I didn't hate Mortal Engines and had a fairly good time with the visuals and the spectacle. But what really dragged the film down was the complete blandness of the characters, the rushed plot and lack of motivation for anyone to do anything.
Honestly, I think Christian Rivers did a good job. He wasnt a complete novice either; while this was his debut as a director, he had been working on movies in various roles since 1992 and brought experience in technical fields and storyboarding with him. I never heard that this film had major production issues, either. I guess this project was just badly marketed and perhaps just too ambitious for its own good.
@@kuribayashi84 Yeah cause I don't remember much marketing either and plus there was so much that was changed from the book like for instance London never got close to the wall as it did in the movie and got destroyed cause the weapon malfunctioned and blew up.
@@kuribayashi84 No amount of marketing could have saved this film. It was poorly written, poorly directed and strayed way to far from the source material.
I remember watching a review and when they introduced the antagonist the narrator went "he wants to kill the main character. He fails, but lucky for him the box office got her."
I was happy with how the cities looked at first, then I re read the books and read 'the illustrated world of mortal engines' and realised the cities are wayyy too small which kinda ruined it for me
I think the Hobbit ruined IMAX for me. We watched it so excited and all I can remember is how uncomfortable the seats were. Such a shame those films went that way.
@orterves It looked terrible on IMAX. The huge IMAX screen really highlighted the PS2 graphics of the film. There were a lot of unintentional comedy like that chase scene in the mines.
@@One.Zero.One101 Hard disagree. I watched battle of the five armies on a 20x26 IMAX screen and it massively elevated the film. The hobbit trilogy definitely had it's fair share of bad cgi from the rushed production, but it also had some really groundbreaking visual effects, especially in the close up shots with Smaug. Before the desolation of smaug released I went to a Q&A event with the visual effects team and they clearly put a huge amount of effort into getting the dragon just right, I think smaug is easily the best looking CGI monster ever seen on screen.
I was marketing manager at our cinema around this time and I'll recall well when our annual distributor presentations happened, we were told not to bother with Mortal Engines as it was getting sent out to die. This was the summer before release.
What does that even mean? Movies are made to make money. So everyone has an interest that it does that. Why would anyone not promote ut who is oart of that machine?
@@TorianTammas I don't agree with it. It felt very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy for them to ask us to not waste our resources promoting it when they believed it would be irrelevant, as it wouldn't succeed regardless. That was their take. They were incredibly dismissive about the film. There were similar sentiments given to the Playmobil film. They just wanted cinemas to focus on films they knew they'd make bank on.
Studios have insurance to underwrite a movie that flops. Often, this can be more profitable as the Studios liabilities are gone when the film doesn't break even.
The books apparently described Hester Shaw as having a 'gargoyle-like' appearance due to her scar covering her eye and nose, but the movie chickened out and just gave the actress some mild makeup scar. Very disappointing.
in fact her face is so messed up in the book that she actively flies into rages whenever someone mentions her appearance or she sees herself in a mirror. That's a key detail in her relationship with Shrike that the movie doesn't properly translate. He offers her a chance to become a cyborg and the prospect of never having her messed up face again makes her seriously consider accepting his deal.
Disappointing, but not very surprising. The higher-ups would have never allowed an "ugly" Hester - not in a production with a budget like this. This was exactly what i thought they would do.
Arcane gave us a good steampunk story. And while we wait for the next big steampunk story i recommend the Edgerunner miniseries. Technically a cyberpunk but it scratches the same ich
If you give Up on it and if you think like this, then we never actually will. Maybe you and others are just going with what the majority thinks and if you had been more independent in your feet thinking towards it and again not let the majority consume you and set up for it, then maybe just maybe this released something else that you’re looking for could’ve actually happened no matter what no matter how otherwise it may seem
As a reader of the book series in my teens, two big sticking points that prevented me from watching this ever (and being glad about it): * They didn’t ever bother trying to recreate Hester’s actually-unsettling facial scars, because Hollywood; the director even said he couldn’t believe Tom could fall for her with them, thus proving he completely and utterly failed to understand the characters. * Valentine being rewritten from an amoral murderer but with a complicated side, into just a monster; Book!Valentine was driven by a love for his daughter Katherine (who he was very close to) and he showed regret as the story unraveled, Film!Valentine doesn’t seem to care for his daughter and wants personal power because… Eh?
I think this is because the movie axes the character of the Lord Mayor, Magnus Chrome. Valentine was never calling the shots in the book, he felt more like a conflicted lackey to the true villain. Chrome was also an absolute megalomaniac who wanted to turn the entire earth into a traction city and consume the stars.
Yeah, I think that was the film's biggest failure overall, because Valentine in the book was a much more interesting character, and Chrome was also a very good character, in that he was the kind of villain whose motivation makes sense when you see it from his point of view, which makes you root for his demise all that much more.
4:36 I got to respect the honesty in saying this. Like honestly one could count how many great films, like universally agreed upon great films bombed, and then how certain films just make money in spite of the quality.
A lot of those great films are just about as great on a small screen in your home as they are on a big screen. But stuff like Transformers movies aren't. I think the cultural practice of thinking some serious film is worthy of an evening out to see it on a big screen, because that's what people do with serious films, is over. People aren't going out of their house for something that doesn't truly need a giant screen. And people used to do this in the past too, it's just that they had far fewer options for home entertainment. Now they do, and they're choosing to a watch different films on different sized screens.
This movie’s biggest problem was it being live-action. It’s so high concept that even the fantastic visual effects can’t sell a huge city moving around, even if it did look cool as hell. It turned it into something ridiculous. Making it animated, with a blend of 2d characters and 3d environments could’ve left the door open for representing the characters for how extreme their appearances really are (Hester, Shrike, etc.), and it would’ve been better for giant moving cities. We know it’s fantastical, but for visual effects to work we have to have it grounded in reality somewhere. Also, I absolutely hated how Universal injected their Minion joke from the start. Such a cheap and tacky example of cross-promotion that instantly showed how unserious the studio was.
The whole thing feels like a concept from an 80s anime. Haven't read the books, but I get that the story is a bit convoluted for a single film. An animated series with retro style animation definitely seems like it would've been a better way to go.
The Minions joke was actually in the book, though. (Well, originally it was a Mickey Mouse joke, but I'm guessing Universal went with Minions for copyright reasons.)
@@deathmetal271 Were you a fan of the 7Arts studio releases in the early 60's as a child like I? With Prince Planet, Marine Boy, Astro Boy, and eventually Speed Racer? I was sucking anime tit before most people here mothers were born. :D
The effects can sell it, but the lack of confidence in the direction has them going way too fast for their proportions and there are several shots that are just awkward.
