her work, but despite being similarly fashion-obsessed like Tom, she's also frequently shown to be quite insightful.
Mark: Who cares, it's Mark.

Hard as it is for me to admit (because it's my co-favorite of the late-aughts/early-tens NBC comedies along with Parks & Rec), Community fits into that list of "everybody that works here is a goddamn moron" trope far more than Parks & Rec.


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## mastapimp (Nov 30, 2021)

I can't stand the trend of putting in an old memorable song, slowing it down significantly to make it "spooky" or "somber" and going with subdued arrangement and often hushed vocals. Examples are "I Got 5 On It" from "Us" and "Creep" in "The Social Network".

I kinda dug this about 20 years ago when I heard it in "Donnie Darko" with "Mad World" but it's been so played out since.


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## bostjan (Nov 30, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> None of the two films portray that the universe eventually kills everyone, because that is not the point of NOTLD. It is the setup for Dawn and Day to lead to that. Regardless, my point that 68 had nothing to do with race (which most people insist it does) still stands.


The reason I say that, is because, in the original film, who survives? No one. Ben is the only one with justifiable actions throughout the entire story, and he survives the zombies all night only to be mistaken for one when help arrives. In the remake, who survives? To me, that's the biggest difference.

People say it has racial commentary because it's what they interpret into it. That's the beauty of leaving things open ended. I don't see it that way, but I didn't grow up in the 60's, I grew up in one of the few racially integrated neighbourhoods in the US. But maybe where race was an issue for a lot of people who saw the movie when it was new, something more on my own mind when I first saw it was the subject of mortality. So perhaps I'm overextending my interpretation. Although I've read plenty of interviews with Romero where he seems to suggest that the overarching theme of the franchise is people trying to save the world, save their loved ones, or save themselves, and inevitably failing. I took that to mean that the films were themed off of the inevitability of human failure, but maybe I'm taking what he said one step too far.


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## bostjan (Nov 30, 2021)

mastapimp said:


> I can't stand the trend of putting in an old memorable song, slowing it down significantly to make it "spooky" or "somber" and going with subdued arrangement and often hushed vocals. Examples are "I Got 5 On It" from "Us" and "Creep" in "The Social Network".
> 
> I kinda dug this about 20 years ago when I heard it in "Donnie Darko" with "Mad World" but it's been so played out since.


I loved Donnie Darko. I think that's maybe one of the best examples of what I've been saying about leaving some things to the viewer's imagination. I think that if you polled a dozen people about the ending of the movie, you'd likely get at least a few vastly different interpretations, and probably everyone with a fairly firm stance on their own interpretation of it.

Even better yet for the purpose of this thread, there was a sequel to Donnie Darko that ticks a hell of a lot of boxes in the category of "things everyone hates about modern movies" 


But I've noted exactly what you said, more in television, but also in movies. There are plenty of slow brooding songs. I don't know that the world needs a slow brooding version of "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR.


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## soliloquy (Nov 30, 2021)

Xaios said:


> Hard as it is for me to admit (because it's my co-favorite of the late-aughts/early-tens NBC comedies along with Parks & Rec), Community fits into that list of "everybody that works here is a goddamn moron" trope far more than Parks & Rec.



I cant fully agree with you on this.

I may not have given Parks n Rec the proper chance, but whatever I did see, i cringed. It was the same for Arrested Development. People being petty, and the show giving them a platform to be even more petty and get paid to do so. Even if the main character(s) understand that they are surrounded by idiots, if they are putting up with it and trying to hold all shit together, they are doing a disservice to them too. They are showing a codependency that is further enabling the rest of the moronic lot to carry forward being bigger idiots. 

And I think the charm of Community is just that. They arent meant to be the most gifted students. They all are meant to be idiots that need extra help, thus they started the study group. I think Community doesn't belong in this list for that very reason. Its idiots being themselves, where as other comedic shows, its morons/idiots pretending to be competent, and failing. 


I find the same issue with Seinfeld. I know i'm in the deep minority for this, as its a cult fav and everyone in my circle refuses to hear ANY criticism of the show. All i get from the show is moronic people being petty for the sake of being petty, with no end in sight. Sure, its a show about nothing, which is unique in a way. But despite that, its people being petty and moronic.


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 30, 2021)

How many Rage Virus movies have there been vs how many good ones? I can think of 28 days later and The Crazies.


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## Louis Cypher (Dec 1, 2021)

bostjan said:


> //
> Part of what I loved about the original Star Wars film was that everything looked old and broken down and filthy. Every time George Lucas had them updated, the universe looked cleaner and more organized and I hated the new look every time.
> I can resonate with the idea that an artist is never done with his or her or their art, but it's frustrating when the artist's self-perceived mistakes are the parts that speak to the audience.
> 
> ...



Totally agree with this: most of the time I watch the original trilogy I just sit there picking holes in all the changes. Also why can't Disney+ have the original theatrical versions available to watch, I'd argue its coz they would be watched more than the current v123.6 ones 

And I agree with being sick of origin stories. I dont need to know how Han Solo became the coolest space smuggler in the galaxy, coz I dont care his character was fully formed from the moment he sat down in the mos eisley cantina with Chewie in New Hope. Since 28 Days Later Zombie movies always seem feel like they need to explain why the outbreak started like @bostjan I don't care sometimes, thats not the reason I watch a Zombie movie. Also, right up there with the pointless Solo origins movie, why did people need to know where or how Cruella DeVille came to be Cruella DeVille? Especially when she is ends up actually nothing like the Cruella in the original cartoon? FFS


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## odibrom (Dec 1, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I'd take any low budget practical effects over low budget CGI any day. At least the practical effects show some level of creativity.
> 
> //
> Part of what I loved about the original Star Wars film was that everything looked old and broken down and filthy. Every time George Lucas had them updated, the universe looked cleaner and more organized and I hated the new look every time.
> ...



The presentation/explanation thing is a time wasting in the story telling of the movie... super boring, specially on known characters like super heroes... something that could be done with a few sentences within a dialogue sometimes lasts for half the movie...

The Star Wars prequels had that BRAND NEW objects kind of vibe, which kind of fits the story, since things weren't "yet" hard to get... the republic was still a republic and so on... about 20 years later (Earth, see my previous post on this on the first page) things all broken in, hence that look in the original trilogy... it's just a thought...


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## bostjan (Dec 1, 2021)

Louis Cypher said:


> Totally agree with this: most of the time I watch the original trilogy I just sit there picking holes in all the changes. Also why can't Disney+ have the original theatrical versions available to watch, I'd argue its coz they would be watched more than the current v123.6 ones
> 
> And I agree with being sick of origin stories. I dont need to know how Han Solo became the coolest space smuggler in the galaxy, coz I dont care his character was fully formed from the moment he sat down in the mos eisley cantina with Chewie in New Hope. Since 28 Days Later Zombie movies always seem feel like they need to explain why the outbreak started like @bostjan I don't care sometimes, thats not the reason I watch a Zombie movie. Also, right up there with the pointless Solo origins movie, why did people need to know where or how Cruella DeVille came to be Cruella DeVille? Especially when she is ends up actually nothing like the Cruella in the original cartoon? FFS


Word on the street is that Lucas had crusaded to get the original releases purged from public record. If the oldest version of Star Wars you've seen mentioned anything about being episode IV in the opening crawl, it wasn't the theatrical release, nor the first re-release. It was the second re-release (third version altogether, 1981) that added "Episode IV: A New Hope" to the title crawl. The special edition was the 6th re-release of the film, so even the de-specialized versions are probably mostly based on the 3rd edit, where the sound effects were significantly redone, the rotoscoping was significantly redone, etc., but at least the overall story was the same. The 3rd cut of the film was the one I grew up with.

I think filmmakers are confusing amount of details with depth of character. The number of people I ever heard ponder out loud how Han Solo got his last name was zero. The detail adds nothing, especially since it's such a throw-away that I would expect the character to stop using the surname Solo as soon as he broke away from the Empire if he had any depth of character.


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## Rev2010 (Dec 1, 2021)

Super hero movies - all the fighting scenes with all this physical contact, fire, explosions, buildings crumbling on people, people getting punched and flying 60 feet and no one suffers any major cuts, bruises, or internal organ damage from intertia regardless of what their super power is. I just don't get it. And their clothes survive all this damage lol.

All the movies with ridiculous subplots/nested realities like @thraxil posted. It's like come one, stop trying to be so damn clever by making up all these stupid levels of complexity, it's not working.

Horror movies - they all suck for a long time. They're all jump scares and silly shit like disjointed movement (who's scared of a monster or ghost that walks like it's broken?) and long hair covering some woman's face... oooooh soooo spooky! I'm waiting for something as epic as The Exorcist, The Thing, Alien, etc to come out.

Love interests - like others have mentioned, and I know it's in the Screenwriters Handbook, every god damn movie has to have a love interest no matter the genre - scifi, drama, super hero, action/adventure, etc. Even each Indiana Jones movie had a love interest!

Lame twists - I don't know about you guys but so many movies these days I can easily see the stupid plot twist coming from a mile away. Oh this poor woman is being tormented but TWIST!!!! SHE IS THE KILLER NOT THE VICTIM!!!!

90 minute run time - I love long movies. I like when a story can be told without having to be crammed into a short 90 minute window just because some people have attention span problems. I don't get why people can watch 70 hours of Game of Thrones but for some reason have a problem if a movie goes much longer than 90 minutes.

Guess I'll leave it at that as I could probably go on for way too long


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 1, 2021)

Rev2010 said:


> Horror movies - they all suck for a long time. They're all jump scares and silly shit like disjointed movement (who's scared of a monster or ghost that walks like it's broken?) and long hair covering some woman's face... oooooh soooo spooky! I'm waiting for something as epic as The Exorcist, The Thing, Alien, etc to come out.


Agreed. They took it from Marilyn Manson music videos. By the time they adopted it, it was played out. I'm sure that Marilyn Manson got it from somewhere as well, but you get the point. I place it on his music videos, by the way, because it it -- to me -- where it came from in terms of modern horror, even if someone did it first prior to him.



Rev2010 said:


> Love interests - like others have mentioned, and I know it's in the Screenwriters Handbook, every god damn movie has to have a love interest no matter the genre - scifi, drama, super hero, action/adventure, etc. Even each Indiana Jones movie had a love interest!


I think the love interest trope is done to tether the main character to something that the audience can identify as real. However, I would much rather the screenwriters and filmmakers attach it to something else occasionally, as well. ie, a pet, an object (car, guitar, etc), or their sense of pride in their integrity, etc.



Rev2010 said:


> Lame twists - I don't know about you guys but so many movies these days I can easily see the stupid plot twist coming from a mile away. Oh this poor woman is being tormented but TWIST!!!! SHE IS THE KILLER NOT THE VICTIM!!!!


Sure, twists have become as obligatory as "straight white male killer bad," but I think the problem is the laziness. Instead, they could give it something interesting to explain the twist (ie, an element of the character that explains the twist reveal, or possibly the character's "normal" aspect).



Rev2010 said:


> 90 minute run time - I love long movies. I like when a story can be told without having to be crammed into a short 90 minute window just because some people have attention span problems. I don't get why people can watch 70 hours of Game of Thrones but for some reason have a problem if a movie goes much longer than 90 minutes.


For me, if the film can be told in 90 minutes, but they made it 135 minutes, then it needs to have the fat trimmed. Quality over quantity. However, if that 90 minute movie really needed an additional 20-40 minutes, then the film feels like it wasn't fleshed out completely. Either way, the film -- and this applies to music as well -- suffers, regardless of which way it went.


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## Louis Cypher (Dec 1, 2021)

I agree about run times being too long for the sake of being long. I can understand some films having 130/140+ runtime, Schindlers List immediately springs to mind (3 hrs I think that is), the LOTR trilogy, but when you got films like Transformers blah of the blah being padded out to nearly 3 hours..... latest Bond film is another, WAY too long. Not all Blockbusters need to be knocking on the 3 hr mark


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## ArtDecade (Dec 1, 2021)

Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't even know which Marvel movies she was in. Blockbusters are just an assembly line of explosions and capes at this point.


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## bostjan (Dec 1, 2021)

ArtDecade said:


> Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't even know which Marvel movies she was in. Blockbusters are just an assembly line of explosions and capes at this point.


You mean the actress that claimed that water was scientifically proven to have emotions, or that sells stickers made of carbon fiber as medicinal treatments?


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## Seabeast2000 (Dec 1, 2021)

bostjan said:


> You mean the actress that claimed that water was scientifically proven to have emotions, or that sells stickers made of carbon fiber as medicinal treatments?


Does she sell emotional guitar cables?


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## nightflameauto (Dec 1, 2021)

Seabeast2000 said:


> Does she sell emotional guitar cables?


Let's not forget the vagina scented candles.


