Why Mortal Engines Failed

[@marcuswalters8093]

This one hurts because I fell in love with the book and the visualisation of the cities was PERFECT

[@erikwirfs-brock2432]

it's one of the few mega flops that I think is actually pretty good and nailed what it was aiming for, think it just suffered from poor marketing

[@ForiamStudios]

This movie is a guilty pleasure. It’s one of those sick day from work films

[@simonfenton56]

I was marketing manager at our cinema around this time and I'll recall well when our annual distributor presentations happened, we were told not to bother with Mortal Engines as it was getting sent out to die. This was the summer before release.

[@zaphodthenth]

How many movies HAVE you been told "were being sent out to die"?

[@simonfenton56]

@zaphodthenth not that many prior to the pandemic, quite a few after it

[@marcuswalters8093]

When you think about it, this is yet another victim of The Hobbit films.

[@orterves]

I think the Hobbit ruined IMAX for me. We watched it so excited and all I can remember is how uncomfortable the seats were. Such a shame those films went that way.

[@One.Zero.One101]

@orterves It looked terrible on IMAX. The huge IMAX screen really highlighted the PS2 graphics of the film. There were a lot of unintentional comedy like that chase scene in the mines.

[@Happymali10]

I remember watching a review and when they introduced the antagonist the narrator went "he wants to kill the main character. He fails, but lucky for him the box office got her."

[@ThreadBomb]

I think the director was the main problem. A movie like this shouldn't be anyone's first film.

[@berengerdietiker22]

That makes sense.

[@kurtstobbs9616]

Yeah that makes sense especially when the movie had potential

[@Kyrkby]

The books apparently described Hester Shaw as having a 'gargoyle-like' appearance due to her scar covering her eye and nose, but the movie chickened out and just gave the actress some mild makeup scar. Very disappointing.

[@isenhartproductions2677]

Gave em the ole Tyrion Lannister treatment

[@albion65]

in fact her face is so messed up in the book that she actively flies into rages whenever someone mentions her appearance or she sees herself in a mirror. That's a key detail in her relationship with Shrike that the movie doesn't properly translate. He offers her a chance to become a cyborg and the prospect of never having her messed up face again makes her seriously consider accepting his deal.

[@DelphineEraklea]

i was really surprised why everyone was calling her “horrible” and ugly in the film. had to read on wiki that she is supposed to be a beauty cripple

[@lordmontymord8701]

Disappointing, but not very surprising. The higher-ups would have never allowed an "ugly" Hester - not in a production with a budget like this. This was exactly what i thought they would do.

[@notoriousrrz]

The moment I saw Hester in the film I said "Nope" and turned it off. Shame because the books are really good.

[@wjzav1971]

I didn't hate Mortal Engines and had a fairly good time with the visuals and the spectacle. But what really dragged the film down was the complete blandness of the characters, the rushed plot and lack of motivation for anyone to do anything.

[@Michael_ORourke]

It's a case where I enjoyed the world the movie built but didn't care about the characters or what happened in it.

[@pauliheikkinen9711]

The characters lacked motivation because the movie adaptation removed it from the script.

[@oscarstainton]

I hope Philip Reeves’ books gets another chance, ideally with the grungy, raw steampunk fantasy aesthetic of Arcane. The original plan was clearly for Peter Jackson to direct this film about nine years prior, as well as the animated Tintin sequel. Man, Warner Bros and MGM really screwed things up when they forced Del Toro to walk away…

[@SenChalcolithic]

I wish we could get a good, proper steampunk story on the big screen. But I’m not holding my breath.

[@angelcortezano7496]

We can only dream

[@thor.halsli]

Arcane gave us a good steampunk story. And while we wait for the next big steampunk story i recommend the Edgerunner miniseries. Technically a cyberpunk but it scratches the same ich

[@fantasticbirdblue]

Treasure planet...

[@mikedaniels470]

April and the Extraordinary World and Steam Boy are like right there dude.

