f13.net

Yessir.

Big Budget movie.
Will Smith.
Zombies.
Empty New York.
Zombies.

Oh god yes.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/

Does it have a decent ending?

What's with Will Smith in all these old books eh?

Who cares if it's going to have a good ending? It's fucking Will Smith and Zombies! Fuck yeah! Shut brain off, get drunk, enter theater and WIN.

I remember picking this book up on a lark awhile back. Never got around to it. Apparently it's been adapted 3 times already (besides this)? One of which was made the same year as this one -- with Marc Dacascos. There's one with Vincent Price, penned by the author of the novel himself.

[edit] Wait, what? Zombies?

That's right. Zombies. And Will Smith.

I can't imagine the Mark Dascascos one will be good. Unless it is Brotherhood of the Wolf 2.

In the book it's vampires, I'm sure...

If I'm going to shut my brain off and get drunk I can think of a lot more fun things to do than sit in a theater watching a remake.

Maybe it's vampires. Who cares. It's something awesome.

And has Will Smith!

And Action!

Fuck yea!

Wait a second..

You liked Independence Day, didn't you?

Fuck yea. It had Jeff Goldblum TOO. How can you not like Independence Day?!

Wild guess, because it sucked? It was boring too. 

I eagerly await schild's tears of rage when he discovers to his dismay that this movie is based on a fairly serious book that uses the metaphor of vampires as a metaphor for discrimination.

Who gives a shit. They can preach to me all day long.

I'm going for the action. If I wanted cerebral I'd watch something on DVD.

28 Independence Days Later

Isn't this a remake of a 70s Charlton Heston movie, Omega Man?

I hope I'm wrong, but the presence of Will Smith indicates more the possibility of "I Robot" rather than something of quality…

Just FYI, one of Matheson's great Twilight Zone eps ("The Invaders") is on Sci-Fi tomorrow night.

As for the films, this is indeed the third with The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and Omega Man with Charlton Heston. Well, there was a fourth, but it was in Spanish from Spain.  Was also spoofed on a Treehouse of Horror episode.




 

Will Smith is going to play a superhero next year sometime.  God, I hope he wears spandex.

All I can remember about The Omega Man was that it had a disco soundtrack behind Heston with a machine gun as he mowed down the vampires during the finale. I read the script for this new version almost ten years ago and it was awesome, but written for Ahnauld. There are even old storyboards from the production still floating around the web with Arnie running over vampires in his Humvee. Pretty awesome.

This is one of those cases where I expect the movie to be way better than the source material. I'm not a big Matheson fan.

I like Will Smith, but think he's a little too "jokey and talkative to be a cool action/sci-fi guy. Unless it's a smartass like Han Solo or something.

I feel the same way. He's always gonna be The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire to me. Still, I love post-apocalyptic action/horror flicks, so this will be balls-to-the-wall awesome for me.

The Omega Man! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaj5r2BMIA)

BTW, I hope they use the original ending from the book. That was my favorite part of it.

Finally saw a trailer that showed something more than just him being alone. Looks f-ing awesome. Though the part where he holds the dog is le sad.

There's a puppy? Awwww....

For Real.

Schild, why do you keep doing this to yourself.  It's like watching a woman get constantly slapped by her husband.  Sure, it's funny, but after a while the mind starts wandering.

This is one of those movies that I'd probably never watch if not for the fact that I work at a movie theater.  Sure it seems closer to the source material than the Omega Man (which isn't really saying much), and I know better than to expect the story to ever be faithfully adapted (it wouldn't make for a compelling movie anyway), but when it comes down to it, the last Will Smith movie that I thought was any good was Enemy of the State, and that was way back in 1998.

"Soy leyenda" was the Spanish one but it was only 15 mins long. 

The Dacascos version is called "I am Omega".  Straight to DVD, unsurprisingly, as part of the Global Asylum list of rip-offs which include "Alien vs Hunter", "The Hitchhiker", "The Da Vinci Treasure", "Snakes on a Train" and "30000 Leagues under the sea".

I'm quite looking forward to the Will Smith version.  Don't give a toss about the source material nor do I think The Omega Man was actually that good so as long as it's entertaining, I don't care.  I'm also backing Francis Lawrence as I enjoyed Constantine more than I expected despite it's absolute rape of the comic book.  Peter Stormare = best Satan ever.

You've never seen the Prophecy have you? Viggo Mortenson as Lucifer = win.

The Constantine staffing of Satan turned an otherwise mediocre movie into an incredible one. That's how goddamn good that casting was.

Viggo was good, but the Prophecy was already a good movie.

For my money, Angel Heart had the best Satan.

Understated works best for me. 


Oh, and the worst one was the End of Days Terminator-chap shit.  Jesus Wept.

Will Smith in a movie makes me less likely to want to watch it. He even made turds like Independence Day worse which shouldn't have been possible - I mean how do you wreck something that's already the worst movie ever made?

I agree with schild, Constantine Satan is (for me) best Satan yet.  To see him in those VW comericials afterwards was funny (I know he's an established actor, I'd just don't remember ever seeing him in anything).

I don't know if they have medicine for your condition yet.

He may need medication, but he is right- Independence Day was dreadful. So bad that I can't even face turning it on for background noise when I am at my PC.

I call bullshit on the interpretation. It is a survival story with a sweet twist, which adds a bit of social commentary with the big reveal.  However, There is no connecting theme of discrimination throughout.

Are we allowed to talk about the book even though it will likely NOT spoil the movie but we cannot be sure?

Don't spoil this shit. You want to talk about it with possible spoilers, make another thread.

Welcome to 'Erf.

Put me down in the 'ID was so awful that families should have been culled for it' camp.  Jingoistic bollocks.

I liked Independence Day when I saw it in the theaters, but it REALLY falls flat the more you see it. Like, "Wow, this fucking movie is so stupid, my frontal lobe feels cornholed" stupid. It absolutely requires turning off any cognitive thought to make the movie watchable these days.

I am Legend... I think I'll probably have to treat it the same way. It can't be worse than I, Robot, can it? At least it isn't raping Asimov.

I pissed about Independence Day when it came out because that flick out-hyped the vastly superior Mars Attacks! which came out around the same time.

rofl

I don't get the problem.

I enjoy mindless Will Smith movies. I go in expecting nothing and I'm never let down.

Perhaps you all are the ones with the problems.

He's a perfectly decent actor - he was fine as Ali and he's in that one serious movie where he's homeless or something and there's a kid. He's been typecast cuzza MIB but I don't fault him for it.

Mars Attacks was shitty shit shit shit as well. Another Tim Burton wankfest.

Mars Attacks was great! The difference is that Independence Day is the kind of flick that has the family dog narrowly escaping death while Mars Attacks! would have the dog being vaporized.

Bleh, I agree, Mars Attacks was ass.  It's only redeeming factor was Tom Jones.

That's a pretty big redeeming factor.  Also it was hilarious.

paranoia |?par??noi?| noun a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.

Oh, and the best satan:
(http://www.morethings.com/fan/saturday_night_live/jon_lovitz/jon_lovitz-devil-snl-46.jpg)

Any good casting decisions made for any of the supporting characters in Constantine are completely nullified by casting Keanu as John Constantine.  NOTHING can redeem that.  It's not just that Keanu is a bad actor (which he is), it's that making Constantine into an emo American guy is a goddamn travesty.

Daniel Craig would have made a kickass Constantine.

Angel Heart is one of my favorite movies (top 10 at least), but I'm gonna have to go with Viggo. I like a lot of the portrayals in films, but most of them are strictly devilish. While Mortensen pulls off the, uh, "I can see why God used to like him" aspect.

Keanu was funny in Constantine, I thought.

You need to go pick up one of the Hellblazer comics and then tell me that Keanu's performance was in any way acceptable.

I did enjoy the movie when I first saw it, but reading the source material and realizing how good it could have been pretty much ruined it for me.

I've read Hellblazer. I know he isn't the John Constantine from those comics, and would agree that Daniel Craig would have been great in it.


That being said, it still happened to be one of the movies (to me) where Keanu both reached a little, and didn't do so bad.

EYE..AM...AN....EFF...BEE...EYE...AGENT!!!

Dude, Point Break rocks.  :grin:

"I, Robot" wasn't stellar, but it was entertaining. I frankly don't know how one could go about making it into a movie without major changes to the source material (specifically, turning super-snatch Susan Calvin into someone I don't want to see dismembered by angry mobs.)

Although, to be fair, I've never read Asimov's actual screenplay version of it.

And "Mars Attacks!" fucking rocks.  "Don't run, we are your friends...."

Eh, I don't get the hate.  Really enjoyed Independance Day.  Mars Attacks was so-so funny, but I don't much enjoy that sort of humor.  Big points for the tons of cameos and killing... everyone.  Constantine was so-so.  Fans probably loathe it, but comming into it blind as I did means I don't care much about that.  Better than the Terminator-Satan flick.  I Robot was good, but you're not going to capture the type of message Asimov had in the books in a Hollywood production.  It's an action/thriller.  Go in with that mindset and you're fine.

Same thing with I Am Legend.  Don't expect it to be like the books.  Expect Will Smith to shoot up Zom-Pires while bitching about how it sucks to be so alone.  Sort of like how ID was about Will Smith shooting up aliens in between bitching at government officials, or I, Robot was Will Smith shooting up robots in between bitching about corporate power.  Insert love interest.  Insert some measure of self-sacrifice.  Insert explosions.  Insert plot twist during the resolution.

