How would you make a movie better? Pick any movie, a great one, an awful one or anything in between and make it better. It can be just a minor tweak or a complete overhaul. Make a good movie better or a crappy one work. Heat: Fantastic movie, deserved a better ending, Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) has gotten away but he throws it away to take out a minor thug. Better to have him caught doing something a tad more necessary. 12 Monkeys: Cast a better actor for Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt’s role). Nacho Libre: This one needs a lot of work. First off it needed to commit to being a comedy; there was nothing funny about the orphans or the monastery. The training sequences fell flat, rubbing crap on your face then being shot with an arrow? Or dealing with a bee hive? If it was funny okay but it just didn’t make any sense. Better to spoof training montages from other films. Give Nacho a different job, a different woman to win over and focus on the funny. Dump the sidekick Esqueleto and have it turn out that Ramses is Nacho’s father Oh and Jack Black should've had the accent nailed.
Usually I hate forced happy endings in serious movies. Just looking at the DVD stack that's sitting next to me I see UNDER SIEGE. What the hell? Great movie but didn't go far enough. Don't know what the makers were fearing but this could/should have gone all out. Needs an open end too and not cosy closure. What else do we have here. DON'T SAY A WORD. What was that about? Can't remember, must watch it (again?). Tells me that it needs a plot THE OTHERS. Good but boring in parts. Could use a few cuts. RED PLANET. Dumb fuck stupid ending to a good little movie. Val needs to die in the end or something but not that. DON CAMILLO. A classic. Needs coherence tho. Of course it being fractured comes from the original book which is really more an anthology. Should have picked one of the many stories and made a movie out of it, not try to cram them all in there. Could have worked as a series of shorts. I mean, still works and I loved those movies as a kid, but seeing them again as an adult with some knowledge on the topic they've more of a nostalgic value. LOST HIGHWAY. Technically brilliant but I simply don't get it. Lynch out of control. Guy needs somebody to tell him that movies should tell a story and not show us his twisted way of making up something when the original story runs out of stea half way thru. Yes, David, I see right thru you. You're selling this as intellectual and whatnot but I see what happened. THE DESCENT. Nice little shocker. Needs better geography. In the latter half of the movie, after the group is split up, you simply don't know any longer who is where. Also, the characterization is so weak that it totally doesn't matter who bites it and who doesn't. Would have been fun if only the bad girl had survived. THIRTE3N GHOSTS. I'd change that insofar as that I'd remove it from existence. Same goes for GHOST SHIP but fortunately I pirated that and didn't waste money on it. Well then. Guess it's time to clean up the desk.
Agreed. Plus I knew the secret before watching the movie. Not that anybody told me, just seemed obvious from the trailer.
^ Me too but I was spoiled. Didn't think it was that obvious but it's hard to say when you already know.
LOTR: FOTR: Just fine. TTT: Uhm, don't fuck up Faramir's character. And lots of other stuff - don't remember right now, was the weakest of the three. ROTK: Don't fuck up the ending. Not 30 minutes but maybe ten. Less gays, more hot chicks.
LOTR Make it into 6 4 hour films, 3 is no where near enough. And stick to the book rather than making it up as you go along. And somebody please kill Fran 'in some ways i think i improved upon Tolkien' Walsh
^Jesus H. Christ, the last thing the LOTR series needs is to be longer. I mean it was a well-executed movie series but, really, we're up to almost 11 hours as it is. At some point, more is less. In response to Clyde: the ending of Heat is perfectly appropriate for the characters. DeNiro's character knew when he needed to walk away but his inability to forego retribution dooms him. Pacino's character--despite numerours setbacks--catches up to him through sheer doggedness and an inability to let go of something he's personally invested in. Some fixes for other films: Old School: Resolve the issues between Will Farrell's character and his wife, which the plot sorta promises to reconcile, but then lets drop in the end. AI: Eliminate the "happy ending," end with the robot boy on the sea bottom, praying to the Blue Fairy to make him a real boy. The Terminal: for fuck's sake, if EVER a movie needed the happy, sappy Hollywood ending it was this turkey, which is a pretty terrific film all the way through until the end when Viktor's (Tom Hanks) character FAILS to get the girl (Catherine Zeta-Jones) he's pursued throughout. I mean, ? Casablanca: Rick frames Victor Lazlo for the murder of Captain Strasser, Lazlo is packed off to Treblinka, Rick tells Louie to fuck off, and Rick spends the rest of the war screwing Ilsa.
