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FiftySeven posted:Loads of people are going to hear that its critically acclaimed, go to see it and then be bored to tears by this film. Tbf this movie may have resonated with me because I went through a breakup recently, so I empathized acutely with the themes of abandonment, of struggling to keep up a positive demeanor, of wanting desperately to simultaneously confront and reconcile with someone who abandoned you. I can see a wider audience missing a lot of that.
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Sep 21, 2019 23:50
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I'm willing to be persuaded that this was a very good or *extremely* bad movie. I'm kind of leaning towards number 2, but I'll watch it again on Netflix to make up my mind. What the gently caress was all that?
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Sep 22, 2019 00:21
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FiftySeven posted:
audiences are trash
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Sep 22, 2019 00:39
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I don't know, man, all the stuff about being alone resonated with me. And the realization at the end that 'we are alone' means we should treasure one another and nurture those connections and not leave them aside for the sack of 'scientific achievements'... that hit me hard.
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Sep 22, 2019 01:01
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stratofarius posted:I don't know, man, all the stuff about being alone resonated with me. And the realization at the end that 'we are alone' means we should treasure one another and nurture those connections and not leave them aside for the sack of 'scientific achievements'... that hit me hard. But what if Dad had found alien civilizations? Would we then have to conclude that, hey, maybe sometimes you do have to abandon your freakishly small-eared son back on Earth in order to make the greatest scientific discovery in history?
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Sep 22, 2019 01:41
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stratofarius posted:I don't know, man, all the stuff about being alone resonated with me. And the realization at the end that 'we are alone' means we should treasure one another and nurture those connections and not leave them aside for the sack of 'scientific achievements'... that hit me hard. I think, yeah, that's a nice message, but the movie didn't really give it much substance. What does it mean for Roy to make a connection with his ex-wife in that last scene, when there is absolutely no substance to her character but as something for him to regret?
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Sep 22, 2019 01:48
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professor metis posted:I think, yeah, that's a nice message, but the movie didn't really give it much substance. What does it mean for Roy to make a connection with his ex-wife in that last scene, when there is absolutely no substance to her character but as something for him to regret? But she had a voiceover line that said "I am my own person" therefore she is a good character
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Sep 22, 2019 03:14
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professor metis posted:I think, yeah, that's a nice message, but the movie didn't really give it much substance. What does it mean for Roy to make a connection with his ex-wife in that last scene, when there is absolutely no substance to her character but as something for him to regret? I get what you're saying, and it really does come down to the fact that they didn't want to dedicate any time to the wife. I feel like the wife was an afterthought, a way to make Roy's desire to connect again clearer. I think I'd like to see a version of the movie where you just never see her or her face, literally separating Roy from others, and at the end you finally see her face for the first time, but I guess that'd be a waste of Liv Tyler? Anyway, even though I liked it, I reiterate I'd love to see a narration-less cut.
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Sep 22, 2019 03:47
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movie sucked rear end from start to finish. At the end when TLJ yelled down to BP, "Roy??" the camera should have panned up to a full frontal naked TLJ holding a handful of glowing antimatter. And then cut to credits with the wilhelm scream.
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Sep 22, 2019 04:01
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stratofarius posted:I get what you're saying, and it really does come down to the fact that they didn't want to dedicate any time to the wife. I feel like the wife was an afterthought, a way to make Roy's desire to connect again clearer. I think I'd like to see a version of the movie where you just never see her or her face, literally separating Roy from others, and at the end you finally see her face for the first time, but I guess that'd be a waste of Liv Tyler? yeah the solution to the movie is to the make the female character even more of an empty shell that exists only for the man's personal growth
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Sep 22, 2019 04:07
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blue squares posted:yeah the solution to the movie is to the make the female character even more of an empty shell that exists only for the man's personal growth Look, it's a very big problem within the movie, and to truly fix it you would have to basically rewrite and reshoot. Which is why I don't think that's the 'solution' for the movie, especially because I like it as it is, but rather an alternative version. Like I said, I would personally rather see the cut where she's not even there, which apparently is what the movie was originally like. I can understand why Liv was added, but I think it's probably one of the movie's major problems.
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Sep 22, 2019 04:57
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cardiacarrest123 posted:movie sucked rear end from start to finish. At the end when TLJ yelled down to BP, "Roy??" the camera should have panned up to a full frontal naked TLJ holding a handful of glowing antimatter. And then cut to credits with the wilhelm scream. Were TLJ's legs extremely tiny or was it a trick of perspective? I only saw them in a single scene at the end and they were like one third as large as normal. The rest of the movie was just his gross earlobes but given Brad's miniature ears I think I'm right. Perhaps even a connection between the three elements, tying into the Catholic mythology of the Holy Trinity and the consumerization of space and faith.
