What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Boring character. Elevated only by the fact that a good actor played him. Anything that was there came from Neeson. There was nothing in the script.

[A24 4,333]

I dunno, I always thought the Japanese influence was at its most apparent in the first film. Didn't everyone? It's rather famous for it.

I don't see how it can be more obvious than chopsticks hair bun, Anakin's costume being a straight copy of the samurai clothing,

Amidala's kimonos and Japanese makeup.

[Quintus 5,399]

Oh I see what you mean now. Yeah, in Phantom Menace it wasn't exactly subtle. In Star Wars though the influence was throughout but never gaudy.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,531]

How do you direct a previz?

Basically the same as drawing up the storyboard. And Spielberg always did very elaborate and precise storyboards.

Except for "E.T."

[Jay 37,364]

I saw a newer blu-ray version so I cannot say for sure if the effects were retouched, enhancing the experience, but this is exactly like Star Trek.

It's actually the other way around. The first DVD that came out for the film was a new "Director's Edition", which added back in scenes original filmed, removed scenes that were in the theatrical cut, and completely redid a whole bunch of visual effects shots, and added new vfx shots too. This cut of the film is actually preferred by many (probably most) over the theatrical cut, due to the better special effects and tighter editing (A lot of the "Enterprise is slowing moving through this cloud towards Vejur" shots were shortened considerably).

Anyways, they only mastered this new Director's Edition in 480p (this was 2001 after all), and as a result it has not been issued on blu-ray; The existing blu ray is back to the old Theatrical Cut. Who knows if Paramount will every pony up the money to re-render all 90 of the new special effects shots in 1080p (or 4k) or not.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Jason is correct.

Because if this the DE is a bit of a dinosaur now.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I dunno, I always thought the Japanese influence was at its most apparent in the first film. Didn't everyone? It's rather famous for it.

I don't see how it can be more obvious than chopsticks hair bun, Anakin's costume being a straight copy of the samurai clothing,

Amidala's kimonos and Japanese makeup.

Yeah I always saw the Japanese influence in the Star Wars films. Guess watching Kurosawa at an early age helped.

[Ollie 1,059]

I find the directors cut of TMP adds nothing to the film. In fact some of the effects look worse than the original ones.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I found it does not make that much of a difference.

[Ollie 1,059]

I prefer the original theatrical cut.

However I do wish they would do a version that includes the extended version from the laserdisc.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I'm quite fond of the directors cut, for the most part it's an improvement visually. I just don't understand how Wise let the cast come across so cold.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's my main issue with the film. I mean it was 79. The show had been gone 10 years., Fans were looking forward seeing these characters back together again. And it's like they have no affection for each other.

TWOK did that 10 times better 3 years later.

[Wojo 2,453]

I have only ever seen the DE of TMP.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Did you find it slow?

[Uni 306]

It's my main issue with the film. I mean it was 79. The show had been gone 10 years., Fans were looking forward seeing these characters back together again. And it's like they have no affection for each other.

And the affection they do show seems forced and overplayed.

I think Wise had done too much "serious" science fiction before, and failed to recognize Star Trek for what it was. He brought a self-importance to project that only served to bog it down. Really, you could take the same story and conflict—V'ger's return to Earth—using the same special effects, music, everything . . . and just change the behavior of the characters to the way they acted in TWOK, and you'd have a gigantic classic on your hands.

- Uni

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Mark is my favorite Gia fan!!!

(Looks at his own avatar)

Well, second favorite....

[crocodile 8,013]

Always preferred TMP over WOK. Just can't take this mullet seriously.

Besides, he's rarely a serious threat in this movie.

Karol

[A24 4,333]

Revenge Of The Sith:

- A lot of the dialog is awkward. Are we really sure that Lucas wrote A New Hope?

- Darth Sidious is a bit too hysterical. I don't see how it helps the drama

- Amidala has no longer a brain. I would be surprised if anyone cried over her death

- The video transfer is easily the best of the prequels (if TPM looks like VHS, ROTS looks almost like Blu-ray)

- Using rivers and waterfalls of lava as a place to duel is too silly to believe. The heat must be in the hundreds of degrees. It's raining lava, FPS!

- Some scenes are terribly directed ... like the moment where they kill the female blue jedi (who seem to have escaped from The Fifth Element

- The fight/duel choreography is so fast that it has no impact on the viewer

- R2-D2 is too much of an action star or superhero ... you no longer feels his vulnerability or fear he might get damaged

- Overall, you can see there's still some good in Lucas but that somehow mainly the bad is surfacing. The prequels feel like a B-moviemaking but with unlimited budget

- Things can only get better

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The actors dont even seen to sweat during the duel amidst lava!

