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Transcendence, featuring Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall

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D

Delta Assault

Member
Her was fantastic as well. He couldn't quite light the scenes well enough to convince you that high waisted pants would be a good idea, but he came close.
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
apocalidiot said:
What?
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It is true. Take Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Terrence Malick, David Fincher, James Cameron, Edward Zwick, etc.

Directors known for beauty who often work or have worked with different Cinematographers. It is the strength of a good cinematographer to take the visual orders of a director and execute them.

When you have a brilliant cinematographer like Janusz Kaminski who has shot with Spielberg for years and then makes a mess of a movie like Lost Souls, you really have to wonder.

On another scale you have John R. Leonetti who was the cinematographer on the original Mortal Kombat, which was reasonable then he directed the sequel which not only is one of the worst movies ever made but is also incredibly ugly. Then goes on to lens The Conjuring and a ton of other James Wan films with far more success you have to wonder again.

The most successful Cinematographer/Director was Jan De Bont but his first film was also his only good film.

Cinematography is a amazing skill. To know lenses, light, reflectors, exposure, stock, printing, etc is highly technical. That doesn't automatically qualify them to know how to block scenes, engage in production design, map out a characters arc, work with actors, or do the few dozen other tasks that require making a film.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Warm Machine said:
The most successful Cinematographer/Director was Jan De Bont but his first film was also his only good film.
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Let's not forget "Peter Andrews".

http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/steven-soderbergh-peter-andrews-the-soderbergh-vision
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Isn't Barry Sonnenfeld still the gold standard for cinematographers who went on to be successful directors? Sure, he's stuck mostly to popcorn stuff, but he's pretty damn good at it.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
The Dissolve's take (with relatively light spoilers about Her, if you care about that sort of thing):

Pfister and screenwriter Jack Paglen address the Singularity with more fear than imagination. As Will’s power grows, so do the film’s worries about technology breeding digital demagoguery and mind control. Transcendence wants to use this future panic to comment meaningfully on our current interconnectedness and inorganic lifestyle, but it’s screaming too much to have that conversation.
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So disappointing.
 
S

StuBurns

Banned
Directors can obviously have visual characteristics of which DPs adhere to, Malick is a great example, he favors available light, he likes to lightly over expose to bleach out skies, he likes to shoot at dawn and dusk so the light scatter is at its most pronounced, etc. There are various things which will dictate the aesthetic of his films regardless of the DP, as long as the DP has the technical capacity to achieve Malick's goals anyway.
 
P

Perfect Blue

Banned
Saw it yesterday:

Ehhhhhhhhhhh. Boring. Stilted acting, disappointing plot, and an anticlimactic ending. Poor first attempt Mr. Pfister.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
Willing to bet Haunted House 2 is gonna get a higher rating than this. Transcendence is sitting at a pretty 15%. Jeeze. What the fuck happened.

Depp, go back to making kooky undead stuff with Tim Burton.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
RustyNails said:
Willing to bet Haunted House 2 is gonna get a higher rating than this. Transcendence is sitting at a pretty 15%. Jeeze. What the fuck happened.

Depp, go back to making kooky undead stuff with Tim Burton.
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They made a movie where a persons consciousness is transferred to a computer. Always a bad idea.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Kraftwerk said:
Not really. Tons of good possibilities out there involving that premise. This was just shit.
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No, always a bad idea. You can make an interesting story, sure, but the premise will still be stupid.

Edit: Sorry that came off as so dismissive. Didn't mean for that. :)
 
C

Carcetti

Member
Dead Man said:
They made a movie where a persons consciousness is transferred to a computer. Always a bad idea.
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There's tons of great novels about this. The problem is that Hollywood screenwriters seem to be luddites who fear that computers will kill us for no good reason.
 
K

Kraftwerk

Member
Dead Man said:
No, always a bad idea. You can make an interesting story, sure, but the premise will still be stupid.
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Eh, different opinions I guess. I have read many books that involve this and would be amazing if done right.

