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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Eldan
And yeah, speaking of booze, catering. Even if you don't pay your guys, 100 bucks for pizza and coffee a day for a month comes in at 30'000.
Not to mention, it was filmed on location in Ottowa, Canada - most cities charge exorbitant fees in order to film on locations, more so in public places, and then you have to pay insurance for 20+ people to do so. I can only imagine how much of a mark-up that cost would get since it was from a large, world-renown city.
...Assuming they bothered with such petty things of course, and didn't just load everything into a minivan and head down the local park & rec area without telling anyone... which by the looks of things they might well have done....
Anyways, here's another film which has managed to worm it's way into my brain, for reasons that I'm not too sure about: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! How's THAT for a title?
It stars RoboCop as a rock star/racing driver/genius inventor/PhD physicist/premiere neurosurgeon/gentleman adventurer who invents a car that can drive so fast that it can travel through dimensions, and in doing so discovers a race of lizard-aliens who are plotting to body-snatch just enough of humanity in order to enact an invasion. Despite sounding - and being - utterly ridiculous, it has a surprisingly impressive cast, including the Kurgan, Dr. Malcolm, Doc Brown and creepy Gestapo guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark as President of the United States.
Just... wow. It's awful, but in that extremely silly way that makes it utterly engrossing.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Wraith
Not to mention, it was filmed on location in Ottowa, Canada - most cities charge exorbitant fees in order to film on locations, more so in public places, and then you have to pay insurance for 20+ people to do so. I can only imagine how much of a mark-up that cost would get since it was from a large, world-renown city.
Actually most cities tend to be more accomodating than exorbiant these days.
Consider that spectacular blockbusters (ie wellfunded movies) film "New York" in Canada (Toronto I think?) because they can do it more cheaply. It looks close enough but you don't have to deal with actual New York.
It's also quite common to get kickbacks on filming from cities, states/provinses/countries due to the economic side-effects of filming. E.g. financial support on the cost spent locally.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Adderbane
Any use of ": The Movie" is particularly bad in my opinion.
With the obvious exception of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. It's the perfect title for that film.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Yora
Shingeki no Kyojin literally translates to "Advance of the Giant(s)" or "Advancing Giant(s)". You can play around with the exact terms to get "Attacking Titans" or "Attack of the Titans", but there's no wriggle room with the gramar. It's just wrong.
Record of Lodoss War is at least containing the correct information, but nobody would phrase it like that in fluent English.
While not a terrible title in itself, I don't understand why they named the game "Dragon Age II"
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age: Awakening
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne
Dragon Age: The Calling
Dragon Age II
Dragon Age: Asunder
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Did they just forget the naming convention they had established?
Oh, this reminds me of a whole bunch of terrible titles:
Conan the Barbarian (2011)
The Thing (2011)
Thief (2014)
Doom (2016)
God of War (2018)
Don't do that. It's forbidden.
Reminds me of the Dark Forces series of Star Wars games which have the best naming convention ever.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight
Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy
So basically the last game is "Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy"
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Wraith
Anyways, here's another film which has managed to worm it's way into my brain, for reasons that I'm not too sure about
:
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! How's THAT for a title?
It stars
RoboCop as a rock star/racing driver/genius inventor/PhD physicist/premiere neurosurgeon/gentleman adventurer who invents a car that can drive so fast that it can travel through dimensions, and in doing so discovers a race of lizard-aliens who are plotting to body-snatch just enough of humanity in order to enact an invasion. Despite sounding - and being - utterly ridiculous, it has a surprisingly impressive cast, including
the Kurgan,
Dr. Malcolm,
Doc Brown and
creepy Gestapo guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark as President of the United States.
Just... wow. It's awful, but in that extremely silly way that makes it utterly engrossing.
Are you kidding? It's a movie where all said lizard-aliens are named John (regardless of gender), including John Bigboote (it's big boo-TAY!!).
...yeah, it's awful, but it knows it, and it's real fun :smallbiggrin:
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Originally Posted by
McNum
Reminds me of the Dark Forces series of Star Wars games which have the best naming convention ever.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight
Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy
So basically the last game is "Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy"
Well, each game is the sequel to the last, right? Makes sense, in an insane kind of way. At least it's consistent.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
snowblizz
Actually most cities tend to be more accomodating than exorbiant these days.
