Disappointing Marvel/DC Movies

Movies based on comic books are nothing new.  They’ve been around for decades, but it was Superman: The Movie that really made audiences take movies like that seriously.  Batman, while it did have it’s cheesy films back in the day, got its first real serious film in Tim Burton’s 1989 film.  Comic book movies were starting to be taken seriously.  Batman Returns was a sequel that in some ways ended up being better than the first.  But, while we did see some good movies like Superman and Batman, we also ended up with some pretty terrible follow-ups.  Back in 2000, we began to see a major explosion of movies based on comic books.  X-Men was the movie that really ushered in a new age of comic book film.  We didn’t just start getting movies from Marvel’s line-up, but DC Comics as well.  The first film out of DC/Warner was Batman Begins.  But for all the good ones that we get like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Dark Knight, we get crap like Superman 3/4, Jonah Hex, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  For today’s list, I’m going through each comic book film that I personally found disappointing.  If my opinions match other people’s opinions, that is entirely coincidental.  Anyway, as I like to say, let’s get this show on the road.

Ghost Rider/Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

First out of the gate are the two Ghost Rider films starring Nicolas Cage.  Where do I start with these?  First, let’s start with the fact that Cage is terribly miscast as Johnny Blaze.  He has a horrendous Southern accent and he eats jelly beans out of a martini glass.  Are you kidding me?!  Blaze is a full-on alcoholic in the comics.  Nicolas Cage said that he’s a huge fan of the comic book, so why was the character so butchered?  Cage was too old for the role, and even more so for it’s sequel/reboot.  The casting in the first movie was a mixed bag.  Yeah, you had the likes of Sam Elliott, Nic Cage, and Peter Fonda.  But you also had Eva Mendez, Wes Bentley and everbody else.  Yeah, the trailers made the film look interesting, but it was anything but interesting.  They got the character of Blackheart all wrong.  In the comics, Blackheart rarely took on human form, because he’s a demon.  He didn’t need to.  The character was abominably written and horribly acted by Wes Bentley.  Blackheart was supposed to be this demonic bad-ass, and what do we get?  A pasty-faced hum-drum villain.  Yeah, the visual effects are pretty spectacular, and when Blaze turns into the Rider, Cage goes full-on crazy.  I’m not suggesting that we really take a biker with a burning skull too seriously, but we could certainly do better than this.  So, we get Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, also starring Nicolas Cage.  I thought this one was a lot better, but that’s not really hard to do.  It was supposed to be a reboot.  When you do a reboot, you need to recast the main character, and they didn’t.  I like Cage, I really do.  He’s a fantastic actor, but he has no business being Johnny Blaze.  The cast is a bit more interesting as we get Idris Elba as a French mercenary and Christopher Lambert as the head of an ancient society of monks.  But that doesn’t help the fact that is not a good movie.  Neither one is.  Mark Steven Johnson, who directed the first Ghost Rider, also wrote it.  He’s pretty much dropped off the radar after Ghost Rider was released.  Speaking of Mark Steven Johnson, he also wrote and directed the next movie:

Daredevil

I’m really split on this one.  Daredevil was released back in 2003 and it got slammed left and right by critics, and rightly so.  It was not a good movie.  The character of Daredevil isn’t exactly on the level of say, Spider-Man, but he had a pretty decent following.  Ben Affleck starred in the lead role, and to be perfectly honest, I thought he did a great job.  I also thought that Michael Clarke Duncan did a great job as Kingpin.  So, what went wrong?  Everything else.  The tone of the film was absolutely inconsistent with the character.  It was too reminiscent of Batman.  It was dark, brooding and bleak.  The writing was terrible and the story was atrocious.  Some of the fight scenes were a total joke, like the playground fight scene between Matt Murdoch and Elektra.  Daredevil wound up getting a director’s cut, which really improved the film in many ways.  But it was too little, too late.  After Daredevil was released, Affleck said he would never do another comic book movie again and the film franchise was as dead as a door nail.  Recently, it looks like Ben Affleck is getting another chance to play a superhero again.  He will be playing Batman in the upcoming Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice which is set to be released next year.  I think he can do it.  Daredevil is also getting a new lease on life as a TV show on Netflix.  Apparently, it’s been getting really good reviews.  But the Ben Affleck film of Daredevil was a total mess, there’s no getting around it.

