General / Off-Topic Mortal Engines

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Anyone else seen it yet?

Been a long time fan of Phillip Reeve's books and was delighted that Peter Jackson took on the project to turn it into a film (I personally thought his team, particularlly Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh, did a terrific job with Lord of The Rings).

Anyway, saw it last night and I thought it was stunning. It does rather race from one action scene to the next with very little time to relax or develop the characters but there's a lot to cover (I'd forgotten quite how much actually) and the visualisation of the world of Mortal Engines is breathtaking. I wept for Shrike (which is right and proper) and Anna Fang is one of the coolest heroines of recent years.

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Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
For me it was visually stunning, however the central leads acting was both atrocious and uninterestinf and clearly a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor judging by how much exposition is missing. It also has plot holes you could drive one of those mobile cities through.

I also wonder if Hollywood has a battery farm where they mass produce bland dark haired female leads for these young adult fiction adaptations.
 
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Robin of Spiritwood

Robin of Spiritwood
Trying to be open about it, but it's a movie about St. Paul's Cathedral and its environs mounted upon a giant tractor that is menacing other neighborhoods set upon caterpillar tracks, with cannons and grappling hooks.

It makes Transformers look positively plausible.

How do you go from Lord of the Rings ( admittedly hard to follow ) to that?
 

Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
Robin of Spiritwood said:
Trying to be open about it, but it's a movie about St. Paul's Cathedral and its environs mounted upon a giant tractor that is menacing other neighborhoods set upon caterpillar tracks, with cannons and grappling hooks.

It makes Transformers look positively plausible.

How do you go from Lord of the Rings ( admittedly hard to follow ) to that?
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Simple answer: its a young teen fiction series of books set in a dystopian future.

Hollywood execs are chasing the mad bank these series seem to 'sometimes' make for them, in the same way they did with Fantasy book franchises post LotR

On the plus side, this might be the nail in the coffin that stops the Teremaire adaptations :D.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
It is clearly a passion project but is hard sell. I will see it, but most likely not in cinema. While movie going audience can accept outlandish concepts, further they are removed from reality, harder is to accept that.

Although I will say it's financial failure is down to studio not being able to figure out how to market such movie.
 

Manticore

Manticore
Divergent

Hunger Games

Maze Runner

Teen dystopian futures have been a thing with Hollywood for a while now.............. it must be hard not being Marvel Studios at the moment.
 

Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
Manticore said:
Divergent

Hunger Games

Maze Runner

Teen dystopian futures have been a thing with Hollywood for a while now.............. it must be hard not being Marvel Studios at the moment.
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Exactly, much like after LotR Hollywood was scrabbling for the next big Fantasy Franchise and they became increasingly dire (Golden Compass, Narnia, The Dark is Rising) or the teen fiction monster romance after the success of Twilight, we're now on the tail end of the dystopian future teen-lit adaptation era.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Yeah, companies are chasing their next money printing machine, while evidence is there that they should work one movie at the time, work it hard, get it right, release it and THEN looking for franchise material. Young adult series have been mixed bag - I will say only few elements in Hunger Games saved that series - but I did like Maze Runner. Both franchises have one thing in common - struggling with rather weak source material. None of those series are...good as literature. They are addictive, and they might talk about some issues which youngsters can relate to, but they aren't exactly good as bodies of work. You can fix and improve things in a movie if you work it hard, but considering what I have heard how fast studios push for scripts and making movies...yeah, no surprise there.

Good question why Peter Jackson failed this time, and how much creative freedom he had, but I suspect concept just was too outlandish without good core to feel whole and thus digestible for common crowd, sometimes material isn't there for a movie and that's it. See Spiderverse movie...it is many things, but you can feel it has core, something people can easily connect to. I watch Mortal Engines trailers and I can't remember a thing from them.
 

krylite

krylite
LOTR is one of my favorite trilogies, and I thought Peter Jackson set a definitive standard for movies with a fantasy setting. I'd wished he would have tried a sci-fi epic at some point with his talent. Villaneuve is already remaking Dune, so maybe some other classic sci-fi world like Foundation or the Ringworld/KnownSpace sagas.
 
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Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
krylite said:
LOTR is one of my favorite trilogies, and I thought Peter Jackson set a definitive standard for movies with a fantasy setting. I'd wished he would have tried a sci-fi epic at some point with his talent. Villaneuve is already remaking Dune, so maybe some other classic sci-fi world like Foundation or the Ringworld/KnownSpace sagas.
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Or maybe let's say something on Elite license? :) No?
 

Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
Manticore said:
Possibly one of the worst films ever made; period. (My opinion).
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It had massive potential (they even partially filmed the proper ending before they kowtowed to the religious pressure).
Box offife wise it didnt do too bad internationally, its just new line had sold the international take to another company, so its regarded as a flop.

Hopefully the upcoming BBC adaptation will fare better.
 

Garbarrage

Garbarrage
I watched the first 2 seconds of the trailer, saw something about cities on wheels, and gave the remote back to my 6 year old so she could change the channel back to My Little Pony.

I'm stunned that anyone (especially someone as successful as Jackson) expected this to do anything other than fail hard.
 

Sysmon

Sysmon
I look forward to see it soon! Planning to take the missus to the cinema over the holiday break and watch some beautiful action.

:D S
 
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