From looking at the previews, there also seem to be a decent # of common/uncommon creatures with 3+ toughness making the 2-drop, 2-power aggro guys somewhat irrelevant.
Here's a quick summary of the # of common/uncommon creatures in each color that have 3+ toughness: (first # is the # of common/uncommon creatures w/ 3+ toughness followed by total # of common/uncommon creat w/ 3+ toughness)
Colorless - 4 out of 5
White - 9 out of 19
Blue - 9 out of 16
Black - 10 out of 18
Red - 10 out of 16
Green - 10 out of 19
Colorless - 5 out of 5 Total - 57 out of 98 (58%)
So almost 60% of the time during the mid-late game, the typical bear 2-drop / 2-power guy isn't going to be able to get through. You could argue the point of aggro is winning the early game before your opponent creates board presence, but I don't think there's enough good early aggro to be totally aggressive, even with a large chunk of pump/combat spells.
I think the key is to maximize the value of the common 2-drops that are good in the late game; cards like Atarka Beastbreaker which can be just a 2/2 bear on T2 or a 6/6 threat in the late game.
Although the Scry is nice from the Scry lands, I think we want to consistently hit untapped mana on T2/T3 to hit Bile Blight and Drown in Sorrow to hill off opposing early aggro strategies in aggro matchups, and we want untapped mana on early turns vs. control matchups to get rid of their digging and counters via our discard. One advantage that MBC has over UB control is consistently hitting black mana on the first couple of turns to hit Bile Blight and Drown in Sorrow - they have fetches and Temples but they don't always have BB on T3.
Speaking of discard, I'm still a fan of more early discard in addition to Thoughtseize.
Any thought of Nightmare as a 1-of in the main as another win-con? The only "swamps-matters" cards in the list are Squelching Leeches, and to an extent Erebos, God of the Dead and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Like the Leeches, Nightmare will end up being a sizable threat at any point it comes down and the evasion gives it an advantage over the Leeches. Obviously a bad draw early, but gives the deck another target to find w/ Liliana and draw spells in the late game if you can't find the Leeches to finish off an opponent (or if you can't get to Ugin).
What about adding in a little bit more discard to the deck so strip their hands even more? I was thinking including some Brain Maggots and possibly throwing in a couple Herald of Torments in there which could be another backup win-con - that turns your 1/1 Maggots into 4/4 flying threats that are out of 3-damage spell range (Anger of the Gods, Lightning Strike, opposing Bile Blights, etc), plus it adds permanents to turn on Erebos into a threat (there's currently not too many permanents in the deck to turn him on).
Also, does Fate Unraveler have a spot in the sideboard against decks that dig or draw a bunch of cards (Jeskai Ascendancy, Treasure Cruise, U/W Heroic cards like Ordeal of Thassa, etc.)? He does have 4 toughness so he also survives the 3-damage removal spells.
- Angelina Jolie's Malificent character in this past year's Malificent movie was a major letdown to me. All along, we saw trailers of a villainous Malificent (at least that's the way she was depicted) and promises of her "true" story. On top of that, she's arguably the most iconic, evil villain in the classic Disney "princess" movies (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, etc). And then we get to the live-action movie and we are supposed to sympathize with her plight and background story; kind of ruined the character and the hype for me at least (and with a 49% Rotten Tomatoes score, it's safe to say many agree, regardless of how much the film made).
- Venom from Spider-Man 3. There was tremendous hype on a live-action Venom prior to the movie coming out - arguably one of the most popular characters in the Spider-Man universe w/ Carnage. You can argue that the movie itself was a disaster, but Venom had very little screen time and Topher Grace's snarky take on Eddie Brock and the character left alot to be desired. I remember leaving the theater saying to myself, "...was that the cool Venom from the comics?".
- Most of the characters in the FOX TV show, Gotham. For months, FOX promoted this show as knowing all the Batman villains and characters before Bruce Wayne donned the cape and cowl. Well, to me, the most interesting character is Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney character. I do realize that we're only halfway through the first season, but I consider the series and the character somewhat of a disappointment so far.