Anyway, very disappointed in this movie, as I had been looking forward to it.

Edit : responding to your edit. Not at all mate. No worries.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Carcetti said:
There's tons of great novels about this. The problem is that Hollywood screenwriters seem to be luddites who fear that computers will kill us for no good reason.
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I can never believe that a persons consciousness can be transferred to a machine in the near future. It is just not plausible to me. Ruins every thing it is introduced in. Only exception would be the Otherland series by Tad Williams, but this point is addressed in the books and becomes a bit of a plot point.

Kraftwerk said:
Eh, different opinions I guess. I have read many books that involve this and would be amazing if done right.

Anyway, very disappointed in this movie, as I had been looking forward to it.

Edit : responding to your edit. Not at all mate. No worries.
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:) Different opinions indeed. I can enjoy a story with it, but the process itself always strikes me as ludicrous for anything short of a massively advanced culture like The Culture or something.
 
C

Carcetti

Member
Dead Man said:
No, always a bad idea. You can make an interesting story, sure, but the premise will still be stupid.

Edit: Sorry that came off as so dismissive. Didn't mean for that. :)
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You could try reading the following: Permutation City, Diaspora (both by Greg Egan), Altered Carbon (Morgan), Revelation Space (Reynolds), Accelerando and Singularity Sky and Glasshouse by Stross etc, etc.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Carcetti said:
You could try reading the following: Permutation City, Diaspora (both by Greg Egan), Altered Carbon (Morgan), Revelation Space (Reynolds), Accelerando and Singularity and Glasshouse by Stross etc, etc.
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Read Altered Carbon, not the rest, I'll give them a go. Cheers.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
Dead Man said:
I can never believe that a persons consciousness can be transferred to a machine in the near future. It is just not plausible to me. Ruins every thing it is introduced in. Only exception would be the Otherland series by Tad Williams, but this point is addressed in the books and becomes a bit of a plot point.

:) Different opinions indeed. I can enjoy a story with it, but the process itself always strikes me as ludicrous for anything short of a massively advanced culture like The Culture or something.
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I don't believe that there's a place called Middle Earth but that has nothing to do with the quality of the movie.
 
C

Carcetti

Member
Dead Man said:
Read Altered Carbon, not the rest, I'll give them a go. Cheers.
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Warning: Greg Egan is the most hardcore hard-scifi of those, but he's not exactly light reading...

Also, of Reynolds books House of Suns might be best fit for this topic. Most of this stuff is not exactly near-future, though. I don't believe myself (unfortunately) that we'll be uploading in the next 10 years.
 
K

Kraftwerk

Member
Dead Man said:
I
:) Different opinions indeed. I can enjoy a story with it, but the process itself always strikes me as ludicrous for anything short of a massively advanced culture like The Culture or something.
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Hahaha. I was about to recommend you to read some of The Culture books :)

Now that you explain it like that, I get what you are saying.

Honestly, when I saw the teaser for this - not the trailer - I was very hyped. It seemed intelligent, and looked to tackle the idea of humans having to deal with this super advanced A.I. Even a simple story, such as the A.I advancing humanity really fast, but in this process causing the decay of human creativity. Another take on the concept of Utopia. Hell, anything else BUT the beaten to death " OMG EVIL ROBOT/COMPUTERS". Then I saw the trailer, and fiber-optic cable tentacles taking over the world...ugh
 
N

number11

Member
bjmTPAo.png


lol. I know you shouldn't judge a person from a couple of interviews... but I can't help but laugh about this flop after listening to how smug he comes across.
 
C

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
shame, sounds like it could have been more interesting.


Also, why is Sculi always banned? Every time I click a thread of his, he's banned it seems like.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
hardcastlemccormick said:
I don't believe that there's a place called Middle Earth but that has nothing to do with the quality of the movie.
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That's because the rules of that universe are consistent. If you wrote a story about a floating dog not a lot of people are going to find that a basis for a dark thriller.

