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Tons of stuff on UNDERWORLD!
Hey folks, Harry here... It is strange... this film seems to be giving off a CROW, BLADE, MATRIX, DARK CITY vibe like crazy and using Romeo & Juliet / West Side Story as a backdrop... well, I'm curious to see how this comes out. The designs all are kinda "to be expected" with nothing strikingly original here. We'll see, sounds like it could be fun though.
Set in the secret nocturnal and supernatural world of vampires and werewolves. These enemy groups have been waging an underworld war for centuries that's packed with stealth, cunning and plenty of futuristic weaponary.
A gripping contemporary tale of lethal battle, devious conspirices and illicit love, all set against the backdrop of a bitter rivalry between two warring families - the vampires and the werewolves.
Underworld reimagines Vampires as a secretive clan of modern, aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Werewolves, a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly. The balance of power is upset when a beautiful young vampire and a nascent Werewolf - deadly rivals for centuries - fall in love. Len Wiseman directs Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbour, Serendipity) and Scott Speedman (Felicity, Dark Blue) in a fast-paced, modern-day tale of deadly action, ruthless intrigue and forbidden love, all set against the backdrop of an ancient feud between the two tribes in a timeless, Gothic metropolis. Underworld is a new species of thriller
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Now the trailer. When we reached that part of the showroom, they had Kate Beckinsale's costume hanging up, and I could see the posters in the background, and I thought it was a license for The Crow. Now I've heard nothing about this movie and everything I could find on it since, was playing it down as a lame West Side story take-off. So I thought this was a non-news event, and didn't pay much attention to the trailer (d'oh!).
What bits I did see of the trailer, made me want to go and see it. First up the art direction looks superb. It's like a cross between classic gothic, the Matrix and The Crow. There's a real blue/black tone to it all, almost like how comic books use blue to convey black.. One scene I saw had you looking down the track at platform level as a Steam Train pulled into a station, smoke billowing in front of it. Another scene had Kate Beckinsale's character in what looked like an empty studio apartment at night. Her attention is attracted to the floor below, and using both guns she shoots at the floor around her feet to cause it to collapse and for her to fall through to the next floor. Other scenes showed grandiose palaces (very bright and colorful compared to the rest of the movie) which reminded me of the set of the new Chateau scene from the new Matrix Movie. This really contrasted with the Sewers, which again were very blue/black in tone.
here are the costume designs and film posters if you want to post any of them
These pictures also are on my site with news about the toys:
Adrian
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Anyone catch that pic from Toy Fair that was floating around the net last week were a vampire was lifting up a huge friggin werewolf by the throat... that was from this movie. Coolest fucking thing I'd ever seen. Vampires and Werewolves in an all out war (and a decent cast to boot)? I'm so there.
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again the same and again and again
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This thing has come in under the radar!! If it can follow the gothic-ballet of violence that was Blade 2, then it could be worth watching. I just hope they play the romance as a device to ramp up the energy, and necessity and emotional content of the action (the "Who and what would you sacrifice for true love?" angle).
As for the no sucking; well, would you suck a werewolf's blood..? It would be like getting off with your pet dog... -
but just the teensiest tiniest bit derivative in its design. The Crow, the Matrix, Blade, with a little LotR possibly thrown in with the leather detailing. There just don't appear to be any original ideas involved.
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Anything with Kate B and I'm there. Anyone else unsurprised by making the chick the vamp rather than the werewolf. Hairy women, now that would be a horror worth seeing.
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HP might have an insatiable penchant for anal sex, but I'm not gonna be the one to give it to him. Do you people know where his ass has been? Fuck first posters. Fuck them up their stupid asses. Except HP. He's icky.
