CATS: Release the Butthole Cut.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > CATS: Release the Butthole Cut.

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angerbot: Mar 23, 2004; plob

General Dog posted:

Most of these cats seem pretty happy with their current situation

Yes OK but maybe death is better

# ? Jan 3, 2020 17:26

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 11:53

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

There's a bit of an implication in the original stage play with the cats know they are putting on a play for a human audience and none of the stuff is actually happening

# ? Jan 3, 2020 17:28

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

angerbeet posted:

It really was Skimbleshanks who should have got to die

Skimbleshanks is already living his best life. No rebirth necessary.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 17:38

angerbot: Mar 23, 2004; plob

Maxwell Lord posted:

Skimbleshanks is already living his best life. No rebirth necessary.

Well, he's the railway cat.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 17:39

Owlofcreamcheese: May 22, 2005; Can't post for 9 years!; Buglord

General Dog posted:

Most of these cats seem pretty happy with their current situation

The general idea is a bunch of the cats trying to win by saying "I'm the best cat. Of the type of cat I am, no one is better" then they all learn a valuable lesson that the one that should win is the girl they all hated and called a slut. Like the lowest of the low should get another chance.

Which like, was a pretty garbled up message when it was the message of the play but is like, even less coherently applied in the movie.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 17:50

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

One thing I noticed is that the actors all seemed to have slightly different ideas on how to play cats and at no point did anyone try to get any consistency out of it.

Like, Ian McKellen is licking water from a pan and rubbing up against posts (this frankly killed me) and being very into the "old man cat" quality of Gus. James Corden and Rebel Wilson are just doing their schtick. The cats who are professional dancers mostly focus on that kind of grace in their movement. Jennifer Hudson is absolutely sincere and plays very heartbroken and of course just loving BELTS her song. Taylor Swift and Idris Elba really seem to "get it" the most, playing villains helps, but they vamp and go all panto with it- Swift is acting like she's on stage or in a video, which is normally a bad idea but it's really the only way the material works. I am not sure what Judi Dench is doing.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 18:03

YggiDee: Sep 12, 2007; WASP CREW

Judi Dench was cast as Jennyanydots and Grizabella in the original London 1981 production, but she had to bail at the last minute. So I think that makes her the only actor in the movie familiar with the original production. I don't know if that would change her approach at all.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 18:10

Safety Factor: Oct 31, 2009; Grimey Drawer

I'd watch an entire movie about Skimbleshanks. I want to know more about his life. I desperately want to see a shot of him as an actual cat in his little pants and hat and with his waxed whisker mustache. I want to see this cat meowing at trains.

I also want to know why he wants to be ritually murdered.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 18:50

Prism Mirror Lens: Oct 9, 2012; ~*"The most intelligent and meaning-rich film he could think of was Shaun of the Dead, I don't think either brain is going to absorb anything you post."*~

The cats in the original production, because they were all professional dancers, had cat-like grace and elegance and dignity. Even the more comedy cats were treated as dignified (Bustopher Jones) or impressively athletic. Then in the movie you get James Corden saying hiss. It really is a film made by someone who has vaguely heard of cats but never seen one. The film equivalent of medieval drawings of lions or the Horniman walrus

# ? Jan 3, 2020 18:53

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Maxwell Lord posted:

One thing I noticed is that the actors all seemed to have slightly different ideas on how to play cats and at no point did anyone try to get any consistency out of it.

Like, Ian McKellen is licking water from a pan and rubbing up against posts (this frankly killed me) and being very into the "old man cat" quality of Gus. James Corden and Rebel Wilson are just doing their schtick. The cats who are professional dancers mostly focus on that kind of grace in their movement. Jennifer Hudson is absolutely sincere and plays very heartbroken and of course just loving BELTS her song. Taylor Swift and Idris Elba really seem to "get it" the most, playing villains helps, but they vamp and go all panto with it- Swift is acting like she's on stage or in a video, which is normally a bad idea but it's really the only way the material works. I am not sure what Judi Dench is doing.

"Touch wood" and then Ian McKellen rubs his head on the post is the only good joke in the entire loving movie.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 19:20

josh04: Oct 19, 2008; "THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"
_{This title contains sponsored content.}

Pick posted:

There's a bit of an implication in the original stage play with the cats know they are putting on a play for a human audience and none of the stuff is actually happening

The movie very effectively dynamites this by making Victoria into an audience surrogate. If there's any ironic distance involved, she's never initiated into it and so neither are we.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 19:38

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

I think that's what makes the final passage so baffling. You ARE talking to us, the humans, now? Okay? When did this happen?

# ? Jan 3, 2020 19:51

YggiDee: Sep 12, 2007; WASP CREW

She's clearly speaking to Rickitipsle, the camera cat.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 19:55

TremorX: Jan 19, 2001; All Hail Big Hairy Mike

I think I figured it out.

