Episode 201 - Skyscraper

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

12 hours ago, grudlian. said:

Speaking of the helicopter, there's a scene where it's "too hot" for the helicopter to be near the burning building, but Rock can just hang there from the side of the building?

The entire time he is holding that bridge to save their kids, everyone on screen should be broiled chicken. I can't sit too close to campfire even if it's cold out ... I can't imagine how hot all that burning steel would be.

2 hours ago, gigitastic said:

So there you have it. My insane brain is FINE with people running around a burning building willy nilly, cutting steel cables with an ax, and jumping off a fucking crane but nighttime panda feeding , that shit needs to be fact checked!

You're like Neil Degrasse Tyson for pandas. 

[Cam Bert 8145]

14 hours ago, grudlian. said:

Probably my biggest problem is that the movie would make so much more sense if The Rock already had the job he interviews for in this movie. The entire villain plot hinges on The Rock getting the tablet that day. It means he has to ace the interview which would definitely be highly competitive. It means the building owner would just give him the tablet immediately. BUT if he had been working there a while, he would already have the tablet. It would explain why his family is living in otherwise uninhabited floors of this building. It would explain why The Rock and his family know the layout of the building so well.

You could easily have Rock's friend from the FBI visiting him to see how successful he is after the incident. That way you wouldn't need the bizarre plot point that the FBI friend who is now a criminal somehow set up the interview. You wouldn't need Rock to say he's "working out of his garage" which he clearly isn't.

Okay maybe I'm reading too much into this but I'm pretty sure this was an elaborate revenge plot on the part of Pablo Schreiber. Somehow he gets a job as... wait was his job? Assistant? Building manager? Head of security? Whatever. He works for rich Hong Kong man and his new giant building. Somewhere along the way he was approached by the triads and the people that needed the data from Hong Kong business man. The plan centered around getting the iPad and having a random person take the fall for the building being on fire. That's when he thought about getting back at the Rock for leaving him scarred. Think about it, the moment the building went up Rock was immediately on the news as the bad guy who did it. He was being set up to take the fall from the start. Pablo Schreiber wanted Rock's life ruined but didn't want to hurt his family thus the night pandas. He used his position to guarantee Rock was the only person applying for the job and he told him what he'd need to do for the interview. He arranged for everything to be the way it was to get that tablet into Rock's hands so they could steal it and blame it all on him and ruin his life like the Rock ruined his.

[tomspanks 9039]

I think I missed a significant plot point, so if someone could explain, that would be great.  The bad guys' plan was to steal The Rock's iPad on the ferry, right?  But then later, they needed The Rock's face to unlock the iPad.  So if the theft on the ferry was a success, how were they planning to unlock the iPad?

[gigi-tastic 2322]

9 minutes ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

The entire time he is holding that bridge to save their kids, everyone on screen should be broiled chicken. I can't sit too close to campfire even if it's cold out ... I can't imagine how hot all that burning steel would be.

You're like Neil Degrasse Tyson for pandas. 

He no longer has use of his hands. They are just burnt off stumps. He full on is nothing but a 4th degree burn from touching that molten steel. 4th degree burns go down to muscle and bones.  If the woman who was horrifically maimed by McDonald's coffee got 3rd degree burns his hands should be like ash.

They should have died not just from the intense heat and heat shock but also from smoke inhalation which kills 50- 80% of people in a fire. Your breathing in burning hot air and gasses which fries your lungs and can send you into cardiac arrest, carbon monoxide and a bunch of other shit like cyanide. 

Also being called "The Neil Degrasse Tyson of Pandas" just made my week. I might need to get business cards....

[Cam Bert 8145]

1 hour ago, tomspanks said:

I think I missed a significant plot point, so if someone could explain, that would be great.  The bad guys' plan was to steal The Rock's iPad on the ferry, right?  But then later, they needed The Rock's face to unlock the iPad.  So if the theft on the ferry was a success, how were they planning to unlock the iPad?

Hmm... what if the iPad was a bit of a mcguffin? Maybe their plan was the turn everything off at the remote site and then destroy the computers there so the only why to turn things off would be on the iPad which is useless without Rock's face thus insuring that the building would burn.

[UncleCharlie 4]

Interesting that the main villain (Botha?) didn't come up at all in the discussion - and that’s one of the reasons why this film is so bad.  For a great action thriller you need a great villain to match off against the hero - even a lot of the “Die Hard in a….” knock-offs have decent bad guys (Powers Boothe in “Sudden Impact”, Tommy Lee Jones in “Under Siege”.  This villain is just blah, no personality, no quips - even his death is poorly handled.

