SATELLITES ARE PICKING UP MORE TALK OF DISTANT ID4 SEQUEL…

Is it bad that I really want this movie?

Pretty much.

ID4 was the right way to do a cheesy alien invasion blockbuster...it was the answer to the 50s saucer flicks.  I wouldn't mind a sequel at all.

So the right way to do it is to make something with no redeeming qualities?

Renn, how DARE you even suggest that Jeff Goldblum is not essential?

PISTOLS AT DAWN!

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Originally Posted by Bailey 

So the right way to do it is to make something with no redeeming qualities?

Entertainment isn't a redeeming quality?

I suppose you can find entertainment in anything.  It's still a shit film.  I can get behind "so bad it's good" when there's no talent and no budget.  But the film was filled with talented actors, and had a big budget, and it's fucking awful.  Plus, it's ugly as sin... which even the much maligned Michael Bay can manage to avoid.

Eh, While some of the CG doesn't hold up (its the 90s tho), I always find some over the top fun with it. Also, will always love the shot of the White House blowing up (from the trailers, which doesn't have the copter taking off). 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

I suppose you can find entertainment in anything.  It's still a shit film.  I can get behind "so bad it's good" when there's no talent and no budget.  But the film was filled with talented actors, and had a big budget, and it's fucking awful.  Plus, it's ugly as sin... which even the much maligned Michael Bay can manage to avoid.

My only criteria when judging a film comes down to one thing...what is this film trying to accomplish, and does it accomplish it?  ID4 attempted to revist the 50s B-sci-fi saucer flicks, while adding a dose of fun, excitement and spectacle.  It achieved those aims IMO.

ID4 updated for 20 years later? You know what that means:

PRESIDENT WILL SMITH!

That makes a scary amount of sense, actually.

Goldblum and Hirsch are so much fun in the original, the rest can go die in a fire.
 

Ambler, that sounds fine when you're talking in the abstract; but watching the the movie, does it actually accomplish anything it set out to do?  

As spectacle, again, the film is ugly, and the effects seemed horribly dated less than a decade later.

As a rousing adventure, it's filled with so many cringe-inducing moments as to give me a migraine.  For example, as much as we all love President Whitmore, when he gives his speech, it's supposed to be rousing... but it's not actually anything of the sort.  It's fucking ridiculous.  (Which is why it's memorable, as Pullman is the only one who seems to know he's in the dumbest movie ever.)

From the slow motion dog, to the Mac virus scene, to establishing the annoying persona Will Smith would cultivate (to the detriment of his talent), to the jingoism at its core despite paying lip service to 90's political correctness, the movie is an utter train wreck of badness.  It's one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Virus (which could be easily explained in a couple of lines of dialog) and dog aside, ID4 almost perfectly does what it sets out to do. And it still is, without contest, still the zenith of its niche.

And holy fuck did those early "shadow" teasers make an impact in the theaters. Today those reactions are extinct as our brains have been oversaturated with huge effects over the last decade.

If ID4 had been released in 1975 with "Irwin Allen's" in front of it, it'd be right up there with The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.  It's got its feet firmly planted in that niche, and unabashedly so.

And the amount of well-executed practical effects is still impressive.

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Originally Posted by Bailey 

 

As spectacle, again, the film is ugly, and the effects seemed horribly dated less than a decade later.

Visual FX are a product of a film's time and have no bearing on my enjoyment of said film.  Thinking that way is completely impractical IMO.  The styles, fashion, FX, music, and politics are horribly dated in many 80s films. That doesn't stop me from judging them accordingly per my rule.  ID4 is no different for me.

The speech fits the cheesiness of the film and it dovetails nicely in with Whitmore's political problems in the first act.  Whitmore was a President who was looked down upon by the political elite as too young, idealistic, and not fit to lead a nation (with his roots as a pilot rather than a political background).  But that ends up being the very thing that saves the planet.  Cheesy is not automatically a bad thing...it depends on how it's implemented.  

Again, these are things that are part of the fabric of the film, and they are implemented with skill and work within the context of the movie.  A pet peeve a viewer has is not necessarily a mark against a film because it's not taking the specific issue in context.  It's a personal issue rather than a film issue.

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Originally Posted by Ambler 

 

Visual FX are a product of a film's time and have no bearing on my enjoyment of said film.  Thinking that way is completely impractical IMO. 

