3 hours of facial prosthetics to make him look more like Bruce Willis.
In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels. Ram Bergman and James D. Stern produce.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Seems like an awful lot of effort to go through just to not have to deal with suspension of disbelief that they're the same person at different ages (especially since prosthetics can really fuck up a person's performance), but okay.
Seems like an awful lot of effort to go through just to not have to deal with suspension of disbelief that they're the same person at different ages (especially since prosthetics can really fuck up a person's performance), but okay.
Levitt studied Willis' voice and inflection on his iPod between takes in order to mimic him better as well.
Worthington actually seems like a nice guy in interviews, just in way over his head, which doesn't help with the notion that the guy is just an empty suit. Much like Channing Tatum, there's no good reason for Hollywood to continually cast these vacant himbos with literally no training or talent. The talent pool is deep, and there are a lot of people out there not working who have put in the hard work of learning the craft for these guys to keep getting cushy roles in high-profile films again and again.
I sort of wonder about this. I have no idea what Sam Worthington would be like on the London stage, but I do know that he is part of a meme-ified crew of actors who can play it generic, broad and inoffensive to a wide audience. He's a known, tested quantity, and whatever real chops he has, I'm not sure studios want him to show them off.
Remember, Johnny Depp turned in a great performance as Jack Sparrow in spite of Disney's grave concerns about the role's eccentricity and "gayness." In a major studio film, they want bland, regardless of what the guy could do for a director and studio interested in a bit of risk.
True, but looking back this is actually a fairly recent phenomenon. Filling the screen with bland ciphers has only been de rigueur as of lately, probably coinciding with the advent of blockbuster movies that were, for lack of better terminology, "too big to fail."
And it's patently stupid. At no point in history has a lead character given a performance in a typical mega-budget film where nuance has done anything but ingratiate that actor with the audience. People remember Jack Sparrow and Tony Stark and Indiana Jones and John McClane and Peter Venkman exactly because their characters were so well-defined and memorable. Nobody is looking to go see a movie where yet another empty protagonist plays the role of audience surrogate in another bland coming-of-age Cambellian riff. And those mega-films that do employ those tropes don't become perennial favorites; no one rewatches Avatar to see Sam Worthington play Jake Sully. No one watches Tron Legacy to see Garret Hedlund stare blankly at the better actors around him. No one shows up to watch Channing Tatum in . . well . . . anything.
Hollywood never sees the long game. Sure, you take a risk on Johnny Depp playing a mincy, preening pirate. Now you have a 4 (and soon to be 5 or 6) film franchise that has, to date, OVER THREE BILLION MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS. Hollywood could have cast Orlando Bloom or Stewart Townsend or James McAvoy in the lead role, and it would have been a competent film; it might have even turned a profit.
Hollywood is going to look at a film like John Carter and say, "Hmm, this failed because the kids these days don't want the sci-fi," or "It's just not a viable property," or whatever else horseshit people in positions like that say when they don't want to admit any responsibility. Fact is, if the film had had a decent script and had involved great actors instead of TV cast-offs, it would have been charming and engaging instead of just pretty and flat.
Studios are risk-averse. I think we all get that. But the model they're using right now is one that almost guarantees self-defeat. It's like a chef serving a meatloaf covered in gold-leaf and served on a crystal platter in hopes that the diners won't notice it's the same old thing they've had a thousand times before.
People want to be engaged with, and they can't do that with flashy effects or wooden characters or plots that don't make sense. It's really simple. It's Storytelling 101. And Hollywood has almost completely forgotten this, and yet continues to look aghast and shocked to see ticket sales dwindle and budgets soar.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm actually starting to believe that someone I've pissed off has paid this man to ruin the things I love from my childhood. Was it one of you? If it was I'm sorry for whatever it was okay, just make it stop.
Devin Faraci of BAD reminds us all that, per canon, the Turtles were the product of alien technology all along and if you're getting bent out of shape over the ninja turtles you need to reflect on what has gone wrong.
Just as long as they are still mutants because Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles that aren't mutants make no sense.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I didn't see this until last night on Amazon, but Battle Royale is being released tomorrow on DVD/Blu-Ray in an official capacity in the US to ride the Hunger Games wave. And apparently the director's cut has some more stuff including a longer ending, don't know how I feel about that.
