- Hey Janelle, what's wrong with wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is everything okay?
- Wolfie is fine dear. Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?
- Wolfie is fine dear. Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?
Of course, it happens over a pay phone so perhaps with the full vocal range in person it would have been different.
A fascinating practical effects scene, cut from the theatrical release, is when Sarah is removing a chip from the T-800's head in front of a mirror. Instead of using CGI, there is no mirror but a hole in the wall, where you can see actual Arnie and Linda Hamilton's twin sister acting as the "reflection"; the people closer to the camera are actually a dummy (or a double with heavy prosthetics for the hole in the head) and Linda Hamilton. This means they are sync'ing their movements to simulate a mirror!
https://youtu.be/wrDo7wVXrBQ?t=122
(I understand this was done both to avoid showing a camera reflection on the mirror, and also to avoid using a dummy for Arnie's face, which worked in the original Terminator but would have been too noticeable for T-2's era).
Just yesterday I learned that in Cliffhanger (also aged amazingly well), they paid one million dollars to a stuntman to actually travel the harness between the two planes while airborne. Not bad for a day's work.
(Edit: with artistic license obviously. It was plausible-sounding instead of cringe technobabble).
It's about the pacing, pauses and slower character and world building.
Newer movies are built for second screening and maximising action sequences to not bore the audience which kills all atmosphere and sense of time and place - the worst example of this is the new Avatar movie, absolutely horrible in every sense of the word, while the first one was alright as i remember it.
You simply need to "set the stage", explain why this story is important and why the characters deserve sympathy or hate before you start your 3 hour action sequence - this step has been removed for some reason.
Verhovens old movies were the same - there was a nerve, a seriousness, a reflection beneath the action, now it could just have well been created by an alien algorithm without a sense of the actual human experience.
I wonder if it's a ridiculously extrapolated but misunderstood tic-tokification of cinema to please marketing? Because i've seen 20 second tik-toks with more emotion and character introduction than a lot of newer movies.
With the explosion of synthesis software and digital audio workstations its easy for a small team to score a sound track on the cheap.
As with everything tough, there's always a few outliers, like (both) of the Tron: Legacy soundtracks.
Other interesting soundtracks done by musicians not known for soundtrack work you might find interesting: Fight Club (Dust Brothers) Event Horizon (Orbital with London Symphony Orchestra) Chaos Theory: Splinter Cell 3 (game) (Amon Tobin)
Sure but this assumes movies are about characters and emotion. Michael Bay gets a lot of shit, but sometimes you just want to see things explode. Sometimes you just want to see robots fighting for two hours. Sometimes you want to see California swallowed by a tidal wave and the emotional character plot lines get in the way.
I would pay to see a movie called “Two Hours Of Giant Rocks Hitting The Earth: No Characters Edition”, and the fact Michael Bay is rich means a lot of people agree.
That's the truth right here. I once ran across kung-fu movie called Chocolate (iirc). The premise was an autistic girl who was good at fighting. The entire movie was her walking into a room, kicking major but, then walking into a different room to kick more but.
It was great.
Theres a difference from both Avatar 1 and quite a few of Michael Bay's older movies - they still have have a story arch.
Just a few minutes of character building and a few intermezzos and these movies would be much, much better in my opinion.
But i also hate too much CGI. I don't know what happened to "well dosed", it makes what's dosed so much more valuable.
But would you go to see Giant Rocks 2?
> the fact Michael Bay is rich means a lot of people agree
This is the argument often made for Avatar against the "no cultural impact" observation. It still doesn't have any quotable lines or memorable characters.
If the graphics were better and the explosions were bigger, yes!
Jokes aside, it's funny how that sounds the most boring stuff to me and you'd have to pay me to sit in a chair for 2 hours watching that.
In reality there's as good or better movies now and a ton of crap from back then, too.
I have to specify blockbuster because otherwise it doesn’t make much sense to compare Terminator to a small indie movie
Comparing computing power is a bit handwavey, but former Pixar employee Chris Good estimated that the SPARCstation 20 render farm cluster that rendered Toy Story had only half the power of the 2014 Apple iPhone 6. https://www.quora.com/How-much-faster-would-it-be-to-render-...
Also: Top Gun: Maverick
I’d also compare _Everything Everywhere All at Once_ favorably against a lot of old blockbusters.
Modern technology aside, Top Gun: Maverick feels like it could have come out thirty years ago.
> Top Gun: Maverick feels like it could have come out thirty years ago.
I've not seen it, but to what extent is that because it's a remake of a film that came out 30 years ago?