[@SuperMoviemaster21]

If you give Up on it and if you think like this, then we never actually will. Maybe you and others are just going with what the majority thinks and if you had been more independent in your feet thinking towards it and again not let the majority consume you and set up for it, then maybe just maybe this released something else that you’re looking for could’ve actually happened no matter what no matter how otherwise it may seem

[@stevenhayes7910]

I remember seeing a million ads for this film, and still haven’t no clue what it was about lol Needless to say, I didn’t see it.

[@borjankosarac3645]

As a reader of the book series in my teens, two big sticking points that prevented me from watching this ever (and being glad about it): * They didn’t ever bother trying to recreate Hester’s actually-unsettling facial scars, because Hollywood; the director even said he couldn’t believe Tom could fall for her with them, thus proving he completely and utterly failed to understand the characters. * Valentine being rewritten from an amoral murderer but with a complicated side, into just a monster; Book!Valentine was driven by a love for his daughter Katherine (who he was very close to) and he showed regret as the story unraveled, Film!Valentine doesn’t seem to care for his daughter and wants personal power because… Eh?

[@shironasama0445]

I honestly quite enjoyed it too The opening scene with London attacking Esther’s mobile town was insanely cool in the theater.

[@JeffreyDinaburgNozdrin]

4:36 I got to respect the honesty in saying this. Like honestly one could count how many great films, like universally agreed upon great films bombed, and then how certain films just make money in spite of the quality.

[@LilyApus]

Sure but the issue is this film isn't bad, it's boring, that's far worse

[@yavoth5850]

It's all about the marketing, aka manipulating your audience

[@Ceber300]

Yup, that just happened again with Transformers One

[@perfectallycromulent]

A lot of those great films are just about as great on a small screen in your home as they are on a big screen. But stuff like Transformers movies aren't. I think the cultural practice of thinking some serious film is worthy of an evening out to see it on a big screen, because that's what people do with serious films, is over. People aren't going out of their house for something that doesn't truly need a giant screen. And people used to do this in the past too, it's just that they had far fewer options for home entertainment. Now they do, and they're choosing to a watch different films on different sized screens.

[@notthegreatestdetective]

i loved him saying that too, almost did a double take lol

[@DisposableSupervillainHenchman]

This movie’s biggest problem was it being live-action. It’s so high concept that even the fantastic visual effects can’t sell a huge city moving around, even if it did look cool as hell. It turned it into something ridiculous. Making it animated, with a blend of 2d characters and 3d environments could’ve left the door open for representing the characters for how extreme their appearances really are (Hester, Shrike, etc.), and it would’ve been better for giant moving cities. We know it’s fantastical, but for visual effects to work we have to have it grounded in reality somewhere. Also, I absolutely hated how Universal injected their Minion joke from the start. Such a cheap and tacky example of cross-promotion that instantly showed how unserious the studio was.

[@melissaharris3389]

The whole thing feels like a concept from an 80s anime. Haven't read the books, but I get that the story is a bit convoluted for a single film. An animated series with retro style animation definitely seems like it would've been a better way to go.

[@deathmetal271]

the problem is the west has never truly shaken off the social stigma of animation

[@guyjackson2062]

The Minions joke was actually in the book, though. (Well, originally it was a Mickey Mouse joke, but I'm guessing Universal went with Minions for copyright reasons.)

[@roberttreacy8271]

6:04 I can’t wait to see you talk about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

[@Erasureeraser]

I'm very fascinated how Joe Johnston came in to direct a month of reshoots and then recieved a directing credit shared with Lasse Hallstorm, the original director. I don't think that's ever happen in a film before. Also, funny how the marketing put Tom McCarthy's name in the writing credit as he wrote Johnston's reshoots screenplay but was uncredited in the final finished movie 😅

[@theotherjared9824]

This should have been a mini series. Each episode focuses on a different city, with the finale being like this movie.

