10 Science Fiction Movies I Hate... And Why!
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
- Hating movies isn't something that comes easy to me.
I'm inclined to love cinema but some science fiction movies simply suck.
Here are ten (and more) that I think were made by people who needed a good kick in the Arriflex.
00:00 Intro- Eric Blair's novel
00:50 Battlefield Earth
02:36 Disney's Science Fiction Movies
04:05 2001: A Space Odyssey
06:12 Proximity
07:15 Red Planet Mars
08:28 A Sound Of Thunder
10:20 Atlas Shrugged Trilogy
13:55 Passengers
15:44 The Stepford Wives
17:40 Avatar and Avatar The Way of Water
20:22 Outro
Terry Talks Movies Mailing Address
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The thing I admire about 2001 is that Stanley Kubrick proved movies could be an "experience" (without characters and with weird jumps in time) more than a "play". He demonstrated the power of the medium beneath the play, if that makes sense. That's how I see it anyway 🙂
If you want an experience, ride a roller coaster. Narrative fiction has different requirements.
@@terrytalksmovies Though you would agree that cinema doesn't have to be narrative to be good. Something that Hollywood never learned (or even thought of).
@@terrytalksmovies So does commentary - but we still watch your videos.
@@terrytalksmovies You’ve watched so many B movies they’ve permeated your brain.
@@terrytalksmovies If you want a play go watch a theater, read stories, not films... You seem to have a very old-fashioned idea of what cinematography is.
As for 2001, I do take your point about the characters. The most "human" character in the movie is a psychopathic AI. But I love the movie despite that. It has a sweeping sense of deep time that echoes with Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke himself. Its quiet and its expansive pacing seems even more daring now than it did upon its release sixty years ago. It is the science fiction movie that I measure other science fiction movies against.
Fair enough. I was careful to admit that others would disagree on 2001. Thanks for disagreeing so cordially. 😀
I have a soft spot for the Black Hole. It had great set design and it took a lot of chances for a Disney movie. Violent deaths, horror, and a daring, esoteric ending. It's not a great example of a sci fi film, and most of the "science" in it is ridiculous. It was more of a haunted house film with sci fi elements. But it had its virtues. I think of the movie Event Horizon as a remake of the Black Hole where they turned the horror all the way up to 11.
Haven't seen Event Horizon in a long time. Might have to re-watch it again.
I remember in The States a few years back, if someone said to me, "have ya read 'Atlas Shrugged'???" it meant they were trying to recruit you! Now they go after you just for reading books!
Either way, you lose. I read Atlas Shrugged in my teens and even then it seemed kinda silly.
Never understood the fascination for Atlas Shrugged. I read it, and it’s just needlessly florid and redundant. Why say something in one word when 50 will do? And everyone in the book is a dick, and they never give a thought to the MILLIONS of people who must’ve starved as a consequence of it. Also, Rand is really weirdly anti-science in the book. I think she believed that “Good science” can only be done by Edison types working away on their own late at night. Gah.
I wonder if it's a cultural background thing? Because when I first read Ayn Rand in High School and College it struck me as a "Yes! My Dad/Coaches/The History Teacher who gave me a "F" hate me because I'm SMARTER than them!" Took me a while to realize that most of the proponents of Libertarian thought weren't really any smarter or more capable--we all just wanted to be Doc Savage when we were closer to Eddie Deezen. With a really nasty streak, to boot.
The last four decades of American politics really did a number on any positive feelings I ever had about Rand or Libertarianism - why am I a Leftist now? Because of Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, Gamergaters/Sad Puppies, and Fox News.
@@timeliebe not so much a culture I think. It is more like a religious cult. Her whole thing is to tell her fans that they are great and that everyone else in the world is holding them back. She is also telling them that really they are the only ones that matter, and if your success causes 1 million people to starve to death, so be it. Her economic theory is completely out of whack, she does not understand politics, she does not understand science, she does not understand sociology, she does not even seem to understand that choo-choo trains aren’t that big of a deal in the 1950s, and yet everything in our story revolves around them. Or if not for Dagny, flying a plane in one scene, I would not even believe that planes existed in her weirdo little world.
So yeah, she built for atheist religious cult around the idea that any reader with an inflated ego is God, despite a complete lack of talent, skills, education, etc. She appears they’re treating her close personal followers pretty badly too. And I really have no idea if she believed the crap she was shilling
Rand was a miserable person. I don't know why anyone would want to take her advice.
I saw RED PLANET MARS as a kid, and it was at the time the notion that God was an Alien was really cool to a kid brought up as a Christian Conservative. Watching it as an adult with a bit more knowledge of the merging of Conservative Christianity with Cold War politics, I could see it was part of a weird continuum of Cold War Protestantism (the kind that added "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and the money) and quasi-SF themes which stretched from movies like THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR (where God is on the radio of normal American families, only not from Mars!) to Mike Hammer and 007 books and later movies.
In retrospect we should have hung Joe McCarthy, Fred Koch and all their enablers as Enemies of the State the moment they first went on their Red Scare BS.
RWNJs are using the same playbook now, only with the names changed. Transphobia is the latest scary other for them.
Saw 2001 back in the 60's when I was four, and recently in IMAX, so beautifully alien, really sells how long and never-ending the reality of human deep space exploration will be and Hal breaks my heart, every time. Avatar is a Yes album cover without the album, just a thing to roll joints on.
Yep. Good science fiction requires engaging characters and solid plots.
That's the most meaning criticism I've read so far. I've enjoyed listening to Yes these past two years. 😊
I like the way you describe these movies.
Thank God for that, I thought it was me that had a problem with Avatar
No, there are many others of us,
There's no denying Cameron's technical talent as a filmmaker, but a good writer, he ain't.
They are such a pale imitation of Anime and manga it’s almost insulting. Technically interesting but making your cast learn to free dive so you can imbed them in a 3d computer generated world is nuts. You’re creating everything including their skin and costumes but you can’t edit out a breathing tube? Crazy
To be honest, I've never seen either of the Avatar movies. They always struck me as just another form of animation; much like "The Lion King", et. al. Except there were some aspects that blended live action, a la' "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". And really, how many times can we see a technologically inferior peoples / beings (natives) rise up and win against a superior force (outsiders)?
I liked Black Hole better after a 2nd viewing and I don't think their acting is really wasted. There's a bit of depth to the characters and their dialogue. Rob Ager, Collative Learning, he's got a video or two that gets into that. It's an odd kid friendly scifi but dark and disturbing too. The way it wraps up I like because it's unconventional but it doesn't completely follow through thematically with what comes before, which is pretty derivative. I mean the mad scientist is indeed very evil and he gets his comeuppance.
He put so many through hell after-all so that ending makes sense on some level but it does come out of left field. However, it's better than a ending everyone's seen before in other scifi. First time I watched it I totally expected a boring ass ending. And the story behind the weird ending is that when they made it they had no idea what to do for the ending. They were making the movie with a script that didn't have an ending. Call me crazy but it could use a remake or perhaps a quasi-remake sequel. The special effects definitely don't hold up, and it really hurts the movie, but some aspects of that are decent. The evil red robot is pretty cool. I've got a figurine of him heheh.
I have to think it influenced Event Horizon. Maybe it's a shared universe! That would be wild. Why not. Come on Hollywood get it going, ya totally creatively bankrupt bunch of hooligans!