Years ago in college I thought I bought the real deal online, might have been from buy.com or even amazon, but it was actually a Hong Kong bootleg that had a very engrish subtitle and the disc smelled heavily of ink. On first glance it all looked on the up and up but all the markings of a bootleg showed up.
Another film by Rian Johnson? With Joesph Gordon Levitt?! I'm so excited!
In other movie news, I watched Warlock, a '50s western with Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, and Dr. McCoy/DeForest Kelley doing his whole "I was in Westerns before I was in Star Trek" thing, on Netflix instant. It's a pretty good western, if you're into that sort of thing. Lots of fun moral ambiguity and psychological complexity beyond just bad guys and good guys firing pistols at each other.
I'm actually starting to believe that someone I've pissed off has paid this man to ruin the things I love from my childhood. Was it one of you? If it was I'm sorry for whatever it was okay, just make it stop.
Devin Faraci of BAD reminds us all that, per canon, the Turtles were the product of alien technology all along and if you're getting bent out of shape over the ninja turtles you need to reflect on what has gone wrong.
I'm well within my rights to express frustration when someone takes something that has already been successfully done and warps it into something entirely else just because he thinks he can do it better. Especially when that person has done it before.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm actually starting to believe that someone I've pissed off has paid this man to ruin the things I love from my childhood. Was it one of you? If it was I'm sorry for whatever it was okay, just make it stop.
Devin Faraci of BAD reminds us all that, per canon, the Turtles were the product of alien technology all along and if you're getting bent out of shape over the ninja turtles you need to reflect on what has gone wrong.
I'm well within my rights to express frustration when someone takes something that has already been successfully done and warps it into something entirely else just because he thinks he can do it better. Especially when that person has done it before.
I'll tell ya what I tell people who are upset about the new Bond being a blonde or not having gadgets or a sexy secretary.
I tell them, if those are the things you want, they are still there for you.
I have no reason to believe that Michael Bay is going to do anything revolutionary, or even watchable, with the Turtles franchise. But we are talking about a franchise with decades of films (four of them), cartoon shows (three of them), graphic novels, and video games left in its wake.
Take a quantum of solace in that fact.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I get your point Ross, I think it's just frustrating to see Bay (who most people here don't like) take something that's not his and change it. just in case he makes a good movie, now you have another element that will remind you that he's behind it.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Eh.
I mean, the Turtles have a very special place in my heart.
But they belong in the comics. They're at their best, in the comics. As comics.
I'm not drenching myself in gasoline and going fiery effigy if Christopher Nolan doesn't make a worthy TMNT adaptation before I forget about wanting it or anything.
If the turtles come from special eggs from space now or something, I think we'll survive.
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RhalloTonnyOf the BrownlandsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2012
I never watched Turtles as a kid (I'm really not sure how that happened), so I have no nostalgic love for them, no expectations, no emotional stake in the new movie.
That being said, I have no doubt that it's ultimately moot whether or not they come from space orbs or mutagen, but when an arbitrary change to an existing (not to mention heavily rooted in nostalgia) franchise comes from the crowned king of bad, boring, cg-drip action movies based on beloved 80's cartoons, I completely understand outrage.
It also doesn't help when he says that the turtles themselves will be "tough" and "edgy," which, as we all know, has never turned out wrong for reboots of children's cartoon characters.
I still disagree with your opinion on this matter though, I think me and Variable are of the same mind on it. As to the James Bond comparison, I never had a problem with any of those changes, nor do I usually have such a strong dislike when movies are expanded upon or tweaked in the interests of making a better film. The Daniel Craig Bond films, while different, are still good, and the directors of the last two films are pretty ok in my book. But Bay doesn't have a history of making good films so much as he has a history of making profitable films, and that's quite different in my opinion. Changes can be made to movies, but I'm just not sure I want him to be the one who gets to make those changes.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I get your point Ross, I think it's just frustrating to see Bay (who most people here don't like) take something that's not his and change it. just in case he makes a good movie, now you have another element that will remind you that he's behind it.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
I may be a huge jerk for saying this, but these "beloved" properties from our childhoods were largely nothing more than cashgrabs by toy and media companies. They weren't made with an eye towards artistry, or an engaging narrative, or bringing up compelling themes to challenge its viewership.
