MovieChat Forums > Speed Racer (2008) Discussion > A movie ahead of it's time... lol

A movie ahead of it's time... lol


Would this movie have better success if it was released in today's standards? with the 3-D in all? I would say this would of been pretty awesome in IMAX 3-D

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- Angels & Demons

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Oi, another one.

But.......I dunno. While 3D movies have been pretty big, I dont necessarily think they're big because of the 3D.

Plus, remember it would cost a lot more to do it.

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Filming in 3d adds a nominal cost. Converting is expensive. Oddly Hollywood tends to choose to convert to 3d still. I recall even when this film was released people where talking how amazing it could be in 3d.

I don't think it would succeed in todays market financially though. It is to different, and people want to know what there getting before they buy a ticket (hence why trailers spoil so much of a film).

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I'm already bored of 3D. A year ago I wasn't.

Also, this film is sort of overpowering already.. I think maybe it would have been even harder to watch.
Although, with people jumping on the 3D bandwagon, maybe it would have been better received. I mean, people liked Avatar and that was awful.

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I say 3D but even better in D-Box (which there already is a D-Box code for those who have D-Box in their homes) That would be pretty sweet.

Hey, how about 3D IMAX D-BOX (we can dream XD)

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^ D-Box is the new sensurround method right?

"Fellas, You Called Me."
- Angels & Demons

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Yeah basically. In a nutshell, D-box is a seat that moves in reaction with the action/camera movement on screen (and it vibrates to simulate whats on screen)...

So in some ways... in Speed Racer, it would be like you're right there racing with him (thats the idea at least)

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[deleted]

Is it just me, or are the studios killing 3D?

"Avatar" revolutionized it. It's the highest grossing movie ever, so of course people will cash in on it. Then "Alice in Wonderland" starts converting 2D into 3D......It's not a good movie, but it does it pretty well.

Then "Clash of the Titans" becomes infamous for its *beep* post-production 3D. I didn't see the 3D version though, so can only go with what people say(not that it was a great movie without it.....). The 3D was so bad that my theater refused to even show it.

Now, "The Last Airbender" is doing the same thing. It's 3D supposedly sucks, and the movie kind of sucks to begin with, making the suckiness suck even more! Now granted, I didnt hate the movie(saw the 2D version again), but I can see why its so notorious if the 3D sucks too.

So people......wanting Speed Racer to be converted to 3D is just urinating on the movies corpse and then reanimating it so that it's so pissed off at you it takes its bloody revenge. The only way it can work is if they put LOTS of money into it, which they will never do.



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[deleted]

I watched Clash of The Titans in 3D, well I paid for 3D tickets but I didn't watch it in 3D.....if you know what I mean. The only 3D thing in CotT is a CGI bush in the forest where the characters are taken through.



" It's The Fourth Of The Trilogies!"
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Yeah, the thing is, with the high price of 3D tickets, we want to see good 3D. When the studio does a half-assed version, we're just going to get very tired of it.

Curse you Tim Burton for making it so easy for crappy 3D! Sure, "Alice in Wonderland" looked fine in 3D, but its legacy means *beep* converted 3D"!

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Alice shouldn't have been 3D. I didn't want to see it in 3D and when I did I couldn't see the point.

I will only watch movies in 3D if they were meant to be. If they need to. I won't even watch Harry Potter in 3D.

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Personally, I think the only merit to "Alice in Wonderland" was the 3D. I felt it did add to the visuals and make what was a surprisingly bad movie tolerable.

But yeah..why convert it? Just shoot the damn thing in 3D. lol, didnt realize Harry Potter jumped on that bandwagon......What's next, the new Narnia movie is going to be in 3D too?

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[deleted]

lol, just saw the poster when I saw "Predators".

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Off topic:
I did see Clash of the Titans in 3D

It was worse than what you heard.

You ever seen those old movies with the cardboard cutout sets of like the sea or the moon (or the Smashing Pumpkins filmclip for Tonight Tonight)? It was a lot like that.

It wasn't so much as 3D as a whole bunch of 2D stuff on top of each other. Some scenes were tremendously bad, especially a scene where they were on a boat in the water.

I actually fell asleep for 10mins or so in the movie, and I grew up watching the original every other week.

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Most of Alice in Wonderand is native. All the cgi was native 3d. I know you wrote this years ago, but the key to 3d is shooting for 3d. Native all the way is always going to be best but conversions can be impossible to tell apart when done well. The key is the fim has to be made for 3d otherwise it is like colourizing black and white films.