Powerfull Jedi self controll.

[Wojo 2,453]

Wasn't Luke a gym towel full of sweat after Vader removed his hand beneath Bespin in Empire? Maybe it was hotter below a seldom used freezing chamber than inside a volcano. <shrug>

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Moonraker

Opens promising with some nice effects work and one of the most spectacular aerial stunt sequences put to film, but the movie disintegrates before it even reaches the main titles. What follows is a shambling mess, a string of episodic adventures concocted to present overproduced setpieces. Now of course, this last sequence could probably describe 75% of all action films ever made, but the problem here is the movie's tone. On the one hand, we have a double-taking pigeon observing Bond in a hovercraft gondola (which is conjured out of nowhere) casually making its way across St. Mark's square, while on the other hand, the movie seems dead serious in portraying what the producers no doubt thought would be an epic space battle. A battle which, sadly, is hardly exciting or engaging.

John Barry meanwhile, contributes to sucking the fun out of this movie by scoring most of the proceedings with slow, droning music, rather than ramping up the suspense when the movie really needs it. It's as if the producers told him to do write some beautiful slow music for outer space, because they caught an afternoon showing of 2001: A Space Oddesey and rather enjoyed its combination of visuals and music.

All in all, even worse than I remembered.

Looks pretty on Blu-Ray though.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

it's a guilty pleasure.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

That it is. It's in the so-silly-it's-good category.

Still, the producers must've felt this one was pretty over the top as well. If I remember correctly, its successor For Your Eyes Only is much more down to earth (no pun intended), even for a Bond movie.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Hey! The score is fantastic!

Go back to your Bourne scored!

[A24 4,333]

I prefer Live And Let Die ... It would fit the 'Quentin Tarantino Presents' category perfectly.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Hey! The score is fantastic!

Go back to your Bourne scored!

The music is gorgeous, but it does little to make the movie any more engaging or exciting.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

That it is. It's in the so-silly-it's-good category.

Still, the producers must've felt this one was pretty over the top as well. If I remember correctly, its successor For Your Eyes Only is much more down to earth (no pun intended), even for a Bond movie.

but even For Your Eyes Only does some self sabotage to itself by having that Lynn Holly Johnson character. Ugh.

[Uni 306]

Revenge Of The Sith:

- A lot of the dialog is awkward. Are we really sure that Lucas wrote A New Hope?

No. As I've said here before, Lucas can write a script like my ass can chew gum. He originally constructed a treatment (Adventures of the Starkiller) that barely resembles ANH. He followed it with several different versions of a script, none of which have much to do with ANH. The second draft, The Star Wars, is the one where Luke heads off with the space pirate Montross and his furry wife to the Imperial city in the clouds. It's filled with classic dialogue gems like, "Try the bum-bum extract. It's very mild."

It was folks like Gloria Katz who helped George recraft the script into something watchable. Pretty much every fun, relatable, human moment in the first movie (or the two that followed, for that matter) were inserted by people other than Lucas. When it came time to do the prequels, the man was too big to seek out this kind of help from anyone else. He did it all himself, and then we had to suffer through it.

If you've watched the brief behind-the-scenes schtick from Sith, you might remember seeing the day Lucas entered his design shop with the finished first draft of the script. (Everyone clapped and tried to be fawning, while he tried to pretend to be humble.) If you look close, however, you'll notice how thin the thing is. This is the denouement of the epic story of how Darth Vader came to be, how the Empire started, events that shaped an entire galaxy . . . and it's, like, 70 pages or so. Lucas himself even admits, "It's mostly twenty pages of, 'They fight.'"

So to answer your question: very little of what you enjoyed about the first Star Wars film had to do with Lucas's "gift" for writing.

- Using rivers and waterfalls of lava as a place to duel is too silly to believe. The heat must be in the hundreds of degrees. It's raining lava, FPS!

That's always been another problem with this movie. These guys are standing on droids hovering just inches above molten lava. Their skin would've melted off in seconds. (Remember in T2 in the factory at the end, when Arnold started guiding Sarah Conner down a passage that just got close to a pool of liquid metal? She had to tell him to back off, because it was "too hot, too hot.")

- Uni

[Faleel 5,349]

These guys are standing on droids hovering just inches above molten lava.

- Uni

With blue heat shields.

[Wojo 2,453]

But eventually jump over the lava itself onto rocks, leaving their droids away.

[Faleel 5,349]

Rocks with heat shields!

[Wojo 2,453]

Why didn't the midichlorians of the chosen one have heat shields?

