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Cowboys and Aliens

Eric Rodemann

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Saw it today (in 2d). I give it a solid B, maybe a B-. The look was good. Had a pretty gritty western look to it. The acting was good. Nice performance from Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, and Olivia Wilde. Olivia looks great on screen. Very pretty. Decent sound, although not a memorable sound track, but of course it's the old West so they're not going to be playing the latest rock or dubstep or anything. Special Effects looked good, and I liked the aliens.

However, I walked out going, liked it, didn't love it. Why?

Had to think a minute, and it was the same old thing. The Script. Decent, but not great, and full of holes. Also, lacked some realism. This did not feel like folks from the 1800's encountering aliens. Felt more like people from the 21st century, wearing clothes from the 1800's, encountering aliens.

I won't give away any spoilers. It's definitely worth a matinee IMO, but falls short of blockbuster material.


They decided to go for film on this one, as well as keep it 2d:



“We knew we’d have a lot of day exteriors, and I’ve always been averse to shooting digital in day exteriors,” says Libatique. “Shooting film is going to be better then trying to struggle with a format that clips in the highlights. I think some of these problems have been mitigated, but they still exist.

“The more we learned, the more we felt that 3D might hurt the film as a film,” he says. “I felt that anamorphic 35 mm would work better with the way Jon handles performance and coverage. But the main reason we came to a consensus was that anamorphic allowed us to adhere to Western cinematic language.”
 
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Yeah, I felt the same way in general. I really wanted to love it but it pretty much fell flat for me. Nothing particularly good or bad.
 
It's a comedy, isn't it? I saw the trailer a while back in the theater and laughed along with most of the audience.
 
Farting alien robots that turn into cars and trucks and planes? Hard core stuff. Let's examine this with science.

Cowboys and Aliens? BLASPHEMY. Hollywood, you've gone too far!

...

To the point above, I agree that shooting in 3D could have actually hurt it at the end of the day. Are there currently any westerns that were shot primarily on a digital format? I imagine that landscape shot on EPIC with a nice set of anamorphics would look amazing.
 
To the point above, I agree that shooting in 3D could have actually hurt it at the end of the day. Are there currently any westerns that were shot primarily on a digital format? I imagine that landscape shot on EPIC with a nice set of anamorphics would look amazing.

I thought that too, but I do understand where the director and DP might be coming from. They are paying homage to the classic Western, and part of that homage (for them) might be shooting on film with anamorphic lenses.
 
Yeah, I felt the same way in general. I really wanted to love it but it pretty much fell flat for me. Nothing particularly good or bad.

Saw it today...sums it up perfectly.
 
I'd agree with the first post...
It didn't have me screaming WOOHOO...
it didn't have me on a downer either, it was one of those, 'yeah, it was entertaining' kind of films...
Super happy I saw it in 2D (3D still bugs me, saw transformers and my eyes hurt from time to time)

I definitely agree with people from 21st wearing 18th century clothing, especially when Craig and Olivia meet for the first time...it just felt weird...
nothing wrong with the film if you take it as an entertainment only piece, not measuring it up against any western or sci-fi films....similar to Transformers, which isn't horrendous if you just take it for what it is...

I want that wrist cuff if Aliens attack though...
 
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