You forgot Will Smith shooting up saloons in between bitching about slavery.

Yeah; it's formulaic and I love it. This movie's gonna be fun.

Since we're talking about both Smith and Keanu, did you know that Will Smith was the original choice for Neo? I can't even imagine how that would have worked.

I was living in the UK when Independence Day came out. Jeff Goldblum was interviewed on the BBC and expressed surprise at the movie in its released form. He said all through production, the actors thought they were making a comedy. The studio turned it into a special effects blockbuster instead. If you think back to the movie, you can see this - the actors are being funny and the plot satirises the USA, but the movie is edited into a dramatic, patriotic blockbuster.

Mars attacks was one of the best movies ever created.

(http://arbredespossibles2.free.fr/SF/Images/MarsAttacks2.jpg)

If it's faithful adaptation you want, then yeah, stay the hell away but they kept the spirit of the character (even if they raped the story) and it was a well directed, decently acted, fairly well written and above all else, enjoyable film.  Hell, they even killed the annoying sidekick and Kanoe doesn't get the girl.  Plus Cate Blanchett was pretty cool too.

Typhon - Peter Stormare was the big kidnapper in Fargo, the Italian torturer in Gilliam's Brother's Grimm, the russian Cosmonaut in the fuckawful Armageddon, the batshit doctor who replaces Tom Cruise's eyes in Minority Report and the voice of the Finnish mercenary in LA's Mercenaries (as well as Pvt Strauss in Quake 4). 

Louis Cyphre was excellent in Angel Heart.  Had forgotten about that.  Have seen The Prophecy too but was under the influence so don't remember what the fuck went on. 

Independence Day was fucking awful.  Nice big explosions at the start but after that, it hurls fucking chunks and has nothing to redeem it at all.  It's marginally better than Godzilla which was terrible.  Mars Attacks, on the other hand, was excellent.  Very, very funny and totally taking the piss out the whole alien invasion genre.  The worst of the lot though is Signs which was a bitter, tragic and absolute fucking disappointment.   

Cate Blanchett?

You forgot Uli Kunkel (aka Karl Hungus). 

(http://www.grannygear.com/Assets/Images/Races/Moab/2004/Karl_Hungus_and_the_Logjammers.jpg)

He'll cut off your Johnshon!


And I think you mean Tilda Swinton.

He'll also unpimp your auto.  (http://youtube.com/watch?v=cv157ZIInUk)

You're right.  I did.  Cate Blanchett was being interviewed on TV while I wrote that. 

We've got two out of three branches of government, and that ain't bad.

I stopped reading this thread when I got to page2, because really I don't need to add a bunch more of you people to my "god what useless fucking bitchasses" mental category...

For real, stop being such fucks.  I know its cute and all on the internets but fuck off with it already.

ID was a fun movie for anyone who is currently 2X or who is capable of enjoying an American action movie who saw it that fourth of July weekend.  Shit the theater I was in had fucking applause in like 4 places from the utterly stupid but in the fun of the movie pretty funny one-liners.  Back then we were all high on how awesome America was and the movie was a good time.

Seeing it on TV makes it suck.
Seeing it more then once makes it suck.
Seeing it and not being American might make it suck for all I fucking know.  If that is the case Ironwood gets a free pass, to hell with the rest of you.

But you assholes who swear that somebody enjoying a stupid movie is the end of the goddamn world need to fucking get out more.  You post on a fucking video game centric message board.  Your taste in art?  Nobody fucking cares.

The world doesn't need more douchebags claiming to be critics talking shit about movies that are fun to watch once when you feel like being entertained for two mindless hours.  We've got plenty.  Please find a different line of being an ass.

Ohh, whatever would we do if you weren't here to set us straight?  :roll:

Quick, go pop in somewhere else and lay down the law.

I'm going to try really hard not to go into a comic book nerd rage fueled rant here, so I will just say: PFFFFT.

Amen brother!

What we do need are more critics of people! Especially seeing how knowledge of movies gained through watching movies is so much more inferior to knowledge of people through reading some posts on a message board.

Do you actually consider that witty sarcasm?

 :ye_gods:

Surely not. It's not green.

The best Satan ever to grace either the small or the large screen is John Glover.  Obscure pop culture cred if you can remember in what without looking it up. 

Heh, well, I don't know how you're going to fact check... If you're talking about the guy who plays Lex Luthor's dad though, I'd like to see it! He's great. The only other thing I've seen him in was Scrooged, and that was a bit part.

I think I was like 12 or something when Independence Day was in theaters.

I liked it back then.

Ray Wise is currently taking a run at the best Satan ever on television.

Is that for Reaper? I like that show. Too bad it's on the CW.

edit: Or hell, maybe that's a good thing.

I love his character in that show!  I actually remember to watch it or record it. 

I disagree.  If you'd ever seen John Glover play the role, you would know why.  I could find 100 people in ten minutes who'd look pretty much the same at an Old Country Buffet in Miami.

Yes. 

Because there is quite literally nothing more aggravating than the five minute scene where the UK Brigadier with the posh accent thanks God that the Americans came up with a plan, since the UK troops were merely wanking and playing with their poo in the paddling pools.

It's not the only movie you guys pulled that shit with either.  And it fucking sucks.  You arrogant, arrogant cockholes.

I hated that the French died. All of them it seemed...

Or maybe that was another disaster flick.

Yeah that scene was bad. Its the only thing I still remember about that movie (that and Apple obviously being Alien technology). Roland Emmerich sucking up to his new country of choice. Spineless manwhore.

Possibly Brimstone? I know John Glover played Satan in that and it was a damn fun performance. Liked it a lot. Still waiting for it to come out on DVD  :sad_panda:

I don't recall ever seeing or hearing of Brimstone so it may not have made it over to these shores.

Speaking of ID. Jeff Goldblum did a decent Satan in a weird flick called Mr. Frost. The movie is worth watching maybe one time, but he does turn in a good performance in it.

Quick plot summary: Goldblum is a serial killer who may also be Satan. The whole movie he is in an insane asylum trying to convince his psychiatrist he is, because if he convinces a scientist he wins.

I had to turn off some awful, awful movie I was half watching on TV while playing a computer game last week because that was so bad.  Something set in modern day England about dragons taking over the Earth and a handful of Americans getting those worthless, cowardly, limeys to get off their asses and fight back :roll:.

That would be reign of fire. A truly awful movie.

I love the concept behind Mr Frost although I think it would make a better book than film. 

I had forgotten about this movie.  I agree, he does a good job as Satan in Mr. Frost.  It's probably the only film I've seen of his where I felt like he was acting and not trying to be a film presence.

Not an excuse but have you been to Hollywood?  The drive thru attendant at the McDonalds there thinks the world revolves around him.

These are the people who dumb down movies because 'Americans are too stupid to understand'.  According to the NSF in the working population of the US are about 30 million Americans who have at least a 4 year college degree (out of 140 million total workers in the US according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics) and another 10 million who don't work.  Hollywood isn't just looking down on you, they look down on everyone.

The funny thing is that as they loose revenue dollars because no one can stand to watch the idiot plays they create their reaction is to dumb the movies down even more.

So much to go over. Mars Attack sucked it. The ONLY redeemable part of that movie was the aliens walking around with the translators saying "WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS!" while blasting the shit out of everything. THAT was funny. The rest... I mean, WTF was the Pierce Brosnan/Sarah Jessica Parker heads on dogs thing? WHAT THE FUCK???

Brimstone was a cool show that never got the chance it deserved.

Reign of Fire was ok, not great, just ok. But it wasn't the kind of thing you need to think too heavily about.

Despite being a huge fan of Hellblazer and the Constantine character, I still liked the movie. No, it wasn't really Constantine, because Keanu is Keanu. But the story was decent, hitting some of the best beats in the Garth Ennis run. It was well shot and Keanu didn't do TOO bad a job with it, considering that he's, you know, Keanu.

Independence Day is the kind of movie Michael Bay will remake in 10 years, because there just aren't enough FUCKING EXPLOSIONS AND MILITARY KNOBSLOBBING for him. Again, it was fun to see on the big screen, but God it was a thoroughly brain dead movie. ID is the kind of movie George Bush sees playing in his head when he talks about Iraq.

That was the beauty of it - the sheer absurdity of it all.  Jack Black surrendering to the martians by waving the US flag, using Easter Island as a bowling alley, the two boys who play video games all day, Tom Jones!  Just the fact that they used Slim Whitman as the method to kill the martians was fucking inspired and a real poke in the eye at all the other invasion films where the humans eventually win.  (Like fucking Signs, that fucking Shyamalan fucking hack fucking fuck!)

The first act of ID4 was great to watch - the whole arrival of the aliens, the destruction of the cities and even the repulsion of the initial counter attack were great.  Big bada boom.  After that, the only person we see die is the First Lady in some hokey "tell them... I love them!" scene.  The writing is terrible, the acting is appalling (with special mention going to Brent Spiner) and the direction is abysmal.  Roland Emmerich believes he can film epic just like David Lean can but he just hasn't got a fucking clue.  He takes what could be potentially epic and makes it look like a particularly cheap episode of some dodgy Star Trek rip off.

