Which Films have you seen lately? 19 - Get Your Film's Name Outta Your Mouth

[Snerk]

It's on my list! Is the new one about the battle of Narvik out yet?

 

[Takhisis]

The Girl on the Train (2016). Guessed the actual culprit rightly, as it turns out.

This seems to have become a thing lately. Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Ghostbusters: Afterlife did it, too. (Not as much Jurassic World, to its credit, whether one thought it was a good movie or not.) I don't get it. I feel like we need a new word to describe these. They're not exactly remakes, and technically they're sequels, but they reuse so many elements of the original I feel like they're something else. This is beyond "fan service." I think "retread" is a good word for it. Carries the right amount of implicit disdain, I think. I haven't actually read any of the reviews for Top Gun: Maverick, but it seems to be getting a positive reception, unlike those other 3 movies, so maybe it isn't a retread.

I've heard and read the phrase ‘soft reboot’ used. Perhaps ‘rehash’ could also work.

I haven't watched the Matrix one yet, but I have watched the Disney!Star Wars and Ghostbusters (the 2016 film, at least). They (and e.g. Terminator) have gone the same path of making a checklist of what ‘makes’ a film and then pruning it to remove anything risky (because they're pouring in a few hundred million dollars and expect even more in return) and go for something that is thus unoriginal. Star Wars: TFA was a retread of A New Hope but without hope. Terminator has made three out of four sequels that just deal with how will the machines rise this time.

I've just remembered that you also have Robocop!
And Total Recall!
(going by this, films with Ronny Cox as a villain/antagonist will be rehashed, so when will we have a New Beverly Hills Cop™?)

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Girl on the Train (2016). Guessed the actual culprit rightly, as it turns out.

I've heard and read the phrase ‘soft reboot’ used. Perhaps ‘rehash’ could also work.

I haven't watched the Matrix one yet, but I have watched the Disney!Star Wars and Ghostbusters (the 2016 film, at least). They (and e.g. Terminator) have gone the same path of making a checklist of what ‘makes’ a film and then pruning it to remove anything risky (because they're pouring in a few hundred million dollars and expect even more in return) and go for something that is thus unoriginal. Star Wars: TFA was a retread of A New Hope but without hope. Terminator has made three out of four sequels that just deal with how will the machines rise this time.

I've just remembered that you also have Robocop!
And Total Recall!
(going by this, films with Ronny Cox as a villain/antagonist will be rehashed, so when will we have a New Beverly Hills Cop™?)

I think 'soft reboot' sounds too benign. Also, when I think of a soft reboot, I think of an existing show or movie series taking a swerve in some way, to reinvent itself without fully starting over. There could be a big tonal shift, a big time-jump, a change of location, or a significant turnover of cast or characters. Every time The Doctor regenerates is a soft reboot. Thor: Ragnarok was a soft reboot. Supposedly, the upcoming 3rd season of The Orville will be a soft reboot, but it remains to be seen how. 'Rehash' is good, though. That sounds mildly derisive, which I think is appropriate. A rehash or retread might still be good, or at least there might be things you like about it, but that's in spite of it being a rehash or retread. I actually liked the parts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife that weren't photocopied straight from the original. I wish they'd had the courage to go ahead and make that movie.

I haven't seen Robocop (2014) or Total Recall (2012). I thought Robocop was a straight remake. I've heard it wasn't great. Someone told me that the new Total Recall wasn't bad, and that it was more like a new adaptation of the Dick story than a remake of the 1990 movie. That's a whole other thing, I guess.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Finally finished The Matrix: Resurrections. My original take stands. Its a pointless retread and not enough fun to justify itself. There's also no tension whatsoever, because most of the characters are too new for you to actually care what happens to them and the ones you actually know and care about are either absent/dead or completely and securely bubble wrapped in plot armor. Of course that robs some of the enjoyment out of the action/chase scenes.

Overall, I'd call it a very mildly entertaining, mostly boring retread/mashup of the original Trilogy. Not worth watching. It took me at least 10 tries to get through the whole thing.

 

[thetrooper]

It's on my list! Is the new one about the battle of Narvik out yet?

Postponed again? I'm not on top of things wrt cinema right now but will of course also watch this when the time is right.

