Obvious parallels with the Avengers here, which is odd because the first half of the trailer looked like a gritty, tense standoff between two legends of comic books only to be followed by an action-has-no-consequences, special effects driven, quip marathon with extra characters shoe-horned in (presumably for sex appeal, or am i being too pessimistic?)

There was little chance in the superhero genre (that's enjoying such popularity right now) to build up a strong female superhero that has her own story and relevance. To me, Johanssen's character is nowhere near as deep or involved as the other Avengers are, to the point i can't even remember the character's name but i definitely can remember what she wears. Given that opportunity with Wonder Woman, why is she being introduced as an aside to Batman and Superman? That undermines her right from the start in my view - the male characters all seem to have had their own individual films as introduction.

What i mean is, just as it is for boys, you'd want a young girl to imagine themselves as Wonder Woman and be the centre of focus, in command, important and everyone wants your input or help. In this case, it seems the best you can do is help out her male colleagues with their critically important work, where they both go "oh i thought she was with you."

If you don't have a thing for The Thing, then something's wrong with you. I can not praise this film highly enough, especially the mindblowing effects work of Rob Bottin. A movie made in the early 80's makes many of todays special effects look weak.
The Thing is a masterpiece. Masterpiece.

On the plus side, more shows based on books are getting made. There are some fantastic books (I'm thinking the Painted Man books) that could stand a TV series treatment. With the quality of special effects etc lately, and the success of GoT, we might actually get to see some of these great books migrate to the small screen at least.

Considering the dick-waiving that the whole Star Trek vs Star Wars thing always devolves into, I actually enjoyed the light-heartedness of this skit.

That said, the purpose of the stories told by each is meant to be completely different. That Star Wars goes for the simpler, classic hero's journey doesn't make it a lesser work, it just has a more singular focus, and the original trilogy did it well. But when you have a strong foundation like that, you really can't expand on it without losing a lot of the charm of the basic story. That's part of why the sequels were so disappointing. They couldn't retell the hero's journey without being a rehash, and by focusing on the hero's downfall, they had to up the complexity of the plot. But how complex can you make a plot before it just drags the movie down? (The exception was Clone Wars, which was able to circumvent this because it had more space to tell the story.)

This is why I am fairly certain that the new Star Wars movies will be lacking. They can either go the simple route and end up with a rehash, or the complex route, and end up with a similar mess to the prequels. There's a fine line they need to ride in order to make a good set of movies, but there are a lot of things working against them, from the expectations of the Star Wars fans, to the concessions writers have to make to appeal to the mass audience of modern movies. (To say nothing of Abrams, whose insultingly abysmal treatment of Star Trek gives me little confidence.)

Now on the Star Trek end, the stories are meant to be more complex, with commentaries on philosophy, modern politics, and the human condition (as well as showing the unique technological possibilities that the future held). Most of the stories were designed for introspection, and that's a major part of what made the show popular.

But if you lose that introspection and focus on action and special effects, the stories become empty. This is why many of the later movies, which again had to focus on mass appeal, were so lacking. (Movies like Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Generations, and First Contact avoided this because they were able to draw on the richness of the show to round out the themes they were trying to express, but even still, they weren't quite up to par to the shows when it came to the fundamental concepts of Star Trek.) The same goes for much of Voyager and Enterprise, which often ended up going more for appeal than intellect. (Perhaps the writers ran out of things to say, perhaps the audience just got dumber, who knows.)

So in the end, which one is nerdier? Star Trek, hands down, and as ChaosEngine said, it's a good thing.

Which one is better? That depends on what kind of story you're looking for.

But in the end, there's no denying . . .


Riker is a freaking boss.

Seems it was originally posted here
https://youtu.be/jt1bBXPA8O0

by a special effects company
http://www.lucamaxpictures.com/about-us.html

I don't believe this is a 1-take fight scene. Watch the camera motion, when it "flies" near Daredevil , almost threw an opening in his arm. That seems like special effects, where the fight would have been stopped for the special effect, and then another clip of the fight to resume after wards.

Skip the beginning stuff up until the rocket ship takes off, and then stop watching after they fly into the black hole. There's also a bunch of stuff in between there that you could skip, but it's too scattershot.