Simply, they were fabricated narratives, typically quite shoddily constructed, built to give some semblance of order and structure to a universe wherein small children could actualize the series of events that would predicate human-sized turtles having karate skills, or where a robot truck from outer space could be the savior of humanity, or by saying a few words a leatherdaddy with an effete haircut could become a panther-riding badass who would fight a evil skeleton.
These are things we should remember fondly as the icons of our childhood pastimes. These are not, however, narratives and characters of literature worthy of our indignation when those same media companies send them back through the ringer to drain more lucre from the wallets of a new generation.
I'll be right there in the mob with my torch and pitchfork whenever Michael Bay inevitably gets his hands on an edgy new remake of Huckleberry Finn where Huck is played by Channing Tatum and Jim invents hip-hop, or when Brett Ratner makes exactly the version of The Young Man & The Sea (starring Jude Law) that Arrested Development warned us about.
Until then, I'll save my ire for something that matters. I'm getting older now, and the mason jar I keep it in is getting harder to open.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I still disagree with your opinion on this matter though, I think me and Variable are of the same mind on it. As to the James Bond comparison, I never had a problem with any of those changes, nor do I usually have such a strong dislike when movies are expanded upon or tweaked in the interests of making a better film. The Daniel Craig Bond films, while different, are still good, and the directors of the last two films are pretty ok in my book. But Bay doesn't have a history of making good films so much as he has a history of making profitable films, and that's quite different in my opinion. Changes can be made to movies, but I'm just not sure I want him to be the one who gets to make those changes.
Please go and cite me any example since 1987 that supports an argument that the TNMT franchise has been in search of anything other than profit.
I do get your point, I meant to put that in my previous post, and I respect it. I just have rose-tinted goggles concerning things I grew up with and genuinely liked though, and I'll own that. No one was a bigger contributor to the TMNT franchise than me when I was a kid, all the links you posted included. I'm just tired of seeing this trend in films.
Not gonna lie though, if I knew about those Star Trek turtles when I was a kid, I probably would have gotten them. Lord knows I owned everything else.
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If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I do get your point, I meant to put that in my previous post, and I respect it. I just have rose-tinted goggles concerning things I grew up with and genuinely liked though, and I'll own that. No one was a bigger contributor to the TMNT franchise than me when I was a kid, all the links you posted included. I'm just tired of seeing this trend in films.
Not gonna lie though, if I knew about those Star Trek turtles when I was a kid, I probably would have gotten them. Lord knows I owned everything else.
The general trend toward studios being outright afraid and hostile to new ideas, I'm certainly right there with you.
People bitch and moan that Hollywood is bereft of ideas, but it's really that Hollywood is afraid to lose money. It's all about following the margins and making money on the back end these days.
I'm actually starting to believe that someone I've pissed off has paid this man to ruin the things I love from my childhood. Was it one of you? If it was I'm sorry for whatever it was okay, just make it stop.
Michael Bay, I hate you so much
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Actually, I think some of the best and most widely influential "art" comes from talented people bringing an original take to a long-standing, popular property. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a silly property (although my understanding is the original comics were dark, gritty, violent parodies), but that doesn't mean that if you handed it to Darren Aronofsky or David Cronenberg that they couldn't blow your mind with a skillfully-crafted meditation on the limits of the body and the interaction between Japanese and American cultures wrapped in a crowd-pleasing action movie.
The real tragedy here isn't that Michael Bay will change some element of the TMNT backstory; it's that he's a schlocky hack who will shit out something with explosions and fart jokes in it and it'll dominate the national film conversation for three months.
Everything has the capacity to be excellent, and I'm so sick of waiting for Hollywood to realize that a pre-existing property protects them enough risk-wise that they can hire talented people and give them some creative control. Nobody complains that Iron Man or The Dark Knight are based on comic books and oh why isn't Hollywood more original; that complaint only comes out when the movies are shit. As the childhood love for these properties show, nobody cares about naked cash-grabs as long as they feel they're getting a good experience out of it. When was the last time a studio gave too much control to too talented a director and he ran their popular franchise in the arty, arty ground?
