The "Movies I recently saw" thread

[Loki]

AWAY WITH YOU STAR WARS!

Saw Iron Man 3 the other day. Was pretty good. Much more character driven then 2 was, which is good. Slight spoiler, you need to have had known at least what happened in The Avengers or you might be a bit lost in this movie.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

>this new Clone Wars animated series

There is only one real Clone Wars animated series.

[Mercutio]

Both are a bit stupid in fairness.

[Loki]

Lucas originally said he didn't make the Clone Wars because it was a story he didn't feel needed to be told. But now, he wants money, so it has to be told.

[Beirut]

I saw The Great Gatsby, it was...

meh? I guess. It seemed miscated but that could just be my opinion. Although Leo was fantastic as usually.

[Mercutio]

I've not read the novel, but I don't particularly trust Hollywood to get that subject matter down.

[Doppleganger]

I read the novel. We were forced to in school.

I used to think it was more complex and thematically deep than it really was. Stripping away the context, it's just a sad story about misplaced love/loneliness and some fudged up people.

I barely knew a movie was being made. Apparently it's some huge thing. Why? Do kids today not know the Roaring Twenties was once upon a time?

[Mercutio]

I think I would have called it Star Trek: Badass but Retarded.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Mercutio

I think I would have called it Star Trek: Badass but Retarded.

Q1. How early do you find out who the villain is?

Q2. If it's revealed in the first 30 minutes and/or if it's not important to the plot, what is the identity of the villain?

[Mercutio]

Clarify: have you seen the film (wary of spoilers) and are you a substantial trekkie?

[Talon87]

I have not seen the film and likely won't see it until it comes out on DVD. I'm a fan of Star Trek, sure, having watched all of TNG, all of DS9, some of the other three TV series, and all eleven films before this one. I'm aware of the two leading theories before the film came out

Spoiler: show

the one being that he was Khan, the other being that he was Gary Mitchell.

Not really sure why any of that matters though. I'd think the more important detail would be when the identity is revealed, not who it is. If it's revealed in the final third of the film, then clearly keeping the audience in the dark was part of the film's attempt to build suspense; vice-versa, if they come out in the first ten minutes of the film and are like "LOL BOTANY BAY" or "LOL MY LAST NAME WAS ONCE M_____", then clearly keeping the identity a secret isn't really pivotal to the film: the viewer is meant to know who he is early on and to appreciate that tidbit throughout.

[Mercutio]

Sufficed to say that you aren't told until like half way through but as a trekkie I got it before that.

[Talon87]

In other words, it's not like I need to go out and see this movie right away before people le spoil his identity for me. I can be spoiled on it (not that I'm seeking to be; I'm just accepting that it will probably happen as a matter of time spent on YouTube and the like) and it shouldn't really ruin the film for me because I was going to know who he was much earlier anyway. Got it.

Spoiler: show

If it is Khan though, I will be interested to see, via the film, whether he's Abrams Universe Khan or whether he's Roddenberry Universe Khan who somehow gate-jumped over to the Abrams Universe and brought all of his grudges against Kirk with him. To me, that'd be kind of peculiar. And so it's for that reason that my leading expectation would be Gary Mitchell.

1. Benedict doesn't look much like a Khan. He very much so could pass for a Mitchell.
2. As far as I know, Mitchell didn't die in Roddenberry's universe, so it's totally plausible that he might have escaped from his stony prison and sought vengeance upon Kirk: and when he found out that Kirk was already dead in his world, he opted for the next best thing to him which was to enter some parallel universe (Abram's) and kill off the Kirk there. Roddenberry Khan wouldn't have been able to do that, both lacking the innate personal power to jump between universes as well as, well, being dead.

But again, yeah, if it is Khan, then it will be interesting to see whose Khan he is and how things came to lead up to this situation.

[Mercutio]

Well I won't spoil anything related. But to speculate, if we assume that it's Khan, it should probably be noted that Khan is meant to be Indian and the guy playing him is not doing that. So Cumberbatch doing it would have been fine. But I'll leave you to speculate on the villain's identity.