I know Hoax has got a bee in his panties over people slating ID4 but for the most part, it's just not a very good film.  And yeah, I'm with Ironwood - the american jingoism jarred too much for non-US people.

I think the first mistake is calling "ID4" a "film."

It's a movie. Not a film.

If you think about it as more than that, you can't be entertained by it.

Die Hard is a movie.

Toe-may-toe, toe-mar-toe. 

Anyway, what sort of fuckarse arbitrary distinction is that? 

My guess is that he thinks y'all are dissing it from the standpoint of "art", and not seeing it as the mindless blockbuster that it is.

Thing is, it's not all that great of a blockbuster either.

I do find it kind of funny you latched on to that so vehemently.  The idea at that point is that nothing in the world that anybody had tried against the aliens (including the Americans) had worked.  Everything was a failure.  We just happened to have an old alien ship that crashed from the 50's, which nobody else had, and our entire last ditch plan revolved around that.  The 5 second sequence the Brits got when we called everybody about it was just emphasizing that situation.

I mean, what else could they do at that point?

That doesn't stop shit from being stupid in the movie (the worst is "HAY, I KNOW, ILL MAGICALLY PROGRAM A GOD DAMN VIRUS FOR AN ALIEN COMPUTER SYSTEM.  GOOD THING THEY MUST USE MAC'S").  I just find it funny the things that set you off sometimes :wink:

I fall into the category on ID4 that it was alot better the first time I saw it, in theaters.  I remember really liking it (was one of the only movies that I ever saw twice in theaters).  Had great action and special effects, funny dialog, good pacing, etc.  Everything I could want from an action movie.

Then I saw it again on TV about a year ago, after having not seen it in forever.  Yeshhh, it really didn't stand up to the test of time at all.  Still has its parts, but watching it on TV long after the fact made it seem way worst than when I first saw it.

Andrei Rublev is a film.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back is a movie.

It's really not a hard distinction. And it doesn't even require arrogance.

It's turning a technical term into an art fag term.

Pretty much every person I've talked to about ID4 up here took it the exact same way.  US arrogance in a movie.  Of course, we mostly just shrug it off, because it's pretty damned common in hollywood blockbusters.

I know a couple of ex Lebanese freedom fighters who love the hell out of Rambo. Probably not for the reasons it's meant to be though.

Further, I wasn't stating my opinion in a vacuum :  I was asked the question.

My favorite scene from Reign of Fire didn't even have dragons in it. When I think of that movie I remember the characters doing a stage play version of Star Wars and then telling the kids in the audience that they came up with it themselves.  :grin: ...The kids were in awe.

The misspelling makes this post truly, truly awesome.

Actually, he is better in the Fly. That is still probably my single favorite movie with him as the star. Though I like him alot in Buckaroo Bonzaii also. As for him in ID, I sort of viewed him as parodying himself in that movie since he always seems to play the braniac.

I enjoyed ID although I have to shut my brain off during any computer sequence. Getting my C.S. degree nearly ruined the movie for me before I just gave up and accepted it as nothing but fun fluff.

Oh, I know, just saying I thought it was funny out of a whole movie filled with patriotic American rhetoric, you picked that one 5 second bit showing the British as an example.  It's obviously something that bugged you and stuck with you :wink:

Eh?  Whatever.  I'm pretty sure there is an internet rule that states that whenever you put down someone/something else in a message board post the poster inevitably will err in spelling.

"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way."  ~Mark Twain

I Am Legend looks pretty good, but I'm a sucker for Will Smith, sci-fi, no think, action fests.  Hell I like alot of movies that keep me entertained without the director/actors trying to shove a ton of their political or social views down my throat.  The last group of people I would listen to, when it comes to shit like that, would not come from Hollywood.

Oh btw.. Mars Attacks sucked.. and Tim Burton is overhyped garbage.  The only movie of his that I've watched more then once was Batman.

Reign of Fire was alright, as long as you take it for what it is.. Dragons and Christian Bale.

The only good part of Reign of Fire was the last scene involving Matthew McCaunawhatever.

Amazed no-one's referenced Joe Satriani as the devil yet?

ID sucked for many reasons. The jingoistic bollocks is offensive enough by itself but referencing that as a reason not to like it is like saying you hate eating turds because of the grainy texture. There are bigger targets you should be aiming at. Bad science, boggling plotholes, lazy direction, uninspired dialogue - all of these make it a bad film but you can look past them by pointing out it's a popcorn movie, not Citizen Kane. Many other films also have the previous flaws and don't suck the big one as hard as ID.

The reason that everyone associated with making ID needs to be rounded up and beaten to death with copies of Screenplay Writing for Dummies is because they didn't actually try to make a movie, it's the ultimate expression of SFX over substance. Strip away the CGI budget and you have a movie that you wouldn't watch if the cinema was paying you. Hollywood execs made this movie by working out the minimum amount of effort and skill at entertainment required to make money flow in and slackjawed yokels all across the southern states lapped it up. It's the fault of people like this that so many films suck so hard. They validate the impression that people will pay lots of money to consume shit. As long as you pay for it, they will make it.

That's a lot of writing to just say it was a movie.

Who gives a shit? Why is anyone expecting art? What the fuck is going on with you people. Get off the fucking mountain. Shut off the brain. And enjoy a popcorn flick.

The point is there are dozens of popcorn flicks released every year that aren't as bad as ID. It really deserved to die a lonely death at the box office 3 weeks after release. The fact that so many people seem to love it makes me weep.

No, Titanic deserved a lonely death. ID4 had explosions and fucking jeff goldblum.

Agreed on Titanic, although Kate Winslet got the girls out for that one. That made 3 minutes of it watchable.

ID ruled. of course, when guaging my opinion of this movie, one has to take into account that I was having sex in the back row of the theater for 2/3rds of the matinee. WITH A GIRL even.

I still haven't seen Titanic.. and I thank God every morning.  

Titanic isn't that bad.

And sure, I'll fight about it if you want.

Seriously though, it isn't. Not that I own the DVD or anything, but still... Too much hate for that one.

Titanic was 2 hours too long.

If it was 90 minutes shorter it would have just sucked, not been the monumental turd that it is.

Edit- heh- Schild said much the same thing as I was posting.

Independence Day and Reign of Fire were what amounted to B-movies made with A-movie stars and special effects, and taken as such they were both perfectly entertaining.  I particularly liked that bit in Reign of Fire where McConaughey jumps toward that dragon with an axe in his hands, and just as you're thinking "Bullshit, the success of a move like this is stupidly improbable even for this movie!" the dragon fucking eats him.

Also, if (insert country here) doesn't like the way America portrays itself in some of its movies, said country is perfectly welcome to develop a domestic movie industry worth giving a fuck about.  Then it can put out movies of its own, where New Zealand saves the rest of the stupid world from aliens or whatever.

It took that long for a boat to sink?

Oops, forgot about that.

I really liked Billy Zane in it... Though I think it pretty much destroyed his career.

Well South Korea made that movie The Host, I think that was the name.  It was decent as far as monster movies go, but they blamed the whole thing on the US.

I think you're missing the point. The chest beating is just silly in general, no matter where it comes from.

Also, I don't think it's "America" per se, portraying itself like this.

That being said, Kramer vs Kramer, Fast Times, Office Space, and Fight Club should be official statements on the America I know.

And Van Wilder.

I think you should go with ID instead.

Great minds think alike?

Why's that?

Watching Independence Day is like getting a prince albert from Michael J Fox during an earthquake with a dull needle.  It's all pain all the time.

Will Smith's been in one good movie: Ali.  Everything else has been between terribly mediocre and pure shit.


edit: I can has cobbed corn?

OK, that I disagree with. But I could just name one, which is Six Degrees of Seperation.

Because I think Fight Club is an awful awful film which has a terrible 'message', boring twist, hollywood ending, etc etc. Basicly it's a hollywood film trying to be a mor ethan it is, and failing miserably. At least ID wears its simplicity and stupidity boldly. When you have pretnesions and you're still stupid it's just worse.

Officespace I only watched a bit of because the dvd fucked up. But it seemed to be a rather dull comedy based around the office, mostly concerned with bullshit carthasis and negative societal observation. I admit to making a very knee-jerk reaction on that; I never bothered to get an unfucked version and watch the whole thing.

Office Space is the single best portrayal of Corporate America that exists today.

Office Space is awesome. I agree with your Fight Club comments although they are a bit overstated. It was kind of like an indie film for people who don't do indie films. The ending was silly and the "twist" was trite. It certainly wasn't amazing and mindblowing and thought-provoking in the way that some people pass it off as.

Fight Club has some great lines though, particularly from Helena Bonham Carter:

"I want to have your abortion"

"I haven't been fucked like that since gradeschool"

You mean Steve Vai in Crossroads?

What do you think Fight Club's message is?

That's not a fucking excuse.  What held Reign of Fire together was some good performances and an interesting concept.  The writing was lazy and the direction was mediocre.  Rob Bowman isn't a bad director but he suffers what a lot of TV directors do when going to film and that's shooting it like it's TV.  Again - epic subject, not-so epic direction.  The worst crime that Reign of Fire committed was not delivering - the posters had pictures of dragons fighting against helicopter gunships.  Did we get that?  Did we bollocks.  Big fucking let down.   That being said, it's still an enjoyable film.

