Originally Posted By wahooskipper $400 million dollar dud? I enjoyed it as did my wife, my 6 year old and even my 3 year old sat through most of it. With that my cross appeal it is no wonder it maintained the box office lead this week.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Actually, Hangover's numbers were revised this morning, and UP came in a close second this past weekend: <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=6854061" target="_blank">http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/st...=6854061</a> "The Warner Bros. comedy "The Hangover" drew bigger audiences than earlier projected to raise its weekend ticket sales to $45 million, about $1.8 million more than the studio estimated Sunday. That made it the No. 1 draw for the weekend instead of Disney and Pixar Animation's "Up," which came in second with $44.3 million. Sunday studio estimates had "Up" edging "The Hangover" by about $1 million."
Originally Posted By DlandDug I'll bet the producers of Land of the Lost wish they had a hangover on their hands. Even BoxOfficeMojo managed to miss this one-- they still have UP at #1 in their headlines, even though they've revised the lead story to reflect the corrected numbers. Regardless, UP seems well settled in to make it ten hits in a row for Pixar. No duds for Lasseter and the Mighty Lamp...
Originally Posted By basil fan I'm sure the people on this thread crying "dud" mean that they didn't like the movie, not that it didn't perform well. However, I loved it. Donald Duck's Family Tree www.whatsitsgalore.com/disney/donald.html
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Thing is... 'UP' is not gathering the same audience as 'The Hangover.' 'UP' is wonderful for all ages. 'The Hangover' --- is not.
Originally Posted By crazycroc I didn't like "UP" either. That's cool for those who did, I can respect that. I work in a highly stressful industry dealing with dsyfunctional family systems 6 days a week. So, I bet it's totally me, not needing something "deep" in my system after work. The last thing I want in one of my Disney movies is this type of sadness. From Carl's wife passing, to the little boy's Dad being a no-show, to Muntz being a bad guy to Carl, I just found the whole thing a bit depressing. I am however, eagerly anticipating more entertainment in the vein of Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2: Back to Mexico.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA crazycroc -- are you kidding? I can't tell if you're trying to be funny.
Originally Posted By mawnck Yep, dud. It's Pixar's worst movie by a comfortable margin, because there's plot holes, and then there's "we just aren't paying attention." (Spoilers ahead.) I loved, loved, LOVED the opening too, but the movie jumped the shark when the house got caught in the storm and started being knocked around so violently. We've already established that Carl can break his arm and that he can't climb stairs and that getting bopped on the head makes you bleed, and yet this seventy-something year old guy spends the rest of the movie getting bopped and bashed, dragging a floating house, running from vicious dogs, and just generally having a strenuous time of it. And he never breaks a sweat, let alone an arm. Kevin can get hurt badly. Dug and Muntz can not get hurt at all. Russell can get hurt once if a gag calls for it but heals up instantly. Make up your dang mind! Muntz in his 90's? Try 110's. He had lunch with Teddy Roosevelt, remember? Spry old geezer, huh. And he builds electronic psychic talking dog collars in a rain forest (why?) like the Professor on Gilligan's Island, and has a 70-year-old zeppelin with a spotless museum in it that is in airworthy condition, complete with hydrogen, staffed entirely by dogs. It was like Dreamworks trying to do a Pixar movie. "Well it's supposed to have this, and this, and a laugh here because it's getting too heavy and ooh we have a plot problem here so we'll just stick in a 'cone of shame' gag earlier in the film so we can use it here even though it's the 7th time we've done this kind of thing," and so on. All the main characters spent a great deal of time dangling on the edge of something. Good the first few times, not so much after the 8th or 9th dangle. By the time we got to that ridiculous dogs flying airplanes thing (where did they get the planes and why?) I was already officially mad at the movie, and that really tore it. As often happens when I'm trying to defend a negative opinion of a film that everyone else appears to love to pieces, this is coming out as if I thought this was another "Home on the Range." It's not. It's an entertaining movie, with some really magical moments. I give it 5 stars out of 10, which beats about half of Dreamworks' catalog. I've just come to expect Pixar movies to be more solidly assembled than this. I am quite content to forgive plot holes as long as they aren't glaring, but in this I felt like I was getting socked in the face with them, one after another. If a character takes a ridiculous beating and doesn't get the least bit hurt, then don't be surprised if I stop caring whether he gets hurt or not. And I am no hater of cartoony business - heck, those airplane dogs would be a hoot in a different movie - but we keep being asked to accept Carl's world as somewhat based in cold reality, and then having that reality shattered by slapsticky or over-the-top action-sequence business. They tried to have it both ways, and with me at least, failed miserably. Bolt, which had a few plot issues itself, is MUCH better. To put it in Studio Ghibli terms, Up is Pixar's equivalent to "The Cat Returns," and I sure hope they aren't working on their "Tales from Earthsea," cause that will **really** suck.
Originally Posted By mawnck PS - Someone on another board had a theory that the whole movie from the point of the balloon takeoff was supposed to turn out to be Carl's dream right before he died, and that the movie was supposed to end with him being carried out of the house - which is still on the construction site - in a body bag. But the powers that be vetoed it because you just can't have a blockbuster movie with a sad ending in 2009. IF that is the case - and I emphasize that it was ONLY speculation on the poster's part - then this movie would have made a lot more sense, and it's too bad they didn't stick to their guns.
Originally Posted By ecdc I think mawnck is Carl before the journey. Get some balloons and fly to South America instead of yelling at kids to get off your lawn!
