Thor: The Dark World (2013)

[Mr. Chaverria]

Loki is iconic as he is cuz of Hiddleston. Break down the dialogue and it's not really all that great. It's a lot of Hiddleston adding so much to the character.

I think Winter Soldier was also pretty good but that's mostly cuz he's just a Terminator in Cap 2. He's just going and going.

Cross, from Ant-Man, was a wildly generic villain. Damn near the weakest villain the MCU has had. He's a pace killer. The only time he's tolerable is when he actually becomes the supervillain w/ the suit on.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by BluProofie

Some of you guys are acting as if Portman had an incredible script to work with for this movie and blew it. She did what the film required of her and was perfectly fine in it. The biggest problems with this film are it's lack of a well developed villian(an MCU trope at this point) and a bland final battle.

Pretty much.

Portman does well when given great material. She is bad at elevating poor material. I do think this means she is overrated, as a lot of actors CAN elevate poor material, but it doesn't mean she is a bad actress really.

[Gold Ranger]

Natalie screwed up in "Your Highness" as well.
She was the worst part of that film!

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Lt. Brannigan

Red Skull was a personal favorite, it's shame that Hugo Weaving insulted the role and his fans who loved him in that role. Loki is the most memorable and endearing villain, and I think a large part of that has to do with how much Hiddleston loves the entire concept and isn't ashamed of being in a "comic book" movie. He has seemingly embraced the fandom with no reservations.

Hugo Weaving didn't like the role because it was crap and given that Disney-Marvel really dropped the ball in their portrayal/usage of Red Skull, I can't blame him.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Hugo Weaving didn't like the role because it was crap and given that Disney-Marvel really dropped the ball in their portrayal/usage of Red Skull, I can't blame him.

I really like hearing actors in big franchises taking a dump on their experiences.

Viggo Mortensen -- LOTR sucks
Hugo Weaving -- Transformers and Marvel suck
Val Kilmer -- Joel Schumacher sucks

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

I really like hearing actors in big franchises taking a dump on their experiences.

Viggo Mortensen -- LOTR sucks
Hugo Weaving -- Transformers and Marvel suck
Val Kilmer -- Joel Schumacher sucks

I really enjoyed reading Viggo's thoughts on why PJ's infatuation with CGI caused every subsequent Middle Earth movie to be worse than the last (in his opinion). He did make some good points.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I really enjoyed reading Viggo's thoughts on why PJ's infatuation with CGI caused every subsequent Middle Earth movie to be worse than the last (in his opinion). He did make some good points.

He was right. Peter Jackson turned The Lovely Bones, which should've been a small $10 mil indie, into a bloated CGI monster.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

He was right. Peter Jackson turned The Lovely Bones, which should've been a small $10 mil indie, into a bloated CGI monster.

I have to agree. PJ is not the infallible god people make him out to be. the LOTR trilogy was GOOD, but you can tell where he went overboard. the Hobbit Trilogy is walking proof of that

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

He was right. Peter Jackson turned The Lovely Bones, which should've been a small $10 mil indie, into a bloated CGI monster.

He mentions that, too:

http://www.collider.com/viggo-morten...r-jackson-cgi/

Mortensen thinks – rightly – that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. “It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But it’s true that the first script was better organised,” he says. “Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10.”

“Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I don’t think it’s really true,” he says. “They didn’t have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 – he’d shot all three films in the trilogy – but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.”

“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), ‘Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And he’s happy, I think…”

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by wormraper

I have to agree. PJ is not the infallible god people make him out to be. the LOTR trilogy was GOOD, but you can tell where he went overboard. the Hobbit Trilogy is walking proof of that

His next movie will be:

Peter Jackson Presents

A Peter Jackson Production of

A Peter Jackson Film

Peter Jackson: The Movie

[Yojimbo68]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

His next movie will be:

Peter Jackson Presents

A Peter Jackson Production of

A Peter Jackson Film

Peter Jackson: The Movie

Actually, Eddie Murphy has him beat with his release of the 1989 film Harlem Nights.

Paramount Pictures Presents

In Association With Eddie Murphy Productions

A Film By Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy

Harlem Nights

Executive Producer Eddie Murphy

Written and Directed By Eddie Murphy

[Mandalorian]

Originally Posted by Yojimbo68

Actually, Eddie Murphy has him beat with his release of the 1989 film Harlem Nights.

Paramount Pictures Presents

In Association With Eddie Murphy Productions

A Film By Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy

Harlem Nights

Executive Producer Eddie Murphy

Written and Directed By Eddie Murphy

Are you implying that Eddie Murphy is an egomaniac?

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Hugo Weaving didn't like the role because it was crap and given that Disney-Marvel really dropped the ball in their portrayal/usage of Red Skull, I can't blame him.

Didn't he talk about not having any particular attachment/fondness for the source material? I remember that drama between him and Michael Bay after he said he didn't care for his part in the Transformers movies, and I recall him mentioning that he doesn't care for, or is even familiar with, Marvel and Transformers which is why those jobs were just jobs to him and not something he truly felt passionate about.

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I really enjoyed reading Viggo's thoughts on why PJ's infatuation with CGI caused every subsequent Middle Earth movie to be worse than the last (in his opinion). He did make some good points.

