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Would you see this movie?
Topic Started: Feb 22 2011, 02:29 AM (5,473 Views)
SIngemeister
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Kamidio
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T.Neo
Mar 1 2011, 05:53 PM
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Have you even seen a Marvel Comics movie? Those things were set in New York because that's where the comics took place.


Which brings the question: Why were all the comics set in New York? :P
Because that's where Stan Lee and the other fathers of Marvel grew up. And don't give me "HA EXACTLY" kind of bullshitery. His parents were immigrants, which means they moved there because New York was better than the place they moved from.
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lamna
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Mugabe seems determined to prove that the Rhodies were justified. Nguema took Spanish Guinea, the place with excellent healthcare, some the the highest literacy rates and highest per capita in Africa and killed or drove out 1/3 of his people. Idi Amin helped terrorists and kicked out the Asians, Bokassa spent a quarter of his nations annual income to crown himself, Gaddafi, is, well Gaddafi. And so on.

Palin is just Bush with boobs.
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Yorick
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The rest of the world exists, y'know, and we constantly have to be subjected to people from the USA going around claiming that the US is absolutely everything in existence and we're just 'unimportant' "foreign" people.


Nobody has ever claimed that. Movies simply are usually set in the country where they are produced.

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If you had a really worthwhile story, you could very well set it in a blank 3D space- and I'm being totally serious about that.


Audiences obviously care that there IS a setting but certainly not WHAT it is.

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Who are these people? Have they all been lobotomised or something?


Average, every day moviegoers.

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It is not a trivial matter. I just think that you don't notice it as much because you live in the US yourself. And that is completely understandable.

If I was a non-American and felt bitter that Americans were setting their films in American, it'd be because I was jealous and paranoid.

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See? That is paranoid. What I am saying in regards to the insistent setting of films in the US and the fact that this is influenced by US views is not paranoid.


It's paranoid to think that many American-set movies are a result of some conspiracy rather than that's what American filmmakers know of and who produces them.

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If you don't care about the aliens, it shows you don't really care about anything. You don't care about making a good film, either. You also don't care about making anything original or actually putting effort into designing a story or anything else for that matter, it seems.


Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I can not care about something trivial like that and it won't lead me to noyt caring about actual important things.

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It is insane reasoning only if your reasoning is insane.


It IS insane. Because a writer uses primate-like aliens after "Star Trek," which never originated that, they'd then be copying "Star Trek" from now on no matter what?

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Wrong. Ain't nothing better than to dispell a nonsense notion of biology in the public view.


They certainly wouldn't stop trying to cure cancer to take the time informing the public that will never need the information that alien-human romances are unlikely.

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Really? If you say so, sure, why not?


Developed characters, originality, thought proviking ideas...yeah. Better than Inception.

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I can tell you now that it will be told badly, because it is written badly.


It hasn't been written.

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Scintillating stuff.


I could do that with any story ever made and it would sound stupid.

Casablanca: Bar owner's ex comes back into his life, he tries to get her back.

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Also do not underestimate the potential for philosophy lessons to be entertaining...


They can be but enterainment comes first.

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For example, I would not say that I found Avatar exceptional. But I will not call it a downright bad film because it simply isn't one.


It's your opinion. You can say whatever the hell you want. No one is stopping you.

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Old? My Name is Earl is quite recent... besides, I was not calling it unoriginal because it sounded like the title of a TV show, I was just stating that it is familiar and that's what I initially thought of when I read it.


It was canceled a few years ago and if you're reminded of some old, completely unrelated title, that has to do with soleley your lack of imagination.

(Anyway, I'm thinking of shortening the title to simply 'Eli.')

[quoteYorick's Script: I watched this movie when I was a kid. It was Pocahontas. I believe they already ripped it off, Avatar by James Cameron.


How is this ANYTHING like Pocahontas (or Avatar or The New World or Dances with Wolves or The Last Samurai or Battle for Terra)?

In those movies, a warrior befriends the primitive indegenous people of a new land and falls in love with one and helps defend them when they are threatened by the warrior's former friends.