Anyway, on the plus side it was full of action, largely well acted and was absolutely rammed full of references to things. My personal favourite being the model NX class on an Admiral's desk. A decent enough premise. It looks beautiful and the music is pretty great.

Negative side, it's basically a forgettable action flick. I mean it's got plenty of colo moments and stuff but the story, while a lovely idea, is convoluted and poorly executed. I get the feeling that a lot of exposition was cut post production. Also they continuously put trust in James Kirk despite him being an utterly crap officer (which is funny as they specifically point this out at one point). Also aside from the token alien cameos it's very homiocentric, which is in keeping with TOS but is just not believeable in my opinion. Fine, there aren;t many Vulcans flyign about the alternate reality, but where are my Andorians and Tellarites mannign the battle stations?

*sigh*

[Fallen Icarus]

Saw Iron Man 3.

Great movie, good as the others, maybe better.

Got to see the last extra part, but the others kept yelling at me to get out of there cause nothing was going to show up. Wrong. Then they yelled at me for it being not worthwhile. :/ maybe.

[Emp]

Originally Posted by Fallen Icarus

Saw Iron Man 3.

Great movie, good as the others, maybe better.

> Implying Iron Man 2 is not a terrible film *

* Opinion based on the fact it had the most obscure villain, a forgettable sub-plot and only about 15 minutes of actual action

[Fallen Icarus]

Originally Posted by empoleon dynamite

> Implying Iron Man 2 is not a terrible film *

* Opinion based on the fact it had the most obscure villain, a forgettable sub-plot and only about 15 minutes of actual action

Naw, I didn't find it too bad.

Probably because of my bias towards Iron man, but eh

[Loki]

Iron Man movies have never been pure action flicks. The first one was about how Tony grew into a better person and a hero. The second was about how he dealt with his upcoming death. The third

Spoiler: show

how Tony dealt with his fears following the Avenger's movie dealing with deities, aliens, and a nuclear bomb.

Ivan Vanko was pretty much a direct link to Anton Vanko, the Crimson Dynamo, but mixed a bit with Whiplash. Also Justin Hammer, who was Tony's direct business rival and often tried to steal Stark tech to make weapons, which is what he tried to do in the movie.

Not sure how it's obscure. The first movie had a much more obscure/less menacing villain.

[Mercutio]

Well 2 was nothing special so I hope 3 is good

[Amras.MG]

Recently saw Hangover III and Star Trek Into Darkness.

I give Hangover III a C-, and I really liked Star Trek, much better than the first one.

[Fallen Icarus]

Yay Truman Doctrine!

....

It provoked a series of researches in creepy science fiction/future stuff that will probably give me nightmares now.

[Loki]

Saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and thought it was okay, but I've never read the book so I have no comparison point to know which is better and what scenes were bullshit add-ons. I can vaguely guess which ones felt a bit out of place though, but I'm not certain.

[Loki]

Saw Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Very nice.

[kusari]

Just got out of The Purge. Really not as great a film as I was hoping. Was expecting more of The Strangers and less Film That Promises Action But Only Has Action In The Final Twenty Minutes And Also Has An Ending You Can Predict After The First Five Minutes.

Kusari scores it: 2 stars outta 5.

Seeing The Internship in about ten minutes. Hopefully it'll get the bad taste out of my eyes and ears Will report in when done.

EDIT: As expected, The Internship was a pretty great movie. It's basically Wedding Crashers except with a cast of characters that I nearly unanimously enjoy.

Kusari scores it: 4 stars outta 5. My only complaint is that it fell into all the "lol so nerdy" trappings. It seemed like they just Googled (wooooo joke) out some nerdy terms to sprinkle into the dialogue ("cosplay" and "hentai" off the top of my head). Still a great film though.

[Tyranidos]

Saw Man of Steel. Extremely generic and mediocre, but I think was worth the $5 I spent to watch it. 4.5/10