Jason Statham to take on Meg

[Spider-Fan]

I'm just learning about the Meg franchise after I saw the trailer last night. As an evolutionary biologist (in-training) and a life-long paleontology geek, the entire notion of this movie, book series, and the whole "megalodon lives" thing gives me all sorts of headaches, almost more than the Jurassic Park/World franchise does. I audibly groaned "Oh no..." when one of the scientist characters made a direct reference to tagging the megalodon and asked "haven't you seen Shark Week?" because that's a direct reference to what the "scientists" did in that garbage mockumentary that Discovery Channel did a few years back. (And I know that Shark Week is gonna try and capitalize on this, presumably in all the worst ways possible for science outreach and educational programming.)

And look, I'm not trying to come in here and ruin everybody's fun; I see this thread has been open for well over a decade and you guys genuinely seem to want to see this movie. I can respect that; I actually want to see this movie, if only because among all the predictably annoying (and boring) pop culture megalodon tropes -- being a massively oversized 75 feet long, looking like just a giant great white without any of the proportions that a fish of that size would need to efficiently move through the water, somehow managing to disappear from the fossil record for 2.5 million years and elude human detection for hundreds of thousands of years by living in the deepest parts of the ocean even though there's no way the real-life counterpart could've actually survived down there and was too specialized to adapt to those conditions, etc. -- the special effects and cinematography looks pretty good, and the action and tone seems bat**** crazy enough to be entertaining enough to make for a fun hate-watching experience. (Although I cannot guarantee that I won't walk out of the theater if this opens with a megalodon eating a Tyrannosaurus rex...)

I mean, do you really want realism out of a movie like this? It's supposed to be stupid.

 

[Teelie]

I'm not a scientist at all but I do know enough that little of the story is plausible, but it's fun to imagine if it were, much like imagining how it would be if Star Wars or the MCU were real. Or X-Men. Jurassic Park is in that too. No one should realistically believe a massive 75 foot shark is somewhere deep down in the oceans.

None of it is possible but if it were... that is where the entertainment from a movie like this comes from. It's not Sharknado ridiculous but it isn't Jaws serious either. It's one of those movies you turn off the logical, thinking part of your brain and embrace the fantasy of it all.

 

[Broseph44]

I mean, do you really want realism out of a movie like this? It's supposed to be stupid.

Thank you, someone gets it

 

[Black Narcissus]

If Jason Statham doesn't punch the shark, I'm going to be very angry.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Now that is a awesome poster. That is the kind of horror related stuff I want to see when it comes to a movie like this. I also liked the international trailer more than the first one because of the more serious tone.

This poster is a witty joke on the Jaws poster, highlighting what Meg is - Jaws but bigger - but illustrates the redundant nature of a bigger shark. A Great White will eat you. A bigger Great White can't eat you any more than the smaller one.

If you take an ant or a spider and make it giant, you've made it threatening. Making a Great White bigger doesn't really do anything, and given that Spielberg's shark would often appear by surprise, I'd say you don't want to make it too big anyway.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

If Jason Statham doesn't punch the shark, I'm going to be very angry.

Seconded!

Btw, your avatars are always pretty damned awesome!

 

[KaijuDude1992]

But you understand that this isn’t meant to be straight up scary horror film nor a serious film. This is really not supposed to take itself all that seriously, it’s supoised to be mindless campy fun. A fun creature feature. Are some people not understanding this? Because if they’re expecting a serious tone overall and throughout they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.

Yeah I'm not expecting a super serious film, but I also would have liked it more if the trailer was more consistent with opening. I really liked how it started it out with the little girl seeing the Meg up close, and I wish they would have played that up more. It looks fun enough, but I am hoping for something more in line with creature features from the 90's which were campy at times, but made the monsters still feel like legit threats.

This poster is a witty joke on the Jaws poster, highlighting what Meg is - Jaws but bigger - but illustrates the redundant nature of a bigger shark. A Great White will eat you. A bigger Great White can't eat you any more than the smaller one.

If you take an ant or a spider and make it giant, you've made it threatening. Making a Great White bigger doesn't really do anything, and given that Spielberg's shark would often appear by surprise, I'd say you don't want to make it too big anyway.

Yeah I get that it's a fun jab at Jaws, but I still really like it. Reminds me of those giant monster movie posters from back in the day like Lake Placid and Deep Blue Sea.

 

[MadderMaximus]

If Jason Statham doesn't punch the shark, I'm going to be very angry.

I'm going to third this. I'm not big on Statham, but that could definitely earn some points for me if he does this :P

 

[terry78]

I feel like the studio thought if we got a more serious trailer here in the states we'd rip it apart as we tend to do. So just go ahead and get the digs out the way was their thinking.

 

[#root]

This looks pretty fun actually. And I liked the US trailer more than the international one . The premise deserves a little bit of camp. The shark's size felt a little inconsistent at times though. And Meg would've been a way better title than The Meg.

 

[Schlosser85]

The tone does remind me a little of Lake Placid.

 

[Melpardus]

I mean, do you really want realism out of a movie like this? It's supposed to be stupid.