Spider-Man 3

Now, here is what a train-wreck looks like.  It’s a shame too, because the first two Spider-Man films that Sam Raimi did were fantastic.  So, why did Spider-Man 3 not live up to the hype?  A lot of elements went wrong here.  One, too many super-villains.  We had Sandman, New Green Goblin and Venom.  Venom was more a fan-service, and the way he was treated was a disaster.  Topher Grace was hilariously miscast as Eddie Brock.  Brock was supposed to be a bit of a jock, you know, big and muscular.  Topher Grace is not that.  Peter Parker going emo was also funny, for all the wrong reasons.  I don’t know if it was Raimi’s idea or Marvel’s, but they had dance numbers in Spider-Man 3.  There were a few things that the film got right: Thomas Haden Church as Sandman was not only a fantastic character, but was also very sympathetic.  He did the wrong things for the right reasons, and that made him more human than anyone else in the movie.  The action’s great, but it doesn’t mean a thing if everything else is a complete wreck.  As a result, Sony Pictures ended up rebooting the franchise not even 10 years after Spider-Man 3 was released.  Not once, but TWICE.  Yes, the franchise got rebooted twice after the box-office failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  Rami’s third film had a lot of potential.  It’s just too bad that the writers and director had to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

This one is the most recent of the bunch, and quite possibly the most painful for me to put on this list.  I really wanted to love this movie.  I really did.  It gets a lot of elements right.  The action is superb, the humor is spot on and the jokes fly at a mile-a-minute.  But it also gets a lot wrong.  For one, the jokes fly at a mile-a-minute.  That’s rather inappropriate for situations in a movie that have real consequences.  I’m not asking for Dark Knight levels of grit and drama, but you really need to cut back on the funny stuff when you’re dealing with an end-of-world situation inadvertently started by Tony Stark.  Let us not forget the terrible romantic angle between Black Widow and Bruce Banner.  Those two have absolutely ZERO chemistry between them and to put those two together doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.  Ultron, while voiced brilliantly by James Spader, is a one-note villain.  It’s also a villain we’ve seen before in movies like Terminator and The Matrix.  The whole man vs. machine deal, as I’ve stated in my review, is not what a follow-up movie should deal with.  The movie is a major success already, so, I’m not worried about the future of The Avengers film franchise, but Age of Ultron feels like a major step backwards in my opinion.  I didn’t hate, I rather enjoyed, but it was very underwhelming for me.  This one was disappointing.

The Green Lantern

Oh, boy.  There are movies that are outright disasters, and then there’s The Green Lantern.  Let’s start with the obvious: The suit.  Good lord, what were they thinking making the whole thing CGI?  It just doesn’t work.  I mean it works in situations where CGI is required.  But having it as a constant, just doesn’t work.  What’s worse, is we knew this was going to happen.  Somebody had the bright idea that an actual suit would seem too impractical.  Well, I’ve got news: The CGI suit is impractical and it’s absolutely ridiculous to look at.  The casting is also very suspect.  Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan?  No.  Just….no.  I like Reynolds, I really do.  But I think he would make a better Deadpool than a Green Lantern.  Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond?  That was not a particularly good choice.  Mark Strong was fine as Sinestro.  Here’s the problem, though: Sinestro is Green Lantern’s arch-enemy.  But they made a giant yellow cloud the main villain of the film.  It’s a visually spectacular film and did some things properly, but the writing and the story are just monumentally stupid.  It’s unlikely we’re going to see another Green Lantern film until after Batman V. Superman hits the screen next year.  The character deserves a better movie.  Speaking of evil clouds of destruction:

