My understanding is only one Warchowski was willing to be a part of this fiasco…and it’s terrible. She tried to make it a romance movie.

*Spoiler alert*….I watched it.
It’s just awful.

Neo is now the 1/2, and Trinity the other 1/2, together they’re The One and their love conquers all. Sappy, light on action, seems to ignore or reinterpret earlier stories, and it is now a sci-fi romance, not a sci-fi action adventure movie. Boooooo.

loved it in the theater 8 years ago, but only sifted and self-*promoted now cuz i've had this scene in my head all day, knowing that tonight was the first presidential debate of 2020.

great cast, too. and 1 of the 3 movies (this, The Mexican, and True Romance) featuring Pitt and Gandolfini, all 3 of which i adore.

ps. her name was Sally Hemings, in the hopefully unlikely event that you didn't already know. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Yeah, along with stories about:
- how climate change is a hoax
- why sexual harassment laws mean the end of romance
- how immigrants are stealing your job
- how immigrants are lazy bastards who don't work and take the dole (I presume these are Schrodinger's immigrants?)
- how the youth of today just need a good war to sort them out

First Today Tonight, now the Daily Mail?

Fucking hell, the standards for journalism are falling through the floor.

Waiting until marriage for sex/romance might have made some sense when girls would be married off by 15. (And often dead by 30 from dysentery....) But the world has moved on.

@ChaosEngine
that article was utter shit.

"friend zone" is a term used to shame women?
how can that possibly be considered an even remotely true statement?

she makes a valid point in that women are not binary creatures,and are mutli-faceted,nuanced and complex.well of COURSE they are,but the "friend zone" is from the guys perspective,not a woman's!

do you know why the majority of some men end up in the "friend zone"? or should we just change that term to be more accurate "i am not interested in you because you put all your cards on the table in the first five seconds,so while i think that is sweet,i no longer am curious about you,because i already got you".

you know..the "friend zone",or as chris rock put it "emergency dick,just break glass".

the problem here is that while relationships are a long slog of compromise,negotiation and mutual respect to work towards a common goal.romantic courtships are akin to a game,a playful dance fueled by curiosity,intrigue and of course:lust.

the men who who get relegated to the "friend zone" do not understand this very basic tenant of courtship.they reveal all their cards up front,and while that may be the most honest approach,and one that women have been openly asking for,it ignores that underneath it all,a woman wants romance,mystery and a sense of discovery that will continually peak their interests.

they want to be woo'd,they want courtship and romance.
when a man shows all his cards he takes that way from the woman,and now that she knows she can "have" him.he no longer interests her.

and what the author of this article so callously ignores is that the "friend zone" is not really a friend at all,but a surrogate for a boyfriend.having a bad day?she calls her "friend".feeling bloated and unattractive? has her "friend" come over to make her feel better about herself.needs a date for her company christmas party and doesn't want to go alone? get her "friend" to come along.

so it should not be a surprise that some men find this hurtful and degrading.

but she has a point,the woman owes them nothing.the woman was honest and forthright and it is the man who has put himself in this position.

and let me be clear before i am accused of being a misogynist pig.

some men do the exact same thing,and i am guilty of it myself.

i grew up with three sisters,so i tend to be more aware and sensitive to women's choices,and i respect their space.i have never been one to push myself on any woman.i was never the one to pursue or as this article describes "persistent",because i saw that as a bit "stalky".

so if i was interested in a woman,and that interest was not reciprocated,i shifted to "friend" mode with no issue.to me it was a win-win.ok,so she was not interested in me in that way,but she is super cool,and interesting and now i have a really interesting and intriguing friend.

now here is an interesting thing that happened maybe half of the time.my new friend and i would hang out,go to pubs,clubs,movies and sometimes just make dinner and watch movies.friends right? she was upfront and honest with me that she was not interested in me in that way,and i can respect that.

and then one day she would have her college friend over for dinner (this is a true story btw,one of many).her friend was cute,smart,witty and had a sick sense of humor.yep,i was digging on my friends college friend,and we were flirting up a storm.we were vibing hard,clicking like we knew each other for years.

now what do you think happened?
i bet you can guess.
and you would be right.
my friend,who was honest with me about not being interested,started to get real shitty with me.like offensive shitty and i really did not understand why.it came out of nowhere,and now she was acting like some jealous girlfriend.

