Hacker Cinema
Monsters
2010 · Film · 94 min
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an infected zone. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures," while a journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border.
6 positive1 neutralfrom 7 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
7 comments on Hacker News
Yeah I don't disagree that if the AI can get it spot on which I think it will be able to do eventually it will take over. It will take over even if it's not spot on, because the bottom line is all that matters to the major studios now.
> Why would they? Very few people can notice and appreciate the level of detail you are describing
People might not consciously appreciate the detail but I think almost everyone subconsciously appreciates the overall vibe. Everyone can watch that The Good, The Bad and The Ugly clip and see there's something special about that location.
The reason I feel like the execs should be able to see it is that they're cutting off their nose to spite their face. If you watch a movie and come out seeing like you've seen something breathtaking, you're going to tell your friends and ticket sales are going to go up, not just for that movie, but for future movies as well. Whereas if film after film after film is a dud, which seems to be more common for me than not nowadays, you stop watching films and spending your money on films. For me this has already happened - when I was younger I used to go to the cinema once every week or two. The state of cinema is so bad now I might only go once a quarter.
So the execs take these cost cutting measures, but they have the overall effect of losing them money in the long term. The film may end up pulling in 200% over production compared to 100% if they'd have used practical effects. But that "missing profit" isn't missing - they're instead spending it on raising their overall brand value and reputation by offering up a higher quality product.
Like the last film I watched at the cinema was Gareth Edwards The Creator. He'd built up a little bit of brand value with the original Monsters and Rogue One, but The Creator was so monumentally, insultingly bad I don't think I will ever go watch a film he's made again.
If you google "vfx workflow" or "vfx pipeline" you'll find lots of stuff.
As I understand it the reason things get out of control on big movies is that there's no incentive to plan shots properly or be decisive, because VFX houses are expected to sign stupid contracts. There are smaller movies where people are more disciplined, eg. Monsters, where I believe director Gareth Edwards did all the VFX himself.
Monsters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film)) is my response to that. The problem with "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" wasn't that it was low budget, it was that it decided part-way through to become (relatively) high-budget. A carefully constructed film with $500,000 budget made $4.2 million back on good, but limited, effects. The problem is Hollywood's approach; instead of making a handful of single-A movies, it's all either B movies or AAA.
Video games were (?) having the same problem, so-called "indie" developers have largely stepped in to make single A-quality titles.
On a related note; if you've not seen "Monsters" then you should track it down, a great film! (it should have had a BAFTA but had the misfortune to be released the same year as the even better "Four Lions").
Movies aren't expensive to make, unless you want to make them expensive. The technology involved has been getting cheaper year after year. Take "monsters" for example. It's a sci-fi movie in the best tradition, that doesn't look low-budget, and that cost less than a million dollars to make.
I think the problem is that studio's have too many incentives to increase budgets and few reasons to trim them. I'm sure they could make the same movies they make today for a fifth of the budget, if they reorganized themselves around doing that.
So movie-making is becoming more geographically and capital diverse, good for us! Note how little Monsters costed (under half a mil), or District 9 in 2009, for that matter. Some cool movies made outside of Hollywood and released last year: http://www.dailytitan.com/2011/01/01/the-best-little-movies-you-didnt-see-in-2010/
This simply isn't true.
I just watched RED a few days ago (in my home) and it just opened 2 weeks ago, if that.
Ditto on Monsters, which I saw before it opened around here.
And tonight I'll be watching Social Network, which is in the theaters everywhere but it's just not convenient for me to drag my gf and her 6 and 9 year old to see a movie they won't want to sit through (well she will, but the kids, not likely).
I'd be willing to pay for this privilege - aka watching in the comfort of my own home - but they leave me no choice in the matter.