For all it's flaws, I still like to watch Time Machine every now and then (i.e. every few years), it's a good Christmas film that still leaves me with a warm nostalgic glow, 'Filbys Theme' never fails to bring a tear to the eye, particularly with the knowledge of what becomes of him, and the theme?...I could hum that as a young kid long before I had the soundtrack and long before I was even into film scores, which shows I must have been nurturing a love for this stuff we all like here from a very young age!

I also remember seeing THUNDERBALL with a large group of friends from junior school during summer holidays (remember those 6 week holidays ), and that music 'THAT MUSIC' during the climatic fight on the Disco Volante stuck in my head forever, My friends and I would play at being secret agents and THAT music, NOT the Bond theme would revolve on continual head loop in me. Upon discovering (and finally having enough money) a few years later, around 1974, soundtrack albums, I was CRUSHED to find that THAT version of the 007 theme wasn't on the LP...did I really have to wait nearly two whole decades for this situation to be finally rectified with the release of the 30th Anniversary Collectors Edition?!

Enough of my ranting, Kids these days don't know how good they've got it

NP : Walking With Beasts - Benjamin Bartlett (not as good as 'Dinosaurs' but still a worthwhile purchase )

Gae NP The Time Machine (Russell Garcia)(The "timeless" score in my opinion!!)

The film, for all its flaws, definitely takes its time at the begining to go through not only the basis for the creation of the time machine and also touches on the moral implications of it. While much of this comes from the book, the way the film sets up the character of Filby (ostensibly the narrator of the book, but with elements that seem to come from elsewhere) is something that is rarely done today with such relative ease.

Similarly, "Filby's Theme" is one of the most warm pieces of film scoring ever... taking the time to illustrate a character who, while highly moral and central to the aesthetic of the film, is nevertheless ancillary to the main body of the film.

I also love the opening fanfares...

Overall, I have to say that, while the score for The Time Machine has not become obsolete the way that the picture's effects have, it is representative of an era in which an adventure film score consisted of more than a lot of orchestral acrobatics and a rock anthem main theme.

The problem with the “CGI” generation is lack of decent scripts that are willing to tell a story about human beings and give us characters we care about. I place a good hunk of the blame on scripts by committee and a good sized piece of it on blockbuster mentality that is too afraid to move away from the most safely trodden path.

Take a look at John McClean, or Dirty Harry or Arnold or any of dozen other characters from Special Efx pics. The one thing they all have in common is that they don’t really feel of care about anything. They give us nothing to hang our emotional hats on and so we have a hard time losing ourselves in the film. They concentrate too much on the effects in the picture than the effect on the audience.

You’re right about the lack of heart, but it isn’t in the effects, its in the scripts. (Or rather, it isn’t in the scripts)

CGI is no more killing film than adding sound did in the 20’s or Color in 30’s or ‘scope pictures in the 50’s.

These movies are soulless because of the scripts, not the effects. No Passion.

MWRuger said
"The problem with the “CGI” generation is lack of decent scripts that are willing to tell a story about human beings and give us characters we care about. I place a good hunk of the blame on scripts by committee and a good sized piece of it on blockbuster mentality that is too afraid to move away from the most safely trodden path".

I agree wholeheartedly with you. Thats why these days I tend to tune into TCM rather than rent a new movie cos I always come away dissatisfied after watching one.
Its really frustrating because you feel that with the technology available someone should be coming up with the greatest fantasy movie ever which uses CGI along with a great script and real human characters (Maybe LOTR will be the one). Whats lacking is that we just dont care for the characters much because they are unsympathetic characters who look after number one (reflecting a modern attitude in people maybe)...a kind of "me against the world" mentality. I watched "Tomb Raider" the other day and I was both frustrated and pleased with it simultaneously.

Frustrated because the characters are obviously from a computer game and they were very one-dimensional

Frustrated because once again we are subjected to the most mindless, subliminal, gravity-defying, stupefying and mind numbing combat scenes that go on and on and on ad nauseum

Frustrated because when we did finally reach an interesting point in the movie (i.e. the Stone Monkey episode in the temple) it was over too soon

Frustrated cos Graeme Revelle has once again undermined all the hard work of film composers who brought the beauty of orchestral scores back to movies with musical motifs for characters and emotive cues and instead gives us noisy, techno computer game music. Sorry guys but I dont like his music. Give me Williams, Goldsmith or Poledouris any day.

Frustrated because the movie was once again, like Lake Placid, Jurassic Park III and other recent films woefully short as if they'd run out of ideas or just wanted to make a fast buck.

Pleased because I though Angelina Jolie did a pretty good job and she had some positive screen presence.(Didn't know she was John Voight's daughter either, that was a surprise )

Pleased because the scene in the "Temple of Lights?" had some great creatures (The Stone Monkeys, Griffin and the six-armed kali (Rahmahan?) which seemed like a tribute to "Harryhausen") but once again this scene was just over too soon and if extended would have added great weight to the films impact)

Pleased with some of the sets e.g The Victorian planets mechanism at the end which was reminiscent of those out of both "The Time Machine" and "Riven"

Overall I would give Tomb Raider a **1/2 out of *****

Come on Hollywood! Isn't it about time you made a fantasy movie that can rival and pay homage to the likes of "Jason and the Argonauts" which is nearly 40 years old.

Gae NP Classic FM

Maybe I should take Dirty Harry out and slide in Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarnegger, Kurt Russell actioneers.

First, you have to do all the creature effects that way. Mixing it with CGI would make it look very out of place and reduce the suspension of disbelief to nothing.

Second, horrendously expensive and time consuming, way more than CGI. When there was no choice you just bit the bullet and paid.

Third, there are limits to the technology. No matter how good stop motion is it will never blend seamlessly like the CGI did in Jurassic Park.

In a way, Stop motion is like B&W films. It is a valid way to do a movie, but it is more the province of the auter than the studio.