"Epic Movies" where have they gone?

"Epic Movies" where have they gone?

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marcosgt

Original Poster:

11,011 posts

175 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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I was listening to a piece on the radio this morning about the re-release of Zulu at the cinema and it made me think that they don't make "Epic" movies any more.

Films with huge casts, massive setpieces and battles (where appropriate) and epic struggle themes.

The last REAL epic I can think of is "A Bridge Too Far", but that must be 40 years old now.

"Gladiator" had a bold stab, but a lot of it is CGI, as are the later Star Wars and Lord of The Rings films (perhaps the original ones qualified before Lucas started meddling too much), although they all fall down on the 'star count'.

So, have I missed anything or are the true "Epics" a thing of the past?

M

wolfracesonic

6,940 posts

126 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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I think they are probably something of the past as you and I know them, especially as regards CGI; The days of some monomaniacal director/studio head rounding up thousands of locals to feature in their pet epic are probably history like the subjects they portrayed e.g Cleopatra, El Cid etc. Having said that some of the budgets are still pretty epic!

slipstream 1985

12,123 posts

178 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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the last "epic" film was braveheart before cgi took over. Seriously watch some of the background fights behind the main charactors. One guy just lies down without even getting hit!

Halb

53,012 posts

182 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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They cost too much and the system has changed. Studios would rather flush $40 million down the loo on 'stars' than size. With another $100 million on CGI. Bit silly really.
What would it take? Lucas has the wedge to fund his own epic...just don't ask him to write or direct it in any way, shape or form.

Eric Mc

121,763 posts

264 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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slipstream 1985 said:
One guy just lies down without even getting hit!
It was shot in Ireland. The extra probably felt like a lie down.

ooo000ooo

2,523 posts

193 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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Eric Mc said:
It was shot in Ireland. The extra probably felt like a lie down.
My brother in law was an extra in it, they used the army reserves to make up the numbers

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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They cost too much to make, they'd need astronomical box office figures to be considered a success these days. Much easier and cheaper to make money spinning out generic Adam Sandler comedies.

entropy

5,403 posts

202 months

Tuesday 10th June 2014
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Clash of the Titans remake?

Epic films inevitably have high production costs. Cleopatra nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox due to production problems.

And then you have the likes of James Cameron and Peter Jackson put their faith in CGI.

Z06George

2,519 posts

188 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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For me Blackhawk Down or The Last Samurai are the closest to being epic films in recent times. Can't really think of any others.

northwest monkey

6,370 posts

188 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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I'd say Titanic was definitely an "epic" movie - huge budget, big set, attention to detail etc.

Rather than movies, a lot of TV series I'd now consider epic. Game of Thrones, Lost, Boardwalk Empire, Band of Brothers etc. Huge casts, huge productions, huge sums of money involved!

Rick_1138

3,655 posts

177 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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I get what you man but the term has changed a bit now, I believe they call them 'Event movies' )Shudder).

The most recent big film that could be classed as an old style Epic was Avatar, big set pieces, decent bad guy, and segueing into an other Epic, Dances with wolves is probably one of the more recent big epic films (but that was in the 80's).

The new star wars may come into the category in terms of how they are going old school to make it with proper large sets and extras but remains to be seen.

R1gtr

3,423 posts

153 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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I thought Saving Private Ryan and the LOTR trilogy were 'epic' not too old either.
Nowadays CGi can do everything in half the time at half the cost.

JustinP1

13,330 posts

229 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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Mastodon2 said:
They cost too much to make, they'd need astronomical box office figures to be considered a success these days. Much easier and cheaper to make money spinning out generic Adam Sandler comedies.
Funnily enough, statistically speaking, films with a huge budget have more chance of breaking even. In fact, so much so, a big budget film which does not break even is very rare.

Also, counter-intuitively, the most risky 'bet' is the mid to low range budget film ($50m for example) which will just slip under the radar and only be viewed by fans of the start whose wages ate up all the scriptwriting budget.

Even supposedly disastrous films break even. Cleopatra did, even if it took 20 years of worldwide re-runs. Remember 'Waterworld'? That's more than broken even, and the Waterworld attraction with jet-skis was still going strong a few years ago when I went to Universal Studios.

