Overload of sci-fi and fantasy films....

[RadioRaheem84]

Just finished watching a pretty good film called Inception. It was worthy of the ticket price but man did it waste a lot of time explaining the film's premise and plot, as if to not trust the audience to understand it themselves. I miss subtle existential sci fi movies like Blade Runner Director's Cut, Alien and even Aliens, and 2001: A Space Odysey, where everything isn't dished out and explained like a math class.

Point is, the market is saturated with fantasy films and sci fi movies that take people away from a material perspective on life. I tried to hint to a bunch of fanboys that sutdios are in the business of making money, not films, so movies have seriously been so downgraded over the past 10 years, that a movie like Inception (while great) is considered a masterpiece! I was chewed out and soon a defense of studio profiteering ensued. Apparently it's ok for movies to be downgraded to fit studio attempts at selling a product. Then with the least crappy of them comes out its hailed as a masterpiece.

[ComradeOm]

Point is, the market is saturated with fantasy films and sci fi movies that take people away from a material perspective on lifeSci-fi films like Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, and 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or do these somehow reinforce "a material perspective on life"?

But then I really don't see the difference between sci-fi films and rom-coms, gangster flicks, disaster movies, action blockbusters, swords and sandals epics, slashers, whodunits, etc, etc. In fact its been a long time since I saw a social realist drama in my local IMAX

Personally, I just wish they'd bring back the Westerns


I tried to hint to a bunch of fanboys that sutdios are in the business of making money, not films, so movies have seriously been so downgraded over the past 10 yearsUnlike almost every Hollywood film in the past century?

Here's the thing - the film industry exists to make money and always has done. This is not incompatible with the making of good films or even art. Every mainstream film in the past several decades was released with the intention of making a profit - this includes the sci-fi examples you give above - yet many of these releases are actually pretty good and even ground-breaking at times. Hollywood may have gotten less innovative in the past decade but it has not suddenly, and out of the blue, turned to embrace the profit motive

[Edit: Here's (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0123/1224262897751.html) a good article by Fintan O'Toole which, while largely concerned with slating Avatar, makes the point that plenty of Hollywood classics have been the products of "an industrial studio system" and are no worse for it

And I am looking forward to Inception. Cillian Murphy is usually a guarantee of quality]

[Dimentio]

Have you by any chance seen District 9? They're still making good sci fi movies around.

[eclipse]

Oh, I think it is quite interesting that the escapism movies are not able to think out of the box. They alway portray capitalism in some form, even Star Trek, the abolute post scarcity society which has been called communism once in a while resembles our society a lot, fixed hierarchies, militarism...

SciFi favorites not namend here though: Children of Men, Code 46, Strange Days, A Scanner Darkly, Dune, Ghost in the Shell, Jin Roh. All have some kind of social undertones.
On my watchlist at the moment is Moon. Anyone seen it?

[khad]

Have you by any chance seen District 9? They're still making good sci fi movies around.
District 9 is just a shittier, racist version of Alien Nation.

According to the director, those Nigerians were meant to be true to life.

[Dimentio]

District 9 is just a shittier, racist version of Alien Nation.

According to the director, those Nigerians were meant to be true to life.

While certainly the depiction of Nigerians was reprehensible, the overall message of the film was anti-racist - or rather anti-specieist/anti-racist.

[RadioRaheem84]

Oh, I think it is quite interesting that the escapism movies are not able to think out of the box. They alway portray capitalism in some form, even Star Trek, the abolute post scarcity society which has been called communism once in a while resembles our society a lot, fixed hierarchies, militarism...

SciFi favorites not namend here though: Children of Men, Code 46, Strange Days, A Scanner Darkly, Dune, Ghost in the Shell, Jin Roh. All have some kind of social undertones.
On my watchlist at the moment is Moon. Anyone seen it?


This is kind of more of where I was going with the argument. That studio movies tend to underplay movies with a systemic critique of the the current economic system. I mean it's OK to critique individual greed, or communism but not capitalism.


