Utopia Talk / Movie Talk / Logan

Palem Person.	Sun Mar 05 18:21:24 Watched it on Saturday. It was fucking fantastic. Absolutely lived up to the hype. 9/10
Wrath of Orion Member	Sun Mar 05 18:46:59 Yep.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Mar 05 19:11:18 I should have refreshed the forum before posting! I reviewed it here: http://www...hread=77450&time=1488762224155 My TLDR: I kind of liked it. Not super-memorable, but likeable.
Palem Person.	Sun Mar 05 20:46:03 Can I ask what you didn't care for? Or what kept it from being memorable? I had a couple gripes here and there, but nothing to really detract from the movie. I'm just so happy that Marvel has finally put out something that's legitimately a good movie lol
swordtail Anarchist Prime	Mon Mar 06 08:12:11 " I kind of liked it. Not super-memorable, but likeable." ditto
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Mar 27 21:31:55 "Can I ask what you didn't care for? Or what kept it from being memorable?" I think it was mainly because Wolverine's motivation wasn't particularly captivating — or Huge Actor-Man didn't portray his motivation in a captivating way, which detracted even from its R-Rating (violence without motivation degrades into spectacle). Like I get that he's grown old, lost his fellow mutants, and has lost a sense of purpose, but the movie displaced too much of that into the optimistic passing of the torch to the new mutants. So I would have preferred the torch-passing to have been more cynical/realistic. Like some changes I'd make ( some more sarcastic than others ;D ) : - Instead of Wolverine making fun of the comic books as a surrogate for this: I think there should have been a speech where Wolverine flatly tells Laura that all of her friends will die in front of her in horrific ways (like his X-Men).. and maybe this particular group of friends *does* die in front of her in the movie .. like Laura has to kill a problematically-overpowered mutant child, or Xavier kills these mutants too >:D - In Wolverine's death moments, he should have told Laura to kill more people than he ever imagined he could possibly kill. - Would have been neat if Wolverine discovered that eating the children rejuvenates him, so the movie became him hunting the children down and eating them - I think the folksy Mexican-Christian religiosity delivered by Gabriela Lopez should have been removed or challenged - Instead of a Mexican laboratory, maybe an international lab with a diverse group of stolen mothers - The Doctor from ER (Eriq La Salle) should have been married to fellow ER cast member Anthony Edwards - Different gore director; fewer clean decapitations and more body attacks and visceral shows of the separation between Wolverine's claws (almost like bear maulings). Despite being violent, the movie still managed to make it somewhat comic instead of realistic. This may sound petty, but it relates to movies like "No Country for Old Men"; in that movie, the realistic violence added to Tommy Lee Jones' character's shock and feeling of displacement in a violent world in which he can no longer compete. - Laura should have been played by Warwick Davis. Same character, but Warwick Davis playing her. Take note, Hollywood!! ;D
pillz Member	Tue Mar 28 01:18:45 I read only part of that post because Old Man Logan is an awesome story and Laura is a legitimately good character (praise be unto KY) and I didn't want spoilers. But now I'm apprehensive about watching it. Especially after Iron Fist...
