Films most people love but you think are garbage

[plastroncafe]

I'm going to take this as movies that I didn't like in addition to didn't find compelling for some reason.

There are a bunch of movies I didn't like, but that were quality in their design and execution.

Crash is the first movie that comes to mind. It won several Academy Awards and to this day I have absolutely no idea why. The performances were...there, and the direction...I mean, it had a director. But it didn't do anything that really blew me away.

Worst of all it was yet another movie in the EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED/Holistic trope that I'm just tired of seeing.

Everything doesn't always connect so crisply, and it's really cloying when movies keep insisting that it does.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Crash is the first movie that comes to mind. It won several Academy Awards and to this day I have absolutely no idea why. The performances were...there, and the direction...I mean, it had a director. But it didn't do anything that really blew me away.

I watched that in class back in HS. It came across as forced and as trying too hard.

[Wesley]

Nolan's Batman films
The Shawdank Redemption
Mean Girls

[Jephael]

I never cared much for Star Trek. It just didn't appeal to me. Ironically though, I enjoy Star Wars, but I'm more of a casual fan.

[neatoman]

Avatar, expensive but pretentious and stupid.

Also the Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, I know the books are these long epics with a billion things happening in them with a lot story, characters and mythology and all that, but the way they tried to translate into movies did not work in my opinion. Maybe if it was a TV show so they could have broken everything down into smaller episodes, but as movies it comes across as 9-12 hours (depending on the version) of dragging bleakness. Maybe the individual movies should have been the more standard 1 1/2 hour movies instead of 3 hours each?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Jephael

I never cared much for Star Trek. It just didn't appeal to me. Ironically though, I enjoy Star Wars, but I'm more of a casual fan.

Funny, I'm the opposite.

[pennydreadful]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Avatar, expensive but pretentious and stupid.

Also the Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, I know the books are these long epics with a billion things happening in them with a lot story, characters and mythology and all that, but the way they tried to translate into movies did not work in my opinion. Maybe if it was a TV show so they could have broken everything down into smaller episodes, but as movies it comes across as 9-12 hours (depending on the version) of dragging bleakness. Maybe the individual movies should have been the more standard 1 1/2 hour movies instead of 3 hours each?

If you're not gonna do a faithful adaptation of the source material, why even bother - just do another movie altogether.

The LOTR movies did have problems, but those were mostly related to Jacksons' portrayal of the elves (ie, he got them all wrong) and him trying to put in weird horror moments that didn't work (like his rendition of the scene with The Mouth of Sauron and the way he just turned it into laugh fodder).

The books are an epic trilogy - it only makes sense for the movies to be epic in scale. If people can't be bothered to read the books, I don't really feel bad when they don't "get" half the stuff in the movies. Movie adaptations aren't meant to be Cliffs Notes for the non-literary.

That probably came out sounding harsher than intended, but it's a pet peeve of mine.

[Leo656]

^^ I totally get and agree with a lot of that, 100%. The flip side is, though, there still are a ton of movies that work a LOT better if you have no idea what the source material is like. I'd argue a lot of Marvel movies and comic book movies in general are like that. I honestly think if you know the source, it expands your experience, but sometimes it ruins it, too, when one spends all their time analyzing what wasn't there or what was changed. Like, I really enjoy most of the Marvel movies, but I haven't read a dozen Marvel books combined in my lifetime, I don't think. And I feel pretty safe in feeling it's better off for me that way, because plenty of people know the books backwards and forwards and can list a million things the movies "screwed up", but if you can get past those things, the movies themselves remain very well-done movies for the most part.

I mean, the Chris Reeve "Superman" film is about as far from the actual comics in 1976 as anything, really. Despite being so revered for "faithfulness", the only thing they kept faithful was the suit, the very bare bones of the backstory, and the Tone of it all. Krypton and the reasons for its destruction, the visuals of it, the reason for the S shield, the crystals, Jor-El's portrayal, Luthor's portrayal... pretty much everything people love was entirely made up *just* for that movie. And yet, it's considered one of the best and most "faithful" adaptations ever. Granted, that's mostly by people who never read the comics, but still. And it's a great movie; if anything those changes made the source material *better* because the books started discarding stuff that didn't work and borrowing heavily from the movies.

