Bright, or The Movie Sadly Not Titled "Orc Cops"

Modern Day Fantasy isn't something you see often, so I like this.

The offbeat tone of the film reminds me a little of Get Out!. Different genres, sure, but it's hard not to miss the allegory going on. The Shrek joke seems off at first, but imagine a cop making a reference to Mammy with black people around.

I'm still trying to figure out if this is an Alternate History sort of thing or a 20 Minutes into the Future setting where fantasy beings only recently appeared.

And regarding that Shrek reference, what about Lord of the Rings..?

I'm thinking Alternate History, it seems too entrenched to have been a recent development.

Actually, the fact Shrek is an ogre and not an orc makes the reference even better. Missing their entire race is what a racist cop would do. It makes me wonder if The Lord of the Rings had orc rights protesters.

I'm probably over-analyzing things here, but this premise brings up so many questions. Now I'm picturing fantasy stories as their equivalent to heavily romanticized Historical Fiction full of MagicalNativeAmericans and such stuff.

edited 26th Oct '17 2:19:14 PM by Corvidae

I kind of hope it really is a Shadowrun shout-out, and Goblinization is a thing. That or there's some sort of portal to another world in LA and elves and orcs have been crossing over for some time now.

This feels like a Poorly Disguised Pilot.

I actually almost wish it was a pilot. Haven't even watched the trailers yet but it definitely sounds like enough worldbuilding potential for a miniseries.

Yep. Also, the soundtrack album is out, as well as promotional music videos, and some of them really go into bad shit of "racism and police brutality" variety.

You know, it's weird and creepy, casually depicting racism as evil as long as it's about a fictional race.

edited 7th Dec '17 12:43:24 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

Uh. What’s bad about casually depicting racism as evil ?

The second part of the sentence: "as long as it's about a fictional race." Because when you need to depict actual racism, suddenly the "um... ah... wouldn't that be controversial...?" shit and cartoonish over-the-top jackbootry starts, to make sure that it looks unbelievable and loses impact.

edited 8th Dec '17 10:48:46 AM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

Well, it's obviously notable because the Orc is playing the Black Cop to Will Smith the Black Cop who is playing the White Cop.

That's an interesting dynamic by itself.

So reviews are coming in and they're... not great. On the bright (sorry) side, a lot of them seem to take issue more with the core concept so if you're down for that, it might not be an issue.

This is probably the most scathing but at the same time honestly feels really... vague.

Hey, at least now it's known what needs to be polished in the sequel that we will get, because Netflix has to show off they can do blockbusters.

Good that a buddy of mine who crashed on my couch last weekend left his Netflix logged on my laptop. I'll watch the movie tomorrow.

I was honestly a little leery on the combination of Max Landis (writer) and David Ayer (director). Ayer can be a really good director. While I wasn't a fan of Fury, it was still a good movie.

Max Landis, on the other hand...he has some hangups that make him a really bad choice for writing a movie where part of the point is about how racism is bad. I don't think he's capable of subtlety when it comes to that, and he seems to find it kind of difficult in general. (Please note: I am not calling him racist. It's just that he is certainly not the right person to write a story about racism.)

The idea behind this movie seems okay, but it mostly seems like the execution kind of fell flat. And I think I might have an idea about why. Netflix is usually really hands off on the stuff they produce. They will meddle sometimes, but they meddle far less than the average Hollywood movie studio. What that ends up doing is that there's less people looking at the scripts and saying "hey, this is way too on the nose, maybe dial it back a bit?" You have some directors who you can let loose and you'll get something at least watchable out of it, but most directors aren't that capable, because they're seeing all the little bits and pieces of the movie while someone outside the immediate production might notice weird plotting or structural issues.

This script hardly resembles Landis' old one.

It seems to have been meddled with heavily.

I'll definitely be down to watching this. The core concept is interesting enough for me to give it a go, and regardless of its quality, its the type of stuff that Hollywood should be doing more of, rather than endless reboots all the time.

Ditto. The movie's premise caught my attention, and I am a big fan of the urban fantasy genre (*cough* Gargoyles *cough*) so of course I'll still check it out. Just, a little bit more skeptical now since the reviews aren't that good regarding the film trying to balance its genres.

I feel like pointing out this isn't actually a very new concept and its predecessor was really entertaining.

I refer, of course, to "Alien Nation."

“Well, it's obviously notable because the Orc is playing the Black Cop to Will Smith the Black Cop who is playing the White Cop.“

So Orc is the new black then ?

Norcos. Gimorc Girls. A Series of Unforctunate Events.

House of Waaarghs. HalfOrc Horseman. Marvel's Archdevil. The Unbreakable Kimmy Drizzt.

x3 Alien Nation? That’s a weird way of spelling Shadowrun.

BTW, thats the reason why I (and probably everybody else) am going to watch this movie. Its the closest thing to an adaption of the tabletop games; sans the Blade Runner world.

Just watched it.

I like the aesthetic, and Lucy Fry's character (Tikka) stole the movie despite not speaking English until the climax, but the movie really botched up it's themes and it's pretty bad on race issues. I wouldn't really recommend it.

I also just finished. There's an interesting movie buried in there somewhere, but it's under layers upon layers of a fucking disaster.

The central premise itself of buddy cop movie meets lord of the rings is rather interesting. The vague societal structures of Orcish society (like the clans, the teeth signifying clan or the blood ritual) are very interesting and would have made for a much more interesting film than whatever hot mess the main plot of this is. The actors also give it their all, making the movie almost tolerable by sheer charisma.

Now the problems are everything else. David Ayer seems to have completely forgotten how to shot a film, going by how muddy, dark and incomprehensibly lighted and edited this movie (like SS before it) is. It's a very ugly film to look at, and the action is impossible to follow. The plot is simultaneously too simple and too complex when none of the mythology is properly explained in anything else but Info Dump after Info Dump that still manages to tell us too little. Things also follow a almost Random Events Plot from time to time.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the social commentary. Because oh boy does this movie thoroughly butcher its own social commentary. From the moment Will Smith jokingly says "Fairy lives don't matter!" you know this is going to be a cringe-inducing ride. The likening of Orcs to black culture is completely clueless (our main orc hero at one point comments that Orcs made the wrong choice a long time ago and must redeem themselves now. What the fuck does that ''mean if Orcs are an allegory to black people?)

It also doesn't help the movie drops this racism aesop about midway through as the main villains have very little to do with systematic racism or police brutality (problems that go unaddressed despite being brought up). Or that despite the anti racism aesop the film still features every stereotype in the book about Latinos and Blacks in some scene or another.

Or that its main female character is as flat as a wooden table.

It's pretty bad. If you fire David Ayer and Max Landis and just redo the whole thing under someone else's helm, you might end up with a cool story, but as it is it's one hot mess.