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So quotes this reviewer, among many others on Rotten Tomatoes, that pretty much say The Last Airbender sucks so bad even vacuum cleaners are ashamed.
No surprises here, but I had hoped it would at least be entertaining once through. Sounds like it may not even be that.
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URG. Bad enough he had to whitewash the movie. Why much movie versions of things I like be suckified?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Unbreakable and Sixth Sense were excellent, I thought. Really enjoyable. After Signs and The Village, though...well, really Signs is what killed him as a good maker of movies for me.
Freakin' lethally vulnerable to water.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Why must movie versions of things I like be suckified?
Why is anybody surprised anymore?
I try to be optimistic, but often my movie hopes are dashed to the ground. *Will spend the weekend seeing Toy Story3 getting illustrated and watching Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix.*
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In fairness to M. Night, Lady in the Water made it clear that he's not too concerned with impressing critics. Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Blayne Bradley
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I thus far liked every movie I saw and minor plotholes and repetitiveness aside are an interesting breath of creativity in otherwise stagnant genres.
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Seriously...I like how his movies start, and often I like the middle...but the climaxes are not worthy of the first 2/3 of the movie, except Sixth Sense.
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The Village was filmed beautifully, but it seems to have been written and directed by a fifth grader with no previous experience.
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But at the end you just have to imagine that up on the Mothership, the Science Officer is standing embarrassedly in front of the Captain's chair saying 'Um. There seems to have been an error with the scans sir. Um. We were almost nearly kind of certain that all the blue stuff was copper sulfate. Um. Sorry.'
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I always thought of it more in terms of, yes water is poisonous but they need resources that badly they are willing to risk it. Besides the odds somebody will figure out water hurts them are not strong.
*spoilers* In any case, the aliens actually succeeded in running off with people.
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When I was watching signs, I found the scientific reaction hard to believe.
"The ships are invisible, but apparently solid."
And I'm screaming at the screen, "Shoot water at them!"
Turned out, that would have been a pretty good plan.
quote:Besides the odds somebody will figure out water hurts them are not strong.
Given the amount of water on the planet and the fact that they deliberately parked themselves away from large bodies of water, I would have thought someone would have noticed.
But it wasn't a scientific movie at all, so I suppose we can't really complain too much.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've never seen the series. The movie was horrible. Even by M. Night's falling standards.
Like, seriously. The entire theater erupted into laughter at so many places where they weren't supposed to. And nobody was angry about it (The laughter, I mean; people were of course angry at the shoddy nature of the movie). Even the cosplayers thought the movie was hilarious in its serious bits.
Probably the worst M. Night film. Seriously. I'd suggest watching it if you enjoy watching bad movies and laughing at them.
It did intrigue me enough so that I will start watching the series, I believe. But, yeah. That was a horrible movie.
Favorite line (No spoilers, I promise)
Person 1: I think your son is that person, and he has become traitor and betrayed his tribe Person 2: Are you saying my son is a traitor who has betrayed his tribe? Person 1: <Dramatic pause> Yes. End scene.
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My first thought was that there is enough water in the air to do them serious damage as soon as they step off the ship.
What alien race is smart enough to build interstellar ships and dumb enough not to protect themselves against an obviously hostile atmosphere? I'm in the camp that says M. Night is terrible at ending movies.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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This honestly makes me very sad. The Sixth Sense still stands as one of the best movies I've ever seen. I'd put it on my list of top ten movies ever.
WHAT HAPPENED??!?!?!??
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Or maybe he was just sort of a one-(or two-)hit wonder. Just because you can come up with one brilliant or entertaining movie doesn't necessarily mean you can repeat your success.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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M. Night has three very good movies to his credit, Unbreakable, Signs, and Sixth Sense. After that, he just hasn't had very good story ideas. The Village was based on a premise that was just too stupid to be acceptable, one that anyone could see through after the first few scenes. None of the other movies he has made had the magic of those sterling three.
Sometimes you just have to get lucky and have a really good story idea come to you. M. Night can tell a good story when the story idea is good. Let's hope eventually he gets lucky again. It can be a real challenge to follow a really good success with another, then another, and keep on doing it.
