| Archive for Whatever Comics Forum for Whatevercomics.co.uk Discuss comics. Air your points of view. Fun for all the family! |
| Reaper |
30 days of NightAs was revealed in one of CapOs news items, they are making a film of the above graphic novel and here ladies and gents, there is a small trailer here |
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| Guest |
and about time too.
josh hartnett seems a bit... young, to play eben really. and did no-one stop and think templesmith's vampires would look a bit silly if directly translated? yay, nevertheless. |
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| Reaper |
30 Days of Night took the US Box Office No.1 slot with $16 million last weekend.
It does seem that the time of the indie graphic novel film is here. Looking forward to this one. |
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| Guest |
apparently all the diehard fans hated it, but i'm still excited nevertheless. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Rascal King |
Yeah, been looking forward to this for a while now. I'm not a diehard fan, so it should be allright, I'm thinking. Especially after the trailers and scenes that I've seen. |
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| kingmouse |
Oh my god. Why the hell couldn't it have been 5 days of night...or a dark evening...or anything that could have shaved a few hours off this god awful movie. I've never read the comic, I don't believe that a movie has to be 100% faithful to source material to succeed and I was still bored to tears. A few questions raised:
1) What was the point in it being 30 days of night? There's no sense of time progression, no feeling of being under siege or short on supplies. The whole movie could have taken place over a single night with no change to the pacing or structure. 2) Why bother setting it in Alaska? Other than Josh Hartnet's repeated mentioning of how cold it was, the environment played no part at all in the film. Given that the timescale didn't mean anything either, the movie could have been set in any remote town in the world and been esentially the same. 3) How in an American town in polar bear country were there almost no guns to be had? 4) Why did the vampires look like Polish accountants? Also, if they're concerned enough about their appearence to wear a suit and tie in the arctic, why did none of them take the time to wash their faces at some point during the month? 5) What's with the random screeching? We know the Vampires can talk to each other (albeit in some slow motion Mr Toad croaky thing that just serves to stretch out their dull dialogue even longer) so why the heck did the movie cut to them squawking like something out of Jurrasic Park everytime it ran out of things to do with the main characters? 6) What the hell is a Utiladoor and why was it so important to get there other so that we could see someone fall into a shredder? 7) Since when does being undead and super-strong give your gucci shoes the ability to grip onto icy rooftops?  If I've paid 7 quid to watch what is basically a horror/action movie about vampires in the arctic, why didn't they fight a polar bear? If I'm shelling out cash to see mindless crap, I want to see some worthwhile action involving native carnivors.
9) Given that 30 days of night would have been preceeded by around 30 days of sunlight and the town in question is surrounded by nothing but miles of empty ice...where the heck did the vampires come from!? Did they tunnel in!? 10) Josh Hartnett's character spends all winter playing Risk but at no point had the tactical genius to sharpen his axe? Ok, so taking three swings to behead everyone you fight is gory and lets you throw lots of fake blood around, we get that. Do we have to sit through it six or seven times? There are better things to plot could be doing during those swings...like exisitng. 11) What movie producer reads a script that includes the line "No, tell him to run, it's my turn now" or "I'm done playing with this one now, wanna play?" (by an evil Vampire toddler) and thinks "Man, this is the script for me!" Superfriends has less hammy dialogue than this and to be honest Apache Chief is a more convincing character than these bozos. I always feel that the measure of how bad a horror film is, is in how quickly you start rooting for the bad guys. However in this case the heroes were so wet and boring and the villains so implausable and irritating that I found myself praying for a bunch of Eskimos to come and harpoon the lot of them. This movie wants deseperatly to be a vampire movie, comic movie, horror movie, action movie, slasher movie, romance movie and by some mirical manages to entirly miss on every single count. There is literally nothing here for fans of any of these genres that they couldn't find done better elsewhere. Hell, even Eragorn had a dragon. Turky of the year by a long way. |
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| CatFang |
Oh - that's such a shame. I had seen the posters for this and everyone had been raving about the comic a while back so I read it the night before last in prep to go and see it.
