The Audio Commentary

Discuss the latest about the second Silent Hill Movie

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Mr.FLOOT
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The Audio Commentary

Post by Mr.FLOOT »

Hey guys,

Has anyone else listened to the Audio Commentary yet? I gave it a listen today and I have to say, it's actually rather good and gives some insight into the film and why things are the way they are.
A lot of it has Bassett saying why things changed, how how things got trimmed and in hindsight that he should have done things differently, or he preferred things that got cut.

Basically, Bassett is telling us that not everything was down to him, and it's rather insightful.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Filker »

Hmmmm...maybe worth a rental. If nothing else, Bassett is an engaging speaker.
Mr.FLOOT wrote:Basically, Bassett is telling us that not everything was down to him, and it's rather insightful.
If the romance was mandated by the producers, then this film was doomed from its very foundation.

That goes for the heaps of exposition, also.
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Mr.FLOOT
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Mr.FLOOT »

The exposition sadly seemed like it was always going to be there, although it is always Hadida saying it was for people who had never seen Silent Hill before, Bassett didnt mention that much. He also says "Cheap scare" and "Cheap 3D effect" a lot too, Bassett really was against a lot of things in this film.

He does mention a few things about the original draft of the script too such as a subway scene and a few others I can't quite remember.
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JKristine35
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by JKristine35 »

Did he explain why he retconned so much of the first film?
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Yuki
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Yuki »

I'd REALLY like to listen to the commentary. I figured there was a lot more executive meddling than was let on--he said specifically in one interview that indie films could probably get closer to the games in tone and storyline, for instance. I'm really curious as to JKristine's question, though.
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JKristine35
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by JKristine35 »

Yuki wrote:he said specifically in one interview that indie films could probably get closer to the games in tone and storyline, for instance.
He also stated that SHR was an indie film.
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resevil80
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by resevil80 »

He was talking about a movie with a budget of 8-10 million dollars(that was the figure he used) so that it wouldn't be a huge financial risk, not a 20-25 million dollar "indie" movie.
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Yuki
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Yuki »

JKristine35 wrote:
Yuki wrote:he said specifically in one interview that indie films could probably get closer to the games in tone and storyline, for instance.
He also stated that SHR was an indie film.
Yes, but it WAS also affiliated with larger companies; the "indie" he referred to in said interview would mean more of a fan-film done on an even-smaller budget.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

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Mr.FLOOT wrote:The exposition sadly seemed like it was always going to be there, although it is always Hadida saying it was for people who had never seen Silent Hill before, Bassett didnt mention that much. He also says "Cheap scare" and "Cheap 3D effect" a lot too, Bassett really was against a lot of things in this film.

He does mention a few things about the original draft of the script too such as a subway scene and a few others I can't quite remember.
Yeah, most of the complaints about exposition come from vg familiar people who didn't need to hear it. I didn't like the way it was delivered but it wasn't very high on my long list.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Numinex »

Mr.FLOOT, so the british BluRay actually has all the extras? I can't find any confirmation anywhere.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by JKristine35 »

I've never heard a director complain they had too much money. Considering he bragged about how only he and Hadida had the ability to decide the final cut of the film before it came out, he's just making (pitiful) excuses for why his film was the 6th worst received film of the year. He even commented on his blog not long before release saying he thought he might make some of the fans angry by changing the scare style, which caused a bit of a ruckus in the fanbase for a week or so. Nowhere in that comment did he blame anyone but himself for the change in scare tactics, because he thought back then it would work. But it didn't, so now it's everyone else's fault.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Droo »

Unless the audio commentary is just Bassett saying "I am so so sorry for this piece of shit", then I don't really care to listen to it. :P
"Oh yeah, I've been here before
I can see it with eyes closed
Shadows that look like blood
Dead as far as the mind goes
Fear that comes from my head
Lives in the mirror"
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by peronmls »

Did he talk about cut monsters?
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by DistantJ »

Good to see this place hasn't changed. Miserable (don't bother sending condescending PM, I'm not coming back anyway). But I just saw the commentary and enjoyed it. I'd have changed a lot about the film but he seems like he did the best he could have with what he had.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by emFox »

The only reasons I can accept a complaint about having too much money is that a) it hurts the film's box office chances, since you're wasting it, and b) with that money comes extra stipulations on how it should be spent. Considering Bassett's "Deathwatch" and "Wilderness," this film just didn't feel like something he put together with the most authority. Not that I consider those two films very good, but in terms of the structure of the films and their mood and tone, "Revelation" felt really different, surprisingly so.
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DistantJ
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by DistantJ »

I liked Revelation (hence my grumbling every time somebody pops into an irrelevant topic to make a wisecrack and then leave), but compared to Deathwatch, Wilderness and Solomon Kane, it has this weirdness to it, like a sort of pantomimey "popcorn" thing with the dialogue that his other films don't have which, for Silent Hill, comes out kinda cheesy. It feels a LOT like a Hellraiser film, (particularly Hellraiser 2) which is a good thing, but it doesn't have that poetic feel that Silent Hill 1 and Deathwatch have. I figure what happened here is that Basset had to drop a lot of his usual character writing in favour of fitting the insane amount of exposition you need to tell the game's backstory in the running time. To be fair, fans got annoyed with the first movie "dumbing down" the first game's plot, but this film should help people to understand why that was done. I'd rather focus on the characters than the lore, personally.