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## odibrom (Dec 1, 2021)

nightflameauto said:


> Let's not forget the vagina scented candles.



What? Link please...


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## Edika (Dec 1, 2021)

Guns, guns, guns, lone hero/heroine solving all the world's problems with violence, bullets and kicking ass, killing the population of a small village but the authorities don't even arrest them cause they're the good guys that handled all the scum the laws would not let them handle.

Movies in order to be thought provoking and deep they need to study and portray the worst in humanity.


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## bostjan (Dec 2, 2021)

odibrom said:


> What? Link please...


Just go ahead and skip this link. There's also a perfume version. It's possibly one of the most brilliant things she's done, considering the amount of attention resulting from it, but considering other things she's said and done, there's not much competition.

Paltrow is probably no more nor less loony than the average Hollywood personality, though. Perhaps that's closer to the root of the problem- a lot of these people believe that everything they touch turns to gold, so they don't think anything through and just shoot from the hip throughout their entire careers. And since we celebrate the lunacy, and any press is good press for these people, the public provides positive feedback for negative behaviours.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 2, 2021)

odibrom said:


> What? Link please...


While someone else linked to the actual candle, here's a fun little story about it.


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## Edika (Dec 2, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Just go ahead and skip this link. There's also a perfume version. It's possibly one of the most brilliant things she's done, considering the amount of attention resulting from it, but considering other things she's said and done, there's not much competition.
> 
> Paltrow is probably no more nor less loony than the average Hollywood personality, though. Perhaps that's closer to the root of the problem- a lot of these people believe that everything they touch turns to gold, so they don't think anything through and just shoot from the hip throughout their entire careers. And since we celebrate the lunacy, and any press is good press for these people, the public provides positive feedback for negative behaviours.



Nice marketing from their part but according to the ingredients:
with geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed
not likely to smell like a vagina


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## bostjan (Dec 2, 2021)

Edika said:


> Nice marketing from their part but according to the ingredients:
> with geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed
> not likely to smell like a vagina


Probably not, but who knows what these crazy Hollywood celebrities are eating?! 

It's just a funny thought that there's a market targeting people who actually want to smell like OPP, or want their houses to smell like OPP enough to spend this kind of money.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Dec 2, 2021)

Edika said:


> Nice marketing from their part but according to the ingredients:
> with geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed
> not likely to smell like a vagina


Possibly what she thinks her cooter smells like and what it actually does smell like are two wildly different things.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 2, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Possibly what she thinks her cooter smells like and what it actually does smell like are two wildly different things.


Or she's one of those people that intentionally poison the well with nasty scented perfumes.


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## odibrom (Dec 2, 2021)

... or it's just a catchy product name for an "I don't care" kind of attitude? There's a wine brand here called "Que se foda" (meaning "fuck it", literally). It sold out fast when it came out last year and was being sold at 1k€ a bottle at the time. Is it a good wine? I couldn't care less, link here: https://ncultura.pt/vinho-tinto-do-momento-que-se-foda-2020/ (use some sort of online translate tool to read the article).







It says the following:
Não se assuste com o nome, *Que se foda* é um vinho do caralho.​Translation:
Don't be scared by the name, *Fuck It* is a wine from the _penis_ (as a _great thing_).​
I think it's a provocative product name, that's all there is to it. The collection is also provocative with "smell like an orgasm" and things alike. If it said, "smells like my boobs", "belly button", "used socks" or "used panties" (there's market for this in Japan I think), it would sell just the same... it's not like in the Harry Potter adventures where they had vomit flavored chocolate.


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## Seabeast2000 (Dec 2, 2021)

I might be too old, but Black Death vodka meant something. This? Not so much.


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## spudmunkey (Dec 2, 2021)

Seabeast2000 said:


> I might be too old, but Black Death vodka meant something.



"Black Death"...there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Was the vodka the same brand as the cigarettes that were the choice of 98% of high schoolers with black painted/nailpolished/sharpied fingernails?


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## Seabeast2000 (Dec 2, 2021)

spudmunkey said:


> "Black Death"...there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Was the vodka the same brand as the cigarettes that were the choice of 98% of high schoolers with black painted/nailpolished/sharpied fingernails?



It appears to use the same branding. I was unfamiliar with the Smokes, or at least don't remember them. The vodka I remember being mentioned in the Appetite for Destruction liner thank yous, IIRC.


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## TheBlackBard (Dec 2, 2021)

Edika said:


> Guns, guns, guns, lone hero/heroine solving all the world's problems with violence, bullets and kicking ass, killing the population of a small village but the authorities don't even arrest them cause they're the good guys that handled all the scum the laws would not let them handle.
> 
> Movies in order to be thought provoking and deep they need to study and portray the worst in humanity.




Thing is, not every movie needs to be thought provoking. There are some movies that just act as the cinematic version of theme parks, and that's perfectly fine. I don't go to a theme park to discover the meaning of life, just like I wouldn't see a therapist in anticipation of going on a joyride.


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## bostjan (Dec 2, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> Thing is, not every movie needs to be thought provoking. There are some movies that just act as the cinematic version of theme parks, and that's perfectly fine. I don't go to a theme park to discover the meaning of life, just like I wouldn't see a therapist in anticipation of going on a joyride.


Meh, if you just want flashing lights and mindless noise, that's kinda what television is for, though.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 2, 2021)

odibrom said:


> ... or it's just a catchy product name for an "I don't care" kind of attitude? There's a wine brand here called "Que se foda" (meaning "fuck it", literally). It sold out fast when it came out last year and was being sold at 1k€ a bottle at the time. Is it a good wine? I couldn't care less, link here: https://ncultura.pt/vinho-tinto-do-momento-que-se-foda-2020/ (use some sort of online translate tool to read the article).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The used panties thing? At one time (don't know if it's true now) they had vending machines for that.


bostjan said:


> Meh, if you just want flashing lights and mindless noise, that's kinda what television is for, though.


I'll vehemently disagree with this premise. Television and films aren't segregated by quality.

Some TV shows are intelligent and thought provoking. Some are spectacles of crazy proportion. Rarely you find that gem that manages to do both well.

Some films are intelligent and thought provoking. Some are spectacles of crazy proportion. Rarely you find that gem that manages to do both well.

One of our big problems right now is that both are managed by people that look at what's made them money in the past and then try to recreate that exact same formula. And it's been that way for so long that we've reached the point where the vast majority of the shit they shovel out is, beyond a superficial coating of paint and special effects, exact carbon-copies of each other. Which is boring as shit for us old folks that have seen it all a thousand times already.


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## bostjan (Dec 2, 2021)

nightflameauto said:


> I'll vehemently disagree with this premise. Television and films aren't segregated by quality.
> 
> Some TV shows are intelligent and thought provoking. Some are spectacles of crazy proportion. Rarely you find that gem that manages to do both well.
> 
> ...


Oh, I'm not arguing that's the way it is.

There are a few recent television shows that I really liked for their quality overall, but my point was that, if you want to just have bullshit to provide some white noise or whatever for the background at a family get-together or just to escape your own thoughts of world domination, you can flip on the television. You shouldn't have to pack up and drive to the cineplex or imax or whatever-max and shell out $14 in order to turn off your upper brain completely for a little while without too much static.

I'm not even saying that movies need to be all great quality. There are your big budget $100B Hollywood movies and then there are your basement B movies. Both have plenty of right to exist, but when Hollywood is spending big budget money to churn out B-movie quality stories, we have a systematic problem. If I spend $14 to see a movie once and not keep it, then it had better be worth more to me than the DVD's in the giant aisleway bin at Fred's Discount Furniture, Tobacco, and Beer Emporium for $1.

On the other hand, if you are spending Hollywood big movie budget on a television show, it's probably because of the pandemic. Or, if you are spending a lot less and just releasing super high quality entertainment in the form of a television show (something like Breaking Bad), then a) good for you and b) maybe the industry would be better served if you were the one making the big movies instead of the guys who are just sitting there laughing "huh huh big boobs and denn car go boom huh huh"...


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## nightflameauto (Dec 2, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Oh, I'm not arguing that's the way it is.
> 
> There are a few recent television shows that I really liked for their quality overall, but my point was that, if you want to just have bullshit to provide some white noise or whatever for the background at a family get-together or just to escape your own thoughts of world domination, you can flip on the television. You shouldn't have to pack up and drive to the cineplex or imax or whatever-max and shell out $14 in order to turn off your upper brain completely for a little while without too much static.
> 
> ...


*WAVES AT MICHAEL BAY*


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## TheBlackBard (Dec 2, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Meh, if you just want flashing lights and mindless noise, that's kinda what television is for, though.



No, TV is where you go to get neutered watered versions of vampires that are somehow worse than the already neutered watered down vampires in Hollywood. Besides that, the quality in bubblegum is different between TV and Hollywood. The Infinity Saga would not have been the same had it been a TV show.

There is enough room to shut one's brain off in cinema and for some boring slog of a 3 hour mobster movie featuring past their prime actors trying to make us believe they can still be badasses.


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## Edika (Dec 2, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> Thing is, not every movie needs to be thought provoking. There are some movies that just act as the cinematic version of theme parks, and that's perfectly fine. I don't go to a theme park to discover the meaning of life, just like I wouldn't see a therapist in anticipation of going on a joyride.



That wasn't the point I was trying to make though. I have nothing against flashy fun movies. I do enjoy them more when they're on the goofy side. I'm just tired of seeing posters of people looking over their shoulder with a serious look holding a gun. 

On the other hand, if you consider the more artsy and thought provoking movies, why do 90% of the times have to be so depressive? Can't they pass their message on a kore positive manner?


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## Rev2010 (Dec 2, 2021)

Louis Cypher said:


> I agree about run times being too long for the sake of being long.



You two completely missed my point. My point was it's a shame cramming a story that should be told over a longer time frame into a shorter time frame because it's said that most people these days have *too short* an attention span. I too am not for dragging something out way longer than it needs to be. I was saying that some movies could be way more interesting and epic if they allowed the time needed to tell the full story rather than truncating it.

Ever notice directors cut movies are always longer than theatrical? Not saying directors cuts are necessarily better - sometimes they are and sometimes they're terrible and you realize just WHY the studios don't always leave the decisions up to the director lol.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 2, 2021)

Rev2010 said:


> You two completely missed my point. My point was it's a shame cramming a story that should be told over a longer time frame into a shorter time frame because it's said that most people these days have *too short* an attention span. I too am not for dragging something out way longer than it needs to be. I was saying that some movies could be way more interesting and epic if they allowed the time needed to tell the full story rather than truncating it.
> 
> Ever notice directors cut movies are always longer than theatrical? Not saying directors cuts are necessarily better - sometimes they are and sometimes they're terrible and you realize just WHY the studios don't always leave the decisions up to the director lol.


Justice League/ Kingdom of Heaven are perfect examples of this.. The theatrical release is all over the place, whereas the director's cut actually gets to flesh out some of the subplots and it makes them into far better films.


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## thraxil (Dec 3, 2021)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Justice League/ Kingdom of Heaven are perfect examples of this.. The theatrical release is all over the place, whereas the director's cut actually gets to flesh out some of the subplots and it makes them into far better films.



I never saw the original release of Justice League, but I watched the director's cut this summer and my main thought while I watched it was "my god, this movie needs an editor".


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## bostjan (Dec 3, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> No, TV is where you go to get neutered watered versions of vampires that are somehow worse than the already neutered watered down vampires in Hollywood. Besides that, the quality in bubblegum is different between TV and Hollywood. The Infinity Saga would not have been the same had it been a TV show.
> 
> There is enough room to shut one's brain off in cinema and for some boring slog of a 3 hour mobster movie featuring past their prime actors trying to make us believe they can still be badasses.


Infinity Gauntlet was a great comic series. The Infinity War movie was great. End Game had some great moments, but ultimately was a lot of plot backpedaling and mumbo jumbo and opened up the doors for too much other nonsense. I mean, if any character got ahold of the time-traveling technology, which, why couldn't they, then they could undo everything. So, the fact that they invented time travel, undid only what the last movie did, and then everyone just assumes that the time travel can never be used again, it's bullshit. It's easy to give it a pass being a sequel to a pretty amazing movie, but I think ultimately, it will become a trope where the heroes whip up an all-powerful undo button and then destroy it when they are done with it, and some day we will all be pointing fingers at End Game as the start of a pretty BS plot laziness trope.

Or maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, I'd rather watch DeNiro try to act like a badass with dentures in a well-written gangster movie than watch Mel Bay direct a 120+ minute toy ad with a bunch of CGI robots making crude jokes while every leaf that falls off a tree creates CGI explosions intercut with slow-mo wet tshirt contests.