Therein lies the rub.  Plenty of other countries have a movie industry that is actually worth giving a fuck about.  But the general opinion is that you Americans aren't interested in watching anything that doesn't have one of your own in it - hence the reason that Constantine was moved away from Liverpool, that High Fidelity was moved away from London and that absolutely classic foreign language films are - on the whole - poorly remade in America.  Why do you think there's a deluge of Japanese horror remakes?  Because while Japan has a fucking fantastic film output and makes some absolute classics, they don't sell in the States because they've got subtitles and don't have any yanks in them.  Oh, and because the ending might not be so "and they all got him in time for tea and lived happily ever after."  

I'd call "Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem" a film but it most definitely isn't art.  I'm hoping I enjoy it and it doesn't make me want to vomit a lung up or anything but I'm not expecting Bergman, Werner or Lynch.  Shit - it's aliens fighting predators and people with faces being melted by acid.  Highbrow it most definitely isn't.

Following that line of thinking, one could excuse even the shittiest of flicks as long as it was never intended as art.  Even with popcorn flicks, we can still make a distinction between good and bad.  I think ID4 is bad because I find it completely unwatchable now, whereas something like Crank is a good popcorn flick to me.

Way to be a massive hypocrite.  You wouldn't say that shit if it was a game, so why are you coming out with that crap now ?

What are you talking about?

Shadow of the Colossus is more art/film than say Quake 3 Arena. Deus Ex vs Fear. Etc. The second from each comparison plays out like a Hollywood Blockbuster compared to the former. And the first is a film comparatively. And they're all awesome for it. Don't ask why I used FPS titles for the movie comparison. Here's another one: Ico vs. Far Cry. Fumito Ueda makes some pretty compelling arguments for why your line of thought is crap.

Basically, I've very much said this sort of thing about games. Your average portable game is a case where I turn my brain off and just enjoy it. There's a reason I've beaten probably 40 or 50 DS games. And it's not because they were intellectually stimulating. It's because I play my DS on the toilet.


I'm sorry the kid in you died to the point that you can't handle smacktalk to aliens. Which is weird, considering the comic books. It's nothing personal, but Transmet vs X-Men. I look at the latter as popcorn comic books. I've never been able to read them as art in the slightest bit. Except for that short run during the beginning of X-Men Unlimited. But then, I probably couldn't go back and read those again. The Watchman vs Fantastic 4. Etc.

There's a distinct line in every format.

Whether you like those films or not, their relative merits "as films" wasn't my point for listing them. If I wanted to do that, I'd tell everyone to watch the Unknown, the Grapes of Wrath, and On the Waterfront.

What I meant was that the four movies I listed were better "ambassadors" of American culture than anything like Rambo or ID4. Broken homes, getting in fights with Mr. Hand, smashing computers whilst listening to the Geto boys, and frustrated 30 somethings who buy too much Ikea... That's the America I know.

My wife doesn't let me watch Office Space anymore after the two incidents.

Incident one: Unhappy w/ job.  Watched Office Space.  Quit next day.
Incidient two: Bored w/ job.  Watched Office Space.  Stopped going into work for the remainder of my contract (last 3 months).

For shits and giggles, I hit up Mojo and snagged this year's box office records for France.  With 47 weekends in the books, 30 were led by American movies, while 16 were led by French movies and 1 was led by a British movie.  No other nation had a #1 movie at the French box office at all.  Meanwhile, 34 of 47 weekends were led by American movies at the UK box office.  And that's with me assuming that anything I don't immediately identify as American must not be.

The rest of the world's movie industry put together sucks Hollywood's cock.  And don't give me any "Wah wah, it's not all about money!" horseshit.  That money comes from people buying tickets to things they want to see.


Nobody else seems to want to watch anything that doesn't have one of our own in it either.  Those Japanese horror remakes routinely outgross the originals by an order of magnitude, even if you ignore the American box office completely.

EDIT:  Listen, you can bag on America in a lot of areas and I won't complain.  But we absolutely rape everyone else when it comes to movies.  We just do.

Oh come on WUA.  You can do better.

This is weak, weak trolling for you.

 :uhrr:

After enough "Wah wah, the Americans made a WW2 movie and marginalized us Brits!" bitching over the years, I'm ready to just say "Fuck you, make your own movie and have Churchill fend off the Nazi invasion of Washington DC with his hat for all I care."

Right on time, the 'We Saved Your Ass in WW2' cliche.

Seriously, it's weak trolling.

Just for the records, the Americans didn't save my ass, my grandfather was on the losing side. Is my opinion about movies suddenly more valid than Ironwoods?

While I agree that the jingoist shit needs to stop, I don't see where this "Americans have to have their 'own'" sentiment is coming from.

Batman -- probably one of the biggest action icons outside James Bond -- is played by a Welshman. The same who also played in American Psycho, who also just played in a decent Wild West flick with that Aussie box office draw known as Russell Crowe.  

Another recent Wild West flick was played by the best actress around right now -- who's an Aussie.

Joker, the Hulk, and Wolverine -- all American icons -- are played by Aussies.

Clive Owen, Ralph Feinnes, Jude Law, Geoffry Rush, Kate Bekinsale, Helena Bonham Carter, and Kate Winslet, all from the UK, plays plenty of American characters without anyone getting upset about it.

Ray Winstone played the most gruff, badass Bostonite in recent memory. Nobody complained.

Gillian Anderson played Agent Scully for years, without anyone complaining that she was a Brit.

Everybody fucking loves Anthony Hopkins. Everybody loves Peter O'Toole. Everybody loves Daniel Day Lewis. Everybody loves Sean Connery. Everybody loves Albert Finney. Everybody loves Liam Neeson. Everybody loves Ian McKellan. Everybody loves Ben Kingsley. Everybody loves Jeremy Irons. Everybody loves Alan Rickman. Most people love Tim Roth. Most people love the Professional and Jean Reno -- not to mention Gary fucking Oldman. Or Natalie Portman, for that matter, a native Israeli.

Two words: Peter fucking Sellers.

Okay, that was three words.

Fail.
The Bombay movie industry pisses all over Hollywood's output.

Secondly, Hollywood is the dominant Western film centre, it's not really surprising that it dominates Western markets. They show the same films in France that they do in the US, they also show French and other Continental movies but these tend to be limited appeal compared to mass-market Hollywood stuff. I lived there for three years and apart from having hairier armpits and a better command of English, French teenagers are not much different to American teenagers - they like to see Spiderman kicking the bad guy's ass too. Faced with this cultural juggernaut, the European industry doesn't try to compete head to head as that would be stupid, instead they make the films that Hollywood never would, the quirky, off beat stuff which sometimes is ace (Brotherhod of the Wolf) and sometimes is horrid (Banlieu 13).

You cannot argue with any sincerity that popular automatically equals good. I can disprove that premise instantly with the music chart for any week you care to mention.

It's not so much the actors, it's the shoehorning of a token American character (at best) into an established story or at worst rewriting the whole thing with Yanks. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a case in point. Fair enough they'd already mutilated the corpse of the graphic novel so one more idignity was never going to make much of a difference, but shoehorning Huck Finn in was just unnecessary.

Bale is Welsh ?

Really ?

Bollywood sucks balls though. I mean, really fat stuck in the 1980s but without the good music and awesome hair balls.

Sure is...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention.... Sugartits (though he was born in the States, I guess)

And pardon me for calling Crowe an Aussie. I think he's a Kiwi, right?

Bollywood has fucking killer film scores though. Or dance routines. Either/or.

I'm not worldly enough to agree with this comment. The music sucks for the most part and the dance routines just make shit lamer than it already is. But then, I hate dance routines across the board.

I do love me some indian food though.

And I think no one is thinking of the best devil.....

(http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2000_Bedazzled/elizabeth_hurley_bedazzled_001.jpg)

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2000_Bedazzled/elizabeth_hurley_bedazzled_001.jpg (http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2000_Bedazzled/elizabeth_hurley_bedazzled_001.jpg) In case it doesn't show...

Not to rain on your Brit parade, but unless the wiki entry  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Anderson) is somehow mistaken, Gillian Anderson is pretty much an American. She spent her first 10 years in England as a child, true, but how anyone could mistake her for a brit is beyond me.

Because she grew up there, talks with a strong British accent, and lives there now, doing a lot of BBC and stagework these days. Figured she's a Brit as much as anyone else there.

Kind of like Sugartits up there, I guess. Born American, but pretty much an Aussie, no matter how often he tries to fool us with that "Riggs" voice of his.



[EDIT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws60MdOaNWU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws60MdOaNWU)


What's funny is that when she is interviewed for American stuff (like the X-Files), she puts on an American accent. Which is what Bales does too.

What exactly is a "British" accent?

The one you talk with too.

[edit] I think? Could have sworn I've heard you on TS once.

[edit] Err... or are you getting picky about dialects or something? I'm sure there are dozens. I have a book on accents I used to study. It had dozens from England. Upper-class British RP, General London, Cockney, Birmingham and Manchester, Liverpool, Geordie, Bristol, Cornwall, Worcestershire....

My biggest problem with American attitudes towards film isn't the need to fuck up good stories by making characters into Americans. My biggest problem is the need Americans have to put classic English accents on certain genres of stories.

Biblical story? EVERYONE MUST SPEAK THE KING'S PERFECT ENGLISH. No Hebrew accents here, no sir. Fantasy? All dwarves must speak with a Scottish accent, and everyone else is a goddamn Brit, even if they are not. As if speaking classical English suddenly makes everything have more weight.

