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BLADE Directed by Stephen Norrington of Death Machine fame(?) and written by David Goyer, Blade came out in 1998 with rather mixed reviews. It did well enough in the box office to warrant two sequels, several games, and a TV show. It should be noted that this was the first Marvel box office success. It set the groundwork for comic book movies for the next 17+ years following it. When I first saw it as a 10 year old I thought it was loving amazing. My view has not changed in that time. Roger Ebert said "Blade ... is a movie that relishes high visual style. It uses the extreme camera angles, the bizarre costumes and sets, the exaggerated shadows, the confident cutting between long shots and extreme closeups. It slams ahead in pure visceral imagery." To talk specifically about the visual aesthetic of the movie I am forced to quote our own Uncle Boogyman and his amazing realization. Uncle Boogyman posted:Blade feels like a movie from a world where the '80s never happened and the '70s ran headlong right into the '90s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6UXQ_9IRo8 Ever since that point I have been really wanting to talk about the movie, in depth, with other people. Also, the cast is just great, I mean we have Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, and Tracy Lords. Half of that is just plain inspired casting. Anyways, might as well start it off since I am sure we will talk about everything as the time comes. Part 1: Pre-credit 0:00:00-0:02:05 Part 2: Blood Rave 0:02:05-0:11:00 Part 3: Introductions 0:11:00-0:22:50 Part 4: Fleshing out Blade and Frost 0:22:50-0:33:00 Fat Lou fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 23:55
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| # ? May 14, 2024 21:47 |
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Part 1: Pre-credit 0:00:00-0:02:05 This is going to me a small update because of the shortness of the scene.  The movie starts off with this ultra clean blown out white and blue tinted hospital hall. The only things that break this color scheme, for the entire scene, are blood, the text, and the emergency signs on the doors. I always found that this opening image to resemble church doors with the cross in the glass section up top being back lit by the light. You start to get some muffled distant panicked yelling. Immediately, the doors are flung open as triage doctors push through with someone on a stretcher.   The doctors are yelling about how she was bitten by some kind of animal and how her water is broken.  At a certain point, one of the doctors attempts to look through her wallet. At this point there is a menacing sounding breath and the victim, now identified as Vanessa Brooke, knocks the wallet out of his hands.   She seems to be lost as the heartbeat monitor goes haywire and her baby is being taken away. This part always stuck with me because between flashes of light, quick cutting, lack of head on the doctor, and lack of focus on the newborn you never get a good look at the baby. Everything makes it seem that the baby is monstrous in some way. That is also reinforced by how the doctor seemed to be defensively holding the baby so to keep the baby away from the mother and vise versa.  At this point is when the mother flatlines, but she still seems to be alive, and reaching for her baby, through pure will and adrenaline. I will try not to harp on Uncle Boogyman's comment too much, but goddamn, this scene is like a combination of a 90s emergency room procedural and 70s hospital horror movie wrapped into one. If anything, it is like if It's Alive happened on the set of ER. After it ends it goes to some timelapse videos of a city as it goes from day to night. Next update will have a bit more content being that is it the bloodrave scene! If you want to watch ahead that will be up until the 11 minute mark
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Jul 5, 2015 23:55
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Blade being a being a mix of hyper violent action flick and blaxploitation movie, and that it was made in the late nineties, is total lightning in a bottle. It's no surprise that comic books movies became a thing not long after.
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Jul 6, 2015 02:02
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I used to play the Blade club scene music while playing the first Devil May Cry. Blade is a movie that actually makes me like Stephen Dorff.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:12
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I went to school with a girl who fell madly in love with Stephen Dorff entirely because of this movie. She didn't give a poo poo about Blade himself--it was all about Dorff. She was quite vocal about him. Every time I see him crop up, I think of her.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:10
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We need more comic book movies like Blade, less Antvengers.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:18
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Neo Rasa posted:Blade being a being a mix of hyper violent action flick and blaxploitation movie, and that it was made in the late nineties, is total lightning in a bottle. It's no surprise that comic books movies became a thing not long after. Blade isn't a blaxploitation movie.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:45
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Blade might be my favourite movie ever. When I was 13 I got a DVD player for my birthday and it was the first movie I bought. So I'm excited for the rest of this thread.
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Jul 6, 2015 06:11
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What a coincidence, me and a friend have been watching through these movies again. Good poo poo, basically the only comic book movies I can actually stand to be honest, so it's nice that he's interested in seeing them again for the first time in a decade!
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Jul 6, 2015 09:18
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Was Snipes wearing shoulderpads on the poster? He always looked weird on it.