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## Louis Cypher (Dec 3, 2021)

I agree with the directors cut of kingdom of heaven being fantastic and far better than the theatre cut. Just seems to me anyway in general most movies now are on average 2 n half hours when plenty don't need to be.

Can't remember if anyone already mentioned this but in movie and TV world car doors, furniture, dead bodies etc etc can all be used as a perfect shield against any kind of gun. Pretty sure an old episode of Mythbusters showed this was all complete nonsense


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## bostjan (Dec 3, 2021)

Louis Cypher said:


> Can't remember if anyone already mentioned this but in movie and TV world car doors, furniture, dead bodies etc etc can all be used as a perfect shield against any kind of gun. Pretty sure an old episode of Mythbusters showed this was all complete nonsense



I think that just fits with the general trend that movies have no idea how guns work at all.


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## TheBlackBard (Dec 3, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Infinity Gauntlet was a great comic series. The Infinity War movie was great. End Game had some great moments, but ultimately was a lot of plot backpedaling and mumbo jumbo and opened up the doors for too much other nonsense. I mean, if any character got ahold of the time-traveling technology, which, why couldn't they, then they could undo everything. So, the fact that they invented time travel, undid only what the last movie did, and then everyone just assumes that the time travel can never be used again, it's bullshit. It's easy to give it a pass being a sequel to a pretty amazing movie, but I think ultimately, it will become a trope where the heroes whip up an all-powerful undo button and then destroy it when they are done with it, and some day we will all be pointing fingers at End Game as the start of a pretty BS plot laziness trope.
> 
> Or maybe I'm wrong.
> 
> Anyway, I'd rather watch DeNiro try to act like a badass with dentures in a well-written gangster movie than watch Mel Bay direct a 120+ minute toy ad with a bunch of CGI robots making crude jokes while every leaf that falls off a tree creates CGI explosions intercut with slow-mo wet tshirt contests.



Thing is, that's your prerogative and as long as there is demand for both, there is room for both.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 3, 2021)

I'll take the slo-mo wet t shirt contests, please and thanks.


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## BornToLooze (Dec 3, 2021)

bostjan said:


> The Infinity War movie was great. End Game had some great moments, but ultimately was a lot of plot backpedaling and mumbo jumbo and opened up the doors for too much other nonsense.



I mean, Mr Doctor saw all possible endings with Thanos, and apparently there was only one where they won. You mean to tell me there wasn't an ending where the snap snapped John Wick's dog and he made the Punisher look like a little bitch?


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## Xaios (Dec 7, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> Thing is, not every movie needs to be thought provoking. There are some movies that just act as the cinematic version of theme parks, and that's perfectly fine. I don't go to a theme park to discover the meaning of life, just like I wouldn't see a therapist in anticipation of going on a joyride.


Indeed. I don't watch Super Troopers for the social commentary on corrupt police.


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## wheresthefbomb (Dec 7, 2021)

Recently (pandemic times, mostly) I've been noticing an increase of reviews on Amazon complaining about movies/shows having "progressive" politics hamfisted into them. My kneejerk was to dismiss this as so much whining, but as someone whose idea of leftism makes most "leftists" uncomfortable, I have to say I have definitely noticed a lot of cases of what I would describe as being exactly hamfisted "progressive" politics. 

What mostly gives them away is the painfully bad writing. A lot of them come off like some incel whose idea of feminist theory is informed by a handful of Tumblr posts from 2013. The series Invincible is the worst offender I can think of offhand, I literally thought it was trying to parody the above-mentioned attitude until I started reading reviews and realized it was "just" bad writing.

Amazon (and presumably other production companies) is actually validating the complaints of these people to the point where I find myself _agreeing_ with the core of their argument, if not their dogwhistle conclusions regarding "cultural marxism" or whatever. 

A shortsighted liberal conspiracy? A calculated attempt to undermine social justice and representation? Over-analysis of a naked opportunistic cash grab by the world's richest smug asshole? A smorgasbord of the above?

Let's just say I'll be remaining _#psyoptimistic _


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## nightflameauto (Dec 7, 2021)

wheresthefbomb said:


> Recently (pandemic times, mostly) I've been noticing an increase of reviews on Amazon complaining about movies/shows having "progressive" politics hamfisted into them. My kneejerk was to dismiss this as so much whining, but as someone whose idea of leftism makes most "leftists" uncomfortable, I have to say I have definitely noticed a lot of cases of what I would describe as being exactly hamfisted "progressive" politics.
> 
> What mostly gives them away is the painfully bad writing. A lot of them come off like some incel whose idea of feminist theory is informed by a handful of Tumblr posts from 2013. The series Invincible is the worst offender I can think of offhand, I literally thought it was trying to parody the above-mentioned attitude until I started reading reviews and realized it was "just" bad writing.
> 
> ...


I think you found the real root of the problem and glossed over it for the more exhilarating possibilities. Shit writing is shit writing. Just because these shit writers are handed concepts they aren't capable of handling with subtlety and nuance doesn't mean they wouldn't be writing complete trash without those concepts being handed to them.


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## wheresthefbomb (Dec 7, 2021)

nightflameauto said:


> I think you found the real root of the problem and glossed over it for the more exhilarating possibilities. Shit writing is shit writing. Just because these shit writers are handed concepts they aren't capable of handling with subtlety and nuance doesn't mean they wouldn't be writing complete trash without those concepts being handed to them.



The "over-analysis" comment was meant to make light of just that, but perhaps I missed the mark in my exhilaration. As you say, it's not like any of these shows had stellar writing outside of these incidents, if anything they were par for the course.

All the best and most fun conspiracy theories are random chains of bungling ineptitude that look intentional and calculating in hindsight.


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## Louis Cypher (Dec 8, 2021)

wheresthefbomb said:


> All the best and most fun conspiracy theories are random chains of bungling ineptitude that look intentional and calculating in hindsight.


Any random sequence of actions or events can be turned in to an intentional/calculating conspiracy (left or right) and made to look legit if someone is already convinced there is a conspiracy anyway. Bad writing is bad writing


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## bostjan (Dec 8, 2021)

Bad writing and implausible conspiracy theories do seem to go hand-in-hand.

I feel like there must be a website out there somewhere with a bot screenplay writing function, and I bet the result wouldn't be too far off from some of the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff we are seeing out in cinemas or especially television.


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## thebeesknees22 (Nov 1, 2022)

tom schelfaut said:


> The constant and obvious social justice influence in literally everything nowadays, at the expense of decent writing, good actors, etc...


it happens when all things are made by committee and research algorithms anymore. gotta get the fullest mass appeal to make the biggest buck. 

Film these days isn't about making good a film. The marvel effect has taken over and everything is about casting the biggest net for the widest audience possible.

it's probably to avoid fake internet backlash as much as possible too since every ding-a-ling and news outlet on the planet can't seem to pry themselves away from the fake outrage addiction.


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## Kaura (Nov 1, 2022)

Cape shit movies

/thread


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## lost_horizon (Nov 1, 2022)

-Bad music constantly in the background, whether it's the Facebook movie, or a Romcom with a random pop song playing every 5 seconds. Having a shit song as your main plot device a la The Proposal.
-Bad casting choices. Cheap films with low budget from big production companies that have the worst actors you have ever heard in your life. 
-Big Budget films that cast the Rock in the main role. Jungle Cruise is one of the biggest film losses in recent years and if anyone else was in that movie and you just judged it on the script you would have thrown it out. https://collider.com/10-big-budget-...other case,reflect a movie's overall earnings. BTW I loved John Carter and wish there were sequels
-Film companies committing to sequels, having the IP and not telling the stories. Eragon, John Carter, etc etc Make the movie, there is latent demand for these films or just action and adventure films in general. Every week a few years ago there would be a new action or gun film coming out every month. Now people are afraid to make a gritty violent film.
-Trying to fit a film into less than 2 hours. Films are escapism, Books need to be a certain length to tell a story films do to
-Films obsessed with backstory, I don't need to know every reason why the main character is the way they are. Flashbacks out the wazoo. The reason old movies are so succesful is the characters are predictable, they have values, they won;t compromise on them and they have a goal/mission. The reason George RR Martin has so many characters you are interested in is they have values/purpose, they have a skill, they look a particular way and they play a role in a wider story. No HBO I don't need 50 prequels to explain why some random inbred Tagaryen shits his pants. Leave it as a mystery, let the audience make their own mind up. Some IP has amazing fan theories as a result. You wasted film on this?
-More puppets and less CGI how much does CGI cost and how shit is it? Dragons etc are so shittily rendered and people have spent 100's of millions on it. A puppet doesn't cost 50 million bucks. People save money on actors by just doing voice acting.
-Stop having actors and random celebrities do voice overs, there are voice over people out there that are so much better. If you are doing CGI film get some great voice actors. Make the industry bigger and stop putting the Rock/Chris Rock/Chris Pine etc in every film
-speaking of casting the widest net possible you will inevitably alienate one side by catering to someone who would have NEVER WATCHED YOUR FILM OTHERWISE! There is no more audience, you can't increase your MARVEL/DC audience, they have already reached saturation. Rather than cater to the people that will watch your film 99% of the time you try to cater to people who are not in that cohort? With their casting/director/title choices sometimes they have already alienated half their cohort and boycotts begin. What's more important having a certain plot device or an extra 200 million bucks?


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 1, 2022)

Blumhouse. Enough said.


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## thebeesknees22 (Nov 1, 2022)

lost_horizon said:


> ...
> -More puppets and less CGI how much does CGI cost and how shit is it? Dragons etc are so shittily rendered and people have spent 100's of millions on it. ....


This 99% of the time comes down to not giving vfx artists enough time because an editor or director or executive wanted to noodle the edit until the last minute which in turn only gave the vfx artists a fraction of the time they were supposed to have had on a shot. 

The time crunch gets more worse every year. (plus tons of senior artists have left the industry to do the more and more insane hours. And other companies in other industries want their skills and happen to pay better or have way better hours and benefits. At this point a vfx artist is only in the industry either because they really really want to be in it, or they're too busy or lazy to put together a reel to get out.....sometimes a combination of both)


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## jaxadam (Nov 1, 2022)

This is a pet peeve of mine, but I find it very strange when a movie has a soundtrack or plays a song that is in a completely different time period than the movie setting. For example, a movie about ancient times that has a modern rock song interspersed, or even using instruments that were not invented yet.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Nov 1, 2022)

Studio interference. This is one of the biggest issues that plague a lot of modern movies. Usually for a multitude of reasons: they don't have confidence in the director/screenwriter/team, change in staff be it said team or the actual studio, or abruptly changing gears because of current trends, or a perfect storm of all of the above (the theatrical cut of Justice League). The results are usually to the movie's detriment and it's becoming more and more apparent nowadays.


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## Louis Cypher (Nov 2, 2022)

It may have been said before, by me even, in this thread (TL;DRE:R)
But the constant need by Hollywood to pump out sequels, reboots, reimaginings, remakes, spin offs and the desperation to constantly try to create a film franchise to try to ride the same money train that Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter & Marvel created. A really good (or bad) popular money making film does not always need a money grab sequel or spin off


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## BornToLooze (Nov 3, 2022)

jaxadam said:


> This is a pet peeve of mine, but I find it very strange when a movie has a soundtrack or plays a song that is in a completely different time period than the movie setting. For example, a movie about ancient times that has a modern rock song interspersed, or even using instruments that were not invented yet.



On the other hand...


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## nightflameauto (Nov 3, 2022)

A Knight's Tale is awesome and anybody saying otherwise?

Your endtrails will become your extrails and your extrails will...crrrsh
pain.


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## bostjan (Nov 3, 2022)

BornToLooze said:


> On the other hand...



 I love this scene, and I love this movie.

But no one ever brings up the shot of the old man eating a turkey leg in 14th century England? The turkey was not introduced to England until the 16th century.

But, the biggest sin in the scene is the fact that they go through the entire song of "We Will Rock You" and not a single note of "We Are the Champions."


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## BornToLooze (Nov 3, 2022)

bostjan said:


> I love this scene, and I love this movie.
> 
> But no one ever brings up the shot of the old man eating a turkey leg in 14th century England? The turkey was not introduced to England until the 16th century.
> 
> But, the biggest sin in the scene is the fact that they go through the entire song of "We Will Rock You" and not a single note of "We Are the Champions."



You know Mistah J rode into that jousting match thinking it though...


