Summer Movies 2013

[_D_]

Interesting...most people I know are calling the new version The Great Gadfry....

[greg]

Ender's Game is one of those things where the public persona of the writer has completely overshadowed any enjoyment of the material for me. I won't be putting a nickel in Orson Scott Card's pocket.

Eh, so he's against gay marriage. Most people are, it seems. He's just vocal about it. He is Mormon, but I never saw any weird Mormon stuff in his writing to make me feel weird.

[davemerrill]

Ender's Game is one of those things where the public persona of the writer has completely overshadowed any enjoyment of the material for me. I won't be putting a nickel in Orson Scott Card's pocket.

Eh, so he's against gay marriage. Most people are, it seems. He's just vocal about it. He is Mormon, but I never saw any weird Mormon stuff in his writing to make me feel weird.

Actually, a majority of Americans support equal marriage rights. Card and his church are on the wrong end of history here. However, the Mormons in particular have been pushing the agenda hard, shovelling millions of dollars into California for an anti-gay marriage proposal that was later declared unconstitutional. Card has been busy for the past few years penning angry, error-filled editorial pieces predicting the doom of civilization if the gays are allowed to marry - however, it's been legal here in Canada for almost a decade and so far things are doing fine.

It's one thing to have an opinion on an issue, but to use your clout as an SF writer to spread hateful misinformation, that's a different thing altogether. Any money he makes from this movie will be used in an attempt to deny Americans their civil rights, and I'm not gonna support that.

[greg]

Card has been busy for the past few years penning angry, error-filled editorial pieces predicting the doom of civilization if the gays are allowed to marry - however, it's been legal here in Canada for almost a decade and so far things are doing fine.

My one concern is that it will open up a shitstorm of petty lawsuits for any and every gay couple to sue Card's Mormon temple, and every single other church in the country, for discrimination if they refuse to perform the wedding ceremony for them based on their religious convictions. It's the erosion of religious freedom. I personally think the Catholic opposition to birth control is silly, but it's their religious freedom to believe so, and having Obamacare forcing Catholic healthcare services to provide birth control and even abortions is just plain wrong. Forcing churches to perform gay marriage is just wrong. I won't say anything further on the topic because 1. I'd rather not derail the topic and 2. I prefer to stay away from religious and political arguments. Chalk it up to "I'm glad I don't live in the USA anymore, and a part of me doesn't care what goes on there anymore" on my part. I can totally understand your convictions for not wanting to spend any money towards Card.

I couldn't care less about Card's Mormon beliefs, as long as he isn't preachy in his writings. It's impossible for me to read something L. Ron Hubbard without thinking of goofy-ass Xenu and flying airplanes into volcanoes. Reading Ender's Game, I never once had visions come to mind about silly, fictitious, ancient North American Caucasian civilizations, nor the Garden of Eden being in Jackson County, Missouri, or anything of the like. I'm sure there are plenty of weird-o beliefs among Hollywood types I certainly disagree with, but if a movie is worth seeing, I'll watch it. Even if it stars Tom Cruise.

[davemerrill]

Not to get into a big thing, but

1. Gay marriage does not mean churches will be forced to host wedding ceremonies for gay weddings. That is so far beyond the point that I don't even know where to begin. You can't force private religious organizations to do anything. It's nice to think about though, there are lots of things I'd like to force the Westboro Baptist Church to do.

2. Obamacare, or any other kind of medical plan whatsoever, cannot force clinics or hospitals to perform abortions (or any other medical procedure). That's never even been discussed. The controversy is whether or not the health care plans of the employees of Catholic organizations (which include hospitals) should include coverage for things like birth control and abortion - not providing the birth control or abortion services themselves, just providing the coverage. That's an issue that's open for good and healthy debate, sure, but forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions? Not even talked about.

3. I was hoping "John Carter" would be great, but sadly it was about half an hour of exciting movie wrapped up inside 90 minutes of expository filler. Seriously, it takes the movie 45 minutes just to get us to Mars! Should have been a swashbuckling, gosh-wow Barsoom rock-em sock-em action-packed thing, and instead was overlong and mopey. It's a real shame, too.

[Path]

[quote="davemerrill"]Ender's Game is one of those things where the public persona of the writer has completely overshadowed any enjoyment of the material for me. I won't be putting a nickel in Orson Scott Card's pocket. quote]

I've heard this mentioned to me many times by many different people when I bring up that I've read his novels. But since I started reading his books before he "went insane", it never really influenced my opinion of the Ender series till it was too late. I'm quite behind on them (last one I read was...Shadow of the Giant? 2005ish), but I do remember really enjoying Ender's Shadow. This is one movie I'm really hoping turns out good. Because it it does its going to be amazing.

[Armblessed]

I'm pretty pumped about Iron Man 3. The first one is a great movie, the second is alright, but Robert Downey Jr is just too much fun to watch as Iron Man.

Wolverine looks like it could be pretty good. I don't like any of the other X-Men or Wolverine movies, but this one looks to be taking a step in the right direction.

I'm not a Superman fan, but I like the way the Man of Steel trailers are shaping up and I did like Zack Snyder's Watchmen a lot. Though, good gravy, that Suckerpunch movie he directed was horrible, so we'll see.

