Sequel films

11101 quotes found

"I mentioned to him that I liked the mall better at night, that the zombies seemed to have more purpose than the shoppers. “That’s how I got the idea!” he said. “I know the people who own it and I went through the mall, empty, one time and I said, ‘Holy shit! That’s the perfect place for the fulcral episode where we can show the false security of the whole consumer America trip. That’s why this is in color – Night was black and white – because of the mall. So I wrote a little sketch about it and then put it in a drawer while I did some other things I’m really surprised no one else picked up on the idea, because now there are these shopping developments where you can live on top and work and shop down below and never have to leave the building. That’s a trip. In this film, the mall becomes the cause. The four heroes get in there to get some Civil Defense water and food and then they rack out and this consumerism, it’s too tempting for them to resist. They arm themselves heavily, they become banditos fighting for all that stuff.” Are the bikers then supposed to be an antidote for them or are they actually an exaggeration of that; racing through the mall at l00 miles an hour and scooping up color TVs? “I think they’re the ultimate of what the heroes are becoming, fighting for control of the Mothership. In fact, when they first see the raiders, the bikers coming over the hill, Peter takes off his new watch and all his other shit and that’s a flash toward realization. The raiders are consumerism at its extreme and they just storm in there and go bananas and then of course that causes the downfall. But the heroes, even though Roger is dying at that point, he still has his candies and radios and shit … and that’s why they’re so extreme in their garb during the attack scenes, all the crossed gun belts, fighting over microwave ovens, I mean…” He doubled over with laughter. Romero has a weird slant on the world, to say the least. With Night and Dawn he has filmed some of the most explicit violence imaginable and yet he can argue, convincingly, that it’s detached violence because it’s directed at things rather than people; that the zombies become merely so many insects to be swatted aside. At the same time, he’s starting to make the zombies smarter and more sympathetic because he genuinely likes them. On a set, he resembles a giant, bearded shepherd with his poor dead flock shuffling after him. Sometimes he refers to his zombies as “sharks,” which is a startling but dead-on comparison."

- Dawn of the Dead (1978 film)

0 likesFilms set in department storesFilms directed by George A. RomeroIndependent filmsPost-apocalyptic filmsSequel films
"“The sellouts,” he finally continued, “the scientific community is saying, ‘Let’s feed ’em. They’re wasteful. They eat only five percent of a body and then the body’s intact enough to revive and it comes back as a zombie. The government says we should feed them and control that pattern – which seems probably what those cats would do. So if someone has died in your family, cut them into meal-size bits.” He was roaring with laughter and the businessmen at breakfast around us began throwing odd looks toward our table. George wiped tears of laughter from his eyes and went on: “That’s probably the way it would go. My idea to take it further is to actually have human operatives that are trying to preserve their own kind of operative situation and in fact using the zombies initially, training them to serve their own needs. There are beginnings of that in Dawn. I show a few flashes of intelligence or at least a learning capability in the zombies. If there are human sellouts that first start teaching them to do things so that they become really operative, then it’s over. But that is also what’s happening to us, those kinds of monsters, our corporate monsters that prey on us more as we fear them less. I mean, that’s this whole false security concept of the mall, being funneled into it, the temple to consumerism, the mall. And being perfectly happy, you know, absolutely lulled by it and yet eaten by it like that.”"

- Dawn of the Dead (1978 film)

0 likesFilms set in department storesFilms directed by George A. RomeroIndependent filmsPost-apocalyptic filmsSequel films
"Hey Rock. It's three in the morning. I went up to your house there and they told me you was here. It's a 3:00am kid. You know that Adrian, she's a good girl. Me, you know I'm sorry for both of ya. There's nothing I can do about it. Except uh I wanna tell you this once and then uh I ain't gonna say it again. Well, Rocky, you got another shot. It's a second shot at the, I don't know, the biggest title in the world. And you're gonna be swappin' punches with the most dangerous fighter in the world. And just in case, you know, your brain ain't workin' so good, all this happens pretty soon and you ain't ready. You're nowhere near in any shape. So I say, you know, for God's sake, why don't you stand up and fight this guy hard?! Like ya done before? That was beautiful! But don't lay down in front of him like this! Like, I don't know, like some kind of mongrel or something. 'Cause he's gonna kick your face in pieces, you know that? That's right. This guy just don't wanna win, you know. He wants to bury ya, he wants to humiliate ya. He wants to prove to the whole world that you was nothing but some kind of a...a freak the first time out. And he said you're a one-time lucky bum. Well, now, I don't, I don't wanna get mad, in a biblical place like this, but I think you're a hell of a lot more than that, kid. A hell of a lot! No, wait a minute. If you wanna blow it, if you wanna blow this thing, damn it, I'm gonna blow it with ya. If you want to stay here, I'll stay with you. I'll stay with ya. Yeah. I'll stay and pray. What I got to lose?"

