I'm just a guy who loves stories, whether they be past, present, future, movies, TV Shows, video games, whatever. If you came to get an average guys thoughts on film, you've come to the right place.
Okay. I told myself I wasn't going to watch this trailer. I said I was only going to stop at the casting news and that's it... but the minute I saw a thumbnail on someone else's wall of the trailer, I couldn't resist. My friend said it didn't give anything away, it was just awesome. I took his word for it... and what did I get?
Actual mind blown!
I just sat there in awe for a good thirty seconds before I watched it again... and again... and again... even while I'm writing this post, I'm watching it again and again, and again.
Though the more I watch it, the more I realize, nothing happens in this trailer... at all...
Literally, they show some stormtroopers, you see John Boyega. You see who I think is Daisy Ridley riding a speeder biker, all on Tattooine. You also see a cool ass soccer ball droid. Then you see who I believe is Oscar Issacs in an X-Wing, flying much faster then we've ever seen X-Wings fly...
Then we see a hooded figure walking in the woods, he stops and he draws a lightsaber... but not just any lightsaber, a cross-saber, a light saber with little blades sticking out of the side perpendicular to the main blade. All of this with a voice over saying, "There Has Been an Awakening... Have you felt it? The Dark Side... and the Light...
Then you see possibly one of the greatest flying shots of the Millenium Falcon flying over Tattooine. They get shot at by tie-Fighters. All to the glorious chorus that make me pee myself just a little.
All finished up by the classic Title with The Force Awakens. I never did a post on the new title for the 7th Star Wars film but its called The Force Awakens. For me its not that big of a deal when a movie has a title announced because frankly I've thought all the titles have been cool. Even the Phantom Menace, while it didn't make sense was a sweet title. A title doesn't tell me anything about the movie so why get worked up over it?
So nothing at all happens in this trailer. We are just about as in the dark as we were yesterday except this time, we know there is actually a Star Wars movie going to happen.
Its no longer an obscure cast sitting around a table for the first time, this is John Boyega in a Stormtrooper costume, Oscar Issacs in a Rogue Leader costume. Daisy Ridley... there.
And that's the brilliant thing of this trailer. It doesn't answer any questions I wanted answers to. Answers to questions like, What does Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher look like in this new movie, where is Luke? There is almost no connection to the older films in this movie, even the Stormtroopers look a little foreign...
And then you see those X-Wings, but its a very quick shot... then you see a lightsaber and you think, ehhh... maybe... AND THEN YOU SEE THE MILLENIUM FALCON and you start to cry.
They did a really good job with this trailer. Its showing, Disney has something new coming your way. This isn't going to be your old Star Wars... but at the same time, it is.
I don't know, maybe I'm reading into it too much. All I know is I have thirty more questions about this movie then before I came in. Why are there Stormtroopers? Why is John Boyega dressed as one? Why is there an astromech droid on a soccer ball? What's happening on Tattooine? What are those X-Wings flying towards? WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYBODY NEED SMALL TINY BLADES ON THE SIDE OF THEIR LIGHTSABER? WHAT THE FUCK IS A CROSS-SABER?!?!?!
As you can see I'm so excited about this trailer. Is it the best trailer ever made? The nostalgic child in me screams yes. The critic in me says no. Again, its a teaser trailer. It wasn't suppose to give any answers. The point of it was to say, THERE'S A NEW STAR WARS MOVIE COMING OUT IN A LITTLE OVER A YEAR! GET EXCITED! COME SEE IT! That's all. And they got me.
Any doubts I had about bringing back a franchise that honestly, probably doesn't need to be brought back, any doubts I had about old Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill coming back to fight the dark side, any doubts I had about Star Wars being helmed by Disney, All of that OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW!
There is no doubt in my mind I will go into this movie excited, and with very high expectations. You bring back my childhood, you had better damn well bring it back the best way it can be brought back.
I have no idea what to expect, I have no idea what is to come, All I know is it had better be damn good.
If you're interested in the earlier posts I've done on the Castings, Cannon and other rumors, here you go. Cast More Cast! Canon Standalone Films
Needless to say I am so excited for this film, I am already on my fifth post talking about it.
Which means its unfortunate because I'm predicting this will be my last post on this movie for a little over a year until it comes out.
I told myself I was going to go into the new Star Wars films with no pretense. No spoilers, no hints at anything that is going to happen. I'm just going to go and see the movie for what it is.
I've already bent that rule by watching this trailer, but I'm lucky that this wasn't anything, again, nothing happened in this trailer.
I am going to stick to that from now on. As much as it will be painful, I will not watch, read, hear, anything more about Star Wars until I am sitting in the theater ready to watch the 7th installment. Now if I'm bored and want to start theorizing, I might, but it will be total conjecture, and not based off anything... which I don't usually do... so don't expect much of those.
But this way the movie will be even more the experience when I finally see it. So this is it. This had better hold me over till December. I'm going to be busting at the seems come that time.
So have you seen the new Star Wars Trailer? If not, scroll to the top and watch it! Let me know what you think. Comment and Discuss Below!
So before I go on, I should mention that it might be a little bit until my next review. I am in the middle of one of the last weeks of my time here in South Africa and part of that time here is writing a 40-60 page paper. I feel guilty writing anything other than that paper so there is a good chance you won't get another review until December...
Good thing December is 4 days away...
But, since I cannot seem to write a proper review of Die Hard (a review that may or may not be coming soon), I thought I would do a quick reaction post to the two new trailers that have come out in the past two days.
The first one I want to talk about is Jurassic World.
In all honesty, I don't have the emotional connection to the original Jurassic Park that a lot of people do. I've seen people react to it saying, OH MY CHILDHOOD IS COMING BACK! And I just don't feel the same way. I'm figuring out I had a very different childhood experience than a lot of kids my age, even kids I grew up with. While everyone else read Harry Potter and watched Jurassic Park I read Lord of the Rings and watched Star Wars... and when I say I watched Star Wars... that's ALL I watched.
Now of course, I have seen Jurassic Park since and I really enjoy the film. I think the music is great, the story is phenomenal, and the visual effects today are still pretty great. But when its 4th sequel is announced, ten years after a really shitty sequel, honestly I'm wasn't anymore excited that I would guess someone was who hadn't seen the film at all. Then I watched the trailer...
