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Topic: Jupiter Ascending

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 02-19-2015 11:18 AM

As with other movies like the Hunger Games and whatnot, I'm just not the target audience for Jupiter Ascending, which is made by the same guys who did The Matrix. As a side note, I've never quite made up my mind if I like The Matrix or not, since it's basically a rip-off of Dark City and Dark City is a very good movie indeed. This prejudices me a bit against movies done by these guys, I suppose.

Jupiter Ascending is very similar to Dune; a lot of it covers internal political machinations by a galactic royal dynasty.

The girl spends a lot of time holding on to a fellow who flies through the air using special boots. The way that she flops around while holding him doesn't really follow the rest of the action on the screen -- it's pretty obvious that there's no particular relationship between their apparent motion and anything else that's happening around them.

Same thing when anyone pilots a spaceship. They more-or-less just put their hands in front of them and start moving them back and forth at random like a three-year-old playing race car.

At the beginning and end of the movie, the girl is the best dressed and made-up cleaning lady that I've ever seen. I've never before seen someone who wears professional makeup while cleaning a toilet.

I understand that a science fiction fantasy movie is, indeed, a fantasy. But I still think that in anything other than a movie intended for very small children, the action and the appearance of the characters should be, at least, plausible.

It took me quite a while to figure out what was supposed to be going on, and I'm still not entirely sure that I've got it figured out. But no matter -- I don't think I've missed out on anything particularly worthwhile either way.

Maybe if I was 17 years old I would think this movie is great, but as it is:

Meh.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-19-2015 12:51 PM

Plausibility went out of action movies (along with any regard for physics) at the same time CGI became commonplace.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-19-2015 01:22 PM

I don't think CGI is to blame for the death of plausibility and suspension of disbelief in contemporary movie productions and screenplays. The whole thing has more to do with so many "filmmakers" caught up in putting things on screen they think look cool without any regard for just how stupid and impossible the shot or action sequence may be.

There wasn't much of a problem with the first installment of The Matrix since all the impossible yet very cool looking visuals were supposed to take place in a computer-based reality that was being hacked to break obvious rules with physics and gravity. Suspension of disbelief was able to be maintained. Suspense was also maintained to some degree by other rules, like if you get killed in the matrix you die in real life.

The Matrix was a fairly big hit in theaters and an even bigger one on DVD. The movie was one of the first titles to really drive the hell out of DVD player sales.

Then Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was a big hit. Its characters were doing all sorts of impossible things, like chasing each other across flimsy tree tops. The film did little more than say if your Kung Fu was good enough you could do those impossible stunts. Critics ate up the movie and praised it as art. It was a Best Picture Oscar nominee if I recall correctly.

Hollywood went on to repeat all kinds of Matrix-like stuff or just generally implausible yet sort of cool looking action sequences in dozens upon dozens of movies that followed.

Lately people seem to be riffing off Guy Ritchie with action sequences that are sped up, slowed way down or various combinations of both with the hero character displaying impossibly fast reflexes and apparent 360 degree vision.

Kingsmen: The Secret Service has a very complex, choreographed fight sequence staged inside a church with dozens of people. The sequence is very cool (and very gory), yet is so implausible that the set piece ends up not nearly as entertaining as it should be. Since the action sequence isn't realistic the viewer can't relate to it very well. It's just a bunch of cool looking shit flying around on the screen.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-19-2015 02:49 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
I don't think CGI is to blame for the death of plausibility and suspension of disbelief in contemporary movie productions and screenplays. The whole thing has more to do with so many "filmmakers" caught up in putting things on screen they think look cool without any regard for just how stupid and impossible the shot or action sequence may be.

Well that's what I meant. They do things because they can, not because they make sense. But CGI made it a lot more possible to do these things and make them look photo-realistic, like a 200-pound character in a Superman movie getting dragged across a street and tearing up the pavement (instead of his body). Too bad "photo-realistic" doesn't equal real-world realism.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-19-2015 09:05 PM

Had to work on a projector today that had this movie loaded. Speilberg is right, if Hollywood keeps going down this path they won't be around very much longer.

