It's an "Ok" movie except for a couple of things:
1) Stupid jokes: like fart, smelling armpits or eating boogers (the giants are dirty, yeah we know it)
2) They didn't show any death, when somebody was about to die, they always cut it (I HATE that, showing bad guys dying is not gonna traumatize kids)
3) The "retarded head" (who made the bad giant look funny)
To be fair, this was intended to be a family (or at least child-accessible) movie.
"I've been living on toxic waste for years, and I'm fine. Just ask my other heads!"
2) They didn't show any death, when somebody was about to die, they always cut it (I HATE that, showing bad guys dying is not gonna traumatize kids)
Dude, do you realise that you quite openly included the words QUITE OPENLY four times in one post? How about some variety, geez
shareWhy does everything need to be 'dark' these days? Its getting cheesy.
This is a fun adventure movie and I liked some of its light heartedness.
True, everything has to be dark now, we get our stuff with gore, heavy themes, sexual situations and characters with psichological issues, how about a light harded fairytale for the kids once in a while, huh.
shareI agree - it's a common comment (usually by kids of a certain age) - "it should be darker". No, this shouldn't be darker. It was supposed to be a lighthearted, fantasy adventure. For families. Including kids. This movie doesn't lend itself to darkness at all. I can't even imagine it.
shareNo, it's perfectly fine the way it is. It's a movie based on fairy tale and made primarily for younger audience and those little moments of childish humor - farts, silly cook... - those fit quite well with film's intentions. And making CGI giants a bit darker would also be wrong (very common complaint towards this movie); lighter approach to the character design, action and death scenes make this a recommendable feature film for the whole family.
shareThe problem is that the dark themes are present, just they're constantly cut from the film at the worst possible moments. There's a small amount of gore, but then they changed their minds and wanted to keep it for kids. I say pick one.
They show the giants eating people, but then cut it at the exact moment where it screams "CUT IT!". It was forced. They could of shown it in shadow or shown it from an angle that doesn't show the separation point but my suggestion would of been to either include it or not. Don't walk us up to the line and then blind-fold us.
Don't put it in at all if you can't show it. If this is for young kids, then so be it. If it's for adults, then go for it. We all know the director wanted to go balls out on the movie but then obviously backed down either due to studio pressures or the simple fact that kid-dribble sells more tickets.
It's obvious in the cut scenes where the original theme was headed. It's obvious in those same scenes where an executive in a suit holding up a calculator stepped onto the set.
I didn't mind the movie, but I didn't like how it constantly tilted back and forth between silly (infantile) humor and then horrific scenes. It reminds me of how people cater to the masses. The directors nor the studios are in any danger of going broke, so how about some respect for the artistic integrity every once in a while? Or how about sticking to the plan? It says right in the trivia they toned back the VFX for a younger audience but they didn't bother to rewrite any of it to ease those elements out of the entire picture.
This could of been G or PG and I would of liked it fine. No mature thematic elements at all and the same exact story could of been told perfectly adequately. However, I would of absolutely LOVED this movie if it was NC-17 and been an absolutely brutal gore-fest of men, women and children being ripped and crushed into piles of pathetic worthless *fkin* s**t.
it does somewhat have the feel of one person trying to make one film, and someone else trying to force it into the mold of another.
reminds me of the brothers grimm, there's a great film in there somewhere, but someone came along and disneyfied it, making it a movie suitable for no one.
"I've seen your light. It burns bright forever. No more blue tomorrows... you on high now."
This post is right on the money.
Movie makers: can't have your cake and eat it, too.
_____
I don't know, Butchie, instead.
Tim Burton should have made this.
share'more dark' or 'darker'
shareThis movie made a nice effort to bring a classic fairy tale back to modern audiences, but the execution was so rushed that it ended up leaving many things to be desired. I believe that the film industry today has become really soft and spoiled; the higher-ups care more about making money rather than adding catharsis or actual quality into their films, for that matter. This doesn't mean this is a horrible movie, but something in it feels "empty", it's not as good as it could've been. It's probably because the giants were designed as ugly, dirty, monsters without any redeeming aspect, rather than being shown as huge people. I also agree with your second point; all the deaths in this film were censored in such a blatant way that it makes you wonder why where they included them in the first place (the guy bitten in half, for example. If this movie was made in the 80's it would've actually been shown). Remember when kids used to watch fantasy films such as Dragonslayer or Gremlins, which IIRC, had their great share of graphic violence? At sometimes those movies could be creepy, but that was the point, right? Why is it that nowadays even movies like the "The Hunger Games" avoid graphic violence so much? Do they play us for fools? Are they as dull as to believe that it would "frighten the children"? Don't make me laugh...
My only other gripe with this film was every other character except for Jack and Ewan McGregor's character. The villains are too one-dimensional (yes, even for fairy tale standards), they are the kind of unlikable, cartoonishly evil jerkasses that would fit better as victims of the Leprechaun, the Warlock, or Wishmaster instead of being characters in a reinterpretation of a popular children's tale. The princess did little aside of being a woman and wearing a breastplate with bulgy knockers, and the rest of the cast is rather forgettable, in my opinion.
Other than that, I do believe that this film was a good effort to transfer yet another Fairy Tale into the big screen. But it could have been more, the giants could have been given actual personalities and motivations, and the human characters could have been better written too; there could have also been a backstory that explained with more detail what the hell that mind-controlling crown was supposed to be, but I guess that the staff thought that as long as there was good CGI, the kids would just watch it anyway.