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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    I'm on a work computer, so I'm not googlin' for it at present, given the context. However, there were several such scenes after the combats. He takes pains to repeatedly say that this is required by law, and therefore...cannot be reasonably considered consensual, even after you get past the whole "the US government is making everyone turn gay" cringe bits.

    Glancing at the wiki, it appears that some publications of it were abridged. I don't know what got cut out, but a great deal of that seems like a good candidate for some very harsh editing, so I suppose it's possible that one's experience with the book might vary depending with which printing one had.
    Yeah, that was kind of the point, that it was a terrible government policy. One of many throughout the book. Which was pretty much the whole theme of the book, that the government policies were terrible and the entire war was a huge mistake from the get-go.
    Last edited by brionl; 2021-07-10 at 10:52 AM.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Originally Posted by Thrudd
    *snip*
    At this point I’m getting the strong sense that my original mistaken impression—a bad studio rehash of Forever War—would actually have been much better than what this actually is.

    Originally Posted Rodin
    Independence Day…knows exactly what genre it is and manages to be awesome regardless.
    So true. One of those movies you have to experience in the theater for the full effect of the large-scale, slam-bang goofiness of it all.

    Originally Posted by Rodin
    It combined the mass destruction of a disaster movie with awesome action sequences and the action comedy chops of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in their prime.
    And let’s not forget Brent Spiner, as the gloriously cheesy almost-mad scientist.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Flumph

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    And, apparently, this was a massive success for Amazon, so now they're looking at a sequel...

    Honestly, I'm not even sure what it would be about at this point, there really wasn't much left open as far as sequel material goes.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Starbuck_II's Avatar

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    And, apparently, this was a massive success for Amazon, so now they're looking at a sequel...

    Honestly, I'm not even sure what it would be about at this point, there really wasn't much left open as far as sequel material goes.
    We love Chris Pratt.
    Sequel could be a prequel?
    We see how bad it got before they send someone back in time?

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Starbuck_II View Post
    We love Chris Pratt.
    Sequel could be a prequel?
    We see how bad it got before they send someone back in time?
    According to the article, it's going to be investigating the origin of the aliens. If it was a prequel, it'd be kinda hard to have Chris Pratt star again.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph
    And, apparently, this was a massive success for Amazon….
    So, how is success quantified in the streaming environment?

    The article mentions high ratings in a general sense, and an outside claim that it was the top streamer for last weekend, but how reliable are those claims, and how well do they translate to direct financial gain for Amazon?

    Not disagreeing with your statement per se, but I would like to understand how reliable the article’s statements are.

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Starbuck_II View Post
    We love Chris Pratt.
    Sequel could be a prequel?
    The Yesterday War? Sounds just desperate enough to be plausible.

    Quote Originally Posted by Palanan View Post
    So, how is success quantified in the streaming environment?
    You'd have to ask Netflix and Amazon. Certainly viewer numbers (Which the streamers don't share), but if there was a spike in Prime Subscriptions beforehand that would seem to be the aim. Amazon doesn't have the large original catalog Neflix has or the extensive back library of Disney, so I imagine they will take what they can get. A profitable sci-fi franchise with associated merchandise and spin-offs would be the jackpot, but I don't see how you get there from this movie.

    But if they are looking to sequel the week after this aired, something apparently performed better than expected.
    Last edited by Dire_Flumph; 2021-07-10 at 01:12 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    WolfInSheepsClothing

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    To be fair this film could do with a sequal to get the writing down or just to go full insanity.
    For example instead of fighting for future earth, they are now pulling people from all periods of earths history to fight the spikes on multiple different planets. Then it could turn out instead of these being the actual people with all the issues that entails they are just cloning people with good solider genes again and again to throw into the meatgrinder and the memories our characters have are the genetic memories of their progenitor DNA. Not going to win any awards but could be a good fun movie at least which is what they seem to be going for.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by J-H View Post
    I've occasionally run across a theory that Hollywood, especially the streaming parts (where the P&L is more obscured and they seem to waste tens of millions of dollars on idiotic things like this) is partly used for money laundering. It's one explanation for why they blow big money on junk like this...
    Hollywood accounting is a very real thing, but I would think outright money laundering from big names would be a pretty bold move. Smaller studios, I could see it. If Joe Bob Briggs is to be believed and I am remembering his comments correctly, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was paid for with mob money and made way more money than anyone publicly realized. But that was the early 70s and possibly just the one movie. I would think the whole operation is too public to risk that, but greed can overwhelm common sense so maybe. I have heard that Uwe Boll was able to be bankrolled by German investors due to German tax law. The investors expected the movies to fail. A set up similar to The Producers essentially.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    BarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    The impression I got is that somebody saw Kill, Die, Repeat (aka Edge of Tomorrow) and thought they copy it on the cheap to make a tidy profit.

