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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:23 pm
by mkilly
Goddamn bugs whacked us, Johnny!
I'm watching this on some premium channel now. Pretty hilarious movie. The only way someone could think it's bad is if they're taking it seriously. Or uh they don't like it.
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 7:30 am
by sparks
MalachiConstant wrote:I would probably rate the movie as a B+ if I hadn't read the book and seen how the whole point of the book was misrepesented.
It's like if they made Saving Private Ryan, only instead of a small squad fighting to save one man it was about the whole 101st airborn fighting a robotic Hitler. And then the Americans embraced Nazism.
Meh, battle scenes: A; rest of the movie: D-.
Dude, don't expect a film producer to pick up one of Heinlein's "action/young adult" novels and say "Hot damn! I'm going to fairly and adequately represent this as a motion picture! It'll be a real thinker!"
It's a good flick, and it gives a vague smattering of politics to keep the part of the brain that isn't ooing and aaing over the giant beetles entertained for a few brief seconds.
and if it was meant to be funny...
i didn't get the memo...
Did you cry for the climax? *chokes up* Gets me right there, I tell you...
I'm sure they ruined it when they cut out the banana peel scene.
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 7:37 am
by sparks
MalachiConstant wrote:jb wrote:HeuristicsInc wrote:There was a sequel?! Did it go straight to video, or what?
-bill
Yes. It's low-budget standard direct-to-video crap. Don't bother.
Not only that, I don't think they even made any new footage of the bugs, they just used footage from the first movie and put the actors in front of a blue screen.
Another minor rant: The Troopers in the book were highly trained and wore power armor with all kinds of weapons built into it (including tactical nukes). Wouldn't that have been cooler than a bunch of high-school idiots standing in a circle and firing at bugs in the middle?
So you're saying they should have all been UBER FIGHTING MECHA-DROIDS WITH LASER BOMBS!!!!!!
Look, that works fine in Heinlein, because he can pass it, but in a flick, that's just going to meet a total vacuum. Crap. Been done. Bad anime. The clash of bloody realism and cartoon action in the film was handled perfectly.
And am I the only one a little baffled by the polls we've been seeing lately? The last one I saw was either "GREAT!" or "Meh" and nothing in between (Ghost World is most assuredly in between), and this one does the same again, but makes vague references to a subversive message. Dude, if every work that portrays an unethical political system is touting that fictional system, I can't imagine why 1984 was so damned popular...