Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: 42 on September 17, 2004, 05:25:31 PM
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So after seeing Sky Captain, I'm kind of in a quandry. On one side, it is very technically innovative. Yet, the whole movie feels like I've already seen it. Course, the intent of the film-makers was to create that feeling of familiarity. So I give the filmmakers props for intentionally making a film that feels like I've seen it before, even though I really hadn't seen it before.
Course, normally it is a bad thing to make a film that feels too much like another film. But I think what I enjoyed about this film is that it repeated enjoyable elements from other films. If it repeated something that wasn't all that enjoyable to begin with, then I would have been disappointed.
And I don't think that I can entirely fault a film for repeating something that is enjoyable, entertaining and fun, particularly when they do it well.
Other stuff, I'm glad Angelina Jolie got edited to just a few minutes of screen time. If her character had been a regular character, she would have gotten annoying. Normally, Jolie is inherently annoying, but thanks to the miracle of modern technology, some of her obnoxiousness has been taken out.
I thought Polly Perkins was a great character. She was kind of the Frodo to the Arogorn of Sky Captain.
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I just got back from seeing it, and personally, I loved it. The throwbacks to old 30's and 40's sci-fi were absolutely wonderful. I even like Jolie's character, and I can't stand her as an actress.
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well she wasnt as annoying five years ago when she was filmed for this movie, yes it took five years to do all the CG, but I think it was time well spent. it was an awesome movie and I'd see it again in a heart beat, also I dont know if anyone noticed but there's actually a scene where there in atlantis, when th amphibioius division is fighting, it was really cool to see a sunken city in the background]
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I really liked the visuals. Very art deco-ish. The actors didn't interact enough with their environments, though. It got better as the movie went on, but the part where Gwyneth was about to get stepped on... c'mon! Just not believable. The acting seemed like it was trying to be a throwback to the old 40s style, but it ended up just flat. Cary Grant had style, flair--Jude Law kind of got the picture. But Gwyneth is no Rosalind Russell. I was looking forward to the fast talking of His Girl Friday or something like that. The one-liners were clever (especially the last line), but the dialog didn't keep up the whole way through.
I did enjoy it, though. It was funny and beautiful. Favorite line: "Can't we just die for once without all this bickering?"
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I really enjoyed the movie. But it's been a treat to try and convince my friend that it actually was a good movie that we saw. He just kept complaining that there weren't any zombies or something else.
I think, 42, that Polly was more the Pippin to my Gandalf analogy than a Frodo to my Aragorn. You know, there but sometimes utterly useless.
I, personally, loved the robots. As well, Dex was my favorite character.
Not too sure if I can really feel a prequel as much as some others can. Seems too much to do a prequel.
To add an endum that I forgot, after the movie I was at my friends house and since he was upset that there were no zombies in the movie I began to eat his brother and him as if I were a zombie. Me and his brother (yes, me) also ate him together like we were both zombies. Although it was fun, my jaw now hurts.
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I went and saw Sky Captain last night on a date and I loved it. I real did like the throwbacks to old 40's, but through out the whole move when ever the robot begin to attack I thought that the man of steel would come out and save the day. Other than that the Over all the film was great.
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welllll
Ok, better than suck. Pretty good, actually. But not amazing. I don't know where that critic was getting "If you don't like Sky Captain than you don't like movies" line. Perhaps he's on Paramount's payroll. It's good, but hardly of that caliber.
THe visuals, pretty good, though at times incomplete. I agree with the assessment that the characters don't always interact with it realistically. Particularly in Nepal. They look like they're running through a studio set. Which is what the actors are doing, but it's hardly convincing that the characters are supposed to be in a snowy wasteland.
And I'm glad you all liked Franky as a character, because that seemed to be the only cahracter. to fair, I sound really harsh with that criticism. Part of the work is that they're capitalizing on heavy stereotyped characterizations. They expect you to already know the character type and build on that. Fair enough. And they stay true to that. the characters are not deep, but they're not meant to be, so it's ok.