I thought Terminator was a relatively low budget movie. Not an indie though.
People like to criticize back-references as a cheap way to entertain the audience knowing the referenced works, but I think it's a legitimate feature. A movie or a show doesn't exist in a vacuum; watching a sequel or a work in the same universe, I expect to see both subtle and direct call-backs.
Dodgy animatronics were first scoffed at, and then forgotten pretty quickly as everyone just got into the pure enjoyment of that movie.
This is a nigh on 40 year old film, with a lot of target references, yet it still hits the mark..
That said, rewatched transformers too, purely for the joy of the initial transformation (childhood toys coming to life..), and thoroughly enjoyed it (though it's already feeling a bit dated).
With that said, I was surprised to see how decisive, resourceful, and adaptable the mother was. Hears a noise in the attic, grabs a knife. Gets attacked, puts creature in nearest blender/microwave and hits switch. Hears another noise, grabs two knives because one wasn’t enough last time.
That movie is so well-paced even by modern standards.
- Quentin Tarantino
Aside from the voice acting, there's nothing redeeming about those movies and felt like someone just pissed on my childhood. Any aspect of the cartoons or toys that inspired joy and wonder was lost in translation.
The initial transformations were spoiled by trailers and also just disappointing in general. The transformations are largely incomprehensible and they might as well have used Star Trek transporter FX or a flash of light to transform them.
Recently-ish: Coco, Soul, and Inside Out are among my favorite Pixar movies and all compete with the golden-era Pixar classics in terms of being memorable and story-first.
The Disney acquisition seems to have crushed some Pixar magic. You can no longer assume every Pixar movie to be gold, but they can still turn out top-quality content.
The market economics were also vastly different at the time, streaming really has changed the industry, and the quality of tv shows has improved dramatically.
Watch Jurassic park and Jurassic world back to back, or The mummy vs the remake with Tom Cruise, too many cameras, too many view points, too many cuts
My only real complaint was that the time between them landing and the Harkonnen's invading was too short and didn't cover all the intrigue/politics occuring on Arrakis before the invasion.
In the movie it came off as: Okay Leto you get Arrakis now LOL JK WE'RE INVADING IMMEDIATELY. But that being said, I understand there are length constraints and I think the movie was already about 2.5 hours so I can forgive them
I'm fine with how they did it in the movie I just never really jive with shows where everyone sucks.
“You sense that Arrakis could be a paradise,” Kynes said. “Yet, as you see, the Imperium sends here only its trained hatchetmen, its seekers after the spice!”
Paul held up his thumb with its ducal signet. “Do you see this ring?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know its significance?”
Jessica turned sharply to stare at her son.
“Your father lies dead in the ruins of Arrakeen,” Kynes said. “You are technically the Duke.”
“I’m a soldier of the Imperium,” Paul said, “technically a hatchetman.”
Kynes’ face darkened. “Even with the Emperor’s Sardaukar standing over your father’s body?”
“The Sardaukar are one thing, the legal source of my authority is another,” Paul said.
And yep, it’s adapted from a a book!
I believe Paul Thomas Anderson partially left film school because his professor was shitting on the movie. And he was damn right.
I think Cameron’s secret weapon is the camerawork and editing. He really lets the camera breathe and has an incredible sense of “beats” for every cut.
The director's cut makes it even more clear - Ripley lost her baby while she was in cryosleep, which gives her character's desperation to save Newt even more urgency.
For whatever reason, he through out story and pushing people to their limits for technology and spectacle. It makes me sad to think that the last movies we’ll see from Jim Cameron are likely all in the Avatar universe, written by committee and acted in front of green screens.
Top Gun Maverick would be a data point that a lot of people agree. No matter how good the CGI, actors con a sound stage in front of a green screen just behave differently than actors or stunt people actually doing action stuff.
I think it was always supposed to sound a little dumb. The T-800 is acting as a father figure, and bridging the cultural gap with his surrogate ‘son.’
James Cameron would have been 36 when he was making Terminator 2, and he's a polymath with an eye for detail, so I'm sure he deliberately went for that layered meaning.
What made it even more amazing was that the T-800 ran on a 6502 processor.
I think there might have been other giveaways in person where the T-800 is concerned.
EDIT: I just noticed that the ones who replied to me interpreted it the other way around.
Jenette Goldstein is a true chameleon. She is so effective as an actress, it is nearly impossible to recognize her from role to role.
I felt obligated to find and post the link to the scene. What a great movie.
That deadpan delivery always makes me laugh.