Hollywood may have gotten less innovative in the past decade but it has not suddenly, and out of the blue, turned to embrace the profit motiveThat's where I was basically going with the argument. I know studios have always been profiteering machines but this last decade has really seen a sort of laziness behind certain "good films". I mean remakes, repeating of music as if we wouldn't notice, repeat of some story lines, etc. This could also be due to the lack of talented writers, the current thinking that tends to keep people in the a boxed mindset, etc. The studios want less complex more action, more blockbuster, etc.

I mean there are a host of factors but I just do not find movies to be quite as intelligent as the movies of yesteryear. This isn't even about being an old coot (I'm only 25) harassing the new generation, but the mainstream discourse has lost some of it's true edge as corporate propaganda is rampant, socialism "discredited", and people looking for new meaning outside a material perspective. It just makes movies a bit mundane and uncreative.


And I am looking forward to Inception. Cillian Murphy is usually a guarantee of quality] It's great. Not a masterpiece but a great piece of summer cinema. I liked it a lot. Although it will annoy you at how nearly the entire premise, plot and philosophy is verbally told rather than shown throughout the movie. It's a smart thrill ride but fanboys these days have either made it masterpiece or bust when it comes to judging cinema these days. Don't fall for the hype. The movie is lacking but it's still damn good. Worth the ticket price.


Sci-fi films like Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, and 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or do these somehow reinforce "a material perspective on life"?You have a point. But the reason why I love these movies (and include Outlander with Sean Connery too), is because they didn't spend copious amounts of the movie's time explaining the entire premise and plot of the movie (Blade Runner was panned for it's over explanatory narration which was nixed later on). You had to figure out what the "company" was later on (Wayland Yutani wasn't introduced til Aliens). One had to figure out whether Deckard was a replicant or not, what a skinjob was, the lexicon behind Blade Runner's new world, who the hell Chew was, the fact that they couldn't feel pain when dipping their hands in dry ice or boiling water, etc. It wasn't just all laid out like an instruction manual to watch the movie.

[x359594]

...Unlike almost every Hollywood film in the past century?...Here's the thing - the film industry exists to make money and always has done. This is not incompatible with the making of good films or even art...

As a matter of fact during the period 1908 - 1948 the commercial film industry allowed for a certain number of productions that were not expected to be profitable. Following the Consent Decree the major studios had to give up ownership of all their theaters in 1949 and was a blow to profitability.

The rise of television further cut into movie profits and spurred various technical innovations as a means of competing with TV (3-D, various widescreen processes, stereophonic sound.) By the 1960s the majors had given up the low-budget B movie for the made-for-television movie and the double bill became a thing of the past.

When double bills were the norm, the B movie allowed for quite a lot of innovation both in form and content; if audiences didn't like it there was always the A feature to draw them in.

During the hay day of the studio system I would say that at least a third of productions were not expected to be profitable.

Today, the studios are no longer self-contained plants; actors, writers and directors are no longer under long term contracts to a given studio; post-production is sub-contracted; the commercial film industry has become significantly de-unionized and movies are 10 to 20 times more capital intensive than during the golden age of the studio system.

[RadioRaheem84]

Have you by any chance seen District 9? They're still making good sci fi movies around.

Good is not amazing. What I am trying to say is that a lot of good, even sometimes great movies are being made. The point is that it's been a while since I have a seen a masterpiece. Even the movies that are hyped up as masterpieces today are lacking.

Masterpieces or close enough ones to me are movies like Blade Runner, Quiz Show by Robert Redford, Matewan by John Sayles, Michael Mann's Heat and Manhunter, Wind That Shakes the Barley, Army of Shadows.

[Rusty Shackleford]

hell, even the soviet union was producing sci-fi films through the 70s and 80s. Stalker being one of them.

Stalker being one of them. the way the "zone" is described is almost like what little i know of kafka's writing:laugh: a bit of helplessness with a side of not knoing what the fucking you are doing unless you die.


but, id agree that scifi has taken a huge portion of western media but it is still not predominant. no, reality tv and shit quality consumerist films are the mainstay of the industry.

[ComradeOm]

The studios want less complex more action, more blockbuster, etcCompared to the eighties, really?