Another point that didn’t come up in the discussion, possibly because the answer is too horrible to contemplate: amidst all the carnage - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PANDAS?

[DrGuts1003 462]

Most of the issues I had have already been addressed here by other users, but I do have a few addendum questions that I wanted to add:

After the incident at Pablo Schreiber’s place, the Rock flees and almost immediately the media is covering the “manhunt”.  But why?  The tallest building in the world is on fire - the media would not cut into their coverage of the fire to discuss (what the police believe to be) a simple robbery.

The film mentions several times that the fire is making it too hot for helicopters to be flying by the building, so where are the cameras that are shooting all of the footage of the Rock that the people are watching on the big screens?

[DrGuts1003 462]

Now that I am thinking about this movie more...I have a lot of problems with the villains’ plan...

First off, when they first break in, how does the employee in the basement never see Botha and his crew - he shines a light in that hole for a long time and doesn’t see a thing.

Second, why do they need to break into the building like that?  If Noah Taylor and Pablo Schreiber work in the building, shouldn’t they have been able to help Botha get into the building more easily?

Then when they are pouring the flammable material in the building, they are wearing gas masks and yet take them off before leaving the hallway.  If the dust was that dangerous to inhale, it would not have dissipated that quickly for them to remove their masks so soon.

I also wasn’t sure why they needed to start the fire so low.  If the purpose of the fire is to force building guy out, why not set it closer to the top where he is located?

Lastly, why does Botha’s whole crew need to stay in the building once the fire has started?  If everything goes according to plan, Noah Taylor should have been able to get the flash drive from building guy when they escaped on the helicopter?  Why make your entire crew go through with an unnecessarily risky escape that involves parachuting off of the building?  Also, with all the media coverage, wouldn’t parachuting off the building draw a lot of unwanted attention on them?

[Cameron H. 23786]

On 11/10/2018 at 8:35 AM, DrGuts1003 said:

Most of the issues I had have already been addressed here by other users, but I do have a few addendum questions that I wanted to add:

After the incident at Pablo Schreiber’s place, the Rock flees and almost immediately the media is covering the “manhunt”.  But why?  The tallest building in the world is on fire - the media would not cut into their coverage of the fire to discuss (what the police believe to be) a simple robbery.

The film mentions several times that the fire is making it too hot for helicopters to be flying by the building, so where are the cameras that are shooting all of the footage of the Rock that the people are watching on the big screens?

I watched this last week and I’m having trouble remembering everything, but I think the issue is that the problems with the building could only be because of that iPad. Since no one knows it was stolen from him, and it required his facial recognition, it looks like he’s responsible. So it’s not coverage of of a theft, but of a terrorist on the loose. Which, incidentally, was a big source of humor for me when the crowd starts getting on his side. They’re essentially cheering on what they think is a terrorist...

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

10 hours ago, tomspanks said:

I think I missed a significant plot point, so if someone could explain, that would be great.  The bad guys' plan was to steal The Rock's iPad on the ferry, right?  But then later, they needed The Rock's face to unlock the iPad.  So if the theft on the ferry was a success, how were they planning to unlock the iPad?

 

9 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

Hmm... what if the iPad was a bit of a mcguffin? Maybe their plan was the turn everything off at the remote site and then destroy the computers there so the only why to turn things off would be on the iPad which is useless without Rock's face thus insuring that the building would burn.

In addition to that, the bad guy's hacker, with the slightly-Swedishy accent, didn't even seem to know that the plan ever involved the McGuffin tablet (iMacGuffin?). After the murder all the employees, he sits down at one of the computers and goes "blah blah I can do all this cool shit but I can't override the thingy without --" and then Not Ruby Rose puts the tablet down next to him, and he goes, "Oh! .... cool." So the inclusion of the tablet was a facet of the plan that not everyone was hip to. 

 

4 hours ago, UncleCharlie said:

Interesting that the main villain (Botha?) didn't come up at all in the discussion - and that’s one of the reasons why this film is so bad.  For a great action thriller you need a great villain to match off against the hero - even a lot of the “Die Hard in a….” knock-offs have decent bad guys (Powers Boothe in “Sudden Impact”, Tommy Lee Jones in “Under Siege”.  This villain is just blah, no personality, no quips - even his death is poorly handled.

Another point that didn’t come up in the discussion, possibly because the answer is too horrible to contemplate: amidst all the carnage - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PANDAS?

Did anyone else think at first that Botha was the villain from the last two Mission: Impossible movies? It took me a second to convince myself this wasn't the same dude.  