Ah, that's one of the reasons Last Tempation works so well for me. Harvey Keitel as Judas, Victor Argo as Peter -- bloody perfect. It really captures the ghetto atmosphere the original guys probably came from.

It's like the classic moment in The Black Shield of Falworth where Tony Curtis turns and says "Dis is da castle ov ma fadder." Really transports you off to mediaeval New Jersey Europe.

Also, Harry Dean Stanton as a fire and brimstone southern preacher. Really, there's no better person to cast, no better way to go about it.

And New Jersey/New York or not, Keitel's Judas is epic.

The fact that you managed to get THAT from a comment that had nothing to do with the actual war itself is pretty funny.

And anyway, we didn't save YOUR ass.  You're Scottish.  You were already England's slaves or something, ever since they finally managed to kill Braveheart.  If anything, the Germans might have been nicer to you.

...you asked for trolling...

Grew up in the same town as I did. 

I think you pretty much made WUA's point for him right there.  It's not just us stupid Americans that love those stupid American movies.


You must have missed our discussion a couple years back of how Revenge of the Sith was the best movie ever made.   :grin:

No, no... I meant in her case.  I don't remember hearing her speak other than in shows so I wasn't sure what you meant.  But, yeah, I was wondering what sort of British accent she has.  London, Liverpool, whatever.  Just out of curiosity.

As for me... I suppose I speak strange but it's because I've lived in so many different places.  I don't think it sounds particularly "British",  though.  People in Britain don't think I sound British.  For some reason, people in France think I'm Danish.   Righ, though born and raised in Glasgow, has a proper English accent for the most part.  Between boarding school from 11 on and leaving Scotland early on to find work that actually pays, his accent is very soft, though the Glaswegian slips in with certain words.  (especially when he's angry, drunk or around other Scots)

I re-edited that original link and provided an interview with her, where she is speaking in her native accent. It's very much "British". Apparently, she moved to America when she was a teenager, got made fun of for how she talked, and learned to affect a good American accent that way. The one she uses in the X-Files. Like I mentioned about Christian Bale though, when she used to do interviews promoting the X-Files, she'd keep the American accent for some reason. Not sure why. Bale says he does it so as not to confuse people and break their illusions -- he gets into his characters a lot so I guess he thinks off-screen persona is just as necessary. I heard that when he was doing Batman, he insisted that his chair said "Bruce Wayne", not "Christian Bale".

Which I never really said... but... what the hell!  Fuck yes, it rules over all movies!  Also all films!

Anyway, this tangent was begun specifically by my reference to which movie industries people do or do not "give a fuck about".  If there's a better way to measure that than by what they buy tickets to, please enlighten me.

Wow.  Gillian Anderson looks better than I've ever seen her look, even in XFiles which was early 90s, no?

DraconianOne is Welsh ?

Really ?


(Oh and lol at Samwise.  Good one.)

God, I'd never heard her with that plummy voice before.  It actually really, really suits her.

This would be a very boring world if all anything good that ever happened, happened on one section of one continent. Thinking so is a sure sign of mental retardation.

And anyways, ticket sales don't always measure something's worth. Why should money be so important to you? There are intangibles with anything artistic. For example, there's the case of being influential, but not popular in one's day. Take music for example. The Velvet Underground didn't sell much in their time -- or perform much, for that matter. But it's been said that whoever did listen to them more than likely went off and created their own bands. That's power that can be put down in a pretty little chart. There are films and filmmakers like that too. Foreign ones. Too many to list, but needless to say, you see their effects on films every day (American and otherwise).

I don't think anyone's talking about artistic merit or even overall quality.  We were talking about why there are so many USA-centric (English-language, jingoistic, what have you) movies coming out of Hollywood.  It turns out it's because they make lots of money.

 :awesome_for_real:

Doesn't necessarily mean they're good.  But you can't lay the blame for those movies at the feet of stupid American moviegoers (as some are trying to do) when those movies are dominating box offices in other countries as well.  And you can't blame movie studios for wanting to make movies that will sell lots of tickets.

I have this awesome, artistic idea.  I'd like you to take a mortgage out on your home to help fund it, and I won't guarantee you any returns.  But it's artistic.  I'm sure it'll inspire someone, and money isn't important to you anyway.  Be my funding bitch, pleeeease?

Since when does it work like even with art? I don't know who you are really, but what I do know would make you a dipshit in my eyes. So I'll judge your art on that basis alone. People like to see some kind proof of concept or simply just like the artist as a person before investing in them.

There is a difference between USA-centric and jingoistic. ID was just over the top.

Why exactly did you all fall for WUAs trolling and discuss the general merits of movies from different countries? Like you should give a fuck from where the movie is if it is good.

That's right.

Surprise, Cockfags!

Nah, I'm pretty sure we are all aware that WUA is a cockfag.   :awesome_for_real:

Being the "some" that you're referring to, I've got to say that I'm not really putting the blame squarely and entirely on the shoulders of the American moviegoers.  The studios will make decisions about the content of films based on what they perceive will sell and if that means making Constantine American, giving Tank Girl a first name or even altering history so that it was an American submarine crew that captured the Enigma machine in U-571 then so be it. They do so because they think it will sell to the American moviegoers and believe that the same moviegoers won't be interested in anything which doesn't have Americans in.  Maybe they would be if they got a chance to - we will probably never know.  

As for box-office domination, that's easy and it is to do with money - very much so.  Like who has it.  The answer, of course, being Hollywood.  They are the only people who can afford to throw an estimated $250 million dollars and change at a film production (Spider-man 3).  Was it any good?  Was it fuck!  Did it make it's money back?  Hell yeah - because everyone went to see it.  Why?  Because when it opened in the US on May 6th, it opened on over 4200 screens.  Also take into account the marketing budget which experts put at anywhere between $80m and $120m (and this is on top of the previous figure.)

Consider this: the most successful French film this year was called La Vie En Rose.  It cost about $28m-$30m to make.  It opened in the US at the beginning of June on 8 screens.  Six weeks later - obviously because it was popular and was selliing, it had reached it's maximum of 178 screens.  (It only reached 80 screens in the UK)

The UK Film Industry is the 3rd biggest in the world (behind India and the US).  The most expensive UK film made to date is Atonement.  It cost $35m.  Actually, I'm cheating because it's a joint UK/French production, but still.  It did well in Europe - in the UK it reached 400+ screens (compared to Spidey 3's 500+)  It's officially on limited release in the US from 7th December and I don't know how many screens it'll be on.  Another example?  Hot Fuzz - made for a budget of $16 million dollars.  You could have made 5 Hot Fuzzes just for the marketing budget of Spidey 3.  It did pretty well - got out to 450 screens in the UK and maxed at 1200 screens in the US (which was on the May 6th weekend).

Point is that the reason US blockbuster films dominate box office figures for other countries is because no-one else can compete with the wallets of the studios.  They can throw more money at one film than most countries can for a years worth of home grown production.  They can saturate the theatres with the movies and run huge marketing campaigns so that they're constantly in the public awareness.  Sure people pay to go and see them but it's difficult not to when you don't have much choice.  What's the old saying?  You can have any colour so long as it's black.  

Yes I fell for WUA's trolling and I almost felt the need for a chart AND a graph.  I'm bitter about a lot of this and it's not just from an audience perspective but as someone who's tried to get any money whatsoever out of any of the UK film funding bodies.


Truth.

You can't tell me that noplace on Earth but Hollywood is there a group of investors who could afford to invest $250 mil (that's what, a couple of Euros and change?) into getting a movie made.

I take it you've never heard of Andy Warhol schild?

I do not understand that comment.

Paintings != Art.

Well, we'll call her a hybrid and call it even. My sister's only lived in England for the last 4 years and she's already adopting the accent, and, more atrociously, the vocabulary, but you won't hear her saying she's English.

Thanks for the link tho. I thought I was over her, thought my cross-legged viewing of the XFiles days were over. Alas, boners spring eternal with that woman.

Please to be informing us of what is and isn't "art", objectively-like, in every field, genre, etc.

I think you missed the point.

This whole thing falls in the vein of:

While all apples are fruits, not all fruits are apples.

If you want to consider ID4 a film, just know that by standard film bastard school definition, there's a difference between movie and film. I'm ok with looking like an egotistical know-it-all chump jerk. But I'm not willing to call shit like Bounce or Miami Vice a film. And I'm not prepared to label something like Clockwork Orange or Glengarry Glen Ross as a movie.

Liz Hurley image not loading GRRRR.

As someone who has done a bit of film study in the past I'm afraid you're just wrong. I'm fine with being called an arrogant aloof egotistical snobby art-fag intellectual academic jerk too, and you have no grounds of argument here. The separation you are trying to identify does not exist.

Also: Your apple example seems to argue that there is a category "movies" of which "film" is a distinction. However your argument then says "films" are not "movies" (more specifiably, that you are not prepared to call them such). Which is contrary to your apple analogy.

Either way, you are still wrong.

Starship Troopers is a very carefully crafted movie. So is Gosford Park. So is Fifth Element. So is Lost Highway.

I happen to like all of them. By your reasoning only Gosford Park and Lost Highway would probably be called "films". But I challenge you to give me a definition as to why they are films and the others are not. Is Dr. Strangelove a movie but Full Metal Jacket a film?

