Movies You've Seen (or would like to see) Recently

[Hurlshort]

Willow (1988). Some okay parts interrupted too often by the endless stream of awful garbage that was this movie. Really terrible.

You are a bad person for having this opinion.

[Bartimaeus]

I went into it expecting to at least sort of like it. I was very wrong - I was shocked by how wrong I was, actually. I watched it when I was kid (probably around 3-4), and had fragments of memories from it. All the main characters not named Willow* were utterly awful cringe-inducers that just would not stop. The other miscellaneous characters were fine, like the other halflings (I actually had a pretty good impression of this movie right up until Val Kilmer appeared, which caused it to dip some, and then the introduction of the two micro-Jar Jar Binks caused it to drop through the floor and down into the mantle of the Earth, and then it dropped even a little more on top of that when the evil queen's daughter started doing...whatever it is she was doing in this movie - though by this time, the movie had already completely lost me and I was just torturing myself by continuing to sit through it). At a few points in the movie, I literally physically covered up my eyes and plugged my ears because I was in so much pain that I just couldn't take it anymore.

 

I also watched The Brave Little Toaster (1987 - another movie I watched probably around the same time as Willow and wanted a refresher on). Weird and somewhat trippy cartoon movie, but I thought it was pretty decent.

 

(edit): and whatever the baby's name was, I forget it: she was fine, too.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Volourn]

"The original has a special place in my heart because of my eternal love for any work (good or bad) that has Robin Williams in it. Do you think it was as good or better than the original?  "

 

Quality wise, it is tough to say as the new one is way better than I thought it be. I'd personally go with the original because.. well.. it was the original, and it wasn't as predictable plsy like you 'childhood memories'  trumps new stuff.

 

 

But, still, vastly superior than SW.

 

 

p.s. Willow is also better than SW.        

[Raithe]

Lucas actually got together with Chris Claremont (of X-Men writer fame) and wrote a trilogy sequel to Willow.

 

And yes, they even included a "Willow Ufgood? Now that is a name I haven't heard in a long time...." from a myserious old wise halfling...

[Epaminondas]

Finished the four main Dirty Harry titles with Sudden Impact. Not a bad series. Can definitely tell the change from the 70s to the 80s, though. I think there's one more where he's no longer a cop. I think I'll look to find that and watch it just to cap the series. I know that he didn't want to do any more Dirty Harry films for fear his age would become a parody. Not a bad series. Sudden Impact was much more suspenseful and wasn't just about taking out the street trash. It had a vigilante twist to it that was interesting. More disturbing, I guess, but still a good waste of time.

[The Architect_1]

Jumanji. If you told me a month ago I was gonna like this movie more than The Last Jedi, I'd think you were crazy. Turns out... I did. 

 

Also, Karen Gillan, my god. 

[Rosbjerg]

You'd have to really screw up the direction or script, to fail with both The Rock and Jack Black. That's a hefty charisma injection in any movie.

[The Architect_1]

You'd have to really screw up the direction or script, to fail with both The Rock and Jack Black. That's a hefty charisma injection in any movie.

 

Yeah. I can't stand the Fast and Furious movies, though, even though there's more star power in those.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

You'd have to really screw up the direction or script, to fail with both The Rock and Jack Black. That's a hefty charisma injection in any movie.

 

Yeah. I can't stand the Fast and Furious movies, though, even though there's more star power in those.

 

Well Justin Lin did manage to bungle other stuff so it ain't unexpected.

[Raithe]

Gods of Egypt.

 

It's.. it's a funny film to figure out. On the one hand, it's got some fairly lush visuals, and it's nice how they've put in lots of little references to Egyptian mythology without making a big deal of it. It does have some nice performances from the cast, but.. they are some really bizarre casting choices for a film set in mythological pre-history Egypt. Plus a chunk of the storyline does feel as if it was borrowed from Thor.

 

I think it would have fared better if they'd stripped away the explicit Egypt references and simply had it as a general "fantasy" film. It did have a certain.. Harryhausen / Thief of Bagdhad / Sinbad type of feel to it.

[kirottu]

I saw TLJ and after reading last 10 pages I do agree with peoples criticisms, but I liked it anyways. My biggest problem with it was using lightspeed engine as a weapon. I felt like this made Deathstars and Star Killer base meaningless. Why would anyone build them when you could simply put some lightspeed engines on an asteroid and accelerate it towards a planet?    

[Tale]

I watched Pirates of the Carribean 5. Actually not terrible. It was a decent addition to the original trilogy as a fan. Better than 4 at least, which was pointless.

[Hurlshort]

I saw TLJ and after reading last 10 pages I do agree with peoples criticisms, but I liked it anyways. My biggest problem with it was using lightspeed engine as a weapon. I felt like this made Deathstars and Star Killer base meaningless. Why would anyone build them when you could simply put some lightspeed engines on an asteroid and accelerate it towards a planet?    

