GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Another Earth......

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, April 19, 2012 13:42
SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/HPKY5M
VIEWED: 2181
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Sunday, April 15, 2012 4:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Did anybody here see it?



What do you think about it?

My dad recommended it highly to me. Usually our recommendations on non-mainstream flicks are met with glowing approval (Think: eXistenZ, Donnie Darko, Ink, Unknown).....

But this one really just fell flat with me.


Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting and even an engaging story. I just think that it wasn't even a Sci-Fi story AT ALL.

I'm just thinking that with a few minor changes, this could have been a chick flick worthy of Merilyn Streep and Clint Eastwood and bridges in a County designated Madison...

I feel as if I were just duped into watching a movie I'd never have watched if it was classified in the category that it belongs.



In the end, to me, all this movie was about was a dumb kid who got SUPER drunk one night and killed (almost) an entire family in a stationary car parked on the other side of the road. We're supposed to feel sorry for her because she was celebrating that she was admitted to MIT and was celebrating that fact when she got a .29 blood alcohol level (which, btw wouldn't even have happened, because no guy at that party 1/4 blasted as she was would have let her drive home on her own when the party was over).



Where my dad saw a sci-fi movie worthy of recommending to me, all i saw was a 90 minute MADD PSA.

At least a quarter of my "friends" growing up are either dead, or in prison now. I'm sure all of them would LOVE the idea that the night they made the ultimate wrong decision (of a lifetime litany of less significant wrong decisions), that suddenly a 2nd earth appeared and gave them the hope that they didn't ruin their lives and other people's lives up there.


Whatever....

In the end, I just think this movie is lame.

I'm happy they didn't go all CG and high money with it. That's not the problem with me....

It's just that I think that there was so very much potential to put this (possibly) beautiful relationship together, but they dropped the ball in the end.

After all of that buildup, it felt like they just threw the entire relationship to the Deus-Ex-Machina Wolves in the last 5 minutes of the movie.

That's what pisses me off....

There was really no Sci-Fi angle here at all....

It was just the means to the end game of an easy exit.

Maybe you can watch the last 30 seconds and read more than I can?????

It's really the first time in the movie you have a Sci-Fi moment, and it's an open ended thing...

And by that time.... too little, too late....

I don't care anymore, especially after the events of the previous five minutes....


I dunno... I've probably watched Donnie Darko 10 times and can't figure it out to this day. But Another Earth..... I can't imagine I'll ever waste another 90 minutes of my time because I got the whole picture. It's just a story that's 90% complete. It's so close to being a perfect movie, but there's just something missing....


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Monday, April 16, 2012 1:22 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.


I think you're right about it not being an SF movie. It's a character story all about second chances. I interpreted it as almost all in the imagination of the main character. There was no second Earth.



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Monday, April 16, 2012 3:11 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


My dad saw it and said it was kind of lame, and had little to do with scifi, the title is deceptive, don't bother. So I haven't.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:33 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I liked it. I thout it wuz a kool idea to hav this syfy element thats mostly a backdrop for much uv the story, yet endz up az the driving factor.

My complaints - no mention uv the fact that everybody iz about to die wen the planets collide. Admittedly, my astrofiziks iznt perfect & complete, but the basic premise seemz to require that both Earths are in the same orbit on the same plane, otherwize they woud be moving at substantially different speedz and thus we woud hav seen each other regularly thruout history.

This leadz to the second complaint. Why are they approaching each other now? Having a second Earth sitting on the oppozit side uv the sun for billionz uv yirz and suddenly its on the same side and getting vizably closer over a handful uv yirz requirez a major cozmic event. Inertia and gravity hav their little rulez everybody haz to follow.

I suppoze it coud be explained and a collision or a too close approach (also meanz doomzday) coud be avoided, but they didnt bother.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 3:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by ecgordon:
I think you're right about it not being an SF movie. It's a character story all about second chances. I interpreted it as almost all in the imagination of the main character. There was no second Earth.



That's an interesting spin on it. Possibly a psychosis that she developed either from any mental trauma sustained from the accident, or an emotional escape from reality, or a bit of both. The fact that she confides in her "guy" that she won the contest, her brother told her about the call that she won while shooting hoops in the backyard, and that her parents didn't want her to go at all could also be explained away by this.

