Speed Racer discussion

TheCentralScrutinizer · 09 May 08 :: 01:32

Enjoyed your review, Larry. Huffington post today has links to a bunch of terrible reviews. I was tempted to read them, but since I'm gonna see the film, I thought I'd go in fairly optimistic and hope people were being too harsh. You make me feel like I'll still find a way to enjoy it. Dave will kill me if I back out of seeing it now.

larry-411 · 09 May 08 :: 01:55

Sisterdebmac wrote:

Enjoyed your review, Larry. Huffington post today has links to a bunch of terrible reviews. I was tempted to read them, but since I'm gonna see the film, I thought I'd go in fairly optimistic and hope people were being too harsh. You make me feel like I'll still find a way to enjoy it. Dave will kill me if I back out of seeing it now.

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I haven't read any of the reviews but the audience was very positive. Of course, they were all industry people and guests of Warner Bros. The public was not invited, although WB did hand out free tickets outside in order to fill the seats. So it was not an unbiased crowd. Nobody paid either. I'm not sure if it would be worth the money for a night out at the movies.

I really only went out of loyalty to Emile and because I was covering the event for the festival. I was just glad I got to see him, chat for a bit, and get some pictures. As far as I know, I was the only photographer who shot the cast and crew onstage for the intro and I hope to have those posted soon. I've just been swamped with work.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 09 May 08 :: 03:09

Hey, we'd love to see some pics in this very thread, if you wanna share.

larry-411 · 09 May 08 :: 04:21

Sisterdebmac wrote:

Hey, we'd love to see some pics in this very thread, if you wanna share.

Here you go:

http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/story102431.html

Enjoy!

I got some from the red carpet but they are basically the same as everyone else's so I don't post those. These are exclusive.

Here's one just for you guys.

Last edited by larry-411 (09 May 08 :: 05:25)

TheCentralScrutinizer · 09 May 08 :: 06:27

Cuuuuuuute! Thanks, Larry.

Illinoisguy1 · 09 May 08 :: 13:01

Oh, so sad to hear that the Mach 5 gets destroyed. But at least the Mach 5 is in most of the film.

domesticelefant · 09 May 08 :: 18:10

Cute! I didn't even know he has glasses. LOL

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 10 May 08 :: 09:49

Cute pic of Emile. I love him!!

Chnyst · 10 May 08 :: 09:58

Hey guys!
Just got back from watching this tonight and I'm not really gonna do a review right this second but I will say that it was a very very very different kind of film. Like someone mentioned before, extremely vibrant colors throughout the entire film. Lots of action. Some good star power and seemed to be made with much respect to the old television series. Jacen enjoyed it too. He loved the cars and the race scenes.
I think it'll be one of those films that people are absolutely gonna hate, or will love & embrace. Just go in with a light-hearted attitude and have fun with it
Oh, and they showed the Clone Wars trailer too! :drool:

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 10 May 08 :: 10:38

That's really cool. I can't wait to see it! I bet Emile is amazing in it!!!

TeeJay · 10 May 08 :: 12:37

I'm really looking forward to this one. I wish I had time to watch it this weekend, maybe on Monday if I get all my other stuff done in time. Otherwise it'll have to wait until the weekend after. I'll let you know what I thought afterwards.

-TeeJay

Illinoisguy1 · 13 May 08 :: 13:24

It looks like it bombed at the box-office. Making only 18.56 million.

I guess there are several reasons.

1. Kids likely don't even know what Speed Racer is and likely just looks like a video-game to them.
2. No big stars in it to draw in the audience.
3. Too many changes from the cartoon. Racer X's car is different than the cartoon version. The addition of the Mach 6 may have confused some into thinking the Mach 5 wasn't in the film. Speed's costume is different as well. (Could be more, just going by the trailer)
4. Adults too embarrassed to go see a kids film. Some single adults would likely be embarrassed to go see a kids film alone.
5. Teenagers didn't really grow up with Speed Racer except for re-runs on cable, which is very different then growing up watching it on regular broadcast tv in the late 60's/ early 70's. So teenagers didn't really have much interest in it either.
6. Brothers back-lash. Perhaps there was a back-lash/boycott from those that didn't like the 2 Matrix sequels.

