[Nightcrawler]

Saw the movie last night, and I have some questions.

-What was the shotgun they were using to kill the dogs with? One of the tac guys was carrying it.

-There were rifles that looked like Israeli FALs, except they had what appeared to be 5.56mm magazines. Where these FNCs? I couldn't ID them.


Anyways, I really liked the gussied-up Berettas. They put a lot of detail into the props, including the M16 selector switch and everything. The little bashing-spikes on the grips were cool, too. Heh.

Those Gramaton Clerics certainly carry a lot up their sleeves, don't they? Heh.

The movie was entertaining. I liked it more than the Matrix; the fights were better to my mind because they were just good old fashioned quality choreography and cinematography, not all wire work and CGI.

Gun-Kata....interesting concept. Complete movie fantasy, I would guess, but it certainly looked good on camera.

The gun handling was okay...the tac guys weren't good, though. Their tactics amounted to walking in a big phalanx type formation and firing from the hip, and there were lots of triggers on the fingers when there shouldn't have been.

All in all, though, a good flick. I'm going to buy it on DVD tomorrow.

[Gunhead]

That wasnt a shotgun but a Walther WA2000 (prop gun).
Yes, those were FNCs...

[Schuey2002]

Let's not forget about the liberal use of the H&K G36! ;)
http://images.snapfish.com/33773%3B2%3B23232%7Ffp3%3B%3Dot%3E2328%3D7%3B%3A%3D558%3Dxroqdf%3E232339%3B6%3B4587ot1lsi

[George Hill]

Equilibrium is an incredible example of movie making.
They did more with less... and did it so well, I can't think of what they could have done better had they been given a bigger budget. They money they did have, they spent it very well.
The guns... G-36 rifles and tricket Beretta 92FSs looked great on screen.
And the cast - the casting was brilliant for every character.
Christian Bale as John Preston. Could anyone have done a better job in this role? No way. CB is good solid actor. Takes his job and all his roles seriously. Perfect choice.
Emily Watson as Mary. She is a beautiful girl that can emote so much just sitting there.
Taye Diggs as Brandt... He is good. Up and coming super star... was the only solid performance in Way Of The Gun.
Angus MacFadyen as DuPont. Robert the Bruce from Braveheart. He does a lot of acting from his eyes. I wish he were in more good movies.
Sean Bean as Partridge. DEEP. His performance was very deep given his short lived roll. The scene with the book... BRILLIANTLY DONE. Few could have done that part with such power.
William Fichtner as Jurgen... He is awesome. Humble guy... solid actor. look for him lost amid the croud scenes. He was the Delta guy in Blackhawk Down. Great guy.

And they did all this with only like 20 million. This flick is a sleeper. I don't remember it in the theatres... and our local blockbusters only has 2 copies on the shelves... down low.

/geeking out

[George Hill]

Okay, they could have had a cooler car than a caddy... but other than that...

[Nightcrawler]

I dunno Ogre, I think an ominous looking, big black sedan with tinted windows is the perfect car for the creepy government enforcers to ride around in.

Then, I'm not a car guy, either. Some use cars to express their personalities. I drive a used oldsmobile in a color that they call pewter but is really more of an off-beige deal; what does it say about me?

It says this Delta 88 is the nicest car I could afford, being a college student and all.

*shrug* I like big cars like Caddys.

I can't believe I mistook that WA2000 for a shotgun. Yikes, I'm losing my edge.

I really liked the movie, more than The Matrix.

[cool45auto]

I thought the Caddies were white? I'll have to watch it again.

[George Hill]

White Caddys... with no instrumentation. I guess Grammaton Clerics don't need to know how much gas they have or how fast they are going...

[Tamara]

I was just tickled pink to see all those AR-70's. :cool:

[Nightcrawler]

I don't recall any AR-70s...but then, I couldn't ID the WA2000, was unsure about the FNCs, and thought the Caddys were black instead of white.

