Monday morning movie thread (12/28/09)…

Updated on December 28, 2009 By Ken Begg 36 Comments

Another huge weekend for Avatar; Fox’s gigantic gamble seems to have paid off. Over the Christmas frame, and in its second weekend, Avatar drew another $75 million domestic. The worldwide take is currently around $615 million.

I’ve heard figures ranging from “over $300 million” to $500 million for the budget (the latter figure may include marketing cost, but is still flabbergasting). However, Fox sold a lot of rights to the film, and they should be heading into the black on the project pretty soon. Still, taking the larger figure as correct, the film would have to gross around one billion dollars in order to really start making money.

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes also did very strong business; at least in the right kind of movie, Robert Downy Jr. seems to be keeping some of his Iron Man luster. (With Iron Man 2 due out next summer, well, he’s having a pretty good couple of years). The film, even facing the Avatar juggernaut, drew $65 million. Meanwhile, the extended holiday weekend for New Year’s should help both films continue to do well.

I haven’t seen either movie. I don’t really see that many new films, maybe half a dozen a year, and there are aspects of both–like length–that make me wary. Still, here’s a spot to hash away about them, or anything else you’ve seen, if you wish.

Speaking of, TCM ran old Sherlock Holmes movies all Christmas, reminding me that a) Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce made a crapload of Holmes movies, and b) that critics and fans don’t exaggerate about how moronic Bruce’s Watson was. Seriously, he came off as borderline retarded at times.

This even effected Rathbone, probably the best screen Holmes until Jeremy Brett, since you couldn’t figure out why he would hang out with this simpleton. I could only assume that this version of Watson had taken a blow to the head to protect Holmes, and that subsequently the Great Detective kept him around out of guilt.

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  • Dan

    Of the two Avatar is the far better movie [even with its super long run time].

    I am very curious on how Avatar will do on DVD. With such a large push to see it in 3D instead of standard screenings will that hurt DVD sales with a vast majority of TV’s not able to support the 3D format?

    Holmes was enjoyable, but not necessary to see in theaters. I say wait for netflix.

  • The bigger question for me was “What the hell is Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing fighting the Nazis?” Didn’t they live a bit before that time? If this is the same Holmes and Watson from the 1880s, they’d be in their late 90s by the the time the Nazis came to power. A little old to be going toe to toe with the Jerrys wot?
    But really, yes, Watson came off as a helmet child quite often. I was expecting Holmes to just give him a ball to play with while he did ‘grown up stuff’.

  • fish eye no miko

    The ads for Holmes really turned me off The “action movie” vibe was bad enough (at least I buy it; Holmes was quite a good fighter), but the “sexy” angle really throws me off. I mean, honestly, people…

    Avatar was very pretty, and I actually really like the Na’Vi, but… wow. “Cliche” is a gross understatement. And it’s pretty black-and-white in its thinking. Humans (esp. white men) = bad, Na’Vi = good. And there’s a pretty strong anti-military bias (most of the good humans are scientists). Which puzzles me; I thought the military was presented pretty well in Aliens. I guess Cameron has changed his thoughts about the military since then [that was over 20 yeat ago, after all, so…]). I honestly think it would bother you, Ken. I mean, maybe if you go into it knowing about it, it won’t be so bad, but still… yike.

  • I cling to my belief that Robert Downey, whatever his virtues, doesn’t seem particularly … smart to me. As an actor I mean. And that seems like an essential for Sherlock Holmes. Brett seemed brainy, as did Rathbone. I am able to handle Nigel Bruce basically by assuming he’s comedy relief. At least he’s not Alan Hale Sr.

    RE: Avatar – this article sums up the main reason I am not interested in seeing Avatar, to the amazement of my wife and kids.

    http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar

    I REALLY hated Last Samurai. The thought of the reactionary, bloodthirsty Satsumas taking a filthy foreigner under their wing instead of slaughtering him at once was risible.

  • Joe11

    I thought Avatar was 3 stars, but I had the same problems with it that fish eye no miko had.

