Eeeey good to see ya here, contra!

Queen.

I love the rapport between the two of you

By "this" you mean the mouthfeel, right?

Good fucking praxis

such horrible inaccuracies are typical of her videos

Yeah that was pretty funny.

They have mouths to experience the mouth feel

@@jasleduc4638 ContraPoint? Lol!

LOLapalooza

Lindsay Ellis: Rachel Maddow edition.

@@Mindbleach I must have missed the part where Lindsay yelped frantically about Russia maybe turning off the US power grid possibly tomorrow!

I thought my tablet glitched out and connected me to a different clip.

I genuinely thought I was watching a video about something other than the films

280 likes and still an underrated comment

He's the actual embodiment of the "this is fine" meme 😂

wait. Which video is this referencing? It's doing my head in trying to remember

@@LSRandomHandle The Hunchback of Notre Dame video.

It's FINE.

Everyone's just...fine.

oh, boy, wait 5 years...

When my wife saw it in Huddersfield they cheered when the White House got blasted.

Saw it in Houston, and the crowd cheered when Houston got nuked.

is it like people cheer when a comedian mentions the city they're in?

@@V4rya possibly, or possibly a nihilistic impulse a bit like John Betjeman's poem about Slough - "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough / It isn't fit for humans now, / There isn't grass to graze a cow. / Swarm over, Death!"

Hey Friend. In case you have not seen it yet. Jeff had a lot of wonderfull Appearences on the Conan O'Brien Show which i myself just stumbled across for the first Time within the last few Month. Have a great one. Just wanted to share this. :)

Well, *some* group of organisms will find a way.

I'm pretty sure that's a law of physics in RL too. As long as Jeff Goldblum is alive we're good.

Except when Jeff Goldblum ceases to be human.

Mant111 I know it *sounds* wrong, but even in those, humanity usually *did* find a way, if you think about it.

Instead of pacific rim where we build giant robots to fight the giant monsters. We build the giant monsters to fight the giant robots.

You jest but, that is who they recruit. At least when I was in High School. Not disagreeing, though, Robbie is stupid

@Simple Truths you're talking about a film, where they had complete control over what they had, what happens to them and what they say. If the point was meant to be that he's an idiot douche, then they should have done something with that. Either had his idiot douchery be rebutted, or get a comeuppance, or have him undergo a character arc. The idea that he is an idiot douche and ray letting him go is a big mistake and the explosion is the immediate sign that it was a bad idea and here is the sign that he should not have let him go...is very much untouched for the rest of the film, lacking in regret, reflection or growth and then abruptly, oh he's fine, here's a hug now, I guess it all worked out and they're good now.

@Simple Truths You missed my point entirely if you thought I wanted them to resolve the crisis or didn't want the story to focus on what crisis does to people. The problem there is that the teenage son running off and appearing to die is a crisis and we don't see it do anything to him. And then the crisis vanishes. The main crisis resolving by itself had a greater purpose of "oh look, god put bacteria here, clever twist", but that had no greater purpose and has no explanation of how it is 'resolved'. They hug and it's over. There is no exploration of the crisis or it having any effect on either of them. And beyond that, if that was the plan...then they also did a lot of time wasting set ups for things that never come.

@Simple Truths that's a lot of very subjective interpretation that I don't feel was actually present in the film. The concepts you present are good. Though crazy guy in basement is if anything a bit too on the nose. It being a movie that showed the effects of crisis was part of your premise. But an internal shift from not caring about them in a whiny way out of irresponsibility, into one that presents like not caring about the dead one in a quiet way, out of responsibility for the other? Your reading makes sense and is good, but the movie itself just didn't convince me that was the intended reading. The author is dead, so I'm glad you can enjoy it that way, but I personally don't consider it a very well presented "this is what crisis does" moment. It feels less like you tell it and more like horror and trauma and then a lucky break, with minimal characterization outside blank slate mixed with deadbeat? Hard to specify, but while some of the beats got closer than others.. The concepts you present for some of those beats are good, and I appreciate you sharing them. Personally, I'd accept the idea of impulsive kid trying to go join the army, but I'd rather have that moment be a more visible shift in dynamic. Have him show he cares by, in contrast to earlier car theft reaction, and in sheer desperation, having actually seen what the tripods can do, punching Robbie. Have the explosion then be a confirmation that he was right that it was a bad idea... but punched Robbie doesn't see it and runs away in the night. Literally the rest of the movie could play the same. The numb reaction to him being gone then reads differently, protecting his daughter works better, as does Robbie showing up shell shocked and hugging his dad, an inherent "I saw some shit and now know why you did it, I'm sorry", unclouded by "wait how did he survive that?"

@@binturongman328 you say that as if soldiers are deployed without training whatsoever

I think that maybe I was a bit younger (I was just entering preschool in 2001), but I never really saw the 9/11 footage outside of history class. I literally just realized watching this video that the wall of pictures in Battlestar Galactica is an explicit 9/11 reference.

I was 9 months old at the time of 9/11. I don't really have anything else to add....