Honestly, I have mixed feelings on it. I think it looks gorgeous and I will no doubt see it. It just kind of fell a little bit flat for me. Here's the best analogy I can come up with (partly because I'm awful at analogies). Imagine you are really craving a Coke. You have been waiting for this Coke for a long time and its finally time to have this coke... And then you get it, and its flat, its not exactly cold. Its still good, it still fulfills that desire to have the Coke and yet its not quite what you wanted... that's kind of what the Jurassic World trailer was like for me. To me it felt as though I had to be a die hard fan of Jurassic Park to really feel this trailer and yet, I didn't quite feel like this was an adventure movie.
Look at the original Jurassic Park trailer
Now I know that trailers have changed since the 90's, but this movie made you feel like you were about to experience an adventure film. Sure there was a lot of effort shown on showing a little bit of the dinosaurs but just enough to get you to come. With this new trailer, we've seen the dinosaurs before, showing us dinosaurs is still going to look cool but its not going to be the visual experience Spielberg brought us on in 1993.
Therefore something new has to be added... and we don't quite know what that is yet.
The trailer does a really good job at building the suspense and not showing us the new hybrid dinosaur they created. However, I'm worried that instead of an adventure movie, this is just going to be a monster movie.
Honestly, I'm not one for monster movies. I never saw Godzilla, not that I heard bad things about it, I just wasn't interested. Frankly, after you've seen one monster movie, you've really seen them all. So I don't want Jurassic Park to be a monster movie. I want it to be a Jurassic Park movie. A movie that is an adventure... with Dinosaurs.
There are some pretty great things in this trailer. The dinosaur emerging from the water like Shamoo at Seaworld, and the look of the fully functional Jurassic World theme park looks phenomenal.
Another thing I'm looking forward to is Chris Pratt.
I love it when actors go through a change and start doing movies and TV shows you never would have thought they would do in the past.
You can tell I'm fascinated by the transformation of Matthew McConaughey, and my excitement for Chris Pratt's career is growing more and more. The guy was already kind of a Han Solo, goof ball character in Guardians of the Galaxy, if he can do this movie in the way that I think he's going to do it, I think the guy might be on the track to being the next Harrison Ford. That's a big statement and I don't want to bite my words later, but the guy looks badass in this movie. He's not Starlord, he's not a goofball lovable guy in this film, he's very serious, or at least he seems like he is.
The first thing that I thought of was that Pratt was channeling his inner Sam Neil and I love the idea of that.
There are kids in the film going to the park, there's Gwen Stacey from the 3rd Sam Raimi Spider-Man Film, all of that is really irrelevant. The trailer looks really good.
As long as it stays in the adventure category, I will be satisfied.
I'm excited for Jurassic World, I feel as thought if the film is done correctly and Pratt brings his new side out and develops it well, the film will be, at the very least, a medium success.
And that's really all I can say about it. I liked the trailer, it didn't blow my mind, but it got me excited for a movie I recognize and enjoy. Not as much as other franchises, but still, it should be a good film.
But the real kicker was the new trailer for the origin story of Peter Pan, simply called Pan.
I think that I had heard a little bit about this film but really not that much. All I heard was it was a movie about Peter Pan. I know there was a big deal about Rooney Mara, a white woman, playing Tiger Lily, an Indian, but that doesn't really seem to be a problem, at least from what I've seen in this trailer.
So this is suppose to be the origin story of Peter Pan and you can obviously tell they are taking a lot of liberties with this film. This does not follow the mythology that was laid down in the Peter Pan universe, but frankly, this trailer looks so cool, I don't really care.
If we're talking about an adventure film, this is the one I want to watch. Everything I've seen in this trailer just looks fantastic.
The obvious thing to talk about is Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard. He's not Captain Hook, he's Black Beard.
The guy just looks bomb as hell. I already love Hugh Jackman. The guy has proven himself to hell and back that he is a quality actor. I didn't even need to see a trailer to know that he's just going to be fun in this movie.
Again, he's Blackbeard, not Captain Hook. Hook is instead played by Garrett Hedlund...
Now the only thing I really know Garrett Hedlund from is Eragon... I don't really speak of that movie at all. However, Hedlund was not the bad part of that movie. He was in 4 Brothers but honestly he wasn't the good part of that movie either. Here he's taking on the role of Captain James Hook... I really hope its a good part. I saw a video earlier today kind of cautious about the fact that Peter and Hook are friends in this film. Obviously something will happen and Hook will loath Peter because of it. Because isn't that a novel idea, have the good guy and bad guy be pals before they become mortal enemies and that'll make it even better when the bad guy bites it in the original film...
Okay so the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing that that is becoming an overused trope. It happened in Oz The Great and Powerful, which I didn't hate... I also didn't love it.
The good thing is that if this movie is a success and Hedlund rocks it, it could be a breakout role for him. Maybe that's wishful thinking, but this movie looks really freaking good.
Its going to be hard to shine as Hook, especially if you're competing with this...
God, Hugh Jackman is going to be phenomenal...
Other parts of the trailer worth mentioning.
Visually, this movie looks spectacular.
I hate to compare this again to Oz: The Great and Powerful but that movie seemed very trippy and very Alice and Wonderland. In short, it was a Disney Film through and through. Again, not a horrible one, just very CGI and didn't feel like a real place.
Something about the tone of this film gives it that family adventure feeling to it but just isn't quite the same cartoony feeling. There's some great scene in this trailer where people are pulling off some Cirque du Soleil shit that could be a little terrifying but at the same time, it just has that perfect Peter Pan feeling that I got from the original novel. Its not exactly as bright and colorful as the Disney cartoon you grew up with but if done well, I could see this being a really, really fun movie that I feel like I'm going to enjoy the hell out of.
I love the Peter Pan world, from the cartoon, to the play, to one of my favorite Robin Williams movies ever, Hook.
The 90's created a lot of things... not all of them good. But Hook has to be one of my favorite movies of all time. And its because it delved into the world of Peter Pan so much and I feel like this new film has the opportunity to take me to Neverland again, and I am very excited.
The other things worth mentioning are Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily... I actually don't think I've seen Rooney Mara in anything... yeah... I haven't. I know she's in some movies I intend on seeing like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the Social Network, but I actually have never seen her in anything.
I'm sure she'll do fine. Hopefully the Indians in this movie are done with taste so people don't get too pissed off about it.
The kid who plays Peter looks like he could actually be really entertaining. I don't usually like kid actors and if the movie centers around them, its hard for me to really watch. But then again, its freakin Peter Pan. They gotta get a good kid to play such an iconic role. The guy who is playing Peter is named Levy Miller, he's a new comer. I'm really looking forward to see if this kid wows me.
Now all of this is just conjecture. Trailers do not mean that the movie is going to be good. There have been many a movie that the trailer said the movie was going to be one thing and then movie turned out to be something totally different.
