Movies you've seen recently

[Hiro Protagonist]

Nightbreed - Directors Cut. Adding approx. 40 minutes to the original movie. Initially, I thought the 2 hour length would be too long but instead enjoyed the additional content and alternate ending.

[sorophx]

I really disliked the makeup in Nightbreed. wasn't out-of-this-world enough.

[Amentep]

Nightbreed's one of my favorite films. Loved the director's cut.

 

Given that it wasn't an amazingly budgeted film, I think they did remarkably well with the makeup.

[ShadySands]

"Alien 5" Changed Due To "Prometheus 2"

 

As far as I'm concerned Prometheus never happened... which is weird because they are making a sequel to a movie that never happened   

[Woldan]

I sure hope like a madman they didn't change the - should they make an appearance of some sort-  Alien Space Jockey to those giant arian pinheads from Prometheus. That would suck. SUCK. 

 

Also Alien without Giger = Sadface. 

Edited March 22, 2015 by Woldan

[Serrano]

"Alien 5" Changed Due To "Prometheus 2"

 

As far as I'm concerned Prometheus never happened... which is weird because they are making a sequel to a movie that never happened

Fun fact; 'Once upon a time in Mexico' actually was a sequel to a movie that never happened.

[Amentep]

"Alien 5" Changed Due To "Prometheus 2"

 

As far as I'm concerned Prometheus never happened... which is weird because they are making a sequel to a movie that never happened   

 

I'm wondering if they'll go the easy way out.  We already know that Ripley had Alien Nightmares either in cryosleep or coming out of it. 

 

Could 3 and 4 be retconned to be Ripley's nightmares in the reboot?  This way they still "happened" to Ripley, but only as nightmare fears she had in cryo after the 2nd film.

[ManifestedISO]

Five Armies, Battle, on blu-ray in less than two hours. Azog v. Thorin ... Galadriel v. Sauron

[Bartimaeus]

I watched the third Hobbit recently, too. Most tolerable of them all, IMO...but still not ever gonna re-watch it. Such sadly mediocre movies.

[Rosbjerg]

I might see the fan edit everyone talked about, editing out many scenes, some of the silliest CGI and all of the romance. Keeping it much closer to the book and a just about 4 hours in total.

[Blarghagh]

Over four hours. Little warning, it's got a couple of things that may make you do a double-take. Shots where Tauriel is in the background where she shouldn't be anymore, Smaug crashing out of the Mountain without having been covered in gold, yet somehow being covered in gold. It's the best they could do but some of it is a little bit awkward, still overall a much better movie.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

The Tolkien edit is quite good. Compressing all three movies (8 hours for the theatrical versions) down to a single 4 1/2 hour movie was quite an achievement. The Tolkien edit just flows a lot better and gets on with the story. Also, it's closer to the book.

 

 

 

Let me start by saying that I enjoy many aspects of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. Overall, however, I felt that the story was spoiled by an interminable running time, unengaging plot tangents and constant narrative filibustering. What especially saddened me was how Bilbo (the supposed protagonist of the story) was rendered absent for large portions of the final two films.

 

I decided to condense all three installments (An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies) into a single 4-hour feature that more closely resembled Tolkien’s original novel. Well, okay, it’s closer to 4.5 hours, but those are some long-ass credits! This new version was achieved through a series of major and minor cuts, detailed below:

• The investigation of Dol Guldor has been completely excised, including the appearances of Radagast, Saruman and Galadriel. This was the most obvious cut, and the easiest to carry out (a testament to its irrelevance to the main narrative). Like the novel, Gandalf abruptly disappears on the borders of Mirkwood, and then reappears at the siege of the Lonely Mountain with tidings of an orc army.

• The Tauriel-Legolas-Kili love triangle has also been removed. Indeed, Tauriel is no longer a character in the film, and Legolas only gets a brief cameo during the Mirkwood arrest. This was the next clear candidate for elimination, given how little plot value and personality these two woodland sprites added to the story. Dwarves are way more fun to hang out with anyway.

• The Pale Orc subplot is vastly trimmed down. Azog is obviously still leading the attack on the Lonely Mountain at the end, but he does not appear in the film until after the company escapes the goblin tunnels (suggesting that the slaying of the Great Goblin is a factor in their vendetta, as it was in the novel).

• Several of the Laketown scenes have been cut, such as Bard’s imprisonment and the superfluous orc raid. However, I’ve still left quite a bit of this story-thread intact, since I felt it succeeded in getting the audience to care about the down-beaten fisherfolk and the struggles of Bard to protect them.

• The prelude with old Bilbo is gone. As with the novel, I find the film works better if the scope starts out small (in a cosy hobbit hole), and then grows organically as Bilbo ventures out into the big, scary world. It is far more elegant to first learn about Smaug from the dwarves’ haunting ballad (rather than a bombastic CGI sequence). The prelude also undermines the real-and-present stakes of the story by framing it as one big flashback.