I hope Philip Reeves’ books gets another chance, ideally with the grungy, raw steampunk fantasy aesthetic of Arcane. The original plan was clearly for Peter Jackson to direct this film about nine years prior, as well as the animated Tintin sequel. Man, Warner Bros and MGM really screwed things up when they forced Del Toro to walk away…
I loved the books, in the trailer they said London was the largest city, I noped out of seeing it. The whole driving force for London's super weapon pursuit is the fact they are not the largest city, and are in a desperate struggle to survive.
Wasnt London's motivation that the traction cities were struggling to get enough nutrients, therefore they rebuilt Medusa to invade the new hunting grounds behind Batmunkh Gompa? They were certainly said to be the first ever traction city, and thus had a fantastic time at the start of the traction era.
Same here. All I could made out of the traile rback then was "Great, huge cities driving around and swallowing smaller ones? What is the story? But looks neat..."
One of my biggest problems with this was the tone, the tone of even the first book was incredibly dark filled with complex and conflicted characters. What we got just made it feel like the marvel film version of this world that actually has a lot of upsetting and dark imagery in the books.
As someone who read the books, this was a TERRIBLE adaptation. They basically turned the plot into Star Wars, aged up both of the leads from the age of 15 to practically 30, made Hester's disfigured face into a few cutesy scars and made a bunch of random story changes that even screwed up future plots if this film had been so fortunate as to get sequels to adapt the other three books in the main series.
Man i really want Peter Jackson to prove to audiences that his LOTR movies werent a fluke and he isnt the next ridley scott. Idk if time and studio interference gets in the way of everything hes made since the second hobbit or what
Are you saying Ridley Scott is a one hit wonder? That comparison makes zero sense, there are few directors who had more hits over a 50 years long career.
I'm very fascinated how Joe Johnston came in to direct a month of reshoots and then recieved a directing credit shared with Lasse Hallstorm, the original director. I don't think that's ever happen in a film before. Also, funny how the marketing put Tom McCarthy's name in the writing credit as he wrote Johnston's reshoots screenplay but was uncredited in the final finished movie 😅
Tom and Hester are basically genderbent BEAUTY & the BEAST. Just, Tom starts out naive to the point of being loved by most but taken somewhat advantage of. Having their personal story going from Tom loving all books they come across and Hester being all too happy burning them if it makes him cry, to Hester basically regarding the world through the lens of "F**K WITH MY PRETTY BOY AND I'LL GIVE YOU HELL" is , just love. They really missed out on the chemistry and character growth in the lead relationship. He is the face, she is the muscles, together they share one braincell (like all orange cats 🐈) and are really codependent to manage each other's ptsd. Combined with them both being raging hormonal teenagers who are both orphans. EDIT about 3 weeks later and I've got 12 likes, so I thought since at least some agree with me, I'd elaborate a little. Hester and Tom are by no means stupid but they are definitely not brilliant. Though they definitely excell at their strengths, more than others. To say Tom could charm your socks off, is an understatement. The sh**t he pulls off and gets away with would be s**cide for most characters. Hester has ONE EYE, a bit of a stunted and sickly body from malnutrition during her growth spurt and can still haul Tom out of harms way and fight dudes 3x her size because she has no chill. Tom is tall and lean, a bit skinny because food rations of London, think Runway model. Hester is a 90s blonde, skin and bones, Runway model. With one eye and half a nose. By personal connections and unfortunate circumstances, they are thrust into the heart of this worlds power struggles. Knowing too much but still not knowing enough. Getting treated like pawns in a game. Falling for manipulation. Making bad choices. Getting treated like the Victors of The Hunger Games. Having assassin's hunting them. Literal prices on their heads. BECAUSE THEY ARE REGULAR HUMANS AND NOT PERFECT It is liberating to read about people who feel human. Because nobody is perfect in these books. But apparently that is one of the biggest reasons, men and boys especially, can't finish these books. They especially don't like the main male character having problems and not being independent nor always making good decisions. Tom is a LOVABLE BADASS in the making. And there are a lot of multidimensional background characters!
As a huge book fan, the problem is, as you said, it's overstuffed. The script tries to cram the entire novel into two hours, and gets about 2/3rds in before realising, and rushing to the climax. Even in the 2/3rds it did cover, it was rushed, focusing on action set pieces, rather than giving time for these characters to breathe and grow. Cramming in the (spoilers) Valentine reveal into the final act was just a cheap shock move, pulled from the second book where it works far better. It just needed to be less faithful to the beat-for-beat retelling to be more faithful to the characters, the world, and telling a compelling narrative. That said, the art direction, visuals, costume, and casting was broadly spot-on, and little nods to characters like Pennyroyal tells me the team did their homework. At least we got a couple new books out of the whole debacle.
Spot on. Books have all the time in the world for plot, and a movie has to fit within two hours or so. A movie script has to decide what it wants to be, and do it ruthlessly
I think just not enough want to watch fighting cities. One should not try to turn a niche book series into a block buster.May be with an animated series they could reach an audience and build up interest for a big movie. People imagine that without effort and overnight, you could turn any story in a blockbuster.
Man i was suuuch a big fan of the books (and still am), but the worst crime this film did was the ending. Id really recommend reading the book, it’s different, im about to spoil the big twist at the end…. So the book ends with London getting completely annihilated by its super weapon, with basically everyone there being killed including Catherine. That ending actually shook me as a child man, and just works so damn well for the story. So stupid how the film seemed to have committed to it, and then disneyfied it at the last minute with everyone flipping making friends. But like, the worst thing is is that London getting completely destroyed, acts as a massive plot point for further books, and how the character arcs progress, so even if the movie did well, they’d basically made adapting the rest of the series kinda impossible. Man im so hoping mortal engines gets an animated adaptation someday, because that’s the only way I see the story being able to be realised within a sensible budget. Theres so much phenomenal material to adapt as well, the second book is probably the best in the series, some crazy stuff goes down towards the end of the last novel, the prequel books tell some awesome stories….
That fourth book climax was certainly something else. Harrow Barrow being misguided by Wren to run into the EMP discharges, New London being chased by said Harrow Barrow already opening its digestive room, and then the Antitraction League leader manually ramming his ship into said digestive hall just to stop the city from being consumed, all the while Jenny getting ripped apart mid flight and Tom for just once being successful with his naive temper... this was such a blast to inhale, and I was so sad that I finished the series. I would have loved to follow the (remaining) cast more, even if it was just Wren and Theo doing their trade adventures like her parents did for two years, just to get to know more crazy things about the world and how it operates
This is one of the only movies my wife and I had to quit. We weren’t really enjoying it, felt it was dragging. When we paused and found we were only half way through…. That was it.