Consider that spectacular blockbusters (ie wellfunded movies) film "New York" in Canada (Toronto I think?) because they can do it more cheaply. It looks close enough but you don't have to deal with actual New York.
It's also quite common to get kickbacks on filming from cities, states/provinses/countries due to the economic side-effects of filming. E.g. financial support on the cost spent locally.
I remember, I think it was Spider Man 2 (the second Spiderman 2, not the Raimi one with Doc Ock) filmed in my city, despite us being nowhere near the size or scope of new york. I remember an Oscorp van being parked outside the building I worked in at the time. It was a huge pain for a lot of us and almost certainly wasn't worth it overall.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
McNum
So basically the last game is "Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy"
Any title with a colon in is a strong indicator of bankruptcy in the imagination department. Four colons in one title? - suggests "strictly for people who think the prequel was robbed at awards time".
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
veti
Any title with a colon in is a strong indicator of bankruptcy in the imagination department. Four colons in one title? - suggests "strictly for people who think the prequel was robbed at awards time".
And yet, ironically, it is by all appearances a pretty good game (haven't managed to play it yet myself- actually bought it at a thrift store not long ago... and discovered the installation disc was missing :smallannoyed:)
As for titles? Hmm I'd say some good ones were
Escape from New York is pretty good as titles go- it neatly encapsulates the driving thrust of the movie and is slightly intriguing- why, exactly, would you want to escape from New York? Well, aside from the obvious reason of not wanting to be in New York anymore, which would be a bit tougher to make an entertaining movie about and probably wouldn't star Kurt Russell.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison)- mouthlessness and wanting to scream are not necessarily the entire focus of the plot (although it's definitely a factor), but the title grabs your attention rather well, I'd say.
On the other end, a title that I am tremendously fond of, but really doesn't relate well to the plot, would be Under a Killing Moon (A Tex Murphy adventure game). On the one hand, a title like that pretty much oozes Noir, and the game is certainly that. On the other hand, it doesn't do much to indicate the presence of the flying cars, oppressed underclass of mutants, and ray-gun battles that Buck Rogers would probably be more comfortable with than Sam Spade would.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
A great title makes you really curious what kind of story could possibly be described accurately by that name.
It makes people want to get a short description of it, which is your foot in the door to get an audience. And as a reader, viewer, and player I also like them because it makes me aware of something I could find interesting that would otherwise have disapppeared in a vast pile of bland mediocracy that comes out every day.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
TeChameleon
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison)- mouthlessness and wanting to scream are not necessarily the entire focus of the plot (although it's definitely a factor), but the title grabs your attention rather well, I'd say.
I'd say while it's not immediately apparent I'd say the title fits the story quite well, on the one hand the ending, at the other as is touched upon, AM's entire existence.
Also, after having it explained to me, retracting my previous complaint about Mockingjay and Catcher :smallredface:
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Yora
Shingeki no Kyojin literally translates to "Advance of the Giant(s)" or "Advancing Giant(s)". You can play around with the exact terms to get "Attacking Titans" or "Attack of the Titans", but there's no wriggle room with the gramar. It's just wrong.
And then later in the story it turns out that "Shingeki no Kyojin" is the proper name of the story's most prominent Titan, so "The Attack Titan" or "The Vanguard Titan" also work.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Yora
Thief (2014)...
For some reason, I had it in mind that this was styled as "Thi4f". After a bit of googling it looks like that wasn't actually the final branding for it, but in any case sticking numbers in the middle of titles is something I'm not at all keen on. Se7en at least sort of works as a leetspeak thing, but Fant4stic is just awful (although I guess that means it suits the movie?).
On a similar note, bands using dodgy spellings to make them easier to search online, like Chvrches and Pvris. I insist on pronouncing them as-written because I'm a cantankerous old git.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Ebon_Drake
On a similar note, bands using dodgy spellings to make them easier to search online, like Chvrches and Pvris. I insist on pronouncing them as-written because I'm a cantankerous old git.
I mean, not old enough, considering that is how V would be used in Old English.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Pendulous
"A Place Further than the Universe" (amazing beautiful show, but still)
That one at least makes more sense in Japanese. A more literal translation would be "sky" rather than "universe" and it's a reference to the lateral distance between Japan and Antarctica being greater than the vertical distance from Japan to space. And I think once the meaning is clear it's a decent title.