 

Yeah, that bothered me too. I mean, I get that Star Wars isn't science fiction, but the whole idea that you could just carve through heavily fortified ships in such a way seems pretty lame. 

[Raithe]

I'm still shocked at the design of those Resistance Bombers at the start of the film. Plus.. gravity dropped bombs.. in space? Controls to drop them a remote that's dropped around, and why design the bomb bays in quite that fashion?  I get that the whole X-Wing vs Tie Fighter sequences were originally designed based on Battle of Britain footage, but still..that seemed incredibly anachronistic and wrong-headed on so many levels.

[Tale]

Weaponized FTL seems like such an understood issue in both sci-fi and space opera that I think most people assume it to be impossible nowadays simply to avoid the consequences of everyone having easy access to stealth weapons of mass destruction. I can't believe they opened that can of worms.

 

Like, the FTL asteroid idea. You launch it from a lightyear out or more and the first sign the target has that they're under attack will be when it hits them.  TFA showed how accurate their FTL can be when you need it to be, so even accuracy isn't an issue anymore. No pulling into the system and charging up the weapon. No grand fleet battles. Just someone being obliterated without warning and some other people a distance away wondering what that bright light was in the sky.

 

This is why either a defense against FTL weaponry (shields stop them outright) or infeasibility of FTL weaponry (FTL ships have no mass, therefore only hurt themselves in a collision or FTL ships travel through an alternate dimension and don't actually go that fast, but can be pulled back into ours) are so important.

[Amentep]

My guess is that weaponized FTL only works if you catch the enemy without their shields up - the First Order thought the Rebels were running until the last minute, when they thought the ship was turning to fight so they didn't keep picking off the escape ships.

 

The bombs had to have been magnetic or guided towards an energy source in some fashion; I'd guess the ship design was such so that you didn't accidentally bomb your own ships.  At least that's how I took it.

[majestic]

 

I saw TLJ and after reading last 10 pages I do agree with peoples criticisms, but I liked it anyways. My biggest problem with it was using lightspeed engine as a weapon. I felt like this made Deathstars and Star Killer base meaningless. Why would anyone build them when you could simply put some lightspeed engines on an asteroid and accelerate it towards a planet?    

 

Yeah, that bothered me too. I mean, I get that Star Wars isn't science fiction, but the whole idea that you could just carve through heavily fortified ships in such a way seems pretty lame.

 

It's the new "rule" behind Star Wars FTL travel: Do whatever you want as long as it makes for a dramatic moment. In ANH Han had to leave Corellia the conventional way and was almost intercepted by two Star Destroyers until he reached a place where he could make his hyperspace jump.

 

In Rogue One Whatsherface, Whatshisface and the chinese box office tokens leave Jedha by jumping to hyperspace directly from underneath a collapsing wave of debris.

 

In The Force Awakens Han hyperspace jumps directly behind the Starkiller Base's shields.

 

In The Last Jedi on the other hand a hyperspace jump turns your ship into a relativistic kinetic weapon.

[majestic]

My guess is that weaponized FTL only works if you catch the enemy without their shields up - the First Order thought the Rebels were running until the last minute, when they thought the ship was turning to fight so they didn't keep picking off the escape ships.

 

Well that can't be it, their shields were active, otherwise The Collector wouldn't have had to slice a hole into them to land on Snoke's flagship.

[Amentep]

My memory fails me then (I actually didn't remember how they got through to the ship).

[ShadySands]

I just lumped it in with normal movie plot related stupidity

[Malcador]

I just hated the fact the First Order have no pursuit ships. Well or why fighters need capital ship cover (usually that is the other way around in SF type settings)

[Tale]

The movie opens with fighters and bombers taking out a capital ship with no cover from friendly capital ships. It's all very strange.

[Blarghagh]

Pretty sure the bombs 'falling' in space did so because of momentum.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm pretty sure it's fantasy and being consistent went out the window a long time ago.

 

Anyways I watched The Iceman and enjoyed it.

[LadyCrimson]

Noticed something called The Mountain Between Us for rent via Comcast and the preview made it look like one of those survive a disaster (two strangers stranded after a small plane crash) plots that I sometimes enjoy. Kate Winslet and Idris Elba too, sounded good.

 

First half was all right. Then I began to realize it was really a romance film. Now I'm not against romance as a rule and often enjoy it as part of or even the main background of a story if they're well done (vs. say, most US rom-coms, which typically aren't). But it wasn't what I was expecting and the survival parts of the film were pretty silly after a while. Anyway, for what it was it was ok but my attention drifted a fair bit in the 2nd half. Idris Elba was still awesome tho.