[@alejandrocedeno2783]

exactly!

[@kurtstobbs9616]

In the books there are other big cities like London all over the world

[@WgB5]

It was written as a series.

[@yonavine]

This movie devolved in to "a new hope" so fast near the end it was all i could think about sitting in the theater

[@jordangerardpotier]

1:02 ahh the adventure of tintin. On of the most underrated films to ever release.

[@isenhartproductions2677]

Agreed, one of my top ten favorite movies of all time

[@roberttreacy8271]

I love The Adventures of Tintin.

[@gabrielarambula4465]

Still waiting for the sequel

[@amrzidan3404]

Guess we know what movie you would cover next. Unless you already did cover Tintin.​@@isenhartproductions2677

[@isenhartproductions2677]

​@gabrielarambula4465 it's supposedly in development at the moment

[@ay2deet578]

I loved the books, in the trailer they said London was the largest city, I noped out of seeing it. The whole driving force for London's super weapon pursuit is the fact they are not the largest city, and are in a desperate struggle to survive.

[@gregoryblack8109]

Man i really want Peter Jackson to prove to audiences that his LOTR movies werent a fluke and he isnt the next ridley scott. Idk if time and studio interference gets in the way of everything hes made since the second hobbit or what

[@KarlTheExpert]

Are you saying Ridley Scott is a one hit wonder? That comparison makes zero sense, there are few directors who had more hits over a 50 years long career.

[@gregoryblack8109]

​@@KarlTheExpertScott has like maybe 1 big hit every 15 to 20 years and each of those hits are sandwiched between failures

[@moviesareawesome6581]

@@gregoryblack8109Ridley Scott when he was younger was a constant hit after hit. But after Gladitor that’s when it became hit or miss for me.

[@moviesareawesome6581]

Even though it’s not narrative movies but his documentaries have been amazing!

[@isenhartproductions2677]

​@@KarlTheExpertevery time Scott makes a new movie he flips a coin to decide if it will be amazing or terrible

[@connybengtsson9304]

I'm with you on this one. I liked the movie, nothing super special but fun and cool. Sad people dislike it

[@SPARTANLuis067]

I was one of the 8 people that saw it in theaters, never read the books but figured a steampunk Peter Jackson movie would be cool. Story was definitely YA adaptation drivel (not that that's a hot take or anything) but I think the scale and detail of the visuals make up for that. Just a shame those visuals couldn't have been applied to a better story or series

[@bouncycow3010]

Man i was suuuch a big fan of the books (and still am), but the worst crime this film did was the ending. Id really recommend reading the book, it’s different, im about to spoil the big twist at the end…. So the book ends with London getting completely annihilated by its super weapon, with basically everyone there being killed including Catherine. That ending actually shook me as a child man, and just works so damn well for the story. So stupid how the film seemed to have committed to it, and then disneyfied it at the last minute with everyone flipping making friends. But like, the worst thing is is that London getting completely destroyed, acts as a massive plot point for further books, and how the character arcs progress, so even if the movie did well, they’d basically made adapting the rest of the series kinda impossible. Man im so hoping mortal engines gets an animated adaptation someday, because that’s the only way I see the story being able to be realised within a sensible budget. Theres so much phenomenal material to adapt as well, the second book is probably the best in the series, some crazy stuff goes down towards the end of the last novel, the prequel books tell some awesome stories….

[@2Siders]

> That ending actually shook me as a child man A child man? Like a teenager or

[@DMacB42]

This is one of the only movies my wife and I had to quit. We weren’t really enjoying it, felt it was dragging. When we paused and found we were only half way through…. That was it.

[@jaidenkulawiec49]

This is my fav guilty pleasure films. I just love the concept and seeing the cities in the tanks..I have 4/5. Also ever since I watched it I started a Minecraft world and I've been building this big ahh tank with a city and different airships... I just love this film for no good reason

[@cooperhoward3248]

I love and hate it, any shot of cities moving is perfect and the first 10 minutes is amazing.

