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Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: 2010 The Thread

Post by Shrapnel »

Sharknado: A Hate Filled Rant

I saw Sharknado the other day, and I must say that it is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and that’s saying something. Because I like you all so much, here’s my rant.

I went into it expecting an hour or so’s worth of schlocky entertainment. This hope was dashed the minute I saw that fact that it was an Asylum film.

For those of you fortunate enough to be ignorant about Asylum’s existence, then you should know that they make three kinds of films: horrifically terrible knock-offs of current, big-name blockbuster films (these are what Asylum is most well known for), bad sex comedies, and every single SyFy original movie ever to disgrace the history of television, of which Sharknado was another in a long and proud tradition of crimes against humanity and several species of moss. It's like they try to make the worst movies possible.

So, back to Sharknado. The basic “premise” is that a super storm has formed off the coast of LA and there are sharks inside the storm that are deposited on LA, and the cheesiest CGI sharks ever made and some of the worst “actors” to graduate from Fluffy’s Discount Skool O’ Actin’™ get killed the most stupidest, pointless, unnecessary and gratuitously violent manner possible.

The supposed special effects in the film would have looked bad even in the mid-eighties. Hell, it would have looked bad in the mid-forties. The CGI in this movie is some of the worst I’ve seen in an Asylum film, and that’s really saying something.

The film starts the way most Asylum films do: With a scene that is supposedly supposed to set up and expositionize the film, but ultimately has nothing to do with anything ever. This time, the scene is a fishing boat in the middle of CGI ocean that’s probably a rendering of the director’s tub during bath time.

Apparently, this boat is an illegal fishing boat full of illegal fishermen catching rubber shark props for their fins or something in shark filled waters. This isn’t really made all that clear, as the only thing that implies it is the stereotypical Shady and Amoral Russian Shark Hunting Boat Captain and the stereotypical Asian Guy Who Looks Asian but Sounds Whiter Than Princess Di engaging in some sort of shady business deal about buying the Illegal Shark Fins®. This scene is really riveting and gripping as the SAARSHBC guy vaguely threatens AGWLABSWTPD dude with a vague gun prop to pay ONE MILLION DOLLARS for the fins, and the AGWLABSWTPD dude agrees because he’s French and thus has no courage.

Then the SAARSHBC guy says some line about people shouldn’t fear sharks, sharks should fear people, because gun’s don’t kill people, people kill guns. But seriously, it’s like this guy is begging for a Sharknado to happen.

And happen it does, as a storm then begins to whip up. Apparently the sharks are swept up by the storm and are flopped onto the boat where they begin to unconvincingly eat the crew, until only the AGWLABSWTPD dude and the SAARSHBC guy are left. There’re some confusing bits about the Asian guy trying to run off with the fins for himself or something, and the Russian guy shoots at him and the Asian guy shoots back and so on until the Asian dude get’s shot in the leg and is eaten by a shark. The Russian dude then looks all happy and shit but then gets his face torn off by something or another.

No, really. This is how the film starts.

So the next scene is a beach at the coast of LA or Florence or somewhere, and there’re lots of unnecessary ass shots of chicks in bikinis. There’s some chick that’s busy putting on a wet suit and some shots of two surfer guys, who are apparently the main characters, disappointingly enough. One of them, the MAIN HERO, is a dude named Fin (no, really) and some other guy whose name I forget, but he’s Certifiably Australian Tasmanian (supposedly).

The Certified Aussie and Finnish McFinFan are dicking around in the water and surfing or whatever, and then Finland Von Assdouche starts flirting with the chick in the wet suit and shit, and you think, “Okay, there’s been some close up shots of this chick’s bikini. She must be important!” NOPE. She gets eaten by a supposed shark, and drowns in a pool of red food coloring. Certified Aussie and Finfuck get to shore, but not until a shark bits Certified Aussie’s leg and causes more red food coloring to seep out into the ocean.

(NOTE: Despite Certified Aussie’s leg having been bitten and doused in food coloring, he runs around like a freaky douche all throughout the movie like his leg is perfectly fine and not covered in food dye.)

Finnyfinfin tries to warn the people on the beach to get out because “DUDE SHARK” but because this is LA or Oregon they’re all stupid and get eaten. Whoo.

