The movie is entertaining enough, but the books are better.
However, if you want the absolute best version, then I recommend the radio version, which you can find on CD.
Classic SF...opinions....
- Thread starter Warped9
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The movie is entertaining enough, but the books are better.
However, if you want the absolute best version, then I recommend the radio version, which you can find on CD.
I think your assessment of ID4 unfairly penalizes it by virtue of your choice of comparison movie. Though Independence Day is supposed to be an homage to all fifties alien invasion movies, It's not Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. It's a refurbished War of The Worlds:
-The saucers in ID4 are not just saucers - They're saucers with little heads in the front where the bad things come out, much like the Martian machines with their cobra-heads.
-The Martians destroyed human civilization mostly using their heat rays. The ID4 aliens used vertical heat rays to do the same thing.
-The first military forces to face the Martians were Marines from El Toro base. Will Smith and his pilot buddies flew their F-18's out of "El Toro" MCAS.
-When it was decided to use nukes, flying wings carried them in both movies. (YB-49 in WoTW, B-2's in ID4.)
-Finally, the computer virus in ID4 was never meant to make sense as a viable defense. It was simply a metaphor for "the littlest creatures, which God in his infinite wisdom, put upon this Earth."
Now, if reading this just makes you think WoTW is also a smarter movie than ID4, I can't help you. I just think comparing it to EvTFS is "apples and oranges."
All that said, I didn't hate EvTFS.
Further and belated aside on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers films: For obvious reasons, the remake has one of my favourite endings of any sci-fi film.
So a plot device is a metaphor for... another plot device.
Wait.
The ending of Independence Day means nothing other then a contrivance (because fighting any vastly superior enemy and then winning requires an Achilles heel of some sort - the exhaust port of the Death Star, the Shadows and telepathy, the Borg going to sleep, on and on) and it's contrivance by way of advertisement for a computer company.
That said the original War of the Worlds isn't a spectacular film either. The original book (and for that matter, the Orson Welles broadcast) on the other hand...
So a plot device is a metaphor for... another plot device.
Wait.
The ending of Independence Day means nothing other then a contrivance (because fighting any vastly superior enemy and then winning requires an Achilles heel of some sort - the exhaust port of the Death Star, the Shadows and telepathy, the Borg going to sleep, on and on) and it's contrivance by way of advertisement for a computer company.
That said the original War of the Worlds isn't a spectacular film either. The original book (and for that matter, the Orson Welles broadcast) on the other hand...
Would it make you feel better if I said it was two different versions of the same plot device?
And my point was to point out similarities between two alien invasion movies. That's all. Don't waste energy trying to get to the inner meaning of my words.
I grew up loving it. Sorry you didn't.
Agreed.
You know I was a kid when Independence Day came out and I saw it a few dozen times in theatre and on VHS. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen it since the late nineties, aber.
However, the plasubility issue is unique to Independence Day. They didn't not care because the plot device was a reference to War of the Worlds... they didn't care because they wanted to make a brainless action movie where a lot of suspension of disbelief was a required feature.
Which is fine, really.
Obviously? It's clearly the same sort of plot device, which was something I vaguely stabbed at as well.
However, the plasubility issue is unique to Independence Day. They didn't not care because the plot device was a reference to War of the Worlds... they didn't care because they wanted to make a brainless action movie where a lot of suspension of disbelief was a required feature.
Which is fine, really.
That's encouraging.The only thing I remember about it in detail is a lightswitch on the wrong side of the room.
Funny you should mention that; that was one of the "genuinely unsettling bits" that I remember very clearly. When I got up to put the kettle on a bit later that day, I remember double-checking the light switch was where it damn well should be.
[shrug] Not everybody did. I, personally, was geek-gasming all the way through my first time seeing it, but that's me.
Today I picked up Metropolis (the new Kino edition) and Splice. I ordered When Worlds Collide (with other stuff) and it should arrive any day now.
