The action was fun. The humour was meh at best.
Pixels (2015) trailer
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
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My thoughts exactly. I have ZERO interest in seeing this movie.
I actually went to see this today, having nothing better to do. It is unforgivably stupid, but it was also pretty fun and enjoyable. I turned my brain off and had a good time. It was amazing how many licenses they got the rights to. It was stupid big budget fun. Certainly the least offensive Adam Sandler movie since Zohan, but I loved Zohan. 
This movie absolutely wins the all time prize for Movie Coincidences, though. Oh, as a kid Adam Sandler was the world's best video game champion... and he grew up to be a complete looser... who's best friends with the President of the United States... who installs cable in a lady's house the morning of the alien attack... when she's the person who will develop the alien technology... *smacks forehead*
This movie absolutely wins the all time prize for Movie Coincidences, though. Oh, as a kid Adam Sandler was the world's best video game champion... and he grew up to be a complete looser... who's best friends with the President of the United States... who installs cable in a lady's house the morning of the alien attack... when she's the person who will develop the alien technology... *smacks forehead*
How in the hell did Dinklage's character "cheat" in the Pac-Man sequence? I mean... HOW? How did he input the cheat-code in his sunglasses? How did inputting that cheat-code impact the real-world situation they were in? And, logically, shouldn't this been a game where no one could die? Shouldn't the "eaten" cars have re-materialized at the starting point?
But I really, really do not understand how Dinklage cheated in the real-world Pac Man scenario. Why did the aliens make it *possible* for him to cheat? It's not like they were able to program the situation from the original game since all they had was video of the game and not the software itself. So how did his "cheat code" work?! Seriously, this is a huge fucking plot-hole in the movie.
Hell, how did he even cheat at the original tournament? It's not like those old arcade cabinets or early consoles had the concept of cheat-codes and such in them.
But I really, really do not understand how Dinklage cheated in the real-world Pac Man scenario. Why did the aliens make it *possible* for him to cheat? It's not like they were able to program the situation from the original game since all they had was video of the game and not the software itself. So how did his "cheat code" work?! Seriously, this is a huge fucking plot-hole in the movie.
Hell, how did he even cheat at the original tournament? It's not like those old arcade cabinets or early consoles had the concept of cheat-codes and such in them.
Indeed. They were designed to eat quarters. Putting in cheat codes would be counter-intuitive.
I didn't see it, but I find it hard to believe this "cheat code" bidness is any dumber or less believable than the rest of the movie.
In the movie Dinklage's character is a rival pro-gamer to Adam Sandler's character. They call him in because they need another pro retro-game to combat the aliens.
We're in the Pac-Man sequence (which actually was a really good sequence) where the characters (Dinklage, Sandler, Fat Pervy Conspiracy Guy and Pac-Man's original creator) are in cars designed to be the "ghosts" and their goal is kill Pac-Man three times to win the battle.
So they're driving through the streets of Manhattan while the military watches on computer screens their progress. Dinklage's character "inputs a cheat-code" that teleports his car from one location to another in order in order to better trap Pac-Man.
Let me say that again, he fucking enters a cheat-code that teleports his equipped with a machine that can kill the type of energy the aliens used to recreate Pac-Man but otherwise perfectly ordinary car. This wasn't something the aliens gave them, this was something the humans made.
As much as we have to accept in this movie I think that stuff is very, very different than Dinklage being able to teleport his goddman car by entering into his car's controls a cheat-code he once used in an arcade cabinet 30 years earlier.
All fine and good. But... At the 1982 tournament the gamers were being recorded so that the footage can be put in a capsule to be sent to space, the winner's video being the one used. So..... Why didn't those reviewing the footage notice the cheat and disqualify Dinklage's character? When the aliens viewed the footage how did they interpret what happened in the video as being a "cheat" and not part of what they interpreted to be a "challenge" from humans? Why did the aliens translate the "cheat" into being part of the battle? And, arcade machines back-then DIDN'T HAVE CHEAT CODES!
Cheat-codes started off as "back-door tricks" from programmers debugging the program. They needed ways to give themselves abilities in the game in order to test for bugs but they needed to do this in a way that was quick and easy and prevented them from actually having to play through the game like a normal player. Boom, cheat-codes. More/infinite lives or invincibility are common ones, makes sense. This gives debuggers opportunity to go through the game without having to worry about the "mortality" in the game.
Cheat-codes started when one of these back-door tricks was accidentally not removed before production and it was discovered by a player. (IIRC this was the infamous "Konami Code" that was left in an early Konami game (not Contra) and it was discovered by a player.)
But in the early days of gaming there was little need for these tricks as games were fairly simple. Pac-Man had one screen, that's it. Each successive "level" only upped the challenge by making the ghosts faster and other aspects like that. So there was no need to have "teleporting cheat codes" because such a thing wouldn't give programmers -who only had one screen to test- any information they needed to debug the program.
But all that aside, let's accept the cheat-code notion.
What's that cheat-code keyed to do? It gives the player the ability to circumvent the rules of the game in order to prevent being killed. What's the player in a Pac-Man game? That's right, Pac-Man! What's Dinklage's character in the Pac-Man sequence? That's right, a ghost! So how does entering a code to give Pac-Man the ability to have super-speed give Dinklage's ghost car this ability?!
And, as said above, the purpose of arcades was to get people to keep pumping in quarters. Why negate that by giving them the ability to circumvent the rules of the game to complete it faster or easier?
Ugh....
