F:AT Movie Scorecard

jeb wrote:

Compiled, please justify your scores!:
47 pts --> THEY LIVE (jeb)
38 pts --> ROAD HOUSE (Ken B.)
46 pts --> THE THING (jeb)
25 pts --> THE ROAD WARRIOR // MAD MAX 2 (Gary Sax)
61 pts --> WILD ZERO (jay718)
45 pts --> THE ROAD WARRIOR // MAD MAX 2 (Shellhead)
60 pts --> ALIENS (Shellhead)
25 pts --> BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (Shellhead)
50 pts --> TRANSFORMERS (Ken B.)

ack!!!

This list needs to get re-scored right quick. Transformers is scoring near the top while Big Trouble in Little China and Mad Max are AT THE BOTTOM!?!

Big Trouble should score higher, agreed. That movie is a total mess.

Aliens scoring that high worries me since it's my favourite movie of all time. I think it has Euro undertones more so than Ameritrash (even tho Space Hulk shares theme).

Colonists (SETTLERS, to be precise)...ships...let's not forget it's a mining colony too, they just hadn't finished atmosphere transformation. Give that shake and bake colony another month or two and they will be shipping cubes of ore and minerals back to Earth.

yep, it is a bunch of Puerto Rico mixed with Settlers of Catan. Your scorecard system is flawed

good day, sir

Hmm, the rating system seems to have shifted. All right:

The Road Warrior: 90 points
+10 wrestler in cast (Lord Humongous)
+10 set in post-apocalyptic Earth
+5 depicting that apocalypse
+10 fight scene lasting 4+ minutes
+5 women in fight scene (Virgina Hey)
+10 Reagan-era punks
+5 for mohawks
+5 for wielding chain as a weapon
+10 chase scene lasting 6+ minutes
+10 eighteen-wheeler featured prominently
+10 vehicle on fire

Aliens: 47 points
+10 fight scene lasting 4+ minutes
+5 woman/women doing the fighting
+10 monsters
+10 monster bigger than elephant (the mother alien)
+5 for aliens
+10 for protagonist carefully assembling/selecting weaponry
+1: "Why don't you put her in charge?"
+1: "Game over! Game over! We just got our asses kicked!"
+1: "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
+1: "Sir, is this going to be a stand-up fight or a bughunt?"
+1: "I like to keep this handy for close encounters."
+1: "You don't see them fucking each other over for a percentage."
+1: "Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?"

Big Trouble in Little China: 20 points
+10: fight scene lasting 4+ minutes
+5: kung fu
+5: Kurt Russell
-5: Kim Cattrall
+5: John Carpenter

I think you're giving Big Trouble some serious shorting of the points. Even aside from quotable lines, the "Pork Chop Express" is featured prominently, so that's +10 right there. I mean, it has a name.

Also, at least +15 for monsters, supernatural. Behold, the Chinese Wild Man:


Also, I'd propose a special +2 for any film featuring Al Leong.

I count at least 45, even before quotable lines and Al Leong.

I think each instance of a fight/chase scene of the appropriate length should be scored, as more action should equal more AT, IMO. Road Warrior should score even higher, in that case. Even without taking that into consideration its score should be bumped by 5 points to account for the Mixed Media nature of the final chase due to the participation of the gyrocopter.

Here are my scores, Schwarzenegger Edition:

The Terminator: 76 points
+5 Depicting the post-apocalypse (I fudged this one a bit but I think it's fair)
+10 Fight scene 4+ min.
+20 Reagan-era punk with Blue Mohawk (Bill Paxton!)
+15 Monster, science gone horribly wrong (The Terminator)
+25 Chase scene 6+ min. with 18-wheeler, mixed media (18-wheeler vs. pedestrian)
+1 "I'll be back"

Predator: 73 points
+15 Starring Jesse Ventura
+15 Monster, alien
+10 Dutch builds weapons & traps
+10 Chase scene 6+ min.
+10 Fight scene 4+ min.
+10 Simultaneous edged/projectile weapon use (Dutch skewers soldier with machete)
+1 "I ain't got time to bleed."
+1 "Get to da choppa!"
+1 "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

Conan the Barbarian: 72 points
+40 Fight scene 4+ min. (x2) with a woman fighting and using axes and swords: 1) The raid on Thulsa Doom's inner sanctum and 2) The showdown on the mound
+30 Giant snake, larger than elephant; plus bonus for Thulsa Doom's transformation into a snake
+1 "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women."
+1 "They told my lord to throw down his sword and return to the earth... Ha! Time enough for earth in the grave!"

Not Sure wrote:

I think you're giving Big Trouble some serious shorting of the points. Even aside from quotable lines, the "Pork Chop Express" is featured prominently, so that's +10 right there. I mean, it has a name.

Also, at least +15 for monsters, supernatural. Behold, the Chinese Wild Man:

Also, I'd propose a special +2 for any film featuring Al Leong.

