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Transcendence, featuring Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall

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S

samn

Member
He's obviously learned a lot from Nolan - bad dialogue, hamfisted philosophy, and a flat love story.
 
L

Lé Blade Runner

Member
StormyTheRabbit said:
Fuck Pfister. Pretentious asshat.

This movie failed to grab me even when the first teasers were released.

Pass.

EDIT:

Since it was already brought up in this thread....

I met him when he was in Pittsburgh shooting TDKR. He's a total prick. And his comments about the Avengers being shot all at canted angles to show off their million dollar sets?!

DUDE, YOU SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRETY OF DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH FOR TWO WEEKS AND THEN SHOT IT FROM A HELICOPTER ON AN IMAX CAMERA. AND YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT SHOWING OFF YOUR BUDGET?! (Which is a stupid argument to make anyways, but this always seemed ironic to me.)
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And, regardless of the lack of artistic depth ( of The Avengers' cinematograpy ), that movie was entertaining, flashy, and hugely successful. For me, it was a pleasant surprise. TDKR, on the other hand, was a disappointment. Take that, Pfister!
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
Atrophis said:
AI that achieves sentience and decides to kill us all? Check. Sounds like Singularity to me.
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Robot / computer becomes self aware and blows things up isn't a "singularity movie". The singularity is all about boot-strapping AIs and intelligence explosions. It's about radical social and technological changes at a pace faster than humans can keep up with. And don't get cute with "oh, but they're all getting nuked, isn't that a rapid societal change?!"

Atrophis said:
Singularity is mostly a doomsday cult predicting evil AIs will wipe us out so I think it fits to be honest.
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This is true, in the sense that it is completely false.
 
G

Guzim

Member
Scullibundo said:
Look, I have a friend who's met Pfister. Apparently he's a very, very nice and cool guy. But that thing he said about McGarvey was a douchey thing to say. I really need to watch Side by Side. Thanks for the reminder.
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Cameron is awesome in it.

It's a shame that this is bad, but the first trailer really threw me off. Any hype I had died after seeing it.
 
Z

ZeroX03

Banned
Warm Machine said:
Shows that often times cinematographers make bad directors and quite often the beauty of a movie is due to the director.
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The first part is pretty accurate, the second part is on a person-by-person basis. I know a lot of directors who have a strong visual sense, and others who trust their DOP almost entirely and prefer to work with actors. Will be interesting to see how Interstellar is shot, Nolan and Pfister haven't been apart for a long time.

StormyTheRabbit said:
Since it was already brought up in this thread....

I met him when he was in Pittsburgh shooting TDKR. He's a total prick. And his comments about the Avengers being shot all at canted angles to show off their million dollar sets?!

DUDE, YOU SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRETY OF DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH FOR TWO WEEKS AND THEN SHOT IT FROM A HELICOPTER ON AN IMAX CAMERA. AND YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT SHOWING OFF YOUR BUDGET?! (Which is a stupid argument to make anyways, but this always seemed ironic to me.)
Click to expand...

Cinematographers are generally nice people who are super fucking territorial about their work, as is my experience.

I do have a preference for IMAX, so I can't blame Pfister for indulging there.
 
B

bernardobri

Steve, the dog with no powers that we let hang out with us all for some reason
I like his cinematography so will watch the movie still.

Also, how long until someone gets here and says that Wally Pfister stole her date?
 
M

Maninthemirror

Banned
This is what happens when you think you are Nolan quality just because you worked for him. I never saw how a cinematographer can get this kind of budget with no experience for a film scale bigger than indie
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Scullibundo said:
Look, I have a friend who's met Pfister. Apparently he's a very, very nice and cool guy. But that thing he said about McGarvey was a douchey thing to say. I really need to watch Side by Side. Thanks for the reminder.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, Side By Side is good stuff. I'm not crazy for Nolan and Pfister's pro-film stance, but at least they're passionate as some of the last defenders. I didn't come away that Pfister looked like a dick or something like jett believes from that docu.
 
A

Aurongel

Member
ViewtifulJC said:
I was wondering why there were no reviews of this shit like 4 days out from release...
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Same, I didn't even know that it was releasing in April until two weeks ago. Then when I saw there must have been a review embargo, my hope quickly faded.

I'll probably end up catching this later once it's out on disc but I'm super disappointed something so promising ended up being bunk.
 
S

SolidChamp

Banned
Saw a trailer for this today when a friend of mine and I saw Noah (a big MEH on that one)...Transcendence looks absolutely AWFUL.

I mean, holy hell does this movie look like a total fucking joke. Depp looks bored stiff.
 