I wish M. Night would do a sequel to Unbreakable. Maybe even a whole series! It works for Spiderman, and his hero is a lot better than Spiderman. (Come on, a bite from a radioactive spider? Give me a break! And the Unbreakable hero is a mature adult, while Spiderman is an immature kid.)
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Its a genetically engineered spider now with something akin to a retrovirus, his pre-2000's origin story was just as plausible in comparison to his peers.
The 'X' Gene for instance.
Also, SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF
ITS A SUPER HERO STORY its not supposed to be 99% plausible or even 10%, do you realize just how many secondary powers every Marvel and DC hero needs to not kill themselves or others with their primary powers and how much handwaving is needed to make even superman not be full of plot holes?
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Hmmm... I don't know about the plotholes. I kind of like my fantasy with a dose of reality, or at least logic, or it tends to make me growl.
Unbreakable would make a good sequel... Just like Square should do a remake of FF7 where they do it the same as the old only with new technology.' But will they do that? NO!
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Blayne Bradley
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Those seem like two entirely different requests.
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well, yeah, but you can't say a remake of ff7 wouldn't be awesome. It would make me buy a ps3. A used one, but one nonetheless.
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Blayne Bradley
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YOU DONT WANT A USED ONE!!!! YOU CRAZY!? WARRANTY! FIVE YEARS MINIMUM! THEY ARE DESIGNED TO BREAK AFTER ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!
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The caps lock is extremely unnecessary, Blayne. Please edit that to normal case?
Also Syn I can definitely say a remake of FF7 wouldn't be awesome. The last remotely decent Final Fantasy was 3 (fanboys call it 6, but my SNES cartridge says 3, dagnabbit.)
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Did you just imply that Tactics, was like, not good. Holy shit.
There actually was a designer change from 3/6 (it is the sexth official final fantasy as far as the creators are concerned) and 7 on.
And another guy who did Tactics and 12 (same guy who did 7 on did 13 though)
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: The caps lock is extremely unnecessary, Blayne. Please edit that to normal case?
Also Syn I can definitely say a remake of FF7 wouldn't be awesome. The last remotely decent Final Fantasy was 3 (fanboys call it 6, but my SNES cartridge says 3, dagnabbit.)
Clear case of ignorance AND casual elitist denigration of an entire fanbase, awesome.
There's a good reason why in both casual conversation and over the internet to talk to them by their accurate names, FFIII is actually confusing to everyone but those who've only ever played FF6 the fact of the matter is for anyone whose played a majority or all of the games in the series the actual FF3 is its own different game, that's a fact, sorry man but your absolutely not justified in your sneering.
And a remake would be alright, I wouldn't say it would radically change anything or be something amazing it would be met by me by the same reaction as seeing the Daleks remade into new designs, something nice to make any replay of the game more enjoyable now that our standards for graphics had risen considerably.
Final Fantasy Seven standardized everything that makes a JRPG good, a wide cast of driven motivated characters, a genuinely cool and ambigious big bad/final boss, cutscenes to enhance the narrative, a sprawling indepth world, the materia/summon/magic system (existed before but its still something that is good), an excellent story and narrative, STEAMPUNK!
Also one of the first games I have ver played to have dark and troubled characters and not the previous "12 year old messiah destined to save the world" archetypes that in retrospect I was probably getting tired of.
The games after that while had their excesses are still good games, they may not be to your taste but their still good.
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quote:M. Night has three very good movies to his credit, Unbreakable, Signs, and Sixth Sense. After that, he just hasn't had very good story ideas. The Village was based on a premise that was just too stupid to be acceptable, one that anyone could see through after the first few scenes. None of the other movies he has made had the magic of those sterling three.
I would include Signs on the list, but the gotcha of that film renders it, for me, firmly out of 'very good story idea'. I mean, it'd be one thing if it was a trivial detail that turned out to be completely silly. I can swallow those no problem, all part of the suspension of disbelief. In this case, though, the vulnerability to water was completely fundamental (or should have been) both to the story overall and to the big spooky twist. One of the cornerstones of the film was very stupid.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Agreed, Rakeesh. It is a beautiful movie with a monstrously fatal flaw.