Damn I feel old LOL

I was in daycare when 9/11 happened. Watching the towers fall on a screen bigger than I was (it was a big TV, I was gonna start Kindergarden the next fall). I have memories of media and a certain sense of uncaring optimism. Being able to ask my mom about the world, just starting to understand the concept of a larger globe beyond just a state or country and not having the answers tinged by fear. When Saturday's meant cartoons on TV and staying home because my parents didnt have to work, instead of the news being first and foremost what was on weekend mornings. And I remember that optimism going away. Everyone felt angry, scared, both. My father even thought about rejoining the military because he didnt know how else to respond. My brother was old enough to really get what had happened and got quieter. I didnt understand what had happened to the world at large and the implications, but I understood what I saw on the screen. The planes took down the buildings. And now I cant hear a low flying plane without feeling the impulse to find it in the sky and see how low it is.

I'm old enough to remember what life was like pre 9/11 but not when westerns were anything other than fodder for studies of genocide as portrayed by pop culture as well as first nation's peoples. Your comment actually has me really intregued by the possibility of what could have shifted us away from "how the west was won" towards the cultural re-appraisal you've cited. Unlike with 9/11 though which is an easy to cite singular source, the mid to late 20th century seemed like a perfect storm of culture shifts that would make it hard to pin down. Still, it would make for great essay fodder for Lindsay, though I imagine her previous writings on Pocahontas might make it somewhat redundant. Or would they? Food for thought.

I want a movie ahowing the absurdity of all of the current situation Construction workers and truck drivers and fast food workers and shipping companies are the only thing left The rest of the world has fallen

If there is a future...

This is very apt: The paralysis, the denial, the anger, the terror and panic and hyperbole leading to rejection of reality

The aspect of social isolation is definitely going to be a factor in the coming years. Watch someone make a movie about quarantine

Nobody would believe actual footage of aliens. Half the country would believe it was made up to inject people with WiFi or something

@@hurdygurdyguy1 What was it with parents taking their kids to watch this movie? My parents did the same with me :')

You got Rachel'd.

@@anau.u9827 Me as well. I was like 11 :D

Exactly what Wells intended

I remember watching this with my friend, both of our names are Rachel, and we were terrified.

Woulda made more sense if Robbie got maimed and fucked up by it but we aren't making a mini series.

Robbie starts fighting "Aliens" but it turns out he was just being used to harvest oil all along

Well those aliens were buried long enough. I'm sure they burn good.

@@Yuilen What rock have you been living under for the last 20 years? Perhaps you are in a radically different age group and socioeconomic demographic than I am, but I thought pretty much everyone in this country knew at least a couple of Robbies. I personally knew a handful of people who were either already in the military or who signed up after 9/11 who were raring at the bit to go off and murder whoever they were pointed at so long as somebody important told them they were the enemy. Sadly, not all of them got their happy ending and came back in one piece like the kid in the movie. One of those poor souls now has no legs and another is a drunk, mentally ill shell of who he once was that is violent towards his own wife and children. I was not close enough to speak with all of them after they got back, but the few I did had VERY different attitudes about the wars after they returned. Spielberg didn't nail Robbie's character arc, but the message he was aiming to show us was not wrong. Blind anger makes us stupid and easy to manipulate and unless you stop and try to get your bearings before rushing head long into dangers you do not comprehend for reasons you don't really understand, you might just end up dead or worse. I think for Robbie's character arc to be completed he needed to either end up dead or maimed.

@@kirbyjoe7484 Everyone talks about the guys who simply ran off and enlisted in the wake of the attacks. But nobody bothers to spare a thought for those of us who were already enlisted, and joined, when the attacks went down. In September, 2001, I was halfway through Naval Bootcamp when the Towers fell. It was the only time, for nine weeks, that I was allowed to watch television. Because Bootcamp rules (which restricted new recruits from watching television until boot camp was over with) just seemed palsy, and meaningless, on that Tuesday in September. I remember sitting in my barracks room, with about a hundred other enlisted newbies that day, watching things unfold on CNN, and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into, as I watched the planes crash, and then the towers fall. I had intended to join the Navy during peacetime, and reap the rewards of serving my country without ever really throwing myself into harm's way. Now, just five weeks after enlisting, I was facing the very REAL possibility of DYING as a consequence of my casual career choice. If you're a human being, and you make a critical life choice, and that choice ends up getting TURNED UPSIDE DOWN on you shortly after you're past the point of no return, it can render you legitimately unable to THINK! I can't recall having a single coherent thought about that day until about a week after it happened. For a good long time, it all just seemed so unbelievable, like it didn't actually happen, and I just dreamed it. Only to wake up every day afterward, and realize the nightmare continues... Guys like me... we HAD no choice! We were thrown into the War on Terror without that even being our want or desire. And yet, we still fought for our country. Not because we WANTED to, but because we HAD to. (I, for one, actually ENVIED the soldiers who were enthusiastic about it. I was not.) I was lucky, in the regard that I chose exactly the right service (Terrorists, even the best ones, don't have a navy to fight against). And so I served for four years, during the PEAK of the fighting in the Middle East, without ever really coming close to annihilation. I know the memory of many others who were not so lucky. May they continue to rest in peace... And may they FINALLY GET A MOVIE for America to remember them by!

