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'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

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Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#161

Post by torben-friis »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #146
torben-friis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wuthering Heights was a remake, and Hail Mary was also a safeish bet since it's a novel by the same guy as The Martian. Not to say that it isn't an improvement, but we're still pretty far from seeing American cinema catching up to the world stage in originality, let alone to the golden Hollywood era.

I remember reading Project Hail Mary years before the movie was announced, and thinking "this is written, if not exactly as a screenplay, in such a way to make it SO easy to adapt to a screenplay that given this is from the Martian author there is no way this will not be made as a movie" I enjoyed both the book and the movie btw

Yeah a lot of authors nowadays just write screenplay, either thinking on licensing or just by being influenced by tv. Sanderson and Abercrombie come to mind as other authors that basically have action scenes and movie cuts baked into the books.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#162

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #150
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andor is the now the gold standard for Star Wars productions - serious themes, adult oriented, great writing and top tier acting. The Mandalorian was definitely aimed at a younger audience.

I think Mando season 1 is what Star Wars should be. A space themed throwback to old pulp novels, cowboys and samurai and pirates, with a veneer of lasers and spaceships painted on top. Andor is great, don't get me wrong. But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

Well George Lucas did borrow a lot of stuff from samurai films (The Hidden Fortress being the main one), so that is a return to its roots. Personally, I think that Firefly did the cowboys in space a lot better, but maybe that's due to better writing. I did enjoy the Mandalorian, but it's a bit too shallow.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#163

Post by mrandish »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #150
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andor is the now the gold standard for Star Wars productions - serious themes, adult oriented, great writing and top tier acting. The Mandalorian was definitely aimed at a younger audience.

I think Mando season 1 is what Star Wars should be. A space themed throwback to old pulp novels, cowboys and samurai and pirates, with a veneer of lasers and spaceships painted on top. Andor is great, don't get me wrong. But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

> But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

This is the way. I saw the first Star Wars the week it opened as a tween and it rocked my world. Both SW and Raiders of the Lost Ark had a clear vision of building on the proven structure of the old B&W movie serials like Flash Gordon but updating them with modern storytelling tools and larger budgets. It was a truly great concept and then Empire raised the stakes higher and even better.

You're right that Mando Season 1 was an attempt to get back to the original concept and it got close. Skeleton Crew is perhaps the only other SW series where the core idea was to update a proven structure of the past in a pure and focused way - except it chose a different genre than 1930s serials. Initially I didn't know what to make of Skeleton Crew but once I got that it was building on the 1980s tween adventures like Goonies, I appreciated how it absolutely nailed what it was going for. My own kids are now older than Skeleton Crew's target audience, so it obviously wasn't for me but I applaud it as Disney's only other pure attempt at applying the 'big idea' that made OG SW great to another genre.

As a sci-fan who loved the original IP to the point of reverence, even bad Star Wars is usually at least interesting but it can also be frustrating when it evokes echoes of the OG by being set in the same universe without even trying to be great in the same ways as the OG. For example, Andor is unique in being a spin-off that is actually very good but I'd argue none of the things that make it so good require being set in the Star Wars universe. It might be even better if it had been unshackled from the rules of the Star Wars cinematic universe and was a new, original sci-fi IP.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#164

Post by mrandish »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #162
bluefirebrand wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mando season 1 is what Star Wars should be. A space themed throwback to old pulp novels, cowboys and samurai and pirates, with a veneer of lasers and spaceships painted on top. Andor is great, don't get me wrong. But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

Well George Lucas did borrow a lot of stuff from samurai films (The Hidden Fortress being the main one), so that is a return to its roots. Personally, I think that Firefly did the cowboys in space a lot better, but maybe that's due to better writing. I did enjoy the Mandalorian, but it's a bit too shallow.

+1 for Firefly nailing the 'cowboys in space' vibe.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#165

Post by bluefirebrand »

mrandish wrote: post #163
bluefirebrand wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mando season 1 is what Star Wars should be. A space themed throwback to old pulp novels, cowboys and samurai and pirates, with a veneer of lasers and spaceships painted on top. Andor is great, don't get me wrong. But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

> But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff. This is the way. I saw the first Star Wars the week it opened as a tween and it rocked my world. Both SW and Raiders of the Lost Ark had a clear vision of building on the proven structure of the old B&W movie serials like Flash Gordon but updating them with modern storytelling tools and larger budgets. It was a truly great concept and then Empire raised the stak…

> For example, Andor is unique in being a spin-off that is actually very good but I'd argue none of the things that make it so good require being set in the Star Wars universe

