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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.
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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.
This was the first thing I thought of when seeing the prompt. I actually love this movie and have seen it several times, but the acting is abysmal.
I’m surprised how many people in the comments have (A) seen this movie, and (B) liked it. I didn’t care for it, although I do like the basic premise.
The timing of your comment is a kind of a funny coincidence for me, because over the past few days I’ve been editing the next episode of my podcast, which will come out on Tuesday, and in it I mention Time Trap a couple times. Maybe the film is having a moment?
Hey, I’m upvoting you and all but I gotta ask how do you do the spoiler thing? I’m using Apollo and it made me click to expand your comment so I could see the spoiler part. How did you format it?
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Time trap was awesome. The scene when they realize the flickering lights are time passing and then they poke their heads out of the cave to see a complete departure of the old world.
The end got a lil weird tho.
Nonetheless it’s a movie that will stick with you for a few days of conceptualizing.
*Time Trap was directed by Ben Foster, which I just discovered. It’s also streaming for free (w ads of course) on YouTube.
So I just watched it on YouTube. What the hell was that ending?
Spoilers if someone is gonna watch it (I don’t really know an effective way to do spoiler tags so bear with me):
They’re in the cave until the sun just kinda “goes out” and is replaced by a bright green light. Some giant future human comes down and does battles with the cavemen and knocks them out with some weird shock collar thing. He takes a vial of super water before being jumped by some more cavemen and getting his mask taken off and bonked on the head a few times, which somehow kills him. Before he dies, he plays some holographic recording of a newscast about the five characters who went missing. In the final battle, they take his ladder and use it to try to escape the cave only to find some weird machine with water covering the hole where they try to climb out of. What I assume is another evolved human grabs them and outfits one girl in a weirdly sexy diving suit? To then rescue the rest of them. They all wake up in a spaceship and get reunited with their friends and the professor with his family, and presumably fly off to Mars.
My question(s) is A) what the hell is going on with future humanity B) why isn’t anyone upset that the world is dead and their families are gone forever and they passed into history as another unsolved disappearance, but it’s cool cause we’re in space in the future C) how did they not experience the heat death of the universe in the time dilation cave? Especially when the sun went out
The kind of spoiler tag you used is the kind that doesn’t work on every Lemmy app. Fortunately, that’s not a problem, as I’ve already seen Time Trap, and despite forgetting its name, do sometimes think about it.
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I believe this is what you’re looking for:
::: spoiler Visible Text
hidden content goes here
:::Looks like:
Visible Text
hidden content
Thanks! Does that look any better now?
It doesn’t, it still has some exclamation point action that might be the issue. If it helps, you should be able to copy and paste my example markdown. I gave it a try and it still works.
There, third time’s the charm (or 10th, more accurately, since lemmy.world is shitting the bed right now).
I think I figured out what was going on, too. The app I use was automatically re-parsing spoiler formatting into its own syntax, but then was erroneously applying that same syntax to text when attempting to view source. So even the example you posted looked different to me when viewed in app versus on the actual site. I made the edit from the site this time and I think that should be good now.
Looks great, bravo!
might give this one a watch!
Imo it is way better than what OP made it sound to be, held my attention whole way through.
Not a film, but a novel:
Starflight 3000 by R.W. Mackelworth
If I remember, it was about this asteroid called “The Biosphere” that got hollowed out and sent on relativistic speeds through deep space to seed other solar systems with human colonies. The inside of it was set up like a giant rural town with massive skies, and a foot print the size of New York. And that’s a cool ass premise.
But the book was so fucking milquetoast and bland. I could not tell you anything about the protagonist, their challenges, or anything.
Equilibrium
Mortal Kombat (2021) opened with a great “feudal China with elemental magic” clan story that could have been an amazing movie, but then they jumped forward in time and everything after that was a let down.
Interstellar is like Neo-Posadism minus Marxism. The premise was awesome. Climate apocalypse and space travel. But the movie doesn’t have humanity solve either of those problems. Instead it pops it’s collar and says *don’t worry bro,
the marketMarxist space alienssome scientistsa famous shirtless hot actor guyfuck you who cares the green guy behind a curtain made a worm hole or something".I have a feeling Chris Nolan goes into films with some specifically detailed poignant character moments in mind, and then he just hastily weaves a plot to tie them together. It’s interesting to watch at least, but maybe too high brow(?) to call entertaining
For Interstellar, at least, I’d say it’s incredibly low-brow. The resolution is just “the power of wuv saves humanity!”, which is extremely simplistic and easily understood by the masses.
Well I meant mostly the talking parts which we were told to care about but most people forget
That would explain why his best films are based on books
I thought the bigger issue was the premise. If earth is in a climate apocalypse, and we have extremely advanced technology that lets us bring life to far out planets, then why are we leaving earth? Can’t those same technologies be applied to saving the earth people?