They do a really good job hitting all the many types of pulp scenarios traditionally used. They even found a good way to let in dinosaurs. fun fun fun.
Too bad they don't stay true to the realism they develop. For example, If Sky Captain's got a crack army, why are they so crap? i mean, there's NO reason why, if a military outfit sees so many unidentified aircraft coming in so fast they wouldn't scramble at least a small unit of fighters. Just in case. Instead, they sat and waited for them to show up and shoot all their planes there on the airfield. Why? They could have still gotten the effect they wanted by having the good guys fight back
Also, if it's that lead ship that's boosting the signal, why doesn't cap shoot down the other aircraft? And if it's that ship, how can it be the evil robot lady agent?
i think I'm being fair and not just ignoring the genre it's part of. After all, I"m not one to care that they can fly straight to Nepal but they'll run out of feul on the way back, or that they just leave behind their buddy in nepal after it appears he's been betrayed by his own men and they don't know which ones, or that they have tons of ammo, or that they should all have radiation sickness. (though I do wonder why the amphibeous squadron isn't shooting back until the last unit...)
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oh, and i liked the music a lot too. May get the soundtrack. Good role playing background.
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Loved the movie, was at least everything I was expecting. Could easily have been broken up and shown serial-style. I couldn't help but smile/laugh to myself at some points in the film, such as Franky's kamikaze run. Just really solid pulpy goodness!
It's a great old fashioned adventure flick. Something that should be enjoyed for what it is and not over analyzed. :P
Wish Dex had been in it more. "Try shaking it!"
The whole conversation about taking a picture of the space ark was great.
The soundtrack is great also, highly recommend it. It's very John Williams-esque.
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see, I don't think I overanalyzed. These weren't thinking about it questions I had. These were questions my WIFE came up with, and she doesn't analyze these things at all. It seemed to contradict everything they said that this crack military unit got squished because they were too lazy to take off. And what kind of unit goes into battle with only two shots each, and then hangs around after using their shots and does nothing further?
However, you're right about the pulpy moments. They were good. I just don't think this movie will be worth adding to my library.
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I wasn't saying you (or your wife) over anaylzed it, that was a just a general statement. Lots of times I hear people say a movie was bad that I enjoy. Maybe I just have lower standards? :D
I'm the kind of person who doesn't think "X looks like a good movie", I think "X looks like an entertaining movie." And for me, that's what movies are all about, being entertained. Were the Charlie's Angels films "good"? Not really but they were fun for me.
I tend not to notice where dramatic license is taken (like the pilots not scrambling) unless it's a huge freakin plot hole.
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well, now we're getting into the debate that EUOL and I like to have. What's "good" in terms of the final production? Even what's "Entertaining" is different. Honestly, something that doesn't make me think or isn't careful about its presentation will always be less entertaining for me than something made by someone who cares about the consequences of the characters actions and the elements he adds.
And come on, you know that it'd be MUCH cooler to have those airplanes up in the air dogfighting the robots. Sure it'd add ten minutes to the movie, but wouldn't you sit through it?
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Gotta agree with SE on the dogfighting here.
I enjoyed the movie as well, but I don't think it will ever reach the "favorite movie list." It definately had the pulp elements discussed in the other thread, and the CG was decent as well.
I guess I still feel like it was missing something...but I don't think zombies were it.
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but think about how much that ten minutes of dogfighting would cost to animate. I mean I know it would seem like a drop in the bucket compared to how much the movie cost total, but thats still a lot of money...
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I don't think that argument matters much. It would MORE than make up for in cool than it woudl cost
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It definately would, but they might have run out of budget.
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Eh. Then maybe they could have cut Angelina Jolie and used someone else who would be more worth the salary.
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There's no arguing more dogfighting almost anywhere in the movie wouldn't have been worth it. I suppose if it'd been Sky Captain and His Crack Pilot Corp there would have been. Who knows, maybe there was but it got cut from the final film?
