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Thread: Best / worst titles in media
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2018-09-14, 04:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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- England
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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.~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2018-09-14, 06:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-14, 07:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
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- UK
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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2018-09-14, 08:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-14, 10:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2009
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- Brazil
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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
Well, each game is the sequel to the last, right? Makes sense, in an insane kind of way. At least it's consistent.The Heplion Contingency - Low-tech Cyberpunk with Psychic Powers!
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2018-09-14, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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.
"And if you don't, the consequences will be dire!"
"What? They'll have three extra hit dice and a rend attack?"
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2018-09-14, 05:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: Best / worst titles in media
"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2018-09-14, 11:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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 )
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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2018-09-15, 04:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
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- Germany
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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2018-09-15, 07:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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
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2018-09-15, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2008
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- Ireland
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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2018-09-15, 04:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2004
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- Norwich, UK
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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.Allergy advice: posts may contain traces of sarcasm
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2018-09-15, 08:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
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2018-09-15, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
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- Boston, MA
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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....
Like the title of one episode of I think it was Railgun is an explanation for why one-piece swimsuits only suit slender girls.
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.Last edited by JCarter426; 2018-09-15 at 09:48 PM.
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2018-09-16, 01:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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2018-09-16, 05:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2004
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- Norwich, UK
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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)Last edited by Ebon_Drake; 2018-09-16 at 06:28 AM.
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2018-09-16, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
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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2018-09-16, 01:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
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- Boston, MA
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-16, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Best / worst titles in media
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2018-09-16, 01:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
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- Boston, MA
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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2018-09-16, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-09-16, 02:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-16, 02:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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.
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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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2018-09-16, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-16, 03:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-09-16, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
Re: Best / worst titles in media
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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2018-09-16, 11:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016