Challenge: Fix After Earth (the movie)

MerryPrankster

Haven't seen it, but if you took out all the weird Scientology-esque stuff (fear is a choice, ghosting, etc), the story would have been a lot less bizarre and more sensible.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Step 1 to make any movie better: Fire M. Night Shymalayan.

Seriously, that guy's career has been going downhill since he first started. Here, I found a chart:

1_123125_123050_2279896_2294903_2296069_110603_cb_chartrt.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg


After Earth got an 11%, putting it right on line with the chart.
 

Lord Malikai

Likewise haven't seen it all the way through, but I'd say ditch or seriously downplay the entire "After Earth" concept. The whole backstory is, while not Star Wars, still at least kind of interesting. Seeing more of the Rangers and Nova Prime would serve three purposes:

1) Including more human characters means that the not particularly talented Jaden Smith doesn't have to carry the movie. A good example of what I'm talking about is the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut - Orlando Bloom (no offense to him) isn't really a top rate actor, but when surrounded by enough talent the movie comes off really well regardless.

2) If you don't have all the time spent on Earth then you can avoid the unfortunate comparisons to Avatar that plagued the film, even before it was released.

3) Who saw Star Wars and didn't come out saying "I wish I were Jedi Knight"? The best you can do with After Earth is "I wish a camping trip with my dad/son took a turn for the worse." That's obviously uninspiring. Spending more time on the backstory could at least give a shot at "I wish I could be a cool Ranger like Will Smith." And that'd at least be an improvement. If nothing else it gives Will Smith a better chance to shine as the big-budget action hero star that he is, instead of the awkward voice on communicator he was for most of the film.

The big problem is that at the end of the day it's hard to make the film not a nepotistic star vehicle. Will Smith's character "Cypher Raige" is very obviously a Mary Sue Self-Insert Fic type character and I don't think that's avoidable. Likewise Will Smith offered M. Night Shyamalan the chance to direct from the get-go, so that's pretty difficult to change. If you can get M. Night out of the director's chair though, that'd be a plus.
 

AltBBCGordon

The answer, for once is studio execs. One of more of them plays hard ball and basically says "M. Night hasn't had a hit for years, they may make money but we aren't going to trust him with a $150 Million plus film. He isn't used to working with that amount of cash"

So they insist on a different director, and M. Night gets exec producer or something.

That would sort out the turgid direction.

Next get someone who is used to action films to give the script a once over such as David Koepp or Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to polish the script and iron out the Mary Sue elements.
 

SunilTanna

In the future we have to fight giant alien monsters, which are stronger, bigger, and quicker than us.

...We have giant space ships, as well as lasers and nukes, not to mention tanks and M-16s. We also have the ability to make ourselves invisible to those monsters (by hiding in an airtight container, such as a spaceship).

...but we decide to use none of those technologies. We wear our normal clothes (in fact we don't even bother with gloves to protect our hands from poisonous plants), and fight with a sword.

We also use itty bitty flare guns as our only effective means of communication. But we only put them in one location on the ship.


The premise of the film is idiotic. You want your characters to face obstacles, but when the primary obstacle is their own idiocy, it's virtually impossible to build audience sympathy even with a well-put together, well-acted production (which this film wasn't either).

If they had set in the Middle Ages, ancient history, or Conan-like prehistory, then it could make sense, but not this way. Oh, and get better stars. More characters. etc
 

SunDeep

Banned
Incognito said:
As the title says -- how would you change After Earth to make it a financial success? And how would you change it to be enjoyable to you?

Only stipulation is that your version of the movie has to have the same basic premise and plot.

Here is an amusing review of the film and what went wrong (in the reviewer's opinion):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZB3GLIRx-c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5BJE0fNJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb6nX0PlIuw
Click to expand...

With exactly the same basic premise and plot? You sure that this doesn't belong in ASB?
 
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