Originally Posted By dagobert Thanks to a special deal (2 for 1) we got to see A World Beyond aka Tomorrowland. I don't know yet if I liked it. The visuals were great and I enjoyed the connections to Disney, but I really didn't like Casey. From the first moment I saw her, I knew that she is an annoying character. Athena(?) on the other hand was, like Frank, fantastic. She was the real star. Overall the movie was okay, but nothing special. However given the fact that it was a Brad Bird movie, I am a bit disappointed. I hold Lindelof accountable for the weak story. One last thing, the Disney Apple connection is getting annoying. Tomorrowland is basically an Apple advertisement movie. Now i have to read the book Before Tomorrowland, because the backstory sounds very interesting.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance I liked it. It wasn't my favorite movie, but I was pleasantly surprised by George Clooney's character. He seemed pretty smug in the trailers, and his character was basically the opposite of what we saw in the trailers. I thought the message was good and it was overall entertaining. I wasn't checking the time and counting the seconds till it was over. It wasn't crazy good, like I was hoping, but I enjoyed it. I also liked the comic book store scene. Was it just me or did the little brother and young George Clooney look a lot alike?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I thought the message was good and it was overall entertaining. I wasn't checking the time and counting the seconds till it was over. It wasn't crazy good, like I was hoping, but I enjoyed it.<< Me, too.
Originally Posted By dagobert After seeing the movie, I'm wondering why it was so expensive? George Clooney is a big star, but the rest of the cast are no-names. Are the few shots of Tomorrowland that expensive so that Disney had to budget 200 Mio Dollars? The movie just doesn't reflect the budget.
Originally Posted By darcy-becker Hugh Laurie certainly isn't as big a star as George Clooney but neither is he a no name. Nor is Tim McGraw.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Ann and I will be seeing Tomorrowland tonight. I was surprised at how easy it was to talk her into it. I had her look at the trailers and she said it looked interesting. Normally she hates Sci-Fi... I would be unable to get her to a Star Wars film for anything. Maybe George Clooney helped. ;-)
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Absolutely LOVED the film. I will post a review once I've had a chance to sort out my thoughts. I would like to see it again to catch things I missed the first time through... it is that kind of film.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<And as for Tomorrowland, well, we get a glimpse of the place but we don't get to spend much time there. Other than looking cool and things flying about, I wish some time had been spent perhaps meeting some of the inhabitants and seeing how advanced they are (will be?). If Tomorrowland is the prize the characters are after, there's not a lot outside of the glitzy stuff to say *why* exactly it is a place to strive toward. Have they solved racism, environmental issues, etc.? We can assume so, I guess, but the movie doesn't show it really. Maybe because it is simply somewhere other than here and now, that's enough.>> 2oony... That is one of the reasons I want to see it again. I thought I picked up towards the end that the Tomorrowland depicted in the early parts of the film never really existed. What people were seeing was essentially an ad to get people to go to Tomorrowland to populate it and help with its development. That would be why we never really see anything beneath the surface... there really was nothing beneath the surface. The planned development of Tomorrowland never occurred after Frank (Clooney) came up with his invention and David Nix (Laurie) decided to pull the plug on the whole thing. Yup. Nix nixed it. ;-)
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub I want that special effect on Small World Now... Great timing on that in the movie. Just as I am thinking OMG that song ... Is everybody going to walk out of the movie now They deliver that fantastic and unexpected surprise. Now that was fun! I actually saw the preview in the old Michael Jackson theatre at Disneyland. It was so much fun I immediately re-entered to watch it again and returned the next day to experience it again. Then I saw the movie in the AMC in Downtown Disney. I love seeing a new Disney Movie in that theatre. After seeing the trailer in Disneyland they had a small historical background viewing section to walk thru with the secret magic box that was found by the storytellers. Very convincing and intriguing and added to the storyline. In my future I just want to be "surprised" like that on Small World and I don't want the technology to have it discussed fifty million times by bloggers that give away all the secrets.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I think, like 'Tomorrowland' the movie, the preview was better. :-/
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "I want that special effect on Small World Now... Great timing on that in the movie. Just as I am thinking OMG that song ... Is everybody going to walk out of the movie now They deliver that fantastic and unexpected surprise. Now that was fun!" During the movie, my son leaned over to me and whispered that the next time we go to Disneyland he is buying that pin and wearing it on Small World. lol
Originally Posted By TheRedhead What a terrible movie. Given the talent and money it's surprisingly amateur hour. It's structured terribly - I have never in my life seen a movie with SO MUCH exposition. The film finally sort of clicks when the three leads are teamed, but by then it's way too late. Tacking on the terribly written, cringe-worthy voice over bits to try and salvage things just made it worse. Awful. The character of Casey and the actress playing her are both completely unlikeable. George Clooney can't pull off get-off-my-lawn grumpy and barely pulls off wise-mentor. I don't know what he thinks he's doing, but I guess he can blame the terrible script that gives him nothing to use. Athena is great, but it's cruel to expect a little robot to carry a film. The whole mess is a lesson in how not to make a summer movie. It jumps from one glossy set piece to another without offering us a real look at who these characters are or what world they inhabit. And things are either explained to death or glossed over in a weirdly unsatisfying way...but i guess that's a Damon Lindelof trademark. My son asked twice to get up and go to the bathroom. I was happy to oblige. Each time we left we had to walk past a theater playing Avengers, and if it weren't for the fact my wife would've killed me, I would have jumped ship in a heart beat. I don't think I liked the movie.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Well said, The Redhead. The Mrs and I felt they really missed the boat.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Well, I obviously disagree with the assessment by The Redhead. Not that I disagree with everything said, but we are looking for different things in films. I can overlook scripts that are clunky at times and holes in the plot. I just fill that stuff in with my imagination anyway. I tend to judge films on the overall feeling it leaves me with, and for me Tomorrowland worked. Yeah, I am kind of an old-school dreamer and optimist, and I hope I never become bitter or cynical enough to change that. But to me the film presented a viewpoint that is needed today more than ever. The only part of the film that kind of turned me of was Nix's (Laurie) soliloquy on how stupid the people of earth were for ignoring their various problems. It was overly preachy and hit you over the head with the message. There was no need for that... the same message had been presented more subtly and less antagonistically throughout the film.
