posted
Frankly, I went in to the movie thinking it would have great action and a weak story. I was wrong. I'm sure if I thought about it enough I would find some plot holes or something, but I was too busy enjoying the movie to think about it. My only gripe was that some parts of the plot were really hard to follow. Like at the end, when Selene says she is going to be hunted. Why is she going to be hunted?
Anyway, I thought the action, the effects, and the plot were great.
Posts: 1934 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Like at the end, when Selene says she is going to be hunted. Why is she going to be hunted?
Because she killed Viktor and because Marcus will be awoken to avenge his death. She has probably also joined at least one of the werewolves (the guy she liked) and she mixed the races by biting him. All things that the vampires would probably consider a bad thing. BTW, did everyone else love the way she killed Viktor? I mean she didnt just cut off his head...she cut it in half! Thats a pretty creative way to kill a person in my view. Wow I think im a little sick to have enjoyed that.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Great movie overall, except I wish they had extended two of the fights longer.
How did Kraven kill that werewolf? When we last see him, he's been whipping the werewolf, the werewolf is bearing down on him, and the scene ends. Then he just appears again later.
And Selene again Viktor. I liked the anime style kill, but come on, that could have been a real kickass fight.
As for Marcus, remember that he now has werewolf blood and memories in him i.e. a second hybrid?
Posts: 332 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Pretty nice movie. It's kinda pathetic how Michael still got his booty kicked by Victor, even though he was suppose to be the best of both races. Also, if the elders are suppose to be so strong, how did amelia the elder that was awake at the time, get killed so easy? Can Selene and Michael have hybrid babies that are hardcore? I wanna see the babies turn into little pups wreaking havoc.
Posts: 290 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Wow, I can't believe you guys liked the movie. No one in the group I went with liked it at all... The death scene at the end made me feel ashamed for the entire cast. I also like how they had a love story thing going on without any actual love. I think Kate and Scott shared about 25 total lines, most of which was yelling, then one kiss, and WHAM they're ready to die for one another all of the sudden. Viktor was outrageously overacted, and the guy who played Craven had all the skills of a frustrated ourangutang. No resolution, muddy plot, poorly developed/poorly acted characters = thumbs down.
I reccomend Matchstick Men and Lost In Translation for anyone up for a flick. Not Underworld.
Just my two cents.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
FlyingCrow-that's right, I'd totally forgotten that they were getting sued. Who was it by? I heard a rumor it was White Wolf.
BTW-hated the movie. I thought Seline (Celine?) was the only good vampire. Lucius (sp?) was a sorry werewolf.
Posts: 701 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
It is White Wolf. They claim to have 61 points of similarity between Underworld and their World of Darkness setting (more importantly, a short story written by Nancy Collins in that setting called "Love of Monsters")
They tried for an injunction to stop the movie release, but couldn't post the $10 million bond. They're in an expedited discovery period right now, and are looking to stop all merchandizing and game (rpg, console and PD) sales for the movie, and potentially prevent it from being released on video and DVD.
So, if they win, that'd mean no sequel.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Isn't Underworld Romeo and Juliette with Vampires starring as the Capulets and Werewolves as the Montagues. Is white wolf claiming property of the story of star crossed lovers? Heck, Shakespeare didn't even come up with that. It all seems kinda silly to me, but I probably don't understand what's really going on.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Actually, it's less the archetypal plot and more specific plot points and sequencing as put forth in a specific short story. Along with use of specific game terms, themes, relationships, etc.
The White Wolf president explains it better than I can:
quote: There's been a tremendous amount of discussion on our boards (and many others) about the merits of our suit against Sony Pictures, Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment. We're very flattered by the many words of support from well wishers. We're also a little surprised by the knee jerk reaction some folks are having to this legal action that we're taking to protect what we believe to be infringements of our copyrights. While I won't be engaging in a lengthy forum debate, I do want to address some of the key concerns than many people have expressed. Please understand that while we're in pre trial, it's difficult for me to be entirely candid. Certain phrases and words must be used, or I'll compromise our greater legal efforts. I take a mild risk by posting a letter like this, but I want to shed a little light on the events and information that lead us to the decision to prosecute.
