Jump to content

The Tomorrow War - Amazon Prime


Baboontyme

Recommended Posts

I watched it last night. It was good fun. I wasn't expecting much but I enjoyed it. Maybe it's just me but give me absurd action/thriller flicks like this 10 times out of 10 over more Superhero bullshit. I did wonder if Chris Pratt was gonna bone his daughter momentarily. That would have been weird. 

  • Hook 'Em 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It wasn't terrible, but it felt like there was some stuff that was cut out.  This was one of Paramount's tentpole movies that they shopped around (similar to Without Remorse) and sold to Amazon. I'm curious if the stuff that was cut out, was cut out for home video, or was the cut that was going to make it in theaters, because I feel like this might not have done well in theaters.

The writer had a shitty track record and I think it showed in the movie.  The cast was solid, the premise was solid.  It just wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

Most of my critiques are summarized in the SR video

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I even liked the bit about anybody coming back from the future had to be less than 30 years old or so (they couldn't travel back if they existed in the past), and they couldn't take anybody forward unless they died within the next 25 years or so, and weren't alive when the shit hit the fan.

1 hour ago, Not a cat said:

Yet another gripe/plot hole about tomorrow war

  Hide contents

There were something like 10 aliens on the ship that supposedly dug up through the ice as it melted, then reproduced like crazy.  They were lucky enough to get the claw of one of those original 10 that had remnants of volcanic ash so they could pinpoint the location.  

Or maybe I'm missing something, my attention was starting to fade when they had to do it all on their own because the world governments had no interest in solving this imminent extinction event.

 

I didn't like that bit at all - it's in Russia.  Russians would have absolutely destroyed it, probably with nukes, if it was an existential threat to them.

The Screen Rants video above addressed it.  Like I said, great cast, great premise, some nice little rules, but the writing/execution had huge holes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Frank The Tank said:

Yeah, the whole plot really fell apart when he came back. They didn’t execute the ending well at all. 

It should have either been two movies, or a mini-series.

Not to be pretentious, but with these kinds of stories, I kind of feel like they should steal from movies like James Cameron's Aliens or T2.  Let it breathe at times, don't have too much plot.

Edited by atomheartbevo
  • Hook 'Em 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stupid plot holes aside It was somewhat enjoyable, but disjointed.  Didn't think Pratt was that good.  He's just not a good enough actor for straight drama he needs a comedic edge.  Probably should have softened the harshness of the aliens and gave Pratt more funny lines.  If Sam Richardson wasn't delivering some funny lines I probably wouldn't have liked it at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Frank The Tank said:

Yeah, the whole plot really fell apart when he came back. They didn’t execute the ending well at all. 

I like how they send these people to the future specifically to find strategies to defeat the creatures. Then when they return and tell them what they need to do, they’re ignored. Ok. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

I like how they send these people to the future specifically to find strategies to defeat the creatures. Then when they return and tell them what they need to do, they’re ignored. Ok. 

They believed/knew that shit would go down in 2048, and when the Jumplink was destroyed, they thought humans lost the war. Seems like a united world, with a 20+ year head start, would build a lot of defenses to protect the population, along with plenty of offensive firepower, as well as go on a baby making spree.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

They believed/knew that shit would go down in 2048, and when the Jumplink was destroyed, they thought humans lost the war. Seems like a united world, with a 20+ year head start, would build a lot of defenses to protect the population, along with plenty of offensive firepower, as well as go on a baby making spree.  

It was clear that the future timeline and the present timeline were disjointed, although they never explicitly said so in the movie. Otherwise, the most sound strategy would have been to prepare the past, not try and send soldiers to save the future. There were some interesting routes they could have gone. And then they ruined it the last 40 minutes. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They needed the people in the past to fight in the future to buy them more time as they were testing and working out their weapon (and mentioned they were literally nearing the end of their time/people to do so.

I agree that it really fell off at the end though.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fun movie. Time travel plots are always going to have holes. Like in T2, Cyberdyne or whoever the company was, got the technology to build the Terminators by studying the chips from the Terminator that had already come from the future. 

Would have been cool to see on the big screen. 

Agree with @Dr Fear about JK Simmons using a precision rifle. I kept thinking, doesn't anyone have a 40 mm grenade launcher? 

Also, @atomheartbevo makes a great point that this movie would have been a pretty awesome mini-series. There were quite a few concepts that could have been fleshed out and been pretty intriguing. 

Acting was good, and Simmons stole every scene he was in. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, mdleast said:

They needed the people in the past to fight in the future to buy them more time as they were testing and working out their weapon (and mentioned they were literally nearing the end of their time/people to do so.

I agree that it really fell off at the end though.