Studios may have become more 'brand aware' but I see nothing to suggest that they have been churning out inferior films. At least nothing that convinces me that this past decade has been any worse than the previous ones

As an aside, you might be interested to know that the top grossing US film from fifty years ago (1960) was the Swiss Family Robinson :glare:


This isn't even about being an old coot (I'm only 25) harassing the new generation...No, I really think it is. Particularly when you highlight your point with half a dozen sci-fi films. Some (see: Blade Runner) are classics but Alien... really? In the genre maybe but not beyond that. Even then its a pretty simplistic film by a pretty simplistic director

But then Alien was a pretty good film for the year in which it was released - 1979 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_in_film). Only one major US film from that year can be considered a genuine classic, Apocalypse Now, with the rest being humdrum at best. The box office in 2009 may have had more sequels and remakes but was hardly any worse in terms of quality

Even then, Aliens was released in 1986 and the top ten for that year (headed by Top Gun) contained no fewer than three sequels, including Aliens, and at least one adaptation from another medium


...but the mainstream discourse has lost some of it's true edge as corporate propaganda is rampant, socialism "discredited", and people looking for new meaning outside a material perspectiveAnd of course none of this ever existed in previous decades. Frankly its quite a stretch to argue that US anti-socialism is more pronounced now than it was during, say, the fifties. And I've already pointed out the absurdity of using Aliens or Space Odyssey as examples of "a material perspective"

Really your argument seems to stem from the opinion that cinema has somehow gotten worse and then trying to justify this perceived lack of quality with vague references to class conciousness and the like. My advice would be to stop looking for "masterpieces" amongst summer blockbusters. There was some pretty good films released in mainstream cinemas last year, just not all of them had cardboard cut-outs in the lobbies and huge advertising budgets


You have a point. But the reason why I love these movies (and include Outlander with Sean Connery too), is because they didn't spend copious amounts of the movie's time explaining the entire premise and plot of the movie (Blade Runner was panned for it's over explanatory narration which was nixed later on). You had to figure out what the "company" was later on (Wayland Yutani wasn't introduced til Aliens). One had to figure out whether Deckard was a replicant or not, what a skinjob was, the lexicon behind Blade Runner's new world, who the hell Chew was, the fact that they couldn't feel pain when dipping their hands in dry ice or boiling water, etc. It wasn't just all laid out like an instruction manual to watch the movie.I'm not a fan of exposition, which can be tricky to do, and I like ambiguous endings (one reason why I enjoyed last year's The Wrestler) but that's my personal taste. I'm not even going to suggest that such challenging films (which aren't really challenging - there was little to no exposition in Alien, for example, because none was needed) are disappearing or becoming less common. Not least because there's quite enough of that deliberately vague and obscure referencing going on on TV at the moment... I'm looking at you lost


As a matter of fact during the period 1908 - 1948 the commercial film industry allowed for a certain number of productions that were not expected to be profitableWell, you raise some good points but I think you'll be hard pressed to find many 'vanity' projects that were given mainstream release in the past five or six decades. You can also point to countless classics during this period, and before, that were the product of very commercial environment; especially given the OP's use of blockbusters as examples. My overriding point being that there is no real dichotomy between artistic and commercial merit; that one does not necessarily thrive at the expense of the other


reality tvYou didn't hear then? We are, in the English speaking world at least, almost certainly living through a golden age of television. The quality of TV is not determined by how much dross is on at any given minute but rather how many quality shows are being produced. By that standard any decade that sees the likes of The Sopranos, Mad Men, Oz, Six Feet Under, The Wire, etc, is distinguished

Similarly there are many, many quality films being produced. At least two-three classic a year in my opinion

[JazzRemington]

I don't know about fantasy movies, but there have been a lot of SciFi movies within the past 10 years or so. The only fantasy movies I've seen were goddamn awful (see Dragon Hunter on Hulu.com, for instance), aside from Lord of the Rings - then again, I'm not sure if anyone is technically able to make a terrible Lord of the Rings adaptation (the animated films aside, possibly).

[Ele'ill]

Firefly/Serenity- One of the best series ever. I am forever a Brown Coat.

Oz was an awesome show. I'm rewatching it for the fourth time with a friend.

[Ele'ill]

What are your thoughts on Avatar?



My initial thoughts were that it was a good film.

It's message has me torn. I think the producer/director went beyond using a real world premise to make money and he/she(s) went into the realm of making it graphic and emotional enough to try and reach their audience.

