On Solo: A Star Wars Story: there's been a lot of clamour in the build-up to and release of their film. People just moaning about the film on principle rather than giving it a chance. Even since its release, you see the predictable 'reviews' of the purists: "Han Solo isn't played by Harrison Ford - 3/10" or "It was made for the money - 4/10" (now that last is hilarious!). If you object to the film on principle, if you think it's a cash cow (it has ever since they announced Episode VII), then show your disapproval and don't watch it then! Actually, I've been enjoying these standalone Star Wars films (Rogue One was excellent) much more than the sequel trilogy, which is the most derivative and lifeless crap I ever saw. For example, if you think about The Last Jedi, you'll notice it simply one long chase in space. One reason I loved Star Wars was because of all the interesting planets and races, exotic locales. The new trilogy just feels lifeless compared to the Mos Eisley Cantina and Tatooine podracing. To think that the writers had a huge sandbox to play with to explore the chaos of a galaxy after the fall of the Empire. I was looking forward to the balkanisation and power grabs of a thousand races suddenly let loose on their galaxy. And instead for Episode VII we get... the Empire hunting down rebels?!! All I can do is shake my head and say "such a waste..." And to make it worse, it kind of renders all that came in the original trilogy kind of meaningless. Rant aside, what I was trying to say is that Solo: A Star Wars story brings back some of that lost magic for me that I had known in the first six films. And I think that is mostly down to the fact that Solo is a story that doesn't revolve around saving the galaxy or anything but still had all the best bits of the Star Wars Universe and everything. It's a film in which a hustler is trying to find a way to survive in a galaxy within the iron grasp of the Empire. The film captures the spirit of a heist magnificently, with all the requisite twists and turns when you place a band of rogues together on a mission (not heroes, for every character here is in it for themselves - something else I really like about this film). I think this was a great origin story - you can see how naive Han is at the start of the film and how he grows to be much more aware over the film's duration, not least due to the company that he keeps. 8/10
I love how Lady Proxima sounds like a Jewish grandma from Florida. And yeah, it was a good 'un for a soap franchise.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and you make a sound case for it, but I was so violently disappointed by the sloppy-ass writing of the most recent installment that I've pretty much sworn off the series.
Which one? The Last Jedi as in? Second sequel? Episode 8? Not all bad. Some good ideas and some bad. Also a bit polarising it seems.
Watched this earlier. This is one of those films where you sit there wondering if you loved or hated it, as the end credits roll.
With Luke or the first one before she's trained? Either way, the first one wasn't suggesting she was done and the second has an implied time speed of some months during the training sequence.
The last movie I saw in theatres was "Solo". I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed all of the other installments. I don't nitpick movies, though, and my main criteria is if it was entertaining and if the "boring" moments were kept to s minimum. Anyway, I'd see "Solo" again. (It was also great to watch it and not have a bunch of "fanboys/girls" in the audience.) The last movie I saw was "The Ritual", a Netflix film. It was interesting and I thought it was enjoyable. I enjoyed the Norse mythology being mixed in and that they didn't try to make it a scary movie.
I'm not a SW fan - in fact I've never seen anything but clips and 'bits' from the originals, but I did watch that new one (the one where Harrison Ford's character falls off the bridge) and very much enjoyed it. However, I've seen enough clips from the originals to feel I'm justified in suggesting it was very much a SW film that wanted to appeal to fans of the originals by offering them a bit of a nostalgia trip. But the trailers for the latest outing tell me we're getting a generic sci-fi film with very few nods to its origins. The trailer doesn't even include 'the theme' until right at the end, and even then it's a horrible bastardisation of the original. Or I could be talking utter bollocks. Please feel free to say so.
Horror doesn't necessarily make it scary. Monster movies technically fall under the "horror" category and monster movies aren't scary. @OurJud "Solo" had several nods to the originals; I nerded out so hard at times. This movie felt a lot like it was made for the fans (possibly by fans, but fans with more money). It even drew out of the EU and "Star Wars: Clone Wars". Most of the nods were in comments spoken, but I'm fine with that. The theme song for this movie was also made entirely for Han Solo; it's even titled such. I want to say they did similar with "Rogue One" and I know they did similar in another film.
Watching the trailers for the new Jurassic Shite makes me suspect CGI has hit a ceiling. Yes they’re impressive, but are they really 28 years worth of better, when compared to Spielberg’s original? I’d say definitely not. I wonder what film’s going to come along and set a new benchmark?