You make many good points. Although it was a visual delight to watch, it was also a chore at times. The many different subplots were distracting for me, and didn't allow me to really care about the characters. But what finally killed this for me was the way the ending seemed so painfully similar to Star Wars.
Movie Valentine is kind of a mash-up of book Valentine (who is a tortured sympathetic villain) and the book's version of the lord mayor (who is a completely evil villain) which is probably why he ended up being so messy.
So I worked as a extra (soldier) on avatar 2 and I met a bunch of guys who worked on mortal engines including the bald man from the first fight scene. They were real cool guys and very chill. Apparently working on the set was a lot of fun
I think the biggest reasons it failed was the cheesy dialogue and the butchering of the plot structure and they turned the third act into Star Wars. They butchered it so much they didn’t kill Catherine when she is meant to die
A friend of mine had a reading marathon of all Mortal Engines books. He went excited, came out very dissapointed. I ask him about his thoughs and he said: "I don't know what happend, but the more you read, the more you hate the characters. The ending is poethic but it's still very lame"
This is my fav guilty pleasure films. I just love the concept and seeing the cities in the tanks..I have 4/5. Also ever since I watched it I started a Minecraft world and I've been building this big ahh tank with a city and different airships... I just love this film for no good reason
I was hyped on this one back in the day, but reviews held me back. As I’ve checked it out later on streaming, right after initial chase scene ended, the first 30 minutes were just a pain to watch. Acting, directing, the exposition - all was plain amateurish. Too bad, because it should have been the ultimate steampunk classic.
Went in blind on this movie when it came out and I just remember that once they went to that wall the movie just fell apart. The flying ships, invincible side characters, MC becoming useless, it just killed the momentum. Still has one of the strongest starts to any movie though
It's ironic that you mention Katherine cause in the book her character dies thwarting her father's attempts to use the MEDUSA weapon. I felt the character was short shifted in the book by this so I was actually glad the film reversed her fate.
As someone who watched this film in theaters, I would say that the film was good, but suffered from two problems: 1. A bit of bad CGI for one character in particular. 2. It was trying to do far too much with far too little time. In a sense, it is reminiscent of another film that Stephen Lang starred in (a film I know him from): Gods and Generals. Just like Mortal Engines, Gods and Generals suffered from the issue of the film trying to do far too much within the scope of the film. Even with the overbloated running time, Gods and Generals felt like it was trying to condense down far too many historical events of the war into a single, two part film. Gods and Generals had the massive potential to be a truly successful film, but ultimately failed due to how much it had to cut out in order to fit into one film. This film had the same issue, but even worse. It tried to condense down three novel’s worth of material into one film. Just like with Gods and Generals, the potential was there for a fantastic film series, but with it being so heavily condensed, it simply suffered from being too rushed.
I barely remember watching this movie, to me its was mostly just a 'consume and move on' movie. Which is unfortunate because it did have the potential to become so much more. If it was like you say, directed by a more experienced director and released 10ish years earlier
It’d be interesting to see how the book’s fanbase responded to the movie, how faithful it was to the story and themes and overall how it stands as an adaptation rather than as a movie on its own.
My biggest complaint was that in order to fit the run time, the movie had to make a lot of things happen by coincidence. For example-- Book Shrike is not in prison. Shrike goes to London, tells Valentine that Hester is coming to kill him, and offers to teach London's engineers how to make Stalkers if Valentine agrees to turn Hester into one, on his behalf. The narrative also takes place over a much longer period of time. Anna Fang teaches Tom how to fly the airship, which had been a childhood dream of his.
As a big fan of the books, who re-reads them every couple of years: I'm deeply disappointed in the film for butchering the story so badly. And most importantly for destroying the character of Hester and messing up Shrike so badly.
I enjoyed the film enough to watch it a second time recently and still liked it, and I agree with most all of your criticisms. Then I read the books... and oh, boy. The first book I really enjoyed and could see why they wanted to make a film series out of it - but the magic of the first book just didn't hold up in subsequent books. I don't see what the producers were thinking could sustain a franchise by following the series.
I havent seen it, but clips, trailers, etc have always intrigued me. It doesnt look like a movie with a great story though, but the world building just looks * chefs kiss *
To me, the biggest flaw was the ubiquitous Hollywood problem with big creatures and machines - making them way too fast and agile. When town-sized vehicles are speeding, bouncing across terrain and jumping obstacles like beach buggies, you lose all sense of scale. The supposedly epic size machines just look like cute miniatures.
I was one of the 8 people that saw it in theaters, never read the books but figured a steampunk Peter Jackson movie would be cool. Story was definitely YA adaptation drivel (not that that's a hot take or anything) but I think the scale and detail of the visuals make up for that. Just a shame those visuals couldn't have been applied to a better story or series
Rivers did actually have a directing credit on the Hobbit as he directed Splinter unit and was responsible for some various scenes in BOTFA and had experience directing on multiple other projects but this was his first time as the main man.
For the German speaking market, the translation of the first book "Mortal Engines: Krieg der Städte" was released about six weeks before the movie made it to cinemas. Guess that did not help in promoting the movie.
I was 11 when I read the first book and its sequel, only learning about the film halfway into book 2, and as soon as I found out, I began eating up everything about this movie. One of my most anticipated and most disappointing cinema experiences in the past 10 years. 🙁
I like to see you do a video on Warner Bros. Project Popcorn experiment that happened in 2021. The story behind that concept was pretty interesting to see the least.
I found the books thanks to this movie and it is still my favorite series. It is not for everyone, but the overall concept and the characters are really well written. Huge shame how this movie performed, considering everything though it really should have been a better adaptation. Oliver Lugg has a fantastic video about the movie and the books and the whole topic.
One night i randomly pucked this movie to put on while i did some other work, and i gotta say i loved the concept and had fun with this movie. Giant moving cities was a fun change of pace
Robert Sheehan is a fantastic actor, but unlikable and annoying is kind of his thing so he's probably not the best choice for this story. If you haven't seen Misfits I'd recommend it. He absolutely made that show.
That show hooked me when it came out. Always had a fondness for Brit tv/film, and I got right into the first two (or three, maybe?) seasons. Lost interest after that, but that’s an annoying habit of mine and maybe nothing to do with the show.
The protagonist of this story was meant to be a naive and unlikable idiot who dreamed of adventure more than he actually contemplated the gritty reality of it, at least to start with. He eventually gets the hang of things as the book progresses.
