Bad film with amazing premise and mediocre execution that you can't stop thinking about?
-
I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning 'In Time'. It had such a great premise, and I didn't even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said "fuck it, that's good enough". The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point... A movie just isn't the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I'm not sure belongs here. It's not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it didn't do better. That movie is called 'Push', with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn't that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn't a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It's just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don't seem to get those anymore.
Will check out both, thanks for this
-
Cabin in the woods
100% agree. It's a fine twist on the subgenre, but the twist introduces an idea that begs to be expanded upon as part of a larger, cross-subgenre arc. And yet we only get a sliver and then it's done.
My hot take is that Joss Whedon's writing is like JJ Abrams': perfect premises with bad sense of follow-thru, so all their work gets the Netflix "over before it's satisfyingly concluded" treatment
-
Reign of fire. Don't know if that's what you were referencing in the picture but it's immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.
Wait, but Reign of Fire is the best dragon vs. helicopter movie ever made!
-
The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn't some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.
I think the execution was amazingly well done. It's one of the best character driven horror-thrillers I've ever seen, all the characters are memorable and well-rounded, the premise is explored as much as it needs to be, and it doesn't really leave any loose ends. 9/10 movie for sure
-
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
I don't want a remake, I want a sequel. I'm glad I'm not the only one who disliked the visuals of the movie, tho.
-
The Man from Earth
B4
Triangle
Time Lapse
Daybreakers
Evolution
Knowing
You take that back about The Man From Earth. It left nothing wanting in execution.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Jurassic World. Just give me 90 minutes of dino mutants fighting, I don't give a shit about Chris Pratt nor some random kids.
-
I think the execution was amazingly well done. It's one of the best character driven horror-thrillers I've ever seen, all the characters are memorable and well-rounded, the premise is explored as much as it needs to be, and it doesn't really leave any loose ends. 9/10 movie for sure
Yeah it's not a bad film at all really, but even just within the horror/scifi genre it can't compete with higher budget films for popularity.
-
What a stupid, stupid, stupid design for a 'space' bomber. Just utterly stupid. I can't say stupid enough.
They really took original Star Wars' "WWII in Space" battles to the ridiculous extreme there, for sure lol.
-
In response to your spoiler:
I specifically didn’t like that scene because it’s a massive departure from the lore of all the other films. If they could just do that, why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time? Is it supposed to be that this group is the first group to try this, with the tech that has been around for at least a few centuries? If they had all died in the process I’d be more ok with that, although that also seems like a departure from how hyperspace works in the other films.
wrote last edited by [email protected]why haven’t both sides been doing that all the time?
I feel like this can at least be backed up. It should be ridiculously costly in terms of sheer resources and personnel, and therefore utterly foolish in 99% of scenarios.
We can posit that hyperspace generators should be expensive in terms of resources and credits, and should get exponentially more expensive as the ship size increases, so making "hyperspace warheads" should also be foolish...
But on the other hand, to take down something like the Death Star, I imagine such a maneuver would have seemed worth it!
I think that sums up why the last two sequel films bothered me so much: They went for emotional "woah!"s by pulling things out of nowhere unexpectedly...But then you think about it for 5 seconds and it all falls apart quick.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
-
The sequels really explored the idea with impressive worldbuilding. I admit the first one was more a horror flick, but the others were definitely digging deep into social commentary
Yeah, it wasn't even that the first one was bad, it's just that all the things they mentioned in passing, like the New Founding Fathers and the exemptions for Level 10 Government Officials, were building a world that sounded super interesting. Then we got saddle with some boring rich family for 90 minutes. I only got around to seeing the first sequel, but it delivered on all the stuff I wanted to see after I heard that first announcement.
-
You were the one using AI, goober. Stop.
Maybe you should actually read my comments in this thread before jumping on the reply button to give your hot takes about things that aren't even happening.
-
Maybe you should actually read my comments in this thread before jumping on the reply button to give your hot takes about things that aren't even happening.
I did read your comments. I lost any and all respect I could have ever possibly had for you when you used AI to formulate a comment.
-
Jurassic World. Just give me 90 minutes of dino mutants fighting, I don't give a shit about Chris Pratt nor some random kids.
+1 for I do not give a shit about Chris Pratt
-
Yeah, it wasn't even that the first one was bad, it's just that all the things they mentioned in passing, like the New Founding Fathers and the exemptions for Level 10 Government Officials, were building a world that sounded super interesting. Then we got saddle with some boring rich family for 90 minutes. I only got around to seeing the first sequel, but it delivered on all the stuff I wanted to see after I heard that first announcement.
NostalgiaCritic did a pretty decent analysis on the Purge series a few years ago, and it touches on a lot of this:
-
Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film)
The audience for Lucy was split evenly between men and women, with 65 percent being over age 25.[54] Nikki Rocco, president for domestic distribution at Universal Studios, said, "To have a female lead in an original property absolutely made a difference. Scarlett is a star, and her presence [in the film] made it a lot more appealing for women."[55] Michael Bodey of The Australian commented that women having comprised half the audience is "a seemingly new precedent for an action film" and that, because of its box office performance, Lucy is the film out of all of Besson's film work "likely to have the greatest cultural impact."[18]
It seems like it definitely resonated with a lot of people, will check it out. Luc Besson can be hit and miss, but his films are always memorable
-
100% agree. It's a fine twist on the subgenre, but the twist introduces an idea that begs to be expanded upon as part of a larger, cross-subgenre arc. And yet we only get a sliver and then it's done.
My hot take is that Joss Whedon's writing is like JJ Abrams': perfect premises with bad sense of follow-thru, so all their work gets the Netflix "over before it's satisfyingly concluded" treatment
I feel like everything was explained. I'm not left with any lingering questions about why or how any of it happened
-
CATS
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I've seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don't know who looked at Cat's and was like, "Yup, we need CGI." It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let's make a nightmare.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I still feel obliged to post it, so that the memories don't fade.
-
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can't collide with things 'in hyperspace', but only as you're going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn't she just splat against the cruiser's shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don't find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can't be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn't be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