Disney isn't going to create a new shared universe. They don't do that. They buy shared universes, they don't create them. 😉😝😀
@@terrytalksmovies They buy them, and then they ruin them. It's crazy that the best Marvel Disney movie of the last few years was actually made by Columbia / Sony, that must really burn.
Disney at this point, are creatively bankrupt. I have often felt that they just cough out movies, not caring if the project is good, but will children/people with no critical faculties enjoy it, and, most importantly pay for it, and any crappy merchandise we get a factory in China to grind out for it. Properties we own we will wring every last cent out of, because we know that there will be obsessive fans who, if we released a GIF of Iron Man picking dirt out of his boot out, and showed it in cinemas, would sit and gawp at it for two + hours. And pay to do so. (Sorry if I've given them any ideas there)
Last MCU movie I saw was Doctor Strange. I'm good, thanks. Don't need to see any more. The comic books are better.
2001 is in my top five favorites. I understand your viewpoint. My first viewing had some mitigating factors that might have greatly influenced me though.
First of all, back in the 60's, I was a member of a science fiction book club and I read the novelization of 2001 before I saw the movie so while watching it I already knew what would happen so I really enjoyed the visualization of it.
Secondly I watched it by myself during a Wednesday afternoon matinee in a 3000 seat theater that had maybe less than 100 people in it on that day. Thus, I was completely undisturbed and could focus all my attention on the movie.
In the 80's it was one of the first movies I owned on VHS tape. In the 90's DVD. In the 2000's it was on Blu-Ray. Then finally it was released on 4K Blu-Ray.
Each time I watched it after my initial experience it was much easier to be distracted due to the slow pace of the movie.
Well, a year ago before I watched the 4K Blu-Ray I had read some reviewers critique of the movie and they wrote something about the scene when Dr. Floyd met his Russian counterparts on the space station and how he really liked that scene. I never really liked that scene, it seemed to me as kind of pointless.
Well, on watching that scene for zillionth time I finally saw the subtle interaction between the characters as they were politely trying get information from each other while at the same time trying to hide what they knew.
I realized then how good the actors were and I said to myself "OH, now I get it!"
Leonard Rossiter was a fine actor. He makes those scenes spark in spite of William Sylvester being an ordinary actor.
I watched a tiny bit of the Ann Ryn movie (If I spelled her name wrong, good). I then sat down and wrote small story where Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" goes to the Republican Tea party by mistake. A line I"m most proud of " We want people to stand on their own two feet' How will you do asks Alice. "By pulling the chair out from under them."
Yep, definitely how a certain kind of ideology works.
I want to read this story
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." - Dorothy Parker's review of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
I guess it’s better than the Democrats strapping you to the chair and never letting you go.
At least with the chair being pulled out from under you, you can still pick yourself back up.
You're proud of that? I guess fan fic is just that, eh, good?
I do agree with all your picks except 2001. I think the thing with 2001 is that it really transcends traditional storytelling to try and put the viewer in touch with something truly beyond our understanding, at least for now. The characters were bland and the stuff they said was largely meaningless in order to not detract from what the film was trying to do. Did it work? That all depends on the viewer. While I completely understand your point of view, and why it didn't work for you, for me it works very well, such that it is one of my all-time favourite movies. Getting to finally see it in the movie theatre a few years ago was one of my favourite moviegoing experiences. Purely transcendental.
I'm glad you had a great movie experience. They're always rare and precious. If your experience with 2001 was different than mine, so be it. 😀
I saw it back in 1968 when it was released. I was 11 years old and was completely awestruck !
Well I’d agree with you about most of the SF films that I’ve seen on your list. To me, anything by Ayn Rand is essentially a political rant with a bit of story thrown in to maintain a bit of interest for those not utterly committed to her form of very right wing politics.
I’m not sure that 2001 was meant to be a narrative driven film. It works symbolically very well, however, and it’s special effects (monkey suits aside) are wonderful for the time. My dad (who was a very down to earth bloke from a working class background) took to it like a duck to water, when he took me to see it upon release. As a 15 year old it blew my socks off (no, I hadn’t taken anything, but it had a VERY widescreen that filled my sight). When it returned to the same cinema a year (or whatever) later, we went again. I’ve never watched it on tv as I’d be disappointed. I’d go see at an IMAX any day.
Fair enough. I disagree but that's fine. 😀
Cameron makes a 2nd Avatar film, yet Alita is left in the lurch... Knowing the Manga, so much more to tell in that story.
Alita: Battle Angel is an underrated sf film. I got the 4K because I love the way it combined sfx, worldbuilding and good characterisation.
Rand had an unfortunate tendency to write with both fists with the caps on. (She did say: it is not a contradiction in terms to say "this is a great work of art. I don't like it.") The massive, sprawling afterbirth that was ejected out in three separate films ... no, just: no. I sat through Battlefield: Earth in the cinema (my daughter worked there and it was free, I nearly asked for my money back just the same), and while it is nowhere near as good as you've suggested, I do think if it had been animated it would have worked better. Fortunately, no one thought of that. Black Hole was another in cinema experience, and one that I would equate to sudden gastric distress. I did finally figure out the secret of 2001; it was an attempt to make us feel as if we'd sat through the entirety of human evolution. I have a minor quibble about the Mars film, and it is so minor that I won't bother. Disney sci/fi as a whole is best seen in the trailers in Matinee, Joe Dante's film based loosely on William Castle. I never wanted to even see (or stream or anything), mostly because of the premise. I didn't need to hear all of the "he raped her!" because i didn't see any purpose in watching any film Chris Pratt was holding up. He is a fine, silly comic performer, and the role just sounded beyond his abilities, which would leave Jennifer Lawrence to carry the film. Any film that has silly names in it must be held up to the Marx Brothers, and a film that has a Special Element called... unobtanium... are you freakin' kidding me? How did that thing make that much money?
I did just sit through the Bayhem of The Island, which was a lot better than I anticipated, but now I need something to cleanse my mind.
And I hated, hated, HATED Captain America: Civil War.
Do, please, bring us some of the best, though. I love watching some of the train wrecks (it comes from boyhood when I discovered Buster Keaton) but one does need sustenance.
I think I'm going to have to do SF Movies I Love.
Although it's very uneven and in some places very dark for a children's movie I absolutely love The Black hole.
We all have our vulgar movie pleasures. 😀
Was it *supposed* to be a children's movie? I know it did a lot of kiddification, but I assumed that was because they didn't know know to do anything else. That said, IMHO, it was only bad if you expected something serious. I found it laugh-out-loud funny.
The point where Maxamillion didn't save Reinhardt from the falling panel was SUPER impactful to me growing up. Max never uttered a single word the entire movie, but even as a kid I could see the look of "go to hell" on the robot's face as he went to follow orders instead of help the madman that created him. Yea, the movie could have just been about Vincent and Bob and it would have been a good movie to me. The rest is a bonus.
I was 8 years old when I saw "The Black Hole". I thought it was amazing. I know that it's not great, but I still like watching it.
@@dupre7416 Any movie you see at 8 is going to be beloved forever.