[Faleel 5,349]

Becoming a sith, caused the chlorine to refuse to work harder than in any other Jedi.

[Uni 306]

These guys are standing on droids hovering just inches above molten lava.

- Uni

With blue heat shields.

That somehow automatically extended to protect the two Jedi who decided to hitch a ride. . . ?

- Uni

[Faleel 5,349]

Dude, this is Star Wars, with sound in space, music, mysterious energies guiding destinies etc.

[Matt C 454]

Schindler's List

It's been a while since I've last seen it, but it's one of Spielberg's least trademark film (seems too cliche to say 'Spielberg's least Spielbergian film'). As much as I don't like a lot of Janusz Kaminski's recent work, his work here is gorgeous and feels like a newsreel from the WWII era (save the full-color epilogue). There's also a strikingly lit scene with Liam Neeson that would be right at home in a film noir. John Williams' score fits the somber tone of the film... I don't know if it deserved an Oscar, but it's beautiful just the same.

Also, there's a nice simplicity and powerful attention to detail in the story. One scene was Amon Goeth waking up and shooting at prisoners from the balcony, while his mistress sighs in exasperation (rather than horror). Ralph Fiennes really embodies the character in a conflicted and horrifying manner... while Liam Neeson gives a restrained but nuanced performance. What's really refreshing is that Spielberg steps back and lets the story unfold, and it's a harrowing and somber one. It's tragic but hopeful, and that epilogue really has an effective impact.

It's held up, and Spielberg's best film ever.

[indy4 155]

West Side Story - loved it for the music and dancing. Bernstein's/Sondheim's score is still one of my all time favorite works of art.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Kingdom of Heaven

I had never seen the theatrical cut before. While the Director's Cut can be a bit murky in its politics and schemings, the theatrical cut is downright confusing. Characters are given very little purpose or motivation. Balian pretty much becomes Jerusalem's defender because he was on the poster swinging a sword. It's more about giving in to the audience's expectation than building a believable world or story. An incoherent mess of a film.

Rise of the Guardians

The villain was the best thing about the movie, though; the main characters are fairly one-note. It's clearly made as a 3D thrillride, with both the camera and all sorts of objects flying across the screen constantly. This gets a bit tiring after a while. I wonder how it played in a 3D cinema. Fun score by Alexandre Desplat.

West Side Story - loved it for the music and dancing. Bernstein's/Sondheim's score is still one of my all time favorite works of art.

I had never seen in it until about a year ago, when I caught a showing of a pristine 70mm print in Amsterdam. It's a great movie and seeing it in the cinema was a great experience.

[indy4 155]

West Side Story - loved it for the music and dancing. Bernstein's/Sondheim's score is still one of my all time favorite works of art.

I had never seen in it until about a year ago, when I caught a showing of a pristine 70mm print in Amsterdam. It's a great movie and seeing it in the cinema was a great experience.

I would love to see it in theatres, or at least the opening 15-20 minutes.

[A24 4,333]

Kingdom of Heaven

Balian pretty much becomes Jerusalem's defender because he was on the poster swinging a sword.

Well said, Breathers. While the DC is rewatchable, the TC is best to be forgotten.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, original release.

what can I say that hasn't been said. I was 17 when the film was released, 36 years later I still have to manually shut my jaw at the end. I had forgotten how powerful Melinda Dillon's Oscar nominated performance was.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I saw The Conjuring tonight. It's quite creepy throughout and if you enjoy the Discovery Channel's A Haunting, it's almost the same thing, just a bigger budget with better camerawork and Vera Farmiga's A-list presence. The film ('scuse me, "movie" since it was shot on 2K digital) gets a bit unintentionally silly later on though. Looking forward to the sequel that's reportedly in the works.

[Quintus 5,399]

Never heard of it but I'm intrigued. Always on the lookout for effective scares.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I had a blast with it. dave not so much.

[Quintus 5,399]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, original release.

what can I say that hasn't been said. I was 17 when the film was released, 36 years later I still have to manually shut my jaw at the end. I had forgotten how powerful Melinda Dillon's Oscar nominated performance was.

She had nice legs.

Such a down-to-earth seminal sci-fi film. I wonder if we'll ever again get such an ambitious blockbuster with two completely average looking leads.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Goldblum and Pullman in the ID4 sequel?

[Quintus 5,399]

Well, Pullman had leading man looks I think. And Goldblum is JEFF GOLDBLUM.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Goldblum is anything but average. He's so bizarre looking. He's more interesting to look at than most actors out there, especially when you know he's watching you too.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Goldblum and Pullman in the ID4 sequel?

I bet this will be a love triangle about Whitmore and Levinson fighting over Margaret Colin.