Fabricant451

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Had to bring my own soundtrack to keep myself going with this one...

@SleepingSilence

Not a fan of Japanese Breakfast, eh?

What Are You Listening To?

What shows/movies are you watching?

I saw the Mario movie.

The Mario movie is totally fine. Inoffensive (unless some licensed songs offend the sensibilities). Seth Rogen is the worst in the movie because he doesn't even try so Donkey Kong is just "Seth Rogen" and he even does his laugh. It is very thin on plot and very quick on everything to the point where sometimes it's like watching a speedrun of Mario. Zero fart jokes and zero wink at the camera ha-ha reference jokes. But on the topic of references my god the references and easter eggs in the movie is insane. Like someone could go frame by frame and still miss some that's how many there are, from names of shops or pictures on the wall or visual gags or blink and you miss it stuff. Every mainline Mario game gets referenced even if I missed the Sunshine one I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

If you want a deep plot then look elsewhere but if you have like 90 minutes to kill then it's a fun watch, doubly so if you're a Mario or classic Nintendo fan. And the remixes of Mario music are just...they're real good.

That said, Illumination would not be someone I hire to do a Zelda movie. They could do Kirby though.

What shows/movies are you watching?

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

It takes him quite a long time to kill three people on horseback within pistol range, when he can kill a dozen or more people in a moving car in the same amount of time. But logic aside, the rest of the beginning has a lot of build up and scenes of characters talking. (That ultimately doesn't do much for the plot. Unless you count the after-credits scene.)

@SleepingSilence

It is harder to kill someone on horseback that is running away from you than it is to kill someone who is coming towards you in a car. For one thing you're not having to deal with the entire "riding on a horse" thing. Those scenes of characters talking absolutely does much for the plot. It literally establishes the plot! The Marquis shows Winston the consequences of his actions which gives Winston his motivation for his actions later! It introduces Caine and that directly leads to the bad guys finding where John is at because of Caine's history with John! It introduces and explains the backstory of Koji! These things are all related to the plot!

So I admittedly don’t remember how bloody the movies were or weren’t off hand. But fortunately, I have Youtube to back me up. Watch this and tell me there’s not plenty of blood spray when he shoots people/more blood on John Wick as he carries through the movie.

The most blood in John Wick 2 is in the suicide part and nothing in the 10 minutes I watched was any more or less bloody than these movies typically get.

And the little bit that gets on the drum, is some of the only blood in that action set piece, and it only makes its absence all the more confusing to me.

It is because the bad guys in that action set piece are wearing armor. You're not going to see a lot of blood when there's dudes walking around with tactical armor. Which was introduced as a concept in the third movie. Which also didn't have bloodspray when he was killing armored dudes.

I don’t mind that he’s usually over the top invulnerable. But he also has several “i’m an old guy” moments, like how comically he fell down those stairs (several times). So it feels a bit tonally off as well. Mixed in with how he never has any blood, dirt or tears on his clothes.

He didn't fall down the stairs, he was pushed down them. By the bad guys trying to stop him. It wasn't several times either. He had blood and dirt on his shirt. He didn't on his suit jacket. Because it's bulletproof. It's a full Kevlar suit jacket.

And he certainly took the most punishment in this one, and it seemed the least realistic in terms of how “tired/worn out” he looked after the fact. (Non-spoilers aside.)

He spends damn near the entire last act of the movie running on pure adrenaline. The movie doesn't spend its time showing you the downtime between story beats because that's how people get to like "when do they poop?" levels. But considering he travels to more than one location multiple times, it's fair to assume that he was tired and worn out between those parts.

(IMO) The bounty felt a lot less impactful this time around. Because it was sort of “dropped” into the story, and all the set up for it was in the third movie. Unless I’m mistaken. So “oh, uh, we raised the price to a gazillion dollars”. Doesn’t hold much narrative weight. When “everyone is after you” has already been established.

This movie picks up pretty much right after the third, give or take some days, and the bounty was still in play as evidenced by a character in the movie checking his active bounty multiple times. It wasn't dropped into the story, it was just finally used again when the villain decided to use it to his advantage. The difference between the third and this is it's not "everyone is after him" but rather "the people who are in charge of the world he is part of are after him."

And for how often they set up how he’s “going in alone, with no allies, and with everyone else against him”. The amount of times that he gets helped in this one, is a bit contradictory.

How is it contradictory? One of his 'allies' straight up says that his bounty isn't high enough for him to consider being his enemy and another of them has his own agenda. He has two main allies that have been around since the first and second movie respectively and he is pretty much on his own for the duration.