- Rocky II

0 likesDrama filmsBoxing filmsSequel films1970s American filmsScreenplays by Sylvester Stallone
"We don't believe in what you're doing here, Sarah. Hey, you know what they keep down here in this cave? Man, they got the books and the records of the top 100 companies. They got the Defense Department budget down here. And they got the negatives for all your favorite movies. They got microfilm with tax return and newspaper stories. They got immigration records, census reports, and they got the accounts of all the wars and plane crashes and volcano eruptions and earthquakes and fires and floods and all the other disasters that interrupted the flow of things in the good ole U.S. of A. Now what does it matter, Sarah darling? All this filing and record keeping? We ever gonna give a shit? We even gonna get a chance to see it all? This is a great, big 14 mile TOMBSTONE! with an epitaph on it that nobody gonna bother to read. Now, here you come. Here you come with a whole new set of charts and graphs and records. What you gonna do? Bury them down here with all the other relics of what... once... was? Let me tell you what else. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what else. You ain't never gonna figure it out, just like they never figured out why the stars are where they're at. It ain't mankind's job to figure that stuff out. So what you're doing is a waste of time, Sarah. And time is all we got left, you know. [Sarah: What I'm doing is all there's left to do.] Shame on you. There's plenty to do. Plenty to do, so long as there's you and me and maybe some other people. We could start over, start fresh, get some babies and teach 'em, Sarah, teach 'em never to come over here and dig these records out. You want to put some kind of explanation down here before you leave? Here's one as good as any you're likely to find. We've been punished by the Creator. He visited a curse on us. So we might get a look at... what hell was like. Maybe didn't want to see us blow ourselves up and put a big hole in the sky... maybe He just wanted to show us He was still the bossman. Maybe He figured we was getting too big for our britches... trying to figure His shit out."

- Day of the Dead

0 likes1980s American filmsPost-apocalyptic filmsSequel filmsAction filmsAmerican science fiction films
"I like plays. The good ones. Shakespeare... I like Titus Andronicus the best - it's sweet. Incidentally, did you know that you are talking to an artist? I sometimes do special things to my victims: things that are creative. Of course, it takes knowledge, pride in your work. For example, a decapitated head can continue to see for approximately twenty seconds. So when I have one that's gawking, I always hold it up so that it can see its body. It's a little extra I throw in for no added charge. I must admit it makes me chuckle every time. Life is fun. It's a wonderful life, in fact, for some. It's too bad about poor Father Dyer. I killed him, you know. An interesting problem, but finally, it worked! First, a bit of the old succinylcholine to permit one to work without, ah, annoying distractions. Then, a three foot catheter threaded directly into the inferior vena cava -- or, superior vena cava. It's a matter of taste, I think, don't you? Then the tube moves through the vein, under the crease of the arm, into the vein that leads directly into the heart, and then, you just hold up the legs, and you squeeze the blood manually into the tube from the arms and the legs. There's a little shaking and pounding at the end for the dregs - it isn't perfect. There's a little blood left, I'm afraid. But, regardless, the overall effect is astonishing! And isn't that really what counts in the end? Yes, of course, Good Show Biz, Lieutenant, the EFFECT! And then, off comes the head without spilling one single drop of blood. Now I call that SHOWMANSHIP, Lieutenant!"

- The Exorcist III

0 likes1990s American filmsReligious horror filmsSequel filmsSupernatural horror filmsThe Devil in films
"My dear Christopher: This is the last time I'll be able to speak to you for a long while. I'm trying to put into words what has happened. Maybe that's for historians to do sometime later. They will record that the next day, the President of the United States looked out of the White House window and the Premier of the Soviet Union looked out of the Kremlin window, and saw the new distant sun in the sky. They read the message, and perhaps they learned something because they finally recalled their ships and their planes. I am going to sleep now. I will dream of you and your mother. I will sleep knowing that you are both safe, that the fear is over. We have seen the process of life take place. Maybe this is the way it happened on Earth millions of years ago. Maybe it's something completely different. I still don't know really what the Monolith is. I think it's many things. An embassy for an intelligence beyond ours. A shape of some kind for something that has no shape. Your children will be born in a world of two suns. They will never know a sky without them. You can tell them that you remember when there was a pitch black sky with no bright star, and people feared the night. You can tell them when we were alone, when we couldn't point to the light and say to ourselves, "There is life out there." Someday, the children of the new sun will meet the children of the old. I think they will be our friends. You can tell your children of the day when everyone looked up and realized that we were only tenants of this world. We have been given a new lease and a warning from the landlord."

- 2010: The Year We Make Contact

0 likes1980s American filmsCult filmsFilms based on novelsScience fiction filmsSequel films
"This is the most difficult announcement. As you know, things have not been going well back home. Well, it's gotten worse-a lot worse. Yesterday, a Soviet destroyer challenged the blockade. Several warning shots were fired across her bow; she did not respond. A second volley was fired; there still was no response. None. The nuclear destroyer USS Cunningham launched two of her falcon missiles. Both struck the Soviet vessel amidship. She broke in two and sunk. 800 of her crew were lost. This morning, an American surveillance satellite was struck by a Soviet laser, fired from the Sergei Kirov space station. The American satellite was destroyed. The United States has broken off diplomatic relations with Russia. All ambassadors have been recalled. The Soviet ambassador has been expelled along with the entire staff. All American air defense and satellite defense forces are on full alert. Premier Ulanov made a televised address and said that technically, a state of war exists between our two countries. All American personnel are ordered to leave Soviet territory immediately or they will be placed under arrest. All Russian personnel are similarly ordered to evacuate American territory. As a result, by direct Presidential order, the three of you must leave the Leonov. No Russian citizen is allowed to remain on or is allowed to enter the Discovery. This order is effective immediately. The launch window for reentry is 28 days. The Discovery has enough fuel for low consumption trajectory. HAL appears to be reactivated and is functioning well enough to operate the onboard systems. The Leonov has enough fuel for low consumption trajectory that will arrive 12 months earlier. The launch windows are critical for both the spacecraft. Only communications of emergency distress nature are allowed between the Leonov and Discovery. I know you people are caught in the middle of this — in a sense, we all are. I wish there was something I could do to help. The only thing left for us is to pray...pray for the safety of our families, for our countries, for our planet. May God forgive us and protect us."