The cross-guard lightsabers were mentioned in the Expanded Universe a few times, so this isn't something totally foreign to hardcore Star Wars fans, but it's the first time for anybody seeing it visually. I agree with others in that it's somewhat shoe-horned in here - it seems like JJ wanted to try and bring in a new, cool lightsaber design, but with Star Wars, sometimes less is more. We've been given new lightsaber designs in Episode I (Maul's double-bladed saber), Episode II (Dooku's curved hilt) and in the new cartoon Star Wars: Rebels currently airing on Disney (The Sith character known as "The Inquisitor" wields a double-bladed saber with a circled hilt that allows the blade to completely spin) - no need for another one.
One thing about the lightsaber which may seem interesting is the "rough" looking nature of the blades - especially the shorter ones on the hilt. This leads me to believe that the crystals used to built it weren't totally free of impurities and hopefully leads to stories of young Jedi/Sith apprentices (Luke and Lei's children perhaps) building their sabers and perhaps the Sith / Dark Side character not completely using the force to build theirs - which could explain it's rough look. Although rare, there are some lightsabers that could cut through other sabers - maybe this idea can be explored a little.
As far as the rest of the trailer, I thought the visuals were crisp (X-wings over the water, rolling droid on sand, stormtroopers in transport) and the music was well-suited and alluded to something bad about to awaken (young female teen hurrying onto her vehicle racing back to her home, black stormtrooper in trouble, X-wings in attack formation, TIE fighters firing on the Falcon, etc) and it basically did it's job, which is to "tease" the viewer enough to want you interested enough to watch the next trailer and ultimately spend money at the box office to see it.
Like I said, there are typical Nolan elements in the film, but there's alot to comprehend, digest and discuss, too. It's definitely his most ambitious film with all the ideas he's presenting and I think it spurs many different types of discussion; the status of the Earth in the not-to-distant future as portraying in the film, scientific theories such as time relativity (along with many others), personal decisions in survival situations, etc. I feel like viewers could discuss a variety of topics from the film.
Now, I will say that even though I'm not a science-buff, meaning that I'm not one to truly understand Einstein's scientific theories, there are moments that you'll have to suspend your belief for a minute - I mean, it's a movie and entertainment after all and not a documentary on science itself. The fact that Kip Thorne produced the film with Nolan says alot about the accuracy of the theories presented and used, but again, someone who understands them more can better discuss that.
I saw this last night in IMAX (not the 70MM version though, as my local IMAX wasn't one of those that showed it in that format).
I'm very interested to see what others in here who see this think about it and quite honestly, I'd love to discuss the different explanations of the science-fiction and theories that are used to explain the story. I work in business and never took enough science classes in high school/college to intelligently understand Einstein's theories, quantum theories or anything of the sort. I'm not suggesting that people need to know these things prior to viewing the movie, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt. Some things are explained, but I'm sure they went over my head as I was immersed enough to not pay attention to details.
That said, I thought it was well done and it still has me thinking and pondering it the day after, and I'm sure I will discuss it with friends/family who happen to see it weeks/months after. I'm not going to go into any summaries or details because even if I put spoiler tags on things, it's probably too much of a temptation to open them I think it's best to not know too much before viewing it - perhaps the discussion is more appropriate until after enough people in here have viewed it.
What I will say is that if you're up-in-the-air at all about this one, I would recommend seeing it, and if you have an IMAX near you, I would suggest seeing it in that format vs. a regular screen. The scenes in space are really well done and I think it's one of those movies that you need to see on a "big" screen with great sound.
I know there are some that are not a fan of Nolan at all and that reason might cause them to dismiss this movie entirely, and while I won't lie and say it's not a typical Nolan blockbuster film similar to past films like Inception (yes, there are some scenes and details that are very typical to Nolan), there's alot of concepts that would entertain movie-lovers of all walks of life, even if you're not a fan of science fiction movies.
Lastly, the running time is long on paper (2 hr, 49 min) but very truthfully, it didn't feel like that at all. There's so much stuff going on that I actually wanted more film and I thought there easily could have been another 1/2 hour or more added. I was engrossed the whole way through.
I'm a fan of David Fincher's films and "who-done-it" suspense films so I saw this with my wife on Saturday night because it appeared to be a film we would enjoy. I briefly checked the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores to make sure we weren't going to see a "clunker" (yes, I do check out the scores briefly because generally speaking, I happen to agree with the consensus critics ratings) and it appeared that the scores were very favorable. We also did not read the book so we went into this film pretty much "spoiler free".