Nameless

Nameless

Member
The premise is interesting on paper. I feel like they should have gone for more of a minimalist marketing approach, though. Just have some old quote about man vs death with orchestral music playing in the background then cut to Depp's digitized likeness saying something ominous.

Instead they opted for the over revelatory approach and immediately removed any glimmer of hope that this would be good. The trailers actually piss me off they're so shitty.
 
S

SolidChamp

Banned
Maninthemirror said:
This is what happens when you think you are Nolan quality just because you worked for him. I never saw how a cinematographer can get this kind of budget with no experience for a film scale bigger than indie
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FROM THE CINEMATOGRAPHER OF THE DARK KNIGHT/LONG-TIME CHRISTOPHER NOLAN COLLABORATOR...

NOLAN FANBOYS PREPARE TO FAP

WALLY PFISTER

*BWAAAAMMM"
 
G

gravitybear

Member
damn that sucks. I was super excited for this movie. I might go anyway, hollywood needs to know that producing sci fi movies is a profitable venture (so they make more, some of which wont suck.)
 
J

jet1911

Member
Rewatching the trailer now and the movie looks so dumb for something that takes itself so seriously.

Edit: Sculli got banned again? What did he do this time? :eek:
 
A

Aurongel

Member
Hold up...

Where are all of these "pretentious asshat" criticisms coming from exactly? Was Pfister acting like a dick in an interview or something?
 
C

Carcetti

Member
As a science fiction movie and literature fan everything I hear about this movie makes me not want to see it. If your idea of a singularity is 'robot zombie nuke attack' you might just GET OUT OF SCIFI MOVIE MAKING. Or the 50s.
 
M

Meier

Member
First trailer made it look pretty damn interesting, but the recent footage with more of the actual movie and plot made it evident it was probably going to be a turd. Bummer.
 
P

Professor Lich

Member
I was kind of hoping that this was some sort of spiritual prequel to the short story, "I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream." Though, if memory serves, the story talks about how things come to be. Not to forget that there was a thread here in GAF talking about what that story is really about, and it doesn't match up with what this movie is saying.

But I just thought it would of been a cool idea.
 
D

Dead

well not really...yet
Pfister has been totally overrated as a cinematographer, guess he doesn't cut it as a director either, at least for his first try.
 
megamerican

megamerican

Member
Yeah it looks bland, and it seems like something out of 1994 rather than 2014. It's been a really rough run for Depp as of late. I think the critics have fully turned on him now.
 
S

StormyTheRabbit

Member
ZeroX03 said:
Cinematographers are generally nice people who are super fucking territorial about their work, as is my experience.

I do have a preference for IMAX, so I can't blame Pfister for indulging there.
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As am I about all of the work I shoot as well. However, one should never be so bold and make such a ridiculous argument about a film. Set design is literally 50% or even more of all cinematography. You can light a room as perfectly as you want, but if you're in a room with nothing but white walls, its not going to blow any minds.

Theres no reason to be so judgmental about a work simply because it isn't the way you would have done it. I don't blame him for shooting IMAX either given the chance, its just an ironic argument to make when you're literally doing the same thing.

Also, he was super weird towards a lot of girls on TDKR from what I heard. There was a VFX girl who was walking around taking stills to add stuff later in post who told me when I was working on it that day.
 
T

Tookay

Member
So one or two comments from Pfister and he's the biggest douche ever?

Sculli, I really enjoy your posts (and now you can't defend yourself) but you do realize that you idolize James Cameron right?

Anyway, sad to hear the movie's crap, but after the last trailer went spoiled everything, I can't say I'm surprised.
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
Atrophis said:
Sure, its called Terminator and Terminator 2.

I guess you could make an interesting film around creepy, racist, misogynist and terrible Harry Potter fan fiction writer Eliezer Yudkowsky and his Bayes worshipping Singularity cult. It'd be kind of like a sequal to The Master.
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Thumbs up. Also can't wait for a Kurzweil movie in 30 years where we see a sad man constantly trying to find ways to live on only to miss the boat by hundreds of years (if ever). Basically just a 2 hour movie version of the Man on the Moon scenes where Kaufman is trying to find a cure and realizes it was for not. Might be too sympathetic though.
 
brickarts295

brickarts295

Member
Well lets hope Nolan will take Pfister with open arms, otherwise it would be pretty funny if Nolan decides to keep Hoyte van Hoytema.
 
B

Blader

Member
Dead said:
Pfister has been totally overrated as a cinematographer, guess he doesn't cut it as a director either, at least for his first try.
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what? He's a great cinematographer but not the best, nor has anyone said he is. You try too hard sometimes.
 
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