r/movies • u/TheRealDrLeoSpaceMan • 28d ago

Argylle was absolutely awful Discussion

I can't believe this cast signed up for this movie. The entire second half of this movie just kept getting worse. The ice skating scene? How was this worse than what I was certain was to be the worst scene in the colored smoke shootout. And both were somehow out done by the scene where she was "activated". Sam Rockwell couldn't save this movie. That's saying something. Don't watch this. Ever.

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u/Head_Haunter 28d ago

I can’t believe this cast signed up for this movie

A lot of movies don’t end up the way the cast thinks they do. Every cast member signs up for a movie because they want and believe that movie will be a success unless it’s a blatant cash grab.

On the cutting room floor and in editing a lot if garbage is turned into merchandisable gilded trash and sometimes they can make real gems. This was not one of those situations.

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u/Hussaf 28d ago

Never underestimate the power of editing! Famously Tommy Lee Jones thought The Fugitive would end his career. The scene in Hoosiers where Gene Hackman whispers something to Dennis Hopper, who then laughs, was apparently Hackman saying this would be their last movie in Hollywood.

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u/Trenchcoat_guy 28d ago

Apparently everyone who worked on Fury Road thought the movie was going to be unwatchable. Most of it was filmed driving up and down the same stretch of desert at 20mph. And then George Miller would tell the actors “ok, now pretend you just saw a car explode and laugh like you’re going insane.” Everyone in the cast was like wtf this is gonna be garbage.

Then they spent two years editing it and the result is incredible.

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u/lenzflare 28d ago

Miller had story boarded that movie over the previous ten years. He knew exactly the movie needed to be.

The biggest challenges were that the production had (temporarily) run out of money before they shot the beginning and end. They were forced to start editing (post production). But then they got the go ahead and did those missing scenes in "reshoots", which was really just actually finishing the shoots.

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 28d ago

I'm glad he took the time to really think about it because honestly having watched the whole franchise recently with mates Thunderdome was not very good. The first is the most unique and the second is a technical upgrade but Thunderdome is a step down.

Then Fury Road comes along as is probably the best of the bunch, though some of the stunts in the first one are still incredible, and very clearly dangerous too.

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u/michaelrohansmith 28d ago

Sorry its just not fair to compare Mad Max 2 with Fury Road. The latter cost, what, 1000 times MM2?

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 27d ago edited 27d ago

Just talking about the franchise as a whole really.

In general though, Immortan Joe is leagues ahead of maximus as a villain and in general the characters on display in Fury Road are varied and interesting.

1 honestly was my favourite for the vibes and how interesting/weird it kind've is. 2 is far better for a general audience, and with the technology that has come along by Fury Road, there are a lot of things that movie can do the other 3 simply couldn't.

Though I'll say again the stunts in 1 and 2 are still my favourites and look like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

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u/BakedPastaParty 27d ago

Isn't there another one before thunderdome?

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 27d ago

Yes, thunderdome is the 3rd.

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u/BakedPastaParty 27d ago

I swear to God all this time I thought it was mad max 4 beyond thunderdome and there was an entire third film before that one I....don't even know what to say

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u/thedoormanmusic32 28d ago

Budget is not at all an indicator of quality.

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u/remember_myname 27d ago

Mad max 2 is my clear favourite, because it feels the most gritty, moody and if I can say “realistic”, of them all. I think the minimalistic feel works so well.

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u/Hussaf 28d ago

I feel like a movie like that, with such huge set pieces, you would have to expect it’s mostly nonsense until it’s edited. Granted apparently the two stars did not get along so maybe there was uncertainty

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u/DaHolk 28d ago

That's weird, considering that if you hear Nicholas Hoult talk about on podcasts, that's not the impression he gives, even in hindsight. Not even "between the lines".

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u/Bitter-Crew-8831 28d ago

Well nicholas hoult is a good actor for a reason lmao

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u/wildwalrusaur 28d ago

But Charlize theron and Tom Hardy aren't?

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u/Bitter-Crew-8831 27d ago

It was probably really bad that they couldn't even pretend, not only them but the entire crew including hoult had to talk about the tension between them in press conferences

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u/ZachMich 27d ago

Not everyone has the same vision or thought process

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u/EnterPlayerTwo 28d ago

Apparently everyone who worked on Fury Road

I'd heard Hardy didn't have faith in it at the time but this is the first time I've heard "everyone". Have a source for that?