I count at least 45, even before quotable lines and Al Leong.

No doubt, BTiLC is getting short changed.

Again, without all the quotes (some of my favorites are more obscure, like:
"Yeah, I know what you mean, my wife gave it to me for Christmas."
"A brave man likes the feel of nature on his face, Jack." "Yeah, and a wise man has enough sense to get in out of the rain!"
"You're Goddamn right your gonna help me find it, and my money, and time is money to a guy like me... "
"How'd you get up there?" "It wasn't easy!")

I'm seeing an additional:

+5 pts swords or knives featured prominently. The whole move, but at least the final fight between Rain and Wang.

+10 pts for Reagen era punks. Sure they don't have mohawks and are more your parking garage/mall punk, but these guys qualify.


+5 for crotch injuries featured (possibly). Did Thunder 'force' the red ball into Jack's crouch during the torture scene or was it more the gut?

So there's another 20pts right there.

SabastianBludd wrote:

+20 Reagan-era punk with Blue Mohawk (Bill Paxton!)

Yeah, I think Bill Paxton should be in that list of actors giving +5.

He was in the big three AT sci-fi franchises (Terminator, Aliens, and Predator 2) plus Streets of Fire, Near Dark, and Weird Science. He also played a nazi officer in an 80's Pat Benatar song. Doesn't get more kitchy than that, right?

...well, he directed and starred in the video for the Fish Head song.



(I also thought I read some where, a long time ago, that he witnessed the assassination of JFK or something when he was a boy.)

Dug up the Wild Zero DVD and I'm gonna try to watch it tonight so I can score it properly.

Nice work, everyone. BTILC has moved up to 69 points. ROAD WARRIOR leads the pack at 90 (!), which seems about right. that move is awesome.

I want to put this out there: if you have not seen THE ROAD WARRIOR (né MAD MAX 2) you are doing yourself a disservice. I know you youngins like the three Ds and the video whoozums. And fogies like me are telling you to watch shitty movies like POINT BLANK and RIFIFI all the time. But this is different. THE ROAD WARRIOR will blow your shit away. Don't watch MAD MAX. Don't watch that fucking Tina Turner bullshit. THE ROAD WARRIOR. Lights dimmed, sound loud. Godspeed.

jeb wrote:

Don't watch MAD MAX. Don't watch that fucking Tina Turner bullshit. THE ROAD WARRIOR.

Fuck you sir. Road Warrior may be the highlight, but the other two are still great. Thunderdome just has so many classic lines and parts even if the whole is somewhat lacking.

MattLoter wrote:

jeb wrote:

Don't watch MAD MAX. Don't watch that fucking Tina Turner bullshit. THE ROAD WARRIOR.

Fuck you sir. Road Warrior may be the highlight, but the other two are still great. Thunderdome just has so many classic lines and parts even if the whole is somewhat lacking.

The proper way to watch Thunderdome is to stop the movie as soon as the kids show up. That's when the whole movie goes to hell, and not in a good way.

Shellhead wrote:

MattLoter wrote:

jeb wrote:

Don't watch MAD MAX. Don't watch that fucking Tina Turner bullshit. THE ROAD WARRIOR.

Fuck you sir. Road Warrior may be the highlight, but the other two are still great. Thunderdome just has so many classic lines and parts even if the whole is somewhat lacking.

The proper way to watch Thunderdome is to stop the movie as soon as the kids show up. That's when the whole movie goes to hell, and not in a good way.

Agreed. I saw Thunderdone in the theatres and had to sneak into Friday the 13th part 5 right as I walked out of it just to make it stop hurting.

Pat II wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

MattLoter wrote:

jeb wrote:

Don't watch MAD MAX. Don't watch that fucking Tina Turner bullshit. THE ROAD WARRIOR.

Fuck you sir. Road Warrior may be the highlight, but the other two are still great. Thunderdome just has so many classic lines and parts even if the whole is somewhat lacking.

The proper way to watch Thunderdome is to stop the movie as soon as the kids show up. That's when the whole movie goes to hell, and not in a good way.

Agreed. I saw Thunderdone in the theatres and had to sneak into Friday the 13th part 5 right as I walked out of it just to make it stop hurting.

QFT. The first part in Bartertown was great. As soon as he stumbles into Lord of the Flies meets Sesame Street, it just all goes to shit. And the final chase/showdown whatever is pretty lame too.

And WTF was that rig that Tina Turner was driving? She sits all the way at the very front??

This scale should include points for robots and superheroes. Maybe some extra points for exotic weaponry.

I don't have time today to add it up...but The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension would add up to near 50 for sure...you got aliens, you got memorable lines ("No matter where you go, there you are" or "Laugha while you can, monkeyboy", etc), its got bad physics, its got space fights, AND it has ties to Big Trouble in Little China.

Maybe minus 5, though, for Jeff Goldblum in Howdy Doody Cowboy outfit, now that I think about it.