Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts Tres

[Disneyhead'71]

Alright, when it comes out on Blu Ray, go into your edit bay, cut 30 minutes from it and we'll put up a poll on here. Loser donates $100 to charity? Are you game?

The last time I did this for fun, I cut over an hour out of Peter Jackson's King Kong. It played better to my sensibilities.

And I will say again that I haven't seen it yet, but if that many film industry professionals are saying it needs tightening, it probably needs tightening.

 

[khale1970]

Because I'm an editor. It's what we do.

But it was mostly a tongue in cheek comment. But your point is well founded. But I haven't seen many product in my lifetime that couldn't be tightened up considerably.

Point taken on the tightening up of things as folks tend to prattle, but without a pretty thorough re-write of the story it would be hard to cut 30 minutes on this one. The cannibal bunnies could be cut and save maybe 3 minutes. You could ditch the old man Tonto and the young boy sequences and maybe get close to 30 minutes, but that was a really good (and important IMHO) part of the movie. It was long, but no one that I noticed in my showing seemed bored during the movie. The movie may be a box office flop, but I don't believe the reason will be because it couldn't hold an audiences attention for 2.5 hours.

 

[khale1970]

30 mins would of taken a lot of the origin story out

Watching the Harry Potter movies and the LOTR trilogy, I would find myself bored at times during scenes explaining the back story. That was because I had read the books so I didn't need the back story, but I suppose it was informative and useful to those who haven't read the source material. I don't think over familiarity with the story in this movie was a problem, and cutting out the origin story would have hurt. For example, both of my kids had never heard of the Lone Ranger before seeing this movie. Six Texas Rangers, hi ho, hi ho, Rode Through a Canyon....yeah, they've never heard that.

 

[RSoxNo1]

The last time I did this for fun, I cut over an hour out of Peter Jackson's King Kong. It played better to my sensibilities.

And I will say again that I haven't seen it yet, but if that many film industry professionals are saying it needs tightening, it probably needs tightening.

I haven't seen Peter Jackson's King Kong, and only the first half of the first Lord of the Rings movie and I couldn't handle it. I would buy, based solely on the hour and a half of my life that I'm not getting back that it would be easier to cut time out of a Peter Jackson movie than it will be out of Lone Ranger. I know that movies can be cut for time/television and it's done all the time. But it doesn't always make it better.

 

[dhall]

True, but I don't know if Amazon was even around when Virgin opened (I know I wasn't using it!) and people (some anyway) still enjoy buying books and music in an actual store. I am one of them ... a dying breed, no doubt.

It was, and I'd used it a few times -- I'd worked in one of the Ingram companies and we had great book discounts: when Amazon opened, it was little more than a drop-ship front end for Ingram (they built out their own distribution infrastructure later) so I got pretty close to my old employee discounts even though I'd left Ingram a couple years earlier.

While I miss the days of picking out CD's from a well stocked CD store, buying music online has turned out much better (I've discovered a lot of great music by younger musicians that I probably wouldn't've heard back in the old days). I still prefer buying books in person by looking at the shelves, although I don't like the newer size formats they're pushing for paperbacks.

 

[WDW1974]

Back to the Ranger ... I've heard that some folks had a problem because they viewed this as Pirates Take the West. That's only a good excuse if you're a simpleton who sees Forrest Gump everytime Tom Hanks is on screen or Han Solo everytime Harrison Ford is in a different role. ... In tone, I can see people making comparisons between the first PoC film and Ranger, but how is that a bad thing? ... It strains credulity to think that people who turned out for FOUR PoC films have 'Pirate overload'-- as one of my well-respected pals who didn't like the film called it -- for a WESTERN film.

Ultimately, there just seems to be over the top negativity directed here. I'm saddened by that, and I loves the negativity, because it is misplaced.

Why not anger at the complete piece of (expletive deleted) that was Tron: Legacy? The first film was barely something one could call a 'cult hit' and 30 years later Disney goes back to the well and makes a worse movie that ia absolutely incomprehensible in large doses and instead of anger in the fan community there's a desire for more?

Yep. I don't get it. ... But I also don't get Disney fanbois who hate Pixar or the Muppets either.

