Daft Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 Everyone needs to go see this. It's actually brilliant. It's safe to say it flawed me considering how it was made. The film was devised, storyboarded and directed by Gareth Edwards, who also worked as the visual effects artist. Allan Niblo and James Richardson of Vertigo Films work as producers on the production. The filming equipment cost approximately $15,000, with the budget coming in at under $500,000. The film was shot entirely on location: any settings featured in the film were real locations often used without permission asked in advance, and the extras were just people who happened to be there at the time. [...] Back in the UK, Edwards had over 100 hours of unique ad-libbed footage (rather than repeated takes of scripted scenes which would be very similar) to edit into a coherent film. Edwards did all the special effects himself using off-the-shelf Adobe software and Autodesk 3ds Max. The first assembly was over four hours long, and over eight months of editing was trimmed to 94 minutes. Once the film was locked, Edwards had five months to create all 250 visual effects shots, a process he undertook in his bedroom. "[i was] churning out about two shots a day, which was fine until I got to the first creature shot. Then suddenly two months went by and I still hadn't finished a single creature shot; it turned out to be the hardest part of the whole process." Due to time constraints, the sound effects had to be produced before the special effects were undertaken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film)
Supergrunch Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 I saw this the other day, very postmodern. I overheard someone in the cinema describe it as Avatar meets Cloverfield, which is about right. While I like the concept and didn't realise how much it was ad-libbed, I had various problems: - The pro-environmentalist anti-American streak was a bit too overt. - The plot was predictable. - The monsters were a bit of a rip-off from the recent (and rubbish) War of the Worlds adaptation. - The lead guy basically had no personality, and the attempt to give him an emotive backstory (read: a son) kind of flopped. - Electric tentacle porn. That said, it was pretty watchable, and the combination near the start of the shanty town aesthetic with the sci-fi "infected zone" was quite, as it brought home the realism of the setting. It did drag in parts though. Ah well, it's probably just about worth watching, and my girlfriend thought it was a lot better than I did.
ReZourceman Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 I wonder if any cinemas near me will show it? [/Rhetorical Question]
Daft Posted December 26, 2010 Author Posted December 26, 2010 I saw this the other day, very postmodern. I overheard someone in the cinema describe it as Avatar meets Cloverfield, which is about right. It felt more like Lost in Translation meets Cloverfield to me. It wasn't really about a plot, I mean, the whole 'get the girl out of the country' is laid out right at the beginning and the fact the film never really tries to explain anything beyond the opening title card things pointed to that it was about the experience. I also thought the two main characters had good chemistry - you'd hope they would considering they're married in real life.
Ashley Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 I wonder if any cinemas near me will show it? [/Rhetorical Question] I've seen it advertised in a few in London. The one near Angel (I forget the name of the cinema itself) was showing it last I went past it. Would like to see but I doubt it'll still be showing when I get back.
Iun Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 My mommy always said that there were no monsters, no real ones anyway. But there are, aren't there?
dan-likes-trees Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 Re: screenings - it was showing quite regularly when I saw it at a standard cineplex in Leeds. That was like release day though. Still, most definitely worth the effort if it means going out your way. It felt more like Lost in Translation meets Cloverfield to me. It wasn't really about a plot, I mean, the whole 'get the girl out of the country' is laid out right at the beginning and the fact the film never really tries to explain anything beyond the opening title card things pointed to that it was about the experience. I also thought the two main characters had good chemistry - you'd hope they would considering they're married in real life. I'd roll with that description. I thought it was utterly amazing. I do wonder what I'd have thought if I'd have gone in without the knowledge of how it was made in mind. I love how good all the non-actors they found 5 minutes before were. Plus from interviews the director seems like the nicest guy. But yeah, I do feel a little like alot of my enjoyment actually came from thinking about how it was made more than anything else. But yes, one of the best and most refreshing monster movies I've seen in ages. It upsets me how shit the marketing for it has been.. just looks like standard-b-movie-monster-romp from the posters and adverts..
