Saw Morbius tonight.

Going into it, I didn't know Morbius was a Marvel character until the beginning comic scene always shown with their movies.

As is the case with most Marvel movies, it begins with the origins story of the character. Good thing, too, since I was completely unfamiliar with who Morbius is. First of all, he's played by Jared Leto, who's hot as heck (there's a yummy shirtless scene - the buffed one, not the necrotic one), and I was surprised (good surprised since I like him as an actor) to see Matt Smith in the film (I wonder if that's his real body in shirtless scene). I think the ending was rushed a bit, but overall it was a good movie. The way it ended hints at a second movie, yet that doesn't appear to be a definite (especially with how most people reacted negatively to the movie, which I just don't understand. I enjoyed it well enough. I give it a solid 6/10).

Quote from: Sorginak on June 09, 2022, 12:15:25 AMSaw Morbius tonight.

Going into it, I didn't know Morbius was a Marvel character until the beginning comic scene always shown with their movies.

As is the case with most Marvel movies, it begins with the origins story of the character. Good thing, too, since I was completely unfamiliar with who Morbius is. First of all, he's played by Jared Leto, who's hot as heck (there's a yummy shirtless scene - the buffed one, not the necrotic one), and I was surprised (good surprised since I like him as an actor) to see Matt Smith in the film (I wonder if that's his real body in shirtless scene). I think the ending was rushed a bit, but overall it was a good movie. The way it ended hints at a second movie, yet that doesn't appear to be a definite (especially with how most people reacted negatively to the movie, which I just don't understand. I enjoyed it well enough. I give it a solid 6/10).

Morbius is in the same category of "Spider-Manless Spider-Man villain movies" as the two Venom movies. They're not in the same universe as the MCU, since they had no involvement from Disney, but there is a multiverse now, so... None of that makes these movies good or bad. Into The Spider-Verse was one of the best Spider-Man movies yet, after all, and it wasn't part of Disney's MCU either. I just find the concepts of these villain movies to be fundamentally flawed. You take a character like Venom, who is inseparable from Spider-Man, and you turn them into an anti-hero who has never even heard of Spider-Man, since they can't use Spider-Man for legal reasons. Maybe with some good execution, they could work, but I've yet to be won over to them, and I don't expect I will for Kraven or any of the others coming down the pipeline.

From what I hear, they're trying to set up a Sinister Six, but I don't know how that's going to work if they're not...you know...sinister? They're portrayed as good guys. Sure, Venom and Morbius eat people, but it's okay, because the people they eat are bad. The Sinister Six are supposed to get together to destroy Spider-Man, but none of them have any motivation to hate Spider-Man, since they don't even know he exists. Well, the black symbiote kinda knows who he is, since they apparently have a hive mind that connects across universes, but this Venom has never met Spider-Man. So what are they even going to do with these characters?

There's potentially one good thing to come out of them, though. One of the end credits scenes in No Way Home implies a piece of Venom's symbiote was left behind when Brock got sent back to his universe. Maybe we'll get Agent Venom in the MCU.

Quote from: Blackleaf on June 09, 2022, 02:54:15 AMInto The Spider-Verse was one of the best Spider-Man movies yet

Amen.  In fact, I consider it the best out of all the Spider-Man movies (Second is Far From Home, third is No Way Home, just barely edging out Homecoming.  Spider-Man movies have been amazing lately!)

Into the Spiderverse was the first to really delve into the multiverse, gave us Spider-Gwen, made the Kingpin fearsome again, had a fantastic comic-book art style, excellent character moments, banging soundtrack (I'm not even really into hip-hop, and I really like What Up Danger and Sunflower), and was overall absolutely meme-tastic.

Jurassic World Domianaria...dominus...domo...the third one.

Pros: they say in the movie that birds are technically dinosaurs and I literally squeed!

Cons: they also say "we have got" And no, I'm not going to let this go!

