San Francisco, 1:30 AM
Fri Dec 11
26 posts in the last 24 hours
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@Bootknife-Jackson: I forgot to mention this in the piece, but they actually released some Zardoz inspired designs a few years back. Totally blew my head.
I'm starting to feel like that "South Park" episode -- not the recent one making fun of this, but an old one.
The one where the SP kids get lost in the jungle and they're all "screw you, hippies, nature is gross and things try to kill you" and there's a big cheer when they get found by the bulldozers.
I'm all "screw the noble savage cat-smurfs, and the traitor to his race and planet. This place is full of vicious shit that kills everything, nuke it from orbit and ship the unobtanium back to Earth."
I'm having a grumpy week, plus I'm beyond tired of the hype and the constant ads and product placement in TV shows. And Cameron is an egotistical jerk.
I never saw Titanic. (The boat sank. Get over it.) I might see this eventually, but not till after New Year's.
@korybing: Me too. When I was 12, I saved up my allowance to buy Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. I was a few cents short but the cashier at our local bookstore let me buy it anyway. He rang it up as a sale item.
Word on the street is that we've seen all the CGI in the trailers. The rest is just claymation. But from everything my sources say this film will take claymation to heights Gumby never dreamed of.
@NorwoodIsMyHero: Yea, inside sources (my brother dates his daughter) tell me the movies is actually a conglomeration of those trailers and Gumby playing the main role!
The 5 five things that sold me on this: 1. James Cameron: even when it's not his best it's still interesting. 2. The 3D: I saw the Avatar day preview ( didn't get into the comic con one, damn you Twilight)and it's not a cheep gimmick, it works for the movie. 3. It takes 5 years to get to the planet, which is 4.4 lightyears away ( someone please do the math and find out how fast the ship can go.) 4. mechs. . Strong beautiful women I mean look at Susan Sarandon she's what 63 and still stunning.
@salthegeek: Unless my math is off, the ship in question would be traveling roughly 0.88 the speed of light. Around 950 040 000 kph, better than 33 000 times faster than the shuttle on orbit.
@Will Nickelson: Well it would average 0.88c, but since Valkyrie uses a reaction drive (fusion plus antimatter "nitros"), there's going to be acceleration and decelartion periods (which incidentally influences the time dilation calculation).
@NorwoodIsMyHero: It went from being a Giz post to an io9 post. I had the same thing happen to me earlier on the Best of 2009 post and it confused the hell out of me.
Don't be silly. We all know it's not the outside that counts, but the size of the bank account.
@Belabras: That's just what I was thinking. I'm really fascinated by the human system designs...those helicopters even have vine/wire cutters on the front of the rotor housings, which is a common feature today but one that most people never even see.
I think Phantom Menace scarred us all. The level of hype for that movie was too much, and no movie could have lived up to it. Of course, the movie itself turned out even worse than that, and so now we're all afraid of the same thing here, thus the huge backlash on this movie. If we keep our expectations lowered, then if the movie sucks, we can say "told you so", and if the movie is good, we'll be pleasantly surprised.
I just want a good sci-fi action flick, no more, no less, from a man who I have every confidence, based on past performances, that he knows how to provide that. I don't care if it "changes the way we view movies forever." So, I'm still looking forward to this and have my tickets already bought.
@TemporalSword: The budget combined with the director's pedigree and hiatus have all conspired to hype up the film. How can someone not be excited by a new freaking James Cameron sci-fi film?! It's hard to contain such hype.
@TemporalSword: A lot of us were also scarred by Snakes on a Plane. and the second two Matrix films.
One thing I've notice about comments on blogs is that for a good majority in order to be noticed, the comment has to be very inflammatory. Anyone who loves something loves it beyond all reason, and anyone who hates something thinks it will scar their childhood.
Personally I wouldn't mind so much if the comments were original.
It takes time to skim through the "Ferngully" "Dances with Smurfs" and other overused cliched posts to get to a good discussion.