Star Trek Insurrection: While on its way to the Briar Patch, the Enterprise-E's warp engines fail, gets sucked into a wormhole and is destroyed, killing everyone on board. The End. (Note that this also conveniently solves the problems of Nemesis.) King Kong (2005): Needs at least a good 60 minutes cut from the film to make it flow better. I can't fucking believe Peter Jackson actually had the balls to issue an extended cut (!!!!!) on DVD clocking in at over 200 minutes. Sheesh.
Star Wars I-III: make it a love triangle between Padme, Anakin and Obi-Wan. Anakin finds out about Padme and Obi-Wan, turns to the Dark Side in a far more believable fashion. Also lends some unspoken tension when Obi-Wan and Vader meet in IV.
Primer: have everyone speak louder, and don't try to be Pi. Poseidon: kill it and rerelease The Poseidon Adventure instead. ET: put the guns back. Nemesis: Actually have someone who looks like Patrick Stewart did 35 years ago play Picard's clone. And fix the story. And the rest of the characters. And make the visuals consitant.
Basic Instinct, Home Alone, Pretty Woman, Reality Bites. Ram them back up Satan's asshole where they came from with a croquet mallet.
"Never have anything in your life that you can't walk out on in 30 seconds if you see the heat around the corner." Which he did through-out the film and again when he walked away from Eady (Amy Brennerman). Retribution wasn't his problem nor was stupidity. Better to have him know he's being betrayed by Eady and then not walking away. But I'm sure there are much better ways to wrap up his story. No problem with the way his character was wrapped up. AI was the most relentlessly depressing movie I've ever seen, it just keeps getting worse and worse. Praying to the Blue Fairy would've been a happier ending than the movie's actual ending. It would've been better for David (Haley Joel Osment) to have some sort of growth, some sort of change, perhaps embracing his reality or getting reprogrammed, maybe seeking revenge or just shutting down, anything.
Independence Day: Tell us more about the aliens, make them a better villain. Tell Bill Pullman it's better to imitate Robert Loggia's style in a movie Robert Loggia isn't actually in. And while I appreciate the humor, have the aliens' Achilles heel be something more than being Windows compatible. Rocky II:Change the ending, don't have both fighters fall down at the same time and have the victory going to the fighter that can stand up the fastest. Nemesis:Find a way to incorporate Sela into the story and give some explanation for Wesley's presence.
