Author Topic: Last Movie You Watched?  (Read 275262 times)

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Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #840 on: January 19, 2014, 07:49:41 pm »
White House Down is a MUCH better version of the same movie.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #841 on: January 20, 2014, 02:08:58 am »
The movie also appeared blissfully unaware that the US posseses aircraft like Apaches and AC10s that can engage targets from literally several miles away.  I also like the White Houses's anti-aircraft missile defense system that causes attacking aircraft to crash and burn into the White House, thereby solving nothing and rendering it pointless.

Offline Askold

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #842 on: January 20, 2014, 02:18:12 am »
I just love the fact that two movies with the identical premise (though the plots aren't identical as far as I know) come out at the same time. Did they make a competing movie on purpose or did they just randomly get the same idea of White house and the president under attack?
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #843 on: January 20, 2014, 02:42:44 am »
I just love the fact that two movies with the identical premise (though the plots aren't identical as far as I know) come out at the same time. Did they make a competing movie on purpose or did they just randomly get the same idea of White house and the president under attack?

That actually happens quite a lot.  I've no idea if it's deliberate or coincidental but it seems too common to be coincidental.

Although I do believe The Raid and Dredd's close similarities are coincidental (it's not just the general premise that's the same - Die Hard came before both movies anyway - but there are specific aspects that are uncannily similar).  The makers of both movies have said they don't beleive the other coppied them either and it's just an odd little coincidence.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2014, 02:48:06 am by Katsuro »

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #844 on: January 20, 2014, 10:40:00 am »
The movie also appeared blissfully unaware that the US posseses aircraft like Apaches and AC10s that can engage targets from literally several miles away.  I also like the White Houses's anti-aircraft missile defense system that causes attacking aircraft to crash and burn into the White House, thereby solving nothing and rendering it pointless.

More than just that. Allow me to list some issues:

* The two fighters fly on both sides of the C-130 at the beginning, allowing its Gatling guns to destroy them. The actual procedure in real life involves ONE fighter flying next to it and the other flying behind it, specifically to prevent this from happening and allow for the bandit to be shot down if it's hostile.

* The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff isn't part of the chain of command for the nuclear launch codes. The third person would be the Commander, US Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

* Not only is there obviously no ridiculous mass self-destruct system for the nukes that could be activated while the missiles are unlaunched, it certainly wouldn't cause any kind of nuclear holocaust that evaporates America. Nuclear devices require an extremely specific sequence of events within the warhead to create the exact situation needed for the chain reaction that causes a nuclear explosion. If anything goes wrong or gets changed (such as from being blown up), the warhead is disabled. It certainly wouldn't be a good thing to self-destruct an ICBM in its underground silo (along with the damage from the explosion, it would throw radioactive material around, though the underground concrete silo would shield the surroundings from the brunt of the damage anyway), but it would hardly nuke the surrounding area.

* Speaker Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) did one of the absolute worst jobs of anyone potentially given command: he gave in to almost every one of Kang's demands, gave the order to pull all troops out of Korea in a move that would freely allow the Korean War to reignite, and allowed Kang to freely kidnap the entire surviving Cabinet and take them all to wherever he desired....all in the name of not letting the President and the rest of the Cabinet get assassinated. Congratulations, you fucked it all up.

* Kang is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. His disguise? A pair of glasses. While traveling as the South Korean Prime Minister's head of security. I know there are stories about wanted criminals working as janitors or cafeteria workers in the Pentagon or FBI office or whatever, but those are civilian jobs that slip under the radar. Did South Korea just select their security detail through pulling a name out of a hat before the trip?

* Kang is an independent terrorist, not a North Korean agent. How exactly did he get an army of followers with modern military weapons, a C-130 fitted with M134 miniguns, a disguised garbage truck with M240 machine guns, and large amounts of explosives and brilliant computer hackers? I mentioned this on the TV Tropes page, but it's a film that relies on Kang being fabulously wealthy and hypercompetent.