Mark

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Jonathan Goeldner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1360
From: Washington, District of Columbia
Registered: Jun 2008

posted 02-19-2015 09:41 PM

I blame the script or the lack there of.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-23-2015 04:52 AM

Back in 1999, two brothers (at least they were brothers back then) had a great idea. Story, style, script and special effects came together and brought us The Matrix.

Since then it's a rather tough ride for the odd duo now known as "The Wachowskis". While the Matrix sequels and V for Vendetta made sufficient money at the box office, there were also some high profile bombs like Cloud Atlas.

This one had the writing on the wall, when the release date was moved from July 2014 to January/February 2015 at the last minute. I'm still wondering what happened in those intermediate months. Was the picture we got to see the same as the one scheduled for release back in July 2014?

This is the first movie since The Matrix franchise that's entirely based on their own material and I'm afraid it shows. While the production itself offers quite breathtaking visuals, the story just falls flat on it's face.

Building up a story in a vast, complex universe works great in sci-fi novels and series, but rarely works great in movies within a two to three hour time envelope, unless you really want to sit trough an hour of narration and exposition first.

It's good to see I'm not the only one who disliked the flying boots thing... the modern incarnation of the Silver Shoes.

quote: Frank Cox
As with other movies like the Hunger Games and whatnot, I'm just not the target audience for Jupiter Ascending, which is made by the same guys who did The Matrix. As a side note, I've never quite made up my mind if I like The Matrix or not, since it's basically a rip-off of Dark City and Dark City is a very good movie indeed. This prejudices me a bit against movies done by these guys, I suppose.

Both movies were released within a year from each other and had overlapping production schedules. I don't think either one had sufficient time to rip each other off. But to further deepen the controversy, the Matrix borrowed a few sets from Dark City. Besides the Platonic back story of both The Matrix and Dark City, you'll find that "Ghost in the Shell" was a much larger (and actually accredited) source of inspiration for The Matrix. There is also a Polish movie called Sexmission, released back in 1984. Besides the corny effects, acting and soft porn like feel of it all, it's like a strange comedic hybrid of The Matrix and The Island. It might be a coincidence, but the father of the Wachowskis is of Polish descent.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Lately people seem to be riffing off Guy Ritchie with action sequences that are sped up, slowed way down or various combinations of both with the hero character displaying impossibly fast reflexes and apparent 360 degree vision.

At least in this case it came from the same bunch that gave us "Bullet Time" in the first place [Wink]

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-23-2015 10:18 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Well that's what I meant. They do things because they can, not because they make sense. But CGI made it a lot more possible to do these things and make them look photo-realistic, like a 200-pound character in a Superman movie getting dragged across a street and tearing up the pavement (instead of his body). Too bad "photo-realistic" doesn't equal real-world realism.

This weekend my girlfriend and I watched 3 different movie rentals: John Wick, Fury and Dracula Untold. We both liked John Wick, which was a pretty straight-forward revenge flick with a lot of well choreographed action sequences that didn't take implausibility too far. Fury had me thinking of Saving Private Ryan too much, particularly the climactic battle at the end, which I found totally implausible. Dracula Untold was a waste of time; the movie was guilty of the very things we're talking about. It used CGI effects to do certain things in the story implausible enough to make me just feel numb and disinterested while watching it. The movie couldn't even be consistent in regard to the rules of what kills or doesn't kill vampires -all just so we can have a happy ending tacked onto the thing and hold out hope (or dread in this case) that there will be a sequel. It's bullshit movie-making.

I suspect the Save the Cat screenwriters bible could be a culprit with the direction these movies are taking. Just so the movie can comply with the beat sheet template they force the plot to be at a certain development by a certain page even if the characters or mere plausibility can't support it. They just do it anyway. To hell with plausibility.

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Building up a story in a vast, complex universe works great in sci-fi novels and series, but rarely works great in movies within a two to three hour time envelope, unless you really want to sit trough an hour of narration and exposition first.

People who make science fiction movies need to remember two very important things:
1. Keep it simple.
2. Show, don't tell.

And then there's the previously mentioned, vital concept: maintain an audiences' suspension of disbelief.

