Well, it’s not exactly a chase, but since we’re on the topic of JCVD:
I would argue that John Wick is no weird outlier. Movies like John Wick and Deadpool and The Raid are mainstream. R-rated mainstream. Since the 80s, violent entertainment that plays fast-and-loose with innocent casualties has been scrubbed from entertainment also intended for children. And I don’t mind that. I don’t mind that, as a culture, we’re aware of what messages people take away from their entertainment. Violence, gore, and brutality are still out there, but because they’re rated accordingly, they’re less commercially viable. So I get what you’re saying about outliers, and I guess we mostly agree on the ultimate effect it has on filmmaking.
But, yeah, I hear you both. It’s refreshing in a weird way to see bad guys gunning down innocent security guards. It certainly recalls our younger and more innocent days.
Fun trivia: one of the reason Carolco got this n00b from Germany named Roland Emmerich to direct Universal Soldier is because they lost their intended director, Andrew Davis. So in a way, we have Davis to thank for Stargate, Independence Day, and Matthew Broderick’s Godzilla!
Honestly, motorcycles in car chases are just dumb. In most chases, actually. John Wick 3 (?) got a fair bit of goodwill from me when Keanu just jammed a pole or something into a motorcycles front wheel and immediately put an end to one of his pursuers.
That said, there’s a really well choreographed motorcyle chase in Gemini Man. Which is a terrible movie, and the chase is absolutely drenched in CG, but it demonstrates that Ang Lee still knows how to choreograph an action scene!
The only thing that would make me less inclined to watch a JCVD movie is a JCVD movie in which he’s sporting a frickin’ mullet.
-Tom
What if he had…uh, whatever is going on with his hair in Enemies Closer?
And was dressed as a Mountie? And very serious about his veganism?
Actually, I don’t like the fact that a lot of, say, the MCU movies are pretty much non-stop violence but aren’t willing to actually show any real lasting consequences of that violence. If we’re talking messages, I can’t help but feel that’s a bad one. Lots of people would die just in the act of evacuating the city that the spaceship (or whatever) crashed into that you mentioned on the podcast, no matter how orderly it was done.
That said, I have zero evidence that any of it leads to kids/young adults being more or less violent anyway, so it probably doesn’t even really matter.
I mean, Deadpool was also an out of left-field success. I’m fine with things being rated appropriately, I’m more bemoaning the demise of the mid-budget movie in general, and adults being a solid enough market that studios didn’t need to sand down everything to get a PG-13. Taken doesn’t get more moral because it’s squeamish enough about its violence to be sold to kids. It’s arguably worse.
I was actually considering a Hard Target rewatch before hunting down that clip, but I think I’ll just watch Hard-Boiled again.
Dude, it was a helicarrier. How can you not know that???
Seriously, though, you have a point. But I would argue that comic book movies – many movies, but especially comic book movies – exist in fantasy universes where cities can be 100% evacuated, good guys can be 100% morally cleared for their choices (#TeamCap anyone?), Tony Stark’s laser beams have a 100% chance of never sweeping across an innocent bystander, and a punch to the head has a 0% chance of causing any lasting trauma. Those are the rules in these worlds, much like the rules in Fast and Furious. It’s simplistic white hat/black hat stuff where the punches and destruction are all consequence-free spectacle engineered to make you feel good.
Sure, but I’m not even talking about people being violent as a direct result of seeing a movie. I’m talking more about how seriously we treat violence, brutality, and destruction. After Columbine, Sandy Hook, 9/11, and the Capitol riots, you can’t be as cavalier about this stuff. When the helicarrier crashes into Metropolis, the movie has to be very explicit that the city has been evacuated. Crumbling skyscrapers aren’t what they used to be. We’re watching with different eyes than we were in the 80s. We’re living in a different world. Movies know that, even if they have to cheat it: “Look, every last person was evacuated from Sokovia. Honest! We swear!” It might be dumb, but I’m glad for it.
And I’m okay knowing that if Star Wars weren’t a 70s movie, the Empire probably wouldn’t have destroyed Alderaan, because it would have been too much. What was once a special effect and an opportunity for Carrie Fisher to try to emote became a 9/11 bonding moment in The Mandalorian. It wasn’t just the times that changed; it was the audiences.
-Tom
Yeah, sanded down is a good way to put it. TV to the rescue? Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad seem perfectly willing to indulge in violence, gore, and entire airplanes full of people killed at once.
-Tom
Don’t think I didn’t see what you did there.
Except in, uh, one of the recent movies they do the same thing except with a bunch of planets all at once.
Heh, I am not the least bit surprised that I must have missed that. Let me guess, was it the movie where eleventy thousand Star Destroyers were felled by someone knocking over an antenna?
Seriously, though, what did I miss? They blew up a bunch of planets? Yeesh, the latest Star Wars movies have all been in one ear, out the other for me. If it didn’t happen on The Mandalorian, I probably wasn’t paying attention.
-Tom
I think it was in Force Awakens. Number 7. The new death star planet was able to destroy several planets. That part was confusing and not very clear.
Wait, what? No way, that was the one I actually liked. They destroyed multiple planets in that movie? JJ, say it ain’t so!
-Tom
I found the answer on the internet on which planets were destroyed:
In The Force Awakens (2015), the First Order’s General Hux, who commands Starkiller Base , has its superweapon fire on the Hosnian system, which includes Courtsilius , Raysho , Hosnian , Cardota , and Hosnian Prime , the capital planet of the Republic at the time.
I see, so all the planets were in the same system, that explains it. I never understood that either time I watched that movie.
Dude, you have gone so soft. Now offscreen deaths in Star Wars are too violent?
Star Wars should be rated-R!
-Tom
NC-17, given that most Alderaanians smoked death-sticks (according to the fotonovelization I read baked).
With Alderon they take the time to at least setup that it’s a planet with people on it and build the importance with the plan that R2 needs to get the plans there. It’s thin but it’s a reason to understand why the destruction is evil.
When starkiller base somehow nukes a bunch of unexplained planets it just feels comical. There’s no weight behind it.
Also JCVD is a great movie. Also I should be posting in the I’m drunk thread but here we are.
Obviously, because otherwise what kind of self-respecting Star Wars nerd would misspell Alderaan? What’s next, Wookiee with one E?
-Tom
They blew up a couple of planets in Rise of Skywalker too. At least I think it was a couple? There was at least the one, but they did the opposite of Star Wars, where it mattered to a character which made the audience feel it, and instead they did the genocide but Babu Frik and Keri Russel made off unscathed so it’s all ok and none of the death matters because fuck that movie.
My daughter called me out for confusing 4-LOM and Zuckuss in the Where’s The Wookiee search and find book a couple nights ago. I might be losing a couple steps.
You made that one up. There’s no way that’s an actual Star Wars name. It’s even less plausible than Kit Fisto.
-Tom