- 2010: The Year We Make Contact

0 likes1980s American filmsCult filmsFilms based on novelsScience fiction filmsSequel films
"After directing a string of popular music videos, David Fincher was commissioned by Fox to direct Alien³ but left the project before editing commenced because of studio interference. If Alien³ is not his film, neither is the studio’s “extended cut” (Fincher didn’t want anything to do with the project). Unlike the director’s cut of Aliens, this extended edition of Fincher’s first film does more harm than good. Impregnated with an alien queen, Ripley lands on Fury 161, a prison planet occupied by horny religious criminals. The scenario is the same (more doubting Thomases and labyrinthine tunnels) except the returns are less exciting or scary; an amalgam of power shots (some reminiscent of Fincher’s clips for Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun” and Madonna’s “Express Yourself”), the film’s overall effect is noticeably suffocating. Charles Dutton’s preacher man, Dillon, conducts an impromptu funeral service and the extended cut intercuts his prayer with scenes from Fincher’s intended alien-birthing sequence (from canine to bovine). This creepy interplay brings to mind the final moments of Apocalypse Now but doesn’t really spill over into the rest of the film. Not only is Ripley personality-free (is the character jaded or is Weaver simply bored?), so is the alien. If the material appears to strain to offer the new alien attacks a ridiculous religious context, that’s because the filmmakers never really evoke a sense of godlessness on the planet community to begin with."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"First of all, it is difficult to empathize with (or care about) any of the characters in this film. And there is very little in the way of character development, that might help this problem. I've heard that this film was heavily cut before its theatrical release, and that there is a much longer director's cut, which is ultimately more satisfying in this respect. I wish Fox had used it here. Another problem with Alien 3 is its poorly conceived and written script. To start off with, we're asked to accept the idea that the alien queen managed to lay a few eggs unnoticed in the scant minutes she was on board the Sulaco. Then we're asked to believe that a single face hugger could cause enough damage to require evacuating the crew in an EEV, and then we're asked to believe that the EEV just happened to eject near a populated (albeit sparsely) planet. To make matters worse, all of the survivors of the previous film are immediately killed off (problems with budget or contract negotiations perhaps?), including Ripley's surrogate daughter Newt. Which leads to the script's other major problem - it's just a major downer. After the sheer horror of the first film, and particularly coming off of the edge-of-your-seat thrills of Aliens, this film seemed far too subdued and somewhat less than frightening. It just wasn't at all what I was expecting. Which is not to say that the film doesn't have some merits. I did find the quasi-religious undertones of Fury's inhabitants compelling. And the concept of the alien creature taking on some of the physical characteristics of its host (in this case a dog) was intriguing. But again, the film stumbles over another major shortcoming, which is that the creature effects are just, well... bad. More often than not, the creature effects were accomplished by using a marionette-type puppet that was shot in front of a blue screen, and optically added to each shot with the actors. In other cases, its just a mechanical prop... and it shows. The first time we ever see the creature (in chapter 9), it just looks silly. The best thing about the creatures in the first two films, was that we barely saw them. They were far more frightening. Here we're seeing way too much."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"Alien 3 has a certain reputation with different groups—to David Fincher, it was a nightmare first production for the enfant terrible director, one he has since refused to be associated with because the studio will not restore his child autopsy scene, which even the biggest Gone Girl fan in the world would admit is a bit much. For movie dorks, it’s a movie you like to argue is better than whoever is tolerating listening to you remembers. For most people, it’s the one where Sigourney Weaver got head shaved. For losers, it’s the one where Newt dies off-camera and they get angry. I remember Alien 3 as the first rated R movie that had a very large toy push, meaning I was being sold ephemera related to a product I technically wasn’t supposed to see. For cyberpunk novelist William Gibson, Alien 3 was how he got his WGA card. He says as much in this books—an adaptation of a screenplay that wasn't used—introduction. Gibson’s association with Hollywood has largely been uninteresting. Adaptations of his work that have made it to screen amount to 90s-doing-80s footnotes like Johnny Mnemonic and New Rose Hotel (though he allegedly wrote most of Kathryn Bigelow’s excellent Strange Days without screen credit). For Alien 3, Gibson turned two drafts over to Walter Hill and David Giler that had little to do with the final product. That's a good thing. Gibson’s script has long been available on the internet. It’s not enough of an oddity to be interesting. It’s okay. The comic is ultimately okay too."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"Considerable criticism, from both audiences and former cast and crew members on the series, was directed at the decision to callously kill off Lt. Hicks (Michael Biehn) and Newt (Carrie Henn) in the opening credits. Regarded on its own terms, though, their deaths fit well within the series’s bleak tone. Structured in staccato clips inserted between the credits, the scene shows off the sense of visual economy that Fincher picked up while making music videos. It plays out in ominous glimpses of a hatched alien egg, a facehugger stretching toward Newt’s cryogenic pod, a crack of glass, and seepage of blood into cloth. In seconds, all of the good feelings left over from the end of Aliens are brutally cast aside, robbing Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) of the ad hoc family she’d only just rallied together. It’s a promisingly nihilistic beginning, and Ripley’s dismay upon learning of her friends’ deaths is compounded by the revelation that she’s crash-landed near a Weyland-Yutani prison, a refinery work camp whose inmates are all men with double-Y chromosomes, a defect that enhances their aggression and leaves them more likely to rape and murder. The early scenes, of Ripley interacting with men actively afraid of her presence and what it might encourage in them, mark the film’s thematic high point, balancing Ripley’s fears of a possible xenomorph outbreak against the equally immediate worries about the rippling aftershocks of her presence on the inmates’ vows of celibacy, made in a mass religious conversion among the prisoners that occurred long before she arrived. Frequently, the men use their religion as pretense for distrust of the woman, if not outright abuse. Ripley has always had to deal with unfriendly elements, but they usually came isolated in the form of company men (or androids); here is an entire facility’s worth of people with an innate antagonism against her, one that stymies her attempts to lead them against the alien threat that breaks out shortly after her arrival."