McKobb Member	Tue Mar 28 02:40:05 Iron Fist is out? I liked it. What other comic film will kill off staples of their brand? Anyways
Palem Person.	Tue Mar 28 14:19:32 I actually liked that the motivation was scaled down. I think it makes it far more realistic (as far as an x-men movie goes lol). It's not about saving the world from a super mutant or saving the US government from terrorism or some other. Those aren't really things I can relate to easily. Whereas helping someone get from point A to point B while staying away from the bad guys, I've been there lol
pillz Member	Tue Mar 28 15:37:20 "Iron Fist is out? I liked it. What other comic film will kill off staples of their brand? Anyways " Nobody dies in X-Men. They'll all be back, different actors of course, but they'll all be back.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Mar 28 17:18:08 "It's not about saving the world from a super mutant or saving the US government from terrorism or some other. Those aren't really things I can relate to easily. Whereas helping someone get from point A to point B while staying away from the bad guys, I've been there" I don't need those mega-villain tropes either :p .. I'm talking about Wolverine's personal motivations for existing and doing anything at all in this story. Like, the movie could have been about him rescuing his actual daughter (born of some previous girlfriend or a relationship that he actually cared about) and it might have meant more. Instead the hurdle is that the audience has to care about the fate of some child that only has an undisclosed quantity of Wolverine's DNA (enough to give her mutant healing and some X-linked traits, like foot claws). I think the writers did this so that it would be entirely about Wolverine seeing himself in Laura as opposed to seeing a love interest and trying to save only that side of Laura, but the result of Laura being a DNA cocktail means that Wolverine starts with a clinical/detached perspective and has to find some deeper commonality with her (i.e., he has to want to save himself (via her) for his own sake; helping her has to mean helping himself — something that has to be sold via Wolverine's performed motivations). Logan clearly recognizes Laura's tendency towards rage and killing, but I think that's pretty surface-level without Laura getting a background scene where meaningful people die violently in front of her (Wolverine had his in "Origins", but Laura's in "Logan" was indirect/impersonal — heavily-mediated through Lopez' religiosity). The directorial boost for Laura was an attempt to make her seem cute for audiences (her sunglasses theft scene and childish moments on the road), but that plays to comic relief and stereotypes of common materialism. She has friends that she wants to save (like Wolverine's X-Men), but does the audience care if they live or see a reason for Laura to care about them? Personally I didn't care and instead would have preferred for them to die in front of her to build her character. *That* would have been a great theme: "your friends will keep dying/disappearing, but you have to keep going and create a meaning for yourself." Without those bold plot decisions (another could have been Wolverine killing Xavier himself instead of X-24 doing it), it falls almost entirely on Hugh Jackman's performance or the director's abilities to frame performances.. and that didn't happen. Uwe Boll can't make "Road to Perdition", and the Logan director maybe can't either. It's like a poeticism that was missing...
Palem Person.	Tue Mar 28 20:37:56 A few things (and this will be broken up because mobile on here is terrible lol) 1. Laura did see her friends die. Most of her friends from the lab were all killed (off camera), and she saw the rancher family, Xavier, and Logan get killed in front of her (I guess not "killed" for Logan, but you get it)
Palem Person.	Tue Mar 28 20:42:01 2. I think you're putting too much stock into Laura's story. The movie isn't called "Laura" lol. Not that she's inconsequential, but the main focus of the movie was Logan. You're supposed to care more about Logan and Xavier than Laura and the lab experiments.
Palem Person.	Tue Mar 28 20:46:38 2.5. I think you've missed the overarching theme of Wolverine's character. Since the very first movie Xavier has been trying to teach him that he doesn't have to the weapon they designed him to be to be happy. That's the lesson he finally learns and the invaluable lesson that he passes onto Laura. The theme was about peace and happiness as much as it was pain and suffering
Palem Person.	Tue Mar 28 20:49:57 3. I think you think that because it was rated R, it should have been just been balls to the wall brutal and I just have to disagree. I think they made the movie they wanted to make and they were going to live with the inevitable R rating, which I love and wish more people had that attitude