I hope that’s humanities first contact. An alien disinterestedly waving their hand and going “Bweh.”

It certainly looks like it has that 'bweh' kind of breath, too.

I enjoyed this part too.

@@Raw774 "The aliens landed, went 'bweh', and left again." 😂

blehhhh

We all know if this was made today that little girl would somehow figure out how to destroy the aliens. IDK HOW but you know women's power and all that. Just ask the clone girl from Jurassic world ( Her): haha I released dinosaurs onto the world .3.

It happens to one of the Narrator's brother's companions during their escape from London to the coast in the OSM. Totally breaks down mentally.

And both of those films were directed by Paul Verhoeven.

I thought War of the Worlds was genuinely terrifying and disturbing. It's a shame that they did a half assed job on the characters, cause besides that, the movie is pretty damn good, imo.

The movie had a pretty big effect on me as a kid. The premise of the film is ridiculously bleak for a PG-13 summer blockbuster in retrospect but I really admire the gumption. It definitely had a lot of room for improvement as far as plot and character go but as is it’s still a very fun and frightening film that I think everyone can enjoy.

The recycled message and they are a plague of locus just like us fighting ourselves.

It's a funpocalypse! Yaaay!

I called it, too. LOL'ed so hard when she admitted it.

This comment summarized my enjoyment of the film, too.

ain't nothing with enjoying a dumb movie

Solaris is another good one. An alien being so massive and 'alien' that we don't even recognize it as 'alive' at first. All attempts at communication with it fail, as it's like trying to say hello to bacteria. Our 'minds' are just vastly different and fundamentally incompatible.

I thought charlie sheens performance was really awful in that one... oh wait that was THE arrival right xD? , oh hey that movie was about global warming, its probably outlawed now in the us

Well realistically aliens are going to be more advanced than us due to how long life on earth took to apear. Its more than likely aliens would simply want the planets materials. Especially liquid water.

@@robertharris6092 Except that you can easily find pretty much ANY resource in vastly higher quantities off of the planet Earth. You could easily, if an advanced alien race, mine the Kuiper belt for trillions of tons of [insert resource here] without humans in 2019 being aware it is happening. Of course, if there was actual reason to attack humanity, just throw an asteroid that is large enough and with enough speed at the planet and your done.

Eh?

Yeah. That's the standard Tom Cruise story arc isn't it? At least in his early days. Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Jerry Maguire, Rain Man, Cocktail... The brash confident 'I don't need anybody' guy discovers that hes not invincible and in life even tough guys need people. Be kind of ironic to have Robbie steal that role.

So what you are saying it they should have had the same family dynamic as the group from Jurassic Park? With everyone needing help or offering help to another in the run time of the film.

I think the themes were executed well without redemptive conclusions. Sometimes points just.... are

Yes 100% this. And after the ferry scene, I thought that's where we were going. Robby had helped people get onto the boat and had now seen the horror of the tripods first hand. I assumed he would turn from 'let's kill them' to 'we have to stick together and help people'. Rachel meanwhile had seen the horrors her dad had tried to protect her from and could have gained some urgency in her life, the responsibility for her own well-being since others would not be able to carry her weight through the literal apocalypse. Then came the fight on the hill scene and the movie ended for me.

@@sean_d Magnolia is the best example of this

That is not much of an arc because she learns nothing and does nothing to learn anything. A better arc would have been Rachel transforming herself from a scared coddled girl into someone willing to hold the hand grenade as she is being pulled up into the ship in a self sacrifice scene.

@@stevenirizarry1304 Well, the arc is supposed to develop her relationship w/ Ray. Especially since she tells Robbie that no one's gonna take care of her if he goes. Which makes him pretty much the worst brother ever for just leaving anyway. As for your suggestion, we may need to increase her age a bit for various reasons.

It's interesting they named Tim Robbins' character Ogilvy. From a plot standpoint, he's a composite of the curate and the artilleryman from Wells' novel. But in the book, Ogilvy was the name of the narrator's friend who gets killed at the start. Josh Friedman and David Koepp should've had Ray's mechanic friend who gets killed be named Ogilvy and called Robbins' character something else. The only possible reason I can conceive of for naming Robbins' character Ogilvy is that to modern audiences it looks and sounds like an unpleasant name, and Harlan Ogilvy is an unpleasant character. If this is in fact the case, I find it to be incredibly disappointing of Friedman and Koepp, and Spielberg as well.

@@stevenirizarry1304 That reminds me of anime plot. Also, you forgot a point and it is Ray's initial interaction with his children, he acts too arrogant and confident, and it is seen that he screwed up terribly, which leaves us to imagine what Ray will have done so that his children do not love him oh respect a lot.

@@stevenirizarry1304 I would argue that teaching children to be suicide bombers is bad and would not make for a good arc.