The omniscient radio announcer, and how all these assassins kept finding him/attacking him while going to multiple locations in less than 24 hours feels a tad farfetched. (The third movie at least gave them several days to hunt him down. Unless I’m mistaken.) But nitpicking what makes sense or doesn’t, really isn’t my point/goal.

The omniscient radio announcer likely has someone reporting to her so she can relay it. It was more than 24 hours and when the radio announcer stuff happened there was a limited time frame. Also, it's not difficult for people to track him down in that instance when someone was saying where he was spotted and he's in an area of a famous city near very known locations and while knowing his ultimate destination.

Expensive-looking doesn’t *have* to be a purely negative critique. In fact, I’d argue that this might be “the best looking” John Wick movie, in terms of how elaborate the set design was at times. (That top-down perspective scene alone probably cost them plenty.) But the proof is in the pudding. John Wick 4’s budget is 100 million. The third was 75. 2nd was 40. Etc.

I’ll agree that money alone doesn’t make a “well shot”/“well remembered” movie. I can’t even recall much of anything that happened in the third movie compared to the first two.

The increase of budget is more a sign of the studio realizing these movies are worth the investment. But yes it is the best looking and best shot movie in the franchise. I remember a lot of the third movie. He killed a guy with a book in that movie! It was so sick!

Honestly, one of the weaker points of all of the John Wick movies, is how their endings are usually pretty lackluster. At least in comparison to some of its other scenes and spectacle moments. (2 probably having the best conclusion of the bunch?)

Maybe because “great villains” were never the movies’ strong suit.

Otherwise, I agree that most action movies pale in comparison.

I think the endings of 2 and 3 were weaker pretty much because they were designed to be cliffhangers which never feel as satisfying as more definitive endings regardless of how good the movie preceding it was.

See video clip of Two again, and I see a crowd of reasonably panicked people. First one has a similar party crowd/reaction.

And most of the people are just standing around and looking. And there are people panicking and hiding in the similar scene in 4. There are people literally running away in the middle of it. But the distinct difference in the two is that in one scene John is shooting very loud guns and in the other he is using no guns and the music is much louder. Also in the second movie he shoots someone on stage and people cheer!

I won’t spoil more than I have to. But there’s so many “homages” that I’m surprised no one gave the movie any flak for it. Not even its few critics, far as I saw...

Because they're good homages. They had an homage to Lawrence of Arabia, even! It's really good!

Bland might be more accurate. No good lines. No personality. And I never saw them as a threat. And he was never in control, or shown to be intimidating to any other character. Sure, he’s not actually General Hux bad. (Aside from his final scene, when he has a “I believe he’s pranking you sir” moment.) He’s more of a “that one smarmy kid who killed his dog” vibe. But we’re supposed to believe that this kid has some high level of power. (And the other side-villains were pretty bad too.)

Guess that's just my two cents.

Not shown to be intimidating? His introduction had him intimidating the unflappable Winston and then there's the part with the Tracker. We're supposed to believe he has a high level of power because we are told that he is acting with the authority of the governing body of the entire underworld that the movie takes place in. He literally shows his power from moment one. He literally threatens people to get him to do what he wants because those people are well aware he is more than capable and willing to carry out those threats without a moment's hesitation. That he is arrogant is a character flaw, which all good characters have.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I didn't get to play as much of it as I would've liked but I played enough to know that yeah I'll probably play a lot of Diablo 4.

What shows/movies are you watching?

I don't think what I said could even be argued against. (Aside from the slow beginning/first hour, I suppose.) There were so many bloodless deaths throughout, that it didn't do the action scenes any favors. John Wick took the 'most punishment' in this movie. But reacted like nothing happened after nearly every fight. The plot *is* much simpler in the first two movies by far. The movie has nice expensive looking shots/cinematography. (Like the dancing scene that has the dancers not act like human beings and keep dancing in the middle of a gun/axe fight.) It's the longest movie. Etc etc.

@SleepingSilence

I don't know how you could call the beginning slow considering it takes all of a minute or two before John Wick is on horseback shooting people and then it pauses to set up the plot and stakes before launching into an extended action scene that in any other movie would've been the climactic action scene of an entire movie. Bloodless is a weird complaint considering 1: John Wick is not exactly a bloodbath franchise because of how quick the kills are anyway, 2: there is plenty of blood like on the drum in Osaka and 3: the lack of over the top blood splatter makes it more effective in showing how good the people are at killing people. It's not Kill Bill. John Wick has always been something of a supernatural force of nature - his nickname is literally Baba Yaga - but every John Wick movie has him basically barely standing by the end of it and this one was no exception. He didn't feel superheroic at all, there were multiple points in the movie where he actually had to be bailed out.