Fuck the both of joo!!! Long live Cinéma!!

I'd just like to remind the universe that DraconianOne, defender of cinema, previously spent a few days arguing with me over the fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10097.35).

Wait, I - ME - I just dubbed myself the defender of cinema. Everyone else was talking movies and films.

/sadf

Man, I always forget what that one means. Google tells me "South African Defense Force".

:cry:

OK, I think got the meaning now. Lum knows all.

..

WUA took me too seriously, I think.

Just to spell it out though: The only way to dispense of an argument between "film" and "movie" is to fag it up with third party called "cinéma".

Most people I know who went to film school use the word film to describe any movie that was shot on film (as opposed to digitally).  They don't use it to defferentiate between movies made for entertainment and movies made for art.

I think it's only Schild whose having this argument.  No-one else gives a shit - they just use the words interchangeably.

 
What do they call a movie that wasn't shot on film then? 

Just a movie I suppose.  Where they seem to be the most nitpicky with the word in that respect is when you use it as a verb.  In other words, you can't say you're filming a movie if it's digital.  You would instead say that you're shooting a movie.

Wow. I talk to a few "film"makers on a regular basis... Glad to say that I've never heard that shit before.

IIRC, It means nothing.  It was the first line of an e-mail about Dawn and has been used ever since in the same sentiment as  :uhrr:

U-571


'Nuff Said.

Cunts.

Anytime my Euro friends try to act snobbish about the level of American culture, I just have to laugh. While Europe is quite sophisticated in many regards, their taste is backward in just as many ways. Have you ever seen Italians wearing clothes that have non-sensical English on it, just because they think it's hip? Have you ever seen the French version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" where 58% of the audience can't correctly identify that the Moon revolves around the Earth? Better yet, have you been to the German "Love Parade?" I have. It's full of baffoons.

Now that's not to say I hate Europe. I love it actually. But European snobbery is highly out of place.

Our lowbrow is better than your lowbrow. Two words: Adam Sandler.


Nonsensical English is not limited to the fashion sense of Italian teenagers, try watching any MTV show that isn't just music videos.
The Belgian guy on WWTBaM was a moron and the audience were taking the piss.
Dunno what your point was about the Love Parade. Don't have an issue with German gay people acting like it's Mardi Gras myself.

Fuck it

You sir are a fuckwit.

Never doubt my powers again.

Heh.  You're flattering yourself.

 :-)

Are you kidding?  We're like thisclose to a Hitler thread.

(http://www.clisham.com-a.googlepages.com/Valkyriecast.jpg)

Valkyrie should be a good blend of European and American film values.

 :awesome_for_real:

Smith gives away ending (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071204/lf_nm_life/will_smith_dc_1) (article doesn't).

The book has been out for 53 years.  If you want to know what the ending is it is readily available.

Well, except for the part where they leave the tie ins for I Am Legend II: The Hunt For Curly's Gold.

I read an article where they were talking about the movie, and while it 'borrows elements from' the book or some such, it's not a straight adaptation.  More of an 'inspired by' type of deal.  So, the ending revealed could actually be completely different from the book.  Considering how awesome I thought the ending of the story was, I'm rather unimpressed by the thought of it being changed. 

(http://myskitch.com/azspot/curlygold-20071215-092020.jpg)

Don't read this link if you want to remain 100% spoiler free (http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=39899) but it is the second preview review I have seen that dings the movie pretty hard for a bad script and lame CGI monsters.

This is going to be in IMAX on the 14th, so I guess I have to go.

I actually liked the Vincent Price version of the movie. The trailer for the Heston version looked great, I will have to rent it. Heston ruled back in his Planet of the Apes/ Soylent Green days. As far as the latest version, I have to agree with some that Will Smith tends to make a movie worse rather than better. I will catch it on video, but I am not paying movie prices to see a movie with him in it.

Just saw the movie. It was actually really good and made sense. It wasn't just some shock/action trip with no real plot and smith did a good job of acting out a guy who is essentially the last man on earth. They weave how it happened and what's happening together really well without it just being a "5 years later!" transition.

Anywho, I'm too lazy to write much else. Good movie, worth the price of admission and GO!

I saw it tonight and agree somewhat. There's a turning point in the movie towards the end which to me, makes it go downhill in a hurry. All the way up to that point though, it was well-done. I really enjoyed watching him go about his everyday life in that environment and the dog. I loved the dog. She looked just like my German Shepherd.

This was too meh.

Alien vs. Predator 2 will be better.

Wow. I literally just laughed out loud. What happened to "fucking be there"? :uhrr:

It's Schild.  It's what he does.

AvP2 will be cool. If nothing else, it'll at least be better than the last one, which was a worst case senario on film.

Saw it. It's on par with Omega Man. It should not be titled "I am Legend" because, well, go find out. But no. Epic Fail.

EDIT: Sorry if you liked it, but "I Am Legend". Seriously? Have you people ever read a fucking book? Just asking.

It was paced like a bad M Night Shamalackydingdong movie.

That didn't need to happen.

Ironically, the name of the book was I Am Legend.

Giggle.

I am considering solving the CA energy Crisis by attaching a dynamo to Schild's Furious Backpedalling Machine.

I feel sorry for the woman he's sleeping with :  She must hear for 3 days how 'awesome' it's going to be only to be told 5 minutes after the lacklustre event that 'The Next Thing we do will make up for it !!'

Zomg.

And Whatnot.

We had more fun saying "Welcome to Earf" before the movie.

Also, it's not like watching a woman get constantly slapped. I get over this sort of thing pretty quickly.

Only when it's something I truly, truly love do I dwell on it.

If you're responding to Squirrel, I think he point was that there was a reason why the book was titled I am Legend (which is pretty much spelled out at the very end).  The title doesn't really work for the movie, or at least not in anywhere near the same sense it was used for the book.

Though it's ironic that he rails against gaming publications that do the same thing (hype a game based on the previews and then give it medicore reviews after it's released).

Read the book. Liked the movie anyway.

And yeah, loved that dog.

I await the front page story where we hear about Schild's adventures in getting a refund on his movie ticket.

:awesome_for_real:

Trailer was better than the movie.

Early game builds are rarely better than the final game.

If the second thing here happened as often as the first case, oh man, we'd be in trouble as an industry.

Auto Assault

Is this where I highlight RARELY?

I can come up with some anecdotes also.

That said, Auto Assault went from passable to total crap.

The I am Legend trailer went from TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME to totally meh.

I can't think of a game that did that.

Oh, except for Tabula Rasa.

Tee-hee.

I must have missed the totally awesome I Am Legend movie trailer. I guess my theater only got in the "looks like it could be ok as long as I accept that it won't be like the book" trailers in.

I hate to go all Northern Coal Miner, but Trailers ?  Luxury;  We haven't had any Legend trailers over here yet.

Someone needs to make a  Zombie + Ihop to get me in a seat. 

Saw it, really liked parts of it.   Thought the ending really sucked though and took away from the film. 

The ending felt tacked on and came way too quickly. There are rumors that it was reshot three times. A bunch of missing characters seem to bear this out.

That said, the first two thirds were spectacular. I'm waiting for the DVD.

Yeah we have.  Saw a trailer in the cinema last time I went (August/September).  Also, you know that thing you're currently using - the "internet" thing.  I hear that they can be found on there somewhere (http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/).

Heh.  You sure showed me.  Remember that time I used 'we' as a wrong substitute for 'I' and you were all 'nuh-uh' and I was all like 'Why Don't You Just Go And Fuck Yourself You Enormous Asshole ?'

Those were good times.

This thread is full of awesome.

 :grin:

Several people I know saw it this weekend, sounds like a resounding meh, I think I'll watch the armored polar bears this week instead, heard that was kind of cool.

"I am Legend" could certainly be improved by armored polar bears. But which movie couldn't?

Movie trailers are commonly found in this place called "the internet."

www.apple.com/trailers

Yet another comedian who's shamelessly stealing the first comedians routine due to, I suspect, a lack of reading.

It's even the same fucking joke.

Over-use of CGI in movies bugs me. We saw the making-of for the polar bear movie. THe biggest problem is that there is no environment, nothing for the actors to play off or look at. Maybe the very best stage actors in the world can pull it off, but the jackasses getting cast in hollytard movies sure can't.

In fact, CGI overload is reason #3 why I hate Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars (behind Hayden and that tart's wooden acting at #1 and flying r2d2 at #2....which actually makes the cgi #2 I guess).

Need more real sets and costumes, kthx.

Heh, think I had this argument at Corp once...


Training in Acting, rehearsing and prep, self study, auditioning, etc is already done in a vacuum all the time. Performances can be every bit as great. I mean, these are the moments when actors discover the most about themselves or their characters. Sets and costumes and things to work off of are icing on the cake. And if you can't pull that off, then you should leave.

Think we had that argument here once too.

I'm sure the actors in question will take your advise and leave their million dollar pay checks.... no wait they will continue to be shitty and wooden and laugh all the way to the bank. 

There is justice in the world. Those people don't last for long. I can't think of one at least.

(http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/RSPOD/RS848~Keanu-Reeves-Rolling-Stone-no-848-August-2000-Posters.jpg)

(http://www.queerclick.com/images/tomcruise_details.jpg)

(http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/fight-club-film-review-6500208.jpg)

(http://www.virginmedia.com/microsites/movies/slideshow/top-ten-movie-action-heroes/img_10.jpg)

(http://www.wallpapergate.com/data/media/1243/Sylvester_Stallone_001.jpg)

(http://www.arthurshall.com/images/custom_images/arnold_schwarzenegger_training.jpg)

This thread went from Win to Lose in one post.  GG, cheddar.