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by - ragingdemon on Sun Jul 4 2010 07:21:02
Same i'm bored of 3D already as well but you are right this movie was ahead of it's time.


Me, I'd settle for an IMAX re-release somewhere down the road. Speed Racer on that enormous screen was an unforgettable experience.


"Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand wrong answers." - Murphy's Law

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i dont think it would have been more successful... hell, i think it might have done WORSE if it were in 3d - you can be SURE that the film would have physically made people sick - im sure the excessive vibrant use of colour wasnt to many peoples tastes, not to mention the camera work, but combined with 3d, i think there would have been serious problems for a lot of people!

but its all besides the point... the POINT of the movie, indeed the VISION that drove the film, was 2D. The wachowskis did everything they could to bring to life their vision of an incredibly flat animated-looking aesthetic, so theres no way they would have allowed the film to have been made in 3d... just would never have happened.

Overall the film failed because it was too far out of peoples comfort zones... too extreme and ambitious, and thats why it failed... 3d wouldnt have saved it... making it 'safe' and 'gritty' (ie killing the films charm and uniqueness entirely) would be the only thing that would have made this film financially successful.

Belief in a supernatural source of evil is unnecessary -We alone are capable of every wickedness

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Overall the film failed because it was too far out of peoples comfort zones... too extreme and ambitious, and thats why it failed...

I really do hate these kinds of excuses, and look forward to the day people stop resorting to them.

Msking it 'safe' and 'gritty' wouldn't have done anything.

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im not excusing anything... not assigning blame as much as i am explaining why it failed. Read a lot of the comments about why people hated it (oh the effects looked so cheap, oh the dialog was so corny and unrealistic, oh it was too bright and trippy, the whole movie was too fantastical and unrealistic...) and maybe you'll get it too. The wachowskis made a movie not suited for mainstream audiences and the box office suffered for it.

making the picture desaturated, with lots of blood and cursing with grumbly straight-up dialog and 'more realistic' cgi, would have made this movie a much bigger success, but id have hated it for it.

Belief in a supernatural source of evil is unnecessary -We alone are capable of every wickedness

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You're right. But don't expect agreement with anything that doesn't fit neatly within preconceived notions.

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I do read the reviews. Why dont you start putting up examples.

"The Effects Looked so Cheap".......That is a valid criticism, although it's fine if you disagree.


"The dialogue was so corny and unrealistic"......once again, that is a valid criticism.

I would like to make a point that the recent bomb, "The Last Airbender" also suffered from these criticisms, but I've yet to see any one refer to it as "extreme and ambitious".

"oh it was too bright and trippy, the whole movie was too fantastical and unrealistic...)"........Bright and trippy? Sure, but so was "Batman and Robin". Fantastical and unrealistic? You need to post examples, because I find it difficult to believe any self respecting critic would say that.

"The wachowskis made a movie not suited for mainstream audiences and the box office suffered for it."

- Technically, "The Matrix" was a movie not suied for mainstream audiences either, based on what you consider mainstream(I do consider SR to be mainstream, for the record, albeit I won't deny that in its own way it's different).

Hut plenty of non-mainstream movies have succeeded. Saying a movie failed because it's "Too extreme and too ambitious" is incomplete. It was too extreme, too ambitious- yet not that good. Okay, I won't really argue that. It's a very polarizing and subjective film. But tbh, there is no real reason why a movie fails. It's everything yet nothing. Quite simply, people weren't interested. But to put 'reasons' in their mouths is just.....wrong.

"making the picture desaturated, with lots of blood and cursing with grumbly straight-up dialog and 'more realistic' cgi, would have made this movie a much bigger success, but id have hated it for it."

- Not really. Look at all those "Fast and the Furious" rip-off movies no one hears about. Most of them bomb.

"Speed Racer", for the record, actually did decently in terms of how much it made. Grossing $100,000,000 isn't small change. In fact, I might be wrong about this, but I think it's the highest grossing live action anime adaptation(unless you count "The Last Airbender", which technically isn't anime). It just cost too much.

Budgets are becoming too bloated these days. Did a movie about car racing seriously need to be that expensive? Hell no.

In short, saying a movie bombed because it was too extreme and too ambitious is just wrong. It's an excuse that imo, has never had any kind of logical basis in determining a movies success or failure.

