Things you're tired of seeing in movies
- Thread starter Joosh
- Start date
Riceball
Master Member
Yes, and do I ever hate what they did with the sound effects! I loved the original sound effects, one of the few times I've heard a rotary cannon actually sound like it should, and they had to go in and replace all of the sound effects, whoever the idiots were that thought that was a good idea deserves to be shot.
Riceball
Master Member
In the case of Future Past I wouldn't say that it's a matter of not knowing what time they're supposed to be in, they clearly state that it's 1973 and most everything from the clothes to the current events fit, it's just that the director and some of his staff weren't careful enough in weeding out all of the anachronisms. There's the K-pot as you mentioned and another big one was Xavier's Gulfstream, someone pointed it's a model that wasn't available yet in '73 but that's minor since how many people know one business jet from another? The big mistake was using a modern Gulfstream that had the upswept wing tips, an innovation in aviation tech that didn't come around until much, much later, like decades later.
Solo4114
Master Member
They actually play with this one in the original Total Recall. It's great.
In a practical sense, that's because the movie gets in trouble if they use an actual OS and don't pay for the license to show it on the screen, I expect. This is why you see so many ridiculous made-up GUIs that say things like "Decrypting KeyCode" or whatever obvious statement you need to make. It's even more noticeable if you go back and watch stuff from the 1990s and see how "made up" computers worked back then.
That would work fine if I got to actually see these people kick a little ass first. It's the "Show, don't tell" principle. Don't brag to me about how big and tough you are. Show me. If you want to showcase these jaegers as badasses, show me them taking down a couple low-level Kaiju right from the outset, and THEN have the bigger kaiju come out. Show me them struggling and using all the weapons they were holding back -- you know, form blazing sword -- and have it make zero difference when tehy get squished finally. You can kill 'em all at once or in rapid succession, but don't spend time TELLING me about how awesome they are, only to have them go down like a bunch of punks.
At least in Aliens, it made sense given that Frost took all the ammo, and then got killed quickly, leaving everyone else basically unarmed.
Saw a youtube comparison and it was...painful. Like when they added the magnum blasts to the E-11s in the the first Star Wars movie for one of the releases.
The corollary to this is "...and they never have any shrapnel sticking out of them afterwards and no concussive effects."
The better set to watch is the Animeigo Macross one, if you can find it. It's GORGEOUS and has the old sound effects nicely restored.
Riceball
Master Member
I have that one already, I was one of the people who pre-ordered it when they first announced that they were going to remaster Macross. Why ADV/Harmony Gold felt the need to completely redo all of the sound effects when they remastered Robotech is beyond me, if Animeigo was able to remaster Macross without having to create new sound effects then why couldn't ADV/GH since they almost certainly got their hands on the masters. All they had to was take the masters, do a little editing and remaster the dub track and they're good to go.
Solo4114
Master Member
My guess is that their sound masters were garbage and hadn't been preserved well. As I recall, they re-dubbed just about everything for Robotech, including the foley stuff. That was all done in the 80s, and I think they only did it in stereo. While they might've been able to split the stereo track into a multi-channel track, I seem to recall something about how the masters had degraded in quality to the point that they couldn't do it. It's probably more that they couldn't afford to do it based on their budget, rather than it being technically impossible, though. And don't forget that the Animeigo set cost something like $150-200 when it came out in 2001. If they wanted to sell the Robotech Remastered stuff at a competitive price, they probably had to skip trying to remaster the older stuff, and just record/mix in new stuff.
This, of course, is why I haven't bothered buying them, which is a shame, since I hear the visuals are much improved.
I don't recall them showing the various jaegers actually in action. Still, I'd have preferred to see them fight a bit and win some, THEN fall.