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Feb 26, 2003 7:55:15 AM CST
This thing is so far from original that it's got its own Game
by massawyrm 1
Yes, that's right folks, as the artical says, as if ripped out of a press release "Underworld reimagines Vampires as a secretive clan of modern, aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Werewolves, a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly." Hmmm...oddly enough that sounds like the vampires and werewolves "Reimagined" by Mark Rein-Hagen back in the late 80's/early 90's in the games Vampire: The Masquarade and Werewolf: The Apocolypse. A game loved by table top gamers the world over (The best selling game of the last decade smacking D&D into a corner until the era of Third Edition) and of course by goths. Now Goths love other things too, like movies and when it comes to movies certain films always populate their collections. Films like...cough cough..."The Crow", "Dark City", "The Matrix" and Baz Luhrman's "Romeo+Juliet". Yes folks...not only does this thing SEEM unoriginal...IT IS UNORIGINAL, every concept played out a hundred times by gamers the world over. This is not a clever new take on the genre...it is Fan Fiction run amok. Now many of you may recall the ill fated attempt to bring Vampire the Masqarade to the small screen with a six episode run of suckage on Fox, but by god, if this is gonna happen, it should at least be given the credit where credit is due. As of yet, I have seen none. The next thing slated by this screenwriter is probably "Overworld", the story of a baby sent to earth after his planet is destroyed only to find that he has super powers given to him by the sun and decides to become earths greatest hero who battles endlessly with a ruthless mad scientist/coperate executive. This is re-fucking-diculous to the Nth degree and has stirred up so much geek rage in me that I have to step out now for a Dr. pepper and a smoke just to get my blood levels back where they should be. Wait...rehashed hack written bottom feeding vomit indicing shit of obviously pirated origin! GACK! there it's out of my system...I gotta smoke now.
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HP i got three words for ya, UR NOT FIRST!... now go eat some more shit, and proceed to die.. movie looks....well, i won't know til i see the trailer now will i?
snootch -
It looks like shit , but teens are going to love this stuff. cgi,kung fuckin fu,guns,trench coats,slow mo,bullet fuckin'time. those hollywood people know how to titilate a geek's clit.
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"There is nothing new under the sun, all is vanity." What? Hollywood making something derivative? Never. Vampirism had been done to death by the time cinema had crawled out of its infancy... at least now we should be able to expect (okay, hope) that these things have the effects to deliver on a level F.W. Murnau could only (wet) dream about. Bring on the gothic violence and GUNPLAY!!! As for ripping off Vampire:The Masquerade... well, at least it's fairly good source material to go from. It's a game from my youth that I'm interested to see translated. No, wait, the last time a RPG from my youth was put on the big screen was "Dungeons and Dragons"....aw sh!t!!!!
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This excites me in some dark, deviant way. I, for one, think there are not enough movies about werewolves. After Anne Rice, Buffy, and Blade I think I've satiated my lust for vampire lore, now let's see some of those howlers, yes? It does indeed look quite gothic, which is always a plus when dealing with these types of creatures. As for originality - setting these creatures agains the backdrop of a modern city - okay, not THAT original. But it has potential to be gritty and beautiful. I am a fan of the old Masquerade game, and have always wished that stuff would be able to come across on the screen. I keep waiting for someone to do it right. Does that make me a geek and an overly-obsessed fanGIRL? (thank you very much) - you're damned right it does.
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Unoriginal? Just take a look at one of them posters... Right off the Frog.
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You ever go to a nightclub where people are live-action-roleplaying Vampire? You just want to smack somebody. sk
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Look at the clock, you damn cronos retard. How in all of Valhalla did you get the idea you were first? Go and buy a digital clock, the one that gives you the time in big old numbers, because you're obviously struggling with the old big hand little hand. Or better still just go away forever to the land of first posters who aren't first posters; the land where people have truely fucked themselves up their own ass.
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Absolutely not. Yes - that kind of crap makes me want to kill all of them, if only to see the surprised looks on their faces when they realize they are not vampires and are, in fact, mortal. No - in the true manner of a geek, I like to keep it simple. At home, a couple glasses of wine, and a few close like-minded friends.
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Katie B. looks like the Crow's love child dressed in Trinity's leathers. She looks hot, and I hope this movie rocks. It can be as bad as Romeo Must Die, can it?
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you know what the deal is with crapo actors like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal? Their big fuckin'ego, they only want the leading role never a small role in a movie. They don't care if they appear in crap-movies, they just kick on being first-listed and popping their big floating heads on videocovers.
