Rundown of films I saw in 2017
Jan. 11th, 2018 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcI've been debating whether or not this is worth doing, but I've got some time on my hands[1], so why not? (I may even write up last year's Fringe at some point.) So, yeah, here are the bulletpoint synopses of all the movie posts I never made. I have more to say about some of them than others.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Fun. I don't really understand why Ego the Living Planet was deemed a better choice for Starlord's dad than J'Son of Spartax, but Kurt Russell played him really well. I loved all the character interplay, and the cameo by the original 31st century Guardians as the Ravagers.
Mantis continues the Guardians movies tradition that nobody apart from Quill can be human. I can see why, since it keeps his outsider status, but it's really weird to have Drax and Mantis bonding over their completely alien natures, when neither of them are aliens in the comics. (I understand Steve Engelhart said the character simply wasn't Mantis, and I can kind of see his point.)
Wonder Woman
Brilliant. The WWI setting was an interesting change, even if it does mean we will never see Steve Trevor again. I didn't see the twist coming. It's a shame that this kind of means Diana spent about a century (including the Second World War) keeping her head down until Clark showed up. Or maybe she didn't, and we'll see more of this in future films.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
This was great fun. I was expecting "it's part of the MCU now" to be lip-service at most, so I was pleasantly surprised by the fact the plot ties in to the Avengers films, Happy Hogan is a main character, and it ends with an important development in Iron Man's story. Tom Holland continues to be great as Spidey, and Jacob Galeton made a great comic sidekick asGanke Ned. Spidey having a Friday-like AI in his suit was an interesting idea and I'll be interested to see if they stick with that. (I was wondering if something similar might be added to the comic, but the most likely scenario there would be if Peter developed himself at Parker Industries, and I think Parker Industries has collapsed in the US comics.)
Thor: Ragnarok
Much funnier than I expected. A bit weird that nearly everyone in space seems to be Australian, but no weirder than them being American or British. Basically making half of it Planet Hulk But Thor's There Too was a fun way to a) get round the licensing problems of a Hulk movie and b) do something different than the usual Asgardian techno-medieval stuff (although there's plenty of that as well - I think this is the first time we've got a good look at the "ordinary people" of Asgard).
Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster as the ruler of Sakaar was interesting; it makes sense if you're just focussing on the the gladiatorial games aspect, and it was a clever choice to clearly portray him as "the same" as the Collector, without actually trying to explain his connection to someone Thor's probably never heard of. Cate Blanchett's Hela is also good, and having two villains that have no connection with each other works better than you might expect.
Justice League
I think I liked this more than most people did. I definitely liked it more than MoS and BvS. The villain was suitably epic (while still saving Actual Darkseid for later) and the ancient battle worked in setting him up as Not Quite Unstoppable and also gave some quick nods to the future like "Green Lanterns and magic lightning are things that exist". The characters were well realised and portrayed, even if Ezra Miller's Flash occasionally veered into What If Grant Gustin, But Too Much? territory. (And his costume is slightly less ridiculous in action than it appeared in the set photos.)
The main negatives I had were that I never bought the whole "hope died with Superman" thing; I would have in pretty much any other iteration of the DC Universe, but the previous movies did a great job of convincing me that in this universe, the general populace see Supes as an inhuman monster who would have turned on them eventually. And the final scene was a bit "so why do we need a League again?" as Supes basically does everything better than them, to the point that it barely even matters that it was Wonder Woman who actually finished Steppenwolf off; by this point it's clear to the viewer that if she hadn't, he'd have easily done that as well. Hopefully, they'll get this figured out before the sequel.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This was epic. I liked the idea of Luke seeing himself as a failed Jedi who just wanted to be left alone with his failure and the porgs. And I loved the porgs. I also liked the other plotline, although it does seem to me that a whole bunch of entirely unneccessary stuff and several deaths happened entirely because Poe and Holdo didn't just talk to each other. But Finn's new love interest is cool, and the twist that the equivalent of Mos Eisley turns out to be where the rich people hang out, because they're the real criminals.
I was surprised we didn't see much of Evil BB-8, given how much publicity he got. And honestly, I was a little disappointed by Snoke. It seems to me that once you've presented someone as a massive hologram, you have two options -- either he really is that massive, or (my preference) he's actually quite small and overcompensating. (Snoke as Evil Yoda?) Revealing, quite offhandedly, that he's regular sized? What was the point, then? (Honestly, the holo was massive enough that you could have presented "regular sized" as "small and overcompensating", but they didn't. Ah, well.)
