Movie Defense Force: Wild Wild West
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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I do like this movie. I think a major point of contention is tone: A lot of people feel like Will Smith playing...well, he's playing Will Smith...ruins the tone of a western. But I always felt like rather then inconsistent, Will Smith made the movie gleefully anachronistic. Steampunk is kind of anachronistic as it is, throwing advanced technology into a more primitive society. Combine a brash cowboy type with very modern flavor of brashness, and it just gets better.
I'm still waiting for a movie that ive seen to be defended that I actually don't like. So far, they have all been sort of trashy, but extremely fun movies.
I'm still waiting for a movie that ive seen to be defended that I actually don't like. So far, they have all been sort of trashy, but extremely fun movies.
Actually no - Uwe also has movies movies. Just last week's MDF was about one of these - Rampage. I don't know how good they are (I kind of expect them to be not good. Not terrible, though).Longstreet said:
Also, Postal was actually quite enjoyable. I'm still can't decide if it's close to the game or not (or, you know, closer than the other movies of his were to the respective games) but at least it was funny in the same inappropriate way Postal was. Why, just look at the opening [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY]. If you liked the Postal game, you might like the movie too. Just...maybe don't see it as a Postal movie, just as a movie that is inspired by Postal humour.
Yeah. Maybe I'm showing a bit of my age here but when I and everyone I knew saw it, we knew it wasn't a smash hit, but I hadn't heard of anyone who was like "I hate this movie." I've heard of more people who hate Independence Day than this.DragonWright said:
Hmmm, well this is one of those movies where you need to look at it in the context of it's time and a lot of what was surrounding it, and I also think the evaluation of it's actual performance is a bit off.
For starters I will say I personally enjoyed this movie, I have it on DVD. I was also one of the people talking about hopes for a possible sequel, Salma Hayak actually produced a promotional video (shown on Entertainment Tonight if I remember) in an effort to try and raise money to fund a sequel, given that for all of it's apparent failures the movie had become a bona-fide cult classic and was apparently selling pretty well in the secondary markets. Given that this was around the turn of the century this was before companies seemed to really be paying attention to that.
That said, it's lack of mainstream success was well deserved on a lot of levels. When you put a name of an enduring "classic" series like "Wild Wild West" on a movie it comes with certain expectations. Other than keeping the names of some of the major characters it didn't really have much in common with the show it was allegedly based on at all. It's also a good example of why taking a well known character and performing an ethnic swap, especially when you turn around and bring that ethnicity to the forefront a few times, while at the same time otherwise ignoring any historical context within the setting, and well... it didn't work. When they decided to make this a "Wild Wild West" movie, with Will Smith stepping into the shoes of a well known character, it meant his acting chops were being judged based on how well he could play the role. He couldn't, he more or less played as "Will Smith as a hip cowboy" and just failed to convince you he was the character. He also had little or no chemistry with his partner, in what was very much a "buddy" production, both characters were fine on their own, but didn't mesh well, their scenes together seemed forced, and again it failed to be what the movie set out to be.
If you IGNORE that it's supposed to be "Wild Wild West" then the movie actually improves substatially, but it's impossible to forget what this was supposed to be, and indeed what the name says it is, and it deserves to be blasted on those grounds alone while at the same time being accepted as a fairly entertaining work.
Another important thing to understand is that "Wild Wild West" largely got greenlit because of the relative success, despite all odds, of "Brisco County Jr." which itself endures as a cult classic today, and despite all odds actually got renewed for a second season. The basic process at the time seemed to be that if people were still talking about that a couple years after it went off the air (and ironically became more popular after it's run) and they were largely ripping off the "Wild Wild West" formula, imagine what studios could do with a big budget, and cashing in on name recognition even if their product wasn't anything like what they were calling it. At the time we also had some serious trends towards "wierd westerns" among nerd-dom with things like the "Deadlands RPG" actually being notable successes, spawning entire series of books and becoming crazy prolific during their 15 minutes of fame. This bubble existed accross products like that and "Wild Wild West" was coming in on the tail end... which is also why there was an attempt (as I mentioned) to gather money for a sequel due to how well it apparently performed in the secondary market.
Such is what I think needs to be said here.