Fantastic 4/Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer

The Fantastic Four films are probably among the most disappointing movies ever made, in my opinion.  Let’s start with the first film:  The cast was mostly good, with Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards.  I thought he was pretty good in the role.  He was a little awkard, but still pretty cool.  Michael Chiklis was phenomenal as Ben Grimm.  But the one I really liked was Chris Evans as Johnny Storm.  He had the attitude and the humor which really gave the character some real heart.  Jessica Alba was miscast as Sue Storm.  Alba just doesn’t have the acting chops to really portray a character like that.  Julian McMahon was an absolute joke as Dr. Doom.  They could not have picked a person more wrong to play that character.  He doesn’t even get the whole outfit towards the end of the first movie.  Doom is an iconic super-villain and Tim Story screwed it up.  Not to mention they turned the whole movie into a comedy.  That was Story’s intention, and it failed miserably.  The Fantastic Four are some of the most well-known superheroes in comic book history, and the comics were supposed to amplify how important family was for superheroes.  Tim Story turned it into a farce.  It was one bad decision after another.  The sequel was just as bad if not worse.  It was great that they introduced the Silver Surfer into the mix, but when you introduce him, you have to bring in Galactus, the planet-eater.  What they did to Galactus in F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is absolutely unforgivable.  I’m not saying the character should be completely purple, but the film-makers turned him into an intergalactic cloud of mass destruction.  I’m not exactly the biggest reader of the comics, but I do know that Galactus was not a cloud.  Again, the writing in this movie is so abysmal it ruins any potential emotional impact that the film would otherwise have.  Yeah, some of the action is spectacular and the Silver Surfer is cool, but the movie was just a complete waste of talent.  Thankfully, for Chris Evans, he rebounded in the superhero arena with Captain America.  So, he’s one of the few that came out of the Fantastic Four mess unscathed.  You can also add this franchise to the list of reboots, as they are getting ready to release a new film in August.  Sadly, we’re not likely to see a film of Silver Surfer as the Rise of the Silver Surfer bombed big time.  It’s too bad, he’s a very interesting character.

That’s my list for some of the most disappoint movies based on Marvel and DC licenses.  Yeah, I left out a few like Batman And Robin, but that one is just too damned easy.  The ones in my list are the ones that really could have gotten it right but didn’t.  We’ve got a lot more movies coming our way and hopefully, most of them won’t be disappointing.

 

Extended Cuts and Director’s Cuts. Oh, My!

I was watching Stargate the other night.  Fantastic movie, you can read my review by clicking on the Reviews tab at the top of the page.  More specifically, I was watching the extended cut, which was about 9 minutes longer than the theatrical version.  It got me thinking:  Was it really necessary to have those scenes put back into the movie?  As usually happens when a question like that enters my head, I have to start thinking about all the other movies that have gotten the extended cut treatment.  They’re not always called that; sometimes it’s “Special Editions” or “Director’s Cuts.”  You also can’t forget about the “Unrated” cuts, either.  But that one is generally reserved for horror movies.  So, how does one define Director’s Cut or Special Edition.  Well, a film goes through a process called editing during post-production after filming is completed.  Editing is used to form a coherent film.  It’s like a puzzle of sorts, but during the process, certain bits and pieces of the film are deemed unnecessary or too long for a particular film.  As a result, said bits are left out of the film.  The average length of a film is about 2 hours, give or take a few minutes.  For a good long while, some of these extended “Director’s Cuts” were not meant for the public.  Usually, we got a shorter version of the film, because our attention span is typically non-existent.  I’m going to go into some detail into some of the movies that got an extended version released.

