As far as I recall I'd never seen it. And to be honest I'm not sure why I watched it now. Morbid curiosity maybe. It just happened to be on HBO late and night, and it's been panned so badly I thought it was going to be the worst movie of all time. And I gotta admit that after watching it I'm kind of wondering what all the bad buzz was about. I've seen way, way, way worse movies. I can't remember much from 1995, but I'm wondering if it was one of those dogpile instances, where dumping on it was just the hip thing to do. I'm not saying it's a great flick or anything like that, but it was entertaining enough to keep me watching the whole time. I was expecting much worse than I got. Something historically bad rather than marginal. [Reply]
What a colossal clusterfuck. The industry folklore about this movie is legendary. Pretty sure at one point during pre-production, Spielberg begged the filmmakers to reconsider things. They passed on ol' Steve's advice and plowed ahead...
If memory serves, their biggest set, the floating town, was built offshore of one of the Hawaiian islands. Big storm come. Big storm make set float away. Ooops! Guess we have to rebuild this huge set again from scratch! Can we shoot anything in the meantime?
The logistics were insane. Getting the actors ready on the mainland, putting everyone on boats to the sets with the crew and gear. Getting everything set up....
The delays were inevitable and preposterous. It was a budget catastrophe, but they just kept going. The media marketed it as the first $200 million movie ever. Titanic had the same budget, but not nearly the anxious press following it around, and it was released a year later and was universally lauded. But I'd rather sit through Waterworld than watch Titanic ever again, and I don't think I'm alone.
It was the actual production of the movie that set the tone of it's "failure" at the box office. Viewed as a bloated out of control mess by the media and industry insiders, going wayyyy over schedule and over budget, it was a lightning rod of scrutiny and low hanging fruit.
True story, Costner was hot shit at that time, and as everyone knows, we love to see our heroes rise, but we love it even more watching them fall. Wyatt Earp was his first foray into box office failure in years, another big budget movie. Earp also suffered from bad timing as Tombstone was the go to Earp movie at that time. Nobody wanted another Earp movie after seeing Val Kilmer kill it all in Tombstone. Damn shame too, because Dennis Quaid was awesome as Doc Holliday in WE. Waterworld quickly became a punchline. "Here we go, let's really get 'em this time!"
The story is ridiculous. Plot holes abundant. I just love that everyone in this weird world of water, everyone speaks English! But I guess that. makes sense, because everyone in the movie is white, and clearly the only survivors of this water apocalypse are from whatever remained of the United States! Cool! Except for Frenchy the balloon man! The Exxon Valdez was a beautiful 90's touch. Chef's kiss.
The movie is not nearly as bad as the press it received at the time... Hell, Independence Day came out around the same time, and it's equally ludicrous, but not universally reviled the way WW is. And while certainly not a great movie, or even necessarily a good movie, it's fun, it's silly, and it's respectable. I can't even imagine working on a movie with this kind of scope, vision and logistical challenges.
Also, The Postman doesn't suck either. The book is fucking great, and the movie is not great, but it's very watchable. [Reply]
What a colossal clusterfuck. The industry folklore about this movie is legendary. Pretty sure at one point during pre-production, Spielberg begged the filmmakers to reconsider things. They passed on ol' Steve's advice and plowed ahead...
If memory serves, their biggest set, the floating town, was built offshore of one of the Hawaiian islands. Big storm come. Big storm make set float away. Ooops! Guess we have to rebuild this huge set again from scratch! Can we shoot anything in the meantime?
The logistics were insane. Getting the actors ready on the mainland, putting everyone on boats to the sets with the crew and gear. Getting everything set up....
The delays were inevitable and preposterous. It was a budget catastrophe, but they just kept going. The media marketed it as the first $200 million movie ever. Titanic had the same budget, but not nearly the anxious press following it around, and it was released a year later and was universally lauded. But I'd rather sit through Waterworld than watch Titanic ever again, and I don't think I'm alone.
It was the actual production of the movie that set the tone of it's "failure" at the box office. Viewed as a bloated out of control mess by the media and industry insiders, going wayyyy over schedule and over budget, it was a lightning rod of scrutiny and low hanging fruit.
