A message to the current crop of hollywood directors:
I know you have movies that inspired you to make films. I know you love these characters. I know you want to pay homage to the writers and directors that made you want to grab your mom’s super 8 camera and start shooting.
Please stop.
Making a longer movie doesn’t make it a better movie than the original. If you want to make new movies about these characters that you and I both love, please make them NEW MOVIES! Don’t just re-create your “vision” of what a classic movie scene should have been. Don’t just string together what you think will be “iconic” moments. ADD SOMETHING NEW TO THE STORY!
And not something stupid, like the infamous “apes on ice” scene in Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
And furthermore, don’t lift lines of dialogue directly from the original movie(s). WRITE NEW ONES!
Bryan Singer, I’m looking at you. Don’t try ducking behind Ang Lee. You are damned lucky I don’t have heat vision!
And please guys, find some comic book geeks to coach y’all the next time you make a super hero movie… or barring that, just let Kevin Smith give it a once over, okay?
Tim Burton’s “re-imagining” of Planet of the Apes, while not a critical success, was still original, and fun… An entirely new take on an old concept, while keeping the spirit of the original. This is the kind of movie you should be making, guys… try something new! Be a little daring! Stay true to the freaking characters or at least the concept!
Yours Truly,
Rob Cerio
Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest.
So, Dizzy scored us a couple of tickets to an advance screening of “Superman Returns” Monday night. When she told me she had the tickets, she was astonished to find out that I can make a “girly squeal” of delight. She knows how big a Superman fan I am, but had never seen me actually get giddy about something before. I was looking forward to this movie more than I have looked forward to…well… almost anything. (I was gonna use an example there, but it would have made my more sensitive readers blush)
I was completely unprepared to be so disappointed.
The movie is visually stunning. The effects are absolutely incredible. But there are five things about it that really bugged me. One, it was too long, and really dragged (almost 3 hours). The whole movie is long on effects, but short on plot. Two, while Bryan Singer did a great job of making Supes feel real, it was more like you were a citizen of Metropolis watching from the outside. When I see Superman fly, I want to feel like I’m flying alongside him, not just watching him zoom past. Three, I have issues with a major plot point of the movie, which I will be happy to discuss in the comments, but won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie. Four, there are some great scenes in the movie ruined by dialouge lifted directly, word for word, from the original Superman movies. There were opportunities there for really memorable new moments spoiled in the name of 'homage'. And five, the love story between Lois and Clark seemed way too forced. While I know that B.S. was going for the feel of the romantic flight that Lois took with the man of steel in Superman I, it just didn’t work. It dragged.
Guess I’ll just have to make my own damn movie now...
12 comments:
Dag, sorry... I know how excited you were about this. Bummer.
Ya know, I could dance a little jig around ya while singing "I told you so", but I'll just stick with the obvious...
BATMAN RULES!!!
:D
Oh, my gosh, Angie you're WRONG for that. Hilarious, but wrong.
Not that anyone will bother to read my comment [I'll try to use smaller words next time], but...
Nobody would argue with LOTR lifting direct lines straight from the book for use as dialogue [purists would even expect it], so where's the rub for complaining about this movie doing that?
In the LOTR dvd extras we even see Christopher Lee interviewed where he says that they took quotes from the original Tolkein work and used them at times. Ian McKellen agrees. So if the original book is cited as the canonical text for that movie, then Superrman returns can also have its own canonical text -- only in this case the canon seems to be the first movie rather than any comic book.
This would be true, Canard, if "superman returns" was a re-make or adaptation of "superman". However, it purports to be an original story... with almost no originality.
hey... my verifyer id "dojpho" which is vietnamese for "Dolphin soup".
This is exactly the reason I have been boycotting Hollywood for a while now. They have been doing this with foreign cinema for years - apparently us "stupid americans" can't read subtitles and watch at the same time, so Hollywood has been remaking these great films with awful actors and completely destroying story and plot just to make a buck. It sickens me. It's just depressing.
All I have to say is: it seems that the emptiness of the movie is inversely proportionate to the amount of CG that is relied upon in the movie.
The best movies I have seen this year have been foreign (not on a huge budget) and amateur. More originality, more feeling, more heart.
Becca, you're starting to sound like me. My friend Don refuses to watch TV or movies with me b/c I bitch about how mainstream American drivel can't live up to foreign and independent film. That's what I love about video rental and film fests. I can watch far more foreign/independent films than I'd usually be able to find in an entire city of independent movie houses. We should exchange notes some time.
OK, you have put me off the movie! And I too want/love that flying alongside sensation.
Ofcourse JavaF is right...Batman rules :) (Although not all the Batman movies!)
!!!SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT!!!
-----------------------------------
So Rob, does it seem to you that Lois must be a little too easy if she had Richard convinced that the kid was his?
Dreamwalker: Thanks for the support!
Now that I've actually seen SR, all I can say is, DAMN!! That movie was just, just,....*sigh*
Rob, I'm so sorry that they did that to your beloved character.
Drew, all I can say is how the hell can Lois still not know that Clark is, well, you know, after they, well, you know...
Triflin' ho!
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