I thought that the art was great. Very stylized though, so it's probably going to be something you love or hate - but I had really liked what Ben Templesmith did in Fell and its very similar. However - the story was pretty empty and many of the points you make below apply equally to the comic - so it is probably a question of the source material. There was one really nice touch to the story which (without spoilers for the film or the comic) kind of "bookends" the story (and is really the only thing that gives the events any point) - but this revolves around the cop couple and I understand from some of the comments on the IMDB that they have changed it so they are estranged in the film.
Exactly the same as the comic re the sense of time (or lack of it!). I was thinking that very thing as I was reading it. The thirty days thing has to be extreme north or south because the sun doesn't rise for that long. When I first heard the idea I thought "of course...why has no one thought of doing that with vampires before?" but it doesn't quite live up to its promise. I've been up in the far north of Finland and watched the sun set for the last time for over a month. It really is a very strange experience and the constant bluish half-light and absolute silence of the snow has an eerie atmosphere like nothing else I've experienced. In Alan Moore's run on saga of the swamp thing there are vampires in an underwater town for the same reason and I think that comes off better, although I love the idea of the vampires "following the dark" like this.
I expect they had been taken to the same place as the mobile phones in the Blair Witch Project 
!!!! There is no cinema round us for less than a tenner!!!
In the comic they email each other to arrange it....as you would I guess
Right off the page of the comic that one, unfortunately. I thought exactly the same when I read it. I think there's quite a few comic sequels though, so it could be setting up for a franchise... |
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| Batmanuel |
Rather scathing report there Km, i take it you didn't like it then, i will wait until i have seen it to pass comment, but from the trailer i thought it looked like a good romp, still.
Errmm... Me. (that is if i were a movie producer, which I'm not) But then i liked the Resident Evil Movies so what do i know
oh and Tomb Raider 
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| kingmouse |
Res Evil and Tomb Raider were good in their own right because they didn't take themselves seriously. Res Evil knew it was a movie about a hot lady kicking the crap out of zombies and exploding things. 30 Days of Night thinks it's a serious horror movie and falls short of the mark. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Xeall |
right someone just defended the resi evil films.............i hate you all in the face!
I expected as much from the film when i saw the trailer so i'm not suprised. Bats you and me are going to have words, if you say you even looked twice at the sequal.........sigh.........i bought the dvd and then turned it off after 10 minutes. watched it through a couple of days later and wished i hadn't |
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| Batmanuel |
Xeall:
but it was you who brought it, i just watched it on the telly, tell you what i will give you a quid for it, now that is a generous offer, see all heart me, all heart 
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| Xeall |
to late i burnt it along with anything that said stark on it! | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reaper |
I haven't read the graphic novel of this but i didn't think it was anyway near as bad as KM seems to feel though I missed the bit with the toddler as we were having issues with three little *&*$'s sitting two rows behind us.
The acting was a bit sketchy at the beginning but seemed to even out as the film went on, while I didn't understand why they felt the need to screech all the time I did understand the use of a cold area. Generally in film and novel a cold area suggests remoteness and that was a key part of the story, they were far away from everything 'civilised' and this meant they were in more danger. I enjoyed the bits of action though some bits were a bit dumb (kinda expected that though) and I don't see why exactly the end fight ended the way it did..... didn't really make sense. |
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| The Rascal King |
Well, theres your first problem. From what you're written, I get that they didn't follow the book word for word, which is acceptable, but alot of your questions would be sorted by reading the book.
The 30 Days thing was becuase if it was just a single night, then its entirely possible for you to hide out for the 12 or so hour duration of darkness. The idea of it taking so long, was that the Vampires don't need to hurry, they've got the entire town to themselves for the entire month. Thats a long time for them.
First of all, Alaska is one of the one inhabited places to experience such lengthy periods of darkness. A remote town in the American desert isn't going to have 30 days of night. Secondly, it was mentioned in the book, that while the Vampires usually have higher levels of super human senses, the cold dulls them to the point where they're on par with ours, explaining why they couldn't just find where the survivors were hiding out, and slaughter them there.