* Also something I mentioned on TV Tropes is that the entire Western military and security detail has the tactical capability and accuracy of amateur airsoft players. There's an extended sequence where not only do a ton of Secret Service agents run out the door and get slaughtered by the M240s, but they keep running into the line of fire blindly. It's like watching Soviet conscripts being forced over the top to swarm machine gun nests and flies in the face of literally every piece of modern combat training. During the fighting in the White House, they make dramatic spins around corners while sneaking around by themselves, with absolutely zero attempt at coordination, and get shot almost immediately. I have literally displayed better tactical thinking when playing airsoft than what is depicted in the movie.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #845 on: January 20, 2014, 11:36:55 am »
The movie also appeared blissfully unaware that the US posseses aircraft like Apaches and AC10s that can engage targets from literally several miles away.  I also like the White Houses's anti-aircraft missile defense system that causes attacking aircraft to crash and burn into the White House, thereby solving nothing and rendering it pointless.

* ...it certainly wouldn't cause any kind of nuclear holocaust that evaporates America. Nuclear devices require an extremely specific sequence of events within the warhead to create the exact situation needed for the chain reaction that causes a nuclear explosion. If anything goes wrong or gets changed (such as from being blown up), the warhead is disabled. It certainly wouldn't be a good thing to self-destruct an ICBM in its underground silo (along with the damage from the explosion, it would throw radioactive material around, though the underground concrete silo would shield the surroundings from the brunt of the damage anyway), but it would hardly nuke the surrounding area.

Don't worry that did bother the shit out of me too, because the movie rests on a scheme that cannot work.  I was actually shouting at the screen, "Nope!  Won't work, nukes don't work that way!".

It's a lot to ask of someone, but the hostages with the codes could have very easily fucked with the the bad guy's plans by deliberately getting themselves killed (for example, by making a grab for a henchman's gun, pretty much guaranteed to get you shot).  I'm not saying anyone would do that in real life or that I would, but if you're not prepared to die to stop terrorists from getting the codes they need from you to nuke your own country, killing millions in the process, perhaps you shouldn't be in the type of job where you're intrusted with such codes.  It's one of many reasons why I have no intention of getting myself that job lol.

And the President ordering the woman to give up her code so the bad guys would stop beating the shit out of her even though she was fully prepared to keep telling them fuck all?   She should have said, "Fuck you Mr President.  This is a democracy and we're not in the military.  You can take your order and go fuck yourself with it.  What you going to do, fire me?  They're going to kill me...and even if they don't, if you fire me for refusing to give nuclear codes to terrorist I will sue the ever loving shit out of you."
« Last Edit: January 20, 2014, 12:18:27 pm by Katsuro »

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #846 on: January 20, 2014, 12:15:17 pm »
To capitalize on that, I don't get why Kang and his thugs thought that torturing the president would do any good. It became immediately apparent that he would capitulate almost instantaneously if they tortured the rest of the people in there.

Then there's the scene with the SEALS getting annihilated by the Hydra 6. Banning repeatedly tells them to abort the attempted insertion, and gets ignored. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but did he actually tell the guys "The AA system on the roof of the White House is going to kill them all!"? If he didn't tell them, why on Earth did he not give them that information? If he DID tell them, why on Earth did everyone not immediately say "Shit, pull them out"?

The whole plot relies on stupidity. And yes, I know that people are stupid in real life. Yes, mistakes get made all the time. But this is a plot that 100% relies on not only everyone being a boneheaded idiot, but every soldier and Secret Service agent losing all of their training and becoming a bunch of redshirts.

The worst part is probably that people like it. You'd expect this piece of shit, with its crappy plot and laughable CGI that's inferior to The Phantom Menace and Terminator 2, to be booed out of theaters. But it's got something like a 6.1 out of 10 on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 41 out of 100. It's being called average, or passable!