[@notthemuppet]

You should do a video on the Hugh Jackman Peter Pan movie, there was a huge push when it was coming out then flopped and swept under the rug

[@Erasureeraser]

This movie felt like a second act that was stretch so long

[@FoxWolfWorld]

Dude every time I see your videos I assume you have like at least 800k subscribers. Keep them up and you’ll be there and more in no time

[@glazdarklee1683]

You make many good points. Although it was a visual delight to watch, it was also a chore at times. The many different subplots were distracting for me, and didn't allow me to really care about the characters. But what finally killed this for me was the way the ending seemed so painfully similar to Star Wars.

[@aliminator1310]

This movie should've been animated!

[@yavoth5850]

No, it looked great in live action. For all its problems, that was not one of them

[@tumbokwaboffa]

This is the first time you’ve talked about a movie I’ve never heard of

[@joshomaton]

One of my biggest problems with this was the tone, the tone of even the first book was incredibly dark filled with complex and conflicted characters. What we got just made it feel like the marvel film version of this world that actually has a lot of upsetting and dark imagery in the books.

[@SenChalcolithic]

I remember wanting to like this movie, but just couldn’t. Premise cool; story lazy.

[@Isanion]

I'd never heard of the film or books until after the film came out and had already been declared a bomb.

[@cameronwebb5621]

This channel is slept on. 100k subs when?

[@isenhartproductions2677]

Hopefully next year

[@thegreatstapley]

As a huge book fan, the problem is, as you said, it's overstuffed. The script tries to cram the entire novel into two hours, and gets about 2/3rds in before realising, and rushing to the climax. Even in the 2/3rds it did cover, it was rushed, focusing on action set pieces, rather than giving time for these characters to breathe and grow. Cramming in the (spoilers) Valentine reveal into the final act was just a cheap shock move, pulled from the second book where it works far better. It just needed to be less faithful to the beat-for-beat retelling to be more faithful to the characters, the world, and telling a compelling narrative. That said, the art direction, visuals, costume, and casting was broadly spot-on, and little nods to characters like Pennyroyal tells me the team did their homework. At least we got a couple new books out of the whole debacle.

[@hylje]

Spot on. Books have all the time in the world for plot, and a movie has to fit within two hours or so. A movie script has to decide what it wants to be, and do it ruthlessly

[@MatthewChenault]

As someone who watched this film in theaters, I would say that the film was good, but suffered from two problems: 1. A bit of bad CGI for one character in particular. 2. It was trying to do far too much with far too little time. In a sense, it is reminiscent of another film that Stephen Lang starred in (a film I know him from): Gods and Generals. Just like Mortal Engines, Gods and Generals suffered from the issue of the film trying to do far too much within the scope of the film. Even with the overbloated running time, Gods and Generals felt like it was trying to condense down far too many historical events of the war into a single, two part film. Gods and Generals had the massive potential to be a truly successful film, but ultimately failed due to how much it had to cut out in order to fit into one film. This film had the same issue, but even worse. It tried to condense down three novel’s worth of material into one film. Just like with Gods and Generals, the potential was there for a fantastic film series, but with it being so heavily condensed, it simply suffered from being too rushed.

[@kurtstobbs9616]

That entire movie was the plot of the first book they just changed stuff and added a scene that never happened in the book

[@Will_Morand]

Having read the first book and part of the second, they did a pretty good job adapting it. Everything you see in the movie more or less happens in the book with a few cuts to pieces of each storyline. The only character I can think of who was fully cut was Dog, Kathrine’s pet wolf.