Probably the best way to explain it - like, maybe there was more in the screenplay, but it got cut during editing or due to executive meddling. But the film we GOT definitely feels like the message was supposed to be “humans are monsters”

I would argue that Spigeberg actually *does* do exactly that. So I'd disagree with Lindsay on this point. There's the attack on the car and the guy losing his mind. That the one side. But we DO actually see the other side, too. For example: 1) The ferry scene, when Robbie helps more people get on board and Ray watches, clearly with some admiration, realizing his son might be doing the right thing. 2) The scene where Ray and Robbie get separated, and Rachel is left alone for a moment. A woman runs up to her and tries to protect/help her, refusing to leave her behind. Such moments are symbolic of Ray's character arc: He starts out 'every man for himself' constantly screaming at his own children and letting Robbie deal with Rachel because he can't handle it. And he ends up learning what his kids actually need from him. I also think Ray 'letting Robbie go' is part of that idea: Ray realizing that there might be a value in not just fending for yourself but running towards the danger in order to protect others. Which brings me to the army as another positive example here. They didn't turn into monsters. We see them protecting people in several instances. We don't see them 'nuking their own people' or taking advantage of their power, like some other movies do. I never saw this movie and felt like the message was just that "humans are monsters" at all

Spielberg saying crisis dehumanizes people while also being the guy who made Schindler’s List is a level of irony I’ll never be able to achieve.

@@seanbeadles7421 isn't part of the point of both that he is trying to say that horrible tragedies can bring out both the worst evil in some and the greatest good in others?

@@charlesreid9337 lol how dare she expect good writing in movies.

Oh, but you must! Jack Nicholson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, Glenn .close, Annette Bening, Tom Jones, Pierce Brosnan, and many more cameos. Ridiculous and fun.

It's trash-tastic and I sorta love it. "Ack ack! Ack ack ack!" /translator "Don't run, we come in peace..."

Haha. Right? Congress could never actually be in any real danger, right? Ha. *anxious side-eye*

Definitely hits a little different now lol

CAlled it

You can sell that as a bumper sticker. Seriously

Yeah we figured that out with Independence Day Resurgence.

She contradicts herself in the same video (remember the 1890 analogy). Civilisation is cyclic.

Don't worry. In 2081, the 1990's will be back.

TIMECOP *LIED* TO ME!!!

And yet he just abandons her. He abandons his sister, who only he can help, with the man he likes the least. Kinda weird

@@Gloomdrake Perhaps Spielberg should have included a scene where soldiers recruited people, and Robbie does it behind the scenes of his father, but I don't know if the hill scene would have worked the same way. What do you say?

I liked that the ending just peters out too. Just makes it that much more believable. I remember during the time of SARS, there doesn't seem to be an end to it. Then suddenly it was over.

Erm, not saved by bacteria. I'm with ya in wanting a YAY! science ending, but it's not there. There's a conceit, and it's given to God. The text is clear in saying that 'God in his wisdom' (created said bacteria); So, God created bacteria ... suddenly? Thus, in War of the Worlds it was God who saved the Earth. Hey, at least people got to wonder what bacteria was?

War of the World benefited from having a point. If you've ever seen an interview with Emerich you know he's basically just building whatever plot around the chance to blow stuff up, even moreso back when ID came out than his more recent films.

Spells it out in the opening line too: 'No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.'

@@theGhoulman But it's important to remember that H.G. was writing only a few decades after the discovery of germ theory. The entire notion of microscopic life was pretty alien, and hey, maybe they were put on Earth by God exactly for that reason. Would make just as much sense as any other theory, if your knowledge of bacteria and viruses was that limited. That was kind of the point: he chose a field science knew the least about - and was only just barely scratching into - as the savior of the story, because that further emphasized how little human mastery was involved in the defeat of the Invaders. It was a field humans knew little of and had no control over. Pointed for the time, but pretty dated now. To recapture that in an adaptation, you'd want to shift the goalposts into another subject we don't have a handle on, and given that the modern conception of unexplored scientific fields is "Ooo yay, sci fi!" instead of "Oh no, we don't control it!" that the Victorian mindset had, I'd probably steer clear of science or technology in general as the modern version of what defeats the Invaders. I'm not sure there's a satisfying answer to this question, but then again...maybe War of the Worlds plays out better if we just lose? I don't know.

I dont know what's funnier. The idea that theres a grubby Tim Robbins in a basement that's up to contract for movie studios, or the idea that a Spielberg production has budget limits.

To be fair, those scenes with that character were pretty faithful to the book. Except in the book the disappointing savior's problem was his lack of discipline to carry out any of his plans. He lost focus and gave up halfway through everything he started.

Director: I'm freaking Spilberg, yo...

Without Tim Robbins they could've had 2 basements :(

@@Robert399 Without the basement they could have had 2 Tim Robbins.

Better.

Yup, you could even have Robbie side with Ogilvy "coz at least he's trying to DO something... unlike YOU dad" but quickly realise 'this guy is a loon, and that could be me' of his own volition. I like it. In fact, you could have had your whole remaining act(s) be that with them coming out of the basement to find the aliens all dead.

This was exactly the writers' point. It would have been too much for the father to have killed the son to save the daughter (as in the apocryphal story of the mother who smothers her baby while hiding from Nazis in order to save the rest of the family, but that's the reference here.) So they used the Robbins character as a stand in for the son. This is why the boy has to run off with the troops.

Choncino you should write Spielberg a time traveling letter and let him know how to wrap it up.

