Doom: Annihilation update

Alas, there seem to be no legal streaming or digital download options for it in Australia right now.  I'd like to see it, but I'm not at a "30 bucks on DVD" level of keenness, here.

I ordered a copy. I don't really care one way or the other, it doens't look like a good film but Doom 4 & Eternal have developed a hardcore right-leaning fanbase, which Bethesda has practically encouraged(why not? 50 alt-right channels praising the game constantly are free advertising!) and they're crying a river of tears over this movie because it EXISTS. I'll buy it to spite them. I didn't much care for Doom 4 to begin with for a lot of reasons, but just as the garbage fire known as the "furry" fandom have ensured I will never want to touch Undertale, they've ensured I'll never want to give reboot Doom a remote chance.

Speaking of the idea of an animated Doom movie, i just remembered this exists.

Original source being:

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/252756

And looking at Wolfenstein:

I think this one came from an animator's personal site, if i recall.

Blazkowicz Escapes did come from an animator's personal site.  The author's site no longer works so I am glad I put that copy on Youtube.  It is a fantastic piece.

And the trend of “WORST THING EVAR” because it’s not a glorified three-hour montage of Doom 2016 with an Avengers-tier budget continues:

It’s like almost nobody knows how filmmaking works anymore. 

I watched it tonight. I'd avoided as many spoilers as possible so went in totally blind. I must say I rather enjoyed it. Yeah it was super low budget, the FX were a bit crap at times and the dialogue occasionally cringeworthy, but all in all I thought it was absolutely fine for what it was.

In some respects I reckon it was pretty damn close to what id Software probably had in mind when they originally were coming up with Doom in 1993. No there's no super powered 2016 version of Doomguy, but he wasn't like that back in the original games anyway. I reckon 1993 id Software would have rather enjoyed it.

The BFG prop had no weight and wasn't even painted, and it shoots a green proyectile that looked like it had the hability to leave you unconscious at contact, the targets just fell to the ground and no more. Is like they didn't know what's the weapon effect in the game.

The imps were able to take any amount of bullets except when the scene requiered them to die, then shooting them does kill them. I should not say "them" since it seems that they only had one rubber suit, that's why you only see one imp at the time.

Regarding the budget, maybe if your budget is tight you can change the scope of the movie to acomodate your budget. For instance: Too much cast that nobody cared, pay a bit more to fewer actors and you will not have to expend more money in writing, props and actors for those characters.

Also, don't write a CGI climax to your low budget movie just to make weird looking random demon say -"humans suck muahaha, let's f@#% humankind"-.

Another excerpt from the interview:

Quote

Kane: Stuff like the first season of Stranger Things has proved that you can shoot on a budget and still find success. Did you feel like this was the story that you wanted to tell?

Giglio: Going in—since I’ve got a lot of experience with 1440 and I knew they weren’t gonna throw tens of millions of dollars at us—I can’t pitch a script that can’t be done. You try to always aim a little higher, and it’s always easier to come down than go up, so I would probably say that we were very ambitious for the stuff that we wanted to do. You write a script and then you shoot it and then you put it together, and it’s never exactly—none of us are Kubrick, and none of us can go back and do things over and over and over again. But I’m very pleased with the finished result.

Maybe I would’ve liked it a little scarier in spots, but this is just how the film kind of unfolded. I knew, once the shit hit the fan at the middle of the movie, that it was just gonna be nonstop action. So we ended up cutting some the earlier stuff, making it a little bit tighter. But listen: even J. J. Abrams wants more time and money, so I’m content with what we got.

It was weird, because this is my seventh film and, I would say, the most reliant on postproduction. Most of the time, you kind of know what the finished film’s gonna be. But there’s close to 1,000 visual-effects shots, and they were all vital. Every time you see a “former human” or a demon, there’s wire removals there. The movie looked very rough for a very long time, because it just took a long time for our post process.

The Hell sequence—that was literally just Amy Manson on a green screen with nothing. She was acting to nothing. The ground was fake; the walls were fake. The only shots that are real in the Hell sequence is when she first pops out of the water. We built that little rock section, and then everything from that point on was just a very lengthy process to finalize. So it was pretty challenging for that aspect.

Kane: The Imp was great. Obviously, you have the sort of main Imp on Phobos that you spend a lot of time with. Was that achieved mostly with a suit?

Giglio: There were four suits; that’s what we were able to afford. I wanted to do as much in camera as I possibly could, because when we get to Hell, I wanted that to look nothing like the rest of the film; I didn’t wanna just be in another location. So we knew we were doing digital work once we got to Hell, with the two types of demons that are down there. The former humans are all makeup effects, and then we had four suits. You never wanna use all four at the same time, just in case there’s kind of an emergency. There was one scene where we saw three, but we ended up cutting that. But most of the time we were using two hero demons, and we’d rotate them out. The guys would get really tired; it was very hot in those suits. And you have a demon suit that’s specifically for leaping down from shit, and jumping up from stuff, and so you always have to be careful of tearing the suit.

