Taken? 470
jeepliberty writes "Was I the only one to feel like I was "taken" by the latest Spielberg mini-series? It concluded last night on the SciFi channel. It started out great. The first five episodes were excellent. Then like milk on the counter, it started going sour. My sister is a writer and after she sees a movie she always picks it apart for continuity, character development and plot. I always tell here "Get a life. It's just a movie." Well after I saw the 7th installment, I started picking up my sister's habits and began picking it apart. "Taken" seems to have taken a little bit from "Firestarter", "E.T.", "Sphere" and quite a few others."
They want a mass audience for a niche movie... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like a fat man in a marathon. (Score:3, Insightful)
It may have come sprinting off the line, but it was gasping for breath by the end.
And the message? "The little green men don't know dick either!"
???
Ah well. If you think about it, it's probably impossible to keep something nice and consistently interesting and intelligent for 15 straight hours.
At least they didn't have people running around with tinfoil on their heads for the entire thing.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:1, Insightful)
Whats wrong with steve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is what I think is wrong with speilberg and lucas ... They are candles who have burned too brightly for too long, and they are simply extinguishing. I'm not going to talk about "selling out" because that's cliché, but its clear they lost their passion long ago.
Sick of reviewers, critics, skeptics, guides, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's often been said that there are only two things that should be used to rate a movie on its entertainment merits.
1) Does the story take you somewhere?
2) Do you care about the outcome?
That's it. That is essentially what Spielberg and every other movie creator's goal is. They want to entertain and captivate audiences, but if that's going to happen they have to address those two crucial questions.
It's not that Spielberg isn't a master, it's just that he's forgetting the whole purpose. His movies have become too cold and outsider feeling; audiences are subsequently being turned off to his stories these days because, time and time again, they don't feel taken back or captivated, and they don't have an emotional tie-in to what happens in the plotline.
I think popular films of the current day can learn a lot from the anime sub-genre of filmography. It's about interesting characters that people care about, and stories they grow to love and understand. The basic simplicities of life.
Anime is not child pornography, it's not tentacle rape, it's not insert_whatever_typical_complaint_here -- it's just captivating, wonderful film. And it's new, it's fresh, it's fascinating, it's an art form.
Spielberg no longer is these things. He's old hat, washed up, boring, dull, tantric, mundane, and irrelevant any more. He turns great Kubrick, Dickens, and Shakespeare stories into a cold abbreviated plot with characters no one cares about and actors that aren't the most skilled craftsmen in their field.
I used to love Steve, I really did. But lately it's almost as though he's just doing movies to occupy his time. I no longer leave Spielberg movies at the theatre with my mouth open and dripping. I leave with a gritty taste in my mouth and thoughts of less-than-his-best wander throughout my head.
I miss the old Spielberg, and I'm sure you do too. Perhaps a petition is appropriate. Let's just say "Steve, get back to basics. We love you and respect you, but you're abondoning your true fans and are losing out on wonderful films as a result."
Well, that's just my two cents. Like I said, I'm not a critic, and I'm not putting him down.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:1, Insightful)
Same deal with Tom Clancy putting his name on the covers of those awful Op-Center hack jobs. When you sell your own good name down the river, it's time to step aside.
Spielberg Did Not Write This (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it was a fine series. The writing was often subtle and thoughtful - a rarity on television these days.
Over the Hill? ... An Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that, what really sparks you as bad? Minority Report? For all of its plot discontinuities (did I spell that right?), I think that the consensus is positive - it was an enjoyable sci-fi film with good performances all around, albeit with a few cheesy moments. Let's look at his films of the late-90's. Amistad - never saw it, but heard good things. Saving Private Ryan - do I really need to go into this, it was hands down my pick for Best Picture in 1997 (Grr ... Shakespeare in Love?) At this point I'll mention his involvement with Band of Brothers. A little bit earlier, Schindler's List, another classic.
TV is a new avenue for Spielberg - don't count him out yet. Over the past few years, I think his good work outweighs his bad work.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
The acting was phenomenal, I thought. Th little girl was incredible. It was all put together fairly well, and was a class act. It doesn't have to shake the earth to qualify as good, you know.