Explained in the book. With such long periods of darkness, civil unrest is going to be a problem, so guns and alcohol aren't allowed. I belive the sherrif had a gun in the book, but it made almost no difference to the Vampires, as they could take a dozen shots and still not go down.
Now you're just nit-picking. Would you have been happyer if they were clad in loin-cloths?
Half the point is that they're not your "usual" poetry reading classy Vampires. They're nigh on animals, so yeah, they screach and roar. Plus, you saw their mouths right? Its not going to be easy to form proper scentences with those chompers.
I don't know, haven't seen it yet.
Again, thats somewhat of a nit-pick.
And again.
Not nessercerally true.
At the end of the day, you seem to have decided that you didn't like the movie early on, and thus spent the remainder of thefilm looking for things to complain about. |
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| Xeall |
huzzah for opinion! | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Guest |
psshht, well i'm going to watch it tonight.
i'm a big fan of the series. i hate adaptations, no exceptions. but i'm still pretty excited - maybe i'm getting less jaded as i get older, but 300 only took a couple of watches before i grudgingly admitted that it was a pretty good film (still fuming about the removal of the 'stumblios' bit though). gah, it'll be fun. really. |
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| Web of Fear |
Presumably there would be 30 days of, er, day and the days would just get longer until there was no nightime about 6 months later. |
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| The Rascal King |
Y'know, I've seen a webcomic make a joke about 30 Days of Day, but I can't for the life of me remember where. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Web of Fear |
Is it about a vampire town where a group of humans go and maraud for a month? | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Rascal King |
No, it was just one panel, with this bunch of vampires hiding in the shade of a tree, and someone changing a sing that said "No Vampire Attacks For *29/30* Days" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reaper |
he he he he he he he | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kikari |
Hmmmm I dont know if I wanna see this one it looks pretty good but then im not really into horror movies 
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| Rappletek |
right .... 1) 30 days of night is the point... otherwise you'd have watched buffy film... and probably loved it >_> 2)Alaska because no where else in the world has towns with migrating populations during the period of winter in which there is a month (notich month ie 30 days) of night 3)this one i actually agree with... 4) the vampires looked like that to mirror Templesmiths artistic take on the 'Vampire' 5) this version (as any representation of a vampire is fictional) shows them as animalistic... and thus the screaming 6) DEFENDABLE METAL BUILDING WITH A GENERATOR.. nough said 7) nah this ones a good point again.. 8 ) mindless? hardly it was a horror film... one of the girls i went with sat there crying for the first 40 mins in horror... (nothign like slaughtering dogs to do that )
9) this statement is just wrong... 30 days of night occour when the sun doesnt rise due to the axis of rotation keeping the sun on the opposite side of the earth.. the days prior to it would have little sun at all. however yes 30 days of sun does occour.. at the other end of the year. 10) the plot i agree could have taken a bit more from the Gnovel than it did but it wasnt nonexistant.. as for the shapening the axe situation.. yea theres a bunch of vampirs in the town now i'll sharpen my axe.. that wont be loud and attract them at all
11) unfortunaitly any good dialoge was lost in comic to movie translation.. and some story driving characters were lost, but what was left was still enough to create the atmosphere of desperation and loss.. also they are inuits not eskimos (Y) now my oppinion goes as follows.. i'm a hardcore fan of the graphic novels and i mean to the point that i went to talk to templesmith about his artwork in them.. as for the film having lost its drive yes it did a bit.. shame but that doesnt make it a bad movie.. i went expecting a movie more based on the artwork of the vampires, with a lot of horrorgore and little (but still enough to be recogniseable) reflection on the comics story... and i was pleasently in awe of the violence and visual style.. AWESOME COMICS... great film... much better than most comic to film creations |
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| Batmanuel |
F**king Clap Clap Clap Rappletek, very nicely put that showed him Excellent.
