rawen100
New Egg
Tremors 7: Antarctic Agitations
Posts: 45
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Post by rawen100 on Oct 6, 2015 7:23:42 GMT -5
So? What do you guys think?
Personally I thought it had some good parts, some bad parts, and a lot of meh parts. Travis is not a very fun character at all, and having him be Burt's son was just unnecessary. I'm not even sure I'd watch a new Tremors installment if he was the main character. It was as if someone tried to make a Tremors film without really knowing how to make a Tremors film. It just really lacked Stampede.
All that said, it's still fun, and I'll probably watch it again at some point. But it's a lowpoint of the franchise.
Also, did anyone else feel like the tag in the end-credits almost felt like Universal going "hey, would you like a TV show like this?" It felt kind of sudden and out of the blue, and at any rate definitely felt like Universal going "if you want more Tremors, this is what you'll get".
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Post by bamaboy34 on Oct 6, 2015 9:58:41 GMT -5
I liked it ok, I agree with it having good and bad parts while I agree he isnt the best sidekick burt has had I thought he was ok, would have rather had Tyler return, I agree that having him play his son just was unnecessary, and i probably wouldnt watch a tremors movie with him as a main character either I also absolutely agree with it lacking the stampede feel of a tremors movie but overall enjoyed it more than tremors 4 mainly because of my hatred of prequels and since the dirt dragons werent even even in this one it makes that prequel pretty much useless to the series and yes i felt the same way about the end credits scene with it feeling like they were trying to tell us this was where they were going with the franchise was with another show and im not a fan of it should have just kept the original show on the air
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Post by tressdady51 on Oct 6, 2015 12:37:16 GMT -5
ummm I liked it over all, I was just excited to see a new movie. It made me laugh and it had some good parts but what bothered me was that the graboids come flying out of the ground and grab people but Burt was never too concerned for his own danger like he should have been
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Post by Mr.ELBlanco on Oct 6, 2015 14:10:07 GMT -5
I liked it, Its different but In a good way I think. It tried to have more "scary" elements in it which I liked. I'd call it my 3rd favorite behind 1st and 2nd movie. I thought the new Graboids we're fine and pretty interesting. Burt is great as ever and the Jamie Kennedy being his son thing didn't bother me a whole lot, It was funny since they we're so different and made for some good comedic bits. The only thing that would have been better was AT LEAST a mention of EL BLANCO!!!! I would have liked to have seen him at least momentarily during the opening where maybe he follows Travis' dirt bike.
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Post by project412 on Oct 6, 2015 17:43:01 GMT -5
Just finished watching. This was very... ok.
Still not fond of what they did with the creatures, and the concept of the "Grabbers" seems like such an afterthought it's not even funny. I did admittedly warm up a tad to the AB design when we saw it in profile and it started to look vaguely like the original ABs, but the way they had the Graboid move (and leap out of the ground like in the trailer) was just so ridiculous and unprecedented compared to what came before... even if this is a different African strain. Also, for a series that usually comes up with some pretty interesting and creative ways to take down the creatures in the end, the finale to this one just felt very convoluted and artificial. Artificial is a great word to describe the whole film, actually.
It felt so, so good seeing Gross back at it as Burt again. That was the true highlight of the film. There were times where the writing (particularly, some of his one-liners) seemed a bit out-of-character, but by and large this is the Burt we know and love back at it again. Even where the rest of the film seeps into some pretty generic territory, Gross is having an absolute blast returning to this character after so long and that's evident whenever he's on screen.
I only really have two spoilery topics I want to get into, both of which riff on the Bloodlines subtitle:
The first is the the Graboid nest. I wonder just how much of that concept came form the original Tremors 5 script, since that was to explore the Assblasters' egg-laying process. We definitely got to see some of that here, and I thought what they did with the nest was pretty cool, until it started to get into ridiculous Jurassic Park III "RECLAIM ALL THE EGGS" territory. Also, while on the topic of the creatures again, it bothered me that Burt let them try to tranq the AB, since that very thing didn't work in the TV show. Though it seems like a lot of details from the show were very glossed over in general... namely, the fact that a Graboid was uncovered in the Sahara during the timeframe of the show.
The second, and perhaps biggest, Bloodline-related revelation... Travis is Burt's son. I really, really don't know how I feel about this. I liked Travis, but I wish that he and Burt had a bit more time in the early portion of the film to riff off of one another. I always felt that if they ever did do another Tremors film, they'd eventually go the "missing son/daughter" route, but I always figured that if/when it happened the child would be a bit younger and he would be Heather's (fun Heather nod in the middle of the film, by the way). I figured they'd say that she got pregnant just before she left him. I wish they went that route. The way they handled it really bothered me.