I must be getting senile. I mean, I turn 22 this month...

[Tamara]

I'd be willing to bet that half the "FNC's" you saw were AR-70's. I don't recall seeing any FNC's, but that might be because I kept bouncing up and down on the couch, yelling "Look! AR-70's!" and didn't pay attention to the other guns. ;)

The plain-uniformed blue-ballcapped cops had AR-70's. It was an AR-70 that Preston snatched from the cop and turned on him in the flashback where his wife was arrested. Some of the motorcycle-helmet & trenchcoat guys getting mowed down by the resistance at the end of the movie had AR-70's. It was the second-most common rifle in the movie after the G-36's. :cool:

[Justin]

The gun used to kill the dogs wasn't a Walther WA2000. The WA2000 is the small MP5-sized subgun you see employed in a lot of the gunfights. It looks nothing like a shotgun or rifle.

Warning- minor spoilers ahead.

Given the budget, this is a great flick, a really stylistic interpretation of a dystopian future in the style of Orwell, Bradbury, or Huxley.

It was, unfortunately, killed by a studio who had no interest in promoting the flick. It got released in some of the bigger markets where it was in theaters for a short time. Luckily it's now out on DVD.

My only complaint about the story involves Preston's son. I think the movie would have been that much more powerful and tragic if his own kid had been so inured by the agitprop of the state that he ended up turning against his own father.

[CWatson]

I thought I was the only one who saw,and liked it.Glad to see others liked the flick.Best scene was just when you think Brandt is going to give give Preston a run for his money,you see why Preston was the #1 Cleric,and Brandt losses face .
CW

[Gunhead]

The gun used to kill the dogs wasn't a Walther WA2000. The WA2000 is the small MP5-sized subgun you see employed in a lot of the gunfights. It looks nothing like a shotgun or rifle.

Negative, the Walther WA2000 is a low series bullpup sniper rifle. Have you ever heard about a .300WM or .308win calibre subgun? Me not. ;)

On the other hand there were some Walther MPL/MPK subguns in the movie...

[GSB]

It was, unfortunately, killed by a studio who had no interest in promoting the flick.

I have to wonder if they didn't like its politics. They did succeed in destroying the film. It made less than 2 million in release, I think. A shame, especially for the director who deserved much better from the studio.

[Mr. Bombastic]

It was promoted quite a bit over on this side of the pond, and quite a few people went to see it.

Afterall, it's not often Hollywood releases such an accurate documentary on the future of Britain. The last one was 'A Clockwork Orange' if I remember correctly, but that's more about the present than the future now (since it was banned till a few years ago).

[whoami]

My only complaint about the story involves Preston's son. I think the movie would have been that much more powerful and tragic if his own kid had been so inured by the agitprop of the state that he ended up turning against his own father.

Honestly, I came away with a much different thought on that. From the moment the scene showing the kid watching the video screen, and asking his father 'should I turn him in?', I was expecting the exact incident you describe above from occuring. So much so it would have killed the movie by injecting an even greater sense of predictability. That it didn't happen that way was a surprise to me...

[KFD147]

This is a Walther WA2000.

http://www.bertsoer.nl/sniper/sniperrifls/WA2000.htm

It does not look like a shotgun to me.

Here is a better link with pic.

http://www.snipercentral.com/wa2000.htm

Thanks
Jason:cool:

[GSB]

Afterall, it's not often Hollywood releases such an accurate documentary on the future of Britain.

:D

[Aahzz]

Loved the flick! The daily "intervals" scared the crap out of me when I started thinking about the pulic scholl system's current desire to see very child on Ritalin (so it seems). Not nearly as far-fetched as it could be....

[agony]

My only complaint about the story involves Preston's son. I think the movie would have been that much more powerful and tragic if his own kid had been so inured by the agitprop of the state that he ended up turning against his own father.

But come on, what little kid can resist a cute wittle puppy dog?
:)

[Justin]

Negative, the Walther WA2000 is a low series bullpup sniper rifle. Have you ever heard about a .300WM or .308win calibre subgun? Me not.