Well Terry, I totally agree about Battlefield Earth. Complete waste of time and money to make it in the first place! However, I disagree about The Black Hole. Now I will admit that it is neither thought provoking nor an award winner but I'm not completely sure why but it's one of my favorites. I found it thoroughly entertaining. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about Disney's other science fiction film from that era, Tron? I can at least understand your thoughts on 2001. Another favorite of mine. But honestly it is 2 1/2 hours of eye candy. I think it would be inaccurate to call 2001 entertainment, I would call it art. Abstract and sometimes surreal art. It does however, lack a true story and plot.
Speaking of Art, Umbrella is sending me the Terrifier movies to review. That's the kind of Art that might be fun.
Expecting 2001 to be a character study is like expecting The Rite of Spring to put a baby to sleep.
LOL 😀
2001 is basically form over function, and that's kind of the point. which makes it an interesting large scale experiment, and difficult to evaluate as a piece of entertainment or even conventional narrative. i'm not saying you're wrong. i'm not sure the experiment really worked, and sometimes that's how i feel about a few of his films.
When I saw 2001 in the cinema 15 years ago, I actually reached for the remote control to fast forward through the slow bits. In a cinema.
@@terrytalksmovies If you had the urge to do that with 2001, then how are you able to watch Bergson, Tarkovsky, or Satantango? That film is a holiday for the senses and you wanted to skip "slow" bits because you were impatient... By the looks of you, you were not that young 15 years ago, so I can fathom why would anyone who likes sci-fi movies want to do such a thing.
@@ozymandiasultor9480 endless minutes of a guy in a pod trying to grab his mate's cadaver from space. It doesn't move the plot along and it's dull.
Good movie/bad movie? I finally saw The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T this past week. Well, good or bad I loved it.
I love 5,000 Fingers. It's pure Dr Seuss.
I totally agree with you about the Avatar movies. I disliked the first one and skipped the second one for the reasons you gave.
There's a paradox in that the movies are crazy financial successes and yet are quite bad as well.
Honestly, you didn't really need to elaborate on Battlefield Earth or the Atlas Shrugged Trilogy. They're so blatantly and obviously bad that it pretty much goes without saying that they suck hard.
Also, check out Kyle Norty's reviews of the Atlas Shrugged Trilogy, he does a great job tearing them apart.
I'm going to do that right now, cheers.
The trilogy is truly awful and not just the ideology. It's clumsy AF.
I enjoy seeing how your... What's the right word? Critical thought, film theory or just criticism develops, how you build on long term themes in challenging ways to form a long term coherence. That's what good critics do, I guess that's obvious but it's more enriching than just getting a stand alone review to see certain themes emerge and develop consistently across such a variety of film types.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Pffff....
What do you think of Solaris (the Andrei Tarkovsky version), if you've seen it? It's even slower than 2001.
But Solaris has characters. 2001 has spectacle. Characters make the difference. I like Solaris, but not the remake.
Were you reading your Analogy per Day calendar when you wrote this one?
I've always assumed that 2001 was a Great Movie that flew over my head, maybe it was just crap all this time. I went to Uni in Glasgow maybe 300m from a Scientology recruitment office, they always had a hot chick stood outside pamphleting but even as a horny 17 year old I wasn't dumb enough to fall for that one. As a pulp scifi fan I did unironically enjoy some of L Ron's books (not THOSE ones), but they were never intended as anything other than fun romps he could churn out as quickly as possible (they got paid by the word in those days).
I'm glad you dodged the $cientology bullet. 😀
I actually defiantly like The Black Hole. It’s in large part intended as an homage to Dante’s Inferno, but being Disney they lost their nerve halfway through, resulting in a really muddled script. Is it worth the close watch it requires to see the good stuff? Probably not. I still like it.
Disney films always cripple themselves. Walt Disney's early 20th Century white middle class worldview ultimately became self-defeating. Many Disney films made under his influence and control are unwatchable now.
@@terrytalksmovies no argument from me there. But TBH was looooong after he was dead. From having looked into it a lot, AFAICT, the original concept of the black hole was originally two different projects, one a snooty-snooty bang-bang space thing that had been tossed around for a while, and another one which was a more supernatural concept, a little more highbrow. The two got merged, and, again, there’s not a ton of info here, but the original concept after the merger *seems* to have been “Clearly nuts scientist wants to be God, and believes he will be if he goes through the black hole, which is the back door to heaven or something. Everyone pooh-poohs this as obviously delusional, and fight their way out from his ship/cult, but they don’t make it, and it turns out that the mad scientist is *almost* right: it is a back door into the afterlife, but - whoopsie - the wrong part. It’s a doorway to hell. Then an angel shows up and tells our heroes, “You’re not supposed to be here!” And boots them out of hell, just like Satan did to Dante in the Inferno. They end up very close to earth, the end..
Would have been a neat little oddball flick, but Disney co. got nervous, and here we are.
@@mahatmarandy5977 Disney's influence on Disney productions lingered for decades after he took his dirt nap. It's a weird culture inside the 60s and 70s mouse factory.
@@terrytalksmovies It’s true. Through the mid-80s, they tended to look at his unrealized projects as guaranteed sure-fire hits, but they were invariably “Black Cauldrons.” TBH and the 3 other movies they made that year were actually their first steps to get away from that. (The Witcher in the Woods, and Something Wicked This Way Comes were 2 of the others. I can’t remember the other one, I think it was some dumbass screwball comedy or whatever) All were PG, and - at least here in the ‘States - the Pearl clutches went NUTS! “Disney is putting out pornography! And Devil Worship! I haven’t seen a movie in 30 years, so I don’t know what ‘PG’ means, but probably it means ‘Pornography - gay’ or something like that!”
Seriously, people were FURIOUS that Disney was trying to expand their brand. And failed massively. Which resulted in them starting ‘Touchstone,’ to release non-family fare. It was no secret that Disney owned it, but they figured the average yokel wouldn’t understand that, and they could get away with nudity in movies like Splash. Which worked, definitely.
Agree with about 50% of that.
I find 2001 hypnotic to watch (in a good way). My favorite part is the incredible muted vibe when William Sylvester arrives and they are trying to contain the situation. Love it.
I even like some of the goofy old Disney sci-fi's like the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes... which isn't really sci-fi in my book any more than Herbie the Love Bug is.
Black Hole has some neat set design and actors but IS completely wasted. Particularly painful is their attempts at making fun lovable droids that you just want to shove into the trash compactor unit!
Your arguments against Avatar I don't buy. A LOT OF MOVIES are the same stories told over and over again. Every romcom is the same. Most action movies are the same. Every western is the same. How many "lets put on a show" musicals was made? A lot. It is how you tell it that counts and even you admit that technically and visually Avatar stands out. I think people need to get off their high horse and just enjoy this one.
But ugh, the ideological and religious movies they can keep. Sci-fi to me is almost the opposite of religion and faith. But a lot of sci-fi stories try to marry the two. Like Contact with Jodie Foster, which I like up to a point and then I hate it. It is such a cop out.
That's the other thing I dislike. Movies where aliens appear as dead relatives because people couldn't handle how they really look. If an alien came back looking like my Mum I'd tell it to piss off and stop patronising me.
Curious, what did you think of The Titan with Sam Worthington? I was left not knowing what the overall plan and messege was. I DID like a great deal of it. But that doesn't make it a good movie.
It's just a rehash of The Outer Limits episode 'The Architects Of Fear' and Fred Pohl's novel Mars Plus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Architects_of_Fear
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Plus
@@terrytalksmovies one of my absolute favorite episodes. Right up there with Demon with the glass hand and The Inheritors(and any Henry Silva episodes😊), I didn't notice that!! Great point.