I have to say that I while the acting was good (I think Rosamund Pike should be nominated for her performance), I'm questioning the direction the film went in the latter third of the film.
I guess we kept waiting for that last "turn" in the movie, but it just never seemed to come. So Amy used Nick's sperm he put in the fertility clinic to get pregnant and she wants the man back who wanted to taste her "sugar lips" so to speak. In the end, the wife turned out to be a cold, calculating psychopath (in a sense) and the husband just turned out to be somewhat of a jerk; and they're going to have a child together - great; I remember my wife and I having a conversation on the drive home discussing how horrific of a parenting job those two would do. To me, the movie was more about the media's spin on things than anything else - but that's something we already knew and I had the "nothing new here" reaction to that. Also, there were a number of plot holes in this that just easily jumped out (example: it showed in the beginning of the film the old man who lived across the street informing Nick of the cat being left out. Yet later in the film, Amy's story of how she was abducted by Desi doesn't add up - wouldn't the old man or somebody else have seen Desi's vehicle there?)
Pros: good acting (especially the lead actress), solid writing, beautifully shot and good score (Fincher & Reznor), but it's too long (well over 2 hours when it didn't need to be) and it doesn't grab you all the way through - only the first two thirds are you on the "edge of your seat". Probably a 2.5 out of 4 stars for me and certainly not worthy of any Oscar buzz outside of the actress's performance.
I think movies that really scare kids (13 and under) are movies where bad things happen to kids to give them the idea that something really bad can happen to them, and not just to adults and older teens (like slasher movies).
Here is a list of some films which are generally considered the scariest movies of all time; notice one thing most of them have in common - kid involvement:
- The Shining (scariest parts of film are when Danny sees the twin girls '...come play with us Danny...'")
- The Exorcist (anyone can be possessed by a demon - even an innocent, little girl)
- Jaws (little boy eaten alive)
- The Ring (evil little girl who kills...little boy in peril)
- Halloween (little brother kills family...then little kids in trouble at end)
- Rosemary's Baby (evil baby)
- Poltergeist (Carrie-Ann sucked into TV and the famous quote, "...they're here...")
- Night of the Living Dead (little girl in basement is zombified...kills mom w/ garden spade)
- The Omen (little boy is Satan's son on earth)
There were two movies that freaked me out when I was a kid that involved kids. One was the 1979 TV mini-series edition of Stephen King's Salem's Lot. Because this was made for TV, there wasn't much blood or gore, but it was plenty scary and full of suspense moments. One particular scene that really freaked me out (and I'm sure other kids) was the vampire boy/window scenes - I had trouble sleeping after that - any little "scratch" noise made me turn my head to the window to ensure someone wasn't there.
The other was a little-known movie from 1980 called "The Children", but sometimes referred to as "The Children of Ravensback". The synopsis of the movie sounds absolutely campy - a bus full of children on their way home from school drives through a radioactive cloud accidentally released from a nearby nuclear plant and the kids are turned into zombies who can fry people simply by touching them. Yeah, it sounds corny, but the scenes just freaked me out - little kids coming up from behind someone and killing them with pale faces and black fingernails. One particular scene involved a little boy playing hide-n-seek w/ a zombified kid (boy just wanted to play and didn't know any better) and even if the "kill" was off camera, how the scene was shot was just horrifying. Not to mention the music scored for the film was Scott Cunningham who scored the first Friday the 13th films.
You might be one of the very few out there that liked the movie enough to recommend. It's currently getting "shredded" by critics and fans alike out there. It's not going to beat out Guardians for top-spot at the Box Office it's opening weekend either - US fans "shelled" out only $4.6M for Thursday shows, while Guardians raked in $7.6M on the same night.
The budget for this was estimated to be $125M and with an estimated opening weekend of only $40M or less, this might be it for the turtles on the big screen.
I'm jealous of everybody playing in the midnight prerelease tonight (or those that already have in AU, Asia, Africa and Europe). Out of all the Magic shops in Rochester, NY, not one of them is having a midnight prerelease tonight. If anybody knows of one that is, let me know.
Show White and the Huntsman was Universal, not Disney.
You're right and I apologize.
My point is still the same; we've had a recent string of live-action fairy-tales in recent years - Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfriend, Burton's Alice on Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and now Maleficent. All of them have been a disappointment to me and unless my daughter is clamoring to see the next one coming out in March 2015 - Disney's live action Cinderella - I'll probably be waiting to rent vs. spending the money at the theater.
