taksraven

As much as I'd love to see a Robotech film I don't see this happening. If folk didn't support a new series on Kickstarter then why would they even want to see the film? Just sayin'.

Just leaving this here if it hasn't been posted before.....

I feel bad that I haven't enjoyed much of anything the Wachowskis have made in a very long time. Not bad for myself or even the Wachowskis, but just for film as a medium. I feel the Wachowskis have such a unique voice that is married so well to a distinctive visual style that it's a precious and rare commodity in my beloved medium. But none of their films past their first few have impressed me with that voice and style made in an effective way. It's also such a shame because I feel that socially, the Wachowskis promote some really good messages with their films. I keep hoping with each successive project the Wachowskis will attain a greatness, but none so far. Naturally, I'll give this film a chance, but it is disheartening to hear yet another similar vibe from their last movies once again soils their newest film.

It's difficult to say what has "gone wrong" with the Wachowskis. There are so many factors that could have had an impact on the quality of their filmmaking ranging from the huge amount of praise lavished on the original Matrix films having a negative impact on their ego's, through to Lana/Larry going through the gender change distracting them from their filmmaking and all the way to the possiblity that they might have only had one really good film in them.

Cloud Atlas showed promise but ultimately did not go where it should have and I hope that Jupiter Ascending is OK, but it's hard to hold out much hope.

One Tron was enough for me. I suppose there is scope there for more. I would watch it, don't get me wrong I'm not hating on it. I would rather see energy and money put towards Classics that we no longer see. I suppose I should look into this Black hole movie, just to see what was worthy of remake.

The Black Hole was essentially a failure for what Disney was trying to achieve with it (ie, a Star Wars type SF film) but there were certainly some *elements* of the film that were excellent. A lot of the design work (the Cygnus and Maximillian in particular) was outstanding and the plot itself was exceptionally dark. (Definitely some "Heart of Darkness" elements in it.) The overall direction and tone, however, is very mixed and drags down the whole production. The soundtrack is nice too.

Have no fear. Disney bought Star Wars, they don't need to do anymore "can we do star wars?" test movies.

Yeah. I guess that pretty much puts any more TRON films or the proposed remake of The Black Hole in the bin. Too bad.

Listen to all the console boys. Could easily be a C64 or Amiga.....

Looks great! Scarlet has her booty shot in the film! Two things I would like to see: Captain America get his butt kicked, and the Hulk get his butt kicked!

What is it with you and butts??

This thread is DOOMED!!!!

That is a truly bad cross-promotion. (Not that there has ever been a good one)

FULL TRAILERS UP!

Great work, Lobizon, we both got them up at *exactly* the same time.....

That Cherno looks freaking awesome......

One of the weaknesses of SW is the lack of continuity in fight style. We have Luke with his baseball bat style, which just made sense to me for some reason. Go to the prequels, and is all artistic about it, as well as bouncing off the walls etc... Just didn't work for me.

Don't forget Alec Guiness with his "I'm so old I can barely swing this thing" style.

Star Trek IV - We ran out of money, so we thought to shoot a film running in plain clothes running around San Francisco, all while ramming a political message down everyone's throat.

Now you go.

ABSOLUTELY AGREE!!! Respect animals and respect the environment is a terrible, dirty, filthy political message that should never be forced down anyone's throat!!

Everything I've read about Roddenberry and his involvement with Trek in the 1980s paints a picture of a franchise that would not have survived the decade under his creative control. To deny this is to be ignorant of what actually happened during this time period. Hell, he even fought against Khan, which was made largely in defiance of the narrow vision Roddenberry had for his universe. There are plenty of interviews out there with Khan writer/director Nicholar Meyer that spell this out pretty plainly.

And yes, it needed a reboot because the original cast was a dead end and the time for the TNG cast had come and gone without much of a fuss (outside of First Contact). The pervious two TV series had failed pretty miserably, and BSG cracked open TV sci-fi in a way that made Trek as it was obsolete. It needed to be turned on its head, and the reboot did that.

I think it's a fairly modern thing. These days when you have SF Franchise Creator Vs. Studio Vs. Fans Vs. Internet feedback its always going to get messy.

Look at George Lucas with the prequel trilogy. The three films were a huge financial success that brought a massive number of new fans into the francise (in spite of Jar-Jar) but you have the flipside where the films were a massive critical failure amongst the fans from the '77 days (myself included) and a lot of others over the age of 15. BUT, at the end of the day the films brought in shitloads of money, and that's the bottom line.

