Die Hard 4: Die Hardest, Super-Post Production Early, Yay or Nay?!

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Die Hard 4: Die Hardest, Super-Post Production Early, Yay or Nay?!</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>All the other 3 were great, so why not?</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Bruce is getting kind of old. The peak of his career is LOOONG in the past. Then again, Schwartzenegger did Terminator 3 under similar circumstances; and I liked that movie quite a bit. We'll have to see.</div>

[Derithian]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Why not. As long as it's not as bad as the second one. Although on network tv is the most entertaining with it's dubbing over swearing.....YippieKay-yay Mr. Falcon.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I like it, but I didn't think it was good. The story was pretty weak and dubious.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I like that sort of movie though, it's a comdey with a seemingly very serious plot and serious and dramatic characters.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I actually liked the direction they took T3 to and thought it was fairly well done. Mind you, it doesn't hold up to the first two, but those were excellent film</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I first saw it when I was like 4 or 5 years old, and even then I realized it wasn't nearly as good as other action movies, that was like the first opinion I ever remember having =P

It had some cool ideas but it was filled with gaping plot holes, it had no good acting, and the special effects were very sub-par.</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>I saw the TV version the first time I saw 2. It was pretty weak. But the -real- movie is great.</div>

[Derithian]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I know but it's easily the worst of the 3.....</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Aye. I couldn't believe they were making a sequel into that piece of crap, until I saw the sequel.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Well, when your suspension of belief hits critical mass, it lessens your enjoyment of it. T2 was also an action movie, and story was important.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>There's one scene in the tv version where they had to overdub the entire conversation. It's so bad it's good.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Maybe, but that doesn't make it bad. It's still a great film</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>What? T1 was great, PARTICULARLY for it's time. It's a little cheesy by today's standards, but that's mostly special effects.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The best action films have good stories to go along with the action, particularly the sci-fi ones</div>

[Imakeholesinu]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>YAY! GO BRUCE GO!!!</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I would certainly like to hear your justification for Terminator being great. Also do it for its time, because I saw the movie when it was new, when I was a naive kid who liked Ghostbusters and Thunder Cats, and even I thought Terminator was lame.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheTerm ... 021061/</a>

Don't worry about this one, Zeus, I've got you covered. Here you go, Seeker, straight from the mouths of people whose expertise in such matters far exceeds your own.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheTerm ... 021061/</a>

All this talk as though anyone's opinion here actually mattered... this link will serve as a helpful reminder that it's the critics, not laypeople, who ultimately determine a film's lasting reputation. Sorry, folks.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Don't underestimate the influence of a well-placed catch-phrase in the trailers.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>That doesn't work for cult films.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Again, you were too young to realize just how different it was for the times. Same with Star Wars and Alien...hell, even T2 (the start of CG as a regular filmmaking tool). Certain films just make a mark (like, Die Hard 1, for instance), and the original Terminator was one of them</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Hindsight is 20/20. How about reviews BEFORE T2 came out?</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>bwah! I don't believe that.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>There's a school of thought that believes the label precedes and creates the reputation--that cult films are "made" by virtue of someone with critical or popular influence calling them that. I don't buy it, but you'd be surprised how often cult movies receive high marks of critical praise even before they develop their "cult status." In any case, the term "cult film" has become so stretched and overused in popular discourse that it's lost a lot of its original meaning: For example, is a popular and critical success like "Pulp Fiction" a cult movie in the same vein as "Harold and Maude?" Is it even a cult movie at all?</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>In the long run, I think there's a very high degree of truth to the notion. Remember that reputations are shaped and cemented over time, and it's almost always the critics and/or the academics who write the film history books.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>In the long run, I think there's a very high degree of truth to the notion. Remember that reputations are shaped and cemented over time, and that the masses don't write the film history books.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I just use it to mean a movie that most people don't like or know about, but a relatively small group of people love.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The masses do, however, hand over fistfulls of dollars for movies the critics don't like.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Now if you want a real classic from that time period, you have to look to Predator a couple years later, or Commando which has the best Schwartzenegger one liner of all time "Remember how I said I would kill you last, I lied." =)

Or for non-Schwartzenegger movies, go for Scarface which has the best one liner of all time "Say hello to my little friend!"

