The downfall of Sci-fi

[bettertomorrowamy]

Minority Report was kick ass.  However the short story was better.  The special effects were awesome, and Tom Cruise was great.  That said I think Tom Cruise is one pea shy of a pod, but he is a good action actor.

[Principal_Skin-trade]

Minority Report was kick ass.  However the short story was better.  The special effects were awesome, and Tom Cruise was great.  That said I think Tom Cruise is one pea shy of a pod, but he is a good action actor.

What was so great about it besides the ahem... "special effects"? Tom's character was nothing special, nothing deep. The story was cliched, we already have a good idea where we're headed when some dumbass uses psychics to foretell future to prosecute crime. Then of course, we know from the history of movies and books that it's possible to change the future. Cruise is wasted, but then again I think that little prick is always wasted. So is Max Von Sydow, and Colin Ferret. Let's see, Cruise changes his identity, gets his eyeballs torn out, hides in a bathtub, somehow manages to evade hundreds of super-robots, and jumps around, jumps around some more, once more, that's NOTHING SPECIAL. Then Tom Cruise finally somehow clears his name in the most unlikely manner possible. Minority Report is nothing more than a pathetically hyper-extended half-hour episode of the outer limits. Even if I were to admit the special effects were kick-ass, where are the characters? Where is the love I am supposed to feel for them? I don't feel any of it, and you know why? Plain and simple, MINORITY REPORT SUCKS ASS! It sucks ass because we have seen it all or some variation of it before!!!

[bettertomorrowamy]

Have you ever read the book? 

I haven't heard a movie you like.
I'm starting to turn on you.

[Principal_Skin-trade]

Everyone eventually does anyway, if you did, I wouldn't blame you. I never read the book, after seeing the movie I certainly have no desire to if it's anything at all like the film. I read the book for 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke, but that's only because I liked the movie enough. You might even say that I love 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[bettertomorrowamy]

It's a Phillip K. Dick book.
Have you seen "A Scanner, Darkly"?

[Principal_Skin-trade]

No but I admit it does look interesting with all the cel-shading. Then again... it could be just another gimmick.

[Cosmic Muse]

This thread topic illustrates exactly why it puzzles me that people can actually like that movie Bay made defacing the Transformers by turning it into a dumbed down, campfest when it needn't be. This movie just totally illustrates how not to make an effectively engaging Sci Fi movie. Bay should be run out of Hollywood tarred and feather as well as tied to a rail. Bay even managed to muck up an adaption of an ambitious 70's Sci Fi movie we all know called The Clonus Horror.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

....an ambitious 70's Sci Fi movie we all know called The Clonus Horror.

The script was ambitious.  The actual execution was.....flawed.   

[Cosmic Muse]

....an ambitious 70's Sci Fi movie we all know called The Clonus Horror.

The script was ambitious.  The actual execution was.....flawed.   

Ah, yes, which is why Bay's utter failure to improve upon it is shocking to me. 

[Junkyard]

We ARE talking about The Island, right? Well, I rather liked the film, but everything else aside, he cast it with Johannson as the female lead. That in and of itself made it a superior movie.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

....an ambitious 70's Sci Fi movie we all know called The Clonus Horror.

The script was ambitious.  The actual execution was.....flawed.   

Ah, yes, which is why Bay's utter failure to improve upon it is shocking to me. 

Why did that film surprise you?  It was a lot of elaborate chase scenes.  Full of distruction.  With an obscene amount of product placement.

Typical Bay film.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

the camera work sucked.  had that improved it would have been alright. 

[Cosmic Muse]

....an ambitious 70's Sci Fi movie we all know called The Clonus Horror.

The script was ambitious.  The actual execution was.....flawed.   

Ah, yes, which is why Bay's utter failure to improve upon it is shocking to me. 

Why did that film surprise you?  It was a lot of elaborate chase scenes.  Full of distruction.  With an obscene amount of product placement.

Typical Bay film.

Well, it shocked me because any execution should have been better than the original movie they unofficially remade, but instead it came across as even more shallow with its excuse to blow things up which were all Bay's ideas of course. I have read from the guys behind Clonus and from general acquaintances that when it stuck to improving Clonus' plots it was better than the average Bay film. But when it descended into things blowing up for no reason at all it really stunk. Also it didn't help that they revealed the big twist within the framework of the theatrical trailers.

[Principal_Skin-trade]

The island may have been bad, but Transformers in contrast had a lot of great action, clever lines and some of the best characters that CGI has ever brought to life.

[optimus357]

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