The problems I have with the film are that it

Has a white elite being better at being native than the natives.

The line 'Eywa listened' implies that we're supposed to rely on something else to get us through and that accountability isn't something issued by community but by a higher being.

The film should have ended with the Navi being murdered and wiped off the face of their planet- for true realism and it should have ended with a universal media campaign announcement that stocks are in good shape and everything is ok.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/21/avatar-2-james-cameron

[ComradeOm]

What are your thoughts on Avatar?Didn't like the visuals (it looks much better in 2D) and I didn't like the message/plot. Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing else to the film


The line 'Eywa listened' implies that we're supposed to rely on something else to get us through and that accountability isn't something issued by community but by a higher beingNah, that was because they'd pretty much ripped everything else (http://www.thefunnyblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/avatar_pocahontas.jpg) from Pocahontas so they might as well go the full distance

[khad]

The film should have ended with the Navi being murdered and wiped off the face of their planet- for true realism and it should have ended with a universal media campaign announcement that stocks are in good shape and everything is ok.
That's also been done. Refer to Edwin Forrest's Metamora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamora,_Last_of_the_Wampanoags!), you know, one of the early pieces of US American theater which had Metacom heroically defend his people against the villainous British only to die tragically.

The play was at the height of its popularity during Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal campaigns, which just goes to show that for white audiences there is no contradiction between sympathy for the oppressed Amerindians and genocide.

Genocide, in fact, was what allowed white Americans to fully appreciate the "tragedy."

[x359594]

...My overriding point being that there is no real dichotomy between artistic and commercial merit; that one does not necessarily thrive at the expense of the other...

I agree with your main point. But it seems to me that there was a rupture in Hollywood starting in 1977 with the phenomenal success of Star Wars. That movie signaled the beginning of the end of classical Hollywood film making. The year before both John Wayne and Alfred Hitchcock made their last movies, The Shootist (dir. Don Siegel) and Family Plot respectively. From then on it became increasingly difficult for classical Hollywood film makers like Samuel Fuller to get pictures made. Today, Clint Eastwood represents the last surviving classical Hollywood film maker of merit and his directing days are numbered given his age.

For cinephiles like myself Hollywood is making the least interesting movies in the world today with a steady decline through each decade since the late 1970s; that's why we turned to Asian cinema and the cinema of developing nations for such niceties as mise-en-scene and good screenplays. During the 1990s Hou Hsiao Hsin of Taiwan and Abbas Kiarostami of Iran were making the most successfully artistic movies in the world (and some of the most commercially successful in their respective countries.) In the last decade and half some of the best currently working directors have come from the Republic of Korea, people like Bong Jun-ho, Hong Sang-su, and Kim Ki-duk to mention a few.

Finally, let me list a few Hollywood movies from the "Golden Age":

70 years ago: The Great Dictaitor (dir.: Charlie Chaplin,) The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch,) The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford,) His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks,) The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage,) Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock,) The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges.)

60 years ago: Wagon Master (John Ford,) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston,) Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger,) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock,) Winchester 73 (Anthony Mann,) In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray,) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz,) Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder,) The Baron of Arizona (Samuel Fuller.)

50 years ago: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock,) Sergeant Rutledge (John Ford,) Let's Make Love (George Cukor,) Exodus (Otto Preminger,) Commanche Station (Budd Boetticher,) The Apartment (Billy Wilder,) Verboten! (Samuel Fuller,) Home From the Hill (Vincente Minnelli,) Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks,) Hell to Eternity (Phil Carlson.)

40 years ago: Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson,) The Landlord (Hal Ashby,) Little Big Man (Arthur Penn,) Zabriskie Point (Michaelangelo Antonioni,) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Billy Wilder,) Rio Lobo (Howard Hawks,) Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (Otto Preminger,) MASH (Robert Altman,) Too Late the Hero (Robert Aldrich.)

From the first 6 months of 2010 I don't think that there are any Hollywood releases that are as good as any of the pictures listed above from Hollywood's hay day.

[eclipse]

What are your thoughts on Avatar?

Nicely anmiated world, nice variation of the body changing trope.