First of all, White Wolf is not an overly litigious company. We enter lawsuits only rarely, and then, only when we feel we have no other choice and a likelihood of prevailing. There have been a few instances where we've sued, and a few instances where we've been sued. Our track record is pretty good, and we generally don't start something we don't feel capable of finishing. In the case of Underworld I did contact Sony in the Spring of this year and advised them that based on the initial Underworld trailer we believed that Underworld may contain some of our intellectual property (IP from here on out). I requested a copy of the script so we could review it in more detail and get a clearer picture of the situation. Sony moved me around to a couple of different people and a few emails and voice mails later I found myself ignored. Now we had to be careful, because when a big company like Sony thinks they're going to get sued, there's a bunch of legal precautions they can take to make a lawsuit ridiculously expensive for a small company like White Wolf. So rather than start shaking spears we waited patiently for the requested screenplay but it never came. Two months later we got the screen play from the Copyright Office and began reading. What we saw in that screen play was a overwhelming similarity to both our *expression* of the World of Darkness and to Nancy Collins' short story The Love of Monsters.
Now before those well meaning JR lawyers out there begin screaming again that White Wolf doesn't own Vampires and Werewolves... we're not claiming to. No one can copyright an idea - only the *expression* of an idea. We do feel that the World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse contain unique expressions of these subjects. When we read the Underworld screenplay we found what we believed to be a nearly identical expression of our unique kinds of Vampires and a nearly identical expression of our kind of social dynamics between these two opposed societies. People have pointed to Wolfman VS Dracula recently. That's fine, but it misses our point. We're claiming that we created a complex world that supports advanced social structures of both Vampire and Werewolf societies. That each of these creature types have a unique blend of common myths and new ideas and that Underworld hues too closely to these same unique blends. Some of our elements were inspired by folklore, some by more modern offerings and still others of these elements are wholly original contributions by our creative staff. It is our combination of these elements that is unique, and that expression is protectable, we believe, under copyright law. We also found a few special game terms, like Abomination, showing up in both our books and their screenplay, and we feel very strongly that the screen writers were exposed to, inspired by and actively incorporating elements of our IP into their movie. We feel our case is further strengthened by what we perceive to be overwhelming similarities between the Underworld script and Nancy's short story, The Love of Monsters, which is also set in the World of Darkness. The movie switches the genders of the characters, but otherwise we found the sequence of events to be almost identical between her story and their screenplay.
The merits of our case are (in our opinion) fair and reasonable, and we wouldn't be in litigation if we didn't sincerely believe that this film borrows heavily... too heavily... from our unique expression of these popular ideas. We have a responsibility to ourselves, our freelance community and, yes, this fanbase to protect our intellectual property from third parties who would attempt to usurp those unique qualities and represent them as independently created works. Our livelihood as a publisher and rights owner depends on it. I sat in court yesterday and listened to their attorney assert that the writers had never heard of the World of Darkness, and then we showed the judge an article from the San Diego comicon where the creators admitted that they were aware of White Wolf's games from their internet research. Well... which is it? I suppose time and legal discovery will tell the truer tale.
Fortunately the Judge felt that our case had enough merit that he's expediting the discovery process and shortening it to 30 days. This is very good for us. That will allow us to get a hearing, and hopefully an injunction before the larger portions of Underworld's merchandising roll out, and help to protect many of the areas we've already taken, or plan to take, the World of Darkness brands into.
Many forums were ablaze with similarities between the trailer and our properties. Well, now the little guy has stepped up to defend his rights. I do thank those of you who have shown us so much support these last few days. For those of you who asked the tough questions, I hope this discourse sheds some helpful light on where we're coming from and why.
Thanks and be well,
Mike Tinney President White Wolf, Inc
That's from the forum on the WW website, in response to much gnashing of teeth by fans over the motives for the litigation. Personally, I think WW is entirely justified...
...this is not biased at all by the fact that I receive sporadic paychecks from them.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Did your showing of Second Hand Lions have a preview of ROTK?
I don't know, I missed the previews. I sat down just as the movie was starting.
I assume they played it though...I just didn't think about it until now, which makes me sad that I missed it.
Posts: 149 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Hey, I just gotta put in my two cents and say that I liked this movie. There were some annoying parts. Unshown and unexplained solutions to cliffhangers, Kraven's AWFUl AWFUL AWFUL MOVIE-RUINING HORRIBLE ACTING, and the hilarious dubbed-in line from Lucien right before the climactic bite ...
