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THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL made time stand still for Capone!!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Sigh!
Why has science fiction been so horrible this year? For every solid work like WALL-E or even CLOVERFIELD, we get crap like THE HAPPENING, the second X-FILES movie, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, and JUMPER. Do people who make these films understand that we don't need conventional love stories or cute kids or cuddly animals cluttering up and diluting our science fiction? Do the writers of such fare realize that the minute they include a scene of one person insisting on saving another person before they get around to the business of, oh, I don't know, saving the world ("I won't leave without [insert name of loved one]!") that I immediately get angry and disconnected from the film in every possible way? The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL has about a million such scenes, or at least it feels like it does.
When I'm preparing to watching a franchise film (take HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3, for example), I tend to watch the movies that came before the most recent to reacquaint myself with the characters and situations. But with remakes, I stay away from the originals until after I've seen the newer version. Every new film deserves to be judged on its own merits and not on strictly how carefully version 2.0 follows the source material. But I know the original TDTESS pretty damn well; I have a poster of it in my bathroom and stare at it lovingly while I'm using the facilities. And other than a few names and the very basic starting-off point, the makers of the remake--director Scott (THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE) Derrickson and writers David Scarpa and Edmund H. North--have gutted and rebuilt this legendary sci-fi plot. Let me rephrase that, they've taken a perfectly workable, easily updatable work, destroyed it with a wrecking ball and C4 explosives, and tried to put it back together with Scotch tape, thumb tacks, a stapler and bubble gum.
I repeat: Sigh!
And the real shame is that the set-up of TDTESS is pretty good, or at least mysterious and chilling enough to keep me curious. First off is a bizarre, totally unnecessary sequence involving a bearded Keanu Reeves on a snow-covered mountain in India in the 1920s. It's bad when the very first scene in the movie feels tacked on, but there you have it. But it's just weird enough to hook you. Jump ahead to today. We meet Helen Benson, a professor of some sort of biology that deals in rare life forms, I believe. She has a stepson named Jacob (Jaden Smith, son of Will, who was so good in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS). Jacob's father (and Helen's husband) died fairly recently and the wounds are as fresh as Jacob's unease around Helen. The good professor is whisked away at the dinner hour by the U.S. government and told that a large foreign body was hurtling toward earth from space aimed directly for Manhattan. (For once, why can't one of these city killers crush Jersey?) But as it turns out a familiar glowing sphere-shaped object slows down and lands in Central Park, depositing a human-like creature in our midst, who is then promptly shot.
First off, I like the idea that in order to survive on earth the alien body "borrowed" our DNA for the purposes of essentially being born human. The human in question is Klaatu (Reeves), who does some of the best monotone acting of his career, and I'm being serious when I say that. He does have a gift for delivering emotionless lines, while still managing to convey the heart and soul behind them. He also works the menace muscle more than once here. And in case you were worried, Gort the robot is on hand as well, protecting Klaatu from harm (well, except for that shooting incident). Gort is about 10 times as large as the Gort from the original film and seems to have far more destructive force.
Essentially what the film boils down to is Klaatu admitting that he has come to save the earth from earthlings. If we live, the planet dies; if we die, the planet lives. But it is in within his power to stop the wholesale destruction of the human race, and with a little convincing and a few life lessons from Benson and her stepson, he might just do that. And with almost no effort, the films transforms from apocalyptic into a touchy-feely sentimental journey that derails any amount of suspense that is built up and makes us loathe every scene that Connelly or Smith are in. Jacob is an obnoxious, disobedient kid who would rather see the earth destroyed than run the risk of Helen fall in love with Klaatu and replace his dead dad. Jesus Christ!
And then there's the impressive-on-paper, largely underused on screen supporting cast that includes Kathy Bates as the Secretary of Defense (we never see the President or V.P.); Jon Hamm as the scientist who pulls Helen on the project initially; Robert Knepper (fresh from Transporter 3) as the lead military strategist; and John Cleese in one of the film's only truly interesting roles, which of course means that he's on screen a total of two minutes. He plays the role (one similar to what Michael Caine plays in CHILDREN OF MEN) straight, and the results are impressive and way too short.
But by the time the nanotechnology robots are set loose to destroy the planet, I'd pretty much given up on TDTESS. The film doesn't even have the guts to say what it is: an environmental warning. Although Klaatu doesn't explicitly say that the way in which humans are destroying the planet is through global warming, the implication is there. The original film was a cry for peace and sanity in the wake of the atomic bomb, and war could certainly be one of the ways an alien race might see us wiping ourselves out. But I'm pretty sure that's what I grasped between the lines. Don't be afraid to make that commitment.