Unfortunately with this film, the visuals and the story are not on the same par. The acting will be fine, the dialogue might hurt a little.
I'll be there opening weekend, in IMAX, to watch this. I don't care if the writing gives me ass cancer. It will be worth it.
@Jonny_eh: I can. I've found he manages to be at the same time sappy and yet more interested in hardware than people - quite an accomplishment, IMHO. I thought the Abyss was one of the most boring things I've ever seen in my life. T2 was good, but people I think were overawed by the FX and ignored some of its shortcomings. And Titanic.... I wanted to like it, really, but the whole obviousness of the "class conflict" was excruciating. Gee, maybe Billy Zane could have been a decent guy instead of a Snidely Whiplash clone (and of, course, it's only the bad guys who thought the ship was unsinkable)? All the eye candy in the world couldn't hide that it was not much deeper than Twilight.
Call me old-fashioned, but I also object to the whole idea of the director doing everything in cgi. So many great movies had stuff that came up due to happy accidents. I think we're losing something when we just have one guy's vision all the time.
Though I have my doubts about the movie in total, I love the designs, especially the creature aspect. The mechs in this flick make the APU's of The Matrix Revolutions look like total trash heaps.
@lo0p: It's a manned, walking robot. There's bound to be similarities with other robots of that description, but there is also room for originality as well. From a practical standpoint, these look better than the ones in the matrix films; having a closed cabin provides at least some protection to the pilot.
It really confused me and a coworker when we were talking about this film because we each saw a different ending with out knowing there were different endings. Confusion quickly destroyed thanks to IMDB.
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i just noticed, you have a Zardoz head too! +2 to you!
12/10/09
The one where the SP kids get lost in the jungle and they're all "screw you, hippies, nature is gross and things try to kill you" and there's a big cheer when they get found by the bulldozers.
I'm all "screw the noble savage cat-smurfs, and the traitor to his race and planet. This place is full of vicious shit that kills everything, nuke it from orbit and ship the unobtanium back to Earth."
I'm having a grumpy week, plus I'm beyond tired of the hype and the constant ads and product placement in TV shows. And Cameron is an egotistical jerk.
I never saw Titanic. (The boat sank. Get over it.) I might see this eventually, but not till after New Year's.
Bah humbug.
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I...I have a bit of a problem with Barlowe. The problem is I love him.
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The movie is a huge letdown. Unless you like smurfs.
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;)
If it was such a great movie, how come they won't let the critics review it before it's released? ;P
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My point still stands though -- reserve judgment.
At the very least, we should be hedging our bets.
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Don't be silly. We all know it's not the outside that counts, but the size of the bank account.
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I think Phantom Menace scarred us all. The level of hype for that movie was too much, and no movie could have lived up to it. Of course, the movie itself turned out even worse than that, and so now we're all afraid of the same thing here, thus the huge backlash on this movie. If we keep our expectations lowered, then if the movie sucks, we can say "told you so", and if the movie is good, we'll be pleasantly surprised.
I just want a good sci-fi action flick, no more, no less, from a man who I have every confidence, based on past performances, that he knows how to provide that. I don't care if it "changes the way we view movies forever." So, I'm still looking forward to this and have my tickets already bought.
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12/10/09
One thing I've notice about comments on blogs is that for a good majority in order to be noticed, the comment has to be very inflammatory. Anyone who loves something loves it beyond all reason, and anyone who hates something thinks it will scar their childhood.
Personally I wouldn't mind so much if the comments were original.
It takes time to skim through the "Ferngully" "Dances with Smurfs" and other overused cliched posts to get to a good discussion.
Unfortunately with this film, the visuals and the story are not on the same par. The acting will be fine, the dialogue might hurt a little.
I'll be there opening weekend, in IMAX, to watch this. I don't care if the writing gives me ass cancer. It will be worth it.
12/10/09
12/10/09
Call me old-fashioned, but I also object to the whole idea of the director doing everything in cgi. So many great movies had stuff that came up due to happy accidents. I think we're losing something when we just have one guy's vision all the time.
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