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TV Spot for "The Core"

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:22am
by Robert Treder
I just saw another TV spot for that piece of shit movie The Core. In this one, they show DJ Qualls's character, and he says, "If I'm going to save the world, I'm going to need Spongebob tapes..."

Now, I could have sworn that in a previous commercial, he said something to the effect of needing "Star Trek tapes", not "Spongebob tapes". I wonder if they changed it for length or business reasons. Really, "Star Trek" isn't longer to say than "Spongebob." But The Core is being distributed by Paramount (who owns Star Trek and Nickelodeon/Spongebob), so why would they oppose the use of the "Star Trek" name?

Hm. Weird. Too bad I'll never watch the movie to find out what makes the final cut. Oh wait, I meant to say "it's a good thing that I'll never watch that piece of shit."

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:36am
by Drewcifer
Yeah, I saw the trailer for that last Sunday, and although the sfx look cool, the movie itself looks horrible. Sometimes I wish that people that want to make SF movies have to take an entrance test.

Anyhow, the Spongebob reference? Must have tested better with some group somewhere. I would guess that ol' Spongebob has better street cred in the teen and college demo than Trek these days, with Enterprise and all.

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:39am
by Vympel
What the hell is this movie?

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:51am
by Robert Treder
Vympel wrote:What the hell is this movie?
I would explain, but seriously, you're better off not knowing.

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:54am
by Spanky The Dolphin
It's so stupid that it's almost evil.

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:55am
by Drewcifer
I don't have a link, but basically, IIRC, the US comes up with some kind of earthquake gun thingy, but for some reason it causes the core of the earth to stop spinning (seriously) and this group of folks has to go down into the earth in some experimental tunneling craft to restart the core with a giant nuclear bomb.

Does your brain hurt yet?

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:57am
by Robert Treder
Drewcifer wrote:Anyhow, the Spongebob reference? Must have tested better with some group somewhere. I would guess that ol' Spongebob has better street cred in the teen and college demo than Trek these days, with Enterprise and all.
You're probably right. Sometimes I forget that people get turned off by sci-fi geeks.
And the focus groups are right in this situation, too. Spongebob is better than Star Trek.

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:57am
by Hotfoot
Drewcifer wrote:I don't have a link, but basically, IIRC, the US comes up with some kind of earthquake gun thingy, but for some reason it causes the core of the earth to stop spinning (seriously) and this group of folks has to go down into the earth in some experimental tunneling craft to restart the core with a giant nuclear bomb.

Does your brain hurt yet?
That's not even all the stupidity of the movie, either...

Posted: 2003-03-12 05:58am
by Vympel
WHAT THE FUCK? The core ... nuclear bombs ... fuck off. That's just fucked. Ugh. Ugggghhhhhhh.

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:00am
by XaLEv
I can't wait for this thing to hit Showtime. :)

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:01am
by Robert Treder
Vympel wrote:WHAT THE FUCK? The core ... nuclear bombs ... fuck off. That's just fucked. Ugh. Ugggghhhhhhh.
I told you so. Here are some trailers if you haven't already passed out from stupidity overload.

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:03am
by Captain tycho
Vympel wrote:WHAT THE FUCK? The core ... nuclear bombs ... fuck off. That's just fucked. Ugh. Ugggghhhhhhh.
Somehow it reminds me of Technobabble... 8)
Gee, is there a link?
Star Trek ---> Technobabble ---> Paramount ---> The Core
I think not... :? sigh

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:05am
by Spanky The Dolphin
Technobabble or Treknobabble?

Believe me, there's a difference, something which I think this board has kind of forgotten.

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:07am
by Sea Skimmer
Somehow the center of the Earth is now 2000 miles from the surface. Can't let the near 8000 mile diameter of the earth get in the way of that...

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:09am
by Admiral Valdemar

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:18am
by Admiral Valdemar
Notice how Braz's character says it'll take at least a decade or two to develop the tech needed for his ship and the lasers (yes, lasers) to get the core started again, yet when the gov't hard guy(TM) throws 3 billion dollars at the project, it only takes three months!

Why, if reality was that fucked up then the F/A-22 project should've taken only a week to be complete given how much cash we throw at it.

I'm still trying to understand how this cannot be a stupid film based solely on the plot device it uses.

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:43am
by God Emperor
Vlademar, I think your avatar fits this thread perfectly.

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:44am
by Admiral Valdemar
God Emperor wrote:Vlademar, I think your avatar fits this thread perfectly.
Why thank you, just spell the name right next time, heh. :wink:

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:47am
by God Emperor
Sorry about that.

Valdemar, Valdemar, Valdemar...

Posted: 2003-03-12 06:49am
by Admiral Valdemar
God Emperor wrote:Sorry about that.

Valdemar, Valdemar, Valdemar...
Yes! Feel the wrath of my name!

Ahem.

Anyway, I need to find out when this film comes out in Blighty, I'm gonna see it with some mates and pick it apart like the Culture Vulture I am.

Re: TV Spot for "The Core"

Posted: 2003-03-12 09:00am
by Zoink
Robert Treder wrote:, "If I'm going to save the world, I'm going to need Spongebob tapes..."
I distinctly remember hearing "Star Trek". I haven't heard this Spongebob line yet. I mentally tuned out the advertisement after seeing the first one.

Posted: 2003-03-12 09:10am
by Zoink
As to why they might change it:

They probably had focus groups to rate the commercial.

The Star Trek line is what made me "tune-out" of the commercial, it was *so* cheesy it made me not want to watch the movie. Just another trash Hollywood movie, with promise of senseless action, senseless 'moral' dilemmas, and a real family 'feel good' (tm) ending. Written by a pulp Hollywood writer who is so incapable of writing a REAL character that he had do add this mondo cheesy line to establish the character (him: "hey I bet everybody will think this person's a geek if I add this Star Trek reference!"). Gee, thanks guy for being stereotypically cheesy, and assassinating the reputation of people who watch Star Trek yet again.....

Changing to this Spongebob (?) would be a good idea, as its less stereotypical, and gives the character a *little* more realistic depth. Unfortunately, that one line change isn't going to do it for me.

Posted: 2003-03-12 09:22am
by Montcalm
Movies like that should have two ending one where they succeed and one where the world blow-up :twisted: :mrgreen:

Posted: 2003-03-12 09:30am
by Zoink
I vote for the blow-up ending.

Posted: 2003-03-12 09:48am
by Durandal
The film is right on some counts. The spinning of the Earth's core does protect us from magnetic storms and such.

However, no weapon that we make could ever stop the core from spinning. It's a gigantic ball of super-hot iron under immensely high pressure. The biggest earthquake in the world couldn't generate the necessary torque to completely stop it.

Furthermore, even if earthquakes could stop it, the uncontrolled detonation of a 1 gigaton nuclear bomb sure as Hell isn't going to be enough to get it going again. Even if it could, it wouldn't set it spinning at the same rate it was before, and geologists aren't even sure how fast the core spins anyway. It's somewhere between 0.5 and 3 degrees per year. How could they calculate the amount of energy is required to get it spinning again if they don't even know how fast it needs to go?

Aside from that, the film screams "contrived" in every sense of the word. There just happens to be some crazy scientist who's built a ship that's supposed to be able to burrow through to the center of the Earth without melting at temperatures at which everything melts. There's some funny, geeky hacker kid who, by himself is going to completely control the flow of information of the entire planet. I'm not sure what's more absurd, the film's premise, or this. The sheer impossibility of one person restricting the flow of information across the internet without completely shutting it down is simply mind-boggling. This film is obviously just an excuse to work some special effects magic and blow shit up.