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I still disagree with your opinion on this matter though, I think me and Variable are of the same mind on it. As to the James Bond comparison, I never had a problem with any of those changes, nor do I usually have such a strong dislike when movies are expanded upon or tweaked in the interests of making a better film. The Daniel Craig Bond films, while different, are still good, and the directors of the last two films are pretty ok in my book. But Bay doesn't have a history of making good films so much as he has a history of making profitable films, and that's quite different in my opinion. Changes can be made to movies, but I'm just not sure I want him to be the one who gets to make those changes.
Please go and cite me any example since 1987 that supports an argument that the TNMT franchise has been in search of anything other than profit.
When was the last time a studio gave too much control to too talented a director and he ran their popular franchise in the arty, arty ground?
Well, that does happen. Just ask Ang Lee, or Bryan Singer, or Zack Snyder, or (questionably) Frank Miller.
It's a delicate balance. Martin Campbell is a perfectly competent director, and directed two of the six good James Bond movies, but was hired to be the mercenary in charge of a Green Lantern movie no one particularly wanted, and then look what happened.
Truth is, the formula is vague and nebulous, but if you have a great script, good actors, and a director who actually cares about the property and GETS the property (not always the same thing), people won't actually give two shits about the action or the special effects.
And that's awful! Because the getting the script right is the easiest and cheapest part! It's just sometimes the longest to come around. I think I said it somewhere before here, but the old saying is that you can make a movie quickly, cheaply, and of exceeding quality, but you can only pick two.
When was the last time a studio gave too much control to too talented a director and he ran their popular franchise in the arty, arty ground?
Well, that does happen. Just ask Ang Lee, or Bryan Singer, or Zack Snyder, or (questionably) Frank Miller.
Or Julie Taymor.
Actually I remember liking Ang Lee's Hulk, although it's been a long time. And I haven't seen Taymor's Spiderman musical so it could very well be a work of misunderstood genius (I read a disparaging run-down of what happens in Turn Off The Dark and I was like, "okay, that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome," etc. And I'm a huge fan of Taymor's first two movies: Titus and Frida.)
When was the last time a studio gave too much control to too talented a director and he ran their popular franchise in the arty, arty ground?
Well, that does happen. Just ask Ang Lee, or Bryan Singer, or Zack Snyder, or (questionably) Frank Miller.
Or Julie Taymor.
Actually I remember liking Ang Lee's Hulk, although it's been a long time. And I haven't seen Taymor's Spiderman musical so it could very well be a work of misunderstood genius (I read a disparaging run-down of what happens in Turn Off The Dark and I was like, "okay, that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome," etc. And I'm a huge fan of Taymor's first two movies: Titus and Frida.)
I have a friend in the NYC theater scene that saw Turn Off the Dark several times during previews, and said it was the most spectacular trainwreck he ever saw.
I get your point Ross, I think it's just frustrating to see Bay (who most people here don't like) take something that's not his and change it. just in case he makes a good movie, now you have another element that will remind you that he's behind it.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
I may be a huge jerk for saying this, but these "beloved" properties from our childhoods were largely nothing more than cashgrabs by toy and media companies. They weren't made with an eye towards artistry, or an engaging narrative, or bringing up compelling themes to challenge its viewership.
Simply, they were fabricated narratives, typically quite shoddily constructed, built to give some semblance of order and structure to a universe wherein small children could actualize the series of events that would predicate human-sized turtles having karate skills, or where a robot truck from outer space could be the savior of humanity, or by saying a few words a leatherdaddy with an effete haircut could become a panther-riding badass who would fight a evil skeleton.
These are things we should remember fondly as the icons of our childhood pastimes. These are not, however, narratives and characters of literature worthy of our indignation when those same media companies send them back through the ringer to drain more lucre from the wallets of a new generation.
I'll be right there in the mob with my torch and pitchfork whenever Michael Bay inevitably gets his hands on an edgy new remake of Huckleberry Finn where Huck is played by Channing Tatum and Jim invents hip-hop, or when Brett Ratner makes exactly the version of The Young Man & The Sea (starring Jude Law) that Arrested Development warned us about.
Until then, I'll save my ire for something that matters. I'm getting older now, and the mason jar I keep it in is getting harder to open.
A-goddamn-men brother.
As a guy who's had atrocious 80's cartoons and especially TMNT shoved down his throat as the pop-culture equivalent of the Second Coming, I find this extremely hilarious.