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Jul 6, 2015 10:16
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I felt like Blade went for cheap shocks and wasn't very well filmed. Let's be serious, either Watchmen, V For Vendetta or Sin City are the best comic book movies. Scratch that, "Punisher: Dirty Laundry" is the best comic book movie that will ever be made and it's ten minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWpK0wsnitc
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Jul 6, 2015 13:16
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Having just rewatched it last week I think the original TMNT might be the best comic book movie ever made, but Blade certainly doesn't get enough credit for what it did. I hate the sequels, but the original really was something else, I don't recall many other films quite like it.
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Jul 6, 2015 13:52
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I've not seen this movie since I was a kid but I can still remember the upcoming club scene with total clarity, it was so drat good. Great idea for a thread, looking forward to it!
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Jul 6, 2015 14:55
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Immortan posted:Blade isn't a blaxploitation movie. I did not say that it is, but that elements of the genre are in there. It's a movie about a guy whose career is being the ultimate badass by selling stolen watches to fund his personal kung fu war against a council of ineffective, blandly dressed white guys in a board room obsessed with racial purity.
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Jul 6, 2015 16:27
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Honest Thief posted:Was Snipes wearing shoulderpads on the poster? He always looked weird on it. The poster just has weird proportions in general, his hands and the sword are way too small to make sense compared to the size of his head.
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Jul 6, 2015 16:31
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An interesting bulking up of a then much lankier Snipes even in body armor. In Blade III they got their wish, he weighed enough that he was even bigger in just a shirt.
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Jul 6, 2015 17:46
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He just got fat.
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Jul 6, 2015 18:16
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Tezcatlipoca posted:He just got fat. That happens when you go to jail for 3 years for tax fraud. At least he finished the blade series before it happened though.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:33
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I'm sure it was a pretty easy shoot for him if even half the stories about it are true. The best unfounded one though is that supposedly at some point he read off a ton of dialogue in an impersonation of Jerry Lewis instead of his normal voice before cursing out the director and walking off into the night. I would kill for raw footage of that.
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Jul 6, 2015 20:19
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Neo Rasa posted:I did not say that it is, but that elements of the genre are in there. It's a movie about a guy whose career is being the ultimate badass by selling stolen watches to fund his personal kung fu war against a council of ineffective, blandly dressed white guys in a board room obsessed with racial purity. You are really stupid.
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Jul 6, 2015 22:22
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Tenzarin posted:At least he finished the blade series before it happened though. Yeah, thank god for that.
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Jul 6, 2015 22:55
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Hakkesshu posted:Having just rewatched it last week I think the original TMNT might be the best comic book movie ever made, but Blade certainly doesn't get enough credit for what it did. I hate the sequels, but the original really was something else, I don't recall many other films quite like it. It is pretty great. Good atmosphere.
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Jul 7, 2015 00:28
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Neo Rasa posted:I did not say that it is, but that elements of the genre are in there. It's a movie about a guy whose career is being the ultimate badass by selling stolen watches to fund his personal kung fu war against a council of ineffective, blandly dressed white guys in a board room obsessed with racial purity. I agree with this. More than that, the one white helper Blade has is handicapped and functions as yet another minority that is push aside by society. Also, the primary black character on the vampire's side is Vanessa and she is just the sex slave of Frost.
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Jul 7, 2015 05:53
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Immortan posted:You are really stupid. Neo Rasa is totally right though, Blade is obviously influenced by blaxploitation, both this movie and the comic books! Great thread Fat Lou, I can't wait to look at the relationship between Frost and Blade, which i always thought was neat. I dunno if I would consider it the greatest comic book movie, but it's definitely up there.
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Jul 7, 2015 06:39
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Very excited to be in on the ground floor as i loving LOVE these threads and wish there were a lot more. Looking forward to the rest Fat Lou 
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Jul 7, 2015 07:22
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Going to be fun following this; Blade is great. Good luck!
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Jul 7, 2015 19:12
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Blade is a funny trilogy of movies because I don't think anything in those or seven hours of film ever came close to topping that amazing opening rave scene. While it isn't exactly high art, I love the bait-and-switch the director pulls on the audience by opening the movie with a human being lured to his death by a vampire. Then just as the human is about to piss himself you're introduced to the real monster of the movie: Wesley Snipes, a dude so awesomely badass that he inspires fear in the vampires that were, seconds ago, being presented as scary monsters. You can ever hear them murming "That's him! That's the day walker!" The rest of the movie is pretty dumb but I really loved it as a kid and can still enjoy this movie with a lot of fondness. There's just so much enthusiasm behind the mindless action and it's got that very Matrixy feeling atmosphere with lots of back alleys and rooftops and black leather trench coats and sunglasses (really, it's remarkable to think this movie came out before the first Matrix did). Also, I rewatched this movie a few months ago and was short of shocked at how restrained the action movies feel compared to modern comic book movies. I think the entire last action scene in the temple takes maybe ten minutes from the first badguy getting killed to the big bad being defeated, and it's all just guys doing wire-fu stunts on a single set. If they remade this movie today then you just know that Blade and Frost would be punching each other through CGI skyscrapers for forty five minutes straight.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:16
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Helsing posted:Also, I rewatched this movie a few months ago and was short of shocked at how restrained the action movies feel compared to modern comic book movies. I think the entire last action scene in the temple takes maybe ten minutes from the first badguy getting killed to the big bad being defeated, and it's all just guys doing wire-fu stunts on a single set. If they remade this movie today then you just know that Blade and Frost would be punching each other through CGI skyscrapers for forty five minutes straight. The original ending for Blade was Frost turning into a giant CGI blood tornado, but they changed it to the fistfight at the end when they realized that the ending didn't work at all when your bad guy turns into giant red CGI globs for a final confrontation.