C//
Re:Take the Best Pieces..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
it wasn't about the aliens... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well, what do i expect from reviews by people that read slashdot...
You knew it was going to suck (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spielberg is done... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think most people would have liked Minority Report a LOT better (I know I would have) had it ended when they stuck Anderton in the holding cells. Left the audience guessing, make the audience think afterwards rather than explain everything and then give a conclusion on morality. Had they left it open and left us guessing at the injustices of the world, it would have been a MUCH better movie. Of course, that's not the happy ending that most people are expecting from an action movie.
Hmm...looks like we're seeing a trend here, ne?
The trick to Spielberg is to stop watching at the right time. There's a point where the story shifts from good to cheesy (re-awakening Anderton, reawakening David, etc.) and THAT is where you should stop watching. Do that, and you're good to go.
By the way, Spielberg shouldn't alone be blamed for bad movies made from sf books and short stories. No, Minority Report was no 2001 or Blade Runner. But it wasn't Johnny Mnemonic or Starship Troopers, both great pieces of work with plenty of potential for a great movie, but which ultimately ended up as total crap. I'd say the blame falls on the general public which wants feel-good action movies and more simple good-evil plots. If there was a market for good movies, they'd make them, but what the GP wants is escapist crap.
larger than life? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about time compression of plot...... (Score:3, Insightful)
I really like the first 5 episodes, I also thought Jesse K. was the best character of the show. The early episodes with Owen Crawford held me spellbound (that character was my manager at Terabeam). The episode directed by the former "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was easily the spookiest. As the story came out of the "time compression" that they were holding to in the early episodes, the plot started to wander. There just wasn't enough depth of character to fill up the final hours.
Remember also that Steven S. was the overseer of all the other directors. The individual episodes had seperate directors and I could feel the difference from show to show.
In the end, it's all just entertainment....and most people here posting watched it...enjoy it, it was free and you also got to see those halfway funny IBM ads.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, something else I forgot to mention. It's arguable whether at the end of the uber-mechas destroyed him, or whether he simply committed suicide by going to "sleep". The latter might be more likely since he appeared to voluntarily close his eyes. Of course, the uber-mechas may have known that by fulfilling his quest, that would cause him to turn off.
Re:Spielberg is done... (Score:3, Insightful)
According to several source I've come across, the ending to A.I. as released was very much the ending Kubrick had in mind. The most "Spielbergian" touches were the way the supermechas in the end appeared--as woo-woo "Close Encounters" aliens, which just made a lot of audiences think they were aliens instead of indirect descendants of David, the little robot boy.
I didn't like A.I. much and I particularly didn't like the ending--but look. David, fixated on "becoming real" to please his human mother throughout the entire movie, is reactivated to find out not only his mother but all human beings have been dead for centuries. It's as if Pinnochio not only failed to become real but returned home to learn Geppetto and his cat were killed in a citywide firestorm, and the Blue Fairy is only real enough to give the still-wooden puppet one last vivid dream of all he's lost. This is a happy ending to you?
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently it does...
Roswell hasn't been a mystery for years, in the same way that the Bermuda Triangle isn't a mystery, nor are crop circles, Big Foot, Nostrodamus, Uri Geller, spontaneous human cumbustion, or ley lines.
A good fiction beats a dead mystery any time, and is infinitely more entertaining.
There are so many good stories to be told that don't involve the anal intrusion fantasies of psychotics or willful fabricators. What about anything by Robert Charles Wilson, or Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Silverberg (a plethora of Roberts), Gene Wolfe, etc.?
Come on, let's stop recycling the old and show some real imagination for a change.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does every goddamm Hollywood production have to be another good vs. evil melodrama! Sheesh!
After it was all over I knew that the purpose of the production was to be filler for the commercial breaks.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
"This machine was trapped under the wreckage before the freezing. Therefore these robots are originals. They knew living people."
Same reason we excavate: to learn about the past. Records, even when they exist, can be incomplete. Mecha knowledge of the old cities was sketchy even in David's time-- remember Gigolo Joe's comment about "Man-hattan?"-- and would certainly not have been filled in any during the intervening years.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Professor Hobby said, "I propose that we build a robot who can love."