    Unfortunately, you need decent writing to make people care about the characters and Chris Pratt is no Tom Cruise.

    Independence Day gets a lot of crap, but it knows exactly what genre it is and manages to be awesome regardless. It combined the mass destruction of a disaster movie with awesome action sequences and the action comedy chops of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in their prime. Is the movie dumb? Yes, absolutely. Do I care? Hell no. It's one of my favorite action movies of all time and shows that you don't need a deep plot if you get everything else right.

    Independence Day works because the characters take logical actions based on the movie universe they're in. Hacking the aliens is dumb, but once you accept the premise the aliens can be hacked the rest of the plot falls into place. From what I've seen of Tomorrow War that isn't the case. They don't deal with the time travel well, the Macguffin doesn't matter, and people make stupid decisions repeatedly that should have resulted in the human race being wiped out.
    Oh definitely, Independence Day works for what it is. I saw it in the theater when I was a kid and loved it, and can still enjoy it in the right context. In ID, you at least have the character archetypes separated into different characters. Will Smith is the best soldier/pilot around, and Goldblum is the smartest math/science guy. You even have a good president who coordinates the fight. They each have their own families to care about, and everyone acts like they understand the fate of all humans is being decided.

    In Tomorrow War, you have Chris Pratt, the scientist soldier who alone can save everyone. He has another scientist guy friend who can't really fight and who gets to use his science for exactly one line of dialogue, and is only there for comedy relief (which is poorly written and forced). There's another soldier guy who does nothing of consequence until he needs to sacrifice himself. We aren't given much reason to care about anyone besides Chris Pratt and his family. The only representative of any government we see is actively a barrier to saving the world. Apparently all the militaries of the world using the best tech and science the world could bring to bear were absolute failures at defeating a horde of monsters with basically animal intelligence. It was down to a single man and his ragtag gang to do what needed to be done, because nobody in authority or with resources anywhere was willing to help him TO SAVE THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE. Governments be bad at everything, amiright?(Actual dialogue does convey that sentiment, in case the story itself wasn't obvious enough about it).

    So it's like Independence Day if, instead of an existential threat pulling the world together and everyone contributing their talent and resources to survive, everyone just gave up and kicked the can down the road, even though they know for a fact that our species will be wiped out in 30 years if they don't start working on it right now.

    There's definitely an analogy to climate change, that would be okay if they didn't hit you over the head with it in the hamfisted way that they did. There was a good message about the importance of science education, could have been very inspiring, if they had actually shown anything approaching real scientists coming together with their different disciplines to solve problems. Instead, we get a solo high school science teacher (who is totally way too talented for that job but keeps getting passed over for better positions for some reason) who saves the day with the help of one of his students who is obsessed with volcanoes, because apparently all you need to be the equivalent of the world's top expert in a topic is to obsessively "research" stuff by yourself for a few months or years.

    There is only one future person actively doing science in the film, completely alone for some reason even though they are all about to die- maybe she's the last real scientist left on earth? And what she's doing is watching a computer analyze samples of blood. She also happens to be the one who previously invented time travel. So she is both an expert geneticist/biologist designing a way to kill the monsters and the most talented theoretical and experimental physicist ever and therefore is single handedly responsible for Chris Pratt and his three companions being able to save humanity. A film about the importance of science should include some semblance of what it's actually like to do science-which means many scientists of different fields debating, engineers arguing with theorists, breakthroughs coming from people collaborating and combining their fields in new ways.

