To be fair, I think the first half of this movie is great. There are a lot of long, slow shots which really feel reminiscent of a spaghetti western. But as it goes on, it eventually just turns into a mindless action movie with lots of quick cuts and as much CGI as they can fit on the screen. So yet another entry into the “yes, this movie is bad, but it’s a Weird Western!” category.

Here’s a trailer. You can currently watch it on Netflix.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
    331·
    8 months ago

    I thought it was much better than the title. It’s not a great think piece, but I enjoyed it and would probably watch again if I was in the mood.

    8.5/10

    • vlad@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      141·
      8 months ago

      Agreed. It could have been a dumb movie about cowboys trying to lasso UFOs, but it was an actual attempt to make a serious film about a ridiculous concept.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        56·
        8 months ago

        I just finished ‘Three Body Problem’ on Netflix. Amazing. If you want a smart movie, this is the one.

        • Muscar@discuss.onlineEnglish
          34·
          8 months ago

          How to show you don’t know even basic science and can’t figure out the most obvious things. ^

          It’s so incredibly bad, they make so many mistakes and completely misrepresent very simple things to a point where it’s impossible to believe it wasn’t done on purpose.

          The trailers looked great but it was obvious after the first episode it was going to be shit and it was somehow even worse than expected by the end.

          It’s not smart at all, not even close, you’ve just somehow missed the multiple major issues and obvious lack of basic knowledge by the writers.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
            71·
            8 months ago

            There’s a huge difference between a smart science fiction movie and an actual course in science.

            Since we were talking about ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ in Weird Westerns I figured anyone on the thread would realize that that by ‘smart’ I meant a movie dealing with interesting ideas and not just a big shoot-'em-up.

            I feel sorry for anyone who treats entertainment as an examination. And, since you cite numerous problems, I’ll assume you were silly enough to torture yourself by watching the whole thing.

    • tetris11@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      8 months ago

      The first half genuinely felt like it had its own thing going on, and then the aliens arrive and instead of it going off the rails it maintains tone and gravitas. I really enjoyed it.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        8 months ago

        You might like this book.

        “…And Having Writ” by R.D. Benson, Four aliens land on Earth and meet characters like Edison and Teddy Roosevelt. The explorers aren’t the smartest of their species, and problems occur.

  • adam_y@lemmy.worldEnglish
    191·
    8 months ago

    Remember that time in the early 2010s when everything had a surprising “and”?

    Cowboys and Aliens Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

    Golden days of elevator pitching.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is both the laziest and cleverest idea for a novel - the author literally just took the original novel and rewrote it to add zombies.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      I was surprised with how well Pride and Prejudice and Zombies followed the original plot. Oh, you free thinkers, learning Chinese martial arts instead of Japanese martial arts, how ever will you fit in?

  • HonytawkEnglish
    9·
    8 months ago

    CGI gets such a bad rep even though it is the backbone of modern scifi media.

    You can do a lot with miniatures, puppets and perspective, sure. But the craziest stuff you can only do with CGI.

    I’d rather have bad CGI in every scene than have scifi stories written with the least possible scifi in them. Like that trope where some scifi person gets stranded and has to live without technology in nature. Or that they time travel to our time and now has to live like we do but with a crazy view of the world.