so i pull her aside and i am like..what the fuck is wrong with you? you are being an asshole!

you know what she said to me? and i can remember this clear as day "watching my friend flirt with you,and seeing how much she is into you.i began to see you in a different light.i can see how she sees you,and that you are amazing but you are MY steve! not hers!".

and then she tried to kiss me,which was just awkward,because to me? she was in the "friend zone",and had been for over 6 months.i didn't want her that way.the irony here is that she could not handle that,and our friendship dissolved.which just fucking sucks.

this scenario has played out in my life quite a few times.so while anecdotal,i suspect women have had similar experiences.

so the "friend zone' may be considered a woman's thing directed at men,but in reality it is non-gender specific.most likely because woman are pursued more than men,but both men and women can be put in the "friend zone".

so what can we learn from this?
don't be a sap.
have some self respect and do not allow another person to use you for their own well being and sense of self.
if they are not interested? move on.
if they just want to be a friend? then be a friend,but do not expect anything more.if you cannot handle that,then move on.

pining away from a distance in the slim hopes that the focus of your affections will one day change their mind,is just pathetic.

and for fuck sakes,stop blaming that person for your heartache.
you put yourself in that position,and you can pull yourself out.

and the term "friend zone" is not used to shame women,that is just fucking stupid.the "friend zone" is a place that you put yourself in,because of flawed sense of romance,and you allowed yourself to be used for the betterment of another human being.so while you may be hurt and angry,you only have yourself to blame.

respect yourself yo.
/end rant

That seems a bit much for comic books but i have no clue "how real" comic books get as i don't read them.

I don't see that as someone being raped. I think it's more someone who wants to feel dominated. There is quite a market for very powerful people paying good money to be dominated. I've had a friend or two (strong females) who have talked about wanting/enjoying being dominated by lovers. In the real world people don't enjoy being raped but many powerful people get off on being dominated/controlled so i tend to see it from that perspective as it seems more realistic. Although I can see how it could be seen as rape. Hard to know for sure without more background info.

However still seems odd for a comic book.

Curious if Miller has said anything regarding this? I did a quick google and didn't find anything on the implication that Superman raped Wonder Woman.
"In Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which also takes place in the future, Clark and Diana had a superpowered daughter called Lara, after Superman’s Kryptonian mother, whom they protected from the government. In typical Miller style, the relationship was memorably… intense:" http://comicsalliance.com/the-many-loves-of-wonder-woman-steve-trevor-nemesis-batman-superman-romance/

Anyway just my two cents

@newtboy
true romance is in my top 10 as well,and i didn't even see in the theaters.the trailers didn't grab me and the marketing was utter shit.

i saw it when i lived in miami at the time,and my roommate and i were having a party and i just happened to have HBO on at the time,and i remember seeing the opening credits:chrisitan slater,val kilmer,christopher walken,dennis hopper

and i was like...how the fuck did i not hear about this movie?
look at all these awesome actors!

so i started watching,and even as people started showing up..i couldn't stop watching.in fact half the party ended up in my living room watching true romance with me,while rest stayed out in the patio and got drunk.

yep..i know how to throw a shindig.
ya'all come over and we watch tv.

Wow, I'm glad they switched it up. The original sounds terribly convoluted and confusing. I hate movies that jump back and forth in time to try to make you curious about what's happening, when really you're just confused having not been given enough information to have a clue about what you're seeing. I also hate the idea of knowing everything that's coming but the characters are completely in the dark. That's not a good movie in my eyes, but True Romance was excellent.
As made, it's my wife's favorite movie, and in my top 5.

I'll bite. (needless to say, spoilers)

The characters certainly had motivation.

Jyn's motivation, much like Rae in FA, is simple, daddy issues. She isn't so much invested in the rebellion as she is in enacting vengeance for her father. She is stunted emotionally and is not idealistic, but I think she uses that as a vehicle to push other characters along with her. Her last moments with Cassian aren't driven by any great romance, just the solace of two people who don't know if what they did will make a difference, but they succeeded in what they set out to do. I suspect she understood before she left Yavin that she was not going to get out of it alive, which sort of fits with her fairly nihilistic view of the universe.

