Cowboys and Aliens [and spoilers]

[Dr.Epic]

I saw it today. And loved it. Right now, I'm going to say this: I got the movie I expected to see. Today I saw a film called Cowboys and Aliens and I expected a film called Cowboys and Aliens. If you didn't like it, I understand why. It's not a great movie in terms of plot, but it had great actions. It's a sci-fi with cowboys. It's the next best thing to watching Firefly.

Really, you pay to see this film you're getting exactly what you paid for. You think it'll be good based on the premise you'll probably like it. You think it'll be bad based on the premise you'll probably hate it. That's all I'm saying if you're not sure if you want to see it.

So that's what I think of it. You opinions?

[LOTRfan]

I just got back from seeing the movie. I'll honestly say that I expected it to be a failure, but it was quite enjoyable. The aliens were cool, and I especially liked the relationship between Ford's character and the boy.

Has anyone else noticed the similarity between the aliens in this film and District 9?

[Dr.Epic]

Has anyone else noticed the similarity between the aliens in this film and District 9?

Haven't seen District 9, so can't say.


I just got back from seeing the movie. I'll honestly say that I expected it to be a failure, but it was quite enjoyable. The aliens were cool, and I especially liked the relationship between Ford's character and the boy.

I love Ford's dialogue with the kid:
"A dying man gave me this knife and asked me to put him out of his misery with it.":smallbiggrin:

Why would you ever say that to a kid? I love Chaotic-Neutral-or-possibly-Lawful-Evil Harrison Ford!

As for your expectations, I thought the same thing when I heard the name: "Cowboys and Aliens; this is just a sy-fy original movie." I was kind of right, but the trailers should the bad ass action, the budget in terms of CGI and costumes, and actual good actors. Still, a good film in my opinion.

[Loki_42]

I'm surprised people are saying it's good. The first time I saw a trailer of it, the entire theater collectively laughed at it. I was thinking about seeing it for a laugh anyway, now I might actually see it for real.

[Dr.Epic]

I'm surprised people are saying it's good. The first time I saw a trailer of it, the entire theater collectively laughed at it. I was thinking about seeing it for a laugh anyway, now I might actually see it for real.

Oh, it's a B-Movie. Don't get me wrong. It's filled with cliches and the premise is kind of stupid, but it's enjoyable. What saves it are the actors, performances, decent CGI and costumes, action, and the premise is so over the top, how can you not enjoy it.

Like I said, if you think it'll be good based on the trailer and title, you'll probably enjoy it.

[LOTRfan]

Yeah, definitely different from the characters he usually plays. I think that scene alone separates him from Han Solo (even if he did shoot first, which he totally did) and Indiana Jones.

I do have two minor qualms, though;

How did the alien girl "come back" from the dead?
The aliens are out to extinguish the human race for gold? I mean I guess I understand that they had to work gold into the plot somehow (all westerns that I have watched to date involved gold), but come on. Why eliminate an entire indigenous species when you can use them as slaves?

[Dr.Epic]

Yeah, definitely different from the characters he usually plays. I think that scene alone separates him from Han Solo (even if he did shoot first, which he totally did) and Indiana Jones.

The first scene he's in he's torturing a guy! What the crap? I thought Harrison Ford would be like that federal marshal that was gonna take those two away. But nope, he's a little evil...and I loved it. I kind of want to see Ford as the main antagonist in a film now.


I do have two minor qualms, though;

How did the alien girl "come back" from the dead?
The aliens are out to extinguish the human race for gold? I mean I guess I understand that they had to work gold into the plot somehow (all westerns that I have watched to date involved gold), but come on. Why eliminate an entire indigenous species when you can use them as slaves?

Yeah, the whole back from the dead thing made no sense. They should have explained it better. It was by far my least favorite part of the movie and a major facepalm moment.

As for the gold, I kind of liked that. It's completely unoriginal, but still, I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane from this so I didn't mind the poor plot device. Honestly, when they explained that a light went on in my head and I thought "Could this film turn into Battlefield Earth?" Oh man, let there be a Terl character! "While you were learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies!":smallbiggrin:

[Science Officer]

How did the alien girl "come back" from the dead?


Here's my take on it:

The body was some kind of construct or ridiculously human robot. (I'm pretty sure that this was more or less the case)Throwing it on the fire gave it the energy necessary to repair itself. (that part's my wild guess)

I'll echo what was said: solid movie.

[Dr.Epic]

Here's my take on it:

The body was some kind of construct or ridiculously human robot. (I'm pretty sure that this was more or less the case)Throwing it on the fire gave it the energy necessary to repair itself. (that part's my wild guess)

I'll echo what was said: solid movie.

If that's the case, it could have been explained better.