The past 40 years have seen movies getting re-edited and re-evaluated by the director, and we started getting these extended versions on home video.  Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a prime example of a director who went back multiple times to try and get it right.  Blade Runner got 5 different releases, with The Final Cut being the last and probably best version of the bunch.  It’s usually not typical of a film studio to allow a director of a film to go back and “fix” issues with the film that he/she feels could have benefited the film more.  During the early 1990’s, we started seeing special extended cuts of movies being released.  The two big ones were James Cameron’s Aliens and Terminator 2.  Both films were made by the same director, but were published by two different companies.  Each extended version had 15 minutes of footage edited back into the film for home video release.  In Aliensone of the most interesting aspects about Ripley that was removed from the film for one reason or another, was the fact that she had a daughter.  Ripley spent 57 years in hypersleep after the events of the original Alien.  She’s informed by Burke, a company exec, that Ripley’s daughter, Amanda had died two years prior.  The reintroduction of that particular footage and information actually had an impact on some of the scenes that followed.  When Ripley and a group of marines head back to LV-426 to investigate the disappearance of the colonists, they discover a lone survivor in the form of a little girl.  During the course of the movie, Newt(the little girl)and Ripley start bonding and Ripley’s instincts as a mother come into play, and it’s really moving at times.  So, having that kind of context can actually improve a film.  Yeah, there were more action scenes and the use of robotic turrets that were really cool, but it was that deal with Ripley being a mother that made the character far more relatable.  Sometimes an underlying theme can help drive a film.

Terminator 2 had a scene that was truncated, but it was a very important aspect of the film.  The scene in question was after John Connor and the Terminator had rescued Sarah Connor from the T-1000 and were hiding out in a mechanic’s garage.  The scene was kind of a throwaway in how the Terminator learned about human behavior, but in the extended version of the film, we learn that Skynet presets the Terminator’s CPU to “read-only” when they’re sent out alone.  This scene is significant for several reasons.  One: It makes more sense for them to able to reset the switch so the Terminator can start evolving in a certain way.  Another is to allow John to showcase some of his leadership abilities.  He basically says that if his own mother won’t listen his ideas once in a while, how would you expect anyone else to?  So, afterwards, we start seeing the Terminator start learning about human behavior.  He even learns how to smile, and the bond that John and the Terminator form gets stronger.  The Terminator is still a machine at the end of the day, but because he learned about human behavior and what makes us tick, he begins to understand the value of human life.  As with AliensTerminator 2 also featured more action and more character development.  In the end, the extended versions of these films actually ended up being better than the theatrical version.  Thankfully, the theatrical versions of each film were really, really good, so the extended versions were a bonus.

There is the rare occasion where a director’s cut or extended cut will significantly alter a movie.  I’m not talking about just a few scenes here.  I’m talking entire plot points that were cut out of the theatrical release to get the run times down.  As a result, those films ended up not being as well received.  Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven is a prime example.  50 minutes of footage was reintroduced several months after the film hit theaters.  There were two plot points involving Orlando Bloom’s character murdering his own brother and Eva Green’s character killing her own son because he was going to be a leper like his father.  These plots really changed the scope of the film.  It became a lot more personal and made a lot more narrative sense.  Fantastic movie, but a movie CAN hinge on how important a particular plot can be.  Alien 3 suffered from multiple problems:  The lack of an actual script, some questionable editing, and serious interference on Fox’s part.  The film that was released wasn’t that bad, but there were issues.  Some characters would show up, and then disappear without an explanation.  When the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set was released it contained two versions of each film.  The one that most people were anxious to see was the Assembly Cut for Alien 3.  Not only did the film run half-an-hour longer, it showed us a lot more of the prisoners and their environment.  Not only that, there was a scene where they attempted to capture the creature.  In the Assembly Cut, they succeeded, only to have it sabotaged by one of the survivors who went insane.  So, that answers TWO major questions.  Now, the Assembly Cut was still imperfect and wasn’t supervised by David Fincher, but he gave his approval for it, as it was closer to the film that he wanted released.  It was basically two different movies.