But i still reserve the right untill ive seen the film in full, but it has to be said this is one film i have been looking forward too, as is Wanted. |
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| Guest |
on the 30 days of sun point, see 'insomnia' (either version) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| kingmouse |
In all honesty, 2 hours Joss Weaden's drool soaked whiney teen slayer action is about the only way I could envision having a worse time at the cinema. My point is that within the confines of the movie there was nothing that made the progression of time important; the entire plot could have taken place in a single night without any changes. If you're going to make a movie set over the course of a month then there should be some kind of sense that time is progressing other than Josh Hartnett's beard. The 30 days of night aspect was nothing more than a concept used to pitch the film and added nothing to the actual storytelling.
But the migration wasn't really covered either. All that was important was that it was a town in the middle of nowhere that had no access to the outside world for a prolonged period. That could have been set in the desert, in Russia, in space, same movie. If you're going to set a movie in a specific environment and have the characters constantly talk about that environment then the climate should act as a character in it's own right. Look at The Thing or Fargo for examples of how a snowey wasteland can really add to a movie, the climate in this film had no personality or sense of dread, it was simply a place to dump the story. Given that the movie fails to make any use of the fact that it's dark for a month, 30 Days of Night may as well have been set anywhere in the world.
I'm not arguing the faithfullness of the costume, simply why on earth they all looked like accountants when they apparently lived in the arctic wilderness.
Animals have a point to the noises they make, they use them for communication or warnings. The vampires in this movie stood around screeching all the time just for the hell of it. The result was that what could have been an effective, chilling effect just gets boring and repetative.
Which I coulda bought into if they'd succeeded in defending it for more than 2 mins. My gripe with it is more to do with the dull predictability of the fact that we had to have that scene at the very begining showing the shredder in action and talking about how powerful it is. After that we might as well doze off until we hear it again because we already know that the characters are going to make it back there so somebody can fall in. It's a criminal level of predictability that kills the slim level of tension that the film had.
The Thing has a load of sled dogs getting killed. It also has tension and plot progression. A high canine body count doesn't make a scary movie.
Ok that's fair.
Well he didn't seem to be too bothered about all the noise he made chopping shit up with it. My point on the axe is that though it's effective to see him having to swing several times the first time we see it, afterwards there's no reason to keep showing it. We've already seen someone beheaded, doing it again and again doesn't make the event any more horrific than it is, it just takes up screen time needlessly. Ok, I get it, chopping someone up is hard work, let's move on and cover something new. In fairness I'm not a huge fan of most vampire movies. I think the majority of creators ride off the fact that vampies have a solid fanbase that will lap up any crap with fangs on it to create implausable, cardboard characters. However there are examples of good vampire action movies (Blade), just as there are examples of good remote location horror movies (Alien). This is neither of these. |
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| Rappletek |
grrrr i wrote a reply to this... but the damn forum logged me out and lost it... when i get home if i have the time i'll type it again... >_> grrrrrrr | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Xeall |
I actually agree with kingmouse (lord save me), alot of character was left out form the enviroment and still the best horror film for shock and issolation is the thing. Amazing film. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Guest |
[quote="kingmouse"]
they don't live there, they fly in for the 30 days of buffet. |
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| The Rascal King |
I KNEW I had seen this somewhere.
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| Guest |
i saw the film the other day... and really enjoyed it. yes, the ending was a bit rushed through (i'm sure there was a bunch of exciting dialogue during the final fight in the GN...), but other than that... it was fun. I expected it to be gorier, and am a little confused by everyone's complaints of it being over gory... and he cuts like two heads off with an axe (although yes, his brother does one too).
but really... pretty good, i thought. (i am kinda worried now though - i'm not affected by gore as much as i used to be - i laughed through the that yellow bastard bit in sin city whilst everyone else was disgusted at the violence...) |
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| Reaper |
Don't worry thats perfectly healthy and normal......... for a mass murderer
Welcome to the Club, heres your membership card
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| The Rascal King |
We have meetings every first wednesday of the month. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Xeall |
wednesdays? i've been turning up mondays! You telling me i've been baking cookies and no one is dying!!!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Rascal King |
Mondays is Bestiality Annonomus. You don't want to accidentally walk into one of those meetings. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reaper |
Xeall doesn't 'accidentally' do anything of the sort 
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