^you mean NEM instead of INS? with NEM, i'd improve shinzons backstory and make him a badder villain. his backstory would've been similar, but a few years prior ro NEM have the romulans find some borg tech, and given all the data they have of borg implants is based on the biology of one jean-luc picard, they drag shinzon out of the mines and carve him up and borgify him under romulan control. one rom senator - make it pardek from unification - has been using shinzon to regain power and uses him to take over the romulan senate and military. unaware that over the years shinzons been learning to circumvent the romulan controls, his moment of victory is shortlived as shinzon releases himself and kills him. this explains how a slave is able to get his mitts on technical goodies and is able to take over the romulan empire. when picard meets shinzon, he's not only got to contest with the fact he's got a clone, but its one that reminds him of locutus. forget the mindrapes, shinzon shows troi why he hates romulans - images of a freshly borged shinzon screaming as he's forced to kill his reman family whilst romulans watch impassively from the sidelines. have a bit of real visual horror and nastiness instead of cack-handed analogies to sexual assault. have shinzon not interested in earth, he wants to destroy romulus and he wants picard to bear witness to the birth of a reman empire and the extinction of romulans and to know that shinzon it not some lesser shadow. i'd also have picard and shinzon battle one another on the scimitar whilst it battles the enterprise. as data destroys the thalaron weapon, its flows back into the scimitar and shinzon hold picard in a chokehold as it flows towards them with picard beamed away at the last moment leaving to shinzon to scream in rage as he's consumed. back on the subdued enterprise, picard asks where data is - riker just looks at him and states "he saved us", picard just flops into the chair as they're informed both reman and romulan fleets are coming into the system. both the reman and romulan commanders (make it sela) demand the enterprise leave, picard tries to get them to put aside their differences to stop the remaining thalaron harming both worlds, but is given short shrift. telling them "a plague on both your houses" he gives riker command and retires to his ready room - got to have a shakespear reference in trek! replace the unshown final scene with a funeral for data, picard does a speech, and one of the people there - Q in admirals gear opens his palm to see a spark of energy which he blows on. the spark zooms away, circuits around the room and flys out a window and brent spiners voice does the 'space... the final frontier' as the spark zooms faster and faster, out of the solar system, past stars, past DS9, into the wormhole, and up and out of the galaxy. just as he gets to the "where no one has gone before" bit, it zooms towards another galaxy, fades out to the TNG theme. yes, theres a lot there - but NEM needed a lot of work doing to it
Damn ecky, that could've worked. At the very least I would've much rather seen that movie than the original Nemesis
i really think the final bit with data's 'spirit' and the TNG theme would give every fan a lump in their throat and a shiver down their spine, and thats its a very trek farewell to the TNG movies.
I agree with the idea of having Shinzon wanting to destroy Romulus - but I'd have had Shinzon be a freedom fighter trying to free the Remans from the Empire, and he appeals for Federation help. That would put Picard in quite the pickle. Will he help? Or will he stick to the Prime Directive? Big conflict there.
ST: NEM... I would improve this by pouring liquid hot magma over the DVD release and jamming it into Berman's ass with the aid of a rather large aircraft - possibly a 747. I'd film myself doing this and release the footage under the title Star Trek: Nemesis, thus technically improving the movie.
Lord of the Rings films, Harry Potter films - include an intermission at theaters. Especially for that second LotR one, where by the end where your Big Gulp is long gone and your bladder is about to burst, and what do they do? They break down the dam! And everywhere there is water gushing and splashing and flowing and dripping . . . :flow2:
Falling Down - It was a funny movie until the end where it just got plain depressing. How about having the harpy ex-wife get mangled in some hideous accident and let Michael Douglas's character get custody of his daughter. Then have him win some wrongful dismissal suit against his employer. As far as Nemesis, I would have Shinzon played either PS or someone who looked like him when he was younger. B4 would be Lore instead. I would have Shinzon live and be the son that Picard never had, and still have Data die. But Data would sacrifice himself so that Lore could live. Giving Lore some thought about his own self worth. It would have explored whether genetics vs. background determine one's personality and also redemption. That of Shinzon and Lore.
Almost all films could use a little bit of cutting here and there. I've often left films thinking "that was great, and it would have been even better if it was ___ minutes shorter." There's a reason most deleted scenes are deleted, and you can tell when a director is starting to let it go to their head when their films become longer and worse. Even movies I love have deleted scenes that stink. Maybe they're such good movies because they had a director who wasnt in love with their own work that they couldn't make cuts.
Forrest Gump - Burn all the copies and shoot the main players in bringing it to the screen. Kidnap the Academy members that voted for it and torture them to death.
A passable performance, yet it's clear his role had the opportunity to steal the movie but he offers little more than facial ticks. He just isn't very good at bringing a character to life. Would've been a better movie with a better actor playing the part.
A fun film diminished by accolades. You're right, it ain't a great movie, Mr. Hanks didn't deserve an Oscar but I think this is a case where hype killed what is a decent flick. A comedy that was taken seriously.