Yes, I'm thinking too much about this.
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For the first twenty minutes of this pixelated turd, you're thinking this is no different from our normal Earth apart from it being a nightmarish Hellscape where Kevin James can be elected President (although in the age of Trump, it's sadly not as unbelievable any more). Then all of a sudden, a sentient and sapient android with a pointy transparent skull just randomly shows up in the government lab and no one but Olaf seems to think that us having fully functional AI androids working for the government is amazing. It's treated as a throwaway "Oh, BTW, we have androids working for us" moment of no consequence whatsoever. They might as well have introduced a chicken sandwich.
So, in a movie with constantly shifting in-story rules that seems to have been written by a committee of meth-addicted teenagers, having a Mini Cooper randomly capable of teleportation doesn't seem as far-fetched anymore.
If you really want an explanation, though, since the aliens already possessed teleportation technology, the most reasonable explanation would be that his "cheat code" allowed him to hack into he alien's tech and use their own teleportation capabilities against them.
And the biggest WTF unbelievable moment of any film ever...Kevin James as POTUS.
Even more unbelievable than Tiny Lister as POTUS in The Fifth Element?
Much more. Tiny Lister is likeable.And the biggest WTF unbelievable moment of any film ever...Kevin James as POTUS.
Even more unbelievable than Tiny Lister as POTUS in The Fifth Element?
I'd take Terry Crews or Leslie Nielson over Kevin James, too.
My niece has been wanting to see this so we go to the mid-afternoon show and it was sold out, WTF! Maybe this will go down as a cult movie for Lansing, Michigan. 
And the biggest WTF unbelievable moment of any film ever...Kevin James as POTUS.
Even more unbelievable than Tiny Lister as POTUS in The Fifth Element?
But, see, in that movie he at least acted Presidential. In this movie Kevin James acts like Kevin James Character 37c. Yet he's the President of the United States who fumbles at reading a kid's book (he says he was tired), yelled at a kid correcting him and in a post-win party drinks with soldiers using a beer-bong. He doesn't act like a President at all. He acts like a Kevin James character. And the overall context of the movie isn't very much one of a goofy comedy universe where he's antics are hand-wavable. It's pretty much played straight so his idiocy stands out.
The UFC guy who was the future president in "Idiocracy" was far more believable as President than James was in this movie.
That was Terry Crews.
Brawndo. It's got electrolytes!
I also will stick with the segment of a Futurama episode, "I've got no date, a 2-liter bottle of Shasta, and my all Rush mix tape. Let's rock!"
I'm getting annoyed with the comparison to the Futurerama episode. Yes, both have the same idea (aliens misinterpret footage of video games sent into space as being a challenge from earth/example of earth warfare.) But saying that seems to imply that only one movie/show can happen for any one idea. Which sort of restricts a heck of a lot of our entertainment considering how the major plots of most drama and even comedy can in some manner be traced back to Shakespeare, The Bible or even older.
The basic premise of the monster movie could be traced back to caveman times.
What was the big Pixar animated movie this year? Inside Out, where a person's inner workings is represented as several different people, each representing a different personality trait, inside the person's head? So how many refused to see "Inside Out" because it's premise is exactly like the 90s sitcom "Herman's Head" or roughly a similar premise to "Osmosis Jones."
I think there's enough room for more than one interpretation of "aliens attack us based on seeing our '80s video games." Not saying that this movie is a good take on that idea, but, come-on, come up with a better excuse to not see the movie than "Futurama did it!" or "it's premise resembles the plot of an episode a cartoon did over 10 years ago."
Especially considering "Pixels" was inspired by a short-movie someone made which in-of-itself you could argue was inspired by Futurama but it's not like Pixels/Sandler ripped off Futurama from the aether, they bought an idea someone else came up with.
Still, if you're not going to see a movie because someone else did the same story first, there's probably a lot of movies you're not going to see.
The basic premise of the monster movie could be traced back to caveman times.
What was the big Pixar animated movie this year? Inside Out, where a person's inner workings is represented as several different people, each representing a different personality trait, inside the person's head? So how many refused to see "Inside Out" because it's premise is exactly like the 90s sitcom "Herman's Head" or roughly a similar premise to "Osmosis Jones."
I think there's enough room for more than one interpretation of "aliens attack us based on seeing our '80s video games." Not saying that this movie is a good take on that idea, but, come-on, come up with a better excuse to not see the movie than "Futurama did it!" or "it's premise resembles the plot of an episode a cartoon did over 10 years ago."
Especially considering "Pixels" was inspired by a short-movie someone made which in-of-itself you could argue was inspired by Futurama but it's not like Pixels/Sandler ripped off Futurama from the aether, they bought an idea someone else came up with.
Still, if you're not going to see a movie because someone else did the same story first, there's probably a lot of movies you're not going to see.
^ I think the implied joke in those responses is the notion that any of us need additional reasons to not pay good money to see Happy Gilmore Productions movies starring Sandler and Kevin James.
Fair enough and understandable but "I don't want to see another Sandler/James movie" is different than "Futurama did it!"
And I've not liked anything Sandler has done for the better part of a decade and found him tolerable in this. This was "don't give a damn, phone-it-in Sandler," usual tropes and notes in this movie he hits like in most of his movies (loser who's told he's worthless, accomplishes more than he thought possible. Lands the hot-woman at the end," but no Sandlerisms in this to get annoyed with. (Goofy voice, bathroom humor, low-brow humor in general.)
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