Cassian was entirely driven by the fight against the Empire. He was willing to do anything, and was completely ruthless at the start, but he does mellow towards the end as Jyn makes a point of saying that he was like a stormtrooper. He is a zealot, a true believer, and is willing to sacrifice everything, even his humanity, for the cause.

Orson, the imperial commander, is a mixture of patriotism and self interest. He's a fervant believer in the imperial ethos of bringing order to the galaxy, but he is also deeply interested in recognition and commensurate rise in rank. He is so motivated that he risks his life directly to try and stop the rebels (not something you typically see bad leader types do outside of superhero movies, that's what henchmen are for) at the end.

The droid is all programming, but his comedy relief is explained by the dialogue that slicing an imp droid can affect it's personality. He is the one of the few light hearted notes (and consequently gives us a pretty poignant note when he says goodbye and get's shut down) in what is a fairly depressing movie. His bluntly honest statements are perfectly ironic and as such really do deserve the laughs they get.

The monk and the warrior were guardians of a temple but are now displaced. While it's couched in the monks mysticism, I think honestly they were happy to stand up to the big bad guys who wrecked their temple and extract some form of revenge. I think it would please both of them to know that it was worth it in the end.

The imperial defector seems to have little motivation, but he has already taken the dangerous step of defecting and getting the ball rolling for the entire plot etc, he's obviously completely displeased about the empire and willing to risk his life to do something about it.

Saul has been driven mad by the fight. The rebel leadership all seem to fit well within their established roles in the canon, as do Tarkin and Vader. Random rebel and imp personal are placeholders and who really gives a fuck what their motivations are? X D

/shrug As far as character development goes, it's certainly not a work for the ages, but to say these characters are going to get a thing because they need to get a thing seems to be nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.

Oh yeah, and in regards to AT AT's, it's a strategic imperial world and heavily garrisoned. Likely a staging point for excursions around the galaxy as well. It has major shielding, AA and fighter complements, Star Destroyers standing guard etc. Sure, fan service is a thing (although the homages in R1 are far less clunky than FA, including things like the Hammerhead, references to the cartoons etc), but as an imp commander, I would certainly release AT AT and AT ST vehicles against an attacking force of unknown size, particularly when you see a whole bunch of landing pads explode simultaneously. Are their 10 commandos or 1,000? 10,000? Yeah, go lowball and wait for them to walk out in the open right? \= |

It's not like the AT AT's were stomping all over the archive looking for a guy hiding behind valuable Imp data infrastructure, they are roaming the outer regions and are fairly proof against ground troops. Makes sense to me.

Dunno, I think the RLM reviews are generally entertaining and thoughtful, but in this case whoever writes Plinkett has let his acerbic dislike of "new" Star Wars cloud his objectiveness imo. It was an enjoyable flick and certainly one I intend to own. I don't think it's anywhere near the best sci fi (although I kinda like it on par with Empire) movie out there, but it's far better than RLM gives it credit for, imo.

I enjoyed past reviews from Red Letter Media a lot. They were insightful and detailed. They made me watch some movies in a new light and gave me a better understanding of them. However....

Go fuck yourselves, you whiny bitches!

You know what these people deserve? Everytime they turn on any screen of any kind to watch something even slightly related to sci-fi, it only plays Episode 1. They can't pause it, they can't stop it. And the Pod race as well as the 3-way lightsaber fight are edited out in their entirety. Just to make sure the relentless shittiness contains no form of relief.
We're finally getting decent Star Wars movies and all we get it 'But it ain't the original trilogy!!111!!'.
You people need more dialogue about the uncomfortableness of sand between your ass-cheeks. Or battle scenes characters only survive by entering slapstick-routines.
Sure, TFA and R1 certainly aren't perfect, maybe not even good, but they are surely much better than the awful shit Lucas shat down our throats the last 3 decades on the big screen.
The characters aren't likable enough? Have you met fucking teenage Anakin? I wanna slap the midichlorians out of that whiny bitch-face everytime he's on screen. He's so unlikable, the first time I didn't want to choke him until the Force left his body was when he murdered a classroom full of schoolchildren. That's what it took to make me go from 'I'm supposed to sympathise with this whiny-faced asshole?!' to 'Ok, he's the villian now. I'm supposed to feel this way about him'
There's not enough context? Go fuck yourself. Should we go and add extra flashbacks to Batman vs Superman on how Bruce Wayne's parents got shot? Just in case you don't get why he's Batman yet?
If you don't know what the Force is or who's Darth Vader, get the fuck out of my movie theater, mom! You're clearly here because somebody else dragged into this 'space war movie'.
I get it, the new movies aren't the perfect jewels of film-making your 5-year old self remembers the original trilogy to be ('Let's scrap the Wookies and invent the more Teddybear-like Ewoks, for the toy-sales!') but this is your response?
You're an teenage Anakin. A whiny, insufferable, bitch-faced asshole.
I welcome a healthy, critical discussion about movies any time. What I won't accept is this ridiculous display of ungratefulness after we suffered the prequel trilogy.
Star Wars is finally getting decent again. And you people shit all over it like the last 3 movies were even worth watching.
I'd rather watch Twilight than endure the creepy, awkward romance sub-plot of Episode 2 again. At least Twilight made laugh. And don't get me started on those tax disputes that started all that crap in the first place.
If you can't appreciate a Salami Pizza because there's no Pepperoni on it, you aren't worth any Pizza at all.