I get your point Ross, I think it's just frustrating to see Bay (who most people here don't like) take something that's not his and change it. just in case he makes a good movie, now you have another element that will remind you that he's behind it.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
I may be a huge jerk for saying this, but these "beloved" properties from our childhoods were largely nothing more than cashgrabs by toy and media companies. They weren't made with an eye towards artistry, or an engaging narrative, or bringing up compelling themes to challenge its viewership.
Simply, they were fabricated narratives, typically quite shoddily constructed, built to give some semblance of order and structure to a universe wherein small children could actualize the series of events that would predicate human-sized turtles having karate skills, or where a robot truck from outer space could be the savior of humanity, or by saying a few words a leatherdaddy with an effete haircut could become a panther-riding badass who would fight a evil skeleton.
These are things we should remember fondly as the icons of our childhood pastimes. These are not, however, narratives and characters of literature worthy of our indignation when those same media companies send them back through the ringer to drain more lucre from the wallets of a new generation.
I'll be right there in the mob with my torch and pitchfork whenever Michael Bay inevitably gets his hands on an edgy new remake of Huckleberry Finn where Huck is played by Channing Tatum and Jim invents hip-hop, or when Brett Ratner makes exactly the version of The Young Man & The Sea (starring Jude Law) that Arrested Development warned us about.
Until then, I'll save my ire for something that matters. I'm getting older now, and the mason jar I keep it in is getting harder to open.
A-goddamn-men brother.
As a guy who's had atrocious 80's cartoons and especially TMNT shoved down his throat as the pop-culture equivalent of the Second Coming, I find this extremely hilarious.
Karma at it's finest!
Just wait until Uwe Boll gets ahold of your favorite franchise. :P
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
About the Turtles business - the thing that primarily concerns me is not the change in origin, but the change in what makes their origin so resistant to the worst aspect of super hero films.
The turtles as mutants are highly resistant to origin story structure, because literally nothing they do is interesting until they're assembled as a team. They begin life as turtles, they slide around in a sewer until they become anthropomorphic, and then they learn karate.
What I don't want, no matter what they do with the characters, is to have Act I follow four nobody characters, Act II feature their first shaky steps as crime fighters, and Act III show off how finally, after their many trials, they are prepared to fight like a team. In the final fifteen minutes.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I get your point Ross, I think it's just frustrating to see Bay (who most people here don't like) take something that's not his and change it. just in case he makes a good movie, now you have another element that will remind you that he's behind it.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
I may be a huge jerk for saying this, but these "beloved" properties from our childhoods were largely nothing more than cashgrabs by toy and media companies. They weren't made with an eye towards artistry, or an engaging narrative, or bringing up compelling themes to challenge its viewership.
Simply, they were fabricated narratives, typically quite shoddily constructed, built to give some semblance of order and structure to a universe wherein small children could actualize the series of events that would predicate human-sized turtles having karate skills, or where a robot truck from outer space could be the savior of humanity, or by saying a few words a leatherdaddy with an effete haircut could become a panther-riding badass who would fight a evil skeleton.
These are things we should remember fondly as the icons of our childhood pastimes. These are not, however, narratives and characters of literature worthy of our indignation when those same media companies send them back through the ringer to drain more lucre from the wallets of a new generation.
I'll be right there in the mob with my torch and pitchfork whenever Michael Bay inevitably gets his hands on an edgy new remake of Huckleberry Finn where Huck is played by Channing Tatum and Jim invents hip-hop, or when Brett Ratner makes exactly the version of The Young Man & The Sea (starring Jude Law) that Arrested Development warned us about.
Until then, I'll save my ire for something that matters. I'm getting older now, and the mason jar I keep it in is getting harder to open.
A-goddamn-men brother.
As a guy who's had atrocious 80's cartoons and especially TMNT shoved down his throat as the pop-culture equivalent of the Second Coming, I find this extremely hilarious.
Karma at it's finest!
There's something very arrested about the sensibilities of we Gen X and Gen Y kids, and there seems to be this strong inability to separate themselves from their childhoods, thus resulting in a generation of manchildren (and womanchildren) who have pissed their lives away in defense of things that were crap from the outset.
I have a dear friend that has to keep his clothes on his dresser because his closet in his tiny apartment is filled with G.I. Joe toys. He's turning 40 soon, and (laaaadieeees!) he's miserably single. This is our fate if we can't turn away, or at least pick our battles and take a step back for some objectivity.