This, completely remove the super hero killing the tripod and just have the family survive the lunatic. Such a good idea!

that's a good point. I don't want to get too political on your post, but here we go. It's the same argument with the South border and the Government shut down. A lot of people DO feel outrage and actually believe that there is a crisis with immigrants just flooding across, like some kind of invasion. But most of these outrage folk probably don't even live near the border states, which contradicts with the ideas of those who are living on border states/cities. We really don't see a crisis. Most of us don't feel endangered, threatened, or irate with people coming across seeking asylum. But there are exceptions. More on topic with your observation, a lot of people today get outraged for the injustice of done onto others, and they get upset or react in a counterproductive manner.

Another view from a border state. It doesn't matter how they got here, or why, or even how long they've been here. What matters is what they do while they're here and the attitude behind it. If they take an interest in the existing culture, and try to take the best parts of both it can be an amazing thing to experience (just think of various foods if you need a simple example). It's really the attitude of the individual that matters. I know plenty of people who are 1st and 2nd generation who love this country and its freedoms as well as their traditions, there are others who are born here and who's families have been here a long time and they hold some sort of fantasy about their "home culture" whilst never experiencing it in its true form, just the stereotypes they themselves have formed and they even lack basic cultural traditions. This really supports your theory on the human mind in a specific setting at an interesting scale. I've never seen these 2 mix and it leaves them with an entirely different opinion from each other with just a slightly different perspective. Which is sad because it leaves the latter missing out chasing something else they think they want. Its is interesting to think about.

Robbie was doing what many young people did after 9/11 joined the military for revenge. The most notable person was seen in American Sniper.

That makes sense, actually, and often times in stories too, they're the characters who'd ask, "Why didn't you fight back? Why didn't you get angry?"

@@wesleyacosta4246 1 to 1 allegory is BORING! This is narrative storytelling. What people do in the real world is important and informs behavior but in a narrative, Robbie can't just be untrustworthy AND angry AND too stupid to live AND survive! Some price must be paid. Not that any of that matters because he didn't join the military for revenge. He went to the top of the hill, not to join the battle, but to fucking look at it! There is a reason it's called a story arch. Characters need growth through revelation, realization, loss, sacrifice, etc. Something that changes them for good or ill. Where is Robbie's growth? He's an untrustworthy, emo tool bag, changes not one iota and is rewarded by surviving his non-stop stupidity tour and just connects with his dad? What!?! Firstly, Robbie's motivation has to be fucking ironclad for him to rush, headlong into a military-alien invader war, unarmed. And for what? To gander at it. He should have lost someone. A friend, a girlfriend, his mom...someone! Then he'd be sufficiently enraged and want to JOIN the battle. Which ISN'T what he does. He just wants lo look at it! Robbie has to pay for his ignorance. Narratively, if he is to survive, he has to emerge from the battle with a great loss, a scar. If 1 to 1 is what Spielberg wants, Robbie must join the fight(you know...armed!) and come back paralyzed or missing a arm. The arm makes sense. The game of catch with his dad that he took for granted is something he can never have again. It makes that catch scene much more important. *"You have to let me go"...why? Dude, you're 16! I might suck at being a father but you haven't become a man, you weirdo trash pile! So, fact of business, I don't have to let you go anywhere! Even if you had displayed some maturity(which you haven't) I'm not gonna let you go take a peak at the murder machines!* Robbie, what a stupid motivation, you have! Oh, the better to kill myself with, father!

We'll probably have to wait. If your face is one inch from a huge painting, you don't really see the picture. You have to step back to embrace it globally. That's what time does to cultural and societal events.

One thing I've noticed. I watch movies now, nearly one year intoa quarantine, and I find it strange seeing people strutting about, masks off

At least in this case it'll be something everyone can empathize with, rather than just one country. But I do think it's going to change contagion movies.

Covid pandemic is an artificial situation created in order to reduce and keep human race into fear and ignorance. In order to make us slaves.

@@gamer-px5cu By whom?

Yeah, that fog horn was creepy!

@@skellymom Heck yeah it was. Also, the music is awesome too when the Tripods are on screen (or at least most of the time IIRC.) It really built up the tension and added to the sense of "holy fuck, you better run your ass off *right now.*"

Shodan Cat It was even creepier (and also didn’t make much sense) that they were buried in the earth for a very long time, and the pilots rode frikkin bolts of lighting to get to them.

I can't stop gushing about the design of the tripods. Everything about them is awesome.

Yes, War of the Worlds is more memorable to me because of those legitimately terrifying human extermination sequences. Independence Day is far more forgettable to me, even if the story and character arcs work better.

Uhh, hmm… 🤔 first, I guess!

this movie had a happy ending for the sake of having a happy ending :))))))))

Didn’t the actress who played this Racheal girl voiced dubbed Satsuki from My neighbor Totoro?

@@firelightyear Dakota Fanning! And her real life sister Elle played the sister in that movie as well!

@@charliecharleschuck635 I know.

What does this comment have to do with the video? Or the movies being critiqued?

Oh, okay, never mind. I just forgot about that one clip.

Creo this is a fact that mentioning would have lengthened the video and nothing else. The point was the effect it had on Marlin. She could also have mentioned all the times he doubts Dory and gets them more in danger.