At the same time though it's worth keeping in mind that the second and third Lord of the Rings novels get even bigger in scope, involving even more fantastical creatures and bigger battles, than the first one. The story simply called for a heavier use of special effects by necessity, and that can't be helped. It's evident that kind of thing isn't to Viggo's taste, and he's entitled to his preferences, but I don't think this is evidence of Jackson suddenly going "CGI mad" (how else would he have pulled off Gollum or the Fellbeasts for example?) or doing a worse job of translating The Two Towers and Return of the King to the screen at all. All it means is Viggo prefers smaller, more intimate films (we can see this based on the projects he's picked post-LotR) and Fellowship got the closest to that, relatively speaking.

I will give him The Hobbit though, I very much enjoy those movies but there was no excuse to go that far in the reliance on CGI. It's especially frustrating as several characters were originally planned and even filmed as actors in prosthetic makeup and were then "painted over" in post-production.

[Hellraiserfan]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

Didn't he talk about not having any particular attachment/fondness for the source material? I remember that drama between him and Michael Bay after he said he didn't care for his part in the Transformers movies, and I recall him mentioning that he doesn't care for, or is even familiar with, Marvel and Transformers which is why those jobs were just jobs to him and not something he truly felt passionate about.

From what I can remember a lot of it was the usual complaint some actors have with effects heavy movies, the prosthetic work. I remember he said if ever asked to come back he probably wouldn't, despite the contract.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

His next movie will be:

Peter Jackson Presents

A Peter Jackson Production of

A Peter Jackson Film

Peter Jackson: The Movie

Shot at Stone Street Studios with CG by Weta and post-production at Park Road Post, all three companies owned or co-owned by....Peter Jackson. It's no wonder he spent so much of someone else's money on making the Hobbit movies...

As for Viggo's comments, he's not wrong about Fellowship being the best film of the bunch, it's my favourite of all the Middle-earth movies by far.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

As for Viggo's comments, he's not wrong about Fellowship being the best film of the bunch, it's my favourite of all the Middle-earth movies by far.

It has my favorite scene, the one with the Ringwraiths chasing Arwen. It actually looked like a real camera photographing real humans on real horses.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Hellraiserfan

From what I can remember a lot of it was the usual complaint some actors have with effects heavy movies, the prosthetic work. I remember he said if ever asked to come back he probably wouldn't, despite the contract.

Ah, I never heard anything about that but I suppose it'd make sense if it had something to do with it.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

As for Viggo's comments, he's not wrong about Fellowship being the best film of the bunch, it's my favourite of all the Middle-earth movies by far.

It's not uncommon, in my observations the first and third movies tend to be tied when people are picking their favorite Lord of the Rings - or indeed overall "Middle-earth saga" - favorite. Personally it almost feels wrong to choose, all three films are so interconnected and close in quality, but if I had to pick a favorite it'd probably be Return of the King, it always was the one I liked most. It's the big, epic finale with more and bigger action, more drama and melodrama, as well as the grand, bittersweet climax. It's the most emotional one of the bunch for me and I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

Didn't he talk about not having any particular attachment/fondness for the source material? I remember that drama between him and Michael Bay after he said he didn't care for his part in the Transformers movies, and I recall him mentioning that he doesn't care for, or is even familiar with, Marvel and Transformers which is why those jobs were just jobs to him and not something he truly felt passionate about.



At the same time though it's worth keeping in mind that the second and third Lord of the Rings novels get even bigger in scope, involving even more fantastical creatures and bigger battles, than the first one. The story simply called for a heavier use of special effects by necessity, and that can't be helped. It's evident that kind of thing isn't to Viggo's taste, and he's entitled to his preferences, but I don't think this is evidence of Jackson suddenly going "CGI mad" (how else would he have pulled off Gollum or the Fellbeasts for example?) or doing a worse job of translating The Two Towers and Return of the King to the screen at all. All it means is Viggo prefers smaller, more intimate films (we can see this based on the projects he's picked post-LotR) and Fellowship got the closest to that, relatively speaking.

I will give him The Hobbit though, I very much enjoy those movies but there was no excuse to go that far in the reliance on CGI. It's especially frustrating as several characters were originally planned and even filmed as actors in prosthetic makeup and were then "painted over" in post-production.

PJ's post-LOTR films demonstrate that TTT and ROTK weren't aberrations in his mad CGI obsession, they were the new norm for him.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

PJ's post-LOTR films demonstrate that TTT and ROTK weren't aberrations in his mad CGI obsession, they were the new norm for him.

Yeah, but my point was that the nature of the story itself called for heavier use of CGI in those two movies. There's still a huge amount of practical effects, the CG is mostly for the big battles (wide shots of armies and such) and the new creatures such as Gollum, the Fellbeasts, the Ents, Shelob, etc. Fellowship already used CGI for things like the cave troll, the Watcher in the Water (the squid thing), the Balrog, Gollum in his few seconds of screentime, etc. and also for its short snippet of a big battle in the prologue. The sequels had more monsters and big battles with more screentime, so of course the use of CGI had to expand with that. There's not a massive difference in how the technology is applied and what it's used for though.

[DukeTogo84]

So I've recently bought this on Blu-ray and just have a quick question.

On the cover with Thor/Natalie Portman/Loki/Odin is there "cross patching" on the cover? On the left side where Odin is there seems to be a bunch of "cross patching" or "cross hatching" (not sure what it's called) where it looks like there are tiny boxes almost. Not sure if this a defect on the print or I have a counterfeit?

I've been buying a lot of used Blu-rays lately, and while the discs look legit I just want to make sure that it is. Can anyone check their covers and make sure theres is similar? I don't think the DVD I initially owned, had this issue.