The Core?! Please tell me this is a parody.

[Jim Preston]

Holy crap.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/the_core.html

This is a paraody right? Stanley Tucci is doing his best Peter Sellers, right? Aaron Echart is doing this for a hoot, isn't he? Hilary Swank loves the wry send-up on banal, aggressively stupid Hollywood catastrophe movies, doesn't she?!

If it isn't satire, we may need Chick to run a little research on the last truly god-f'ing-awful film to feature good actors.

[Tom Chick]

A few months ago, a friend of mine described to me the premise of this movie and I thought he was joking. Then he told me the cast and I was sure he was joking. Then I looked it up on IMDB...

Two thoughts on the trailer:

1) Aaron Eckhart manages to say "noo-cue-ler", George Bush style, twice in one sentence.

2) Seems to me they just need the world's best deep core drillers.

-Tom

[Alan Dunkin]

Truly a sad state of affairs these days.. when I saw a trailer for an obvious remake of Charade I nearly felt violated.

--- Alan

[Mark Bussman]

I just watched the trailer. LMAO! Thanks for the laugh. :)

[Jason McCullough]

Aahhahahaha.

[sellthekids]

didn't i see this movie already?

wasn't it called Deep Impact?

or was it Armageddon?

jeez...they all blend together now.

[Alan Dunkin]

Having now watched the trailer, it is laughable horrible. Worse than horrible. The core stops spinning? What the hell?

--- Alan

[Met_K]

Holy fucking shit.

[mtkafka]

Aw cmon, that preview actually looked pretty cool! I like armageddon movies. I liked that Breath of Fire btw, so you know where I'm at.

etc

[Anonymous]

Hell?

[graller]

I think the core spinning was somehow in reference to the actual scientific fact that the magnetic poles of the Earth reverse every so many thousands of years. Having said that I don't see why that would cause the oceans to boil, the continents to freeze etc.

[mtkafka]

There also making a movie someday about The Quickening.... which is based on Art Bell's book on the upcoming Global Superstorm. Now THAT will be cool. I love good disaster movies!

etc

[DennyA]

Would it be SO hard to hire a real scientist to come up with a plausible cause for the disasters in these films?

Do these people realize how little most scientists make? How tiny their fee for writing an exciting but scientifically based bible for the movie disaster would be compared to, oh, say, your typical union dolly grip?

Geeze.

[Mark Bussman]

If someone in charge of a movie (producer, director, whoever it would be) was going to do that, the first logical thing for them to look at when evaulating potential candidates would be their journal papers. Unfortunately, they're usually so hard to understand without the needed background and are so dryly written that it would probably lead the person to believe, "Oh, these guys can't write anything exciting."

[Anonymous]

"Would it be SO hard to hire a real scientist to come up with a plausible cause for the disasters in these films?"

What would be cool would be a Godzilla type monster film with a giant Stephen Hawking rolling over cities, firing off power beams from his glasses, threatening the fleeing citizenry with his robotic voice and seducing young tiny women, whom he puts in his magic bag for later ravishment on Monster Island.

[Anonymous]

Dear Gawd, that is baaaaaad.

Talk about one of the most inane, insipid, stupid concepts I've ever heard of. The core of the Earth stops spinning? And we'll drill down to it to explode a nuclear weapon? I can't believe that someone rational didn't come along and say the Emperor has no clothes before the studio blew millions and millions of dollars on this.

Nevermind the absolute slap at scientific good sense. Oceans boil but the continents freeze? Do they realize just how much sheer energy would be required to bring the Pacific Ocean to a boil? You get the ocean temperatures today 1 degree above normal and there are droughts and heatwaves all over the world.

And drilling down to the core? The Earth's solid mantle only goes down 100-150 miles, on average. From then on, you're hitting molten Earth (aka, LAVA!) for the next couple thousand miles down. And nevermind the fact that mankind's deepest ever mining attempts haven't even gone 5 miles down.