Having only watched 10 minutes of the video, this comment was a slap in the face 😂😂

Something Lindsay implies that I never fully realized until this essay: losing Nemo in the Lock-In is so terrifying because to Marlin, it confirms all of his worst fears and anxieties. The world *really is* out to get him, he *really can't* let his guard down, even for one moment, or he will lose everything he's ever loved all over again. Pixar didn't hold back in the 2000's.

Charlie "tiger blood" Sheen was in that. 😉🤓 That was before all of the WINNING !!! 😆👍

That would be a truly fascinating subject to make a video on. I really hope she does one.

Or Doom Eternal... What if the aliens (or the mortally challenged) show up but the perspective of the protagonist is of THEIR fears and anxieties?

I don't think the Sectopods can be judged to be inherently benign just based on the first movie, don't forget that they needed us for their survival, so they approached us with purpose, what about the species that they deemed a threat in the future, or what would happen to us after we helped them.

Such a good movie. I hate that great original ideas often barely get any recognition, and something can be awful but it will sell tickets as long as "oooh it has spider man in it!"

yessss..! this movie is about family at its core, and the aliens are a backdrop. this is important!

I don't think that's a complete arc for the two kids. Rachel expected her father to sing her a song and still got it. Ray already showed that he cares about Robbie when the former was begging the latter to stay. Which really has nothing to do w/ Robbie's non-existent character development about trying to fight back.

Just watching this video gave me PTSD. WotW is absolutely terrifying.

@@LuciaFiero Agreed. Watching this video is probably a really bad idea.

I made it the ringtone to my phone in middle school

A friend of mine helped make it.

Did you play Mass Effect 3?

Hell yeah

It is scary... If you think of the implications. Promise me you'll think about the implications!

YES

Ditto. Absolutely ditto.

@@stephencobb1837 Ditto as well. Thritto?

Another crucial difference is that in Pacific Rim it is the politicians who are pushing the wrong approach (trying to build walls and shutting down the Yaeger Program) and the military who are correct.

MonarchsFactory in the commentary the director expressly wanted a multinational team with the theme that militarism isn’t the main answer to problems

I agree that looking at Pacific Rim within this context would be interesting, but there is no "veneer" of global cooperation, nor a "US centric core". I'm kind of interested to hear how you came to that conclusion at all, with Stacker being British, the shatterdome and most of the action taking place in Hong Kong, and Raleigh,a washed-up glorified Canadian, being the only American main character.

@@vanyadolly The hero is a yank it's always a yank and all the other characters exist in his function it's extra frustrating when the characters existing to confirm the hero as the hero are all non yanks.

vanyadolly It does feel American, though. The different countries are a great backdrop but its rich multiculturalism might make it feel more American since it’s a melting pot of people rejecting the government’s ideas whilst having fist fights with an enemy that is far stronger than them. That feels American. Or, at least, it feels like the American ideal. I really like Pacific Rim, for the record.

The final shot pans out to Kang and Kodos observing from orbit, wearing masks under their helmets. "THE FOOLS! WE WARNED THEM IT WASN'T A HOAX!"

Actually the aliens realize the humans are all about to die of COVID-19 and peace out for a couple years at the end, to come back when the situation has resolved itself without any more loss of life on their part.

@@nanahuatli2144 or they swoop in when we're on the verge of extinction and either/or: A.) Keep the past remnants of humanity as pets or subjects of study, to be demeaned and debased as little more than animals B.) Act as the saviors we ourselves were incapable of being, finding a solution and saving the last of mankind who will have to live with the knowledge that we were utterly helpless and powerless on our own. In either case, it could lead to some interesting outcomes, both on the human side and the alien side. Or they could just swoop in and kill the last remnants themselves for fun.

@@Draeckon isn't the end of option B kinda like Childhood's End? At least before the last act

Me: bwaaah

bwaaah

That's more like a... It's a warrior like... It strikes fear into the...heart of...

Is it the terrorists?!

this comment was pretty revelatory and sad. Thanks for leaving it.

It was a rewrite ending because Tom Cruise was in the movie.

good comment. i liked this movie at the time, for a different reason, but i agree with this perspective

"Ray's culminating moment is when he decides to become a suicide bomber." The radicalization narrative is very obvious outside of the US I believe.

This is just a limit of storytelling. Telling stories about the people who don't make it, and who die pointlessly, is not entertaining. Having the main character die and leave his completely helpless daughter behind would not be a satisfying conclusion. Having his son run off on a wave of immature "make 'em hurt" naivety and never be seen again is *also* not satisfying, so they had to bring him back at the end. I mean sure, sometimes people die, and it seems completely pointless and preventable, and we wonder what more we could've done... but people don't go to the movies to have that sense of hopelessness rubbed in their face. The movie needs to have some kind of point, because if we want meaningless, unpreventable horror, we can just turn on the news.

The closest one prior to this was probably Rain Man.

first time I watched this movie without knowing who he is I guarantee you, he does portray normal person alright

@@NoNameAtAll2 but the point is that if you do know who he is-which the vast majority of western people do-it’s hard to un-see him as famous hot popular guy

The man literally thinks he's saving the planet by himself . Fuck that guy

But surely you must have a problem with the idea that they were somehow buried in the ground for ages and the occupants were inserted via the lightning somehow? That was a major deviation and seems pointless. Surely they coukd have had the tripods arrive some better way? Or is it some laboured metaphor?