Originally Posted By doombuggy "It was overly preachy and hit you over the head with the message. There was no need for that" That seems to be the main complaint with the movie. "Clooney’s ‘Global Warming Shaming’ Movie ‘Tomorrowland’ Bombs at Box Office"
Originally Posted By leemac <<The whole mess is a lesson in how not to make a summer movie. It jumps from one glossy set piece to another without offering us a real look at who these characters are or what world they inhabit. And things are either explained to death or glossed over in a weirdly unsatisfying way...but i guess that's a Damon Lindelof trademark.>> I said in the thread about Tron 3 being dumped that I'm amazed that Hollywood is so devoid of screenwriters now that all of JJ Abrams' Bad Robot gang seem to get every major blockbuster under the sun. Lindelof's Lost scripts were preachy and overly complicated and his feature scripts have been terrible - Cowboys & Aliens, World War Z and Prometheus to nail but three of his 4 other movies. Star Trek into Darkness was fine. Then you have Horowitz and Kitsis that wrote the awful Tron Legacy and thankfully returned to TV where they belonged with Once Upon A Time. Orci and Kurtzmann have written two of the terrbile Transformers movies and the last Spider-Man movie that killed off Marc Webb's trilogy. Carlton Cruse has just done San Andreas. Drew Goddard wrote Cloverfield and is now EP'ing Daredevil. Next up is Sinister Six. Jeff Pinkner also wrote The Amazing Spider-Man 2. All of them came from either Alias, Lost or Felicity. At some point studios need to realise that writing for the small screen rarely translates into decent feature writing. It is the same in the DC universe - Greg Berlanti wrote the truly terrible Green Lantern and Wrath of the Titans. On the small screen he wrote for Dawson's Creek and more recently Brothers & Sisters, Eli Stone and No Ordinary Family at ABC before leaving for WB to take over all of the DC stuff including Arrow, The Flash and now Super Girl.
Originally Posted By leemac <<I can overlook scripts that are clunky at times and holes in the plot.>> I can't get beyond a poor script. It can be as visually engaging as it likes but if the script including both the story and the dialog is crap then I'm out of there. It will be interesting to see if TL's box office poison causes problems for Magic Kingdom. That expensive puppy is still in development and Jon Favreau has said he would still like to make it after he delivers The Jungle Book.
Originally Posted By dagobert I'm just glad that none of JJ Abrams co-writers is involved in Star Wars TFA. JJA isn't a gifted writer either, but he isn't as bad as the ones leemac has mentioned. However I think he is a good director. Super 8 was wonderful and so are his Star Trek movies. Lawrence Kasdan hasn't had a good movie in years, but I trust him more than Lindelof, Cuse, Orci or Kurtzman. So I hope SW will be in good hands with JJA and Kasdan.
Originally Posted By oc_dean 'doombuggy', did you see the film? In early posts you were quite reticent to go. I just got back from seeing it a 2nd time. A bit more enjoyable. The muddled 3rd act felt as though .. it made slight more sense to me .... Since I had a better sense of the film as a whole. If you haven't seen it yet doombuggy ... my advice .. go soon, as the 3,972 number of screens in the U.S. just dropped down to 3,012 .. and probably will take a bigger hit soon. For all the complaining we can say about the script .... the big Tomorrowland city sequence is meant to be seen on a huge "movie theater" screen. Unless you have a 80 inch HDTV with a Bluray .... many of the cool details will be lost. On those sets 50 inches or smaller, and just DVD. I just have a 26 inch Sony Bravia and Bluray ... so I made sure I got one more visit into the theater. For the film's flaws .. there's no denying how awesome the epic sequences are. Without giving too much away .. but only say what is seen in the trailer ... the Paris Effel Tower scene is incredible. And when Young Frank makes his appearance in Tomorrowland are so cool. I'd go see it again a 3rd time. But there are some other big budget films coming ... and they'll no doubt push Tomorrowland out of circulation faster than I can say Supercalifragulistexpialodicious.
Originally Posted By oc_dean Oh .. and to those who thought Athena stole the movie .. I agree. Her performance helps make up for it's shortfalls. Loved her role in the film. Loved it!!
