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Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

bitterandtwisted posted:

Yeah, TWotW just feels so... modern? The pacing and characters and elements of action and horror don't read like something I'd expect from the late 19th century.

I think it would be hard to do a new adaption not set in present day America. as the core premise of the story is humanity's greatest ever superpower being hopelessly outmatched by an alien force.
I'd be interested in a Victorian England version for sure, but if the aliens took casualties from pre-WW1 artillery and battleships it would probably diminish their threat to a modern audience.

I recall something about how Spielberg talked to army officers about the original Martians and basically concluded that a modern military would completely decimate the original WotW Martians.

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well why not
Feb 10, 2009




I'm not exactly a hoo-rah military worshipper (far from it) but it'd be pretty funny to see the Martians just get blasted by UAVs the minute they touch down. UAVs are scarier than most alien tech in media.

Hyrax Attack!
Jan 13, 2009

We demand to be taken seriously

Inescapable Duck posted:

I recall something about how Spielberg talked to army officers about the original Martians and basically concluded that a modern military would completely decimate the original WotW Martians.

I liked the action scenes in that movie, but as a story it was dull as dishwater. One thing most people know about the book is that germs take down the martians... and that happens without any twist. I wish they had used the Alan Moore idea, where germs kill the martians, but they are biological warfare adapted from anthrax and smallpox (or something) and also wipe out lots of humans in the war zone. But that might have hurt the go go USA theme.

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

DesperateDan posted:

That film could have really done with pretty much anyone but cruise in the lead role, and an ending that wasn't the inevitable 9/11 based hoorah stuff.

I thought the ending was kind of awesome and also kind of thumbing its nose at the usual Tom Cruise protagonist hero idea because even though Cruise's character spends the entire movie keeping his kids alive at the end they still run to their mom and leave him alone because he was a lovely dad his entire life and even if he saved their lives he's still awful at being an actual parent.

Also while talking about Hollywood directors, it was a TV movie and not a show but The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan has aged terribly for pretty obvious reasons. It came out in 2004, right when his whole reputation as The Next Hitchcock was at its highest right before the fall from grace of The Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening, and it's a huge monument to ego that was obnoxious at the time and is downright shameful now:

Matt Singer posted:

the film, directed by and starring real-life documentarian Nathaniel Kahn (“My Architect”), was produced for the Sci-Fi Channel in 2004 as guerilla marketing for Shyamalan’s then upcoming feature “The Village.” Within the narrative of the film, Sci-Fi hires Kahn to make a puff piece, Shyamalan avoids the cameras, Kahn starts digging, and finds all kinds of skeletons in his closet. It could be a goofy, winking joke, but rather than air it as a goofy, winking joke, Sci-Fi actually tried to pass the film off as a legitimate documentary. They even convinced the Associated Press that it was true and that Shyamalan was fighting to keep the film from airing; the AP, in turn, published this article detailing the way “Buried Secret,” intended as a “benign profile,” “went sour” until “Shyamalan quit on-screen.” Days before the three-hour doc (about two hours and ten minutes plus TV commercials) was set to air, though, Sci-Fi was forced to admit it had lied about the film and their battle with Shyamalan in another AP story. “We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning,” said network president Bonnie Hammer.

Let’s get right to the part-fiction stuff. As hard as hard as it might be to believe — especially when you realize that someone thought the public might actually accept this thing as gospel truth — the Shyamalan of “Buried Secret” is a man who has touched the beyond. The secret he’s tried so hard to bury — SPOILER ALERT; READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN’S MADE-UP SEVEN-YEAR-OLD LIFE-ALTERING SECRET — is that at the age of 11, he died for thirty-five minutes, drowning at the bottom of a pond. After they fished Shyamalan out and undied him (the movie does not explain how), young Night found that he could communicate with dead people, a la Haley Joel Osment’s character in “The Sixth Sense.” Thus, as Kahn says to Shyamalan in the confrontation that supposedly pissed him off, “Your movies aren’t fiction, Night. They’re autobiography!”

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Hyrax Attack! posted:

I wish they had used the Alan Moore idea, where germs kill the martians, but they are biological warfare adapted from anthrax and smallpox (or something) and also wipe out lots of humans in the war zone. But that might have hurt the go go USA theme.

Which were, of course, created by Dr Moreau.