    The military leader played by Stephen Lang is so cliched & one-dimensional. He says “Evil” George Bush talking points like “Fight Terror with Terror”, “Preemptive Strike”,”Shock & Awe”, & there were probably a few more I missed. I almost expected him to say “You’re either with us, or with the terror, uh I mean, the Navi”. I expect this type of dialogue in a George Clooney political movie, but not in an “escapist” sci-fi action flick.

    Environmentalists & Scientists=GOOD
    Military & Corporate CEO’s=SOULLESS & GREEDY

  • Terrahawk

    Sandy, I read that article on IO9 earlier. Although she is right to some extent, I don’t think “Dances with Wolves” really falls into that category. DwM shows Costner’s view of the Indians, true, but Costner isn’t their savior or great leader. He provides them with the weapons they need but that is about it. And the one cut scene, where the Indians slaughter the buffalo hunters, shows that Costner is still separate from them to some extent (I wish they had left that scene in. It really would have added some needed depth to the movie). While I have problems with DwM noble savage conceit, it’s not a white man as leading the Other movie. Really, in the end, Costner brings the white man down on them by his actions which is why Costner has to flee at the end.

    The author of the article, Newitz, is a good writer but I take her complaints about “Avatar” with a grain of salt. Race relations are a mess and it makes it impossible to create what she wants. If Cameron had created a nuanced view of the Nav’i and humans, each with positive and negative moral traits, the race baiters would be yelling about how the Nav’i represent to actual racial group in a negative light (for example, remember the stupid complaints about Jar Jar). That means he’s stuck creating the perfect Nav’i and cliched humans. The only other solution is that only non-whites can create non-white characters. Of course then if a non-white creates a bad view of a non-white group, the non-white gets to face charges of being a sell-out. Newitz doesn’t seem to recognize these dynamics. Instead she sees it only as whites coming to the rescue. Cameron could have broken the template, but I doubt if Newitz would have appreciated it. IO9 is always complaining about not enough women and minorities in sci-fi. They have had a few articles complaining that there aren’t any strong women on Star Gate Universe (because every show has to have a strong woman, don’t you know).

  • My thoughts on The Last Samurai can be found here.

    http://jabootu.net/?p=691

  • I am not advocating the article’s position on Dances With Wolves, but I strongly agree with the general position.

    One of the reasons that race relations ARE a mess is because of all the complaints that arise when there is an attempt to show races or historic positions realistically. Just because the European treatment of the native Americans was monstrous doesn’t automatically make the Indians saints. Slavery was a cancerous horror, but this doesn’t mean that every slave was an incredibly wise Morgan Freeman.

    I remember being amazed back in the 1970s when I saw a TV show in which a black man was a villain. It was a perfectly ordinary thriller, and the black man was portrayed in exactly the fashion that an Eevil white corporate villain would have been portrayed. I was flabbergasted, but pleased. It gave me hope that race relations were improving.

  • PB210

    “The bigger question for me was “What the hell is Sherlock Holmes and Watson doing fighting the Nazis?” Didn’t they live a bit before that time? If this is the same Holmes and Watson from the 1880s, they’d be in their late 90s by the the time the Nazis came to power. A little old to be going toe to toe with the Jerrys wot?”
    Most Sherlock Holmes films and TV shows made before 1953 featured Holmes updated to contemporary times-just take a look at Arthur Wontner’s films as Sherlock Holmes on archive.org. Add to that the fact that Universal made most of the Rathbone Holmes films, and Universal generally did not make period pieces; even Lugosi’s Dracula took place in contemporary times, not the Victorian era (based on the cars seen and heard in the 1931 Lugosi Dracula). (20th Century Fox only made the first two Rathbone Holmes films, which accordingly took place in the Victorian Era.)

    You have to understand that for those people in the 1930’s to the 1940’s, the Victorian Era stood as roughly as recent as the 1960’s does to us. You will note that the 2008 Iron Man film took place in contemporary times, even though Iron Man debuted 45 years earlier. (I could not think of any prose property to make a comparison.)

    By the way, has anyone seen any of Walter Pidgeon’s Nick Carter films? Nick Carter debuted before Sherlock Holmes, so I have to wonder if the 1940’s Nick Carter films took place in the Victorian era.

