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Film Thread.
I thought a trio of themed threads about other entertainment media might be good. If you're not interested, please just ignore the thread and pick some threads that interest you from here: http://celephais.net/board/view_all_threads.php

Anyway, discuss films...
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Solo 
Well, Solo is officially the lowest-grossing Star Wars film of all time, and a loss-making bomb. Never thought I'd type that about a Star Wars film.

Solo's production and marketing was estimated at $450 million, and yet optimistic predictions put it at earning no more than $350 million worldwide.

Incredible when you think about it. I think even I could manage this franchise better than that.

It's a shame because I thought it was a great film, with a lot of great performances, and the new Han and Lando were excellent casts.

Lame excuses are being knocked around like "Oh, Memorial day weekends are never great for BO" (then why the fuck did you release on Memorial day, you geniuses), and "oh, it's just franchise fatigue" (when Marvel sharts out 3 movies in 6 months).

No, you don't get a spectacular bomb like that without it having a little bit to do with audience dissatisfaction with the previous film. 
TBH 
It could easily be franchise fatigue, since every POS from Marvel at least has a different setting and backstory (however wafer-thin), while the Star Wars "universe" just isn't as exciting.

It's exactly like the Red Letter Media guys say: you could tell any story in the Star Wars series, but everybody only cares about the Jedi/Sith/Republic/AT-STs so it's the smallest universe there is.

It's pretty sad that Solo is flopping, but the poor marketing is to blame - it was so weak that it seemed to everybody as if the studio has a turkey on their hands, so nobody bothered to see it for themselves.

And even still, the sequels with Han Solo and Chewbacca already exist. ;-) 
I'm Still Holding My Breath For Episode 9 
I'm curious to see how JJ Abrams can just sort of skip straight from Episode 7 to Episode 9, because that is what we will need. Maybe he should ask Microsoft (8->10). 
Re: Solo 
Saw it over the weekend. I enjoyed it and it was more satisfying than The Last Jedi. But at 2 hrs, 15 minutes it was too long. Some of the cinematography was terrible and the design/color palette was washed out, and worse: boring. The scenes in the mine looked worse than an episode of Star Trek. Woody Harrelson is always great but in this he was a bit... boring. Still many nice moments and excellent action sequences.

This one deserved to make some money. Kind of sad to see it flop. But what can you expect from a 2 hour toy commercial?

I have zero faith in the franchise moving forward. JJ Abrams isn't a miracle worker. 
Legion Season 2. 
Still good, and in some ways an improvement over season 1, but overall quite meandering, and not as mindblowing as last year's outing. Twin Peaks Season 3 probably spoilt me in this department (and there were many very clear parallels or straight up references to Twin Peaks Season 3 in Legion Season 2).

Could have been excellent with some tighter plotting and more substance over style, but oh well.

Roll on season 3 and then give Dan Stevens the Double-O status. 
 
have been impressed with the Plague tv series (spanish), the first part was especially intriguing. the ending were meh thou 
 
looks like Solo's box office has killed off the rest of the SW standalone films:
https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2018/06/disney-scrapping-star-wars-standalone-movies-rethinking-development-and-why-thats-actually-great-for-the-franchise.html

As someone who thoroughly enjoys clapping when I see things I recognise, I'm pretty gutted. I don't like the new direction they are going with the "Episode" films, but loved the OT-centric standalone films. 
TLJ... 
That was the real killer.
Also, why make a Star Wars Film every year? That may be more profitable in the short term but could be the reason for SW to finally die. At least one gap year would have done wonders at preserving the franchise. 
Also 
Star Wars will now have to face off with Avatar every Christmas now. I think we're a lot closer to the end that we are to the start of this new wave of SW films. 
TLJ Had So Much Wrong 
It put a stank on the whole franchise. Ah heck let's just autopilot x-wings light speed through all the first order cruisers amd be done with it.



OR completely ignore that TLJ ever existed and do something completely different with Episode 8, something out in the future further. 
 
Ultimately, they should have based it on Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy and expanded from there 
 
As enjoyable as Legion S2 was for me, I thought it was nowhere near as good as season 1. It was 11 episodes of hardly anything happening except the creators being arty. The whole thing could have been condensed down to 6 or 7 episodes. Lose the episode of multiverse David - really what was the point of this episode? To show some of the other versions of him that screwed up? Who cares. There's limitless universes, how about show one where he's turned into a huge fiery dragon and is fighting Fin Fang Foom. That's about how irrelevant these other universes are. The one where David went into the others' minds to release them out of their dream, seriously we needed 1.5 episodes for this? The pretentious conversations between Farouk and Oliver. Half an episode spent on David's sister's body being taken over. As great as it was seeing Aubrey Plaza naked again (I do love her character in this show). But just way too much fluffing about in this season and even the finale wasn't as spectacular as the last few episodes of season 1.

