Automata : Only one thing I want changed

That stupid captioned sun-flare opening. So, so lame and tacked on feeling. The actual opening credits covers 80% of this with the newspapers and so on, much better than this, and you can pick up the rest on the way.

The opening looks like SyFy movie of the week. Think how awesome it would be (for the tone of the film) with that simply sliced off, and it opens with:
- Scene setting aerial shot of the city. I am sure everyone will say "blade runner ripoff!" but it's cool.
- Dylan McDermott driving his crappy car through the crappy city
- V/O about rain, mechanical clouds, etc. It'd dystopian as all get out now
- Dylan finds a homeless guy. No! It's a robot. So now it's a robot movie. And so on.

Just rewatched the beginning like that. It works.

So much of this movie tries to be smart and let you figure it out. The opener was very obviously added by some dumb producer or because distributors balked or something. Doesn't fit. Or am I all alone.

You really hit the nail on the head here. I like to know what's going on, but I don't want to be spoon-fed a cheesy opener if the film can explain it on its own.

> The opener was very obviously added by some dumb producer or because distributors balked or something.

Unfortunately, dumb distributors know their audience. Perhaps 20% of the audience is like you and me where we like to figure the plot out as we go. But, the much larger majority of people that might see this movie on HBO or Netflix might give the movie two minutes to catch their attention or they change the channel. If you don't explain the situation in the opening credits, you might not ever get to explain it.


What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

Yes, opening credits. That would have been my alternative if I was faced with this. What if we re-order stuff so it opens with the credit sequence? Awesome future stuff, newspaper headlines, etc.?

Seems plausible. And, it felt dumb to have the intro text, 2 minutes of movie, then most of the same stuff again during the titles.

Maybe if it was theatrically released. Too bad it was direct to video. But we can just fast forward and pretend! :)

Yes. Your idea is good.

Hopefully, some of those "dumb" producers read these comments and will find a way in their gift-box editions or whatever to put in a disclaimer that you can skip the opening stuff if you wish. Maybe they can re-edit it to omit that and make it "extras."

I'm glad you are all so good at figuring this stuff out, though. I was impressed with a decent vehicle for Banderas but even though I watched the movie fairly carefully, I would still say I didn't get it all. I admire true sci-fi buffs who can interpret what the movies are conveying.

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Perhaps 20% of the audience is like you and me where we like to figure the plot out as we go.

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It seems as though you're outsmarting yourself. Opening exposition is a useful tool to let the filmmaker focus on the real story instead of trying to awkwardly shoehorn "in universe" history.

Prime examples of this range from Citizen Kane to The Godfather Part II to Star Wars.

By getting important, but cinematic unnecessary exposition out of the way, the director can avoid silly exposition techniques such as the "As you know" or "Lecture as Exposition" tropes.

I agree. These explanatory credits at the beginning of movies are usually unnecessary and only make movies more boring. It would be much more interesting to figure stuff out for myself as the movie progresses. A good explanatory credit sequence is the kind that creates some mystery and not the kind that explains everything.