Andrew did seem to have some serious issues besides having a sick mother and an abusive father. Overall, I enjoyed the movie.
WHO DAT!? WHO DER!?
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That may not be something that was terribly interesting to you, but it was important footage in the framework of the movie. Those things help advance the plot and Andrew's character. They're the catalyst that eventually causes him to snap at the end. Without those things happening he doesn't feel like the outcast apart from his group again and we don't really see why he has that deep core of anger that causes him to lash out.|
Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
Yeah... cause thats the important part of the camera footage.... nevemind the flight or telekinetic powers or alien discovery.....APEX having performance issues in the bed room is what was really important and what any rational person would have been interested in.
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Sure we see a bit of bullying at school, but that's not really a good reason for the things he does, the story needs more. We could just be told that he has issues at home, but that's not good story telling by any stretch of the term.
Too often nowdays people ignore the good storytelling aspect of action and science fiction films and just focus on the special effects and action scenes. I've always found that fun, but not terribly satisfying and I don't find them to be movies that I can watch again and again. Luckily there have been a few movies in the last few years that bucked that trend (Source Code, MI:Ghost protocol, Chronicle) for which I couldn't be happier (and in the case of the Mission Impossible movie ... completely surprised).
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Originally Posted by Oliin
That may not be something that was terribly interesting to you, but it was important footage in the framework of the movie. Those things help advance the plot and Andrew's character. They're the catalyst that eventually causes him to snap at the end. Without those things happening he doesn't feel like the outcast apart from his group again and we don't really see why he has that deep core of anger that causes him to lash out.
Sure we see a bit of bullying at school, but that's not really a good reason for the things he does, the story needs more. We could just be told that he has issues at home, but that's not good story telling by any stretch of the term. Too often nowdays people ignore the good storytelling aspect of action and science fiction films and just focus on the special effects and action scenes. I've always found that fun, but not terribly satisfying and I don't find them to be movies that I can watch again and again. Luckily there have been a few movies in the last few years that bucked that trend (Source Code, MI:Ghost protocol, Chronicle) for which I couldn't be happier (and in the case of the Mission Impossible movie ... completely surprised). |
You misunderstood what I wrote and only quoted the latter half of my idea in this post. I was not criticizing the relevance of the party bedroom scence... I was criticizing the script.
The stepfather tells APEX...." I went through that camera of yours and I saw you being a loser/weakling"..... ... so..................DID THIS GUY JUST OVERLOOK THE SUPERPOWERS IN THE FOOTAGE ?
Now we would have to assume that the bedroom scene was on a new tape. Otherwise it was a totally contrived way for the Stepfather to behave because he would have logically been more concerned with the Telekinesis than APEX's performance anxiety.
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He was lying, and that was the point (as he obviously would not have reacted that way if he had actually looked through the camera). Before that point, he was just an abusive alcoholic, but at that point we learned that he was willing to lie for no reason but to hurt Andrew. It was a foreshadowing of the way the hospital scene was going to pan out, as the father's mental instability fed into Andrew's.
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Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
You misunderstood what I wrote and only quoted the latter half of my idea in this post. I was not criticizing the relevance of the party bedroom scence... I was criticizing the script.
The stepfather tells APEX...." I went through that camera of yours and I saw you being a loser/weakling"..... ... so..................DID THIS GUY JUST OVERLOOK THE SUPERPOWERS IN THE FOOTAGE ? Now we would have to assume that the bedroom scene was on a new tape. Otherwise it was a totally contrived way for the Stepfather to behave because he would have logically been more concerned with the Telekinesis than APEX's performance anxiety. |
TW/Elec Optimization
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Hmm, indeed I did. For some reason I read the part I quoted as being a mostly separate idea from the previous paragraph ... which is why I only quoted that part.
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Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age
You misunderstood what I wrote and only quoted the latter half of my idea in this post. I was not criticizing the relevance of the party bedroom scence... I was criticizing the script.