Plenty of dated effects have a level of craftsmanship to them that make them still a delight to look at.  That has nothing to do with my problem with them.  I find the look of the film to be clunky.

The speech was not meant to be enjoyed ironically, which is the only level it could possibly be enjoyed at all.  The filmmakers weren't winking at us.  They were trying to make populist entertainment on the level of Spielberg, and they failed miserably.

Finding a movie hopelessly dumb is not a pet peeve.  It's a legitimate criticism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

Plenty of dated effects have a level of craftsmanship to them that make them still a delight to look at.  That has nothing to do with it.

Personally I find the FX in ID4 to be pretty good considering the time period.  As long as they help tell the story and don't distract too much I can accept moderate to pretty good FX.  Not to mention the B-movie sci-fi saucer roots the film was inspired by keeps me from judging them too harshly.  The plentiful use of model work was a throwback to that style.

I actually enjoyed the speech without irony (as I'm sure many others have as well, and not just average joes)...because it fit in the context of the movie and was an outgrowth of things that were established earlier.  I wanted to see the aliens defeated, since they'd destroyed not only the American way of life, but the world.  It was the kind of "fuck yeah" moment that was earned after so much death and destruction.  Like I said, I think it works in the context of the film.

I was responding to your specific criticism of Will Smith, the dog, the mac virus and the flag waving speech.  You blanketed these moments as part of the "trainwreck of badness", without breaking down specifically why they are bad (besides the speech, which I responded to already).  Those moments, again, are functional to the narrative and are not out of character in the context of the film.  Cheesiness tends to grate me when it's not handled properly in the film, or not well integrated into the plot, or clashes against other stylistic things that don't jive.... not because it's cheesy.

I really need to explain why showing a dog outjump a fireball in slow motion is not exciting or dramatic, but just plain silly?  Or why Jeff Goldblum's brilliant idea to hook his Mac up to an alien computer and use existing software to upload a virus that would shut it down is so dumb even someone with the most rudimentary understanding of computers could figure out it's lazy writing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

I really need to explain why showing a dog outjump a fireball in slow motion is not exciting or dramatic, but just plain silly?  Or why Jeff Goldblum's brilliant idea to hook his Mac up to an alien computer and use existing software to upload a virus that would shut it down is so dumb even someone with the most rudimentary understanding of computers could figure out it's lazy writing?

I didn't say they weren't silly.  But why do those count as marks against the film?  It's a silly movie from frame one.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree.

So this time, they upload the mothership-killing virus off an iPad? Update sorted. For this Golblum is, of course, absolutely essential. Don't try and pawn off a substitute on us, Devlin. We'll know.

If anything, President Will Smith means a much more streamlined speech scene: "AWW, HELL NAW!!" *Fanfare*

This is my wife's favorite movie. So I know she will love this idea.

And screw it, I love the hell out of the first one as well. As already mentiond it's an updated B movie and unashamidly so.

And for all you guys hating the virus sequence, I draw your attention to the scene in the 1950's War of the Worlds where the main charaters watch an Atom bomb go off, from a hill protected only by sunglasses.

Biggest plothole with the original: why even bother with the virus at all? They've established that the destroyers on Earth are protected by the mothership's signal, and they've taken a nuke with them to blow up the mothership from the inside. Surely the emphasis of the plan should have been on detonating the nuke and ending it once and for all rather than farting about with a three-minute attack window and a ridiculous "my Mac works with ALIEN TECH" scheme?

The thing that bothered me the most with the virus was how easily it could have been taken care of.

Have Goldblum talking to an engineer about the progress they've made. Engineer: "We managed to kind of communicate with the ship's computers. Even write on its memory. But the only thing it does is shut everything down. It self repairs after a few minutes but other than that, nothing." Boom, virus explained and turned from Deus Ex Machina to an already set up logical solution a scientist would come up with. It's literally a minute. You could even ADR it over a scene of Goldblum looking at the ship.

Yep. ID4 has the same basic problem as pretty much all of Emmerich's blow-shit-up movies: expertly built first act, gobsmacking destruction to kick off the second act, and then wheelspinning and lazy writing to take us over the finish line.
 

But then Judd Hirsch's only use in the movie would be being a Jew.