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The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro

S

Slime

Banned
GDT is a huge horror fan. I'm sure this is just his take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which incidentally is what Abe Sapien was to Mike Mignola.

Maybe it's a little on the nose to go with Doug Jones, but he's in nearly all of GTD's American films, and you work with the people you like.
 
C

Cheebo

Banned
Slime said:
GDT is a huge horror fan. I'm sure this is just his take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which incidentally is what Abe Sapien was to Mike Mignola.

Maybe it's a little on the nose to go with Doug Jones, but he's in nearly all of GTD's American films, and you work with the people you like.
Click to expand...

Bingo.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
It's entirely possible Deltoro and Jones really liked the design of Abe Sapien and wanted to emulate it. There have been tons of mermen that share the same designs Abe has. Abe's design is also not that original.
 
M

metsallica

Member
I don't disagree with anything anyone has said here, but I'm not the defender of some crazy, isolated opinion either.

The story seems mostly confined to a single space. Why did the creature in that space have to look like Abe and be played by Doug? Mermen look like mermen, definitely! Doug Jones is a GDT staple. Agreed. The rights are tied up, they certainly are as far as we know. But this movie was made without anyone knowing much and the trailer bowed stealthily without a web release or anyone knowing it was coming. The trailer goes out of its way to hide a great look at Doug.

Insert Mulder's poster here. And so what? I'm having fun letting my mind make connections. Either way? It's GDT, I'm in, we all win; we get a cool movie.
 
F

Fancyarcher

Member
Haven't seen the trailer yet, since I didn't go to D23, but the concept always intrigued me. Good storytelling or not, del toro's mind is always a fun thing to experience.

metsallica said:
I get it. I do. But why did this movie come out of nowhere? Why is it a low-budget Fox Searchlight production? Why does the trailer obfuscate the merman? Why is it Doug Jones? Why are the glimpses we DO get so familiar looking? Why go merman at all? It could literally be any type of creature. Invent one! It's GDT, his mind is a playground.

I want to believe. Because otherwise the implications are underhanded. I'm fully prepared to be wrong here but wouldn't it be cool if I'm not? I dunno. It's a forum. Let's have fun. Stranger things have happened.
Click to expand...

It's nice to speculate, but lets be honest even if it were somehow Ape Sapien, it would have to be in name only. It's pretty clear it's a similar looking creature, but technically it's not Abe Sapien.
 
C

Cheebo

Banned
metsallica said:
I don't disagree with anything anyone has said here, but I'm not the defender of some crazy, isolated opinion either.

The story seems mostly confined to a single space. Why did the creature in that space have to look like Abe and be played by Doug? Mermen look like mermen, definitely! Doug Jones is a GDT staple. Agreed. The rights are tied up, they certainly are as far as we know. But this movie was made without anyone knowing much and the trailer bowed stealthily without a web release or anyone knowing it was coming. The trailer goes out of its way to hide a great look at Doug.

Insert Mulder's poster here. And so what? I'm having fun letting my mind make connections. Either way? It's GDT, I'm in, we all win; we get a cool movie.
Click to expand...
I am sorry but it is a pretty crazy theory though. There is literally nothing to back it up and heaps of evidence to why it isn't Hellboy.

Trailers drop for low budget movies all the time.
He hired Doug because Doug is his go to guy for creature movies.
It looks like a merman because that was the inspiration for Abe and GDT has often talked of his love of those type of films.
It hides the look of the merman because that is what creature movies ALWAYS do. They try to hide the look of the creature full on in trailers.

It ain't Hellboy. Fox doesn't own the rights, and the franchise is getting rebooted and GDT has zero involvement.
 
C

Cheebo

Banned
UnemployedVillain said:
It also could be BPRD which wouldn't include Hellboy
Click to expand...
Hellboy the character isn't the rights in question. The entire franchise is owned by another studio who is actively using that franchise.

Fox does not own the rights to BPRD. That is owned by another studio who is rebooting that universe with a new film franchise.
 
near

near

Gold Member
This isn't a genre film, not even close to a sci-fi it's a drama set in 1963. Hopefully this doesn't become a marketing disaster akin to Crimson Peak were people expected a horror film and were disappointed because they got something else.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
near said:
This isn't a genre film, not even close to a sci-fi it's a drama set in 1963. Hopefully this doesn't become a marketing disaster akin to Crimson Peak were people expected a horror film and were disappointed because they got something else.
Click to expand...
This looks a thousand times more interesting than Crimson Peak. Gothic settings are hard to sell and even harder to make a good movie.
 
B

B33

Banned
metsallica said:
Not sure. Looks small-scale, quick turnaround.
Click to expand...
The Shape of Water was shot from August to November, 2016. Also, factor in the amount of time and energy Del Toro puts into the pre-production phase of his projects.

There's no way Split's success had an influence on this project.
 
G

gamz

Member
B33 said:
The Shape of Water was shot from August to November, 2016. Also, factor in the amount of time and energy Del Toro puts into the pre-production phase of his projects.

There's no way Split's success had an influence on this project.
Click to expand...

Not to mention it had to be written first.
 
C

Cheebo

Banned
B33 said:
The Shape of Water was shot from August to November, 2016. Also, factor in the amount of time and energy Del Toro puts into the pre-production phase of his projects.

There's no way Split's success had an influence on this project.
Click to expand...
At this point every single point the OP was clinging on to has been washed away. Wrap it up folks.
 
D

Doctor Decimate

Member
to be fair the Hellboy movies are probably the only legit good ones Del Toro has made in English so if this was related
it isn't
then its chances of being good go way up
 
A

Anung

Un Rama
Doctor Decimate said:
to be fair the Hellboy movies are probably the only legit good ones Del Toro has made in English so if this was related
it isn't
then its chances of being good go way up
Click to expand...

Blade 2 and Pacific Rim are good movies tho. Maybe not as good as stuff like Cronos and The Devil's Backbone but still good.
 
B

B33

Banned
There's speculation that the teaser trailer for The Shape of Water will be shown during The Strain tonight. I'd imagine it'll be uploaded online soon if this is the case.
 
D

Doctor Decimate

Member
Anung said:
Blade 2 and Pacific Rim are good movies tho. Maybe not as good as stuff like Cronos and The Devil's Backbone but still good.
Click to expand...

I like Pacific Rim more or less still but tbh I have no desire whatsoever to go back to it. Like, it's not a bad movie, but it's just OK.
 
Z

zewone

Member
Skinny Pete said:
Yea the art direction def looks very similiar. In a good way.
Click to expand...

The fonts used in the text throughout the trailer looked similar to the Bioshock font, underwater facility, 40s/50s aesthetic.

DviZowMm.jpg


SlSbqBm.png
 
B

BronsonLee

Member
Trailer gave me way more Bioshock vibes than Hellboy vibes

It's also R and I saw bits of really messed up violence in there so I'm guessing our water homie ain't nice
 
I

Inferno313

Banned
I saw this trailer in front of Apes. It's not a fucking hellboy movie. It's Creature from the Black Lagoon as a love story. Sort of Beauty and the Beast-esque.
 
R

ratcliffja

Member
Inferno313 said:
I saw this trailer in front of Apes. It's not a fucking hellboy movie. It's Creature from the Black Lagoon as a love story. Sort of Beauty and the Beast-esque.
Click to expand...
That's what I got as well. I'm guessing that he's abused and gets revenge against all that wronged him.
 
P

p2535748

Member
Okay, so it's not a Hellboy movie, but that egg thing is clearly a callback to Abe Sapien, right? Seems oddly specific.
 
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