Okay, second line of defense.
Battleship... the movie... why?
- Thread starter Jon Starr
- Start date
Okay, second line of defense.
Captain Pierce
Veteran
That's a valid point...
Hawk Teflon
Veteran
Which would take, what ... 13 years?
Jon Starr
Veteran
Battlship sinks at the box office? Is anyone else really happy with this news? It proves some people have sense.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngau...-only-universal-pictures-but-activision-game/
"Universal execs were expecting Battleship to perform much better at the box office, trying to cash in like Paramount Pictures has with another Hasbro Games property — the Transformers movies."
Egg Born Son
Veteran
It restores close to a smidgeon of faith in my fellow human beings. And relief. If it had been a runaway success I might have felt it necessary to watch just to see what all the fuss was about.
Yeah because Transformers and Battleship is the same thing...haha.
Yeah because Transformers and Battleship is the same thing...haha.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, Transformers the movie and Battleship the movie are certainly the same thing... except Battleship tanked, even though as silly as it was, it was still way better than Transformers 2. Didn't see Transformers 3, heard it was simply too horrible so I didn't bother. But I was expecting the worst with Battleship, and it wasn't really all that bad, and was kinda fun if you got into it.
Eric Boellner
Well-known member
I think it's the other way around, personally. Transformers 2 was dumb fun. Battleship was fun for the first 10 minutes, and then the next two hours were just f--king dumb. The only good part of this movie was Hamish Linklater, and that was all him. Even the action was dull, and they somehow managed to make Liam Neeson a pedestrian non-participant.
One thing I do agree with you on is that Transformers 3 was a piece of s--t. Like Battleship, the first 10-15m was good, and then just stupidity from there on.
-JMT
Barry_Green said:
A big difference is that one source property included characters and storytelling - derived from the tv series, regardless of one's enthusiasm for either - and the other source property has...plastic pieces that fit into other plastic pieces. At least it's -possible- to do something with the toys involving character and story, when the toys in question -have- characters of their own.
If I ever have to undergo an un-anaesthetized testicularectomy, I will at last be able to test my hypothesis that -that- would be more enjoyable, than 'Transformers 2...'Barry_Green said:
Jablonky's score is good. Can't say past that.Barry_Green said:
This seems to be the general consensus. I have to admit that there's more kindness being shown the movie, than I expected.Barry_Green said:
Barry_Green
Moderator
Well, yeah, but ... but ... okay, hold on. In BattleShip the game, they have plastic pieces shaped like plungers that you stick in the boat. And in BattleShip the movie, the alien launches bombs that are shaped like plungers, and they stick in the boat. So I think you're selling them a little short there, that's some crafty incorporating-the-game-into-the-story right there, I say.
And if they could do that with plastic plungers, well... that's almost enough character development to tackle "Light Bright: The Movie"...
I think it's a case of managed expectations... I thought Transformers 1 was pretty fun, so my expectations for Transformers 2 were about as high. But Oh. My. Word... no, they were not met. On the other hand, I saw BattleShip almost as a curiosity, I mean, I knew you'd worked on it, and just what COULD they do with such incredibly thin source material to go off of? So it was a bit of an experiment, and I thought it was kinda fun. Sure it makes no sense, almost as little sense as "Star Trek" did, but -- that was fun too. And in my youth I was a little bit of a World War II buff, and having a genuine BattleShip (which was far and away soooo much cooler than a Destroyer ever was) be the hero, well, yeah, it was silly and it was unbelievable and the whole chicken burrito thing was ridiculous (never seen a guy go from jail to lieutenant in one scene before) but ... meh, grab the popcorn, watch stuff blow up, it was kinda fun.
Who have you been talking t-
I mean, yeah, ha-ha, that's just the sort of thing Hollywood would do (mumbles)
Well...strictly to answer the question in a technical sense, without offering any judgments...anything. And that's in large part by virtue of the thin-ness of the source material. Somewhere in the story there's gotta be a battleship. Something about grids and numbers and firing blind which could be about shooting at anything under any one of a number of adverse sets of conditions, somehow involving something reminiscent of the game pieces - that's in large part procedural action which again could be spun from any one of a number of milieus. You could do a gritty WWI or WWII recreation, a steampunk actioner, a Run-Silent-Run-Deep thriller or, yeah, a waterbugs-aliens-vs-the-heroic crew of the USS Missouri popcorn movie. Could have been just about anything, as it developed it's the movie that it is.
It aims to entertain, and to the degree that it succeeds it's successful.
I have to admit that I'm a bigger fan of the destroyers. Not large ships but fast ones, to go in harm's way. But ho-lee crap: scouting BB-60 USS Alabama was awesome. We crawled all over the innards of that ship. It's the peak of period US maritime engineering. The scale's impressive.
I thought it was good for a laugh, though.
It's ellipsis, man. Big ol' slippery glob of ellipsis. Also, technically, captain vampire talks the cops into releasing younger brother into his custody (doesn't he? am I remembering a draft, or the release cut...?) As long as it was fun, I think it successful in fulfilling its creative aims.
This is like Watergate-grade leaky. Somewhere there's development executives must feel like Richard M. Nixon.
Who remembers the Matchbox Sea Kings?
They rolled better than most of the cars.
They rolled better than most of the cars.
Jon Starr
Veteran
The big problem I have with Battleship, whether it's entertaining or not, is that it represents the unfortunate backwards thinking of the hollywood system. For a long time Hollywood has been shifting over to source material from other mediums that already have a fan base, so they can build a highly successful product more so than anything brand new and fresh. This leaves little room for creativity within hollywood, and it can only be found outside of the system.
Battleship seems to have taken this a step further. Rather than basing it off a source material, it bases itself off of something with only a name. It's a board game that has no characters, no stories, nothing except vehicles that shoot.
So it makes me very happy to see that this cash cow they poured their money into didn't do so well in the box office. It means that if hollywood wants to make something, they have to invest in something that at least already has a decent source material. It's a small win on our end, but a win nonetheless.
Battleship seems to have taken this a step further. Rather than basing it off a source material, it bases itself off of something with only a name. It's a board game that has no characters, no stories, nothing except vehicles that shoot.
So it makes me very happy to see that this cash cow they poured their money into didn't do so well in the box office. It means that if hollywood wants to make something, they have to invest in something that at least already has a decent source material. It's a small win on our end, but a win nonetheless.
Batutta
Major Contributor
At the very least it may put the brakes on anymore board games being turned into films, and stop the Hollywood machine from trying to cram Taylor Kitsch down our throats.