But this was a very experienced company. Most of the crew was out of Bulgaria, but I actually brought the makeup-effects team, Autonomous FX. They had worked on another movie of mine; I think they had done some orcs in that Will Smith Bright film. So many people are now just doing CGI stuff, but they were pretty excited to do a Doom demon.

It was great. It’s a little different than the game, but we were confined to using just the games that Universal owns, so we couldn’t really borrow anything from the new Bethesda-owned Doom—just the original three games. And we were comparing our demons to pretty pixelated demons, so we figured the audience would give us a break.

Famous last words.

On 10/16/2019 at 5:58 AM, Gez said:

It’s a little different than the game, but we were confined to using just the games that Universal owns, so we couldn’t really borrow anything from the new Bethesda-owned Doom—just the original three games.

If they'd said at the very start they couldn't use anything from Doom 2016, so were mostly basing it on KDITD / Doom 3, it would have set expectations a lot more in line with what they were making.

It's gotta be better than MK Annihilation.

I liked it. For what it's worth, it seemed more faithful to the games than the 2005 film. 

I find it incredibly frustrating thinking about how much this film would have been elevated by a bigger budget. Hammy acting and predictable plot aside, nearly everything would have been solved, sadly, by throwing more money at it. Giglio did his best, but an action sci-fi horror dealing with otherworldly imagery is nearly impossible to effectively pull off with a small budget.

I've watched it and while it's far from the worst movie I've seen, this is also its flaw. It's mediocre, by the numbers, and completely unmemorable. What I'm trying to say is that it's boring. Doom has all this crazy stuff going in it, and yet the two movies we've had have been so afraid to be anything else than Aliens clone no. 18391.

I liked:

- the main actress, she was surprisingly OK, she had a mean look, but I wouldn't mind if she had buffed up for the role; she had the look in her eye but she looked physically unfit

- the Betruger actor

- the casting of the Captain, he's the perfect Doomguy

- some sets looked actually neat and I like the gooey teleport

- overall, for this budget, the movie looked... quite fine. Lots of details, textures from games recreated here and there, little notifications everywhere. Effort was put here.

I didn't like:

- Still no caco or revenant or arachnotron on screen. They have this amazing bestiary and we get one cloned imp and zombies. And not even varieties of possessed zombies, just what looks like the same guy in always the same costume.

- Action was often pointless, action scenes weren't story scenes in themselves, they were just random shots of shooting and fighting that ended and then the plot continued. Although I kinda liked the part on the ladder with parkour zombie, that was fun.

- I hated random name dropping and omnipresent references, from Joanna Dark to Blazkowicz to Betruger to game dev names to situations taken straight out of Aliens.

- And I hated most of the casting. They didn't act that bad, but they looked like models, not soldiers.

So yeah, it's passable but too by the numbers to be worth my time.

Also, the title is plain stupid. Doom and Annihilation are synonyms. What's next? Rage: Fury? Shadow Warrior: Umbra Combatant? If they were smart, they'd call it The Ultimate Doom or Final Doom, or Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed, or something like that.

So the official Cinemassacre account retweeted this (and the OP made sure to tag Gggmanlives):

I’m officially more than sure that “Doom Annihilation bad” is going to become the new “Fortnite bad”, in that it’s just gonna get milked to death for upvotes and Reddit karma. 

OH my God. oh my God. I will never play Medal of Honor Underground again because you play as a woman. Medal of Honor started with Jimmy Patterson and If Jimmy is not there... is not Medal of Honor :/

-Gerardo194 discovering something new...

19 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

So the official Cinemassacre account retweeted this (and the OP made sure to tag Gggmanlives):

 

 

I’m officially more than sure that “Doom Annihilation bad” is going to become the new “Fortnite bad”, in that it’s just gonna get milked to death for upvotes and Reddit karma. 

 

Sure, buy the movie so that you can selfie yourself dropping it in the trash, that'll show them! Tell all your friends to do the same, too. Make sure that as many people as possible are buying the physical version of the movie so that they make pictures of dropping it in the trash.

On samedi 19 octobre 2019 at 6:19 AM, Szuran said:

I hated random name dropping and omnipresent references, from Joanna Dark

Honestly i am tired of bad or meh doom movies, i want a new unique movie for Doom that is cheesy.

I am sure this new movie is alright, decent at best but it just ain't Doom

Doom is an underdog, even now. No studio gives enough of a shit about the franchise to get it right. So far it's been

1) A director with lots of money who doesn't understand the source material producing mildly enjoyable trash,

2) A director with very little money who understands the source material producing overly repetitive but enjoyable trash.