Carcetti said:
Warning: Greg Egan is the most hardcore hard-scifi of those, but he's not exactly light reading...

Also, of Reynolds books House of Suns might be best fit for this topic. Most of this stuff is not exactly near-future, though. I don't believe myself (unfortunately) that we'll be uploading in the next 10 years.
Click to expand...

Been meaning to read Reynolds for a while, so this is as good an excuse as any. My old brain has started to decline so I'll put the Egan on hold for now, thanks for the heads up :)

Kraftwerk said:
Hahaha. I was about to recommend you to read some of The Culture books :)

Now that you explain it like that, I get what you are saying.

Honestly, when I saw the teaser for this - not the trailer - I was very hyped. It seemed intelligent, and looked to tackle the idea of humans having to deal with this super advanced A.I. Even a simple story, such as the A.I advancing humanity really fast, but in this process causing the decay of human creativity. Another take on the concept of Utopia. Hell, anything else BUT the beaten to death " OMG EVIL ROBOT/COMPUTERS". Then I saw the trailer, and fiber-optic cable tentacles taking over the world...ugh
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Love some Culture (RIP Banks)

Yeah, technophobic responses to the idea don't help.
 
C

Calabi

Member
We really should have learned our lesson by now. "Technology is bad mkay!".

Maybe a few more films like this and it will finally sink in.
 
A

Atrophis

Member
Carcetti said:
You could try reading the following: Permutation City, Diaspora (both by Greg Egan), Altered Carbon (Morgan), Revelation Space (Reynolds), Accelerando and Singularity Sky and Glasshouse by Stross etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I read this quote from one of Greg Egans books today and knew I needed to get reading his stuff:

"You know what they say the modern version of Pascal's Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God."
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
captive said:
shame, sounds like it could have been more interesting.


Also, why is Sculi always banned? Every time I click a thread of his, he's banned it seems like.
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He cannot self-terminate, a mod must lower him into the steel so he may not face spoilers for whatever movie/tv show he's hyped about. So he calls people dickheads.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/ge...p-trancendence-review-1563736785/+robharvilla

Transcendence is what Her would be like if Her were made by idiots. All the things that film did right—establish a love story convincing enough to make us believe its crazy premise; scale down a global story for a specific focus; have a weirdo lead actor willing to dial it down and do something real—Transcendence does wrong. It wants to be a parable about the dangers of technology, but it's more like an old man screaming at you to get off his porch with your iPods and your doo-dads. This is the big-budget Hollywood movie your kids will be smirking about for the next 20 years. It's the new The Net.
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M

metsallica

Member
Is it sad that I still kind of want to see this? I want to see something this weekend and the allure of big-budget sci fi is tough to pass up. Maybe I'll do Under the Skin instead.
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
metsallica said:
Is it sad that I still kind of want to see this? I want to see something this weekend and the allure of big-budget sci fi is tough to pass up. Maybe I'll do Under the Skin instead.
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I might end up seeing it as an example of Morgan Freeman giving up on acting, just like in Now You See Me or Wanted.
 
Ixion

Ixion

Member
Dead Man said:
I can never believe that a persons consciousness can be transferred to a machine in the near future. It is just not plausible to me.
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A couple things:

-If by 'near future' you mean the next 20 years, then you're probably right. Mind uploading will only be possible once the reverse engineering of the brain is complete, which is another 15-20 years away at least. We certainly can't do it now, and I'm not sure what year Trancendence takes place in.

-Even if we upload a mind, we don't know if it's "conscious". Consciousness is subjective, so only the uploaded mind would know. But that doesn't mean we can't simply record the patterns of the brain (once we understand it better) and then upload that onto a computer, thus creating artificial intelligence. That's all it is. Will that copy of you be conscious? Who knows.
 
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