(Well aware this is a year old comment) I am currently reading the book and I love it almost as much as the movie. I also really like Spielberg’s version of the tripods too! Very cool in a creepy sort of way

Aoife Caetan Hands Down

@@dislike_button33 Get out.

How is a fake myth different from a real one?

@@MCArt25 Well the fake story gained mythical status and the real story is not often talked about. Haha

@@brosephnoonan223 Here you go: www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/the-war-of-the-worlds-panic-was-a-myth/ TL;DR: It was a story created by newspapers as a way of discrediting radio, which was a new competitor at the time.

@@simona1001 - Oh shit. Newspapers must have fucking hated Welles lmao. He lampooned Chicago opinion magnates in Citizen Kane and literally only got bad reviews in Chicago newspapers, iirc

@@RedFloyd469 - Ye true. Willy Randolph Hearst, hated by the educated, educating the hateful how to be better at hating.

Zod did nothing wrong. When Galactus came to eat Earth, Reed Richards convinced him to eat other planets instead. Richards was later put on trial by the people who lost their planets this way. Kal-El is no Reed Richards. And Richards is morally questionable. What is Superman supposed to be?

emjackson81989 It was mistitled and poorly marketed.

Iirc didn't they even change the title have way through promotion? It was a damm shame it did so poorly.

It was fucking brilliant

The marketing made it look so generic and "seen before" that I think many people (me icluded) just didn't bother. It might be a good movie, I don't know, but it just seemed so bland the way it was presented.

Best anime adaptation?

I didn't know that about the Orson Welles opener. Thanks!

the 2nd movement is trash.

"trying to defeat the enemy, but getting infected in the process" AHHH

I've thought zombies are only dead metaphorically. What they resemble most are the desperate poor. Yes indeed they used to be us.

Excellent observation!

@@BobStein ....The desperate poor who are all too often caught up in government, corporate and/or military incompetence? (The zombie catalyst usually comes these days from some kind of research or consumer good gone horribly wrong.)

I follow your argument, but I thought the idea in zombie invasion is that of the handful of individualists in a morass of dumb incomprehending aggression. The idea that modern man is a consumer and nothing else.

Into the batverse...? (It works cuz most DC elseworlds feature batman, much like how most marvel au's feature spidey)

Not _quite_ the same thing, but... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fZ2HpLF_yta4Z40.html

You have Eisenberg's Luthor in BvS, which is like Carrey's Riddler dial up to 11 in goofiness and Nolan's Batman dialed up to 11 in darkness

I want margot robbies harley quinn dating joaquin phoenixes joker though

I'd love to see Arnie's goofy-^ss Mr. Freeze in Nolan's Batman... or in any of the more loyal-to-comics more serious Batman mediums.

I hope this means we get another video about True Lies.

I *thought* that title was familiar!

Do this. Do it now.

Bill Murray would take out the aliens.

@@anubusx Bill Murray: I'm a god.

ha yes

ha yes

I was thinking the same, gone will be the days where a pandemic in a movie will be like another dumb end of the world. Now they will show the psychological effects that it has on the individuals

@@JustKrin Three protagonists of a supernatural plague movie. The essential worker who had to keep himself in danger or else society would stop functioning. A low level politician who everyone blames for mismanaging the disaster even as they praise the idiot higher ups who made the job harder in the first place. The genuinely good woman who's at her wits end because her right wing family keeps ignoring the safety protocols and endangering everyone, eventually even getting her killed in the end. The movie ends with all the people the audience would sympathize with dying while the people who are actively making the situation worse are mostly insulated because they are rich, with bunkers and access to medicine, and friends with the president or whatever the fuck.

The zombie genre is already played out, I don't think COVID is going to ruin it when it's mostly dead after being very big in the early 2010s

Perhaps tom robbins could've been a coworker?

@@th3rasave He could have been, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I read the book very recently. It's interesting in the book because he's inspired by the soldier's talk of beating the aliens, but the longer he spends with the man the more he realizes he's all talk. They sink into a lethargy, and I think he has to finally kill the crazy SOB to move along in the plot. It could probably work with a co-worker

For me the movie viscerally brought home how invasion and war would appear to common civilians, the way Saving Private Ryan showed how it was for the common soldier and Schindler's List brought you into the concentrations camps. It was phenomenally effective in that regard and I tend to think of these 3 movies as Spielberg's trilogy on WW2 - even if he would not think so himself.

I was just 5 when I saw it and it sure freaked me out. I can still hear those horns blaring at me from the score and those Martian foghorns give me goosebumps.

The original novel was definitely meant to shock and scare, and you'd have a hard time finding a film maker more adept at conveying a tone than Spielberg. Roland Emerich, on the other hand, basically just made an episode of Friends with lots of explosions.

@@MariaVosa I absolutely agree!

That's why I love moviebob's "Really That Good" series, as it makes arguments that sometimes you can't just go "oh it's just a dumb action film, it must in truth be shite" but actually they're really well made films and it's OK to love them and not just be a cynical arsehole all the time. Like his video on Independence Day itself is fantastic and also show why it was quite progressive for the time.