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## Bloody_Inferno (Nov 4, 2022)

Louis Cypher said:


> It may have been said before, by me even, in this thread (TL;DRE:R)
> But the constant need by Hollywood to pump out sequels, reboots, reimaginings, remakes, spin offs and the desperation to constantly try to create a film franchise to try to ride the same money train that Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter & Marvel created. A really good (or bad) popular money making film does not always need a money grab sequel or spin off



While I do agree that the market is banking too heavily on franchise property and sequels, I do find it amusing how the blockbuster sequel trend were birthed by same New Hollywood directors who are complaining about the modern popular movies whilst promoting their own upcoming projects. James Cameron, the undisputed master of blockbuster sequels, jumped on the bagging of Marvel and DC, while promoting the next Avatar movie (and the next 2 after it). Though to be fair, Cameron is one of the few directors who can put his money where his mouth his, and his criticisms comes more valid than say Scorsese and (certainly) Coppola. My money's on Cameron for now. 

Cashing in on movie sequels have been around since the 1930s but Hollywood does love their money.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 17, 2022)

- Trailers that use lines that were cut from the final film. AYFKM?

- Music and sound effects that are 100dB over the dialog. _Stop. Fucking. Doing. That.

- _Every haunted house story _must_ begin with a young white couple making a dubious real estate decision.

- Random, brainless edgelord crap.

- Have we talked about budgets yet?

- Why does media praise for movies have to be so vague? Try telling me something that is unique about the film that would make me want to dedicate two hours of my life to watching it.

- Stop trying to impress me with how method an actor got for a role. Show me on the screen.

- Stop playing up how much the actor looked like the subject of the biopic. That’s like 10% of what matters. If you sacrifice to get 100% of that, you’re still missing 90% of your damn movie. Get over it.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 17, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> - Have we talked about budgets yet?


I'll take low budget sleaze n cheese over a big budget CGI ridden farce.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 17, 2022)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I'll take low budget sleaze n cheese over a big budget CGI ridden farce.


Robert Eggers with a $4 million budget: _The Witch_

Robert Eggers with an $80 million budget: _The Northman_

‘Nuff said.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 17, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> - Trailers that use lines that were cut from the final film. AYFKM?



The entire reason I went to go see _The Beach_ in the theater was because of a song in the trailer and I wanted to see the credits to find out who it was...but the song was never actually used in the movie. I was pissed. 

Kinda reminds me of the TMNT III: The Manhattan Project game for NES which prominently featured a Triceraton as the main villain on the front of the box art...but wasn't anywhere in the game.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 17, 2022)

I just realized how pervasive the family crap is and how much I fucking hate it. It’s a lazy-ass way to fill time in any drama or comedy where the writers are running on fumes.

Strange man shows up on the doorstep. Nobody on their right mind would open the door. Main character: “Hi dad.” An odd woman accosts you in public, making a scene. “Hi, mom. How much money do you need?” 

This usually happens _after_ I’ve established an interest in the previously introduced characters and what’s going on, which is what makes it so puzzling. You had a good thing going, but I don’t care about your relationship with your estranged parent. Now you have to waste time and energy and lines of dialogue dealing with this shit, keeping you from dealing with the meat of the premise and substituting in some tired clichés about how imperfect families are but they’re still so darn lovable in spite of — no, _because of_ — all their faults and blah blah blah blah blah… 

When I watch a movie a movie about families, I want it to be the purpose, not the distraction. Watch a movie like _The Squid and the Whale, The Ice Storm, Juno, _ or Todd Field’s wonderful 2001 film _In the Bedroom _to get a glimpse of how much more can be done with family dynamics onscreen.


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## bostjan (Nov 18, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> I just realized how pervasive the family crap is and how much I fucking hate it. It’s a lazy-ass way to fill time in any drama or comedy where the writers are running on fumes.
> 
> Strange man shows up on the doorstep. Nobody on their right mind would open the door. Main character: “Hi dad.” An odd woman accosts you in public, making a scene. “Hi, mom. How much money do you need?”
> 
> ...



Yeah, they don't need to pad the runtime on any of these modern movies. Some of the best films were ~90 minutes. The Lord of the Rings movies were decent *despite* being too long. I think a lot of studios are like "Ugh, the final cut looks like it's only going to be 89 minutes- better reshoot a bunch of scene to add in some unrelated subplots that detract from the storytelling!"

You would think the film studios would be smart enough to figure out how to give people just enough to leave them wanting more. It's not like the ticket to go see that 3 hour long movie is more expensive than the ticket to see the hour-and-a-half movie. And the ratio of "good movie, but it was a bit too long" to "man, I wish that movie was longer" that I hear from people as they walk out of the cinema is at least 10:1.


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## Crungy (Nov 18, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> Music and sound effects that are 100dB over the dialog. _Stop. Fucking. Doing. That._


Absolutely. I don't know why it's still a thing. 


Wiltonauer said:


> Random, brainless edgelord crap.


I agree, but since I haven't watched a new movie in 5 years (and who knows how many before that), what are some examples you can think of?


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## Demiurge (Nov 18, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Yeah, they don't need to pad the runtime on any of these modern movies. Some of the best films were ~90 minutes. The Lord of the Rings movies were decent *despite* being too long. I think a lot of studios are like "Ugh, the final cut looks like it's only going to be 89 minutes- better reshoot a bunch of scene to add in some unrelated subplots that detract from the storytelling!"
> 
> You would think the film studios would be smart enough to figure out how to give people just enough to leave them wanting more. It's not like the ticket to go see that 3 hour long movie is more expensive than the ticket to see the hour-and-a-half movie. And the ratio of "good movie, but it was a bit too long" to "man, I wish that movie was longer" that I hear from people as they walk out of the cinema is at least 10:1.



Considering the greed at-play and cynicism over shorter attention spams, it's surprising that movies haven't gotten shorter over time to maximize profits: fewer scenes, smaller casts, smaller budgets, smaller reels/less digital storage space, more showings per day, etc. The only upside to longer movies for studios is perhaps for franchises, allowing more time to feature characters that will get spun-off into their own movies.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 18, 2022)

Demiurge said:


> Considering the greed at-play and cynicism over shorter attention spams, it's surprising that movies haven't gotten shorter over time to maximize profits: fewer scenes, smaller casts, smaller budgets, smaller reels/less digital storage space, more showings per day, etc. The only upside to longer movies for studios is perhaps for franchises, allowing more time to feature characters that will get spun-off into their own movies.


Maybe there is a feeling among some moviegoers that they’re not getting their money’s worth with a 90-minute runtime. When I sit in a theater for 2:00 or 2:20, I feel like I’ve been _through_ something — hopefully in a good way.

And honestly I don’t believe another 30-40 minutes necessarily results in proportionally higher production costs. I suspect it’s usually a matter of cutting less. If anything, it’s more editing time and maybe more post-production.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 18, 2022)

Demiurge said:


> Considering the greed at-play and cynicism over shorter attention spams, it's surprising that movies haven't gotten shorter over time to maximize profits: fewer scenes, smaller casts, smaller budgets, smaller reels/less digital storage space, more showings per day, etc. The only upside to longer movies for studios is perhaps for franchises, allowing more time to feature characters that will get spun-off into their own movies.


Roger Corman is smiling off in the distance somewhere at this comment.


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## BornToLooze (Nov 18, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> _- _Every haunted house story _must_ begin with a young white couple making a dubious real estate decision.



That's the housing market these days. I am part of a young white couple, if I could get this house




for a reasonable price...ima go for it. Ya, it might be haunted...


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## littlebadboy (Nov 19, 2022)

PG-13 and rainbow stuff nowadays that I worry watching with my 13 year old as they are complicated to explain. Nothing against rainbow, but same as straight... too much sex or explicit references in it these days. It's so bad that my kid prefers watching older movies nowadays.

I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but it's my personal opinion.


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## thraxil (Nov 19, 2022)

littlebadboy said:


> PG-13 and rainbow stuff nowadays that I worry watching with my 13 year old as they are complicated to explain. Nothing against rainbow, but same as straight... too much sex or explicit references in it these days. It's so bad that my kid prefers watching older movies nowadays.
> 
> I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but it's my personal opinion.


What's complicated to explain about "rainbow stuff"? Does your 13 year old not have any friends who have two moms or two dads? How are they supposed to understand that when they encounter it in real life?


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 19, 2022)

littlebadboy said:


> PG-13 and rainbow stuff nowadays that I worry watching with my 13 year old as they are complicated to explain. Nothing against rainbow, but same as straight... too much sex or explicit references in it these days. It's so bad that my kid prefers watching older movies nowadays.
> 
> I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but it's my personal opinion.


Rainbow stories involving younger characters should be told with the same age appropriateness and sensitivity as a straight story involving people the same age. I think sometimes those characters are overly sexualized (within the context of other movies) for titillation. If you wouldn’t do it with straight kids, don’t do it with gay kids.


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## tedtan (Nov 19, 2022)

To go a step further, everything in a movie should pertain to the story, so adding in love, romance, sex, etc. (straight, LGBTQ, or otherwise) is usually a negative IMO because it usually doesn’t contribute to the story.


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## broj15 (Nov 19, 2022)

Crungy said:


> I agree, but since I haven't watched a new movie in 5 years (and who knows how many before that), what are some examples you can think of?



Yeah I was wondering the same thing. I don't see many new movies either, but last I checked Hollywood was pretty sanitized/PC compared to even 10 years ago. 
Unless we're talking about art films that weren't really sanctioned by the collective "Hollywood" like Trash Humpers or some shit. In that case we still need "edgy" movies, especially in the current era.


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## broj15 (Nov 19, 2022)

littlebadboy said:


> PG-13 and rainbow stuff nowadays that I worry watching with my 13 year old as they are complicated to explain. Nothing against rainbow, but same as straight... too much sex or explicit references in it these days. It's so bad that my kid prefers watching older movies nowadays.
> 
> I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but it's my personal opinion.



I have no problem with "rainbow stuff" as you call it, but I really wish people would stop equating inclusivity with tokenization. I think the best way to sum it up for me is I'd rather watch Dog Day Afternoon over Call Me By Your Name (a movie that somehow gets a pass for being about pedophilia because it's LGBT).


Edit: just stating my opinion, but I've grown extremely jaded with most "Hollywood" big budget films as a whole and have completely given up on going to the theater to see anything, which is something I used to do relatively often as I enjoyed the "theater experience" quite a bit. The entertainment industry is just another money machine and I understand that that's out of necessity because it does employ a lot of people- not just in Hollywood but in theaters across the country- and a large portion of the economy of one of the US's largest states is based on keeping that industry economically viable so I understand why there's not much motivation to take a chance on something that isn't guaranteed to turn a profit like a new spandex movie, John Green date night special, or a comedy starring whatever "breakout" stand up comedian is getting all the attention this month.
I still appreciate the format of a feature film, but I feel like much more can be done with a narrative in a miniseries format and that stuff is more at home on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon prime, HBO, etc. than it is in a theater. For example, season 1 of True Detective blows pretty much anything that's seen a major theatrical release in the past 10 years out of the water, but it's also a story that couldn't be told in a tidy 90-115 minute run time.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 19, 2022)

tedtan said:


> To go a step further, everything in a movie should pertain to the story, so adding in love, romance, sex, etc. (straight, LGBTQ, or otherwise) is usually a negative IMO because it usually doesn’t contribute to the story.


Lol, are you being sarcastic?  I know some people like their action movies straight-up with no smooch for the hero from the female sidekick at the end of the movie, but sometimes the “mushy stuff” belongs in a story because it’s actually relevant — not when it’s tacked on and otherwise useless, but sometimes.


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## CapinCripes (Nov 19, 2022)

I'm an aficionado for bad 80s exploitation and B movies so I'm not the guy to ask about movies that aren't supposed to be wide awake offensive fever dreams, but I've actually been fairly impressed with a few newer films like the new hellraiser.
Cgi still pales in comparison to some of the better practical effects but it is what it is. Shaky cam has thankfully stopped being literally everywhere so that's an improvement. I feel like we have come a long way from where we were 10 years ago where Hollywood was putting out barely pieced together shaky special effects vehicles with the same 4 or 5 people in every single one of them. Maybe it's a new generation of filmmakers getting to cut their teeth and having something to prove rather than the old jaded and burnt out filmmakers that have long since stopped pushing for actual art and just make whatever vehicle the studio wants to make so that their checks still get signed. That said the new Jurassic world was a cynical cash grab so they are definitely still making those too.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 19, 2022)

I thought the entire Jurassic Park IP was a cynical cash grab from the beginning. It sounds like something a clever six-year-old came up with.


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## tedtan (Nov 19, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> Lol, are you being sarcastic?  I know some people like their action movies straight-up with no smooch for the hero from the female sidekick at the end of the movie, but sometimes the “mushy stuff” belongs in a story because it’s actually relevant — not when it’s tacked on and otherwise useless, but sometimes.


If it further s the story that’s fine, but too often it doesn’t.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 19, 2022)

tedtan said:


> If it further s the story that’s fine, but too often it doesn’t.


I think sometimes it’s like the zany parent showing up. Sometimes the story is precisely about the relationship between two people, and sometimes it’s just an excuse to slip in a little softcore and get an R rating when marketing thinks a PG-13 would have kept too many adults away.