All I'm saying is that these two movies are two movies that are not Star Wars, and not a comic book movie that I am actually really looking forward to. I think out of the two I'm actually looking forward to Pan a little bit more but both are coming out around the same time so maybe I'll do a post around summer of next year coming back to these films and letting you know which one was better and if any of them were good.
But those are my thoughts on the new trailers that came out this week. Let me know what you think of either of them. Comment and Discuss below!
I'll leave you with this. Because I think in this "contest" Pan was the trailer I was actually looking forward to the most, here's a cracked video talking about Peter Pan... Enjoy!
I think the thing that was different about this film was that I had read the book about a month ago. The story was very fresh in my memory, as opposed to the other two films where I remembered what happened but I was still with the story of the film and where it went.
The other problem with this is that since it is a two parter, they have the ability to get pretty in depth with the material they're working with.
This review is going to be sort of a comparison since that was very much how I viewed the film and I want to say a few words about the Mockingjay book. But in the end its going to be a film review.
Before I begin, here are my two reviews of the films prior, in case you need context. Hunger Games Catching Fire
Mockingjay Part 1 starts off almost right after the last movie. Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawerence) has been extracted from the 75th Hunger Games and she is now free and protected by District 13, the District everyone thought was destroyed. Instead they are moving forward with their resistance movement against the Capital with the uproar started by Katniss's actions in the last film. The uprising is lead by District 13's President Alma Coin (played by Julianne Moore)
There still really isn't an explanation about what happened to District 13. I'm realizing now that if you haven't read the book you're probably wondering... where are they? Where's District 13 and why does it look like Zion from the Matrix? It probably is the best its explained in all three movies that have come out but its still iffy.
Coin and the double agent game maker, Plutarch Heavensbee (played by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) want Katniss to take on the role of the Mockingjay, the face of the revolution.
Meanwhile, Peeta Mellark (played by Josh Hutcherson) is a captive of the Capital and being used as a figurehead for influencing a ceasefire. Katniss is unsure whether or not he's being forced to do so or not. Finally she agrees to be the Mockingjay if they rescue Peeta.
So the entire film is Katniss riling support for the resistance and doing PR for District 13. At first she's not very good at it but when they put her in the field and actually film what she does, they make these videos and paint her as the Mockingjay.
Its really fun to see the unintended pitting of Peeta and Katniss against each other. He's being used as the mouthpiece of the Capital. She's being used as the mouthpiece of District 13. Having read the book, its fun to see where that goes.
Now the one problem I have with the book is that Katniss is never really in battle. This resistance is going on, there's a civil war happening and Katniss is underground, shooting propaganda films, or having her love triangle drama. (I'll get to that in a second). You don't really get the feeling that there is actually a war going on. And I think that's a part that the movie had more freedom to do more with.
The book is restrained to Katniss's perspective, its told in the first person so she's not going to see the revolution happening. But with the movie, they're able to show this war going on. You're able to actually see President Snow be the evil dictator.
That was the part I was so happy to see that they improved on. Donald Sutherland actually brings it in this movie. Maybe its just he's doing more instead of talking blankly with a rose but he's actually intimidating in this movie. Sure he's still evil just for being evil and for me that makes him kind of bland as a villain, especially if he looks like Santa Claus. But at least in this film he was menacing. At least in this film you saw him order the bombing of a hospital. At least in this film you had the stereotypical dystopian future where the masses are in the rain looking up at a screen with their dictators face in front of them. I actually believed that President Snow was an asshole that needed to be eliminated. In the other films he was just an old man. Sure, I knew he was putting pressure on Katniss and is only power hungry but I never actually saw him be menacing, or evil. I was just told he was.
Which is a shame because as far as the book goes, he's barely in this story. And again, that's where the movie was able to take some liberties and improve the source material.
Talking from a reader's perspective, that's what the movie really does, improve on the source material.
The third Hunger Games book is really, really not that great. Like I said before, for a change of pace and setting the book within the revolution, there's a lot of sitting around and talking. The action scenes are few and far in between, and Suzanne Collins really isn't that great at writing action scenes.
Now the first half of the book, I really didn't mind that much. Its more the ending but we'll get to that when the next movie comes out. But I think that this movie really did some work on the story and kind of improved it, or at least adapted something boring and made it interesting. The book is better at foreshadowing tensions between Katniss and District 13, how she's being used by President Coin the same way President Snow used her.
But at the same time, the movie does a really good job at flushing out great parts of the book and expediting parts that were not as good. Katniss is suppose to be pretty fucked up from all the Hunger Games and experiences she's been through. Now this was really flushed out in the book but there's really only one scene where she's off her rocker. There are parts where she breaks down that are really good and really show Lawrence's acting ability, but they're not overplayed and she's still a very capable character in this film.
For a film based on the first half of a book where not much happens, a lot happens in this film. That was really great to see.
As far as individual performances go, there's a lot to talk about.
Let's talk about J Law. This is her role. The woman can act, she returns to the role of Katniss like riding a bike. If you would have told me that Jennifer Lawrence, that chick from the first Hunger Games film was going to be this great of an actress. I would have laughed in your face.
It is now difficult to distinguish Katniss from Jennifer Lawrence, but the great part is, Jennifer Lawrence will not always been glued to Katniss. With her Oscar in Silver Linings Playbook, her great work in American Hustle and a shit load of other films, J Law has a very, very bright future ahead of her. Its really amazing how big she's gotten in such a short time.
I remember when she played Mystique in X-men: First Class... she wasn't that great. But she's worked at it. She's gotten a lot better since and its just fun watching her now.
So that's pretty much all I have to say about her. She does a really, really good job. Plain and simple.
Now similar to the first half of this book, Peeta isn't in this movie very much.
So... I can't really say that much about Josh Hutcherson in this film. I'm excited to see where he goes in the next film because shit goes down and he has a very, very big development.
I'm excited to see where that goes.
Now one that I will mention, and this really isn't Hutcherson's fault, but he's suppose to be in the Capital's captivity, and he's suppose to be malnourished and lose a lot of weight... now I'm not sure if they photoshopped him looking all sickly and stuff, and its serious stuff... but I couldn't stop but smile and think that Josh Hutcherson just looked like a bobble head. Again, not his fault the computer's aren't good enough and you have to be insane to actually lose that much weight and look that malnourished... Although its been done before.
In short, it just looked a little bit funny. Hutcherson did a good job for what he was given. Nothing spectacular but nothing horrible.
But then you have this motherfucker...
What a complete waste of space.
