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Monday, December 10, 2012

Film / Nerd Battle of the Sci-Fi Movies

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 1:24 PM

Here is a trailer for the Tom Cruise-starring post-apocalyptic movie Oblivion:

Here is a trailer for the Will-and-Jaden-Smith-starring movie After Earth, directed by M. Night Shyamalan:

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Screw it.

I'm just going to watch Lincoln & The Hobbit this week and see the 9 minute trailer for Star Trek in IMAX 3D.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on December 10, 2012 at 1:33 PM

As flawed as it was, MOON is, I think, the only good sci-fi movie out of hollywood in years.

Posted by Asparagus! on December 10, 2012 at 1:42 PM

Knowing M. Night...can we assume that it will turn out that Will & Jaden actually landed on pre-historic Earth...and that Jaden's name is Adam and he'll find an Eve and...OH GOD IT BURNS!

(Tom Cruise, in the live action version of WALL-E...with Morgan Freeman as Morpheus, might actually be worth seeing...)

Posted by pg13 on December 10, 2012 at 1:53 PM

Where's the "One looks OK and the other looks terrible, I just can't tell which is which." option?

Also, anything with Jaden Smith is automatically terrible.

Posted by veo_ on December 10, 2012 at 1:54 PM

They both look like garbage. I don't know how Cruise and Shyamalan keep making movies.

Posted by GermanSausage on December 10, 2012 at 1:54 PM

Of all the nits I could pick, I choose this one: why the fuck does Tom Cruise have an intimate knowledge of, and emotional connection to, a "last Superbowl ever" that happened 60+ years ago?

Posted by evilvolus on December 10, 2012 at 2:03 PM

Oblivion might have been good if not for Tom Cruise and his continuing crusade to hate-fuck the craft of acting.

Posted by danhowes

on December 10, 2012 at 2:05 PM

I wish that Oblivion had literally any other actor in the lead role: Raven Simone, Betty White, Kirk Cameron, anybody.

Posted by dirge on December 10, 2012 at 2:06 PM

They both appear to have high production values, they both have questionable stars (and good stars), they both appear to have High Concept twists about the fate of the earth. I suspect both will be good popcorn fare, and bad science fiction, and I look forward to the supercut melding the two.

Posted by Warren Terra on December 10, 2012 at 2:07 PM

@6 probably because he's a clone.

Posted by dirge on December 10, 2012 at 2:09 PM

Did Will Smith hire Madonna's voice coach?

Posted by r.chops on December 10, 2012 at 2:12 PM

I can't think of any reason why I'd like to see either on the big screen, but I'll check out Oblivion when (if) it comes to Netflix. The other I'll only watch if I'm strapped to a chair.

Posted by Knat on December 10, 2012 at 2:18 PM

The fear speech could use a rewrite.

Because if the danger is real then the fear is not for nothing, you know?

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

on December 10, 2012 at 2:30 PM

At least the art direction in that one that @3 brilliantly described actually looks pretty cool. The Smith family thing is guaranteed to be terrible.

Posted by Dougsf on December 10, 2012 at 2:32 PM

"Also, anything with Jaden Smith is automatically terrible. "

Agreed.

Posted by MLM on December 10, 2012 at 2:36 PM

@3: " Jaden's name is Adam and he'll find an Eve and...OH GOD IT BURNS"

Already done. See Nicolas Cage, Knowing.

Posted by MLM on December 10, 2012 at 2:41 PM

I think the oblivion trailer actually looks good.
not going to even bother watching the other one - I've given up on shyamalan a while ago.

Posted by Conrad McMasters on December 10, 2012 at 3:10 PM

Still waiting for the remake of "Enemy Mine"

Posted by Former Lurker on December 10, 2012 at 3:22 PM

That M83 did the music for Oblivion tips the scale somewhat for me. I'll probably catch in theaters just to hear the score.

Posted by thelyamhound

on December 10, 2012 at 3:53 PM

holy shit, did M. Night Shyamalan make a good movie?

also, why is tom cruise only in syfy now. oblivian looks stupid, but i am looking forward to "All You Need Is Kill", which was an excellent book that will probably be fucked up. . .

Posted by onceuponatimetherewasawizard on December 10, 2012 at 4:05 PM

Oblivion might go either way.

But can anyone even remember the last time M Night Shyamalan did a decent movie? I'm not even saying good; just decent. Every movie he's made in more than a decade has completely sucked ass. I have no idea why anyone would give that moron a dime to direct a film.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on December 10, 2012 at 4:17 PM

oh boy, one once-loved aging scientologist and another soon-to-be-aging scientologist, maybe Travolta can have his comeback with Battlefield Earth 2 and we can have even more crap in the theaters

Posted by i'll sit 'em out. on December 10, 2012 at 4:36 PM

I semi-know the writer of After Earth, and he's an utter asshole, so I chose the Cruise one.

Posted by ryanmm on December 10, 2012 at 5:36 PM

I'll watch them both. I've endured (and even enjoyed) crapier movies. These two look decent and entertaining to me. Sure, I won't miss The Hobbit, but there's time for this babies.

Posted by xjuan on December 10, 2012 at 6:28 PM

@21 - I absolutely loved The Happening, the one where a virus causes people to kill themselves. But then, I love the gory-death-as-slapstick genre. Some of the deaths in this film are classic.

Posted by Free Lunch on December 10, 2012 at 6:42 PM

Shyamalan has never made a good movie. Even the ones that people remember fondly were absolute shit, and they were wrong to like them on release. Films like The Village and The Lady in the Water (Those are approximate titles. I don't remember them well and refuse to refresh any retained memories more than necessary) turned most people off of him, but Signs and The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were just as godawful.

Posted by Christampa on December 10, 2012 at 7:52 PM

This just in, SLOG readers are cynical. More at whatever.

Posted by sprflycat

on December 10, 2012 at 8:31 PM

@27: oh hey, what's up kitten. can't help that you like terrible movies with terrible hammy acting

Posted by maybe we just have better things to watch on December 10, 2012 at 9:23 PM

Really? My choices for sci-fi cinema are batshit scientologist and batshit scientologist? Fuck that. I'm just gonna go play Mass Effect and Fallout 3 again.

This is especially painful to me since I love post-apocalyptic shit. These both look terrible, though.

I dunno. I'll probably see Oblivion, just because I love that shit. Has no one else noticed that the premise is basically Tom Cruise Is Wall-E, though?

Posted by balderdash