  • PB210

    One of the interesting aspects of remakes has to do with whether or not they will do it as a period piece or update it. Sherlock Holmes since the 1950’s has almost always appeared in period pieces. Other properties have not.

    # The Saint and Mike Hammer have so far never appeared in film or TV adaptations in period pieces. The Armand Assante remake presented an updated story with Hammer as a Vietnam veteran instead of a Pacific Theater World War II veteran. Even though the last time Stacy Keach played Hammer aired over fifty years since the first appearance of Mike Hammer, it presented an updated story. Roger Moore’s version of The Saint debuted over thirty years after the first appearance of the Saint in print in 1928, but presented an updated story, as did subsequent adaptations with Ian Ogilivy, Andrew Clarke, and Simon Dutton. The Val Kilmer film took place in contemporary times, arriving in theaters in 1997-almost seventy years after the Saint’s debut.
    # Usually, adaptations of comic book heroes, no matter how many decades after the character’s debut, appear as contemporary stories. For example, the 2008 Iron Man took place in contemporary times, even though it arrived 45 years after Iron Man’s debut. (Exceptions, where the World War II roots of a property did appear in a TV or movie adaptation include Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, which initially took place in World War II, and the Salinger Captain America film, whose early scenes took place during World War II.)

  • P Stroud

    I went to see Avatar without having heard much about it. I usually avoid trailers ans such because they reveal too much. Anyhoo I saw it in 3D at noon yesterday in a nearly empty theater. The 15 degree weather may have had something to do with that.

    I figured out the ending by the 10 minute mark. I knew how the protagonist was going to be treated by the natives 100% accurately by the 20 minute maek. I doubt that there is one slight ounce of originality in this movie. I can’t think of a more cliched movie ever, but the art direction made it watchable and mildly entertaining. So I’d give it 2 out of 5. Good effects. Thin plot. The thinnest characters imaginable of which only one is given any but the thinnest motivation. I figure a better name for “Avatar” would be “Dancing With Blacklights/Kill Whitey”.

    Amusingly if James Cameron wants to find an eeevil Big Businessman he should just look in a mirror. It’s sad to see someone who once made one of the very best movie treatments on Time Travel, T2, sink to this nadir of hackneyed propaganda.

    I did a hitch in the Navy gunboats during Vietnam. I also worked for the DoD for a few years and had to deal with the military. I’d put their education and understanding of matters of politics, war and economics over any Hollywood filmmaker any day of the week. Cameron’s view of these matters as shown through the lend of his conceit is amazingly juvenile. In this he is little different than any other member of the Hollywood Red Orchestra.

    Well, it was fun seeing a Major Studio Production. Now I’ll go back to foreign and independent cinema in my search for creativity. Thank you.

  • fish eye no miko

    I think of the reasons a lot of comic books are updated it what they are still being written, and are set in current times. Heck, some of them are even updated so that the characters are the right ages. If Tony Stark created the suit when the comic first debuted he’d be, what, 90? In fact, most of the characters would be much older than depicted (one exception is Wolverine, whose more recent origin stories place him being an adult during the American Civil War, making him OLDER then previous stories, which had him reaching adulthood during about WWII).

    Frankly, comic book continuity is… sketchy at best, which is why I give comic book movie way more leeway with changes then I do other stories that are adapted into movies. Those stories are usually written by one person, and set in a fairly consistent canon, and messing with that feels like a bigger deal to me.

  • Mr. Rational

    Having seen both now, Sherlock Holmes is BY FAR the better film. It keeps things moving nicely; it gives you everything you would expect (or I would expect, anyway) from a Holmes film. The work done on period setting and costumes is magnificent — stylized without being (too) false. The acting is great, especially the performance given by Jude Law. And I thought Rachel McAdams would be the weak link in the cast…well, she was, but it was a pretty strong weak link.