Daft Posted December 26, 2010 Author Posted December 26, 2010 Yeah, it's a massive shame the marketing wasn't there to back it up. I don't see any reason why it couldn't have pulled in the same numbers/hype as District 9. It was definitely better than Cloverfield, in my eyes. I didn't actually know the details of it. I just knew it was filmed on a budget. I had absolutely no idea just how much work Gareth Edwards did himself and reading up on it after watching it, it's actually pretty inspirational. I look forward to seeing any future projects he does. I think I might drag people to the cinema to go see it.
EddieColeslaw Posted December 26, 2010 Posted December 26, 2010 From the poster, I thought it was something like District 9 (awesome movie), but the words "giant monster" in the trailer really put me off. I find it rather boring when movies are based around one monster, especially if they can't hide well and just barge in to kill people. I also hated Cloverfield. But the quoted part about how it's made makes me want to see it...
dan-likes-trees Posted December 27, 2010 Posted December 27, 2010 Yeah, it's a massive shame the marketing wasn't there to back it up. I don't see any reason why it couldn't have pulled in the same numbers/hype as District 9. It was definitely better than Cloverfield, in my eyes. I didn't actually know the details of it. I just knew it was filmed on a budget. I had absolutely no idea just how much work Gareth Edwards did himself and reading up on it after watching it, it's actually pretty inspirational. I look forward to seeing any future projects he does. I think I might drag people to the cinema to go see it. Yeah haha. I've failed to persuade anyone to go see it yet. It'll be interesting to see what he does do next - he did it with a skeleton crew as he said it was clunky and hard to organise a large crew, but then I'd imagine it might be hard to pull off the same trick twice in a way.. Btw, you heard of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_a_Midnight_Kiss has the lead actor in it, low budget, apparently it was a big inspiration for the film. Might check it out.
Daft Posted December 27, 2010 Author Posted December 27, 2010 From the poster, I thought it was something like District 9 (awesome movie), but the words "giant monster" in the trailer really put me off. I find it rather boring when movies are based around one monster, especially if they can't hide well and just barge in to kill people. I also hated Cloverfield. But the quoted part about how it's made makes me want to see it... To be honest, it's not really the normal monster film. I didn't actually like Cloverfield, this is a much slower paced film (the reason I mentioned Cloverfield is that they are similarly stylised). The trailer makes it look a lot more frantic and action packed than it is. Definitely give it a go.
Goafer Posted April 11, 2011 Posted April 11, 2011 Bump for DVD/Bluray release. Watched it today. It's amazing. Even without taking into account how it was made, it's still pretty good. that the woman dies? That bit at the beginning is them right? I assume so since the audio matches. I went back and watched the beginning again right away because of the soldiers theme tune at the end matching the one at the beginning. It seems the woman gets hit by something and the guy is yelling for help. I love how not much is explained beyond the whole "space ship brought back samples, crashes, spreads shit around". No back story of how the quarantine zones were set up, no history of the "infection" spreading. Just "this is how shit is, watch it". I like how humans brought the aliens here. In most alien movies, the aliens seem less advanced than humans, but somehow manage to get here. I like how it was us that brought them back. Makes it seem more believable. I also love that there was no real action. The bit in the pickup trucks reminded me of Jurassic Park, albeit a bit more mature. Incredible movie. Everyone needs to see it.
Hamishmash Posted April 12, 2011 Posted April 12, 2011 BTW, some of you guys might have read this but Gareth Edwards has signed up to direct the Godzilla reboot. As a massive fan of kaiju movies, and as someone who sees the American remake with Matthew Broderick as a hate crime towards kaiju fans, I couldn't be happier with this choice. It's been produced by Legendary Pictures too, which is kinda cool.
Mundi Posted April 12, 2011 Posted April 12, 2011 Just saw this recently and as beautiful as this film was, I found it quite boring. It may be because I watched it with a group thinking it was more of a traditional monster film, like the trailer hinted at (and all of us all knew nothing about it outside of the trailer). The message felt forced and was way to unsubtle and the main character was stiff in his acting. The plot was uninteresting and the only thing holding this film up for me was the scenery.
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