The movie is cluttered with so-so special effects, messages of peace and love and the duality of man, and enough good intention to choke an elephant. There are bible verses and Bach, and neither one can save this weak-ass patchwork of ideas and performances that I guess passes for science fiction these days.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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+ Expand All
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Meh... somehow, this just doesn't interest me. I think I'll go rewatch the original now.
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..one of the highlights of his long career has been desecrated.
And so is Harry Bates, who wrote the short story on which it was based. Travesty has a new definition tonight. -
...prepared to hate this movie for, a year now? How fucking shocking.
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WHY? For those geeks out there who haven't seen EITHER of these originals (which I guaran-farken-TEE most of you haven't)...what you miss is some of the best writing and effects humans can muster. Why are we all dispsy-daisy about Mad Men? Because every guy looks suave...and every girl is curvy and put together. JUST LIKE IN THESE MOVIES.
Now take your LYIN' geek asses to Netflix and actually WATCH the originals...and see what true $%#@& sci-fi film making is about.
Don't see this overwrought crap...because YOU are the reason it keeps getting made!!
Grumpy...OUT! -
Damn You Michael Bay
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at least the original had the whole jesus bit and saving the universe from man thing going for it...shoot, even the original story has a better punch line than this pos...oh goody, another "alien comes to save us from ourselves"...btw, this was already done in escape from los angeles...snake pliskin kicks klaatu's ass
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People don't want movies that make them THINK. They just wanna watch bit effects and pretty faces. It's a shame but it's just the state of things nowadays.
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...with the complaints that audiences are retarded.
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I'll be more than happy watching the original on AMC and listening to the Bernard Herrmann on my ipod. As a BTW Capone, Edmund North wrote the original, I think he died in the late 70's or early 80's. Here's hoping that Strazinski's script for Fordidden Planet is more a sequel than some awful remake/re-imaging.
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although as a kid i liked forbidden planet alot more...alot of the concepts that were in day were over my head, i guess...wanna explain why they are remaking the thing? thought carpenter already did that as good as could be...oh, and no one but me and a few of my friends saw that when it came out...i read the reviews after i saw the movie, and felt stupid for liking it....then came video, and the world caught up with me, and i didnt feel so stupid anymore...cant wait till they remake jaws (although spielburg will have to be dead first) and show us the shark from the opening scene
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Damn...doesn't Bill Corbett look just like John McCain in that RiffTrax banner in the corner?
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With Hulk Hogan as the Baddie
It would probably be better than this tripe -
That's a remake-sequel I'd fucking rent on blu-ray.
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I haven't seen the film yet, but in the treatment I read a while back, the conceit is that there are only a few planets in the universe capable of supporting life like EArth does, so the aliens deemed that more necessary than protecting us as a species. sort of like kicking people out of a city to make a wildlife refuge. strange, but it at least made some semblance of sense when I read it. not sure if that made it to the movie, or if it's left unexplained.
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...open exactly a year from now?
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No eyeballs were fucked, diddled or even flirted with? Not so much as a "Hey, here's my number, eyeballs. Give me a ringy-dingy sometime?" Your eyeballs had to go home and whack off, didn't they? Damn, I was hoping at least they'd have some fun with Gort.
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...comes the milestone in motion picture history:AVATAR - Fucking your eyeballs in 2009!
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What the fuck is it anyway?! What is it based on? Is it a remake? It it a Comic book movie? What's with all of the hype this far in advance? Almost every talkback is hijacked by AVATAR lovers, is it a piss take?
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But if the film renewed your faith and made you call upon the Name of the Lord to spare you then so be it.
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duh.
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More liberal BULLSHIT! Oh yes people (AMERICANS!!!) are evil and destroying the world. Oh yes mankind (if it survives) will look back 500 years at us and deem us all cavemen. Oh yes The Day After Tommorrow was the most accurate film ever and PROVES man is responcible for global warming, even though the globe just had it coldest winter ever recorded last year! But hey, why look up the facts on your own when you can just go to a movie, then your an expert!
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speaking of that have you seen this...?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2aCTT_bAM -
Another movie with a single white woman who has a black kid. Can you imagine THAT being in the original?