[@Erasureeraser]

You know, maybe hiring a director who was making his directorial debut for a big budget movie like this is not a good idea after all. I mean just look at how 47 Ronin turned out. Speaking of 47 Ronin, could you break down that movie and it's failure? The production problem was pretty interesting as Universal hired a commercial director to take a risky project of a $175 million budget movie for his directorial debut

[@martinkarnstein]

I was hyped on this one back in the day, but reviews held me back. As I’ve checked it out later on streaming, right after initial chase scene ended, the first 30 minutes were just a pain to watch. Acting, directing, the exposition - all was plain amateurish. Too bad, because it should have been the ultimate steampunk classic.

[@DinoDave150]

I remember seeing trailers for this thinking how cool it looked. A shame that it ended up less than the sum of its parts.

[@ripwolfe]

I enjoyed the film enough to watch it a second time recently and still liked it, and I agree with most all of your criticisms. Then I read the books... and oh, boy. The first book I really enjoyed and could see why they wanted to make a film series out of it - but the magic of the first book just didn't hold up in subsequent books. I don't see what the producers were thinking could sustain a franchise by following the series.

[@donuseeisee6465]

Tom and Hester are basically genderbent BEAUTY & the BEAST. Just, Tom starts out naive to the point of being loved by most but taken somewhat advantage of. Having their personal story going from Tom loving all books they come across and Hester being all too happy burning them if it makes him cry, to Hester basically regarding the world through the lens of "F**K WITH MY PRETTY BOY AND I'LL GIVE YOU HELL" is , just love. They really missed out on the chemistry and character growth in the lead relationship. He is the face, she is the muscles, together they share one braincell (like all orange cats 🐈) and are really codependent to manage each other's ptsd. Combined with them both being raging hormonal teenagers who are both orphans.

[@kurtstobbs9616]

Yeah and I was surprised that they didn't have a kid in the 2 years between the first and second book

[@donuseeisee6465]

@@kurtstobbs9616 do you want my hypothesis on that?

[@donuseeisee6465]

@@kurtstobbs9616 do you want my hypothesis on that?

[@donuseeisee6465]

KZbin hides my replies from myself. Until I search in the tab "Most Recent" comments.

[@kurtstobbs9616]

@@donuseeisee6465 it's fine man and just so you know this movie is the reason why I started reading the books cause I wanted to see the differences

[@jbcatz5]

It’d be interesting to see how the book’s fanbase responded to the movie, how faithful it was to the story and themes and overall how it stands as an adaptation rather than as a movie on its own.

[@borjankosarac3645]

As one of those fans? It’s not good… Every big change is for the worse.

[@E3ECO]

I remember seeing the movie, but not a whole lot about it. My fading impression was that it was okay, but obviously not memorable.

[@alang.bandala8863]

A friend of mine had a reading marathon of all Mortal Engines books. He went excited, came out very dissapointed. I ask him about his thoughs and he said: "I don't know what happend, but the more you read, the more you hate the characters. The ending is poethic but it's still very lame"

[@albion65]

It's ironic that you mention Katherine cause in the book her character dies thwarting her father's attempts to use the MEDUSA weapon. I felt the character was short shifted in the book by this so I was actually glad the film reversed her fate.

[@Skaiser_Wilhelm7938]

I was 11 when I read the first book and its sequel, only learning about the film halfway into book 2, and as soon as I found out, I began eating up everything about this movie. One of my most anticipated and most disappointing cinema experiences in the past 10 years. 🙁

[@Langkowski]

The movie did not match the images in my head when I read the novel

[@donuseeisee6465]

TLDR: THIS MALE AUTHOR, BLESS HIM, GENDERBENT COMMON CHARACTER TROPES, DIDN'T BEND TO COMMON ETHNICITY AND GENDER BIAS AND STEREOTYPES. IN THE FIRST CHAPTERS. Tom is the BEAUTY, Hester is the BEAST Female reader here, ML is only a face-card with manners but naive and no actual skills beyond that. FL is hideous, badass fighter, street smart and experienced, hotheaded and rash. FANG is a level-headed badass, beautiful Asian woman, becoming the primary mentor for ML & FL. Giving them stability in their lives for once and also becoming their big sister figure. Shaping their values. It was more than 10 years ago that i read the books. If anyone wants me to continue, SHOUT me a comment. 😊💜

[@versi0nzero]

I subconsciously knew today was the day for a new Isenhart video

[@redherringoffshoot2341]

this film would’ve been more likely to succeed if they replaced the YA aspects w/ more complex characterization/writing

[@anyaaa2801]

I just wanted a great steampunk story with big spectacles. I like it still.