An extended cut can’t really save a bad movie, though.  Highlander 2 is probably the best example I can think of, where no matter how much effort you put into trying to fix the movie, the damage has already been done.  In Highlander 2, the explanation for Immortals was that they were aliens from the planet Zeist.  While the original film didn’t get the theatrical attention it deserved in the states, Highlander actually ended up being a cult classic, and one of the best action-adventure movies of the 80’s.  Here’s the problem, Highlander 2 was flawed way before it was released to theaters.  It went way over-budget, there were issues with special effects and some really flawed writing.  Russell Mulcahy recognized this fact and was allowed to go back and attempt to fix it.  This is one of those movies that got multiple releases on home video.  One of the more recent releases of the film, actually revamped many of the visual effects and gave the shield a blue hue instead of that red eye-sore.  They also cut out the whole Zeist angle, but the remnants of that were still left in the film.  They also got rid of some unnecessary action footage.  While the latest version of the film is a lot tighter in terms of editing and is still a lot of fun, it can’t hide the fact that Highlander 2 was a mess to begin with.  No amount of tampering is going to fix that.

Now, we come to UNRATED!  I’m rather bemused by these ones.  Sometimes a movie has to get a certain rating so it can go to theaters, which means that sometimes the material in a particular film can be too violent or too…..sexy.  This label is generally reserved for horror movies, because they are often gory and super-violent.  A horror film is sometimes edited for content to be sure, but there are cases where the amount of stuff they cut out is laughable and doesn’t really make a difference in the final product.  When you have movie that has UNRATED CUT or KILLER CUT in the title, I have to call absolute bullshit on.  The difference between the “UNRATED CUT” and the theatrical can be very minimal, and it strikes me as a complete waste of everybody’s time.  Sometimes the unrated cut has alternate footage, maybe a different or some additional violent footage or sex scenes.  Some of them can be pretty noticeable without making the film longer.

Now, do certain movies really need an extended version?  Not really.  I mentioned above that I had watched Stargate the other night, the extended version.  Why does that exist?  The film opens differently, yeah, but it’s a basically a longer version of the flashback in a later scene when they discuss Ra.  All the extra stuff in the extended of this movie serves no actual purpose.  In fact, it slows the film down.  Same deal with Independence Day, the extended version ran 8 minutes longer, yet it really didn’t need to.  Now, I’m sure they have a reason for putting those versions out there, but honestly, its’ superfluous at the end of the day.  When Peter Jackson released The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he also gave us extended versions of those movies.  While the extended versions really weren’t necessary, it was actually really great to see more of Middle-Earth, and some of the stuff that was shown made sense.  But you didn’t really need them to get what was going on.  Those were worth buying.  The Hobbit?  I saw the extended edition of the first movie and it was weak.  It was seriously weak.  There was nothing substantial in those extra scenes.  I haven’t the extended version of the second movie, but I’m not entirely sure I’m going to.

Now we come to it at last.  The elephant in the room: Star Wars.  When the original Star Wars film came out in 1977 it was groundbreaking and record-breaking.  But somewhere along the way, George Lucas felt that the versions of the films that he released were…incomplete.  I understand that the technology at the time was limited for what he really wanted to do, but you know what?  He broke new ground in terms of visual effects and how to make movies.  He pioneered techniques that are still used by filmmakers today.  He didn’t seem to think that the visual effects in his movies weren’t good enough, so when CGI got to the point where it could be viable enough, George Lucas re-released the Original Trilogy back in 1997 with new special effects and additional footage including a new ending for Return of the Jedi.  Let’s just say that not everybody was happy with the results.  The CGI was….not that great, some of the additional scenes were unnecessary.  The first movie got most of the “enhancements.”  Honestly the only enhancement for the original movie that I actually approve of was the assault on the Death Star.  That was great.  But yeah, the scene with Jabba was pretty bad.  The Sarlacc in the third film gets a CGI beak and it was just not overly threatening.  I prefer the hole in the ground.  And that ending was….not surprisingly terrible.  Empire Strikes Back is the only one in the trilogy that actually reaped the benefits of the extra stuff.  For the most part, it was untouched.  We got a new approach to Cloud City, we got to see Vader leave the planet.  We also got to hear Luke scream when he was falling down the central shaft.  The initial DVD release didn’t actually make things a whole lot better.  Some of the CG got touched up, but(and most fans will tell you this)HAN SHOOTS FIRST!!!  Well, the second DVD release, we got the original pre-Special Edition trilogy on DVD as well, which was great.  But Lucas couldn’t leave well enough alone.  He just kept tinkering with his trilogy until the Blu-Ray was released.  That was also a mixed bag.  Thankfully, George Lucas sold off Star Wars, and his company to Disney.