A side note on that thought: the hummingbird at the end: was that her? I mean, she came back from the dead once, she could do it again. And she mention she was in this "form" so am I wrong to think she can take on any form she wants? Wild theory, but just a thought.

[Tyrant]

Yeah, definitely different from the characters he usually plays. I think that scene alone separates him from Han Solo (even if he did shoot first, which he totally did) and Indiana Jones.

I do have two minor qualms, though;

How did the alien girl "come back" from the dead?
The aliens are out to extinguish the human race for gold? I mean I guess I understand that they had to work gold into the plot somehow (all westerns that I have watched to date involved gold), but come on. Why eliminate an entire indigenous species when you can use them as slaves?
Agreed on the Harrison Ford character. I thought it was nice seeing him play someone with a little more moral ambiguity.
No idea how she came back. I know she said that wasn't her normal form and that she wasn't sure it would survive (I think she said that). Maybe she was healing all that time and was not visibly still alive and that was the moment she came back? A little too convenient, but I could live with it. Or, maybe the fire kick started her regeneration? I can live with not knowing, honestly.

As for the gold, it had to be there. I'm just glad we got Harrison Ford's reaction to it. "That's absurd. What are they going to do, buy something?" From what I know of the topic, gold should be just as rare elsewhere as it is here so if they have a use for it then it makes sense to try to get it. Though that runs into the usual "You have all of space to get what you are after, why come to Earth?"
Like others, I was expecting a total trainwreck and was pleasantly surprised to get an actual entertaining movie. I almost think you could remove the aliens and have the makings of a decent Western with this cast.

[Dienekes]

Saw it. Nothing spectacular, but not a complete travesty it could have been.


I love that the aliens are only looking for gold. Plain, simple greed, I can relate to that. As to why destroy the human race and not use them as slaves I thought the answer was pretty obvious. Alive humans can cause a few problems (hell they kill each other over gold), and really they have no need of slaves. They had machines already set up to get the gold far faster than humans could dig.
I liked Harrison Ford, though I thought he phoned in a line or two (don't ask me which ones it was just a feeling I got while watching), but he more than made up for it through badassness
I was hoping the kid from There Will Be Blood would get disowned at the end or something, not made a part of the business. He will run it into the ground.
Love interest alien was stupid, her part felt forced the entire time and her resurrection was groan worthy
I have a soft spot for badass priests, so I rather liked the preacher
Why was there a dog? Didn't seem to serve any purpose other than to say "hey look, a dog!"


Overall, I thought it was entertaining but not great.

[Dr.Epic]

As for the gold, it had to be there. I'm just glad we got Harrison Ford's reaction to it. "That's absurd. What are they going to do, buy something?" From what I know of the topic, gold should be just as rare elsewhere as it is here so if they have a use for it then it makes sense to try to get it. Though that runs into the usual "You have all of space to get what you are after, why come to Earth?"

The gold thing was just a plot device. It's been done before. As I mentioned, it was done in Battlefield Earth. But still, that doesn't diminish the fact I loved the film.

Could I talk a little bit about the...action scenes or more specifically the death scenes and violence.
Did anyone find them a little graphic? Like, my fear was I was turning into a prude because I thought some of them were a little graphic. I thought the same thing after seeing Captain America and (I'm spoiling this 'cause it was another film)

that one Hydra member died from the propeller blades and you just see this flash of blood

but then I saw the Brad Jones's review (aka the Cinema Snob) and if he thinks they were graphic I have nothing to fear.

As for the deaths, this is kind of odd for me to say, but I enjoyed them. Like, not the human deaths. I mean the aliens villains. And why I liked them...let me state Kick-Ass, the Dark Knight and Peter Jackson's LotR are my three favorite films so that kind of explains why I liked them. I'll elaborate more:

-The knife tied to a bundle of dynamite! Genius!:smallbiggrin: The moment I saw that I was like "I know where this is going and I love it already!" It was just so much overkill! If there's a sequel/spinoff, I want it to be just 2 hours of that guy strapping dynamite to weapons. We can replace the actor with Nicolas Cage. I think that's the right move.
-The one alien who got dissolved by the gold. I liked it too. Not much more to saw other than it was clever.
-The final battle with the Native Americans and guys on horse it felt like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Like, the aliens look like a cross between the troll and ogre images in the 3.5 PHB with sort of a sci-fi twist. Not to mention half that fight was just the humans attacking with spears, bows, and clubs on horse. Again, it felt a lot like a medieval fantasy film.

Daniel Craig badass too. Like the first 10 minutes is just him beating the crap out of people. And how he smacked around Harrison Ford's son: I could watch 2 hours of just that. And I'm just talking about Craig beating the crap out of people without the sci-fi bracelet. When he does start using it::smalleek::smallbiggrin::smallamused:

[Icewalker]

My general thoughts:

The plot did not have big awful holes. It had a couple, very simple (and therefore a bit glaring, but at the same time less troubling) holes. Overall, I think the plot functioned. Biggest problem would be that the aliens' motives were completely baseless excuses to make them antagonists. It worked, but it would be nice if it worked for a reason.