Hell... if she's the only person in the world seeing "another Earth" constantly coming closer to our Earth, she's the only person seeing news stories about the phenomonon, and that she's the only person who wrote an essay for a contest that didn't even exist, then why couldn't she have imaginary personal interactions about it too?

In that light, I actually like the movie a lot more than when I saw it.




Quote:

Originally posted by RionaEire:
My dad saw it and said it was kind of lame, and had little to do with scifi, the title is deceptive, don't bother. So I haven't.



I'm not sure it's a good idea that you don't see it Riona. I'm definitely not saying that is my recommendation, and if I come off that way, that's not what I meant. I'm just stating in my own overbearing way that I just don't get it, and that it wasn't as interesting as other movies that I "just don't get" to watch a second time to try to figure more of it out. Seeing ecgordon's last post on it though, I'm quite certain I will give it another viewing maybe 6 or so months when it's not so fresh in my mind and go into it with a different approach.

I've can't ever actually recall a time where my dad advised me against watching a movie. I'm sure he's seen plenty that sucked, but I only remember him telling me about good ones. Before "After Earth", I've seen, on occasion, movies that he raved about that I just thought were passable entertainment (The only one that comes to mind at the moment is Kurt Russel in "Soldier").

My dad believes it to be Sci-Fi, I'm sure, because he's a deeper thinker than a lot of people (No knock to anybody who claims it isn't Sci-Fi at all of course, like your father, because I believe myself to be a pretty intelligent deep thinker myself). I did, however enjoy the original Star-Wars trilogy immensily as a kid, and my dad didn't think anything of it. He was an avid Star Trek fan (the original run, TNG, and his favorite was Voyager... but he didn't care for DS9 or Enterprise). He also didn't like any of the original 10 movies (Except for Wrath of Kahn) or the new remake much.

He was the 1st person to tell me how awesome Firefly was though!



Given that nobody's barometer is ever going to jive 100% with the next persons, I wouldn't take his word as Gospel. I'd actually like you to watch it and chime in on this thread with your own point of view, especially coming from a young female's perspective. It's actually a very good story for the most part. There's just some things that seem incomplete to me, but maybe I'm not seeing it right is all....

Here's hoping you do watch it.

If you've got Netflix, that's the way to go. Even one of those DVD vending machines. I'd hate to see you spend 5 bucks at blockbuster, especially if you don't end up liking it.

If you do watch it, do it with an open mind, devoid of my thoughts and your father's thoughts. I can say that it is unlike any movie I've ever seen before.





Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
I liked it. I thout it wuz a kool idea to hav this syfy element thats mostly a backdrop for much uv the story, yet endz up az the driving factor.

My complaints - no mention uv the fact that everybody iz about to die wen the planets collide. Admittedly, my astrofiziks iznt perfect & complete, but the basic premise seemz to require that both Earths are in the same orbit on the same plane, otherwize they woud be moving at substantially different speedz and thus we woud hav seen each other regularly thruout history.

This leadz to the second complaint. Why are they approaching each other now? Having a second Earth sitting on the oppozit side uv the sun for billionz uv yirz and suddenly its on the same side and getting vizably closer over a handful uv yirz requirez a major cozmic event. Inertia and gravity hav their little rulez everybody haz to follow.

I suppoze it coud be explained and a collision or a too close approach (also meanz doomzday) coud be avoided, but they didnt bother.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early



AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

"SYFY" (See-Fee).... REALLY!!!!!!!

Don't let the current, feminist, female president of the "SCI-FI" network's new title for their channel become the new definition in our lexicon! (Here's waiting with baited breath that our beloved Sheriff of Eureka isn't cuckolded by the head of GD before the series is over!!!!)

LOL....

(Spoiler Alert, Riona! )

Just from your first two sentences, JO, I think you were viewing it with a very similar approach that I did and you liked it for the same reason I didn't like it. Aside from the beautiful landscapes of the 2nd earth in the background and the guy on the radio talking about it, there was only one REALLY interesting Sci-Fi part to it. That was the conversation that the Doctor had with herself when both versions of her were trying to contact each other at the same time. I guess I'd also qualify the question brought up by the male lead of "what makes us so special? Do you think that everyone there is calling themselves "Earth 2"?" was also very sci-fi.


Will the planets collide? I could see how you'd think that since never once is it explained how or why they're getting closer. Maybe if none of it's real and it's all in her mind than nothing would happen (right ecgordon?)