(One of my favorite deaths is this one chick who just falls down for no apparent reason, and she has a small bloody spot on her neck, but nothing to indicate a shark attacked her, or that anything happened to her at all. I like to think she tripped over the extension cord the camcorder that this movie was clearly shot with was hooked up to.)

At some point there was some scene (I can’t remember the exact sequencing, because I’m in the process of trying to forget it) set in a beachside bar which Fintin supposedly owns that introduced two other characters: Nova, a barmaidess with one of the stupidest names in the universe and some vague backstory involving a shark attack, and Stu (not the actual name), the World’s Drunkest Fuck, who seems to be permanently welded to the stool stuck to his ass.

I should point out here that I immediately hated Nova and the actress playing her. I’m not really sure why. The whole movie I rooted for her death, got rewarded, and then cheated. More on that later.

So Fickle Findick and Certified Aussie get to the bar, shoot the shit for a few minutes, ignoring the shark attack to make some jabs at Stu the World’s Drunkest Fuck, show that Nova has the hots for Fintard (eeeewwww, to both parties), and that he doesn’t reciprocate said hots because he has the worlds ugliest wife that he has marriage problems with because reasons and he still loves her because her face could crack mirrors.

But then the sharks are somehow whipped through the glass and there’s more people getting eaten. Fingers and Nova grab some guns from nowhere to shoot the fuck out of the sharks, with one being killed by having a gas canister stuck in it’s mouth and having it blown up (hmm… that seems familiar).

(Sharknado knows it’s a terrible film, so it tries to emulate better films and fail miserably. Also, somehow Fin “I-got-rejected-by-every-single-girl-and-guy-in-high-school-so-I’m-a-raging-flaming-waste-of-carbon” and Nova of “Derrr, I have teeth” fame somehow have excellent gunmanship skills, which get ever more ridiculous as the film goes on.)

Soon Finfuggermuggernart, Certified Aussie, Stu the World’s Fuckest Drunk, and Nova clamber into an SUV that happens to be there and try to escape to Beverly Hills, except the storm is flooding the streets, which is allowing the sharks to also come inland.

Well, I say “flooding”, but it’s more like there’s two inches of water on the road, and somehow the sharks are able to swim in tiny puddles.

Not much happens, except for this one part where our Intrepid Gang© comes across some people stranded in an inch of water. Finscrotum tries to save them from the puddle jumping sharks, and, unfortunately, mostly succeeds. There’s one chick whose dog is trapped in her car, and Stu the Worlds Drunkest Fuck finally puts his stool to good use and uses it to smash open the car window, enabling the dog, the only actual actor in this entire film, to escape. However, Stu “The Stoolman” Stewart, the World Drunkest Fuck, just stupidly lingers around the one quarter of a centimeter of rainwater, and gets eaten by a shark. He doesn’t try to run, doesn’t listen to his friends to get out of the half-a-cup's worth of shark water, doesn’t do anything except turn towards the shark and say “Oh, crap.” with little to no inflection or emotion. The shark immediately died of alcohol poisoning.

But the Intrepid Gang doesn’t mourn the death of their friend and Guinness Book of World Records holder of Drunkest Man to Have Still Functioning Liver, as they get over it and move on to better things in ten seconds.

Soon the Intrepid Gang is on their way again, and during the trip we learn that Fin I’m Running Out of Insulting Names has an ugly-ass daughter and an ugly-ass son, and that they all live in an ugly-ass house in the ugliest part of LA. Eventually they manage against all odds to arrive at Fin’s house, and he tries to convince his wife, Finny, and daughter, Fin Jr., both products of thousands of generations of inbreeding, to escape with him and his Intrepid Gang.

At first she’s resistant to this, and is all “Fin, we have an unexplained past history that somehow makes us estranged, so I don’t want to go with you” and Fin is like “But Newt, honey, there’s, like, sharks out there,” and she’s all like “I’ve got a new boyfriend, he’s the worlds greatest douchebag after you and that Nova chick, and he treats me like shit so I love him, kthnxby,” and Douchebag McGee, the boyfriend, is like “Yeah, Finnyfinfin, what she said,” and Fin is like “That name was already used,” and Douchebag McGee is like “Yeah, well, FUCK YOU, and furthermore OH FUCK IT’S A SHARK AND I’VE BEEN EATEN” and Fin is like “I have no reason to like you so I’ll try and rescue you even though you’re head first into the sharks gullet, and oh look I’ve managed to rescue your severed legs. Oh well.”