Yes, exactly. Andor could easily have been a story of French Resistance against Nazi Germany during WW2

Star Wars is definitely at its best when it is not just being Star Wars

Same with Marvel, but that's another discussion

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#166

Post by triceratops »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #136
mrandish wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mandalorian TV series wasn't bad but the Star Wars franchise has been in reset/turnaround for ~7 YEARS (since the last movie). It's incomprehensible that Disney bet their relaunch on a spin-off streaming series based on a tertiary character miraculously swimming back upstream from online to cinema. The two leads are a guy you never see and a small puppet (with the big reveal new character being a CGI alien). As g…

Andor is the now the gold standard for Star Wars productions - serious themes, adult oriented, great writing and top tier acting. The Mandalorian was definitely aimed at a younger audience.

But Star Wars was never about serious, adult themes, and great writing. It was about amazing space battles, laser swords, witty one-liners, adventure, and slapstick comedy, in a fun, kid-friendly package. Andor is a fine production. It isn't really Star Wars though.

My opinion: the closest movie, in spirit, to A New Hope is The Mummy (the 1999 one with Brendan Fraser).

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#167

Post by bluefirebrand »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #162
bluefirebrand wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mando season 1 is what Star Wars should be. A space themed throwback to old pulp novels, cowboys and samurai and pirates, with a veneer of lasers and spaceships painted on top. Andor is great, don't get me wrong. But Star Wars is best when it's pulp adventure stuff.

Well George Lucas did borrow a lot of stuff from samurai films (The Hidden Fortress being the main one), so that is a return to its roots. Personally, I think that Firefly did the cowboys in space a lot better, but maybe that's due to better writing. I did enjoy the Mandalorian, but it's a bit too shallow.

The concept in Mando is pretty much a direct rip of Lone Wolf and Cub, so I think it's really doing "Samurai in Space" more than "Cowboys"

Of course the cowboy and samurai pulp genres are pretty similar and borrowed a lot from each other. Lone Gunslinger with a code of honor versus a Lone Swordsman with a code of honor

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#168

Post by Steltek »

whyenot wrote: post #44
lazypenguin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because nobody has made Steam for Movies. Let me have a movie collection that I can buy movies $1-$5 per movie and never lose it and I promise you I will buy a lot more movies. Just like people buy hundreds of steam games

As someone already mentioned. Steam for movies already exists (iTunes, also Amazon’s offering). The problem seems to be that hardly anyone wants to actually own a movie anymore. There are places where the ownership model seems to still be thriving (books), but for video and audio, ownership (vs. streaming or renting) is largely dead.

No, streaming services like iTunes and Amazon are absolutely not "Steam for movies". Those services take active steps to restrict access to my purchased content.

I can't watch my Amazon purchases in HD because I run Linux. I get downgraded garbage 480p instead.

I can't watch any of this while on an airplane because I'm not allowed to download it.

And I don't own any Apple hardware so iTunes is a bit of a nonstarter.

In contrast, Steam lets me play offline and bends over backwards to get games to run (e.g. Proton and many other compatibility tools). And my Steam Deck doesn't earn me any extra special privileges over anything else.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#169

Post by jasondigitized »

darth_avocado wrote: post #28
ramenat2am wrote: post #12

That really shows the hunger for original stories and IC among cinephiles. Major studios were too afraid to produce something fresh instead of numberless sequels and reboots in the last decade or so.

Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales. Historically a lot of low and mid budget movies relied on DVD sales to recoup costs even if theater releases didn’t get you as much money as you expected. With the safety net gone, studios don’t want to take the risk. They make big budget movies with massive marketing budgets that rely on known IP and established fan ba…

I would like to know what the difference between DVD sales and 'rent whatever you want' from Prime is. That seems even more profitable.

Re: 'Backrooms' Stuns with $81M Debut

#170

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #167
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well George Lucas did borrow a lot of stuff from samurai films (The Hidden Fortress being the main one), so that is a return to its roots. Personally, I think that Firefly did the cowboys in space a lot better, but maybe that's due to better writing. I did enjoy the Mandalorian, but it's a bit too shallow.

The concept in Mando is pretty much a direct rip of Lone Wolf and Cub, so I think it's really doing "Samurai in Space" more than "Cowboys" Of course the cowboy and samurai pulp genres are pretty similar and borrowed a lot from each other. Lone Gunslinger with a code of honor versus a Lone Swordsman with a code of honor

I hadn't realised the link between those two, but you're right - I don't know why that never occurred to me as I do enjoy a lot of Asian cinema.
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