They're marketing to me, I can feel it

[urbpan]

I'm inordinately excited about 10,000 B.C., a new action movie taking place in that year. The trailer includes what appear to be terror birds (or, one supposes, their old-world analogue) and sabre-toothed cats (which are too big, but whatchagonna do) and thousands of cgi mammoths. It's made by the same sick glorious bastard who made Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow (we're lucky this wasn't called "day way back in the past") two of the biggest and stupidest and most entertaining movies ever. Could this be the first entertaining prehistoric action movie? (I've seen Quest for Fire and One Million BC--I want something better.)

I assume that anyone with more than a cursory background in anthropology or paleontology would break a blood vessel trying to watch it. I don't know for sure, but Hollywood has a very poor record in this area, and come on, did you see Day After Tomorrow? Several climatologists has to be hospitalized with broken blood vessels after seeing that. Also, anyone who doesn't like to see white people with dreadlocks should probably avoid it. (My only objection: why are his dreadlocks so short?)

I'm also pretty interested in seeing Cloverfield or whatever it's called. (That's right, I'm the sci fi fan that pays half attention.) The biggest problem with Godzilla-type movies is that the view from above perspective distances you from the movie. You almost never are afraid of a rubber suit monster filmed from above, or even eye-level. The beginning hype (I've seen maybe 3 commercials) is starting to catch on with me. Apparently someone involved in "Lost" is involved in this movie, which has fans of that show excited. I've never seen it, just as I've never seen "Buffy," and as that was no obstacle to me liking "Firefly," I don't think it matters in this case either.

This is the first time in a long time there have been two movies in the theatre that I actually would want to watch in the theatre. I can barely find the spare time to watch movies at home, unfortunately. It seems to take a great deal of planning to get us out to a movie, so unless Alexis wants to see an prehistoric action movie or "godzilla meets blair witch" (as described by someone on my friends list) I'll wait to see them on Netflix.

Comments

[candent.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Were there still massive herds of mammoth around at 10,000 BC? The city of Jericho was founded in 9000 BC, for comparison. The pyramids were built much later. Unless they're going for some sort of pre-Egyptian Ur-civilization (maybe that is Ur?) ... I just dunno. And dreadlocks on white men are so dated now. The European mammoth-hunter scenes look very Paleolithic -- seriously Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear stone age -- but 10,000 BC is late Neolithic. Looks like just another excuse for Emmerich to do his thing.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

By 10,000 BC, almost all of the wooly mammoths were gone, and the great Columbian mammoths, as well as the mastodons, had become food maybe 5000 years earlier. A small colony of dwarf mammoths apparently survived off Alaska until about 4000 years ago, but they would have stood not much taller than a human. As for the big sabertooth cats and the terror birds, they were gone long before that: some very suspect evidence suggests that the terror bird Titanis walleri may have been living in Texas about 9000 years ago, but I have a bad feeling this was reworked material.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Many mastodon remains have been radiocarbon dated to 11,000 years ago in North America, so 12,000 years ago (10,000BC) isn't that unrealistic. However, I think that, given the pyramids depicted in the preview, this one isn't going for more of an alternative history than an effort to depict a real past.

It's going to be better than Clan of the Cave Bear, at any rate. :)

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

That analogy, my friend, is what we in Texas refer to as "taste-testing dog shit". Of course, I have a bad suspicion that this film might make an adaptation of Harry Harrison's West of Eden look good, and lower than that I cannot get.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I'm going into the experience with the appropriate expectations: I want to see mammoths on the big screen, and enjoy escapist, over-the-top imaginings. If I want great film-making, or wonderful acting I'll go elsewhere.