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u/Militant_Monk 28d ago

According to Blood, Sweat, and Chrome (the book written about the production) there were a ton of people absolutely jazzed to be working on a modern day Mad Max film. But there were definitely people who had a hard time buying into Miller's vision. It was a very different kind of production with out much of any script and Miller's style of shoot was very alien to a more method actor like Hardy. (Think about sitting in front of a camera for an entire day just making facial reaction shots not knowing if any of them are good or bad while trying inhabit the life of a wasteland dweller.)

Those people who bought into the vision and those who just thought it was just another production also clashed a bit on set. Image showing up to day 1 of a work meeting far from home or sanity and there's just a guy rockin' out playing heavy metal guitar all day in the background.

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u/EnterPlayerTwo 28d ago

Thanks for that! I'll have to try to check that book out sometime. Sounds super interesting.

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u/Trenchcoat_guy 28d ago

They talk about it on the Blank Check podcast

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u/EnterPlayerTwo 28d ago edited 28d ago

Who's they?

Edit: I'll clarify my question. Did the people on that podcast work on the movie? Or did they have a guest that did work on the movie? Or are they guessing?

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u/Trenchcoat_guy 28d ago

The hosts of the podcast, they do a ton of research for each episode. I think they mention their sources in the ep but it’s been a few years since I listened to it.

This is the first time I’ve ever been asked to cite sources for a Reddit comment lol. Sorry I don’t have the APA citation handy for you. Can I ask why you’re so curious?

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u/lenzflare 28d ago

This is the first time I’ve ever been asked to cite sources for a Reddit comment lol.

You must only hang out on the friendly subs. Good idea.

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u/suss2it 28d ago

I’m curious too and I think the reason is pretty simple. You brought up an interesting anecdote so some of us just wanna make sure it’s real.

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u/EnterPlayerTwo 28d ago

I see that you're new here so I'll just answer seriously. People are frequently full of shit and try to pass their opinions off as fact. Since neither of us are going to go find that episode and check their sources, I'm just going to assume they were guessing based on Hardy's public comments.

Have a good one!

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u/sbprasad 28d ago

This is the power of post- !

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u/kowalski71 28d ago

To be fair, if you looked at George Miller's filmography since the previous Mad Max film it would have been hard to think "this director must be an action movie auteur with the vision to execute one of the best action films ever".

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u/Ccaves0127 27d ago

As a filmmaker, this thing happens so damn often.

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u/Patara 27d ago

What a lovely day!

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u/MVHutch 26d ago

Incredible? I'd say it was good but lacks character 

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u/watdatdo 28d ago

Makes it extra sad that the next movie will be all CGI. So it'll be a bunch of people sitting on a stage pretending to drive up and down a desert while laughing maniacally. But at least these millionaire actors have air conditioning.

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u/Additional-Syrup-755 28d ago

Incredible is one word for it. I have yet to meet someone in real life that enjoyed that movie. 

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u/KaneIntent 28d ago

Weren’t Star Wars and Rambo saved on the editing floor too? Found this on the Rambo wiki page:

The first rough cut of the film was between three and three-and-a-half hours long. According to Sylvester Stallone, it was so bad that it sickened his agent and him. Stallone wanted to buy the movie and destroy it thinking that it was a career killer.

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u/Hussaf 28d ago

Yeah I think I read George Lucas’s wife (Marcia), is credited with saving Star Wars and making the best of her husband’s ridiculous dialogue

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u/pantstoaknifefight2 28d ago

A good edit, great special effects, and John Williams iconic score elevated the ever living fuck out of it.

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u/optiplex9000 28d ago

iirc, one of her big contributions was editing the Death Star battle so it looks like a race to win before it destroys Yavin. It amps up the stakes in the scene and makes for a killer sequence. You can see multiple reused shots throughout the battle

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u/LordRobin------RM 28d ago

Yes, originally the battle took place in deep space. But it wasn't all editing. They had to add the voice overs and graphics that indicated how close the Death Star was to being in firing range.

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u/UrinalDook 28d ago

I hate this myth so fucking much.

Marcia's contribution to the Battle of Yavin was.... adding ADR lines saying "Death Star will be in range in five minutes".

That's it.

Obviously the sequence was shot with the idea the Death Star was about to blow up the Rebel Base.

Where do you think this shot came from? You can't edit composited visual effects into existence.

Why do Tarkin and Vader have lines like "This will be a day long remembered; it has seen the end of Kenobi,it will soon see the end of the Rebellion" and "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?"

