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Just got back from seeing this with Chris O'Farrell.

It was surprisingly un-terrible.

Some random initial thoughts:-

* Some of the acting is really bad. Lee (asian dude), especially, is obviously in the running for the Hayden Christensen award. I was always expecting him to start talking about sand.

* The 'Coalition' enemy soldiers are a bit too science-fiction - they're dressed completely in black and have these weird helmets and bulky body armor. Why they're dressed in black is a mystery - it's almost as if they knew that every action scene would take place at night, when their uniforms wouldn't look as ridiculous!

* The CGI can be a bit shonky. Whoever did the CGI model for our F/A-18s canted the tail fins outward at a ridiculous angle.

* I still don't know what the Coalition fighters were supposed to be. They looked like a cross between the HAL Tejas, the Chengdu J-10, the Mirage series - any delta wing you care to name.

Still, the action scenes were pretty entertaining- the chase with the garbage truck was especially amusing, even if it was complete bullshit - I didn't know the cab of garbage trucks was impervious to assault rifle and machine gun fire.

I never expected it to be a good war movie, in the sense that I never expected Twilight to be a good horror-movie. But this sounds encouraging, the books swept me away when I was a teen.

Flash and I were going to see this when it came out, but we got shouted down by our women.

I figured it'd be terrible, based on the average result of book to film translations, Australian film still being fairly sucky as a rule, and my recollection that the books were firmly in the young adult/teen section. The reviews suggest I might actually enjoy it, though.

Red Dawn and Away?

I really can't be arsed to see it. Though I'm glad to hear it's not a bad film.

I'd say if you should watch it just to encourage the Australian film industry to stop putting out nothing but off-the-wall slightly weird shit like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom, and The Castle. Whilst the quality of those movies is up for debate, I could never shake the feeling whilst watching them that they all seem to be stuck in the exact same some sort of peculiar, unsettling and unrealistic 'Australiana' alternate time-and-space warp.

xt828 wrote:I figured it'd be terrible, based on the average result of book to film translations, Australian film still being fairly sucky as a rule, and my recollection that the books were firmly in the young adult/teen section. The reviews suggest I might actually enjoy it, though.

The movie can be terribly unsubtle - there's a scene where one of the girls is reading a book and they talk about how its way better than the movie, because books usually are

As usual, Vympel shows his awesome taste. Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla were awesome, man.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:As usual, Vympel shows his awesome taste. Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla were awesome, man.

Heh, I don't hate either movie, I'm just tired of Australian movies that are all stuck in the same weird alternate Australia universe which I don't live in. This movie's actually the first movie that doesn't have that vibe, even if it is set in the country as opposed to real Australia (i.e. the cities).

Vympel wrote:I'm just tired of Australian movies that are all stuck in the same weird alternate Australia universe which I don't live in

You Australians should just stick to producing awesome tv shows:

Who needs a lightsaber when I have my fucking transducer beootch.

Having looked this up, can I ask if this gives any clue as to who the evil foreign invaders are? Do they speak some gibberish language or have some funny accents that suggest anything?

As I said in the other thread, neither Malaysia or China or whoever have the means to invade Australia. The only ones with the means to do so are the Americans. So this must be a movie dealing to the much-alluded-to Australian-American War mentioned in the Grand Theft Auto video games.

Srelex wrote:Having looked this up, can I ask if this gives any clue as to who the evil foreign invaders are? Do they speak some gibberish language or have some funny accents that suggest anything?

I've heard it suggested they're Japanesian, a combination of Japan and Indonesia/Malaysian. No idea about their language, though.

Kane Starkiller wrote: You Australians should just stick to producing awesome tv shows:

Who needs a lightsaber when I have my fucking transducer beootch.

Awesome, a show about vibration analysis!

They can't identify the invaders because they're brown people. Who else is it going to be? The French, sailing halfway around the world? The people of Madagascar, trying to escape CGI animals? A people's militia from Jersey?

ISTR that the books quite deliberately never identified the enemy - I went to a book launch for I think the fifth or sixth book and Marsden said that was a deliberate choice. I think the most you get is that they're 'Asian' which in Australia means South East Asian or East Asian.

Australia has put out some good films - I liked Kokoda, Beneath Hill 60, Acolytes, The Proposition and Gettin' Square, to name a few. I think that we have a tendency to fall back on our own stereotypes of ourselves when designing characters, though - especially prevalent in war films - and the accent can sound a bit grating when it's on screen - dunno why that is, I even find my own voice gets boganified when I hear my messagebank message.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So this must be a movie dealing to the much-alluded-to Australian-American War mentioned in the Grand Theft Auto video games.

Wait. What?

The shop has an anti-aircraft gun really used in the Australian-American war (the biggest war since the big one!).

atg wrote:
Wait. What?

We fitted boomerangs and kangaroos with explosives - kangaroos would go bouncing towards American lines, blow up - take out ten guys*.

Jeez man, learn your history.

* This is all from the GTA series.

http://gta.wikia.com/Australian-American_War

Also the isolation of Australia in the southern Pacific, sheer distance from America, no valuable resources worth waging war for, and no strategic advantage against any other nation makes such a war impractical.

I'm hurt.

But seriously, could America pull off an invasion of Australia?

Man thats hilarious - kinda want to actually play GTA now just to hear that radio stuff of the war.

hongi wrote:

Also the isolation of Australia in the southern Pacific, sheer distance from America, no valuable resources worth waging war for, and no strategic advantage against any other nation makes such a war impractical.

I'm hurt.

But seriously, could America pull off an invasion of Australia?

Yes. But it would mondo expensive, political suicide both domestically and internationally and we'd probably fuck up the occupation (see Iraq and Afghanistan).

or you could just send a single CVBG and MEU to establish a puppet govt via gunboat diplomacy

atg wrote:Man thats hilarious - kinda want to actually play GTA now just to hear that radio stuff of the war.

I actually find it hilarious how the wiki overanalyzes the problem and tries to say some things "confirm" the US actually fought a war against Australia in the game's world, when it's so goddamned obvious that everyone on talk radio in GTA is just a goddamned lunatic

PeZook wrote: I actually find it hilarious how the wiki overanalyzes the problem and tries to say some things "confirm" the US actually fought a war against Australia in the game's world, when it's so goddamned obvious that everyone on talk radio in GTA is just a goddamned lunatic

Just like most talk radio in the US!

PeZook wrote:

atg wrote:Man thats hilarious - kinda want to actually play GTA now just to hear that radio stuff of the war.

I actually find it hilarious how the wiki overanalyzes the problem and tries to say some things "confirm" the US actually fought a war against Australia in the game's world, when it's so goddamned obvious that everyone on talk radio in GTA is just a goddamned lunatic

Wrong.

GTA talk radio is awesome! God-damn! That was what made Vice City so awesome. Too bad San Andreas' radio was shit, we never got anything as good as VCPR.

Man. When we kicked Australia's ass!