True story, Costner was hot shit at that time, and as everyone knows, we love to see our heroes rise, but we love it even more watching them fall. Wyatt Earp was his first foray into box office failure in years, another big budget movie. Earp also suffered from bad timing as Tombstone was the go to Earp movie at that time. Nobody wanted another Earp movie after seeing Val Kilmer kill it all in Tombstone. Damn shame too, because Dennis Quaid was awesome as Doc Holliday in WE. Waterworld quickly became a punchline. "Here we go, let's really get 'em this time!"
The story is ridiculous. Plot holes abundant. I just love that everyone in this weird world of water, everyone speaks English! But I guess that. makes sense, because everyone in the movie is white, and clearly the only survivors of this water apocalypse are from whatever remained of the United States! Cool! Except for Frenchy the balloon man! The Exxon Valdez was a beautiful 90's touch. Chef's kiss.
The movie is not nearly as bad as the press it received at the time... Hell, Independence Day came out around the same time, and it's equally ludicrous, but not universally reviled the way WW is. And while certainly not a great movie, or even necessarily a good movie, it's fun, it's silly, and it's respectable. I can't even imagine working on a movie with this kind of scope, vision and logistical challenges.
Also, The Postman doesn't suck either. The book is fucking great, and the movie is not great, but it's very watchable.
I liked Wyatt Earp a lot, as much if not a bit more than Tombstone. Tombstone is a straight up good v. evil action movie with strong villains, while Wyatt Earp is more of an epic character study, where the villains were purely secondary characters. Quaid delivered perhaps the best performance of his career as the doomed Doc Holladay, easily delivering the most historically accurate portrayal of the real man. He starved himself to the point where actually looked like him, as opposed to Kilmer, who, despite some facial makeup and lines in the script describing him as a "skinny lunger," looked neither skinny or unhealthy. But Kilmer's mostly fictional Doc was witty and cool and upbeat, while Quaid's realistic Doc was nasty and angry, as a slowly dying man would be.
None of the Earps were particularly noble, and Wyatt wasn't particularly pleasant. Also, Doc and Wyatt weren't nearly as close as Tombstone would lead one to believe. They actually had a big falling not long after the events depicted in the films, parted ways and never saw each other again. The scene in Tombstone where Wyatt visits Doc at the sanatorium is pure Hollywood horseshit.
Wyatt Earp lived long enough, and spent enough time in Hollywood during the movie industry's infancy, to help create the fictionalized heroic legend that has been accepted as fact for a century.
Another interesting fact about Earp - he befriended a young actor named Marion Morrison, who adopted Earp's mannerisms and speech patterns throughout his long career. Morrison was better known by his professional name, John Wayne. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
I liked Wyatt Earp a lot, as much if not a bit more than Tombstone. Tombstone is a straight up good v. evil action movie with strong villains, while Wyatt Earp is more of an epic character study, where the villains were purely secondary characters. Quaid delivered perhaps the best performance of his career as the doomed Doc Holladay, easily delivering the most historically accurate portrayal of the real man. He starved himself to the point where actually looked like him, as opposed to Kilmer, who, despite some facial makeup and lines in the script describing him as a "skinny lunger," looked neither skinny or unhealthy. But Kilmer's mostly fictional Doc was witty and cool and upbeat, while Quaid's realistic Doc was nasty and angry, as a slowly dying man would be.
None of the Earps were particularly noble, and Wyatt wasn't particularly pleasant. Also, Doc and Wyatt weren't nearly as close as Tombstone would lead one to believe. They actually had a big falling not long after the events depicted in the films, parted ways and never saw each other again. The scene in Tombstone where Wyatt visits Doc at the sanatorium is pure Hollywood horseshit.
Wyatt Earp lived long enough, and spent enough time in Hollywood during the movie industry's infancy, to help create the fictionalized heroic legend that has been accepted as fact for a century.
Another interesting fact about Earp - he befriended a young actor named Marion Morrison, who adopted Earp's mannerisms and speech patterns throughout his long career. Morrison was better known by his professional name, John Wayne.
That is an urban legend. There is always a possibility that they crossed paths at some point on a set but, there is no evidence that they actually knew one another, let alone were ever friends. Earp did know John Ford and most of whatever Duke knew of Earp likely came second hand from Ford. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Raiderhader:
That is an urban legend. There is always a possibility that they crossed paths at some point on a set but, there is no evidence that they actually knew one another, let alone were ever friends. Earp did know John Ford and most of whatever Duke knew of Earp likely came second hand from Ford.
I've seen that in more than one place.
But you're far more of a JW fan than I am, so I'll take your word for it.
Sure would be cool if it was true, though. [Reply]
