afterbite

I didn't get a sexual abuse vibe there, but I think the parallel is that he turned her into an assassin and made her feel like she was trapped in a life she didn't seem to enjoy. The movie seemed to play a lot with perfect life on the surface/ugly and rotten underneath. Mary has an amazing apartment but seems deeply depressed, for example. Glover's character shows his true colors in the end, but he's probably always made it clear what he thinks. He says they saved her and brought her into the family, with the clear implication that she'd be whoring on the streets if not for them. What he did, though, was in some ways no different than if that had happened. He brought her in, no doubt made her feel just how deeply indebted to him he thought she should be, and groomed her into becoming part of his organization. He said she was family, but that was just a way of trying to make her feel even more indebted over the shackles he'd placed on her. Then you have Tom, who feels entitled to her. Who knows why they got together (I mean, he is a fine looking man, so there's that possible reason), but even after she's decided she wanted out of that relationship and that family, she's trapped. She cannot flee her oppressors, and her oppressors get to feel self-righteous about their savior-hood. She is forever bound to this man, too, playacting happy families and dealing with his delusion that they're just on a temporary break. I spent the first half of the movie wondering why Mary looked like she was near tears every time she found herself in a situation where they were meeting with another group or talking about how to resolve the murder of Junior situation, and it wasn't until I realized that she wasn't really an equal member of that family but instead their perpetually indentured servant living in a surreal world where they treated her like part of the family until it was time for her to be their personal plaything like they all knew she really was.

So, Proud Mary. Saw it today. I expected something else based on the trailers, but this was a situation where instead of being unhappy with seeing a movie that was different than what I thought the movie was going to be, I bought into the new direction. It's not wall to wall action/killing, like I thought it was going to be. Instead, it unfolds slowly. There are multiple layers at play that reveal themselves as the movie progresses (e.g., Mary's relationship with her employer). The tension builds and builds throughout because you know something's going to go very, very wrong. You're left wondering when the hammer's going to drop and which hammer it's going to be. I wasn't expecting to spend so much time thinking about the relationships and symbolism, etc., in this movie before I bought a ticket. Despite making me have to think (ugh), I quite enjoyed this one. :) Also - The child actor in this was outstanding.

I just made a similar quote in the Weinstein thread, but you put it so much more succinctly (and so much better) than I did. Great job outlining what stinks about this.

@GaT, she said the demon (devil maybe?) had finally left her. Just saw it tonight and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. It was self-referential and self-aware - they put themselves in a ridiculous plot and acknowledged it in a meta sort of way. After all, you have to go to ridiculous lengths to find a reason for an undergrad acapella group to continue to have adventures together, and they were smart enough to play it as half sincere and half wink and a nod to the audience. They wanted to get together one more time. We (or at least I) wanted them to get together one more time. They poked gentle, loving fun at themselves, gave nods to the previous movies, and went out with a literal bang. I didn't miss the Treblemakers or the guys because I never cared about them, so I guess I'm a bit of an anomaly on this forum. For me, it's always been about the girls being friends, being funny, and supporting one another. Except Jessica and Ashley.

One of my favorite movie going stories is from when I went to see Pandorum. (Short summary: Two crew members wake up on an abandoned spacecraft with no idea who they are, how long they've been asleep, or what their mission is. The two soon discover they're actually not alone - and the reality of their situation is more horrifying than they could have imagined.) It was raining pretty heavily that day, so half of the seats were occupied by dripping umbrellas. Right as the trailers segued into the movie, two gray-haired ladies came in and settled into the seats directly in front of me. I was a little miffed but okay with it, because how disruptive could two gray-haired ladies be? So, this sci-fi/horror film kicks into gear, and the two gray-haired ladies are apparently taken for the ride of their lives. Every minute or two, one or the other of them would yelp "Oh sh*t!" or "Oh f*ck!" I ended up having to move because it was incredibly distracting, but it's still as hilarious in retrospect as it was at the time. I couldn't even be mad at them.