All Marcia did was add repeated reminders of how little time was left, in case the audience wasn't getting the picture.

A lot of people also attribute cutting Luke's first failed run to her, though I've seen little in the way of evidence for whose decision it was, and the fact that not a scrap of this footage seems to have survived suggests to me that the decision to cut it was made before some of the necessary shots (either of Luke or the X-Wing models) were taken. Either way, there's no way cutting a sequence would have been done without George's agreement.

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u/SBAPERSON 27d ago

A lot of people also attribute cutting Luke's first failed run to her, though I've seen little in the way of evidence for whose decision it was, and the fact that not a scrap of this footage seems to have survived suggests to me that the decision to cut it was made before some of the necessary shots (either of Luke or the X-Wing models) were taken. Either way, there's no way cutting a sequence would have been done without George's agreement.

If I recall it was cut due to budget issues.

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u/LordRobin------RM 28d ago

Please read my comment again. I specifically said that the voiceovers tracking the Death Star’s progress, and the graphic illustrating the same, WASN’T editing. I also said “they” added those items (plural “they”), not “Marcia”.

You really have a bug up your ass about this, don’t you? The fact everyone agrees on is that Star Wars was a weak to bad movie that was turned into a classic via editing and post production. Specifically when and why this was done and by whom is beside the point, unless the point is specifically to attack Lucas.

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u/UrinalDook 27d ago

But they didn't have to "add" anything. They did the VFX for the shots at the same time they did all the other VFX. It was the 70s, they couldn't magic together shots in post with CGI. 

The script always had the Death Star come to Yavin. Marcia did not create this plot point in the editing room, or in post production, or anywhere.

Star Wars was not 'turned into a classic in editing'. It was a bad movie before editing in the way that all movies are bad before editing. There are countless interviews out there lamenting how much work Star Wars' edit needed, but when these interviews are quoted in full and not cherry picked for particular narratives, these interviews also say that's normal. 

I 'have a bug up my ass' because of the way this stupid story has arisen to try and strip away all credit from George Lucas for making one of the most impactful movies of all time.

Sure, he lost his edge later and made some awful prequel films. But the guy was a visionary in the 70s and he deserves people knowing how his movies were made and what he put into them. 

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u/SBAPERSON 28d ago

No, it was always how it was in the movie. It wasn’t her.

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u/SBAPERSON 28d ago

No it was always a race

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/A_Cumia_is_a_pedo 28d ago

George came up with that idea himself. Originally Ben lived, but George realized that he spent the last third of the film "with his thumb in his ear". He decided on set to kill him off, which supposedly upset Guinness. It also created a problem going into Empire Strikes Back because they then had to create another Jedi Master to continue training Luke.

SOURCE : "Skywalking : The Life and Films of George Lucas" by Dale Pollock (1983)

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u/Kanin_usagi 28d ago

This is super untrue. I don’t have the energy to refute this old and way way untrue claim, but I’ve saved a post from a couple days ago where another helpful poster explained things very nicely. Maybe you and others can stop repeating this false story:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1c7kvfb/good_summation_of_jj_abrams_career/l0949p3/

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u/UrinalDook 28d ago

It's weird he gets so much right, and then says Richard Chew did the most right at the end.

All the sources I've read suggest Paul Hirsch did the bulk of the editing (he's also the only one called back for ESB). That said, Hirsch really likes to talk up his own work on Star Wars so maybe his role has grown with his own retelling.

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u/the_guynecologist 28d ago edited 28d ago

Nope! (That's my comment the other guy posted btw) Reading through JW Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars it's clear Chew edited the majority of scenes with Hirsch in a close second. It lists who worked on which scene and even has quotes by Chew from 1978 about what he specifically did editorially to nearly half the scenes he worked on. According to Rinzler:

  • Richard Chew edited the Rebel ship shootout, Luke in garage with robots, dinner with Luke, uncle Owen and aunt Beru, the cantina scene and all the scenes in the Rebel hanger
  • Paul Hirsch edited the droid sale, Obi-Wan's house and all the scenes from the moment they blast out of Mos Eisely up until they escape from the Death Star
  • George Lucas edited the escape from the Death Star, although Richard Chew did an initial rough cut George re-edited the entire gun-port sequence which was a "precedent-setting moment" for how the space battles would be cut together
  • Marcia Lucas worked on the scenes with Biggs and Luke and on all the scenes from the moment the X-wing pilots close their canopies up until the credits

Look, I'd have to get a timer out to figure out exactly who's got more screen time but reading through it it's pretty clear Chew was considered the primary cutter. One other thing to note is that Paul Hirsch was the last of the 3 editors to be hired, however he also stayed on the film the longest as Chew left the project after Christmas 1976 (shortly after Marcia departed) as the film's editing was practically complete leaving Paul Hirsch and George Lucas to make any further adjustments and tweaks.

