Montauk
Active Member
I know. It was in meant in jest but I realize now it sounded a little abrasive. I probably should've added a /s of sarcasm.
EDIT: I just did
Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" pre-release Speculation
- Thread starter Giddierone
- Start date
EDIT: I just did
FatPhil
Senior Member.
That's basically me and LotR. 1/3 of the way, but I did go back for a second attempt, and got 1/6 of the way. 1/3+1/6 = 1/2, so we're about equal.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I liked the cleverness of the whole Hobbit thing, but got bored when it got all dramatic and went into sci-fi-cum-medieval conflict.
I'm from another era altogether. I read all I could find from Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury etc in my early teens. When I was a little younger it was the sea stories that enthralled me, cannon fire on a pitching deck, amputated limbs and all. Now I'm an old lady, I still enjoy crime stories, but not the ones with a lot of suspense - bad for my blood pressure!
Smythe Bacchus
Senior Member
This is known as "Hollywood Accounting", a well established collection of methods for tax and profit sharing avoidance.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-l2oFKZNak
Hollywood also plays with state governments, in the same manner as other industries chasing tax incentives and grants.
Article: Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Stop the Hollywood handouts
Film production incentives always flop
For years, movie producers have played states against each other and reaped billions in taxpayer money. The smart strategy for state lawmakers is to stop playing.
... a clear-eyed assessment demonstrates that states lose. Georgia auditors found that the tax revenue the state receives from the subsidized film industry amounts to less than a third of what it spends on the subsidies—even when counting the tax revenue from the people who sell to the people who sell to film producers. New York auditors found similar losses in their state.
This grant-seeking business model extends across national boundaries:
Article: Australian taxpayers footed half the bill for Hollywood dud Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
A huge chunk of the budget for Chris Hemsworth's latest box office flop was picked up by Australian taxpayers, it can be revealed.
Precisely how much public money went towards the latest instalment in the Mad Max franchise is unclear, because the figures are kept secret by Screen New South Wales and Screen Australia.
But experts put the bill in the vicinity of at least $183 million – all for the privilege of having the George Miller-directed action film shot on Australian soil.
"It's incredibly expensive and what value the Australian public get for that cost is questionable," Professor Kevin Sanson, head of the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology, told news.com.au.
It's easy to joke "Hollywood accounting is more creative than its blockbuster storylines"! In actuality, it is a lazy "If you can get away with it, then just keep doing it" business model. The same rinse-and-repeat approach that is responsible for the endless production of risk-averse sequels and reboots.
Hevach
Senior Member.
A big part of Hollywood accounting isn't even taxes (those are pretty easy for a corporation to dodge anyway) but money owed to talent based on earnings of the project and not the company, and when you're only looking at the project it's easier to hide the fact that some of these expenses are not actually on the project alone.
An old trick from the golden age studios was that if one show needed a train every show used the train. This is smart because getting a train for a few days of filming is expensive and you can spread that cost to several projects... But when it comes time to write checks you don't account it that way.
An old trick from the golden age studios was that if one show needed a train every show used the train. This is smart because getting a train for a few days of filming is expensive and you can spread that cost to several projects... But when it comes time to write checks you don't account it that way.
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
Interesting! Thanks for letting me know.
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
Giddierone
Senior Member.
John J.
Senior Member.
It's got Emily Blunt! Cutesy animals and a Thomas Kinkade Master of Light (TM) house! Baddies! A car chase! Crop circles not being made by two eccentric blokes with a rope and a plank!
To quote Maurice in The IT Crowd (series 2, 1), every value I've ever held is being questioned, and I'm loving it.
Um, but I'll probably wait until it's on TV.
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
I'd laugh if I went to see it.
It's not as dreary as the second teaser, but I'm still losing interest in seeing it in the theater.
Among other things, that clicking fake speech creeps me out (it's more suitable for a horror movie) and I don't think I want to hear it in Dolby Surround Sound.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Nice reference to the "light-language " thing.
Apologies for some spelling, but I'm just on a phone with limited service.
