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Full trailer for The Tomorrow War (July 2nd on Prime)

Atrus

Gold Member
The premise was good but it was underserved by the execution. It should have been humanity going into a full war footing rather than sending untrained, poorly armed civilians in chef hats with no intel on the enemy. In this regard even Battle: Los Angeles was better.

The black IT dude was funny but the rest of the cast of characters were pretty bland and forgettable. The plot itself is poorly written and the last act revolves around the main character “knowing a guy” five times over in order to solve his problems.

Could be a budget issue but I think the core elements of the story could have resulted in an amazing sci-fi film if it had more incubation time.
 

AmuroChan

Member
Applying time travel rules and then filling the plot holes with parallel timeline excuses is pure writer laziness or incompetence. Not blaming you, I'm blaming movie writer.

Time travel and parallel universes are intricately related though. Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum physics tell us that there could be an infinite number of timelines occurring in parallel. If someone time travels to the past and changes history, a new timeline is splintered off into existence.
 

ShadowNate

Member
Time travel rules are not consistent across movies (or any other medium for that matter). You can have the one timeline rule (or "whatever happened happened", you cannot change the past) or you can have the branching timelines which are the two major ones. There's more variations, especially if you throw concepts like multiverse, getting unstuck from time, course correction, time machines with limited capabilities or specific workings in the mix, and/or botched executions if you account for time paradoxes that are "allowed" to happen by the "rules" set -- or happen due to bad writing -- or, like in Nolan movies, are thrown in intentionally to screw with the viewer.

Anyway, it's pretty clear this movie set its own rules and it does not follow the single timeline.
They can and do change the future by altering what happens in the "present". Future daughter implies this was always the plan and, considering the devastatingly huge loss of human lives in the future it makes sense that the "original" timeline was not worth rescuing (and arguably it couldn't be).

I am not sure it was supposed to indeed be "always" the plan though. Maybe it changed when the future people figured all hope to defeat the aliens with their remaining resources was lost.
Or that the future knew how their time travel would work. They did try to avoid the main points they thought would cause paradoxes but admittedly they were tinkering with a hastily put together and largely untested time machine.
The over 40 rule and "dead already| in the future time rule, was there to secure that the original people/fighters in the future war wouldn't be erased if this recruited people from the past were killed.

But they didn't account for stuff like butterfly effect and chain reaction consequences if the over 40 people were killed in their timeline. Not to mention their own sending people back and froth and freaking messing with the timeline in the first place, causing the riots, and spreading hopelessness. This was their "acceptable" risk I guess.

The main point is, I don't think (bad writing included) the future people knew how it would work, or that they *actually* took all the required precautions to avoid paradoxes. It's convenient, because it kind of excuses the clumsy writing, but then again, you know that if a time travel option was to somehow be invented in reality, we would likely have botched it terribly too.
 
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Man, this would've made Independence Day 2 look like Avatar at the box office. That's the movie I watched before The Tomorrow War and the difference in visuals, tone, pacing, story and storytelling is astonishing. And that was a cheaper, rushed production made half a decade ago with a script written on a napkin when they lost their main character.

Who the fuck stages the main emotional speech on an empty fucking beach with two shit-tier actors?

Animation directors moving to live action are always good at blocking and coming up with inventive shots but only the staircase scene and the final moments of the boss fight had anything like that. Makes me wonder who was really in charge of this production.

"Dude what if PTSD was a monster you wrestle with lmao" - I guarantee this was the pitch. It's a good pitch...
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Time travel and parallel universes are intricately related though. Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum physics tell us that there could be an infinite number of timelines occurring in parallel. If someone time travels to the past and changes history, a new timeline is splintered off into existence.
It's a convenient plot device used to excuse poorly-conceived time travel plots. ShadowNate ShadowNate explained a handful of problems with what happened, and it's a major issue with all time-travel stories. It's kinda why you either do your research and flesh out a single timeline story properly, or you just don't bother. I can't remember a good multiple timelines movie that I've seen. Endgame tried to patch a split paths story into a single timeline, with their time heist going back to the exact points in time to return the stones, but it too still ignores the butterfly effect.

That said, I think time-travel plots are a good time to turn the brain off, and just enjoy the action. That's what I did in Endgame, and what I tried to do for this movie. The only thing that kept nagging me was the forced emotional stuff with father and daughter, because I kept telling myself that once he returned to the past with the toxin, everything would be fine for the future. If he really believed that his daughter would end up dying in one of the split timelines, then he should also have realized that an infinite number of her would also die in an infinite number of alternate timelines. I mean, he was a science guy afterall. So getting so attached to someone he had been with right up until his jump made no sense. It's not like she had died in his original timeline, and was only alive in this timeline. He had a perfectly alive and non-jaded daughter waiting for him back in the original timeline. He should have been happy to jump back and save her.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
It was alright. Not the best. Not the worst. I know it is the type of film I would watch think it’s ok. Then forget a little while later.
It just doesn’t hit the high notes to really stick in your mind
 

CamHostage

Member
I cant believe this was intended for theaters, seems pretty low budget already. At least they managed to con amazon for $200m. 🤷‍♀️

Holy shit, imaging if you had to have paid to watch this...

