Movies You're Not Looking Forward To

darkphantomime · November 07, 2009, 02:35:04 PM

(this is a calm post)

Consistency in quality is to be expected in any genre of media. Some people make films that were great in the earlier years, but then their creative and dramatic ability to devolved. On the other hand, there are some who have had curves and spikes to their careers. And of course, there are some who've always produced crap.

But of course, the Spielberg decision was not my own, so understand that I'm not approaching this with outright enthusiasm or complete belief that it will be crap. I am approaching it cautiously. As a dedicated fan of Ghost in the Shell, I care a great deal about the series. I don't think you're much of a fan though, barely giving it a chance, and one point even deriding it as completely boring (LOL Naruto, bleach, one-piece phase).

Since you've not seen very much of it, I don't think you know much of how the themes go about developing. You have seen much of Spielberg, but very little of Ghost in the Shell. Do I believe that it will be a great film? Well, of course not. It can't really top the original. I have dedicated a long time to collecting the entire series, about 3-4 years. I collected every single dvd of the anime and all 3 movies.

There are themes of revolution and society. If spielberg approaches this project carefully and with appreciation to the source (insert rebuttal where you go "NOOOOO! He'll ruin it!), I believe that it can be a good film. It has a strong potential. It is quite unlike a lot of the source material of many other adaptations.

Besides, didn't they also fear that Watchmen would be crap? Or V for Vendetta?

This is what I was talking about... You let assumptions get ahead of you, you assumed bambi would be this high thing, and then you saw it and thought it was crap. If you keep going with expectations and rumor, you leave apart a very important key to being a good critic. A good critic must not let his biases get ahead of him, but must focus on letting the movie speak for itself. Instead, you let rumor and speculation speak for the movie before you've even seen it.

Mysterious F. · November 07, 2009, 04:33:04 PM

What makes you think that all directors lose their power over time? Some directors got even better in the last era of their careers. (Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick, for example)

Also, I'm going to tell you again, I don't think that Spielberg's version will be crap (the only two movies of his I'd call crap are Jurassic Park 2 and Saving Private Ryan), I'm just being very cautious of it. He's done some good adaptations of great novels (The Color Purple, Schindler's List) but also bad adaptations of great novels (Empire of the Sun, War of the Worlds) and isn't a good director of emotional complexities.

It is true, I've only seen a few episodes of Ghost in the Shell (a few a long time ago, and I told you about the one I saw recently because it was a homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless) but I'm not as negative about it as I first was. While I don't think of it as the greatest artistic masterpiece of all time, my choice being Shakespeare's Hamlet, I've lightened up to it somewhat, and I would see the animated movie if Netflix had copies of it. (And just so you know, I've gone past my manga/anime phase.)

(Also, Watchmen recieved overall only slightly positive reception.)

Mysterious F. · December 10, 2009, 12:45:25 PM

So basically, I'm pretty mixed about Nine up to this point. Sure, it is based off Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, but it's directed by Rob Marshall, the guy who directed *shutter* Chicago. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what others think...