MovieChat Forums > Daf
Daf (156)
Posts
Jon Finch was cast as Kane
A look at what it might've been like if James Horner had scored The Voyage Home
I wonder what it was like being one of those people trying to bust out of Freddy's chest
Was Freddy Krueger always meant to be a killer from the start (pre-lynching?)
The "sexy gremlin" looks a LOT like Beverly D'Angelo IMO
This might be the most pro-trans movie ever made!
I applaud this site for rendering the title of this movie correctly
So where was this body-possessing demon the first time Jason died?
Cockroach kill is the best in the whole series
The most unrealistic thing about this movie
View all posts >
Replies
That's true, I just don't think it's a flattering angle.
<blockquote>but it’s a B-horror so that’s fine with me.</blockquote>
This is also something to keep in mind with the film: it's literally an indie movie and was budgeted accordingly. Most people had never heard of "New Line Cinema" before this, and it had mostly specialized in rereleasing older films from other studios to specialized markets like college campuses and military bases and the like.
If it feels sort of cheap, it's not due to age, it was always that way, and people understood that going in.
I might call it dated, but the effective parts work about as well as they always have. It's still a spooky flick.
The acting was always kinda janky, it's not really something that's gotten worse with age or anything. It was an oddly consistent thing for the first dozen or so years of Wes Craven's career: seems for him as long as you strongly conveyed your character's personality he didn't mind if your line readings were kinda stiff. By the late 80s he finally seemed to be able to get his actors to loosen up a bit.
(Heather Langenkamp in particular is actually great at portraying Nancy's determination and spunk even though she always sounds like she's reading off cue cards, lol).
Also it also helps to keep in mind that this is a borderline kids movie. Yeah, technically they targeted "teens" but they were definitely making this for the 12-16 year old range. That ain't a bad thing (it's like the most badass R-rated kids flick ever) but it was always kinda juvenile compared to, say, The Exorcist or even Alien, and that was by design.
Funnily enough there's a small possibility that Finch's voice is actually still in the movie. One very brief line while Kane is not on view: listen for the "Keep trying." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFMbnJnocSk&t=128s
Sounds quite a bit more like Jon Finch than John Hurt does in the rest of the scene.
Some Jon Finch speaking parts for reference: (https://youtu.be/4JIMbdJObGM?si=KVX8OpUrYGTkr2kZ&t=20s)
(https://youtu.be/Hj6gQhpMW30?si=oRA2Nhi7LXHJb6_r)
The model(s) used for the Nostromo during the landing sequence unfortunately don't successfully convey the sense of scale they were going for. It's easy to believe only a piece of the ship separated in order to land, but no, it is indeed the entire Nostromo going down, it simply dettached itself from the refinery.
Getting deeply stabbed multiple times in the gut can severely mess you up, causing all kinds of nasty body fluids going where they shouldn't. Yikes.
There were also the stabs to her back which could possibly reach her lungs or her heart, and the final knife attack has him extending a lot of effort to not only stab, but carve a path through her torso. That attack was actually one of the more viscious ones in the series.
They're all humans (even Spock if you want to get technical about it) and all but Spock are Terrans ("earthlings").
So seeing as they begin the movie starting their trip back to Earth, and most of the movie takes place in 1986 past Earth, the audience presumption is that "The Voyage" refers to a time travel adventure to save and return "Home," or 23rd century Earth.
There's a twist at the end, though, remember.
Kirk: "My friends, we've come home."
It turns out the home they were voyagin to was the reborn Enterprise, even if they didn't know it until just then.
To each their own and all, but Star Trek IV received a significant increase in budget over its two immediate predecessors and its production values are quite lavish.
It featured groundbreaking matte and modelwork (the bird of prey flying through the skies in all kinds of different weather and sunlight), animatronics (real enough to fool animal welfare groups!) that set the stage for pretty much every non-CGI exotic animal movie that came afterward, one of the earliest instances of morphing effects, TONS of location shooting both outdoor and indoor, much more detailed new sets (compare the bird of prey bridge here to how it looked in part III, and to tjat same movie's Excelsior interior) and more nuanced cinematograpy (I think it's Star Trek's only cinematography Oscar nod).
Whether it looks good or notis in the eye of the beholder- I suppose I can understand if someone thought the alien probe and the warp speed effect on the bird of prey looked goofy, but that's more the design than the effects themselves. Comparing Star Trek IV to its contemporaries (say, Aliens from the same year) I'd say its effectivesness comes off very favorably.
Star Trek has always aspired to be "woke." If you're concerned about that I humbly suggest you avoid all things Star Trek, it is not for you.
Yeah the score rocks. And it's also fascinating as a kind of state-of-the-art for orchestral horror in the mid 80s. You can hear some influence of Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, and you can almost hear it take some steps into territory that Marco Beltrami would cover with Scream in the coming decade.
View all replies >