MOVIE REVIEWS ONLY.

[Lensman]

Aieee! This thread has shambled up from its grave! Quick, somebody drive a stake thru its heart! ;D

[jeffwaynefan]

Anyone got the number for "dial-a-van-helsing"

[Lensman]

"Transylvania 6-5000" ??

www.bcdb.com/cartoon/5243-Transylvania_6-5000.html

[Tripod]

jeffwaynefan said:

Hehe, watched at last.

I actually like the film but for the wrong reasons. I keep expecting Leslie Nelson to pop up. . . .

Nelson - "Quick men, get the wounded into that Omnibus, were taking them to the hospital!".

Passer By "Hospital?, surely they wont all get into that Omnibus"

Nelson "Yes Hospital, its a large building with sick people in it, and stop calling me Shirley"

^We've got a fan over here!

Tripod

[Rocka]

What gets me is this:
WHY DOES NO ONE EVER TALK?
You seem to get a couple of lines of badly performed dialogue (which all the actors seem to perform in the style of Percy from "Blackadder II"), then everyone spends about two minutes looking from one person to another. Or walking over fields. Or being The New Al Pacino.

[wastedyuthe]

*Note: On the morning of 23/7 gmt, I have edited this since the original post to include more points.

Right- I have just watched this film (the three hour original version) begining to end, no stops. You know what? I actually liked it! Okay, it definately has that 'fan filming in back yard with mates' feel, and there are lots of problems, but here are the good and bad points as I saw it-

Good-

Great writer/narrator character. There are little touches of humour here and there that add to his likeability. You have a real sense of his struggle with sanity as the film goes on, and he was probably the best actor in the film (which isn't hard let's face it) showing some good emotional acting towards the end.

The plot follows the book closer than any other film so far.

The musical score is superb. This was the best part of the film. This guy needs a job in Hollywood.

The length. I actually found the three hour running time fine. There needs to be some editing to remove some of the more trivial bits at the begining of the film, but if I were to do my own edit, I would keep most of the rest. Let's face it, if Jeff Waynes version ends up being as long, we would welcome it. It's not the length of this film that let's it down, it's the content.

Bad-

Most of the acting is poor. Some of the accents are atrocious (although some of the actors have obvioulsy been dubbed with those poor accents). Some of the acting (*cough* the wife *cough*) is WAY over the top, as if they are non-actors trying far to hard to act.

The first half an hour gets a little tedious with various characters going back and forth to 'HorsELL' Common. Although the actual walking shots themselves weren't as lengthy as people make out, there was too many of them.

The cylinders weren't as described in the book, and there were other changes too, like the 'feeding' scene.

Most of the film was seemingly shot in the woods behind Hines' house. This spoiled a lot of scenes where, in the book, the characters are supposed to be in some town street or building.

What parts weren't filmed in the woods, were mostly poor bluescreen. I don't mind bluescreen so long as it is done right- and this isn't (the Directors cut has, from what I have read, improved on the bluescreen immensly).

Continuity. One part in particular is very noticeable, where he is returning home in the rain and thunder, only to come across a tripod and ends up flying off his cart- and then, broad daylight. No thunder. No rain. Just a blue filter to try and make it look similar to the last bit (apparently the Directors cut has gone some way to rectify this).

The effects. The Thunder Child scene was worse than I expected. Not only does it look nasty, it was also extremely poorly edited. The building textures were as bad as I expected. The bluescreen was poor. What's with those horrid, nasty scenes of the marching armies and the soldiers that wouldn't look out of place in a Mario game? The long shots of the brother and the two ladies riding cracked me up- it looked like something out of the Flowerpot Men puppet show!

The black smoke. Two clips! That's all. Two. Even then it was very poorly used. One clip of a tripod spraying over a couple of women, another clip spraying outside a house! What happened to firing the black smoke capsule from cylinders, like rocket launchers? What happened to gassing millions of people in London? That scene was terrifying in the book. The black smoke was severely under-used.

The climax. As mentioned by others, the ending seems VERY rushed, as though he ran out of pocket money to pay everyone there 5c and hour. When he went to the house with the artillery man I was at least expecting to see the little hole the artillery man had dug. No. One clip you see them arriving at the house- then there's a little voice over about the artillery man's dreams and powers as in the book- then a shot of the writer/narrator leaving the house. What the hell? If you hadn't read the book, you'd be as confused as hell at this point. Then there's Dead London- or lack of it. This was one of my favourite parts of the book- it reminded me of the begining of the British made film '28 Days Later' (that film probably was inspired by WotW), where one man walks through London all by himself. In this film- nothing. Poor. Very poor.


Overall though, despite many flaws (too many more to list) I actually enjoyed watching it, and have ordered the Directors cut. I will love to do (as no-one seems to have done yet) a detailed comparison between the two versions. Apparently the effects have been touched up here and there (although not the Thunder Child scene), the editing is much improved, the buildings have better textures, and the moustache has had stronger glue ;D

[Killraven]

An impressive balanced review Your overall impressions were very similar to mine.

