Cloud Atlas - New Movie by The Wachowskis

  On 7/27/2012 at 1:14 PM, dr lopez said:

  On 7/26/2012 at 10:07 PM, data said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2qeFxgGpM0

 

i don't know what this is about but wow, *cringe*

omg i can't deal with that

Um, yeah, I hadn't even bothered to watch this before my previous replies and now I'm about 99% sure I don't want to see this. And now I dislike the directors too. Wow. What a mess.

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:39 PM, thanks robert moses said:

Also:

Transexual Wachowski is fucking creepy.

The movie looks awesome the trailer is just too long , why the hate guys ?

I think if you're gonna show that many different time periods, less than 3 hours would be a disservice. Now if everyone has to have a kung fu fight every fucking time they meet a new character, then Houston we have a problem!

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:13 PM, sweepstakes said:

  On 7/27/2012 at 8:15 AM, chenGOD said:

I like your approach though - don't expect anything good and then be pleasantly surprised if it is good. Then if it sucks, you can always sit back and say "I told you so". Ah cynicism - it's like having your cake and eating it too.

lol

 

Seriously, though,

  On 7/27/2012 at 8:15 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 7/27/2012 at 12:40 AM, sweepstakes said:

Yeah, this doesn't look exactly like a sprawling epic to me, more like a solipsistic indulgence disguised as one like Inception or What Dreams May Come. A lot of it is visually pretty, though.

 

I don't know how you can accuse it of indulging in solipsism when one of the basic premises of the movie is that you keep meeting the same people in different guises.

 

What I mean by solipsism is that it looks like an exploration of a specific emotion or abstract idea, like how Inception was apparently one big metaphor for film-making. And "meeting the same people in different guises" sounds like solipsism to me, like those aren't really people but heavy-handed symbols. That said, I don't know much about the story/book and I'm just guessing here.

 

  On 7/27/2012 at 8:15 AM, chenGOD said:

With a running time of nearly 3 hours, and 6 generations of story lines, that seems like it at least the potential to be epic.

That's just another argument for why it's bound to suck. Are all 6 of those generations going to resonate with me over the course of those 3 hours? It just sounds like a mess. Can you actually quantify, with numbers, why a movie is going to be epic? I don't think so... I'd rather experience the trajectory of one or two characters along the path of a sincere story than this kind of thing that tends to rely on heavy-handed metaphor transmitted via CGI in saturated colors.

 

I guess the apparent time travel type of aspect to it makes me suspicious. The level of suspension of disbelief is asks too much of me as a viewer. It just feels like cheating in the service of a story that probably won't deliver, because, well, why would the author need to rely on this kind of cheating? Not saying that time travel necessarily makes a story bad, it just needs to be done with restraint and I see anything but restraint in this trailer.

 

I don't think I'm explaining this well, and of course it's a matter of taste, and I guess it's also sort of apples and oranges as far as types of movies go. So... maybe this one just isn't for me, and I should leave it at that.

Well that's a reasoned explanation to a late-night rant of mine. lol

Solipsism has a pretty specific definition, which I don't think your argument covers but oh well.

Also is it really time-travel? It's not one or two people going around in time, it's more like the Brahman idea of samsara (the endless cycle of existence).

I dunno - I love magical realism, so I guess that's what excites me about this. I haven't read the book either, but I'm putting it on the short list!

  On 7/27/2012 at 6:07 PM, chenGOD said:

Well that's a reasoned explanation to a late-night rant of mine. lol

Solipsism has a pretty specific definition, which I don't think your argument covers but oh well.

Yeah, you're probably right. My understanding of it is along the lines of Descartes not believing that other people have the same experience and that the world revolves around him. I guess what I was getting at is that it feels like sort of overly abstracted, stuffy brain-droppings detached from emotions and experiences. Which isn't exactly solipsistic but it does seem related to me.

  On 7/27/2012 at 6:07 PM, chenGOD said:

Also is it really time-travel? It's not one or two people going around in time, it's more like the Brahman idea of samsara (the endless cycle of existence).