 

[WDW1974]

On another front, WDW has been very slow beyond the 4th at MK and EPCOT. Both Studios and DAK had days last week where they struggled to get folks in the parks. ...And the resorts? Well, if you're notching load levels in the 60s (not counting rooms taken out of inventory for things like soft good rehabs that are going on at numerous resorts) during the biggest holiday week of summer, then suffice to say you DO have a serious structural problem with your business. ... TDO has noticed and if things keep up look for tossed together marketing crap, more cutbacks in operating hours and discounts out the (blank).

 

[WDW1974]

Isn't it great we can all have opinions? If nothing else, this discussion sort of proves that posters on a Disney forum are in fact capable of having differing opinions without it dissolving into insults and ridicule. Refreshing, I think.

That said, now several days after the fact, I still enjoyed the hell out of that movie. More than Man of Steel, slightly more than Iron Man 3...in fact, looking at a list of this years box office...I can't spot a film (other than Star Trek) that I liked better.

Lee, you ignorant , I agree completely.

 

[ParentsOf4]

I checked in today at AKV for my next MAGICal Universal vacation. (To be fair, we probably will hit a WDW water park one day.)

So far, it's been just nasty WiFi service; excellent signal strength one moment, poor the next, oops, another dropped connection. And this is from my room, a stationary node in the network.

And they plan to do what with MyMagic+?

Unless they get it fixed fast, they are going to have major scalability problems at the parks.

 

[Tim_4]

On another front, WDW has been very slow beyond the 4th at MK and EPCOT. Both Studios and DAK had days last week where they struggled to get folks in the parks. ...And the resorts? Well, if you're notching load levels in the 60s (not counting rooms taken out of inventory for things like soft good rehabs that are going on at numerous resorts) during the biggest holiday week of summer, then suffice to say you DO have a serious structural problem with your business. ... TDO has noticed and if things keep up look for tossed together marketing crap, more cutbacks in operating hours and discounts out the (blank).

Bookings are well ahead of last year.

 

[OFTeric]

On another front, WDW has been very slow beyond the 4th at MK and EPCOT. Both Studios and DAK had days last week where they struggled to get folks in the parks. ...And the resorts? Well, if you're notching load levels in the 60s (not counting rooms taken out of inventory for things like soft good rehabs that are going on at numerous resorts) during the biggest holiday week of summer, then suffice to say you DO have a serious structural problem with your business. ... TDO has noticed and if things keep up look for tossed together marketing crap, more cutbacks in operating hours and discounts out the (blank).

The big 3 here in Orlando this past week all took a major hit. the rain is the current talking point, but empty hotel rooms tell another story.

I think that we are beginning to see the effects of what pricing yourself out of the market looks like.

 

[WDW1974]

Agreed, I enjoyed it although cutting 30 minutes would be a minimum, 45 would probably have helped even more. (The whole prostitute subplot didn't offend me--it's a trope of the Wild West--but it also did nothing for the plot, and Helena Bonham-Carter just sounds weird with a Southern drawl.)

[Getting into spoilery territory here ...]

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Much like Captain America, I appreciated the dedication to keeping as much of the various source materials as possible--"thrilling tales of yesteryear," kemosabe, the silver bullet, Silver, Butch Cavandish, the William Tell overture--they're are all in there in one form or another. Even the nephew who's grandson will go on to become The Green Hornet in the 50s.

As for the rabbits--truly the only moments from the movie for me. Are they supposed to be the true windingos? Like the bird at the end, another hint that magic really does exist? Are they some obscure LR in-joke? Has anyone asked Gore yet?

I actually didn't find it long at all. Didn't look at my watch (hey kids, look in a history book if you don't know what one is because you get your time from Siri Jobs) once, didn't run to the rest room once, sat for the entire credits trying to see who I might know. The film didn't feel bloated like say the second and third Pirates films where they went on forever and had all sorts of characters and subplots (many that went nowhere).

And if you don't think MAGIC exists, then you shouldn't even be on a Disney forum!!!

 

[WDW1974]

Bookings are well ahead of last year.

A blanket statement that says nothing. Booking for when? At what price points?

I'm talking about current resort load levels. They aren't exactly what one would expect for time of year.

 

[dhall]

I will say this...I didn't see Despicable Me in theaters (chalked it up as a Shrek rip off, which, I loved Shrek one, and two was ok...but three was terrible!)