I only saw it because we got the ticket with a cheap donation to autism research.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #847 on: January 20, 2014, 12:24:14 pm »
41% on RT? What...the...fuck?  This movie has 0 redeeming qualities.  Not even the action because you're too distracted by all the stupidity and bloody aweful SFX that you can't concentrate on the action.  It doesn't even have a leading man/woman with enough natural charm and charisma to help save it, no matter how much I liked Butler in 300.  At least Arnie movies have Arnie.  He's usually amusing enough to make most of the crap he's in bearable.  Even with his best movies if he wasn't in them they'd just not be the same.

That also means the Total Recall remake got a similar RT score.  How in the fuck?  Total Recall wasn't great but it was a damned site better than this shit.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2014, 12:27:13 pm by Katsuro »

Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #848 on: January 20, 2014, 05:58:41 pm »
The Total Recall remake was actually really fucking good, too.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #849 on: January 21, 2014, 04:06:34 am »
The Total Recall remake was actually really fucking good, too.

Yeah it's definately on my list of movies that aren't as bad as everyone says they are.  It wasn't the greatest movie ever made and it had some things that annoyed me, but was it 30% bad (the RT rating has actually dropped since it iwas in cinemas)? Fuck no.  To my mind a 30% movie is one that's so bad you're actually kind of offended by how terrible it is.  At least Total Recall was compentently made in the technical sense, I can't say the same for Olympus Has Fallen.  I've played video games that look more life like that the sfx in this movie.

Total Recall, that's competently put together, has a 30% rating but Prometheus, which felt like the script was written in sectiions by half a dozen people in separate rooms who never spoke to eachother and has some of the most retarded characters to ever grace a movie screen, has a 74% rating.  I don't understand how critics work sometimes.  I think some were distracted from Promtheus' problems because of how pretty it was.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2014, 04:11:23 am by Katsuro »

Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #850 on: January 21, 2014, 04:15:03 am »
Three of my top movies lately? The Total Recall remake, the Dredd remake, and White House Down.  Throw in Pacific Rim and Frozen to round things out.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #851 on: January 21, 2014, 04:17:09 am »
Dredd was fantastic.  Shame nobody saw it so we'll never get any more of them :(

Karl Urban needs to be in more things.  I first realsied that when I saw Star Trek, he makes for a fucking amazing Dr. McCoy.  He's the only one in those films who's giving Zackery Quinto a run for his money.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2014, 04:18:44 am by Katsuro »

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #852 on: January 21, 2014, 11:22:09 am »
Dredd was fantastic.  Shame nobody saw it so we'll never get any more of them :(

Karl Urban needs to be in more things.  I first realsied that when I saw Star Trek, he makes for a fucking amazing Dr. McCoy.  He's the only one in those films who's giving Zackery Quinto a run for his money.

My sister's been obsessed with Urban ever since she saw him in the Star Trek remake. And she had only become a Trekkie because she was interested in Into Darkness because of Benedict Cumberbatch (thanks to Sherlock), and we sat her down to watch the 2009 film so she would have an idea of what was going on. Now she's a full fledged Trekkie who unironically wears clothes with the Starfleet logo, calls Spock sassy, and drinks from cups featuring images of the original series characters in comic form.

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Offline Sixth Monarchist

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #853 on: January 21, 2014, 04:54:44 pm »
Dredd was fantastic.  Shame nobody saw it so we'll never get any more of them :(

Karl Urban needs to be in more things.  I first realsied that when I saw Star Trek, he makes for a fucking amazing Dr. McCoy.  He's the only one in those films who's giving Zackery Quinto a run for his money.

Zoe Saldana would be a great Uhura, but they gave her the square root of fuck all to do during Into Darkness.
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Offline Katsuro

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Re: Last Movie You Watched?
« Reply #854 on: January 21, 2014, 05:03:27 pm »
Dredd was fantastic.  Shame nobody saw it so we'll never get any more of them :(

Karl Urban needs to be in more things.  I first realsied that when I saw Star Trek, he makes for a fucking amazing Dr. McCoy.  He's the only one in those films who's giving Zackery Quinto a run for his money.

Zoe Saldana would be a great Uhura, but they gave her the square root of fuck all to do during Into Darkness.

Sounds like the original Uhura lol.