On the other hand there were some Walther MPL/MPK subguns in the movie... My bad. You're right. I was thinking of the MPL/MPK subguns.

[BowStreetRunner]

I rented the movie the other night as well.....thought it was great :)
loved the swordfight:D
BSR

[George Hill]

I especially loved Preston's use of the underhanded sword style.
Very cool.
Very well done.
Something not usually well done in most movies.

[Beav]

Great movie, good message and philosophy. The first time I watched it I enjoyed it for being an action film with an anti-fascism message. I watched it a second time after reading some Rand, and I found a few parallels that made me enjoy the film much more. I think the relation it holds to us and the 2nd Amendment alone should make it a must see for THR'ers.

As George Hill said, the scene with Partridge and Preston, as Partridge is caught reading Yeats is awesome.

Partridge - "Heavy cost, I pay it gladly"

[Cosmoline]

I liked it less for the gunplay and more for the storyline, which was akin to a good "Twilight Zone" episode. The gunplay seemed pretty silly. Also, [RANT MODE ON] I am SICK AND TIRED of all the films that do the "staying-up-after-they're-already-dead" nonsense. This happens several times in the film, when soldiers are seemingly frozen after getting a bunch of bullets through them, then the all fall over dead. The finale, where a guy gets all chopped up but somehow stays together for a minute, is silly. It was cool at the opening of "The Cube." It was silly but unnerving at the opening of "Ghost ship." It's now old and tired, and should not be used anymore. [RANT MODE OFF]

[Kobun]

Gunhead:
Have you ever heard about a .300WM or .308win calibre subgun? Me not.

I have. In 308win.
Shot one last year. Fun! :D
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=314014
HK-51

[pale horse]

I have been reading about it for months so I bought it on wednesday and watched it on thursday. I loved it. 10 times better than the Matrix.

Great parts:

Sword fight with trainer swords/bokens.

Pistol whipping was cool too.

The lie detector when it goes beeeeeeeeeeep and then the fun starts up.

The dog sceen at night.

Yeah this movie was the only one I ever bought with out seeing it first, well for myself. I watched it with my brother and he loved the gunkatia and then asked if it was real. He is older than me and we both had grins on our muggs for a bit after.

I give it 2 M1 thumbs way up.

[Kalvan]

Heard about the flick on TFL and saw it in the theater when it was playing here for about 4 days. Loved it. I hadn't seen either "The Cube" or "Ghost Ship" (and likely never will) so the sword thing was new to me. I agree that it was better to have the kid not turn him in. I thought it was kinda dumb that he saved and hid the used doses. RE: the shotgun used to kill the dogs, I saw one of these Benelli M1 Practicals (http://www.benelliusa.com/m1_practical/) briefly in a store and I thought this was what they were using, but it happens pretty fast so it's hard to see. The muzzle brake was rather distinctive though.

[twoblink]

GUNKATA!!

The traditional Chang Kai Shek outfits were cool!

Better shooting through thorough understanding of mathematics and geometry. BS? Probably, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the movie..

My gf thought it boring, and so I fast forwarded the entire story, just showed her all the cool fighting.

I think the best part however, is at the end, the sword fight. I got all comfy for a nice long, 5-10 minute sword fight.. and it was 5 seconds! I loved it! Fooled me!

CB is an AWESOME actor! He scared the brown stains out of me in Shaft. He did such an awesome job in that movie. He's so serious about all his roles. I became a big fan of his after Shaft..

[TheMariner]

check out these sites if you loved the movie
http://www.chud.com/news/dec02/dec02eq.php3
http://www.gunkatta.com/home.htm

first is an interview wit the director... second is a site about eh movie...


READ THE INTERVIEW... you won't believe how long Bale had to do most of those combat scenes...

[George Hill]

Equilibrium: 20 Million.
Matrix Reloaded's Freeway Chase Scene ALONE: 25 Million.