[@PapWhiskyMooMoo]

I barely remember watching this movie, to me its was mostly just a 'consume and move on' movie. Which is unfortunate because it did have the potential to become so much more. If it was like you say, directed by a more experienced director and released 10ish years earlier

[@BeSponged]

I like to see you do a video on Warner Bros. Project Popcorn experiment that happened in 2021. The story behind that concept was pretty interesting to see the least.

[@hamishfox]

Robert Sheehan is a fantastic actor, but unlikable and annoying is kind of his thing so he's probably not the best choice for this story. If you haven't seen Misfits I'd recommend it. He absolutely made that show.

[@creatrixZBD]

That show hooked me when it came out. Always had a fondness for Brit tv/film, and I got right into the first two (or three, maybe?) seasons. Lost interest after that, but that’s an annoying habit of mine and maybe nothing to do with the show.

[@Langkowski]

Or The Umbrella Academy

[@groot8774]

I think the biggest reasons it failed was the cheesy dialogue and the butchering of the plot structure and they turned the third act into Star Wars. They butchered it so much they didn’t kill Catherine when she is meant to die

[@jessehughes8274]

RIP Shrike, this whole series followed the Rule of Cool in all the best ways

[@whitleypedia]

Peter Jacksons success with LOTR seems to be the exception for him not the rule alas.

[@isenhartproductions2677]

Personally, i think he's a fantastic filmmaker who keeps getting screwed over by the studio system. It's no wonder he's pivoted to making documentaries.

[@gregoryblack8109]

His latest middle earth movie is an utter bomb

[@sws212]

​@@gregoryblack8109He's just a producer on the anime movie.

[@CitizenHenry-tc1vn]

I hate this movie because of its forceful writing that left a bad taste in my mouth, but I’ll admit it has a good visual eye, and I’m glad you found some enjoyment.

[@VernaldoNiisama]

What's funny is when I saw it in theaters I was like "Y'know, this probably woulda kicked ass afew years ago". But yeah, I genuinely thought it was quite abit of fun and resoundingly alright.

[@thesoundoflife3128]

The scar was cute where it supposed to be horrible that it would make the protagonist have deep vengeance to those who caused it.

[@James_McDonald]

I want to see this movie in theaters because it was made by the teams behind The Lord of the Ring films and also how it looked visually. However, I decided not to pay my money for this movie because of the negative reception of it when it premiered in theaters.

[@mx9226]

I think I saw a trailer for this in the theater. And I never heard about it again.

[@dr.johntorres2493]

It would have done better as a mini series, that would have solved a lot of the problems mentioned, like character development and filling in the plot holes.

[@BugsyFoga]

Not ever Peter Jacksons name being attached to this could save the film

[@Ihasnotomato]

So I actually saw this movie in theatres, I had no prior knowledge about it and thought it looked kinda cool. The only thoughts I had about the film was that it was annoying and boring lol

[@hylje]

I haven't read the books and saw the film in a theatre on a whim. Overall it was a reasonably enjoyable rollercoaster ride of a movie, but it was clearly half baked and didn't really know what it was trying to be beyond zooming past the sights. Movies need to be more compact than that to be great.

[@powwowken2760]

All I remember about this film was that the trailers featured dialogue reads so bad that the actor/actress would've been fired from a grade school play. That's the TRAILERS, the best of the best the film had to offer! And the best they could do was below high school level acting?! I can't even imagine how trash the movie itself must've been, because after that ocean sized red flag I sure wasn't ever going to watch it.

