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Post by Baycrum on Jul 7, 2009 14:15:31 GMT -5
I've seen Up and it wasn't very good.it was the Third Pixar movie that disapointed me9the others are Cars(It was like Emporers new groove but with cars)and Chicken Little(Hmmm a fairy tale have we heard this before).WALL-E....It wasn't all that great(robot has feeling have we seen this before).Toy story 3(omg do we really need this!?)Ice Age was my 2nd fave movie and I don't think they need to bash it just because Ellie could have a baby.(if WALL-E and EVE Had a baby everyone would be all:"AWW So cute"They didn't mind Shrek and Fiona having babies did they?
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Post by Aurum on Jul 7, 2009 14:36:36 GMT -5
Ice Age 3 was hilarious :D Second best (animated) movie I've seen so far this year... And what?? Just because Ellie has a baby, they bash it? No. ;) They dislike it because it wasn't "mature" enough. An example being that (spoilers for Up) Up has a villain that's killed people from being paranoid, an innocent death, infertility, the villain shooting at kids and doggies., whereas Ice Age 3 only tried to be fun and did a great job at that. It's unfortunate most can't see that. D: |
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RF
Full Member
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Post by RF on Jul 7, 2009 15:22:47 GMT -5
Ohhh, I get it. Lol...so evil dinosaurs attacking the herd while something important's going on isn't "mature" enough? xD
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Post by fuzzynecromancer on Jul 7, 2009 18:13:28 GMT -5
Eh. I saw the first Ice Age and it didn't tickle my fancy.
I think that Toy Story 3 would be a very bad idea.
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Post by Nobility on Jul 7, 2009 20:09:32 GMT -5
Ice Age 3 was hilarious :D Second best (animated) movie I've seen so far this year... And what?? Just because Ellie has a baby, they bash it? No. ;) They dislike it because it wasn't "mature" enough. An example being that (spoilers for Up) Up has a villain that's killed people from being paranoid, an innocent death, infertility, the villain shooting at kids and doggies., whereas Ice Age 3 only tried to be fun and did a great job at that. It's unfortunate most can't see that. D: And biplanes piloted by talking dogs and a floating balloon house IS mature? If anything, I'd say one of Up's problems that it's more serious and grimly realistic themes (the inevitable death of loved ones) was hampered by it's incredibly unrealistic themes, such as the dogs, Kevin and the house. |
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Post by fuzzynecromancer on Jul 8, 2009 16:17:36 GMT -5
I think Up's problem is that I didn't get enough crotchetyness for my money's worth, and the flying house played far too minor a role in the overall narrative.
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Post by Mansion on Jul 8, 2009 23:32:14 GMT -5
Personally, I have to agree with Blackboxx's assessment of why Up wasn't at good as MvA: The characters were stock. There were no surprises, no spice or flavor. I mean, I personally thought the darker emotional themes worked well and the fantasy elements were a nice counterpoint to keep it action/adventure rather than a Lifetime movie... But Russel and Carl kind of fell flat. Nearly everything about them was totally predictable, and when the "big emotional push" scenes happen, most of them felt canned and forced. I mean, it wasn't just that you could see them coming from a mile away. You could see MvA's coming from a mile off too, but they managed to retain a heart and earnestness that Up couldn't manage to deliver.
And the villain. A story's only as good as the villain, and Up's was just... boring. His motivation was shaky at best and there was no sense of wicked fun in his behavior. I never once wanted to secretly root for him a little.
Well... I guess where up failed was trying to juggle too many things at once. There were, like, four different emotional subplots on top of being an action/adventure filled with a bunch of high-concept filler (lost worlds, rare birds, talking dogs, blah de friggin' blah blah) and the screentime was spread too thin for anything to really shine.
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Post by Blackboxx on Jul 9, 2009 8:58:53 GMT -5
Yeah... that's another thing. Up was too all-over-the-place. You have maturity in the form of grieving for your deceased spouse, then a joke about burying your own crap in the woods. You have dogs falling for the old fetch trick, then the villain lights an old man's house on fire.
MVA wasn't quite so sporadic. Yes, there were light and heavy moments, but nothing that would send a fat little kid to therapy for twenty years. At worst we get the presumed death of a friend who later swoops in to save the day.
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Post by Nobility on Jul 9, 2009 13:00:12 GMT -5
He was my main objection to the movie, too. He just... didn't work for the feel of the movie. I actually felt a little sorry for him, because, after all, his intentions were never really truly omnious. He just wanted bring Kevin back to civilization so he could regain his credibility. It wasn't like he was trying kill Kevin or turn her into a slave, so I didn't buy Russel's whole "we gotta save Kevin before it's too late!" quip.
Plus, I felt they missed a wonderful opportunity for some character growth. Here was a man Fredirckson admired as a young boy in a situation very much like his own- obsessed with fulfilling a promise he made many years ago. Yet this was NEVER commented upon, not even in passing, in the movie, which really disappointed me. The movie's supposed to be about character development, yet the villain has none of it. Now, I don't mind the occasional "drop-dead-gotta-kill-u-all" villain, because honestly, sometimes it's like that in real life, but this villain did not suit the movie at all.
