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What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
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BeautifulAgony
01/31/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
Ecch... Hellboy 2 was garbage. I left the theater wishing I'd just watched something else again. Guillermo del Toro is an interesting visual director, but in Hellboy his repetitive use of symbols and intricate design fell flat for me. I felt as though he simply tried to insert Hellboy into his "Pan's Labyrinth" milieu, but the fit was too forced. The attempt at epic scale didn't quite succeed.

There were nifty visuals, but at the expense of making the characters much less engaging and likable, and the far-reaching story just seemed weak because of it.
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alphanumeric1971
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
I'm getting a whiff of "DTV" with the BPRD movie if it ever happens...
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bluehinter
01/30/09

@alphanumeric1971: @Kishi:

You can add one more to that list.
Don't get me wrong, Dark Knight was quite good, but Hellboy 2 was far more enjoyable, and something I'm far more likely to pull down off the DVD shelf on a rainy afternoon.
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rek
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
Nobody loved Hellboy 2. It wasn't a Hellboy movie at all, there was just some guy who looked quite a bit like him running around like an oaf, being disrespected by supernatural creatures left and right (the real Hellboy, you see, is feared and respected by all lower than Hecate/Baba Yaga/etc themselves).
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Plague
01/30/09

@rek:

Speak for yourself.

I loved this movie, despite its pacing faults.

I think I spent many, many words on it when Annalee reviewed it.
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Starwatcher-23
01/30/09

@Plague: Yeah, I thought it was alright. It's true that film Hellboy is a slightly different beast from comics Hellboy, but I got no problem with that. Mignola knew when he created him that Hellboy was never meant to be anything more than a modern take on the old '40s and '50s 'two-fisted hero bashing freaks and monsters' genre. That people try to ascribe some kind of quality to him beyond that baffles me. Hellboy isn't serious literature; it's fun with monsters.

Also, what's with the "the bad guys are too sympathetic" argument? It's called good writing, folks. In real life, good guys aren't ever totally good and bad guys aren't ever so thoroughly evil that their motivations cannot be understood or sympathized with on some level. That's not the same thing as being justified though. Have none of you ever read Steinbeck?

"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. " - John Steinbeck
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KhaiJB
01/30/09

@rek: speak for yourself x2.
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Belabras ate my dingo!
01/30/09

@Plague:

I'm with Plague.
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NotArthurPDragon
01/30/09

@Starwatcher-23: Actually it's bad screenwriting when you're more interested in the guy who's not onscreen than the guy who is. That drunk scene being a prime example. It's supposed to show us the "humanity" of these creatures and fails utterly, because it's poorly written. And there's no real complexity to our good guys about snuffing out these creatures who want to bring wonder and magic into the world, much less the bad guy who doesn't question the horrible price to humanity for said wonder and magic. Like most directors great with visuals, del Toro has no affinity for characters or words. These are great looking, poorly written movies.

And that "it's not serious literature" is such a crap excuse. Neither genre nor medium gives you the right to shortchange your storytelling. You'll notice no one has to defend either Iron Man or The Dark Knight with that bullshit line. And you people wonder why science fiction movies get no respect...
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alphanumeric1971
01/30/09

@NotArthurPDragon: You'll notice no one has to defend either Iron Man or The Dark Knight with that bullshit line. And you people wonder why science fiction movies get no respect...

That has to be the most oxymoronic statement I've read here so far. and I mean Oxymoronic in it's true form not as a insult.

PS. Dude, your way overthinking this...
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ggodo, the man from R.O.A.C.H.
01/30/09

@Belabras: And my Axe!
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NotArthurPDragon
01/30/09

@alphanumeric1971: More excuses. It's people who think "it's just a ----" who are the ones responsible for so many bad movies because they don't feel the need to create three dimensional characters for a "comic book movie" or a "monster movie" or an "action movie" or anything else. And The same people who defend failures like Hellboy are the same people who complain when The Dark Knight doesn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, saying that it's being discriminated against because of its comic book origins. Well, just as you think it's silly that I want better characterization for something that's "just a monster movie" people in the Academy think it's silly to award artistic merit for something that's "just a comic book movie." See how that works?
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Plague
01/30/09

@NotArthurPDragon:

I'm not gonna waste my fingers rehashing this argument with you again.