Without understanding exactly what's going on in the movie, I remember reading somewhere about ideas around the development of various languages.
IIRC, there's some speculation that the current spoken languages of people like the EDIT:
So, if aliens are part of our past and/or our development then an ancient form of speaking may include a lot of clicks.
Or it just sounds cool.
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Giddierone
Senior Member.
I can see it alienating the misophonic community...
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
A clicking language is perhaps more useful in open spaces and in activities like hunting and gathering.
So, the newscaster is supposed to be possesed or controlled by an alien entity. Is the language going to be an ancient earth language that the aliens picked up on a previous visit? (God forbid). Or this is the first time aliens have encountered humans and that's all they can do to communicate? Will a group of scientists decode the communication? Will it be a collection of the same old tired tropes? I have a hard time watching this kind of stuff anymore. Especially now. Wish I had the money to make one.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
I know a good character actor who will work cheap...
Ann K
Senior Member.
...and the aliens communicate with the mother ship by means of kite signals...
Z.W. Wolf
Senior Member.
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
A couple of recent common tropes appear to be in the trailer. Light language and ontological shock stand out.
Presumably this is Speilberg's thing. I assume that Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. contain common tropes of the period? (I was too young to know of the tropes at the time)
Presumably this is Speilberg's thing. I assume that Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. contain common tropes of the period? (I was too young to know of the tropes at the time)
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
Close Encounters began with a police UFO chase based on a chase that occurred in Ohio in '66, iirc. Skeptics contend that the police were chasing Venus. There is a drawing that one of the officers made (iirc), and a picture was also taken which you can find if you look for it. Close Encounters was a fun movie at the time. All of these old movies look overacted and dated now.
Ontological shock on a personal level for people who believe they have seen truly anomalous objects, is a very real thing. My life has been changed by it. Hard to explain it. I also got shingles out of the first experience, I think. One never really ever feels truly comfortable and cozy anymore after seeing these things in certain circumstances and distances. There is an aspect of my first experience that I have told very few people about, and I don't think they were paying attention at the time anyway. It was a synchronicity so bizarre that it made me reconsider the nature of UAPs, and disturbs me still. It makes me think that these things are far stranger than spacecraft. I might talk about it eventually, if things change..
Another part of experiencing UFOs and feeling obligated to tell people about it, is being treated like an alien yourself, and that gets old. My parents are weirded out by the whole subject and don't want me to mention it to them anymore.
Anyway, So many of these movies are waay overdone. It happens with epic historical dramas, too; things could be so much better. I know it becomes a vicious circle with money being pumped into production and the need to make big profits, and thus take everything to the lowest common denominator. Historical epics are often ruined by imaginative art departments; we have Vikings that look like members of Spinal Tap, Achilles in weird black plastic armour, Spartans with wrong helmets, etc. Would have to be an indie film. With the tech these days an individual could create something pretty interesting, I bet,
There was a recent episode of "Stories Lost" channel on YouTube. Where I think the same objects I saw in 2010 were encountered. Iceland, iirc. Anyway, the descriptions of the objects were identical down to the quality of the light of the spheres, my description, the descriptions of the other people who later and earlier (Chiao, probably, from the ISS) saw the same ones I did, are so similar to the report on SL, that they are almost verbatim.
<edit> The episode on Stories Lost channel is "1966: Something Moved Between Continents" in the first part of the episode, descriptions of the round objects on farm. Not sure about the other parts of story.
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NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
I was going for more of an Ancient Aliens vibe. IF the click langue of the !Kung San is close to the original human language, and IF aliens helped guide human evolution, then the clicking language is what the aliens originally taught the early modern humans. We have slowly lost the click sounds in the ensuing spread of different languages. It's the aliens language, or at least early humans attempt at it.
Probably.
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
I don't doubt that.
My personal issue with the common trope is more with the mass ontological shock which is often delivered from a position of "I'm ready, no one else is", which the trailer seems to hint at. I think most people are either ready or it won't make the slightest difference. More District 9. Unless they're here to destroy us all, I guess.