To be honest I'm not sure if "Wild, Wild, West" really needed a "Movie Defense Force" treatment because honestly I don't think this one was ever "universally" panned, it only got slammed by the mainstream, and always had a degree of
a following, unlike some movies which managed to fail to achieve quiet, cult-like, success. Among it's proponents it's big failure is largely in terms of not being as good as other material covering the same basic thing.
This movie also launched at least one career, that of Bai Ling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Ling
You'll notice the differance between her pre- Wild Wild West, and post- Wild Wild West roles in terms of both numbers and the profile of the projects even if she's a supporting actress. She had been doing this stuff for 16 years (starting in 1984) prior to that movie, and did far more in the following 13 years despite her advancing age (which is a big deal for an actress).
For starters I will say I personally enjoyed this movie, I have it on DVD. I was also one of the people talking about hopes for a possible sequel, Salma Hayak actually produced a promotional video (shown on Entertainment Tonight if I remember) in an effort to try and raise money to fund a sequel, given that for all of it's apparent failures the movie had become a bona-fide cult classic and was apparently selling pretty well in the secondary markets. Given that this was around the turn of the century this was before companies seemed to really be paying attention to that.
That said, it's lack of mainstream success was well deserved on a lot of levels. When you put a name of an enduring "classic" series like "Wild Wild West" on a movie it comes with certain expectations. Other than keeping the names of some of the major characters it didn't really have much in common with the show it was allegedly based on at all. It's also a good example of why taking a well known character and performing an ethnic swap, especially when you turn around and bring that ethnicity to the forefront a few times, while at the same time otherwise ignoring any historical context within the setting, and well... it didn't work. When they decided to make this a "Wild Wild West" movie, with Will Smith stepping into the shoes of a well known character, it meant his acting chops were being judged based on how well he could play the role. He couldn't, he more or less played as "Will Smith as a hip cowboy" and just failed to convince you he was the character. He also had little or no chemistry with his partner, in what was very much a "buddy" production, both characters were fine on their own, but didn't mesh well, their scenes together seemed forced, and again it failed to be what the movie set out to be.
If you IGNORE that it's supposed to be "Wild Wild West" then the movie actually improves substatially, but it's impossible to forget what this was supposed to be, and indeed what the name says it is, and it deserves to be blasted on those grounds alone while at the same time being accepted as a fairly entertaining work.
Another important thing to understand is that "Wild Wild West" largely got greenlit because of the relative success, despite all odds, of "Brisco County Jr." which itself endures as a cult classic today, and despite all odds actually got renewed for a second season. The basic process at the time seemed to be that if people were still talking about that a couple years after it went off the air (and ironically became more popular after it's run) and they were largely ripping off the "Wild Wild West" formula, imagine what studios could do with a big budget, and cashing in on name recognition even if their product wasn't anything like what they were calling it. At the time we also had some serious trends towards "wierd westerns" among nerd-dom with things like the "Deadlands RPG" actually being notable successes, spawning entire series of books and becoming crazy prolific during their 15 minutes of fame. This bubble existed accross products like that and "Wild Wild West" was coming in on the tail end... which is also why there was an attempt (as I mentioned) to gather money for a sequel due to how well it apparently performed in the secondary market.
Such is what I think needs to be said here.
To be honest I'm not sure if "Wild, Wild, West" really needed a "Movie Defense Force" treatment because honestly I don't think this one was ever "universally" panned, it only got slammed by the mainstream, and always had a degree of
a following, unlike some movies which managed to fail to achieve quiet, cult-like, success. Among it's proponents it's big failure is largely in terms of not being as good as other material covering the same basic thing.
This movie also launched at least one career, that of Bai Ling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Ling
You'll notice the differance between her pre- Wild Wild West, and post- Wild Wild West roles in terms of both numbers and the profile of the projects even if she's a supporting actress. She had been doing this stuff for 16 years (starting in 1984) prior to that movie, and did far more in the following 13 years despite her advancing age (which is a big deal for an actress).
I'm of the opinion that what truly irked people about this film, were the jarring change of tones from viewing a slideshow on a projector made from a human head ...to wacky slapstick comedy.
The same problem we see in Waterworld, where we have recycling human waste and implied slavery and pedophilia being commonplace, along-side poignant social commentary about global warming.