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of a short story and didn't quite get that right either. Its one thing to fall in love with a 50's classic scifi B movie, but the nostalgia of that is clouding every review here into thinking this movie is some sort of remake that isn't doing the 50's adaptation any justice! Anyone still give a damn about the original short story and adapting that correctly for a change? Both movies are simply their own take, so review them without the comparison for fair assessment! And stops calling the 50's movie "The Original!"
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That's funny, I thought it was just a shitty monster movie.
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OK i can believe THIS was shit, but that WASNT?
Capone you're an ass
and Cloverturd was SOLID sci-fi?
fuck off -
Hes great at these roles. Can't wait to see it. I do agree. Why the fuck do kids have to pop up in these kind of films ? Same MO every time. I don't understand how some studios make films like The Dark Knight, dark, miserable, and sadistic, which goes on to make shit loads of money, and some produce films like this. Anyway haven't seen it. Does it have the original short story ending I wonder ?
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Wow. I haven't been this angry at a movie in a long time. Fuck this movie and fuck Jaden Smith.
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It's usually just Motoko hyping Avatar every chance he gets, talking about eyeballs getting fucked. I don't get it either, he's pathetic.
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Trees are rebelling against mankind (The Happening)...and now robots! What shall we do?!!!!
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I knew this movie was in trouble when they made Helen Benson a scientist and she just HAD to have a black kid! Politically Correct claptrap! why not throw in Martin Lawrence as a wise cracking, hip Gort!
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before anyone gets on their soap box and calls me a racist for my last comment...
1 - I don't give a rat's ass!
2 - I am not anti black...I am anti PC! PC = creative death! -
...That THIS remade/refried/rebooted version of a Classic and Seminal Sci-Fi Movie has been turned into pure unadulturated crap!!
Glad to read your review of the "film" here and it confirms my opinion of it after being bombarded with the horrible looking trailer day in and day out ever since it debuted I don't know how many months ago!
It definitely seems like Hollywood is on a "roll" here with ruining classic Sci Fi movies that we all loved as kids growing up...
War of The Worlds with that dipshit Tom Cruise...Journey to The Center of The Earth (geez how many times is THAT one going to remade?!?!) with Brenden Fraser, Invasion of The Body Snatchers (granted the updated 1979 version remains my favorite even though the 50-ies version IS a classic too!!) that was transformed into a heaping pile of steaming cat furball puke with Nicole Kidman in it!!
Thanks for confirming my worst fears on this one (so far none...I repeat NONE of the reviews for this film have been even remotely positive!!)...definitely will wait for it to come out on DVD to watch! -
I'v been reading more reviews from just about everyone here and to be honest i was thinking about seeing it but soo many of such horrid reveiws i better just find something else. Dark Knight is out so i go blow some dough on tht instead
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always a pleasure to sit down there and watch the endless stream of movies the world doesn‘t need.
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Remaking 2001?
*sigh*
This all goes a long way to explain why the only films I paid to see in a cinema this year were IRON MAN (4 times), WALL-E (friends dragged me), DARK KNIGHT (a.k.a. The Joker movie) and, unfortunately, THE HULK. Two were sequels, yes, but none were remakes. -
and unfortunately there are no other films being released this weekend at the box office.
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Dec 12, 2008 6:33:41 AM CST
"Oh my God! They killed Kenilworth (NJ)! You bastards!"
by kevin holsinger
I live in New Jersey. I LIKE living in New Jersey. But let's be honest...New Jersey is the kid who has to spend his days living in the shadow of his more successful, more popular sibling (New York). And that's why Manhattan always gets attacked. Except in the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
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britain, france, japan, russia, etc are all doing solid sci-fi in 2008. france put out a couple of pimp cyber punk films this year. britain continues to dominate the sci-fi tv series. japan takes the animation & cgi sci-fi cake. and russia has some big budget style.
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with Dancing Bears in TuTu's
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Who could've guessed this would suck?
Seriously, Keanu's in that "Costner" class of actors that make you say, "How the fuck does this guy keep getting work?" -
If anything, they'd want us to wipe ourselves out so they didn't have to worry about us weaponizing space.
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Sorry, folks. I'll rewatch the episode of the Venture Bros. with the Grand Galactic Inquisitor, and enjoy a novel take on this idea.
Unless Keanu goes "SOMEBODY LEFT A BABY!"...Then I might go see it. -
Yeah, that was the message from the original: we don't care what you do, but if you carry your violent natures out into space, we *will* shut you down.
