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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Sept 23, 2016 17:39:04 GMT 1
So there's a Ghost in the Shell live action movie in the works with Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi and Takeshi Kitano as Chief Aramaki. They've released 4 teaser trailers and so far the atmosphere looks right and those are some fairly solid casting choices so far. Here are my potential gripes: younger viewers thinking Ghost in the Shell is a "Matrix ripoff" (though the reverse is true since the Matrix stole a lot from Ghost in the Shell) and the director is the same one who did Show White and the Huntress (aka Kristen Stewart proves that her blank-faced expression is the only expression she has, no matter if she's doing Twilight or something else while Chris Helmsworth goes from being fucking THOR to being some scrub who needs Kristen Stewart to save his ass), so I'm already preparing for disappointment.
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Post by jklinders on Sept 23, 2016 21:54:59 GMT 1
Haven't heard much outside some griping about "whitewashing."
Snow White and the hunter was a shit movie, but it can't be blamed totally on the direction. That casting and script left it with nothing to work with. I have no patience with Millenials who though existence started in the 90s and think there was nothing cool before then. I've made my disdain for 90s "culture" perfectly clear already. The Wachaoskis (sp) owe a lot to a lot of different influences for the Matrix. *shrug*
I just found out today that there is a Magnificent Seven remake and the casting looks fucking awesome.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Sept 23, 2016 22:05:45 GMT 1
I heard Nic Pizzolato of True Detective fame wrote the screenplay for the Magnificent Seven remake too.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Sept 23, 2016 22:43:56 GMT 1
The weebs are pissed that a Japanese actress wasn't picked to be the female lead, that's what the "white washing" shit is about.
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Post by jklinders on Sept 24, 2016 10:33:18 GMT 1
More like Tumblr style SJWs. Same idea, most of these twits are white but have so much internalized guilt over it they feel the need to speak up against "wrongs" against minorities whether the minorities are actually offended or not. Weebs are not taken seriously outside their own ecosystem. Even within that group they are usually at full out war with each other across different fanbases. The whitewashing whining went mainstream so thee have to be others involved. Might be some overlap with the Tumblr twits, after all they more than willingly believe the false narrative that there is no such thing as "western culture" or martial systems and glorify everything Japanese.
Pretty soon we will be paying three times the ticket price for movies as there will have to be three versions shot with all the casting changes these fools want.
I actually dread the day that anime fandoms manage to go mainstream the way Tumblr did. Entertainment media and commentary would become so insufferable that I'll need to find a cave to hide in until the blackness takes me.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 24, 2016 17:13:21 GMT 1
I'm going to see the Magnificent Seven today. I'm very apprehensive, because they made the bad guy an "industrialist" which turns the whole plot on its head. Also, they're bringing a gatling gun into the story. Iron will back me up that the Gatling Guns of the era were notoriously unreliable, and very rare. Yet every western bad guy has access to one. BS.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Sept 25, 2016 1:45:11 GMT 1
Gatlings were damned expensive and not common (standard) issue until at least the Spanish American War and Boxer Rebellion. They were also as hard to transport as field artillery guns which further limited their use. I'm apprehensive about the new Magnificent Seven as I don't see a roving band of multi-ethnic outlaws being embraced by common townspeople in that era. Not to mention the industrialists and railroad men were fairly welcome in most places because of the increased money coming in with their ventures.
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Post by jklinders on Sept 25, 2016 22:05:44 GMT 1
Saw the movie today. Main villain was not an "industrialist" so much as a robber baron who was taking land people who had built on to exploit for mining rights. Pretty bog standard to be honest and had little to his character outside of pushing people around for the evuls. Frankly it would have been cheaper to buy everyone off which was standard enough than to run the op he did, but this was part of the fictional old west of Hollywood not the real thing. Also when you consider that both Magnificent Seven movies owe their origins to the Seven Samurai, the plot makes a fair bit more sense as the Daimyos of the era that was set often behaved like the sack of shit that was the bad guy here.
A wagon was used to mount and carry the gatling gun. Realism ended there though as this was a very shiny version that worked perfectly, amazingly accurate with a nigh bottomless mag. It would have taken at least three of them to inflict the carnage seen on screen.
Denzel Washington's character was treated with suspicion and nervousness everywhere he went. The rest were not interacting with townsfolk on screen long enough before they proved themselves (in spectacular fashion) for their backgrounds to matter much. All were outcasts and vagrants before the story's events. Special mention to Vincent Donofrio and Ethan Hawke for their performances and Chris Pratt was basically Star Lord in the old west.
Overall I really enjoyed it.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 26, 2016 20:56:59 GMT 1
I was pleasantly surprised. At some of it.
