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I'm not sure Treasure Planet should be on that list. Disney airs it so much,I would think they got their money back from it by now.
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Yeah, I liked The 13th Warrior too. An interesting take on the Beowulf story, and a fine performance by Vladimir Kulich.
And John Carter remains a solid, spirited adaptation of the ERB source material. Disney really dropped the ball marketing that one.PUNY HUMANS!Comment
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Yeah, that's true, but...
I think there's a bit of a blind spot with us, because we're so familiar with comics, so we don't watch this kind of movie the same way as non-comic folks. Superheroes aside, as a prototypical popular movie structure goes the movie was a bit of a mess.
For example; a general, old-school rule of thumb for plotting a popular movie is that an audience member should be able to answer "why" to every plot point, and all the "whys" should connect in some way, otherwise audiences tend to find a movie unsatisfying.
I would bet money that most regular people could not remember why significant parts of Green Lantern happened or how they connected - even right after they watched it. A pilot having a super power ring just doesn't connect in the mind easily - a super power plane, yes, but not a ring. It feels like a disconnect, and those kinds of semi-loosly connected ideas continue on through the rest of the movie.
With the Batman and Spider-Man movies it's comparatively very easy to answer and connect the "whys". When audiences can easily connect the dots it makes a movie more accessible. Audiences like things to feel surprising, but not random - and I would bet Green Lantern's plot felt a lot more random, and I think most movies that leave audiences cold have this problem.Comment
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^That's a good point. We take GL for granted, but the idea of a corps of space policemen having a ring as a weapon that is charged by a lantern is a little bit harder to explain and rationalize (even in the realm of fantasy) than: guy gets bitten by spider, gets spider powers; or kid watches parents murdered, wants to scare criminals, becomes a bat.
The movie would have been much better served delving into the meat of the concept, rather than paying it lip service while moving along the Hector Hammond plot.
ChrisComment
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>I would bet money that most regular people could not remember why significant parts of Green Lantern happened or how they connected
You might be right, but I don't think it matters. People slog through Lord of the Rings (I knew people who didn't realize it was a book first) Harry Potter, Twilight, anything by Tom Clancy.... without problems.
>the idea of a corps of space policemen having a ring as a weapon that is charged by a lantern is a little bit harder to explain and rationalize
I don't think it is. To a comic person it might seem that way 'cos you're carrying around the weight of 50+ years of comic continuity, know everyone in the background, hell; know the damned plot of the film.... but to a regular person it's all just "space cop, magic ring." I think for the regular folk the biggest problem with the Green Lantern film was yet ANOTHER hero who has his powers handed to him, must learn humility, has a hard time fitting in, eventually mans up and is the hero. It's not the weird that's the hangup, it's how mundane the film is at it's core. (Scratch out "magic ring" and pencil in "obsolete warcraft" and it's Battleship.)
I think you guys are making too much of the plot and concept. They're not that complicated. Like I said; "space cop, magic ring."
>a general, old-school rule of thumb for plotting a popular movie is that an audience member should be able to answer "why" to every plot point, and all the "whys" should connect in some way
A friend of mine is teaching a writing class and we had a discussion about the right way to do things. There are a lot of tips like this that are great exercises for developing writing ability; but ultimately I think success depends more on luck than skill. ("Right place, right time" as most people put it.) You can use this technique on any number of popular things, and they fall apart pretty quick. (Take any romantic subplot; or MAIN plot: two characters fall for each other. Why? Er....) Yes, it'll help you become a better writer. No, that won't matter so much.
Like I said; most of these movies that folks hated are no dumber than ones they loved. Some of them are better on any number of measures.
>I actually enjoyed Speed Racer as well as John Carter.
I enjoyed Speed Racer a LOT more than I thought I would. It's one of the shows that I could see becoming a cult hit ten or twenty years from now. I love the original cartoon, and I thought it was interesting how the movie managed to be the origin not just of the characters, but of the technological jump that made the original setting possible.... although you REALLY have to pay attention to notice. It's one of the few remakes I've seen that actually adds to the orignal material. John Carter wasn't bad, but I think it had the problem GL did; it was too much like a lot of other films from the last decade or so to stand as it's own thing. And in both cases I think the names were way too old to hold any cred with a current audience.
>13th Warrior is a greata flick, very dak and violent but also high on fun and adventure.
This is another one I think will become a cult classic, considering how many people I know who really liked it. It seems to have done better on cable than in theaters.
>I liked Postman, I think that movie suffered because the critics at the time hated Costner and had fun tearing him down
Well.... I think if it had come out during the 80's it would have done well; but the post apocalypse thing was pretty played out by the time it was released, and it kinda felt like a weird Mad Max, without the cars.
Don C.Comment
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I might not be explaining myself well. My example was not about the complexity, logic or stupidity of Green Lantern - it was just about the audiences emotional connection to the movie. In my opinion too many scenes and ideas in Green Lantern were too random for people. More like a checklist than a smoothly told story. People did not emotionally click with the story. I agree that there are probably other reasons people didn't like it, like you said, but I gave that as one example.
The "connect the whys" thing might not make people better writers, but I think it's absolutely proven to help a wide audience connect with a story, because it's something that reenforces and drives a classic 3 act structure.
Obviously there's more to making a hit movie than just having a solid 3 act structure, the same way having verse-verse-chorus song structure doesn't automatically make a song well liked, but most hit songs have verse-verse-chorus song structure and most hit movies have solid 3 act structure.Last edited by Brazoo; Mar 22, '13, 4:12 AM.Comment
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>In my opinion too many scenes and ideas in Green Lantern were too random for people.
I still disagree, although I think in PRINCIPLE you're right. GL wasn't any more convoluted or random than any other movie, but for some reason folks all boarded the hate train for it as opposed to films they loved that were just as askew. Note that doesn't mean I'm saying it WASN'T a mess; just that so many other films are just as sloppy. The same folks who hated GL LOVED Avengers.... and that one has problems galore:
>the same way having verse-verse-chorus song structure doesn't automatically make a song well liked, but most hit songs have verse-verse-chorus song structure and most hit movies have solid 3 act structure
See #1:
This is where I think liked, popular, good, memorable all bump into each other. It's overall pretty easy to make something that's popular.... for a while. (It was noted that a lot of the flops on the list were also among the biggest grossers for their times.) If you follow the formula people will tend to have a positive experience.... "like" in other words.... but probably not a memorable one. Movies are like that. Every film that comes out is the awesomest thing ever. For a week or three, then it's gone. Gone because it doesn't make that personal connection as an individual event. But still popular enough to make schloads of money and have everyone losing fluids for a bit. These days a movie that DOESN'T make money is an anomally....
But there's a lot more than just the movie that makes a movie popular. Luck. Timing. State of mind of the person partaking. Warm fuzzies generated by known brands. Connections to things people already like, or associations with things the audeince empathises with. Fatigue. I think that last one is why movies like Spiderman 3 do so poorly; I didn't find it any worse than the other two.... or any better.... or really any different. Your first exposure to something is the biggest jolt; then you need increasing doses for the same effect. 'Course if you take a step to the side.... So a new director, new actor, new-ish bad guy. It FEELS new, but has all the valuable pre-existing associations of the brand. Different, but the same.
It's that last part that worries me when something totally new does poorly, 'cos I suspect the execs tell themselves it failed because "it's an unknown property;" meaning another go-around of Batman films for me. (But, only if they tell me his origin again!)
Don C.Comment
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