You know, I wasn't really expecting an answer, but that makes total sense. We rarely get snow where I live (despite a good 5 inches or so last month that lasted at least a couple of days), so I wouldn't have thought to think of it that way.

In re: our bombers, this article taught me a nifty new word, "skeumorphism". (For those not inclined to follow the link, it's "the design concept of making items represented resemble their real-world counterparts.") I'm not sure I'm understanding it correctly in reference to the bombers (and, in fact, the person who mentions it in the article talks primarily about the bombs versus the battering ram cannon), but it feels like they said, "Bombers... hmm. Hey, what do bombers look like?" "They look like that, and that looks cool, and also people are pretty familiar with bombers like this so we should have our bombs behave like this." So, they did, even if, like one poster mentioned above, they could have turned on their side and propelled the bombs forward toward the ship without having to be directly over the ship. IDK if that's skeumorphism, but it does seem like a mixture of familiarity making it easy for us to understand what's happening onscreen plus looking pretty excellent visually. I think the fact that these things are driving me crazy about this movie is that I want/expect more out of it. I'm willing to write off all manner of silliness in movies that I enjoy but am not invested in. But, something about this particular film skewed too heavily on the "looks super cool" side in a way that detracted from the "makes sense" side, and so I'm hung up on the various places where logic and consistency were sacrificed in favor of looks coolness as places where this balance could have been restored with a bit more investment in the "makes sense" portion which I value more (in this case).

I can see where Wahlberg had them over a barrel here since he decided he wasn't going to do it because it needed doing and that they couldn't simply reshoot the whole thing, including the scenes he was in with an actor replacing him, but I wish they could have. I might actually see the movie if they'd switched him out for someone else. Pretty minimal chance with him in it, because I refuse to support anything he's associated with. I hate that this dude, who is neither a good person nor a good actor, is in top box office movies. I refuse to say he's a top box office draw, because I imagine people go see Transformers movies because they're Transformers movies and not because he's in them. Then again, I will freely admit that my abject dislike of him could be coloring his actual importance to the motion picture industry in this case.

I wonder how much of my lack of general headscratching on some things comes from having seen the OT as a child versus watching the current movies as an adult. Having totally bought into the undeniable coolness of lightsabers as a kid, I'm willing to assimilate them into the column of 'things I won't think about too much' as an adult. As an adult, encountering new things in the universe for the first time, my (admitted limited) critical thinking skills are more apt to be triggered. This was even somewhat true with the repurposing of old 'too cool to think about too closely things' when they were used in a new way. For example, Darth Maul's conjoined lightsabers - it was clear that he should have shredded the heck out of his robes with those things, if not lightsabered himself down the back with them, just from the way his fight with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan was portrayed in TPM. Kylo Ren's lightsaber with its guard - how has he not sliced off at least one finger? I know it has little metal pieces on the guard before the laser part starts, but he throws hissy fits wherein he murders spaceship equipment. You're telling me his grip has never slipped? I guess it has a little to do with exposure to the real world analog, too. Why would your footsteps turn red when you walk on a salt planet? I don't know, but I've never been to a salt planet, so who knows what's going on with that and it sure did look cool. I am a long-time viewer of (the old school) History Channel, though, so you bet I've seen tons of black and white footage of bombers. Just one more dark mark in the column under 'things adulthood has messed up', I guess.

It feels like SW often pulls its inspiration for space (and land) battles from WWII aerial battles/dogfights, but this most recent discussion has made me wonder why the bombers are slow. If you're thinking they're the space equivalent of Flying Fortress, which I'll use as a perhaps relevant touchpoint, then you'd think their issues would be what? Weight. Fuel consumption. (And relevant to the previous two, engine construction.) Perhaps something in the aerodynamics. I'm by no means an expert in either aircraft or spacecraft, but it seems like aerodynamics shouldn't be much of an issue in space. Would weight, fuel consumption, or engine construction be an issue? It doesn't seem like they would. If you can push a Dreadnought or Star Destroyer through space at high velocity, why can't you do the same for a bomber? Besides, after they've dropped their payload, weight (and thus their ability to generate momentum) would be less of an issue. Why would they be so slow? For that matter, even though I thought the opening sequence with Rose's sister was an absolute highlight of the movie, why are they still carpet bombing? These people use lasers to shoot at one another and have hyperspace travel. They don't have guided missiles by now? I can't think any time when you'd need a carpet bombing capability in space, really. Even if they doubled as in-atmosphere bombers, wouldn't there still be relatively limited utility for that kind of ordinance?