I saw the trailer for this movie and was so excited. I heard it was adapted from a book series, so I went out for the first book. I read it before the movie came out. I did enjoy the book, though it seemed aimed at a younger audience than I was expected. When I watched the movie, I did enjoy it; but it was clear to me it was more miss than hit. Though the changes they did to Hugo Weaving's character (he's a fantastic actor).
Funfact (Spoilers inside): Katherine and Bevis don't survive in the book. London/MEDUSA also doesn't get destroyed by Hester and Tom, but self-destructs, since the engineers didn't really know what they were doing. Shrike on the other hand is one of the most important characters in the whole series with a great arc.
Thanks for the Video! I really like Mortal Engine and i am very sad there will not be a second part. So sad to see so much crap to become released and this gems will sleep forever :(.
I love steampunk and dystopias. I have not read the book. I looked forward to this movie. But the story was boring, unengaging and unoriginal. (I am sure the books must be much better.) The "towns" looked awesome, but the physics killed the illusion. Like: The smaller ones where nimble like cars, with practically no weight. You don't steer and skid a machinery of that size in that way, regardless of how powerful they are. (Just scale their speed to their size and they where insanely fast!) Neither the story, the characters nor the world felt real in any way. I don't think the weekend, decade or competition had any influence on its success or lack thereof.
i loved that lil bit of moana shade when you said bad movies succeed all the time. everyone i’ve seen talking about it hated it but it just passed $700 million worldwide
Reason I didn't see it was a failure of marketing. I remember when I found out about the premise: Huge city-machines on wheels gobbling eachother up, that sounds delightfully weird and awesome! I was hooked. I didn't know about the book series, nor that this was a Peter Jacksson project. Then a trailer dropped, and it made it seem like the spectacle was not the main focus, it was just the backdrop to enable stock drama between humans, if that makes sense. That was a sharp turnoff for me.
Shrike was done dirty, especially given the importance of the stalkers and Shrike to the plot of the whole series. I do think an animated series might have done it alot better.
Make mortal engines into a tv show with 2D animation style and keep the storyline the same with the books. You'll do fine making a classic that will never die
I saw this movie 2 years after it was released, it was during the start of covid and i Had found it on Netflix. It was just some movie I stumbled apon scrolling through looking for something to watch. Safe to say I actually enjoyed it. I never read the books either but I remember seeing those books at the book fairs that took place in my local libraries each year.
I will say this about Robert Sheehan: The writing DEFINITELY did him dirty, because he's absolutely the highlight of the Umbrella Academy. He's great as Klaus and he's incredible there both with comedy and drama.
I didn't hate Mortal Engines and had a fairly good time with the visuals and the spectacle.
But what really dragged the film down was the complete blandness of the characters, the rushed plot and lack of motivation for anyone to do anything.
It's a case where I enjoyed the world the movie built but didn't care about the characters or what happened in it.
The characters lacked motivation because the movie adaptation removed it from the script.
Same...
Through the whole movie I wanted to see more about the world & how it works rather than the actual plot😅
Agree. I liked the visuals and the concept was fun. But it just didn't grab you.
For those who read the books it was horrible 😅😂
I think the director was the main problem. A movie like this shouldn't be anyone's first film.
That makes sense.
Yeah that makes sense especially when the movie had potential
Honestly, I think Christian Rivers did a good job. He wasnt a complete novice either; while this was his debut as a director, he had been working on movies in various roles since 1992 and brought experience in technical fields and storyboarding with him. I never heard that this film had major production issues, either. I guess this project was just badly marketed and perhaps just too ambitious for its own good.
@@kuribayashi84 Yeah cause I don't remember much marketing either and plus there was so much that was changed from the book like for instance London never got close to the wall as it did in the movie and got destroyed cause the weapon malfunctioned and blew up.
@@kuribayashi84 No amount of marketing could have saved this film. It was poorly written, poorly directed and strayed way to far from the source material.
I remember watching a review and when they introduced the antagonist the narrator went "he wants to kill the main character. He fails, but lucky for him the box office got her."
That wouldn't be an honest trailer would it😂
This one hurts because I fell in love with the book and the visualisation of the cities was PERFECT
it's one of the few mega flops that I think is actually pretty good and nailed what it was aiming for, think it just suffered from poor marketing
This movie is a guilty pleasure. It’s one of those sick day from work films
I think the film could have worked better if it was fully animated, they could have gone further without the restriction of real actors.
I was happy with how the cities looked at first, then I re read the books and read 'the illustrated world of mortal engines' and realised the cities are wayyy too small which kinda ruined it for me
When you think about it, this is yet another victim of The Hobbit films.
I think the Hobbit ruined IMAX for me. We watched it so excited and all I can remember is how uncomfortable the seats were. Such a shame those films went that way.
@orterves It looked terrible on IMAX. The huge IMAX screen really highlighted the PS2 graphics of the film. There were a lot of unintentional comedy like that chase scene in the mines.
I can’t remember, what where the other victims of the Hobbit? Other cancelled movies?
@@One.Zero.One101
Hard disagree. I watched battle of the five armies on a 20x26 IMAX screen and it massively elevated the film. The hobbit trilogy definitely had it's fair share of bad cgi from the rushed production, but it also had some really groundbreaking visual effects, especially in the close up shots with Smaug. Before the desolation of smaug released I went to a Q&A event with the visual effects team and they clearly put a huge amount of effort into getting the dragon just right, I think smaug is easily the best looking CGI monster ever seen on screen.
I was marketing manager at our cinema around this time and I'll recall well when our annual distributor presentations happened, we were told not to bother with Mortal Engines as it was getting sent out to die. This was the summer before release.
How many movies HAVE you been told "were being sent out to die"?
@zaphodthenth not that many prior to the pandemic, quite a few after it
What does that even mean? Movies are made to make money. So everyone has an interest that it does that. Why would anyone not promote ut who is oart of that machine?
@@TorianTammas I don't agree with it. It felt very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy for them to ask us to not waste our resources promoting it when they believed it would be irrelevant, as it wouldn't succeed regardless. That was their take. They were incredibly dismissive about the film. There were similar sentiments given to the Playmobil film. They just wanted cinemas to focus on films they knew they'd make bank on.
Studios have insurance to underwrite a movie that flops. Often, this can be more profitable as the Studios liabilities are gone when the film doesn't break even.
The books apparently described Hester Shaw as having a 'gargoyle-like' appearance due to her scar covering her eye and nose, but the movie chickened out and just gave the actress some mild makeup scar. Very disappointing.