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## Metalman X (Nov 19, 2022)

Also, i always wondered about the time/space relationship in a lot of time travel plots. Like, I'd imagine you'd also need some kind of complex spatial coordinates along with a set date, because the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the galactic clusters, etc are all in constant, and fast motion and are never occupying the same actual space at the same time. Like, even just say, going backward or forward in time by just a few minutes even would likely result in you materializing into vacuum being the most likely outcome. Maybe into some other celestial body too for that matter. But either way, not gonna be a good time. Literally. So time travel, AND spatial teleportation may have to be happening simultaneously for most time travel tropes to work.

But I suppose this all just assumes a certain range of area effect on the actual time shifting, maybe?

Another lil' bit of physics I wonder about too.... shrinking. Like, even if you could shrink yourself like Ant Man or Rick Moranis do, would you not just suffocate? Your respiratory system is likely not prepared for the sudden relatively massive particles it will have to suddenly cope with. With the sudden decrease in your mass, will your circulation even still function properly? We've already learned that even micro gravity has strange and detrimental effects on bodily functions in the long term. A lot of those evolved functions might suddenly cease functions when the physical relationship to the environment around you changes that drastically. In terms of say, electrical components, it'd be like everything in the circuit suddenly shifting way out of expected tolerance levels.

Just some food for thought. I'm not a scientist or anything. But I am a stoner who watches a LOT of science and physics related content on youtube. So my brain is coming at this from it's own weird little angles. 

Fun shit to ponder though



odibrom said:


> Time references in YEARS on SciFi movies who's story is based on other planets and civilizations. I mean, the "year" we all know is EARTH's year. All other planets in our solar system have different length years and so will planets on different solar systems/galaxies, so WTF people? Can't these writers find a time reference that could be translated to that particular planet so it makes the story more convincing? It's on all over the bigger SciFi movies, either Star Treck, Star Wars, Dune or whatever... damn...


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 19, 2022)

Metalman X said:


> Also, i always wondered about the time/space relationship in a lot of time travel plots. Like, I'd imagine you'd also need some kind of complex spatial coordinates along with a set date, because the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the galactic clusters, etc are all in constant, and fast motion and are never occupying the same actual space at the same time. Like, even just say, going backward or forward in time by just a few minutes even would likely result in you materializing into vacuum being the most likely outcome. Maybe into some other celestial body too for that matter. But either way, not gonna be a good time. Literally. So time travel, AND spatial teleportation may have to be happening simultaneously for most time travel tropes to work.
> 
> But I suppose this all just assumes a certain range of area effect on the actual time shifting, maybe?
> 
> ...



I’m happy to suspend disbelief most of the time. I’m not going to let doubts about the hypotheticals of time travel ruin a movie like _Back to the Future, _or a great narrative like Season 8 of _American Horror Story._ I always think of Mira Sorvino’s psychiatrist character stranded in Antarctica in that one episode of _House, _who says she has no use for fiction unless she can laugh at it. I’m just not that person, and I’m not going to let the math and physics I’ve studied make me that way. It’s a conscious decision simply to tell those voices to shut their pie holes and let me watch my stories.


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## Adieu (Nov 19, 2022)

Do people still watch movies???

I haven't watched a single one in like 12-15 years. Ever since TV/streaming got into higher budgets.

Seems like too much effort for a mere 2-3 hours of content...


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## Metalman X (Nov 19, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> I’m happy to suspend disbelief most of the time. I’m not going to let doubts about the hypotheticals of time travel ruin a movie like _Back to the Future, _or a great narrative like Season 8 of _American Horror Story._ I always think of Mira Sorvino’s psychiatrist character stranded in Antarctica in that one episode of _House, _who says she has no use for fiction unless she can laugh at it. I’m just not that person, and I’m not going to let the math and physics I’ve studied make me that way. It’s a conscious decision simply to tell those voices to shut their pie holes and let me watch my stories.


oh, never said these ruin movies for me (I guess that was perhaps implied cuz the thread I was replying in). I just often find myself wondering that stuff from a point of view of "Oh man, if thats hw it is in reality, it would really suck, hhahaa." Kind of like, how teleportation is a fun idea but if you take a second to really think about how that might work, and what it portends, it's.... darkly hilarious in a way.

I can appreciate scientific details in sci fi movies, but I can also appreciate the slightly wacky to even the most off the wall nonsense if it's creative and entertaining enough. And I smoke a LOT of weed, so sometimes that bar is admittedly pretty low, lol


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 20, 2022)

Metalman X said:


> oh, never said these ruin movies for me (I guess that was perhaps implied cuz the thread I was replying in). I just often find myself wondering that stuff from a point of view of "Oh man, if thats hw it is in reality, it would really suck, hhahaa." Kind of like, how teleportation is a fun idea but if you take a second to really think about how that might work, and what it portends, it's.... darkly hilarious in a way.
> 
> I can appreciate scientific details in sci fi movies, but I can also appreciate the slightly wacky to even the most off the wall nonsense if it's creative and entertaining enough. And I smoke a LOT of weed, so sometimes that bar is admittedly pretty low, lol


You are right about the spatial coordinates, of course. Is there even an absolute reference for any of the space-time parameters? It’s amazing that, with all of the motion the Earth is going through, we can’t actually feel any of it, not in the immediate physical sense. Sure, we see night and day, the change of seasons, eclipses and other things that can be observed from Earth fairly easily, but it’s wild to think about the implications of the Earth’s motion. None of us have ever been to the same place twice, not really. The glass of water on my night stand isn’t even in the same place where I left it when I went to bed. Imagine the chaos if everything else in my room weren’t moving the same way as that glass.

You’re onto something with the miniaturization issues. I’ve been reading for years that King Kong couldn’t exist in reality for the same kinds of reasons. Here’s a link to Smithsonian Magazine, where they talk about it:









How Big Can a Land Animal Get?


King Kong's biggest enemy isn’t humans—it’s the laws of physics




www.smithsonianmag.com





But all the other stuff is like totally real. I promise.


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## wankerness (Nov 20, 2022)

Wow this is like cinemasins the thread. Cursed thread. Starts with people blaming their crappy sound systems on the sound mixes and rapidly devolves from there all the way to complaining about non-straight romance to complaining about realism in Ant Man or King Kong! Eesh. They’re movies, they’re usually stupid. Most of these complaints are not about modern movies and were far worse in older movies. Like, guns not deafening people when fired in small enclosed areas? That’s been a thing since sound films were invented!


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## Seabeast2000 (Nov 20, 2022)

wrong thread


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## Spaced Out Ace (Nov 20, 2022)

wankerness said:


> Wow this is like cinemasins the thread. Cursed thread. Starts with people blaming their crappy sound systems on the sound mixes and rapidly devolves from there all the way to complaining about non-straight romance to complaining about realism in Ant Man or King Kong! Eesh. They’re movies, they’re usually stupid. Most of these complaints are not about modern movies and were far worse in older movies. Like, guns not deafening people when fired in small enclosed areas? That’s been a thing since sound films were invented!


"Crappy sound systems" lol son, please. The dynamic range in movies is ridiculously unnecessary, and it doesn't help when the actors talk quiet and mumble.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 20, 2022)

At least a truly crappy sound system, when you turn it up loud enough that you can turn off subtitles on Noah Baumbach’s latest mumblecore epic, will run out of gas when it’s time to belt out the oppressively hip indie soundtrack, or the the chaos of a standard horror or action movie. When you have a decent sound system, when you turn it up loud enough to hear the dialog, the music and sound effects are usually audible well into the adjacent timezones. I would like a set of highly adjustable, global, studio-grade compressors built into my next surround processor. Now that the entry-level market for those processors is essentially gone, I think $3-$4k should be enough to make that happen.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Nov 20, 2022)

wankerness said:


> Wow this is like cinemasins the thread. Cursed thread. Starts with people blaming their crappy sound systems on the sound mixes and rapidly devolves from there all the way to complaining about non-straight romance to complaining about realism in Ant Man or King Kong! Eesh. They’re movies, they’re usually stupid. Most of these complaints are not about modern movies and were far worse in older movies. Like, guns not deafening people when fired in small enclosed areas? That’s been a thing since sound films were invented!



To be fair, I had this exact sound mixing issues when I saw Tenet at Imax with my film buddies. We saw it on BluRay as well, and it was a different sound mix too. Which is funny since that's the second Nolan movie that I had sound issues with. The other was Tom Hardy's mumbling in Dark Knight rises. Considering dialogue is re-recorded on post, it's inexcusable. Then again, most of us are willing to forgive Nolan splurging Disney amounts of money to blow up a jumbo jet for real, just because it looks better than CGI. And it does look spectacular on Imax. 

Agreed this thread has devolved into Cinemasins level, but I suppose it wasn't unprecedented.


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## wankerness (Nov 21, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> At least a truly crappy sound system, when you turn it up loud enough that you can turn off subtitles on Noah Baumbach’s latest mumblecore epic, will run out of gas when it’s time to belt out the oppressively hip indie soundtrack, or the the chaos of a standard horror or action movie. When you have a decent sound system, when you turn it up loud enough to hear the dialog, the music and sound effects are usually audible well into the adjacent timezones. I would like a set of highly adjustable, global, studio-grade compressors built into my next surround processor. Now that the entry-level market for those processors is essentially gone, I think $3-$4k should be enough to make that happen.


Hmm. I have no idea what sort of sound system you're using or what sources you're using. Again I think it's probably down either to your settings (either speaker placement/levels, or choosing the matching number of speakers for what the source is trying to play to) or a bad stream provider (ex, HBO Max still doesn't have surround system support on their Playstation apps so everything sounds like shit). It's very rare that a big-budget movie comes out with actual sound mixing issues. I mean, I hear it all the time when watching terrible grindhouse movies from the 60s through 80s or whatever, but these days it's pretty rare unless you go looking around at DTV crap that's a level or two below The Room in terms of technical polish.

I think if you listen to big blockbuster movies on TV speakers or a soundbar you're probably more often than not going to have those issues where you have to crank it to hear dialogue and then quickly mash volume down the second the explosions start happening. I had to do that CONSTANTLY before I had a 5.1 system. It was infuriating, I always wanted to buy a limiter or something. But it wasn't the movies' fault. It was usually either a bad or nonexistant mixdown for home video on what I was watching. I think movies should be designing their technical specs to whatever they want, and not worrying about how it's going to play for people watching on their phone or through TV speakers or whatever. Old movies just translated better to TV cause usually they were only in 2.0 to begin with and thus no one that knew what they were doing had to be involved in the home video versions (of course then we had the pan and scan issues with the video).



Bloody_Inferno said:


> To be fair, I had this exact sound mixing issues when I saw Tenet at Imax with my film buddies. We saw it on BluRay as well, and it was a different sound mix too. Which is funny since that's the second Nolan movie that I had sound issues with. The other was Tom Hardy's mumbling in Dark Knight rises. Considering dialogue is re-recorded on post, it's inexcusable. Then again, most of us are willing to forgive Nolan splurging Disney amounts of money to blow up a jumbo jet for real, just because it looks better than CGI. And it does look spectacular on Imax.
> 
> Agreed this thread has devolved into Cinemasins level, but I suppose it wasn't unprecedented.


I would GUESS that you probably had a theater with a bad sound setup. I dunno. I frequently used to go to multiplexes and there'd be huge variances in what you got for sound quality. Sometimes they'd jack up the sound until it was physically painful to me to listen to and it would actually distort, which was COMPLETELY the fault of whoever set the sound settings at the theater. Other times I'd get screens where one or two of the speakers was very audibly blown out so the sound was horribly imbalanced. Frequently I'd get it where the subwoofer was jacked way up relative to everything else. Etc.

It is possible they're different, though. Especially now that Atmos is a thing and very, very few people have an atmos setup in their house (I don't even have 7.1 let alone CEILING speakers).

The Bane voice thing is a rare actual example of bad sound mixing, though it's only half the mixing that's the problem. I never heard version 1.0, but the impression that I got was it originally was probably at the right level, but due to the way he talked through a mask, enough people complained that they couldn't understand him (probably not because of volume) and they responded by just doubling his volume in the mix and putting the movie right back in theaters with that being the only change. So he's like comically loud compared to everyone else but still hard to understand just cause of the performance choices they used. I don't really remember what I thought about it in the theater, but I definitely know it sounds bad on home video just cause he's SO LOUD. And I use subtitles anyway cause he's so mumbly!

One actual problem with different audio tracks is more a problem with older movies, and that's bad surround remixes on home media/streaming services displacing the original mixes. Like, they frequently jack up levels in bizarre ways, or have crappy quality audio tracks that they used that don't sound anything like the original mix, or sometimes even use DIFFERENT SOUND EFFECTS (ex, The Terminator 1984 is really infamous for the surround tracks sounding nothing at all like the original theatrical audio, last heard on the DVD if you chose the mono option).