Tom Cruise is a master at playing douchebags. Master. We still need him unfortunately.


Guys still hate Brad Pitt? Jesus...

Yeah, Keanu is the only one I could agree with. 

The Terminator and Guile did exactly what they were hired to do, every time.

I heard/read/absorbed somewhere that the Director reshot and redid the entire ending post-prod-something.  So maybe there was a different design somewhere's.

Did you know that Will Smith was the original choice for "The Matrix" franchise?  He went with Wild Wild West instead.

The Governor of Cali was the first pick for "I am Legend."




Holy shit it all came around full circle' who woulda thunk half naked men could do that?

And how different would that entire trilogy have been with him in it? There would have been some really really bad one-liners, but overall, the acting would have been better.

I don't think the Matrix would have been good with a Neo who was in any way sharp or funny.  Neo's non-acting just happened to fit the role perfectly.  For the first movie, at least.  They could have had Will Smith play him in the sequels and I wouldn't have minded.

I thought that having Keanu playing a totally clueless guy as Neo was pretty fitting. The only problem is he kept acting totally clueless into the next couple flicks.

Since we're on could-have-beens, I think Val Kilmer was the original choice for Morpheus, but he passed on it.

Just saw I Am Legend last night.

Grats!

L
M
F
A
O

That made my day. I've been saying that for the last 11 years.

Independence day was originally supposed to be a comedy.  It was changed post production.


Why the fuck am I some kind of Will Smith savant?

Me too. I felt it was average at best. Entertaining, but not great by any means. I actually thought that Will Smiths acting was one of the better parts of the movie.

It was a comedy. And continued to be one through release.

I thought it was satire. What with the "from now on, 4th of July will be known as the Independence Day of The World!" and all...

The book did not excite me, will the movie?

This movie couldn't excite a 14 year old that just saw tits for the first time since he was breastfed.

My dad and I have been telling each other that "the door swings bofe ways" ever since Predator 2.

This movie must die.

Saw Sweeny Todd instead last night. Great film, real actors who can actually act. r0x.

Do want!

Lots and lots of blood.

Lots of blood.

So much blood.

Otherwise, yet another great Tim Burton movie.

"Great" and "Tim Burton movie". Does not compute.

I'd put Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands, & Ed Wood in the great category and several of his other one's in the "good" category.

Blood? SWEET!

Agreed.

Ed Wood is definitely great. One of my favorite movies ever, and that's seriously trying to take the entire history of movies into account.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure.. Eh, not so much. Except for the Brolin scene. Maybe.

[edit]

Damn, Dottie is STILL hot.

(http://www.egdaily.com/img/page1/22.jpg)

I saw the movie this weekend. I loved the book but had prepared myself for some major separation from the novel. This is Hollywood after all. The movie delivered an intense and taut experience. Will Smith did a good job keeping it serious. The ending just pissed all over the book's perfect ending, but I can live with it.

Just for comparison's sake, I also watched Pirates of the Carribean 3 last week at home and fell asleep an hour in. That NEVER happens. What a mishmash of crap.

I am Legend makes me want to cry.

Just saw it.  I liked most of it (sure not the best but it was entertaining). 

Question: How close is it to the book (besides the ending)?  It's perked my interest in reading the book.

We'll, in this case, it was a Broadway musical already, so all he was really doing was porting it over to the big screen.  So that means he's pretty limited on what he can do to it.

I really don't see why people around here have their hate on for the guy that much. What is it for specifically? Planet of Apes raped your childhood or what? I think that's Haemish's excuse at least. And he really needs to get the fuck over his childhood in general.

Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Beetlejuice, and even Sleepy Hollow more than make up for whatever failures he's had. Ed Wood alone does.

Was the "Planet of the Apes" remake any good?  I actually have it (unwrapped) from like a year ago and keep meaning to watch it... I just fear it will be a poor farce of the original.

Poor farce of the original, yes. It's not completely horrible though. Just a watchable, yet forgettable action flick. Unless you have adolescent geek rage.

Eh, doesn't matter.  Wife out voted me.  I will check it out in a month or two, if I remember.   Once she goes back to work.

Wives should never out vote you on this kind of thing.

It's barely even a watchable action flick.  It's just bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

I'm not a huge fan of the original either, but that was at least good for the time it was made.  The new one has no excuse for sucking so hard.

From his review (http://coyote.blogs.tentonhammer.com/?p=439) of I am Legend.

Uh yeah, you can fuck right off about my childhood then. Hollywood's got dibs on it already.

Tim Burton is an overrated assclown. Actually, he isn't overrated. He's a fantastic filmmaker. He just cannot get over his own fucking ego to make good films on a regular basis. He's entirely too obsessed with making everything dark and weird and sinister, and less concerned with actually making a story that makes sense. It wasn't just Planet of the Apes. Sleepy Hollow was a story that didn't need to be told. He tried to add new and weird to the story and it just ended up being more stupid Burton nonesense. Most of the main characters in his movies are Edward Scissorhands with something different. Sleepy Hollow was Eddie Scissors as a forensice scientist in colonial America. Ed Wood was the same, except with cross dressing (though I will say it was a fantastic movie). And Planet of the Apes was just fucked from word go. You want to see an example of why he's such a cunt? Watch the Evening with Kevin Smith disc when he talks about his experiences with the Superman script. Tim Burton would have fucked up Superman (not that Singer did much better but at least it wouldn't have been Burton's deal).

I mean, Burton's had some absolutely perfect cinematic moments. There's a scene in Batman Returns (an otherwise forgettable flick where Burton fucked up the Penguin) with Keaton and Pfeiffer dancing at a ball. The moment when they both realize who the other one is, that scene, that moment is the closest I've ever seen to a perfect cinematic moment. Perfect acted, perfectly shot, everything LETTER PERFECT. It is a moment of such cinematic and narrative beauty, it makes me cry.

Then the Penguin enters with his flipper hands and fucks the whole thing in the ass. I've seen Burton's genius. He just doesn't know how to show it on a regular basis because he's too focused on being the weird guy.

Wives should get an extra vote per BJ/week, reset weekly.

Well said.  I agree completely.  On some levels the guy is overrated, but there's no doubt that he has some incredible talent.  I think he's just too self-indulgent and self-important to know when to put his ego aside and let his work do the talking.  I liked him better when he was an obscure nobody. 

Someone bottom line this move for me (I am Legend).  Give me a move that you'd consider it closest to in both quality and impact.  Is it pure entertainment (explosions and crap) or does it have enough depth to last time?

No.

The closest thing I can think of that it reminded me of was Children of Man, but not as good. And I didnt think Children of Man was a great movie. Just slightly above average.

Sweeney Todd was superb.  If you don't like it your tastes suck.   :raspberry:

I have nothing to say about I am Legend other than, "meh".

Sweeney Todd was pretty good, but it had too much of the cliche Burton stuff for my taste.  Like casting Johnny Depp as an emotionally crippled man-child for the umpteenth time.  And the seaside montage, which was nice enough but was so obviously an excuse for Burton to drag out the Edward Scissorhands decor that it was distracting.

I agree that he needs to get out of his own weird ass more often.

Ed Wood is Edward Scissorhands in cross-dressing? Wtf? I see absolutely no resemblance between the two.

For one, Ed Wood was completely sure of himself and his place in the world. And completely oblivious to how derided he was. He thought he was the next Orson Welles -- except he could only make Plan 9 From Outer Space.

On the flipside, Edward Scissorhands believed himself to be inadequate and a total piece of shit.

[edit] Not sure where you're getting at with Sleepy Hollow either. Ichabod Crane is a strange misfit of a character in the original story. And about the only thing Depp and Burton added to the screen character was some hint that Crane was a fag. Which doesn't have anything to do with Edward Scissorhands.

The common thread of all the characters played by Johnny Depp in Burton films is that they're emotionally crippled and/or disconnected, and generally sort of childlike.  I haven't seen Ed Wood, so maybe that's the exception.

Depp's Todd reminded me of a sullen teenager with poor impulse control.  Much like his Wonka was a man-child with severe daddy issues.  I don't remember Sleep Hollow that well but I remember his Crane coming off as a geeky kid who lives in his mom's basement.  Not that these are necessarily BAD interpretations of those characters, but I get the feeling they were done that way because it puts them solidly in Burton's comfort zone.

You really have to check out Ed Wood. Definitely his best movie, and even one of the best movies around period. He's comes off very childlike in that film though too -- although Depp said he was just trying to base his characterization on a combination of Ronald Reagan and Casey Kasum.

Depp's character in Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow and Wonka all have one thing in common. They are Tim Burton, or at least Tim Burton's warped view of himself as the misfit genius no one understands. Scissorhands and Ed Wood were good movies because that character fit that story. Hollow and Wonka sucked ass because that character did not fit that role, but Burton shoehorned the whole movie's concept around that character fitting into the world.

Burton could have made a great Sleepy Hollow. Instead, he made the Nightmare Before Christmas with the Headless Horseman and gooey bits.

I liked Sleepy Hollow and his version of creepy in that movie. The story is supposed to be creepy. I like creepy.