Gave em the ole Tyrion Lannister treatment
in fact her face is so messed up in the book that she actively flies into rages whenever someone mentions her appearance or she sees herself in a mirror. That's a key detail in her relationship with Shrike that the movie doesn't properly translate. He offers her a chance to become a cyborg and the prospect of never having her messed up face again makes her seriously consider accepting his deal.
i was really surprised why everyone was calling her “horrible” and ugly in the film. had to read on wiki that she is supposed to be a beauty cripple
Disappointing, but not very surprising. The higher-ups would have never allowed an "ugly" Hester - not in a production with a budget like this. This was exactly what i thought they would do.
The moment I saw Hester in the film I said "Nope" and turned it off. Shame because the books are really good.
I wish we could get a good, proper steampunk story on the big screen. But I’m not holding my breath.
We can only dream
Arcane gave us a good steampunk story. And while we wait for the next big steampunk story i recommend the Edgerunner miniseries. Technically a cyberpunk but it scratches the same ich
Treasure planet...
April and the Extraordinary World and Steam Boy are like right there dude.
If you give Up on it and if you think like this, then we never actually will. Maybe you and others are just going with what the majority thinks and if you had been more independent in your feet thinking towards it and again not let the majority consume you and set up for it, then maybe just maybe this released something else that you’re looking for could’ve actually happened no matter what no matter how otherwise it may seem
As a reader of the book series in my teens, two big sticking points that prevented me from watching this ever (and being glad about it):
* They didn’t ever bother trying to recreate Hester’s actually-unsettling facial scars, because Hollywood; the director even said he couldn’t believe Tom could fall for her with them, thus proving he completely and utterly failed to understand the characters.
* Valentine being rewritten from an amoral murderer but with a complicated side, into just a monster; Book!Valentine was driven by a love for his daughter Katherine (who he was very close to) and he showed regret as the story unraveled, Film!Valentine doesn’t seem to care for his daughter and wants personal power because… Eh?
I think this is because the movie axes the character of the Lord Mayor, Magnus Chrome. Valentine was never calling the shots in the book, he felt more like a conflicted lackey to the true villain. Chrome was also an absolute megalomaniac who wanted to turn the entire earth into a traction city and consume the stars.
Yeah, I think that was the film's biggest failure overall, because Valentine in the book was a much more interesting character, and Chrome was also a very good character, in that he was the kind of villain whose motivation makes sense when you see it from his point of view, which makes you root for his demise all that much more.
This should have been a mini series. Each episode focuses on a different city, with the finale being like this movie.
exactly!
In the books there are other big cities like London all over the world
It was written as a series.
4:36 I got to respect the honesty in saying this.
Like honestly one could count how many great films, like universally agreed upon great films bombed, and then how certain films just make money in spite of the quality.
Sure but the issue is this film isn't bad, it's boring, that's far worse
It's all about the marketing, aka manipulating your audience
Yup, that just happened again with Transformers One
A lot of those great films are just about as great on a small screen in your home as they are on a big screen. But stuff like Transformers movies aren't. I think the cultural practice of thinking some serious film is worthy of an evening out to see it on a big screen, because that's what people do with serious films, is over. People aren't going out of their house for something that doesn't truly need a giant screen. And people used to do this in the past too, it's just that they had far fewer options for home entertainment. Now they do, and they're choosing to a watch different films on different sized screens.
i loved him saying that too, almost did a double take lol
This movie’s biggest problem was it being live-action. It’s so high concept that even the fantastic visual effects can’t sell a huge city moving around, even if it did look cool as hell. It turned it into something ridiculous. Making it animated, with a blend of 2d characters and 3d environments could’ve left the door open for representing the characters for how extreme their appearances really are (Hester, Shrike, etc.), and it would’ve been better for giant moving cities. We know it’s fantastical, but for visual effects to work we have to have it grounded in reality somewhere. Also, I absolutely hated how Universal injected their Minion joke from the start. Such a cheap and tacky example of cross-promotion that instantly showed how unserious the studio was.
The whole thing feels like a concept from an 80s anime.
Haven't read the books, but I get that the story is a bit convoluted for a single film. An animated series with retro style animation definitely seems like it would've been a better way to go.
the problem is the west has never truly shaken off the social stigma of animation
The Minions joke was actually in the book, though.
(Well, originally it was a Mickey Mouse joke, but I'm guessing Universal went with Minions for copyright reasons.)
@@deathmetal271 Were you a fan of the 7Arts studio releases in the early 60's as a child like I? With Prince Planet, Marine Boy, Astro Boy, and eventually Speed Racer? I was sucking anime tit before most people here mothers were born. :D
The effects can sell it, but the lack of confidence in the direction has them going way too fast for their proportions and there are several shots that are just awkward.
I hope Philip Reeves’ books gets another chance, ideally with the grungy, raw steampunk fantasy aesthetic of Arcane.
The original plan was clearly for Peter Jackson to direct this film about nine years prior, as well as the animated Tintin sequel. Man, Warner Bros and MGM really screwed things up when they forced Del Toro to walk away…
I loved the books, in the trailer they said London was the largest city, I noped out of seeing it. The whole driving force for London's super weapon pursuit is the fact they are not the largest city, and are in a desperate struggle to survive.
Wasnt London's motivation that the traction cities were struggling to get enough nutrients, therefore they rebuilt Medusa to invade the new hunting grounds behind Batmunkh Gompa? They were certainly said to be the first ever traction city, and thus had a fantastic time at the start of the traction era.
I remember seeing a million ads for this film, and still haven’t no clue what it was about lol
Needless to say, I didn’t see it.
Same here.
All I could made out of the traile rback then was
"Great, huge cities driving around and swallowing smaller ones? What is the story? But looks neat..."
Then you had me, a fan of the books, seeing all these ads and going 'Oh god no...." Like, trust me, you didn't miss out.
One of my biggest problems with this was the tone, the tone of even the first book was incredibly dark filled with complex and conflicted characters. What we got just made it feel like the marvel film version of this world that actually has a lot of upsetting and dark imagery in the books.
As someone who read the books, this was a TERRIBLE adaptation. They basically turned the plot into Star Wars, aged up both of the leads from the age of 15 to practically 30, made Hester's disfigured face into a few cutesy scars and made a bunch of random story changes that even screwed up future plots if this film had been so fortunate as to get sequels to adapt the other three books in the main series.
This movie devolved in to "a new hope" so fast near the end it was all i could think about sitting in the theater
Man i really want Peter Jackson to prove to audiences that his LOTR movies werent a fluke and he isnt the next ridley scott. Idk if time and studio interference gets in the way of everything hes made since the second hobbit or what
Are you saying Ridley Scott is a one hit wonder? That comparison makes zero sense, there are few directors who had more hits over a 50 years long career.