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Feb 26, 2003 9:07:12 AM CST
Can he juggle enemies in the air for multi hit combos like Dante
by terry_1978
Hey, just askin'.....don't tell me he doesn't bear a resemblence.
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When was the last time any movie was original? EVERY movie derives its look/feel/tone/costumes/plot/characters from SOMETHING. Harry Potter ain't original and people seem to like that okay. Star Wars isn't original but I still love it! LOTR is just a rip off of that Shannara series of books. Original doesn't matter. What DOES matter is, do they have a good story? Do they tell it well? If so, we have a good basis for a good movie. Originality is WAY over-rated. We owe most plots to Shakespeare and actually the ancient Greek plays. Original?!?!?!
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"LOTR is just a rip off of that Shannara series of books.." I am trying VERY hard right now to ignore that statement. Hopefully it was just a careless comment made to inflame the LOTR geeks, because no one can actually think that. Can they? Other than that - I agree with the point. Not much is totally original. Everything comes from somewhere (how profound is THAT?)
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oh but these are just immortal vampires not just immortals. Got it. Heh heh heh heh..... This will be like The Crow: Part 5 (or 3 or was it 4?) - straight to video. Oh and just to get you prepared, Van Helsing won't go straight to video, but it will wish it had. night all.
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But MATRIX is a huge sequence of rip-offs expertly tied together, with beautiful results. At the very least, they ripped-off preety good shit (Woo, Frank Miller...). It's like RAMONES vs. GREEN DAY: Ramones' songs are all the same, yet all sound fresh and powerful and completely different bacuse they kick holy ass. Green Day tries to make different songs, but fail miserably and all their songs sound the same. This movie smells like Green Day to me, but I've been known to make mistakes... from time to time.
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Im sorry, but she does.
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but I think someone should actually make a movie using the concept art because more times than not, the concept material looks better than the finished product. And the movies font, is very MATRIX-ish, but it does sound cool.
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Feb 26, 2003 4:00:13 PM CST
Shit. The first one-sheet reeks of "Matrix" influence, while the
by a goonie
Oh well. The story at least holds some promise. I guess we'll see.
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What a piece of shit. Audiences won't pay for such a gothic freak fest.
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There doesn't appear to be any originality in this project at all. Yeah, so I haven't seen a single frame of this film via trailer/teaser or otherwise, but it looks... lame. Late 80's Gallagher lame.
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Feb 26, 2003 7:44:40 PM CST
Wait a second, are they really vampires and werewolves or are th
by 007-11
Because if they really are then i'm sold. Romeo and Juliet set against a bleak gothic backdrop in which they belong to warring families of vampires and werewolves? That's the kind of pitch I like to hear.
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I think a good steampunk film would be a nice twist on what has gone before, and thats the kind of vibe I get from the mention of the steam engine and unnamed Gothic city. And yeah any fanboy worth his salt would be joking with that Shannara comment... I hope. I'm kind of looking forward to this, though. It will entertain if not give me a new outlook on existence.
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Feb 27, 2003 1:45:24 AM CST
He loves her and She loves him--so the city will bathe in blood.
by noriko takaya
*Sniff* (Wipes away tear). Gods, I'm such a sucker for a good romance. Toppu o Nerae!
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I actually had to google Shannara because I had never heard of it. It is apparently a series by Terry Brooks, one of which was published as recently as 2000. MrCere, you apparently need a short history lesson of what just about everyone here already knows.
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JRR Tolkien lived from 1892 to 1973. He was a linguistics professor at Oxford who was interested in mythology. He published the Hobbit in 1937. After that, he was asked for a sequal. He then spent about 12 years writing LOTR. Fellowship was published in the mid 1950s, TTT and ROTK came out a few years later. The story/characters however, Tolkien had been thinking about most of his life. Tolkien's earliest notes of The Silmarillion actually date back to about 1917, which is apparently 83 years before that 2000 Shannara book came out. -
... the 3rd poster just makes it obvious; hair, costume, and even the pose is practically a mirror image of Alita's usual poses.