So what are my final thoughts on extended editions?  As with all things, I take it on a case by case basis.  I look at what each edition has to offer and I judge accordingly.  Some extended editions are fantastic, yet others can’t save a bad movie.  Some are pointless while others add just a few things.  A good movie will stand on its own without the need for an extended cut.  Quentin Tarantino has not done anything like that with his movies, because the movies that are released are the versions that he intended for us to see.  At the end of the day, these are just movies, and this has been my observation on this particular topic, but I thought it was an interesting topic.  Any thoughts?  Preferably not spam.

Best Movie Trailers

Everybody knows that when you go to the movies, you don’t go for the movie itself, you go for the trailers.  Movie trailers give us a glimpse of things to come.  Sometimes we get good trailers, sometimes we get bad ones.  But the most important thing is that we see what’s coming and and therefor know what to go see, and what to run screaming away from.  On a little bit more serious note, a movie trailer is designed to preview an upcoming film, be it an action, sci-fi, drama, whatever.  The question is, is how effective that trailer is.  Does it get you pumped up for a movie that’s coming down the pipe, or is it one that you sleep through.  For this list, I’m also including teasers, which are trailers that don’t show a whole lot, but just enough for you to get curious.  For this list, these are the trailers that got ME hyped up.  Whether or not the actual movie lived up to the trailer is a discussion for another time.  These trailers are going to be for movies that have already been released.  Yeah we’ve got some new trailers that look spectacular, but the film hasn’t been released yet, so they don’t count.  So, let’s get this wagon train movin’!

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

There’s a funny story about this one.  This trailer was released back in 1998.  My parents and I went to go see Star Trek Insurrection in theaters, and Star Wars was one of the trailers that played before the movie.  After seeing that, I was actually less interested in the movie that we went to see.  The way the trailer starts with the words “Every Saga Has A Beginning,” sent chills up my spine.  I knew George Lucas was going to do the Prequel Trilogy, but the trailer for The Phantom Menace blew me away.  The use of music was brilliant, and we got to see a racing sequence as well as a glimpse of the film’s main villain, Darth Maul.  While movie itself was kind of…meh, the trailer was a brilliant piece of marketing.  It got people excited.  This is definitely one of the most memorable movie trailers I’ve seen.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

What?  Two Star Wars trailers on this list?  Not only that, but the Prequels?  Yes.  I’m not bothering with the second movie.  Nobody cares about Attack of the Clones.  Revenge of the Sith was the last film in the Prequel Trilogy and the darkest of all six.  The trailer gives us a glimpse at how Palpatine begins to seduce Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side.  We also get to see bits and pieces of an epic space battle above Coruscant.  The use of music from The Empire Strikes Back really amplifies the mood the trailer is trying to convey, and it does a really good job.  This trailer definitely gave me chills.  The film itself actually managed to live up to the trailer, and was a spectacular end to the Prequel Trilogy.  It was the Star Wars prequel that I really wanted to see.  I saw it six times in theaters.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

This is a more recent film.  But this could easily be the best X-Men film to date.  While the previous films had taken elements from the comics, Days of Future Past is based directly on the comic book story of the same name.  Instead of Kittie Pryde going back in time, they send Wolverine.  The music used in this trailer is powerful, emotional, and the elder Xavier pleading with the younger one to hope again.  I was excited when I heard they were going to do this story line, but seeing this particular trailer made me feel like this was truly the X-Men movie that I had always wanted to see.  Combining the cast members of the older films with the cast of the new and we have an incredible film.  It’s easily one of the best of 2014.  I could watch this trailer over and over again, and it still gives me goosebumps.

