Movies That Could Have Been So Much Better

Um, AiTheMovie, obviously! It should have ended when he attempts suicide. Or the ending should have been, well, just about anything else. I'd add this movie to MoviesToAvoidAtAllCosts, but if you just stop your VCR or DVD player (or divx :-) at that point, it's not really that bad. [See Note 2]

The sad thing is he actually bring up a bunch of really really interesting themes, but in the end, he goes for the weakest one

I'm thinking of re-editing a version where the eKid teams up with Jar Jar Binks. Seriously, though, I think someday it will become a cult classic in the way comparable to Plan-9: fun to spoof, tinker with, and re-cast in different ways.
Re: "It should have ended when he attempts suicide" - But who wants to go see a movie about a kid committing suicide? It could have been decent if it ended with the kid finding a world/colony made up of all androids, like himself. And as a bonus, his "mother" could have been scanned and digitized into an android (ScannedBrainSimulation) and he finds her unexpectedly in the colony in a joyous reunion. And I agree with the "too many themes" problem. AI and twisted evil carnivals and frozen Earth and aliens and (possible) time-travel. It's like 5 episodes of StarTrek in a blender. -t

Enigma what went wrong there? Harris's novel is a pretty decent thriller with great nerd appeal. The film is scripted by TomStoppard?. KateWinslet? is in it. So it should be a belter. But it isn't. One major flaw is the way the cast pause and take a deep breath before carefully enunciating terms like "cryptogram". Not to mention that the historically accurate version is a better story; it is pretty infantile to manipulate everything just to end up with protagonists from the U.S.A, take this as an implicit insult to your intelligence.
Hudson Hawk - I found this movie incredibly frustrating. Every time it approaches a gag or plot twist, it first telegraphs it by having everything stop dead in anticipation, then steps all over the good part when it finally arrives. Nothing in the film finds a happy medium - it always either stops short, or gets dragged out too far. This, combined with Bruce Willis's obvious infatuation with his own cleverness, makes what could have been a funny, quirky film almost unwatchable. I keep wondering what directors like Gilliam or Burton (or, to take it in a different direction, the Coen brothers) might have done with this material, especially if they'd been able to rein Willis in (hard to do when he was the one who wanted the film made in the first place, but possible).
Romeo + Juliet. Baz Lurhman forgot to take the caps lock key off his typewriter when he was transcribing the play for his script. STOP SCREAMING!!! Actors should be able to be intense without having to scream. And it's sad, because the modernization really is interesting.
UnbreakableMovie : When I saw the trailer I was hoping that all the "What? What's going on? Am I really unbreakable?" stuff would just be at the beginning. Then something really cool could happen, a la TheMatrix. But no, M. Night (or the writer or whoever) wasted the whole movie on it. He almost had it at the weight lifting scene, but for some reason decided to make it drag on and on and on. Sigh. That movie could have been so much better. (Additional comments moved to UnbreakableMovie)
The Phantom Menace: Star Wars Episode I : I love the underlying concept of the Star Wars series: valiant knights and mysticism in a SciFi setting. But beyond the conceptual and some eye for visuals, I don't think Lucas a great deal to offer. (As a thought exercise, imagine how boring the Star Wars stories must be in written form. I know -- they have been written down. But imagining them is probably less painful than actually reading them. [See Note 1]) McGregor? and Portman, and perhaps Neeson, do admirable jobs with what is largely corny dialog. The fight choreography, particularly that with Ray Park's Maul, is some of the most captivating I've ever seen. Beyond that, I was disappointed. I'd like to see Lucas hand off duties for the VII-IX trilogy to a better storyteller, (hmm. did you get your wish?) and worry more about telling good stories than selling action figures. Widening to a PG-13 rating would help, but since that would limit box office proceeds *and* toy sales, I won't hold my breath.
Reprising the Ben Hur chariot race? Was that homage or theft?
Must we endure Jar Jar *AND* C3PO in the same movie??!
Reduction of the mysticism of The Force into boring biotechnical mumbo-jumbo about some microscopic life form.
Political intrigue that a ten-year old can accept, but that leaves an adult wondering, "huh?" E.g. a foriegn embargo and occupation, made viable by denial in chamber, when anybody could just fly there to see for themselves.
Why exactly did the Gungans have such a grand army? And how did this Trade Federation become so powerful using droid armies that are so ridiculously easy to nullify? The core of Naboo is filled with water? Science fiction requires suspension of doubt, but should not require suspension of sensibility.
Speaking of the Gungans: With a voice like Brian Blessed's, their leader should have been leading the charge from the front with a roar. Not sitting on a rock and dribbling.

When going through the core I took it to be merely going a few hundred meters beneath the surface through a maze of water channels. Replace 'core' with 'underground channels'. This could have been annotated in the film better: "Through the core, master?" "Not really, we will be using an underground water system to bypass an impassable mountain range."

I see the Star Wars series as one of the best escapist tools. They take you away (far far away in a...) so that you don't have to think about your own problems for 2 hours. If you start to approach them like a software development project, trying to figure out how all the peices will go together, then you have not escaped and you might as well be back in the cubicle. The worlds are strange enough that there is enough mental wiggle room to make it not have to make Earthly sense. The thing behind Jar Jar is that he had the force with him so that things bounced his way even though he was clumsy. That was the fun of it. People didn't "get it" and thought the lucky accidents too unrealistic. It is a plot twist not found very often, making it fresh. --top

NOTES:

Obviously spoken by someone who has never read any of the franchised Star Wars novels, novellas, novelettes, or short stories. There are a handful of perfectly adequate writers creating Star Wars stories that read better than the films view. Timothy Zahn's depiction of Lando Calrission, in particular, makes the reader wonder where the heck this guy was when the movies were being filmed. Lando leaps off the page and into life as a full-fledged character, not some two dimensional foil for Han Solo. The books are better than the movies. Fewer special effects, but better tales.
Oh, yes it is. Terrible movie. One must read its Wiki page to catch some appreciation of this.

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