So Fin and Co. manage to escape the house after it gets flooded with about two feet of water, a record high for LA, which causes the house to implode (it really does!). Now the Intrepid Gang is trying to make their way to some flight school where his son is, and the storm stops and everyone’s like “YAY!” but then Fin comes across a school bus full of thirty-eight year old middle school students and a bus driver who manages to snatch the title of “WORLDS UGLIEST PERSON” from Fin’s wife. Now Fin is like “I have to save them” and his wife is like “bitch bitch bitch complain complain” and Fin is like “You make a good point, but I have to save these middle-aged children!”

So he drives over a bridge that the bus is under and for some reason has a winch and rope set that he uses to rappel down to the bus. All of the kids are rescued, along with Fat Ass the bus driver. One everyone’s safe, the storm picks up again and destroys the Hollywood sign, like any proper disaster movie must. So everyone tries to dodge the debris of this iconic landmark that’s whipping at them at about 15 miles per hour, and everyone survives, even Fat Ass. The wind dies down again, and everyone’s like “YAY!” and even Fat Ass is happy and he’s all like “I’m alive! YAY!” but then a giant piece of metal falls from the sky and crushes him and the Intrepid Gang is like “oh, well.”

So now the journey continues. Their SUV breaks down and dies for no reason, and they steel some truck from a Hollywood prop studio or something, that comes with a spiked grill and a Nitrous Button that by all rights shouldn’t work, because it’s, y’know, a prop truck, but it does and even turns out to be a “plot” contrivance.

They eventually reach the flight school, which is next to a retirement home for not even god knows why. Fin finds his son, Fin 2, hiding behind some corrugated steel with some other dudes, and Fin’s like “YAY!” but then the wind picks up again because this time there’s a tornado… WITH SHARKS IN IT. Someone yells what has to be the stupidest “We have a Title” moments ever: “IT’S A SHARKNADO.” The period is there because even though it was yelled, the actor yelling it did not do it well enough to be rewarded an exclamation mark.

So Fin is like “I’m not going to keep running, I’m going to fight it,” and I’m like “WHAT THE FUCK?! How do you fight a fucking tornado sharknado?” and Certified Aussie is like “hey, let’s go find some weapons in this conveniently well stocked supply room. Hey look, gas canisters! We can make bombs out of these!” and Fin 2 is like “But how and why?” and Certified Aussie is like “tornadoes occur when hot air and cold air meet, which is extremely oversimplifying things and is probably the only thing the writers actually know about tornadoes. But if you throw a bomb in the middle of a tornado, then the heat will cause it to equalize, which is utterly batshit insane and not how real life works, so the writers of this film should do their research and then be shot in the head with large caliber bullets so their eyeballs get blasted out of their splattered skulls and sent flying for miles.”
And Fin 2 is like “cool, I’ll fly the one remaining helicopter that has miraculously not been destroyed by the storm and throw the bombs in, and it shouldn't be hard because there’s only three of them.” and Fin is like “But your my son, please don’t.” and Fin 2 is like “It’s okay, Nova is coming with me, because we bonded and she likes me (which is kinda gross because she initially had the hots for you) because she told me her sob story involving sharks that is the reason she hates sharks because when she was a little girl her grandfather or something took her out to fish or something and they ran aground on a reef or something and there were sharks or something and long story short they ate everyone but her.” And Fin is like “Mmm…. Okay.”

Meanwhile, Certified Aussie is busy loading up the truck thing with bombs, and he’s like “In case Fin 2 fails, I’ll suicide bomb one of the sharknados and go out in a blaze of glory, because my leg is busted from that shark attack at the beginning of the film, even though it’s been perfectly fine this whole time.” And Fin is like “But your my friend, please don’t.” and Certified Aussie is like “I've gotta” and Fin is like “Mmm…. Okay.” So he goes back to setting up the truck and some of the dudes that Fin 2 was hiding like a sissy with are helping Certified Aussie set us up the bomb, and then a shark is flung at these dudes and one of them is impaled on the spikes by getting slammed with the shark, and I’m like “I knew that was going to happen.” And then the wind picks up again and Certified Aussie is torn away and sucked up into the sharknado, making his entire role in the film pointless.

