Gareth Edwards came out of nowhere withMonsters. Released in late 2010 after touring the festival circuit, it was truly guerilla filmmaking, made for less than half a million dollars and grossing five times that amount while racking up critical acclaim and nominations, winning three categories at the British Independent Film Awards. Edwards himself was lured to Hollywood, first to unleash Godzilla and then with an assignment to expand the Star Wars universe with one of the three announced spin-off films.
As to the world he first created, Vertigo Films are preparing to release a sequel, scripted by Misfits director Tom Green and scripted by Jay Basu. While the original film had a unique voice and vision which will be hard to duplicate, Edwards remains as executive producer, as does original star Scoot McNairy, though he does not appear in this sequel. Instead Game of Thrones‘ Joe Dempsie, Last Days on Mars‘ Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Sofia Boutella and Kyle Soller, soon to be seen in Poldark, star. The first trailer has been released and the team are generally excited…
Les Anderson – At first I was afraid, I was petrified…
Sorry, I was afraid it would be Tremors: The Next Generation but the trailer gives me cause for hope. The visuals certainly are top notch and if the script is up to the same standard as the first it should be a fairly good wee film.
The cast members I recognise are all solid talent and I have certainly put this on my to-see list.
Michael Flett – “Fragments of a satellite have been found in the Middle East.” Same backstory as the first one, but a new location – if I remember right the working title for this was Re-Entry.
Visually it matches the style of the first, that loose cinema verité style with the effects dropped in seamlessly, and although Gareth Edwards didn’t write or direct this one having been a bit busy with Godzilla– that lizard takes a lot of wrangling – he is listed as executive producer, and this trailer certainly echoes the doom laden epic feel of that film, lowly humanity against an overwhelming force of nature it cannot hope to comprehend.
The point of the first one was that the monsters weren’t the alien organisms who were simply an invasive species, displaced and trying to adapt, apparently intelligent, certainly at a rudimentary level, and not aggressive except when challenged; the monsters were the soldiers sent to destroy them, indiscriminately firing heavy artillery, antagonising them and bringing the wrath of the wounded animals down on them. That film was told from the point of view of two civilians, with the military only appearing close up in the bookends, but this switches the point of view.
It’s certainly playing up the bombastic aspect – there looks to be a lot more action, a lot more gunfire, and more masculine approach rather than the balanced boy/girl combo of the first one, but look deeper and it seems there is more going on here. I don’t think this is going to be gung-ho guys bonding in the desert and blowing things up – I suspect this is going to be a group of young men facing up to the futility of conflict and the emptiness of killing.
That it’s set in the desert makes me suspect that if anything it’s going to be a commentary on America’s presence in the Middle East and the compromises that even the most well intentioned find unavoidable when there are no good choices to be made, only degrees of wrong. I suspect they’ve packaged it to appeal to a broad audience, most likely males teen to twenties, but they’re actually going to hit them with a more serious film than they’re expecting.
I’m also hoping that the aliens themselves are given more development this time – there are a lot more of them and a lot more variety, but one of the things that made the first film work, and this carried over to Godzilla, was that even if we didn’t understand them, they had a presence, they had personality, and they were in their own way luminously beautiful, and I deeply hope that this manages to convey that same eerie sense of intelligence.
My hopes for this are very high, and with a premiere at the prestigious London Film Festival it seems others are also impressed with it. It’s just a shame, having been at the British premiere of the first one that I can’t be there this time.
Garry Mac – The first movie was low-key and character driven, and while the sequel definitely looks more action-packed, there’s nothing to suggest we won’t still get a movie with the characters front and centre. That said, we’re definitely getting more monsters, something I’m happy about.
It’s a bit churlish to complain about the lack of variety in the first film when one of its selling points for me was its low budget approach, but I’m definitely interested in seeing more alien lifeforms, and maybe some further development of what makes them tick. I’m intrigued, although the movie’s not top of my list of expectations.
Kevin Gilmartin – I’ve had my head down with work lately and I’d not heard of this film before but having now watched the trailer I think I’d like to see it.
I’m generally wary of a science fiction film where a military unit plays a central role – all the aggro one minute and bromance the next is just unconvincing. I’m expecting more of the same from this, because in just over two minutes of trailer we saw a female flash on screen for an instant just three times, at 1:05, 1:41, and 1:53, and it was all the same woman!
So I’m expecting a testosterone fueled sausage fest, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, it just…it’s 2014, y’know?
The visuals do look lovely but the monster aesthetic seems to have been lifted directly from Half-Life. All through the trailer I kept expecting Gordon Freeman to show up in an orange hazard suit weilding a crowbar, with a Black Mesa logo in the background. It made me sort of sad that we’ll probably never get a proper Half-Life movie.
Anyway, I’ll probably catch this when it comes out. For science. You monster.