    Avatar, by contrast, is more than just a very pretty film. It is sweeping; it is gorgeous. I wish I could say the same about the story. Apparently, Marines are by and large 1) stupid, 2) prejudiced, or 3) stupid and prejudiced. Apparently, noble savages really exist on some other planet — well, Cameron pretty much had to do that, since the noble savage myth has been thoroughly debunked on this one. Apparently, it’s okay to rip off Michael Blake without paying him one thin dime for the privilege. And apparently, as usual, South Park already called this one. I could tolerate the cliches at the time because they were so beautifully wrapped. COnsidering them now has me seething.

  • kerii

    Somewhat off-topic, but I am currently gaming “Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened” on the PC and so far it seems WAY more entertaining than the new Holmes movie. The game is basically Sherlock vs. the Cult of Cthulhu, and is thus recommended to fans of both Doyle and Lovecraft.

    @Sandy Petersen – I dislike Tom Cruise and will happily acknowledge the historical inaccuracies of The Last Samurai. However, I would not call the plot 100% “risible”. Jules Brunet was a French officer who sided with the Bakufu during the Boshin War and was accepted into their ranks. While not as “reactionary” (I hate that term) as the SatCho Isshin-shishi, the Bakufu samurai certainly hated foreigners to a large degree. Even the ultra-conservative Shinsen-gumi eventually were willing to work with Brunet. So I disagree with your assessment that no foreigner could have been accepted by Satsuma. Certainly Sakamoto Ryoma (one of the greatest revolutionaries) had a great love and keen interest in Western ideas and technology.

    Yes, The Last Samurai over-simplifies its depiction of late-Edo Era samurai… but then, so do many comments by people who disliked the movie and go to the opposite extreme.

  • One of the great things about the too soon departed A&E Nero Wolfe series was that the show wasn’t just set in period (unlike the horrible ’80s William Conrad program), but that it playfully jumped around a bit based on when the book being adapted that week came out. Wolfe and his legman Archie Goodwin were ‘timeless’ characters, who appeared in books for over four decades but never aged.

    The books seldom paid attention to contemporary events, and so generally the only indicators are things like Wolfe’s outrageous fees, which might be $10,000 in one book from the ’30s, and hundreds of thousands in a book from the ’60s. The rare exceptions, like the couple written during WWII where Archie joins the Army, are thus a bit jarring. On the whole, however, you don’t really need to read the books in any sort of order.

    Anyway, the A&E series generally stuck the characters in sort of a generic ’40s/’50s, but occasionally (again based on when the book came out) moved into the Mod ’60s. That was kind of cool, and portrayed the love and absolute respect for the books that the series evinced.

    Man, I really would have liked one more season of that show.

  • Okay I grant that the French officer joined up with the rebels during the rebellion. And while were reactionary

  • The Satsumas were pretty anti-foreigner. Not technologically of course – except during the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan was always eager to adopt foreign tools. But even if a French officer managed to join the ranks of some of their allies, I am going to stick with this fundamental criticism:

    Why do we need to have a Westerner as a hero? This is Hollywood racism at its most idiotic. Surely modern Americans have about as much (i.e. little) understanding of Bushido as of an American officer immediately post-Civil War. We know that Samurai were all about honor and stuff. Hollywood’s need to insert an American into this tale sucks donkey goober IMO.

  • PB210

    “I think of the reasons a lot of comic books are updated it what they are still being written, and are set in current times”.

    That makes me wonder why the Dick Tracy and Phantom films of the 1990’s appeared as period pieces, since both Dick Tracy and the Phantom, as of this writing, have survived continuously since the 1930’s, with the setting constantly updated. (Max Allan Collins notes that he did extensive research so as to feature contemporary crimes when he wrote Dick Tracy from 1977 to 1993, including crimes such as video piracy and illegal dumping that grew more prominent in later years.) Of course, since the conceit of the Phantom series entails a centuries long legacy of men taking the mantle, that provided some flexibility. (The 1980 Flash Gordon film took place in contemporary times, based on Flash’s shirt’s design and the plane seen at the start of the film.)