Fin is like “No.” and gets over it in two seconds. He then gets his Intrepid Gang to get to the retirement home because those are apparently safe places.

Meanwhile, Fin 2 and Nova are in the helicopter throwing bombs at the sharknados causing them to explode and fizzle out, sending hundreds of thousands of sharks plummeting to the ground below, as well as sending a bunch of them flying towards Fin and Co., but it’s okay because Fin is a master marksman who can blast away the sharks who weigh over 200 pounds and are flying at sixty miles per hour with a small pistol. He also chainsaws one in half as it’s flying towards him.

The second stupidest part of the movie is when one shark lands in the retirement home swimming pool and Fin kills it not by letting die from the chlorine, because it can somehow survive that, but by dumping all of the chlorine into the pool and then lighting some matches and throwing them into the pool, causing it to explode. I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP. IT REALLY HAPPENED.

During the attempt to destroy Sharknado #2, Nova falls out of the helicopter and is swallowed by a shark, and I’m like “YAY!” and feeling like the film now has one redeeming quality. So Fin 2 is like “No.” and gets over it and destroys Sharknado #2, but his helicopter is damaged and he’s forced to land perfectly safe and fine.

So now there’s only one sharknado left, and Fin is like, “I’ma gonna drive the bomb truck into that sucker and save the day.” And so he grabs a chainsaw and speeds off and presses the nitrous button to try and be cool and then the truck gets sucked up and he ducks out of the truck that’s going over 200 miles per hour in midair… and jumps into a shark.

But you know he’s going to survive because he has the chainsaw, and indeed, when the the shark lands he cuts his way out… and drags Nova out with him, at which point I was filled with so much hate for this movie that it’s impossible to put into words. Even worse, she survives. I wanted to stop watching the movie at that point, but Darth Rabbitt, who was watching the movie with me and wasn't worth mentioning to this point, wanted to see the last two minutes. Every time I think about that scene, I feel cheated.

So everyone’s like “YAY!” and then Nova tells Fin 2 her real name, and this is supposed to be some sort of big deal but it’s really lame and retarded and no cares, and the screen cuts to black with the word “Fin”, like they think they’re clever or something.

STUPID QUESTIONS:

[*]How do the sharks survive being picked up hundreds of feet in the air and being whipped around at hundreds of miles per hour? HOW?

[*]How did Nova survive being eaten by a shark after falling out of the helicopter and into a shark’s open maw? For that matter, how the ever-loving fuck did Fin manage to jump into the exact shark that Nova happened to fall into? And why did she have to live? WHY?

[*]Why the fuck is the main character called Fin?

[*]Why does a flight school have a supply room equipped with guns, chainsaws, and the materials to make bombs?

[*]Blowing up a pool with chlorine and a match book? “Equalizing” a tornado with a bomb? Seriously, just, just… what the fuck. God, do I hate this movie.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Tue Jun 30, 2015 5:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Leress »

So, you are mad that an Asylum Film...is like an Asylum Film?
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Post by Shrapnel »

I'm mad that Asylum films exist at all.
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Re: Sharknado: A Rant

Post by talozin »

Shrapnel wrote: So the next scene is a beach at the coast of LA or Florence or somewhere, and there’re lots of unnecessary ass shots of chicks in bikinis.
I am going to disagree with your admirable rant on just this one point (mainly because I have no intention of reading all of it): those were completely necessary ass shots. They enabled me to get through the rest of the movie, which I was watching -- I swear this is true -- at the insistence of Mrs. talozin.