SneezeOfTheDecade
Feb 6, 2011

gettin' covid all
over your posts

Hyrax Attack! posted:

I liked the action scenes in that movie, but as a story it was dull as dishwater. One thing most people know about the book is that germs take down the martians... and that happens without any twist. I wish they had used the Alan Moore idea, where germs kill the martians, but they are biological warfare adapted from anthrax and smallpox (or something) and also wipe out lots of humans in the war zone. But that might have hurt the go go USA theme.

I dunno, WotW is basically "what if New World diseases had killed off Old World colonists the way Old World diseases killed off New World inhabitants", and making them artificial and weaponized deflates the premise a little.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire
Seriously thats dumb. The entire point of WotW is that the smallest thing we take for granted brings down a mighty empire. Bioengineering a virus is just "humans rule!"

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




RagnarokAngel posted:

Seriously thats dumb. The entire point of WotW is that the smallest thing we take for granted brings down a mighty empire. Bioengineering a virus is just "humans rule!"

That's not really the message of that comic. It's more: Humans ready to do some really shady poo poo in order to win a war.

Eh! Frank
Mar 28, 2006

Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

RagnarokAngel posted:

Bioengineering a virus is just "humans rule!"

That pretty much describes the end of Independence Day.

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

Alhazred posted:

That's not really the message of that comic. It's more: Humans ready to do some really shady poo poo in order to win a war.

Also Mr Hyde rapes the Invisible Man to death, Harry Potter kills people by shooting lightning out of his dick, and Rupert Bear fucks prostitutes hired by Dr. Moreau.

bunnyofdoom
Mar 29, 2008

Jaxxon: Still not the stupidest thing from the expanded universe.



Guys I am starting to think Alan Moore isn't actually that good

Precambrian
Apr 30, 2008

Alhazred posted:

That's not really the message of that comic. It's more: Humans ready to do some really shady poo poo in order to win a war.

That's actually much worse. That's ladeling some edgy Jack Bauer poo poo over the actual message about colonization and the colonized, like they just had to "toughen up" and "cross ethical lines" to preserve their cultures against invaders. How do you gently caress up the message of WotW that badly?

bunnyofdoom posted:

Guys I am starting to think Alan Moore isn't actually that good

I have read, like, one Alan Moore thing, but WotW is the exact sort of story Moore should get, so I'm just baffled that he'd miss the point so badly.

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

I rather suspect Alan Moore does get War of the Worlds, but has chosen to appropriate it to explore other ideas rather than retell a story already told.

Precambrian
Apr 30, 2008

Lt. Danger posted:

I rather suspect Alan Moore does get War of the Worlds, but has chosen to appropriate it to explore other ideas rather than retell a story already told.

Yeah, but to replace it with "hard men making hard choices?" I have to assume I'm misunderstanding the story here, because that one's been told to hell and back.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
I believe the use of bio-weapons against the Martians is there so Nemo chooses to quit and break up the team.

(The best parody/take-off/pseudo-sequel to WotW is "Famous Monsters" by Kim Newman, where the humans and aliens make peace and one of them - the narrator - goes to Hollywood and becomes the first Martian in movies.)

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

As I understand it League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is commentary on the British literary canon in general, not the War of the Worlds (original version or otherwise).

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

bunnyofdoom posted:

Guys I am starting to think Alan Moore isn't actually that good

Complaining about The Simpsons sucking is beyond old hat but I still get a kick about him using his cameo to complain about corporations running popular things into the ground...over half a decade past the point where most people agree The Simpsons just became a soulless marketing fixture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGJs1l19aU&t=35s

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Lt. Danger posted:

As I understand it League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is commentary on the British literary canon in general, not the War of the Worlds (original version or otherwise).

I admit I'm not sure how I'm meant to take Alan Moore denouncing James Bond as a racist, sexist alcoholic thug (fair enough)... through the mouthpiece of an H. Rider Haggard character. Like, is that meant to be ironic, or is it just, "It's okay if my childhood favourites are problematic"? :shrug:

bunnyofdoom
Mar 29, 2008

Jaxxon: Still not the stupidest thing from the expanded universe.