Equilibrium is the better investment. Don't get me wrong - Reloaded rocked... But Equilibrium is what you get when you are not worried about wires and special effects and stuff... and just want to tell a story as best as you can.
The power of the acting alone kicks the trash out most other movies. The performances alone puts this sleeper on higher plane than others....

When I watched it with my wife - she busted out crying when Preston was "Too Late". She was sobbing. "He didn't make it!? What do they mean he is too late?!" My wife doesn't get weepy about very many movies - but the acting touched her. That says a lot.

This movie is so underrated it isn't even funny.

[George Hill]

Oh, and GHOST SHIP and THE CUBE totally blew.
Horrible films. Ghost Ship COULD have been interesting if it wasn't so obviously predictable. It could have been so much better with a little effort.

You want to see a good haunted ship kinda flick?

From the Director of Pitch Black - "BELOW". Das Boot but with a haunting and some good twists. You'll like it. Trust me. Solid performances. Some guns too. 1911 and a Tommy get some work... but not too much. Good movie... but rent it before you buy it.

[C-Note]

Absolutely loved Equilibrium. I also thought the score by Klaus Badelt was awesome. If you haven't played the movie through the closing credits, do so now. Some of the best music I've heard in a long time. Unfortunately, the soundtrack for Equilibrium will probably never be released, so I "rolled my own" soundtrack:

I used DVD Decrypter to rip the movie's closing credits as a VOB file.
I then used DVD2AVI to extract the audio as a WAV file from the VOB.
SoundForge was then used to normalize the WAV and compress it to a 224kbps MP3 file.
The results were impressive. 6 1/2 minutes of pure sonic enjoyment. The sound quality is simply amazing.

If anyone is interested in the MP3, let me know.

[C-Note]

Please God, help me to get this movie out of my DVD player! I can't stop watching it.

Apparently, Kurt Wimmer, the director of Equilibrium, is coming out with a new movie. "Ultraviolet" will have a larger budget. The action scenes should blow away those in Equilibrium (I'll believe it when I see it).
http://www.chud.com/news/mar03/mar28uv.php3

[geekWithA.45]

LOL:

From http://www.gunkatta.com/faq.htm

10. I accidently shot myself in the foot, what should I do? Stop trying to do gunkata with real guns moron. If you were using a paintball handgun, it's still going to hurt like a bitch though. Be Careful.


I enjoyed the movie, but it seems to me in the real world that gunkata is an optimized way to expend all of your ammunition while wounding the least number of opponents. :)

[GSB]

Somehow, I suspect in Japan there are a bunch of Kendo and Kenjutsu practitioners talking on a BBS in Tokyo about how unrealistic the sword fights in Highlander are... ;)

[George Hill]

C-Note - Yeah, Id like that MP3!

[Bullet Tooth]

The gun questions have already been answered for the most part, but equillibrium was an amazing movie

the fight/battle scenes were intelligent, as opposed to extravagant

just imagine what the movie could have been if they had the budget of the matrix

[C-Note]

Hi George,

Do you (or anyone else interested) have an FTP or website I can upload the MP3 to? It's pretty large; 10.4MB, but the sound quality is incredible.

If you don't have any server space, I could probably upload it to my ISP's News server (alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.soundtracks). However, the News server has been twitchy of late.

[Don Gwinn]

The only thing that really disturbed me about GunKata was the practice of standing still in one place in the center of a ring of bad guys. This appears to be the preferred method of dealing with multiple opponents in GunKata. They talk a lot about "minimizing the risk to yourself by not occupying the statistically most likely space for your enemy's bullets to pass," but then they stand stock still.

And yet, it is cool. And cool is good.

I thought the glowing red barrels and slides were a great touch at the end of the first firefight; the director noted that he was surprised people understood what they were. I think it would have been clearer and less jarring if they'd been glowing the entire time, but that would have ruined his "total blackness thing."

