Keith Houchen Posted May 17, 2023 Share Posted May 17, 2023 I’m always mindful of something Astro (I think) said years ago of how action scenes tend to be the heroes running whilst CGI scenery falls around them causing near misses. It has seemingly gotten worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted May 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 17, 2023 1 hour ago, LaGoosh said: This is pretty much the standard for almost every non-Tom Cruise action scene of the past 10 years. Not across the board. Maybe this is the standard in superhero films and the biggest budget actioners but there's been an upsurge in brilliant practical stuff at the higher and lower budget levels since Fury Road. Highly recommend the Lost Bullet films on Netflix for examples, but there are loads of others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 17, 2023 3 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said: Not across the board. Maybe this is the standard in superhero films and the biggest budget actioners but there's been an upsurge in brilliant practical stuff at the higher and lower budget levels since Fury Road. Highly recommend the Lost Bullet films on Netflix for examples, but there are loads of others. To clarify, I was referring more to the classic big tentpole blockbuster releases. There's always going to be good action stuff available, TV in particular is rife with very good action these days but the biggest releases have been putting out some shocking shite for ages now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted May 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 17, 2023 Just now, LaGoosh said: To clarify, I was referring more to the classic big tentpole blockbuster releases. I thought you were and you're not wrong in that regard. Fortunately, with Mission: Impossible, John Wick 4 and Extraction 2 coming out this year, the upper budget output is a lot more palatable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted May 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 17, 2023 4 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: I thought you were and you're not wrong in that regard. Fortunately, with Mission: Impossible, John Wick 4 and Extraction 2 coming out this year, the upper budget output is a lot more palatable. I didn’t want to call you out earlier, but was shocked you didn’t mention John Wick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted May 17, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 17, 2023 2 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: I didn’t want to call you out earlier, but was shocked you didn’t mention John Wick. I just want everyone to watch the Lost Bullet films, that's all. Everyone should have watched John Wick 4 by now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted May 18, 2023 Awards Moderator Share Posted May 18, 2023 Jurassics: Some days, Jurassic Park is my all time favourite film. I have a lot of affection for The Lost World and am willing to defend it because I was 10 when it came out and the perfect age to completely buy into all the hype (and want to buy all the tie-in merchandise). There was a while where I thought JP3 was better than Lost World… but it’s not. It’s still fun but there’s no particular scene that’s better than the best bits of Lost World. It had a fantastic website back in ‘01 though which my friends and I would spend school breaks looking at. I was hyped for Jurassic World when it came out. The whole “the park is open” thing was something I wanted to see and I’d have happily just watched a day of the park running as normal with no escaped dinosaurs. For a little bit I convinced myself I really liked the film, but … it’s not good. It’s just so hollow, filled with empty nostalgia-pops and like Pat said, mean. (even the park management game that came out afterwards wasn’t a patch on Operation Genesis for PS2. Which to be fair was only great because there were cheat codes to unlock everything and have unlimited money.) Some days, Fallen Kingdom is my least favourite film of all time. It might be the only occasion I’ve felt angry in a cinema because of what I was watching. I offloaded a very long post on here afterwards. I hate it. Haven’t seen Dominion, don’t plan to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted May 18, 2023 Share Posted May 18, 2023 The only reason I like the new Jurassic films is because it means there's more of an excuse for companies to lean into the nostalgia of the old ones. I'm all for new Jurassic Park merchandise and rides and exhibitions and stuff like that. I can just pretend it's mostly for the old movies instead. I've watched the original trilogy more times than I can count. I think I've only seen the new ones in the cinema and then at home once. That's enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted May 18, 2023 Awards Moderator Share Posted May 18, 2023 1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said: The only reason I like the new Jurassic films is because it means there's more of an excuse for companies to lean into the nostalgia of the old ones. I'm all for new Jurassic Park merchandise and rides and exhibitions and stuff like that. I can just pretend it's mostly for the old movies instead. If you’re in London anytime soon the Natural History Museum has