Unbreakable I didn't particularly like, in part because I think it relied too much on a familiarity with and acceptance of comic book tropes. It relied on the tension provided elsewhere, and on its own was a bit dreary.
The Sixth Sense, however, was absolute magic. It can't have been a shooting star. It just can't. It's possible again. I want to believe.
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quote:I would include Signs on the list, but the gotcha of that film renders it, for me, firmly out of 'very good story idea'.
That wasn't the "gotcha" that bothered me. The "twist" that bothered me was "Oh, God must exist because my wife, as she died unfairly and before her time, saw a vision that I would remember years later at a useful time."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I like unbreakable. But the editing and camera angles are more akward than I am. They still work, somehow. Also, the part where hes knocked underwater, for like five minutes, didnt make any sense.
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quote:I would include Signs on the list, but the gotcha of that film renders it, for me, firmly out of 'very good story idea'.
That wasn't the "gotcha" that bothered me. The "twist" that bothered me was "Oh, God must exist because my wife, as she died unfairly and before her time, saw a vision that I would remember years later at a useful time."
Yup. That bugged me a lot, too.
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Hmm, I don't recall that part even a little. Perhaps it's because the water thing just overrode all other irritations in my brain.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I considered the water thing to be a deliberate tribute to Isaac Asimov's "Rain Rain Go Away," and didn't think we were supposed to be analyzing the movie on scientific grounds in the first place. So I wasn't terribly worried about it.
The "OMG God exists 'cause my particular son had asthma, who cares about everyone else's children!" bugged the hell out of me.
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quote:I considered the water thing to be a deliberate tribute to Isaac Asimov's "Rain Rain Go Away," and didn't think we were supposed to be analyzing the movie on scientific grounds in the first place. So I wasn't terribly worried about it.
See, I'm fine with not 'analyzing a movie on scientific grounds'. But only for minor things, and even then usually when it's, y'know, relatively complex or something. Not when it's a fundamental aspect of the entire film, and not at all complicated. Then again, I haven't read that Asimov story, so maybe it was a tribute. *shrug*
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: The "OMG God exists 'cause my particular son had asthma, who cares about everyone else's children!" bugged the hell out of me.
SPOILERS FOR SIGNS!!!
But then, it was a story about a preacher who had lost his faith because he thought that god wouldn't allow something so awful to happen to his wife. Therefore god couldn't exist.
Having the something awful turn out to be basically the reason why his son survived (because his wife telling him what to do) seemed an in-character reason for him to believe in god again. It's logical to him.
It made character sense, but in no way meant that, even within the universe of the story, he had actually proven god's existence. People lose and gain faith for all sorts of odd reasons. Mostly personal reasons - if every terrible thing that happened to someone else's child made everyone lose their faith, no-one would believe.
I'm an atheist and it didn't bother me at all. It wasn't like the film was preaching at me. It was just a story about this one guy.
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Oh it was perfectly in character, but it's exactly the kind of shallow, self centered faith that gets way too much positive press in general and absolutely didn't need a movie glorifying it.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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eh, I guess you could make that argument, but if your faith in God is so self centered that it is going to be impacted by positive and negative events in your personal life (when you are well aware that such events are going on all the time to other believers in the world), then I think it's a kind of self-centered-ness that can't help but be shallow.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I think whether or not something is shallow depends on its importance. The life and death of one's child or spouse surely qualifies as anything but unimportant, right? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's a valid reason to have faith, because as you say, it happens all the time, bad things and good things that is. I'm just disputing the shallow qualifier.
ETA: Unless you mean 'shallow' to be 'not well thought out', that kind of shallow. Also, I'm not quite sure I agree with the 'so self-centered' characterization, either. I mean, death of a spouse or saved life of a child-that's about as important as things get, right? So, saying, "If he's so self-centered that..." well, why wouldn't the death of a spouse have a big impact on any number of thoughts and ideas?
It's still self-centered, I just don't think it takes a high degree of self-centered-ness for something such as the death of a loved one to create or shake faith. Just because a huge type of one event instills or destroys faith doesn't mean the person was exceptionally that sort of person prior. Difficult for me to express, I think.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I liked Tactics. 