@@KarlTheExpertScott has like maybe 1 big hit every 15 to 20 years and each of those hits are sandwiched between failures
@@gregoryblack8109Ridley Scott when he was younger was a constant hit after hit. But after Gladitor that’s when it became hit or miss for me.
Even though it’s not narrative movies but his documentaries have been amazing!
@@KarlTheExpertevery time Scott makes a new movie he flips a coin to decide if it will be amazing or terrible
1:02 ahh the adventure of tintin. On of the most underrated films to ever release.
Agreed, one of my top ten favorite movies of all time
I love The Adventures of Tintin.
Still waiting for the sequel
Guess we know what movie you would cover next. Unless you already did cover Tintin.@@isenhartproductions2677
@gabrielarambula4465 it's supposedly in development at the moment
6:04
I can’t wait to see you talk about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
I'm very fascinated how Joe Johnston came in to direct a month of reshoots and then recieved a directing credit shared with Lasse Hallstorm, the original director. I don't think that's ever happen in a film before. Also, funny how the marketing put Tom McCarthy's name in the writing credit as he wrote Johnston's reshoots screenplay but was uncredited in the final finished movie 😅
Tom and Hester are basically genderbent BEAUTY & the BEAST.
Just, Tom starts out naive to the point of being loved by most but taken somewhat advantage of.
Having their personal story going from Tom loving all books they come across and Hester being all too happy burning them if it makes him cry, to Hester basically regarding the world through the lens of "F**K WITH MY PRETTY BOY AND I'LL GIVE YOU HELL" is , just love.
They really missed out on the chemistry and character growth in the lead relationship.
He is the face, she is the muscles, together they share one braincell (like all orange cats 🐈) and are really codependent to manage each other's ptsd.
Combined with them both being raging hormonal teenagers who are both orphans.
EDIT about 3 weeks later and I've got 12 likes, so I thought since at least some agree with me, I'd elaborate a little.
Hester and Tom are by no means stupid but they are definitely not brilliant. Though they definitely excell at their strengths, more than others.
To say Tom could charm your socks off, is an understatement. The sh**t he pulls off and gets away with would be s**cide for most characters.
Hester has ONE EYE, a bit of a stunted and sickly body from malnutrition during her growth spurt and can still haul Tom out of harms way and fight dudes 3x her size because she has no chill.
Tom is tall and lean, a bit skinny because food rations of London, think Runway model.
Hester is a 90s blonde, skin and bones, Runway model. With one eye and half a nose.
By personal connections and unfortunate circumstances, they are thrust into the heart of this worlds power struggles.
Knowing too much but still not knowing enough.
Getting treated like pawns in a game. Falling for manipulation. Making bad choices. Getting treated like the Victors of The Hunger Games. Having assassin's hunting them. Literal prices on their heads.
BECAUSE THEY ARE REGULAR HUMANS AND NOT PERFECT
It is liberating to read about people who feel human. Because nobody is perfect in these books.
But apparently that is one of the biggest reasons, men and boys especially, can't finish these books. They especially don't like the main male character having problems and not being independent nor always making good decisions.
Tom is a LOVABLE BADASS in the making.
And there are a lot of multidimensional background characters!
Yeah and I was surprised that they didn't have a kid in the 2 years between the first and second book
@@kurtstobbs9616 do you want my hypothesis on that?
@@kurtstobbs9616 do you want my hypothesis on that?
RUclips hides my replies from myself. Until I search in the tab "Most Recent" comments.
@@donuseeisee6465 it's fine man and just so you know this movie is the reason why I started reading the books cause I wanted to see the differences
I honestly quite enjoyed it too
The opening scene with London attacking Esther’s mobile town was insanely cool in the theater.
As a huge book fan, the problem is, as you said, it's overstuffed. The script tries to cram the entire novel into two hours, and gets about 2/3rds in before realising, and rushing to the climax. Even in the 2/3rds it did cover, it was rushed, focusing on action set pieces, rather than giving time for these characters to breathe and grow. Cramming in the (spoilers) Valentine reveal into the final act was just a cheap shock move, pulled from the second book where it works far better. It just needed to be less faithful to the beat-for-beat retelling to be more faithful to the characters, the world, and telling a compelling narrative. That said, the art direction, visuals, costume, and casting was broadly spot-on, and little nods to characters like Pennyroyal tells me the team did their homework. At least we got a couple new books out of the whole debacle.
Spot on. Books have all the time in the world for plot, and a movie has to fit within two hours or so. A movie script has to decide what it wants to be, and do it ruthlessly
I think just not enough want to watch fighting cities. One should not try to turn a niche book series into a block buster.May be with an animated series they could reach an audience and build up interest for a big movie. People imagine that without effort and overnight, you could turn any story in a blockbuster.
imo it would make for a very good game if given to the right developer
Too much in one movie. It would have made a better trilogy. The first movie needs to introduce the characters and the world background.
Man i was suuuch a big fan of the books (and still am), but the worst crime this film did was the ending. Id really recommend reading the book, it’s different, im about to spoil the big twist at the end….
So the book ends with London getting completely annihilated by its super weapon, with basically everyone there being killed including Catherine. That ending actually shook me as a child man, and just works so damn well for the story. So stupid how the film seemed to have committed to it, and then disneyfied it at the last minute with everyone flipping making friends.
But like, the worst thing is is that London getting completely destroyed, acts as a massive plot point for further books, and how the character arcs progress, so even if the movie did well, they’d basically made adapting the rest of the series kinda impossible.
Man im so hoping mortal engines gets an animated adaptation someday, because that’s the only way I see the story being able to be realised within a sensible budget. Theres so much phenomenal material to adapt as well, the second book is probably the best in the series, some crazy stuff goes down towards the end of the last novel, the prequel books tell some awesome stories….
> That ending actually shook me as a child man
A child man? Like a teenager or
That fourth book climax was certainly something else. Harrow Barrow being misguided by Wren to run into the EMP discharges, New London being chased by said Harrow Barrow already opening its digestive room, and then the Antitraction League leader manually ramming his ship into said digestive hall just to stop the city from being consumed, all the while Jenny getting ripped apart mid flight and Tom for just once being successful with his naive temper... this was such a blast to inhale, and I was so sad that I finished the series. I would have loved to follow the (remaining) cast more, even if it was just Wren and Theo doing their trade adventures like her parents did for two years, just to get to know more crazy things about the world and how it operates
This movie felt like a second act that was stretch so long
I'm with you on this one. I liked the movie, nothing super special but fun and cool. Sad people dislike it
Ive read the book once and i still remember the finale to this day, something like a decade or more later. God that ending hurt my soul so much.