Headscratchers: you might ask yourself why the main cast survives while the extras get chomped like popcorn.  The secret to surviving in one of these movies is to hold your hand out like you're telekinetically pushing the dino away.  65% of the time, it works every time!  I do it myself all the time with alligators.  *looks down at arm stump*

You might ask yourself what sort of weapon would would work well against a dino.  Well, you're in luck because the answer is a spear.  Practical, useful, easy to learn, dependable, lightweight - the humble spear has it all!  There's a reason why this is weapon is found all over the world and was probably the second weapon ever used by humans after simply hurling rocks.  It's real simple, if a dino or anything else charges you, you hold out your spear and stick them with the pointy end.  Easy peasy!  Or you can charge them and similarly stick them with the pointy end.  Also viable.

Does any character make use of this ingenious technology?  Not really, no.

From what I've heard, the new Jurassic World movie got people again with the false advertising. They make it look like the whole movie is about dinosaurs out in the world, interacting with humans, but then the movie takes us to an isolated island. Again. But this time, it's made by BioSyn, so it's totally different. Know that scene in the trailer, with the T-rex walking into one of those outdoor theaters you only ever see in fiction? Not even in the movie. Only existed for the advertising, to give us a false impression of the movie. They blue ballsed us again! lol

They also had this weird shaving cream commercial (do they even need advertising?  Cause I'm pretty sure that people would buy shaving cream regardless) and I shit you not, in the movie the villain picks up a can of shaving cream for literally no reason.  Stupid.

Also, in case I haven't made it clear, there is no way in hell any of these characters would survive that doesn't involve character shields.  The dinos are so fast and strong and aware that they might as well be Dark Souls bosses.

So I picked up the movies of Dave Wascavage. He's the guy who made Suburban Sasquatch.

I can't remember the last Jurassic film I saw, so I'm probably not caught up to watch the new one.

Quote from: Sorginak on June 11, 2022, 06:58:49 PMI can't remember the last Jurassic film I saw, so I'm probably not caught up to watch the new one.

IMO, the first is still the best, but Lost World is also good. Those were the only two based on books written by Michael Crichton, although even those were pretty loosely based on his books. Funny thing is Crichton was approached multiple times to write a sequel, but he turned everyone down, until Spielberg himself asked. You don't say no to Spielberg. lol

Everything after Lost World was made without Crichton's involvement, and likely without his approval, but he'd already given them the movie rights. Jurassic Park III is a divisive film, but in my opinion, it's fine. It has some problems, but I found it to be an overall enjoyable movie, and at least it doesn't have raptors defeated by a girl practicing for her gym class. The Spinosaurus has been one of my favorite dinos since first seeing the movie. It's just such a terrifying creature.

The first Jurassic World movie was okay. It's basically a soft-reboot, with a plot a little too similar to the original Jurassic Park. The coolest thing about it was seeing the park open to the public. While this does contradict the message of the first film, that message was kinda bullshit anyway. The problem with the first park wasn't that life...uh...finds a way. It was that the only thing separating the dinosaurs from the guests was an electric fence, on an island with a tendency for unpredictable weather. That, and they refused to pay a fair wage to the man who was solely responsible for programming the island's entire operating system, leading to him taking a deal from a rival company, and sabotaging the park. In the end, however, you know how it goes. Scientists try to play god, and the unpredictable nature of what they have created leads to all hell breaking loose. Out of the three Jurassic World movies, the first was the most solid, and was a good place to start a new trilogy. It was basically to Jurassic Park what The Force Awakens was to Star Wars.

Fallen Kingdom was a bit divisive. I personally enjoyed it, even if it wasn't exactly what the trailers made it look to be. I found the new hybrid dinosaur to be scary and cool. It's a kind of "shut your brain off and go for the ride" kind of movie, but it didn't get too ridiculous to break my suspension of disbelief.

Dominion, the one that just came out, doesn't sound promising. I'm not planning to see it in theaters, but maybe I'll stream it some day, if I happen to have the right streaming service at the time.

I remember one critic, writing in response to the previous Jurassic Park film, "Shut down the damned park already!"

Why is anyone watching Jurassic Park movies? Only the first one was any good and it wasn't that great.

