AMC A-List & other theater subscriptions (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

As Travis said, it's no different than any other film with obviously fake FX, such as King Kong or Jaws, or any film with creatures/monsters you know don't exist so are obviously fake regardless of how good the FX may look.

Watching only films with seamless, realistic visual FX would be a mighty short list.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Is it any different than watching, say, the stop motion in the original King Kong today? It's fake but I just accept it and move on. And like I said, how much CG with organic things in any movie actually looks legitimately real? It happens but it's rare.

It's different than "King Kong" because we know today's tech can do much better.

I agree that even circa 2020 CG tends to be spotty for organic creatures, but as I note in my review, they can clearly do MUCH better than Buck in "CotW".

The "Planet of the Apes" make fake animals the freakin' lead characters and I bought them as "real".

Buck? Took me completely out of the movie!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

As Travis said, it's no different than any other film with obviously fake FX, such as King Kong or Jaws, or any film with creatures/monsters you know don't exist so are obviously fake regardless of how good the FX may look.

Watching only films with seamless, realistic visual FX would be a mighty short list.

Again, I contend it is different than decades-old movies because we understand those came from eras without the same technology.

Plus, Bruce the shark is on-screen way less than Buck the dog, and he's not required to act.

King Kong gets a lot of screen time - though not as much as Buck - and remains engaging because the character still works despite the obviously "fake" effects.

That character maintains a charm due to the amazing execution of the effects.

Buck just looks like they paid some dude $50 to do the effects at home on his laptop.

Did all of you guys depend Blawp from the 1998 "Lost in Space", too?

 

[Tino]

Did all of you guys depend Blawp from the 1998 "Lost in Space", too?

Love that dopey movie!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Love that dopey movie!

I think the 1998 "Lost In Space" is mostly fun, if not objectively "good":

Lost In Space [Blu-Ray] (1998)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson: No one can call Lost In Space a classic film, and I definitely understand those who loathe it. However, I think the movie offers a reasonably exciting and entertaining piece of work that may not hold up to much scrutiny, but it still comes across as moderate fun. As...

dvdmg.com

But those Blawp effects were embarrassing in 1998 and haven't gotten better!

 

[Johnny Angell]

I think the 1998 "Lost In Space" is mostly fun, if not objectively "good":

Lost In Space [Blu-Ray] (1998)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson: No one can call Lost In Space a classic film, and I definitely understand those who loathe it. However, I think the movie offers a reasonably exciting and entertaining piece of work that may not hold up to much scrutiny, but it still comes across as moderate fun. As...

dvdmg.com

But those Blawp effects were embarrassing in 1998 and haven't gotten better!

They should have used their FX budget to replace the actors.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

They should have used their FX budget to replace the actors.

They actually had a good cast for the 1998 "LiS"! William Hurt ain't chicken feed!

Back to "Call of the Wild": apparently it had a $135 million budget, and I can't imagine a big %age of that went to the actors. Yeah, Harrison Ford is a star, but the Harrison Ford of 2020 won't demand the salaries of Harrison Ford circa 2000.

So most of that money would've gone to FX... and that cartoony dog was the best they could do???

 

[Colin Jacobson]

They should have used their FX budget to replace the actors.

They actually had a good cast for the 1998 "LiS"! William Hurt ain't chicken feed!

Back to "Call of the Wild": apparently it had a $135 million budget, and I can't imagine a big %age of that went to the actors. Yeah, Harrison Ford is a star, but the Harrison Ford of 2020 won't demand the salaries of Harrison Ford circa 2000.

So most of that money would've gone to FX... and that cartoony dog was the best they could do???

 

[TravisR]

They actually had a good cast for the 1998 "LiS"! William Hurt ain't chicken feed!

Back to "Call of the Wild": apparently it had a $135 million budget, and I can't imagine a big %age of that went to the actors. Yeah, Harrison Ford is a star, but the Harrison Ford of 2020 won't demand the salaries of Harrison Ford circa 2000.

So most of that money would've gone to FX... and that cartoony dog was the best they could do???

I'm sure that The Force Awakens being the biggest movie of all time helped boost Ford's salary for Call Of The Wild. Yes, it was Han Solo and not Harrison Ford that helped The Force Awakens make a bajillion dollars but it still made Ford's agent be able to get even more money for him to do Call.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I'm sure that The Force Awakens being the biggest movie of all time helped boost Ford's salary for Call Of The Wild. Yes, it was Han Solo and not Harrison Ford that helped The Force Awakens make a bajillion dollars but it still made Ford's agent be able to get even more money for him to do Call.

If they paid Ford more than $10 million, I'd be surprised.

But even if they paid him $35m - which they almost certainly didn't - that left $100 million for everything else, and the rest of the cast couldn't have been too pricey. Sure, Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan have been in big movies, but they're not "box office names".

It seems abundantly clear a HUGE chunk of the budget went to visual effects.

VFX are expensive. The movie had a lead character who only existed in a computer - it's not hard to do the math.

And the CG dog looked awful, even with all that money to pay for it!

I still can't get over the fact you guys are defending this, a CG dog that doesn't even look vaguely real in a still!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

We all have our own entry points into the uncanny valley...

 

[TravisR]

We all have our own entry points into the uncanny valley...

Beyond that, I can get invested in a fully CG animated character in a Pixar movie so why not a CG dog in a live action movie?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Beyond that, I can get invested in a fully CG animated character in a Pixar movie so why not a CG dog in a live action movie?

Because EVERYTHING in the animated film is CG. They don't have a fully live-action world and then plop a CG character into it.

We're supposed to buy Buck as a real dog who exists in the real world.

Animated characters in an animated universe allow us to suspend disbelief.

Heck, "cartoony" animated characters in a live universe allow us to suspend disbelief.

It's the fact Buck is supposed to look real that's the problem... because he doesn't!

 

[Tino]

Dude.......let it go.

It’s just a movie trying to entertain us. So the cgi wasn’t the best. It still was a very entertaining film and I connected with Buck completely.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The Call of the Wild is just like any other film. Some of us are going to like it and some of us aren't going to like it and that's fine. I don't want to speak for anyone else but I personally feel like we have gone around the carousel on this particular discussion enough times.

To bring this thread back to A-List...

I vaguely remember that when AMC announced their reopening in advance of Tenet, they said that members could elect to have their membership remain paused until December, at which time all memberships would reactivate. Does anyone know if they actually went through with this or not? I know a lot of people here cancelled before that was scheduled to happen, but I wonder if anyone got "surprise" billed in December because they forgot or didn't know the automatic billing would resume at that time. Obviously, we are still living in a very dangerous moment right now in regards to the pandemic and current moviegoing trends are reflecting that. So I'd be surprised if everyone was just okay with AMC turning on memberships automatically in December.

 

[Jason_V]

Staying out of the Buck controversy...to answer Jake. No, I have not been billed and I have not formally cancelled the service.

I recall I got an email that essentially said there are no theaters open in your area so billing will not resume.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Dude.......let it go.

It’s just a movie trying to entertain us. So the cgi wasn’t the best. It still was a very entertaining film and I connected with Buck completely.

That's because YOU are really just a CG character, too!

 

[Tino]

Staying out of the Buck controversy...to answer Jake. No, I have not been billed and I have not formally cancelled the service.

Ditto

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Due to minor toe surgery, I didn't go to AMC for 3 full weeks!

But I returned yesterday to see "Fatale" - and wish I'd stayed away another week!

Terrible movie. Just stupid and dull, a thriller without any thrills...

 

[Tino]

I’ll be fully vaccinated next week so I’m contemplating returning to the movies. Not sure yet. But I miss it.