<[Disconnected] is a movie that seems very confused in its narrative and what it's trying to do. The scenes don't match well with each other, and the editing is best said to be choppy. The acting does stand out as good alongside a lot of technical things, but you never get the chance to connect with the characters. Overall, a massive dud from Director Jesse Ross and for the talented cast.
-Hollywood Weekly.>
<Imagine going to a Michelin star restaurant and ordering their signature dish that you are very excited to eat after hearing a lot about it, but when you try it, you realise that it's not as good. That's the case with [Disconnected]. The premise could have made a great story, and it does shine in scenes with dialogues clearly standing out but overall, it fails. Seth Douglas needs to get better scripts and more challenging roles to break in as a big star.
-Vanity Magazine.>
<The cast might not want to see this project in their filmography in the future. The movie tries to sell itself on the main character, played by Seth Douglas but fails to make a connection with the audience. Seth's acting, while being good, was nothing out of the ordinary that was needed to save the movie. Other characters come off as more interesting but are never explored. A massive, massive letdown from a great director.
-@Criticye.>
Reviews quickly came out after the premiere and it was safe to say that SGA wasn't happy with them. Not a lot of critics liked the movie and how it turned out.
Reportedly, a lot of them left straight after the movie, not wanting to say anything bad about it in front of the cast and producers.
Jesse, the director, was even seen blank-faced after seeing how the movie turned out. The other cast members were also not really happy as they had not expected the post-production to make the movie like this.
But they were quite powerless.
Everyone had obviously watched and studied a lot of movies and were aware of the taste of the audience, so having doubts was perfectly normal, but they had no choice but to trust the movie.
After all, no one knew which movie was going to work at the box office. In the past, movies that the critics hadn't liked had worked well.
For the critics, it had a lot to do with the technicality and message of the movie and how it was being portrayed, but for the audience, it was mostly about having a great experience.
Maybe [Disconnected] would actually work? That was the thought in their mind as they hoped for it to do well.
Anyway, they couldn't jump off the ship when it was still in the middle of the ocean. Results were going to be cleared in a few days. They could just wait till then.
However, Jesse Ross didn't think like that.
He was unable to trust the movie like the cast. The quality that he had envisioned just wasn't there, and he was never the type of director who worried about the box office first.
He was someone who wanted to present a good story.
Box office was important but secondary, and in his eyes [Disconnected] was just not the movie that he had thought of in this form.
The movie he saw was completely different. A lot of important scenes had been omitted, making the story seem like it was lacking a lot of things and the main highlight of the movie — The scene in which Andrew would confront Mark after finding out he's betrayed was nowhere.
SGA and Black Line Cinema had edited it out completely.
It had made the ending unsatisfactory. Jesse wasn't an idiot.
He knew that SGA had cut off so many scenes that didn't involve Seth to make it look like it was a one-man show of his and maybe, their line of thinking was that the audience would see it as the story of the transformation of a genius due to greed, but they forgot that Mark's company was there because of the people around him.
If he wasn't even being confronted about his actions, then there's no drama. It looked too lacklustre, like the movie didn't have a lot of substance to keep it going.
The studio had completely destroyed a good movie.
After the premiere had ended, Jesse had also talked to Aiden about it. He directly said, "They have destroyed something I worked on extensively without even consulting with me. I might be powerless due to them having most of the control, but I'm not going to stay shut. If I let these studios get away with anything, then I would have to compromise my ideas to get movies. I'm not going to do that no matter what for fuck sake! I will make them accountable!"
Hearing that, Aiden calmly said.
"I think the movie won't work well. Do you have a director's cut of it?"
"Yeah, I do, and I know it won't work well. The audience ain't stupid to watch a movie with such choppy editing in this age, and they were going to just get a headache. They fucking ruined my movie."
After saying that, Jesse directly strode off to the Executive producer of the movie, Rishi Suman and asked him about it.
Rather than asking, Jesse had gone all guns blazing, asking for an explanation of such bad editing and accusing Black Line Cinema of a lot of things better left unsaid.
Rishi obviously hadn't taken well to the critics, and they had a big fight in the office. It had only ended after other employees had calmed Jesse down and he had simply left Black Line Cinema's building and refused to do any more promotions for the movie.
In his mind, he already knew that the movie was trash and it was going to flop hard because the studio had interfered wrongly.
Due to his anger, he had even left a tweet on his Sparrow account.
[Best advice for people aspiring to be a filmmaker one day — Always have a lot of control over your movie, even if it means being the producer yourself. That's the best way to ensure that your movie isn't being tampered with by some stupid idiots who think they know everything about making a movie.]
The tweet obviously spread very quickly, especially with it not even being a cryptic one. Anyone with a little brain was able to connect it with the initial bad reviews of [Disconnected].
In his short career, Jesse had gotten a pretty good group of core fans and they were engaged in reading the tweet. All of Jesse's previous movies had been good, so they were already wondering what had happened this time.
The tweet confirmed that it was the studio that was to blame.
It also meant that Jesse was not going to get any work with Black Line Cinema for a while. The fight with Rishi had ensured it, and the tweet was the final nail in the coffin.
SGA also wasn't happy with this tweet because it gave people the perception that the movie wasn't good. They quickly called Jesse to delete the tweet, but he just told them to fuck off.
In this enraged state, he wasn't going to listen to anyone, especially not SGA.
SGA was very offended, and Franco Li immediately banned actors of SGA from working with Jesse. He was a person who cared a lot about respect and was sensitive to these things.
The only good thing was that SGA wasn't able to focus on Jesse a lot as [Disconnected] was still yet to release. They were surely hurt by the bad reviews they had gotten from the critics.
The premiere had backfired, so they immediately started the PR to make it seem like the movie was good.
They contacted critics that had worked with them before and even told media companies to write good articles about the movie.
They also took advantage of the fact that they were a talent agency and had tons of famous actors. They made a few top stars comment good things about [Disconnected] in an attempt to overshadow the bad reviews.
<Only a few movies are able to make you glued to the screen. [Disconnected] was definitely that. The themes of greed, the tech industry and power really come off well and Seth Douglas shines in probably his best performance so far. Definitely a movie worth watching.
-The Box.>
<Black Line Cinema and SGA produced a gem of a movie that surely is something you should not miss. The technical details shine in almost all scenes and the characters are very complex and Seth Douglas comes off as very good as the arrogant genius who was shown the dream of a billion dollars. It should be one of the few big hits of the first half if everything goes well.
-ET Magazine.>
<Just watched [Disconnected] sign my brother Seth Douglas. One of the best movies I have watched in recent months. Almost feel sad that I wasn't a part of the cast of the movie. You all should check it out when it is released.
-Drake Crimeworth, a leading actor from SGA.>
All these helped the movie, but people were still pretty sceptical as rumours of a rift between Jesse and SGA were the new headlines of tabloid magazines.
A juicy topic to profit from.
The surprising thing was that it actually helped the movie instead of making people not go to watch it. As Jesse never directly attacked SGA or Black Line Cinema by taking their names, a lot wondered if the rift was just a lie.
So, they themselves went to watch the movie, wondering if it was going to be good or bad. If it was bad, then it was almost guaranteed that the tweet was about SGA.
Sadly, they were indeed left disappointed.