Quote from: SGOS on June 12, 2022, 07:52:27 AMI remember one critic, writing in response to the previous Jurassic Park film, "Shut down the damned park already!"

Most of the movies don't have an operating park. They tried to make one in Lost World, but they were pretty much all loose, and never got the new location off the ground. The third was like a secret location, a Site B, which is in ruins at the start of the movie. Jurassic World was open to the public, and it seemed to be working. Guests were safe, until they decided to play god and make a hybrid monster. They let it loose when they assume it climbed out, and leave the door open like idiots. Even then, they should have been able to tranquilize it, and that would have been the end, but the dinosaur somehow knew to remove the tracker from its body. Lots of plot convenience to bring that park down.

But it turned out that park was doomed from the start, because they built it by an active volcano, which goes off a few years later. No park in Fallen Kingdom. At this point, everyone is convinced the dinosaurs would be useful for military purposes. Somehow. They're buying and selling on the black market.

No idea how Dominion manages to bring everything back to an island. I'm still wrapping my head around how they managed to create multiple trailers and teasers to convince us the dinosaurs would all be loose, just so they wouldn't be... It's my impression it's another secret operation, though. More silliness about the dinosaurs being used by the military.

So I recently rewatched Striking Distance starring Bruce Willis and Sarah Michelle Geller and I kind of noticed how my own attitudes toward certain political... things have changed in the last thirty years.

Here's a brief clip showing what I mean:


The plot of Striking Distance starring Bruce Willis and Rebecca Romain Stamos is surprisingly convoluted, but the basics are there is a killer who murders women and chucks the bodies in the river. Bruce Willis and his father enter a police chase of the killer and after a spectacular wreck, Willis is injured, his dad is killed and the killer got away.

Note how in the background while Willis has this big scene mourning his dad, the killer's trunk pops open and a dead woman in a bright red dress flops out. It's almost a comedy shot. It made me realise what was going on here and what was going on throughout the movie.

The women in this movie are not people, but props. This is fair enough as it's a serial killer plot from the early 90's. The dead bodies are just props in these cases, regardless of gender. But it's egregious here. Most of the victims are essentially nameless and faceless (even if both are shown in the film at some point). Then in the convoluted plot when the killer starts killing women close to Bruce Willis, they are little more than women in refrigerators. We don't even see two of them before their demise and the third, we are only shown the killer stalking her to pad out the run time. Even Melissa Sue Gilbert isn't there for much. She really doesn't even amount to much of a damsel in distress at the end. It's there, but weak. Even worse, the dispatcher from the office is also killed in Willis's bed for some god-unknown reason. Most likely as a cheap fakeout for the audience to think it was Billie Jean King who was killed and then to breath a sigh of relief when it was only the Asian woman.

I don't know. I'm still processing all this, but it makes me think that a plot like this wouldn't fly today. (I didn't say wouldn't get made. It just wouldn't fly) I've been trying to figure out what you would need to change to make this work and I have no idea. First of all, it centers on a mentally ill serial killer (thanks, Silence of the Lambs), which is it's own bundle of twigs. We could flesh out some of the victims so that their deaths have some kind of actual impact, but the plot was busy distracting you with Willis's family tree. Like, they're all cops, apparently. You have some of the victims be men, but I don't know how that would work. It's like the problems in this plot are bone deep and there is nothing to be done to correct it.

Still, it's nice to see Timothy Busfield.

Quote from: Blackleaf on June 12, 2022, 11:26:54 AMBut it turned out that park was doomed from the start, because they built it by an active volcano, which goes off a few years later.

I don't get that   They shelled out a dragon's horde worth of money to build that park and it's only operational for a few years afaik even if the dinos didn't break free.  The board of directors would have a fit!

And a lot of the plot revolves around people trying to poach the dinos and use them for their own nefarious purposes.  Well, the movies do jack all to resolve any of that.  In fact, my headcanon is that the poachers are ultimately successful offscreen.  How's that for a happy ending!

I lived on or near seven volcanoes while I was in the USN. None of them ran me off. Etna and Penatube were the most active.