I was kind of, almost, sort of, the tiniest little bit on board with this movie as long as it was about throwing sharks on the beach and people being eaten alive and shit. Because I will suspend disbelief as hard as you want when it comes to hilarious unintentional comedy action. But when it made its neck-snapping U-Turn into laughably acted family drama, that's when it lost me. You gotta know what kind of movie you're making, and if it's the kind of movie that will not benefit by giving the audience time to think (hint: this one isn't), then don't.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Sharknado is best enjoyed with friends and alcohol, and as such its one of those films whose stupidity can only make it sweeter. Though, I agree that laughably acted family drama is a piss poor thing to add to such a film, and that that is time that could have been better spent showing more ass shots of chicks in bikinis and their ensuing death by falling shark (to the laughably acted horror of bystanders).
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Post by Stahlseele »

unnecessary ass shots of chicks in bikinis
no such thing O.o
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Post by Shrapnel »

Concerning the ass-shots: My real problem with them was that they were so quick, you didn't really get the time to appreciate the ass and all of it's splendor. An ass shot must be at least twelve minutes in length to be necessary. True fact and actual law. Somewhere.
DSMatticus wrote:Sharknado is best enjoyed with friends and alcohol, and as such its one of those films whose stupidity can only make it sweeter
I don't/can't drink, so perhaps that's why my pain enduring it was so great. I didn't even have any high-sugar content snacks on hand.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

... In one of my games, I've dropped repeated hints that the Sahuagin Empire is abducting humans to use as blood sacrifices in a dread ritual that will punish the surface dwellers for meddling in sharkman affairs.

I am now dreadfully tempted to have the campaign's endgame involve 3 malevolent shark-slinging hurricanes where the party needs to take out the storm elementals driving them. Probably with explosive rune grenades. Not sure how I should feel about this.
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Post by Shrapnel »

You should feel simultaneously ashamed and awesome.
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Post by K »

There are worse adventures than ones featuring Air-element sharks flying out of a hurricane.
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Post by Maxus »

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Post by Shrapnel »

That makes about as much sense as anything from Sharknado, really.
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Post by Surgo »

I actually really enjoyed this movie. The chainsaw pseudo-birth scene was a hilariously good climax for it.
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Post by Shrapnel »

I HATED that scene. It reaffirmed my belief that humanity is stupid.
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Post by Maj »

You guys do know that chainsaws were invented to help, in part, with childbirth, right? So that scene might actually make a modicum of sense in an extremely horrible and terrible and stupid way.
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Re: Sharknado: A Rant

Post by JonSetanta »

Shrapnel wrote:God, do I hate this movie.
I've only seen the trailer and I already agree with you. Now we can move on in life.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Sharknado is an awesome concept. It's a tornado made out of sharks. How the hell can someone get that wrong?
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Post by Surgo »

It didn't. Most movies by that company are fucking awful, but that one was pretty funny. Works best with friends.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I rarely find myself agreeing with Shrapnel but I'll be damned if I can think of much wrong with an "Ignore Asylum" viewing policy. At the risk of sounding like a big ol' hipster who only likes authentic cheap movies, I do think the fact that they churn out tie ins willy-nilly in such a mercenary manner kills a lot of the enjoyment for me. I say this because for me half the joy of weird b movies is the simple fact that I'm often kind of amazed that they got made at all or because they involve weird pet obsessions by the creators that I wouldn't have thought about much if at all on my own, and that can be kinda interesting even if ultimately nobody has anything really profound to say--half the fun of horror movies in particular is how cheerfully literal they are. So, in a sense I also agree with Surgo too--what bugs me about Asylum isn't Sharknado, but that Sharknado is one of the more creative things they've done over the years.
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Post by Shrapnel »

So, I'm gonna be seeing the new TF film on Saturday (maybe), and I've decided that I will share any pain that I get from the film with others, because I'm nice like that.

In fact, I think I'll start with some observations that I've made so far.

Hasbro has been making a HUGE push to make their toys more "simplified", since they've found that children were having trouble with the more "complex" transformation schemes of the recent toys (because apparently children are really stupid). So, Hasbro's solution this? MAKE EVERY NEW TOY A SHELLFORMING KIBBLETASTIC PIECE OF SHIT.

I mean, look at this crap!

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(Image courtesy of OAFE.net. Thanks, Yo!)

THAT IS NOT HOW YOU MAKE TOYS.