Really, out of the 2 and a half hour runtime, there's about 40 good minutes, and that's just for the special effects.

I really don't see why so many people liked it. The directing was pretty good, the acting was good, but the script was awful. Mostly, I'm just salty because they were hyping it up as "hard" science fiction, but it wasn't too far removed from Star Trek, really.

Jurassic Park when it came out was simply: a phenomenon. I've never seen movie theaters packed for two weeks straight--no matter the time--for the same show. Everyone had seen the show over and over again. It was simply too amazing--it was the first show to PERFECTLY nail CGI--and it picked one of the best topics for CGI that you could... Who can ever forget the first time you saw and heard that T-Rex step out into the clearing and roar. It was mesmerizing (I do feel bad for those of you that hated it; there will always be haters, for any movie, or any book...but I think those of us that liked it all got the same sense of wonderment from that show...those scenes; which IS why we kept going back). It reminded me of the similar feeling you get from amusement park rides (pick your ride that fits what I'm describing).

The first time I saw that, I had to do a double take. Nothing, EVER, had been even remotely close to being that good. I mean nothing. Seeing the "gigantic" Brachiosaurus (as there have been sauropods found that, unlike the "brachi" @ 26m--length wise, is utterly dwarfed by ones like the Amphicoelias Fragillimus, that could be as long as 60m) was just amazing (this IS the movie that made CGI a reality for movies and mainstreamed it).

It helped that I saw the movie on a screen that was as big as an IMAX. One of those old-fashioned ones with a balcony and decorations. Torn down and replaced by a screen half it's size, but still fit just as many people (ah, what greed does to us)...

It was the T-Rex scene that left us awe struck and electrified--it truly felt like a dinosaur had come back to life...and yes, it was a bit terrifying. Add in the great music, well done sound (who can forget our *THX* openings), and something so well done that it basically was something new--the CGI--it was a hit that people saw so many times.

Jurassic Park did for CGI, what Star Wars did for extended special effects and the company(s) that created it. Both jump started a new generation of movies. Avatar tried to bring us into the 3D realm (which I DO like, and I would say it "worked" for as much as it possibly could...as I have a 3D HDTV and quite a collection of shows...but...), but 3D has too many issues left for it to "change" things *yet*. Sound is another place that can change things (along with many other aspects and ideas that deal with including or adding onto the sensory perception of a movie; maybe we just have to wait until we can connect almost directly neurally).

I hope this movie will be worth watching (I hope it can end up being much more than that), but it merely looks like a huge money grabbing scheme (plus Jurassic Park was at least based on a pretty good book; which BTW is worth reading even if you saw the movie). The fact that the new huge "T-Rex/Velociraptor" seems impervious to a 30mm machine gun makes me want to just...laugh; then add in the swarm of flying dinosaur people snatchers.

I listened to it months ago when I first saw this video. And all I could ever see was the Star Wars kid, with actual special effects instead of just an imagination. I simply find it totally unbelievable that military techniques from only a few hundred years ago were "lost", and he "rediscovered" them. Especially when compared to the likelihood of ever-cheaper and easier special effects.

But seriously, this kind of thing is simultaneously one of the things I'm sad but also glad my boys will miss out on always knowing the truth about Santa.

Very well done (both the special effects and the lies).

While I do get your point, I think perhaps you miss the point that a real live singing/playing concert is different from a 'pop star concert' (although I do think they should be billed as 'pop star performances', not 'concerts').
If I go to the opera, I am expecting to hear people sing live while performing a play.
If I go to a 'concert', I expect to see a singer or band singing or playing live, but not doing much else (old Van Halen and GWAR being the exceptions).
If I go to a pop star performance, I usually expect to see flashing lights, smoke, sparks, special effects, stunts, and crazy dancing while you hear a track of the performer.
It's not possible to do the stage performance AND sing competently at the same time. If I expect to see dancing, I should not expect the dancer to also sing live, that's not realistic to me.

Now those are some SPECIAL effects!

Mom did a great job. All their acting was great actually.

Excellent choreography and special effects and gore. They really went all out.

*quality

I'd always vote Game of Thrones over Lord of the Rings.

That is some fantastic special effects makeup work. Upvote for Steve Johnson.

very impressive special effects but poor acting.