I mean, I kinda do. Now granted, I'm not a huge shark movie fan (there's really only so much you can do with a shark as your movie monster) but with creature features in general -- especially those that feature "real" prehistoric animals -- I've always taken issue with the attitude that it's just supposed to be dumb fun and thus the producers decide that that gives them free reign to do any ol' b.s., which typically just results in studio after studio lazily repeating often lazy creature designs and scripts. I'm not even coming at this from a hard academic standpoint, but just as a sci-fi viewer, seeing the same thing in these sorts of movies over and over again gets boring quickly, especially when it's so over-the-top that you become numb to this kind of dumb spectacle. Sci-fi often tends to be more interesting the closer to reality it is, because then (with a good script) you can play within rules and parameters that we can on some level grasp more effectively than more fantastical stuff. That's why films like the first Jurassic Park, Gravity, Interstellar, and even at least some of the MCU stuff has been so well-received across the board from critics, regular viewers, and scientists alike.

(Never mind the harm that comes to science education when Hollywood and educational media alike end up pandering sensationalistic ideas and presentations, i.e. Shark Week and the general direction of the Discovery Channel and related networks in the last decade or so. Like, you can have your giant shark if you want, but don't slap the name "megalodon" onto it if you're not going to try and have it resemble the actual creature. A lot of people unfortunately do get their science knowledge solely from pop culture mediums, and it gets to a point where nobody wants to see something more realistic in any medium because it "doesn't sell", even in science reporting where factually presenting the latest discoveries is supposed to be the whole point of the enterprise.)

As it applies to The Meg, never-minding the whole "why are they still around?" question (qualm for a different time) you can still have plenty of carnage if you downsized the creature to a more reasonable 50-60 feet or so. Not only can you now actually call it a megalodon, it makes the whole thing more viscerally tangible, and in my opinion scarier, because while it's still big, now it's closer in size to us and it has more reason to be interested in expending energy attacking humans because we make for a more viable prey source. It's almost more "personal" in a way. (Plus, if you show it attacking a whale at that more reasonable size, you can really convey the animal's power and make it scarier. You don't need a shark the size of a 747 to **** **** up.) You could also redesign the shark (especially if you're gonna exaggerate the size) to make it look more like a proper big shark; different fin shapes and proportions and color palettes to at least make this design look unique and differentiate it from every other megalodon image out there, which is almost always just a great white shark photoshopped to the size of a nuclear submarine. Kinda boring in my opinion. Admittedly, there's only so much you can do with a shark in a monster movie and I don't know enough about its behavior in the story to determine what appropriate improvements/fixes would be to make the story more interesting and entertaining, but sticking to the science wherever possible and not approaching a project with a "dumb fun, do anything" mindset (which usually leads to "do nothing new") can absolutely enhance a sci-fi film, especially a creature movie.

 

[Broseph44]

The tone does remind me a little of Lake Placid.

I could see that as well, that’s another really fun film too.

 

[Hunter Rider]

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The international trailer has new footage and it's supposed to be less campy than the US one. Some folks are liking this one more.

I like this trailer better.

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

That's pretty cool, the other poster was funny, this one gives a clear visual on the scale of the Megalodon.

 

[TLH]

As someone who read the book when it came out, and have read it since possibly five times...I'm obviously going to see this. I'm disappointed in the tonal approach. I think it always had the potential to be the next Jaws if adapted correctly, but at this point, I'm just hoping for campy fun, maybe a few scenes from the novel adapted nicely. But clearly they're going for cheese and embracing it. Which is fine, I guess, since it worked for Pirahna.

But I'd be lying if I said I'm happy about their approach.

Although what should I have expected with Statham as the lead, or the creative team in general.

Still, hope at worst it's mindless fun.

 

[Dave McFly]

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

 

[moviedoors]

I feel like the trailer is winking at me, but the actual movie won't be so much, which is how I want it. Please, play it straight. It's an inherently silly concept. That silliness will shine thru no matter what, and in fact, will play better, if everyone brings their real A-game.

 

[Reel-Man]

Don't forget, Statham used to be a diver so it's fitting he's in this movie.

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[TheVileOne]

The posters for this movie are fantastic at least. Posters for most big movies these days are starting to become garbage. The ones here are fairly well done at least.

I mean look, I can get defend the science or paleontology of a movie like this. But a lot of sci-fi or monster movies go well beyond the pale of what is realistic.

I can suspend disbelief for certain things. It all depends on execution.

 

[Slick]

If Jason Statham doesn't punch the shark, I'm going to be very angry.

Lol I told my friend the same thing. He said “Naw round house it”.

 

[Silvermoth]

Imagine a godzilla movie that takes place under the sea like this.

Oh my gosh I’m actually dribbling at the idea I’m that keen

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

I love the reference to the original jaws poster

If Jaws is Jurassic Park of shark movies, Meg will be Jurassic World.

Bigger, louder and a lot dumber.

But hopefully won’t take itself so seriously. Or be as s*** to their women characters

 

[BH/HHH]

Looks like a ton of fun

 

[terry78]

It's a Syfy movie but with blockbuster level budgets.

 

[BH/HHH]

It's a Syfy movie but with blockbuster level budgets.

Haha good way to put it

 

[scarlet-witch]

I'm a bit more sold on this than they are, but still.

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