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MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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While conflict does define character, those conflicts are meaningless without defined characters... if that makes any sense. You gotta know what they are fighting for and why and who they are as a person to really get it. When I watch the film I get what Matt and Steve were doing before the movie starts because there is a definition there... Andrew on the other hand we are left to assume that he did nothing pre-camera.|
Originally Posted by Combat
See, I believe characters are defined through conflict, not through "he likes chess and does these things" (at least in movies), so I thought that Andrew was a well-defined character with powerful motives, while Matt felt like an uninspired hipster with little personality or development.
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You mentioned he was trying to escape with the camera... well that could work if he were younger... like 10-15, but he was 17 or 18 and by that time he would have picked up something to keep from going home. There is also very little development in his character as we see. He doesn't grow in crime or scale. He is just presented with a different situation which causes him to react in a different way but from a character stand point he is acting the same. The only real change is that at the end of the movie he understand that his powers can be used to purposely hurt people, where as before he did on accident but showed no remorse nor did he care.
Finally got around to seeing this. Good film overall but short. There was a lot of time that passed from when they first got their power and the end, six or more months I'm guessing.
Andrew likely withdrew due to his Father's accident and his Mother's illness. The camera allowed him to mentally remove himself completely from the world around him. While the powers made him feel special, the success at the talent show with the events of the after party was an unintentional Carrie moment that pushed him toward the edge.
I was initially surprised when I saw the movie cost only $12 million until I saw it was made in South Africa. Also noticed in the credits that a lot of secondary/tertiary voices were ADRed, probably to be more "American" sounding. The effects were done surprisingly well for the budget.
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While the SFX were mostly good, the fact that the people still looked like they were dangling from wires in the final flight scenes bothered me. They had been practicing flight for a long time by then and should have been stable.
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Just wondering why you dont consider his use of a camera escapism, its so blatantly lifted from something like American Beauty right down to the abusive father and mother with a constantly worsening condition. His friends through out the movie even reference how he hides behind the camera, uses it to stay distant and disconnected. It literally becomes his linus blanket.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
It's realistic that he would snap, but it's not realistic in that his life being that way is unrealistic because no one would be like that. We have natural defense mechanism to protect ourselves from such extreme situations. We call it escape. The kid would have picked up reading books, art, school work, etc... even split personalities. People don't just sit in their room and stair at the ceiling and even if they do they escape into their own mind and are hyper creative and/or into deep thinking which Andrew isn't in any way from what we see.
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See, conflict is the primary motivating factor in "short" media, such as movies (where other forms of motivation take too much time to truly explore). I know why Andrew snapped, and I can tell his motivation from his conflicts; what makes Matt act like he did in the last scenes? We don't know enough to truly tell, and what we do know comes from the conflict that arises from the situation. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
While conflict does define character, those conflicts are meaningless without defined characters... if that makes any sense. You gotta know what they are fighting for and why and who they are as a person to really get it. When I watch the film I get what Matt and Steve were doing before the movie starts because there is a definition there... Andrew on the other hand we are left to assume that he did nothing pre-camera.
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And yes, we basically are supposed to assume he did nothing before the camera. However, that assumption isn't as great as you are making it. We know that he couldn't do anything at school because he hates and distrusts everyone, and his father obviously tries to control any pleasure that Andrew could feel (which is why he reacts violently when he learns about the camera). His father probably used his mother's illness as a way to control Andrew "You don't care about her! Using the computer to play games while she sits there and dies, how could you!" The camera was the first action he ever took towards freedom, perhaps so that he could use it to gain evidence for his father's abuse. Alternatively, Andrew may have been going Columbine anyway because of the abuse, and was going to use his footage to explain his actions after he committed suicide by police. Overall, I don't have a problem because his conflict essentially prevented him from leading a normal life and becoming "more defined."
TW/Elec Optimization
Most people who sexually abuse others were sexually abused themselves. Most people who physically abuse others were physically abused themselves. Happy well adjusted people tend to have more sympathy and acceptance of others.
Who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in the movie may be a bit cliche but it's a valid cliche based on reality.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
I got the feeling that there was more to Matt's story that we didn't see, possibly involving a drug problem. He seemd pretty distant and strung out in the early scenes and his personality did seem to change a lot as the movie progressed.
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