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## ShredmasterD (Nov 21, 2022)

OVER Reliance on flash bang and CGI


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 21, 2022)

wankerness said:


> Hmm. I have no idea what sort of sound system you're using or what sources you're using. Again I think it's probably down either to your settings (either speaker placement/levels, or choosing the matching number of speakers for what the source is trying to play to) or a bad stream provider (ex, HBO Max still doesn't have surround system support on their Playstation apps so everything sounds like shit). It's very rare that a big-budget movie comes out with actual sound mixing issues. I mean, I hear it all the time when watching terrible grindhouse movies from the 60s through 80s or whatever, but these days it's pretty rare unless you go looking around at DTV crap that's a level or two below The Room in terms of technical polish.


I wouldn’t worry about my settings or sources too much.  The “problem” I have is that my system sails through all those dynamic peaks and renders them _too _loudly and clearly. It sounds fantastic, but I have neighbors.


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## wankerness (Nov 21, 2022)

Wiltonauer said:


> I wouldn’t worry about my settings or sources too much.  The “problem” I have is that my system sails through all those dynamic peaks and renders them _too _loudly and clearly. It sounds fantastic, but I have neighbors.


Yeah, I'm going to be in big trouble if I have to live in an apartment again. Renting houses is nice, doesn't really matter if I listen to loud stuff as long as I don't have it at the volume where the cops would get called!! I'd probably have to resort to headphones for most of what I do.


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## Wiltonauer (Nov 21, 2022)

wankerness said:


> Yeah, I'm going to be in big trouble if I have to live in an apartment again. Renting houses is nice, doesn't really matter if I listen to loud stuff as long as I don't have it at the volume where the cops would get called!! I'd probably have to resort to headphones for most of what I do.


I started getting self conscious about it when I lived in a pretty old building where sound carried especially well. At the time I had planar magnetic hifi speakers and a 60 wpc tube stereo integrated amp. My neighbor friend on the other side of the hall and three apartments down could hear it in her living room, and she said in the hallway it sounded like it was in the same room with you, because it was so clear. I started paying attention to the volume knob after that.


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## bostjan (Nov 21, 2022)

Metalman X said:


> Also, i always wondered about the time/space relationship in a lot of time travel plots. Like, I'd imagine you'd also need some kind of complex spatial coordinates along with a set date, because the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the galactic clusters, etc are all in constant, and fast motion and are never occupying the same actual space at the same time. Like, even just say, going backward or forward in time by just a few minutes even would likely result in you materializing into vacuum being the most likely outcome. Maybe into some other celestial body too for that matter. But either way, not gonna be a good time. Literally. So time travel, AND spatial teleportation may have to be happening simultaneously for most time travel tropes to work.
> 
> But I suppose this all just assumes a certain range of area effect on the actual time shifting, maybe?
> 
> ...



RE: Time travel. Spatial relationship relative to what, though? There are no absolute coordinates in space. So, it depends on a lot of things. Do you have a specific example?

Whatever that indy movie was where the people time traveled by crawling into a box, where time went backwards outside of the box, in the perspective of the person inside of the box - that was interesting. So, you could only travel back in time to the point where the box was switched on, and, of course there were tons of potential paradoxes, that the movie sort of made you think about yourself.

But like, Back to the Future, where you hop in a Delorean and drive back in time to the 1950's - there's no way that could work within the confines of what we know about physics. But, as far as spatial constraints might go, keeping in mind that this is total fantasy, I'd say that the position of the Delorean relative to the position of the Earth in contact with the Delorean, would be a spatial reference point. You know, since, that's your inertial frame. The center of the Milky Way galaxy really has nothing to do with our inertial frame here on Earth, so it's easy enough to neglect that.

But if you start introducing spatial teleportation along with temporal instant travel, then, yeah, things get really messy, for a myriad of reasons. Usually the mythos of the fantastical universe has some vague explanation, like you have to think about a specific place and time or you have to have been at that place and time before or something. Or else they just let it fly with no rules whatsoever, and don't explain anything. IDK, time travel is kind of a frustrating concept anyway. Even in the most constricted situations it makes things really messy. Stephen King's 11/22/63 is a great example where the author really thought out carefully some rules for time travel and it still makes me wrinkle my nose.

RE: Shrinking. Actually smaller organisms don't really have to worry about breathing or circulation too much. Oxygen can diffuse more easily across thinner tissues, so I don't see why that in particular would be a problem for Rick Moranis. As for Ant-Man, though, I think we can agree that a human shrinking to the size of a single atom raises a lot of questions that we will never ever have answers for.  I mean, to me, a more obvious question is where does all of the mass go? In the case of Ant-Man, I think one of the movies tries to explain that the mass doesn't change, only the spatial volume, but then proceeds to show us people shrinking an entire building and then carrying it around in a briefcase or whatever plot point instantly throws all of that completely out the window.

So, if you shrunk down from 6' tall and 200 lbs to 1" tall and 0.01 ounces, yeah, you'd have some real problems with your organs. You smaller blood vessels likely wouldn't be large enough for red blood cells to fit through, unless your cells all got smaller in proportion. But then, if they did, the chemistry of things like your red blood cells, at 1/72 of the size along each of three dimensions, wouldn't work anymore. How would your brain store as much information? How would you even be able to see, with 2.7*10^-6 times as much light hitting your retinas? There are many questions.

Also, invisibility. You didn't mention it, but, if light passes through every part of your body without interacting with you, how would you see? How would your eyes be able to focus on anything without bending the light? You'd be blind, just bashing into everything in your environment, since you couldn't see anything at all. And, if you magically could see, how would you know where your body parts were. Like, imagine trying to pick up a glass without having any idea where your hands were.

Also, flying. Imagine you could magically levitate and zoom around at hundreds of miles per hour. According to Newton's laws of motion, you are pushing against something. What is that? Are you shooting air out of your body somehow, like an air hockey table? Anyone standing near you when you lifted off would probably get blasted and thrown off the ground onto their asses. It's funny to think about.

Same with telekinesis. You want to lift that spaceship off the ground, you have to push something against something else. How does that work? IDK- space wizards, right?


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## tedtan (Nov 21, 2022)

A more realistic take on invisibility is the Hyperstealth Biotechnology Quantum Stealth material.


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## bostjan (Nov 21, 2022)

tedtan said:


> A more realistic take on invisibility is the Hyperstealth Biotechnology Quantum Stealth material.



Right, and you can't really see anything outside of it clearly from inside of the cloak. I think it's going to pretty much necessarily be a problem with any sort of invisibility technology. Although, if you are in a tank or such, hiding in the forest, you could mount a periscope or a camera to be camouflaged enough to basically be invisible whilst still having a viewpoint from outside.

In the battlefield, that's great. If you want to turn invisible to sneak up behind Magneto as he makes his speech for evil mutants before they invade the city, not so much.


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## Xtention (Dec 5, 2022)

The only thing that drives me nuts in all movies and TV series is advertising. By advertising, I mean produce placement, which recently became annoying. Sometimes it makes me feel that you don’t watch movies. You watch ads. You see products that make you think they’re a “must-have” for your house. Weirdly, some people rush to the stores after watching some of the movies, and it really boosts sales.
That’s why I preferred watching some old movies before this product placement phenomenon became viral. I found one website where you can find some movies online and watch them without ads


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## Crungy (Dec 5, 2022)

bostjan said:


> IDK- space wizards, right?


Space wizards are a perfectly good way to sum up science fiction and storytelling magic.


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## bostjan (Dec 5, 2022)

Crungy said:


> Space wizards are a perfectly good way to sum up science fiction and storytelling magic.


I've always really liked when films or especially books do a good job portraying a world with subtle but soft magic.

That's maybe why I particularly liked "The Force" in the original trilogy of Star Wars. In the first movie, you see Darth Vader force choke a guy. Arguably, everything else you see in the movie is soft magic. Obi Wan senses a disturbance or plays mind tricks on people. Luke trusts his instincts. Etc. So, in the next movie, when you see Yoda lift the X Wing out of the swamp using only his mind, it's just bonkers. If you start watching the series from the prequels, you see people flinging shit all over the place and flying through the air. It's cool, but it's like the magic power these people use is limitless, which is far more fantastical.

I think it's easier to suspend disbelief when you see the world through the eyes of a more relatable character. So, Luke knows nothing about magic, and nothing he sees directly in the first film is totally impossible in a world without magic. Maybe Obi Wan is really lucky.

Same kind of thing with LOtR. Gandalf is a powerful wizard, but his magic is more or less just parlor tricks and offscreen stuff. We never really understand how the heck magic works, exactly.

On the other hand, soft but very apparent magic is probably the most difficult to watch on screen or even read about. When the world you are immersing yourself (or attempting) is full of blatant magic, but there are seemingly no rules behind it, it can be frustrating, since you can set no expectations.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 5, 2022)

bostjan said:


> On the other hand, soft but very apparent magic is probably the most difficult to watch on screen or even read about. When the world you are immersing yourself (or attempting) is full of blatant magic, but there are seemingly no rules behind it, it can be frustrating, since you can set no expectations.


Not always, but mostly I've noticed books tend to stay self-consistent with magic whether it's super powerful or really mundane parlor tricks.

Movies tend to be, "Let's see, we need a card trick here. Next scene we need a building to be lifted onto the villain."
"Can we explain that?"
"The fuck you talking about? We already showed them there's magic! Fuck 'em if they can't figure it out!"


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## Bloody_Inferno (Dec 5, 2022)

Something that's been grinding my gears:

Major studios using Twitter too seriously as their trend aggregator to adjust their releases or even change the entire movie mid production. 

It was cute seeing Sony assume that Morbius was re-trending as an excuse to rerelease the movie to theatres, only to have it bomb twice in one year. But Disney may be the biggest offender, with the Star Wars franchise copping it the worse. Anyone can say whatever they want about The Last Jedi, but there's no denying that it was a box office success, highest grossing movie of the year and was the bestselling bluray of the following year. It's also happened to be the only Disney Star Wars made without uncertainty or creative turmoil. Of course, Disney decided that paying attention to the temper tantrums of a small but loud minority, crying foul because it wasn't 'their Star Wars' was a great idea, and gave them the ultimate fanserive movie the next year. The Rise Of Skywalker, is undeniably the result of Disney appeasing to angry man children. And it sucked more than anybody could've possibly imagined. 

This was also the reason Disney fired James Gunn to appease some right wing hate mobs, only for Disney to realise their mistake and rehiring him again.

And Warner Bros.... well...


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## Mathemagician (Dec 6, 2022)

One thing I’ve enjoyed seeing less of? “Mandatory love interest”. 

Shang Chi was a recent example. Dude is best friends with a girl and they are just bros. 

No twist or sudden “oh wow my feelings”. Just two goof balls working valet, who also save the world. 

It’s especially annoying in action movies. “I’m here for the spying/bad guy dropkicking/explosions, we all know why we bought a ticket”. So it’s nice to see it shift occasionally away from that trope.


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## Wiltonauer (Dec 6, 2022)

Mathemagician said:


> One thing I’ve enjoyed seeing less of? “Mandatory love interest”.
> 
> Shang Chi was a recent example. Dude is best friends with a girl and they are just bros.
> 
> ...


That sounds cool. I think kids need to see healthy examples of men and women (or boys and girls) interacting in stories where they are not love interests. To insist on making a love story out of everything is to imply that it’s expected, necessary, or entitled every time there is an attractive woman around, or when there is simply one female character left alive in the movie. The real world doesn’t work like that.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 6, 2022)

You know, I don't *hate* love stories woven into action, so long as they're believable.

Spend the entire movie wanting to kill each other and then kiss at the end after everything is done and the bad guys go away because reasons? Go fuck yourself away, man.

I do think it's better when you see examples of boy-girl buddies. I don't even mind the ones where there's hinted flirts but no big spark. That shit happens and it can add a sense of fun and levity here or there without going full fucking moron level puppy-dog eyes and falling apart every time they're around each other.

But, honestly, this goes back to my rant way up-thread about better and more believable characters in general. Nobody is one thing all the time, and the big tough-guy trope with no other sides got old forty years ago. Male or female. Real people aren't block-headed blindered fuckwads. Well, not most at any rate. Give me a character, not a cardboard cutout, and you're 50% of the way to making me like your film/tv show/book/story. Badass with a hardon for his best-friend is not a character, it's a fuckin' checkbox.


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## wheresthefbomb (Dec 6, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Whatever that indy movie was where the people time traveled by crawling into a box, where time went backwards outside of the box, in the perspective of the person inside of the box - that was interesting. So, you could only travel back in time to the point where the box was switched on, and, of course there were tons of potential paradoxes, that the movie sort of made you think about yourself.