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Sep 22, 2019 06:42
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Would love to see how many times James Gray tried and failed to get the rights to Final Fantasy X before throwing this together. What a waste of time.
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Sep 22, 2019 07:05
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This movie really was an outrageous piece of poo poo. Directors also need to start treating physics as a character in movies, not an optional feature. Unless you go full Star Wars. Every time a movie which presents itself as having realistic space physics, obviously fucks up the space physics, it waves "PLOT ARMOUR" in front of your face. You just don't believe anything you are seeing which makes it impossible to care about the scenes or the plot. You feel like you're watching a scripted series of events, rather than watching an interesting narrative, which in turn removes all suspense, mystery and tension from any of the scenes. Usually these moments of dumbass space physics will telegraph a plot point as well so the plot becomes predictable and uninteresting. Realistically: We know when we watch a movie that the main character isn't going to die 30 minutes into the film. We also know that we are indeed watching a scripted series of events. However, good film-making will make you forget that. Then when the point of this movie was revealed, all I could think was: "The best way you could think of making that point was by making an absolutely bullshit journey through space, that nobody could possibly believe? I'm pretty sure literally any other scenario would be better." Let's not forget That the entire first half of the movie was getting him to Mars so he could make an audio transmission to his Dad. This entire half of the movie was made unnecessary with the invention of audio recordings and email. What a waste of loving time.
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Sep 22, 2019 15:48
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H13 posted:
Disagree: Theyve setup an adversarial future where conflict means they have to take some precaution. They go to Mars to specifically tight beam transmit a message presumably so no one will realize the US limabean project is the one loving poo poo up for everyone as the project had already been declared lost publicly. The movie does go through great lengths to make the secrecy and duplicity of everyone involved obvious. I liked it, the music was great in that clearly ripping off other sci movies way.
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Sep 22, 2019 16:18
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i feel like the griping over physics misses the point. the movie is far more interested in using space as a metaphor for the isolating effects of trauma than recreating The Martian. pitt's increasingly improbable stunts should not be seen as something that could literally happen but a representation of how impossible it can feel to confront the source of one's pain and re-enter society. it's easy to retreat inward and abandon all human connection, as tommy lee jones does to the detriment of himself and everyone around him, but pitt never gives up and he is rewarded for his perseverance with a far more fulfilling life. to put it another way, this is a very small movie that uses the grand imagery of space to underscore its message. you could probably peel away the filter of "space" and put this story's beats in virtually any setting.
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Sep 22, 2019 17:20
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Are TLJs eye bags that bad or were they done up to mimic the angry, bad space monkey?
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Sep 22, 2019 18:25
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Does the marketing for this movie emphasize it as a realistic space flick? Because I didn't see any marketing for it, but that seems to be people's number one problem.
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Sep 22, 2019 19:54
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stratofarius posted:Does the marketing for this movie emphasize it as a realistic space flick? Because I didn't see any marketing for it, but that seems to be people's number one problem. Not really no. But that's definitely not the #1 complaint. The garbage script is
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Sep 22, 2019 20:27
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stratofarius posted:Does the marketing for this movie emphasize it as a realistic space flick? Because I didn't see any marketing for it, but that seems to be people's number one problem. https://www.space.com/ad-astra-imax-trailer-space-movie.html quote:"Ad Astra" will feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie," Director James Gray said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival. Gray also described the film as "sort of like if you got 'Apocalypse Now' and '2001' in a giant mashup and you put a little [Joseph] Conrad in there."
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Sep 22, 2019 20:33
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drat, that's a dumb description. It was certainly not that.
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Sep 22, 2019 20:36
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I'm not really a stickler for scientific accuracy in my sci-fi. One of my favourite movies is Total Recall and I'm pretty sure peoples heads don't swell up and explode when outside on Mars, but at least it was internally consistent and care was taken in the set design and plot to keep things that way. Ad Astra is all over the place.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:00
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what about ad astra was internally inconsistent?
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Sep 22, 2019 21:35
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QuoProQuid posted:what about ad astra was internally inconsistent? Mostly how it treated gravity.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:41
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QuoProQuid posted:i feel like the griping over physics misses the point. the movie is far more interested in using space as a metaphor for the isolating effects of trauma than recreating The Martian. pitt's increasingly improbable stunts should not be seen as something that could literally happen but a representation of how impossible it can feel to confront the source of one's pain and re-enter society. it's easy to retreat inward and abandon all human connection, as tommy lee jones does to the detriment of himself and everyone around him, but pitt never gives up and he is rewarded for his perseverance with a far more fulfilling life. A good post that summarizes my opinion of the movie. Is this the new movie that cool kids like to hate now?