I'm a bit meh on the movie as a whole - for all that Hugh Jackman was selling it, I just couldn't bring myself to get invested in Barnum's (not at all accurately presented here) story. But, on to the real reason why I'm here. So, when Rebecca Ferguson was belting out 'Never Enough', I was completely on board with the notion that she was really singing it. Like, this lady had muscles and tendons in her throat working and flexing all over the place, so much so that I had to check afterward to see if she really did sing that one or not. (Spoiler alert: She did not.) Anyway, first of all kudos to Ferguson because she lip synced the hell out of that. Second of all, it's now my personal headcanon that Ferguson was just caterwauling the daylights out of the song during the filming. I'm infinitely amused by the idea of everyone, including her, having to keep a straight face while she off-key power ballads through it.

She asked him to put on a top. I don't think she was tempted. I read in some article linked here that the motivation for that scene was that Johnson wanted people to realize that Rey and Kylo could really see each other instead of it all being some sort of psychic connection. (Hence she asks him to put on his shirt and we can see that she can actually see him because why would she ask that if it was just all a mind-to-mind connection.) I won't claim that there wasn't also any subtext intended, because I don't know that we can know, but if that was the primary driving force, it's kind of hilarious that something done primarily in service of establishing that their connection was visual has also resulted in all this talk of possible romantic or sexual connections. I think it's clunky either way. It's hard for me to separate whether my distaste for the scene surpasses my overall distaste for the storyline, though I do remember vaguely wondering why we'd suddenly delved into Victorian shenanigans at the time. I am left increasingly baffled that the trilogy was apparently left without an overarching narrative prior to its beginning. Why would you have a billion dollar property and turn it into one of those round robin writing experiments where one author writes part, leaves it on a cliffhanger, and another comes in to joyfully subvert everything that was previously done? Those are fun when it's small scale crack fiction. Less fun when they're pop culture defining movie franchises beloved by 3 generations.

I feel like I've imbibed an unusually high amount of SW lately. I saw TLJ, then listened to The Phantom Menace audiobook, read Rey's story on Kindle (somehow so not what I thought it was going to be, which was essentially a retread of her storyline in TFW), and decided to rewatch Rogue One on NYE, which lead to an unintentional marathon as I then rewatched the original trilogy (all with occasional snippets of the Clone Wars animated series in the background as it's one of my favorites for background viewing). I mean, I've always liked SW, but this was an unprecedented spike in my consumption. So anyway, I think what I came away with was a greater appreciation for those folks who were disgruntled by TFA. I don't care if it's heresy to some, but Rogue One is right up at the top of my favorite SW movies. It did something interesting and new in a way I'd like to see more of in the franchise, and put me in mind of what Marvel has done with some of their Avengers properties. It was a spy story, war movie, and political intrigue. It felt like a genre movie in the Star Wars world (kind of like The Winter Soldier and, though different genres, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and Thor Ragnarok [in particular]). When TFA came out, I loved it. I still enjoy it, but it definitely needs a cooling off period between RotJ and its rewatch. Rogue One made me want to see A New Hope. ANH made me want to see ESB. ESB made me want to see RotJ. Next up in the chronological queue was TFA, but by that time in the unexpected marathon, I only made it about 20 minutes in before the feeling of retread prompted me to turn it off. As much as I know it's a reset, the disheartening parts of that didn't hit me until it came up in direct comparison to the OT. Before that, it was joyous nostalgia with new characters that I mostly enjoyed. With the comparison, it was more like 'Why would I watch this? I just watched an emotionally satisfying, complete arc of this very same thing with characters I mostly enjoyed.' So, to all of your curmudgeons who grumbled about TFA when it came out, I apologize (a little) for brushing away your complaints. At the time, I was enamored with the shiny new thing that made me think wistfully of the shiny old thing. I get it a little more now, and think wistfully of what interesting things could have been done with these new folks.