So yeah, Tremors 5. Eleven years of waiting, and this is the movie we got. It's not awful, but it's not particularly good either. It just kind of exists. At this point, if they don't ever make another one, OK, and if they do I sincerely hope that the great folks at Stampede Entertainment return. Their stamp was clearly missing from this one, which I think is why it had that "artificial" feel that I had mentioned.
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Post by project412 on Oct 6, 2015 18:13:50 GMT -5
A few more thoughts:
I thought the cave paintings of the Graboids in the cave were a really cool touch, though I guess you have to wonder why word hasn't surfaced in modern times. The Assblaster-themed dance felt really off to me, because if this is something that is part of their culture (or at least, their mythology), you'd think they would be a bit more open to believing it straight away, especially with Graboids' existence being a known scientific fact now.
I really wasn't fond of the helicopter pilot emerging from within the Graboid, especially in the "haha it's funny" way it happened.When it happened with Burt in Tremors 3 it was hysterical because here was Burt, our hero, getting swallowed, and getting him out of there became a whole gag in the film. And it was kind of made somewhat plausible by the barrel he was in when he got eaten. In this, when the pilot got eaten he just kind of sprayed some bullets, got thrown up, and then popped up back on the scene, laughed about it, and exited the movie. If felt tacked on.
On the Grabbers again and how absolutely pointless those are, if they really wanted to have tentacles going at the little girl in the film's finale they could have easily just had a Graboid partially above ground using its tentacles in the same way.
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rawen100
New Egg
Tremors 7: Antarctic Agitations
Posts: 45
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Post by rawen100 on Oct 7, 2015 8:03:55 GMT -5
The stupidest thing about the grabbers for me is that I don't quite get how they would really even work. To begin with I was convinced that they were just African dirt dragons, because that seemed a lot more plausible than an animal having detachable limbs that can think on their own.
But I did overall like what they did with this African variation of the graboid life cycle. Having it be mostly similar, just bigger and badder.
What you mention about the tribe I agree with as well. The cave was neat and can be explained with people just never going there, but the tribe had a costume that looked like an assblaster! They knew what it was. It's weird it was never brought up at some point after the discovery of the graboid, it's been 25 years. You'd think some grad student had figured out that some tribe in South Africa had tales about ancient assblasters.
I also really agree with Mr. ElBlanco on the lack of, well, El Blanco. That he wasn't even mentioned as part of Burt's Survivalist series in the opening. That's all it would have taken. "Oh no, lookie here, it's my old albino friend." It felt like they really just left Perfection in the dust and moved on, and it seems like any potential sequel won't go back there, which is a real shame.
EDIT: Two things I really did like: 1. The return of the titlescreen from Tremors 2. Burt and Travis running with a stampede. "I ran with a stampede once."
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Post by Mr.ELBlanco on Oct 7, 2015 10:50:43 GMT -5
The detachable tentacles didn't really bother me a whole lot, I hate to say it but this is a Tremors film. It has been based on the animals evolving a step ahead of the characters and throwing them a curve ball they didn't know about and has never been particularly realistic, this is just another way they could run with that without having the same creatures again-Burt already knows how to kill the regular Graboids, if they didn't do something weird and different; Burt would just shoot them with enough gun or blow them up and the movie would be over in 10 minutes. I think some of this negativity stems from people haven't got over Stampede not being involved; frankly, we don't know how much of this was originally planned by Stampede themselves. Would you guys still be mad at it if they had Graboids with detached tentacles or jumped out of the ground if they made it? Just curious.
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Post by timforston on Oct 7, 2015 11:43:20 GMT -5
Ok some short thoughts from me. First of all had to go to Wal-Mart and purchase a copy because mail getting to Charleston, SC is not working so hot at the moment, hence I am a day late typing this and it is going to be kinda short.
Things I really liked - Original opening and credit font from T-1. Just doing it in this movie made me wish they had done it in the other 3. It was one of the first things I saw in the movie that made me say "OMG THEY ALMOST CARE!"
Jamie Kennedy did not suck! When I said in an earlier thread that I saw a spoiler that I wish I had not it was that Travis was his son. When I saw the spoiler I thought "Oh God, here we go." But I really did not mind in the end. They did not do the best job of explaining it, would have much rather it been Heather's son, but oh well.
Burt in general, he's Burt what is not to love!
Things I didn't like - Disregard for the series as was mentioned earlier - a graboid was discovered in the sahara. So maybe these are sub-saharan graboids. Who knows.
It's a graboid not f***ing free willy for God's sake. You want us to see all the work you put in to make the graboid look different. We get it.