I just watched the trailer, and yeah, that CG looks about as good as it's going to get, but then I probably thought the same thing 28 years ago. What gets me is the stories or lack thereof these days. Dinosaurs are going to displace humans? By brute force? Go talk to the sabertooth tigers about that, and we didn't have anything more advanced than flint spearheads back then. As long as we're working within the laws of physics, individual humans may be toast in a fight with a beasty, but there's no way something that's going to take probably at least 10 years to mature (herbivorous warm-blooded elephants take 20, crocodiles take between 4-15, according to a quick google) is going to outfight or outfuck us on a species level. Cockroaches, on the other hand...
Also we design weapons for this exact reason. Kind of unfair to place us in a fight without our natural capacities that have led to our actual domination as a species.
There's an old (1956) SF short story called A Gun for Dinosaur that details what happens when you come up short in the weapons department though.
Unfair? I'm always rooting for the dinosaurs in these films. Man should always be pitted against animals unarmed. Let's see who's the dominating species then. It's a shame Spielberg has shown no interest in getting back behind the camera for a proper sequel. We may have had a decent one by now if he had.
My point being that if we're talking species dominance it's not representative if humans aren't allowed to use our greatest asset: tools and strategy. Scattered weaponless humans are about as representative of our real strength as a dinosaur that was forcibly blinded by removing its eyes. You wouldn't actually need a particularly large gun to kill a dinosaur. A few well-aimed pistol shots to the head would kill any dinosaur except perhaps a pachycephalosaurid or ankylosaur where the head casing would get in the way. It's the same with bears and elephants. Hitting major areas is enough to kill anything as long as you can get through the exterior and the bullet is proportionally large enough to do relevant damage; which only means you can't rely on one shots for everything. Even a whale could be killed with a pistol if you just give it a good three to the brain. Large animals are not super-powered terminators and being extinct, which feels more fantastical and therefore closer to magic, does not make them tougher.
Your point on dinosaurs not being magical is well-taken, but the problem with larger animals is that, well, they're large. The blubber alone on a blue whale can be a foot thick, and 9mm rounds fired from handguns can only penetrate somewhere between 8 and 24 inches. There might be an angle somewhere on a beast like that that you could hit something vital, but it would probably be pretty hard to hit unless the animal was holding still. Same with a T-rex. Their brains were actually larger than ours, but relative to the size of the head, there's a lot of non-vital space that would count as a critical miss, especially if it was bearing down on you with murder in its heart.
Certainly. Big animals are usually harder to kill than smaller ones. But tbh, you don't even need to kill a predatory dinosaur. Doing any real damage and pain is enough to give you a chance. Serious distraction and possibility of deterrence; after all there's no reason for predatory dinosaurs to get killed for small prey. Tyrannosaurus is as I understand likely specialised to hunt quite large, slow animals, possibly with ambush and/or group tactics, and so wouldn't see a medium-sized mammal as normal, attractive prey. Dromaeosaurs would probably be more interested in us as smaller running prey, and they would be easier to kill, although they would be particularly likely to have groups of some kind. Regardless, humans have all sorts of guns and bombs and whatnot so the point is I absolutely agree that dinosaurs would never threaten our position as dominant species; especially given they are a group that largely thrived on their own monopoly over large and medium animals niches, across a fertile largely subtropical world.
I’m reading all this having a right good giggle! A deadly serious conversation about the feasibilities of killing dinosaurs and whales with a handgun
Robin and Marian was on last night. I'm sure it's full of historical inaccuracies, and the swordfighting is crap, but the themes of aging and love lost and the humanization of the Sheriff of Nottingham. "I should have trained you better" he says to a fallen footman, slain by Robin Hood. Genuine care for his men, contempt for his so-called superiors, and the love that he bears for Robin that only an old enemy can. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out. The trailer is old-style and kinda painful, but the movie is great:
Lethal Weapon 3. I have a soft spot for these films - well, the first two, at least - but I also find the delivery of dialogue (especially between Riggs and Murtaugh) very tiring. Not sure if I'm alone in this, but it feels like nothing significant is ever said (that's when you can tell what's being said) because the two leads have been directed to constantly talk over one another in this kind of bickering / banter kind of way. Add to that their failure to enunciate and it makes dialogue-heavy scenes very frustrating to watch. And yes I know these films are all about the action, but I don't get this feeling from any other action films.
Lol, that's what I loved about Lethal Weapon and all of those similar "buddy cop" films of that generation. I agree that the third film was a weak spot, but I enjoyed Lethal Weapon 4. On a similar vein of 90s action, I re-watched Demolition Man. Wesley Snipes is just having the time of his life, and I love the parodying of the future. It sort of makes me lament that they don't make 'em like this anymore! Still, there's plenty out there I can find that I haven't watched.
I just saw Deadpool 2. I laughed, I cried, and I laughed some more! It was so much fun and it felt like the actors had fully settled into their roles. I don't think I've laughed so much in a movie!