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There is your base level of unoriginality (like the basis that there are really only 7 themes in science fiction or that every romance is boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy gets girl back) and then there is the blatent plagurism of ideas. For example: Shannara RIPPED OFF LOTR. But Brooks did something with it. He developed some of his own ideas, he wove new and interesting characters. But Every image here, every concept, is not just borrowed, but stolen out of other fictional works. Who knows, maybe there's something new here, something they're hiding to surprise us with, but I doubt it. It would seem that with a movie this contrived, this blatently ripped from other works, you would want to showcase your originality rather than what you pirated. All they're showing here is the booty plundered on the high seas. The problem with Vampire films is that they really play to a niche audience these days and to satisfy that niche audience you MUST provide a new twist on such an old tale. You have to satisfy the core audience because the bulk of mainstream audiences won't buy this, especially in a year with so many other Genre efforts that will blow this out of the water. Yes, if done well, there will be an audience that will enjoy this, but unless they pull some rabbit out of a hat when this film sees the light of day, it's going to die in the niche market: the market who will not buy the DVD, will not buy the T-shirts, will not watch it four or 5 times in the theare (the audience that put The Matrix at $180M+ domestically for a rated R film). This is the audience you have to sell with a genre film and that audience is all too familiar with the ideas in this property to really latch on to it if it doesn't wow us. And the ideas alone, will not. Sorry guys, but originality counts for alot, especially these days in Hollywood when there's so much experimentation going on. Talk all you want about this being par for the course. I don't even think this one is staying anywhere close to the green.
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To anyone who has read Battle Angel Alita comics, the pictures seem to be inspired on it, and the third image its a mere copy of one of the most common pictures of Alita.
I answer myself that if this picture have a good cash (it -
HULLO!? Has anybody ever read Laurell K. Hamilton's books? Think somebody did...
Amazon review of "Obsidian Butterfly" to name only one of her books.
Anita Blake, the tough, sexy vampire executioner, zombie animator, and police consultant for preternatural crimes in St. Louis, hunts monsters in New Mexico in the ninth book of Laurell K. Hamilton's excellent series. Edward, Anita's mentor in slaying, asks Anita to return the favor that she has owed him since she killed a backup he brought in to protect her. He needs Anita's preternatural expertise as well as her firepower. Something is skinning and mutilating a few of its chosen victims, and dismembering others. Edward has no idea what creature could be responsible for such heinous crimes.
Summoning Anita has its downside for Edward, since it means letting her onto his turf. Anita is surprised to find that this normally aggressive man has a personal life, and shocked by his ability to be entirely different from the stone cold killer she's known. She also has problems with the cop in charge in Albuquerque, who believes her powers must be evil, and with the other backups Edward has brought in. Most of all, she has to deal with her own vulnerability--she's tried to shut down her ties to her vampire and werewolf lovers and go it alone, but it turns out to be harder than she thought.
Anita's usual supporting cast is missing, and she's taking time out from her complex love life, but there's plenty of bloody action, vampires, werewolves, and Aztec ritual. Plus a lot more about Edward. Fans will find this installment similar to the earlier books in the series, particularly
See? I know these things!
chuk -
quote....
>>For example: Shannara RIPPED >>OFF LOTR
that does not read the other way around. just so you know. -
that I should hear about this "West Side Story" news in exactly the same week I'm playing Doc in a stage production of West Side Story in Cambridge, opposite a bloke (playing Tony) who apparently had an audition or a screen test for Troy.
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This is such an obvious rip-off of the game, Vampire: The Masquerade. It would be fine if the studio would simply option the game as a source material, but to just rip it off this way is just shameless. Of course, one could argue that The Matrix is a rip off of William Gibson, Shadowrun (a game that came out in the early 1990s where the artificial cyberspace computer universe was literally called "the Matrix"), and other early cyberpunk. But I won't argue that (even though I think that the movie is somewhat over-rated, especially when drooling idiots go on about how "philosophically deep" it is. Kant is philosophy. Matrix is a visual comic-book. If you get your philosophy from the Matrix, I feel sorry for you. Flame away.
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