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"The movie opens with spooky, effective opening credits that completely rip apart everything you loved about Aliens. If Alien is mysterious, and Aliens is hectic, Alien 3 promises at the opening to be depressing as hell, which happens when you kill an innocent little girl in the opening five minutes. Combined with the death of Hicks, Alien 3 destroys the surrogate family unit from Aliens, and now Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the sole survivor of a tragic crash and the only woman on a desolate planet populated by murderers and rapists. Except the prisoners have found religion, and this is where you can see Alien 3‘s split personality emerge. The religious angle from Ward’s script has been retained, but now it’s been shoehorned into a story where a skeleton crew of prisoners (the film has a weak explanation of why a huge facility would be kept running by and for about twenty people) now have Christianity for some reason. The script then tries to dance with this aspect, but it only remains an interesting idea even though there was the possibility that this idea could have been developed on its own merits despite being outside of Ward’s original intent. These men have been able to turn their lives over to God, but they’ve also been devoid of temptation. There’s not much on the planet Fiorina “Fury” 161 worth wanting, and then Ripley comes into their lives, which begs the question of the value of faith without temptation. But then the movie’s ugliness reemerges when some of the prisoners try to rape Ripley. Then Charles S. Dutton rescues Ripley, beats the crap out of her attackers, and the attempted rape is never referenced again."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"The alien is all she has, and all she has to kill; Holmes is nothing without Moriarty, Achilles needs Hector more than he ever did Patroclus. Their whole life resides in these few hours of remorseless wrath. What of soul is left, I wonder, when the killing has to stop? These are grand ways of looking at it, but then the Alien trilogy is grand. Not pretentious and talkative, just laden with images of doom and sexual control, the unstoppably fecund as well as the unbearably blocked. The final part doesn't let us down here, with all its writhing corridors and Satanic furnaces, the odd tongue of flame rasping against Piranesi girders and whale-grey walls. It suffers from poor supporting performances, and a plot that splutters instead of pushing on; but when the chase is on, all is forgiven. Fincher brings on the Steadicam and whips it through tunnels at alien pace, flipping upside down and bulging the walls with wide-angle lenses. You can't tell what the hell is happening, but you know it's hell all right. I can't give the ending away, but I wish I could. Everything is wrapped up a treat - Fincher can't really tell a tale, but he can wheel on the awe with the best of them. I think he must have been watching Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc, which I saw again last month. Both films are graced by actresses with shaven heads and staring eyes, at the furthest reach of their powers; both pound along towards fire and sacrifice, and edit our nerves into thin strips. Dreyer made a masterpiece, Fincher made a mess; but he rounds out a modern myth, and in so doing ensures that, like Lieutenant Ripley, we will never sleep easy again."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"Because the third film revolves almost entirely around Ripley's desire to protect the integrity of her body—specifically her womb—"Alien 3" feels more purely feminist than the previous two movies, for all their innovative images of a badass heroine fighting bugs whose bodies fused male and female genitalia into a Freudian nightmare. In the first movie, she's fighting to save her crew. In the second, she's fighting to save a little girl, and in so doing, embracing her own latent potential for motherhood; the climactic action scene even brings her face-to-face with another mother, the alien queen, in an egg chamber. These are all engaging, relatable motivations, but they're culturally conservative, because they play on the traditional image of woman as potential victim or maternal protector. In "Alien 3," Ripley is fighting for Ripley, period. She has to. Nobody else will fight for her. She's been betrayed and abandoned by everyone and everything she ever valued. She's shattered by grief, staring numbly out at a universe that barely seems worth saving. She has allies but no protectors—nor, it seems, does she expect any, not after enduring so much suffering en route to this hellhole. The film's unexpectedly powerful final sequence flips the ending of Cameron's "Aliens" on its head. The second movie closed with an image of Ripley in hypersleep alongside her "daughter" Newt, with her potential mate Hicks slumbering nearby: a fairy tale image of a (makeshift) nuclear family, heartwarming in an almost Spielbergian way. The climax of "Alien 3" shows Ripley leaping into a firey pit to destroy the murderous "baby" inside of her. When it tears out of her gut anyway, she grabs it and holds it close to make sure it burns. Her pose evokes a mother cradling a newborn."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"Visually, Alien 3 may be the most distinctive entry in the franchise. Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, whose work on Blade Runner defined a certain decaying urban sci-fi aesthetic, had to quit after a short time on the job. But the final work by British photographer Alex Thomson is stunning in its own way. Backgrounds are textured with steam columns, damp surfaces, and sharp beams of light that give the sets a textured physicality. For much of the film, the camera lingers close to the floor, pointed up, as if to emphasize the close confines of the prison space and the impossibility of escape. Beyond the visuals, Alien 3 also excels as an exercise in imaginative world building. Its lonely prison planet is as richly detailed and lived-in an environment as the industrial corridors of Alien or the abandoned mining colony of Aliens. Its sequestered society, in which a religious contingent effectively runs the prison while a small group of overseers struggles to maintain a facade of control, is as nuanced a cinematic sociology as the corporate power structures that drove the first film, or the military conventions that powered the second. Like its predecessors, Alien 3 is an exploration of human power dynamics in a confined setting and the limits of institutional control. Fincher, in other words, put his own particular stamp on the tropes that animate the Alien franchise: He took the ideas that Scott and Cameron had developed and remade them in his own image. His ideas may be too bleak, too gloomy, too misanthropic for some, but they are clearly his, and in Alien 3 they are presented as forcefully as ever."