The Primer? I just rewatched that, so good.

Similarly, Tenet was so bad. So, so bad.


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## bostjan (Dec 6, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> The Primer? I just rewatched that, so good.
> 
> Similarly, Tenet was so bad. So, so bad.


Yes that was it.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 6, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> The Primer? I just rewatched that, so good.
> 
> Similarly, Tenet was so bad. So, so bad.


Tenet was such a disappointment. I hate when someone takes an interesting premise and just dumpster dives for the plot. If there was a plot. They couldn't even get the dynamics of backwards bullets to be thought provoking. The implication that everything backwards bullets were going to hit were also traveling backwards was the point where my brain went, "Nope. Fail. Better luck next time."


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## soliloquy (Dec 14, 2022)

not reading through the entire thread, but something i've been picking up over the last several years:
1) the volume in movies is, not only inconsistent, but also inaudible. background, more often than not is too loud, and music is also too loud. the FX on VOX is not clear. 

I thought this was just me aging and complaining as a boomer-wanna-be, but apprently i'm not the only one either. Lots of articles and youtube vids citing that even GenZs are noticing sound quality just getting worse and worse.

not sure why that is.....




another issue i've been having with modern movies is some weird sentiment that in order for anything to be called a 'movie' it has to be dark and moody. A childs show? Dark and moody! a cooking show? Dark and moody! a car show? DARK AND MOODY. 

not sure why everything to just be so dark. Sure, its more adult oriented. But stuff that was catered to children from the get go, why are they now dark? Catering to the children that watched it when young? Maybe. But its getting really tiresome and irritating.


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## Drew (Dec 14, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> 1) the volume in movies is, not only inconsistent, but also inaudible. background, more often than not is too loud, and music is also too loud. the FX on VOX is not clear.


You know, we accidently turned on closed captions for an Andor episode or two, ended up leaving them on since it made it a lot easier to make sure we were getting all the names right and keeping everyone straight... 

...and one of the thngs that really surprised me were how many things that were in the closed captions, but were absilutely _inaudible_ or completely indisctinct in the actual audio. Something being said in the background that was either so rolled off so as to be indistinct, like listening to conversation through a wall, or sometimes was just not even audible ahinast background sounds, would be clearly transcribed. It was interesting. 



soliloquy said:


> another issue i've been having with modern movies is some weird sentiment that in order for anything to be called a 'movie' it has to be dark and moody. A childs show? Dark and moody! a cooking show? Dark and moody! a car show? DARK AND MOODY.


Also, I mean, hi, have you seen the world around you?  My wife doesn't like this because usually at the end of the day she wants a distraction, but if art mimics life, then I'd say it makes a fair amount of sense.


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## thraxil (Dec 15, 2022)

wheresthefbomb said:


> The Primer? I just rewatched that, so good.
> 
> Similarly, Tenet was so bad. So, so bad.


Yeah, Primer avoided the technical issues around time travel (at least conceptually to me, it works to think about the devices as fixing a point in space-time, allowing you to return there). I give them credit for that.

But, Primer is also the shining example of my own pet peeve around time travel plots where the writers substitute a convoluted timeline (you literally need to draw a huge diagram to fully understand what happened: https://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/primer-chart.jpg) for actually just telling a compelling story. To me it feels like a cheap trick so that if anyone criticizes the film, they can be written off as just not being smart enough to understand it.

And, yeah, Tenet does the same thing, just with a bigger budget and even worse writing. I'm at least willing to forgive Primer some because it's impressive how well they did on such a scrappy budget.


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## soliloquy (Dec 15, 2022)

Drew said:


> You know, we accidently turned on closed captions for an Andor episode or two, ended up leaving them on since it made it a lot easier to make sure we were getting all the names right and keeping everyone straight...
> 
> ...and one of the thngs that really surprised me were how many things that were in the closed captions, but were absilutely _inaudible_ or completely indisctinct in the actual audio. Something being said in the background that was either so rolled off so as to be indistinct, like listening to conversation through a wall, or sometimes was just not even audible ahinast background sounds, would be clearly transcribed. It was interesting.
> 
> ...




Though I get that art is mimicking life, but here's the thing:

Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....

Okay...the story could have been told by the carebear getting bullied, and the bear wanted to be better.

But nope, they will go the extra mile to make it even darker than reality.

Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.






Also, yes! I've been watching everything with subtitles for a few years now! Close caption isn't a bad idea, now that I think about it! Should give it a try


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## bostjan (Dec 15, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.


+1

If my school bullies want to take credit for me turning out as an asshole, fuck 'em. I was just destined to be this way.


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## Louis Cypher (Dec 15, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Or better yet, any/every super villain is to get a sappy back story. Ursula, Gaston, captain Hook, etc can't be asses for the sake of being asses.


Actually that really winds me up, aside from the backstories for no reason, the idea of making a villian "good" in their spin off origins tale. The Disney re-imaginings of their best and most famous villians is such BS. Maleficent, Cruella..... worst tho is making Anakin Skywalker a hero in the prequels to then suddenly remember in the last 45 mins of Revenge of the Sith that ohh yeah we need to make him Darth Vader, one of the greatest movie villians of all time.... quick, lets have him kill a load of kids! 

on the subtitles thing, I do that a lot too


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## zappatton2 (Dec 15, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Though I get that art is mimicking life, but here's the thing:
> 
> Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....
> 
> ...


I dunno, some of those bears were pretty dark already, the raincloud one, you can't tell me he hasn't seen some shit in his day, lol. That's a tortured past right there.

But in all seriousness, there were moments in 80's kids programming that went pretty dark. The Secret of Nimh definitely left me unsettled, from what I can recall of it. Disney movies, even if they were sanitized folk tales, could still go morbid, and I made the mistake of both assuming the Dark Crystal was a carefree Muppets spin-off, and that Watership Down was kids programming because it was cartoon. Man, that one left some scars!


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## soliloquy (Dec 15, 2022)

oh absolute! Brothers Grimm stories that turned into Disney stuff have very dark/morbid backgrounds. 
Additionally, there should have been no reason, in my opinion, for Hunchback of Notre Dame to be turned into a Disney movie. Partly being that that movie is essentially saying 'All religion is bad! All power is bad! All man is bad! Everything is bad! Stop seeking safety in anything as all is bad!' Fine for adults...but kids? idk...

though....as a post-modernist, I can sort of see the reverse in that making us understand how the villains became bad may help us enhance our empathy...but its also a bit unnecessary in my opinion 


moreover, I always thought that our favorite superhero from the 80's, Capitan Planet was kind of pointless. Throw a crushed popcan at him and he starts dying of pollution. Kind of not giving any hope for the future, in that if we are to fight climate change, may as well not fight and let it come to us all.


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## bostjan (Dec 15, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> moreover, I always thought that our favorite superhero from the 80's, Capitan Planet was kind of pointless. Throw a crushed popcan at him and he starts dying of pollution. Kind of not giving any hope for the future, in that if we are to fight climate change, may as well not fight and let it come to us all.




"The power is yours" put too much faith into humanity. Remember the old "Only _you_ can prevent forest fires?" Well, the idea was that if everyone stopped being a shithead, there wouldn't be any more forest fires from people being shitheads. But, the problem is, was, and always will be, that 99.9999% of people can be responsible, but if one person is a shithead, it completely torpedoes that whole model.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 15, 2022)

bostjan said:


> +1
> 
> If my school bullies want to take credit for me turning out as an asshole, fuck 'em. I was just destined to be this way.


Fuckin' asshole! /s

Lol


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 15, 2022)

Louis Cypher said:


> Actually that really winds me up, aside from the backstories for no reason, the idea of making a villian "good" in their spin off origins tale. The Disney re-imaginings of their best and most famous villians is such BS. Maleficent, Cruella..... worst tho is making Anakin Skywalker a hero in the prequels to then suddenly remember in the last 45 mins of Revenge of the Sith that ohh yeah we need to make him Darth Vader, one of the greatest movie villians of all time.... quick, lets have him kill a load of kids!
> 
> on the subtitles thing, I do that a lot too


The only reason I would want to do that, if I were a writer, filmmaker, etc. is to have the opposite of a redemption arc (I believe I'll get corrected here, but basically a corruption arc).


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 15, 2022)

bostjan said:


> "The power is yours" put too much faith into humanity. Remember the old "Only _you_ can prevent forest fires?" Well, the idea was that if everyone stopped being a shithead, there wouldn't be any more forest fires from people being shitheads. But, the problem is, was, and always will be, that 99.9999% of people can be responsible, but if one person is a shithead, it completely torpedoes that whole model.



So then what you're saying is that not only should we have no freedoms, but we should also have no freewill. (I'm reading really far into what you are saying.)


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## soliloquy (Dec 15, 2022)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> The only reason I would want to do that, if I were a writer, filmmaker, etc. is to have the opposite of a redemption arc (I believe I'll get corrected here, but basically a corruption arc).



that could have worked if they writers were a bit better. Case in point: the X-men first class. 
the relationship between Magneeto and Xavier was beautiful. It was heading in such a great relationship where they both see the same issue from polar opposite perspectives. they could have enhanced that more, but drop it all and never bother exploring that arc more. 

very rarely explored for some reason.


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## thebeesknees22 (Dec 15, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> that could have worked if they writers were a bit better. Case in point: the X-men first class.
> the relationship between Magneeto and Xavier was beautiful. It was heading in such a great relationship where they both see the same issue from polar opposite perspectives. they could have enhanced that more, but drop it all and never bother exploring that arc more.
> 
> very rarely explored for some reason.


all of the x-men movies were atrociously mishandled. the whole cinematic universe needs to be scrapped and redone.


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## bostjan (Dec 15, 2022)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> So then what you're saying is that not only should we have no freedoms, but we should also have no freewill. (I'm reading really far into what you are saying.)


Well, that's the thing. Say I want to have the freedom to swing my arms around all crazy as I see fit. It sounds reasonable, except for the person who is standing less than an arm's length away from me. In their case, my freedom is their punishment. So, if we want to have a free society that stresses equality, everyone needs their own little bubble of rights, such that, anything a person wants to do that doesn't interfere with another person's right to do as they please, ought to be allowed. But it'll never work, because there is always one asshole. So, honestly, the whole idea of libertarianism, i.e. freedom only limited by the idea of equality of personal liberties, won't ever work. 

Same goes for freewill. There's no such thing as freewill. It's all an illusion, because your freewill is limited by what the people in power want you to do. So you can do anything you want, as long is it's also what they want you to do. Otherwise, they'll tell you to get bent. Even if what you want to have freewill to do is just something outside of the box that doesn't interfere with the master plan, it's still you _not_ doing whatever it is that you are supposed to be doing. Think about it for a minute. Did you choose when you were born or what family you got to have or even who your friends were? Those are basically all of the things that fundamentally shape you into whomever you are. Well, I didn't think so. So freewill is a myth. 

That's why capitalism and socialism are both shit. It's all the same limitations just with different perspectives on them.


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## bostjan (Dec 15, 2022)

thebeesknees22 said:


> all of the x-men movies were atrociously mishandled. the whole cinematic universe needs to be scrapped and redone.



You lost me at "redone." At the time, I didn't think that they were quite that horrible, mainly because I was comparing them to the likes of the old Superman movies, the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, and the mixture of decent and abysmal Batman movies.


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## Drew (Dec 19, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Imagine a movie on carebears. Children's classic. Right? But if the movie is being made in 2022, I won't be surprised if one of the carebears got to see their mom thrown into a meat grinder, turned into a burger patty, and eaten by the villian, *which inspired the bear to show even more care for the world, and make it better.....*


TBH, I was with you right up to the bold bit. 

I mean, I guess anything can be taken to extremes... but then you get something like Thor: Love and Thunder, which is anything BUT dark and gritty, and is actually kinda cute and uplifting. And, scored a rather dismal 64% on rotten tomatoes. So I guess it's what most people want..?


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## soliloquy (Dec 19, 2022)

Drew said:


> TBH, I was with you right up to the bold bit.
> 
> I mean, I guess anything can be taken to extremes... but then you get something like Thor: Love and Thunder, which is anything BUT dark and gritty, and is actually kinda cute and uplifting. And, scored a rather dismal 64% on rotten tomatoes. So I guess it's what most people want..?



I dont think Love and Thunder scored bad because of it being cute, and light/ariy. I think it did poorly because the story line, and character development just didn't make sense. It wasn't a necessary story line. 

the motivation for some of the characters was there for the sake of having a motivation. 

even with its 80's overture, you could have expected more 80's homage, but nope, they kept all that for the trailer. 


though i've always felt that with 3 of the 4 Thor movies (Ragnarök being different); that they are insanely entertaining...but from the grand scheme of things, of the overarching MCU story line, or even character development, they were very unnecessary. didn't help us learn anything particularly new, or helped us understand Thor any better. Thats, in my opinion, also the reason why all other Thor movies did rather poorly (again, Ragnarök being an exception), when you compare to the Iron Man and Cap'n America movies. 