What mostly bothers me is that a lot of people want to judge a film in way that would be above our emotional, which doesn't make much sense. I'm a big fan of Film Critic Hulk who often talks about how stories should be functional, but not in a literal sense but in an emotional sense.

Y'know: dumb stuff can be done well. It's neither necessarily a reason to call a film bad, nor an excuse to ignore bad stuff.

Its a lot more than just dumb as rocks though. Not only that, it has aged very badly as well. If you really want to understand from a critical perspective as to why its widely considered bad by most critics, just watch Red Letter Media's Re-View of it. As Mike and Jay usually do, they both brilliantly summed up just how garbage it is and how how much a hack Speilberg wannabe Roland Emmerich has always tried so painfully hard to be as a filmmaker. Most important of all this film ushered in a whole era of bad, lazy and insulting screen writing to come after it in most of the big Summer blockbusters each year. The only reason it was ever considered good back then is a) good realistic special effects and b) absolute fuck all for quality and variety in blockbusters throughout the late 90's which was easily the weakest and darkest period in the history of Hollywood Cinema and it painfully lasted about a decade up until 2004 which finally ended it.

I see how it slows down the movie, but I appreciate that they included it

@@EvripidouM And it debunks the average survivalist's ability to function in the broken world they're hoping for.

And the tightening of port security led directly to the Mexican Drug War.

@@SamAronow Damn. Wow.

Now that is a fantastic point. It's subtle enough that you absolutely could not understand it without the context of the era. From memory, isn't there something in True Lies (1994) about a nuclear bomb being sneaked into America through a port? If so, that would indicate that such a possibility was considered before but came to prominence post 9/11, which makes True Lies way ahead of its time.

@@BvousBrainSystems It was considered, but not taken seriously. There were no enemies in the 90s. Even in Washington, Al Qaeda was written off as this silly thing the Clintons were unreasonably obsessed with. The *real* important thing was to re-start the Cold War and invigorate our sense of purpose!

Cruise really couldn’t sell the Everyman salt of the earth type he was shooting for. It just across as Tom Cruise trying to slum it up lol.

DUDE YOUR A GENIUS!!!!! THAT WAS AMAZING😆😆😆 what are you doing here go be a script writer or a director 👍👍👌😊😊😊

There’s a series of books I’ve just read about that. Not well known since its not by a well known Author, features 3 gay characters, and free on a kindle subscription but it’s really good. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

@@restreven4455 What was the name of the series?

So, kind of like if you took these two movies and blended in some Watchmen-Dr. Manhattan?

P. S. Actually, I'm not sure that's the right name, come to think of it. Y'know, the blue guy.

Unironically my favorite Tom Cruise role is him in Tropic Thunder.

That’s probably about 50% of his films. He actually has a fairly wide range of roles but gets the most press for the MI and Top Gun movies. The roles for which he received Oscar nominations (Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, and Jerry Maguire), are all completely different from one another.

I think his Role in Edge of Tomorrow would be a better fit for this Description.

Anne Rice flipped her shit when they cast Tom as Lestat. After the film came out, she took out a page in Variety (iirc) to talk about what a great job he did.

Tom Cruise basically supports slavery with his Scientology and the members who work on his properties with little/no pay, but I won't lie I adore him as an actor, especially in villainous roles! He kind of channelled David Miscavige in some of those roles for sure, and even used Scientology drills in some films like Magnolia (bull baiting "im silently judging you scene")

That said, it’s an American film that portrays China as the warmongers.

@@jimbrody4945 true..ish? China certainly mobilised and armed themselves early, but as I read it the Chinese general also mastered the language slightly ahead of (or at least concurrent with) Louise, hence their specific encounter in the future where he seemed to quite deliberately feed her information she'd need in the present. Anyway, I have an incredible love for Arrival. It totally doubles down on the emotional turmoil of the characters, far more about the internal devastations and exultations than overt explodey action pieces. Fantastic movie.

@@lauroralei those were basically my thoughts too. I think it should also be noted that the general was willing to listen to Louise's case and change his mind as long as SHE was willing to communicate with him in his own language, something the Americans continually failed to do throughout the movie.

Right right. Human complexity not always works for Themes and Character Arcs.

@@bloodbornetoilet I've always considered the first few years of the new decade to be a hangover from the decade before.90, 91, and 92 were basically still the 80's. While 2000, and 01 were pretty much still the 90's And yes, after 9/11 things changes. I was in middle of high school. So I noticed it instantly. the Media played the shit out of those first few hours for weeks. People were tired of seeing destruction and fear and for sure were not going to so see a movie about that very thing. We basically wandered through the next 12 months in a bit of a fog.

I believe it's because on their planet (never really specified as Mars in the film) they skipped inventing the wheel, and went to mechanical legs, hence the tripods. So it was a new concept to them.

I know that scene gets a lot of flack, but I too like it. They're cute, yes, but I also appreciate the nod the scene makes towards the original book. In the novel, the martians were stated to have never invented the wheel, so having them express curiosity towards the bicycle's wheel seems fitting to me! :D