Allow me to mostly fix the movie with four simple changes:

(1) Add scene with Muri where she explains that after Pratt abandoned them, his dad came in and really helped hold the family together. Also maybe have her say that she doesn't remember the soccer game or the Pratt leaving to fight aliens, so it is clear that actions in the past don't affect their future timeline. In essence, we are trying to save two separate worlds. 

(2) After Pratt returns to present, have any of the people from the future confirm his story about Muri and about the weapon she was trying to develop, so governments get to work mass producing in preparation

(3) Epilogue includes emotional reunion with father since Pratt now knows that he himself wasn't the perfect dad, and that maybe his dad has more to provide Muri

(4) End with Pratt saying he just hopes the toxin is enough to win the war when the time comes, cut to alien ship under ice as the whitespikes start to stir

 

This addresses the time travel issues. Fixes the stupid, absurd ending, closes the loop on the father's story with some emotional resonance, and gives plenty of material for fan boys to speculate (e.g., are the whitespikes going to wake up early in our timeline? are they different and will the toxin work on them? is there still a way to help the future timeline? etc.) 

 

Edited by Dahobbs
  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Richard Kimball said:

Also, @atomheartbevo makes a great point that this movie would have been a pretty awesome mini-series. There were quite a few concepts that could have been fleshed out and been pretty intriguing. 

5 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Allow me to mostly fix the movie with four simple changes:

(1) Add scene with Muri where she explains that after Pratt abandoned them, his dad came in and really helped hold the family together. Also maybe have her say that she doesn't remember the soccer game or the Pratt leaving to fight aliens, so it is clear that actions in the past don't affect their future timeline. In essence, we are trying to save two separate worlds. 

(2) After Pratt returns to present, have any of the people from the future confirm his story about Muri and about the weapon she was trying to develop, so governments get to work mass producing in preparation

(3) Epilogue includes emotional reunion with father since Pratt now knows that he himself wasn't the perfect dad, and that maybe his dad has to more to provide Muri

(4) End with Pratt saying he just hopes the toxin is enough to win the war when the time comes, cut to alien ship under ice as the whitespikes start to stir

If this were a mini-series of sorts:

Episode #1 - World building/Character building) - Maybe see him in the Army briefly, see that he was a competent soldier/leader, then fast forward to he and his family, he gets rejected for the project, is depressed, we see him teaching high school science.  End the episode with the future people jumping into the soccer game.  Cliffhanger that sucks you in for the series.

Episode #2 - (World building/action) -  Focus on them sending eligible active military personnel into the future (I'm guessing they only sent those that died within the next 28 years or whatever), them coming back in very few numbers, scaring folks.  Sets the tone for the series.

Episode #3 - (Character building, drama) - Start with Pratt's character being pulled in to get registered/scanned, we see that they are looking for people that die in the next 28 years, Pratt gets drafted, we see the "training" (and it really should have been fleshed out more).  He says his goodbyes to everybody.

Episode #4 - (Action) - We see them being dropped in the sky by mistake, regrouping, getting their bearings, and their first clash with the aliens.  End the episode with them getting orders to get the research stuff, with the countdown until an airstrike or whatever.

Episode #5 - (Drama, character building) - They wake up in the Dominican Republic.  He finds out who his daughter is, tie in what @Dahobbs said above -  he learns that he wasn't a good father, we see flashbacks to his own father stepping in to help take care of the family.  End the episode talking about the toxin.

Episode #6 - (Action) - They are doing their research stuff, alien horde s being fought.

Episode #7 - #8 - (Action) - Multiple episodes covering research stuff, alien horde being fought, etc.

Episode #9  - (Drama) - Pratt/whoever jumps back to the present time, they try to figure out where the White Spikes came from, they journey to Russia.

Episode  #10 - (Action) - Pratt and Co. find the Ship, destroy it.  

That's 5-7 hours worth of TV series with 10 episodes.  You could easily cut that down to 6-8 episodes and still get 4 to 5 hours.

 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can easily have a sequel. Or prequel 

There is a second crashed ship. It’s is a different location. People go to investigate. Chaos ensues. although, I don’t know how humans can beat the white spikes without a toxin, they seem overwhelming. Maybe the second ship has lessor soldier white spikes that don’t have body armor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, bluto said:

I generally don’t hate action flicks, they are what they are. But damned if I’m not surprised with how well this has been received on here. big pile of meh.

I enjoy action flicks. I had low expectations and this film still didn't meet them. It's like they copied all the boring parts of better action movies rather than copy the good parts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, RPM said:

Then how about this?

Fantastic_Four_2015_poster.jpg

That was 20th Century Fox.

I mean, both this and X-Men are films made from source material from Marvel Comics, but neither are part of the Disney/Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is what most people are talking about when they talk about "Marvel films."

Anyway, I liked Tomorrow War okay.  It was entertaining, and the kids liked it.  I definitely think the final act, after the return to current time, was weak and more than a little bit silly.  But, I didn't have terribly high expectations, so it was okay with me.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amazon is working on a sequel?