The most modern example is World War Z - the author disowned it as it was so far divorced from the book, and it was well known that it ran over budget as they went back to refilm the whole third act.

Still - the fact that there was so much money pumped into it became the spectacle and drove the press which in turn drove the spectacle, and from a supposed unmitigated disaster, there will no doubt be a sequel.

Mr Will

13,719 posts

205 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
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marcosgt said:
"Gladiator" had a bold stab, but a lot of it is CGI, as are the later Star Wars and Lord of The Rings films (perhaps the original ones qualified before Lucas started meddling too much), although they all fall down on the 'star count'.
Why does CGI rule them out? Does it really make a difference if it's a few thousand underpaid locals or a few thousand computer generated images running around in the background of the battle scenes? Although I'm not a LotR fan, I think you'd struggle to class them as anything other than epics.

marcosgt

Original Poster:

11,011 posts

175 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
quotequote all
Mr Will said:
marcosgt said:
"Gladiator" had a bold stab, but a lot of it is CGI, as are the later Star Wars and Lord of The Rings films (perhaps the original ones qualified before Lucas started meddling too much), although they all fall down on the 'star count'.
Why does CGI rule them out? Does it really make a difference if it's a few thousand underpaid locals or a few thousand computer generated images running around in the background of the battle scenes? Although I'm not a LotR fan, I think you'd struggle to class them as anything other than epics.
Some films make great use of CGI (Gravity and Oblivion are two that spring to mind of recent films), but, whilst I quite enjoyed the scale of the LOTR trilogy, it was painfully obvious (maybe just to me), that I was really just watching a long cut scene from a video game.

I guess it's cinematography that rules out the 'large scale CGI movies' as what I think of as epics.

I can see they were all done on computers and that makes a scene with 10,000 characters a lot less impressive than a few hundred REAL people running/fighting/lying-down in a field.

I'm not discounting these films outright as they make some previously impossible scenes seem credible (I mean, walking trees? You couldn't have done that with men in suits, could you?), but I think, as with most technology, they'll look a bit clunky in 20/30/40 years time.

M

Edited by marcosgt on Wednesday 11th June 15:33

entropy

5,403 posts

202 months

Wednesday 11th June 2014
quotequote all
JustinP1 said:
Funnily enough, statistically speaking, films with a huge budget have more chance of breaking even. In fact, so much so, a big budget film which does not break even is very rare.

Also, counter-intuitively, the most risky 'bet' is the mid to low range budget film ($50m for example) which will just slip under the radar and only be viewed by fans of the start whose wages ate up all the scriptwriting budget.

Even supposedly disastrous films break even. Cleopatra did, even if it took 20 years of worldwide re-runs. Remember 'Waterworld'? That's more than broken even, and the Waterworld attraction with jet-skis was still going strong a few years ago when I went to Universal Studios.

The most modern example is World War Z - the author disowned it as it was so far divorced from the book, and it was well known that it ran over budget as they went back to refilm the whole third act.

Still - the fact that there was so much money pumped into it became the spectacle and drove the press which in turn drove the spectacle, and from a supposed unmitigated disaster, there will no doubt be a sequel.
But the bean counters aren't too good at the long term. They normally think about getting a quick return and things like opening week figures.

Halb

53,012 posts

182 months

Monday 25th May 2015
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Back with, Fury Road? biggrin

popeyewhite

19,618 posts

119 months

Monday 25th May 2015
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Halb said:
Back with, Fury Road? biggrin
How is that an epic?

Cast of thousands? Religious overtones? Whole armies involved? Acts of God? No CGI?

FourWheelDrift

88,375 posts

283 months

Monday 25th May 2015
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Exodus Gods & Kings, BR sitting near me but I've not seen it yet. It's a biblical epic perhaps of the old school type, the type Charlton Heston would have starred in. Cast of thousands.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528100/

Christian Bale as Moses...............oh..............ok
Aaron Paul as Joshua..........................um, right
Joel Edgerton as Ramses....say who now?
Directed by Ridley Scott.........oh for fks sake.

It still sits on my desk.

Pesty

42,655 posts

255 months

Monday 25th May 2015
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We were soldiers and black hawk down possibly?