Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Looks like Edge of Tomorrow is going to top-out at about $300M, which is slightly more than Oblivion & Elysium (which both made $286M), but it costs 50% more, so it's less profitable. As much as we hate it, the studios are justified in putting their money into franchise fodder. It's a miracle we get any original sci-fi stories with >$100M budgets.

not long to go now...

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Hmm. I haven't heard any negative reviews of it though. I know a few people who refuse to watch it on the basis of Tom Cruise, but I find it hard to believe that's the whole story.

I do often wonder what it is that gets people to go see movies. It's probably not reviews, 'cause people have to seek those out rather than passively consuming them, right? Doesn't seem like that accounts for enough numbers.
Trailers? 'Cause the trailer for EoT was excessively po-faced and missed out on the energy and charm of the movie.
Word of mouth?

I have no answers. I'm just confused by the disparity between quality and consumption.

Last edited by Herc (2014-06-25 00:30:04)

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful smile

Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Boredom? I mean, sci-fi movies are popular but certainly don't always make the draw as big action films. Which is why sci-fi has branched more and more in to big action films (see SFDebris opening comments on Transformers Revenge of the Whatever).

Beyond that, I don't watch movies any more so I really don't have the answers.

God loves you!

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Herc wrote:

Hmm. I haven't heard any negative reviews of it though.

I know of one, over on the War is Boring blog. It's an example of reviewing a movie based on what you want to see, as opposed to just accepting what's there and judging it on its own.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/edge-o … f535815b00

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Oh boy. I don't have a problem with someone having a differing view, but that person either
1) is an idiot.
2) is bringing in some outside vendetta against this film.
3) does not know how to have fun.

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful smile

Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

His blog is about current wars. Fun... is not what he's dealing with.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

The site is called War is Boring. He reviewed a movie about war and says it was boring. Does what it says on the tin, really.

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Invid wrote:

His blog is about current wars. Fun... is not what he's dealing with.

War! What is it good for?

It had to be said wink

Also:

Apparently this is the Starship Troopers movie I always wanted. Good stuff, bullet smile

I can't make this stuff up: http://io9.com/tom-cruises-edge-of-tomo … -851945326

Spoilers, as a warning.

God loves you!

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

But it is Starship Troopers - the BOOK - meets Groundhog day/Source Code


And it is also THIS:http://escapepod.org/2012/04/05/ep339-run-bakri-says/. Please listen to that awesome little short story, which takes the same basic premise to a whole new level....


/Z

Last edited by MasterZap (2014-06-25 08:38:07)

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

I cannot believe it has taken this long for this to happen.

I just had a mental flash of Tom Cruise deaths montage, but with this playing:

And now I can't stop giggling.

Last edited by Herc (2014-06-27 05:08:48)

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful smile

Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

I just saw it and I thought it was really solid but not the new gold standard for blockbusters or anything like that. It's well-written, which is an absolute shock after reading that abomination of a draft last autumn, so kudos to whoever clean that shit up. I really enjoyed the editing with the resets and the clever way of showing scenes to us for the first time while Cage has experienced them about 50 times already. However, I thought the characters were very boring. I can't really tell you anything about Cage and Rita as people and even on a surface level, there's not much to them, although Cruise and Blunt gave fine performances.

My biggest gripe are the action scenes. They're all very cookie cutter and indistinguishable from any other PG-13 sci-fi action film over the past decade. There's not a single noteworthy moment that inspired any semblance of awe in me. It's a damn shame because I thought the designs of the creatures and the weaponry had a lot of potential for innovative and unique scenes. Some of the scenes described in the script sounded tremendous but were incredibly mundane on screen.

There's an episode of South Park where Cartman sees something so funny that it ruins his sense of humor forever. He can't laugh at anything anymore even when he knows it's supposed to be funny. I think the same thing happened with me this year when I saw The Raid 2. It has ruined my appreciation and excitement over action scenes. I know I'm supposed to have my adrenaline flowing when I see stuff like Edge of Tomorrow but it's just not there anymore. Gareth Evans has destroyed an entire genre for me.

Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Not related to the movie, really, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Up above, in response to Herc saying he'd never seen a negative review of Edge of Tomorrow, I posted a link to one on the War is Boring blog. The reviewer's main beaf was the setup of the story could of dealt with the effect of war on soldiers, and upon approaching the subject the movie then ran away from it. That annoyed him, and him being annoyed annoyed those here smile

Today, he posted a review of the new Clint Eastwood movie, American Sniper.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/americ … 3b0ce094e1
The film, for him, dealt with the subject well. I just thought some might like to compare and contrast.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Saw it over the holidays and enjoyed it quite a bit, though I was definitely expecting the very end to involve Emily Blunt getting Alpha-blooded again because there is no way they survived that sequence at the Louvre as first-time mortals.

But whatever.

The fact that my brother-in-law thought he'd already seen the recent movie where Tom Cruise saves the world from aliens  (he'd seen the other one) might also be indicative of why it didn't do well.

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Phi wrote:

Saw it over the holidays and enjoyed it quite a bit, though I was definitely expecting the very end to involve Emily Blunt getting Alpha-blooded again because there is no way they survived that sequence at the Louvre as first-time mortals.

I'm confused, none of them survived Paris and both Cruise and Blunt are killed by the alpha. Tom Cruise's corpse ends up being 'blooded' by the hive mind thingey and so resets to his arrival in London (which is perhaps the magic bean too far).

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

I get what did happen, I just thought it was nuke-the-fridge level unbelievable. Everything up until the last reset was fine since the Tom Cruise character would have as many tries as needed and the Emily Blunt character apparently could learn fast (plus she had lots of past experience). But for the last run into the Omega they got one shot, and we're to believe that they both survive being dragged through walls and falling down multiple floors of parking garage before getting to the Omega.

If the Emily Bunt character distracts the Alpha at the end and then manages to get the Alpha-blood magic bean again, then she'd be reliving the day again instead of Tom Cruise. Obviously that didn't happen and it would be thematically awkward, but I really thought that's where it was going.

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Re: Edge of Tomorrow (Spoilers)

Interestingly, the book is actually far more grim and also has a much more typically anime ending.

SPOILER Show
In the book, Cage gets stuck in the time loop because he "interrupted a carrier signal" from an alpha.  There no "lose the blood" subplot.  Rita is not a mentor in the book, but rather the "as you know" character who essentially explains the inter workings of the mimic's 5th dimensional existence.  Eventually the mimics figure out whats going on and decide to converge in on Cage's position so they can remove him from the time loop.  However, Rita and Cage realize that in order to stop the looping, one of them must permanently die.  So they engage in mortal combat until Cage kills her.  The end.  No explanation of the central mimic brain thing, no yay we defeated the mimics.  Its just this grim open ended ending.
       

IMO the movie improved vastly on most elements of the book.  A very rare occurrence indeed.

Bloggy:  Inf0verload

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