I hope it’s that they fucked up by changing the past and it’s an Independence Day style attack in the future by the race that was transporting the aliens 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

Amazon is working on a sequel?

I hope it’s that they fucked up by changing the past and it’s an Independence Day style attack in the future by the race that was transporting the aliens 

I thought you were kidding.

https://deadline.com/2021/07/chris-pratt-tomorrow-war-2-amazon-skydance-in-talks-1234788748/

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I knew going in that there would be massive problems with plot holes and stuff, so that sort of tempered my expectations. It was entertaining enough, but also frustrating because the concept had so much potential. Agree with everyone above who said it should have been a miniseries. And they should have figured out some way to fix the whole time paradox bit. I can only assume that Pratt's going back and deciding to take the fight to the mothership was a diverging timeline and that his daughter still dies in the original timeline. So he didn't really save her. He made a copy of her that lives, which I guess is better than nothing.

Somebody who isn't as lazy as me should post the thing that has been floating around on the internet about the weapons they used. Whoever was in charge of that aspect is a colossal idiot. Also, we're going to take snowmobiles accross a glacier when glaciers are notorious for having hidden crevasses that can swallow people/equipment up? A miniseries episode where they are all tied in together and have to navigate the glacier could have provided some pretty decent tension when one of them falls through and has to be rescued (or self rescue).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, mdleast said:

I hope in the sequel they have younger Pratt meet older Pratt and right before they both fight the monsters side by side, they both say to the other “I’m getting too old for this shit”

I hope the young Pratt says to the old Pratt "they got you pushing too many pancils"

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Somebody who isn't as lazy as me should post the thing that has been floating around on the internet about the weapons they used.

I haven’t seen what you are referencing but it really bugged me that 30 years in the future in a SciFi world with time travel we were still using ARs, F22s and HUMVEEs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Archer said:

I haven’t seen what you are referencing but it really bugged me that 30 years in the future in a SciFi world with time travel we were still using ARs, F22s and HUMVEEs. 

If you start thinking about it way too hard, you are faced with this:  The people in the future were caught off guard, and fighting with what they still had (and out of those three you mention, I think only the HUMVEEs won't be around), but then if the people in the future jump back 30 years, they could have warned everybody, and the world would go on a crash-course of arming the fuck up with the latest and greatest, and well....

science fiction mind blown GIF by FilmStruck

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Dr Fear said:

Here is the gun part I saw on FB...

A future soldier time travels into a gun store:

"I need a rifle to kill aliens that are mostly bullet proof."

Ok, you're probably going to want a larger caliber, probably .308, or for armor the added velocity of 6.5 Creed might...

"No, we only have 5.56."

Ok, no problem. You're going to at least want a longer barrel to keep as much velocity as you can.

"I was thinking like, 7 inches."

Ah, ok. If portability is a big concern you're probably going to want a super compact PDW style stock.

"I need the longest, heaviest stock you can find."

...Ok. Lets talk optics then, a 7" 5.56 is gonna be pretty limited on range so a simple red dot...

"I need magnification."

Oh, are these aliens hard to identify?

"They're gigantic."

Oh.

"I tell you what, go ahead and put a red dot at a 45. They look sick."

Will you ever use it?

"I will not."

....so, aliens huh? That sounds rough.

"They have incredibly heightened senses. They can smell blood from a mile away."

OH. Well, now the shorter barrel makes a little more sense. You're making room for a big suppressor.

"A what?"

A silencer. Especially if you're going to be shooting these in close proximity to other people, the concussive forces will be...

"No thanks. We'll probably shoot a dozen of these full auto in a concrete stairwell."

That's...I think you're making my point.

"We'll also be fighting in dimly lit areas."

You'll want a super bright weapon mounted light.

"No I said they'll be dimly lit. What's your dimmest light?"

How is this war going for you?

"We're losing terribly."

That's the one. I did see something about how maybe they wanted something like the FN PS90, but some previous movie years ago bought up pretty much all of the 5.7 blanks that exist in the world, and they just had to make something relatively common look similar. But that still got a laugh from me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven’t seen what you are referencing but it really bugged me that 30 years in the future in a SciFi world with time travel we were still using ARs, F22s and HUMVEEs. 

Haven’t we been basically using the same types of firearms for at least the last 30 years? I don’t know if phasers and blasters are on the current military roadmap.
  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saw it over the weekend - ok. It was like they took:

  • Terminator
  • Back to the Future
  • Aliens
  • Independence Day
  • Stargate
  • Starship Troopers

And put them all into a single movie. I can't think of anything in there that I hadn't seen before in another movie.

Was I entertained? Yes, it was the perfect turn off brain, watch big explosions. Felt a little ham handed, but I watched worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...