_Battlefield Earth_ is a treasure trove for movie riffers and others who do comical reviews, dissections, rehashes and analyses. It's a gift to comedy that will keep on giving forever.
As for _2001,_ your points may be correct, but IMO finding shortcomings by comparing it to regular movies or stories is kind of like looking at a cubist painting and complaining that the artist got the perspective all wrong.
For me, the cornerstones of good cinema are writing and character. Even vulgar pleasure movies have fun characters. 2001 has no characters.
Here in america was voted Worst movie of Last century...fartlefield earth.
Do you have a list of ten science fiction movies that you like?
Look in the playlists and you'll find it.
I agree with 8 of your ten choices. The two that I tend to like watching are THE BLACK HOLE and 2001. Now, that does not mean I think they're great movies. They aren't. 2001 is a dull, plodding, lifeless mess that has no human characters in it, and shows a future that I would never, ever want to live in. However, I'm a special effects nerd, and from that point of view, it's fascinating to watch. It's better as a soundtrack and a book of photos than it is a film. The other, THE BLACK HOLE, is an oddity for me. I see so very, very much potential in the film that wasn't used, simply because it was a Disney film. It could have been a breakthrough film as an SF horror film, with the Cygnus being a legendary ghost ship that is found by this crew of scientists, and the horrors that are revealed could have been pure nightmare fuel. However, gutting 20,000 LEAGUES BENEATH THE SEA and adding in a bunch of cute robots and pew-pew-pew makes it frustrating as hell.
Disney simply didn't understand science fiction movies, any more than Lucas did.
I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on Something Wicked This Way Comes... A Disney adaptation of a Ray Bradbury novel.
If I can find a decent copy of it, I will.
Peter Graves was a mere shadow compared to his brother (James Arness), but check out his role as the pilot in AIRPLANE!
Even James Arness was a stiff AF actor. Graves was good in Airplane! because of that stiffness. ZAZ cast him because of it.
My first cinema experience, aged five, was The Cat From Outer Space and I think it still holds up 😂 I agree with what you're saying about these movies, and I'd say 2010 is even more boring than 2001
I prefer 2010. Helen Mirren FTW.
I'll admit the tenuous plot of 2001, but it germinated the Archaeologist in me back in my teens.
I enjoyed the anthropomorphs encountering the Obelisk although many do not.
I had convinced myself that I, Brent Slensker with enough training, could have solved the
Obelisk mysteries, whether on Earth, the Moon, or outer space!
Follow your dreams. 😀
Hi Terry, I love your channel,I agree with you except I enjoyed the first stepford wives movie when I saw it some years ago.Keep up the interesting content 😊
I will do. Thanks for the feedback.
"a cesspool of people who need more help than they're getting." You have a wonderful way with words.
Thanks! 😀
I was pleased to see you include big budget, acclaimed eye candy movies that fall woefully short in the areas of storytelling and/or character building. When you made the analogy to putting pretty colors in front of a baby, all I could think of was all the times I’ve heard a movie hyped as a ‘turn off your brain and enjoy the spectacle’ experience especially since CGI arrived. Well done, Terry
I don't mind movies that give us spectacle. I just want something else as well.
I'd love to hear you talk about your favorite low budget movies that shouldn't have worked, yet somehow do.
Great job as always Terry.
Good idea.
I enjoy your channel and pov a lot. Thanks for doing these videos. I have found a number of new films through out your vids that I had not discovered previously. I live in the states and it is fun to see a different perspective on some of these films. I appreciate your non-fanboy approach, and intelligent discussions.
My pleasure, Craig. I'm a fanboi for certain things but I try to keep the perspective analytical as well as joyous.
According to NCLA (National Church Life Survey) the figure of people attending church in Australia each week in 2016 was 7% and falling. It's good to live in a country with less people telling, and forcing, you to live as they think.
They make a lot of noise for such a small number of people. Also Hill$ong got truth bombed by Andrew Wilkie this week. Good times.
I don't think I'd actively defend any of these films. My son watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" with me a quite a few years back, and when I asked him what he thought, he replied "s...l...o...w" (I'm pretty sure I woke him from a doze). I did watch "Battlefield Earth" all the way through, because it was at a time when I still refused not to complete any film or book I'd started (it took me 4 1/2 years to finish Ann Rice's "The Witching Hour"). I don't do that any more. "Passengers"? I like to think the bartender ratted him out on purpose for his own little AI pleasure. I've always been a fan of Kurt Russell, so I have fond memories of going to see his early Disney movies (not to mention Joe Flynn); but it doesn't mean they were good films, just light weight. Avatars were pretty, but I enjoyed "Avatar: The Last Airbender" more (the Nickelodeon animated series, not M. Night's film), which I just finished.
One day I'll do a video about the 1960s live action Disney film that I hate with a passion. I just need to find the right way to tell the story.
Although I love 2001 I agree that not only are there no character arcs to speak off, but there are no interesting characters.
Yep. It's alienating to an audience.
I completely agree with all your choices but I would have added a few more including, "Inception" , "The Martian Chronicles", and the Star Wars Prequels. Just a few of the movies that annoy the hell out of me. Do you have any plans to do a list of sci-fi guilty pleasures?
I will be doing a 10 SF movies I love list, Marco.
Moon Pilot could have been an excellent film had they edited properly. They just had to cut out every scene that didn't feature Dany Saval. What a dream boat.
Yep, Dany Saval was incredibly charismatic.
Your wrong about 2001. When I first saw it as a child I was bowled over by it, i had never seen anything like it before or since. Agreed that there are no characters/emotions in this film but it doesn't need it. The story is all it needs. The dawn of humanity, the discovery of the monolith on the moon, the trip to Jupiter and the monolith/heaven. Perfect
Agree with you re The black hole and Avatar
We can agree to disagree. 😀
@@terrytalksmovies agreed
Terry: I think that your analysis is pretty accurate.
You know the old saying…”if it walks, talks, and acts like a duck…it’s probably a duck”.
That goes the same for your 10 worst movies.
My definition of a good movie is one that engages you on some level.
These do not. Especially high concept films like 2001 and Avatar…boring and muddled as all get-out.
Yeah, they’re technically impressive eye candy, but is that all *there is?
(I personally think that Peter Hyams sequel “2010: The year we make Contact” was a far superior film, story wise)
Well, I can’t wait for your proposed 10 best SciFi movies list.
*If it’s summer down under, why the cap?
I also like 2010. The humanisation of the characters really boosts the story. The AC vent is above where I sit, hence the cap.
2001 is one of my favorite movies, I first saw it back in 1973 and it's one of the things that led me into engineering. But I grudgingly have to admit that you are right. The story is thin and the characters are not terribly interesting. But the visuals are incredible for their time and some of the future tech is spot on. That has always kept me from admitting the truth.
I admire how 2001 brought sfx forward in a giant leap. It would be wrong and churlish of me to deny that. But the story and characters are dull.
I love 2001 but it's certainly not for everyone. I'm quite boring, so I don't mind that nothing happens. When it was re-released in 2001, my sister took me to see it up in London, and some pretentious couple had brought their kid along, who couldn't have been more than about six or seven, and who spent the whole movie asking things like "who's that?" and "what's happening now?" because of course they did, because no kid wants to sit through a two-and-a-half hour meditative mood piece from the 1960s with boring characters and glacial plot development. I just hope it didn't sour them on sci-fi for life.