Honestly, the fact he also poo poo on Harry potter so hard...I think Moore is basically just the guy who is "if you don't enjoy/hate what I enjoy/hate you are a drooling moron so I am going to make what you love bad"

trickybiscuits
Jan 13, 2008

yospos

HopperUK posted:

I remember as they drove away from the destruction, the little girl in the backseat crying, "Is it the terrorists?" and that really got to me. The idea that 'the terrorists' were the boogeymen for little kids now. The movie isn't great but yeah, it has its moments.
My dad grew up in Bayonne so when he and my mother first watched it they cheered when the Bayonne Bridge collapsed.

artsy fartsy
May 10, 2014

You'll be ahead instead of behind. Hello!
Ugh I'm watching That 70s Show and Donna keeps telling Hyde to stop hitting on her and finally she blows up and he's all "well look at you, can you blame me" and it's grooooss, and the laugh track is terrible.

54 40 or fuck
Jan 4, 2012

No Yanda's allowed
Sitcoms are so universally bad. There are very few examples of the formula actually being good.

Mr.Tophat
Apr 7, 2007

You clearly don't understand joke development :justpost:

trickybiscuits posted:

My dad grew up in Bayonne so when he and my mother first watched it they cheered when the Bayonne Bridge collapsed.

Why?

BIG FLUFFY DOG
Feb 16, 2011

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.



If you are from anywhere in America which isn't San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Boston, or New York proper you get reeaaallllyyy excited when the national media remembers you exist, even if its derogatory.

Thursday Next
Jan 11, 2004

FUCK THE ISLE OF APPLES. FUCK THEM IN THEIR STUPID ASSES.
Roseanne actually aged extremely well; it's still a great show. But the episode where Roseanne walks out of the plastics factory job (end of season 1) is unbelievable. Her boss is so insanely over the top sexist that she'd be turning away crowds of lawyers begging to take her case.

All the bosses on the show are white men with 0 skills, and the show doesn't address it or mock it.

Also, the show references them buying their 3-bedroom house for $30,000.

Aesop Poprock
Oct 21, 2008


Grimey Drawer

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

If you are from anywhere in America which isn't San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Boston, or New York proper you get reeaaallllyyy excited when the national media remembers you exist, even if its derogatory.

Philadelphia as well, although it's usually portrayed as terribly as possible which of course is the only way Philadelphians would accept it. Probably one of the few cities whose self pride is entirely predicated on how terrible everyone else views it as

BIG FLUFFY DOG
Feb 16, 2011

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.


Aesop Poprock posted:

Philadelphia as well, although it's usually portrayed as terribly as possible which of course is the only way Philadelphians would accept it. Probably one of the few cities whose self pride is entirely predicated on how terrible everyone else views it as

I once knew a man from Owensboro, KY who bragged about the fact that the city was mention once on the Lucy Show the lesser-known sequel to I Love Lucy. It is mentioned in one line, as the hometown of a one-episode guest character from a TV show that's 50 years old. Like people from Seattle being proud of Frasier but inmesurably sadder. It was one of the purest distillations of Middle America I'd ever seen.

BIG FLUFFY DOG has a new favorite as of 22:39 on Aug 19, 2017

Dr Christmas
Apr 24, 2010

Berninating the one percent,
Berninating the Wall St.
Berninating all the people
In their high rise penthouses!
🔥😱🔥🔫👴🏻
Last year on Archer, they had an episode of Archer where he deals with some old boarding school bullies, and there's a flashback to them giving him a swirly. These bigger kids get in his face, screaming "Do you want to die?!" Then they punch him in the nose, bloodying his face, and during the swirly he aspirates pee water and is afterwards hospitalized for pneumonia. It's all portrayed to make you sympathize with Archer.

It made me think back to the 90s, where cartoons like Doug and Recess used swirlies and the threat thereof as a relatively benign and silly matter, I guess because just getting beat up was too serious. But now because of that Archer bit, I can never look at it the same way.

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

Thursday Next posted:

All the bosses on the show are white men with 0 skills, and the show doesn't address it or mock it.

By all accounts of that show's production, that's just being true to Roseanne's actual bosses.

Comstar
Apr 20, 2007

Are you happy now?
The Dukes of Hazard seem a bit problematic these days. Turns out it was pulled off the air (never to return?) of reruns 2 years ago due to the flag and name of the car.


A hit Australian TV series that went for 7 years is never going to be shown again after the lead actor was convicted of two counts of sexual intercourse with a child, seven counts of indecent assault upon a person under the age of 16 and one count of committing an indecent act. The final episode everyone dies from a bank robbers bomb which is kinda dark for a sitcom (which the characters mentioned).

