Two Movies

Television, Movies Games and Books Other Science Fiction
#1

I never saw these come up in any threads about scifi movies that people like and such so I am curious if anyone has seen them or if yall just don’t like them.

1st: The Thirteenth Floor

2nd: Dark City

Personally I feel if I give a run down on what 13th floor is about then it will ruin the story. But Dark City is a film-noir scifi that is very well made imo but has a eh section right before the end. If anyone else has seen these I would love to hear some opinions about them because they are two of my personal favorites for scifi.

#2

so umm has no one seen these movies or yall just don’t like them lol. Kinda figured someone has.

#3

Ok… i’ll bite. Quick run down of what i know.

  1. Thirteenth floor- hmm… saw scattered bits of it, as I was working on something and was only watching it in my peripheral vision. It had an good story, plot seems a little contrived, a little, but I think that was only me thinking comparatively. Since I saw this movie after seeing the Matrix films, the concept didn’t have the draw. The production values solid but not spectacular(if it was you would have hear about it probably). To give a worth scale value, in my quick review of this film. Worth a watch, but I really couldn’t see buying it(I have over 600 DVD’s thats saying something). Again not to take away from it to much, as it was a decent flick, but Netflix-ing this one might be the better choice.

  2. Ok, now this one is much more positive. This film pre-dated The Matrix, albeit only by a year. They even used some sets from this one in The Matrix, aka the building of Trinity’s rooftop running fame. But, if you like the Matrix and think it would be cool to see a little Blade Runner thrown in, then this ones for you. Actually as far as themes and story, I believe this movie surpasses The Matrix.

The camera work is beautiful in this one, well, from a fellow cinematographer’s point of view at least. It is sweeping in parts to create vastness, where in others it is narrow and disorienting to create a sense of eeriness. The shots are composed like a painting, it reminds me slightly of Starry Night.

Though, this film is not all simply style (Michael Bay heres lookin’ at you), it has a great amount of depth to it. I can not even count all of the allusions, and metaphoric double meanings.

Kiefer Sutherlands’ character is such a different one from his others. I think most will agree when I say this was a very good performance by him as an actor. Though the main award for this movie goes to the leading man, Rufus Sewell, a relatively unknown actor then and by most accounts even now. He was excellent in his role as the confused but, later enlightened man John Murdoch. You can truely feel for his character as he goes through the hell inadvertently placed on him.

Finally, the story, and the plot are the great workings like of any science fiction epic. The story of a Man trying to define his own Identity. Even, against a prying alien race that has there own definition of who he, and everyone else is supposed to be. The movie never takes the time to fully broaden out the canon. Such as how the humans got there, aside from the opening credit sequence that explains that we were only a small group taken from Earth. However, Origin is not what matters in this movie. It is the destination, and the question of, does our will truly have any effect on that destination. Thus proving for this movie at least, beauty is more than celluloid deep.

Well, I hope that explained it for ya. It took 20 minutes to type, so I hope it did :slight_smile: . Any other questions just ask.

#4

Very artful and thoughtful film.
I put it in the same category as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen and City of Lost Children.

BTW, for some reason, Sutherland’s character in Dark City always reminded me of the “you are …nefarious” hat & glasses, torture coat hanger, staff of ra branded nazi in Raiders.

#5

Dark CIty, as mentioned, is very good.

13th Floor was just unlucky. It was released opposite the Matrix. In fact, one of the actors was told to promote it as being “like the Matrix, but with out all the special effects.” facepalm

That actually IS a fair description of it, but it didn’t get butts into seats. Still, if you liked the Matrix, you’ll probably like 13th Floor as well.

#6

Didn’t really care for 13th Floor, but Dark City is one of my all-time favorites. Saw it 4 times in the theater. I even modified Windows 98 so that instead of saying “It is now OK to turn off your computer” when you shut it down, it would instead say “Sleep now.”

#7

I haven’t seen either one!

#8

Visually speaking, Dark City was the film that proved to me that special effects had advanced enough to finally be able to pull off an X-Men film.
(Dark City: 1998, X-Men: 2000)

#9

Couldn’t have said it better myself. A friend of mine describes 13th floor as The Thinking Man’s Matrix… I dug both, but if it were up to a vote for a re-watch and discussion… well… Dark City has my vote.

#10

I have both on DVD and I have watched both a good number of times I believe both movies are extremely well made especially 13th Floor.

#11

I liked Thirteenth Floor and agree with the others who say that it got screwed by being released opposite The Matrix.

Another very similar film released around the same time was eXistenZ (though I prefer 13th probably because I saw it first).