I thought his motivation was pretty much foreshadowed in the beginning. He told his wife that he was meant to do more with his life than just being a HS teacher. After repeated rejections from other jobs, he most likely got fed up and drank his way into leaving his family behind.

Ha, so he had already been a Green Beret / Special Forces, he then went through the education needed to become a high school teacher, plus he's married and a dad, but still he's meant for more with his life... FML :lollipop_sleepy:

Also, if he drank himself into oblivion and left his family (which he insists he would never have done, and showed no signs of being so hopeless in the beginning or neglecting his daughter besides being all sad when he didn't get the job,) why's he still shaken by the concept when he comes back from the future when he knows he would never let himself get that far again, but also, why does he then go to Russia, illegally, with a rogue military force, never telling his family he's leaving, with the only other surviving family member on his side who has ever reached out to the child, on what may well be a suicide mission against alien creatures who have the power to easily wipe out all of humanity, all after insisting for 7 days of movie time that he would have never, ever left his family he loves so so much?

Couldn't he have been like, "Hey, Dorian, good luck out there, I can't leave my kid behind again...for the first time... it's complicated, but just take the superweapon and follow my dad, that old bastard will never die." Or gone at the military brass or press a little harder, been like, "No, seriously, I invented a superweapon, all you've got to do is take it and use it and I can go home to take the garbage cans in..."
 
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Stuart360

Member
I think people are being a bit harsh with the effects. Imo it looked big budget, and the scale of some of the scenes was massive.
In fact i'm really surprised they didnt release this in cinema's too.
 
So this movie had a sequence shot in downtown Buckhead where you can see the residential building I live in. I'm so famous!

Iq5qzpp.png


Anyway, this was a lot better than I thought it would be.
You should've waved during production or something just kidding 😂
 
Trailer totally feels like Edge of Tomorrow which I just watched yesterday. Haven't seen this yet, but the trailer in terms of plot seemed a little underwhelming but the effects and humor seem to be present so I guess I just have to see for myself! Hope it's one of those movies where you watch it as a pre-game for a bigger or more intense action movie.
 

AmuroChan

Member
Ha, so he had already been a Green Beret / Special Forces, he then went through the education needed to become a high school teacher, plus he's married and a dad, but still he's meant for more with his life... FML :lollipop_sleepy:

I don't think that's necessarily outrageous. We see tons of people in the real world who has wealth, family, power, success, but yet still can't find fulfillment in their lives.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Man if this is even partially accurate that's a really dumb movie even for Hollywood action flick standards.
It's accurate, but it's one of those movies you can shut your brain off for, and enjoy. It's honestly not that dumb of a movie, when compared to some stuff out there. Just that cinematic releases tend to have a bit more wow factor to distract you from the glaring holes in logic. Like your standard Fast and Furious movie is generally a lot dumber, but has more going on visually.
 
90% of the plot made no sense at all even ignoring the time travel stuff but I have to admit I still enjoyed it. Felt like a poor mans Edge of Tomorrow but there is definitely a good time to be had if you engage autopilot.

Unless there was some back story we didn't see the monsters would have been obliterated by a modern army no matter how many of them there were but they were really cool looking at least.

I think the ending section should just have been cut.
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
It was fun stupid fun, not much more than that. The two dumbest parts:

When they decided to go to the school kid to find out about volcanoes and when Pratt’s wife is the first one on the planet to think maybe the aliens didn’t come from outer space but may have already been here. The former is a dumb fun stupid thing, but the second one is just so horribly stupid.
 

EekTheKat

Member
There was a cameo that absolutely broke me - they even put that character in a scene very reminiscent of some memes that popped up on a certain tv show at the height of that shows popularity. After that I kind of just sat back and enjoyed the loud noises.

I think this movie sits somewhere between ID4 and Battle Los Angeles - and ultimately that may be the problem with this movie. It seems to lean more towards the pantheon of compotent but forgettable movies and not memorable high budget schlock.
 

crumbs

Member
This was painful to watch. The alien designs and most of the special effects were good, everything else was terrible. It was way too long and every on-screen decision made by a character during the last third of the movie was completely baffling.

There were a so many stupid elements, but the 2 that stood out were:

1. When the MC returns from the future with alien queen killing toxin, nobody seems to care. At this point, the world has decades to prepare for the aliens and has a weapon to wipe them out, but apparently that's not important and all hope is lost.

