Some films on paper sound great, but on screen are terrible. So many films you see and think, what a great idea for a movie that was - but what a **** film it was.

For instance In Time with Justin Timberlake. This could have been an epic film in the right hands, with the right cast, instead it was an atrocity, and an absolute abomination of a film. But tell someone what the films about, and it sounds great!

What other films had the concepts and storyline to be great, but ended up being ****?

This isn't a list of **** films.. This is films that we want made properly.

Inception

High Roller epitomizes this for me.

I always thought Dude,Where's My Car could have been excellent if it was done correctly and I think I was proven right when The Hangover came out.

I really thought "My Dinner With Andre" should have had Andre the Giant in it. Almost misleading, really.

Deer Hunter should have had more deer hunting and less Vietnam. That's not too much to ask. Less Polish wedding too.

Also, since we are on the topic of Yoda, did you ever notice how there was no scene of the Death Star blowing up at the end of Empire Strikes Back? What kind of Star Wars move is that?

I've broached this topic before...

I've always contended that the island of Dr. Moreau needs to be made properly. it's an outstanding storyline and I enjoy both versions of the movie that have been made before, but it just begs to be done again... and done properly.

I think you could even apply this to most any H.G. Wells stories, including War of the Worlds.

2 comedies that come to mind: Life and Tropic Thunder.

Both are very good. But considering who was involved in each, they should be the 2 funniest movies ever.

Killing Them Softly. I liked it, but it didn't quite get there imo. It could have been great, but wasn't.

I just watched Life tonight. I agree it wasn't as executed as well as it could've been.

I remember my dad was excited to see the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but I think it sucked. Sean Connery said that was the movie that put him into retirement b/c he was tired of being a part of movies where they'd throw a junk director to captain the ship.

It was also one of the worst career choices of his life. He turned down the role of Morpheus or The Architect(rumors of both) in The Matrix to make The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen b/c he didn't understand the script and he didn't think it wouldn't make money.

He also turned down the role of Gandalf b/c he didn't understand the script since he never read any Tolkien. With the contract he was offered for this role he would have ended up making about $400 million.

Another huge mistake from The Matrix was Will Smith turning down the role of Neo so he could make Wild Wild West. He said he wasn't smart enough for that role and wasn't ready for it at that point in his career. LOL @ thinking you're not smart enough for a role that went to Keanu Reeves.

How is it nobody has mentioned the star wars prequels?

B/c the only way they could have been great is if they were never made.

We disagree about how bad In Time was, I rather enjoyed it actually. The premise was so good that I was able to get past some of the dog turds. But we definitely agree that it could have been one hell of a movie. Imagine that movie with someone like oh say James Cameron, or Spielberg behind the camera and the budget that comes along with a name like that and you have a monster blockbuster hit. I don't know the reason behind why they couldn't attach a big name director to the project but whatever the reason was, it screwed us out of a film that had the potential to be one of the greats.

I wish that we could like petition Hollywood to develop projects, I would love to hear about a big time sci-fi or action movie director shopping around a prequel to In Time. How the world got to that point, and how they implemented the clock system has a hell of a lot of potential as a movie.

Who would have been your pick to direct In Time? Play Will? Sylvia? The Time Keeper?(blanking on his name atm) Remember all the actors have to be able to appear 25.

Well Ok... it's easy to sit here and criticise, and I'm going over board in terms of how bad i really thought this film was, its entirely watchable - i just found myself annoyed all the way through at how an actual completely new idea for a film (afaik) ((not just new but a really really good idea)) was being done with such mediocrity all the way through. I don't know who would be the perfect cast, but not a single one of the ones that were, esp Justin Timberlake, who was ****.

The best thing about this film for me is it's only pointless answer i've got on the gameshow pointless!

Ender's Game

book is epically good. movie is painfully bad



also, i kinda liked In Time.

Book isn't that good. Certainly not epic.

World War Z could have been magnificent, but was dreadful. There's still a great movie waiting to be made from this book.

Agreed, WWZ was such a let down.

Also
Saving Private Ryan
Schindlers List
Enders Game

Was looking forward to all these only to be let down when they were released.

BLASPHEMY! lol. I mean of course any movie could be made a little better in hindsight but the title says what movies could have been great but aren't. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan are both spectacular IMHO. You really don't think these movies are already great, and could be made drastically better?

I mean in particular what would you change about SPR to "make it great"? The director? the cinematography? The editing? The sound? The special effects? Well it won the oscar for all those things. So i guess you have to change the lead actor, maybe have someone else write it, maybe hire a better set designer, or better make-up artists, and maybe they coulda gave it a better score. I mean they were only nominated for those oscars, along with best picture.

Sorry UthersGhost I didn't mean to come of as a d-bag, ur post just struck a nerve and i felt like I had to defend Private Ryan.

Lol... no worries, I knew I would get a reaction from someone.

Thing is, I do think SPR could have been a whole lot better.
Sure, there were good bits, but even they were tainted by the overall feel of the film, which just felt too contrived for me.
Some scenes were just laughable, like the 'if I move my hand away from the trigger that German soldier won't shoot me' scene. I mean, really? In the heart
of battle no Wermacht soldier would leave that room, confront the enemy and then pauses to see if the enemy decides not to shoot.

And that same guy, the scared one (can't remember his name), there is one scene where he is seen literally hugging his sergeant just before the fighting starts.

And don't get me started on the German P.O.W. scene!!

The lead actors always seemd well groomed, the sets looked like... well sets.
The music was mediocre at best and as good as some of the SFX were, there was at least 2 times when all you could see were mannequins.

And please, don't judge the merit of a movie by its Oscar count. If I'd known it was gonna do that well at the Oscars I might not have felt so let down when I saw it.

A generous 5/10, mostly for the opening assault scene.

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Much the same can be said for Schindlers List.
The whole thing just felt like an appeal to emotion, in a really contrived manner.
Speilberg shied away from the horrors of that time and went for the self-indulgent 'arthouse' approach instead.
Like the scene with the little girl in the red coat, that should have been a heartbreaking and disturbing scene considering what was going on around her as she made her way through hell.
But instead, all I could hear in the theatre was people whispering things like, 'look! He made her coat red' or 'how did he do that?', and you could tell that the whole theatre had stopped seeing the movie and were just seeing a special effect.

There wasn't a Nazi in sight throughout the whole film. But there were caricatures of Nazi's everywhere. At no time did I feel any menace from these people, they never felt dangerous to me, only buffoonish.
Amon Goeth should have been more like Hannibal Lector, but instead we got
Colonel Dietrich.

And as usual, everything looked too clean, too ordered. The prisoners in concentration camps lived in absolute squallor, as they did in the ghetto's before deportation. But again, no sense of this was felt throughout the film. There was just a distinct lack of reality in every scene.

5/10 ( Would have been 4/10 without Liam Neeson's performance).

So, now you know

Edit:

Well I agree somewhat but - Schindler's was such an important movie in that it really opened up America's eyes to the atrocities of the holocaust even though it was just the tip of the iceberg. I think it was really important because not everyone is going to go out and see the Pianist - which was much more realistic and better done imo - but EVERYONE saw schindler's list - it was a like a Disney media spectacular event. I say that because I was in high school at the time it came out and everyone was asking me about its truth (im Jewish ) - I doubt it if that were to happen with the pianist even though it was 80x the movie of SL.