Riceball
Master Member
That's my thinking too but they could easily have used the sound masters from Animeigo and just remastered the dialogue separately, by the time they started working on it they should have been able to digitally separate the dialogue from the rest of the soundtrack, they were obviously able to do it since they recorded brand new sound effects to replace the originals and, presumably, remastered the background music as well. As far as the visuals go, they obviously just used Animeigo's masters as the basis for everything and they are beautiful, the studio that did the work of cleaning everything up did such a good job that they actually had to add film grain back in to keep from looking too clean.
If memory serves, ADV eventually released the set themselves after Animeigo's license eventually expired so if you can't find a copy of the original Animeigo you might be able to find a copy of the ADV re-release. They also released, and I think did a little remastering, of Southern Cross and Mospeada in their original Japanese forms as well.
p51
Sr Member
How about explosions that toss people a long way when it wouldn't in real life? I've bene Danger Close to a JADAMS going off and that didn't throw me through the air (did rip the soft covers off a couple of REMF types, though). Yet, in Hellboy, a MKII frag tosses that German tech guy what, about 15 feet? That was insane!
Solo4114
Master Member
Well, you're dealing with a PG-13 rating. Either we toss the guy around like a ragdoll, or we make it more realistic and gruesome. But either way, the "impact" of the grenade needs to be felt (um...for some reason that I no longer recall).
As long as we're talking about explosions, there's also the "cool guys walk away from explosions" thing. No deafness, no concussions, no shrapnel, no singed hair, hell, their hair doesn't even get mussed by the wall of hot air that ought to be rushing past them while they coolly walk away.
Actually, the only movie I ever saw (that I can recall) where the hero and leading lady had their backs to an explosion and they ACTUALLY get hurt by shrapnel was The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. Some bomb went off, blew them forward, and as they slowly and achingly got up, they had shrapnel sticking out of their back. Granted, it didn't (as I recall) incapacitate them, but at least it was THERE. My friend and I were stunned when we saw this.
Lutso
Sr Member
I'm so freaking sick of this.
p51
Sr Member
Yeah, I was reasonably impressed with that movie overall. The use of steam locomotives on modern Russian railroads was comical, though.
Yeah, me too, when it comes to stuff after the credits. My wife has to get up and practically sprint out of a theater the very moment the credits roll, so if I'm at a movie with her, there's no way I'll get to see it...
it's not so much about using a recognizable OS.In a practical sense, that's because the movie gets in trouble if they use an actual OS and don't pay for the license to show it on the screen, I expect. This is why you see so many ridiculous made-up GUIs that say things like "Decrypting KeyCode" or whatever obvious statement you need to make. It's even more noticeable if you go back and watch stuff from the 1990s and see how "made up" computers worked back then.
I get that.
It's the insipid rendition of what's considered "high tech"
It'd be a nice change if the screens just looked cluttered with cryptic code ... instead of the giant idiot-proof font and animations.
p51
Sr Member
I ran a grenade range for the Army once and watched them blow up from the tower from behind a foot or armored glass (until one fragment hit right between my eyes on the glass and I decided that was enough for me even though there was zero danger if it reaching me). They actually blow up with a dark brown cloud. More noise than anything, they're not impressive to watch going off but they are impressively loud.
p51
Sr Member
How about the use of tasers (like Stryker used on Mystique in the Oval Office)? I'm sure people didn't have them way back then.
Or, for that matter, how about Stryker? By 1973, he already had Wolverine in his special unit, if you're to believe the first Wolverine movie, why didn't that occur to anyone?
Riceball
Master Member
The first is another one, of many, anachronisms in the movie but not too bad of one since the Taser is listed as having been finished in '74 although that doesn't mean that it readily available. I just chalk it off to the writers not doing enough homework as to what was and was not available in 1973 although the K-pot was clearly a matter of laziness and the wardrobe dept. not wanting to dig up an M1 and/or the director not caring.
As for the Weapon X program and Stryker, that, if it did occur around or by '73, then that's a pretty big, and glaring for those who have actually seen the Wolverine movies, plot hole.
obiwan kowalski
Well-Known Member
Thank high definition tv for that one
Similar threads