In both cases, poor studio decisions (hiring the wrong people or insisting on a pathetically small budget) keep Doom as a cinematic concept from reaching its potential. It could easily reach the heights of Aliens, Hellraiser, Total Recall, or Event Horizon if the right people work on it. It's a matter of people with money understanding who to give the money to.

I don't get the praise of this trashy movie. I find 2005 one far more adorable even though it's far from being a Doom, and I neither like rock (he got award for the crappiest actor play for a reason). I do admit that generic "zombie virus" thingy theme gets so fucking annoying, but at least 2005 doom movie did it before zombie shit hit the fan.

Annihilation is just a garbage, no matter how you look at, not just because of female protagonist. Guns that look like they are cheap plastic toys made in china (because if you add spin up sound of minigun to assault rifle without any spinning barrel, we totally will believe it's a "chaingun") especially bfg which shoots green vomit, plot is VERY mediocre and slow advancing, and just ONLY ONE type of enemy. The bad guy here seem to be mere for memes, because he doesn't look, nor act like original Doom 3's bad guy. Also random BJ reference just because lel.

The only thing that new movie is better at than the old one is that it's, supposedly, an other dimensional creatures, not just a fucking zombies. This time, the enemy even can, on a pretty rare occasion, form a ball made of flame with their hands and throw it, so that's at least something. Hey, at least doom 2005 had pinky, even though it's just a nerd in wheelchair on crack. The first person scene was also awesome. If the whole movie was about first person action adventure where you shoot Dwayne Johnson as the final boss instead of zombies, I bet a lot of people would love that movie despite it not being technically a doom.

watched this finally.

it felt like a damn doom level, more or less.  From the key vanishing early to the excessive BFG explosions in the end- the pacing follows to the beat of a doom level.  The sound effects are pretty bad but the visual effects are decent.  Hell looks cool.  There are like half a dozen places they visit but are all pretty small rooms.  The ending is pretty neat tbh.  I like the imps.  The story is absolute shit, of course; and most of the dialogue lacks nuance.  There are a number of good one-liners though.

2 stars.

Just copy-pasting what I said in the other DA thread. (If this is frowned upon, I apologise)

At this point, I think the only way to make any good doom movie would be to base it on the First four Doom Novels and the first 2 Doom games.

That is if they don't just give up on making any more doom movies entirely based on how bad the first one was and, comparatively, how much worse the second one was.

The most obvious thing to do is make a half-hour, lavish 2D animated adaptation. There are tons of amazingly talented animators making free content on YouTube; give some of them a studio with additional artists and you could release a great product while paying people fairly. But that's unlikely to happen because

1) There is an arbitrary expectation that most movies reach at least the 90 minute mark,

2) American studios are often reluctant to produce 2D adult animation due to an unfounded fear that Westerners will reject movies that aren't live action, and 

3) There is a lot of ignorance as to the potential to recruit proven, talented artists to take on projects of this scope.

On 10/18/2019 at 4:02 AM, Gokuma said:

It's gotta be better than MK Annihilation.

Finaly watched it.

Nah. MK: Annihilation >>>>> Doom: Annihilation.

MK is a fun watch, Doom is a draaaaag (no way I'm gonna rewatch it willingly).

The hell scene was pretty ok visualy, like it was torn from another movie.

Overall: empty shell with no direction and references applied all over.

Thing that burns me the most is the lead actress... ok, I'm joking xD (though she's miscast as shit): it's the use of religious items / characters that aren't religious at all and don't affect the plot / events. We're constantly showed this fucking cross in our eyes and it plays no fucking role in the movie. We've got a space priest, but he doesn't do cinema-priest thing. I'd loved to see some exorcism or imps burned with the holy water or something. Also, "possesed" not possesed enough, where's the pea soup? :-/. Was there any pentagram or candle even?

---

QUESTION. Director said that: "There's a version of Pinky in the film and the main demon was inspired by the Hell Night. Overall, there are 4 different types of demons in the film". Errr... excuse me, pinky?

Anybody who thinks the 2005 movie was a good Doom movie is automatically invalidated and deserves no consideration.

42 minutes ago, Quasar said:

Anybody who thinks that either of the 2 Doom movies we got was a good Doom movie is automatically invalidated and deserves no consideration.

Fixed ;) 

On 10/16/2019 at 2:58 PM, Gez said:

The Hell sequence—that was literally just Amy Manson

Wait, wait. They misspelled her name in the movie? I'm 85% sure she's credited as Amy Mason.

12 minutes ago, Szuran said:

Wait, wait. They misspelled her name in the movie? I'm 85% sure she's credited as Amy Mason.

It's correct on the box, at least.

13 minutes ago, Szuran said:

I'm 85% sure she's credited as Amy Mason.

Shit, you're right, 1st credit it's "AMY MASON".

I guess it's Silent Hill reference.

She's "Manson" in the end credits though.

That's effort on display here, misspell the name of your lead actress.

Yeah because accidents never happen, derp.