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The Wachowskis, of course, are the ones who brought us The Matrix, V for Vendetta, and Cloud Atlas, three of my favorite movies. The trailer for their latest movie hints at a familiar theme of exploitation by vast, incomprehensible powers, but it also has many of the hallmarks of a shitty summer sci-fi blockbuster. I'm a little worried.



Also, thoughts on the Wachowskis in general? To my mind, they are using a pop-culture medium and familiar tropes to deliver a subversive message that they actually believe in. I think of the character King Mob from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles who wants to make The Revolution sexy. There is a point at which King Mob is forced to self-reflect on that fact, however, that the image of the anarchist hero/super-hero is the most perniciously counter-revolutionary image there is since it fosters a disempowering belief in/hope for a messiah or great leader.

This speech made an impact.

For me neither the Matrix nor V were what they are to many others, but after Cloud Atlas I will make any allowance.

PW - Thanks for that video. Supports my feeling that they are not cynically capitalizing on the zeitgeist of the day but really are lovely, radical people.

JR- I do like all of them, but Cloud Atlas is certainly in a class by itself. The Matrix : Mainstream Hollywood Crap as Cloud Atlas : Matrix. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried just from re-watching a trailer for it recently.

V of course really was Anarchist Batman, and the love for it is creepy (including my own self-confessed love for it). Matrix was okay, but basically bloodless. Compare to Dark City, same movie, roughly at the same time. (My real reference point is always going to be Blade Runner - and there's a director who's done Alien and Blade Runner, and lots of crap since then.)

Anyway, the trailer looks a lot better than the other fare we're about to get. (Captain America et al.)

JackRiddler » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:49 am wrote:V of course really was Anarchist Batman

great damn point

JackRiddler » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:49 am wrote:(My real reference point is always going to be Blade Runner - and there's a director who's done Alien and Blade Runner, and lots of crap since then.)

Truesay, but to his credit, he also directed the single best film I saw last year.

Also, Prometheus did not exactly suck, and I think it had more of an impact on Generation Z than any of us codgers can currently appreciate.

Im a bit nervous about the Wachowskis coming up with an original story. Most of their good films have either been written by someone else, or very transparently ripped off from someone else. Case in point, The Matrix. When they were ripping off Invisibles it was great, when they tried to tell their own story it blew. I dunno, maybe they found something good to steal from for Jupiter Ascending.

Okay, Prometheus did not suck. It was just a big disappointment if you expected more than great visuals and the standard horror tropes.

Zombie Glenn Beck » Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:18 pm wrote:Im a bit nervous about the Wachowskis coming up with an original story. Most of their good films have either been written by someone else, or very transparently ripped off from someone else. Case in point, The Matrix. When they were ripping off Invisibles it was great, when they tried to tell their own story it blew. I dunno, maybe they found something good to steal from for Jupiter Ascending.

The steal from the Invisibles is sooo blatant but I still enjoyed the first Matrix at the cinema. V was also good fun if you ignore the way they totally missed the point of the comic. The trailer for this reminds me of the 5th Element but without the JPG costumes, the sci fi geek in me will always be interested to see nicely realised fantastical future worlds on screen, even if the plot and characterisation suck all kinds of arse.

Also, since we're talking about the Matrix...

The comic was also Anarchist Batman, just a touch more erudite, with less ultra-violence.

This is probably not a popular opinion, but I actually liked the movie better than the comic for both V for Vendetta and Watchmen, overall. The drugs and occultism cut from V was a little disappointing, but in both cases I felt like the source material was thoughtfully pruned down and tweaked to be more relevant to the present day. IMO Alan Moore sometimes gets a little too far up his own arse, as is most plainly evident from his Promethea series (which I also more or less liked despite that).

Interesting. I felt like Watchmen's film adaptation was missing the two most important characters: New York City and the Alien at the end.

Without 'em, just another superhero movie.

As long as we're talking about Alan Moore, has anyone seen Murder by Decree? I was stunned by it. Christopher Plummer plays Sherlock Holmes in a film that is basically the 1:1 prototype for From Hell -- all the way down to Jack the Ripper's all-black contact lenses.

As for the OP, the ad copy so far sounds Sci-Fi Jesus, basically...

Set in the future where gods rule over humans, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is an unlucky Russian immigrant who cleans toilets for a living. She encounters Caine (Channing Tatum), an interplanetary warrior whom the Queen of the Universe sent to kill Jupiter. Caine tells Jupiter that the stars were pointing to an extraordinary event on the night she was born, and that her DNA could mark her as the universe's next leader.

You ain't like those other Lumpenproletariat, gurrrrllll...

Wombaticus Rex » Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:25 pm wrote:Interesting. I felt like Watchmen's film adaptation was missing the two most important characters: New York City and the Alien at the end.

Oh yeah. Fantastic look and credit sequence, good evocation of the main characters, but ultimately a failure with a very bad alternate ending. It needed the monster plot. But a faithful adaptation would have required 12 episodes matching the 12 issues. And you don't get a $100+ million budget for TV.

Not as evil as Lord of the Rings with the cutting of the most important fucking part and real message of the book (the Scouring of the Shire). But hey, nice (snoooze!) giant battle scenes.

Set in the future where gods rule over humans, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is an unlucky Russian immigrant who cleans toilets for a living. She encounters Caine (Channing Tatum), an interplanetary warrior whom the Queen of the Universe sent to kill Jupiter. Caine tells Jupiter that the stars were pointing to an extraordinary event on the night she was born, and that her DNA could mark her as the universe's next leader.

You ain't like those other Lumpenproletariat, gurrrrllll...

Ayup. Couldn't they ever have it be that the messenger is sent to choose someone worthy of character - who could be anyone - from among the lumpens as the anointed? DNA, jeez.

Wombaticus Rex » Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:25 pm wrote:has anyone seen Murder by Decree? I was stunned by it. Christopher Plummer plays Sherlock Holmes in a film that is basically the 1:1 prototype for From Hell -- all the way down to Jack the Ripper's all-black contact lenses.

.

Plummer was acting in Murder while Kubrick was filming the Shining.
Here is Watson with Torrance.

The film adaptation of Cloud Atlas was empty and hollow compared to the source material, imo. The film seemed gimmicky to me, while the novel screamed revolution on every page. Tom Hanks and Halle Barry were horrible choices for leads, btw. Wooden acting creates screen characters I can't give a shit about.