I think M.J.B. tried really really hard to please us with the backstory/lore, and it's really cool of him to have gone in with that in mind, but this is exactly why the first film opted for the simpler story.

I still like it anyway. I don't think it was terrible like a lot of people did, but then I don't consider Silent Hill 3 a profound masterpiece up there with SH2 the way a lot of people here do, I find the game to be as cheesy and awkward as the movie XD
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by gostoneph17 »

Here are some facts I got after having checked the commentary (this is mainly for JKristine35):
->The most expensive shot for the film was the Heather burning scene during the dream sequence at the beginning.
->Bassett wanted the film to be about a daughter searching for her father, as opposed to the mother searching for her daughter in the first film.
->The stuff written at the classroom about the brain and understanding reality are supposed to symbolise Heather's madness and perception of dreams and reality.
->During the mall scene, the "raw meat" that they were eating was actually vegetables with food colourings. The girls didn't want to eat them, but eventually they were persuaded to do so.
->For the goldfish dying part, they prepared special water, and when they put it in it it would fall asleep. This was done obviously in order not to kill the animal.
->Bassett wanted the Missionary to have a more feminine appearance than that of the game. This would later give a symbolism to its fight with Pyramid Head as well. The fight symbolises the fight of a man with a woman, thus The Missionary is the feminin creature and Pyramid Head is the masculin one. In addition (this is a theory I came up with), The Missionary doesn't rely on physical force, but concentrates on dodging and finding the right moment to attack, while PH mostly relies on his physical force, something that a typical man and a woman do.
->Bassett makes a lot of remarks and complaints about his own film, something totally unexpected, at least by me. For instance, the horrible fog effects when Heather leaves Jack's Inn, Bassett mentions that and explains that because they shot the scene during a day and the effects with brightness don't go very well, that's why you get such a result. Also, he makes remarks about the jump scares, telling things like "Nothing to be proud about that" and "I would have prefered if it went slower". He also mentions that if he had more time, he would concentrate more on making the film scarier.
->Bassett prefers the Dahlia from the game rather than the one in the 1st film. (obviously)
->Malcolm Macdowell wore white contacts to show that he is blind, something that later resulted in eye problems.
->Kit Harrington broke his ankle during the shooting of Silent Hill Revelation, also being the reason why he didn't appear at the first Comic-con.
->During the final shot, Heather was very tired, something that contributed for her character during her confrontation with Claudia.
->It is confirmed that the police cars and bus are references to Silent Hill: Downpour.
->By having a new character, Suki, Bassett wanted to show that many different stories happen in Silent Hill, and they can sometimes influence one another (pretty much what happens in Silent Hill 2, with Angela and Eddie).
->Bassett makes absolutely no notes on his retcons, despite having mentioned at the beginning that some of the people watching the commentary would want to watch it in order to understand the movie better and some others who hated it would like to hear his excuses. For example, during the ending scenes he mentions that Heather is at last free and probably has a boyfriend (her own cousin?!). This is proof that Bassett didn't even realise his own retcons, or simply ignores them as if they never existed.
->Michael paid attention to detail for people who care and don't care. Examples are the red shoe at Jack's Inn, the room in which Leonard is kept, S12 and others.
->Michael found the scene at the bus with the crazy old man very funny and fun.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by tbonesays »

DistantJ wrote:I liked Revelation (hence my grumbling every time somebody pops into an irrelevant topic to make a wisecrack and then leave), but compared to Deathwatch, Wilderness and Solomon Kane, it has this weirdness to it, like a sort of pantomimey "popcorn" thing with the dialogue that his other films don't have which, for Silent Hill, comes out kinda cheesy. It feels a LOT like a Hellraiser film, (particularly Hellraiser 2) which is a good thing,
Last night BBC America radio did a tribute to Roger Ebert. Of all 10,000 films he reviewed, they chose as an example one soundbyte from his scathing review of Hellraiser 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OIYOaf32lQ

The cd analogy was Ebert at his best, along with the last paragraph of his written column http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 30303/1023.

Sadly much of that could be said about SHR. Character bounce in and out for no particular reason. Most of the scenes could be rearranged without anyone noticing. And trying to impress us with gore was just as impotent in 2013 as it was in 1988.
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Mr.FLOOT
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by Mr.FLOOT »

Numinex wrote:Mr.FLOOT, so the british BluRay actually has all the extras? I can't find any confirmation anywhere.
Yes it does. It has a 45min Making Of, 11mins of Deleted Scenes, Audio Commentary, an Introduction from Bassett and a featurette on the Halloween Horror Nights attraction.

Pretty good collection of features tbh. More than I was expecting.
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Re: The Audio Commentary

Post by UrsineVulpine »

Was the 45 minute making of good? I just got the DVD version which is unfortunately missing that but has a couple of 2-4 minute featurettes. Would have much preferred the 45 minutes. I pretty much bought the DVD for the extras.

I found the audio commentary pretty interesting! Seems to me that overall MJB knows he hasn't produced a movie that isn't exactly what he wanted and he is fully aware of its short comings be it the pacing, dodgy effects, scenes that don't work etc. He is aware of its short comings and seemed as open as he could be about it within the commentary. A lot of it seemed to come down to lack of money. I'm really glad he did a commentary for it though, I've always found it incredibly interesting to hear what the filmmakers have to say about the final product and the process of making the film.
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