If you've read my Hunger Games reviews, I've mainly said that J Law and Hutcherson really got comfortable with their roles and really made the second movie their own. They developed their characters and really did a good job.
Liam... I mean was the guy even in the movie?
I've done a lot of reviews with movies with Liam Hemsworth and I give him a lot of shit because he's the brother of Thor and Chris Hemsworth is just so much better of an actor, but its fucking true.
The guy is just something pretty to look at. I refer back to The Onion's Review of Catching Fire but even in the parts that are suppose to be touching and moving as Gale looks over his destroyed District 12, its just kind of boring. In the book there is a lot of tension with Katniss and Gale as Gale is becoming more and more enthusiastic with the revolution. But in the movie, he's just a soldier. He picks up a crossbow at one point and shoots a target. He shoots a plane. He joins SEAL Team 6, I frankly just don't care what happens to him, he's just a piece of eye candy.
Woody Harrelson returns as Haymitch... he's fun in this film. I think the movie is probably lacking in scenes with him... in fact a lot of scenes just go on without him even in mind... Hmmm, never thought about that. But Woody Harrelson is so good it doesn't matter. When he's on screen its fun.
Julianne Moore as President Coin is an interesting case because she's not quite revealed yet. I read that Moore is looking forward to taking the character to a new territory, territory that again was limited by the book's first person narrative. I see the seeds of her becoming a really fun character in the next movie. I'll talk about that in a little bit.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman returns as Plutarch Heavensbee. Its kind of weird seeing him on screen since he has passed but it makes me really appreciate the guys work. Is Plutarch Heavensbee the role of the century? No. But Hoffman plays it well. Nothing spectacular but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
There are a couple other roles worth mentioning. Commander Boggs is played by that guy from House of Cards. Sam Claflin returns as Finnick Odair, although his part is very small in this film, good but small. Elizabeth Banks comes back for a change in the story from the book that makes a ton of sense. That guy from James Bond is back to play that one guy from the second film.
And then there's Natalie Dormer
Sure she's not the biggest role in the film. She's the director of the propaganda films. And while Dormer won't be the thing that everyone talks about with this film, this film does show promise for this Game of Thrones star.
I've seen up to the third season of Game of Thrones and I really like Dormer. I'll reserve judgment on her until I see her start getting into more and more movies, but for now she's on my radar of actresses to watch. She should have a pretty good career in front of her.
Now as far as the love triangle goes, the movie actually takes a step back from that. While the triangle was stressed in this film because Katniss is able to be with Gale but wants desperately to save Peeta, its incredibly underplayed. Katniss already seems to have made her choice and it really doesn't seem like its Gale in this film.
Needless to say, it underplayed and thank god for that. I think the popularity of the Twilight Series has finally been shed off of the Hunger Games and its not become something a lot better than that. While the books play off that love triangle, I think the movie knows there's more to the books than that and there's no need to overplay it.
Something I liked but would want to see more of is a development of the world around them. Sure we know the land is divided into districts, we know the Capital is evil, District 13, for the most part is good. But when they go to District 8, they just go to an interchangeable bombed out city.
It is fun seeing different parts of the revolution done in different districts. And honestly, I want to see more of this revolution happen, something I think will hopefully be flushed out in the next film...
But thats the difficulty I have with this movie. Its that it is the first part of a larger movie.
Since its all the rage now to split the last film in a series into two parts, of course this movie was split into two parts.
Now, like I said, this has its benefits. The movie is able to elaborate and really flush out the intricacies of the book. And I think this movie does that and it does it well.
I suppose the movie did what it was suppose to do. It's suppose to get your excited for the final conclusion coming out a year from now.
But the downfall to that is that since the movie was good and I want to see the rest of the film, I don't feel like I watched an entire movie. I feel like I watched half a movie. That's why this movie is hard to review for me. Its really just building up to the conclusion but I have to wait an entire year for that. I don't know, something about it just seems incomplete. And again, this both a compliment and a detriment to the film. It does a really good job setting up what will happen with President Coin, it does a good job at pointing where the film is headed. And yet I feel like I missed something.
Which is strange because the movie ends in a pretty concise way. It sets up for the next film, but as far as conflict and plot goes, it wraps up pretty well. And that's the confusing part. This movie stands on its own and yet it doesn't feel like I watched a full movie... its hard to explain.
Without belaboring it, Mockingjay Part 1 is a good film. I enjoyed it but felt a little bit incomplete, and for good reason, its part 1. Maybe its a little bit of a tease being that I have to wait a year to get closure on this film, but its good and definitely worth watching.
But have you seen Mockingjay Part 1? What did you think? Did you feel it was its own movie or just half of one? Comment and Discuss below!
I'll leave you with this. Sorry if its not the greatest video but apparently Woody Harrelson didn't know Liam and Chris Hemsworth were brothers... Woody Harrelson is the best. Enjoy!
I'm having some trouble getting videos on the blog right now... my wifi isn't that great. But I can get a link which is almost better. Here's SNL on the Hunger Games, Enjoy!
Oh yeah... I watched this movie didn't I? For some reason, I decided to watch this movie the day before I watched Interstellar. This wouldn't be the first time I've done my reviews out of order but I think there's a reason why I finished my Interstellar review first.
I'm not totally sure what attracted me to this movie when it came out in 2007. The previews looked good, Eva Mendes is freaking gorgeous, and I mean Mark Wahlberg? Why the hell not?
Now this movie used to play on FX like everyday so I had multiple opportunities to watch the entire movie, and believe me, I tried a hundred times over. For some reason, it just did nothing for me. It was boring, I fell asleep too often, it just didn't really fit me.
Now, a couple years later, I'd like to think I have a little bit better taste in movies, will We Own the Night turn out to be better than I thought?
We Own the Night takes place in Brooklyn 1988. Bobby Green (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is a successful up and coming night club manager. He runs a night club in Brooklyn for a Russian named Marat Buzhayev (played by Moni Moshonov). While Bobby is not involved with drugs or criminal activity himself, he does know that it happens in his club. It just so happens that a big drug dealer by the name of Vadim Nezhinski (played by Alex Veadov) is doing a lot of his business. Nezhinski is the dealer that Bobby's father and brother, Joe (played by Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg), top cops in the Brooklyn police department, are looking to bust.
Now Green's relationship with his family is not that great and he doesn't ever tell anybody except for his girlfriend Amada (played by Eva Mendes) that his family are all cops. At first Joe wants Bobby to inform on Nezhinski but when Bobby refuses Joe goes straight in to try and bust this Russian mobster. This results in Joe getting shot and put int he hospital. Its at this point that Bobby decides to help the police take down the drug dealer who went after his family.