 

1 hour ago, DrGuts1003 said:

Most of the issues I had have already been addressed here by other users, but I do have a few addendum questions that I wanted to add:

After the incident at Pablo Schreiber’s place, the Rock flees and almost immediately the media is covering the “manhunt”.  But why?  The tallest building in the world is on fire - the media would not cut into their coverage of the fire to discuss (what the police believe to be) a simple robbery.

The film mentions several times that the fire is making it too hot for helicopters to be flying by the building, so where are the cameras that are shooting all of the footage of the Rock that the people are watching on the big screens?

Where are ANY of the cameras in this movie?

Where are the cameras providing the news footage?

Where are the cameras providing the feed for the holographic panels in the Pearl? How can D"TR"J be directly in front of Building Guy and not be in the shot? Same question about Botha at the end -- what camera can see and project a direct front angle of D"TR"J yet not so much as catch Botha's shoulder?

Where is the camera in Neve Campbell's phone, such that she can drop her phone on its back while Skyping with D'TR"J, yet he can still clearly see her run away when the bad guys come? That phone should be looking at a ceiling that's on fire and nothing else. 

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

I have two main gripes that haven't already been covered:

1. So I get that Pornstache Schrieber hates D"TR"J, but I don't quite get why. On the ferry, he complains that after the botched hostage rescue, D"TR"J got to get a brand new life with a wife and child and good job, and Pornstache seems bent out of shape about that, but he is actually doing pretty okay himself. He has a pretty cushy security gig in Hong Kong working for one of the richest guys in the world. Plus, it's not everyday that you get recruited by the Euro-Triads or whoever they are. He's not exactly still living the same ol' life. 

And he decides superquick to just kill D"TR"J after he finds that the iMacGuffin wasn't in the bag that the thief stole. It easy to see that he had enough hatred to set up a friend as a terrorist ... I mean, one might compare that to a really, really, really long-term practical joke. But to just decide "Guess I gotta murder my friend and his family" is over-the-top.

2. So, it is said during the news-exposition that the Pearl will be the #1 tourist attraction in the world. 

First of all, why? Second of all, do they mean like, bigger than Disney World, bigger than the Great Wall, all of that? That’s a tiny room on top of skyscraper … can you imagine trying to use the elevator or waiting in line in the stairwell to stand in the fake sky over Hong Kong?

[Cam Bert 8145]

6 minutes ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

2. So, it is said during the news-exposition that the Pearl will be the #1 tourist attraction in the world. 

First of all, why? Second of all, do they mean like, bigger than Disney World, bigger than the Great Wall, all of that? That’s a tiny room on top of skyscraper … can you imagine trying to use the elevator or waiting in line in the stairwell to stand in the fake sky over Hong Kong?

Edit: because I misread and thought you said it is the number one. I'll leave my comment as is.

I mean people only go to giant buildings to do one thing and that is go to top and look around. But at this point in the movie the residential section, the garden section, and "The Pearl" aren't even open yet. So people are just able to go to the mall section which is what the first twenty floors it said? Are they that excited just to see the building and shop in it?Nobody wants to go to the world's tallest building and just go to the fifth floor. That's crazy. 

[Cam Bert 8145]

So "the Pearl" a.k.a  Scaramanga's funhouse, has these giant panels that pop out of the ground. They can be a hall of mirrors or project and image of the outside. Cool. Aren't there like a whole bunch of these screens popping out of the floor? How are the bad guys in the climax not walking into them a lot more? Also when the public goes in when the place opens won't people just be walking into them? I mean if you make the whole pearl look invisible surely somebody will try walking around and walk into one of those things. That's just a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.

[DrGuts1003 462]

26 minutes ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

I have two main gripes that haven't already been covered:

1. So I get that Pornstache Schrieber hates D"TR"J, but I don't quite get why. On the ferry, he complains that after the botched hostage rescue, D"TR"J got to get a brand new life with a wife and child and good job, and Pornstache seems bent out of shape about that, but he is actually doing pretty okay himself. He has a pretty cushy security gig in Hong Kong working for one of the richest guys in the world. Plus, it's not everyday that you get recruited by the Euro-Triads or whoever they are. He's not exactly still living the same ol' life. 

And he decides superquick to just kill D"TR"J after he finds that the iMacGuffin wasn't in the bag that the thief stole. It easy to see that he had enough hatred to set up a friend as a terrorist ... I mean, one might compare that to a really, really, really long-term practical joke. But to just decide "Guess I gotta murder my friend and his family" is over-the-top.

I think there’s some anger and resentment over the fact that when they are in the hostage situation, Pablo tells the Rock, “I got a clean shot” and the Rock stops him, believing he can be his charming self and simply talk the guy into turning himself in.

