slikmar

For one day only.
 

Yeah, I'm kind of the opinion that if you buy an intellectual property that you should try to put the author's vision on the screen.
 
Then let the audience debate whether it was a good movie and whether the society as presented held together as a worthwhile idea.
 
Most fictional societies don't because most authors aren't sociologists, political theorists, or public policy wonks. But it's the filmmakers' job to put the author's work on the screen then let the audience members pick it apart at dinner afterward.  
 
I think the society put forth in the Starship Troopers movie was repugnant. It's been too many decades since I've read it to pass judgement on the book, which I barely remember reading as a teen.

I always saw it as a set of ideas that Heinlein considered worth talking about. A limited franchise based on voluntary service. A specific ethical/moral position endorsed by the government, which you could reject, but you had to understand. I don't get the "hate change" part - where do you get that? As to taking the franchise away, if you're referring to the fact that officers couldn't vote, neither could enlisted men - the franchise was only offered to people who had completed their service, and officers had voluntarily not done so yet.
 
As to why they still put boots on the ground when they had planet crackers, that's actually addressed in the novel. The Skinny Raid at the beginning of the book is an attempt to pressure the Skinnys into changing sides with military pressure, they don't WANT to do too much damage in a demonstration raid. The second attack, when Rico is an officer, is seeking to take a forward base, so they can't just blast the planet (plus, the planet-crackers aren't ready yet). Rico also notes that Space Force actually DOES think boots on the ground is an obsolete idea. The final attack, on the Arachnid capital, is conducted because the Arahnids have human hostages (and implied to be a large number) present to prevent the Humans just blowing the planet. (We don't see the results, but Word of God is that Rico is killed in the fighting there).
 
If Verhoeven wanted to counter the ideas, he could have adapted a book that was, according to it's author, an answer to Starship Troopers - The Forever War. Instead, he just decided to denigrate the book, it's ideas, it's author and it's fans with ludicrous bombast while not offering one iota of actual response.
 

I was surprised when my neighbor got arrested for growing marijuana.
 
Guess my property line isn't where I thought it was.

Battlefield Earth. 

Costner is kind of hit and miss but mostly he's hit and he can be quite good.  He was great in Highwaymen, for example.  I loved him in Tin Cup.  He was a big miss in Postman and Waterworld, sadly, because they were kind of dream projects he had that just failed so bad he'll never get a shot like that again.  I loved him in Silverado, obviously; he seems born to play westerns.
 
The thing is, he's kind of an Eastwood protege in that like Eastwood he buys scripts he loves then makes them when he can get money together.  He's not as talented as Eastwood (and obviously not as experienced) but he is one of the few directors out there doing any sort of original content coming from Hollywood and for that he gets respect from me even when its a fail.

No, can't agree at all. The latest Dune. Or even Lynch's flawed adaptation. These were made with respect for the source material. Likewise Blade Runner.
I have a great deal of respect for Verhoeven - Robocop was a superbly well designed and crafted film. But I can't watch Starship Troopers, because what he did was take Heinlein's  ideas and concepts and take a big dump on them, then post the result to the screen.
 

The problem with Last Jedi is the person in charge of the movie disliked everything that made Star Wars what it was and so intentionally went in and deconstructed every single piece they could. Honestly, I know some people who are part of the big Cosplay groups (Mandalorians and 501st Battalion) who chat with the various people behind the scenes and literally, the director went in specifically to undo everything done in the previous movie. Like Abrams or not, he had a plan for the 3 movies and really loved the series, hence his sort of turning his Star Trek reboot (which I like) into something closer to Star Wars.
The only reason I didn't put the Costner Robin Hood on here is because of Rickman's sheriff - he was fantastic.

Finally, a petition I would sign!
 

Maybe it would be shorter for Spence to list the good films since 2000s. 

Followup on this...good story, BTW...
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/sports/baseball/mlb-lockout-manfred.html
 
If paywalled:  
1.  The owners have never made an offer that would be acceptable.
2.  The "competitive balance tax" has been effectively an excuse to limit salaries at the high end, and has been the union's #1 bone.
3.  The owners' offer of adding basically 5% but holding it there fore 3 years????  Never, ever gonna fly.
 
silkmar:  the players want a couple things.  #1:  significant raise in baseline pay.  #2:  MINIMUM expenditure structures.  These aren't for the big names.  I think you're focusing on the wrong thing...and Scherzer isn't the only voice.  I don't believe he started in the negociations either, for that matter.  
 