[1]After nearly a year of taking the minimum amount of leave necessary for my trips to Edinburgh and so on, I was suddenly told on Monday that I needed to use it all up before my apprenticeship ended. So I'm off Wed-Fri this week, then back next week because it's our last tutor visit, then two weeks off, then back for the last week. And after that, who knows?
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Fun. I don't really understand why Ego the Living Planet was deemed a better choice for Starlord's dad than J'Son of Spartax, but Kurt Russell played him really well. I loved all the character interplay, and the cameo by the original 31st century Guardians as the Ravagers.
Mantis continues the Guardians movies tradition that nobody apart from Quill can be human. I can see why, since it keeps his outsider status, but it's really weird to have Drax and Mantis bonding over their completely alien natures, when neither of them are aliens in the comics. (I understand Steve Engelhart said the character simply wasn't Mantis, and I can kind of see his point.)
Wonder Woman
Brilliant. The WWI setting was an interesting change, even if it does mean we will never see Steve Trevor again. I didn't see the twist coming. It's a shame that this kind of means Diana spent about a century (including the Second World War) keeping her head down until Clark showed up. Or maybe she didn't, and we'll see more of this in future films.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
This was great fun. I was expecting "it's part of the MCU now" to be lip-service at most, so I was pleasantly surprised by the fact the plot ties in to the Avengers films, Happy Hogan is a main character, and it ends with an important development in Iron Man's story. Tom Holland continues to be great as Spidey, and Jacob Galeton made a great comic sidekick as
Thor: Ragnarok
Much funnier than I expected. A bit weird that nearly everyone in space seems to be Australian, but no weirder than them being American or British. Basically making half of it Planet Hulk But Thor's There Too was a fun way to a) get round the licensing problems of a Hulk movie and b) do something different than the usual Asgardian techno-medieval stuff (although there's plenty of that as well - I think this is the first time we've got a good look at the "ordinary people" of Asgard).
Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster as the ruler of Sakaar was interesting; it makes sense if you're just focussing on the the gladiatorial games aspect, and it was a clever choice to clearly portray him as "the same" as the Collector, without actually trying to explain his connection to someone Thor's probably never heard of. Cate Blanchett's Hela is also good, and having two villains that have no connection with each other works better than you might expect.
Justice League
I think I liked this more than most people did. I definitely liked it more than MoS and BvS. The villain was suitably epic (while still saving Actual Darkseid for later) and the ancient battle worked in setting him up as Not Quite Unstoppable and also gave some quick nods to the future like "Green Lanterns and magic lightning are things that exist". The characters were well realised and portrayed, even if Ezra Miller's Flash occasionally veered into What If Grant Gustin, But Too Much? territory. (And his costume is slightly less ridiculous in action than it appeared in the set photos.)
The main negatives I had were that I never bought the whole "hope died with Superman" thing; I would have in pretty much any other iteration of the DC Universe, but the previous movies did a great job of convincing me that in this universe, the general populace see Supes as an inhuman monster who would have turned on them eventually. And the final scene was a bit "so why do we need a League again?" as Supes basically does everything better than them, to the point that it barely even matters that it was Wonder Woman who actually finished Steppenwolf off; by this point it's clear to the viewer that if she hadn't, he'd have easily done that as well. Hopefully, they'll get this figured out before the sequel.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This was epic. I liked the idea of Luke seeing himself as a failed Jedi who just wanted to be left alone with his failure and the porgs. And I loved the porgs. I also liked the other plotline, although it does seem to me that a whole bunch of entirely unneccessary stuff and several deaths happened entirely because Poe and Holdo didn't just talk to each other. But Finn's new love interest is cool, and the twist that the equivalent of Mos Eisley turns out to be where the rich people hang out, because they're the real criminals.
I was surprised we didn't see much of Evil BB-8, given how much publicity he got. And honestly, I was a little disappointed by Snoke. It seems to me that once you've presented someone as a massive hologram, you have two options -- either he really is that massive, or (my preference) he's actually quite small and overcompensating. (Snoke as Evil Yoda?) Revealing, quite offhandedly, that he's regular sized? What was the point, then? (Honestly, the holo was massive enough that you could have presented "regular sized" as "small and overcompensating", but they didn't. Ah, well.)
[1]After nearly a year of taking the minimum amount of leave necessary for my trips to Edinburgh and so on, I was suddenly told on Monday that I needed to use it all up before my apprenticeship ended. So I'm off Wed-Fri this week, then back next week because it's our last tutor visit, then two weeks off, then back for the last week. And after that, who knows?