Here's a quick summary of the # of common/uncommon creatures in each color that have 3+ toughness:
(first # is the # of common/uncommon creatures w/ 3+ toughness followed by total # of common/uncommon creat w/ 3+ toughness)
Colorless - 4 out of 5
White - 9 out of 19
Blue - 9 out of 16
Black - 10 out of 18
Red - 10 out of 16
Green - 10 out of 19
Colorless - 5 out of 5
Total - 57 out of 98 (58%)
So almost 60% of the time during the mid-late game, the typical bear 2-drop / 2-power guy isn't going to be able to get through. You could argue the point of aggro is winning the early game before your opponent creates board presence, but I don't think there's enough good early aggro to be totally aggressive, even with a large chunk of pump/combat spells.
I think the key is to maximize the value of the common 2-drops that are good in the late game; cards like Atarka Beastbreaker which can be just a 2/2 bear on T2 or a 6/6 threat in the late game.
Speaking of discard, I'm still a fan of more early discard in addition to Thoughtseize.
Also, does Fate Unraveler have a spot in the sideboard against decks that dig or draw a bunch of cards (Jeskai Ascendancy, Treasure Cruise, U/W Heroic cards like Ordeal of Thassa, etc.)? He does have 4 toughness so he also survives the 3-damage removal spells.
Watching a Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation sometime in December is a must for me.
Also watching a few Friday the 13th slasher films on an actual Friday the 13th is an annual thing for me, too.
- Angelina Jolie's Malificent character in this past year's Malificent movie was a major letdown to me. All along, we saw trailers of a villainous Malificent (at least that's the way she was depicted) and promises of her "true" story. On top of that, she's arguably the most iconic, evil villain in the classic Disney "princess" movies (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, etc). And then we get to the live-action movie and we are supposed to sympathize with her plight and background story; kind of ruined the character and the hype for me at least (and with a 49% Rotten Tomatoes score, it's safe to say many agree, regardless of how much the film made).
- Venom from Spider-Man 3. There was tremendous hype on a live-action Venom prior to the movie coming out - arguably one of the most popular characters in the Spider-Man universe w/ Carnage. You can argue that the movie itself was a disaster, but Venom had very little screen time and Topher Grace's snarky take on Eddie Brock and the character left alot to be desired. I remember leaving the theater saying to myself, "...was that the cool Venom from the comics?".
- Most of the characters in the FOX TV show, Gotham. For months, FOX promoted this show as knowing all the Batman villains and characters before Bruce Wayne donned the cape and cowl. Well, to me, the most interesting character is Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney character. I do realize that we're only halfway through the first season, but I consider the series and the character somewhat of a disappointment so far.
One thing about the lightsaber which may seem interesting is the "rough" looking nature of the blades - especially the shorter ones on the hilt. This leads me to believe that the crystals used to built it weren't totally free of impurities and hopefully leads to stories of young Jedi/Sith apprentices (Luke and Lei's children perhaps) building their sabers and perhaps the Sith / Dark Side character not completely using the force to build theirs - which could explain it's rough look. Although rare, there are some lightsabers that could cut through other sabers - maybe this idea can be explored a little.
As far as the rest of the trailer, I thought the visuals were crisp (X-wings over the water, rolling droid on sand, stormtroopers in transport) and the music was well-suited and alluded to something bad about to awaken (young female teen hurrying onto her vehicle racing back to her home, black stormtrooper in trouble, X-wings in attack formation, TIE fighters firing on the Falcon, etc) and it basically did it's job, which is to "tease" the viewer enough to want you interested enough to watch the next trailer and ultimately spend money at the box office to see it.
Now, I will say that even though I'm not a science-buff, meaning that I'm not one to truly understand Einstein's scientific theories, there are moments that you'll have to suspend your belief for a minute - I mean, it's a movie and entertainment after all and not a documentary on science itself. The fact that Kip Thorne produced the film with Nolan says alot about the accuracy of the theories presented and used, but again, someone who understands them more can better discuss that.
I'm very interested to see what others in here who see this think about it and quite honestly, I'd love to discuss the different explanations of the science-fiction and theories that are used to explain the story. I work in business and never took enough science classes in high school/college to intelligently understand Einstein's theories, quantum theories or anything of the sort. I'm not suggesting that people need to know these things prior to viewing the movie, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt. Some things are explained, but I'm sure they went over my head as I was immersed enough to not pay attention to details.