There of course, from the beginning is familial tension between Bobby and his father and brother. Its too different worlds colliding and they are bound to butt heads.
I really can't put my finger on why I'm not a fan of this movie. It seems to have all the ingredients for a fascinating crime thriller and yet it just kind of falls flat.
Its got a really good cast, the kind of people you would expect for a movie about the police in 1988 New York, and yet its just not anything spectacular.
Furthermore I'm not totally sure what this movie wants to be. I'm not sure if it wants to be your run of the mill action cop drama or if its trying to be something more gritty, realistic, and making a statement on something.
I think the main problem I have with this movie is the movie's main character.
I really can't say whether or not Joaquin Phoenix or the script is the one to blame for this movie just being boring as hell.
The character of Bobby Green just isn't that interesting or likable at all.
What do we know about Bobby Green? We know he's a night club owner, we know he has family who are cops, people he hates but is going to come running if they get shot. And we also know he has a hot girlfriend.
But throughout all of that, we never really know that much about Bobby as a character. Why is he the social outcast of the family? Why didn't he become a cop instead of a night club owner. Why does he hate this family so much, but why does he run back to them when they are in danger.
And again, I'm not totally sure if this is the writer's fault of Joaquin Phoenix's. I know its not totally Joaquin Phoenix's fault... but the man does have these moments where I'm not totally sure he's 100% into the movie.
I mean the man looks stoned the entire movie. I mean he is a lot of the time, but he has a lot of moments where he looked like he was asleep. Maybe its his deep set eyes but, if Joaquin Phoenix isn't going to stay awake for his movie, why should I?
There's also a part where he's offered to come on and become a police officer because of the information he knows. Now at this point, Phoenix is a state witness ready to testify against this drug lord (sorry about the spoilers). Why in hell would they let him become a police officer now?
I understand if after the trial he wants to be a police officer, sure who gives a shit. But you're trying to protect him and his girlfriend and you want him to become a police officer? Bullshit!
I think this is the movie that really makes me question whether or not Joaquin Phoenix is a good actor or not. I'll admit, I really liked him in Gladiator. I thought Commodus was a great antagonist, mainly because while he was nuts and imbalanced, he had legitimate feelings and insecurities. And Phoenix did a good job in acting that.
However, Gladiator was a much, MUCH better script than We Own the Night. Phoenix was given the role of his career because of that great screenwriting. I understand that a lot of the blame should fall on the director and the screenwriter but there are actors that it doesn't matter what the script is, as long as they're not phoning it in, its a good time regardless. I don't think Joaquin Phoenix is that kind of actor.
Now, to be fair, I have not seen Walk the Line, I have not seen Her, I do not know enough of Phoenix's work to really determine if he's that great of an actor. All I'm saying is this movie doesn't really paint a good picture of the guy.
And then there is Eva Mendes as Phoenix's girlfriend. Honestly, as a teenager, this was one of the big draws of the movie... she's freaking gorgeous.
But now that I'm looking at this objectively, or as objectively as I can, she's really not that interesting of a character... in fact she's kind of annoying. Since I don't really have anything to tell me that I care about Joaquin Phoenix in this film, I don't have anything to tell me that I care about Eva Mendes in this film. Sure I get it, her life becomes difficult when they get put into protection and she's not able to see her family, but since I don't see this character as a really likable character, her complaining about it just seems whiny instead of a legitimate complaint.
Also, when Bobby decides to join the police force, he doesn't tell her... why? Put aside the fact that it still doesn't make any sense that he joined the police force in the first place, why wouldn't he tell her?
Eva Mendes seems to be the only person he really cares about prior to his family getting in trouble, and then he's just ready to throw that all away to be a cop? Something we never really expected him to do since the beginning? And then its never resolved. Sure Bobby thinks he sees her in the crowd... but he doesn't. She just didn't really seem to have that huge of an impact on the movie. It didn't necessarily need to be resolved but then why was she built up so much?
And that's a theme throughout the entire film. There's no emotional connection to any of these characters. I don't like the relationship between Bobby and his girlfriend, there's no brotherly chemistry between Phoenix and Wahlberg, Duvall is just phoning it in.
Its just a matter that there is no emotional investment in these characters. They're just there going along with the plot of the story, the mediocre crime drama plot.
The only time they really try to delve in is at the end when Mark Wahlberg freezes up when he's reminded of when he was shot. That part was good. Way to go Mark Wahlberg. But its pushed aside so quickly for Joaquin Phoenix to go out and be stupid in a cornfield. The movie had a real shot to delve into the personal problems of Mark Wahlberg, this tough talking cop who wants nothing more than to bring down the guys who killed his father (spoilers again... sorry) and all he does is freeze up... but screw that, let's watch Joaquin Phoenix walk into a burning cornfield with a blank stare in order to exact revenge.
Even the villains are your generic Russian mobsters. Sure they're a little bit intimidating but I will forget about them almost as quickly as I forgot their names and have to keep on looking at the Wikipedia page to remember them.
I would be wrong to not point out the stylistic path of the film. There's a lot of use of shadows and darkness that I guess are suppose to signify something... and I have to give the movie credit for trying something different than what is run of the mill.
But the problem with this is that the movie is just so dank, dark, and depressing that its just unpleasant to watch.
And don't get me wrong, I'm very aware that that was probably the style James Gray was going for, that the darkness and feel for the movie was all intentional.
But if that's the case, at least make the characters likable, enjoyable to watch, instead of a bland choice of either stoic and high looking, or stoic and hard boiled.
And if you're saying, No Connor you don't get it, the characters are suppose to be that way, its a realistic crime drama, to that I would say why the hell then does he become a cop! Sorry, I know I'm harping on this one plot point a lot but this movie was not made to be realistic. It just wasn't. So the movie may have "style" but style really isn't worth much if your characters are shit, your plot is mediocre and generic, and there's nothing to stop me from falling asleep.
Overall, don't waste your time with We Own the Night. Its nothing we haven't seen before and worse is, we've seen it done better.
But what do you think? Am I missing the point of the movie? Is there something glaring I forgot to mention? Comment and Discuss below!
I'll leave you with this. Every time I googled We Own the Night, this music video kept on coming up... so I guess that's the video... Enjoy?
Ow... That is all I can say about this movie up front. Ow...
I came out of this movie with one of the biggest headaches I have had coming out of a movie. This movie had all of it, the visual, the metaphysical, the emotion, and the philosophical elements of story telling that only Christopher Nolan can really bring to the big screen. Seriously, the guy is probably somewhere between Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg and its amazing watching the shit he comes up with.