    I would say it isn't silly enough to be a "best of the worst" worthy film that you can watch just to laugh at how bad/dumb it is. It takes itself too seriously and tries too hard, it was clearly intended to have an uplifting quality and not just be a dumb action sci fi movie. Its overall message seems to be "if you love your family enough, you can do anything". And nobody in the world of the film seems to love their families enough, except for Chris Pratt.
    Last edited by Thrudd; 2021-07-10 at 07:11 PM.

  11. - Top - End - #41
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Isn't this like, the first thing Amazon has ever made that has gotten general coverage as an interesting media event? Seems reasonable they want to press on just for that.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrant View Post
    Hollywood accounting is a very real thing, but I would think outright money laundering from big names would be a pretty bold move. Smaller studios, I could see it. If Joe Bob Briggs is to be believed and I am remembering his comments correctly, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was paid for with mob money and made way more money than anyone publicly realized. But that was the early 70s and possibly just the one movie. I would think the whole operation is too public to risk that, but greed can overwhelm common sense so maybe. I have heard that Uwe Boll was able to be bankrolled by German investors due to German tax law. The investors expected the movies to fail. A set up similar to The Producers essentially.
    It's not that they need to fail but because of a tax loop hole in German law (now closed) money invested in his movies automatically got 50% back from the government. So the movies could lose money but investors would still profit thanks to the tax refunds
    All Comicshorse's posts come with the advisor : This is just my opinion any difficulties arising from implementing my ideas are your own problem

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    It's not that they need to fail but because of a tax loop hole in German law (now closed) money invested in his movies automatically got 50% back from the government. So the movies could lose money but investors would still profit thanks to the tax refunds
    Could you elaborate on that? Are you saying that their tax liability is reduced by an amount equal to 50% of what they sunk into one of Boll's future catastrophes? Because just getting 50% back isn't making any money at all, it's losing 50%. So I assume that isn't what you mean.

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrant View Post
    Could you elaborate on that? Are you saying that their tax liability is reduced by an amount equal to 50% of what they sunk into one of Boll's future catastrophes? Because just getting 50% back isn't making any money at all, it's losing 50%. So I assume that isn't what you mean.
    I'm only going on what I read on Wikipedia but as I read it getting 50% back is automatic no matter what. So the film only needs to make back over half the money spent on it for the investors to start making a profit.
    A film that only makes 75% of the money spent on it still makes a profit of 25% rather than a loss of that amount
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2021-07-11 at 06:09 PM.
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  15. - Top - End - #45
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    All this talk of films just reminds me of what a freaking genius adam sandler was. He went through a period of time where he and his buddies would go somewhere and party, toss together a film, and get a paycheck and he always made a profit because the films were so cheap to produce. He didnt waste time with avenger level nonsense where you need to break a billion at the box office just to break even. He could make 20 mill world wide at the bargain bin at walmart and still double his budget or more. No matter how much the movie sucked, it still usually turned a profit. Jack and Jill was probably the most critically panned film he made and it cost him just under 80 million to make and brought back 149 million at the world wide box office. Waterboy made back NINE TIMES its budget in box office revenue alone.
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: The Tomorrow War

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    I'm only going on what I read on Wikipedia but as I read it getting 50% back is automatic no matter what. So the film only needs to make back over half the money spent on it for the investors to start making a profit.
    A film that only makes 75% of the money spent on it still makes a profit of 25% rather than a loss of that amount
    Not trying to badger you, but that still sounds like a bad idea. Ignoring for a moment that there is an order to who gets paid back and how much they get paid and when (meaning you could be last on the list and never see a penny), why not put your money into a movie that you think will turn an actual profit so you really come out ahead? Instead you are putting your money into a doomed enterprise that still has to hit certain thresholds for you to break even, much less actually profit. Looking at the box office for a few of his movies, I'm not sure any actually made a profit. Bloodrayne, which looks to be the biggest bomb from the 4 movies I checked, had a budget of $25 million and made less than $4 million worldwide. I can't see any way anyone who wasn't cut a check for working on the movie made money from that.

    I know you didn't write the article and I am not trying to sound like I am picking on you, but there's no way that scheme makes sense. Or I should say, it doesn't make sense investing in Boll's movies, I can see where it would make sense to do it with movies that actually have positive box office results.

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