A few days ago I sat down and watched Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan which I hadn't seen since its original release about twenty-five years ago.
My biggest complaint with this film is it's pacing in some spots. It just seems to drag unlike the way I remember it. Or perhaps I, too, have become accustomed to more contemporary films with generally quicker pacing on average. I know this film isn't strictly faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs original novel, but it does have a look and sensibility that feels right. Christopher Lambert isn't a bad Tarzan, but I think they could have cast better and someone with a little more meat to his physique. I think the film also needed something else to the story other than Tarzan/John Clayton dealing with being torn between two worlds. In some respects this might seem a more realistic take on Tarzan, but perhaps it's a bit too much so and there isn't enough larger-than-life aspects to the character and his world. I'm also reflecting on the covers I've seen on some of the Burroughs' Tarzan novels and I'm inclined to visualize those when I think of Tarzan---a little more larger-than-life action.
This isn't a bad film, but I can see where it could have been better.
A few days ago I sat down and watched Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan which I hadn't seen since its original release about twenty-five years ago.
My biggest complaint with this film is it's pacing in some spots. It just seems to drag unlike the way I remember it. Or perhaps I, too, have become accustomed to more contemporary films with generally quicker pacing on average. I know this film isn't strictly faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs original novel, but it does have a look and sensibility that feels right. Christopher Lambert isn't a bad Tarzan, but I think they could have cast better and someone with a little more meat to his physique. I think the film also needed something else to the story other than Tarzan/John Clayton dealing with being torn between two worlds. In some respects this might seem a more realistic take on Tarzan, but perhaps it's a bit too much so and there isn't enough larger-than-life aspects to the character and his world. I'm also reflecting on the covers I've seen on some of the Burroughs' Tarzan novels and I'm inclined to visualize those when I think of Tarzan---a little more larger-than-life action.
This isn't a bad film, but I can see where it could have been better.
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I'm looking forward to seeing SPLICE when I have the chance. All of Natali's films (and his two shorts) are watchable and inventive on their limited budgets. You should definitely give CUBE, CYPHER, and NOTHING a chance if you haven't yet. One of his shorts, ELEVATED, is on youtube, I think.
I hear the special features are pretty sparse on this release of METROPOLIS. True?
I hear the special features are pretty sparse on this release of METROPOLIS. True?
^^ I haven't really looked at the Special Features yet as I was more interested in the film itself. A friend of mine had already watched this revised edition on TCM and he says the added footage really helps the film. So when I get a chance I'll sit down for a good watch of it.
Ha, I watched this again around the same time you did. Yeah, it's one killer film.I've just finished watching the 1978 version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I first and last saw this when it was released in cinema decades before I got to see the original '56 version a couple of years ago. The '78 still works and with all due deference to the original I find the '78 remake a lot creepier and unnerving. They really went out of their way to give it an unnerving, edgy atmosphere. And I loved the McCarthy cameo and tip-of-the-hats to the original.
Well done.
It does. Truthfully, however, even the hacked down version of the film counts as basically one of my favourite science fiction films of all time... but the additional material doesn't hurt it in the least (although, alas, the film remains somewhat incomplete).
I've yet to buy the film myself, though I saw it in concert (live orchestra and all, nice stuff). I can live without a lot of extras, as the previous Kino release which I own had quite a few.
Careful. Every time I say this about casting Superman I get whined at, because apparently it's perfectly all right for a guy named SUPERMAN to look like an emo point guard. My detractors would probably say the same about casting Tarzan.
Tarzan, last son of a dying England, sent on an experimental steamship to Africa, where he was taken in by the gorillas who raised him, acquiring great powers as he grew to manhood beneath the equatorial sun?
I had hoped this version would carry over those old features, since I never bought it, but oh well. And, though it's still incomplete, it's pretty close to being the entire film (at least, as originally released in Germany). It would be nice if they found a complete 35mm copy, but I can live with what we have now if they don't.
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