So while this movie gave me a headache, its a very good headache that I look forward to going through again, as long as it will give me at least a little bit more of a grasp on what the hell I just watched.
Interstellar is the story of Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey) who is a former astronaut, now farmer in an earth that is slowly fading away.
This is just a shit earth, there's dust storm, the entire population is dependent on farming, and society is just crumbling at the seams.
Cooper lives here with his daughter Merph, his son, and his father in law (played by John Lithgow). He's a farmer who is just not quite right for the time and place he was born into. The world needs him to be a farmer but he just wants to be doing something more meaningful.
When strange anomaly's lead him to a secret NASA base, Cooper is recruited by a physicist named Dr. Brand (played by Michael Caine) to pilot a shuttle into space and find a world that is inhabitable by the human race. This of course would mean that he would leave his family behind in hope that he finds a new world for the human race to live on... And that's the simple explanation.
More people join him on the expedition. One being Professor Brand's daughter (played by Anne Hathaway), Seneca Crane from the Hunger games, with a beard just not as crazy (played by Wes Bentley), another guy (played by David Gyasi) and two cube robots.
Little known fact, one of them is voiced by the guy who played Mr. Noodle in Seasame Street...
Yeah... that guy
The mind bending part of this movie, similar to the concept of dreaming in Inception, is the idea of the relativity of time.
Space travel and time are difficult things to explain in high school physics but some how Nolan was able to make me understand, (or at least make me believe that I understood) the concept of the relativity of time.
The short explanation is that time flows differently in space. While the Earth's time is measured by 24 hours and 365 days in a year, those are constructions we created. Basically, Matthew McConaughey goes into space, other people get a lot older but he ages slower... its still fucking confusing. Its represented well so don't worry.
But that's apart of the film that really tugs at the emotion heartstrings.
Basically, McConaughey spends a very short time in space (relatively) and suddenly his family is older. His son turns into Casey Affleck, his daughter turns into Jessica Chastain. Life goes on while he's out there trying to save the human race. Needless to say, it doesn't go over too well.
Jessica Chastain is on Earth and is attempting to solve the equation that would make it so gravity can
be obtained or controlled. She comes under the wing of Professor Brand, and Chastain does a very, very good job.
There's a great dynamic of Merph just feeling alone and abandoned by her father. Its heartbreaking because the relationship from the very beginning between McConaughey and the young Merph is just so good. They look and act like a great father and daughter duo and I love the relationship. It just makes it difficult when Cooper decides to leave.
There's a whole other level to this movie that deals with time and space, and I'm gonna say it, there were a lot of moments where it looked like they were traveling through the wormhole that you see in every opening sequence to Doctor Who.
And that is pretty much the movie's strongest point.
I'm pretty sure Christopher Nolan took a look at the movie Gravity, a movie praised for its visuals and its almost claustrophobic perspective of space, and pretty much said, "I can do better than that".
The movie's strong suite is its visuals and this movie is just one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen in a long time.
While I have yet to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, from what I have seen of that movie and the cultural
and visual impact it made in film, I can only imagine that Nolan drew a lot of his visual inspiration for this film from that one.
This is one of those movies where I came out of the theater with a sore throat because my mouth was open the entire time because I was in such awe of the visuals.
I've heard that everyone who is a Christopher Nolan fan wants this movie to become the next 2001: A Space Odyssey and everyone who is a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey wants this movie to become just that. Visually, I think he may have succeeded. I don't know about story wise but holy crap this movie is just down right gorgeous.
Does the movie have its problems? Sorta?
The movie has this underlying theme that love is the most powerful thing in the universe... Luckily, I didn't feel that was too forced or didn't take too much away from the film.
There's parts in the movie that I need to re-watch the movie to understand, its a complex movie with a lot of science about time and space and its can get a little convoluted with those theories and parts of the film. The fun part is that a lot of the science in this movie is correct. Nolan used a lot of help to make sure the science in the movie was as realistic as it could be. Now he does take some liberties and some parts are totally based in Science Fiction, but doesn't that make a good science fiction film? When its layered so well with science and fact that suddenly the science fiction could be conceived.
And that's the fun part about Nolan's movies.
Everybody came out of Inception not totally getting what the movie was trying to say and there's a lot of parts in that movie that require you to watch it for a second time.
The good thing was, the storytelling and the characters were so good in that movie that you wanted to come back and relive the tale again so everytime you watched it, something new would come out of it.
I feel like that's what is going to have to be the case with Interstellar. It has those qualities and those characters that you don't mind coming back to.
The one problem I see with that is the pacing of the movie. I don't think when I was watching it I had any thoughts that the movie was dragging but I did still feel like it was a long as hell movie. Its the same as my thought process with the Dark Knight. This is really good, there's no end in sight, I don't know how I feel about that right now.
Its that feeling where the movie is really good but you realize that its been going on for about 2 hours now. Its the moment when you know movies should usually end but this one has about an hour or so left.
The one thing about Interstellar that is different than Inception is that Interstellar, to me, doesn't really feel like a movie I would want to rush to see again.
When I finished Inception I wanted to watch it again, get all the intricacies, understand more. With Interstellar, it was just so big and honestly just hurt my brain that I need a break for a while.
It was such an experience watching this movie that it almost feels as though it will never be the same again, even though I might get more out of it, it will never really compare with the first time I watched it.
Maybe I just need to see it again, but that's how I will guess I will watch it the next time.
As far as the cast goes, Interstellar is one of those casts that is just fun. There are small parts that are taken up by big name actors and they just show up. There's no warning. For example, I didn't know Casey Affleck was in this movie. When I saw him I was wondering why he was taking such a small role in a big movie but again I think its one of those films, and this is becoming a bigger thing now, where word will be that this movie is coming out and I almost imagine big name actors saying, I don't care if I'm in the background, I want to be in this movie.
Is that true? Probably not. But I like to think of it that way.
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this movie in the context of my series of movies in the McConaissance.
For people who know about the McConaissance, this movie is no surprise that McConaughey is good. For people who don't know about the McConaissance, this movie could change your mind because he freaking rocks it in this movie.
And for people who were on the fence about McConaughey (which includes me, I'll admit, even True Detective didn't quite push me over) this movie may push you over. McConaughey is fantastic in this film. There is some emotion and depth in this film that I never thought I'd see come out of the guy. Again, if there was any doubt remaining from watching True Detective or Mud, this movie set me over.
The guy can act, no doubt about it.