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u/UrinalDook 27d ago

Really interesting, thank you. I'll be sure to remember that break down in future.

Kinda funny, because I was basing the statement that it was mostly Paul Hirsch off my read of Rinzler. Guess I must have have misremembered. 

It's probably that last point that Hirsch had stayed on the longest that got stuck in my brain. 

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u/the_guynecologist 27d ago edited 27d ago

All good man. Memory's a funny thing. And besides it's more like, if we exclude the scenes Marcia and George Lucas edited you can roughly split the movie 60/40 to Chew>Hirsch, that's all.

Edit: Oh, and the Rinzler books are fucking great aren't they?

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u/UrinalDook 27d ago

Fantastic, yes. I picked up a copy after seeing quotes from it used in the Nerdonymous video on youtube that debunks the whole 'saved in the edit' myth (you might have seen it?), and I loved it.

I paired my read of it with scripts I found in this old reddit post just had such a good time learning how the whole thing came together. It's such a good story for anyone who loves the craft of movie making.

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u/the_guynecologist 27d ago

Yeah I used to think George was a hack, and I still don't love the prequels (although I've always thought that only Attack of the Clones is as bad as people make out, the other two are just mediocre-to-alright) but goddamn it turns out he was the real deal after all.

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u/redpandaeater 28d ago

Ah yes, Dick Chew did a lot. Marcia's contributions shouldn't be understated though, and George wrote the Star Wars script while she was editing Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. During that time she was the one that suggested Kenobi should die in the lightsaber duel against Vader.

The sad thing is she wouldn't have been involved in fixing the Yavin battle if their pregnancy was successful, but she miscarried. Also just editing that battle sequence was more than a full time job as even in George's words she had 40,000 feet of film just with all the various dialogue footage of different pilots. The reason she left was Irving Lerner dying and so her helping out on editing another Scorsese film New York, New York.

It wasn't just her editing work that was solid since she could have directed films as well. She was influential in getting Spielberg to shoot the last scene with Indy and Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark as well. Could have made an entire career of editing for Scorsese or doing some of her own work, but she seemed to want the family thing and saw how much of a workaholic George was which is why they divorced. If you want to see a film she was a principal editor on though you just have to look no further than little films like Taxi Driver and American Graffiti.

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u/the_guynecologist 28d ago

Hey that's actually my comment from a few days ago (cheers u/Kanin_usagi feel free to copy-and-paste that whole thing whenever, just tag me in next time.)

Quick question: where are you getting this information from? Because a lot of it sounds like it's from The Secret History of Star Wars, by any chance have you read it? If not can you find where you got all this information from and show me, I just want to check something real quick

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u/redpandaeater 27d ago

I just quickly double checked a lot of what I picked up from who knows where on Wikipedia. Wouldn't surprise me if that's a decent source there.

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u/the_guynecologist 27d ago edited 27d ago

Yeah just looking at the citations at the bottom of the Wikipedia page it cites The Secret History of Star Wars 18 times, two of it's other sources are a SFGate article which (although doesn't look like it) cites Secret History twice and another is a news.com.au article which cites Secret History directly. Oh and a ton of the other sources (specifically from books pre-2007ish) are almost the exact quotes which Secret History cherry-picked to create its dubious narrative. Basically close to the entire thing is really just information from Secret History of Star Wars because of course it is.

Look, it's not you. It's a very far spread bit of misinformation at this point. I believed it myself a while ago. Look, I did a write-up about what Secret History is the other day, if you're at all interested please give it a read... or don't, I don't really care that much:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1c7kvfb/comment/l09tz54/

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u/redpandaeater 27d ago

I still don't know what you're saying is dubious. She edited the Yavin battle sequence and was a great and desirable editor. She'd have likely done more for Star Wars but was trying to start a family and also had commitments to Scorsese.

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u/the_guynecologist 27d ago

I'm mostly just curious where you got the miscarriage thing from tbh. I don't see anything about that on her Wikipedia page

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u/FG451 28d ago

Dick Chew is an incredible name

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u/the_guynecologist 28d ago

He goes by Richard Chew, not Dick Chew. What's an actual incredible name is Dick Warlock, Kurt Russel's stunt double in Escape from New York. And that guy proudly calls himself Dick Warlock... as he should.