It's crazy long for the amount of story. 2hrs and 29 minutes? Wow.
Omigod I love you man. Your opinions, to me, are spot-on all the time, and I've only ever *mildly* disagreed with you. I can imagine sitting down with you with a pile of DVDs to watch and having some fantastic, fun conversations about cinema and culture. This is why you've got one of my favorite channels on CZcams. Thank you.
Also--and as I say this as a writer myself--you write some great commentary, mah dude. I was sitting here applauding the things you had to say, for instance, about L. Ron Hubbard as well as Ayn Rand's insipid followers... not only because I agree with what you said, but because you said it *so well.* Bravo.
Okay, now... I wouldn't even bother to see some of these films, but of the ones I have seen, I find myself in pretty much complete agreement with you. James Cameron, to my thinking, is a hack. Much in the same vein as Spielberg, who to my thinking peaked with Jaws. I realize that puts me in quite the minority, but whatever. Cameron certainly is another one of these filmmakers who can produce *extremely* pretty and impressive imagery---he certainly knows how to do spectacle. But it's the classic example of stage-rattling thunder with no substance to it.
Now here comes the truly controversial thing I'll have to say: I think, of all the "great" filmmakers who make it on pretty much every critics list of the "greats"... Stanley Kubrick is the one that I feel is the most overrated. Again, he made stunning films, visually. But there's always something soulless and unengaging and empty about every one of his films for me. There are some great moments in some of them. I'm not saying Kubrick was by any means a *bad* filmmaker--of course not. But I don't think he deserves the genuflection that's granted him by critics and film buffs. I'd rather watch... oh, I don't know... let's say just off the top of my head a William Wyler film any day than a Kubrick film. And I'm not a huge Wyler fan.
That's about it, except to say that I didn't quite hate The Black Hole as much as you did. But yes, I did hate it. :-)
I like edgy film-makers. You need more than just funky camera angles to make a film work. Spielberg and Kubrick have made great films, but they've also made ordinary ones.
I think there's a kind of open secret about the Avatar movies, which is they're not really movies, with any serious suggestion of story. Quite simply, they're excuses to go visit the exotic alien moon Pandora, they're as close to a kind of "virtual star travel" as we can get in the early 21st Century. So I think they're worth catching once -- not repeatedly, that I don't understand -- as travelogs. I think this principle even goes back to Titanic. Forget the story -- the script is simply an excuse to make as thorough a tour of the ship as possible. You're up with the aristocrats, you're down in engineering where the Gaelic music plays, you're steaming up a car -- and now you're back to the stern of the ship where you first met. Forget story, these movies are tours -- and I can accept them as that, even as they fail to stack up as proper movies. As for Red Planet Mars, it helped lead me to what I call "the Lebrun-Calder effect." In a made-for-TV miniseries called The Word, starring David "The Fugitive" Janssen, a fake gospel is invented by, of all people, a former prisoner of Devil's Island named Robert Lebrun. Despite Lebrun's "Gospel of St. James the Just" being a blatant fake, it instantly takes the world by storm and fulfills Lebrun's evil desire to sabotage Christianity from within. Likewise, in Red Planet Mars, the ex-Nazi scientist Franz Calder (no doubt a tribute to real-life Nazi general Franz Halder) is able to dream up fake radio messages, meant to be from an advanced Martian civilization, which the entire world accepts without question. So my "Lebrun-Calder effect" is when the whole world is instantly changed by blatantly fake information -- a mark, of course, of really bad storytelling. And speaking of bad storytelling, I have read and enjoyed -- purely for its cheesy melodrama -- Atlas Shrugged. Never be intimidated by the length, because Rand is a horribly inefficient writer, her work is tailor-made for speed reading. All in all, I don't know if I'm persuaded on all counts, but you do make solid cases. Thanks, Ter.
My pleasure, William.
I do like that you are open to discussions.. About 2001 and many others pieces of sci-fi work that are not mainly character driven but are idea or technology driven and the story of the characters inside are secondary.. Like the Foundation books or other works of Asimov. Because there is the other end that some stories are just adventure in a generic sci-fi setting that can be replaced and the character arcs can remain the same. I classified piece of work as good sci-fi only if the sci-fi setting of the story is the main driver of the story and we explore the idea and what means for us. I am currently on the half of the book of "The Mote in God's Eye" and I love it so far .. Sorry if I do some spelling mistakes, English is not my first language.
Your English is fine.
I don't think characters that have depth and a good science fiction movie are contradictory. The impact of the SF premise depends on characters you can empathize with. Otherwise all you have is the gimmick and no heart. I like both in my SF.
I can't help but agree with most of the opinions here. I have worked in film art departments most of my life, which has made me a bit biased towards great production design. However, it's never enough to completely carry any film. But I will argue till the day I die against the view that Avatar looks good. I wanted to remove my eyeballs half way through that turkey.
It's all in the writing. Well-written scripts inspire the production design, well-scripted characters help production designers know what kind of world to create for those people, Writing is underrated and has been for a long time. That's why Everything Everywhere All At Once works. The Daniels are great directors but their story is what makes it a winner.
@@terrytalksmovies Isn't the lack of good writing one of the plot dynamics of "The Player?" If I remember correctly, a character kills a script writer and gets away with it.
Got to say I agree almost 100% on what you say here. I have been made to feel like a fool for disliking 2001. Refreshing that someone ‘more in the know’ shares that view.
I'm in the know? Who knew? 😉
- Despite Hubbard being an appalling person who unleashed a monster on society, I thoroughly enjoyed the audio book of Battlefield Earth, despite it's flaws - Johnny Goodboy whatshisname is a great example of a male Mary Sue; I 'read' it as part of a project to read "the 100 best scifi novels according to some random list". The film is just awful.
- I understand where you're coming from re 2001; 30 years ago I wanted to see it on the big screen but our local art house cinema, The Glasgow Film Theater, never showed it and I wasn't going to go through to Edinburgh to see it. I checked the GFT's line up 2 months ago, for the first time in about 15 years and 2001 was being shown in mid February. Nothing like getting your wish 30 years too late. In those 30 years I've seen 2001 on a large screen HD TV enough times that I could not possibly sit in a cinema and watch it without falling asleep.
- Atlas Shrugged, is a great read, really enjoyable despite the bullshit ideology, The films are valueless.
- I fell asleep reading the synopsis of Passengers, no interest in watching it.
- I like Stepford Wives, the scene where she exhaustively speaks all the words into a tape-recorder without realising that it's part of the plan to replace her always springs to mind when I need to fill out a RECAPTCHA.
- The last James Cameron film I enjoyed was The Abyss, True Lies was overlong and kind of stupid, The Titanic has the worst protagonists in film and the cartoon characters in Avatar render it un-rewatchable; I watched a bit of it recently to try out the 3D movie viewer on my VR headset and had no urge to continue watching. How did Sam Worthington get acting roles despite having no charisma or acting skill? I can never remember his surname, I just had to check IMDB again.
Did you feel like the 2001 sequel, 2010, was more entertaining? I felt like it was more mainstream and gave us characters that were a little more interesting.
2010 was more interesting. Scheider, Mirren, Lithgow. It had actors who were allowed to act.
