The Movie Thread Reloaded

[Omega]

The one with the goofy looking Anubis thing?

[yosemitemike]

The one with the goofy looking Anubis thing?

That's the one. 

There is a documentary film called Blacks and UFOs.  Here this is the poster.  This is a real movie.

I am watching it now. 

[hedgehobbit]

Anybody seen Rebel Moon?

I heard that this movie was getting a theatrical release but it seems to only have been in one theater in LA. Probably just so they could be up for Oscars.

I subscribe to several Snyderverse YouTubers and they are convinced that if Rebel Moon does well, that DC will realize they made a mistake with James Gunn and immediately rehire Zack Snyder to continue the Snyderverse. They are shilling hard for Rebel Moon.

[Omega]

There is a documentary film called Blacks and UFOs.  Here this is the poster.  This is a real movie.

I am watching it now.

Well obviously little green men are POC.
Oh yeah, sorry. Little green women. Because of course.

[hedgehobbit]

Anybody seen Rebel Moon?

I tried to watch it but it was frustrating because it has the same problems that so much modern science fiction has where the author has no concept of scale. We are supposed to believe that a small village of about 40 people, who are using Iron Age technology, can produce enough food to feed a huge star destroyer full of troops. And that this tiny village is so important that an Admiral of a Galactic Navy needs to visit them in person.

If they had started off with just a local beaurocrat demanding the food, then they'd have more room to expand the story from a local threat to a galactic one. But, instead, they instantly jump to the world-ending threat. Just like almost every superhero movie does now.

[Omega]

So they totally ripped off Battle Beyond the Stars.

[Ratman_tf]

Anybody seen Rebel Moon?

I tried to watch it but it was frustrating because it has the same problems that so much modern science fiction has where the author has no concept of scale. We are supposed to believe that a small village of about 40 people, who are using Iron Age technology, can produce enough food to feed a huge star destroyer full of troops. And that this tiny village is so important that an Admiral of a Galactic Navy needs to visit them in person.

If they had started off with just a local beaurocrat demanding the food, then they'd have more room to expand the story from a local threat to a galactic one. But, instead, they instantly jump to the world-ending threat. Just like almost every superhero movie does now.

Yeah. I heard (read) that.

So they totally ripped off Battle Beyond the Stars.

It's not a terrible idea. Just the implementation is tricky taking Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven into a sci fi setting.

I think both films flub it * due to the impact of Star Wars and wanting to mix a galactic scale threat into the story, while still retaining the idea of a bunch of simple farmers getting shaken down for their crops.

*Still haven't seen Rebel Moon. Going off of reviews.

[Omega]

Personally Battle Beyond the Stars works as its so small scale. One carrier type battleship vs a bunch of lighter agile vessels, some nearly fighter class. Theres no vast space war going on. Just some little planet being raided/conscripted by a warlord.

[Lurkndog]

Personally Battle Beyond the Stars works as its so small scale. One carrier type battleship vs a bunch of lighter agile vessels, some nearly fighter class. Theres no vast space war going on. Just some little planet being raided/conscripted by a warlord.

It's a Seven Samurai knockoff, the little planet replaces the humble farming village in the original story.

[oggsmash]

Anybody seen Rebel Moon?

I tried to watch it but it was frustrating because it has the same problems that so much modern science fiction has where the author has no concept of scale. We are supposed to believe that a small village of about 40 people, who are using Iron Age technology, can produce enough food to feed a huge star destroyer full of troops. And that this tiny village is so important that an Admiral of a Galactic Navy needs to visit them in person.

If they had started off with just a local beaurocrat demanding the food, then they'd have more room to expand the story from a local threat to a galactic one. But, instead, they instantly jump to the world-ending threat. Just like almost every superhero movie does now.

  I thought the movie Dredd was a FANTASTIC example of taking a big hero character and showing them function in a small scale/day in the life scenario rather than some massive threat that will destroy Mega city in a day if not stopped.   I agree with you the scale of Rebel moon is whacky and I think they really try to do way too much in a movie.  If it were a series all the traveling makes sense and over time the scale of the problem could grow.   I did find it entertaining though, but mainly because I just imagined all the action scenes as WH40k fights all the way down to power swords that get way more dangerous when energized.   

[hedgehobbit]

I thought the movie Dredd was a FANTASTIC example of taking a big hero character and showing them function in a small scale/day in the life scenario rather than some massive threat that will destroy Mega city in a day if not stopped.   I agree with you the scale of Rebel moon is whacky and I think they really try to do way too much in a movie.  If it were a series all the traveling makes sense and over time the scale of the problem could grow.   I did find it entertaining though, but mainly because I just imagined all the action scenes as WH40k fights all the way down to power swords that get way more dangerous when energized.

Sadly Dredd was a financial failure despite doing everything right. Maybe brainless spectacle is what the audience actually wants.

I do hope that Henry Cavil's 40k series is both good and successful. That might be too much to ask from in the 2020s.

[Ratman_tf]

Sadly Dredd was a financial failure despite doing everything right. Maybe brainless spectacle is what the audience actually wants.

Goofy satire of action films is a big part of Dredd, and it was lacking in the Urban film.

[oggsmash]

  I really think the stink left on the name Dredd from Stallone was the problem with the newer movie.

[yosemitemike]

I watched Rebel Moon.  It's astounding how stupid all of this is.  This might be one of the very stupidest of all of the advanced sci-fi civilizations that are too stupid to really exist.  A civilization with spaceships and advanced robots sends a dreadnought out to shake down some Medieval farmers for 10 bushels of grain.  Someone wrote that.  Multiple someones approved that.  That made it into the actual movie.  I'm not doing a bit.  That actually happens and it's just the start of the stupid shit.   

[hedgehobbit]

A civilization with spaceships and advanced robots sends a dreadnought out to shake down some Medieval farmers for 10 bushels of grain.  Someone wrote that.  Multiple someones approved that.  That made it into the actual movie.  I'm not doing a bit.  That actually happens and it's just the start of the stupid shit.   

It wasn't 10 buchels, it was 10,000 out of the 12,000 they grew. To put that in perspective, twelve thousand bushels of grain is enough to fill five full semi-trailer loads and, with modern farming techniques, would take over 250 acres to grow. It is also enough grain to feed 1,000 people for a year so the 2,000 bushels that the bad guy left them would be more than enough to feed their small village especially if they have animals they can hunt.

And, yes, people approved this. But I don't think it was out of stupidity (maybe a bit of laziness though). This just follows Hollywood's weird obsession with fetishising subsistence living, even down to the villagers in this movie purposefully not using machines to plant their crops because they want to "get close to nature" or some crap. Zack Snyder's wife (who wrote this script) worships farmers but doesn't even know the first thing about farming.

For example, in the very first shot, the girlboss's plow hits a rock. So he digs it up and plops it down five feet away right in the area of the field that she will soon need to plow. Anyone who's even played a farming video game for more than 10 minutes knows that you take the rocks completely out of the field for this exact reason.