In my script, a prince is sent to a new land to be safe and learn to be strong and humble, falls for a native and defends his family when the people hunting him are caught in the cross fire.
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Kamidio
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Just pull up the "Pocahontas" plot and scratch out and some words here and there, and boom, your movie.
Edited by Kamidio, Mar 1 2011, 07:11 PM.
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Yorick
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If you have to manipulate things so much, then the the similarities really are broad and superficial as to be meaningless. My story is nothing like Pocahontas or Avatar or any of those other movies. At least stick with those "I Am Number Four" comparisons. They make way more sense. Actually they make sense period.
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FallingWhale
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Why don't they shell the earth until we give him up, or set a blockade.
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Yorick
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The general doesn't have the time, money or resources for a full-on attack on Earth. He's in the middle of a civil war.
Edited by Yorick, Mar 2 2011, 01:23 AM.
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FallingWhale
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Yorick
Mar 1 2011, 09:57 PM
The general doesn't have the time, money or resources for a full on attack on Earth. He's in the middle of a civil war.
Two destroyers is more than anything earth would fight. They don't even need to fire.
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Kamidio
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If I know humans, they'd try to buy that shit and use it for galactic domination the greater good.
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urufumarukai
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I like Eli as a title, short and sweet.

The general could just be a peasant with authority over the others not someone who has the resources to send out entire fleets.
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Yorick
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Two destroyers is more than anything earth would fight. They don't even need to fire.


The family wouldn't give him up, Earth would fight back and the general's men don't know how Eli looks like in human form. They find him through investigation of UFO sightings, vapor trails and other detective work and alter ransom his family.
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T.Neo
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Africa has resources and the ability to supply it, as well as manpower and cheap guns, not to mention hundreds of diseases.


Eh... be wary of Africa. The only resistance they're going to lead against you is essentially a guerilla force containing many thugs.

African diseases mean much as Antarctic diseases to aliens, even within animals diseases do not cross the species barrier easily.

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Because that's where Stan Lee and the other fathers of Marvel grew up. And don't give me "HA EXACTLY" kind of bullshitery. His parents were immigrants, which means they moved there because New York was better than the place they moved from.


So? That is exactly the reason for "HA EXACTLY". Many people immigrated from other place, doesn't mean New York is somehow much better than elsewhere...


Quote:
 
Mugabe seems determined to prove that the Rhodies were justified. Nguema took Spanish Guinea, the place with excellent healthcare, some the the highest literacy rates and highest per capita in Africa and killed or drove out 1/3 of his people. Idi Amin helped terrorists and kicked out the Asians, Bokassa spent a quarter of his nations annual income to crown himself, Gaddafi, is, well Gaddafi. And so on.

Palin is just Bush with boobs.


Just Bush with boobs? And Bush was a fine leader? :P

Ok, so maybe she will not rally terrorists or create genocide or suck up half the GDP of the US to make her life glamorous, but she still has the potential to do a lot of damage... look at Bush.

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Nobody has ever claimed that. Movies simply are usually set in the country where they are produced.


Plenty of movies are produced in one country and set in another.

Also, of course nobody claims it outright, but after almost every single science fiction film ever is set there, it really starts to become implied.

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Audiences obviously care that there IS a setting but certainly not WHAT it is.


Rubbish. If they didn't care what the setting was they wouldn't care about the setting at all.

People do care about what the setting is.

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Average, every day moviegoers.


That is not what is being questioned. What is being questioned is whether they have been lobotomised or not.

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If I was a non-American and felt bitter that Americans were setting their films in American, it'd be because I was jealous and paranoid.


If that describes what your feelings would be, good for you.

I do not feel 'bitter', nor do I feel 'jealous and paranoid', I am rather bored and annoyed.

Are you trying to imply that anyone who dislikes anything that has anything to do with the US, is jealous and paranoid?

That is pretty paranoid if you ask me.

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It's paranoid to think that many American-set movies are a result of some conspiracy rather than that's what American filmmakers know of and who produces them.


Paranoid? Conspiracy?

I never spoke of a conspiracy. Please do not try to put words in my mouth.

There are plenty of people in the US who take patriotism way too far, further than is healthy. That is no conspiracy.

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Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I can not care about something trivial like that and it won't lead me to noyt caring about actual important things.


The question is not "why care about sophont bauplans", but rather "why not care about sophont bauplans"? If you don't care about making something original here, why care about making anything?

How is it trivial? It is a little thing, but a film itself is a collection of little things.

Also, from where I stand, you don't seem to care about the 'actual important things', like the story itself, or being original.

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It IS insane. Because a writer uses primate-like aliens after "Star Trek," which never originated that, they'd then be copying "Star Trek" from now on no matter what?


Wrong. It just means that they are employing something that is cliche, and the presence of humanesque aliens in Star Trek only makes their cliche even more cliche.

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They certainly wouldn't stop trying to cure cancer to take the time informing the public that will never need the information that alien-human romances are unlikely.


