Bad film with amazing premise and mediocre execution that you can't stop thinking about?
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I feel like the last 30 years of Star Wars movies could qualify here
wrote last edited by [email protected]I've always felt like Star Wars the original 3 (4,5 and 6) were a product of their time. They aren't bad movies but they aren't great movies either, but for whatever reason they struck a chord with the population in the late 70's and early 80's. George Lucas should have just let them be there really was no reason to make any more of them, but money.
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That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the "deconstruction" argument:
"Challenging the Chosen One narrative"
Rey's parents were "nobody" yet so were Luke Skywalker's parents. The final film is titled "The Rise of Skywalker" on her path to becoming the chosen one.
"Revisiting Luke's Heroism"
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
"Undermining Jedi Ideals"
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film's creator's not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
"Exploration of Failure and Complexity"
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
"Subverting Expectations"
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn't subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the "good guys" come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don't see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
i ain't arguing with a machine
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I actually liked Cube Zero for the backstory and set styles. I don’t remember much else so I’m assuming it was shit, but you can give it a try if you want.
I think OP pretty much summed up Cube Zero. The first installment is really just a horror fiction also depicting the structure of human society.
Yeah, Cube 2 is shit. It's a scientific concept show.
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I feel like the last 30 years of Star Wars movies could qualify here
Disneys stance is to be middle of the ground on everything. Writers or source material bring in a ton of actually interesting stuff, only to be snubbed and half assed. It happens so consistently in all their shows. It's maddening!
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The Sarah Connor chronicles was the only sequel media that ever made sense to me
I know, right? I was quite mad when l heard the show was cancelled after season two. I still want to know if she survived after taking a shotgun shot to this day.
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The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can't even remember the plot because it was so meh.
I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that's what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.
At first I thought you meant there was a movie inside a movie called Time.
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It didn't. I managed to stay until one of the autobots had to take a leak. I was too insulted at that point. Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore, but of course the guy has to stammer and stumble and try to impress the dead weight.
Megan Fox came across as an absolute bore
Well, I wasn't looking at her for her acting. Some people are just nice to look at.
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Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.
Except for shooting around corners and that thing with the car, those bits were cool.
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Keanu reeves is such a weird casting choice. He's playing a guy from manchester and all he can do is play himself, like in every movie he does.
Keanu just can't shake the Messiah image after played Neo in The Matrix. Ever! It's too weird to see him playing Constantine.
In contrast, the Constantine played by Matt Ryan in TV franchise Arrowverse was spot on.
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Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?
Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?
ahhh yeah Man in the High Castle, that's one where you oughta just read the book
i'm ditto w/u on how annoying constant time displacement is in television YES EVEN ANDOR DAMMIT
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i love TLJ so much i skipped the rest of the movies
if you also like TLJ you should watch Kagemusha and When the Last Sword is Drawn and 13 Assassins
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There was this movie I saw once called Time Trap. I definitely would not call it good, but the premise was interesting.
Archaeology professor goes missing while exploring a cave which was once thought to be the location of the fountain of youth. His grad students go looking for him, find the cave, weird things start happening when they enter.
Spoilers below:
::: The cave is revealed to cause some sort of time distortion which grows in intensity the further in you go. The professor who had been missing for days was only in the cave for a few hours. By the time everyone realizes what is happening, months go by, then years. They exit the cave at one point only to find an apocalypse has occurred, with the cave becoming the only safe haven for them to exist in at this point. Without spoiling the rest of the movie, the story plays in to the fountain of youth legend by including a group of Spanish Conquistadors and a tribe of paleolithic cavemen living in a deeper part of the cave, all living as if only days have passed, but in reality centuries/millennia had gone by outside. :::
I had a series of 3 stomach surgeries and I delved into some shows I wouldn't watch. I stumbled on this one. I really loved the premise. It is one of those late night SyFy feeling movies. The end did get weird, but I like where they were going with it.
