Is it weird that I want to say this looks like Howl's Moving Castle meets Mad Max?
Never got around to reading the books unfortunately, (just skimmed through the first one at a store when I was maybe 12 or so) but this looks interesting. The basic premise is wonderfully over-the-top.
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.Yeah I do think the trailer has a unholy amount of Infodump for such a short timespan trailer. I think it was about enough when Hugo Weaving kicked both of them off London and they had to make common cause.
edited 7th Jun '18 5:41:09 PM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Just saw this yesterday, and Wow that was a terrible adaptation. Like Percy Jackson-movies-level terrible.
I went in feeling excitement and hope, I left feeling something similar to sadness.
Visually, great. As an adaptation of a book I heartily enjoyed? Uh, not so much.
Like, I know we all know that Hester and Tom get all sweet on each other by the end of the book but you can't come out of the gate acting like that's a dead cert, right? Kinda takes the fun out of it.
I swear in the books Tom starts out "Man, Kate Valentine is pretty and cool, I got to get back to her because this Hester Shaw girl is hella angry all the time and really messed up looking and she kind of scares me" and Hester is "I'm really angry all the time and I don't like Goddamn anyone and this Tom guy is a millstone around my neck" and it's the softening of Hester into "If anyone so much as looks at Tom wrong I'll break them in half, I'm not even kidding" that I found so compelling.
And I'm still annoyed they made her less messed up looking. Wasn't the whole point she was so horrendous that it was a legitimate issue for her?
And pacing and some other changes they made and etc. Sky pirates exploded and I think we were supposed to care? I don't know. I feel dead inside.
Stories of nonsense and not much elseHuh for some reason I thought this was a Spielberg production, weird. Though from what I'm hearing they prolly could have made a more serviceable product.
Though now I'm tempted to read the books after hearing that the two leads especially the woman are rather atypical.
After all ya always gotta respect someone who's willing to make the main chick look fucked up as all Hell. It takes some serious cahones to do that & I commend them.
So I watched this tonight, because the concept looked amazing even if I've never even heard about the books.
It's amaaaazing to look at. The world they crafted is so cool and the set design, costuming and CGI crews deserve medals. Like when someone brings up the term "Predator cities" and then they actually show that thing in action you have to give them a load of credit. And It's competently filmed too, you get a good feeling for where everything is and why it's there from the visual language.
Unfortunately it was kinda difficult for me to care about the characters. Tom began as "Kinda dorky male lead" and never really evolved past that despite the film seemingly thinking he did. Anna Fang was awesome to see in action but was introduced way too late. Hester is the only character to seemingly get a full proper exploration and arc, but she's just not sold well enough.
And there are barely any attempts at humor, so all in all it's a movie that really lacks heart. We're in a postapocalyptic steampunk world made from unbridled imagination you'd think it wouldn't try to take itself so seriously.
You are not alone.I only read a couple of the books but they did have a bit of humour to them, albeit more of a meta/satirical bent such as our future based characters believing their predecessors(i.e. Us) worshipped a God named Disney for example. It probably wouldn't translate to screen very well tbf.
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."I'm also mad because they cast the wonderful Huge Weaving as Thaddeus Valentine only to then take him from "Outwardly charismatic adventurer hiding a steely inner core willing to do anything to protect his city only later to wonder if perhaps he's gone too far" to "MUWAHAHAHA! FIRE THE LASER! RAMMING SPEED!"
To keep from just circling around and pecking at this carcass with further variations on "They took good characters and made them flat and dull" let's just conclude that they simplified the story and in so doing killed a large part of what made it engaging.
Mostly I'm just salty.
And why did Anna Fang have to know Hester's mother? Not everyone has to know everyone! The world's a big place!
Stories of nonsense and not much else

The teaser trailer for the film version of Mortal Engines has been released.
edited 19th Dec '17 9:38:40 AM by Anddrix