Skyline sucked *spoiler warning*

[Jagos]

So I went to see this movie on a whim. Seemed interesting enough when I looked at it on Fandango. All in all, it just wasn't what I intended it to be. It's a movie that can't decide if it's a thriller, an action movie or something in between.

Let's start from the beginning. We have our main two characters come into the picture in a party in LA. I went to get popcorn so I dunno where they were from. I'm assuming NY because that comes into play later on. The guy (Jarrod) is an artist and he did some artwork for his friend, Terry.

Party scene is basic LA affair. Everyone gets wasted, Terry cheats on his girlfriend for the photographer, yadda yadda.

Then, the blue lights come up. While the shutters block the lighting, people mysteriously disappear from looking into the light. That's just the first day.

From there it just seems to get worse.

There really isn't anything here that got made the movie interesting. You see the aliens and basically they were godmode +5. There IS no punching out Cthulhu here. No, those bastards are mean, they are systematic and they want to kill us.

Without giving too much away, I can't say I enjoyed this movie. The artwork is fine but the downer ending to end all downer endings, plus the way the aliens are portrayed truly left me wondering why this movie was made in the first place.

[Funka Genocide]

If they said Steven Hawking one more time in the trailer, I was going to put the guy sitting next to me in a wheel chair.

[Jagos]

They never said anything about the guy in the movie. NOTHING.

[Magus]

The problem with these budget movies is they cost the same to see as the big budget ones. The people who made this are being sued by the makers of "Battlefield: L.A." because their movie is going to be a big-ass budget action movie coming out next spring with basically the same plot (although frankly it seemed like Independence Day and other even earlier movies have basically the same plot, too, so to claim that this one is committing plagiarism seems hypocritical), so really it would make more sense for people to hold out for that one.

However, if they were to charge less to see Skyline than they do for other movies with bigger budgets it might make it seem more worth watching.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Surely that would just end indepedent cinema? They don't make a lot of profit it is and the market is generally quite fixed so charaging less would just eat their already small profits.
Also thatw ould somehow imply budget=quality. It costs me more to see budget films than big budget films but I do it because often they are better- there is certainly no correlation between film budget and film quality however.

[Krylo]

Also: Skyline was low budget?

How'd they afford all those shitty commercials?

[Magus]

It's low budget in comparison to a lot of movies. Like 30 million in comparison to 100 million (not sure if these are the numbers but sounds right).

Also Smarty when you are just making a movie about people blowing up CGI aliens, then yes, budget = quality, for the most part. District 9 may be the exception but then again it had a good plot to start with. This is simply "aliens invade and try to kill people". There is no other "hook" or interesting plot twist like there is with District 9. It really reminds me of Independence Day but with far less budget.

I haven't seen it but it just strikes me that since they didn't have a unique plot the fact that they also didn't have as big a budget for CGI as other movies it lowers the quality. Battlefield: L.A. supposedly has the same plot but four times the budget, so one could surmise that all other things being equal B:L.A. will be better.

Of course, it could be just as bad, just with more money wasted. Blowing everything on CGI and advertising tends to make movies that way. But I don't think anybody is going to go see this looking for anything BUT a schlocky action CGI explosion-fest. So all things being equal, it might make more sense to pay ten dollars to see some OTHER schlocky action CGI explosion-fest that cost more to make.

Personally it looked pretty cool to me, though. I just don't go see schlocky action CGI explosion-fests in general in the theater, I usually see them on DVD.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Well in that case you are probably right but the correct approach is not "charge less" but "make a different movie". 30 mill is a fair chunk of cash you could make all kinds of shit with that that would look plenty good.

[Jagos]

Also Smarty when you are just making a movie about people blowing up CGI aliens, then yes, budget = quality, for the most part. District 9 may be the exception but then again it had a good plot to start with. This is simply "aliens invade and try to kill people". There is no other "hook" or interesting plot twist like there is with District 9. It really reminds me of Independence Day but with far less budget.

I haven't seen it but it just strikes me that since they didn't have a unique plot the fact that they also didn't have as big a budget for CGI as other movies it lowers the quality. Battlefield: L.A. supposedly has the same plot but four times the budget, so one could surmise that all other things being equal B:L.A. will be better.



That's it. That's what truly irked me about this movie. All the budget went into the CGI, bar none. Forget the story. The characters were pretty throw away (which is exactly what happened). The most interesting thing that the directors wanted you to focus on was the aliens that invaded. Nice designs but damn... 1 1/2 to see them just seemed like too much after a while.