Same goes with the new Trek films. The 2009 film made 385 million and Into Darkness made 467 million. At the end of the day, Paramount isn't going to care about critical reception if they bring enough money in. They think they have a formula, they will try to stick with it as best they can.

That is the cold hard reality of these things.

I disagree. "Aliens" took something away - to the extent that if you see the films in reverse order, the first one loses a lot.

IMHO, the Ori from SG1 are one of the better "opponents that remain dangerous right up to the end". It's effectively only due to dues ex machina that their threat is resolved - and that's only after the TV series has ended in a concluding movie! And even then, there's still the sticky angle of their religious aspect spawning new zealots in the future...

Maybe the mystique of the appearance of the aliens and some stuff about their origins, but that's it. They were still fearsome opponents.....

Just saw this one online.....LOL

Really good point. I remember when the new BSG was airing and they had podcasts each week, Ron Moore made that same comment about the Cylons. That you can't make them this incredibly dangerous force, but still have you "heroes" survive week after week. It just diminishes the threat they pose. Too bad he eventually made the show the Cylon show. I also remember Jamie Bamber saying something to that effect in one of the podcasts, saying something like when the Cylon's were this unknown threat, they seemed more scarey or threatening. I agreed. I really like the NuBSG but felt the Cylon centric approach of the last season and a half was disappointing.

Chris

The thing is though, that if you are clever with things like this, it doesn't have to go bad and the bad guys don't have to become completely impotent.

The best example are the first two "Alien" movies. The first one had the threat being from *one* alien that was nearly impossible to kill (at least with the weapons that Ripley and her crew had available to them) "Aliens" of course had *hundreds* of the creatures in the film and in many ways they were easier to kill due to the addition of Space Marines and some high power weapons but I still felt that they were not devalued as a threat in any major way and ultimately the Aliens were still a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

Voyager didn't ruin the Borg, that was First Contact. But everybody likes that movie some reason!?

First Contact was weird. I read a detailed synopsis for it before I saw it and thought "That looks pretty cool". Then I actually saw the film and thought it sucked. Weird.

The Borg were ruined by the fact that they brought them back after "Best of Both Worlds". That was a great story and the one where they were introduced by Q was a great teaser.

They ultimately suffered in the same way that most SF villains suffer. Introduce them as being "all powerful and dangerous"? Fair enough. Keep bringing them back again and again, guess what. They have to progressively become weaker and weaker as they are constantly beaten by the good guys.

The same thing has happened time and again with the Daleks in Dr Who.

And with "The Agents" in the Matrix films.

And with the Vajra in Macross Frontier, and so on and so on.....

You say that like there's ever been a time that they WEREN'T.

It's only thanks to Star Wars that Trek originally went to the big screen anyway. SW came out, Paramount execs promptly said "Hang on. Don't WE have some sort of SF franchise???", the Star Trek: Phase 2 TV series was already in development was effectively cancelled and the work that had already been put into it was upscaled into Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

But you are right, I don't think that Paramount has ever really liked the Trek franchise.

So is "2204" officially gonna happen??

Right, Star Wars is also, not a wreck. Even with the fan complaints, its the closest thing to a perfect SciFi franchise.

Said no one ever, who has seen the steaming pile of shite that is the prequel trilogy. C'mon man, the only way *I* enjoy SW is by ignoring the prequel trilogy and pretty much anything else that has been made other than the original trilogy.

Nah. I think that Sony is doing an important job here that must be respected. Showing other studio's how NOT to treat their intellectual property......

Right, because that's exactly what I was trying to say. Everyone missed it but you. Secretly, I'm a xenophobic imperialist. But now you've unmasked me.

You have anything else brilliant to add to the discussion, dear?

Um, yeah Duke. You....clearly....showed....me....up. Whatever.

The thing that got to me about Avatar was its blatant theft of concepts from Lawrence of Arabia. But, if you gotta steal, steal from the best I guess.

All DT was saying was he doesn't appreciate political messaging in entertainment. Either way. If there was a film about how the mindless subhuman indigenous were shown the light by colonial steelers, and once falling in line, became real people instead of animals, DT would be equally irritated. I agree... I do not accept being preached to.

The subtle political subtexts in Interstellar must have had you guys running from the cinema screaming........

the preachy BS he stuffed down our throats in Avatar. .

Hmmmm. So it's ok for colonial powers to trample/subjugate/destroy indigenous cultures then?

FARKING AWESOME!!!!!