Steven Spielberg.
From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Jurrasic Park and everything after that
I consider the first Terminator a serious sci-fi movie, and there was nothing tongue-in-cheek about it. T2 was a real change in tone - and going from R to PG-13 should really tell you everything you need to know.
Also, my favorite sci-film of all time is Aliens - which is also a serious action/sci-fi movie. It has some black humor and “gung-ho” stuff - but it’s a very, very intense film and it was clearly made with a passion for the art of filmmaking. I see T2 as a huge crowd pleaser with everything being about the spectacle and neat special effects. Looking at his later work, that objective can hardly be in question.
I really expected more of the same brilliant stuff from Cameron.
Also, I’m not the one having a problem with a time paradox. I LIKE that part about both movies.
It wasn’t really a “franchise” when there was only one movie. T2 is not as mean and lean as T1, but it’s still a great action movie that follows up on the original exceptionally well. The greatest part of T2 is the fact that the characters are wrong about what they’re doing. The future is set in the Terminator films. It already happened. Nothing they do can change anything, and anything they do has already happened in John Connor’s Future War timeline. Everything in T2 always happened, they just didn’t know it.
It’s a franchise as soon as you have Hollywood greenlighting the biggest budget of all time for the sequel.
As for your opinion of T2, I respect it. But I most certainly don’t agree with it.
Everything after Jurrasic Park sucked from Spielberg? I don’t think you’ll find many people that will agree with that.
I certainly think Spielberg’s best work is after JP :)
As for my pick, I’ll go with Stanley Kubrick. Everything after Full Metal Jacket was a waste of film.
Kubrick is that guy who made clothes for that Emperor :)
T2 was rated R. As was T3. Salvation is the only PG-13 Terminator feature length movie.
Except that Terminator 2 is not rated PG-13, it’s rated R.
Also, my favorite sci-film of all time is Aliens - which is also a serious action/sci-fi movie. It has some black humor and “gung-ho” stuff - but it’s a very, very intense film and it was clearly made with a passion for the art of filmmaking. I see T2 as a huge crowd pleaser with everything being about the spectacle and neat special effects. Looking at his later work, that objective can hardly be in question.
I just don’t see it. T2 and Aliens are very close in tone and treatment of the material. Both are very identifiably Cameron films, possibly the last of their kind unless you count True Lies. Which I generally don’t.
It’s a franchise as soon as you have Hollywood greenlighting the biggest budget of all time for the sequel.
This is just anti-commercialism bias that has clearly colored your view of the film. The film itself should not be judged based on the boardroom decisions made in pre-production unless they drastically affect what’s on the screen, and that certainly did not happen in T2. Cameron put onscreen whatever the hell he wanted to put onscreen. It’s kind of what Cameron does, for better (Aliens, T1, T2, The Abyss) or worse (Titanic, Avatar).
As for your opinion of T2, I respect it. But I most certainly don’t agree with it.
I would say the same, but your post describes a movie that does not actually exist, in my opinion. The T2 I saw was rated R, for one thing.
He only made one fucking movie after FMJ.
Oh yeah, and my pick would definitely be Coppola. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the man hasn’t made a good film since The Outsiders.
This thread is like the scene in Trainspotting where the characters are discussing Lou Reed.
[INDENT]Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Renton: That’s your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.
[/INDENT]It’s not exactly news that most directors make their best films early in their careers. The more interesting examples are Kelly, Shyamalan or the Wachowskis, directors whose early successes were clearly flukes.
You’re right, my mistake.
I just don’t see it. T2 and Aliens are very close in tone and treatment of the material. Both are very identifiably Cameron films, possibly the last of their kind unless you count True Lies. Which I generally don’t.
If you can point to the teddy bear characters and happy thumbs up stuff from a killer machine in Aliens - I’d love to hear about it.
