Apocalypto... turned rant

Filmboy-
I came into this movie with the same background as you did= Mel Gibson Directs, a Mayan epic.
I thought the movie was awesome. Memorable characters, stunning cinematography, and creative fight sequences (the blood spurting out of the head is accurate, I took an anatomy class last semester and blood is constantly surging through vessels in our brain and the blood laps up against the vessel walls, and if opened, blood would squirt, probably not as 'misty' though.)
I have a feeling that a person's perception of the actual film is somewhat influenced by what they did that day, and whatever preconcieved ideas they have that day.
 
he definitely knows how to direct action. i thought the characters were very well developed too. i actually gave a shyt if they lived or died unlike most films.
 
Apocalypto is a great movie, I hadn't felt that way in years... ever since... Braveheart maybe :).

Apocalypto simply blew me away, emotionally and intelectually...

Violence fits the concept, describing the Mayan world, way of life, one of the major conflicts in the story and the overall feeling that Mel Gibson was creating for the movie.

There are a couple of things which I didn't like:

1. The Jaguar chase sequence: Sorry, this was fake as hell. No need to describe it.

2. Why choose the Mayas, when there are so many historical and factual inconsistencies. On first viewing I thought that the movie was about the Aztecs, and in the way it was thought, it so much resembles the Aztec world, not the Mayan.

These are minor problems, although the jaguar sequence irritates me very much :).

That's the reason I give it 9/10.

BTW I didn't like Passion of the Christ - that's an example of inadequate and overdone violence in a movie. It also was too close to the Bible, too literary and canonical, which makes it unrealistic. The Bible is a metaphor, for me.

...

And Braveheart is a flawless piece of filmmaking... :).

Long life and good health, Mr. Gibson. :)
 
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When I saw the jaguar, I burst out laughing at how bad it looked. With the budget they had, they really could have done a better job. Besides that, I enjoyed the film much more than I thought I would.
 
that was a real jaguar...

there's a behind the scenes video shown at my work where they show the jaguar really chasing both Rudy and the other guy... i thought it was pretty cool they used a real jaguar.
 
ZFarms said:
that was a real jaguar...

there's a behind the scenes video shown at my work where they show the jaguar really chasing both Rudy and the other guy... i thought it was pretty cool they used a real jaguar.
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Yes, but when the jaguar jumps to bite the bad guy [deliberately on the face :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)], it's a stupid robot or something, looks awful.

And why on the face, they usually go for the throat. And the jaguar would have jumped to eat our guy right on spot, why chase him in an Olympic distance?

A truly idiotic scene. :)
 
karapetkov said:
And why on the face, they usually go for the throat.
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While the jaguar employs the deep-throat bite-and-suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it prefers a killing method unique amongst cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the Capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain. This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armoured reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar.

on the face just looks cooler too. :)
 
Mickey Munday said:
While the jaguar employs the deep-throat bite-and-suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it prefers a killing method unique amongst cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the Capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain. This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armoured reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar.

on the face just looks cooler too. :)
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Yeah, a true face-off :).
 
Brandon Rice said:
Also, the deeper meaning I got was that this race of people were killing their own off, because of their religious system... this is a scary thing...
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Since virtually every religion includes, or has included this behavior, that implies that every religion is scary...
 
Tlalconetl said:
The Passion was still in production and almost two years from being released when the Jewish community began condemning Mel and his movie. From what orafice where the Jews pulling out their rabid criticisms and attacks on Mel when they hadn't even seen the movie?!!!
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From whatever orifice is used to store accumulated knowledge about what Gibson was up to please note the correct spelling of orifice.

Also, unless it's your intent to come off racist yourself, you might want to talk about some Jews, rather than the Jews...

Passion is only partially taken from the canonical Gospels; a large part of it is drawn from the writings of Anne Emmerich, a 19th-century German nun who claimed to have had her own personal visions of the events leading up to the Crucifixion. That material is perfectly anti-semitic (in the European sense) and extra-liturgical.

Maybe you shouldn't criticize other people's objections to the work, without bothering to find out for yourself, upon what those objections are based.

Tlalconetl said:
Were the Jews overreacting?
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Maybe.

Tlalconetl said:
Was the film anti-semitic?
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To the same degree as the source material.

Tlalconetl said:
Was Apocalypto anti-Maya??
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Probably.

Tlalconetl said:
Does it matter to you?
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A little.

Tlalconetl said:
Like I said. Mel's got big balls. I admire the guy; he's one of my favorite filmmakers.
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I also think Gibson is a damned good film maker, although I am agnostic regarding his testicular mass. *edit*
 
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I edited that out because it occurred to me that since I'm not going to elaborate, I shouldn't have mentioned it to begin with.
 
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Any hint on what is Mel's next project going to be? As director, that is.

I can't find info on the imdb.
 
Just heard that ol' Mel is selling off his California properties, and buying himself a huge-ass estate in Costa Rica.*

Good riddance.







*won't he be surprised to discover that Costa Rica has the largest Jewish population in Central America...
 
I love Gibson

His body of work as an actor and filmmaker are one of icon (pun) and history

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I hope the opinion on his actual work is being seperated from his meltdown or religious film
 
It's not difficult to allow as that a complete and total bastard can be capable of producing good professional or artistic work.
 
Exactly

Isn't Cameron know to be one SOB ?

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If being an asshole was a prerequisite of talent and genius; we'd be virtually without art.

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It seems this is more an opp to ***** baout Mel Gibson the person than actually discuss the film
 
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