At the beginning when they are explaining what graboids etc are they do a great job. But they use several shots and diagrams of the new graboids. Way to spoil your surprise.
Assblasters with bat wings, no tongues and no bony snout/mouth. A little to different maybe, but overall I like the redesigns in context and think they did a fairly good job and making things different.
How many context clues does a movie need to give you about what is going to happen later? Did Travis call Burt Pops enough? Little girl shocking worms out of the ground, that'll never be brought up again. Why would a little girl constantly tote that dadburn bag everywhere if all it had in it were freaking carrots? 3 minutes of Travis doing dirt bike tricks during the opening credits. That irked me, I was like "Ok I get it we need to know that he is good on a dirt bike, can we move on now?" The list goes on and on.
"Graboids are confined to the northern hemisphere." This line just irked me and they say it over and over again. I understand (I think) that Burt meant North and South America but that is not what he said. And as they had been found in the sahara during the show they might have just forgot about Argentina.
Overall I really much say that this movie went above and beyond my expectations. Not that they were that high. I also would rate this my third favorite movie. Behind 1 and 2. Not a super huge fan of the western that they tried their best to squeeze into a storyline without ever having to acknowledge it again in any movie/show in any way. The best thing about 4 was the effects that were not CGI. Did anyone one else think one of the main reasons for the redesign was so that the CGI graboid no longer looked phallic? This was my fiance's question not really mine, but it's true that that was a complaint about T-3.
I will have more to say about this later, now back to flood cleanup.
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Post by timforston on Oct 7, 2015 11:50:38 GMT -5
One other thing that really kind of annoyed me: The DVD that I purchased yesterday (Which is less that 12 dollars in Wal-Mart BTW) Has to be the cheapest looking dvd that I have ever bought in my life. And I am talking about the menus when you are using the DVD. It was just terrible. Maybe the Blue Ray is better, will give my opinion on that when I get it. The menus look like crap and the background picture that they decided to use is grainy. It just looked very cheap and thrown together at the last second. I am not a cinematic genius but the DVD that I made to watch the movie with last week is of better quality with better looking menus. Just saying.
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Post by project412 on Oct 7, 2015 22:12:43 GMT -5
Anyone else think the way they took out the Graboid was absolutely ridiculous? The series has had some slightly OTT kills before, surely, but this felt straight SyFy channel.
Also, you know none of the mains were going to die but I never really got the feel that any of them were actually in danger. Especially after the helicopter pilot just kinda nonchalantly came out from the Graboid. I know the Grabbers came up in the discussion above about keeping the characters on their toes, but unlike the Shriekers or ABs in 2 and 3 these felt like a complete afterthought rather than a next evolutionary step or something for the characters to have to figure out. It was just Burt going "Oh no! The tentacles detached!" and then shooting them.
There were some things to like about the movie, Gross mostly, but there is so much that just doesn't, which it really pains me to say. This is by far the low point of the series, even if I were to just take into account the things about it that I do like. I hope that, if there is a 6, it only goes up for here, but at this point I'm not expecting it to. I really don't see any of the original crew coming back, now that Universal completely has their hands on it.
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Post by raynor on Oct 8, 2015 15:13:03 GMT -5
No problem with the tentacles. The tentacles of octopuses are not entirely under the control of the octopus's brain. They have independence, and still react up to an hour after being detached. So, the idea is nice and biologically possible. In true, i liked the african graboid. I can see a graboid there. But was comical see the creature jumping like a fish....
It would be nice if they show the graboid doing more things than simply attacking people. I mean, at the previous movies, the graboids are portrayed more like animals than monsters. In Bloodlines we havent a scene with a good visialisation of the creature, to make it possible contemplates them.
Now, speaking about AB's......holy s... It's horrible. They are so uglly and uninteresting. The excess of details just like wrong. Original AB's, like Shriekers and Graboids, heve a cleaned visual. They are simple, following the simple concept of "function/form". This make them acceptable. Better then this, they are original. No arms (ABs and Shriekers), a powerfull and sharp beaks ( compounds of 3 parts), without beating wings to fly, but a rocket like propulsion. So, verry well thought. Very different then new AB, which is generic and ungracious ( for me, of course).
I want the Stampede back. I agree thath only they can make a tremors movie with the atmosphere that won us and so many other fans.
At least, Burt and Travis extinguished this "bloodline", lol. So if we had tremors 6, I hope the original Graboids back, along with Kevin Bacon and the Stampede. After all, this is a film about his creatures, and they (the original) need to be in it.
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Post by project412 on Oct 8, 2015 22:45:38 GMT -5
About the opening montage, was anyone else a bit bothered that when they did the (admittedly cool) breakdown of the creatures they used a lot of models of the African Graboid variant that nobody (in-film) knows exists yet? I guess it was just cheaper for them to use some pre-viz stuff from the movie itself than to render new animations.