Hell, have you considered that to you, "Extreme and ambitious" might just mean "Bad"? Fake CGI? Cheesy dialogue? Half of your reasons are bad movie traits. I dont think you've thought this through, as you're unintentionally making a negative review of the movie yourself!(lol)


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TITLE , BOX OFFICE , BUDGET

The Fast and the Furious , $207,283,925 , $38,000,000

2 Fast 2 Furious , $236,350,661 , $76,000,000

TFATF: Tokyo Drift , $158,468,292 , $40,000,000

Fast & Furious , $359,264,265 , $85,000,000






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"saying a movie bombed because it was too extreme and too ambitious is just wrong"

this reply is very late, but I couldnt resist...

do you remember the films 2001 space odyssey, blade runner and fight club?

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You think they bombed because of that?

2001: A Space Odyssey- Too slow but I'm a bit confused at this mention regardless. According to wikipedia, the movie grossed like 56million on a 10million budget. How is that a bomb?

Blade Runner: Misadvertised as a Star Wars-esque film. Plus, the theatrical cut had a heavy dose of lameness(I didnt like it, but adore later cuts).

Fight Club: Only really bombed because it cost too much. The movie grossed like 100,000,000 on a 60,000,000 budget. Regardless, there is no evidence to suggest that it bombed because it was 'too ambitious or extreme'.

My whole point is that there are too many things to factor when deciding why a movie bombed. But saying it was 'too extreme and ambitious' is a shameful cop-out sparked by insecure fandoms.


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Another great movie that bombed at the box office was Children of Men but its attributable to poor advertising that stemmed from risk aversion by the studio that released it! But it has plenty of GREAT word of mouth reviews...

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Yeah but Childern of Men was a pretty good movie. A good movie that bombs at the box office can be redeemed later on DVD. Children of Men had positive word of mouth even before it hit DVD that's why it was re-released. Speed Racer has been out on DVD for 2 years and is generally thought by many to not be a very good movie so the word of mouth isn't there. 8 guys in love with Speed Racer on this board doesn't count as positive word of mouth. It's just 8 guys that loved it.

Nothing wrong with that...but it's time to let it go and just enjoy the movie for what it is, and what it means to you. It's never going to redeem it's self.



It's ok to like a movie, ok to love a movie, when you obsess about it I question your sanity.

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See? Yawn.

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Er, I said "Fast and Furious rip-offs".

No one remembers Torque, Red Line, Biker Boyz, Death Race or Street Racer(Asylum's ripoff of Speed Racer, although I hear it's more a rip of the FAF movies).

"The Fast and the Furious" was the ultimate movie for teenagers who liked cars, and it was pretty decent, which was why it was a hit. The sequels were hits because they were sequels to it(and never dropped too low in terms of quality).

"Speed Racer" isn't really a movie for car enthusiasts, nor was it really for teenagers.

So they are poor examples(and as I said, apparently it was missed that I said 'Fast and the Furious' rip-offs).
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I guess I did miss that part.

I never even heard of those movies.

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"I never even heard of those movies."

Exactly.

And trust me, that's probably for the best(I did kind of like Death Race though, but it's not necessarily a good movie).

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A 3D turd is still a turd.
--
Never underestimate a man's ability to underestimate a woman. -- V.I. Warshawski

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I heart blatant honesty.



It's ok to like a movie, ok to love a movie, when you obsess about it I question your sanity.

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bump

It's ok to like a movie, ok to love a movie, when you obsess about it I question your sanity.

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"A 3D turd is still a turd."


Even if this was purely made for 3-D? Because everyone knows post converted 3-D is tremendously weak.

"I said forget about it cuz."
- Paul Walker in 2Fast 2Furious

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It was a box office flop but may go down as a cult classic.

Its that man again!!

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Above poster is damn right!

I'm gonna eat your brains to gain your knowledge!!!

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That will never happen, and considering the W's latest movie "Cloud Atlas" just totally bombed in theaters this past weekend it shows these 2 so-called movie makers are hacks.

The above 2 posters are 30 year old virgins living at home.



If you like something, don't forget to really oversell it so it can disappoint everyone else.

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[deleted]

I think all Wachowski movies are proving to be ahead of their times.


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Would this movie have better success if it was released in today's standards? with the 3-D in all? I would say this would of been pretty awesome in IMAX 3-D


Hell yes it would have done better in 3-D and IMAX. People would have flocked to it and it would have made bank and we would have gotten the trilogy. This was my favorite movie from 2008 and I still watch it.




Transformers Age of Extinction makes The Happening look like a masterpiece.

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Dunno about 3D—maybe—but I suspect a high frame rate would have worked really well for this movie.

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