@@terrytalksmovies always a good idea to allow that to happen!
😊 THANKS For A Place TO DO This TERRY.I Feel Better Now!!
Thank you.
5:33 I remember seeing 2001:ASO in the theater when it came out. I was actually at a national science fair (as a participant) in Detroit, Michigan, at the time, but the pow'rs that be had so filled our schedules that I had to sneak off, walk a couple of blocks to a theater, and see it then. I was disappointed. It was 98% special effects and 2% plot. Also, it committed what I think is the gravest sin for a movie: IF THERE IS A BIG ISSUE, you DO NOT spend 98% of the movie on an unimportant minor subplot (here, HAL and its fight with the humans). 2001:ASO is the poster movie for this. I'm still angry.
It's a missed opportunity to do something inspiring and awesome. Instead, they made it dull with faux-trippiness at the ending.
I wonder what Nanette Newman thought was wrong with her legs. She was really pretty good looking and had a great little part in one of my favourite films, The League of Gentlemen.
Not sure. We're all insecure about weird things.
THANK YOU! FINALLY, a brave critic who dares to put the iconic "2001....." in its place. As for my own opinion, any film that doggedly, infuriatingly refuses to explain itself, leaving it totally up to the viewer to interpret as he sees fit, is nothing more than an expensive Rorschach test!
The trippy bits were fun. Much of 2001 was not.
Agree with most of your choices Terry, especially about these films not living up to their potential. Passengers in particular would have been improved, ethically, if they didn’t show Pratt had deliberately taken Lawrence out of the cryogenic sleep and saved that as a plot twist and ended the film with Pratt as a villain who meets a deserved bad end.
I do have a soft spot for The Black Hole though.
I know a few people who like The Black Hole. I've seen it three times and it never felt more than dumbed down to me.
Hubbard was the guy who figured out the money was combining Religion and Psychology.
Campbell probably "jumped the Shark" with his endorsement of Scientology. Asimov started to contribute to Gold and Boucher's magazines at that point.
(Campbell, a Cornell Educated EE, is well remembered for Science Fiction, but his best work might have been Unknown, a fantasy book. (Asimov never got a store accepted there, and aspired to . . . .).
So many of those science fiction writers and editors were edgelords who thought thet were going to change the world.
The story goes this way ...L. Ron made a bet with Robert Heinlein that he could write a novel so bad that Nobody would touch it. Battlefield Earth went on to have an infinite number of sequels.
That may be apocryphal.
I am in agreement with this list although I had no idea that someone had bothered with 'Atlas Shrugged'. I do believe you need to do that list of SF you loved.
Next week.
Great video Terry, much like yourself I’m not a fan of 2001. In fact I’m not much a fan of any Kubrick movies, save Spartacus, which I think he didn’t care for!
The Black Hole is quite enjoyable except for that barmy ending. Good to see, and hear, some quality veteran actors in what was a tent pole release. Take care Terry!
I like some Kubrick films. The Killing is a fantastic crime movie, for instance.
Agree about Avatar. When I saw the original outing, I thought of it as "John Carter of Pandora."
Agree to disagree about 2001.
As for Evangelical pseudo-apologia, I'm waiting for a version of James Blish's "A Case of Conscience." Now there would be a case of a search for Yeshua ben Yusuf in other realms.
I was very surprised to not see a reference to Xenu in "Battlefield Earth." (I was self medicated when I watched it and could have missed any reference. No being trapped in molten lava either.)
What is so funny about the "Atlas Shrugged" films is the basic lack of self awareness the characters have. (I only watched the first installment.)
The mention of "Red Planet Mars" makes me wonder if a video focusing on all the 1940s to 1960s anti-communist themed science fiction films is possible. As to Political Mars in film, my go to is the early Soviet effort, "Aelita, Queen of Mars." Classic class conflict propaganda from the other direction.
anyway, time to go.
Stay safe!
Thanks, you too Lee.
RE: Avatar, while I agree overall I have to comment on "we've seen this story before". I didn't see Forbidden Planet on your list. It is considered one of the great SF movies, and it is essentially a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
I love Forbidden Planet. This list is the ones I hate.
I loved the original Bradbury short story for A Sound Of Thunder, but sadly the movie adaptation was a disappointment.
Very much so.
yeah you'll definitely get the hate for 2001. As others have said here, its all about time and scale. Time and scale do not really lend themselves to compelling characters. If you are in the right mood, the 5 million year jump cut just blows you away - it shows rather than tells the tremendous import, the tremendous sense of cause and effect between the first ape picking up those tools and the consequences of that act. You either feel it or you don't.
Personally, all the things you dislike about it I am just agape over, especially the sheer audacity that kubrick had to make it knowing that he was taking an existential risk to his career and didn't give a fuck and did it all the same.
what balls on that guy.
"Life choices that led to The Black Hole", to (mis?)quote Michael Caine "That one... well.. I wanted a swimming pool".
Bobcat Goldthwait did that one first when his kids criticised him for making a talking horse movie. "That talking horse payed for our swimming pool."
@@terrytalksmovies Indeed... The perils of being a jobbing actor and maintaining lifestyle expectations.
I love The Black Hole because it's the kind of film that I'd watch as a child and then imagine a rewrite as I walked around my neighborhood.
It could definitely have been much better.
Although I like a couple of these for various reasons I don’t disagree with your opinion on any of them. Also, some of the Disney stuff was made for television (like ‘The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes’) so I don’t know if I’d put them in the same category as theatrical releases.
I saw The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes in a cinema. They probably got rolled in to the Disney TV show later.
I know you know that we disagree on Avatar, which is fine, each to their own. I'll disagree about 2001: A Space Odyssey, although I can also understand your point of view, as I once watched 2001 trying to visualise it through the eyes of a sceptic, and was able to see it as "a very silly film" yet was still caught up with the visuals. Anyway, I also agree with your view of the other films, especially Passengers (I've not seen Battlefield Earth or the Ayn Rand series) as that had a huge plot device that was completely wrong.
Interstellar is a movie that really disappointed me, mainly because of the plotholes. I think I've said it here before, but the scene where McConauhey and Caine are discussing the space programme and then opens the wall to show a complete rocket on its pad was just too much. Nice visuals, but makes no sense. There are, of course, many sci-fi films that I love/like that also make little sense, Barbarella, Iron Sky, Earth Girls Are Easy, Mars Attacks, etc as well as many from the 50s (anything Harryhausen was involved in for a start) so I know appreciation can be variable and applied in different ways to various films. Aren't we humans* strange creatures?
* Sorry to anyone reading this who's not human. Klaatu Barada Nicto.
Silliness always redeems bad science fiction movies. That self-awareness helps.
Agree with you on 2001. You sit there waiting for something to happen through a mass of special effects long shots. Strangely, the sequel (2010) was a much more well acted movie with a far better script yet it failed at the box office and has been pretty much forgotten with a great performance by Roy Scheider.
2010 also had Helen Mirren.
@@terrytalksmovies Indeed - Always a bonus!
Cannot fault your reasoning on most of these, and I even agree on a few of your choices. However, one entry I disagree with is Red Planet Mars. Sure, it's not great film making, but for a low budget fifties sci-fi feature I always found it to be pretty enjoyable. Thanks for posting your enjoyable vids!
My pleasure!
Under Disney, I see that you left out 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Was this intentional as I have always loved it.
