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23 March 2012

Cahiers du Vleeptron continued discussion of Disney's RealD Sleep Aid, "John Carter of Mars"

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PatFromCH has left a new comment on your post "Cahiers du Vleeptron reviews Disney's RealD (tm) p...":

Hang on...you mean...someone made a movie that is worse than Avatar ?? ohdearohdearohdear !!
Because those old Barsoon stories are not exactly High Literature they would be ideal for popcorn cinema, expecially with the CGG of nowdays.
and if Vleeptron says they were able to eff that up, alas, it cannot be otherwise. Hell, they have pree-screenings where people tell them what they think about the general release of a movie. If they don't like the ending, the haircut of the main actor or a side character it will be cut and redone. so now Disney effed up on a major scale, Tant pis, happens to every big studio every now and then, yet this was a movie I had some remote interest in. Bugger

Posted by PatFromCH to Vleeptron_Z at Friday, 23 March, 2012

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The popcorn was great! I should have said that.

The unhappy consequence of RealD (tm) and the last 10 years of big-budget computer graphics -- like that synthetic troll Golem crap in "Lord of the Rings," and like "Avatar" -- is that weak-minded and badly educated studio execs forget the reason people want to pay $12 to sit in a dark theater for 110 minutes.

They want to be told a Story. A good Story. A Ripping Yarn, like "King Solomon's Mines." They want to go off on an Adventure they really find thrilling, exciting.

Without the "soul" of a good story, hyperexpensive noisy crap like "Avatar" and "John Carter" ... well, there I was on Barsoom watching Barsoomian blind hairy giant apes battle 4-armed horned Willem Dafoe, and I kept falling asleep. The theater seated 200+ people, and there were about seven or eight paying customers. This was an Astounding Adventure on Mars which utterly nobody gave a flying fuck about. They would rather have spent the 120 minutes at the dentist.

On the other hand, up in the right-hand corner of this blog is my "avatar," the Cyclops from "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," stop-motion effects ("Dynamation") by Ray Harryhausen. I first saw this thing when I was about 14, it struck me blind with amazement, and I have seen this magical shadow-picture story 40 times since then. 


Ditto, from the same era, "Forbidden Planet." (Disney studios cranked out the terrifying "Monster From The Id" as a contract job for MGM.)

I can watch a good story over and over again. I love great special effects -- but they have to be the work of an authentic Artist, someone with taste and imagination.

"Avatar" -- graceless, clumsy, silly, embarrassing both in the loud, junky FX and in the dumb story. (I hope Sigourney Weaver got cash up front.)

We neglected to mention the literary original of "John Carter": Edgar Rice Burroughs, more famed for "Tarzan." Of Boy Adventure Drek Lit, probably one of the worst. (H. Rider Haggard is actually a major shrine of interest and analysis for Jungians for "She.")

Did you happen to catch the recent re-make of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" starring Keanu Reeves as Klatu? One reviewer said Klatu came from The Planet Where People Have Only One Facial Expression.

These are movies where about 30 minutes in, you just want to stand up and scream: I DON'T CARE! WHO CARES?

Oh, an important warning. "John Carter" is a very long Adventure. Make sure you use the toilet before the show starts, especially if you bought a big Coke.

 

2 comments:

PatfromCH said...

I can only agree. Blockbuster Hollywood forgot to tell us a good stories the last few years. And they are a bit too fond of CGG. You have quoted the best and worst examples.
Yet I have to exclude Lord of the Rings. When I heard that this would be made into a movie I had a laughing fit. Then I thought pleaseohpleaseohplease don’t let them eff that up !
As strange as it sounds LOTR would not have been possible with current CGG, even if Gollum looks a bit silly and director Peter Jackson was reluctant with the use of CGG. Otherwise the fans would have tarred and feathered him.Yet he did a good job I reckon. What he did to King Kong is a different matter though and how someone can eff up such a simple and effective story is beyond me (despite the brilliant Jack Black as impressario), same with Barsoon, even if I haven’t seen that and probably never will.
Oh man was I upset when I saw 300 ! Nice idea, but it looked like a cheap PlayStation game just because of CGG overuse and far too much stupid violence.
Old stuff like Forbidden Planet with the cool soundtrack and the cheap gadgets but a solid yarn are much to be preferred indeed.
And Hollywood wonders why Green Lantern etc flopped at the box office. Throwing money at a weak story and thinkig that the multiplatform cross-selling merchandise will sell isn’t enough. Vleeptron is absolutely correct: Gimmie a good story and I am in. Best evidence are the numerous good indie and low-budget movies that came out over tha last years, not just out of Hollywood.

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