[@katherinealvarez9216]

Oh yeah. This had the actor who was in Misfits and then did TUA.

[@jbcatz5]

TUA?

[@katherinealvarez9216]

@jbcatz5 The Umbrella Academy.

[@zhouenlai2569]

I am both very familiar with all 4 books and also saw this in the cinema in Frankfurt (Oder) back in 2018. To me, the movie simply didn´t capture what I had loved about the book. The visuals and sets were great, but Hester, Valentine and Anna all felt off. Tom was fine, he ist boring and clueless in all the novels too. BTW the 2nd book is the weakest of the four, no wander they did not even try turning it onto a movie after this one failed so badly.

[@kikibleu2302]

I have looked for Mortal Engines on streaming several times and nada… Still would like to see it.

[@bradwolf07]

I saw the trailer for this movie and was so excited. I heard it was adapted from a book series, so I went out for the first book. I read it before the movie came out. I did enjoy the book, though it seemed aimed at a younger audience than I was expected. When I watched the movie, I did enjoy it; but it was clear to me it was more miss than hit. Though the changes they did to Hugo Weaving's character (he's a fantastic actor).

[@Waffletigercat]

I think the entire concept of Mortal Engines is stupid AF.

[@skypaladin9878]

I enjoyed the movie and then read the first book and...liked it even more. It skips about 200 pages but is reasonably faithful to end past page 300. It makes chages of course, but most worked for me, and I really liked the older leads, more emphases on shrike, and the happier end.

[@SuperMoviemaster21]

Moana 2 is Actually not bad! At the very least it’s better than the second frozen, and actually did what that movie should’ve done in the way that it should’ve done it.Just because it doesn’t have a whole lot to offer does not mean that is bad; I would call a lot more movies that are even more streamlined thst don’t have as much to offer way more bad than this

[@houndofculann1793]

That's just like, your opinion man. In my opinion it definitely is bad and doesn't deserve the profits it's making. It wasn't even supposed to be a movie in the first place

[@SuperMoviemaster21]

@ There were lots of movies, some very well cleaned up some of the very best ever that we’re not even supposed to be movies either, so what’s the difference there? And Cenis it is doing very well, there must surely be more than a decent amount of people who think it’s actually good overall, EH?

[@fatheadcat9958]

I stumbled on this film on TV a couple of years ago and really liked it.

[@BlankPageEmperor1334]

I'm the only person I know who saw this, almost purely out of curiosity. I actually kinda liked it, but I don't know who it was for. No offense to fans of the books! I'd just never heard of the books /at all/ until commercials for the movie popped up everywhere. 🙃

[@samdryden7944]

As Boycie once said, "we've done our money, and it's vanished into thin air!"

[@DJGHOSH]

I actually liked the movie too. The concept was cool, I wish there was more of the mechanized man, but I don't think it deserves to hate that it got

[@nicktw8688]

The 13th warrior is actually a fun film, with a kickass soundtrack. ❤ Mortal engines was just dumb....could have worked as an anime.

[@girvitza]

I saw this movie 2 years after it was released, it was during the start of covid and i Had found it on Netflix. It was just some movie I stumbled apon scrolling through looking for something to watch. Safe to say I actually enjoyed it. I never read the books either but I remember seeing those books at the book fairs that took place in my local libraries each year.

[@nerdjournal]

The Ghoul from the Fallout show is a revamp of Shrike. Change my mind!

[@rightsarentpolitical]

As a fellow steampunk junky, I also enjoyed the film and had never read the books.

[@atticstattic]

It was bonkers and well paced - I enjoyed it.

[@OGNord]

I saw it opening week, it was fantastic. Even better on a big screen.

[@ToaAgarwaen]

I really wanted to love this movie, it had so many ingredients that I love! But damn. Also, what's wrong with Moana?