I get that your proposal is gotta be unique and special and surprising and get x many views on youtube now... but proposing in some parking lot off by the side of the road? Seems like all prank, no romance. I think I'd have left him kneeling there a lil longer

What's up with this music?!

I am a philosopher, I like to provoke,
we live in perverted times,
so let me tell you a perverted joke!

A famous, dirty, horrible joke,
taking place in 15th century Russia.
A farmer and his wife walk along a dusty country road.
A Mongol warrior on a horse stops and says
"I'm gonna rape your wife and you should hold my testicles,
while I rape your wife, so that they will not get dusty."
When he raped his wife, the Mongol warrior went away,
the farmer started to laugh and jump with joy, his wife said
"Hey, how can you be happy?! I was just brutally raped!
And he says: "But I got him. His balls are full of dust."

Well, in reality we only dirty with dust the balls of those in power.
And now comes the dirty conclusion - the point is to cut them off!

Now let me warn you - this isn't Macarena, not Chicken dance,
not Aserejé, not Gangnam style and so on and so on.

We stand no chance, there's no time for romance,
it's time to dance The Perverted Dance™!

Cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
the balls of those in power!
We need to cut the balls
and our faces won't be sour!
Just cut the balls,
make them become Niagara falls.

Cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
the balls of those in power!
We need to cut the balls,
we can train with cauliflower!
Just cut the balls,
make them become Niagara falls.

Oh, my god, why am i doing this?! Singing, dancing?!
I feel like that disgusting guy from Canada, Justin Bieber...

So, the problem with capitalism is that it's in the crisis from its very beginning.
From somewhere, I would say, late 18th century, there are prophets who claim capitalism is nearing its end.
It's like that stupid bird Fenix, the more you, you know, it returns.
I got hungry, let's grab something to eat!
What?! No meat?! Only for vegetarians ?!
Degenerates, degenerates, they'll all soon turn into monkeys.

I dont say let's do nothing,
I say sometimes doing nothing is the most violent thing to do.
So cut the balls, just cut the balls!
And racism is also a problem,
so be like Kung Fu Panda - be white, black, asian
and cut the balls, just cut the balls!
They call me The Borat of Philosophy,
The Marx Brother and The Elvis of cultural theory.
Cut the crap and cut the balls, just cut the balls!

Hey, I am Slavoj Žižek!
No, I am Slavoj Žižek!
No, I am Slavoj Žižek,
Fuck that, whatever, let's all be Slavoj Žižek!

Grab and pull the imaginary balls from the sky,
cut through the air and say bye, bye, bye.
Let's join together, let's fall in trance,
let's dance The Perverted Dance™!

Cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
the balls of those in power!
We need to cut the balls.
and then take the bloody shower!
Just cut the balls,
make them become Niagara falls!

Cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
the balls of those in power!
We need to cut the balls,
let them face the final hour!
just cut the balls,
make them become Niagara falls!

Cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls,
the balls of those in power!
We need to cut the balls,
we need to cut the balls!
Just cut the balls,
make them become Niagara falls!

This stupid repetative mechanic music!
Stop it!

Thank you, thank you very much!