- Alien 3

0 likesAlien (franchise)Science fiction horror filmsPrison filmsSequel filmsDystopian films
"The idea was we would create a whole back-story and a whole back-story for the characters but we would never verbalize it. In the same way, we would move the camera around as if we were in any other location – a shopping mall, a bazaar in the Far East. We would not do what is done so often in this thing where you do a close-up of each monster that you’ve spent money on and you give them each a little vignette. We are going to keep them in the background as if we have wandered into a real place and we are just shooting a real place. So I think that instead of detracting, because we did get some notes and concerns and they were saying, ‘Why don’t we shoot each creature? We spent $100,000 on this creature and it’s just in the background.’ I said, ‘Because that’s where you are flaunting it. When you are flaunting it, you really don’t care. Yes, there is a 20-foot monster lurking in the background but I’m never going to see it again.’ We have some things we designed called the Striders which were creatures that were only seen in the opening shot. They are like headless elephants. I based them on a Dali drawing, the long legged elephant, and we never see them again. Never again and we spent $100,000 or something modeling them. But that’s the whole point. Because we were fighting about the budget and each thing counted and they said, ‘But this is only one shot.’ I said, ‘Yes, but you need it!’ On the first date with a girl you leave a big tip and that’s really impressive. And they go, ‘That’s a 40% tip. What a nice guy.’ It’s the details, you know?"

- Hellboy II: The Golden Army

0 likesFantasy filmsSequel filmsSuperhero filmsApocalyptic filmsComic book films
"By a majority vote, the Commission finds no solid evidence for hostility by either ape towards the human race as is presently constituted in this Year of our Lord, 1973. The male's attitude is that of a deeply interested and well-disposed academician who studied the alleged future downfall of the human race with the true objectivity of a good historian. The female's case, however, is different in that she undoubtedly committed actions against the human race of a sort which, if they were to be committed today, would be called atrocities. But would they be so called in two thousand years' time when it is alleged that humans will have become dumb brutes with the restricted intelligence of animals? It has been pointed out that what apes will do to humans is no more than what humans are now doing to beasts. Nonetheless, the Commission is sympathetic to Dr. Hasslein's conviction that the progeny of these apes could, in centuries to come, prove an increasing threat to the human race and conceivably end by dominating it. This is a risk we dare not ignore. Therefore, the Commission unanimously recommends that the birth of the female ape's unborn child should be prevented. And that after its prenatal removal, both the male and the female should humanely be rendered incapable of bearing another. I now declare this Commission dissolved."

- Escape from the Planet of the Apes

0 likesScience fiction filmsSequel filmsPost-apocalyptic filmsTime travel filmsPlanet of the Apes films
"Hello, William. You've probably been wondering when we would see each other again. Today is that day. For years, your probability formula has decided the fate of others. The healthy have benefited while the potentially sick have been unjustly rejected. However, this formula does not take into account the human will to live. When faced with death, who should live versus who will live are two entirely separate things. Today, your policy will be put to the test. There are four straps around your limbs and you have four tests you must complete. For if you don't, the straps on your arms and legs will detonate. Look closely. You have 60 minutes to complete your tests and avoid this fate. Starting now. You are not alone in this game. Just as you have taken loved ones away from their families, if you don't reach the end before the timer hits zero, you will never see your family again. Here is your first test. Your health and hereditary background puts you in the highest category of success. However, the same cannot be said for your adversary. At only 52 years of age, this man has continued to smoke even though he has a history of high blood pressure and heart disease. This demonstrates very little appreciation of the blessings of his own life. Your game will focus on the simple element of air. Once this game begins, every time you take a breath, the clamps around your chest will close in and crush your body. The only way to escape is in the other's failure. So I ask you, when faced with death, who will survive? Live or die, William. Make your choice."

- Saw VI

0 likesPsychological horror filmsSequel filmsFilms about serial killersSplatter filmsFilms about technology
"Long ago, a mythic battle of good and evil played out in ancient China. The country was torn by civil war, with many kingdoms struggling for land and power. But one king had a ruthless ambition to make himself emperor by the sword. The other leaders had assassins to kill the king, before he could conquer us all. Kingdom by kingdom, his armies swept away everything in its path, and anyone who resisted, met a terrible fate. The country was now his. He was emperor of all under Heaven. He enslaved his conquered enemies and forced them to build his great Wall; and when they were dead, or useless, he had them buried beneath it. The Emperor's mystics taught him mastery over the five elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal. His power seemed without limit. He was master of millions, but like the lowliest peasant, he could not stop growing old. He needed to defeat his last enemy: Death itself. One day, news came of a powerful witch, who was rumoured to hold the secret to eternal life. He ordered General Ming, his oldest friend and trusted ally, to find her. The witch was named Zi Yuan, and she was nothing like the general expected. On the Western borders stood the monastery of Ti Fuang; there, was housed the greatest library in the ancient world, and Zi Yuan was sure the secret to eternal life was here. It was the long-lost Oracle Bones, a collection of all the mystical secrets concerning the ancient world. The Emperor's answer was here... along with other magic, beyond understanding. She cast the spell in Sanskrit, an ancient language that the Emperor did not understand. The curse must never be lifted, or the Emperor will arise, to enslave all of mankind. On that dark day, there will be nothing, and no-one, to save us."