The plot isn't any more or less simple than the other movies. The movies are not exactly movies you watch for plot or character development, though there is certainly that to be found if you look for it. The first movie's plot is the guy getting vengeance on a shit kid who killed his dog. The second movie's plot is John having to fulfil a blood pact and being fucked over. The third movie is him trying to erase an open bounty on him. The fourth is the consequences of everything he's done since the first movie, he's still hunted because if he isn't stopped then the High Table runs the risk of being taken out. He's a man on the run because he has no safe haven and even fewer allies. It's hardly bloated unless you consider runtime as an exclusive metric for bloat. Everything in the movie makes sense and flows.

The cinematography isn't 'expensive' looking, it's just well shot and creatively lit to boot. It's a movie that constantly one ups itself in terms of spectacle and setpiece and every single action scene in the movie would've been the climactic action scene of any other movie. The staircase scene is incredible but so too is what came immediately before it. If you're going to comment on people not reacting to the violence then maybe you should watch the other movies and how no one reacts to Keanu and Common shooting at each other in the middle of New York's subway or how no one reacts when John Wick kills a dude in Grand Central Station or how in the first movie Jimmy the cop's only response to seeing John covered in blood is "You working again?". This is a franchise where everyone is either a ridiculously skilled killer for hire or else so used to seeing bodies dropping that it doesn't bother them. You either buy into that or you don't.

The movie doesn't try to do the same thing as the third, the bounty from the third movie was never erased because he went against the mission given to him. And then the first thing he does in 4 puts an even bigger target on him because of it. The bounty doesn't even come into play until the last part which has less to do with him being excommunicado and more to do with the villain being an arrogant coward shit. The movie doesn't 'repeat' so much as 'homage' and raise the stakes and choreography to boot. It takes everything that worked from the past three movies and improves on them in every respect. And if anecdotes are metrics for things then no one in my pretty packed theater opening day checked their phone and actively applauded multiple scenes.

A movie's length is not a mark of quality one way or the other. A great movie can be three hours long and a bad movie can be eighty minutes. The opposite is also true. It's a matter of pacing and presentation and a bunch of other factors. John Wick 4 is tightly paced and still delivers a satisfying narrative in a movie you don't really watch for the narrative.

As for the revenge/catharsis thing that's up to the individual but I felt much more satisfied watching the ending of this one than I did the first one.

How exactly would you rate the movies? (And how would you defend the boring/made to look stupid in every scene that he's in, villain.)

Numerically? On a five point scale:

JW1: 3
JW2: 4
JW3: 4
JW4: 5

On a ranking list I go 4 > 2 > 3 > 1

As for the villain, I didn't see him as boring or made to look stupid at all. Because he wasn't. He is the physical representation of the entity we've heard about for three movies now: The High Table. He acts with their blessing and has the single mission of stopping John Wick even though he is completely out of his element he acts with the authority and swagger of someone who believes himself to be more important than he is. He doesn't actually do anything himself but wants to take credit for it, he hires people to do everything but still wants to be seen as the man responsible. He's slimy and smarmy and arrogant and he's unlike anything John has faced before because he's so used to people who are on his level skill-wise or else willing to also get their hands dirty. I didn't find him boring at all, he was so utterly hateable in the very first scene he was in and it was satisfying to watch him unravel over the course of the movie as he truly came to understand that John Wick really is that motherfucker.

What shows/movies are you watching?

well other than keanu being bad but he always is

What shows/movies are you watching?

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Is it Dunkirk loud or is it just loud for the sake of being loud? If that makes any sense. With Dunkirk, you could practically feel the rumbling of planes and other such things in your body. It's the only movie I can really think of off the top of my head where the sound design has had a noticable, personal effect on me when watching it in theaters.

@Kuro

Kind of both? It's definitely loud for the sake of being loud but that only enhances it when a dude gets shot in the face or a dude punches wood really fuckin hard.

Gotham Knights: A Batman RP [Cancelled]

Working on my post!

What shows/movies are you watching?

John Wick 4 is a certified banger go see it and see it on the loudest screen possible because god damn I practically fell out of my chair with how loud it is in the best way