The problem is maybe not the big act "Cut the balls",
but you make small changes and all of a sudden, balls are no longer there.
Those in power look down and say "Oh, where are my balls?"
and suddenly their voices get higher and so on and so on and so on.
I stand by my joke. The structure of the joke is that this so called progressive intellectual,
in order to score his small narcissistic point, oh, I dusted the balls,
totally ignores the suffering there and that's the whole point of the joke.
So cut the balls, we need to cut the balls!

It immediately reminded me of Harlequin Romances (hmm wonder what that means for me?). Anyway it just came off as kind of a dumb name to be burdened with. In other news, Isis has becomes a lot less popular as a baby name recently.

"Automatically ok"? Not necessarily. But in cases where it makes sense, at a stretch even "plot sense" for the character to be there; yeah, I think that is OK.

The Last Samurai isn't a documentary. But, the general historical justification for Tom Cruise's character being in Japan is pretty much valid. Meiji was interested in the West -- clothes, technology, weapons, and military. He actually did hire Westerners to train his army, although from what I read it sounds like they were German, French, and Italian rather than American. Still, the movie portrays the general situation/setting with at least *decent* broad-strokes historical accuracy. LOADS of movies deviate from even this degree of historical accuracy *way* more without drawing complaints; particularly if their main purpose is entertainment and not education / documentary.


Your hypothetical reverse movie makes some valid criticisms. Even though it would have been historically possible for a Westerner to be in Japan at the time -- even to be involved with training a Western-style military -- it would be unlikely for such a person to get captured, run into a Shogun that speaks English, become a badass (or at least passable) samurai warrior, and end up playing a major role in politics and significantly influencing Emperor Meiji.

My defense against those criticisms is that, for me at least, the movie is entertaining; which is kinda the point. Your "Union Samurai" movie might be equally entertaining and therefore given an equal pass on historical inaccuracies by me.

The whole characters as a "lens through which the audience can appreciate a culture/history outside their own" issue is (slightly) more weighty to me. I don't think those are often necessary, but I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted if the movie maker feels that they are in order to sell tickets.

I love the Chinese historical novel "Three Kingdoms". A few years ago, John Wu made the movie "Red Cliff", mostly about one particular battle in the historical period portrayed in that book. For the Chinese audience, Wu made the movie in two parts, summed up about four and a half hours long. For the US / West, he made a version trimmed to just over two hours. Why? Because he (and a team of market researchers, I'm sure) knew that very few Westerners would go to see a 4+ hour long movie, entirely in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles), about a piece of Chinese history from ~1800 years ago that very few in the West have ever heard of or know anything about.

I think the full 4+ hour long movie is great. In my personal top 10 favorite movies of all time, ahead of most Hollywood stuff. But I also understand that there's no way that movie would appeal to all but a tiny, tiny fraction of Western viewers in that full-on 4+ hour format. But, even though I personally think the cut-down 2 hour "US" version is drastically inferior to the full cut, I am glad that he made it because it gives a suitably accurate introduction to the subject matter to more people in the West (just like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Dynasty Warriors" videogames do), and makes that tiny, tiny fraction of Western people that know anything about it a little less tiny. While being entertaining along the way.

For other movies, sometimes the best way that a filmmaker can sell a movie to an audience that otherwise might not accept it (at least in large enough numbers to justify the production costs) may be to insert one of these "lens" characters for the audience to identify with. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that. It might not work for movies that are taking a more hardline approach to historical / contextual accuracy (ie., if Tom Cruise showed up in "Red Cliff" in circa 200AD China), but outside of those situations, if that is what the studio thinks it will take to sell tickets... Cool.

The Last Samurai is, like @ChaosEngine said, a movie primarily about an outsider learning a new culture (and accepting his own past). He serves as that lens character, but actually the hows and whys of his character arc are the main points of interest in the movie, at least to me.

I'm sure that an awesome, historically accurate movie could be made dealing with young Emperor Meiji, Takamori (who Katsumoto seems to be based on in The Last Samurai), and the influence of modernization on Japanese culture at the time. It could be made with no Western "lens" character, no overt influence by any particular individual Westerner, and be entirely in Japanese. But that movie wouldn't be The Last Samurai, wouldn't be attempting to serve the same purpose as The Last Samurai, and very likely wouldn't sell as many tickets (in the US) as The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise!) did. That wouldn't make it a worse movie, just an apple instead of an orange.