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Post by Baycrum on Jul 9, 2009 13:50:28 GMT -5
Ice Age 3 was hilarious :D Second best (animated) movie I've seen so far this year... And what?? Just because Ellie has a baby, they bash it? No. ;) They dislike it because it wasn't "mature" enough. An example being that (spoilers for Up) Up has a villain that's killed people from being paranoid, an innocent death, infertility, the villain shooting at kids and doggies., whereas Ice Age 3 only tried to be fun and did a great job at that. It's unfortunate most can't see that. D: Mature!!?This movie was made for Kids!! |
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Post by fuzzynecromancer on Jul 9, 2009 17:08:38 GMT -5
I think the villain in "Up" worked, because he was really menacing. Not every villain has to have a twisted sense of fun. The "capture Kevin" subplot did fail to emotionally engage me, but he had another reason to be the villain, re, his paranoia. The scene were he knocks the flight helmets down one by one worked really well.
I do think that Up had a problem with the dissonance or disconnect with the audience. They have to save the big bird that showed up later in the movie, because it's a bird with babies, but the house, which I really grew a connection with, which the story was built around, is "just a house" so it doesn't matter? It feels like somebody shoehorned in a bland "anti-materialism" message, and that had a jarring disharmony with the rest of the film, which shows how material things can have powerful sentimental meaning (I mean, his big epiphany is brought on by reading a scrapbook, which is itself a material item.)
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Post by Nobility on Jul 9, 2009 22:02:26 GMT -5
I can see your point, and he truly was a menacing villain- but I'm not really sure that the movie needed that type of redemptive-less antagonism. The movie was all about learning to let go of the past and live for the future, wrapped up in an adventure story of two misplaced travelers lost in a strange world. It didn't really require a constant evil villain.
I never took that scene as a blatant anti-materialism message as much of it was a symbolic message. Fredricksen spent most of the movie worrying more about his mementos of the past and Ellie than he did about Russell, but upon reading the journal, he came to the realization that Ellie's real dying wish was not to complete the journey they had always talked about as children, but for him to live his own life and have his own new adventures even after she was gone. Also notice that even when he's carelessly throwing all of the furniture out of his house, the two chairs he and Ellie used to sit in all the time are propped up together, sort of showing that even though he was moving on, he would still always remember Ellie in his heart.
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Post by Aurum on Aug 6, 2009 1:37:21 GMT -5
^I have to agree with fuzzynecromancer there. Apparently I was not supposed to feel anything when the house was burning up? And I was supposed to feel sad for the blank-expressioned bird that was going to the United States alive? But I did actually end up liking Up despite its flaws.
But just as an update for the topic, my brother came back from China today. He told us that people there were always asking him about Kung Fu Panda. ;) I think that Kung Fu Panda might be considered something of a bridge between the U.S. and China. :)
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Post by fuzzynecromancer on Aug 6, 2009 10:26:16 GMT -5
I never took that scene as a blatant anti-materialism message as much of it was a symbolic message. Fredricksen spent most of the movie worrying more about his mementos of the past and Ellie than he did about Russell, but upon reading the journal, he came to the realization that Ellie's real dying wish was not to complete the journey they had always talked about as children, but for him to live his own life and have his own new adventures even after she was gone. Also notice that even when he's carelessly throwing all of the furniture out of his house, the two chairs he and Ellie used to sit in all the time are propped up together, sort of showing that even though he was moving on, he would still always remember Ellie in his heart. But don't you think that this message was undercut a bit because the revelation was brought to him BY a memento of his past with Ellie? >.o I think that the movie demonstrates that, especially after the ravages of age, objects can have a powerful emotional tie, and our memory is as much rooted in keepsakes as in our own thoughts. The "House doesn't matter" angle just blows down the movies own revelation, and really, I cared about the house dammit! I don't want them to live happily ever after in some giant megaplex zeppelin. I want him to live happily ever after in the balloon-steered house that drew me to this movie in the first place! >_< Chicken Little was a Pixar movie? I didn't know that. Is it just me, or was Chicken Little one of those movies that leaves theaters so quickly and is never brought up again that you become convinced you must have dreamed up the trailer? As for Kung Fu Panda... I admit I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda, but I am very tired of Jack Black, and when I saw the trailer I thought "I will not like this." I'm also have a hard time believing it's as great as the critics think, and I resent it somewhat because it seems to be brought up every time the critics bad mouth monsters vs. aliens, like "Wow, Dreamworks really gremplorked up this one. This is not another Kung Fu Panda!" |
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Post by Nobility on Aug 6, 2009 12:24:33 GMT -5
Guess I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on the house, as I never got that feeling while watching it. ^_^
Chicken Little WASN'T a Pixar movie, it was a DISNEY movie. I think one of the reasons why Chicken Little didn't do so well was because at the time it was released, there were talks that Pixar was splitting from Disney or Disney was going to dissolve the Pixar studios (can't remember which, whatever the reason there was some uncertainty in Pixar's future). Obviously people were fairly angry, and since Chicken Little was CGI, people took it as Disney's half-hearted attempt to show everyone that they didn't need Pixar to keep them afloat- that and it wasn't the most memorable of movies. It wasn't as bad as some people make it out to be, though.
The thing about Kung Fu Panda is that it wasn't a Hayao Miyzaki-level film (whom I also think is overrated) with a narrative that pushed the boundaries of cinema as some critics make it out to be, it was just an incredibly FUN movie. It was genuinely funny, and had some amazingly choreographed and well-animated fight scenes, plus a memorable villain. I'd personally just recommend it just so you could check out the fight scenes, but I can understand your animosity towards it.
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