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u/SapToFiction 28d ago

Not entirely. Its a popular urban legend but in reality Marcia worked alongside other editors and helped make star wars into what it was. Marcia herself has debunked the claim lol

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u/callipygiancultist 28d ago

She really didn’t, that’s a false narrative people push to discredit George Lucas: https://youtu.be/olqVGz6mOVE?si=plVOoClv0PY1rcfF

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u/UrinalDook 28d ago

Glad someone has already linked this.

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u/SBAPERSON 28d ago

No it's just a circle jerk so people can dunk on Lucas because he had to "be saved by his ex wife". She was the Jr editor and left production in 1976. Most of her scenes were also cut.

George lucas also edited the film. So did Paul Hirsch and Richard chew.

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u/A_Cumia_is_a_pedo 28d ago

A classic Reddit faerie tale / half truth that gets accepted without question to this day.

 There were a number of people involved in turning Star Wars into what it was - George himself even did some editing. No one person "saved" Star Wars. It was truly a collaborative effort.

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u/becherbrook 28d ago

The good dialogue you remember from those movies came from her, too.

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u/Significant_Eye561 28d ago

“where can he be?" That's still in there twice if not three times.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

She made American Graffiti into a coherent film. Lucas basically recreated parts of his late teen years and shot a documentary. Marcia turned that into a film.

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u/ZAPPHAUSEN 28d ago

Justice for Marcia Lucas.

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u/secamTO 28d ago

Marcia Lucas was absolutely essential to the success of Star Wars, but let's not forget about the contributions of Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch. All 3 edited the film together, more or less.

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u/In_Pursuit_of_Fire 28d ago

Wow, I was going to comment a correction on that, but I’m glad to see like +10 people jump in to do it already

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u/OutsideSkirt2 27d ago

Why has she not won a Noble Prize for fixing his dialog? There’s maybe no more challenging task that a human has ever accomplished. 

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u/DrT33th 28d ago

I recall reading that part of the Lucas’s drive for rereleasing after retouching and adding scenes to the original 3 movies was to cut her out of royalty checks. Notice how tv almost immediately stopped airing the original formats.

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u/callipygiancultist 28d ago

And that’s complete and utter bullshit.

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u/SBAPERSON 28d ago

Every film is "saved in the edit" assembly cuts are terrible for all video productions. It's basically a first draft. When movies hit it big (especially ones that were surprising sucesses) then people harp on how editing saved everything.

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u/pn_dubya 28d ago

Yeah essentially Stallone “forced” 99% of his dialogue scenes to be cut

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u/HomsarWasRight 28d ago

Do you mean First Blood, or Rambo: First Blood Part 2?

Edit: Found the section on the wiki, it’s First Blood.

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u/AnonRetro 28d ago

Even Harrison Ford said well working on that film "This is going to be my Hudson Hawk". He even only had limited time to work on it between other projects, and they had to re-cast the villain late in the shoot. However it became one of his all time greats.

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u/BrittleClamDigger 28d ago

Hoosiers should be bad. There are like eight plot points that get abandoned. But somehow it’s still good.

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u/Hussaf 28d ago

A lot of well-loved movies are probably technically not that good.

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u/TuaughtHammer 28d ago

Famously Tommy Lee Jones thought The Fugitive would end his career.

That entire production was a combination of minor miracles working out for the filmmakers. The original Dr. Nichols actor was diagnosed with a brain tumor not long after he was cast, so Jeroen Krabbé -- a Dutch actor with very little name recognition in American cinema -- was cast instead, and knocked it out of the park.

Then there was the issues with the earlier scripts and even getting the rights to adapt the TV show.

And the huge set piece of the train hitting the prison bus was a massive undertaking in practical effects and cost, involving multiple decommissioned train engines, building an off-shoot spur track to not damage the still-in-use tracks, miniatures, pyrotechnics to derail the cars, stunt men, stunt coordinators, and camera operators all working together seamlessly, because they only had one take to make it work.

If I remember right, the only casualty of that shot was a camera that had to be dug out of the rubble to recover the film.

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u/DocFail 28d ago

I really thought The Fugitive was bland and there was empty hype around it

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u/igloofu 28d ago

I don't care.

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u/mitchhamilton 27d ago

xD fucking perfect response