Great movie. Sean Bean is the man. I was surprised that Wimmer said he didn't really cast Bean on the strength of other performances. Of the man who played countless bad guys, Boromir of Gondor, the SAS Wannabe from Ronin and a bunch of other great roles, Wimmer said "I knew him, basically, as 006." :uhoh: But it all worked out.

Oh, and I like the Cadillacs. If those things were rear-wheel-drive (or AWD) they'd be perfect.

[C-Note]

Okay, I posted the mp3 to this newsgroup:
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.soundtracks

Look for a post by C-Note and download the attached mp3. It is complete on my ISP's server.

Let me know what you think of it.

[George Hill]

I can't find it... can you post a direct link?

[Average Guy]

I'm glad to see everyone enjoying this movie. I saw it in December, then marked my calendar for the DVD release way back in January and counted the minutes so I could get off work and go buy it.

Here's another site, FWIW: www.grammatoncleric.com

[C-Note]

CLICK HERE (ftp://anonymous:anonymous@beastbox.net/)

Go there and click the folder:
"BisonKid - Equilibrium, complete score"

Download (Right-click, Save Target As...) the first file titled: Klaus_Badelt-Equilibrium.mp3

Since it's an FTP site, it might take a few moments for the download to start. If it doesn't work, just try again in a few minutes. That's just the way FTP sites work.

The rest of the mp3's there (if you want them. Not bad quality) are from a bootlegged version of the score.

[Beav]

As much as I like the movie, I have to say that two of the fight sequences could have been little more believeable to me, but overall the good fight scenes more than made up for them. Also didn't care for the delayed face thing at the end, if it happened instantly or not at all I would have believed it more.

Got to see Matrix Reloaded couple days ago...disappointing.

[Beav]

thanks for the link C-Note!

[Dorrin79]

I had one nit-picky question about Equilibrium.

It doesn't reflect my opinion of the movie (it RULED) or have any impact on the plot, but here goes...

Why was Preston so much better than the rest of the Clerics? The movie didn't seem to offer any real explanation for why Preston was able to shoot\slice\kung-fu his way through half the security apparatus of Libria. Was he gene-engineered or something?

Like I said, it isn't really important. But it did make me wonder on 3rd viewing.

[Beav]

I just assumed he was the Tiger Woods of Gunkata. :D

Remember the scene where he is practicing and Brandt shows up. Brandt says something to the effect of "Always practicing to be the best" or something like that.

[TheMariner]

What I got from the movie is that he drilled himself to near perfection in all things of his job, including gunkata. Hence, he becomes the best cleric and the ideal person to fall from the Grammaton to give teh rebellion's chances a desparately needed boost.

[Snaps]

Damn good movie have it on DVD. One question I got though..


Why would they pick to set him up to get to the resistance? WHy not a lesser guy. If he's the top one why risk pissing him off? I get like taht in alot of movies. Keep the best one on your side.:banghead:

[Beav]

They sensed that he had feelings and he was the best chance of figuring out where the resistance was and how to infilitrate them.

Near the beginning, there are the questions regarding his wife and why he wasn't the one to catch her. How could he not have known about her, he was the best Cleric and the "intuitive" one. I think he did have feelings then but on kind of a subconscience level so that he could ignore it to protect her.

[ed dixon]

Saw the first eight or nine minutes and was bored senseless. Hope this helped.

[Mikul]

The best scene was the fight between "father" and Preston. The constant high-speed blocks and shots fired a smidge too late: excellent. I had my hand over my open mouth 2 seconds into the scene.

The storyline was lame. I saw the entire movie in my head within the first 15 minutes.

The fights were quite good. The surprise with his son was great, but there was little for me to think about aside from the detailed functioning of Gunkata and the Clerics.

People were certainly arguing about the swordfighting in Highlander, but no one argued the swordwork in Star Wars I... in fact, that was the only part of that film worth watching.

Matrix is far-and-away better. I can't speak about Reloaded yet.