What really gets me is that Hasbro has actually made toys that are easy and simple to transform before, and they have NOT been pieces of kibble garbage. Seriously, what the ever-loving FUCK, Hasbro?

This is to say NOTHING of the shit-tastic way they've been handling their Star Wars line... (seriously, going back to only FIVE points of articulation? This ain't the 90's anymore, guys.)
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Post by CapnTthePirateG »

Shrapnel wrote: What really gets me is that Hasbro has actually made toys that are easy and simple to transform before, and they have NOT been pieces of kibble garbage. Seriously, what the ever-loving FUCK, Hasbro?
Are you nuts? I remember you having to use those stupid mini guys to combo with anything to do something basic like fire plastic missiles. That sucked.
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Post by Shrapnel »

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Are you nuts? I remember you having to use those stupid mini guys to combo with anything to do something basic like fire plastic missiles. That sucked.
First, yes, I am. But that's a separate issue.

Second, firing missiles is a gimmick, and completely different from being able to transform a figure and having a good robot mode. My point was that Armada toys were not nearly as kibble-tastic and thus fucktarded as the new AoE toys. Except this one. This one is fucking awesome.

So, it's time to deliver the goods, and give my rant/review on Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Here it is.

65 million years ago, on the planet Earth, a Psittacosaurus is out hunting for food. Finding a fish, the small dinosaur starts to feed, but stops as hundreds of alien ships enter Earth's atmosphere, with mysterious aliens laying down bombs all over the surface. Detonating them, they turn most of the Earth's surface and much of its organic life into a metallic element. Barely escaping, the Psittacosaurus walks through the fields of metallic dinosaur corpses. This is the end of the reign of the dinosaurs.
From tfwiki.net

The end.

The movie was not NEARLY as bad as the last three. In fact, I have to say I found the movie, all in all, to be enjoyable (GASP!) in a "turn your brain off" kind of way, and I rather liked Kelsey Grammer as the villain, and Ken Watanabe and John Goodman as Drift and Hound, respectively. Basically, I could sit through it an watch it without getting enraged or becoming actively stupider, which I could not do with the prior Bay films.

The movie will certainly never win any awards for story and plot (although it might for best FX, since that's like the one thing Michael Bay actually does well), and it of course doesn't hold a even hold a stubby melted candle to the 1986 film, but I felt that I got my eleven bucks worth of entertainment. Did it have it's share of stupidity? Sure (see below), it's a Bay film, that's to be expected, almost demanded even, but none of it involved Where's the Beef because he wasn't in it, which automatically makes AoE seem like 2001: A Space Odyssey compared to the last trio of shit. Does it change my opinion of Michael Bay? Probably not, but we'll have to see if he can keep it up in the next film (yes, there will be a Transformers 5, and most likely even a 6. The films make A LOT of money for Hasbro, and I don't think they're gonna stop 'em anytime soon.)

I was going into the theater expecting three to four hours of insipid stupidity, like the past three. What I got was a film that was actually watchable without causing severe emotional and physical pain. Which, of course, means that I have less to rant about and less to work with, which in turn makes for a worse rant. Fuck you, Michael Bay. You made a promising post full of potential fishfan-rage into... well, this.

All in all things considered, I'd have to say that I actually liked Transformers 4, and that it was certain improvement over most of Bays usual shit. Hell, I may even go and see Transformers 5.

SHIT I HAD A PROBLEM WITH:

- Stanley Tucci's character.

- Nicola Peltz's character. God, why would you give anyone from The Last Airbender a role in anything ever?

- The Dinobots were pretty heavily toted in all of the promotional material for the film, and they don't even appear until the final act of the movie, and then they're just a deus ex machina. They don't even talk or have personalities, they just roar and tear apart bad guys. I mean, c'mon. At least introduce them earlier in the plot.

- The goddamn toys. I mean, god how they suck. Example: Drift is supposed to be a triple changer (from car to helicopter to robot). Hasbro's answer to this? MAKE TWO DIFFERENT TOYS, and one of them is a REDECO OF AN OLDER MOLD. What the fuck?

- Bumblebee still only talks in audio clips and beeps.