Comstar has a new favorite as of 23:16 on Aug 19, 2017

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Precambrian posted:

That's actually much worse. That's ladeling some edgy Jack Bauer poo poo over the actual message about colonization and the colonized, like they just had to "toughen up" and "cross ethical lines" to preserve their cultures against invaders.

No. The british government is portrayed as unambiguously bad guys for using bio-weapons and launching them at south London. I mean, the whole comic starts out with the quote "The British Empire has always encountered difficulty in distinguishing between its heroes and its monsters" so I really doubt that Moore is going all ""UK gently caress yeah!

Wheat Loaf posted:

I believe the use of bio-weapons against the Martians is there so Nemo chooses to quit and break up the team.

Not that Nemo is that much better since he's portrayed as considering a massacre of englishmen as "acceptable losses".

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

If you are from anywhere in America which isn't San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Boston, or New York proper you get reeaaallllyyy excited when the national media remembers you exist, even if its derogatory.

Can confirm. Despite the fact that I've only lived here for less than a decade, I get a warm feeling whenever Albany, NY or any of the cities or towns in the area get mentioned, even derisively.

Alhazred posted:

No. The british government is portrayed as unambiguously bad guys for using bio-weapons and launching them at south London. I mean, the whole comic starts out with the quote "The British Empire has always encountered difficulty in distinguishing between its heroes and its monsters" so I really doubt that Moore is going all ""UK gently caress yeah!


Not that Nemo is that much better since he's portrayed as considering a massacre of englishmen as "acceptable losses".

I couldn't actually get past the first few pages of LoEG because it starts with one of the protagonists almost being raped by Arab caricatures who spoke clearly miswritten Arabic only to be saved by a Great White Hero.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I couldn't actually get past the first few pages of LoEG because it starts with one of the protagonists almost being raped by Arab caricatures who spoke clearly miswritten Arabic only to be saved by a Great White Hero.

Well, like I said:

Wheat Loaf posted:

I admit I'm not sure how I'm meant to take Alan Moore denouncing James Bond as a racist, sexist alcoholic thug (fair enough)... through the mouthpiece of an H. Rider Haggard character. Like, is that meant to be ironic, or is it just, "It's okay if my childhood favourites are problematic"? :shrug:

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
I'm sorry dorkwads, but Alan Moore is actually just a really lovely writer who doesn't actually get what makes something good and is pretty much the poster boy for pseudo-edgy white guys who think they're smarter than everyone else.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Wheat Loaf posted:

Well, like I said:

I don't know enough about the franchise or apparently Victorian adventure pulps to understand how these two relate. :smith:

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax
Even at it's most problematic the first few arcs of LoEG we're entertaining which is more than you can say for almost every other "*every pop culture thing I like comes in for a HUGE party*" thing out there, public domain or otherwise. Just stop after the War of the Worlds arc and you're good, it even functions as a pretty natural end point.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Pick posted:

I'm sorry dorkwads, but Alan Moore is actually just a really lovely writer who doesn't actually get what makes something good and is pretty much the poster boy for pseudo-edgy white guys who think they're smarter than everyone else.

He's no Neil Gaiman.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I don't know enough about the franchise or apparently Victorian adventure pulps to understand how these two relate. :smith:

H. Rider Haggard created Quatermain and he was a great adventure writer, but his work has a reputation for embodying a lot of the worst colonialist and chauvinistic attitudes of his day. He has been described by one African literary critic as "one of the geniuses of racism".

Guy Mann posted:

Even at it's most problematic the first few arcs of LoEG we're entertaining which is more than you can say for almost every other "*every pop culture thing I like comes in for a HUGE party*" thing out there, public domain or otherwise. Just stop after the War of the Worlds arc and you're good, it even functions as a pretty natural end point.

I think Anno Dracula is better than LoEG.

SneezeOfTheDecade
Feb 6, 2011

gettin' covid all
over your posts
Let's talk about how well Predator and 48 Hours aged so I can feel better about Sonny Landham dying. (I haven't seen them in ages and I'm away from home, someone else go first.)

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Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Besesoth posted:

Let's talk about how well Predator and 48 Hours aged so I can feel better about Sonny Landham dying. (I haven't seen them in ages and I'm away from home, someone else go first.)

"Get to the choppa" will never die, so Predator definitely does not belong in this thread. :911:

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