2. After finding the alien ship that had crashed in Russia, our heroes decide to inject the dormant aliens to kill them. This goes wrong and the queen escapes, so the heroes blow up the ship with C4. If you could just blow the alien ship up, what was the point of trying to inject them with the toxin? They ended up not really needing the toxin at all, which is ridiculous since capturing the queen and developing the toxin was the entire middle third of the movie. The MC does use the toxic during his fist fight (lol) with the escaped alien queen, but that wouldn't even be necessary if they had just blown the ship to start.

I understand that movies like this aren't very logical (the whole premise of this movie doesn't really make sense), but there's got to be a limit to how stupid a script can be.
 

manfestival

Member
I really enjoyed the movie despite it's multitude of flaws. My roommates kept laughing at all the silly things I called out. Especially with everything being so predictable.... well except that last sequence. Predictable in a way but also incredibly ridiculous in a laugh out loud way despite not intending for that.

Would recommend 6/10. I felt the same about Battlefield LA or whatever it was called but that movie executed better than this but that movie was also way lazier with their aliens and plot so there was less room for "error."
 
Liking it so far except for them surviving a 40 year fall into a pool

Come on man. Everyone knows the surface tension of water is like cement from a height

Suspension of disbelief only works to a certain point

Also I love Mary Lynn, but I don't think her comedic style of acting is right for this tone of this film. They already had one comedic foil, no need to go overboard with it

It kind of feels like Crysis 2 - The Movie
 
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Revolutionary

Gold Member
This gets a sequel but Edge of Tomorrow doesn't? There is no justice.
They wanted to do a Edge of Tomorrow 2 soon after the original but Emily Blunt simply wasn't available for it (I think she was pregnant at the time). And now they're at the point where everyone's schedule is completely misaligned and booked for the foreseeable future that it's probably not going to happen anymore. :(
Sequel has been greenlit.
Neat. I hope they come up with some cool way for the aliens to return, and not just "there was more than one ship under the ice" lol
 

Dr.Guru of Peru

played the long game
Liking it so far except for them surviving a 40 year fall into a pool

Come on man. Everyone knows the surface tension of water is like cement from a height

Suspension of disbelief only works to a certain point

Also I love Mary Lynn, but I don't think her comedic style of acting is right for this tone of this film. They already had one comedic foil, no need to go overboard with it

It kind of feels like Crysis 2 - The Movie
She was barely even used in this movie. She had like two lines before she sacrificed herself.
 

UnNamed

Banned
I've seen this movie yesterday and I think it's an absolute disgrace. Not a bad movie which eventually become good, it's a bad movie which is still a very bad movie. In my personal chart of ugly syfy movies, first was Battle:Los Angeles, second ID:Resurgence. This top both.
The thing I don't like the most is the script is so full of holes, you begin to think screenwriter are make fun of you thinking you're very stupid. I have no problem with movies with thin but logical plot, and I think B:LA and ID:R are an example of this, but I have problems with lazy writers who hide behind "you know, it's a disaster movie". Gerald Butlers' movies are Nolan's movies in comparison.

Very bad and thin world construction and characters construction, like 6 minutes in total for both. Undoubtedly Chris Pratt worst performance ever.

From now, SPOILERS.

First great inconsistency: they know the origin of the invasion, the way aliens fight, the future tech, a virus very effective they don't want to use because whatever, 26 YEARS to prepare and they already know the future is beyond salvation... but every country in the world think it's a good idea to send our people to be killed in the future.

At 20 minutes the reason I already wanted to quit:
screenwriters: "pss, hey... hey viewer... come here. Do you realize we put an hint on why people are send dressed like everyday?"
viever:..ehm, yes, maybe the reason is beca..."
screenwriters: "IT'S NOT IMPORTANT, FUCK YOU!".

They try to survive to aliens hiding around the building, but Yvonne clearly know their position as it is shown on their screens!
It's also important to retrieve the virus but it would be very ineducate do tell jets to not bomb the city at this very moment.
Survivors are teleported to another place with no reason. Maybe because the devic... I SAID IT'S NOT IMPORTANT, FUCK YOU! Just remember, it's always a good plan to teleport people AFTER they risk their life.
Pratt made the entire black guy squad killed, but that's ok man, it's more important to save your daughter.
Time to retrieve the female alien in the most stupidest way possibile, to bring her in the center of their only HQ, knowing she can attract the swarm. No problem, we use a sedative... we should have used to take her in the first place.

At that point, the movie show us, just for some second, the only thing that make sense in the entire movie: the air supremacy they have never used. Pratt is the only guy who can take the new virus, because reasons.