I get a sense from the re-crapping, they're suggesting a 2010-ish sort of "Alien Landlords" or some such shit (with the "your planet?" line).
*ugh* -
...and buy the DVD (or new BD edition) and send the receipt to Twentieth Century-Fox.
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Dec 12, 2008 7:44:06 AM CST
I don't understand why they don't just keep the original story.
by dr sauch
I'm all for remakes, but who are these people who think that it will be better to change major elements?
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Then its not worth seeing this steaming pile. If I want a bitch session on how humanity is evil I'll just turn on NPR.
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He just tends to make really bad decisions.
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How much is this movie like Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer?
I see the previews. I see the stranger "surfer dude" like visitor, the killer clouds, and the anomalies that appear all over the world, yet now it's all without the FF, and I can't help but think how depressing it is for Fox Studios to be reusing plots from movies only a year old -
of benjamin's butthole
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now I'm not. Hopefully The Punisher movie is still playing at my local theater.
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..."Let me rephrase that, they've taken a perfectly workable, easily updatable work, destroyed it with a wrecking ball and C4 explosives, and tried to put it back together with Scotch tape, thumb tacks, a stapler and bubble gum." Classic! This statement should be installed in gigantic white letters right next to the Hollywood sign.
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...damn shitty keyboard!
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That's only slightly above Eddie Murphy territory, yeah?
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should be printed on the poster ...'-says AICN's capone'
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Dec 12, 2008 8:24:13 AM CST
Why can't Klaatu just give us hybrid cars and be done with it?
by electric_sheep
is a fair point. The cold war was a political problem. Our current energy related ills are technological ones, therefore clearly solvable by Keanatu and his hi tech ID4 space wagon.
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It's headed on a collision course with Earth like an asteroid in a cheezy science fiction movie. From films like Milk that preach social tolerance to crap like The Happening that pontificates environmental themes, I'm tired of Hollywood imposing its social mores on me. AVATAR will be no different. It's just An Inconvenient Truth pumped up with CGI.
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As the Keeper...he totally rocked!
He even had a wicked Van Dyke! All that was missing were horns and a pitchfork. -
will probably be better than this remake.
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I mean he's frackking huge
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let's examine the basic theme of the new story: we live, the earth dies. we die, the earth lives. Given the statistical probability that planets which are able to host life in relation to self-aware, conscious intelligent life such as we are - probability informs us that WE are distinctly more rare. Klaatu is working on the wrong side. He's attempting to eliminate super-rare organisms in order to "save" a more common type of celestial body. It gets even more ridiculous when Klaatu actually has command over terraforming nano machines that he's mis-using to KILL rather than to HEAL. So much for that. I knew this picture was probably ass.
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Dec 12, 2008 9:17:43 AM CST
electric_sheep: Klatu Adheres to the Prime Directive
by darfurontherocks
Kinda sorta....
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Capone seems to think that X-FILES movie, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, and JUMPER were science fiction movies.
*facepalm* -
but i do not want a touchy feely at the end. unless it comes from jessica biel at my house.
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THAT WAS A WEIRD ONE
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Do you guys ever proofread anything?
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ROLAND EMMERICH...
Coz he's got a fetish for disaster movies.
Note to the Powers that be: Can you guys please stop crushing New York City? I mean, there is Tulsa and Minneapolis and Orlando. Jeez... -
Though this concept may be annoying and not work in this film, I have to disagree with Capone about the concept as a whole. Yeah, it's a pretty standard convention, but there's a reason for it. Most audiences can't relate to the vague task of 'saving the world.' But they can relate to the very real task of saving a loved one. Without the element of human relationships, disaster films would never work because the scale is too grand. In most cases, in the end, saving the loved one IS saving the world, because that relationship tends to stand in for the main character's relationship with the rest of the world. Therefore, any film that does this rests on the strength of those characters and those relationships. If those characters and relationships are badly defined, then this will seem annoying. If the relationships work, the movie works. Look at Children of Men - it was about 'saving the world' but it was really about saving the mother and her baby. It worked because the characters were strong and you could see why they would die for each other.
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it in no way deserves to be put in the company of Happening or Jumper, or even gimmicky Cloverfield. I'm sorry everyone thinks it was too much like a regular episode, but shit, watch it on DVD sandwiched between a couple episodes from season 3 or 4 and I think you'll find it holds up pretty well. Certainly, it's worlds better than the typical brainless crap we get in this genre. Capone, you know better.
