Mortal Engines

The teaser trailer for the film version of Mortal Engines has been released.

edited 19th Dec '17 9:38:40 AM by Anddrix

Is it weird that I want to say this looks like Howl's Moving Castle meets Mad Max?

That's both apt and compelling in my view.

Oh, Hester, what have they done to you?

I don't know something seems off about that trailer. It might be the dialogue or just the how the scenes where structured. But I'm sure it'll be fine. It does look pretty darn cool.

I’m mostly worried that Hester is going to be made likeable. Or (shudder) ...heroic.

Wasn't she a lot more disfigured in the books? I suppose that's a concession that has to be made for film, but I recall she was missing an eye and most of her nose as well as having her mouth pretty messed up.

Yup. And the scars were all twisted up from infection.

I also didn't spot any stalkers either.

This is more nitpicky, but I thought Anna's teeth were red? Is that a detail I'm misremembering?

Yep, her teeth are red in the book. Also, Tom and Valentine are missing Guild's marks on their foreheads.

edited 6th Jun '18 6:51:17 AM by Nightwire

I remember from the book that the larger cities eat the smaller ones for resources but does it ever say what happens to the people living on the losing city?

I think some of them go to slavers.

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.

Watched the trailer.

Wow. I didn't even know it was possible to make a trailer feel dragging on.

Yeah I do think the trailer has a unholy amount of Info Dump 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

Just saw this yesterday, and Wow that was a terrible adaptation. Like Percy Jackson-movies-level terrible.

I’ve been hearing much the same thing from other places. That is unfortunate.

Oy...Universal is REALLY in a rough spot, isn't it?

Is it me, or are a lot of their big-budgeted projects sort of underperforming? I'm wondering if it's anything to do with Comcast's ownership of them? (Probably not...)

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Dec 9th 2018 at 1:37:29 PM

As soon as I saw that whole 'condensed story' in a single trailer of this movie, I had a feeling it'd be nothing special other than visuals and be more like a 'by-the-numbers' action flick. Sad to see that I was right.

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.

Huh 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.

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.

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!