Yet, I find myself more interested in it than Monsters U, which seems nothing more than "Disney does Revenge of the Nerds"...sorry, I don't wish to see a college comedy. My kid won't get it (though she'll laugh), and I won't get it as I had to actually work at age 18 instead of going to college and living in a dorm and partying like a spoiled brat for another 4 years of my life.

We saw MU last week while on vacation and we loved it. My wife is sort-of in academia professionally, and she spends a lot of time on boards related to colleges & college admissions. MonstersU is extremely popular in academic circles, with exactly the same people who had all the reason in the world to hate the Revenge of the Nerds movies. It is Pixar's version of the nerds formula, but it's a lot more thoughtful with an actual positive theme driving it that resonates very well with educators. The academics also love seeing all the monster jokes about typical university life.

MonsterU's website is also quite a lot better than many colleges' websites (and many on the academic boards have noticed that as well)

 

[Tim_4]

A blanket statement that says nothing. Booking for when? At what price points?

I'm talking about current resort load levels. They aren't exactly what one would expect for time of year.

Yep that's what I mean. Resort room nights. Currently.

 

[yoyoflamingo]

I checked in today at AKV for my next MAGICal Universal vacation. (To be far, we probably will hit a WDW water park one day.)

So far, it's been just nasty WiFi service; excellent signal strength one moment poor the next, oops, another dropped connection. And this is from my room, a stationary node in the network.

And they plan to do what with MyMagic+?

Unless they get it fixed fast, they are going to have major scalability problems at the parks.

When we were there 2 weeks ago, Wifi was down at the Contemporary while we were at Chef Mickey's. Our server was extremely upset about it, since it did create MM+ issues for guests, and led to delays and issues with processing checks. She worked for the parks for over 30 years as a server and said she has never been moer upset than with MM+, mainly because it takes away personal interaction with guests.

Nothing really different from what we've been discussing here, but eye opening to hear it at the Resort from the CMs.

 

[Tim_4]

We saw MU last week while on vacation and we loved it. My wife is sort-of in academia professionally, and she spends a lot of time on boards related to colleges & college admissions. MonstersU is extremely popular in academic circles, with exactly the same people who had all the reason in the world to hate the Revenge of the Nerds movies. It is Pixar's version of the nerds formula, but it's a lot more thoughtful with an actual positive theme driving it that resonates very well with educators. The academics also love seeing all the monster jokes about typical university life.

MonsterU's website is also quite a lot better than many colleges' websites (and many on the academic boards have noticed that as well)

I thought Monsters was fantastic. I haven't seen Lone Ranger yet but my recent filmgoing reviews:

Monsters - A-
Despicable Me 2 - B
Man of Steel - F+

 

[WDW1974]

It's almost a beat-for-beat remake of Black Pearl, replacing pirate tropes with Western tropes and replacing a riff on Keith Richards with a riff on the TV version of Tonto (still playing essentially the same character, tho). I could almost hear the director's commentary from PotC over a couple of the scenes.

In that sense, I can see why critics have it out for TLR. None of them seemed particularly crazy about any of the PotC movies, and critics always hate formulaic movies because they have to sit through so many of them.

I think if someone is looking to compare the film to PoC, then they'll find similarities in structure. But the film is so different ... and I wouldn't say critics hate formulaic movies because most are. They pick and choose which films they like and don't.

I know if I were a critic, my review would be quite a bit different than most of what I read. Bottom line is the criticisms (most, not all) don't stand up under scrutiny (much like say WDW's numbers!)

 

[Tim_4]

When we were there 2 weeks ago, Wifi was down at the Contemporary while we were at Chef Mickey's. Our server was extremely upset about it, since it did create MM+ issues for guests, and led to delays and issues with processing checks. She worked for the parks for over 30 years as a server and said she has never been moer upset than with MM+, mainly because it takes away personal interaction with guests.

Nothing really different from what we've been discussing here, but eye opening to hear it at the Resort from the CMs.

You have to take all of that with a major grain of salt. I'll be truly interested in hearing all the MM+ reviews once it's live, but "MM+ is buggy" is kind of an expected thing during beta testing. That's the whole point of beta testing.

 

[WDW1974]

Another huge problem with Lone Ranger is that Disney knew they had a flop, pulled out several times, and STILL went through with it.

Perhaps, they wanted a flop?

Or perhaps they just have poor marketing people?