Apparently, the porgs were created because there were a ton of puffins on the island where they filmed those sections. They couldn't keep them out of shots and it was too expensive to try to erase them, so they turned them into porgs. I approve of this repurposing also.

I don't actually think I needed to see how the First Order was oppressing people in order to understand that living under their regime was not good. In the first movie, I watched them literally blow up several worlds. The revelation of the military industrial complex after Canto Blight, which I will not really complain about because of my hatred for its real world analogue, still left me a bit blah. The First Order has a systematic program for creating armies of child soldiers. I have to figure they've either privatized some of their armaments making or that they have a generally mutually beneficial relationship with their top producers where everyone's palms get greased. From what I've seen of the Resistance, their market share of weapons of war is probably pretty tiny, but even if it wasn't, are they supposed to sit around and consider the implications of lining the pockets of merchants of death as opposed to taking on the regime that likes to blow up whole planets? In essence, what is this prompt for reflection really supposed to make me reflect upon, given the time and place in which it was deployed. Also, because it consistently irritates me every time I think about TLJ, let me just officially say how much I hated the end sequence with the boy who uses the Force to call upon his broom and then ends up silhouetted with it in his hand like a lightsaber. I felt like I'd accidentally stumbled into the last few minutes of an Oliver Twist musical with that bit of cheese and would have greatly preferred for the movie to end about a minute earlier, when they were recounting the legend of Luke Skywalker. It's a trivial thing, perhaps, but gah, so irritating.

Here's my problem with this - the original movies existed in a vacuum. This movie does not. Even if you exclude all other SW media that isn't the pre-existing 6 movies, you still have the OT, which built up that there were big bads, which were our primary antagonists, and had them be legitimate threats/people to be feared. Vader force choked someone at a staff meeting. Vader and Palpatine engaged in light-saber battles. They were physical presences doing things that highlighted why they in particular should be feared. No matter how you feel about the prequels, you still had 3 movies dedicated to fleshing them out as characters, providing their motivations, and showing how they got into the position where they could be big bads. You could argue that having built their backstory, there's no need to build a backstory for the new big bad. But, the film makers chose to replicate the overall elements of the OT. They could have moved on to a new big bad, but the Empire turned into the First Order, Palpatine turned into Snoke, and Kylo Ren turned into Vader. (Perhaps not in the details, but in the overall... yeah.) Thus, they entered a narrative that told us that our villains are dangerous and important people and then did a shoddy job of explaining why that's still the case. It's been a while since I've seen TFA, but Snoke is a menacing hologram who has clearly intimidated Hux and romanced Ren in it as far as I remember. He has some level of influence, clearly, but he's not integrated into the larger picture of the Empire in the way the Emperor was. I don't even know if your regular First Order minion has even heard of him, much less lives in fear of him. If this was a mob movie, I would know why the new boss was scary. Maybe he killed the old boss or is the old boss' son and has been raised bathed in violence. If mob boss 1 is dethroned and mob boss 2 shows up and no one tells me why he's badass enough to deserve the position, then I'm not necessarily just going to believe he's badass enough to deserve the position. If Snoke is a weak boss, then Hux and Ren are weak for following him. If they're weak, then why do we need 3 movies about heroes trying to overcome them. Instead, they decided to only flesh out one villain. In the first movie, Kylo Ren wants to live up to grandpa's legacy. In the second, he wakes up with Luke standing over him with a lightsaber (which honestly could have been a training exercise for all he knew - they were training to use the Force, which would possibly involve defending against sneak attacks) and then burns everything to the ground. (Including buildings made of stone, but whatever. Seeing things aflame on film is generally visually arresting. And yes, I know he was burning the things inside the stone buildings, but honestly, I doubt there were enough non-stone things about to create that level of blaze.) Snoke? He just likes to menace. He's full of himself and gets himself killed because of his hubris, but for someone who's supposed to be a puppet master, his motivations are ridiculously unclear. It's immensely unsatisfying and at odds with the way the franchise had developed itself up until then and I guess I'm just not down with this explanation at all.