As for why are they coming together now, who can say? It's obvious that the 2nd Earth never existed before that fateful night because any one of our satellites or shuttle launches would have picked it up at some point. That's my whole point of the original post. Looking at it the way I did initially, my answer to this question was that it was just a convenient excuse to have no satisfactory conclusion to an otherwise interesting movie.

I'm sorry, but "Rosebud" doesn't mean shit to me. Citizen Kane is worse than Leprechaun in the Hood, and I don't care if saying so makes me a "rube". My initial thought at "lights out" on this movie was "Rosebud".

At this point, only ecgordon's idea of the movie gives any bouyancy to the claim that this is possibly a sci-fi movie of any sort, and more importantly, it's a complete movie.

I will definitaly have to revisit this post when I watch it again to give a follow up on my initial review.





If there are any more interesting ideas or theories about this flick, please let me know!

I didn't mean to trash the film in the original post. In fact, if the writers/producers/actors ever actually google themselves and see it, I'd like them to consider this high praise that I'd even bother posting about it and wanting to have meaningful conversation about it.

I just want to get "it". Or at the very least, be on the right track to asking the right questions about why it was so successful.x

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:27 PM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.


First off, Citizen Kane is a great film, so you are a rube.

Second, Deep Space 9 was the best of the Trek series, so your dad is also a rube.

I don't think it matters much if Another Earth is an SF film or not, because the story could have eliminated that aspect and the point would still come across.



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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 12:54 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by ecgordon:
First off, Citizen Kane is a great film, so you are a rube.

Second, Deep Space 9 was the best of the Trek series, so your dad is also a rube.

I don't think it matters much if Another Earth is an SF film or not, because the story could have eliminated that aspect and the point would still come across.



Haha!

Citizen Kane was almost as painful as Kuberick's 2001! Overall, I LOVED my film class in college, but those were two of the most boring movies I've ever seen. \

I agree with you on Deep Space 9 though. I've never watched any of the series all the way through, or in any particular order, but there was a time for about a year there where they'd have back to back episodes after I got off of work and it quickly became my routine to watch them. In my opinion, the characters had much more depth in that show than any other version, and there seemed to be more of a back story in that series than any of the others. All the others that I saw seemed to conveniently wrap up all the loose ends by the end of the show. Oh... and that little elf chick was just the cutest thing.

Deep Space 9.... "To Boldly Stay At Home!"



You're right about the Sci-Fi thing in Another Earth too. That was kind of my original point. The Sci-Fi was just a red herring, at least my first viewing. But, with or without it, I think it's an incomplete story. If they didn't have the Sci-Fi angle to Deus Ex Machina the whole story at the end, they would have had to do a bit more fleshing out of the entire story, and give it an appropriate end. Even if it was (spoiler alert!) a really dark one, such as the main male lead actually strangling the girl to death.

Like I said, I'll have to give it another viewing sometime. I'm sure I will when the mood strikes me.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 1:37 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


If I should be so lucky to just hop over to Blockbuster and spend money. We only have 3 videostores left in my city and they're in corners far from me. :( I like NetFlix don't get me wrong, but screw them for messing up my weekly dates with destiny at the videostore, I miss the whole videostore experience. My dad signed us up at the new videostore in the small city an hour away where my grandma lives just to support its existance, even though my grandma has more movies than you can shake a stick at.

Nostalgic sigh, I love videostores.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Don't know where you're at Riona, but Family Video is somehow still opening a bunch of new stores in this economy and digital environment.

I always did like going to Family Video.

They almost never had the new blockbusters in stock when they were released, but that's because they didn't have 100 copies of them. If Blockbuster and Hollywood only had about 500 titles to rent at any given moment in any given store, Family Video had 3 to 5 thousand titles. Plus, their rates and late fees were cheaper.

I for one don't miss the video store, but that's because I chronically returned the videos late and paid what I would have paid to just buy the damn thing on DVD. (yanno... back in 1999, the good old days, when money was so free that I'd also take money out constantly at ATM machines that weren't my own and pay the fees because I was lazy).

I actually have 2 Family Videos now that are each less than 3 miles away. Anytime I drive by them I see their signs saying things like (adding new stores, go to xxxx.com and apply for management)....

Huh...

Maybe I should do that!????

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