Also, while on the topic of altered designs, I know we talked a lot about how different the actual creatures looked, but even the eggs seemed more generic, looking more like regular shaped eggs than the thicker, taller, prehistoric looking eggs we saw in 3 and 4.
I did really appreciate seeing a bit of the nesting process, that was a really cool touch. But I wish we could have seen it further explored in a better movie, I guess. I wonder how much of that was carried over from the Stampede script? I would love so much if their script (even though it was never finished, IIRC) leaked online at some point.
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Post by Earl Bassett on Mar 6, 2016 8:49:03 GMT -5
Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who wasn't blown away by Tremors 5. It seems most of us have a lot of the same issues. Jamie Kennedy was less annoying than I thought he would be, he was fine in the movie. Not really sure what I think about the whole son thing, though. It didn't add much to the movie and they may have forced themselves into a corner. Now the son more or less has to be in the next movie (if there is one) or there needs to be a very good explanation why he isn't.
I couldn't disagree more with a couple of you though who felt Heather should have been his mother. First of all, I like the character of Heather, she was great in the first film. If she had gotten pregnant after God knows how long she'd been with Burt - and not tell him about it?! I would have hated her character, you don't do that to someone. It wouldn't make a lot of sense, either. Why keep it from him? It's not like they seemed to part ways in such a fashion that it was an all-out war between them. No, she wouldn't do that to him. Besides, how do you explain their 20-25 year old son (he would have to be born after 1990) looking like he's in his 40's? Jamie Kennedy is 45.
I wasn't too crazy about the look of the creatures. They looked and moved too differently and I very much disliked the fact that there were more or less no practical creature effects, it was all CGI, which I usually don't care for. It is the biggest reason why I like Tremors 4 so much, it went back to practical effects after Tremors 3 had used so much (bad) CGI.
I think most of all, and I'm so glad we all seem to agree on this, I missed the feeling of a Tremors movie that Stampede always delivered. This didn't truly give me that special feeling that I got from the other Tremors movies, it really needed the involvement of Stampede, it was obvious. This movie felt more generic, like a Tremors movie stripped off its soul.
However, it was not all bad, far from it. I still enjoyed it. It had a lot of suspense, some good scares, some laughs and a lot of great Burt Gummer moments, which is what we've come to expect and demand from this franchise by now. I have only seen the movie once, so my opinion may change after my next viewing. I may like it more, maybe less. One thing is for certain though, it is so far the worst movie of the franchise. Hurts to say it because it sounds a lot worse than it actually is, since I did like the movie. I just hoped it could maybe be a bit better than parts 3 and 4, but it didn't quite reach those levels.
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Post by captbart on Mar 9, 2016 22:10:00 GMT -5
OK, i've watched a couple of times. I assume the "son" bit was to ensure Tremors 6 would have other monsters to go up against. Think of the book series by Larry Coreia "Monster Hunters". Over the series we get vampires, werwolves, zombies, etc. The books are a little strange but can be a fun read. One of my biggest problems with the movie was not the lack of El Blanco mention but the total, and i mean TOTAL, lack of reference to Shriekers. OK, you have AB and a mama worm but how do we get a live worm, no shriekers and multiple ABs? This is a total violation of the established life cycle with no recognition of any reason for the change. Not even an "oh, they have evolved!" or "always on a learning curve" type comment. I found that to be a serious violation of the established movie series, never mind the TV series.
As an old Huey pilot the helicopter scenes drove me NUTS! hanging MIG rocket pods on a UH1 and having a working electrical system and aiming system? Really? A zero airspeed, zero altitude launch of a non-guided rocket means it probably goes all over the place and quite possibly bounces off the ground rig right at the launch point and blows everything up.
The native lore and cave drawings had no shriekers. We established in Tremors 4 that the Colt SSA doesn't pack enough punch to bother the critters much (and I love my Colts). Burt was suckered by a con man (OK, he thought he was government but travel to Africa without government help on a couple of days notice seemed inconsistent to me). The arrows in the AB did not result in fire. The detached tongues MIGHT be made to work but how they re-attach is never mentioned.
I don't know; I like science fiction because once you concede the basic premises, everything else is internally consistent. I don't like fantasy because there is way too much Deus Ex Machina. Example, in Tremors 5 the pilot pops out of the worm, smiling - at least Burt was ticked about the slime and that he got snarfed in 3. If they are going to make another TV series I would hope they simply ignore 5 and start from the old series.
All that said, I would go see a 6 if it still had Burt in it. Oh, and I agree with the Heather comments.
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