I could care less that it bombed. I know I will buy it on dvd when it's released in the fall.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 13 May 08 :: 16:02

Mostly, Illinois, I think it bombed because 90% of the reviews that came out last week were horrible. Kinda took the wind out of my sails and made me think twice about spending ten dollars to feel like someone's poking needles in my eyes for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I was really only interested in it because of the cast anyway. I was never a fan of the cartoon. It's looking more like a wait for DVD movie for me now.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 13 May 08 :: 22:29

In more sad news...

Was The Race(r) Fixed?
Warner Bros. on Monday was being accused of cooking the books Monday after it turned out that their box-office estimate for the opening weekend of Speed Racer was way off the mark. The studio had predicted that the film would wind up with $20.2 million in ticket sales, putting it in second place. "It's far from the first time a studio with an underperforming pic has overestimated its Sunday gross and avoided an embarrassing third-place finish in Monday morning box office stories," Daily Variety commented today (Tuesday). The estimated figure, not the final one, is the one that receives the most play in the press -- if for no other reason than that Sunday is ordinarily a light news day. Few analysts had believed the studio's estimate, given the movie's weak showing on Friday and Saturday. (Weekend estimates include actual figures for Friday and Saturday and estimated sales for Sunday.) As things turned out, the movie debuted with just $18.6 million -- a figure that will no doubt cause heads eventually to fall at the studio, which reportedly spent $250-300 million to produce and market it. Taking over second place was the debuting romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas from 20th Century Fox, which wound up with $20.2 million, the same amount that had been forecast for Speed Racer. Meanwhile, the second weekend of Iron Man earned $51.2 million, more than the debuts of Vegas and Racer put together, keeping it in first place.

Actually, that's not sad, it's tacky.

Source: Studio Briefing Today

Illinoisguy1 · 13 May 08 :: 23:02

Not defending what they did, but I believe Paramount did the same thing with Iron Man last week when they said it made $100 million when it actually made 98.6 million.

See I never allow critics reviews to sway me either way. I pretty much know what kind of films I like or don't. I don't really like mysteries, sports films so I rarely see them. To me they are almost always the same. Once I know "who did it" in a mystery it doesn't interest me anymore so it doesn't have much repeat value to me. And sports films are almost always the same story, the team/person loses some game/sport, there is someone who gives a big pep-talk, they practice some and eventually win the big game in the finale. Boring to me.

I tend to like action, adventure, science fiction and comedies the most.

Really my interest in seeing Speed Racer was seeing the Mach 5, to me it's an iconic tv car along the same vain as the Batmobile, Kitt, General Lee and other tv cars.

Perhaps another reason it flopped was that it was released too soon after Iron Man. Perhaps earlier in the Spring or later in the Summer would have been better.

Is anyone collection the Speed Racer toys. I've already got most of the 1/64 scale Hot Wheel cars, 2 of the Pull-Back cars (Mach 5 & 6), the larger Mach 5 with Speed action figure, the real large Mach 5 with sounds from the movie, and 2 of the McDonald's cars (Mach 5 and the Racer X Race Car). So lets see I think I've spent about $55 on toys.

In case anyone is interested in the McDonald's cars, they are about the same size as the Hot Wheels Pull-Back toys but are a little less detailed, but over 1/2 the price of the Hot Wheels versions.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 13 May 08 :: 23:45

I don't listen to critics either when it's something I really care about. In this case, eh. I really don't. I'll see it on DVD. Dave wants to kill me, but hey, he flaked on me for Cloverfield so I'd say we're even.

Illinoisguy1 · 14 May 08 :: 00:03

Speaking of Cloverfield, I posted what I thought of the film in the Cloverfield thread.

larry-411 · 17 May 08 :: 21:57

Still catching up from being away and just read the recent posts here. I think you are all correct to a certain extent about why the film didn't do as well as many had hoped. But I think that Sisterdebmac was most on the mark insofar as the reviews being so negative.

Despite the fact that you guys may not be swayed by reviews, the fact is that many people are. The majority of the public don't follow these movies the way we do.

When and why people choose what to see is easily measured by polling. It is often dependent on age.

When people are asked when they decided what to see on any given weekend the overwhelming majority said it was within a few days beforehand. Remember, now, we're talking about the majority, not the fanboys/girls like us who might follow a film's progress and decide to see it years in advance.