The rest of the cast is, like I said, really good. They're fun to watch, and there's a perfection to the roles they're cast in I think. For example, I wasn't wild about Anne Hathaway, I thought she looked a little silly in a space suit, but she killed it and it almost seems like nobody else could have that role. Same goes for Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, lots of other people. I love it.
Overall, the film is really an experience. Its a visual beauty, almost to the point of overload. The story is very good, though sometimes convoluted with science and an overtone of love, its one of those movies you want to watch again to get everything out of it. And the acting was great. No one was a weak link, it was just damn good.
But what did you think? Do you think its the next 2001: A Space Odyssey? Do you think its just an overrated Nolan film? Where does it compare in the Nolan films? Comment and Discuss Below!
I'll leave you with this. There is a lot of science in this movie and there's a part at the ending where they start trying to explain dimensions and what exactly they mean and its one of the things I couldn't really wrap my head around while I was watching. Luckily we have Neil deGrasse Tyson to explain shit. This video has some spoilers but its really good. Enjoy!
Oh! I forgot to mention! The music in this movie is phenomenal. Its all organy and its just strange at certain points but Hans Zimmer blows it out of the water.
There's no Inception BWAAAAA! But its still damn good music.
Holy crap, I'm so happy. Right now I can finally talk with people about Breaking Bad because I now have watched the entire thing. For the longest time, I don't know why, I had half a season left and I just didn't watch it.
So a while back Netflix had the bright idea to put all of Breaking Bad on its listings. And that was great, and I loved it. I watched the shit out of. But apparently, they only put up to half of season 5. Maybe it was because the other half hadn't come out yet, whatever, I was left with Hank on the toilet, seeing the Walt Whitman book and realizing that Walter is Heisenburg.
(In case it wasn't assumed, spoilers by the way.)
And then I was done. I had just watched the brilliance of Gus Fring getting blown up, I had just watched Walter Empire come to fruitition. He had finally got out, it looked like he was going to make up with his family now. It just seemed perfect except for the whole Hank thing...
And I think a part of me really didn't want to go on.
I knew there was more, I knew something had to happen, I knew this good thing had to come to an end and it all had to come crumbling down. I knew I had to figure out what Walter was doing with a beard and a large machine gun, but a part of me just wanted to leave it like that.
But for some reason, with all the free time I have here, I thought it would be a good idea to just end it, figure out what happens... even though some of it had already been spoiled for me... but I had to figure out how it ended.
Let's talk about the series as a whole first.
I wish I could tell you I re-watched all the seasons 1-5 1/2 just so I could give you a full review of the entire series as a whole... but that's a shit load of episodes.
Good ones... but a lot of them.
When Breaking Bad first aired, I remember my dad showing it to me. It was a crazy concept, a high school chemistry teacher is dying of cancer, so to provide for his family, he decides to cool crystal meth.
Together with a former student, he steals lab equipment, goes out in an RV to cook crystal meth.
To me, this had to be one of the most original ideas I had ever heard of and I knew who Bryan Cranston was. Sure he was the annoying as fuck dad from Malcom in the Middle but I think that was half of the intrigue. It was the first time I really saw a transformation of an actor like that honestly, this is the thing Bryan Cranston is known for now, not that dumbass TV show, this. And I'm so, so very happy.
But the show was slow as all hell.
That is the one complaint is that the first season is one of the slowest seasons of television I have ever watched. Even the first season of Doctor Who isn't this boring.
I get it, they have to build it up, show how desperate Walter becomes, show his family life, all of it connects, I get that.
But I don't care if Walter Jr. is smoking weed. I don't care if Marie is a kleptomaniac. Sure it plays to character development and I have to commend Vince Gilligan, not only for the great character development but sprinkling in the bare minimum of intrigue to keep me going to get through the first season through all the stuff I frankly don't give a shit about.
And the entire season isn't horrible, once Tucco gets involved it starts picking up but by then its already pretty much season 2.
But again, it all connects. It shows how mild mannered Walt was in the beginning. There's a creepiness about the transformation, especially as the son of a teacher (not a chemistry teacher thank god). In many ways, Walt is your everyday middle income father who just wants to do right by his family. His intentions from the very beginning are noble. And the brilliant thing about the show is that while the first season is boring as all hell, its this great snowball effect that once things begin, they cannot stop. Like I said, it all picks up once Tucco shows up and after that there is no going back.
Suddenly, fast forward to the 5th season and things have changed immensely. The mild mannered high school teacher is long gone, yeah he disappeared about a season ago and in his place is a drug lord.
You look back at the first meeting he has with Tucco from the first season and the meeting he has with the new drug distributors where he tells them to "Say my name". Its said very clearly near the end of the season, that Walter White is long gone. Heisenburg has taken over.
And yet at the same time, there's still that inkling of the man that once was. When Hank is murdered, when Walter is all along with the mountains of New Hampshire, there's inklings of the man he used to be. It almost makes you forget the charade he's been putting up this entire time. It makes you forget the lives he's taken, the people he's effected with his work. And that's what makes Walter White one of the best characters on television today. Its truly a testament to the acting ability of Bryan Cranston. He is now, the one who knocks.
So let's talk about the season finale. Walter has been in log cabin in New Hampshire, hiding from the cops who are now after him. Jesse is now the slave of Todd and his uncle who have taken over the meth business Walter started, under the threat of Brock, the child of Jesse's ex-girlfriend who Todd murdered right in front of Jesse.
Walter has a barrel of money that he desperately wants to get to his family but he can't find a way to do it. Suddenly he sees a clip of his former partners at Grey Matter and he just leaves for New Mexico. We have no idea what he's going to do.
Now the show does a great job at keeping me wondering what the hell Walter is going to do. On one hand, I'm thinking he's just going to go on a murder spree, starting with this couple we haven't seen since season 1... or 2... I don't know it was one of them.
Instead he gives them a pile of money and tells them to put it in a trust fund for Walter Jr. And if they don't...
Well if that wasn't one of the greatest moments of television history ever...
Then Walter goes to meet Todd and Lydia, telling them he has a new way of cooking, in order to get his foot in the door to see Todd and his uncle's gang. We know Walter has no intentions of cooking again, but he wants to wrap things up once and for all.
He says good bye to his wife, and his daughter, and gives his wife the coordinates to the place where Hank was buried.
There's a great moment here where Walter comes out and says, I did this for me.
This entire time Walter has been saying he's been doing this to get money to leave for his family when he's no longer there.
He finally just comes out and says that it wasn't about the family. Its a similar conversation he had with Jesse earlier in the season about selling out with Gray Matter.