I am interested in the new Riddick movie, as I did like Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick(admittedly super corny, but at least it was something original). I am concerned about the direction they seem to be taking the character, though. In Pitch Black he was just a tough SOB, but in Chronicles he's some legendary hero with super powers and prophecies about him and what not. And this third movie looks to be taking it more and more in that direction. I want them to tone it down and just make it about a tough guy having an adventure, not him doing Matrix slo-mo flips and fighting CG aliens and crap. If you take it too far in that direction, it becomes less and less relatable and more just watching mindless action on a screen.

And speaking of slo-mo flips and CG aliens, I could go off at length about the new Star Trek movies, but I'll try to rein it in. I wouldn't consider myself a trekkie, but I do love The Next Generation TV series. I think these new movies are Star Trek in name only. They're more popcorn action movies that hit the notes that an average person knows about Star Trek. IE, Kirk bangs an alien lady, Spock is rigid and thinks humans are illogical, Dr McCoy says "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a X.", etc...
In my opinion, the great things about Star Trek (TV series and movies) are a good story, good characters, exploring the wonders of space, and using the sci-fi setting to indirectly address real-world issues. These new movies have none of that. I hated the first one and this one seems to go further down the road of fluffy nonsense with them running around with laser rifles, jumping off cliffs, giant explosions, and (as Greg said) spending most of the time on a planet.

One that jumped out at me recently is Elysium. Big sci-fi movie by the same guy who did District 9. Matt Damon doesn't seem right for the part, but I'm interested to see what the director can do.

[greg]

You can't force private religious organizations to do anything. It's nice to think about though, there are lots of things I'd like to force the Westboro Baptist Church to do.

Well, I think you underestimate American society's propensity to be a cesspool of litigation. As it is, a church has a right to say who they will and will not marry, and can stipulate that they go through premarital counseling. I predict that people will be out for revenge, and will try to sue churches left and right for "discrimination" when they refuse to marry them. As for Westboro, people feed the trolls to much. They are either batshit insane or are really good publicity stunt artists. They wouldn't have as much notoriety if they media would just ignore them.

And speaking of slo-mo flips and CG aliens, I could go off at length about the new Star Trek movies, but I'll try to rein it in. I wouldn't consider myself a trekkie, but I do love The Next Generation TV series. I think these new movies are Star Trek in name only. They're more popcorn action movies that hit the notes that an average person knows about Star Trek. IE, Kirk bangs an alien lady, Spock is rigid and thinks humans are illogical, Dr McCoy says "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a X.", etc...
In my opinion, the great things about Star Trek (TV series and movies) are a good story, good characters, exploring the wonders of space, and using the sci-fi setting to indirectly address real-world issues. These new movies have none of that. I hated the first one and this one seems to go further down the road of fluffy nonsense with them running around with laser rifles, jumping off cliffs, giant explosions, and (as Greg said) spending most of the time on a planet.

Well, that describes the various Star Trek TV series, but not the movies. (Except for the first one, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was practically a rehash of one of the old TOS episodes. However, it was not a big box office draw.) As awesome as The Wrath of Khan was, it set the tone to make the Star Trek movies more action-oriented. Some of them were good, but several of them were bad. The TNG movies were mostly letdowns, and one could wonder if Rick Berman was even paying attention to the TNG TV show when he made the movies. The TNG episodes were mostly well-written and it was about space exploration, moral issues, science, etc. The TNG movies, on the other hand, featured Worf pulling a purple space bazooka out of his ass. The First Contact movie was watchable, at least.

One that jumped out at me recently is Elysium. Big sci-fi movie by the same guy who did District 9. Matt Damon doesn't seem right for the part, but I'm interested to see what the director can do.

Hmm... I've never heard of this yet (I live in a cave), but this is interesting. District 9 was pretty cool. It was disturbing and I may never own it on DVD, but it was a very interesting movie.

[davemerrill]

And speaking of slo-mo flips and CG aliens, I could go off at length about the new Star Trek movies, but I'll try to rein it in. I wouldn't consider myself a trekkie, but I do love The Next Generation TV series. I think these new movies are Star Trek in name only. They're more popcorn action movies that hit the notes that an average person knows about Star Trek. IE, Kirk bangs an alien lady, Spock is rigid and thinks humans are illogical, Dr McCoy says "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a X.", etc...

I guess I'm the target audience for these new Star Trek movies, as in 'what the average person knows about Star Trek.' I enjoyed the last one and the new one looks fun. I don't know that I'd watch a Star Trek anything that didn't have the Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic going on - - I tried manfully to watch the Next Generation, really I did. Way too beige.

[usamimi]

I'm pretty pumped about Iron Man 3. The first one is a great movie, the second is alright, but Robert Downey Jr is just too much fun to watch as Iron Man.

I totally agree! I remember when they first announced him as the actor for Tony Stark, I got SO excited because, really...RDJ basically grew up to BE Tony Stark. XD You can't have more perfect casting than that!

I'm not totally into super-hero movies, but lately Marvel's been doing a pretty great job with them, imo. And that's saying a lot, considering some of the super-hero flops we've had over the years (I try to forget that the first Hulk movie ever existed. -__-)

I liked Star Trek as a kid (my mom and I used to watch it together), and we both enjoyed the new movie...but I guess to be fair, I usually take movie adaptations of things as completely separate takes on their source material. I mean, if it was exactly the same as the original, there'd be no surprises to look forward to--at least, that's always my mindset (I do the same thing with movies based on books...I generally tend to like both versions of things I like, for different reasons).