Heat and pressure only go up exponentially the deeper you go as well. The core, as the most current theories go, is liquid iron nickel under extreme, extreme, extreme pressure and heat. (Although there was a new Discover magazine recently that had one scientist who belives it's natural nuclear reaction down there, but let's not nitpick).

I can't believe this is a movie. I can't belive they got Stanely Tucci (Stanely Tucci!) in it. I can't believe those actors actually said those lines with a straight face. UGHHHHHHH.

[Brad Grenz]

Wouldn't that be embarassing, to go to all that trouble trying to nuke the core only to find it's already nuclear.

[Anonymous]

This could lead to a series of cool films.

"THE HOLE": A hole in the ozone layer is threatening to slowly kill all Australians through skin cancer. Solution? A multiracial team of hunks and hot chicks, led by a grizzled old Crocodile Hunter (played by Jon Voight), float up to the hole in a baloon. By detonating a nuke dropped from the baloon's basket in the center of the ozone hole, the hole is filled, problem solved, and a rain of fused crystals falls over the outback, where happy aborigines run around filling their pockets with... diamonds! Happy happy joy joy!

[Brad Grenz]

Can the diamonds be Skittles? Catch the Rainbow!

[Ben Sones]

Nevermind the absolute slap at scientific good sense. Oceans boil but the continents freeze? Do they realize just how much sheer energy would be required to bring the Pacific Ocean to a boil?

Not to mention the fact that most of the Earth's ecosystem lives there. I think boiling the ocean would have some pretty serious consequences that they obviously haven't thought of.

[Mark Bussman]

Yeah, the smell would be terrible... :)

[Anonymous]

Jacques Cousteau would be pissed!

[Slothrop]

Nevermind the absolute slap at scientific good sense. Oceans boil but the continents freeze? Do they realize just how much sheer energy would be required to bring the Pacific Ocean to a boil?

Not to mention the fact that most of the Earth's ecosystem lives there. I think boiling the ocean would have some pretty serious consequences that they obviously haven't thought of.

Mmm..glooobal fish boil...

[nife2o4]

I've tried to avoid this thread and I haven't watched the trailer. I'm still recovering from the pain of horrendous scientific inaccuracy that was "Volcano".

I however feel that I must as a public service respond here with an offer to any scriptwriter that wishes to create a movie like this. I have a degree in Geology. I would be willing to read any scripts you write, and then I'll tell you exactly why you are a dumbass. If it's a good script overall, I'll be more diplomatic and simply tell you where you are incorrect.

My fees would be very reasonable. A negotiable amount of money (somewhere in the 5 or 6 digits), plus I would have to appear in at least three different scenes in the movie. In each scene, which should last at least 5 minutes per scene, I would be making out with Angie Everhart.

Also, since I haven't watched the trailer, is the ocean boiling supposed to be just localized, or the entire ocean is boiling? I'd ask if they realize that the average water temperature for the ocean is something like -4 C, but having read the other things they're doing in this movie, I'm sure they don't.

-Trevor

[Tom Chick]

I don't think the ocean's actually boil in The Core. The think the set up is that if the earth's core stops spinning, then the oceans *will* boil. Which, I presume, would really suck but might make for some Exxxtreme Surfing.

I'm writing a script in which the earth's core is in danger of falling asleep. Is that geologically sound?

-Tom

[Jim Preston]

I'm working on a script about us making "first contact" with the Lava Men living in the earth's core. I don't know if there really are lava men, but from a geologic perspective, you can't rule it out. Right?

[GMicek]

The only thing that could save this movie would be if Tom Chick was in it.

[Anonymous]

Quick! To IMDB and check!

[nife2o4]

As long as your movies contain some well placed Ramones songs and gratuitous nudity, the scripts are geologically sound.

I'll be contacting you, Tom and Jim, to discuss my fee, and to let you know where to send Angie :)

-Trevor

[Tyjenks]

What if the Earth's core was actually Jello brand chocolate pudding and Bill Cosby is God?