[grudlian. 4725]

58 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

So "the Pearl" a.k.a  Scaramanga's funhouse, has these giant panels that pop out of the ground. They can be a hall of mirrors or project and image of the outside. Cool. Aren't there like a whole bunch of these screens popping out of the floor? How are the bad guys in the climax not walking into them a lot more? Also when the public goes in when the place opens won't people just be walking into them? I mean if you make the whole pearl look invisible surely somebody will try walking around and walk into one of those things. That's just a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.

Yeah. The Pearl is really weird because it honestly feels kind of low tech for something that is supposed to be futuristic. I thought it was going to be some X-men Danger Room type thing but it never was more than shitty hall of mirrors.

For a building that is so cutting edge technologically, why was there that scene where they kept saying that no one lived on the floor Rock and Neve live on? Wouldn't this building definitely have a record of where people live? Or motion sensors?

Which also makes me wonder why were Rock and Neve even living on that floor? It was partially open to live in other floors right? Was every apartment taken? Rock's business was operating "out of his garage" How could they afford to live in, what I assume has to be, one of the most expensive apartments on Earth?

[pscudese 701]

1 hour ago, Cam Bert said:

So "the Pearl" a.k.a  Scaramanga's funhouse, has these giant panels that pop out of the ground. They can be a hall of mirrors or project and image of the outside. Cool. Aren't there like a whole bunch of these screens popping out of the floor? How are the bad guys in the climax not walking into them a lot more? Also when the public goes in when the place opens won't people just be walking into them? I mean if you make the whole pearl look invisible surely somebody will try walking around and walk into one of those things. That's just a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.

Also are we really to expect this building is just allowing any kind of visitor to come up to the pearl? Outside of a few floors towards the very bottom of the building, this is a residential tower. What kind of apartment complex come up to visit this attraction?  

[gigi-tastic 2322]

2 hours ago, The_Triple_Lindy said:

I have two main gripes that haven't already been covered:

1. So I get that Pornstache Schrieber hates D"TR"J, but I don't quite get why. On the ferry, he complains that after the botched hostage rescue, D"TR"J got to get a brand new life with a wife and child and good job, and Pornstache seems bent out of shape about that, but he is actually doing pretty okay himself. He has a pretty cushy security gig in Hong Kong working for one of the richest guys in the world. Plus, it's not everyday that you get recruited by the Euro-Triads or whoever they are. He's not exactly still living the same ol' life. 

And he decides superquick to just kill D"TR"J after he finds that the iMacGuffin wasn't in the bag that the thief stole. It easy to see that he had enough hatred to set up a friend as a terrorist ... I mean, one might compare that to a really, really, really long-term practical joke. But to just decide "Guess I gotta murder my friend and his family" is over-the-top.

2. So, it is said during the news-exposition that the Pearl will be the #1 tourist attraction in the world. 

First of all, why? Second of all, do they mean like, bigger than Disney World, bigger than the Great Wall, all of that? That’s a tiny room on top of skyscraper … can you imagine trying to use the elevator or waiting in line in the stairwell to stand in the fake sky over Hong Kong?

I want to know if he was just stewing about this for all these years and suddenly an opportunity presented itself to get revenge (if so damn he went in HARD) or if he's been planning a way to kill or destroy the Rock all this time and he just got a perfect opportunity. Like does his apartment have a creepy wall of photos of the Rock with the eyes all gouged out or something? Has he been actively plotting ways to murder/wreck this man? Because it's one thing to frame someone (still an insane reaction) but it's another thing entirely to kill him and his family.  Do the other surviving members of the Rock's former team hate him this much? Is Linda from H.R plotting to do away with him next?

I think that the Pearl would be a novelty in Hong Kong but I don't think it would be the world's number one attraction. It would be interesting because it's new but that's about it.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

35 minutes ago, pscudese said:

Also are we really to expect this building is just allowing any kind of visitor to come up to the pearl? Outside of a few floors towards the very bottom of the building, this is a residential tower. What kind of apartment complex come up to visit this attraction?  

You probably have to have a key or code to access the residential floors. I've been in a lot of hotels with bars and restaurants that let you access those floors but you need a keycard to get to the other floors. Still I bet the people living there would hate having to share an elevator with the public. They should have a separate elevator.

[DrGuts1003 462]

OK, something else I just thought of that I need some clarification on...

When the Rock and building guy meet Botha at the end of the film, building guy seemingly double crosses The Rock and pulls a gun on him.  Was that the plan that The Rock and him came up with or was building guy legitimately trying to go rogue?