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Sep 22, 2019 21:53
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Whining about people liking or hating a movie you like or hate is idiotic. No one is saying you shouldn't enjoy it.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:56
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im not sure i understand what about the movie’s representation of gravity was so significant to ruin the experience. can you be more specific about what you mean?
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Sep 22, 2019 22:01
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QuoProQuid posted:pitt never gives up and he is rewarded for his perseverance with a far more fulfilling life. Yeah, if you find sitting at some bar having a beer waiting for a woman we know nothing about more compelling than exploring the question of whether there's extraterrestrial life, the ending of the movie probably works better than it did for me. Particularly when the first half of the movie is spent on a guided tour of how that sort of comfortable existence is predicated on war and human sacrifice. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Sep 22, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2019 22:02
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QuoProQuid posted:im not sure i understand what about the movie’s representation of gravity was so significant to ruin the experience. can you be more specific about what you mean? I already made a few points about it earlier in the thread. I'd say I've been spoiled by The Expanse, which is sort of a gold standard at this point, but even 2001 does a better job and it was made half a century ago. The director even went as far as directly comparing his movie to it too.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:02
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Sir Kodiak posted:Yeah, if you find sitting at some bar having a beer waiting for a woman we know nothing about more compelling than exploring the question of whether there's extraterrestrial life, the ending of the movie probably works better than it did for me. i think the movie does a bad job with pitt’s ex-wife and uses her as plot device as opposed to a fully fleshed-out character. still, though, i think the movie is p clear that what jones is doing is, at best, meaningless, and, at worst, responsible for almost destroying humanity. project lima ruled out the possibility of extraterrestrial life early in its life. jones, unable to cope with other people or a life outside his work, refused to accept this and instead forced his crew to keep working beyond all reasonable limitations. by the time we see him, we see that he’s a miserable, pitiable figure wandering around a derelict space station in ratty sweaters. his work is less about benefiting mankind than it is an excuse to avoid dealing with his own extremely obvious insecurities.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:31
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QuoProQuid posted:i think the movie does a bad job with pitt’s ex-wife and uses her as plot device as opposed to a fully fleshed-out character. still, though, i think the movie is p clear that what jones is doing is, at best, meaningless, and, at worst, responsible for almost destroying humanity. The thing is, and I edited this into my post later so you presumably missed it, is that the first half of the movie is spent exploring how the comfortable existence we see Pitt go back to is predicated on war and human sacrifice. Pitt having that beer necessitates people getting shot in the face on the moon, the degradation of the environment, our species numbing itself with mood stabilizers, etc. And there's no recognition of that in the ending of the movie. Putting aside that they didn't rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence—they just didn't find it yet in the vastness of space given only a few decades—because I agree Tommy Lee Jones was not engaged in a healthy pursuit, Pitt's ending is just him finding his own way to hide and ignore the world he lives in.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:45
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Jerkface posted:Disagree: Theyve setup an adversarial future where conflict means they have to take some precaution. They go to Mars to specifically tight beam transmit a message presumably so no one will realize the US limabean project is the one loving poo poo up for everyone as the project had already been declared lost publicly. The movie does go through great lengths to make the secrecy and duplicity of everyone involved obvious. So they never heard of encryption? They don't have USB drives? I'm surprised the movie didn't think of using carrier pigeons. Face it. This plot was there so we could have moon pirates and space monkeys. That's a sentence that belongs in a comedy, not a movie that takes itself THIS seriously. I suspect they had the second half of the movie written and realised it doesn't meet runtime standards so they added in some utter bullshit at the start. QuoProQuid posted:i feel like the griping over physics misses the point. the movie is far more interested in using space as a metaphor for the isolating effects of trauma than recreating The Martian. pitt's increasingly improbable stunts should not be seen as something that could literally happen but a representation of how impossible it can feel to confront the source of one's pain and re-enter society. it's easy to retreat inward and abandon all human connection, as tommy lee jones does to the detriment of himself and everyone around him, but pitt never gives up and he is rewarded for his perseverance with a far more fulfilling life. As I said before: The problem with physics fuckery is that it completely telegraphs plot points. It also instantly removes any tension from a scene because you realise that the director will just make some dumb poo poo up to ensure our hero survives. There was no tension in this movie because every time it tried to be tense or exciting, you were too busy thinking: "Well that's loving dumb" If you think the movie is dumb, that has a knock-on effect to how you feel about the characters or whatever point the movie was trying to make. At the very least, you won't believe in the movie which will make you completely apathetic to everything else. It always sounds nitpicky when somebody whinges about physics in a movie. But this movie is loving dumb. Even if you weren't a nerd I'm sure you'd watch it and your brain would go: "I'm not sure how it would work in reality, but I'm sure that isn't how that poo poo works" In a movie that takes itself THIS seriously? With a world presented with all the levity of a funeral? It's pretending to be super accurate when sweet jesus no. H13 fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Sep 23, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2019 23:59
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Sir Kodiak posted:Putting aside that they didn't rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence—they just didn't find it yet in the vastness of space given only a few decades—because I agree Tommy Lee Jones was not engaged in a healthy pursuit, Pitt's ending is just him finding his own way to hide and ignore the world he lives in. Now that you mention it, SpaceCom/TLJ are probably the last people in that movie I'd want to represent humanity in a first contact scenario
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Sep 23, 2019 00:10
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Krime posted:Are TLJs eye bags that bad or were they done up to mimic the angry, bad space monkey? The dude is like 85.