1. Not all biologists are working on cures for diseases. They do, y'know... biology.

2. Explain the scathing blog posts I've read regarding bad biology posted by various different biologists.

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Developed characters, originality, thought proviking ideas...yeah. Better than Inception.


What was the thought provoking idea in Minority Report? Psychic detectives? Eye scanners everywhere?

The characters in Inception were not developed? The whole plot of the film revolved around character development, which is entirely understandable because dreams are driven by psychology. We just don't get to see a lot of the other characters' development because the plot is not focused on them.

You have to look at dream logic to understand the film... it isn't a politics film, it isn't a technology film, it isn't a sociology film... it's a psycholgy film. Or at least, it's trying to be.

It's also pretty funny that you criticse Inception for not being original when it has at least twenty times the originality compared to this concept. Maybe not in the story itself, but the actual film has a lot of original concepts in it that I personally have never seen before.

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It hasn't been written.


Let me rephrase: The core concept is badly written.

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I could do that with any story ever made and it would sound stupid.

Casablanca: Bar owner's ex comes back into his life, he tries to get her back.


Ah, but: have you ever considered that Casablanca is so good because it is well written, well directed and well acted? That is exceptional circumstance, no filmmaker can rely on that to make a good film.

Also, since Casablanca etc exists, it actually makes your story more cliche. It creates cliches, it does not justify them.

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They can be but enterainment comes first.


Yes, but, you also just ignored my entire comment there.

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Also do not underestimate the potential for philosophy lessons to be entertaining...


My point is that a philosophy lesson can be very entertaining indeed.

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It's your opinion. You can say whatever the hell you want. No one is stopping you.


This is not opinion, this is fact. The script is a ripoff of Pocahontas, even if James Cameron has never even read or seen any material relating to the Pocahontas story.

The rest of the film, however... well, why don't we start with inhabiting and controlling the body of an alien who's species has the ability to not only connect mentally to eachother and the wildlife around them, but also to what is basically a biological version of the internet, and also an incredibly detailed backstory involving the natural world of the setting and the human technological element.

On top of that, brilliant graphic design work coupled to absolutely brilliant graphics themselves, of which the like has never been seen previously. Of course, because it is made by James Cameron, who is crazy about this stuff. In a good way.

Think what you want about the film and how one would interpret it and whatever, but this is the core truth.

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It was canceled a few years ago and if you're reminded of some old, completely unrelated title, that has to do with soleley your lack of imagination.


MY lack of imagination? This coming from you?

Sorry, can't I be reminded of a similar sounding title? Maybe the lack of imagination is on your part?

Or maybe... and I know this is a bit of a long-shot here, but... maybe, what about the fact that "My Name is Earl" and "My Name is Eli" sound similar? Maybe, because this is due to the English language, and has nothing to do with th perceptions of either one of us?

:rolleyes:

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(Anyway, I'm thinking of shortening the title to simply 'Eli.')


No less unoriginal, but probably more catchy.

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In my script, a prince is sent to a new land to be safe and learn to be strong and humble, falls for a native and defends his family when the people hunting him are caught in the cross fire.


You know, 'falls for a native' is actually incredibly similar to the story of Jake Sully and the guy in Pocahontas that he's based off of. It's just that here the protagonist is fighting against a common enemy to him, the natives and his own people, rather than a big bad that wants to crush the natives alone so that the guys back home can profit.

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At least stick with those "I Am Number Four" comparisons. They make way more sense. Actually they make sense period.


If you agree with that, would you be fine with me calling this an "I Am Number Four" ripoff?

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Two destroyers is more than anything earth would fight. They don't even need to fire.


Depends on how capable these 'destroyers' are. ;)

Also, it's quite amusing... although "destroyer" sounds pretty impressive, it has been used historically in naval terms to refer to a small-ish ship designed to hunt down torpedo boats... if I recall correctly it's one of the smallest battleship classes, or something to that effect. I don't know for sure, my knowledge of naval terms is virtually nonexistant.
Edited by T.Neo, Mar 2 2011, 06:14 AM.
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SIngemeister
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So? That is exactly the reason for "HA EXACTLY". Many people immigrated from other place, doesn't mean New York is somehow much better than elsewhere...


I know you'd probably call it a cliché, but have you ever heard of a little thing called 'Write what you know'. Lot easier to set it in a place you know about than a place you don't. Sure, you could research, but that won't give you the same insight into the people and area that living there for ages will.
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Kamidio
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Exactly my point. Now stop whining about the lack of South African based movies and go swim with sharks, or whatever the hell South Africans do.
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