One thing that made the original Star Wars trilogy work so well is they didn't spend a whole lot of time boring people to death with tons of nerdy exposition. They just got into the story right away. Lots of things in movies do not have to be explained in detail. The concept might work better with little to no explanation. Let the action and visuals speak for themselves.

Science fiction movies can get very boring and very stupid very fast when you have a characters standing around having fake conversations that only serve to dole out exposition the audience is bound to forget moments after hearing it anyway. Various other genre-oriented action movies are prone to making the same mistakes.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-25-2015 03:52 PM

Science fiction movies are probably very susceptible to this kind of over-exposition, compared to movies in a more contemporary setting. But yes, I was also thinking about the original Star Wars movies. I guess those movies alone, without all the "junk" that was later constructed around them, did a pretty good job of describing a pretty vast universe without too much exposition.

You're bound to explain something about your world to the audience, or else you'll end up with something like Dune (the one from 1987), where nobody except the ones who read the book knew what was going on. But once you'll find yourself spending large parts of the screen time on this, I guess your premise was wrong to begin with.

Science fiction movies based on strong stories and fictional universes can be interesting subjects for sequels in general, as you can use those sequels to go deeper into the inner workings of this universe you created. But I think it's best if every movie still just works on it's own.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-25-2015 09:50 PM

In the case of Dune, the epic novel from Frank Herbert clearly exposes the stark differences between the things that entertain in a novel versus a 2-3 hour movie.

Science fiction novels can go very deep into detail about all sorts of things to flesh out the world in print form. Conventional movies can't do much of that. Dialog drives a lot of the action in a novel and is useful for revealing developments in the story. Lots of genre novels are told in the first person so the entire book feels like dialog. The opposite is true with movies. Too much dialog in a movie is BAD. Audiences can absorb simple exchanges of dialog, particularly when the dialog (and actors' performances & delivery) is entertaining. In movies visual action is what drives a story and it is what audiences remember more.

A scene where a pair of characters barf out story exposition disguised as a private conversation is a cop out in screenwriting and movie-making. It stalls the story because there's really nothing happening while that "conversation" takes place. And then there's a good chance lots of audience members may forget any important points in the dialog.

David Lynch's movie version of Dune was still pretty heavy on exposition. But it still had to excise so much from the novel that many viewers unfamiliar with the Dune saga were baffled and even bored by what they were seeing on screen. The first time I watched Dune I came away from it fairly disappointed and only finding the end title music by Toto catchy.

Part of why Star Wars worked is because it was never previously a novel, stage play, etc. It was written to be a movie and made with the rules of the filmmaking medium in mind. It economized on the dialog, kept the plot simple, didn't stop to explain every little thing and made the most of its visuals and the performances of the actors.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 02-27-2015 09:10 AM

Star Wars worked because all the background you needed was explained in the 30 seconds opening text crawl, allowing the movie to open directly into the story. Yes, there was dialog throughout that expanded your knowledge of that universe, but it all fit into the story as opposed to being there just for the sake of explaining.

I am one of those rare people that likes the original theatrical cut of Blade Runner with the voice overs. Those voice overs explain both the world and motivation that would have taken a lot of contrived filler to explain as part of the plot. The problem with the various director's cuts is that when they removed the voice overs they did not re-cut the film so that they would not have characters doing nothing for extended periods of time while nothing happens.

Both the Star Wars (opening crawl), and Blade Runner (voice overs) used tried and true film methods of conveying background without bloating the story.

Back in 1976 when I was a student at Ohio University and working as a projectionist for the Athena Theatre in town, we played The Man Who Fell To Earth. The film was based upon a novel of the same name written by one of my professors. I was working the night he came to see the film, and I remember talking to him afterwards. He didn't like it. He wrote a very straight forward little science fiction novel that was turned into a confusing artsy motion picture. I read the book based upon that discussion, and like Dune the film makes more sense after reading the book. Some films like 2001: A Space Odyssey can get away with this, but for most films it just comes across as pretentious.

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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 03-03-2015 12:49 AM

I don't think 2001 got away with it.

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