Last film you watched and your rating: The Directors Cut

Lucien wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:

Lucien wrote:(imagine watching 4-7 with three Death Stars and two near identical films).

But we didn't watch 4-7 with three Death Stars and two near identical films, there were 32 years between VI and VII, and three so-so films.

Yes Force Awakens had a lot of the same beats of A New Hope but it was purposefully done, to re-introduce the audience to the Star Wars universe. I think it was different enough, and set enough up for the future, that it's not a fair stick to beat the film with. If The Last Jedi ends up being similar to The Empire Strikes Back then I would agree it's a fair argument

The time it took to make the sequel doesn't matter. If you were to sit down and watch Episodes 4 through 7 right now, you'd have three films where the aim is to blow up a Death Star, and the last film would be a copy of the first.

You said The Force Awakens was purposefully unoriginal to re-introduce the audience to the universe - which audience? People who've seen the old films didn't need a copy of an old plot, and new audiences didn't need a copy either. I don't think it was done to re-introduce anybody; Disney just knew people liked the original trilogy, and they felt if they copied parts from it then people would like TFA. I don't think they cared about the series of movies and the overall story one bit.

The last thing you said there was if The Last Jedi is similar to The Empire Strikes Back, then we can criticise The Force Awakens. It doesn't matter what the plot of The Last Jedi is though; nothing that happens in that film changes anything in The Force Awakens to make it any better or worse.

I didn't say it was unoriginal. I said it had the same beats as A New Hope. It was to re-introduce an audience who had sat through the three prequels and felt Star Wars had lost it's way.

The Force Awakens was a re-introduction to the Star Wars universe under new control and with plenty of future films planned. My point was that if episode VIII copies the template of V then fair enough you can say Disney aren't doing anything original with the series, perhaps I could have worded it better but I think you're splitting hairs.

EDIT: I didn't address the first point, of course the time matters and to say otherwise is quite frankly ridiculous. And the film isn't a copy of A New Hope, far from it.

Skippy wrote:TFA beats the whole prequel trilogy because it has actual characters.

5 > 4 > 6 > RO > 7 > 3 > 1 > 2

You praise TFA for its characters and then say RO is better? What interesting characters were in Rogue One?

In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie. This show is just a triumph. It has a masterful control over many different elements, a witty script that moves between comedy and tragedy expertly.

The scene where Ken drops from the tower, has me almost in tears every time I see it.

Squinty wrote:In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie.

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie.

In Bruges is the best fairytale movie.

Schiess dem Denster wrote:Cinema Paradiso. Loved this. No idea how it has taken me so long to see it.

Very heartwarming and gentle. Loved the priest censoring the films.

Definitely in my top five ever. I cannot tell you how much I bawled my eyes out (lol) when he watched the film reel at the end.

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Squinty wrote:In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie.

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie.

In Bruges is the best fairytale movie.

It's the best film with inanimate facking objects in it for sure.

Saigon Slick wrote:

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Squinty wrote:In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie.

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie.

In Bruges is the best fairytale movie.

It's the best film with inanimate facking objects in it for sure.

You're an inanimate facking object.

They're filming midgets!

You retract that bit about my banana split strawberry floating kids!!

Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf. I think I'm heading home.

TV Dinner wrote:

Skippy wrote:TFA beats the whole prequel trilogy because it has actual characters.

5 > 4 > 6 > RO > 7 > 3 > 1 > 2

You praise TFA for its characters and then say RO is better? What interesting characters were in Rogue One?

Well, there's more to a film than character work. Where TFA had better characters than RO, the latter was better structured, had better set pieces and was generally better made. I also don't have a big problem with the characters in Rogue One, there's not much to Jyn which is the biggest shame but it's an ensemble piece designed explicitly to be a one-and-done film. There's only so much you can do with that many characters in the relatively short amount of time given, but even then I thought Cassian, K-2SO and Chirrut were all good or had interesting elements to them. I also wrote last year about how my interpretation of the cast was that each represents certain aspects of a Rebellion at a time when it wasn't a unified movement. Cassian represents the moral grey area (the Rebels are heroic but they were basically terrorists and did kill thousands of people), Chirrut represents faith in the force, Baze emphasises friendship and Jyn embodies the need for most people to get up and actually do something about the Empire. She goes from being aimless and not wanting to fight at all to be willing to die for a cause she believes in.

