My work colleagues and I were talking about the future Star Wars films, and they ripped into the first three chronological films (I, II, III). I didn’t bother replying, but just had a nervous laugh about their rant.
You see, these were the films I grew up with, and I thought they were filled with as much emotion and imagination as IV, V, VI. Sure, they have whiz-bang CGI and some really corny moments (Jar Jar Binks and Hayden Whatshisname screaming “I hate you” come to mind), but I have fond memories of them.
I watched II and III in cinemas with my siblings, in fact, and we had a blast. Of course, IV, V, VI had technical limitations and better storylines and characterisations, and maybe some fans view them with “nostalgia-tinted glasses”.
I think all six are great. This view may change if I attempt a rewatch, but at the moment, I, II, III are movies that I like and a lot of people seem to hate.
They’re way inferior than their older sisters, but that’s an unfair comparison when that trilogy qualifies as one of the best pieces of filmmaking in history.
As simple blockbustersfrom the 2000’s, they’re quite decent, at least.
I hope Episode VII is really good. If we get another great trilogy, it can help revive the faith on the overall franchise.
Aw, me too! Don’t worry; I may be wrong about this, but I think they get a lot more hate on the internet than they do in real life. Why else would the merchandising and the new Cars Land be so successful? Would bad movies really attract that much attention, or are people these days just foolish enough to buy that stuff from a bad movie and then say they don’t like it? (By the way, I’m not trying to be sarcastic to you, I’m just trying to make common sense out of all of this in general even for myself). You have good taste.
I’m actually surprised by the number of Cars fans we have here, compared to other Pixar movies (like say, A Bug’s Life, which is woefully underappreciated). There’s, of course, the Toy Story crowd, but they rarely venture outside their board.
Most of my friends and work colleagues IRL who have seen the film said they liked it, but maybe this is because they were casual fans and weren’t so attached to the Mandarin character.
I seem to encounter a lot of online vitirol (not from you, I know you’re pretty balanced on the film) who whined about the Mandarin twist (which I keep thinking of as a very sweet and fizzy soft drink, haha).
But yeah, I think the box-office figures speak for themselves. I remember trawling through the online booking systems of the various cinema chains here on its opening weekend and a lot of the sessions were sold out. Think it made an opening-weekend record in Singapore, too.
Does it deserve all those butts in its cinema halls’ seats? Well, I felt to a certain extent. While Shane Black certainly pulled off a competent (and daring) sequel, I felt that there were some part that could’ve been more fleshed out, and the action sequences (other than the villa trashing and the final fight) were underwhelming. Not to mention the [spoil]happy[/spoil] ending, which one netizen said could’ve been more powerful if they had [spoil]killed Pepper and ended it on a dour note, leaving Tony to take revenge against the real Mandarin in Avengers 2[/spoil].
I’d rather more people go and support the more well-polished Star Trek Into Darkness, which is doing pretty well from my last cinema-chain count, but not selling out as many halls as Iron Man 3 did. And certainly for Epic, which - due to its mediocre promotional campaign - I feel will be a box-office bomb but a future cult classic.
I think Iron Man 3 deserves a lot more hate that it gets. They took the best villain (and my favourite character) in Iron Man Comics and made a mockery of him.
Perfectly understandable. I’d be angry too if I was a fan of the character; a friend and fellow film critic of mine said it’s tantamount to [spoil]depicting the Joker in the Dark Knight movies as a fraud[/spoil].
Shane Black and his writers really had the c*jones to pull that off, I have to give 'em that. The fan backlash is but an inevitable result, but for ambivalent folks like me and those I’ve asked about the film IRL, they were kinda “meh” with it.
I only hope that [spoil]the real Mandarin[/spoil] shows up in Avengers 2, but at the moment it’s wishful thinking.
As someone with no comics knowledge, I thought the twist was hilarious and kept the movie fresh towards the end, although [spoil]Killian was a pretty lame villain.[/spoil] Overall, though, I really enjoyed it as a piece of popcorn entertainment.
Star Trek Into Darkness seems to generate nothing but strong feelings. I know a lot of people that like it, even love it, but I also know a lot of people that hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Very little middle ground reaction. I for one enjoyed it and thought it was entertaining. Not as good as the first, but still worth the price of admission
I really liked Shymalan’s The Last Airbender adaptation. The main reason why is because one morning, my mom and I decided to check it out on Netflix. I had never watched the actual Avatar: The Last Airbender series before that (I only knew about it through Nickelodeon commercials), so one morning back in June 2011, we saw it, and we both liked the story, action, and special effects very much (I actually almost cried when I saw Yue transfer her life force to the fish in the oasis), and my interest was even more heightened with the cliffhanger that showed Azula ready to begin her pursuit. We then watched the episode “The Siege of the North: Part 2” just to compare the two versions, and they were pretty consistent, just with some minor differences.
So basically, the story is that the movie actually sparked my interest in the series from then on. I ended up watching the entire Book One the very next summer, and I could see that they couldn’t fit all the details in to one movie; they just got the most important points. But overall, I still do like it, even though I know the whole original series as well.