a pop-up Jurassic Park gift shop. I think it’s connected to the 30th anniversary of the film. We went there around Easter and I spent far more than I should have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobra_gordo Posted May 18, 2023 Share Posted May 18, 2023 The Jurassic sequels make me feel the way I do about the Star Wars sequels. I genuinely like Jurassic World and The Force Awakens and despite them rehashing elements of the originals both films filled me with joy and nostalgia as they were supposed to. They're solid 7.5 or 8 out of 10 films for me and if that's mostly made up of the fact I had a big smile on my face the first time I saw them then fuck it. The second two films of each trilogy had me walking out of the cinema really confused. Like, I think I'm supposed to like this but why do I feel really disappointed. Both had a couple of huge set pieces that made me feel the right things (the indoraptor in the bedroom scene genuinely made me feel uncomfortable and the throne room lightsaber fight from The Last Jedi was top drawer) which I'm convinced are there to distract from the plot. There are a couple of standout performances too (I'm looking at you Ted Levine and Toby Jones). The second and third films didn't make me feel rage like some of the nerds did after The Last Jedi came out, just empty. I really wanted Jurassic World Dominion to have gone full Planet Of The Apes- packs of dinosaurs roaming cities like wolves and humans trying to stop them from completely taking over. Instead we got Locusts: The Movie and fan service which couldn't even be saved by the fact it had fucking dimetrodon in it. I've watched them a few times each in a desperate attempt to like them and instead all that initial goodwill I wanted to give them fades more with each viewing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanky316 Posted May 18, 2023 Share Posted May 18, 2023 The set pieces thing is kind of blockbuster routine but captures the "diminished returns" of films quite well especially as series run on. If you were to go back to the original JP, there's quite a few "stand out scenes" that stick in the mind and both Jurassic trilogies follow the same path of quite a few stand out moments in the first ones (less so in World than the original but... the original is rightly considered a classic of cinema history for what it did), then the second might have a couple of big things (LW with the trailer sequence, raptors in the long grass, city T-Rex/FK had the destruction of the island finishing with the shot of the original Brachiosaurus silhouetted in the lava flow and smoke/the haunted house super raptor hunt - lessened due to the fact by now you knew that a major character was immune to dino food) with the third in the trilogy being reduced to basically one bit (Spino/T-Rex fight and the city raptor chase to the plane) that stands out as a real "point" to talk about how good that was... shame about the rest. That sort of routine can be replicated across a lot of blockbuster franchises if you were to look over them. One thing I will give the original Alien quadrilogy credit for is that each director left a "mark" and made each film feel different even if it'd be open for debate as to if that style or decisions they made were actually good ones. I understand how it can be difficult with a franchise to keep it feeling fresh and why so many writers/directors are frightened of changing "what works" and losing that money printing license but from a viewers side of things it does lead to a lot of dross. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted May 18, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2023 1 hour ago, cobra_gordo said: I really wanted Jurassic World Dominion to have gone full Planet Of The Apes Now there's a great series. All three of them, absolutely superb and yet nobody talks about them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted May 18, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2023 On the merch front, I bought my brother a Roland Tembo action figure as a birthday present last year, partly because of our shared experience of watching Lost World as kids, but mostly because it's brilliant that there's such a thing as a Pete Postlethwaite action figure. I sent it to him with a note apologising that I couldn't get the Brassed Off action playset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 18, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted May 18, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said: Now there's a great series. All three of them, absolutely superb and yet nobody talks about them. Possibly the best trilogy ever. Not that any of the three could be in the conversation as "greatest movie ever" but best trilogy in that all three are excellent, very different from each other but feels like a proper cohesive whole story. There's no drop in quality. Also wonderfully bleak at times for mainstream films. Edited May 18, 2023 by LaGoosh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted May 18, 2023 Moderators Share Posted May 18, 2023 I've never seen any of them as I was really burned out on CGI when the first one came along. But I'm feeling like it's something I should remedy.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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