And let's not forget Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns", which, while very good Tim Burton films on their own, they're terrible adaptations of Batman and his universe. But they're still great movies and everyone rightly loves them, because they got a lot of The Important Stuff right. Mainly, heart and tone. You have to try and retain the essence of the source, at least, or the rest of it and the changes you make will break it, as we saw with the new TMNT movie. That's a case where, I'd argue, they just did a bunch of things to be Different not at all because it would be Better, but JUST because it would be Different. And since the movie itself could have been about any other characters besides TMNT, it could have been about freakin' Power Pack and would still be just as poorly-written and poorly-made, everything they did to make it "fresh" just made it worse.

So, in a long and complicated way, I'm saying that I agree with you that there's really no point in adapting things if you're going to skew too far away from it, BUT, a lot of times when stuff is tweaked or changed it can really make a better experience for everyone. It depends on the execution, really.

[pennydreadful]

Agreed, Leo - it's definitely down to the source material in question. When it comes to comics, I say go for it... but one does not simply condense a 1000+ page piece of classic fantasy literature into a 90 minute movie (Had to make the obvious joke. ). The Crow's film treatment deviated in several major ways from the original graphic novel, but the changes were made to enhance the main feel and message of the comic book. And hey, there'll never be a finer comic book movie than The Crow, as far as I'm concerned. I get that some things have to be tweaked when you change the medium by which you're telling the story.

I just think if people can't commit to a long story, they may as well watch something else - why dumb down a perfectly good story? All those extra pages in the books aren't there just for the sake of filler - they're part of the story, the characters and the world-building. You can't compress LOTR, and doing it as a tv series would be completely unfeasible from a budget perspective - it just couldn't be done. Game of Thrones, you can adapt - it's mostly a political-based fantasy series with predominantly human characters... LOTR is an epic good vs evil story filled with elves, men, dwarves, orcses (thousands of orcses), ents, numerous other fantasy creatures huge sets, even huger battles - they could barely manage to do the Battle of Blackwater on tv (with one ship and 400 extras), let alone the Battle at Helms Deep.

I mean, I could complain about PJ's treatment of the movies for an aeon, but give the man his due, when he got it right - he got it right, he got it really right. I'm a purist when it comes to those novels - there'll always be things I'll be unhappy with, but by and large he did a good job. But there's no way you could cut out any more of the theatrical releases than they already did.


*exhale*

Tolkien are sirius bizness. Sorry, but I get a little nutty about those books - I've read the whole trilogy at least once a year every year since I was 7 years old. It drives me crazy that there are people out there who think watching the movie replaces the need to read the novels. It's not the same thing at all.

[Leo656]

Not gonna lie, I appreciate and love that all that exists, but frankly, those books are too nerdy even for me. God bless the dude for going so full-on balls-deep into the fantasy genre and creating such a fully fleshed-out universe, and double-bless anyone who actually enjoys reading it all. And I love fantasy and I love to read. But that stuff is just so densely-packed with D&D geekery that I can't get through it all. The movies were custom-made for people like me. I love all of that stuff... but in much more manageable doses.

Basically, the world contains way too much porn for me to be sittin' around readin' Lord of the Rings. Priorities and all that. But like I said, I'm very glad it exists and I'm glad people are so into it; if I ever finish reading it, it'll probably be when I'm deep into middle age, and until then, the flicks suit me fine.

[DarkFell]

You're right Pen - a lot of novels aren't the same as the movies. It, Watchers, - these are awesome movies in their own right but they aren't totally faithful to the books.
It and Watchers had different scenarios not mentioned in the movies.
It seems rare that the books and the movies follow each other "hand in hand".