- The movie introduces yet ANOTHER incompatible origin for the Transformers (they were built by an unknown creator race). What ever happened to the Allspark being the source of all Transformer life? Whatever happened to the Matrix, for that matter?

- Optimus is given some sort of ill-explained back story about being a "Knight" or something, but nothing is made of this nor is it elaborated upon.

- FUCKING BRAINS. At least Wheelie isn't in this one. Which leads me to...

SHIT I DID NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH:

- NO BEEF! :ecstatic:

- NO BEEF'S PARENTS! :ecstatic:

- NO WHEELIE! :ecstatic:

- NO MEGAN FOX! :ecstatic:

- NO FAPPING TO THE MILITARY! :ecstatic: (well, much less than is usual for a Bay film, at least)

- NO VICTORIA SECRET MODELS! :ecstatic:

- NO RACIST ROBOTS! :ecstatic:

- ACTORS THAT CAN ACT! :ecstatic: (Except for Nicola Peltz)

- For once, a Transformers movie focused more on Transformers than it did on their super awesome human companions or the super awesome adventures of John Turturro (who is also not in the movie! :ecstatic:) and Alan Tudyk. (Seriously, most of Dark of the Moon focused on them going around the world and doing shit that didn't involve showing giant robots. I don't give a fuck about them, I paid money to see a movie about giant robots, not the T n' T comedy duet.)

- A smaller robot cast. Also, each of the Autobot's had a distinct look, so they didn't all look identical like they did in the last three. I could actually tell who was who and (almost) tell what they were doing.

- Drift was awesome. So was Hound. And Lockdown.

- At first, I was upset that Galvatron looked a lot like Megatron. But, turns out there's a reason for that! So it's okay.

- There's a scene where a really annoying character get's turned into a melted skeleton. That was HARDCORE.

- As little as they appeared, I still thought the Dinobots were metal.

- The Autobots are held accountable for their part in the destruction of Chicago in the last movie. It only took two cities (the Middle East don't count).

- On the other hand, Autobots being blamed for shit the Decepticons did and then being hunted down for it by humans is an incredibly overused trope in Transformers, so I feel a bit mixed about it.


(For those it want it, a full review is pending.)
Last edited by Shrapnel on Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Prak »

To be fair, I would pay to see a movie where Alan Tufyk voiced a transformer, specifically a decepticon, so one of his lines can be "CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL!" Directed to Starscream, of course.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Well, it's taken a month of hemming, hawing, bathing, and general procrastination, but here, finally, is my totally unbiased review of TRANSFORMERS 4: AGE OF EXTINCTION, no longer in theaters.
Funky-ass jazz border
<<<!>>>===================================================================================<<<!>>>

As stated in a prior post, the film opens on prehistoric earth, and this time, there is no opening monologue by Optimus Prime, which was fucking amazing. The scene begins with a shot of some spaceships that resemble angry mollusks hanging above the earth. Then there's a cute-ass little dinosaur that's eating a fish (despite being a herbivore) and fighting off some rival cute-ass dinosaurs, and I'm all like "daaawwwww". Then the angry mollusks come down from space and start blasting the bejeezus out of everything in true Bay fashion, cyberforming the planet and shit.

Flash forward twenty years, give or take a few epochs, and and we find ourselves in the Arctic. Or the Antarctic. One of them really cold-ass places. In the ice, a group of scientists have found a metalized dinosaur skeleton...

(Now, here is where my memory starts to falter, even though I just saw it two days a month ago. If I miss anything, I'm sure my fellow movie critic Darth "Gene Siskel" Rabbitt will be more than happy to fill in the... whaddya calls ems. Er... blanks. That's it.)

So, four years have passed since the last train wreck, and in that time humanity has turned against the Transformers as a race, blaming both Autobots and Decepticons for the massive death and devastation that was wrecked upon Chicago by Michael Bay the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. (Because that OBVIOUSLY isn't an overused trope in Transformers AT ALL.)

...Wait, for once the Autobots are being held responsible for the massive collateral damage that the always cause? Finally.