  • kerii

    That’s just the thing… I didn’t see Algren as the “hero” of the film. In the end, he really didn’t do that much. I agree that him becoming a master of swordplay in less than a year is ridiculous, and I object to the almost love story. I am also offended by the equation that samurai = native Americans, which is absurdly simplistic and ignores just how different these two groups are.

    I really see Katsumoto, his son, and Ujio as the heroes of the film, and I believe the title refers to them. When I watch the movie, I pretty much ignore Algren and focus on them, because Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada are just masterful actors.

    FYI, the Bakufu whom Brunet joined were the enemies of the Satsuma-Choshu alliance. I merely brought up this similar situation to illustrate my point.

    @Ken – Not to mention that the casting of the Nero Wolfe show was spot on! I would have liked several more seasons of that show, but alas! I think America has somehow lost its love of the classic detective mystery.

  • JazzyJ

    Hi all. Happy New Year!

    Interesting. There is a lot of negativity stirred up by Avatar, apparently. And no, I do not generally argue with any of the points mentioned — the plot is certainly not fresh, and comparisons against at least “Dances with Wolves” and “District 9” are inevitable.

    But I find myself still obliviously in the crowd that had a great time at this picture. Maybe I have deep-seated white-guy race fantasies somewhere deep in my psyche, but I just turned off my brain (knew to do that ahead of time) and had an absolutely wonderful popcorn-flick experience.

    Again, I am not negating any of the thoughts expressed here — just wanted to weigh in on the other side… :-)

  • JJ — I think it has a lot to do with expectations. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think I could get out of my own way with Avatar. I’m sure it’s spectacular and mind blowing, I’m just not sure that it would be, by the elements I generally find most important in a film, any good.

    I’ve explained in the past that I thought Titanic was half a great film and half a really, really awful film. However, I think if I saw it again I’d be forced to dwell even more on the parts I didn’t like, since you tend to be a little more analytical with repeat viewings. And because I fully expect Avatar to be a repeat of Titanic…amazing technical presentations coupled with jr. high school characterizations and generally lame writing…I just don’t think, again, I could get past the bad material to fully appreciate the good stuff. Maybe if the film was three frickin’ hours long.

    I should note that even as incredible as T2 was, and I saw it at a midnight showing the night before it officially opened, I could never completely get past the fact that it screwed up the time travel stuff in the first film. Thus for me Cameron’s gotten progressively worse–or rather, less amazing–with each new film (with Abyss kind of a forgettable interlude). Given my mixed reaction to Titanic, I just don’t really trust him with three hours of my time anymore.

    So this is a case where I suspect everyone’s right: The film is an incredible visual experience, and incredibly shallow as well. It’s just that people look for different things in movies, meaning that some will be entirely satisfied with what the film offers, and some won’t. And I really hope I don’t sound like I’m taking sides here; neither expectation is more valid than the other. It does irk me, though, that Cameron used to make great films, meaning that’s another factor I’ve have on my mind while watching this. If Michael Bay had made this film, I’d probably be a lot more forgiving. But to my mind, Cameron is the George Lucas who at least so far doesn’t suck.

    As to stirring a lot of negativity, well, Avatar is an event. In a way it’s a credit to the film that it’s too big to simply shrug off and say, “Meh, it was OK.”

  • Marsden

    I’m not going to go see it. I though the ads made it look like an early draft of the “Starship Troopers” movie. I don’t care how pretty it is, and it probably is, I’m in the “good story is priority one even if your effects arent to good (or even suck)” camp. I’d rather see a good story. Maybe that’s why when I watch old shows like Star Trek and Ultraman and Land of the Lost the wires and rubber suits and puppets don’t bother me because the story is good.

    Ken, I wanted to ask you something, I just got the complete Land of the Lost and the 3rd season is very bad. I mean Jabootu territory, at least compared to the 1st and 2nd season. It says so on most neutral sights so I was expecting a decline, but… wow. It’s one thing to read about it but another to see it. My question is, would you be interested in a nugget or two of Land of the Lost?

  • professorKettlewell

    Sandy, did I just end up agreeing with you? Surely such a thing cannot be ;)

  • Ericb

    I doubt that I’m even going to rent this from Netflix. I’m wary of watching a 3 hour film by someone who isn’t named Sergio Leone or Akira Kurosawa, particularly one with a sub-Star Trek plot.