- The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

0 likesAction filmsAdventure filmsFilms about mummiesThriller filmsSequel films
"[Reading the Tale of the Three Brothers] "There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely winding road, at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too treacherous to pass, but being learned in the magical arts, the three brothers simply waved their wands and made a bridge. Before they could cross, however, they found their path blocked by a hooded figure. It was Death, and he felt cheated. Cheated because travelers would normally drown in the river, but Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers on their magic and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him. The oldest asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence, so Death fashioned him one from an elder tree that stood nearby. The second brother decided he wanted to humiliate Death even further and asked for the power to recall loved ones from the grave, so Death plucked a stone from the river and offered it to him. Finally, Death turned to the third brother. A humble man, he asked for something that would allow him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And so it was that Death reluctantly handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility. The first brother traveled to a distant village. While with the Elder Wand in hand, he killed a wizard with whom he had once quarreled. Drunk with the power that the Elder Wand had given him, he bragged of his invincibility. But that night, another wizard stole the wand and slit the brother's throat for good measure. And so Death took the first brother for his own. The second brother journeyed to his home, where he took the stone and turned it thrice in hand. To his delight, the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared before him. Yet, soon she turned sad and cold for she did not belong in the mortal world. Driven mad with hopeless longing, the second brother killed himself so as to join her. And so Death took the second brother. As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him. Only when he attained a great age did the youngest brother shed the Cloak of Invisibility and give it to his son. He then greeted Death as an old friend and went with him gladly, departing this life as equals.""

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1

0 likes2010s English-language filmsSequel filmsFantasy filmsFilms based on novelsHarry Potter
"All superheroes are black sheep. But the Dark Knight has always been murkier than most. His superpowers are not an accident of birth, or of stumbling into the wrong lab at the wrong time. They're not powers at all, simply a simulation made possible by good fortune and the leisure that accompanies it. Bruce Wayne can splurge on the kit and cars to set himself up as a crime-fighting Christ substitute, plus power and glitter enough to hide his hobby. He's always been a curious idol: within aspiration because he's flesh and blood; beyond it because he's the lucky recipient of inherited wealth. So it should be no surprise that The Dark Knight Rises so firmly upholds the financial status quo. Christopher Nolan's film indulges in much guttural talk of the gap between the 99% and the 1%, but it is the former who are demonised, whose revolting actions require curbing and mutinous squeals muting. Your average Joe, it turns out, requires a benevolent, bad-ass billionaire to set him straight, to knock him sideways, if necessary. The Occupy Gotham movement, as organised by gargly terrorist Bane, is populated by anarchists without a cause, whose actions are fuelled by a lust for destruction, not as a corrective to an unjust world. Such self-made characters as we meet in the film are, by and large, fishy – power-grabbers hiding behind a fig-leaf of philanthropism. Even someone who earns their crust nicking other people's stuff looks agog when the masses storm posh apartments to try and redistribute a bit of bubbly. Batman's butler-crush and bells and whistles feudalism is swallowable – it's a cartoon, right! Likewise the free pass that Wayne's Rowntree-ish gestures, disapproval of criminals and general tortured grizzling seems to allow him. But The Dark Knight Rises is a quite audaciously capitalist vision, radically conservative, radically vigilante, that advances a serious, stirring proposal that the wish-fulfilment of the wealthy is to be championed if they say they want to do good. Mitt Romney will be thrilled. What's strange is that quite so many of the rest of us seem to want to buy into it."

- The Dark Knight Rises

0 likes2010s American filmsBatman filmsSequel filmsSuperhero filmsComic book films
"Yes, there will be one new dinosaur created by the park’s geneticists. The gaps in her sequence were filled with DNA from other species, much like the genome in the first film was completed with frog DNA. This creation exists to fulfill a corporate mandate—they want something bigger, louder, with more teeth. And that’s what they get. I know the idea of a modified dinosaur put a lot of fans on red alert, and I understand it. But we aren’t doing anything here that Crichton didn’t suggest in his novels. This animal is not a mutant freak. It doesn’t have a snake’s head or octopus tentacles. It’s a dinosaur, created in the same way the others were, but now the genetics have gone to the next level. For me, it’s a natural evolution of the technology introduced in the first film. Maybe it sounds crazy, but most of my favorite movies sound crazy when you describe them in a single sentence. … We’re trying to tell a bold new story that doesn’t rely on a proven formula, because the movies we watch over and over again are the ones that surprised us, that worked when they shouldn’t have. I understand the risks of leaving the safe zone. We’ve all been disappointed by new installments of the stories we love. But with all this talk of filmmakers “ruining our childhood”, we forget that right now is someone else’s childhood. This is their time. And I have to build something that can take them to the same place those earlier films took us. It may not happen in the same way everyone expects it to, but it’s the way I believe it needs to happen."