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Had the UP ended with the whole thing being a dream, and showing Carl getting carried out of the hpuse in a body bag -- it may have made it an even better movie -- almost like a wonderful, fantasy Twilight Zone.. It would have made more logical sense, I suppose. Still -- it's one if my favorite Top 3 Pixar movies -- for me it's 1. The Incredibles 2.Wall-E. 3. UP
Originally Posted By basil fan Glad to read mawnck's post. The day we two agree on anything is the day I'll start to worry. Who expects realism in a movie where a house is floated off its foundation by helium balloons? Might as well complain that the dogs in Lady & the Tramp can talk to each other. That dream ending may be OK for late seasons of Dallas when they are desperate to do anything to get back their audience, but it would've made one lousy Pixar movie Just because a movie can shock or surprise an audience doesn't make it good. I guarantee I would've never watched it again. Now I am planning my second trip to the theater and eagerly awaiting the DVD release. Scooby-Doo <a href="http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/glitch.sdglitch.html" target="_blank">http://www.whatsitsgalore.com/...tch.html</a>
Originally Posted By alexbook Saw it for the second time last night (got a free pass), and enjoyed it again. The point when the house takes off kind of threw me, the second time even more than the first as I noticed more details. You're so clearly in the real world up until then, and yet the house taking off is so clearly impossible. But that's okay, sort of. I mean, starting in the real world and then going off into fantasy is a pretty common convention. In some ways, the return to the "real world" at the end is the really strange part. It's almost as if Mr. Tumnus had come back out of the wardrobe with the Pevensie kids.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Who expects realism in a movie where a house is floated off its foundation by helium balloons? Might as well complain that the dogs in Lady & the Tramp can talk to each other.<< It's not the lack of realism, it's the way they expect you to switch back and forth between realism and Looney Tunes mode whenever they darn well feel like it. Whatever rules are established in whatever fantasy world you create - whether it involves houses picked up by balloons or a little wooden boy with a talking cricket, you have to have a darn good reason to change them midstream or the believability of that world goes down the tubes. Storytelling 102.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Whatever rules are established in whatever fantasy world you create - whether it involves houses picked up by balloons or a little wooden boy with a talking cricket, you have to have a darn good reason to change them midstream or the believability of that world goes down the tubes. Storytelling 102.<< I agree Up had some plot holes and some "Deus ex Machina" going on. I had a hard time initially with the dogs in the planes, too. But what part of Up had us believing that some of this is so implausible? When did they previously establish that dogs wouldn't be able to fly planes? If it's that Up is supposed to take place in the real world, we've got a problem, because early on there's plenty of pretty fantastical things going on. The line between "acceptable unbelievability" and "unacceptable unbelievability" is blurry and varies from person to person. I can buy the dogs flying the planes - but Carl not being hurt like a frail 70-something should? That never crossed my mind because I was too busy...enjoying the movie. I had a friend who objected that in Angels & Demons, two characters are walking from different locales, one is farther away than the other, but they arrive at their destination at the same time. I can't imagine the kind of nitpicking that it takes to notice something like that - and Angels & Demons was no Up. I always enjoy and respect mawnck's perspective, and I think there's some valid points here, but overall, it wasn't my experience and I just can't agree.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney Bah, people are thinking too much. It's an animated movie for God's sake. How is it The Incredibles is more believable. I mean, they start out as a typical famiy, but are actually superhero's that save the world. And what about Ratatouille, I mean, do you know any mice that can cook? Or a myriad of Disney movies from Snow White to Beauty and the Beast to Mary Poppins. It's just for fun and entertainment, and the bottom line is......the bottom line!
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Bah, people are thinking too much. It's an animated movie for God's sake. How is it The Incredibles is more believable. I mean, they start out as a typical famiy, but are actually superhero's that save the world. And what about Ratatouille, I mean, do you know any mice that can cook? Or a myriad of Disney movies from Snow White to Beauty and the Beast to Mary Poppins.<< No, in fairness to mawnck, he's right about creating a believable world and then staying within the bounds of that world. (Although it's not Storytelling 102, it's actually Storytelling 310.) Ratatouille does a very nice job of staying within those boundaries. Rats can talk to each other, but it sounds like squeaks to humans. Remy can understand English when it's spoken to him. But what if, halfway through the movie, Remy just started talking to Linguini in English, instead of using gestures, without any explanation for the change? It would take you out of the moment. Up pushes those boundaries. But I think the mistake (though I'm sure he'd disagree with that characterization) mawnck is making, is assuming that Up is taking place in the real world. And certainly there's some indication of that - real people are mentioned, like Teddy Roosevelt. There's real contraptions and certainly much of what happens we see happening all the time. But if one is going to complain about breaking the boundaries set, it has to be from the moment the house lifts off into the air. The balloons are held on through the chimney to the fireplace grate. Certainly that couldn't support the house. And that's a pretty narrow chimney, and to support the house, he'd have to have several hundred-thousand balloons - the strings along wouldn't fit. Why accept that premise, but not others? Because the flying house was in the previews, so we're already conditioned for it? At the moment that house takes off, if not sooner, we're expected to suspend some belief in the way the world was previously presented to us as "the real world."
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <Bah, people are thinking too much.> This is said so often with regard to entertainment -- and it always chaps my behind. People write that when talking about theme park attractions too. It's dismissive. It suggests that the person noticing the lack of logic, lack of detail, lack of theme-ing, is being 'too picky.' If you want to sit it a movie theater and watch the pretty colors flash by, and just 'be entertained' -- go for it. Just because someone thinks beyond what's presented on the screen, doesn't make them wrong.