It's not exactly fair to throw anime into the mix, though....
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Originally Posted by
factotum
I find that the original Japanese episode titles for anime are often just a description of what happens in the episode, which is quite odd to Western ears. They generally get renamed for Western consumption.
Like the title of one episode of I think it was Railgun is an explanation for why one-piece swimsuits only suit slender girls.
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Originally Posted by
BWR
Had they just called it "John Carter of Mars" it would give at least a vague hint of the content.
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Originally Posted by
Velaryon
Just having a person's name isn't a great choice for a movie title to begin with, but if your film is sci fi, fantasy, or some flavor thereof, you need to put something in the title that suggests that.
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Originally Posted by
Yora
Why name a movie "John Carter" when the character's days of fame were almost a century ago and only a few fans of obscure early sci-fi know it? Especially when you could use the more recognizable version of his name that is "John Carter of Mars". Now that's a title that is already much more interesting.
Maybe they realized the film would bomb and were leaving the door open for a future adaptation to say "No, not that John Carter... this is John Carter of Mars."
To add some bad titles to the mix...
It's not the worst title ever, but the director of The Wrath of Khan hated that and incidentally its original title The Undiscovered Country made much more sense for that movie than for Star Trek VI.
But it's hard to beat 2 Fast 2 Furious.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
JCarter426
It's not the worst title ever, but the director of The Wrath of Khan hated that and incidentally its original title The Undiscovered Country made much more sense for that movie than for Star Trek VI.
How does "The Wrath of Khan" not suit a movie whose entire plot revolves around Khan trying to get revenge against James Kirk for abandoning him 20-odd years ago? And why does "The Undiscovered Country" make *more* sense, to your mind? I'm not seeing it.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Rynjin
I mean, not old enough, considering that is how V would be used in Old English.
Isn't that more a Latin thing? In Middle English it was more a case of using an irritating Romanesque font in titles that uses V for both u and v (for example). I could possibly see that argument for Chvrches, but when was Paris ever spelt with a v?
Thinking more about the Thief games, that's another game series with an odd aversion to counting above 2. We have:
Thief: The Dark Project (good title)
Thief 2: The Metal Age (also pretty good)
Thief: Deadly Shadows (another good title, but why not call it Thief 3?)
Thief (2014)/Thi4f (get outta here ya clown)
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
3 pages and no Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo? For shame.
Heck, it even named the badly named sequels page on TVTropes.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
factotum
How does "The Wrath of Khan" not suit a movie whose entire plot revolves around Khan trying to get revenge against James Kirk for abandoning him 20-odd years ago? And why does "The Undiscovered Country" make *more* sense, to your mind? I'm not seeing it.
I said it was like that in Nicholas Meyer's mind. But I do think it's more poignant. The plot is about Khan in that he's the bad guy doing all the bad things, but "The Wrath of Khan" only says that he's the bad guy and doesn't speak to rest of the story's contents. It sounds more like an action film in the way that Bond films are often named after the bad guy (Dr No, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun, etc). "The Undiscovered Country" is a reference to Hamlet when he's talking about death in the "to be or not to be" soliloquy and the whole film is about the characters facing death amidst Khan's literary references.
Meanwhile, the actual Undiscovered Country, Star Trek VI, doesn't have any of those things. It's about Kirk breaking out of space prison.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
JCarter426
Meanwhile, the actual Undiscovered Country, Star Trek VI, doesn't have any of those things. It's about Kirk breaking out of space prison.
I always guessed it was referencing the peace with the Klingons as the new country that Kirk (mostly) has problems getting used to. Most other Star Trek titles are more direct, though.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
Yeah, maybe, but that makes it somewhat of an appropriated metaphor. In the original context, Hamlet's specifically talking about death. It doesn't suit VI nearly as much as it would suit II.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Yora
Why name a movie "John Carter" when the character's days of fame were almost a century ago and only a few fans of obscure early sci-fi know it? Especially when you could use the more recognizable version of his name that is "John Carter of Mars". Now that's a title that is already much more interesting.