Adam Dworak – I was never so impressed by Gareth Edwards’ Monsters. It wasn’t a bad movie and the special effects were amazing if you take in to consideration that they were created in the director’s bedroom, but it lacked cohesion, it was trying to be too many things at once – a drama, a social commentary, a romance, environmentally aware science fiction…
I am afraid Monsters: Dark Continent does not look more appealing to me. It looks gorgeous and it looks that it will be more focused on story but for me it’s too similar to Jarhead, Black Hawk Dawn and other movies showing military culture, screen just dripping with testosterone! No thank you.
Dario Persechino – Having not seen the first Monsters movie (I know, I know, it’s on the list), I have no basis for comparison to the first. As a stand alone trailer it looks okay but not amazing. The special effects and visual concepts in it look great but this comes across more as a soldier movie than a monster movie. Black Hawk Down with gribblies. It looks to point its lens at the issues of soldiers in a rather familiar looking war zone. While it may not have been done with monsters recently, it has been done, and done well by other movies. This seems to have taken an original world setting and turned it to a tired view point.
Monsters: Dark Continent trailer – reaction
As to the world he first created, Vertigo Films are preparing to release a sequel, scripted by Misfits director Tom Green and scripted by Jay Basu. While the original film had a unique voice and vision which will be hard to duplicate, Edwards remains as executive producer, as does original star Scoot McNairy, though he does not appear in this sequel. Instead Game of Thrones‘ Joe Dempsie, Last Days on Mars‘ Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Sofia Boutella and Kyle Soller, soon to be seen in Poldark, star. The first trailer has been released and the team are generally excited…
Sorry, I was afraid it would be Tremors: The Next Generation but the trailer gives me cause for hope. The visuals certainly are top notch and if the script is up to the same standard as the first it should be a fairly good wee film.
The cast members I recognise are all solid talent and I have certainly put this on my to-see list.
Michael Flett – “Fragments of a satellite have been found in the Middle East.” Same backstory as the first one, but a new location – if I remember right the working title for this was Re-Entry.
Visually it matches the style of the first, that loose cinema verité style with the effects dropped in seamlessly, and although Gareth Edwards didn’t write or direct this one having been a bit busy with Godzilla – that lizard takes a lot of wrangling – he is listed as executive producer, and this trailer certainly echoes the doom laden epic feel of that film, lowly humanity against an overwhelming force of nature it cannot hope to comprehend.
It’s certainly playing up the bombastic aspect – there looks to be a lot more action, a lot more gunfire, and more masculine approach rather than the balanced boy/girl combo of the first one, but look deeper and it seems there is more going on here. I don’t think this is going to be gung-ho guys bonding in the desert and blowing things up – I suspect this is going to be a group of young men facing up to the futility of conflict and the emptiness of killing.
I’m also hoping that the aliens themselves are given more development this time – there are a lot more of them and a lot more variety, but one of the things that made the first film work, and this carried over to Godzilla, was that even if we didn’t understand them, they had a presence, they had personality, and they were in their own way luminously beautiful, and I deeply hope that this manages to convey that same eerie sense of intelligence.
Garry Mac – The first movie was low-key and character driven, and while the sequel definitely looks more action-packed, there’s nothing to suggest we won’t still get a movie with the characters front and centre. That said, we’re definitely getting more monsters, something I’m happy about.
It’s a bit churlish to complain about the lack of variety in the first film when one of its selling points for me was its low budget approach, but I’m definitely interested in seeing more alien lifeforms, and maybe some further development of what makes them tick. I’m intrigued, although the movie’s not top of my list of expectations.
Kevin Gilmartin – I’ve had my head down with work lately and I’d not heard of this film before but having now watched the trailer I think I’d like to see it.
I’m generally wary of a science fiction film where a military unit plays a central role – all the aggro one minute and bromance the next is just unconvincing. I’m expecting more of the same from this, because in just over two minutes of trailer we saw a female flash on screen for an instant just three times, at 1:05, 1:41, and 1:53, and it was all the same woman!
So I’m expecting a testosterone fueled sausage fest, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, it just…it’s 2014, y’know?
Anyway, I’ll probably catch this when it comes out. For science. You monster.
Adam Dworak – I was never so impressed by Gareth Edwards’ Monsters. It wasn’t a bad movie and the special effects were amazing if you take in to consideration that they were created in the director’s bedroom, but it lacked cohesion, it was trying to be too many things at once – a drama, a social commentary, a romance, environmentally aware science fiction…
Dario Persechino – Having not seen the first Monsters movie (I know, I know, it’s on the list), I have no basis for comparison to the first. As a stand alone trailer it looks okay but not amazing. The special effects and visual concepts in it look great but this comes across more as a soldier movie than a monster movie. Black Hawk Down with gribblies. It looks to point its lens at the issues of soldiers in a rather familiar looking war zone. While it may not have been done with monsters recently, it has been done, and done well by other movies. This seems to have taken an original world setting and turned it to a tired view point.
Monsters: Dark Continent is released on Friday 28th November and is premiered at the London Film Festival
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