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I hate disaster films. (San Andreas)

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Easily my least favorite type of movie. They're so predictable it's disgusting. They're just cgi showcases with a lame love story subplot shoehorned in there. If you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Also, Gravity and Apollo 13 are not disaster movies. Wtf at some of the other "disaster" movies. I think the OP is talking about a very specific type of disaster movie, the worst kind. The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, San Andreas.

If it doesn't have a scene of a city getting hit by a gigantic tsunami, it's not a disaster movie.
 
Thing I hated most, really, is that disaster films should be R...hard Rs. It's not realistic at all when you see no dead bodies in city that just had the biggest earthquake in history. It's pathetic.
 
I hate even the old-school disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure. The deaths are always mean-spirited instead of tragic. You know the Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" did a good job of mimicking that style since it gave me the same kind of repulsion.
 
I really liked San Andreas. I hated 2012, the two volcano movies, the recent Poseidon Adventure film and just about every other disaster film of the past 30 years. I think San Andreas is among the best of the genre.

It is cheesy and flawed, but it has focus which is a problem in the genre. Typical disaster films try and develop a dozen plus characters and you end up caring about none of them. SA had like 3 major characters, a few minor characters, and that was it. It works in that way.

A decent movie. Not great, but a step in the right direction.
 
I really didn't like 2012 for some reason, I think it was the actors, they just didn't sell the fear or create any tension. Wasn't a big fan of Core either, when even a science pleb like me is groaning at the setup you know you went too far. All the rest are fun enough, Dantes Inferno doesn't get enough love - that volcano chunk through the car roof death, damn.
 
They're awful. I haven't seen San Andreas but that 2012 movie was some of the worst garbage I've ever seen. That bit where John Cusack makes his way out of a gigantic fissure and chases down a plane as the earth crumbles behind him. Fuck I was mad

BladeoftheImmortal said:
Thing I hated most, really, is that disaster films should be R...hard Rs. It's not realistic at all when you see no dead bodies in city that just had the biggest earthquake in history. It's pathetic.
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The movies always have this undercurrent of wholesomness. Shit should be violent and bleak and sad, all that. Then again people aren't really exposed to that stuff. Most news networks don't really show what the aftermath of disasters look like except for Al Jazeera and whatnot.
 
BladeoftheImmortal said:
Paul Giamatti got big, and no one in the main cast ever. Fucking. Dies!

When that building falls over and the mom just so happens to magically be the only one that lives. Argh!!!!

They also act like Daniel was a complete ass hole. Dude tried to get help and then just got shocked into running. Can't be blamed. Survival instinct is a strong mechanism. Granted he did get that one guy killed that was hunkered down, but I can't blame him in that situation.

Anyways. Every single disaster film is the a same. Can't there be a disaster film that just shows different characters going about their lives and then they all get killed during the film until the film ends with the last person dying alone getting crushed by whatever. Now that'd be a great film.
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Are you telling me the plot of this movie is Paul Giamatti growing to Godzilla-size and going on a rampage? I gotta see this movie!
 
BladeoftheImmortal said:
Paul Giamatti got big, and no one in the main cast ever. Fucking. Dies!

When that building falls over and the mom just so happens to magically be the only one that lives. Argh!!!!

They also act like Daniel was a complete ass hole. Dude tried to get help and then just got shocked into running. Can't be blamed. Survival instinct is a strong mechanism. Granted he did get that one guy killed that was hunkered down, but I can't blame him in that situation.

Anyways. Every single disaster film is the a same. Can't there be a disaster film that just shows different characters going about their lives and then they all get killed during the film until the film ends with the last person dying alone getting crushed by whatever. Now that'd be a great film.
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Not sure if serious but: cloverfield
 
Finding a Friend for the End of the World

These Final Hours

Goodbye World

End of the world movies not exactly disaster flicks.
 
I haven't seen San Andreas. However watching the trailer, it played up the film as a serious drama...?
Please *please* tell me it wasn't that way - they can't have taken themselves seriously. It looked so utterly awful - it has all the ingredients for a brilliant nonsense film.

For comparison example;

Had this video been the official trailer for 2012, it would have been at least 27x better.

It is also why Armageddon is easily the greatest movie of all time.
 
Chao said:
Not sure if serious but: cloverfield
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Still too wholesome. Saved the girl then they die together. I want a disaster film that's bleak. They get to the chicks house, then they found her impaled on a stake. Dude that's selfish and fucks over everyone is the one that makes it out alive. That is what I want in a disaster movie. It's supposed to be a disaster. Not romantic schlock.
 