Still, though, even with this, I see it as too much of a stretch to be believable. If Leia/Han had ever muttered the words "our children" or lamented that they had lost both of their offspring (to the dark side, to death), then I can see it. But having main characters not even reference another child in any way for 2 movies and then spring surprise parenthood in the 3rd would be ridiculously poor writing. With something that big, you can't just build the mystery on Rey's side. You'd have to build it on both, or else it looks like it's just thrown in there because why not. I can see the emotional reasons behind wanting this to happen, but the storyline isn't there. The OT could make Luke and Leia twins because we hadn't met their birth parents yet. In this case, we've met the birth parents, had 2 movies worth of parent/son and familial ties drama, and no one has said "man, if only our daughter/niece were still here..."

Some folks here have postulated that Hux will end up assisting the Resistance in some way in the third film, but I just don't see it. His rivalry is clearly with Kylo Ren, imo, but he's also heavily invested in being a big shot in the First Order. He's a true believer and, if anything, is tired of Ren's tantrums getting in the way of steam rolling the Resistance. So, I can see him undermining Ren or perhaps taking advantage of something the Resistance does that weakens Ren, but I can't see him turning coat. He's a kowtowing lackey who is resentful of having to be a kowtowing lackey. What I don't have any sense of is who is in charge of the First Order. Where does their funding come from? (Likely from old Imperial supporters, but still, what is their leadership structure?) Hux is the military commander in the field, but he doesn't have the feel of leadership. Snoke as a central coordinating committee? But how? He's so menacing yet oddly ineffectual? He's just there to make Ren and Hux grovel? I suppose you could say that OT Palpatine was the same, but there was more of a sense of him acting behind the scenes to orchestrate things. Snoke just yells at people and says he's made weird mind links and has a Praetorian guard with wildly inefficient helmets. Seriously - how did they see out of those things? I neither hated nor loved the movie. I though it was great spectacle that was visually very pleasing with iffy storytelling. It kind of felt like it was ticking some boxes. "It's not enough that the tiny Resistance has a whole fleet chasing them. We need to add in some real urgency. Oh, I know! They only have X hours of fuel left!" etc., etc. "We'll send some characters off on a wacky adventure! We need at least one crowd scene with goofy Star Wars canteen music and gleeful aliens, right?" Or, "We need some tension inside the Rebel camp. Let's make Holdo seem shady/stoned, so that she's a character with unclear motivations until the very last minute where we shove all her characterization into 30 seconds and a truly badass sacrifice." (Note: That sacrifice was truly badass, but maybe she should have done that earlier? Maybe that was the plan all along once the cloaked ships were well on their way, but once things start going bad, perhaps she could have been a little less leisurely about it?) Anyway, I'm not invested in Rey as a Skywalker (or Solo, but that's really just a Skywalker with a patriarchal name change). I'd be happier if she wasn't, honestly, because the machinations you'd have to put in to make it at all feasible in the 3rd movie of a trilogy where there's been no real foreshadowing would strain credibility. Maybe the Force created another Anakin in her to try and bring balance, and she doesn't know her parents because her mom got virgin birthed and ended up dying because she lived in the middle of the desert and had no support network to help her through it. Honestly, it would probably be a better explanation for her advanced Jedi techniques in absence of training, and I'd be okay with that. I was kind of okay with Finn's journey because it brought him face to face with the thing he feared most - the First Order and his old commander - and he was able to face those fears and overcome them. Sure, he went on a wild goose chase for a MacGuffin to get there in a storyline that needed to be leaner to be a technically good storyline (imo), but good on him. I'm glad he was able to do that. I have more thoughts, but this is already way too long. Let me finish with this: Everything about this movie points to Ep IX as Leia's movie, and it's so incredibly bittersweet that we'll never see what it could have been.

Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia shipper war".

I agree. The thesis was undercut by the choice of subject. I think it would have resonated more with me if the author had picked someone who did not fit the 'handsome, straight, white' mold who deserved to have a more fruitful career. For example: Naomie Harris. I first saw her as Selena in 28 Days Later and assumed she'd blow up. IMDB seems to indicate that she works steadily, with some supporting roles in some fairly big/influential films, but she has top billing talent, imo. Explore why she's playing Moneypenny in Bond films while someone like Blake Lively got co-lead on Green Lantern, maybe. (I realize I've switched genders here and don't necessarily want to take the focus away from white male privilege - she's just always the actress that comes to mind when I think 'why weren't they a bigger star?')

I'm of two minds about this. I'm beyond tired of the compulsory Hollywood route that creates romantic relationships out of any male/female pairing of characters that quest (or work, etc) together (or sometimes at odds, I suppose). I like Rey and Finn as friends. I'd like to see them remain friends and not be shoehorned into a romantic pairing, because I generally prefer my movies to progress without romantic entanglements unless they are blatantly romantically-themed movies. I work with people all the time, even in very stressful situations sometimes, and do not embark on romances with them. I do, however, have meaningful friendships with some of them that I value very highly. On the other hand, I'm also not fond of having two people who fall into the compulsory Hollywood trope of coupledom not become a couple if one half of that couple is POC when it would be clear that they would be a couple otherwise. So, I only riot if they set up all of the give-aways that point in neon lights to THIS IS A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP IN THE MAKING and then chicken out at the last (see: The Replacement Killers). Otherwise, give me a strong, mutually supportive, and clearly valued male/female friendship. Please.

I mean, I don't even wage war on the leaves in the front yard unless I'm wearing Agent Provocateur. I can't expect those who bravely defend liberty, freedom, patriotism, and the majestic right of Waffle House to exist to do any less. Please note: I love Waffle House. If someone has to put on a leather bikini to make sure it continues its reign, so be it.

I'm not a huge fan of 3D, so I generally only try it out for movies where it seems like it will really enhance viewing. I saw Gravity with and without 3D, and 3D really was the way to go with that one. Otherwise, if I'm going to opt for something special with a movie, I'll do a Dolby screening. Better picture quality, much better sound quality. I don't do it for every movie, but there are definitely movies that are improved by seeing them in that format. I saw Rogue One in 3D, regular 2D, and Dolby and would pick Dolby as the premier experience for it, hands down. I reserve it for the movies I want to have an immersive feel for, though, and even then I usually go see them at 10 in the morning on a Sunday so the ticket price is relatively normal.

I saw this last night at an advance screener. From the trailers, I had expected something a bit more campy, for some reason, but this is a straight up spy tale with a heavy helping of extreme violence. I had a blast. I won't give away any story tidbits, but the performances here were all pretty excellent. It was fairly stylized, visually, with this clashing (but appealing) mix of neon 80s with Soviet era gloom. The fight scenes had a bit of a edge of choreography to them, but they were otherwise nicely brutal. This is not a film to take the kids to, which had apparently passed over the heads of the family sitting just down from us. I'd say it's kind of like John Wick meets a cold war spy story.

I shed tears both times I saw it and remain unashamed. I was just so proud. Unlike others in this thread, I wasn't heavily invested in Diana and Steve's romance. It was nice that she got to have one and that her first love in Man's World was a sweet if tragic one, but if I was a bit teary at his demise, it was because of his bravery in the face of what he had chosen to do. I'd much rather Diana go without serious love interests, personally. This movie did a good job of balancing romance with the rest, but I've been witness to too many plotlines where a woman is lost in, rather than enhanced by, a romantic subplot.