This is going to contain spoilers for the original and hints at the new one, so if you are 56 years behind, I'm very sorry. I've often complained that most films these days focus on setting or characters... And do a poor job of one to accomplish the other. The original story takes place in a Mexican village of no significance. The townspeople have had enough of a bandit leader (played by Eli Wallach, who's hamming it up to the max) and determine they have to fight. They send 3 men to the American border to buy guns. They witness a small gunfight from a seemingly altruistic gunfighter against a racist "mob" and decide to get his help to buy the right kind of guns. He suggests they'd do better to hire fighters, and slowly but surely the team is formed. They go south, and the while at first the village is changed by them, they are also changed by it. This is what the remake completely fails to recapture.
While the team identities were cool, the story got a move on and they got to the training montages (also in Kurosawa's original Seven Samurai) the remake spends easily double that time, and while each of the intros is cool (multiple ones offer homage to the original), the momentum is lost.
I think the biggest sacrifice is the setting. The stakes in the Mexican village are obvious. Starve or fight. In Rose Creek, somewhere, USA, the predominantly white town has the choice to pull up stakes, and many citizens do. Again, momentum lost. Without the setting, the villain had to change (maybe that happened first, but either way) and they went with bully "industrialist" which here equates more to mining kingpin. Which if played well I could live with, but it's still not enough, so we add surnames to all of our heroes, and hint at a revenge backstory straight out of a spaghetti western. In the original, the villain is killed almost as an afterthought, trying to do something sneaky as his forces weaken. Here we have the dramatic buildup and winnowing down until it's just protagonist vs boss, and that again fails the inspiration.
In the original, the triumphant moment is when the villagers get over their fears and emerge from their homes to destroy the bandits even after having cowered before them recently. That's the win, not the bad guy dying. Calvera's last words are of astonishment that this would happen, that anyone would care about this crappy little village in Mexico.
And they do care. Lee, a professional who's lost his nerve is witnessed having a nightmare by some of the men, and they remind him that it's not hopeless while they can try. O'Reilly is adopted by village children who he allows himself to begin to care for and accept his own history. Even Vin & Britt have a moment where they realize they care more about the people in the town than their respective goals of women or perfection. Only one character remains selfish, and it scrapes against the viewer each time on screen so that when he ultimately changes, it's heartwarming. In the remake, all of those moments are lost. A character remains focused on women, a character is afraid and uncommitted, but there's no adoption of the town because the town is too large to connect with.
I'm not saying the original is perfect. Of the 41 official bad guys 50+ die (yes I counted). The new one had some fantastic stunts, featuring all of our main characters. The language barrier is painfully obvious in the first. The new one doesn't give you any time to get to know anyone save Lady I-can't-afford-a-fitting-blouse, and Mr. I-was-going-to-have-a-subplot-but-we-cut-it-all-and-just-kept-my-reaction-shots.
Go watch it. But then go watch the 1960 one, and marvel at the quality. (And then go watch Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and be confused as I was).
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Post by jklinders on Sept 27, 2016 0:40:26 GMT 1
Pretty sure I saw the 1960s version some number of decades ago. Frankly I can't remember details. I generally dislike the idea of remakes, but you have to do it, it really should not be on a shot by shot basis. If we are going to that, we should just bloody well remaster the original and clean up the audio. I will have to watch the other 2 again. I think watched Kurosawa's as well. But at least as long ago as the other. My family were not into Japanese cinema though.
I got a feeling that like many recent movies some shit was cut. Needed more time in Rose Creek after the gang got together. Would have given them more time to develop the group and how they interact with normal people. Pretty sure that the location and bad guy change was political, much like the Red Dawn remake was shifted to North Korea from China as if that shitpile nation could ever occupy a postage station much less the US. Doesn't matter really as nearly all spaghetti and most modern westerns occupy the same fantastic version of reality of the old west as the Kung Fu Panda world occupies in China.
I agree completely that making things bigger just for the bigger epic battles takes away some of the more personal and human side of things. But I see little value in trying to pick one over the other now that we have both.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 27, 2016 20:59:19 GMT 1
I love to pick holes in everything. It's interesting to me. The less I find, the better I like a story.
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Post by jklinders on Sept 28, 2016 0:32:25 GMT 1
Regarding the Seven Samurai, I read somewhere that there was a severely cut down version released to the US. It was all of one hour long. The full version was 3and a half hours long. Which did you you see? If it was the cut one, your confusion is both justified and explained.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Sept 28, 2016 20:44:48 GMT 1
No, I had the original. I just chickened out halfway through.
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