Because they were afraid of spending a lot of money on a sci-fi film so they took the "of Mars" out of the title to try and trick people into forgetting it was Sci-Fi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1LQkZKYsaY
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
JCarter426
Yeah, maybe, but that makes it somewhat of an appropriated metaphor. In the original context, Hamlet's specifically talking about death. It doesn't suit VI nearly as much as it would suit II.
It makes a lot more sense when you consider that Star Trek VI is basically an analogue for the end of the Cold War - which the Federation/Klingon conflict was directly referencing throughout the show. The Undiscovered Country is moving into a more peaceful time. It's also a metaphor for the retirement of the characters (and by extension, the actors). There's lots of meaning to it, there just isn't the same specific meaning that Shakespeare was using. Unsurprising, since most movie-going audiences wouldn't get the reference.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Kato
I always guessed it was referencing the peace with the Klingons as the new country that Kirk (mostly) has problems getting used to. Most other Star Trek titles are more direct, though.
It's a Hamlet quote about... death, I believe. I think it's pretty clever - and pretty Star Trek - to change its meaning to be about the post-Cold War future. I would put it as the best title honestly, whereas Star Trek Into Darkness is my least favourite as it blurs insipid wordplay mixed with trying too hard to be cool/not your father's Star Trek.
DARRKNESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
As to the topic, I think the worst titles are the ones that I can't remember. I mean, objectively speaking. There are DVD I have in my disc folders where it's just the title written all shiny-like and have genuinely no idea what the movie it describes is without Googling.
Edge of Tomorrow - a movie I personally love though it was a financial flop - had sufficient issues with that title that their marketing changed it with the home media release to Live, Die, Repeat. They kept the Edge of Tomorrow there too, in case you weren't confused. While I don't think Edge of Tomorrow is a bad title aesthetically speaking, it does sound like an early 80's soap opera title you've never heard of. Still, it is a case where the studio clearly believed it lost money because of the film's name.
I still firmly believe they should have just called it All You Need is Kill.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Kitten Champion
Edge of Tomorrow - a movie I personally love though it was a financial flop - had sufficient issues with that title that their marketing changed it with the home media release to Live, Die, Repeat. They kept the Edge of Tomorrow there too, in case you weren't confused. While I don't think Edge of Tomorrow is a bad title aesthetically speaking, it does sound like an early 80's soap opera title you've never heard of. Still, it is a case where the studio clearly believed it lost money because of the film's name.
I still firmly believe they should have just called it All You Need is Kill.
I'd say the biggest problem Edge of Tomorrow has is that it gives no clue what the film is about. Heck, I don't even think the trailers did a good job because the film passed me by entirely until I heard the buzz and picked it up afterwards. For audiences, it just looked like another Oblivion.
Of course, the changed title does give away the twist, and it's clear that the filmmakers wanted it to be a surprise.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Kitten Champion
DARRKNESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Now that the Dark Souls series is over, I think we can safely have a moratorium on the word "Dark" in the title of things.
Like a decade or so. Fifteen years maybe.
Then they have it back.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Rodin
I'd say the biggest problem Edge of Tomorrow has is that it gives no clue what the film is about. Heck, I don't even think the trailers did a good job because the film passed me by entirely until I heard the buzz and picked it up afterwards. For audiences, it just looked like another Oblivion.
Of course, the changed title does give away the twist, and it's clear that the filmmakers wanted it to be a surprise.
Kinda. The trailer does show Tom Cruise dying several times and waking up, and kind of explaining the premise. It even flashes "LIVE", "DIE", "REPEAT" several times.
The second official trailer explains his death and return pretty clearly however.
What wasn't clear is much of the context beyond that. The Mimics and the war are nearly completely undefined, for instance. Also it's a really gloomy trailer - both of 'em - and Edge of Tomorrow is actually pretty funny in a dark gallows humour kind of way. They were leaning pretty heavy into this being a Tom Cruise movie as their chief marketing tool, that the trailers make clear.
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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Originally Posted by
Ebon_Drake
Isn't that more a Latin thing? In Middle English it was more a case of using an irritating Romanesque font in titles that uses V for both u and v (
for example). I could
possibly see that argument for Chvrches, but when was Paris ever spelt with a v?
Is it supposed to be Paris? I've never heard of them, so I assumed it was Puris.