It looked super awesome. Effects were done in a cool and reasonable manner: the scenes may have been over the top, but the special effects weren't. All of the fighting was very well done.

Had some legitimately good/funny/epic moments. Not a lot, but a few. Ford's Native American worker. Ford and the kid. Jake and Percy's several encounters. I think I ran out. There's a few more small ones.

Had impressively little character development, with the exception of Harrison Ford's character, who just had not much character development. (If the movie is over and you can only remember the name of two of the characters, something is probably wrong). Two characters were interesting people (although didn't much develop, just were revealed and detailed through the movie), those being Ford's Native American worker, and the barkeep.

Pretty much all the big moments were predictable, but they were all big moments worth having: which is to say, the twists and surprises weren't surprising, but they weren't poor writing.


In summary, I liked it, a lot. Con't go in expecting anything well written, but for a movie which people would be justified to go into expecting total crap, I think it did quite well.

[BRC]

I just saw it. It's a good movie, a fun movie even, but it's not a brilliant movie. I think people were expecting it to be tongue-in-cheek. Had they gone that route it would have ended up either brilliant, or terrible. Instead, they decided to stick solidly to the basics. They put together a great cast, a solid concept, and some good action scenes. They knew they were taking enough risks with the concept alone, so they decided to be very conservative. Nothing was bad about the movie, but that's because they didn't take a chance to make things great.

Was it a bad movie, no. Would I recommend it, Yes. Is it a great movie, one that I will treasure forever, no.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The first scene he's in he's torturing a guy! What the crap? I thought Harrison Ford would be like that federal marshal that was gonna take those two away. But nope, he's a little evil...and I loved it. I kind of want to see Ford as the main antagonist in a film now.
Yes! This made me love the movie right away. I hear the guy barking at his employee and then see him and I'm thinking, "HOLY JEEBUS NUGGETS, THAT'S Harrison Ford's character!?" And then he showed he was not only as badass as Daniel Craig's character, but they went a long way to make him likeable despite it all.

Yeah, the whole back from the dead thing made no sense. They should have explained it better. It was by far my least favorite part of the movie and a major facepalm moment.
It was similar for me, except when I saw it, I first thought it was going to be some sort of vision Daniel Craig was having. But then everyone else started looking at the fire too like "WTF?!" And that's exactly what I started doing too. My brother and I literally looked at each other and both sort of went "WHAT." Of course we mouthed it instead of saying it. Didn't wanna bother the other folks in the theater.

As for the gold, I kind of liked that. It's completely unoriginal, but still, I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane from this so I didn't mind the poor plot device. Honestly, when they explained that a light went on in my head and I thought "Could this film turn into Battlefield Earth?" Oh man, let there be a Terl character! "While you were learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies!":smallbiggrin:
I was sorely tempted to crack jokes like that during the movie. The part where the girl said humans are like insects to them made it even more tempting. Like the Nostalgia Critic said about EL CAPITANE, "These guys make the Psychlos look like Buddhist monks!"
Also, I actually kind of teared up at the end...
...when everyone reunited with the abductees. But the whole abduction thing raised a few eyebrows for me. I mean, I know WHY they happened, the aliens were studying the prisoners. But why the heck did they KEEP them afterwards? It's clear once we're inside the ship that they don't use slaves to mine the gold for them, so what's the point of having them stare up at the ceiling with straps tied to them?
All in all, a wonderfully silly popcorn movie and a delightful waste of a summer's afternoon.

[Tyndmyr]

How did the alien girl "come back" from the dead?
The aliens are out to extinguish the human race for gold? I mean I guess I understand that they had to work gold into the plot somehow (all westerns that I have watched to date involved gold), but come on. Why eliminate an entire indigenous species when you can use them as slaves?

Yeah, those are pretty much the weak points in the series. That and...


Aright, ya'll can kill off a race of spacefaring people who can literally swap bodies and self resurrect at will. But you have a weakness vs cowboys. That...hurts a little.

Also, alien chick died in fire and came back the first time. Why not the second? Logically, she should have appeared again in the flames of the explosion, then freefell back to earth. Splat.

Last, but not least, the bracelet is freaking awesome. It falls off when you stop thinking. Now, presumably this includes during a kiss, but not while unconcious/asleep. Fine, I'll accept that, but surely it comes off when DEAD, right? So, everyone on team good(who literally has more people die on screen than they came with, my buddy counted) killing piles of aliens is just ignoring their superweapons that they already saw used by a human to awesome effect? No thanks, I'll keep my spear.