...the only difference being your gushing about the music In my opinion, at best it was irritatingly persistent, at worst it was dull, repetitive, had no dramatic impact when required and actually made the movie come across worse. Bit like a certain Mr. Williams' efforts ;D But each to their own

You also gave the actors too much credit. I liked your comment "some of the acting (*cough* the wife *cough*) is WAY over the top, as if they are non-actors trying far to hard to act." That's because they WERE non-actors! lol! I think the curate (one of the better efforst in my opinion) works in a hospital!!!

I'm intrigued by the director's cut though...if so much has been done to the editing AND the bluescreen then it may just scrape through a passable two hours of viewing.

KR

[wastedyuthe]

To be honest, in some ways I even preferred this version to Asylums! In one way, the score. Asylums score was quite dull in comparison, and was quite basic. The music in Hines version for me, really made more of an effort, and was put in the right places. As someone else has already said somewhere, it made the walking scenes more bearable (even though they weren't as long as some people have made out anyway). The other ways I prefer Hines version is that it is based in the same time period as the book, and I do actually like the running time- the Asylum version seemed to need some extra bits here and there, and didn't seem 'epic' enough. I am not saying the editing is perfect in the Hines version- another thing I didn't like about it was the 'brother' scenes seemed to be randomly placed throughout the writers story. It would be interesting to see if Hines has moved around the brothers scenes to more appropriate places in the Directors cut. Hines version seems epic, but only in length. Spielbergs version seems epic, but only in effects and the amount of actors/extras on screen. Asylums, as much as I do like it, hasn't got any kind of 'epic' feel about it. To me, all of the films mentioned are good in their own ways- some better than others, but all have faults one way or another, and not one is perfect. Even the Pal version (which I have seen but do not own yet) is more of a comedy now- in my eyes even rivalling Hines. Come on Jeff Wayne, do the book justice with yours!

[Lensman]

Well, I will say this: There are a few *good* scenes from this film which stick in my memory, and there are *none* from the Asylum version which do. So I see your point, altho overall I would certainly say the Asylum film is the better one-- it's competently directed, acted and edited, unlike the Pendragon version.

The music is the *only* thing in the Pendragon version which I regard as being done at the professional level. And I don't think the music is *great*... altho it may seem so by comparison to the other elements of this movie! It may very well be that the music in the Pendy version is better than the Asylum version, altho there are places where some of the music is inappropriately repeated. Someone on this forum claims the score was done before the final edit (and I'm talking about the original DVD release, not the "director's cut"). I don't know how they could have come up with such "insider info", but if so that would explain it. However, I think it more likely that Hines just didn't have enuff money to pay for a full score.

[Warmonger]

The insider info on the repeated music is from an interview with the composer that was posted over on EveOfTheWar.com.

www.eveofthewar.com/articles/9350

From the interview:

"The only place the production delays affected me was that there were a few scenes (mostly in the latter parts of the film) that Tim did some large edits on pretty late in the game. We ended up not having time to have me write music to fit Tim’s final edits for those few scenes, so Tim tracked those scenes with music I had written for other parts of the movie. I would have loved to be able to score those scenes, but we both agreed that getting the movie finished was more important."

[Lensman]

Ah! I had forgotten the interview with the composer-- thanks for reminding me, Warmonger! Since that was *not* Hines who said that, I'm willing to believe it.

[Warmonger]

Ha! Yeah, it seems like a plausable explanation. I would suspect there was a huge rush to get everything finished up before the Spielberg production came out, and music is usually the last thing done on a film.

[wastedyuthe]

Apparently, the Artillery man's tunnel scene was shot and IS in the Director's cut of the film. I will confirm this along with many other comparisons when I get it (the Directors cut is atm being shipped to me from my friend in US). When the time comes, I will write a review of it (perhaps quoting my comments from my review of the original edit) which will include advice on if it is worth purchasing if you have/have not got the orignal, with comparison notes detailing the differences between the two, and leaving the thread open for any questions you guys will wish to ask regarding differences etc. I watched the original version again today, and really like the end scenes of the film- Piana did a great job acting these last scenes imo, and I really love the music. Despite the stick Hines is getting atm, imo he really did film some great scenes in this. (I know I'm going to have the p**s taken out of me, but I don't care- we are all entitled to an opinion, and this is mine)

[Thunder Child]

Your absolutely right about that. As I have said in a thread a while ago, I have nothing against the actors in the Pendragon film. They are clearly enthousiastic amateurs, doing their absolute best for the movie. And as you've said, some scenes are actually acted pretty good.

And come on, Piana never called himself the new Al Pacino, Timmy did..

[Lensman]

wastedyuthe said:

I watched the original version again today, and really like the end scenes of the film- Piana did a great job acting these last scenes imo

Yes. The scene with the dead (suicide) woman sitting on the window seat, near the end, was the *only* scene in the entire movie which touched me emotionally. And I thought the reunion between the Writer and his wife was handled competantly, too-- unlike nearly all the other scenes in the film.

The opening credits I also thought were well done, with period stock footage, and even the observatory scenes were competantly directed-- if only Hines hadn't put in that wholly unnecessary, repetitive voice-over describing what was being shown! Some forum members complained about Ogilvy's pomposity, but it didn't bother me as that's the type of character he is!

So yeah-- the best scenes/shots in the film are mainly at the beginning and the end. Altho two or three of the shots of the tripods' legs striding along are great, too.