This is one of the only movies my wife and I had to quit. We weren’t really enjoying it, felt it was dragging. When we paused and found we were only half way through…. That was it.
You make many good points. Although it was a visual delight to watch, it was also a chore at times. The many different subplots were distracting for me, and didn't allow me to really care about the characters. But what finally killed this for me was the way the ending seemed so painfully similar to Star Wars.
Apparently everytime something bad happens it's cause Del Toro dropped out of a project
Movie Valentine is kind of a mash-up of book Valentine (who is a tortured sympathetic villain) and the book's version of the lord mayor (who is a completely evil villain) which is probably why he ended up being so messy.
Dude every time I see your videos I assume you have like at least 800k subscribers.
Keep them up and you’ll be there and more in no time
"bad movies succeed all the time" (shows Moana 2), hilarious XD
I had no idea this film was based on a book series! Thanks for the info; I really liked the movie overall, so now I'm gonna go read the books! 😊
So I worked as a extra (soldier) on avatar 2 and I met a bunch of guys who worked on mortal engines including the bald man from the first fight scene. They were real cool guys and very chill. Apparently working on the set was a lot of fun
This is the first time you’ve talked about a movie I’ve never heard of
I think the biggest reasons it failed was the cheesy dialogue and the butchering of the plot structure and they turned the third act into Star Wars. They butchered it so much they didn’t kill Catherine when she is meant to die
It failed because the audience for "cities move and fight each other" is much smaller than expected.
A friend of mine had a reading marathon of all Mortal Engines books. He went excited, came out very dissapointed. I ask him about his thoughs and he said: "I don't know what happend, but the more you read, the more you hate the characters. The ending is poethic but it's still very lame"
I liked the movie, but I felt it had so much potential for more! sad to see this film wont see a sequel.
13:37 share fair of problems lol
Just did a double take at that and had to rewind to make sure lol
Yeah same 😂@SAMcGarvey1
Loved the world building and vfx
I remember wanting to like this movie, but just couldn’t. Premise cool; story lazy.
You should do a video on the Hugh Jackman Peter Pan movie, there was a huge push when it was coming out then flopped and swept under the rug
This is my fav guilty pleasure films. I just love the concept and seeing the cities in the tanks..I have 4/5. Also ever since I watched it I started a Minecraft world and I've been building this big ahh tank with a city and different airships... I just love this film for no good reason
I love and hate it, any shot of cities moving is perfect and the first 10 minutes is amazing.
This channel is slept on. 100k subs when?
Hopefully next year
I was hyped on this one back in the day, but reviews held me back. As I’ve checked it out later on streaming, right after initial chase scene ended, the first 30 minutes were just a pain to watch. Acting, directing, the exposition - all was plain amateurish. Too bad, because it should have been the ultimate steampunk classic.
This movie should've been animated!
No, it looked great in live action. For all its problems, that was not one of them
I subconsciously knew today was the day for a new Isenhart video
Went in blind on this movie when it came out and I just remember that once they went to that wall the movie just fell apart. The flying ships, invincible side characters, MC becoming useless, it just killed the momentum. Still has one of the strongest starts to any movie though
It's ironic that you mention Katherine cause in the book her character dies thwarting her father's attempts to use the MEDUSA weapon. I felt the character was short shifted in the book by this so I was actually glad the film reversed her fate.
I mostly enjoyed it. It felt like they tried to do too much in a first movie with an unknown (to most people) property.
As someone who watched this film in theaters, I would say that the film was good, but suffered from two problems:
1. A bit of bad CGI for one character in particular.
2. It was trying to do far too much with far too little time.
In a sense, it is reminiscent of another film that Stephen Lang starred in (a film I know him from): Gods and Generals. Just like Mortal Engines, Gods and Generals suffered from the issue of the film trying to do far too much within the scope of the film. Even with the overbloated running time, Gods and Generals felt like it was trying to condense down far too many historical events of the war into a single, two part film. Gods and Generals had the massive potential to be a truly successful film, but ultimately failed due to how much it had to cut out in order to fit into one film.
This film had the same issue, but even worse. It tried to condense down three novel’s worth of material into one film. Just like with Gods and Generals, the potential was there for a fantastic film series, but with it being so heavily condensed, it simply suffered from being too rushed.
That entire movie was the plot of the first book they just changed stuff and added a scene that never happened in the book
another famous book series I never heard of before lol
I barely remember watching this movie, to me its was mostly just a 'consume and move on' movie. Which is unfortunate because it did have the potential to become so much more. If it was like you say, directed by a more experienced director and released 10ish years earlier
It’d be interesting to see how the book’s fanbase responded to the movie, how faithful it was to the story and themes and overall how it stands as an adaptation rather than as a movie on its own.
As one of those fans? It’s not good… Every big change is for the worse.
My biggest complaint was that in order to fit the run time, the movie had to make a lot of things happen by coincidence.
For example--
Book Shrike is not in prison. Shrike goes to London, tells Valentine that Hester is coming to kill him, and offers to teach London's engineers how to make Stalkers if Valentine agrees to turn Hester into one, on his behalf.
The narrative also takes place over a much longer period of time. Anna Fang teaches Tom how to fly the airship, which had been a childhood dream of his.
As a big fan of the books, who re-reads them every couple of years: I'm deeply disappointed in the film for butchering the story so badly. And most importantly for destroying the character of Hester and messing up Shrike so badly.
I enjoyed the film enough to watch it a second time recently and still liked it, and I agree with most all of your criticisms. Then I read the books... and oh, boy. The first book I really enjoyed and could see why they wanted to make a film series out of it - but the magic of the first book just didn't hold up in subsequent books. I don't see what the producers were thinking could sustain a franchise by following the series.
I havent seen it, but clips, trailers, etc have always intrigued me. It doesnt look like a movie with a great story though, but the world building just looks * chefs kiss *
I just wanted a great steampunk story with big spectacles. I like it still.
I'd never heard of the film or books until after the film came out and had already been declared a bomb.
I remember seeing trailers for this thinking how cool it looked. A shame that it ended up less than the sum of its parts.
To me, the biggest flaw was the ubiquitous Hollywood problem with big creatures and machines - making them way too fast and agile. When town-sized vehicles are speeding, bouncing across terrain and jumping obstacles like beach buggies, you lose all sense of scale. The supposedly epic size machines just look like cute miniatures.