I feel that with Thor, the writers really dont know what to do with him, so they try making him into the punchline of every joke that just fails to hit its mark. The entire Thor series just seems flat and mindless at times.

again, Ragnarök being an exception, as it was very uplifting, hilarious, great character development; refreshing; and written really well.


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## Drew (Dec 19, 2022)

I don't really give a shit about the broader MCU, so if they stand apart from it, so much the better. 

But, there really arent that many light, fun, not dark and brooding movies I can think of lately that HAVE been successful.


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## ShredmasterD (Dec 19, 2022)

l


Drew said:


> I don't really give a shit about the broader MCU, so if they stand apart from it, so much the better.
> 
> But, there really arent that many light, fun, not dark and brooding movies I can think of lately that HAVE been successful.


in recent times, yes. doom is what they push. in the not long ago past happy, lighter movies were common. comedy is all but dead now too.


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## soliloquy (Dec 19, 2022)

Drew said:


> I don't really give a shit about the broader MCU, so if they stand apart from it, so much the better.
> 
> But, there really arent that many light, fun, not dark and brooding movies I can think of lately that HAVE been successful.


Can't argue with that


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## soliloquy (Dec 20, 2022)

Case in point of not being able to hear much:



I'm sure the movie will be great! Great casting, and it is a Nolan movie. But seriously, what the hell is the box system?!


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## bostjan (Dec 20, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Case in point of not being able to hear much:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure the movie will be great! Great casting, and it is a Nolan movie. But seriously, what the hell is the box system?!



Great example. Why is the music so much louder than the dialogue?

Also, sounds like a cool movie. I hope they depict Richard Feynman breaking into the secure areas and leaving notes that those areas are not secure enough.

The thing that always got to me about that part of history, though, was, well, you know that Oppenheimer went from being quite triumphant about the bomb, but after Nagasaki, had his doubts about the destruction that he had been a part of making possible. On the other hand, Edward Teller was thinking that the A bomb was too wimpy and that he absolutely must develop a much more powerful weapon (H bomb) starting immediately after the war. I never really understood that, personally. I mean, I know that the USSR was hot on the trail of developing it and that, if we hadn't got it when we did, I guess we could have been under a very serious threat of power imbalance, but, man, a weapon like that - if it was ever used against an actual city or whatever - I can't even imagine.

The fact that the H bomb has existed well over half a century now and that humans still exist, is kind of amazing. Now with Putin's finger on the button, every day should probably be treated as a gift...


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## Ralyks (Dec 20, 2022)

Just gonna leave this here...


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## Kaura (Dec 20, 2022)

Too much capeshit. Fucking enough already with the superhero movies. Also can Star Wars just fucking die?


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## Spaced Out Ace (Dec 20, 2022)

Kaura said:


> Too much capeshit. Fucking enough already with the superhero movies. Also can Star Wars just fucking die?


The cape fatigue is real.


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## soliloquy (Dec 20, 2022)

bostjan said:


> Great example. Why is the music so much louder than the dialogue?
> 
> Also, sounds like a cool movie. I hope they depict Richard Feynman breaking into the secure areas and leaving notes that those areas are not secure enough.
> 
> ...



Humm.... You sound like someone who may enjoy diving deeper into the rabbit hole.

Look up the USSR/Russian dooms day submarine that was still functioning well after the collapse of the USSR. Also look up when it was decommissioned. 

Also look up the storyline of Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe


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## bostjan (Dec 21, 2022)

soliloquy said:


> Humm.... You sound like someone who may enjoy diving deeper into the rabbit hole.
> 
> Look up the USSR/Russian dooms day submarine that was still functioning well after the collapse of the USSR. Also look up when it was decommissioned.
> 
> Also look up the storyline of Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe



I never read Fail Safe, but I'm aware of the plot, since it was so famously or infamously similar to Red Alert, the book off of which_ Dr Strangelove_ was based. Totally different endings, though.

And honestly, for as frightening of a time the 1960's were, it's much scarier today. Allow me to explain. In the 1960's a handful of powerful governments had nuclear weapons capable of destroying all human life on Earth. When the USSR collapsed, many of those weapons "disappeared." Also, having gone to University to study physics, I can attest that there were multiple Iranian nationals also attending my program with the intent to study nuclear science, and, although their requests to join the program were dismissed by the University, they still took the same classes, they just got more general degrees. Anyway, not to shit all over those people, it was clear that the Iranian immigration office was interested in pulling some sort of trick, and probably succeeded to some extent. Also, now, North Korea has nukes. Whilst the USSR had a very rough relationship with the USA, they had shown that they were at least reasonable opponents, by cooperating with the allies during World War II, which was before the advent of the bomb. Iran and North Korea, on the other hand, have very different philosophies of the USA and the west in general. And, way worse than that, those missing soviet weapons could very well fall into the hands of terrorists, if they aren't already, and terrorists would be far more willing to rush their use with little concern or understanding of the consequences.

And really, it's just a matter of time before someone with evil plans figures out how to get ahold of a nuclear weapon, whether by stealing it or by figuring out how to make it and somehow obtaining the materials. It's a complicated process to get right, but there's no black magic involved. Actually, there are a few different ways to actually pull it off, and there are likely even more ways to do it than we are currently aware. All of these quantum leaps in fusion research are great for science, but could have the unintended consequence of opening up more doors into a potential method of building a weapon in someone's garage or basement. Keep in mind that these scientists who work on things like the Manhattan Project are civilians and go back to their mundane lives teaching young people about science after the project is over, and as Universities cut funding and lay them off, there's always the potential that they could get desperate enough to do work for the wrong people.

In fact, there's a philosophical question in cosmology known as the Fermi Paradox. In a nutshell, it's the idea that you take the probability of intelligent life developing under certain circumstances and multiply by the number of exoplanets that exhibit those certain circumstances, and you ought to get a mathematical result of the expected number of exoplanets that harbour intelligent life. *But, *as far as we can tell, Earth is the only planet that has intelligent life, contrasted with the nonsingular number of planets that we can observe expected to have the same. One solution to the paradox that has been proposed is that intelligent life tends to figure out nuclear weaponry and then destroy itself, such that the equation in question (Drake's Equation) should have a time-dependent coefficient that drives it to zero over time. That term would basically dictate the survival span of intelligent life between when it figures out how to create electromagnetic means of communication (so that it can be observed) and when it destroys itself with advanced doomsday weapons. How long is that span - 50 years? 100 years? 200 years? The sad part of it, though, is that, even if that is _not _the missing term in Drake's Equation that solves the Fermi Paradox, the logic used to develop that term is pretty difficult to dismiss. So, 1. if nothing else takes us out as a whole, eventually, some sort of weapon of mass destruction *will*, and 2. if some sort of nuclear weapon doesn't take us out as a whole, eventually, something else *will*.

Is it pessimistic? I don't really think so. I mean, no one over the age of 119 right now has managed to figure out how to not eventually die, and it really doesn't look like a good prognosis at all for the rest of us. So, I guess so what if I get nuked? I won't have a chance to take it personally, and, frankly, being vapourized might be the least painless option of how I go out. I certainly don't want that to happen, but what am I going to do? Dig a bunker in my backyard, so that I can instead get some heavy dose of radiation and then slowly die of thirst/hunger/hypothermia after I run out of resources in my bunker waiting for someone to save me after the rest of the world has been burned?



Kaura said:


> Too much capeshit. Fucking enough already with the superhero movies. Also can Star Wars just fucking die?



At least when a movie is superhero or starwars, it lets you know right away. Personally, I grew up on Star Wars. I saw the original movie when I was 2 years old and became obsessed with it for years. I read Marvel comics as a preteen and was a huge fan of the Tim Burton Batman movie when it came out. When the first Star Wars prequel came out, I hadn't seen a movie in the theater for years, and broke my hiatus just to see it. What a disappointment, but oh well.

But with all of that said, to me, it's like a new restaurant that opened in town. You go there for the grand opening and it's so good, so you go back again and again, but, each time you go back it's a little less good than the time before. So you end up with not only a restaurant that you are sick of that isn't even that good anymore, but you have this yearning for that first bite you had that was so enjoyable but that you'll never have again.

So, as huge of a nerd as I was (am) about Star Wars, I haven't seen the last one. I wasn't even going to see the one before that, but my oldest son told me that it was the best Star Wars film ever made, so I buckled and went to see it. He changed his story soon after anyway... But they'll keep making them and somehow, they'll keep raking in trainloads of cash, in spite of the fact that nearly everyone I know is sick of them. Not only is the quality of the new films shittier with each release, but they keep fucking with the old films and somehow making those shittier as well, with Lucas saying stuff like "I didn't want Han to be morally ambiguous, so I made the alien shoot first," when that's basically the thing that I loved about the character, or "I didn't want the world depicted to look so dirty or so sparse," when, again, that was one of the things I loved the most about the film. But it's ultimately for the best, since I can spend more time doing things like playing guitar, rather than wanting to watch the same stupid movie I've already seen 20 times.


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## soliloquy (Dec 21, 2022)

I was going to heart your comment, but I don't like that emoticon with hearts for eyes...

I will admit some of that went over my head, but what little I got, does display a bleak reality of us speeding up our inevitable demise. Rather enjoying the short lifespan we have, we, for some insane, and egotistical reason are hell bent on shortening it, not only for ourselves, but also for any future generations. 

Also, in regards to Irani humans in university; when I used to work for a bank, we used to scrutinize any Iranian students/profs and try figuring out which university in Iran they have a connection to. Mind you, this is in the 2020s, so it's pretty recent, and this is a Canadian bank, operating out US regulations. 



On that topic, I also highly recommend a movie called 'in this corner of the world' taking place in Japan during WW2. The innosense and the frailty of humanity, I thought was so beautifully depicted here. Tragic, and really well written. If anime isn't your thing, do push through. From a story telling perspective, it's superbly done, in my opinion 







bostjan said:


> I never read Fail Safe, but I'm aware of the plot, since it was so famously or infamously similar to Red Alert, the book off of which_ Dr Strangelove_ was based. Totally different endings, though.
> 
> And honestly, for as frightening of a time the 1960's were, it's much scarier today. Allow me to explain. In the 1960's a handful of powerful governments had nuclear weapons capable of destroying all human life on Earth. When the USSR collapsed, many of those weapons "disappeared." Also, having gone to University to study physics, I can attest that there were multiple Iranian nationals also attending my program with the intent to study nuclear science, and, although their requests to join the program were dismissed by the University, they still took the same classes, they just got more general degrees. Anyway, not to shit all over those people, it was clear that the Iranian immigration office was interested in pulling some sort of trick, and probably succeeded to some extent. Also, now, North Korea has nukes. Whilst the USSR had a very rough relationship with the USA, they had shown that they were at least reasonable opponents, by cooperating with the allies during World War II, which was before the advent of the bomb. Iran and North Korea, on the other hand, have very different philosophies of the USA and the west in general. And, way worse than that, those missing soviet weapons could very well fall into the hands of terrorists, if they aren't already, and terrorists would be far more willing to rush their use with little concern or understanding of the consequences.
> 
> ...


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## Bloody_Inferno (Dec 21, 2022)

There's something funny how that despite we all have a lot of complaints for modern movies in this thread, and then somehow 2022 has been a great year for new movies in general. My favorite movie of the year Everything Everywhere All At Once was a much better multiverse themed movie than anything by Marvel and Sony this past decade at a quarter of the budget. Then you have other heavy hitters like RRR, The Northman, NOPE, Prey, Bones and All, X, Barbarian, The Fablemans, Violent Night, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Glass Onion... and none of them are superhero movies from the usual suspects. Ok, RRR is kinda like a superhero movie, but RRR is still awesome. 

The best remedy to superhero fatigue (or insert whatever current mainstream trend) is to have a healthy diet of movies from every other genre.


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## soliloquy (Dec 23, 2022)

/\ funny you should mention that as I just came here to complain about how hollywood seems to have run out of ideas. Just to name a few movies coming out in the next few months:
Spiderman 4?
Guardians of the galaxies 3
John wick 4
Transformers 7
Fast and the furious 10
Indiana jones 7
Little Mermaid
Aquaman 2
Willie Wonka
Creed 3? (or rockie 7? or whatever it is)
Shazam 2


sure, i am being biased as i may have skipped out on movies that are one-offs and original stories that aren't based on anything else previously released....

but seriously, why is there so much fatigue?

but yes, superhero movies are also getting really redundant and repetitive, stale, and just boring


also, RRR was brilliant!


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