Man of Steel

After the semi-disaster that was Superman Returns, Warner Bros. went back to the drawing board.  After years and years of trying to get another Superman film off the ground, in comes Zack Snyder to lead the way with the new film, Man of Steel.  This teaser is absolutely wonderful.  It uses some music from Lord of the Rings, but it doesn’t show a whole lot.  What it does have is a voice-over of Russell Crowe as Jor-El.  The trailer ends as we see Superman flying into the sky.  We don’t get a good look at him, but we know it’s Kal-El.  When you really want to get somebody interested in your movie, this is the way to do it.  It’s minimal but very effective.  It was very clear that this was going to be a very different kind of Superman, and I think it did a great job at getting that across.

Star Trek 2009

Aside from J.J Abrams’ love for lens flare, this trailer for the 2009 reboot of Star Trek hits all the right notes.  With music from Two Steps From Hell, we get a real good look at the revamped Constitution-class Enterprise.  As a reboot, this film features new cast members in roles that we have long associated with Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, Walter Keonig, and William Shatner.  There’s a lot of action here, and yet it only scratched the surface of what the final film really had.  The trailer was big, ambitious and it’s one of the best Star Trek movies to date.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

This trailer is actually for the Special Edition of the film which was released in 1993.  It featured 15 minutes of extra footage that helped flesh out the characters a bit more.  Michael Biehn even reprised his role as Kyle Reese for a dream sequence that was cut out of the original release.  Some of the sequences that were cut out of the original film had an impact on a lot of the other scenes.  This trailer makes you want to see the film again.  With the Special Edition of T2 gave audiences a new look at what is considered to be one of the greatest sequels ever made.  As far as movie trailers go, this one is top-notch.

So those are my picks for some of the best movie trailers that got me hyped up for a movie.  Some of the movies didn’t turn out nearly as well as I was hoping.  But good marketing can even make a bad movie successful.  On the flip-side, bad marketing can sink good movies like Edge of Tomorrow.  Getting a trailer right is tricky.  You want to show the audience have in store, but you don’t want to give too much away.  I’ve seen trailers that give EVERYTHING away.  The movie trailers I just listed are the ones that managed to get it right.

New Alien Movie!!! Confirmed!!

UPDATE – 2/24/2015

As you can see below, the news that there is going to be a new Alien film being directed by Neill Blomkamp has made waves.  Now what’s recently come up, is the direction the film may take.  According to the Alien5-Movie website, veteran creature effects artists Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis will be involved with the creature designs and effects.  That’s definitely a bonus.  According to some interviews, it seems very likely that Sigourney Weaver will reprise her role as Lt. Ellen Ripley and Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks.  If this is true, and the concept art that we have seen is pointing to this, is that this new Alien film will ignore the third and fourth movies.  There’s no word on whether or not Lance Henriksen’s Bishop character or Newt from the second film will show up.  It’s entirely possible, and I hope it will be the case.  Since this is going to be a Neill Blomkamp feature, it’s very possible to expect actor Sharlto Copley to be involved in some way.  It was Neill Blomkamp that gave us Sharlto Copley in the first place, so his presence can be expected.  What we also know is that Alien 5 won’t be released until after Ridley Scott finishes and releases Prometheus 2.  This very well could be the Alien film that people have been wanting for years.  20th Century Fox is apparently the driving force behind this now, so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping.  If all this is true, we are going to have a lot of happy Alien fans, myself included.