I loved your take on Proximity as you did not spend much time as to why you thought it was a bad movie other than the fact that it was made by a group with an opinion you don't share. Many movies are a small group of people "jam their belief system into the face of audiences" quite a few of which you have praised. What about this attempt (other than it was not your group of friends) made it bad?
That said, I was surprised at your reaction to Red Planet Mars as the spoiler was actually a very small part of the overall theme of the film. I STRONGLY suggest you watch it again as you seemed to have missed the actual point as laid out by the film's "bad guy." It IS a low-budget film laden with Cold War propaganda but in this era of "fake news" and media manipulation, I think you might be surprised at its true story.
Your review of Passengers was spot on but do you hate the film for all its problems (like 2001) or do you hate that they did not make the film YOU wanted to see? When reviewing a movie we need to make sure we a talking about the film made and ITS problems, not the fantasy we WANTED to see but didn't (Like you pointed out in Stepford Wives).
20,000 Leagues is the exception that proves the rule.
My issue with Proximity is the privilege of evangelism. Jamming belief systems at people is the duty of evangelical christians in particular and I find that 100% repugnant. The fact that they do so, not only in movies but also when people are emotionally vulnerable is anathema to me.
@@terrytalksmovies Agreed on 20,000 and the rest of your Disney picks. My point on Proximity (seems based on a Bradbury story I remember) is that a lot of belief systems are "rammed down the throats" of the audience. We seem to only object to Christian.
@@Laceykat66 it's the one that has the bigger influence where I live, so I punch upward at the privilege of Christianity in my culture.
And terry, before you call me out. The black hole was not a great film. But it could have been! It had all the elements to be so. As for as 2001. Well it's a classic period.
Period in the sense that it's a bloody mess? 😉
@@terrytalksmovies No terry, 2001 is a classic film. I really think you should have another look.
@@terrytalksmovies
I disagree with you ... but your joke is top class, Terry !
@@Drforbin941 seen it three times. How many is enough?
@@terrytalksmovies until you appreciate the error of your ways
Thinking of old Disney SF - is ‘The Love Bug’ with Herbie the car, a science fiction film?
I think it's a fantasy film. The science is never highlighted.
As always really enjoyed your video and though we might disagree over some, your reasons for not liking these films was thought out and open to discussion.
When I first saw 2001, I was blown away by the visuals and at the time was so taken by these that I never really worried about the pacing. having watched it again quite recently I can see what you are driving at and especially towards the end there is a lot of nothing going on - I read plenty of arthur C Clarkes books and though worth reading are often heavy on detail but slow paced as well.
I do wonder though if some of critisism is led by your political views - not picking a fight here - that colours your opinion. The Ayn Rand film and Battlefield Earth are terrible in their own right but Stepford Wives? Yes it is a film of its time and in modern times very misogynistic but at the same time is very creepy. if I were to critisise an adaption it would be the appallingly bad remake.
Anyway if we all agreed the world would be full of nodding dogs and no fun at all, look forward to your next offering
Thanks. Will. Stay well. Next weekend it's the SF movies I love.
I have to admit The Black Hole is still a guilty (and stupid, trashy etc etc) pleasure. At the core is a dark, gothic, sci-fi (think Event Horizon....hmmmm, I wonder where the idea came from...) that then got repackaged for kids - making it truly bizarre.
Disney had enormous problems letting go of Walt's legacy of middle-american mediocrity. It still does in some ways.,
Completely agree with you about "2001: A Space Odyssey". Yes, a technical achievement. Unfortunately, like most of Kubrick's films, it was a plodding, pretentious bore. But even worse, Arthur C. Clarke, who was supposedly a futurist, whiffed on almost all the things they surmised would happen by 2001. The only thing that came about was computer tablets. But even those weren't widespread until years after 2001.
Clarke was also a kiddie fiddler.
The human characters in 2001 are hollow on purpose, almost robot-like, the interesting character is HAL, almost human-like, which is not a coincidence.
And you got to pay attention to all the politics, the evolution of things on earth and onboard and the final alien interaction, and see how things change, and still, they were always the same, even from pre-historic times...
Yes, some people find it boring, nowadays people don't want to think, they like to be bombarded with pre-digested scenarios easy to understand, and frantic overstimulation, but it's a blessing some people still make flics for you to think about and don't need to have pre-moulded answers...
People found it boring in the 1960s, too. Michael Moorcock and other SF writers were particularly scathing.
@@terrytalksmovies Yes, there are always people that find it boring, but still, over time, over decades, more than half a century, it makes into the top best 100 movies of all time, so its own way it is a recurring consensus of what great movie it is, and of course still hard to digest by some people...
A fun romp. A couple of the films I've not seen. Of the remaining ones, I completely agree with Terry, except for one. I expect most can guess which one. I'll just leave it at that. I do enjoy Terry a lot. Cheers!
Thanks Hal! 😀
I've only watched 2001 from this list. Avatar and Passengers didn't seem worth the effort. In defence of 2001 a little, the plot is very thin, but as a window into what people and corporations at the time thought was an achievable possible future is interesting. The effects were ground breaking and gave the people working on Star Wars a look and feel to move away from, but as a film it doesn't stand up to repeated viewing.
I agree.
I'll agree with you about the characterisation criticism for 2001. TBF AC Clarke has more humour & better characters in his novels. You could argue that the HAL storyline is the films most significant point. "What happens when we lie to an AI?"
Totally totally agree about Passengers - what a manipulative git. We saw it in the cinema and could only think about the 'gaslighting'. Very fond of the robotic barman, mind you.
Avatar - looked gorgeous, but 'meh'.
HAL is the most significant character in 2001, but only because that red light is the only character in it at all.
Peter Graves - haha, your comment is the finest putdown I've ever heard.
A Sound Of Thunder - The Ray Bradbury story was read to us in high school by an English teacher. I've always loved the story, not least because it features a character called President Keith ... one day ...one day ... mark my words !
Follow your dreams. 😀
Lets start with an easy one, Battlefield Earth.
That's not easy that's shooting ducks in a barrel.
The video needed a sense of escalation. Start easy, go controversial, then hit the most successful movie in history. There's method to my madness.😉
I can remember a local critic Michael Brock talking about 2001 when he first saw it, and overherd two teenage boys saying its not good as Star Trek. I agree with you about 2001 has great visuals. I always skipp the 12 mins of dawn of time. James Cameron can't write for peanuts I agree with you about all the films.
Thanks Damian. 😀
Very much in agreement about Avatar and even Dances with Wolves, which I retain a soft spot for despite these problems (Little Big Man... not so much). I think Zizek pointed out how Titanic was basically an old Kipling story of 'spiritual rejuvenation' of a bored bourgeoisie via slumming it to enjoy good transgressive fun one's class and family expectations otherwise wouldn't allow for. And so Avatar and Dances with Wolves go 2.0 by making it about white capitalist imperialist civilization as such. But even though this puts on display the horrors of colonialism, it remains a form of cultural appropriation - painting this idealized vision of the noble savage, etc. for one's fantasies - and so back to the corporate gig on Monday meanwhile think about taking up yoga...
I agree. Cameron has never been a subtle film-maker. Big, bombastic, CGI and shallowness across the board.