 

I was leaning towards it all being a ruse that they concocted together, but later after the fighting is over, The Rock tells building guy “You almost had me convinced” which seems like an insult if they had planned it.

[RyanSz 3140]

I was surprised hearing the opinions of this, which I felt is pretty ho hum, and Rampage, which I enjoyed for being pretty off the wall for a video game adaptation, in comparison to San Andreas which i though was only good for some batshit scenes and the CGI. The one thing that was missed by the hosts in regards to the overall plan, was that the people Botha worked for were basically coolio with the building owner having the reverse blackmail on them as they had already gotten paid and the building was done. They were upset at Botha for allowing their information to be taken in the first place as he was supposed to be handling that situation, so for the building owner to get one over on him reflected poorly upon Botha, which would mean that the guys he worked for were going to have him killed for his failure. So Botha was trying to get the blackmail material not so much for his bosses, but rather to show he still has value to their criminal organization and that he can clean up his mess.

Also I think this movie has topped the remake of 3:10 to Yuma in the unbelievable one legged acting, as after about 15 minutes, The Rock was moving with zero  appearance of missing a leg, as at least Christian Bale was limping a bit with his missing leg in 3:10.

[Cam Bert 8145]

In another case of this building just having lawsuits waiting to happen can we talk about how weak the windows were? Now the first window The Rock smashes is with the use of a crane. That's a lot of force, so fair enough that it breaks. Yet when we get up to Hong Kong Business Man's penthouse suite the windows are able to be smashed with the pure brute strength of The Rock holding a Chinese wood carving. The penthouse is by the turbines near the top of the building which according to the scale chart in the movie place them somewhere around the 3,000' mark. You think with strong fast moving winds at that height and environmental hazards at that elevation you'd use a much thicker stronger glass. If all it takes is one really hard whack and it completely shatters what's going to stop some idiot from running into them thinking it's funny and falling to their doom? Or worse yet a large flight of birds hitting the window? Cutting corners and installing cheap, thin glass just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

[Peter Destructo 70]

On 11/9/2018 at 12:25 PM, stueygeorge said:

What bothered me most about this movie was, how was everyone moving around so easily inside this building that is on fire?  

I really try to avoid the knee-jerk anti-CGI attitude that so many have, I think CGI has done great things for what's possible to film in movies. But in this movie, it really is the fundamental flaw. The impossibly gigantic building has to be almost all CGI, and consequently, there is no sense of space or real-ness (or suspense) to any of it. Anybody could be nearly anywhere at any time. There is so much character movement that is just skipped over or handwaved away, even within single scenes. 

[Peter Destructo 70]

Correction! The quote from Botha is "Light a man's house on fire, and you find out what he really LOVES", not what he really knows. Which makes more sense.

And I guess the fact that no one has yet commented on how The Rock climbs 100+ stories up a crane in, what, 15 minutes? just proves how much the Fast and Furious movies have suspended everyone's disbelief on The Rock's superpowers.

[RyanSz 3140]

2 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

In another case of this building just having lawsuits waiting to happen can we talk about how weak the windows were? Now the first window The Rock smashes is with the use of a crane. That's a lot of force, so fair enough that it breaks. Yet when we get up to Hong Kong Business Man's penthouse suite the windows are able to be smashed with the pure brute strength of The Rock holding a Chinese wood carving. The penthouse is by the turbines near the top of the building which according to the scale chart in the movie place them somewhere around the 3,000' mark. You think with strong fast moving winds at that height and environmental hazards at that elevation you'd use a much thicker stronger glass. If all it takes is one really hard whack and it completely shatters what's going to stop some idiot from running into them thinking it's funny and falling to their doom? Or worse yet a large flight of birds hitting the window? Cutting corners and installing cheap, thin glass just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

It is also interesting in that there seems to be ZERO breeze when they are on the helipad, which is at or near the top of the skyscraper. At that height they should almost need to be harnessed to the sides so as to not be blown off the side of the building. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is again the perfect example as there are real stakes as you see Tom Cruise is being blown against the side of that building while he's trying to hold onto the side of the building with the spy gloves he has, and that building is half the size of this one. Then you add in the turbine which apparently makes a crapload of noise, so I have no idea how much soundproofing the rich guy would need to put into his penthouse to mute that out, because from my experience of having a hotel a mile a way from an airport, the room still shakes quite a bit from passing planes, so his room must feel like a giant earthquake the entire day.

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

With the right amount of Zucker Abrahams Zucker retooling--and if Leslie Neilsen were still alive--this movie could have been a great Die Hard parody titled...

 

Try Hard!

 

(((Ba-duh-dun.)))