But I hate this proto - fascist "chosen one" trope so much. In this case, it was extra ridiculous. For realism, there should not have been needed a genocide but interconnection betwenn human and Navi cultures ("drunken blue, cat indians dancing to crappy techno" anyone) and Navi that were not portrayed as noble savages somehow.

[NGNM85]

What are your thoughts on Avatar?

Dances With Wolves in space. If it had the subtlety or intellegence of 2001 or Blade Runner it could've been a truly brilliant film. I saw it once and have no inclination to see it ever again.

[Il Medico]

Personally, I just wish they'd bring back the Westerns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good,_the_Bad,_the_Weird

This movie is fucking awesome.

[ComradeOm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good,_the_Bad,_the_Weird

This movie is fucking awesome.Its very good, in a silly sort of way. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about some (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3:10_to_Yuma_%282007_film%29) recent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphim_Falls) Hollywood efforts

[praxis1966]

One had to figure out whether Deckard was a replicant or not, what a skinjob was, the lexicon behind Blade Runner's new world, who the hell Chew was, the fact that they couldn't feel pain when dipping their hands in dry ice or boiling water, etc. It wasn't just all laid out like an instruction manual to watch the movie.

What I think you're not considering here is that Blade Runner was really was a neo-noir movie dressed up in sci-fi clothing. It was essentially a mystery movie owing much of it's plot devices to the film noir of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s (see The Third Man [Reed, 1949] and you'll understand what I'm talking about). I think that has much more to do with the way it played out than any trend in sci-fi did.


While certainly the depiction of Nigerians was reprehensible, the overall message of the film was anti-racist - or rather anti-specieist/anti-racist.

That's true, but what I hated about District 9 had nothing to do with its portrayal of Nigerians. I mean, yeah, it was an indictment of racism in general and apartheid South Africa in particular (Blomkamp is South African, after all), but it was just way too fuckin' obvious. It was as if the director said, "OK, this film's about all the nasty shit that happened during apartheid, but just in case you didn't get it, I'm going to spend the next two hours beating you over the head with it just in case you're really stupid." I really felt it was kind of insulting my intelligence. Honestly, by the time it ended I was glad that I had snuck in rather than actually paying for a ticket.


I agree with your main point. But it seems to me that there was a rupture in Hollywood starting in 1977 with the phenomenal success of Star Wars. That movie signaled the beginning of the end of classical Hollywood film making. The year before both John Wayne and Alfred Hitchcock made their last movies, The Shootist (dir. Don Siegel) and Family Plot respectively. From then on it became increasingly difficult for classical Hollywood film makers like Samuel Fuller to get pictures made. Today, Clint Eastwood represents the last surviving classical Hollywood film maker of merit and his directing days are numbered given his age.

I mostly agree with you here, but I have a bone to pick with your time line. I'd actually argue that the "game changing" film was Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) which was produced two years earlier and that Star Wars was a symptom rather than a cause of the disease. Either way, I think it was E.T. (Spielberg, 1982) that really sealed the deal on the new modus operandi of Hollywood. So, in my mind, it's Steven Spielberg's fault that everything sucks, lulz.

[Jazzratt]

To be honest as long as no one makes another fucking zombie film I'm happy.

[NGNM85]

Just saw Predators. If you're looking for a great sci-fi film.....you're gonna have to keep waiting.

[Il Medico]

Just saw Predators. If you're looking for a great sci-fi film.....you're gonna have to keep waiting.
I actually like Predators. There was so much badassness in it. I mean a guy shanked a predator and another fought one like a samurai. The Spetsnaz guy was a badass too. Basically, it is a good action flick, however, I agree it isn't exactly scifi gold.

[KurtFF8]

I highly suggest the book "Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction" for an alternative view of how science fiction relates to art (and how that relates to the Left)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51znu3AdcVL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[x359594]

...I'd actually argue that the "game changing" film was Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) which was produced two years earlier and that Star Wars was a symptom rather than a cause of the disease. Either way, I think it was E.T. (Spielberg, 1982) that really sealed the deal on the new modus operandi of Hollywood. So, in my mind, it's Steven Spielberg's fault that everything sucks, lulz.

Jaws was certainly a precursor, but I picked Star Wars because that was the movie that spawned all the "ancillary revenue" in the form of toys and accessories. I'd argue for joint responsibility between Lucas and Spileberg; they eventually linked up for the dreadful Indiana Jones movies.