I agree on most of this list, I did like Sound of Thunder because I had read the short story by Bradbury many times growing up. It is nice to see any Bradbury make it to the screen. I found Avatar boring and predictable, almost a direct lift from a computer animated movie called Delgo that came from outside of Hollywood and got immediately buried. Enjoying your channel, thanks!
Thank you, my pleasure.
2001 is one of my favorite movies of all time, so when I saw your thumbnail I was prepared to get angry... But I suppose I can see your point, there really isn't any character development (other than HAL, possibly) and the plot is pretty thin when you spell it out. Personally, I was able to get drawn into the experience (even without any "chemical enhancement"), but if you insist on narrative-driven film, I can understand why you don't like this movie. And you didn't insult fans of 2001, so... anger averted, respectful disagreement engaged.
I have partial disagreements with two other films on your list: 1. Stepford Wives (1975 version)- I first saw this a few months ago, and found it to be a reasonably effective horror/suspense film with a '70s feminist gloss. But the plot kind of falls apart if you think too much (if the villains can make such lifelike gynoids, why not market them and become fabulously wealthy?). As for the sexiness of the costumes, I thought the "wives" looked quite attractive in their long skirts, but I guess tastes will vary. 2. Avatar (2009)- I saw this in the proper 3-D when it first came out, and the lifelike three-dimensional rendering of a fantastic, highly detailed alien world was enough for me to feel I'd gotten my money's worth. But the plot was very derivative, and I've had no desire to rewatch the film (on my 2-D TV or computer) ever since. Anyway, thanks for another interesting video, I plan to keep watching even though I disagree with you on some things.
Thanks kaiefpne. I appreciate that.
Travolta did Battlefield Earth because he was highly revered by Scientology. A total superstar amongst the common believers. The movie needed a superstar to sell it to everyone else.
Yes, but $cientology is still a scam and the novel the movie is based on is a load of manure.
I was a big fan of the Battlefield Earth novel. I read most of the Mission Earth series as well. However, this was before I knew of Scientology and Dianetics. The Battlefield Earth movie was pathetic.
Oh, and thank you. I have never quite understood the hype around 2001. Yeah, the sfx may have been okay but the storyline never failed to put me to sleep.
If you reread the Mission Earth novels, you'll see how poorly written they are.
Dunno if you’ve seen the 1985 Britcom “Morons from outer space”, but it’s probably the most realistic “alien contact” movie.
My theory is that if alien contact were to happen, it won't be like anything we can imagine.
The only real reason to watch The Black Hole is the production design, which is quite nice. Just watch it with the sound off.
I agree. The production design, except the robots, is first rate
YAY! Finally someone else who hates "A Space Odyssey" and "Passengers" too, although being an avid SF lover :)
I hate those movies BECAUSE I'm a science fiction fan.
A friend bought the book battlefield Earth for me as a gift because they knew I liked science fiction. They didn't know anything about L Ron Hubbard they didn't know anything about science fiction and they didn't read. I had never read anything of his and oh boy. So I skipped the movie thank goodness.
Thank you the characters in 2001 were dull. I love the hard science fiction aspect of it but that was about it.
Avatar worked better in 1972 when it was published as The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin. The analogy with the Vietnam war was much closer and more visceral back then that is now.
This seemed like a rehashing of old arguments propped up by pretty pictures.
You didn't include my personal favorite movie to hate, it was one I walked out on before the end. Starship Troopers a movie made so that the director could take a dump on the book. He didn't like it he didn't read it and he wanted to criticize it. So he made a movie about it.
I don't think you should make a movie based on a book just to s**** on it. The book portrayed war as terrible but sometimes a necessity. Paul Verhoeven wants to portray war is terrible but at the same time glorifies it. The society is portrayed as fascist yet emerges victorious that confuses me.
The characters and actors in the movie seemed to be pretty boys and girls with nothing beneath the surface. I loved the book, although my attitudes have changed since I read it as a teenager. And the see what Paul Verhoeven did to it sickend me.
Starship Troopers splits audiences down the middle. I enjoyed it a bit without referencing the book mentally but I think Verhoeven made the error of making the fascism he was satirising sound too attractive.
Once again, some great reviews, and very clever and funny. 2001 is great only for its technical achievements, quality, and SFX. The story is flat, but who cares, when it looks so good, especially in Cinerama.
I care. You have a contract with an audience to entertain and engage them.
@@terrytalksmovies Who says movies *have* to entertain? All they require is to be watched. You can engage an audience without necessarily entertaining them though the easiest way for a movie maker to get someone to watch their movie (to the end) is to make it entertaining - but there is no obligation for them to do so. Just as there is no real reason for even deliberately entertaining movies to make sense or have any kind of resolution or completeness. I recently watched the Russian SF film Kin Dza Dza! for the fourth or fifth time. I still have NO idea what it's about but I find it compelling. I don't watch 2001 for entertainment but I am engaged by the beauty and majesty of it.
@Terry: you forgot to mention that the turd inside the 2001 faberge egg is also flipping you off. 🤣🤣🤣
Not surprised at all. 😀😉
I don't know if I ever felt hate for a movie. Sure, I don't like many but hate for me is reserved for politicians, criminals, dictators, wars, injustice. A movie can be bad and I don't want to see them again but hate seems like too strong an emotion for just a film. I think I saw one of those Kurt Russell science nerd Disney films when it came out, I think it was the one where he becomes invisible. Should include those 2 Witch Mountain films as well, those were Disney, right? I know 2001 can be a slog if you're not prepared. What about the soundtrack? That alone and the million year jump cut? Brilliant! Kubrick wasn't big on actors or characters so much, there to fill up his screen. There are films that the film itself is the star and the characters aren't so important. Can still be a great film. Sound of Thunder was a short story so making a feature length version was a mistake. They made a half hour version on the Ray Bradbury Theater TV show. In the story, it's not a volcano that will kill the dinosaur but a tree would have fallen on the T Rex. Yes, Ayn Rand is beloved by the right here but then you tell them she was an atheist and their minds explode. Yeah, working people won't know what to do if the bosses leave. The 75 version of Stepford Wives at least doesn't tack on a happy ending. Avatar is familiar stuff but aren't there only 36 stories in the world?
It's not that there are only 36 stories, it's how well an iteration of one of those stories is told.
@@terrytalksmovies So true.
I kinda agree about "2001". The main character is technology, and if the beautiful visuals and music doesn't do enough for anyone, then that's the way it is. I consider the first half of the film to be a fine sci-fi film (I noticed that when my old DVD copy of it refused to change layers and wouldn't play the second half of the movie.) So, while the movie gets my respect as far as filmmaking goes, it's not one of my favorites.
As far as films such as "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes", it has to be accepted that those were made for kids...and I loved them as a kid. I must have seen those at least 5 times at my local theater on a Saturday afternoon. It's a bit disingenuous to complain about these light-hearted Disney films of that era and their target audience with some sort of a 2020 world view. I guess John Hughes' movies will be next in line at the cultural abattoir for their sins in the '80s.
Whether I agree or not, I always enjoy your perspectives and videos, keep it up.
Those live action Disney films always talked down to kids. They assumed children were stupid and would be stuck in the same early 20th Century middle America that Disney himself was.
@@terrytalksmovies Nah, _you're_ assuming we were stupid. My generation knew it was silly fun, that's why we enjoyed it.
@@Justin_Kipper I watched them in the cinema at the time and they annoyed me.