• Several of the orc skirmishes have been cut. I felt that the Battle of the Five Armies provided more than enough orc mayhem. If you pack in too much before then, they just become monotonous, and it lessons their menace in the audience’s mind. I was tempted to leave in the very first Azog confrontation (since it resembles a chapter from the novel), but decided to cut it for a variety of reasons. Specifically, I found it tonally jarring to jump from the emotional crescendo of Thorin being saved by Bilbo (and the sense of safety the company feels after being rescued by the eagles), straight back into another chase sequence. Plus, I think the film works better if Bilbo is still trying to earn Thorin’s respect the entire journey, as he was in the novel. Not to mention the absurdity of Bilbo suddenly turning into John McClane with a sword!

• Several of the action scenes have been tightened up, such as the barrel-ride, the fight between Smaug and the dwarves (no molten gold in this version), and the Battle of the Five Armies. Though, it should be noted that Bilbo’s key scenes—the encounter with Gollum, the battle against the Mirkwood spiders, and the conversation with Smaug—have not been tampered with, since they proved to be excellent adaptions (in no small part due to Freeman’s performance), and serve to refocus the film on Bilbo’s arc.

• A lot of filler scenes have been cut as well. These are usually harder to spot (and I’ve probably missed a couple), but once they’re gone, you’ll completely forget that they ever existed. For example, the 4-minute scene where Bard buys some fish and the dwarves gather up his pay.

My main goals in undertaking this edit were to re-centre the story on Bilbo, and to have the narrative move at a much brisker pace (though not so fast that the audience lost grasp of what was going on). Creating smooth transitions between scenes was of particular importance in this regard. I even reordered a few moments in the film to make it flow better. The toughest parts to edit were the barrel-ride and the fight on Ravenhill (since Legolas and Tauriel kept bursting in with their gymnastics routine). If you have any further questions over what was taken out and what was left in, please post them in the comment’s section.

 

 

[Mark89er]

Have not seen yet Hobbit. The book i have read a long-long-long time ago. 4 or 5 times rereadit. Waiting to watching the movie....

[Labadal]

On a whim, I started watching The Usual Suspects. I've probably seen it 50 times.

[Woldan]

Conan the destroyer. Man, I totally forgot how completely awesome Grace Jones was in that movie. 

[Oerwinde]

Watching Tinkerbell: The Great Fairy Rescue with one of the spider children. The Tinkerbell movies are surprisingly good, better than most of what Dreamworks puts out.

[Bartimaeus]

I know I must sound like a broken record at this point, but...really? Literally all the commercials I see for those make them look so abhorrently terrible. But...I thought the same thing about Frozen, Wreck-it-Ralph, Tangled, etc., etc.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Oerwinde]

They're aimed a bit more at girls, but the writing isn't bad at all and the animation and visuals hold up pretty well considering their DTV origins.

[Tabris_d]

Kingsman was a lot of fun. A bit too much shaky-cam tho.

[Blarghagh]

There was very little shaky-cam in The Kingsman? There were a lot of quick cuts and fast panning shots though.

[Lexx]

"Alien 5" Changed Due To "Prometheus 2"

 

As far as I'm concerned Prometheus never happened... which is weird because they are making a sequel to a movie that never happened

Bleh, I really, really hate to say this, but... I also wish Prometheus never happened. The movie had so much potential that was just wasted with silly crap. Such disappointment. I have no hopes for Prometheus 2 and if the new Alien movie had to be "adjusted" to fit Prometheus then it gives me a really bad feeling...

[Blarghagh]

Jeeze, I said Prometheus was awful when it just came out and people fought tooth and nail to prove me wrong, telling me I just didn't get it and didn't appreciate mystery. It's weird seeing all these messages now. XD

[LadyCrimson]

Can't remember if I mentioned it already but the Terminator trailer makes me go "ugh." That's not a sequel, that's a total reboot negating the 1st movie and thus the 2nd movie and that 3rd one which I sometimes pretend doesn't exist anyway. Well...I guess if it worked for the ST movies....who knows. But it doesn't give me good feels initially. Not just reboot feeling but other stuff too.

 

Actress replacing Hamilton seems all right ... Jai as Reese will never fit in my mind, even if he can play guitar ... but a Terminator with white hair is kind of amusing. Good ol' aging programs.

[Woldan]

Jeeze, I said Prometheus was awful when it just came out and people fought tooth and nail to prove me wrong, telling me I just didn't get it and didn't appreciate mystery. It's weird seeing all these messages now. XD

 

I thought it was pretty much the general opinion that Prometheus was a turd.

[Amentep]

I liked Prometheus but I'll admit that it has some problems with it - some significant. I don't see it as the horrible violation of the series that many do, though (hey, I'd already seen AVP2 by that point, which is IMO the nadir of the related films so far).

I watched IT FOLLOWS (2015) over the weekend. An interesting indie horror film. It plays against horror conventions, instead concentrating on a rising dread and creepiness factor over excessive gore or multiple jump scares. I can see some people going "that's supposed to be scary?" just because it is atypical in its way, so appreciation of the film might hinge on how hooked the viewer gets into the nightmarish quality of the narrative and central conceit.

 

Also saw Airplane! (1980) for the umpteenth time - "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."