Hacker Cinema
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
2016 · Film · 133 min
Directed by David Yates
In 1926, Newt Scamander arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States of America with a magically expanded briefcase, which houses a number of dangerous creatures and their habitats. When the creatures escape from the briefcase, it sends the American wizarding authorities after Newt, and threatens to strain even further the state of magical and non-magical relations.
4 negative3 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them_(film)
I enjoyed the Harry Potter games I've played and have played pretty much every "monster" game that exists (Pokemon, Digimon, DQ: Monsters, Monster Rancher, etc). As a fan, I'm sorry to say I don't see myself being interested in a Fantastic Beasts game. I would love to be proven wrong... maybe it's because I didn't enjoy the movies but I don't hear anyone mention fantastic beasts for any reason, good or otherwise.
>Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them.
Is it because there isn't any other IP out there to do? They are starved for writers? Or is it these few things are all that'll actually sell/work?
Somehow it feels like they are trying too much to milk every last single drop of IP available out there to create the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and for me, Rings of Power, just like with House of Dragon and that Harry Potter thing with Fantastic Beasts, it just seems like there are shows/movies created by suits strictly from a financial or business point of view and have absolutely no soul to them.
It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.
Say, how are things with adaptations of "The Master and Margarita" into other media? There was some Hollywood movie undergoing, or wasn't it? Pretty sure I didn't mistake it with the Fantastic Beasts franchise...
I myself gonna humblebrag, one of my mods for Skyrim is named "Never Talk To NPCs" after the first chapter of the book. Of course it's only rehashing a few selected tropes, not an adaptation in the strict sense.
So is "The Master and Margarita" really for people who feel low in their lifes? My activity once led me to reading a thread on 4chan about "The Master and Margarita", where the OP-anon insisted there's no point in a book where there is magic and "the protaganist [i.e., Woland] can do everything". Not sure if it was genuine trolling or some poor soul forced to read in for a class assignment, but there's a grain of good question in that observation.
SPOILER if Woland frees the Master only after Margarita wished to free other person, maybe Woland wasn't in power to free the Master without that happening? we'll never know in the book, but I shall imply that the whole thing was set up precisely for that accomplishment END SPOILER.
Modern color treatment in film totally drives me crazy, independent of what it does to CGI.
It seems like every film coming out of Hollywood these days is processed exactly the same way:
* Crank down the low end so half the frame is solid inky black.
* Pick one or two key colors, and jack up their saturation.
* Desaturate everything else.
In other words, make the entire movie look like an over-dramatic poster for it. Throw any sense of naturalism or unique look out the door. Once you notice it, you see it everywhere. Here's the top live action movies of 2016:
Rogue One
Cyan and olive: http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Rogue-One-A-Star-Wars-Story15.jpg
Captain America: Civil War
Yellow and red: http://cdn3-www.superherohype.com/assets/uploads/gallery/civil-war-trailer-2-screenshots/cwttss03.jpg
Why they felt the need to make Cap's lip rosy red is beyond me. Even better is this shot:
http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Captain-America-Civil-War-cast-photo-Renner-Johansson-Evans-Sebastian-Stan.jpg
This is a daylight shot. Look at how the characters are all squinting. Look at the big white fluffly clouds that should be diffusing the light and softening shadows. And yet, magically, all of the shadows are jet black and almost all of the color is gone.
The Jungle Book
Green and red (to draw attention to Mowgli):
https://www.moviedeskback.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The_Jungle_Book_HD_Screencaps-23.png
Deadpool
Another daylight shot with nonsensical shading:
http://turntherightcorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Deadpool-Movie-Screenshot-Brianna-Hildebrand-Negasonic-Teenage-Warhead-Texting.jpg
The light is clearly diffuse, if you look at the shadows on the ground, and yet there is this deep black everywhere. Deadpool took the look further by only picking one color (red, Deadpool's outfit color) for the entire film.
Lest you think this is just an issue with superhero movies, let's ignore those and look at the other top non-superhero movies of 2016:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
More of the same:
http://harrypotterfanzone.com/wp-content/2016/09/fantastic-beasts-trailer-screenshot75.png
It also suffers strongly from the "It's a period movie so we're going to sepia tone everything so hard it looks like you're watching the movie through an aquarium full of pee" effect.
Hidden Figures
https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/hiddenfigures.jpg
More of the period movie sepia along with an improbably jacked up complementary cyan.
Star Trek Beyond
If the past is warm, the future must be cool:
http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Star-Trek-Beyond2.jpg
Blacks, grays and neon cyan, just like Rogue One. Look how unnatural his skin tone is! They wanted to jack up yellow to complement their primary blue so much that the poor dude has jaundice:
http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/star-trek-beyond-trailer-cover.jpg
La La Land
I'll give this one some credit for varying it up a bit. Also, dramatic spotlit stage lighting is a logical part of the movie's look. But it's still prey to the same cliched look in places:
http://henrymollman.com/content/images/2017/01/Screenshot-from-2017-01-18-22-36-49-1.png
Ghostbusters
Ectoplasm green and spooky violet were the key colors for the whole film. Secondary colors tend to come across as magical or eerie to viewers since they're different from the safe and familiary primary colors. Of course, jacking up magenta doesn't do flattering things to skin:
http://www.ramascreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Ghostbusters2.jpg
Also, what color is Melissa McCarthy's coat? Is it actually black? Who fucking knows.
Central Intelligence
The traditional comedy look is brightly-lit and saturated, so Central Intelligence didn't fare quite as poorly as the above. Whenever they had a chance to dim the lights, though, they revert to the same cliched look as well:
https://i2.wp.com/doblu.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/centralintelligence2944.jpg
The Legend of Tarzan
http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/14209_5.jpg
Jesus, we get it, colorist. They're in the wet jungle. We don't need to be physically assaulted with the colors blue and green to figure that out.
...You get the idea.
Go back and watch a movie from before 2000 and you'll quickly realize how much more pleasant to look at most of them where, and how much more variety there was in look. Compare Alien to The Graduate. But it seems like ever since the rise of digital coloring and superhero movies, Hollywood has decided every single fucking movie needs to look like a comic book page, whether it needs it or not.
One recent movie I really liked that bucked this trend was Her. It was heavily colorized, but in a way that stood out. In shots like these, even though there's a strong color cast and a lot of dark, there's still always some color and detail in the shadows:
https://i1.wp.com/turntherightcorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Her-Movie-2013-Screenshot-Theodore-Apartment.jpg
https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/her-screenshot-14.jpg
Maybe Assistant could somehow monitor what kind of things users are asking a particular app to do and use that to determine defaults for specific actions in future interactions. Imagine:
"Okay Google, get me movie tickets for Rogue One on Tuesday"
"I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that yet. Try telling me to ask another service like Fandango or MovieTickets.com."
"Ask Fandango"
"Okay. [Switches to Fandango.] What theater do you want to see Rogue One at?"
---
Later when I ask for movie tickets again...
"Okay Google, get me a movie ticket for Moana."
"I'm not sure how to do that. Would you like me to ask Fandango?"
"Sure"
"Okay. [Switches to Fandango.] What theater do you want to see Moana at?"
---
Later still...
"Okay Google, get me a movie ticket for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
"Sure, let me ask Fandango... [Switches to Fandango.]"
---
You get the idea. And if a user ever wants to use a different service, they can always ask for it explicitly.