And that's where I have to give the show credit, especially for the first season. While I was bored during the episode where he goes to the party at Gretchen and the other guys place, its all connected. Walter's motivation for this entire premise was all because of his personal ego and aspirations that were never realized.
Vince Gilligan hits it on the fucking head with this and cements Walter White into the history books as one of the most complex yet compelling characters ever.
After that, Walter goes to the complex where they're cooking meth and just wastes everyone with a mechanized machine gun.
From that comes a great scene of Jesse choking out Matt Damon-lite (Jesse Plemons) and Walter shoots Jack Welker despite him pleading that he'll give him the rest of his money. At this point, Walter has, in a way, reached his redemption.
Then there's the scene that nails the relationship between Jesse and Walter perfectly. Jesse is pointing a gun at Walter, Walter says, do it! You want this. Jesse says, Tell the truth, this is what you want. Walter says that he wants it, and Jesse says, do it yourself.
Its the perfect staple on one of the best relationships on TV. I know I've been saying that a lot but its so well put together that its just perfect.
Jesse rides away free. Walter goes to the lab, wounded from the machine gun fired, and walks among the lab one more time.
The police are on their way, Lydia was poisoned and would die soon, there are no more loose ends.
With a rock song to play him out, Walter White collapses and dies.
The whole thing plays out like a freaking greek tragedy.
It wasn't his wife, it wasn't his partner, it wasn't the bad guys, it was Walter who killed Walter. A gun to the head wouldn't have suited this character, he's not the type to purposely commit suicide. But like a classic tragedy, its his ethos, his character, his greed that sends him down a path that can only end one way, and that's with him dying.
There's really no other way it could have happened.
I, like many people who watched this finale, all had theories. I was certain that Walter Jr. and Skyler were gonna bite it one way or another. But hell, that would have been way too dark I guess, even for AMC.
I don't know if this is totally how Gilligan thought the show was going to take him but good god, the man can write.
But it was the transformation of Walter White that just makes this show just brilliant.
I've already done my schpeel on that but it should be mentioned that perhaps Bryan Cranston was the absolute perfect choice for this role.
Maybe its one thing to have him be the mild mannered Walter White from the beginning, especially for those that weren't familiar with his work prior to the show.
But like I said before, maybe the show needed that bumbling moron from Malcom in the Middle to really sell the transformation from Walter White, to Heisenburg, only cementing the tragic figure he becomes as the show only gets better and better.
And what I loved was that Walter was already pretty much dead at the beginning of that episode. He didn't need to be shot by a machine gun, he was already dead.
I think one of the best scenes the show has really ever done was in the cabin in New Hampshire.
Walter has basically been in solitary confinement for months. He's dying of cancer. This former drug lord is now a weak old man in a cabin in the woods, waiting to die. He got away with the money, but what else does he have.
The guy who gave him a new identity (Arthur Petrelli from Heroes) is his only "friend" and he has to pay him to spend an hour playing cards with him.
This is Walter's lowest of the low. Whenever he does chemo, Walter is at his most vulnerable and suddenly he's getting chemo from a man he barely knows and who will most likely rob him once he's dead. Again, the irony and
Now one of the problems that I think I have with the show, isn't even with the show. But I think its the hype coming up to it.
Last night, I had about 4 episodes left and my buddy was saying the last three episodes are some of the best episodes he's seen on television before and it gets fucking dark.
Now... I have seen dark.
Believe me... I have seen dark.
Now there's dark... and then there is DARK. Breaking Bad was just dark. Walter walking away with his very young daughter, sure that was dark, but it didn't last that long. Hank getting shot, off screen mind you, is dark but I have forever been haunted by the scene above.
So to say Breaking Bad was dark, sure, but again, I've seen DARK and Breaking Bad was not nearly that dark.
So the show was a little overhyped for me. Even before I started watching it, my buddy who really likes to hype things up for me, the same guy who was 100% on True Detective but was wrong about Dexter. So he's about 50/50 so far.
And on this one, he was for the most part right. Breaking Bad is one of the best television shows
that's been made in our time. There is no doubt it will go down as one of the best television dramas to date.
Something this rich, this original, should get all the credit its gotten.
But the way I see it is you can't hype this show up like other shows. Its a hard one to explain because its so different than anything that is on TV now and yet its so familiar. This show should not be oversold, it deserves to be, but it shouldn't. That is the only way people who haven't seen it will get the same experience everyone else did, if it just happens naturally.
And that's really what this show comes down to. Its natural. It ends so perfectly, there's no question of a continuation of the Walter White story. Sure I guess there's the spinoff "Better Call Saul" which I personally think is going to bomb, but hey, maybe you can catch lightning in a bottle... twice.
But with Breaking Bad. It ended. It ended brilliantly and there's no need to do anything more to it.
I think too often money and the inability of many writers to quit while they're ahead makes shows and movies like this sink. I've heard it happened with Dexter, it happened with Prison Break, as much as I don't want to admit it, it happened with 24.
But Breaking Bad ended perfectly.
The best example I can liken this to is fucking J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise. Now I didn't read all the Harry Potter books, but knowing what I've heard from others and what I've seen in the movies, the franchise wrapped up nicely. Voldemort was dead, Harry lives happily ever after again.
But JK could not let it go could she?
First it was the fact Dumbledore was gay, then it was Pottermore, then its a whole new Harry Potter story, now they're planning on making a whole new franchise based on a universe book! I mean why soil what you've already got?
This is a whole other post that I may (or most likely will not) write. But you get my point? Harry Potter was wrapped up perfectly but some people just refuse to let it go.
Is Better Call Saul Gilligan's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the book the new Harry Potter movies are based off of)? Maybe. In fact its very likely it will be.
But I'm hoping that it will be done with care and if not, it gets cancelled right away.
In the mean time, I can sit in satisfaction over the tragedy that was Breaking Bad and call it a classic that will be memorable for a long, long time.
But those are my thoughts on Breaking Bad, the finale and the season as a whole to a certain extent. Maybe one day when I re-watch the entire series again I can give a full fledged review but that's 5 seasons. I'm a busy man.
What did you think of the series finale? What're your thoughts on Breaking Bad as a whole? What about Better Call Saul? Is it going to be good, or tank from the start? Comment and Discuss Below.
I'll leave you with this. There are a lot of Breaking Bad Parodies... a lot of them are terrible. Probably my favorite of them however is where Frozen meets Breaking Bad, but since its only 20 seconds, I'll give you an Honest Trailer. Enjoy!
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