BladeoftheImmortal said:
Still too wholesome. Saved the girl then they does together. I want a disaster film that's bleak. They get to the chicks house, then they found her impaled on a stake. Dude that's selfish and fucks over everyone is the one that makes it out alive. That is what I want in a disaster movie. It's supposed to be a disaster. Not romantic schlock.
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How edgy.
Watch a horror film then.
 
A Fish Aficionado said:
How edgy.
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Reality. I doubt real tsunami survivors and earthquake survivors that kills everyone around them make it to the end. Hug their children and then live a wholesome life of rescuing everyone they meet.

That's what I want. Especially with something like 2012. Billions died and they want us to be happy about this one fucking family that miraculously nobody in that family died, yay! Bah!
 
BladeoftheImmortal said:
Anyways. Every single disaster film is the a same. Can't there be a disaster film that just shows different characters going about their lives and then they all get killed during the film until the film ends with the last person dying alone getting crushed by whatever. Now that'd be a great film.
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Deep Impact has several main characters run out of luck, as I recall. The film I most think of though is Deep Blue Sea; while not a disaster flick, that's the film that always sticks out in my mind in that regard. It would have been a totally forgettable 90's movie, but the script seriously subverts your expectations at every freaking opportunity; and I'm not just talking about Samuel L Jackson (although that was brilliant), literally every character archetype you would think is going to live dies horribly, and the two people you least expect to survive are the two that make it. It's cheese, but it's really, really fun cheese.
 
I generally enjoyed San Andreas even though I felt like it was bad in the sense that it's almost a parody of highly routine, formulaic hollywood slosh.

Looking at it for what it is, I got quite a few laughs out of it, most of them not intended (I don't believe so, anyway) by the movie.

Blue Collar McGoodGuy has his familial status with his ex-wife and daughter enroached upon by slick millionaire guy who turns out to be an asshole, (the movie makes him turn out to be a coward and an asshole for not stayting with Blake, and if there was any question it later had him shoving another civilian out of the way to get a good spot to hide -- now that we're sure he's evil, we punish him!) Scientist McKnowsItscoming isn't believed at first then is believed later, BCMGG gets closure on failing to save his other daughter in a rafting accident by saving his other daughter in an earthquaking adventure or whatever... All of this while you get the constant sense the movie itself is worried that it has to rattle everyone awake every 2 minutes with another explosion or earthquake or skydive.

When you don't get angry about cliches and tropes and formulas and just enjoy something like this for what it is, it becomes oddly awesome at times.

BTW, The Rock simply does not have dramatic acting chops. It was painful watching him try to get through the emotional scenes. When the flashback to the rafting accident happened I laughed out loud. We can't simply have a father trying to save his daughter, he has to be doing it to get closure for the other daughter he failed to save. Right. Hollywood, you are awesome.
 
I love Disaster Movies. We need a resurgence of them in a big way. 2012 was a magnificent movie.

It's the capeshit that needs to be dumped in an incinerator. Worst kind of trash.

BladeoftheImmortal said:
Reality. I doubt real tsunami survivors and earthquake survivors that kills everyone around them make it to the end. Hug their children and then live a wholesome life of rescuing everyone they meet.

That's what I want. Especially with something like 2012. Billions died and they want us to be happy about this one fucking family that miraculously nobody in that family died, yay! Bah!
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To go back to my capeshit comment, what you're asking for here is like asking for a superhero movie where we see only the times they couldn't save someone. It might be an interesting arthouse idea but it's not what the genre's about.

Disaster movies are about indulging that 'if there was a zombie apocalypse, everyone would die, but not me, I'm too smart/lucky/fast' instinct we all have.
 
Griss said:
Disaster movies are about indulging that 'if there was a zombie apocalypse, everyone would die, but not me, I'm too smart/lucky/fast' instinct we all have.
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But that's another thing that makes them so bad. They all act altruistic but they don't give a shit about anyone else's survival besides the main casts. San Andreas had that, too. They save those people at the stadium. Then just leave them there instead of asking them to take the boat with them.

Then when all is said and done they hug and kiss and stroll out like nothing happened. Just another day in Cali, baby. We did good.

Very selfish behavior for those being pricks to the Daniel character, just to have them act the same way as him.
 
I need to watch San Andreas. Love disaster movies. The Poseidon Adventure and The Day After Tomorrow are perennial favorites at my house.

Didn't like 2012 at all. Lame characters, and a really egregious example of the "milquetoast new husband" character who's not really that bad but still needs to be punished and die horribly so the hero can reunite with his ex.

The Day After (nuclear war movie) is a good example of a bleak disaster film where the main characters do not live happily ever after.
 
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