I don't know about this one. The special effects didn't age well, the plot and characters are generic, the overall message is too much on the nose, there's the word "unobtanium"... it's not great.
I watched it a couple years ago at age 19 and didn't like it (rated it 1.5 out of 5 stars according to my stats). From my memory:
- The all-macho, no-internal-monologue protagonist is really dull and dated. The one liners are lame, most of his problems are solved via fist or gun. The kind of unaware character parodied by Duke Nukem.
- The concept of waking up and seeing through lies of the media is banal, and now associated with teenagers and stoners. Everyone knows that advertising and the news are run by agendas.
- The media has changed. When we think of someone being brainwashed by the media we think of the all-encompassing internet, not billboards and newspapers. A billboard being revealed to say CONSUME and OBEY has the subtlety of an overly-labelled-political-comic. The specific imagery has been appropriated by fashion brands, advertisers, and artists like Banksy endlessly. I remember OBEY sweatshirts and hats being everywhere in middle school.
- The specific plot, 'a guy discovers the media is run by a conspiracy of aliens so he teams up with a friend to shoot up a tv station', is today more reminiscent of a number of mass shootings and anti-semitic conspiracies than anti-capitalist revolution.
I have friends that like the movie for what it is, but I wouldn't expect the average young person to be enamored with it without a lot of historical context (yuppies, Reaganism, the role of the red scare in classic sci-fi, Edward Bernays, analog synthesizers, etc).
I watched it for the first time last year and had a lot of the same opinions, and I'm significantly older. I still think the general concept can be good, it's just that this version hasn't aged that well and could benefit from a modern reimagining.
Saw the trailer. It seems to be a blend of the incredibles, batman the animated series, and warcraft. I wanted to like it but it doesn't seem to be very original. And the hair modeling on some of the characters it's really bad. Like plastic wigs. It seems to be aimed at small kids. Thumbs down.
I can't speak for the general public, but as for the nerds (ok, specifically for me): probably because the new movie was not on par, either in style or philosophy, with the 1995 movie?
The movie is great. But it falls into the "bad movie" category because it is campy. "Bad movie" is more a genre. And it is hard to argue otherwise with Starship Troopers because it did poorly on release and got popular during the same time bad movies became popular (there's also a strong overlap between lovers of bad movies and Starship Troopers). "Bad" here doesn't mean unenjoyable, really the opposite.
I liked the new one fine, but I felt the same way. It was mostly just gawking at effects rather than story-intrigue for me, although I'm already familiar.
Spent more time thinking about the CGI than I did thinking about the plot, I think that might indicate something.
? That was just an unimaginative take on the current state of computers. Don't get me wrong, I love the vibe, they are some of my favorite movies, but it seems like lack of imagination rather than trying at all.
The new movie has a fantastic soundtrack and awesome CGI.
Sadly that's pretty much the only parts that keep it fresh. It is pretty forgettable and uses some tropes that are both very lazy and "problematic" like born sexy yesterday.
Still, if you end up watching the first one and liking it, it might be worth a watch as well.
Hmm. I watched about 15 minutes of it, and thought it was very amateurish, and the reviews aren't great. From the clips I've seen, the animation is also pretty terrible.
As far as I've read, plot has absolutely zero to do with The Futurological Congress. The only similarity is that there's something in the movie called the "Futurological Congress" and that there's some kind of attack on it.
If you think it's worth seeing, maybe I'll give it another go.
If the plot was terrible, the visual aspects didn't impress me at all (it looked way too shiny and polished, some elements were trite - the snowy-white locations, the red desert ones; or taken from previous movies, for example Spielberg's AI). The music was generic but bombastic. The kung-fu fights completely unnecessary and pointless.
Nah. I watched this a few nights ago, and was largely confused. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t anywhere close to “great”.
Most people won’t like it because it gets more and more confusing, and at some point you’re like okay whatever and give up trying to understand. That’s the way it was for me.
They were trying to shove too many complex ideas into too short of a timeframe and it didn’t work. It felt very self- indulgent to me.
I remember it well (I was 20). It was a very boring movie. I think it's famous just for being 1st, i guess they poured all the money into the CGI because it's a 2-star story.
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