Merkel

You have to realize a press tour could also make people who didn't even watch Part One interest in watching Part Tow and will, therefore, watch Part One beforehand. In fact, I do believe a significant portion of the increase I expect Part Two to have over Part One will come from this sort of audience. You simply cannot rely on the goodwill from Part One alone. If not, why would Tom Cruise even bother promoting Dead Reckoning, after the success and great reception of Fallout?

It's set a bit before that. I assume it will start during the reign of Septimius Severus and then focus on the succession struggle between the brothers Caracalla and Gaeta, with Caracalla being pretty much a second Commodus, I reckon

Probably best to avoid a movie that "literally takes your breath away"

It's still beyond me to this day how Aquaman managed to get a fresh rating. I found it to be absolutely awful

And absolute crap like Aquaman made a mint at the box office

Of course. It's an amalgamation of many mediums. Of visual art, of music, of sound, dialogue, the written word, choreography. It pretty much encompasses all arts. I just find calling film a visual medium is deeply reductive

Yeah, I think we're pretty much in agreement. I don't think some of the shots in The Flash look wonky as they look because of an artistic choice. It might come down to a sort of "we'll fix in post" mentality when shooting that makes these movies have bad VFX shots, even with long post production schedules and large subjects. On the other hand, directors like Villeneuve or Nolan really never had bad VFX shots in any of their movies. If a shot can only be achieved though wonky CGI, bets are they will just ditch it altogether. Just one small note: I often read that cinema is a visual medium, and I don't fully agree. It is also a deeply sonic medium. Sound, music, dialogue are equaly important

I would generally agree with you, but you must realize that "looking worse" is still subjective. Take something like Del Toro's Pinocchio. He chose to do with stop-motion. The movement will never be as fluid as it is with computer animation. You can't go as crazy with the camera and produce impossible shots. The range of movements of the characters is more restricted. So in many ways, it might be considered to be a "worse looking" technique than computer imagination. And yet, those limits, that rustiness in the movement is absolutely integral to the whole endeavor. To this day, this is one of most visually arresting games I have ever played. It's called Return to the Obra Dinn, released in 2018. It uses exactly 2 colors: black and white. It would not look better with 3000 colors.

I would hate to see the VFX in Ghostbusters, for example, to be redone. It's a different thing to cleap up the footage that has faded over time. It's quite another to remake part of a film. Some movies are, in many ways, historical artifacts. You start "improving them" and they lose something of what made them special and they lose their place in time and in the evolution of the art form

One thing that bothers me in the footage I've seen do far (it could be different in the movie itself) is how the vast majority of the Batman scenes seem to be set in daytime. It bothered me in TDKR and it bothers me here, but in the Nolan film, the settinh at least felt palpable

I actually feel the same with The Force Awakens when Han shows up. Goes to show that revisiting these beloved characters years down the road seldom is a good idea. The concept of it might be fun and works somewhat in a sort of post credits tease, but when it actually has to be part of the narrative of a movie, it invariably falls short

This has probably been mentioned before, but I had no idea the Dial of Destiny was based on an actual artifact. This is really interesting stuff:

That's a bit harsh, I think. The climax is probably the best of all films. And it's got loads of really memorable bits all over, like finding the X in the library or meeting Hitler in Berlin

I can't conceive of any version of reality where KOTCS is a better movie than Last Crusade

Last Crusade is a bit guilty of retreading some of what really worked in Raiders, but the dialogue is so good, the globetrotting feeling so strong and the fact that the artifact is deeply linked with Indiana's character journey in this, make it a really wonderful film. It might be safer that TOD. But it is so well made, it flows so well, I really can't criticize it much

One thing I absolutely love about the opening is the cheekiness and cheer bravado of having Willy Scott standing in front of the movie title: It just works

It is particularly weird as this movie was delayed for a year and had a particularly long and relaxed production schedule. Not to mention the huge budget. If it is indeed the case, there really is no excuse for poor VFX

That was mostly due to Greig Fraser, I reckon. He's one of the best DP's in the business right now and he's particularly good in capturing scale. The Death Star, for example, never felt so massive. I wasn't a fan of Rogue One, but it does look fantastic

Looks really fake, but the sound effects are amazing. There wasn't a single memorable new sound effect in the Sequel Trilogy

There was never much need to worry about continuity in the first three movies. But you start bringing back characters like Marion, giving the hero a son, having marry, etc, then you're screwed

What worries me the most is that I've yet to see a really glowing review for this. Dune had a bunch of those at this point, even with a somewhat mixed initial response

Indeed. In Temple of Doom, which is set in Raiders, there's no mention of Salah nor Marcus. In Raiders, there's no mention of Short Round or Willy. Neither of them mention Indy's father. In Last Crusade, there's no mention of Marion

I was just throwing guesses on how they might tackle it. But Villeneuve will find a way to make it look right. He has a great instinct and criteria on when and how to use VFX shots

Paul saw her in his visions in Part One, so she will most likely appear in this movie. She is a two year old that speaks like an actual adult and that's what makes her so unsettling to others. They could cast an actual two year old girl, have her dubbed by another actress and use some VFX technique to make the mouth movement match, kinda like they did with the animals in Babe. Or use CGI, motion capture face over the face of a two year old girl. Regardless, I'm sure Villeneuve will make it look right. I have never seen a single bad VFX shot in any of his movies. What they did with Rachel in Blade Runner 2049 was pretty impressive. They might take a similar route here. Just don't age Alia up and use an 8 year old. That would defeat the whole purpose and be far less unsettling and effective

There seems to be a sort of Dracula renaissance going on, This one, Renfield, Eggers upcoming Nosferatu... Now, if they are faithful to the novel, I assume all the crew will be dead by the end