*End Update*

A little while ago, I made a post about some concept artwork for a possible new Alien film.  Well, it has been confirmed by Neill Blomkamp via Variety that he will be developing the next Alien feature film.  I can’t even begin to express how thrilled I am.  It’s unclear as to whether Sigourney Weaver or Ridley Scott will be involved in some capacity, but with Blomkamp involved, this could be really, really good.  Why now?  I’m speculating, but I think Fox is jumping on this for a number of reasons.  One: Prometheus.  It’s a love it or hate it kind of movie, but it did take place in the same universe as Alien.  It had connections to the previous franchise, but it was still its own movie.  The other reason could be the success of the video game Alien Isolation.  I’ve played through that game a number of times, and each time my heart was pounding.  It’s intense and it really captured the atmosphere and look of the original film.  I think Prometheus and Alien Isolation sparked a new interest in the franchise, and I believe that Neill Blomkamp could bring a fresh set of eyes and perspective to a series that has been plagued by problematic sequels(not bad movies by any stretch, but flawed)and two lousy spin-offs.  I remember back in 1994-95 that there were rumors on the World Wide Web(as it was known)about a fourth Alien film.  I kept my eyes on it and sure enough, we got Alien Resurrection in 1997.  That’s nearly twenty years since we’ve had a proper Alien film.

I think the time away from the film franchise could do it some good.  Alien 3 was plagued by the lack of a script and major studio interference.  It got so bad, that the film’s director, David Fincher, ended up leaving the project frustrated by the whole situation.  I’m honestly surprised that Alien 3 turned out as well as it did.  The Assembly Cut of the film was a better film, but it highlighted a lot of issues that the theatrical release had.  Characters showed up and disappeared without any explanation, but the film had really great performances, especially from Sigourney Weaver.  It was intense, brutal and a hell of a ride.  Alien Resurrection suffered from having a very different tone.  The previous films were dark, gritty and terrifying.  Resurrection was a fairly light-hearted affair with a dark sense of humor, yet a very cliched premise.  It was fun, and had colorful characters, but it was too different from the others.  So, what do we know about this new Alien film?  Absolutely nothing at this point.  It just got the go-ahead from Fox Studios, so it’ll be another year or two before we see it.  Is there a possibility that it could bury the franchise permanently?  It’s possible, but I doubt it.  Neill Blomkamp has two fairly successful movies already under his belt: District 9 and Elysium.  His new movie, Chappie is looking to make some serious waves later this year.  This guy knows exactly what he’s doing, and I think it’s smart for Fox Studios to bring him on board.  It’s too early to really say whether this movie will be any good, but I seriously doubt it could be worse than the Alien Vs. Predator movies.  I know there are people out there who will say, “Leave it dead!”  As I said in my post about the artwork, while I wouldn’t mind seeing Ellen Ripley again, I would also like the film to take on a new hero/heroine.  Alien proved that a woman could handle being a hero.

While I would certainly like to see Ridley Scott direct this film, he already did Prometheus and is hard at work on the sequel to that film as well as Blade Runner 2.  James Cameron is also busy with his Avatar sequels.  Truth be told, I would actually like to see David Fincher be allowed to direct his vision of an Alien film.  Won’t happen though, considering he’s still bitter about his experience on Alien 3.  When I first saw that concept artwork that Mr. Blomkamp had released, I had truly hoped that Fox Studios would take this seriously.  Well, they are and I hope that they give Blomkamp the latitude that he needs to craft an incredible film, because he’s already made  two awesome movies.  I’m honestly looking forward to seeing what Blomkamp can do with this franchise, and I’m also looking forward to who gets to be involved with the film when it finally enters production.  I’m hopeful that Neill Blomkamp can bring Alien film franchise back into the spotlight.  This is a franchise that is loved by many, many people, yours truly included.  It deserves another shot.  So, check out that Variety article that I linked to, because it has some of that concept artwork that I mentioned.  So, I’m absolutely thrilled that Fox Studios has decided to take another stab at Alien.  I would love to see Sigourney Weaver’s reaction to this news.  I really would.  I think after Prometheus, people were itching for a new Alien film.  We’re about to get another express elevator to Hell.  I’m game.