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Sep 23, 2019 00:20
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I knew nothing about this movie going into it besides that it was a space movie starring brad pitt. The visuals and overall aesthetic of a near-future space colonies thing everything has is fantastic. All the messaging about corporatism infecting things was hamfisted at best and terribly stupid most of the time, like the casual request for a pillow on the rocket and the attendant being "sure, that'll be 125 dollars", just out of nowhere and immediately moves on, really awkward. Everything to do with the daddy issues was terrible and boring as hell, the constant religious quotes didn't sit right, TLJ was basically a nonentity and felt like he didn't want to be there the entire time (and at the end was like "here's my chance to peace out of THIS lovely movie and into Neptune's atmosphere, later", brad pitt's character was ok at best but got progressively less tolerable as the movie wore on, and the lingering on loving EVERYTHING got worse and worse towards the end. A two hour movie that could easily have been compressed down by 30 minutes at least. Awful movie, I hated it. The visuals were outstanding a lot of the time but not worth the rest of the movie's interminable length, people were constantly checking their phones to see the time in the second half of the movie in my theater.
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Sep 23, 2019 00:41
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Captain Invictus posted:I knew nothing about this movie going into it besides that it was a space movie starring brad pitt. I agree, but at least someone finally made the unofficial Shakma sequel I've always wanted.
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Sep 23, 2019 00:45
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Sir Kodiak posted:The thing is, and I edited this into my post later so you presumably missed it, is that the first half of the movie is spent exploring how the comfortable existence we see Pitt go back to is predicated on war and human sacrifice. Pitt having that beer necessitates people getting shot in the face on the moon, the degradation of the environment, our species numbing itself with mood stabilizers, etc. And there's no recognition of that in the ending of the movie. Ah, apologies. I see what you're saying but the sense I got from the film was that we aren't meant to see those costs as a good thing. It's just that the movie sees the solution to addressing those problems as beginning at a very individual level, whether that be accepting responsibility for what your lovely dad did or learning to do emotional labor for your spouse. Pitt only gets to his dad because of small, individual rebellions by other people empathizing with his situation (e.g. Sutherland handing over the USB, the Martian official getting him to the rocket). Pitt ends with not so much a retreat inward, as a chance to make amends. This isn't handled perfectly (prob should have shown some consequences for killing those four dudes or had Pitt exposing SPACECOM), but the handling isn't completely botched either. H13 posted:As I said before: The problem with physics fuckery is that it completely telegraphs plot points. It also instantly removes any tension from a scene because you realise that the director will just make some dumb poo poo up to ensure our hero survives. There was no tension in this movie because every time it tried to be tense or exciting, you were too busy thinking: "Well that's loving dumb" I guess I felt more drawn in by the questions of "Why is Pitt so emotionally constipated?" and "How will he escape his weird, zombie-like existence?" than I did questions about his personal safety. That said, I did tense up during the moon car chase, monkey attack, and launch fight because I didn't know whether the movie would kill of its ancillary characters. tbqh, I very rarely think any protagonist's personal safety is in doubt in a movie, especially character-driven dramas. I didn't watch Gravity wondering if Sandra Bullock would die in the first fifteen minutes. Before I saw The Martian, I knew that Matt Damon would get off Mars. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Sep 23, 2019 |
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Sep 23, 2019 02:14
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xiw posted:Generally hated it - what a waste of stunning visuals and effects. same
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Sep 23, 2019 03:09
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SCheeseman posted:God this movie loving sucks
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Sep 23, 2019 03:10
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As an atheist-leaning version of the Odyssey (I actually thought everyone else besides Pitt bringing up religion was both affirmed and denied by the idea at the end that we are all we have, and I liked that) plus the idea of rejecting your father to grow into a man, this was okay. It's just that the voiceover was so ham-fisted and the movie was shouting "I AM BEING UNDERSTATED AND MOODY" the whole time.
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Sep 23, 2019 03:20
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