Because of this, every single Autobot has gone into hiding, but a secret quasi-government shadow agency dedicated entirely to destroying/reverse engineering Transformers, known as RAAT Skywatch Sector Seven The Initiative MECH EDC "Cemetery Wind", founded by Kelsey Grammer, is systematically hunting down and killing them, and using their corpses to reverse-engineer super future tech, which in turn is used to help track down more Autobots. And they have some help in the form of Cybertronian mercenary/badass Lockdown, who aids the humans in bringing down Autobots in exchange for finding and giving him Optimus Prime and his face. We see Cemetery Wind in action hunting down an Autobot hiding in an abandoned cruise ship. They proceed to flush him out, shoot the crap out of him, and eventually surround him as Lockdown approaches him and demands the location of OP, which Ratchet refuses to tell him, so Lockdown rips out his Spark, killing him definitely.

The scene then shifts to Paris, Texas, Samoa, where we find OUR HERO, Mark Wahlberg, a down on his luck inventor, driving to an abandoned old-timey movie theater to buy an old-timey movie projector that he will try to use for inventor purposes. While there, Wahlberg sets up Chekhov's Football (because there's an important scene with a football later, you see), and finds a derelict old White Freightliner semi-trailer Marmon 97 truck full of mortar shells. INSIDE the theater.

So Cade brings the truck home to salvage it for parts to sell for food, because he's dirtass poor, you see. While he's tinkering, he somehow manages to activate the dormant fighting super robot life form, and, surprise of surprises, the truck turns out to be yup, you guessed it... HYPERDRIVE! Ha ha, no, it's Optimus. He wakes up and acts like he usually does, pointing his gun at shit and threatening to kill shit. Cade manages to calm him down and they become friends, Optimus apparently deciding that Cade's face is not worth taking.

Cade's daughter, that chick from The Last Airbender, disapproves of his finding a Transformer and protecting it, or at least she tries to, she really does, but good fucking god is she terrible at acting.

PREREQUISITES FOR BEING CAST AS FEMALE LEAD IN A MICHAEL BAY FILM:

1. MUST HAVE HOT BREASTS.

2. MUST AGREE TO SHOWCASE HOT BREASTS VIA CLEAVAGE.

3. ACTING SKILLS NOT NECESSARY. BREASTS A MUST.

4. IF YOU WASH THE DIRECTORS DICK CAR WEARING WET LINGERIE, YOU AUTOMATICALLY GET THE PART.

Anyway, Cade has an annoying ass friend who is annoying. Like, really so. Does this guy play anyone is ever NOT annoying?

(That friend is only mentioned now because he dies later. SPOILERS!)

So, Cemetery Wind discovers that Cade is hiding Optimus and his large collection of faces (because the annoying friend tipped them off (because the government promised to pay a reward to anyone who has info on a Transformer, all Orwellian and such)), and so they decide to pay him a visit and scare the crap of him and his family while they look for Optimus, who is hiding in Cade's barn underneath a bunch of rubbish. Fortunately, the CW guys discover the best way to get an Optimus Prime out of hiding and start taking faces and names is to threaten the daughter of the guy he befriended. So Optimus breaks out and starts slaying dudes left and right, adding their faces to his collection of souls.

Meanwhile, this douchebag shows up in a rally car, and rescues Cade and Co. while Optimus leads the EVIL GOVEREMENT AGENTS away. A car chase scene soon follows, with lots of explosions and face sweat and exposition where we learn that this Irish teague is whatserface's boyfriend, and Cade disapprove. Finally, Lockdown appears and causes more explosions, sometimes fighting Optimus, sometimes killing the really annoying friend with a cyberforming bomb and turning him into a horrific but really awesome looking metalized skeleton stuck in a running mid-stride pose. The most metal part of the film, easily.

However, while annoying friend died, Cade and the others got away, so that's okay. While on the run, Cade had captured an official Cemetery Wind flying drone (because they're the Government Bad Guys, so OF COURSE they have to use drones) that he used to hack their data files or something, and discovers that they've been killing Autobots left and right and butchering them for their technology. Optimus decides it's time to fight back and takes Cade to meet the rest of the Autobots, but not before scanning a sweetass new alt mode...

Coming Soon: The review continues with new characters! Assholes! Faces! Congress! And more face sweat and exploding cleavage shot at a low angle!
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Post by Ancient History »

What, no mention of the statutory rape card?
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