seanotron

http://www.blastr.com/2013-5-31/screenwriter-reveals-after-earth-wasnt-meant-be-sci-fi-movie The sci-fi aspects of the movie as so poorly thought out and tacked on, it totally makes sense that the original idea wasn't sci-fi at all.

The accents are on purpose, they just slip in and out of them and by the end seem to have forgotten they ever had them. There are interviews with Will Smith & Jaden where they talk about working with an accent coach to create that 'original' accent. It sounded like a cross between an Atlanta accent and a South African accent, but I couldn't really make heads or tails of it.

I'm also pretty sure he was pulling everyone's leg with that whole, 'Oh I thought it was the other Joel Coen' bit. Especially since he went on to do the sequel, by which time he clearly knew who was involved.

They still frequently confuse schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder, so I guess it's not that surprising they think that all autistic children are codebreakers.

He is basically pissing his pants in that scene, and stupidly throws the rock which antagonizes the baboons (his freakout in that scene actually made me giggle in the theater). He is definitely not fearless there. At least that was not how I read that scene. And I thought they said something to the effect of the Ursa couldn't smell him in the terrarium.

The very idea that someone would suggest this movie causes me to make this face

Yeah, that line/plot point fails on a lot of levels. It didn't add anything to the story, and contradicted almost all of the human/animal interaction we actually saw on screen.

I know there was an episode of Covert Affairs that was basically this same outline. I need to ask my friends with autistic children if their kids spend most of their free time cracking top-secret codes, because Hollywood has led me to believe it is a very common thing. Also they should probably stop, because the government will likely kill their children.

I would like to now point out that Bruce is, in fact, a scientist.

Even though I agree with you, I think we should make it clear that you are not, in fact, a scientist.

Another thing that drove me crazy in this movie is that Will says he can see everything Jaden sees, but then he's always asking him what he sees. What now?

I honestly can't disagree more. The descriptions of the dead magician don't lay the foundation for that ending, which is why *SPOILERS* Mark Ruffalo has that massive info dump dialog at the end. Even the characters seem incredulous about that revelation. I kind of half expected Jessie Eisenberg to wink at the camera and say, 'This is nonsense, am I right?'. The twist is dumb, dumb, dumb. Other random issues I had with this movie: Ruffalo goes after the safe company because the safes were 'substandard' and when his father dropped himself to the bottom of the East River the door warped and he couldn't get out. Well Mark Ruffalo, I'm pretty sure the safe company wasn't designing their safes to be dropped to the bottom of a river with a person inside. There are several references to Robin Hood, but the magicians aren't doing anything noble. They don't even know why they're doing anything! Their motivations are purely selfish and they couldn't give a shit about any of the 'wrongs' they're supposedly righting. And that brings me to my final thought, which is that everyone in this movie is an asshole. The 4 Horsemen are assholes, Mark Ruffalo is an asshole, Morgan Freeman is an asshole...the French Interpol agent is the only remotely likable character, and we barely spend any time with her. Arghhhhhhhh I hate this movie so much.

Whatever flaws Signs might have, that twist is phoned in right from the start. The little girl is obsessed with water and she keeps leaving the glasses around, they say the aliens have all landed in non-coastal areas, Shyamalan's character even says 'I think they don't like water'. They lay the backstory with the wife and his brother's failed baseball career, etc. Even if the twist is stupid, there's a foundation laid for it. This movie doesn't do any of that. Like I said, the twist isn't earned. Signs at least spent time letting us have some affection for its characters. Everyone in this movie is basically a cipher. They do things because the plot needs them to, not because they are fully developed characters. Saw's twist doesn't negate anything that happened in the movie before that moment. Empire's twist makes the story better, because it adds another obstacle to Luke's path to killing Darth Vader. The Fight Club twist fits the established universe and when you watch the movie again there are a ton of clues and it allows you to appreciate the movie on a whole new level. That does not happen in this movie. The twist here actually makes the movie worse, because it's so incongruous with the first hour and a half. I don't disagree about High Tension, that movie was terrible.

You're actually pointing out exactly why this movie's twist isn't good. You can't go back and watch this movie again and put together the pieces like with Sixth Sense or Fight Club because there are no pieces. The movie does not give you any reasonable hint about its twist, and once it's revealed, it makes other parts of the film make less sense. There's no payoff with that twist. That aside, my biggest issue with this movie is the piss-poor character development. The movie never makes any effort to make you like any of these people. Why care what's going on when you don't care about the people involved?

Those twists are all reasonable within their respective movie's rules. You are given tons of hints throughout both Fight Club and Sixth Sense as to what is actually going on. Verbal Kint is an unreliable narrator. I'm fine with a character lying, but the problem is this movie does not earn its twist in any way, shape, or form. The twist is nonsense. It means the character in question is constantly working against their own goals. It's garbage. As a general rule, if your twist relies on a last minute info dump of points the audience couldn't have possibly known. it's not a good twist. There's an old Neil Simon movie called Murder By Death that does a nice job of making fun of these sorts of out-of-nowhere twists.

I wouldn't say that lays the foundation for the actual twist so much as it gives you a very vague notion that something is going on behind-the-scenes. Again, look at the twist and then examine that character's behavior throughout the movie. A movie has to play fair with its audience, and I'd say this movie did not. The twist was a bridge too far for me.

Also, this movie had a great soundtrack.

That twist made no sense, and in retrospect made that particular character's actions throughout the movie make no sense. It felt like they were picking it solely based on the fact that the audience would never guess it, not because it was good storytelling or made a lick of sense. And of course the audience wouldn't guess it, there's no foundation laid for it! I dunno, this movie just made me mad. I need to go pop in The Prestige so I can remember that good magician movies featuring Michael Caine do exist.

Yeah, unless they were doing it as an amazing/crazy pick a la Crank or Punisher it's not going to happen.

I had completely forgotten about this movie. It is indeed crazy. IIRC, Cheryl Ladd comes from the future and abducts people right before they die because they can't have babies any more and she sleeps with Kris Kristofferson and then the future gets destroyed but there's another future and that's where they send everyone. Whaaaaaa?

Very true. Sometimes you get a Michael Bay and sometimes you get a Spike Jonze.

It's definitely a bad movie, it's just that it's a boring bad movie, which means it's not very fun to pick apart.

I love this movie, but it has been so thoroughly explored that even people who have never laid eyes upon it know that Plan 9 is shorthand for terrible. I recommend anyone that hasn't seen it to view it for sure, but I don't see the point in having it on the show. I kind of feel like we need to stick to Quantum Leap rules on HDTGM. Meaning we shouldn't stray too far outside our trio's lifetimes when choosing what to cover.

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