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With "hordes of locusts attack!!"
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Bullshit! In the original doesn't Klatu say that if he wanted to Gort could destroy the whole planet? Yeah man... new Gort can't be more powerful than that, but we probably do see more of it (like that badass truck disintegration, I'm assuming). I'm stoked on this movie, the originial is one of my favorites since childhood, and I'm really glad this one is different enough to not really call for comparison. Can't wait to see it. Even if it's awful. That'd be awesome too. I fucking love Keanu. Remember when he was going to be Doctor Manhattan? I was so into it.
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Nothing else matters
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Considering no one on the planet earth has yet seen any footage of Avatar, it makes no sense to shower it with all this praise. One IS for certain though. It's going to have a god-awful environmental message. I hate preachy movies. Just give me explosions and T&A.
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Nobody!
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Yeah, I admit the villians were pretty undercooked, but the thing had loads of atmosphere, great acting from our heros, and a pretty interesting, even bold, philosophical center. Anyway, not a perfect film by any means, but serious and carefully crafted; definitely deserves to be in better company than crap like Jumper and Cloverfield. Kind of an "interesting but not quite there" catagory. Call foul on some pacing and plot issues if you will, but it's obviously not a cash grab for the folks involved, and I think it deserves more respect than it's getting.
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Was it a mugging?
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a fucking selfish First posting fucktard! ban his lame ass for being a first poster on the Bettie Page passing post. this movie looks awful! I love me some sci-fi too,esp. anything involving aliens. i may d/l this from isohunt next year just to watch something to put me to sleep.....
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Honest. I thought this was a April Fools gag; only it's not April. Talk about giving aliens a reason to destroy the earth.
http://tinyurl.com/6rz5ym
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Earth survived being hit by another planet 4 billion years ago. It survived the first autotrophs sucking all the CO2 out of the air and nearly freezing it solid. It survived who knows what at the end of Permian era. It survived being hit by a bullet the size of Mt. Everest 65 million years ago. It has survived super volcanoes, ice ages, continents built up and torn apart, and the Star Wars Holiday Special. The planet can handle some extra CO2 and a little flooding. We may not like the result, but Earth just don't give a damn. It'll just keep on spinning, just as it has for billions of years, whether we're here or not.
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Since humans have clearly evolved beyond their agressive, warlike ways, and embraced the peaceful ways of Klatuu! Instead of warring on each other, we now choose technologically inferior cultures and threaten them to change their ways or we'll blow them all to hell..... in the name of peace.
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If any classic SF film merits a sequel, its this TDTESS. How would the last fifty years have played out if TDTESS had really happened? Would we have played nice? Would we have resolved our differences? Or would we still be beheading people because they liked to suck dick? And what are the ulterior motives of the aliens? They claim to be peaceful, but build super-bots like Gort? And why the hell would a tribe of primitives like humanity be of some concern to them?There is a tremendous amount of meat here, if only someone had the balls to tackle it.
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There's tons of good stuff in this movie. The audience I saw it with stayed through the closing credits-- the acid test for a movie's effectiveness.
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Dec 13, 2008 5:20:32 AM CST
when did people get such lofty ideas about science fiction?
by the power of greyskull
it's cheap, PULP fiction and there is plenty more GARBAGE out there than high friggin prose...
let's just keep it realistic when discussing a genre most people understand is basically just cheap thrills -
Al Gore himself said it doesn't matter what we do, the planet will be fine. It's just that depending on what we do, it might make life more difficult for everything living on the planet. Whether you agree with him or not, I'd have to say that if you look into what he says, no-one's seriously actually claiming that pollution from human beings is going to make the planet disappear in a fiery inferno or a puff of smoke.
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The new TDTESS is pointless. An almost terrible script, combined with an extremely flat performance from KR as Klaatu makes me think that filmmakers have totally lost the ability to produce a high-concept movie. Rennie in the original had plenty of persona - and was able to bring humor and sympathy into his role. This remake will be forgotten in about 3 weeks. And what is going on with Jacob Smith's hair? It's like a thing from another world!
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So when he says we're in a crisis, he really means we're in a crisisless crisis?Reminds me of Mark Foley's sex scandal that was devoid of actual sex.
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Awfully boring and boringly awful. Really, really boring. I was very bored. And I think others will be bored, too. Really bored.
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