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Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn't say it's a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What's the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don't read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
::: spoiler spoiler
But the good setup and world building is quickly over and then they both enter the gorge, and it's just an old evacuated biological lab that created super soldiers, and the whole thing instantly stops being mysterious.They could have kept it mysterious for longer and given us some kind of twist perhaps, like they might discover they're guarding the site of an old defunct biolab, but some things don't add up, and it turns out to be the actual gates of hell. I also don't think Drasa should have dived straight in to rescue Levi. Let her hesitate for a while. Create tension. Keep them separated, him somewhere below and her in her tower (perhaps she will need to get over to his tower to reactivate the auto-turrets or do something important, she believes he's gone), and cut between showing both their struggles. Perhaps he then manages to contact her, and then a rescue effort begins.
:::I was going to mention this, but thought it was too recent.
I thought it was pretty good until they went in. Even the way they met was pretty silly.
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Not a movie, but a TV Show. The Cape.
A former detective is forced into hiding where he is trained in stage magic, sleight of hand, circuscraft, and illusions. He uses them to fight crime.
I thought it was a really interesting concept, a more down-to-earth superhero like Batman, and stuff like this can plausibly happen in real life.
Unfortunately the show was so bad it was canceled mid season and the finale was only streamed on NBC's website.
Damn sounded hilarious
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There was this movie I saw once called Time Trap. I definitely would not call it good, but the premise was interesting.
Archaeology professor goes missing while exploring a cave which was once thought to be the location of the fountain of youth. His grad students go looking for him, find the cave, weird things start happening when they enter.
Spoilers below:
::: The cave is revealed to cause some sort of time distortion which grows in intensity the further in you go. The professor who had been missing for days was only in the cave for a few hours. By the time everyone realizes what is happening, months go by, then years. They exit the cave at one point only to find an apocalypse has occurred, with the cave becoming the only safe haven for them to exist in at this point. Without spoiling the rest of the movie, the story plays in to the fountain of youth legend by including a group of Spanish Conquistadors and a tribe of paleolithic cavemen living in a deeper part of the cave, all living as if only days have passed, but in reality centuries/millennia had gone by outside. :::
might give this one a watch!
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Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
The city itself was interesting as hell
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The live action transformers movies.
Although I almost never think about it.
And I only saw the first thirty minutes of the first movie.I've watched all of them. I was a TF fan as a kid. I watched it every morning before school and on Saturday mornings. The movies just....I don't know. The first one was the best of the live action. Bumblebee maybe. All of them felt more machine like, except the stupid peeing...wtf...
That said, they were not great. The story, on concept, seemed ok. The execution sucked. The acting was not great. The tropes were un needed, didn't even really fit in, and just plain stupid at best. Mostly they were irritating. Like someone dragging their nails on a chalk board in the middle of a mediocre movie.
The last couple felt more like an attempt at hero porn. [que "heroic" music, lame Walberg lines where he wields some weapon that makes no sense, then lots of booms. Don't forget the meaningless jumping, falling all over the place, and special forces that lean more on the special than forces.]
The only good thing that came out of them was the limited re release of the OG toys. I managed to finally snag an Optimus and a couple others.
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They Live (1988)
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Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.
Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?
Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?
As far as the witcher and time travel kind of. At some point in the future there was a disaster and Earth was destroyed. However some humans and lots of monsters from alternate realities ended up in the world of the Witcher. Elves and dwarves were the original inhabitants.
Humans used a mix of genetic engineering they had and magic taught to them by the elves to make the Witchers. The Witchers helped solve the massive monster problem and the world ended up with humans mostly on top.
Witchers age very slowly and if not killed can live a very long time. Powerful magic users are basically the same. So the stories from session 1 are spread over about 80 years with some long lived characters.
The first book that season 1 is primarily based on is also different from the other books. It's a bunch of short stories that are based on classic stories. So there is Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc.
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I love Jericho. On my third watch right now actually. Would agree that it's frequently cliché, but overall I'd say it's very good. Skeet Ulrich is transfixing.
Did you read the season 3 in comic books? I was surprised about the following they've got as I was reading that Wikipedia entry.