I dunno - I love magical realism, so I guess that's what excites me about this. I haven't read the book either, but I'm putting it on the short list!

No, it doesn't seem to exactly be time-travel, but it's that same sort of time-and-space warping mechanic that can feel cheesy and cheap and can make a story sloppy in a hurry if not deployed with a lot of care.

I don't quite know what magical realism is and I don't feel like googling at the moment, but that's cool.

Magical Realism is basically just what the name implies - that is reality with bits of magical elements thrown in. How much magic gets blended in is obviously up to the author/creator but think of it like myths I guess.

Ah, that's cool. Like Shadowrun or something. I can't think of anything at the moment besides Shadowrun but that stuff can be cool.

Authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie. Films like Midnight in Paris, Benjamin Button. And yes, like the Shadowrun universe.

Anyways - this seems to have strong elements of magical realism, so I guess that's part of why I'm excited. Obviously the film isn't going to be for everyone.

I think it will do really well at the box office, though. And I don't mean that in a condescending way. I think a lot of other people are into magical realism. And I might end up seeing it (probably not for what the theatre charges, though) because it looks really cool...I just don't see this being a moving, emotionally resonant, or thought-provoking story. I could certainly be wrong.

the trailer is confusing but if it gets good reviews I'll see it. it seems like a movie people will talk about.

run lola run!

Did this trailer not remind anyone of The Fountain?

  On 7/27/2012 at 7:24 PM, Rubin Farr said:

Did this trailer not remind anyone of The Fountain?

A LOT!

  On 7/27/2012 at 7:24 PM, Rubin Farr said:

Did this trailer not remind anyone of The Fountain?

The first part did, but then it got into the very SF parts, and it looked like they took the idea further.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the director's cut of The Fountain was supposed to be good, right?

There is not a DC I know of, but I fucking love that film, and the graphic novel.

So glad Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett dropped out of the original version, although they made a similar film together with Benjamin Button.

Ah, I just went back and read some old articles about The Fountain. Apprantly, Aranofsky wants to build the film up from scratch again and make a much longer version of it. This was already talked about back in 2008.

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:39 PM, thanks robert moses said:

Also:

 

Transexual Wachowski is fucking creepy. Why do some men who wish to become women do it in the strangest possible way? Just because you are a transexual does not mean you are required to weird everyone the fuck out. There are plenty of others who make the tran(ny)sition just fine.

 

 

 

edit*

 

I am sure this is insensitive as hell. But I'm living in the future, baby.

flol, i also found it pretty weird, i mean you sort of expect of people who go for such serious body transformations to try to achieve the look that will be generally considered attractive, but he went for some post mid-life-crisis-mother-of-3 thing, wtf really.

i was so completely sure they were going to fuck this up (tl;dr wachowskis) but... that trailer... looks awesome. it's one of my favourite books. i'd be quite upset if they fucked it up.

Had to read this for a course I was taking a couple years back; 20th century British literature. I think it has 4 or so different writing styles/time periods, so it'll be interesting to see how well they translate this to film.

also one of the Wachowskis brothers is a transsexual? That's news to me... I think that's awesome, it's a freeworld afterall. What's so offensive about it? his red dreads?

yeah, I think I had the opposite response to many of you guys. I found the director banter, including tranny wachowski, to be pretty charming. The film however looks like it could be a steaming pile.

Tom Tykwer probably refused to work with them until she got some terrible Lola Rennt hairstyle

Never read the book or ever heard of it. But that long ass trailer held my attention and it looks pretty good!

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:57 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:39 PM, thanks robert moses said:

Also:

Transexual Wachowski is fucking creepy.

she/he really fucking reminds me of someone but i can't think who...

  On 7/28/2012 at 2:40 PM, BCM said:

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:57 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

  On 7/27/2012 at 4:39 PM, thanks robert moses said:

Also:

Transexual Wachowski is fucking creepy.

 

she/he really fucking reminds me of someone but i can't think who...

She reminds me of someone I once saw at a psytrance party... let me rephrase that, she looks like everyone at every psytrance party ever.