- Jurassic World

0 likes2010s American filmsSequel filmsJurassic Park filmsFilms set on islandsFilms about dinosaurs
"Captain's Log, Stardate 2263.2. Today is our 966th day in deep space—a little under three years into our five-year mission. The more time we spend out here, the harder it is to tell where one day ends and the next one begins. It can be a challenge to feel grounded when even gravity is artificial. But well, we do what we can to make it feel like home. The crew, as always, continues to act admirably despite the rigors of our extended stay here in outer space... and the personal sacrifices they have made. We continue to search for new life-forms in order to establish firm diplomatic ties. Our extended time in uncharted territory has stretched the ship's mechanical capacities, but fortunately, our engineering department, led by Mr. Scott, is more than up to the job. The ship aside, prolonged cohabitation has definitely had effects on the interpersonal dynamics. Some experiences for the better... and some for the worse. As for me, things have started to feel a little... episodic. The farther out we go, the more I find myself wondering what it is we are trying to accomplish. If the universe is truly endless, then are we not striving for something forever out of reach? The Enterprise is scheduled for re-provisioning stop at Yorktown, the Federation's newest, most advanced Starbase. Perhaps a break from routine will offer up some respite from the mysteries of the unknown."

- Star Trek Beyond

0 likesStar Trek films2010s American filmsFilms based on television seriesSequel filmsFilms set on fictional planets
"As a series of action set pieces, the movie is frequently gripping and always highly watchable. In one extended section — geographically reminiscent of “The Poseidon Adventure” with its underwater swim and vertical climb — there’s a real sense of claustrophobia as the beasties pursue their human lunch underwater, and the “Goldfinger”-like demise of the final alien is a typically imaginative tour de force. Editing by Jeunet regular Herve Schneid is especially tight (pic is the shortest of the quartet). Darius Khondji’s lensing, aided by the silver-added ENR printing process, emphasizes deep blacks and soft ochers, with flashes of electric blue supplying visual relief. Nigel Phelps’ production design crosses geometrical sets and clangy brute iron with the Victorian-industrialized look of Jeunet’s own “Lost Children.” Whedon’s script injects some of the rough, testosterone humor of “Aliens” into a story that tries to build on the cross-species subtext of “Alien3.” However, when the movie strays into weirder territory — where, one feels, Jeunet’s heart really lies — there’s a growing feeling of inadequacy. Pic’s interest in Ripley’s split, half-human personality and her maternal bond with the Queen leads to some of the most intriguing — and cheesiest — stuff in the picture, but overall come off more as exotic inserts than fully assimilated sequences. Upside moments include the discovery of a horrific lab (straight out of “Lost Children”) and Ripley’s late-on “embrace” of her fearsome offspring; downside is a laughable Newborn that all but blows the pic’s finale."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"From the instant those green-tinged posters were plastered about the winding corridors of MTR stations announcing the fourth instalment in the Alien series, each sighting sparked a flutter of excitement in my gut. Ever since those unforgettable scenes in the original film - the spidery creature erupting from the egg to force its deadly spore down an unsuspecting throat; the baby alien bursting through its victim's ribcage and scurrying slimily away with a malevolent shriek - I was hooked. It was an irresistible combination of suspense, space - where no one can hear you scream - and artist H.R. Geiger's twisted vision of a monster which combined phallic imagery, insect savagery and a concept from the wilder shores of Freud's psychological armoury, vagina dentata (a deep-seated fear of female sexual organs armed with razor-sharp fangs). The anticipation of Alien Resurrection, however, proved to be more thrilling than the event. Granted, we live in an age of cinematic cynicism, ruled by the multiplex and the multiple sequel. And I admit to having done my bit to contribute. If they keep churning them out until an 80-year-old Sigourney Weaver is blasting away at goo-oozing arthropods in Aliens 15, or a geriatric Mel Gibson is dislocating his shoulder in Lethal Weapon 22, I'll probably still be forking over my money to watch. Because art (and sequels) mirror life; occasional epiphanies, followed by frequent and generally doomed attempts to recapture them."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"The much-maligned last part in the Alien quadrilogy should be approached as the comic-book actioner that it is (only Slate’s David Edelstein seemed to recognize the film’s ridiculous allure at the time of its release). Jean-Pierre Jeunet was brought on board by the suits at Fox to give Alien: Resurrection the look and feel of his overrated The City of Lost Children. That he did, but with a lot more laughs. Two-hundred years after Fincher’s Alien³, some company has resuscitated Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) as a human/alien hybrid that combines the best and worst attributes of the old model. The new and not-so-improved Ripley has the same touching mother instinct and sex drive of her predecessor, but she’s also considerably more jaded. Weaver gets to deliver one humdinger after another, evoking Tallulah Bankhead in a sci-fi version of Lifeboat when she wails, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this boat?” Not much has been written about the similarities between the film and Romero’s Day of the Dead, but they’re impossible to ignore: the nature/nurture debate (Ripley versus the docile zombie Bud) and the ego of a military operation under attack. Of course, Alien: Resurrection is nowhere near as sophisticated and profound as Romero’s classic, but it’s still every bit as fun. As General Perez, Dan Hedaya spearheads a human retreat from the film’s military compound that’s remarkably orchestrated and ends with his goofy demise. If the film doesn’t bullshit around, the same can’t be said about Winona Ryder. As a closeted robot sent to destroy Ripley, the perpetually constipated actress declares at one point: “I can’t make critical mass.” How touching."