But overall, I really liked it. I was particularly impressed with the history behind some of the characters' decisions and relationships. They put a lot more into this than they had to to make a second-tier fantasy film, and so I give them kudos.
Though it would have been a lot smarter to talk to White Wolf earlier on and studiously avoid anything that could lead to a lawsuit ...
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:I was particularly impressed with the history behind some of the characters' decisions and relationships. They put a lot more into this than they had to to make a second-tier fantasy film, and so I give them kudos.
That's what sold it for me. I liked the movie. I liked how my view of the situation changed along with the main character's. It means that I was emotionally involved in the story, and it means that the plotting wasn't too tiresome. The story telling was decent and deep enough. It wasn't the Usual Suspects, but I did appreciate the plotting.
In addition, I like that it wasn't just a twist, rather the plot slowly showed the entire situation, from a narrow to a broad view, and in that showing, changed the morality of the agents in a decent manner.
posted
Um, Tom? You haven't actually *read* any White Wolf books, have you... it's surprisingly clean.
I still ahven't seen the flick, but I'm thinking of doing so this week, just to make my mind up on the whole perceived copyright issue. If, as you say, the relationships and bakcground are that well developed, it's entirely possible that you just like the World of Darkness setting.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
If Kate Beckinsale was able to kill Victor so easily, why did it take Kraven so long to do it?
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Wow. Some of the complaints in the legal brief (brief? HA!) were just silly. As in 'In our game, silver kills werewolves. In the movie, silver kills werewolves.'
Neither White Wolf, nor Sony's writers are as original as they seem to think.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
The death scene literally had me laughing for hours. Oh how amusing. *giggles some more*
Really I don't think this was a good movie. I was too busy laughing at it most of the time. Especially when Michael turns into the beaty thing. Yeah now there's what I'm looking for in a boyfriend. *smirks*
Isn't Marcus now half and half? Or did I totally miss that point?
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Yeah, Scott, a lot of people over on the White Wolf forum are laughing about a few of the claims, but the explaination was that they had to claim every point of similarity, rather than picking and choosing.
Some of their other claims are pretty far fetched, too, but if they don't claim it, they give up every right to claim it later.
I finally did see the movie yesterday, and I was't impressed. It wasn't the worst movie of all time, but it wasn't something I'm happy about spending 9 dollars for, either. On the whole, it was pretty derivative, boiled down from several sources until no flavor was left.
Does White Wolf have a case? Yeah, I think so. It's not as clear cut as the claim tries to make you think, but it's there. There are plenty of differences, sure, but WW isn't claiming that the movie is 100% stolen... just parts. And many of those parts really felt like there were dice rolling in the background.
As a writer for White Wolf, my mind naturally turns toward the game line, so I know my point of view is a little biased. But, that said, the movie really ran like a poorly run chronicle, with a Storyteller that hadn't fully read the books and dialogue that might come out of players' mouths improvised to the situation.
It'll be no loss to the world if WW wins and thi smovie is destroyed, never to have a sequel.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I just realized something else about this movie, which is kinda strange.
why didn't the werewolves just hide by night, and move around by day? All this conflict at night is ridiculous. If the "lycans" can shift forms at will, why not just shift in broad daylight, attack the vampire house, and be done with it. Or did no one think about that in 600 years? The only defenses that house had were dogs, and a gate.
And why go through all the trouble of creating ridiculously expensive UV bullets (ha ha!) when you can just buy UV lighting, or UV flashlights to put on the ends of their rifles. Maybe just install a whole mess a mirrors outside the vamp's house, so it gets all bright inside when the sun rises. Or just tear the roof off the place.
Then again, why should I expect plot consistency... it's a Vampire chronicle, so they only meet the Lupines... er... Lycans at night.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I agree that the actor that played Kraven did a pretty poor job. I also thought that the movie suffered from some poor technical editing, especially with sound. I'm not enough of a movie expert to put my finger on the nuances, but the fact that I noticed anything at all is a bad sign.
To be honest, I probably wouldn't have liked the movie had it not been for Kate Beckinsale. As far as vampire movies go, Blade had more visual flair and far better fight scenes, but Kate Beckinsale is much more interesting to watch than Wesley Snipes. (It's not his fault.)
Posts: 224 | Registered: Aug 2002
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