  • I own the complete Outer Limits, and of course the entire plot of Avatar is taken from “The Chameleon”, in which penny-pinching TV guys on a rushed schedule did everything emotional that Cameron achieved. They even went to the trouble ot have the alien crew each look different (quite an achievement for the 1960s).

  • Ericb

    And that they were able to so without the aliens looking like smurfs enhanced the effectiveness of the story.

  • professorKettlewell

    Marsden – I **know** my opinion is probably not a majority one, but if the story is there, I never have a problem getting over any level of shoddiness or crudity in effects. I think it’s because I spent so much time around Theatre types; if I’m watching ‘The Tempest’ or something, I have no trouble buying into the idea that ‘when the Spirit pulls her hood up, she’s invisible’, or if it’s Bunraku, ‘you’re not meant to notice those guys in black. Tune them out’, so I’ve never had a problem with – I dunno, a Kamen Rider monster that’s supposed to be a giant electric jellyfish but is clearly a golf umbrella covered in bubble-wrap with a flashlight inside it, or a Roger Corman cucumber creature, or an ‘Out of the Unknown’ Thermos-liner spaceship. If the writing is even a bit good, you can invest yourself in what the writer /wanted/ you to believe in and your imagination can make up other 80%.

    I’m not saying that filmmakers shouldn’t strive for excellence in effects (or excellence in anything), but right now ‘good effects’ are f-a-r from the biggest problem that cinema has…..

  • Toby Clark

    “I should note that even as incredible as T2 was, and I saw it at a midnight showing the night before it officially opened, I could never completely get past the fact that it screwed up the time travel stuff in the first film.”

    This was my opinion exactly: the shift from stable time loop/predestination paradox to them creating sn alternate timeline. Not only are T1 and T2 mutually contradictory in this area, T2 serves to seriously lower the stakes in T1 when you realise that Kyle going back in time to save Sarah will have no effect on the timeline he came from and remembers. T3 may make it even more confusing with “Judgement Day is inevitable,” but I think overall the trilogy was a more cohesive story than the duology was.

    The other complaint I have with T2 is the T-1000 – it may look stunning but I refuse to believe that it would be possible at a time when the T-800s are a fairly recent development (as Kyle says in T1). At least the T-X still used an endoskeleton.

    As for Avatar – I agree about the lack of orginality (despite not having seen Dances With Wolves or Last Samurai – what it made me think of was Star Trek: Insurrection, but Avatar was better there), but I was still invested in the characters. Sam Worthingotn was good (although his accent seemed to be slipping a lot), as were most of the others. I’d give it 4 1/2 stars.

    I’m looking forward to seeing Sherlock Holmes, although I’ve always preferred the Poirot books.

  • professorKettlewell

    Terrahawk: The whole ‘strong women’ thing. That reminded me of a review I read years ago of ‘Ring’, which complimented the storytelling but then said “….but I don’t think Japanese cinema is ready for a strong woman just yet”. I’ll admit that blindsided me. As far as I saw it, Reiko was pretty much the definition of a ‘strong woman’. She’s of average intelligence and education, scared out of her wits, out of her depth, but she keeps on trying to solve the problem that will kill her son if she fails. I daresay the reviewer was harping on the fact that she ‘has to turn to a Man for help’ instead of strapping on thigh boots and kicking Sadoko’s ass(tm) with hitherto-undisclosed Kung Fu, whilst saying something like “Bring it on, Bitch”. Well, you know what? If I was being hunted by a killer ghost, and my ex-husband had minor psychic abilities and bigger biceps than me, I’d ask him for help too. That’s not weak, it’s just smart. Oh wait. I think I do understand.