This is just anti-commercialism bias that has clearly colored your view of the film. The film itself should not be judged based on the boardroom decisions made in pre-production unless they drastically affect what’s on the screen, and that certainly did not happen in T2. Cameron put onscreen whatever the hell he wanted to put onscreen. It’s kind of what Cameron does, for better (Aliens, T1, T2, The Abyss) or worse (Titanic, Avatar).
You’re acting as if Cameron wasn’t incredibly commercial in his approach with T2 and beyond. I’m not saying the suits are to blame here. Cameron made a couple of brilliant films, and he has a gigantic ego. It’s not hard to appreciate how he became complacent and chose to focus on the CGI and the spectacle for future films. He wanted bigger, bigger, and more bigger. That’s the ego part.
I think I assumed the PG-13 stuff, because that’s how Hollywood has handled anything potentially “serious” in the last 10-15 years. T2/True Lies are just slightly too old to be part of that. These days, it’s unthinkable to make a film with such a budget with an R rating. At least, it’s VERY VERY rare.
I’m biased against it, because I DON’T LIKE commercialism. Doesn’t mean it’s universally wrong to want to make huge hits and earn a shit-ton of cash and appeal to the widest possible audience. It’s just not for me.
I would say the same, but your post describes a movie that does not actually exist, in my opinion. The T2 I saw was rated R, for one thing.
Ok, so I was wrong about the PG-13. I honestly thought I’d verified that at one point.
If my mistake is going to nullify what I detailed about my dislike before, then I get the sense that you’re not really making an effort to appreciate my position.
Not that I’m entitled, but it does mean I see no point in any further discussion.
To me, it’s ok to disagree without anyone being “wrong”. It’s about perception and what you want from stuff.
Really? Big fan of Always and Hook?
It’s news to me. Many of the great directors peaked near the end - I’m thinking here of Bergman with Fanny & Alexander, or Tarkovsky with Stalker and The Sacrifice. Polanski didn’t come out of the gate with Chinatown, Fellini took eight-and-a-half movies to get to 8 1/2, Antonioni had like ten under the belt before The Passenger, and Kurosawa made great movies at literally every stage of his career.
Sure, you get the occasional Citizen Kane-esque splashy debut, but movies aren’t rock ‘n’ roll. As great directors learn more about their craft, they tend to get better at at.
Really? In a world that contains both Rob Merritt’s superhero movie list and the third Musketeer, you actually think there is a movie opinion so objectively wrong one can assume it was done on purpose as a joke?
Yes, really. I’m sorry if my joke offended you or that it wasn’t obvious enough for you. For future reference, if someone asks for a list and someone posts a “list” containing one item, you can usually assume that the response is not all that serious.
Really, I see as much discussion opportunity in my Kubrick pick as I do Richard Kelly or Troy Duffy both of whom have one movie each in the decent column. Are those picks jokes?
I’ll go ahead and post my real pick.
Kinka Usher, director of Mystery Men. Everything from Usher after that was awful!
I am a huge Kubrick fan. Huge. I think that everything after The Shining was a waste of film.
Actually, I’ll back off that but only a little. Full Metal Jacket was not the waste of film that Eyes Wide Shut was. But it’s still not very good. I know that this opinion is outside the norm and it’s bothered me for so long that I recently re-watched Full Metal Jacket to see if my initial impression was off or if time had been kind to the movie and I found my initial impression confirmed.
There are worthwhile moments in the movie and certain scenes have become iconic but, overall, it’s a pretty bad movie.
Speaking of which, what’s the story with the Razzie award for directing The Shining? Was that some kind of weird Hollywood political thing? Did critics really think it was badly directed?
Sounds like a good parallel thread…directors whose best work (or at least, still doing great work) came later in life.
It can go either way, but if Altman had hung it up before the age of 75, we’d never have Gosford Park…one of my favorite of his, and really, one of my favorite films of all time. (It was ROBBED by that shitty A Beautiful Mind.)
And Woody Allen movies in the 90s and 00s have been wildly variable, but Match Point, Melinda and Melinda and Vicky Christy Barcelona (and I hear great things about Midnight in Paris) were all wonderful films.