Damn I know one liners don't make a movie, but they are damn funny =)


Now if you even THINK to compare Terminator to Predator or Scarface. Then you will seriously have to provide some very solid justification for it, because frankly, I they're not just on a complete different level, they're in a completely different Universe. "I need a vacation."</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Well, there are plenty of counter examples. Like "It's a Wonderful Life!". Blasted by critics, but it's a classic. There are plenty others, though I don't know if I only know the outliers or if it's more than that....</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Blasted by critics at the time of the film's release, or blasted by critics now? (I think most critics nowadays consider "It's a Wonderful Life!" a classic.)</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Which has almost nothing to do with a film's long-lasting reputation. People paid over $200 million to see "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding," but I guarantee you that film will be all but forgotten ten, twenty years from now.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>You recall people making fun of T1? You recall wrong. The first time people saw the metal skeleton walk out of that car crash and start chasing Sara their jaw dropped.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I'm thinking of VHS and DVD sales too.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>You recall people making fun of T1? You recall wrong. The first time people saw the metal skeleton walk out of that car crash and start chasing Sara their jaw dropped.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>An enormously popular movie can also be given cult-status if it has a number of esoteric aspects to which a certain minority of the fan-base devote themselves. Star Wars is a cult movie in this respect, despite the billions it's earned over the years.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The only peoples whose jaws would have dropped at seeing special effects that were decades out of date would be people from the distant south who are used to dropping their jaws anyways. I saw it within a year of its release, I'd seen a number of action movies by this point; Terminator was lame back then, and it's lame now.

Terminator 1 was not taken seriously until the second Terminator movie a few years later which absolutely kicked ass and revolutionized the Action genre.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Does that mean that their opinion of the movie was "wrong" back then? The movie hasn't changed; only the popularity.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>By the critics at the time...Of course I find the very idea of someone making real money off of criticizing movies borderline laughable...</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>The point stands, however, that films do not become "classics" by virtue of selling lots of box office tickets. Citizen Kane did poor business, yet it's considered one of the greatest films ever made. Now, do you think that's because the film was "discovered" by a mass audience years after it vanished from the theaters? Of course not. Citizen Kane is the perfect exemplar of a "critical success"; beloved by critics (nowadays) everywhere, but mostly ignored by the audience (and, yes, many critics) of its time. CK "became" the classic that it is because, as the years went on, a critical consensus on the film's undeniable quality emerged. (It goes without saying that not all classic films achieve this consensus at the time of their release, "It's a Wonderful Life!" being a perfect example.)</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Populist? Hah! I don't know that I'm holding up the "genius" of the common man so much as being skeptical of the so-called greatness of the critical "elite"...</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>dont believe the links to reviews and opinions of people who were old enough to remember. You're what, 23? The movie was out in 1984, if you saw it one year within its release then you were 5 years old. But none of that matters because you are right.

I wish i could go through life just making up an opinion based on absolutely nothing and not looking stupid, oh wait, your outrageous claims do look stupid.

By the way, i'm 23 too, but the difference is that i actually talk to people and read things before i stand firm behind an opinion.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Maybe those of you who grew up as teenagers in the 90's, when special effects were wild. It was T1 that made Cameron's career take off, with Aliens put him in overdrive</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It is like the first book in the Wheel of Time series, it was not very good, but because the second one was great, the first one became a classic and the series became popular.

It's not like I have never discussed movies with older people before, I have often discussed various movies and books with people I have worked with over the years and my professors of course. I don't recall any praise for the first Terminator movie, but plenty for the second. In my opinion, the first Terminator is a STEAMING PILE OF SHIT. It's not misguided in any way, it's an opinion which I formed because of all the action movies I have ever seen, Terminator is among the absolute worst. I do not think it is revolutionary in the slightest, because similar special effects had been in use for decades. The acting in the movie seemed more out of date than The Vikings which came out in the 1950's. The plot was filled with holes, and incredibly lame, it made John Carpenter's late 70's-early 80's movies seem ingenius in comparisson.

I sincerely hope, as one human being to another, that NO ONE sees Terminator 1 as a good movie. People like that are bad for the gene pool. It is like saying that early Industrial Age architecture was absolutely classic. Or that the garbage and crime filled streets of some areas of Detroit are amoing the best places in the world to live. There are just certain things that are common sense, and common sense would state that Terminator 1 is a STEAMING PILE OF SHIT.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Value judgements aside, the whole of aesthetic history from painting to cinema has thus far been disproportionately shaped and determined by a small number of elites. This is hardly surprising, since the average layman doesn't really care about these matters.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id ... tor.htm</a>

You're comparing the worldwide box office total of T2 to T1's domestic take (which was $38 million, not $32). T1 did $78 million worldwide, roughly 12 times its $6.4 million production budget; its profit margins actually double T2's.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>Movies in 1984

Ghost Busters (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Gremlins (1984)
The Karate Kid (1984)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Dune (1984)
A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
Terminator (1984)

Terminator easily ranks among the most technologically advanced and most enjoyable. Temple of Doom was good, but it was obvious that it was a 'set' movie with foam rocks, Gremlins was simply muppets gone mad, Star Trek still looked like miniatures against a black screen, and Dune was good but also had terrible FX. So, yes, Terminator did make mouths drop since it had believable effects compared to movies of its time.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Movies might be different. The medium lends itself to passive escapism better than others.</div>