 

[Takhisis]

I think 'soft reboot' sounds too benign. Also, when I think of a soft reboot, I think of an existing show or movie series taking a swerve in some way, to reinvent itself without fully starting over. There could be a big tonal shift, a big time-jump, a change of location, or a significant turnover of cast or characters. Every time The Doctor regenerates is a soft reboot. Thor: Ragnarok was a soft reboot. Supposedly, the upcoming 3rd season of The Orville will be a soft reboot, but it remains to be seen how. 'Rehash' is good, though. That sounds mildly derisive, which I think is appropriate. A rehash or retread might still be good, or at least there might be things you like about it, but that's in spite of it being a rehash or retread. I actually liked the parts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife that weren't photocopied straight from the original. I wish they'd had the courage to go ahead and make that movie.

I haven't seen Robocop (2014) or Total Recall (2012). I thought Robocop was a straight remake. I've heard it wasn't great. Someone told me that the new Total Recall wasn't bad, and that it was more like a new adaptation of the Dick story than a remake of the 1990 movie. That's a whole other thing, I guess.

The new Total Recall is not bad but it's not good either. It's one of many made with the ‘safe’ movie checklist and you can guess the twists because they are largely the same.
Good work on the chase-and/or-fight scenes, but the plot that links them along is defficient.

Robocop, again, is the same. They made it more gruesome visually at points to get some ‘grittiness’ likes, I suppose.

One big problem with these is that they are sort of re-releases with better graphics. But they cannot do the same because it's already been done, so they try to ‘innovate’.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Robocop also was more of a set-up movie. Took too long on the creation of Robocop and not enough time for Robocop to actually do stuff.
Luckily, the next one will be a sequel to the original movie.

 

[Takhisis]

^Evidence enough of the failed approach of the past few years is the number of re-reboots that completely disown intervening ones.

Edit: all of these are pitched as the start of a new slew of sequels, at least a trilogy, so each of these retroactively deleting the previous one marks them as obvious, lazy beta tests more than anything else.

 

[Birdjaguar]

With huge consumption demand, more content is needed even if it is crap. Millennials seem are less discerning than older viewers. Reminds me of the old Life cereal commercials:


Link to video.

Which after viewing, seems less appropriate......

 

[Takhisis]

Millennials seem are less discerning than older viewers.

I've often seen this fallacious underestimation of customers and, as always, have to counter with the argument that how can you know if all they are served is crap.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've often seen this fallacious underestimation of customers and, as always, have to counter with the argument that how can you know if all they are served is crap.

I never said it was all crap. Read my post. I said "even if it is crap." The huge demand (=profit potential) for content (or any other product) always leads to getting good and terrible stuff to market. Just reading this thread points out how very mixed the content people consume is. It also speaks to how much of that content younger (than me) viewers consume. In addition, the internet shows us that even terrible content from the past is still available.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Ray Liotta R.I.P.
(18 December 1954 - May 26, 2022)

Goodfella

 

[lymond]

Ray Liotta R.I.P.
(18 December 1954 - May 26, 2022)

Wow! Shocking! Apparently, he simply died in his sleep, and was in process of making a film in the Dominican Republic. He was having a bit of a career resurgence with several things out or coming out soon, including an Apple+ series. RIP Ray!

 

[Takhisis]

Dang, that's one talent that goes away.

(I'll address the crappiness of modern factory farming cinema in a later post)

 

[Clubber Lang]

Guess who's back with the whip and hat...

 

[EvaDK]

Finally got to watch Alex Garland's newest folk horror Men.

I personally really enjoyed it, but I also understand some of the criticism it got. There's so much symbolism, allegory and gender politics/culture to unpack. The soundtrack was excellent.

 

[Kyriakos]

Tyrachaun.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Guess who's back with the whip and hat...

That's crazy. The fourth IndyJo movie was absurd and unnecessary (albeit, not as bad as I remembered, upon my recent second viewing). I wonder why Ford is agreeing to keep doing these?? Maybe he just really enjoys them? It can't be the money...he was practically begging to be written out of Star Wars for years despite how lucrative those films are.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, please. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not the disaster some people like to claim it is. Of course it pales in comparison to the three previous ones (yes, even the Asian pulp fiction one) but on its own it ain't that bad. If you want examples of bad films I can give you a few.

 

[Synobun]

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the best Indiana Jones film.