Jellicle Cats are cats that have been spayed or neutered. This is why the semi-sexuality seems so awkward, and it also explains why the cats are all willing to die -- going to the Heaviside layer means being reincarnated as a cat that can reproduce.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 22:08

vegetables: Mar 10, 2012

josh04 posted:

The movie very effectively dynamites this by making Victoria into an audience surrogate. If there's any ironic distance involved, she's never initiated into it and so neither are we.

Unless the human audience they�re playing to is not us as the real audience but a weird, uncanny one within the CATS universe, who find its jokes funny and its cockroach-women beguiling. In the stage show the cats are apart from us, but here we are trapped with them

# ? Jan 3, 2020 22:23

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

This movie, much like the toxoplasmosis parasite that cats carry, has infected my brain. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw it, and I've looked up and listened to the movie soundtrack... I think I...like Cats now?

I'm so confused.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 22:50

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

My wife and I saw TROS on New Year's Eve instead of CATS and I can unironically say we made the wrong call. There's no way CATS wouldn't have been a more memorable, interesting and dare I say, entertaining experience.

# ? Jan 3, 2020 22:55

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

You can start off the new year the right way by seeing Cats, though...

# ? Jan 3, 2020 23:03

ThePopeOfFun: Feb 15, 2010

Maxwell Lord posted:

All the composite shots in this film were like the CSO shots in a 70s Doctor Who episode. It’s astonishingly inept.

At this point I assume all the “patches” have gone out but I still saw human hands, rings, at one point a couple of cats are wearing sneakers- and I can’t even tell if those are mistakes because I can’t tell what they’re aiming for. Do they want it to look kinda unreal? Do they want to call attention to the artifice? It’s not committed to an aesthetic so everything just kinda looks wrong.

Are you saying it's to late to see the original trainwreck?

# ? Jan 3, 2020 23:59

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

ThePopeOfFun posted:

Are you saying it's to late to see the original trainwreck?

Honestly I don�t think it will ever be too late. There is only so much they can fix (and with the film flopping how much good money can they throw after bad?)

The film is inherently broken.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 00:03

Man Musk: Jan 13, 2010

ThePopeOfFun posted:

Are you saying it's to late to see the original trainwreck?

there's still sneakers cats and floating cats

Bogus Adventure posted:

feeling cute & having a jellicle day

# ? Jan 4, 2020 01:06

Man Musk: Jan 13, 2010

# ? Jan 4, 2020 01:28

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Show that to anyone who complained about the current version

# ? Jan 4, 2020 01:54

WeedlordGoku69: Feb 12, 2015; by Cyrano4747

That... actually looks a thousand times better

Even if you dislike anime art styles, having the human face and the cat body both be animated pretty much 100% gets rid of the weird dissonance the movie ended up with

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:02

galagazombie: Oct 31, 2011; A silly little mouse!

Or we could stop offending God and as a species swear off cat/human hybrids be they anime or cgi.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:12

fauna: Dec 6, 2018; Caught between two worlds...

galagazombie posted:

Or we could stop offending God and as a species swear off cat/human hybrids be they anime or cgi.

or flesh

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:28

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Why do you want the cats to be visually appealing, that sucks

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:32

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

Which do you prefer: Thundercats-style Cats or Braids Cats?

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:47

The Saddest Rhino: Apr 29, 2009; Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.

make the cats all the tigers in that zootopia shakira music video

# ? Jan 4, 2020 02:57

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Bogus Adventure posted:

Which do you prefer: Thundercats-style Cats or Braids Cats?

Rapping street cat Tugger was terrible.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 03:09

Esser-Z: Jun 3, 2012

galagazombie posted:

Or we could stop offending God and as a species swear off cat/human hybrids be they anime or cgi.

Counterpoint: offending God is a most noble aim and must continue at all costs

I quite like those designs, and intricate hand animation preserves the "wow, that's impressive that humans can do that" aspect of the stage play in a way the movie did not.

Esser-Z fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jan 4, 2020

# ? Jan 4, 2020 03:18

Grizzled Patriarch: Mar 27, 2014; These dentures won't stop me from tearing out jugulars in Thunderdome.

Still thinking about those sneaker cats.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 03:26

sethsez: Jul 14, 2006; He's soooo dreamy...

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

Still thinking about those sneaker cats.

Sneaker cats were played by Les Twins, extremely famous dancers.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 03:33

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

Still thinking about those sneaker cats.

those cats ruuuuled though

# ? Jan 4, 2020 03:44

Bogus Adventure: Jan 11, 2017; More like "Bulges Adventure"

sethsez posted:

Sneaker cats were played by Les Twins, extremely famous dancers.

Pick posted:

those cats ruuuuled though

# ? Jan 4, 2020 04:56

Grizzled Patriarch: Mar 27, 2014; These dentures won't stop me from tearing out jugulars in Thunderdome.

Pick posted:

those cats ruuuuled though

They did indeed.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 04:57

Ccs: Feb 25, 2011

I�m sharing a lot of the best posts from this thread with the vfx crew who worked on this movie. Your guys reactions are great and exactly the kind of thing I hoped to see.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 06:44