[@isenhartproductions2677]

That was a clip of Moana 2, the original Moana is fantastic

[@ToaAgarwaen]

@isenhartproductions2677 ah, ok. Didn't know Moana 2 was out already. Time just seems to slip by. Anyway, loved the video! Love the channel!

[@isenhartproductions2677]

@@ToaAgarwaen Thank you!

[@stromaufwaerts-b7w]

I liked the movie, don't know the books, miss the orginality of blockbuster cinema, we never had a big Steampunk franchise, that's a missed chance but yes, the movie had its flaws.

[@newdawnalex]

Yeah, mortal engines is a guilty little pleasure of mine. Looks fantastic in 4k.

[@nope5657]

Pretty great flick imo. Well realized, exciting, unique in the current blockbuster landscape. Couldn't give a fig about it flopping.

[@zackyezek3760]

The biggest problem this movie had was the source material, just like most of the other big budget “YA novel” dystopia movies of the late 00s and 10s. Hollywood still hasn’t learned that billion dollar VFX and great actors can’t compensate for bad writing, especially bad plot & characters. In this particular case the biggest issue is the serious melodramatic tone and story clashing with the cheesy sci-fi B movie premise, plot & world building. Your story can either be a serious epic or a cheesy fun comedy, not both. Pick one and then modify the setting & characters accordingly. Instead we have a cartoonishly ridiculous world with equally cartoonish, one-dimensional characters that everyone tries to play 100% straight and serious. I’d have adopted the characters and stories of the books and tried fixing the world building for the movies. You have to keep major elements like the moving cities, but you can minimize the potentially laughable stupidity of them by, say, NOT spending an entire big scene on said cities literally hunting and eating each other on a giant plain like a cheetah racing down a gazelle. For example, making the cities fairly small- as dark ages cities really were and would be- or into swarms of independently mobile platforms would preserve the concept while looking and feeling a lot less ridiculous on film. It’d also potentially open up new storylines, lore, and dramatic scenes that can replace or augment book material that’s not readily adaptable to screen. After all, even Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies couldn’t be exact 100% adaptations of the books.

[@lakegroce685]

I’d say someone should turn it into a show but then it gets canceled after 2 seasons, be deemed a failure even if people love it and want more, all so the company can use it as a tax right off. Because that’s where we are when it comes to art.

[@gos_707]

Now, I didn’t even watch the film when it came out at the same time with spider verse. I watched this like two years ago, maybe? And I was like I don’t even know what’s going on? I feel like the CGI was way too often and I feel bad for Peter Jackson like he deserve to go by to directing instead of producing.

[@Starkiller3025]

Devoting almost half the video to your opinions is ballsy

[@countgeekula9143]

Not read the books but quite enjoyed the movie. Not great but far from terrible. It certainly looked good and I wasn't bored.

[@MrChristophSteininge]

I watched it in the cinema. And it was confusing to say the least. There was a number of protagonists that was too large and added to the confusion. The story of Shrike was completely divorced from the main plot and served only as a backstory to the female lead protagonist but took up half an hour of screen time and was inconsequential to the main plot. That could have been left out. Many aspects of the story were a mess that had no intime consequence and explanation in the plot and were included only because they were in the book. To tell the main plot the movie could have been an hour shorter then it was. This is due to incompetent direction, I think. You have to decide what is important.

[@frankydclc]

i saw it in IMAX on opening night lol. it plays great in large format.

[@bryanwigmore7224]

Maybe part of the problem was that the premise of moving cities was just too off-puttingly implausible to attract a general audience into watching it. In a book you can get past this because a reader's imagination works differently to film. (You could argue superheroes are just as implausible, but they've been part of culture for decades.)

[@kennethadler7380]

Because the idea of moving cities is so stupid

[@PashShan]

I never saw it but I want to now. I didn't know she was in it. She was great in Da Vincis Demons

[@TheBoshman95]

I always wanted to see this one... It looked pretty cool.