Just a heads up about the LotR movies - a lot of people in my hometown were doing lots of groaning at how long the movies were while they were still in the theaters. Maybe there is hope for the novels yet.

[pennydreadful]

Originally Posted by DarkFell

You're right Pen - a lot of novels aren't the same as the movies. It, Watchers, - these are awesome movies in their own right but they aren't totally faithful to the books.
It and Watchers had different scenarios not mentioned in the movies.
It seems rare that the books and the movies follow each other "hand in hand".

Oh hells yes - you're so on the money about Watchers... and I can't even tell you how hard I wince at what Kubrick did to The Shining. My second-fave King novel ever, and it got totally mangled. On the flip side, Kubrick did a fairly decent job on A Clockwork Orange's adaptation, so maybe it's a trade-off.

I'm of the view that movies are good, books are good - but the two are very different animals, and you need to always be conscious of that when you're doing an adaptation. And if a movie adaptation drops the ball, swotty little nancies with their library cards (like me) are gonna b*tch it up on the internet.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Not gonna lie, I appreciate and love that all that exists, but frankly, those books are too nerdy even for me. God bless the dude for going so full-on balls-deep into the fantasy genre and creating such a fully fleshed-out universe, and double-bless anyone who actually enjoys reading it all. And I love fantasy and I love to read. But that stuff is just so densely-packed with D&D geekery that I can't get through it all. The movies were custom-made for people like me. I love all of that stuff... but in much more manageable doses.

Kayla, there's something I gotta tell ya. Um... I was a geek in high school. I had really short hair, I played "Dungeons and Dragons", I had a bug collection, I ate my boogers. My name's not Chaz... it's Chester, and I understand if you don't love me anymore.

[Leo656]

You make me snicker.

[pennydreadful]

Dude, you're meant to tell me you were editor of the school magazine!

[Leo656]

Well, I sincerely apologize. Monday is Leg Day, and I am indeed quite tired.

Also, your post was at 4:20 (EST). Haaaa-haaaaa. That also makes me snicker. Feels somehow appropriate.

[TigerClaw]

The same can be said about films, That many critics love, But are hated by the movie going audience, and those films end up bombing at the box office, despite being critically acclaimed and such.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

And if a movie adaptation drops the ball, swotty little nancies with their library cards (like me) are gonna b*tch it up on the internet. :lol

I will never understand this bullsh*t. A movie adaption existing doesn't make the books disappear. I read a lot of books and I've never been upset at a movie adaption. Ever. A book and a movie adaption are two entirely different things and the sooner you seperate them the happier you'll be. The people around you will be happier, too. There's nothing worse than a pretentious book snob looking down their nose at a movie adaption they feel is beneath them, because after all THEY had the enormous BRAINS required to read a whole book with no pictures!

[pennydreadful]

Pretentious is as pretentious does. But hey, feel free to take one line out of everything I've said on the subject and be overly aggressive about it.

[plastroncafe]

Really never been upset at a movie adaptation?
Ugh, I have been.

Constantine.

Not a bad movie, not a great one either, but it wasn't a bad movie.
What it was crap at was being an adaptation of "Hellblazer."
Which...is what it was supposed to be doing.

I've nothing wrong with changing things to suit the director's specific needs, because honestly if I wanted to see a movie that was verbatim the book...I'd just read the book.

I want a director to DO something with the text, keep the themes that made the book great even at the expense of the details.

Now I'm no Tolkien Scholar, in fact I hadn't read the books prior to that first opening teaser trailer where they're all coming over the top of the mountain, but I thought Jackson did a fairly decent job of keeping the themes intact.

I'll take "Fight Club" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" over "Watchmen" and "Harry Potter and the Philsopher's Stone" any day.

[Leo656]

I love Watchmen. I got to see Malin Ackerman's nipples AND her O-Face. I'm good.