When asked how they decided, most cite TV commercials and trailers more than anything else. But the older the decisionmaker (adults in a family, let's say) the less likely they are to rely on marketing and the more on what they read in their local papers. Most people read one review -- whomever is their local favorite. That very often helps them make that decision. The higher the percentage of reviews that are negative the more it will impact on decisionmakers' choices.

By the way, all this applies only to opening weekends, generally. How a film does beyond that is mostly based on buzz and word of mouth (co-workers, friends, and relatives).

TeeJay · 17 May 08 :: 22:19

I hope I can manage to catch the movie tomorrow. It's certainly on my to-do list. I'll let you know if my eyeballs got scorched or not.

I've never been one to listen to reviews. It's happened that movies that got disastrous reviews went to the top of my list or that I ended up thinking a movie was a waste of time when people said it was great. I usually have pretty good feelers for what I'm going to like and what I'm not going to like. I don't recall ever wanting to leave a movie because I thought it was so bad except for once where a friend of mine took me to a sneak preview (where you don't know what movie you're gonna watch until the movie actually starts). And I don't think I'm gonna be all that disappointed by Speed Racer either.

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 17 May 08 :: 23:01

Once upon a time, I used to go to a movie in a theater every single weekend. Sometimes, I even saw more than one movie a week. I didn't care how far I had to drive to get there or whether I made the matinee or anything as long as I saw what I wanted to see.

Then my life fell apart (2003) and I've been trying to put it back together ever since. I no longer have the money to waste on anything I'm not dying to see and I am forced to make the matinees.

But around here, the matinees shrank from anytime before 6 PM to one screening a day, like at noon. And they're not much cheaper than a full price adult ticket. Maybe a buck and a half off. The dollar theater no longer costs only a dollar. It costs more than $4 to rent a movie at Blockbuster.

Reality has forced me to become ridiculously choosy about when and how I see movies. That's the plain and simple truth. I just don't have the will to throw $10 at this one.

Illinoisguy1 · 18 May 08 :: 10:36

I could've went to seen this movie because I got 3 free tickets in that Speed Racer DVD I bought from Target and I still didn't go and see it.

I just hate the movie going experience that much. Too many annoying things occur in the theater that ruin it for me.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 18 May 08 :: 19:02

You know, Illinois, I'm increasingly starting to agree with you. The newest annoyance is these self-important idiots who refuse to take off their Blutooth earpieces when they're in a movie --- and they have these stupid blinking lights on them. So if you end up on a row with one of these assclowns, you've got this flashing light in the corner of your eye bugging you and keeping your focus away from the movie. Will somebody please explain to me why anyone would pay to see a movie when they're soooooo important that they can't be disconnected from their phone long enough to watch one? And they know the damn light is flashing in a dark room, are they too stupid to realize that it's gonna bother people? People that dense and careless about the feeling of others should not be allowed near technology.

Plus, I figured Speed Racer would be full of rambunctious little kids. Yuck.

TeeJay · 18 May 08 :: 20:30

I also see your point, Illinois. I like my "quiet" in the theater too. I'd much rather watch a movie in an empty screening room than a full one. I find people crunching tortilla chips next to you during the movie as annoying as little kids pointing at the screen with their laser pointers or people who think they need to comment on every little thing in the movie for everyone to hear. Still, some movies should be watched on the big screen, and my 26" television just can't deliver what a movie screen gets across. And my paranoia of German dubbing might actually be a plus since I have the impression undubbed movies are frequented less than the ones in German language.

But to come back to the movie itself, I have admit that this time I'd actually agree with the reviewers. This was possibly the worst movie I've seen in the theater for a long time. Now, it wasn't horrible or anything. It wasn't I-wanna-leave-the-theater bad. It just wasn't worth the 7 EUR I spent on it. I had hoped it would be better than what it was, but this time I was obviously proven wrong. Two things kinda ruined it for me, which is the total overuse of FX and the cheeeeeeeeesiness of the story and the dialogue.

What they did with the FX was to make it look really flashy, like something no one has ever done before. But, guys, sometimes less is more. Visually it would have been a totally cool movie if they had used all these cool, vivid, fast effects during the races, but during the races only. This whole vivid lusciousness was all over the movie, and it was just too much. Also made the movie feel very artificial. It wasn't quite a comic, it wasn't quite an animated movie and it wasn't quite a real movie either. It was trying to be all of them rolled into one, but they pretty much failed to bring that across.