So, listen: we have time, tech, people, and now a virus. We've basically win, except we literally forgot to say it to the people. Relationships are lost, Nato is lost, ONU is lost, everything is lost.
"Has anyone tried to know the exact point were aliens began to invade the Earth?" No one in 30years, of course.

You know, you can create a coalition in a month to send people to die in the future but you can't have the permission to send someone in Russia.
At this point there is the biggest shit in the movie. Repeat: time, tech, people, a virus, bombs, the exact place of the alien base, an easy win, they have just to go back, show the pictures and nuke the place, as even the characters in the movie says.

But it's probably a better plan to try to kill with a virus every alien ONE BY ONE.
 
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Watched the movie and yeah, it's not great. I like Chris Pratt, but he needs to be in better movies, not Jurassic Park and not this stinker. Hollywood needs to drop the time travel stuff, because it hardly ever works out in these blockbuster movies. Too much stuff makes no sense at all for me to suspend my disbelief:

  • Boring "we kill the queen, we kill them all" victory condition
    [*]Highschool kid locates the aliens, something that the military and dozens of specialists couldn't figure out
    [*]Sending totally untrained civilian into a future war is dumb and pointless
    [*]They could have easily prepared for the war over the next 30 years instead of sending their present people to die in the future
    [*]Hero brings back WMD miracle poison from the future to kill all aliens only to be utter and completely ignored
    [*]Comes back from the future with precious intel that nobody wants to listen to

The action is alright, but the best part is shown right at the beginning only to then go back to a long hokum family prelude. The acting is really wooden, especially by the supporting cast. They try to portray Pratt as some sort of everyday Joe, but he is an ex-military highschool chemistry teacher whose father is a retired covert-op super soldier living in a secluded highly militarized hangar of some sort... like what the hell is even going on there? All the plot points are stolen from other movies, the aliens are just boring brainless bugs and you hardly even notice the immense strain that the war effort is supposed to put on the present and the future.

You're better off watching Edge of Tomorrow, because Tomorrow War does absolutely nothing with its premise.
 

Davey Cakes

Member
Common sentiment is "it's not a particularly good movie but at least it's not that woke Marvel crap."

I feel like standards have dropped significantly in recent years. People are just starved for popcorn content I guess.
 

QSD

Member
Yeah so I started watching this and like AJUMP23 AJUMP23 mentioned before it seems to me it's some kind of analogy for climate change? A cataclysmic event in the future that requires people to sacrifice their lives/livelihoods in order to win it. The plot seems ridiculously convoluted otherwise...
 

NahaNago

Member
I can't get myself to watch it :messenger_loudly_crying: . I just have this mental resistance to watch 2 hour movies on streaming services but I can binge watch a tv show:messenger_tears_of_joy:. I'll probably start just convincing myself that I'll only watch half of it and just end up watching the whole thing.

Netflix needs a 1.5 speed.
 

BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
My thoughts after watching it:

1. Terribly inconsistent, preposterous even by sci-fi standards, and boring
2. It lasts a good fifteen minutes too long
3. Yvonne Strahovski does not age. She looks the same as she did the last time I saw her in something ten years ago. Hell, she looks better
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Tried to turn my brain off. Failed. It's just so oppressively dumb on every front. Good fun to MST3K trash talk it moment-to-moment though. So much material.
 

YCoCg

Member
This is just an extremely stupid and cliche'd version of Edge of Tomorrow and nowhere near as good...

Sequel has been greenlit.
So of course, the shit thing gets a sequel and Edge of Tomorrow 2 will never happen.
 

BigStef71

Member
I honestly enjoyed it. It was a dumb fun Sci-fi action flick. I'm curious what the story will be for the sequel. I thought the action scenes were pretty great and then I looked up that Larry Fong was the DOP so that makes sense 😄. It definitely makes me yearn for a Gears of War movie though.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
They wanted to do a Edge of Tomorrow 2 soon after the original but Emily Blunt simply wasn't available for it (I think she was pregnant at the time). And now they're at the point where everyone's schedule is completely misaligned and booked for the foreseeable future that it's probably not going to happen anymore. :(

Neat. I hope they come up with some cool way for the aliens to return, and not just "there was more than one ship under the ice" lol
That was a weaker male alien ship, a stronger female mothership is coming and IT'S PISSED.
 
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Toots

Gold Member
I want the movie with the aliens in the space harvesting these aliens and what they used the for.
Go watch the latter Alien sequels then (Prometheus and the other one) you'll have your answers.
Its not that much better but you have Fassbender in it, still ass bending as always, so there's that...
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Go watch the latter Alien sequels then (Prometheus and the other one) you'll have your answers.
Its not that much better but you have Fassbender in it, still ass bending as always, so there's that...
It's never answered though and only raises more questions that don't get answered intertwined with a "creations going against their creator" theme nobody asked for.
 
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