The advanced mecha wanted David to be happy, not to terminate him.
Yes. But they realized that David, because he was built to love, could never be happy. Monica, the only person he could ever love, was gone forever. Better to give him a moment of happiness and then end him than to condemn him to an eternity of sorrow.
This is important because it shows that the mecha are capable of making the choice that no human in the story was able to make. It shows that the mecha were, in the end, far more human than humans had ever been.
David was sleeping and dreaming, that's all.
In Act I, David said, "I can never go to sleep, but I can lie still and not make a peep." The basic premise of the movie is that David can never transcend himself. He could no more go to sleep than he could turn back time or sprout wings and fly.
If she were an illusion, they wouldn't have needed a sample of her hair to create her
They didn't need the hair. The hair, and David's reaction to it, was simply the last piece of evidence the mecha needed to conclude that David could never be happy without Monica.
she was a clone with monica's soul inside, yet altered so she wouldn't think about anyone or much of anything other than David
I think that's much more of a reach than my interpretation. The Monica of Act III was obviously not the same character as the Monica of Act I. She was merely a reflection, an imperfect copy.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting how on Slashdot most people feel compelled to parrot what they perceive as the "common wisdom", without investing a second of their time in forming their own (supposedly intelligent) opinion.
</complaint>
<meta-complaint>
also interesting is how people feel compelled to call someone a parrot for agreeing with the majority
</meta-complaint>
Re:Sick of reviewers, critics, skeptics, guides, e (Score:2, Insightful)
Anime can be tentacle rape. And there's nothing that says it has to be 'captivating, wonderful film.' It's not new - it's been around as long as animation has been made in Japan - and it's just as much of an art form as any other mass media. It's a mass media. There's good anime. There's bad anime. There's tentacle rape anime. There's magical girl anime. There's five-people-in-giant-robots-saving-the-world anime. Some of it is pretty good. Some of it stinks to high heaven. Saying that all anime is 'captivating, wonderful' is like saying that all novels are 'captivating, wonderful,' or all comic books are 'captivating, wonderful,' or
That's it? (Score:2, Insightful)
This article sounds more like a troll posting on a bbs somewhere.
the real flaw (Score:2, Insightful)
If the answer is that they can't because they are not powerful enough, then that's really convenient. The futuristic mecha are just powerful enough to support your interpretation - not enough to build a satisfying mother from the kids mind, but enough to build one to fool him for one day alone, no DNA involved.
What bothered *me* most wasn't the ending, but the idea itself that you can make things that are "programmed to love" or programmed to X where X is some intentionality. If something is "programmed" to love, how can that feeling they have be called love or even be called a feeling or a mental state? Since love is a mental state, it can only exist in minds, and an important feature of minds is fluidity, and even a certain degree of control over it. Maybe you can't choose who you love but you certainly can choose how you will react to that feeling and that reaction will in turn affect the feeling. In my opinion the notion that you can make minds that can love but cannot have a real reaction to their own love, is nonsensical; like saying, let's draw a square, but without sides. Like I said, it was what bothered *me* about it, it's actually quite common in SF to do this.
On the other hand, assuming you can actually build minds that are "doomed to love", then clearly making such minds would be immoral; it would be like creating a flawed mind deliberately, like consciously creating someone with a mental disease. Since the movie was (supposedly) about A.I. I expected that issue to be dealt in it, but it's not. Instead, we get a tale about a boy and his love, or, as you insightfully put it, about the human condition and its capacity for cruelty... All of which I actually enjoyed. Yes, I liked the movie, heck, I even liked the ending in its plain, rosy interpretation... but to me the movie is not really very good Sci Fi, just a very good story. Not that there's anything wrong with that
I also enjoyed your interpretation but honestly, I think it's one of those retrofitting interpratations we often engage in when we have to 'justify'... Nothing in the final scenes suggests that they are going to kill the kid. The interpretation is indeed possible, i.e. not terribly contradictory to anything in the movie but it would be a stretch to say that it actually stems from it (IMHO). OTOH I've been known to try to rationalize the mystical elements in the matrix, myself :)