If anyone steals this idea I will sue!!

[voltaic]

This could lead to a series of cool films.

"THE HOLE": A hole in the ozone layer is threatening to slowly kill all Australians through skin cancer. Solution? A multiracial team of hunks and hot chicks, led by a grizzled old Crocodile Hunter (played by Jon Voight), float up to the hole in a baloon. By detonating a nuke dropped from the baloon's basket in the center of the ozone hole, the hole is filled, problem solved, and a rain of fused crystals falls over the outback, where happy aborigines run around filling their pockets with... diamonds! Happy happy joy joy!

Gotta have a cameo by "Mik Dundee" in it.

[Alan Au]

After the success of Titanic, we were wondering if they'd try a Hindenberg movie or something similarly idiotic. *heh*

- Alan

[Brad Grenz]

Maybe they could fly the Hindenberg to the Earth's core to revive the spirit of Titanic?

[Tyjenks]

Maybe in the sequel to Titanic Leo did not die at all. Darryl Hannah and her mermaid family, spawned with the help of Tom Hanks, kept him alive. He lives down there until Titanic II sails and hits yet another iceberg. Leo swims to the Earth's core, asks Bill Cosby for a shitload of puddding, and keeps the ship afloat with millions of gallons of pudding. At the end, he gives the giant diamond which he found at the bottom of the ocean to j Lo, they sing a duet of Celine Dion's horrendous song at the prow of the ship, and they all live happily ever after.

[Tyjenks]

Maybe in the sequel to Titanic Leo did not die at all. Darryl Hannah and her mermaid family, spawned with the help of Tom Hanks, kept him alive. He lives down there until Titanic II sails and hits yet another iceberg. Leo swims to the Earth's core, asks Bill Cosby for a shitload of puddding, and keeps the ship afloat with millions of gallons of pudding. At the end, he gives the giant diamond which he found at the bottom of the ocean to j Lo, they sing a duet of Celine Dion's horrendous song at the prow of the ship, and they all live happily ever after.
That's pretty much what happened in Waterworld as I remember. RIGHT? Oh and that chick's bosom was exposed.

[Anonymous]

They showed a new trailer for this today, and I didn't think it was possible for this movie to get any dumber, but it has.

So, apparently, the reason the Earth's core has stopped spinning is because the evil US military has been doing research into using earthquakes as weapons! But, I guess, Hollywood doesn't want to totally alienate the US military in these post 9/11 days, so the movie also brings in the military to save the day by drilling down to the Earth's core and then detonating 1,000 megatons of nuclear weapons. The resulting explosion will be "massaged" by an expert computer hacker, whose sole job is literally to "hack" the Earth's core.

And to think, some writer got paid lots of money for this shit.

[Brad Grenz]

No, I'm guessing we're seeing some of the first released work from those million monkeys with a million type-writers we're always hearing so much about.

[Gundaliro]

I can't belive they got Stanely Tucci (Stanely Tucci!) in it.

They can get anyone to do anything. It's called bills. Emily Watson in Equilibrium? Forest Whitaker in Battlefield Earth? Klaus Kinski in anything not made by Werner Herzog? etc.

Tucci isn't that great an actor anyhow -- who thinks his performance in Big Night was seriously overrated with that Mario accent he had going?

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

didn't i see this movie already?

wasn't it called Deep Impact?

or was it Armageddon?

jeez...they all blend together now.

Its Armageddon. Underground :roll:

[Jim Preston]

They can get anyone to do anything. It's called bills. Emily Watson in Equilibrium? Forest Whitaker in Battlefield Earth? Klaus Kinski in anything not made by Werner Herzog? etc.

Let's not forget Jeremy Irons in Dungeons & Dragons.

[Jason McCullough]

On a related note: the earth's magnetic poles are about to flip again (http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,837058,00.html). Well, "about" on a geological time scale.