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if you buy the DVD (when it comes out) you let me know if it's in the cut scenes. If so, I'll consider buying it myself.
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I went and saw the movie today. I enjoyed it.
How much was cut out of it? Last week I saw a thing on TV talking about the making of, and it said there was (and showed some clips of) a whole movie done ahead of time in stick figures so that the actors would know where to move for each scene on the bluescreen. Sounded like the story was a pretty complete entity. The stick figure version would be a pretty cool extra for the DVD.
I don't really have many movies to compare this to. Flash Gordon comes to mind. Anything else? I haven't really seen any 40s flicks like the serials my Mom watched as a kid, except for some things on MST3K.
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Don't know if there were an cut parts, we were just theorizing why they didn't scramble some planes when the wing-flappers attacked the base.
And for other movies, I'd recommend Disney's Rocketeer, which is IMO the best recent "pulp era" type movie. The Shadow & The Phantom weren't all bad either.
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actually, the Phantom was pretty bad.
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The Shadow is one of my favorites from this genre. Terrible career choice for Baldwin, but a fun flick.
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The Phantom comic books were very good. The Phantom movie was.... ok, not terrible not brilliant. A fairly mainstream movie.
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Ah, okay, Rocketeer. Yeah, that was definitely better than Sky Captain, and definitely the same genre.
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I was asked to try and define pulp fiction. Can anyone give me a "clear" definition?
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pulp fiction is fiction like unto the fiction that typically showed up in science fiction and comics of hte 'pulp' era. The pulp era is so named because of the inexpensive, pulpy paper that was used for magazines in the early 20th century. There was a LOT of science fiction that featured science not necessarily well iresearched (though some of it was). Often they would ignore inconvenient scientific principles. Focus was on action/adventure and usually featured characters that young, socially awkward readers could identify with. These characters would become something that filled the reader's power fantasies. Emphasis was on "cool" and "not seen before." Obviously, good examples include Flash Gordon, Indiana Jones, and Sky Captain (though two of these appear well after the standard "pulp era" is over).
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Check out Pulp Zone (http://www.pulpzone.com) and Pulp.Net (http://thepulp.net/index.html).
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Back from the dead due to DVD release yesterday :)
Even though it's a "Collector's Edition" it fells kinda light. I've been told Wal-Mart's version is packed with an extra disc with some kind of documentary on it.
The menus definatley fit in theme-wise but they're nothing too exciting. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the Star Wars dvd menus.
Has 2 deleted scenes which were not very interesting, IMO. And one of them was unfinished blue screen and animatics.
The behind the scenes/making of documentary stuff is great, but I'm a geek like that and will usually eat that up. It's interesting to see how they went from a 6 minute short (included on dvd) to getting top name actors and a budget.
And fyi: it does come in wide and full screen formats, so check it before you get it.
Seeing it again makes me sad that it didn't do so well in the theatres. I was really hoping this was going to kickstart a new generation of (good) pulp inspired movies.
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I'm sure it would have if it had been "good" But it wasn't. I found it pretty painful, and I like pulp.
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I actually (as seen above) found it much better than I expected to. I felt there were major flaws though. Flaws that could have easily been over come with 5 minutes of thought, which are, in my mind, the least excusable sort.
I still enjoyed the film.
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I just saw it an hour ago and I have to say that this movie kinda stunk I mean the graphic were good.....for a video game! I mean come on although they were real actors it felt as if I was watching some huge computer program with actors thrown into it I mean I love sci fi but I SEEN ONES WITH MORE REALISM...like Alien or Stargate...maybe I'm wrong here but thats wut I THINK.
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Well, it's not meant to be realistic, it's meant to be stylised. And why are you calling yourself a moron?
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Well, Mastershake, you're not necessarily a moron. It just may be that you're not familiar with the pulp and film noir genres of movies.