I did really like how it finished though. Just a shame that it didn't happen around episode 8 and we got to continue the season with Legion vs Shadow King but roles reversed.

Still my second favourite show on tv though. 
 
yeah franchise fatigue could be the issue. After watching The Force Awakens and then Rogue One, I found Rogue One to be so boring. I don't know why but I couldn't really finish watching it and went to do something else while it played in the background. Maybe I just didn't give a damn about the new characters and an irrelevant story. I just sat through getting to know Daisy Ridley, who was actually quite interesting. Now I've got to get to know Felicity Jones, much less interesting, and it's far too long. I should have enjoyed it but just didn't. Paint by numbers Star Wars sci-fi. At least TFA had Harrison Ford, Daisy and the dude playing Kylo Ren I oddly quite liked.

But yeah watching both of those within a few days, that was enough Star Wars for me for a couple of years and I haven't even seen The Last Jedi yet, nor am I in any rush. Now there's another Star Wars movie out!! And it's some weird looking 60's style Han Solo movie? Why the retro poster? Is the film based in the 1960's with swinging, drugs and psychedelic rock? I doubt it. Thandie Newton (I've had enough of her cockiness in Westworld tbh) and Woody Harrelson? Is he no longer washed up doing B-movies now?

With Marvel movies it's different characters, different stories, possibly different universes if we're comparing X-Men to Avengers and even GOTG has about as much in common with Asgard or NYC as it does with Sesame Street. Plus we're already familiar with the characters in every movie because of the comics.

Avatar? A bunch of weird blue aliens in what is almost a kids movie. I'd have zero interest in watching that. I suppose I'm not the target market anymore though, because there's no movie that I'd ever pay to see. It's been years since I paid for a movie, the tickets are just stupidly priced.

Who is the target market though? Avatar was released almost 10 years now. The teens that populated cinemas in 2009 are now approaching their 30's and probably have families. Do they still even go to the movies?

But Star Wars... why do they think this is such a big franchise when the original fans of Star Wars are at a minimum in their 60s now. Even the prequel trilogy is 20 years old. And now they're doing 1 new film per year and expecting it to break $500mill each time... 
 
why do they think this is such a big franchise when the original fans of Star Wars are at a minimum in their 60s now.

I'm 50. Star Wars fan until recently. 
 
My calculation is based on Star Wars 1 being 41 years old, so you would have been 9 when you first saw it? However most 9 year olds (and their parents) can't afford $30 movie tickets so I assume target age group that pay for movies is 15-25? Which puts original SW1 movie goers about 56-66. Take off several years if it was SW2 or SW3 that got you into the franchise so 50 makes sense. 
Movie Tickets 
..were approximately $3.75 to $4.25 when Star Wars came out. I saw it seven time in the theaters. The first time with my parents at a drive-in theater! I got $10 a week allowance back then for vacuuming the house and dusting. So I paid for most of those showing myself.

The thing is there are millions of Star Wars fans who loved the last movie - worldwide. Han Solo not played by Harrison Ford is a tough sell though and franchise fatigue is real. I have zero hope for any good Star Wars picture from here on out. 
 
So what did you all think of Overlord? Close enough wolfenstein movie? 
 
Rocketman (2019)

A very sweet, and also apparently very faithful biopic. Started to lose me in the middle a bit, since "millionaire artist has depression" is hardly the world's most original story, but the ending is such a fucking strong air punch moment. 
Overlord = Wolfencheap 
Some recollection here and there. Has moments during the first 30 minutes. Small french village under nazis, aka lots of déjà vu. Not enough paranormal or gore. No sexy ss Elite Guard dominatrix AT ALL. No Deathshead. Way to much blah blah instead of action. Trivial cast and script.

This flick is a silly Wolfenstein-inspired PG-13 production. Disappointing.

Nazi Gold Train, Ghost Town or Tower of Death segments of Reader's Digest-like Mysteries of the Abandoned docu series spill much more Wolf vibes than Overlord. Just to say. 
Alita 
So, Battle Angel Alita live action
Was enjoyable enough, 6/10, would of gotten a 8/10 had it not completely omitted what is a major part of the source material -> HUMOR

Such missed opportunity, even a couple well placed 3 second silly macho-body malfunctions scenes with bewildered expression from its owner would of done the trick and had no negative consequence to what the movie wanted to present. 
Prometheus < Covenant 
what is your opinion? 
Overlord 2018 
I enjoyed it, felt more like CoD WWII zombies based than Wolfenstein based 
Overlord 
okay, but I had bigger hopes for it based on theme and some of the people involved. still pretty good and has its moments. 
Dear Fuck. 
I've just seen episode one of Years and Years (HBO) and I think I just had a small panic attack. 
John Wick 3 
was ok 
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