That said, I thought it was well done and it still has me thinking and pondering it the day after, and I'm sure I will discuss it with friends/family who happen to see it weeks/months after. I'm not going to go into any summaries or details because even if I put spoiler tags on things, it's probably too much of a temptation to open them I think it's best to not know too much before viewing it - perhaps the discussion is more appropriate until after enough people in here have viewed it.
What I will say is that if you're up-in-the-air at all about this one, I would recommend seeing it, and if you have an IMAX near you, I would suggest seeing it in that format vs. a regular screen. The scenes in space are really well done and I think it's one of those movies that you need to see on a "big" screen with great sound.
I know there are some that are not a fan of Nolan at all and that reason might cause them to dismiss this movie entirely, and while I won't lie and say it's not a typical Nolan blockbuster film similar to past films like Inception (yes, there are some scenes and details that are very typical to Nolan), there's alot of concepts that would entertain movie-lovers of all walks of life, even if you're not a fan of science fiction movies.
Lastly, the running time is long on paper (2 hr, 49 min) but very truthfully, it didn't feel like that at all. There's so much stuff going on that I actually wanted more film and I thought there easily could have been another 1/2 hour or more added. I was engrossed the whole way through.
I have to say that I while the acting was good (I think Rosamund Pike should be nominated for her performance), I'm questioning the direction the film went in the latter third of the film.
Pros: good acting (especially the lead actress), solid writing, beautifully shot and good score (Fincher & Reznor), but it's too long (well over 2 hours when it didn't need to be) and it doesn't grab you all the way through - only the first two thirds are you on the "edge of your seat". Probably a 2.5 out of 4 stars for me and certainly not worthy of any Oscar buzz outside of the actress's performance.
What were your thoughts?
Here is a list of some films which are generally considered the scariest movies of all time; notice one thing most of them have in common - kid involvement:
- The Shining (scariest parts of film are when Danny sees the twin girls '...come play with us Danny...'")
- The Exorcist (anyone can be possessed by a demon - even an innocent, little girl)
- Jaws (little boy eaten alive)
- The Ring (evil little girl who kills...little boy in peril)
- Halloween (little brother kills family...then little kids in trouble at end)
- Rosemary's Baby (evil baby)
- Poltergeist (Carrie-Ann sucked into TV and the famous quote, "...they're here...")
- Night of the Living Dead (little girl in basement is zombified...kills mom w/ garden spade)
- The Omen (little boy is Satan's son on earth)
There were two movies that freaked me out when I was a kid that involved kids. One was the 1979 TV mini-series edition of Stephen King's Salem's Lot. Because this was made for TV, there wasn't much blood or gore, but it was plenty scary and full of suspense moments. One particular scene that really freaked me out (and I'm sure other kids) was the vampire boy/window scenes - I had trouble sleeping after that - any little "scratch" noise made me turn my head to the window to ensure someone wasn't there.
The other was a little-known movie from 1980 called "The Children", but sometimes referred to as "The Children of Ravensback". The synopsis of the movie sounds absolutely campy - a bus full of children on their way home from school drives through a radioactive cloud accidentally released from a nearby nuclear plant and the kids are turned into zombies who can fry people simply by touching them. Yeah, it sounds corny, but the scenes just freaked me out - little kids coming up from behind someone and killing them with pale faces and black fingernails. One particular scene involved a little boy playing hide-n-seek w/ a zombified kid (boy just wanted to play and didn't know any better) and even if the "kill" was off camera, how the scene was shot was just horrifying. Not to mention the music scored for the film was Scott Cunningham who scored the first Friday the 13th films.
The budget for this was estimated to be $125M and with an estimated opening weekend of only $40M or less, this might be it for the turtles on the big screen.
Didn't the responses 6+ years ago do a sufficient job with answering your question?
You're right and I apologize.
My point is still the same; we've had a recent string of live-action fairy-tales in recent years - Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfriend, Burton's Alice on Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and now Maleficent. All of them have been a disappointment to me and unless my daughter is clamoring to see the next one coming out in March 2015 - Disney's live action Cinderella - I'll probably be waiting to rent vs. spending the money at the theater.