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"Then there’s Ripley herself, whose transformation has all the hallmarks of a Whedon heroine. Nearly every Whedon project seems to have a woman with special abilities given to her by one shadowy cabal of men or another. Inevitably, she rebels and takes back her autonomy with force. This happened with Buffy, it happens with River in Serenity, and it happens with Echo in his later series Dollhouse. Ripley’s rampage in Resurrection is textbook Whedon patriarchy smashing, but it’s also a fitting conclusion to her relationship with Weyland-Yutani. The company is replaced by a galactic military, but it’s all part of the same consolidation of power. The aliens represent the line corporations, governments, and armies (are these three even distinct?) are willing to cross to achieve their own ends, so Ripley’s resistance is always essentially pitted against the same thing. In Resurrection, they accidentally empower her through the very process that was meant to use her up. By reducing her to the level of meat to be experimented on, she and the xenomorphs literally become one. Everything and everyone is just a plaything for those in power. In one of the film’s most cathartic (and disturbing) scenes, Ripley torches a lab full of failed Ripley clones, one of which painfully begs her for death. One of Ripley’s new crewmates, played by the always scene-stealing Ron Perlman, doesn’t get why she’s so angry as to be wasting ammo. He chalks it up to being “a chick thing,” which is a fitting final note. The control over human bodies has always had gendered undertones in the Alien films. Ripley is a woman whose physical autonomy is always under threat, either from the aliens or from her patriarchal corporate overlords. Here, she takes back control more divisively than ever before."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"The birth takes place on a vast space ship. The interstellar human government hopes to breed more aliens, and use them for--oh, developing vaccines, medicines, a gene pool, stuff like that. The aliens have a remarkable body chemistry. Ripley's genes are all-right, too: They allow her reconstituted form to retain all of her old memories, as if cookie dough could remember what a gingerbread man looked like. Ripley is first on a giant government science ship, then on a tramp freighter run by a vagabond crew. The monsters are at first held inside glass cells, but of course they escape (their blood is a powerful solvent that can eat through the decks of the ship). The movie's a little vague about Ripley: Is she all human, or does she have a little alien mixed in? For a while we wonder which side she's on. She laughs at mankind's hopes of exploiting the creatures: "She's a queen," she says of the new monster. "She'll breed. You'll die." When the tramp freighter comes into play, we get a fresh crew, including Call (Winona Ryder), who has been flown all the way from Earth to provide appeal for the younger members of the audience. Ryder is a wonderful actress, one of the most gifted of her generation, but wrong for this movie. She lacks the heft and presence to stand alongside Ripley and the grizzled old space dogs played by Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Dan Hedeya and Brad Dourif. She seems uncertain of her purpose in the movie, her speeches lack conviction, and when her secret is revealed, it raises more questions than it answers. Ryder pales in comparison with Jenette Goldstein, the muscular Marine who was the female sidekick in "Aliens." Weaver, on the other hand, is splendid: Strong, weary, resourceful, grim. I would gladly see a fifth "Alien" movie if they created something for her to do, and dialog beyond the terse sound bites that play well in commercials. Ripley has some good scenes. She plays basketball with a crew man (Perlman) and slams him around. When she bleeds, her blood fizzes interestingly on the floor--as if it's not quite human. She can smell an alien presence. And be smelled: Her baby recognizes her mother and sticks out a tongue to lick her."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"There were plenty of problems that plagued the production of Alien Resurrection, but despite the movie’s convoluted set-up and knotty plot, its creation was not quite as strained as its predecessor Alien 3. Future Amelie director Jeunet thought that the franchise ended with Alien 3 and, like producer Walter Hill, he was skeptical about continuing the story, but the movie’s large budget tempted him to take on the job. The helmer hired visual effects specialist and future Catwoman director Pitof to work with him, which could, in retrospect, be read as an early indication that things were taking a bad turn. But the problems didn’t become clear until the movie’s secret weapon—the newborn Alien—was unveiled. Like the Predalien in the later (underrated) Alien Vs Predator spin-off series, the Newborn Alien was intended to be a huge draw for Alien Resurrection, as the movie would be unveiling a new hybrid form of the title monster with a previously unseen creature design. The Alien Queen of James Cameron’s Aliens was one of the sequel’s best-loved additions to the franchise, so expectations were high. The Newborn Alien did not live up to them. Slimy, gangly, and hilariously human, the newborn was a laughable, giant-headed mess of overlong limbs and pot-bellied oddness. Originally intended to have human genitalia until the studio balked and Jeunet admitted that “even for a Frenchman it’s a bit much”, the Newborn was, nonetheless, a disaster even without its private parts appearing in the finished movie. An earlier design would have seen the creators model the monster’s appearance on Weaver herself, but this was abandoned for fear of resembling Species’ Sil. It’s a shame, as anything would have been an improvement on the prune-faced ghoul viewers were eventually left with."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning
"As almost always with sequels, the "Alien" spawn have gotten dopier as they've gone along. Yet each has had the saving grace of a distinctive look. "Alien Resurrection" is easily the most visually interesting of all. Credit it to French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who imported his surrealistic, horrific ideas direct from "Delicatessen" and the superb "The City of Lost Children." Jeunet blended darkness, heavy metal, repugnantly weird things in specimen vials, an underwater sequence, a feeling of paranoia and an almost determined lack of humanity. And he also brought two of his favorite actors: big Ron Perlman to be a jackbooted bad guy, and Dominique Pinon to get a few laughs as a pipsqueak. Winona Ryder is the biggest new attraction in the series. Her character, Call, is the only soft, humane creature within several light-years of the -- sprawling spaceship Auriga, where the action takes place. Eventually it is revealed that 12 hissing, hungry aliens, products of evil biology experiments, are headed toward Earth. Ryder, arriving with a crew of smugglers, looks almost too doll- like to be hanging around the tough, cynical or maniacal types that populate the film's cavernous, clanking world. But her big button black eyes and that intense focus she has at just the right dramatic moment wind up providing the only dollop of humanity. And it's much needed."

- Alien Resurrection

0 likesAlien (franchise)Sequel filmsScience fiction filmsSpace adventure filmsFilms about cloning