I enjoyed the hell out of the movie despite it's occasional "WTF" moments, though. Very solid opening, and just a fun watch all round. It's possibly the best AND worst movie of the year at once.

[ThePhantasm]

Lol, guys, why don't we just add "" in the thread title instead of having the thread look like this:

blah


[spoiler] blah?

blah blah blah

That aside, I'm looking forward to seeing this movie soon. The rest of my family says it is good.

[Das Platyvark]

Agreed on the Harrison Ford character. I thought it was nice seeing him play someone with a little more moral ambiguity.

Remember Rick Deckard?

[Tavar]

I saw the movie as well, and I'm going to echo the "It's a good summer flick, but it's not a top X movies of all time, or anything."

Also, the big question with me is; what's going to happen with all the alien tech? Yes, most of it was destroyed in the ship, but the caves do contain quite a bit, as well as all the super guns that they left behind on dead bodies.

[Dr.Epic]

Lol, guys, why don't we just add "" in the thread title instead of having the thread look like this:

[spoiler] blah

Okay

:smalltongue:


I saw the movie as well, and I'm going to echo the "It's a good summer flick, but it's not a top X movies of all time, or anything."

Also, the big question with me is; what's going to happen with all the alien tech? Yes, most of it was destroyed in the ship, but the caves do contain quite a bit, as well as all the super guns that they left behind on dead bodies.

The film is obviously a prequel to Iron Man. That's how Tony Stark built his super suit. He didn't build it in a cave. He found the tech in a cave...with a box of scraps.:smalltongue:

[Tyrant]

Remember Rick Deckard?
Honestly when I think of Harrison Ford I think of his two most iconic roles, Han Solo and Indiana Jones. I don't think of Deckard, The Fugtivie, whoever he played in Sabrina, etc. So, in short, no I didn't. Allow me to rephrase, It's nice to see Harrison Ford play a character with a little more moral ambiguity than his characters seem to normally posses.

[Mauve Shirt]

Goofy goofy movie. Kinda stupid, but not unenjoyable. They seemed to try their hardest to get Daniel Craig wet in every scene. And to show his butt off a lot. :smalltongue:

[H Birchgrove]

I want to see it. :smalltongue:

[Gorgondantess]

-The one alien who got dissolved by the gold. I liked it too. Not much more to saw other than it was clever.

That right there was worth the price of admission alone. I went to this movie, and got to see an alien incinerated by molten gold, and I am happy.

[Syka]

Goofy goofy movie. Kinda stupid, but not unenjoyable. They seemed to try their hardest to get Daniel Craig wet in every scene. And to show his butt off a lot. :smalltongue:

I am SO not complaining. The man looks rather easy on the eyes in that cowboy get up, too.

I saw this last night with my mom and boyfriend. I went in thinking it'd either be really really good or really really bad. Not mediocre. I was right. I really enjoyed it, good solid popcorn flick*. They did an excellent job with the costuming and effects, and the script/acting was solid. I liked it WAY more than Transformers 3, and a good bit more than Green Lantern.

Doc and Preacher were probably my two favorite supporting cast. Ford surprised and impressed me, as did Craig. Olivia Wilde was decent, but about what I expected.

It probably won't join my DVD collection, but I definitely didn't mind spending the bucks to see it on a big screen.

As for the peoples...
They were keeping them down there in a pen of some sort, since they were waiting to be "processed" so to speak. None of those folks had been inspected yet, just kidnapped. It was keeping them docile.


*The only real issue I had with the movie was Wilde's character. Even that was mostly post-"I'm an alien!" moment. I mean...really? Really?? I just pretended Wilde was still a human and completely ignored that part. :) Thus I liked the movie.

[Dr.Epic]

*The only real issue I had with the movie was Wilde's character. Even that was mostly post-"I'm an alien!" moment. I mean...really? Really?? I just pretended Wilde was still a human and completely ignored that part. :) Thus I liked the movie.

Really?
Even after she literally rose like a phoenix from the fire or knew how to use the alien tech to blow up their ship? Kind of a BIG thing to ignore.

[Syka]

I meant figuratively. :P Of course you can't actually ignore it, but darn it if I'm not going to try. :smallwink: It was a horrible thing to throw in.

[Tam_OConnor]

Anyone else get the feeling a good portion of the film was left on the editing room floor? (Inexplicable steamboat, lack of resurrection explanation, no gathering of the posse, etc).

[Muz]

Anyone else get the feeling a good portion of the film was left on the editing room floor? (Inexplicable steamboat, lack of resurrection explanation, no gathering of the posse, etc).

The steamboat was unrelated. Upside-down steamboats in the middle of the scrub far from a river are a common occurrence in the old west.

...What?

[Tavar]

I thought that was just more evidence of the Aliens messing around; judging by the steamboats furnishings it could have had quite a bit of gold on it.