The audience demographic for Hollywood science fiction movies is geared to adolescent males. We are not going to see the equivalent of Stalker, Fahrenheit 451 or Alphaville coming out of contemporary Hollywood. (Soderbergh's remake of Solaris was a flop.)

[KurtFF8]

Soderbergh's remake of Solaris was a flop

Yet it wasn't bad. Granted Tarkovsky's version is better in most people's opinions it seems, but I liked Soderbergh's. Plus Soderbergh makes some good films (look at Che)

[x359594]

Yet it [Solaris]wasn't bad...Soderbergh makes some good films (look at Che)

That's true about Soderbergh, he does make some good films. He seems to have gotten away with commercially unsuccessful pictures like Solaris, Dolls and Che (another flop) by making commercial hits like the Ocean's series. In this respect he's like the directors who worked in the days of the studio system: as John Ford put it, "I make two for them [the bosses] and one for myself."

[praxis1966]

Jaws was certainly a precursor, but I picked Star Wars because that was the movie that spawned all the "ancillary revenue" in the form of toys and accessories. I'd argue for joint responsibility between Lucas and Spileberg; they eventually linked up for the dreadful Indiana Jones movies.

I'd go along with that.


The audience demographic for Hollywood science fiction movies is geared to adolescent males. We are not going to see the equivalent of Stalker, Fahrenheit 451 or Alphaville coming out of contemporary Hollywood. (Soderbergh's remake of Solaris was a flop.)

I'd toss Gattaca (Niccol, 1997), THX 1138 (Lucas, 1971), and Zentropa (aka Europa, von Trier, 1991) in your little list there. Although the first two are pretty much unauthorized adaptations of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (or straight ripoffs, depending on how you look at it) and the latter is in some ways kind of a rehash of Made in USA (Godard, 1966), I think they're well worth mentioning. Though in principle I do think you're right, it's going to be a while before we see anything of that caliber again.


That's true about Soderbergh, he does make some good films. He seems to have gotten away with commercially unsuccessful pictures like Solaris, Dolls and Che (another flop)...

Yeah, but I don't think that the lack of commercial success of Che had anything to do with the fact that it was bad (I rather enjoyed it). Personally, I think there was kind of a mini backlash against the imagery of Che Guevara in the popular media at the time that could be chalked up to ethnocentrism in the mainstream media. What I mean is The Motorcycle Diaries (Salles, 2004) didn't get as much grief from the critics because Walter Salles is Brazilian and tarring someone who isn't American as anti-American isn't nearly as much fun for them as it is when you do it to somebody like Soderbergh.

Anyway, there was a whole hell of a lot of pressure put on both the distributors and the studio not to finance or release Che which resulted in Soderbergh being forced to distribute the damned thing himself. He probably couldn't afford the kind of distribution he would of liked, so he wound up doing this kind of "roadshow" distribution. From what I understand, the thing played to packed houses nearly everywhere it went (I was privy to one as I saw it at the Embarcadero Cinema in San Francisco) but it just wasn't widely distributed enough to be commercially successful. Personally, I'd really like to see the rental and Netflix streaming numbers on that film. I think they might tell a different story than the box office receipts.

[NGNM85]

Here's the Thor trailer from ComicCon; http://www.abandomoviez.net/noticia.php?film=8188

It looks fucking AWESOME! With Kenneth Branagh directing, and Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman in the cast I think this movie is going to be AWESOME.

[ComradeOm]

Here's the Thor trailer from ComicCon; http://www.abandomoviez.net/noticia.php?film=8188

It looks fucking AWESOME! With Kenneth Branagh directing, and Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman in the cast I think this movie is going to be AWESOME.Horray, another superhero film. Given that I've already seen the best bits (thanks for the link) I'm unlikely to watch this. Maybe to see Idris Elba

(I'm guessing that the bad guy is the one dressed in black and sneering?)

[praxis1966]

That was my reaction as well. You know, as long as they're going to keep making superhero movies, you'd think they could at least pick a decent superhero. I'm personally still waiting for them to base a film (or films) on the Grendel series. That, my friends, would be awesome.