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Jul 7, 2015 21:22
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Crappy Jack posted:The original ending for Blade was Frost turning into a giant CGI blood tornado, but they changed it to the fistfight at the end when they realized that the ending didn't work at all when your bad guy turns into giant red CGI globs for a final confrontation. That sounds so much better than him being filled up with some magic vampire exploding drug that turns him into a CGI Blob that explodes.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:36
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Post 9-11 User posted:I felt like Blade went for cheap shocks and wasn't very well filmed. Let's be serious, either Watchmen, V For Vendetta or Sin City are the best comic book movies. Sin City is the single most boring comic book movie because it's literally just recreating panels from the comic. None of this is right.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:59
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Also how dare you make this thread without telling me motherfuckerTenzarin posted:That sounds so much better than him being filled up with some magic vampire exploding drug that turns him into a CGI Blob that explodes. Uh but then you wouldn't get the greatest line in the history of cinema followed by Blade spinkicking a syringe into Frost's head.
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Jul 7, 2015 23:00
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Some motherfuckers always tryin' to screenshot uphill... Looking forward to this!
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Jul 7, 2015 23:31
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Tenzarin posted:That sounds so much better than him being filled up with some magic vampire exploding drug that turns him into a CGI Blob that explodes. Not really. There's rough cuts of it on at least some of the DVDs, and it's just not every exciting or good. If remember right they defeat him in a similar way as well, they smash the syringes so the vampire explodey goo gets sucked up into the vortex instead of Blade turning Frost into a pin cushion.
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Jul 8, 2015 01:46
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Yeah it's a thing that could have potentially been cool but the CG effects and stuff for it are just bad, and they were wise to keep it to just the CGI blood pulling him back together.
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Jul 8, 2015 02:38
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I watched this last night and you're going to have to work pretty loving hard to convince me it's the greatest comic book movie. You, fat lou, are the ice skating motherfucker in this situation 
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Jul 8, 2015 02:41
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Literally The Worst posted:Also how dare you make this thread without telling me motherfucker I mentioned it in gen chat you nerd. I should have part two up tomorrow since I am off of work. I am dissapointed by all these bad opinions from people who do not think Blade is the greatest comic book movie.
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Jul 8, 2015 03:10
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Crappy Jack posted:The original ending for Blade was Frost turning into a giant CGI blood tornado, but they changed it to the fistfight at the end when they realized that the ending didn't work at all when your bad guy turns into giant red CGI globs for a final confrontation. The ending they have is kind of cute in that they're attempting to somehow make this short emo looking white dude with the personality of a sneering "gently caress you dad" teenager come off as a genuine physical threat to Wesley Snipes. It doesn't really work but it's still satisfying and I feel like the fight choreography isn't bad for a pre-Matrix action movie. Tenzarin posted:That sounds so much better than him being filled up with some magic vampire exploding drug that turns him into a CGI Blob that explodes. Whens the last time you watched the original Blade? Because the CGI hasn't aged very well.
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Jul 8, 2015 03:35
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Helsing posted:Whens the last time you watched the original Blade? Because the CGI hasn't aged very well. I feel that it mostly holds up pretty well. Most of the cgi only lasts for a brief amount of time and is moving quickly so it does not stand out that horribly.
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Jul 8, 2015 04:03
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The CG is fine. If anything it only falters when they linger a bit too long on the puppets and stuff that have CG involved also like when Frost blows up at the end or when Udo Kier enjoys a beautiful sunrise. None of them are particularly bad and I think they hold up waaay better than other films of the era attempting similar visuals like Hideaway.
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Jul 8, 2015 04:46
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| # ? May 14, 2024 21:47 |
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The thing that does mark it as an early comic book movie is how much exposition is in it. At the time, you can see the film makers didn't know how much they can trust the audience to keep up with, and so we get lots of scenes making sure we get exactly how Blade and his world work. By comparison, things like Guardians of the Galaxy and Winter Soldier spend about two minutes on exposition and trust you to keep up. The thing that has aged incredibly well is just how crazy Snipes plays Blade as. He's not a surly good guy so much as a bad guy let loose on other bad guys. It is committed to the idea of him being a monster.
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Jul 8, 2015 07:06
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