The whole “we have to go space” feels like manifest destiny and the desperate urge of capitalism to expand.
What I got out of it was that plant life got diseases that killed them/made them unedible and corn was the only one holding off until the start of the movie. Also in my extremely slim understanding of planetary modification you need to release gases (carbon dioxide, oxygen etc) on a planet to create an atmosphere and it’s way easier to release gases than remove them.
So their plan was to let the earth crops rot away and plant fresh ones where there is no diseases.
I also didn’t like the “I’m going to fuck off and let everyone else die” philosophy of not solving the climate issue at home.
It can be easier to start with a fresh slate than it is to salvage a mess.
Who is the mess? Going off world, to me, is the perfect opportunity for billionaire and bureaucratic assholes to try and create an ethno state. Who decides who gets to leave the planet? This planet isn’t a mess, that’s what eco-fascists want you to believe
There is no real response because we’re talking about a fictional future, with unknown ailments, established by maybe 20 minutes of film as a backdrop. They wanted to tell a story titled “interstellar”, not “terrestrial”.
Given all those unknowns, it stands that there are times when starting fresh is easier than undoing. Trying to unmix brown pigments comes to mind.
You asked:
If earth is in a climate apocalypse, and we have extremely advanced technology that lets us bring life to far out planets, then why are we leaving earth? Can’t those same technologies be applied to saving the earth people?
This is a potential answer, given the lack of established truths in this fictional universe.
Ion what you tryna say, it was honestly a whole lot of nothing. Wtf does “trying to unmix brown pigments” mean? That’s cryptic asf and doesn’t make any sense, wouldn’t it be impossible to unmix any pigment color combo? And wtf does that sort of metaphor even mean?
Look man, what I was saying in response to your comment was that I don’t think it’s acceptable to call the planet an unfixable mess. Maybe it’s easier to start fresh for some people, but that was literally the problem I was trying to point out to you.
I just hate how Interstellar tells the audience that in a climate apocalypse, the only solution is to leave the planet. It’s ecofascism
wouldn’t it be impossible to unmix any pigment color combo? And wtf does that sort of metaphor even mean?
It’s an example of a situation where it’s easier to start fresh than undo past actions, which by your point you show you understand.
I don’t think it’s acceptable to call the planet an unfixable mess.
Let’s differentiate between OUR planet, and the planet depicted in the movie. Are you saying that there are no ways in which a fictional future earth is unsalvageable?
Do you also rally against movies set in, for example, a dystopian cyberpunk setting due to not liking the scene it was set in?
Dude you’re not understanding my point. Like I said, it matters how the film/situation is shown to the audience. Yes interstellar is fictional, but it is also about a possible future for our planet. All it does is buy into the trope of saving the planet through space, and show audiences how seemingly cool that would be.
I never said I didn’t like the scene it was set in, I said I don’t like their reaction to the scene. The dystopian cyberpunk I like cause at least they didn’t give up 🤷
As featured in the picture, Reign of Fire. I had forgotten about it. I truly don’t think there is a film out there that has represented dragons as I see them better.
I really think about Quinn’s character a lot. How the world entirely changed for him on that pivotal day he discovered that male dragon, and the decades he spent running and surviving and living in fear of something that he inadvertently set in motion, and then the turning point as an adult as he confronts his fear and wields it to put an end to what he started.
What I like about him, is that he’s not actually that unique – anybody could have woken that dragon, and if Quinn hadn’t been there on that day, one of his mother’s coworkers would have. He’s not particularly heroic as an adult either, opting to hide and scrounge for survival, and openly admitting to everyone that he’s winging it on the leader front. And yet he inspires his community with fierce devotion to keeping them all alive. When he finally goes to confront the dragon, he does it almost alone, inspiring no one with his courage other than himself.
As a character I find him weirdly relatable as someone just coping with heavy trauma the best that they can
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Twilight. My wife made me watch the first one and it’s actually got a really interesting world and hints at a lot of decent lore and possible content.
Then they fill the film with close-ups of their eyes meeting across the room for minutes on end.
The third and fourth books actually start to introduce some really wild lore and world-building. Shame it was wasted on such a terrible main plot.
I actually liked the weird depressing grey vibe of the the first film. If it wasn’t for all the vampire stuff, it’d be an interesting outsider story about boy-meets-girl with a slight supernatural vibe
S Darko was interesting because at it’s core it’s about the fact that women have to deal with twice as much bullshit
Mortal Engines
Downsizing
First 20 minutes (give or take) seemed like a solid start. But then they did absolutely nothing with the concept.
No Country For Old Men - a slice of life movie about living in Texas.
No way it’s mediocre 😆
Terminator Genisys
First creative use of the time travel the series ever had… And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn’t an action sequence.
That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.