I get the sense you're fixating on the salaries of the few.  EVERY sport overpays the perceived top players.  I'll agree that IMO baseball's the worst, in that it's the one where no single player can help *that* much.  But let's take the Dodgers.  Their total salary isn't just Scherzer and Kershaw:
 
Mookie Betts    28    RF    Vet    $17,500,000    $5,000,000    -    $22,500,000    $22,500,000    8.46    30,416,667
Kenley Jansen    33    RP    Vet    $20,000,000    -    -    $20,000,000    $20,000,000    7.52    16,000,000
A.J. Pollock    33    LF    Vet    $15,000,000    $3,000,000    -    $18,000,000    $18,000,000    6.77    12,000,000
Cody Bellinger    25    CF    Arb 2    $16,100,000    -    -    $16,100,000    $16,100,000    6.05    16,100,000
David Price    35    SP    Vet    $32,000,000    -    -    $32,000,000    $16,000,000    6.01    15,000,000
Corey Seager    27    SS    Arb 3    $13,750,000    -    -    $13,750,000    $13,750,000    5.17    13,750,000
Justin Turner    36    3B    Vet    $8,000,000    $4,000,000    -    $12,000,000    $12,000,000    4.51    17,000,000
Max Muncy    30    1B    Arb 2    $7,500,000    $1,500,000    -    $9,000,000    $9,000,000    3.38    8,666,667
Joe Kelly    33    RP    Vet    $8,500,000    -    -    $8,500,000    $8,500,000    3.20    8,333,333
Blake Treinen    33    RP/CL    Vet    $6,000,000    $2,000,000    -    $8,000,000    $8,000,000    3.01    8,750,000
Chris Taylor    30    2B    Arb 3    $7,800,000    -    -    $7,800,000    $7,800,000    2.93    6,700,000
Corey Knebel    29    RP    Arb 4    $5,250,000    -    -    $5,250,000    $5,250,000    1.97    5,250,000
Trea Turner    28    SS    Arb 3    $13,000,000    -    -    $13,000,000    $4,567,568    1.72    4,567,568
 
From Sportrac for 2021.  The number after the - is the salary cap number.  They picked up good to very good pieces for MULTIPLE spots, and those contracts add up.  But the low spenders have only a handful of even $5M contracts.  So something is seriously wrong.
 
I do get the risk that the changes are likely to make the rich get richer, and yeah, I definitely don't want that either.  But the current system isn't working.

I would rank Prometheus and Green Hornet as they did above.
Funnily, my first thought on seeing this thread was it probably can't be long enough for Spence to chime in. LOL

I feel that my statement yesterday was correct, now. Not enough room in this thread for Spence to list them.

We shall agree to REALLY, REALLY disagree.

I always believed that those two movies were horribly misunderstood.
Hudson Hawk was incredibly mis-advertised.  The studio bought what they thought was going to be another Die-Hard.   What they got from producer Bruce Willis was a modern version of a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” picture. Silly plot, lots of gags and musical numbers. The whole schmere.
    So they just advertised it as another Die-Hard anyway and the public who were expecting chocolate cake but got tutti-frutti ice cream instead were upset.  They didn’t understand what was going on and trashed the film.
   
  WWW on the other hand.... I have said that the only thing wrong with that movie was the entire script.  Casting...Good. Set Design....Great.  Music...All right.  The idea of upping the Steampunk quotient...Fantastic.  Even the giant mechanical spiders...Acceptable.
 Both stars in drag, Ted Levine’s Southern General that made you long for his reserved dignified portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs,  Mr Branagh’s awful accent and scenery chewing and sequences like escaping from the buzz saw shurikens of doom...........What brand of crack were you people smoking?
   The shooting script should have been used to smack the writers, producers and directors into unconsciousness and after they were released from enforced drug rehab they could take another shot at the whole thing.

I nominate Free Guy for the best movie of the year.