Also that hallway scene

RO bored the gooseberry fool out of me.

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Saigon Slick wrote:

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Squinty wrote:In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie.

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie.

In Bruges is the best fairytale movie.

It's the best film with inanimate facking objects in it for sure.

You're an inanimate facking object.

They're filming midgets!

What a lollipop man doing knowing strawberry floating Karate?

Harry Ellis wrote:

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Saigon Slick wrote:

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:

Squinty wrote:In Bruges - 9/10

The stealth best Christmas movie.

Die Hard is the best Christmas movie.

In Bruges is the best fairytale movie.

It's the best film with inanimate facking objects in it for sure.

You're an inanimate facking object.

They're filming midgets!

What a lollipop man doing knowing strawberry floating Karate?

Belgium is only famous for two things, chocolate and child abuse. And they only invented chocolate to get to the kids.

I would never hit a woman! I'd hit a woman if she was trying to hit me with a bottle!

Well you lot aren't going up there! You's a bunch of strawberry floating elephants!

Partridge Iciclebubbles wrote:Well you lot aren't going up there! You's a bunch of strawberry floating elephants!

I do want the guy dead - I want him strawberry floating crucified - but it doesn't change the fact that he stitched you up like a blind little gay boy, does it?

Plenty of alcoves in Bruges, you use this word, alcoves?

So last night we had a small window of time to watch a movie, and due to its short length we decided to watch The Great Wall. The only thing I really knew about it was that Matt Damon got some grief about being a white guy in a Chinese mythology style film, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

strawberry float. Ing. Hell. I've seen some stinkers in my time, but this piece of gooseberry fool, Jesus Christ. To try to avoid this turning into a rant I just thought I'd list some bullet points.

1. There is no plot. Mad Max Fury Road got some stick for being a bit lean, but that's Citizen Kane compared to this. Bad Lizard things attack wall. That's it.
2. Matt Damon attempts an accent and I have no idea what he's aiming for.
3. There's a comedy sidekick, but he doesn't have any jokes. Or any kind of chemistry with Damon, for that matter.
4. There's a sinister looking chap skulking in the shadows. He comes out and it's WILLEM strawberry floating DAFOE.
5. Willem Dafoe has nothing interesting to do in this film.
6. The CG is strawberry floating appalling. I moan about this all the time, but it's totally inept here, and ruins every single action scene. Think 'shark in Deep Blue Sea' bad.
7. The lizard things are terribly designed and not scary.
8. The women warriors bungee jump off the wall with spears because why not?
9. There's a betrayal, which is laughed off five minutes later.
10. Did I mention how bad the CG is? It's like a child made it in MS paint.

Totally devoid of character, plot, drama or action, this was a real rotten experience. Easily in my top (bottom?) three worst movies of all time, and I didn't even have to mention the whole whitewashing thing.

1/10

It really isn't that bad. It's laughably shonky but I'd say solid 5/10 movie to watch with no expectations or engagement of the brain.

I have to say, I was quite surprised when I checked the metacritic score afterwards and it wasn't a total trainwreck. There were even a couple of fairly decent write-ups on there. I can't think of a single thing I thought was even acceptable about the film.

It was mostly the bad CG I guess. I can't engage with anything that just looks fake, it just pulls you out of the moment. Thing is, this was like 99% of the movie. They may as well have called it Matt Damon and his Incredible Green Screen Adventure.

I saw it in the cinema and enjoyed it. The writing was terrible though and the main characters and his mate's relationship was so very odd. I enjoyed the action scenes and only the final action set piece let it down.

The monsters could and should have been a lot better, I'd personally have had different types that match the army they fight, like arrow proof tanks, flame spitters, flying ones and at least one big boss type.

Considering the director it does have moments of beauty and it certainly looks excellent in the HD Trailer.

It's just a standard attempt at a film trying to appeal to both Western and Eastern audiences and coming across as awkward and not pleasing either side.