Both films were TOO controversial. And while being controversial and scandalous for the sake of it were perfectly acceptable in the 90's ...in a strange turn of events, people have started becoming more uptight and consequently more snobbish. The reason behind this societal metamorphosis is suspect is none-other than the Internet.
When you're only a few keystrokes away from getting your comedy fix by watching cat-videos on YouTube or rubbing one off to your most perverse fantasies, sex and comedy have quickly started loosing their value. We started expecting more from our established media.
That's how SouthPark went from toilet-humor to this insufferable preachy and desperately trying to stay relevant show.
That being said, i enjoyed watching both WildWildWest and WaterWorld tremendously when they came out on cable TV
The same problem we see in Waterworld, where we have recycling human waste and implied slavery and pedophilia being commonplace, along-side poignant social commentary about global warming.
Both films were TOO controversial. And while being controversial and scandalous for the sake of it were perfectly acceptable in the 90's ...in a strange turn of events, people have started becoming more uptight and consequently more snobbish. The reason behind this societal metamorphosis is suspect is none-other than the Internet.
When you're only a few keystrokes away from getting your comedy fix by watching cat-videos on YouTube or rubbing one off to your most perverse fantasies, sex and comedy have quickly started loosing their value. We started expecting more from our established media.
That's how SouthPark went from toilet-humor to this insufferable preachy and desperately trying to stay relevant show.
That being said, i enjoyed watching both WildWildWest and WaterWorld tremendously when they came out on cable TV
I made my friends watch this the other day with me so I could then watch this MDF and have the background knowledge necessary. I had never seen this movie before.
The problem with WWW was casting. The elephant in the room was Will Smith. I love about everything Will Smith has done, but here he was the "oh look, it's a black guy" reaction from all the little characters that got so damned old that that, for all it's steam punk charm, WWW sucked. Mel Gibson was better suited for this role. Not from todays perspective, but back in the mid 90s he was.
Depressingly, the racist vs ablist punathon was always my favourite scene. I think it would work better in Django these days, where you can be confident that the racist humour is being played for ironically, unlike the 90s, where making fun of disabled people was something you could still get away with.
Kind of surprised by this episode in that I didn't realize Wild Wild West was a movie that was considered bad and needed defending. I mean, yeah, it's cheesy and dumb as all hell, but that's obviously the point. Sometimes people need to learn that a little mindless fun is a good thing.
Now I have to admit this movie was conceptually pretty good, but the script and direction of the film was just terrible. I mean this move was basically a live action steam punk movie before steam punk was even on most peoples radar. I mean it was way to over the top and the jokes were generally terrible. The only thing that makes this movie even palatable is the action skills of people like Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Klein, and Will Smith. However, this film is not even savable by the actors skills because of the terrible script and terrible direction, where the director should have at least questioned some of the choices made, especially the script.
I can for one attest this movie is generally indefensible since I am actually old enough to have been in the theaters for this one and saw people walking out in droves during the end of the first act. People at the time thought it was stupid, didn't generally understand what the movie was going for aesthetically (remember steam punk wasn't a "thing" yet), but worst of all it had no audience at any level it seemed. Making handicapped and dick jokes while funny to some in just one scene offended some people and then multiply that by making lynchings a humorous affair made more people mad and that was just two scenes. While I remember sitting with friends at the theater thinking they were using modern terms for things that American didn't invent and somehow they knew the term for them.
This movie really made a lot of mistakes the League of Extraordinary Gentleman would make some years later, but that's a whole different disaster of film making.
I can for one attest this movie is generally indefensible since I am actually old enough to have been in the theaters for this one and saw people walking out in droves during the end of the first act. People at the time thought it was stupid, didn't generally understand what the movie was going for aesthetically (remember steam punk wasn't a "thing" yet), but worst of all it had no audience at any level it seemed. Making handicapped and dick jokes while funny to some in just one scene offended some people and then multiply that by making lynchings a humorous affair made more people mad and that was just two scenes. While I remember sitting with friends at the theater thinking they were using modern terms for things that American didn't invent and somehow they knew the term for them.
This movie really made a lot of mistakes the League of Extraordinary Gentleman would make some years later, but that's a whole different disaster of film making.
I am one of those who like this film and never understood why it was so disliked. everything he say is as I think about it.