Pacific Rim did real good on that front
I resent and avoid movies with "china bait". That whole wise, peaceful, civilized and ancient land in the east thing.
Oh don't worry, the wise and peaceful turn evil and twisted in book 3 and 4.
I was one of the 8 people that saw it in theaters, never read the books but figured a steampunk Peter Jackson movie would be cool. Story was definitely YA adaptation drivel (not that that's a hot take or anything) but I think the scale and detail of the visuals make up for that. Just a shame those visuals couldn't have been applied to a better story or series
Rivers did actually have a directing credit on the Hobbit as he directed Splinter unit and was responsible for some various scenes in BOTFA and had experience directing on multiple other projects but this was his first time as the main man.
I am sitting here wondering where I was in 2018 because I do not even remember hearing about this movie's existence.
For the German speaking market, the translation of the first book "Mortal Engines: Krieg der Städte" was released about six weeks before the movie made it to cinemas. Guess that did not help in promoting the movie.
I loved this as well as Joh Carter. Great review!
I was 11 when I read the first book and its sequel, only learning about the film halfway into book 2, and as soon as I found out, I began eating up everything about this movie. One of my most anticipated and most disappointing cinema experiences in the past 10 years. 🙁
The movie did not match the images in my head when I read the novel
@@Langkowski London was cool, imho. Everything else was a mess.
I like to see you do a video on Warner Bros. Project Popcorn experiment that happened in 2021. The story behind that concept was pretty interesting to see the least.
I found the books thanks to this movie and it is still my favorite series. It is not for everyone, but the overall concept and the characters are really well written. Huge shame how this movie performed, considering everything though it really should have been a better adaptation. Oliver Lugg has a fantastic video about the movie and the books and the whole topic.
The big problem was not the Book's popularity, it was the Director and it's writers.
I remember seeing the movie, but not a whole lot about it. My fading impression was that it was okay, but obviously not memorable.
The premise that cities move and fight each other looks spectacular, but this is not personal, not emotional engaging. It is just a soectacle
Oh man, I could swear Mortal Engines was WAY older than The Hobbit.
this film would’ve been more likely to succeed if they replaced the YA aspects w/ more complex characterization/writing
This movie would have benefited from having an openworld videogame released in tandem, which would have increased the overall interest in the concept.
One night i randomly pucked this movie to put on while i did some other work, and i gotta say i loved the concept and had fun with this movie. Giant moving cities was a fun change of pace
Robert Sheehan is a fantastic actor, but unlikable and annoying is kind of his thing so he's probably not the best choice for this story.
If you haven't seen Misfits I'd recommend it. He absolutely made that show.
That show hooked me when it came out. Always had a fondness for Brit tv/film, and I got right into the first two (or three, maybe?) seasons. Lost interest after that, but that’s an annoying habit of mine and maybe nothing to do with the show.
Or The Umbrella Academy
The protagonist of this story was meant to be a naive and unlikable idiot who dreamed of adventure more than he actually contemplated the gritty reality of it, at least to start with. He eventually gets the hang of things as the book progresses.
100m budget for advertising and yet I had no idea this movie was made until years later.
That probably didn't help.
I saw the trailer for this movie and was so excited. I heard it was adapted from a book series, so I went out for the first book. I read it before the movie came out. I did enjoy the book, though it seemed aimed at a younger audience than I was expected. When I watched the movie, I did enjoy it; but it was clear to me it was more miss than hit. Though the changes they did to Hugo Weaving's character (he's a fantastic actor).
Funfact (Spoilers inside):
Katherine and Bevis don't survive in the book. London/MEDUSA also doesn't get destroyed by Hester and Tom, but self-destructs, since the engineers didn't really know what they were doing.
Shrike on the other hand is one of the most important characters in the whole series with a great arc.
Thanks for the Video!
I really like Mortal Engine and i am very sad there will not be a second part.
So sad to see so much crap to become released and this gems will sleep forever :(.
RIP Shrike, this whole series followed the Rule of Cool in all the best ways
for me it was the base premise that no amount of Suspension of Disbelief could overcome.
4:45 "The books are super popular". I have NEVER heard of this series in my entire life...
I love steampunk and dystopias. I have not read the book. I looked forward to this movie. But the story was boring, unengaging and unoriginal. (I am sure the books must be much better.) The "towns" looked awesome, but the physics killed the illusion. Like: The smaller ones where nimble like cars, with practically no weight. You don't steer and skid a machinery of that size in that way, regardless of how powerful they are. (Just scale their speed to their size and they where insanely fast!) Neither the story, the characters nor the world felt real in any way. I don't think the weekend, decade or competition had any influence on its success or lack thereof.
i loved that lil bit of moana shade when you said bad movies succeed all the time. everyone i’ve seen talking about it hated it but it just passed $700 million worldwide
Reason I didn't see it was a failure of marketing.
I remember when I found out about the premise: Huge city-machines on wheels gobbling eachother up, that sounds delightfully weird and awesome! I was hooked.
I didn't know about the book series, nor that this was a Peter Jacksson project.
Then a trailer dropped, and it made it seem like the spectacle was not the main focus, it was just the backdrop to enable stock drama between humans, if that makes sense. That was a sharp turnoff for me.
Shrike was done dirty, especially given the importance of the stalkers and Shrike to the plot of the whole series. I do think an animated series might have done it alot better.
Make mortal engines into a tv show with 2D animation style and keep the storyline the same with the books. You'll do fine making a classic that will never die
The scar was cute where it supposed to be horrible that it would make the protagonist have deep vengeance to those who caused it.
I just watched this movie on tv and i'm glad you liked it cuz i enjoyed it a lot, actually
I hate that Peter Jackson was forced to make those terrible hobbit movies instead of GIVING US THE TINTIN SEQUEL ;_;
I saw this movie 2 years after it was released, it was during the start of covid and i
Had found it on Netflix. It was just some movie I stumbled apon scrolling through looking for something to watch. Safe to say I actually enjoyed it. I never read the books either but I remember seeing those books at the book fairs that took place in my local libraries each year.
I have a feeling with the shear level of technical spectacle in this film. This should have been a CGI animated film rather than a live action one.
I will say this about Robert Sheehan: The writing DEFINITELY did him dirty, because he's absolutely the highlight of the Umbrella Academy. He's great as Klaus and he's incredible there both with comedy and drama.
The 13th warrior is actually a fun film, with a kickass soundtrack. ❤ Mortal engines was just dumb....could have worked as an anime.
Only thing i remembr about the trailer was thinking, like howls moving castle??
I wish they’d take the parts that work, all those spectacle scenes, & make them cut scenes for an awesome rig or smthg.