I agree and I enjoyed Ichabod as a police forensics guy instead of a gangly teacher/victim.

I don't want to have this argument again but you're just NOT RIGHT about Wonka.

Dahl MEANT him to be the misfit Genius that no-one understood.  Christ, right there is a defining sentence that should be used if you're describing Wonka....

I read the original book. None of the things I saw in the Wonka movie made me think it was anything other than Burton enshrouding the story in his trademark "I'm such a weird goth nobody gets me" cloth.

Misfit genius, yes.  But more in a Doc Brown vein and less in a Michael Jackson vein.   :grin:

FIFY  :awesome_for_real:

Dahl actually hated the Wilder film version of the book.

He was right to.  It was total shit.

It was also on ITV today.  Which reminded me how shit it was.  Even for 1971.  Shit shit shis shithsithstihsithsithsit

Shit.

I don't mind it, for a musical.

You suck. 


The end.

Vin Diesel needs to stop fucking around and do another Riddick.

Why do you have an anus embedded in your fist?

Hell yea.  I can't say I think the first Riddick was a good movie, but I did enjoy it quite a lot.  The ending though, that's a great set up for what could be a very fun movie.

Vin Diesel is the only movie star I've ever met and he was super friendly.  I hear he's actually quite the gamer too.

Hey, I'm giving it a compliment! I tend random singing in movies.

Though to be fair, there isn't an extreme amount of it in that movie.

I was referring to your avatard.

Though you may have been known that and I am just too out of it to notice.  I'm zonked out on over the counter cold relief medicine atm.  Apparently, skiing all day and then rushing home to club until 7 am and then catching a 10 hour plane flight full of who knows what germs is not a good idea if you aren't interested in enjoying a full compliment of flu-like symptoms.

HST is spinning in his grave now, thanks!!


Damnit.

(http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/5732/freakpoweret8.gif)

Thanks Schild.  I've read Fear and Loathing and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail and about a million of his ESPN articles but obviously my education is lacking.

I don't know if this was posted elsewhere, but a friend pointed me to the original ending (http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/03/05/must-watch-i-am-legends-original-ending-this-is-amazing/), which is far superior to the last minute ending they put in the movie. Truly would have been a better movie with this ending.

Now that is a good ending, it's too bad they didn't have that one in the theater.  If the DVD has that version I will buy it... unless it's just hidden on the special features. 

WOO! That's an ending if I ever saw one!

wow can't believe they chose the other ending instead of that one.

This alternative ending makes it into a far far superior movie. It turns the movie around and shows that from their point of view the doctor is the bad guy who abducts and kills their people. The camera on his wall of shame said it all.

I can't believe they went for the cheap movie ending instead. Thats a shame indeed.

Just finished watching this tonight.  God the 'alternate' aka the original ending was vastly superior over the theatrical. 

Are you guys talking about the alternate ending from the book? If so, can you describe it? I am wildly curious about it based on your comments, but not enough to go buy a book for a movie I felt was only so-so.

We are talking about This Link (http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/03/05/must-watch-i-am-legends-original-ending-this-is-amazing/)

No need to buy anything.

Mainly that he has no range as a director.  Everything having to be odd or offkey will eventually grate on you.  The one movie where he didn't follow this formula was Planet of the Apes; an unnecessary remake if ever there was one.

I won't put him in the McG/Ratner category of "Directors Who Need to be Killed", but he's definitely a one note director.  Oh, and the artsy fartsy mopey goth thing gets really old when you're nearly 50.

Omega Man was still 100x better than this film!

In case anyone was wondering, the 2-Disc Special Edition has the alternate ending in the 2nd disc version of the movie, so you don't have to swap discs or wait till after to see it in its true glory.

That is much better.  It also explains the actions of the lead zampire so much better, too.  Stupid Hollywood and their need for explosions over meaning.

Ah thanks.

Hmm, I'm undecided. On the one hand, that ending was cool in that it showed some substance to the zombies. On the other hand though, the entire movie prior to it (assuming that hasn't changed) doesn't set up those zombies as anything other than, well, zombies. Even the lead guy there was only playing reciprocity with Neville by trapping him to take him. There was no establishment of any sort of "hey, he keeps taking us" type mentality at all.

Maybe the book establishes that better. Sounds to me though that to actually pull off the FirstShowing.net point about Neville being the legend for the zombies, the whole story would need to be told from the zombie pov. The movie was all Will Smith though.

I didn't like the movie ending, but didn't hate it in an Abyss sorta way either. The DVD one could be better, but only if the rest of the movie was tweaked in ways for it to make more sense.

I actually saw the exact opposite.  I saw them hinting that the zombies where intelligent the entire movie, and the ending seemed totally out of place to me at the time, because they just suddenly flushed all the plot build up down the toilet.

Will Smith captures the chick, and her boyfriend zombie actually steps into sunlight for a second after her.  Will Smith makes a note of it, thinking they are degrading, when it stood out to me that meant the zombie deeply cared about who he took.  That was especially obvious when it was shown he captured a girl.  The rest of the movie the other zombie is specifically targeting him after that.  They also showed the zombies had intelligence by the fact that the lead guy was able to set up a trap just as elaborate as Will Smiths.  When it came to the showdown in the lab, I was fully expecting the sort of ending that happened in the alternate.  What they actually did in the movie made no damn sense to me, and really hurt the movie I thought.

Heh, well, I'm the sort of guy that walks about of Independence Day all entertained and patriotic. So I'm not surprised I missed that nuance  :grin:

It also explains the mannequin better.  Smith's "girl" was taken as bait.  Why would a mindless zombie vampire know anything about attachment?  The whole "Oh fuck, they're not only intelligent but are still people" moment gave the movie a deeper meaning.

Thanks so much for posting that! We just saw the film for the first time a few weeks ago on DVD and never looked at the extras or anything. I had no idea there was another ending and I think it's far better than the release one.

I thought the zombies appeared to be showing signs of intelligence consistently and I was rather surprised by the end of the film. I also prefer the somewhat questionable driving off ending to the surety of the finding the town. Honestly, when they got to the town I thought "a little release version of Blade Runner sunshiney there."

That's almost worth buying. Is there anything else different about the 2nd disc version?

I only saw the alternate ending. And I think it fits perfectly.

What was the "original" ending like ?

Blam blam blam.... "DIE DIE DIE" blam blam.... KABOOOM!!!

 :ye_gods:

The book was one of the few novels of this sort that I enjoyed.  Although the acting was decent, I didn't think this film did the book justice at all.  The book was excellent, the film was okay.

I was going to say something about that, but I'm glad that Signe picked up the ball. Its not simply that the book is excellent and the movie was 'okay', its just that the movie sort of meanders off on its own without really getting at what the book was trying to communicate. In the book there's an entire 3rd party that is never introduced into the film. It is this 3rd party that defines what the 'Legend' is. Its not that the film is a slight variation on this; its just simply not there. Its missing. Not even present in its most rudimentary form.

I'm not sure the book could be done well as a film. To really do all the history and stuff right it'd need to be a miniseries on HBO or something.

what? Do you mean the other way around? The book isn't that long, by the way. Its essentially a really long short story that doesn't rely very heavily on a detailed backstory.

I know the book isn't that long. But I just think that to get the feel down right it'd need to be slightly longer than your typical movie. Maybe a 3 hour movie or something. In a movie it is harder to build up things like the intricacies of how the groups interact without some screen time devoted to it.

Edit: Cleaned this up. Sometimes I post too damn fast.

I explained that away as being nothing more than a straight copy of what he did to "trap" the first zombie. It showed "learning" after a fashion, but nothing particularly amazing for a group of zombies that can be awake in the daylight, just not be in direct daylight.

Also, now that I think about it, the trapping of that first zombie in the film (dunno about the book) seemed little more than dumb luck that he happened to capture the main dude's girl.

Finally, someone mentioned the "third" pov from the book for which Will Smith served as the "Legend". So, who was that third pov? Is there a wiki?

I finally saw the movie.  Complete dreck.  Bad, bad, bad. 

Words cannot describe my disapointment.


edit.  I do think it needed another 30-60 minutes.  Even though he was losing touch being alone - it just seemed strange he went suicidal on the pier.  And the chick waited until "OMFG NIGHTFALL???" with a kid she was worried about? 

You're drunk again.

Ok, I'm gonna spoil this for those that haven't read the book, so if you don't want the answers, stop reading now...









Ok, the third party wasn't really so much a third party as it was a second-and-a-half party. The zombies he fought in the book were vampires. As time went by, he found some were more easily killed than others. He started listing these vampires as "Alive" while he listed the others as "Dead" If you killed a "Live one" and then didn't burn the body, it would come back dead. This all had to do with the nature of the infection. If your body died, the infection would re-animate it and make it walk, talk and act -almost- alive.

Anyway, the live ones were starting to rebuild their society, slowly, but surely and unbeknownst to Neville until it was too late and he had killed a bunch of them in their sleep while on his daily daylight raids into their homes. (The infection made them hibernate during daylight hours). Neville learns about this rebuilt society when he meets a woman who's been sent by them to spy on him. She knocks him out and writes him a letter detailing it and tells him for his own sake to run, he of course, doesn't run and is eventually captured and held in prison. It's there that he realizes that in a world of vampires, he has come full circle. To paraphrase 4chan, "No Robert, you are teh demons".