    I don’t get why ‘strong’ has to equal ‘superhero’. You watch ‘North by Northwest’ or ‘Casablanca’ or even ‘White Heat’, or ‘Star Wars’ for chrissakes, and you have very flawed, even weak characters who prove themselves heroic by Choosing to face the danger, knowing perfectly well that they’re ill-equipped for it, and are going to have to mine ever atom of courage they have to survive. Maybe it’s just me, but I can get on-side with that kind of character much more than some god-given ass-kicking machine who is so awesome that you never believe that they’re actually going to be in danger (and please look at ken’s review of ‘On Deadly Ground’ for where I got all of that from!)

  • Mr. Rational

    Professor: Consider yourself seconded, thirded, and fourthed.

  • professorKettlewell

    Thank-you, Mr. R.
    Really.

  • Petoht

    All I can think of is a friend’s reaction to Avatar: “I wonder if all this new technology Cameron invented will ever be used to make a good film.”

  • P Stroud

    At least in T2 Cameron closed the time loop. He effectively ended the Terminator series. It was T3 that completely blew it apart. As ham handed as Cameron’s handling of time travel may have been it was at least somewhat thoughtful. This is far different than the usual scifi handling of time travel which is patently ludicrous.

    Time travel is extremely difficult to handle in film. And in prose. It is full of paradoxes no matter how you handle it. A couple of the best writings on time travel are Larry Niven’s essay in “A hole In Space” and Keith Laumer’s wonderful story “Dinosaur Beach”.

    Niven explains how and why that in a universe where time travel is possible it will never be invented. LOL!

  • Toby Clark

    “At least in T2 Cameron closed the time loop. He effectively ended the Terminator series.”

    Maybe, but T1 could have stood by itself and I would’ve been satisfied. I revere T1 as a mindblowing portrayal of the predestination paradox (in addition to being a flawless movie in pretty much every aspect) and found it really annoying that Cameron screwed that up by introducing multiple timelines in T2. The two theories should be mutually incompatible.

    The thing that bothers me about Cameron trying to end the series with T2 is that there’s evidence in T1 to suggest that the Resistance in the future didn’t want Judgement Day averted. Reese is sent back to ensure that John will be born, survive the war and lead humanity to victory. That was what the message to Sarah was, no the “No Fate but what we make” motto retconned into T2. To quote the TVTropes “JustBugsMe/Terminator” page:

    “The Resistance has already won. Sure, it would be nice if they could prevent the whole thing from coming to pass in the first place… but they’re not sure they can. They have no idea what kind of time paradox they might or might not obliterate themselves with if they tried such a drastic history-change as suggested above. However, since they have already achieved their minimum objective (destroy Skynet and assure the future of the human race) in the future, then all they have to do is preserve that victory against Skynet’s attempts to change history. Or to put it more simply: Skynet is willing to gamble its entire existence on risky time paradoxes because it has nothing left to lose anyway. The Resistance most definitely has something left to lose, and thus won’t”

    In the end, T2 worked much better for me as an installment in a series, not the conclusion to it.

  • sandra

    Basil Rathbone made two Sherlock Holmes films set in the Victorian era: Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. They are the only ones worth watching. If you watched the entire run of films, with the Nazis etc, Dr Watson’s IQ waxed and waned from one film to another. There were one or two ( can’t remember which ones) where he was fairly sensible, and others in which he didn’t seem bright enough to put his shoes on the correct feet. Nigel Bruce just did his best with whatever the script demanded. To me, Rathbone is the definitive Holmes.

  • Dr. Whiggs

    It really bugged me for a few days that I didn’t like Avatar that much. I was just disappointed with the whole thing. It’s pretty enough, but I wasn’t really impressed with the effects. Every creature just looked so unnatural, like an entire planet populated by evolutionary mistakes (I’ll give a pass on there not being anything with fur or feathers because they’re such a bitch to animate.) And since the bad guys were so shallow I started thinking of them as guys just trying to put food on the table for their family back home so they took a highly dangerous job on Pandora and put on this aggressive front to cope with it. Plus the whole turning against humanity thing. And why humanity was even there in the first place since they never say unobtainium does anything but sell for a lot of money. Plus I couldn’t get any popcorn which didn’t help any.

    And I don’t think James Cameron has a problem with the normal military, I think he had a problem with private military forces, since bad guys in Aliens and Avatar were mercenary or private military companies.