As to the story, boy, have I ever heard more clichees and more stereotype lines in one movie? The dialogues sounded like they were right out of an animated Disney movie. God, it was so much family schmaltz, it made me wanna slap these guys right and left. And the jokes weren't funny enough for me to actually laugh. It had a 12-year-old rating in Germany, so I'm guessing they had a PG rating in the US. I don't know why the dialogues had to be so platitudinous, this wasn't really a children's movie, was it? I can see why most adults will not like the movie. There is a way to make a movie like this appealing to both kids and grown-ups. Again, they failed.

And, damn, the younger brother was annoying!! That's the third thing that ruined the movie, I guess. I think they wanted to use him as comic relief, but again: total failure. Not funny at all, just totally annoying. They should have also lost the chimp. It added no value to the movie at all. In fact, it was almost as silly and annoying as the little bro. And probably cost a shitload of money to be handled and coached for the shoot.

I like Emile Hirsch and Matthew Fox, and I was quite happy to see them cast in a huge movie like this. Now I'm not so happy anymore. Like I said, it wasn't a total disaster, as far as movies go, but I don't have any desire to see it a second time.

And, hey, I'm waiting for the day where I see "Assistant to Mr. Marquette" appear in movie credits. Because if Emile can have a credited assistant, so can Chris!

-TeeJay

Illinoisguy1 · 18 May 08 :: 21:20

Just making some points about TJ's comments.

I haven't seen the movie, so my comments are based on the original cartoon and what I've seen in trailers or read online.

1. FX. I kind of agree with you about the fx. As far as I can recall there were no over the top tracks like they showed in the movie. Most of the races were either either cross country type of races or on real life type of tracks. So what the Mach 5 raced in the movie is more closely what happened in the cartoon. I wonder if they came up with the Mach 6 just do to those crazy type of tracks, because I can't recall such tracks in the cartoon at all.

2. The cartoon featured real corny dialogue as well, so it seems it stays true to the cartoon in that respect.

3. The brother. The brother was annoying and used for comic relief in the cartoon as well, so again it's staying true to the cartoon in that respect too.

I will also bring up something as well.

While the cars are similar to the cartoon, they aren't exactly the same.
The Mach 5 was much larger fins in the back compared to the movie version.

Movie version.

The Racer X car also has much larger fins in the back compared to the movie version.

Movie version of Racer X car

The Snake Oiler car is completely different in the movie then in the cartoon.

Movie version of Snake Oiler car
41foYa6j-IL._SS500_.jpg

Cartoon version of Snake Oiler car

Perhaps these changes in the cars is also putting off fans of the original cartoon.

Last edited by Illinoisguy1 (18 May 08 :: 21:33)

TeeJay · 18 May 08 :: 22:08

I don't even know the original cartoon, so I can't say anything about comparison of the two. I just wanted to see the movie for the fun of it because it sounded really cool. Too bad it didn't turn out that way.

-TeeJay

Chris Marquette Message Board

#26 09 May 08 :: 01:32

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#27 09 May 08 :: 01:55

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#28 09 May 08 :: 03:09

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#29 09 May 08 :: 04:21

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#30 09 May 08 :: 06:27

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#31 09 May 08 :: 13:01

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#32 09 May 08 :: 18:10

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#33 10 May 08 :: 09:49

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#34 10 May 08 :: 09:58

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#35 10 May 08 :: 10:38

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#36 10 May 08 :: 12:37

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#37 13 May 08 :: 13:24

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#38 13 May 08 :: 16:02

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#39 13 May 08 :: 22:29

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#40 13 May 08 :: 23:02

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#41 13 May 08 :: 23:45

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#42 14 May 08 :: 00:03

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#43 17 May 08 :: 21:57

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#44 17 May 08 :: 22:19

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#45 17 May 08 :: 23:01

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#46 18 May 08 :: 10:36

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#47 18 May 08 :: 19:02

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#48 18 May 08 :: 20:30

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#49 18 May 08 :: 21:20

Re: Speed Racer discussion

#50 18 May 08 :: 22:08

Re: Speed Racer discussion

Board footer