If you didn't see any nuance or subtlety in this movie, well, (shrug)
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bonniegrrl
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
Please oh please give me a movie about Jenny Finn!!!!

[tplist.millarworld.net]
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bluehinter
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
It's a pity the whole 'Plague of Frogs' storyline went off in a completely different direction in the first Hellboy movie, since that would make the ideal plot for BPRD.

I hope if they do end up filming a spin-off, they find a way to bring in Roger the Homunculus, Ben Daimio, and Kate Corrigan.

And they damn well better include the scene where Ben tries to get Roger to wear pants!
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Hamslicer
01/30/09

@bluehinter: Wasn't that Roger in a display case in the BPRD headquarters hallway?
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bluehinter
01/30/09

@Hamslicer:
Wuzza-huh? How did I miss that?
Guess I know what I'm re-watching this weekend.
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NotArthurPDragon
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
The reason it took so long was because they had to wait on the DVD profits for it make any money. These movies were both incredibly lackluster and the response shows that. Even the animated versions have that same flaw. You want to like it, but wind up underwhelmed.

The second one was beautiful, though.
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braak
01/30/09

@NotArthurPDragon: Concur. Especially the first movie, where I kept thinking to myself, "This has all the right elements of awesome. All the component materials are here...but...meh."
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NotArthurPDragon
01/30/09

@braak: ...and if your villain is more sympathetic than your hero as in the second, you have a serious problem. del Toro is a gifted director who just shouldn't be allowed to write.
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braak
01/30/09

@NotArthurPDragon: Yeah, I was hard-pressed to find a reason that that elf guy shouldn't be allowed to take over the world. He made a pretty compelling case, there.
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tetracycloide
01/30/09

@braak: he did murder a room full of art snobs with tooth faries, that was a little evil. still, i can't help but feel like that's the point. the mission of the bureau is basically to find fantastic and wonderful things and discover just enough about them to utterly destroy them all in the name of preserving the status quo for humanity. the viewer isn't really supposed to be wholely on their side because the protagonists themselves are not wholely on their side, which is why they all quit at the end. they even went so far as to beat you over the head with the 'must destroy something beautiful to protect from something moderatly dangerous' with the whole 'nuala and nuada are linked' thing.

still, compared to pan's labarynth the hellboy films have felt very... listless. like they took something that had, as you already pointed out, all the components of awesome and failed to include a soul that bound it all together.
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zenpoet
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
I really enjoyed the second movie, but the drunk singing part erked me. I love to have some humor in my hellboy, but sarcastic comments are better than just slapstick.

On that point, I don't know if I would like to see a BPRD movie, as it would likely end up as an even less serious take on the subject, and would just turn into an even dorkier version of Men in Black.
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LittleDragon
01/30/09

@zenpoet: That drunk part really rang true for me. My brother and his friends used to act just like that on occasion when they had been drinking.
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zenpoet
01/30/09

@LittleDragon: I am not saying that they didn't act the part well, which they did. I just felt that it didn't fit the idea of Hellboy for me. Well, maybe of hellboy, but not of Abe.
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Belabras ate my dingo!
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
As long as we get some Lobster Johnson love, it's all good with me.
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bonniegrrl
01/30/09

@Belabras: Snap to that motion!
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Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H.
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
My only advice is to release the next one in the winter, away from the massive crush of tent-pole pics.
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crashedpc - Haifisch
01/30/09

@Garrison Dean: Hurr hurr, tent-pole.
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Islandkiwi
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
Just as long as the characters aren't dismissed. Hellboy is a nice quirky character that I find entertaining and refreshing.
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Plague
01/30/09

In reply to What if Hellboy 3 Isn't The Next Hellboy Movie?
Well, it was four years between the first two, so... So?
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NerD: Blattella
01/30/09

@Plague: So Hell Boy is where Del Toro goes to cleanse his palate after making indie creepy movies.

It's like the Chevy's of mexican food. You know you shouldn't like it so much, but you still keep going.
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Plague
01/30/09

@NerD!!!:

My point was that in the scheme of Hellboy sequels, 4 years has a precedent.
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NerD: Blattella
01/30/09

@Plague: I know, and my point is that Del Toro goes off and makes better films and comes back to Hell Boy when he needs a paycheck.
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