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Mar 28 22:21:55 "1. Laura did see her friends die. Most of her friends from the lab were all killed (off camera), and she saw the rancher family, Xavier, and Logan get killed in front of her (I guess not "killed" for Logan, but you get it)" The "off camera" issue is the problem for her lab friends — we don't know what these random, nameless people meant to her aside from their being fellow inmates whose lives were narrated by religiosity. And Laura's reactions to the rancher family and such didn't receive screen time in a significant way — probably because she's a child and children can't act (which was also why she was silent for most of the movie). .. "2. I think you're putting too much stock into Laura's story. The movie isn't called "Laura" lol. Not that she's inconsequential, but the main focus of the movie was Logan. You're supposed to care more about Logan and Xavier than Laura and the lab experiments." No I'm not putting too much stock into Laura's story; Laura is meant to be a way for Wolverine to feel connected to the world, so her character is inherently important. Metaphorically, she *was* Logan; she is a chance for him to live another life through his offspring/DNA. And like I said, I would have liked it if the movie hadn't been about her or if she had been framed in another way, but they made sure that it absolutely was about her (in addition to Logan, that is). Most of the character building was about her story informing Wolverine's decisions. .. "2.5. I think you've missed the overarching theme of Wolverine's character. Since the very first movie Xavier has been trying to teach him that he doesn't have to the weapon they designed him to be to be happy. That's the lesson he finally learns and the invaluable lesson that he passes onto Laura. The theme was about peace and happiness as much as it was pain and suffering" No I didn't miss that theme, but I don't think that they sold it in a meaningful way in this movie. That's also not exactly the way that that theme operates: Wolverine did not learn to not be a weapon, in fact he had to embrace that side of himself to save Laura. It is, like you said, peace/happiness *and* pain/suffering — he *does* have to be the weapon, so it's unrealistic to give Laura a speech on toning it down. If she wants her friends she'll have to fight for them, just like he did. The useful side of Xavier's lesson to him was simply to enjoy the peaceful interludes between wars instead of always being on edge. The non-useful side of Xavier's advice was shown for its failures since the life that Xavier thinks that Logan could have (the farmhouse family) is impossible. Logan could never start a family and retire in peace. He tried that in "Origins" and "The Wolverine" and he was shown that even when he doesn't want to fight he'll still be pulled back into his nature by conflict and politics. .. "3. I think you think that because it was rated R, it should have been just been balls to the wall brutal and I just have to disagree. I think they made the movie they wanted to make and they were going to live with the inevitable R rating, which I love and wish more people had that attitude" No, I do not think that. I'm saying that the existing portrayals of brutality were too comical and thus did not have the seriousness that they needed in order to give meaning to Logan's trauma. That does not mean that this movie needed ultraviolence, it just needed more visceral depictions of violence. For instance, they could have done the exact same things (or even *fewer* killings) but instead shown the shock and horror in the faces of more of the people he killed (and good actors in these positions, not just random stuntmen) and it would have been more effectual. Instead the gore was entirely for spectacle: "wow! look at Laura throwing a head at those soldiers! She's so tough!" or "Neat! Logan decapitated another random soldier!" or "Look at that CGI blade coming out of the top of that random soldier's head! So cool!" ... totally different effects from "oh no.. Wolverine just slashed the face off of someone who had a family.. just because Wolverine descends too far into his own rage..". Only a few people were killed on screen in "No Country for Old Men", and all of them were far more effectual than in "Logan". If death doesn't mean anything within the bounds of the depicted universe, then the psychological effect may as well go back to Avengers and their insistence on never killing anyone. It's popcorn cinema. And that's fine, it's just not memorable. Anyways, like I indicated, improved gore would only have been a way to fix some of the movie's other flaws — it wouldn't be a cure-all (for instance: this movie would have been outright awful with a PG-13). This movie attempted to do character work like its "Shane" source-work, but the director did not know how to get that character work across in an effective way. Like, I don't think a single scene of this movie competed with Wolverine killing Jean in X-Men 3. That movie was awful, but even at PG-13 that scene was memorable and tragic.
Palem Person.	Wed Mar 29 06:56:22 Fair enough. I asked for your opinions and you supplied them. I just don't agree :p
Cherub Cow Member	Wed Mar 29 23:25:28 Yeah! And that's no problem :D I have weird tastes in movies, so I tend to dislike a lot ;p
pillz Member	Wed May 24 20:01:48 This movie was terrible. Like utter trash. They fucked up Old Man Logan, they fucked up X-23. WTF did she have to be Mexican for, anyways? I'm 90% sure that The Facility was in Canada like Weapon X. Anyways, terrible movie. Not a single redeeming quality about the entire thing. And the way they killed logan was a complete cop-out (which is good). Leaves the possibility that if he lies there for long enough he'll regenerate.
Cherub Cow Member	Thu May 25 04:45:14 This fan scene sort of redeems the ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y9QReuDqfQ (ignoring the "[changed my mind]" crap after 0:55)
pillz Member	Thu May 25 12:24:43 That'd have been a great after credits scene
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