A bad Transformers or GI Joe or TMNT or Smurfs or He-Man movie shouldn't be the end of your world, because that shouldn't be your world anymore.
EDIT: And the cartoons and shows from the 90s were pretty crap, too.
I swear, every time I look at this guy I think of Heath Ledger.
EDIT: The thing is Ross, is that i'm fully aware that my 90's television and cartoons were no better than the 80's ones, it's just that i've relentlessly had the 80's dudes beat it over my head on a consistent basis (especially on these boards!), a good chunk going out of their way to say "yours sucks, mine is great!"
No, they were all terrible; I don't ram it in your face, stop trying to convince me yours was some Magnum Opus already.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
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Once again proving what strategically reshaping one's eyebrows can do to seemingly alter one's overall appearance.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
True, but looking back this is actually a fairly recent phenomenon. Filling the screen with bland ciphers has only been de rigueur as of lately, probably coinciding with the advent of blockbuster movies that were, for lack of better terminology, "too big to fail."
And it's patently stupid. At no point in history has a lead character given a performance in a typical mega-budget film where nuance has done anything but ingratiate that actor with the audience. People remember Jack Sparrow and Tony Stark and Indiana Jones and John McClane and Peter Venkman exactly because their characters were so well-defined and memorable. Nobody is looking to go see a movie where yet another empty protagonist plays the role of audience surrogate in another bland coming-of-age Cambellian riff. And those mega-films that do employ those tropes don't become perennial favorites; no one rewatches Avatar to see Sam Worthington play Jake Sully. No one watches Tron Legacy to see Garret Hedlund stare blankly at the better actors around him. No one shows up to watch Channing Tatum in . . well . . . anything.
Hollywood never sees the long game. Sure, you take a risk on Johnny Depp playing a mincy, preening pirate. Now you have a 4 (and soon to be 5 or 6) film franchise that has, to date, OVER THREE BILLION MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS. Hollywood could have cast Orlando Bloom or Stewart Townsend or James McAvoy in the lead role, and it would have been a competent film; it might have even turned a profit.
Hollywood is going to look at a film like John Carter and say, "Hmm, this failed because the kids these days don't want the sci-fi," or "It's just not a viable property," or whatever else horseshit people in positions like that say when they don't want to admit any responsibility. Fact is, if the film had had a decent script and had involved great actors instead of TV cast-offs, it would have been charming and engaging instead of just pretty and flat.
Studios are risk-averse. I think we all get that. But the model they're using right now is one that almost guarantees self-defeat. It's like a chef serving a meatloaf covered in gold-leaf and served on a crystal platter in hopes that the diners won't notice it's the same old thing they've had a thousand times before.
People want to be engaged with, and they can't do that with flashy effects or wooden characters or plots that don't make sense. It's really simple. It's Storytelling 101. And Hollywood has almost completely forgotten this, and yet continues to look aghast and shocked to see ticket sales dwindle and budgets soar.
Devin Faraci of BAD reminds us all that, per canon, the Turtles were the product of alien technology all along and if you're getting bent out of shape over the ninja turtles you need to reflect on what has gone wrong.
Years ago in college I thought I bought the real deal online, might have been from buy.com or even amazon, but it was actually a Hong Kong bootleg that had a very engrish subtitle and the disc smelled heavily of ink. On first glance it all looked on the up and up but all the markings of a bootleg showed up.
In other movie news, I watched Warlock, a '50s western with Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, and Dr. McCoy/DeForest Kelley doing his whole "I was in Westerns before I was in Star Trek" thing, on Netflix instant. It's a pretty good western, if you're into that sort of thing. Lots of fun moral ambiguity and psychological complexity beyond just bad guys and good guys firing pistols at each other.
I'm well within my rights to express frustration when someone takes something that has already been successfully done and warps it into something entirely else just because he thinks he can do it better. Especially when that person has done it before.
I'll tell ya what I tell people who are upset about the new Bond being a blonde or not having gadgets or a sexy secretary.
I tell them, if those are the things you want, they are still there for you.
I have no reason to believe that Michael Bay is going to do anything revolutionary, or even watchable, with the Turtles franchise. But we are talking about a franchise with decades of films (four of them), cartoon shows (three of them), graphic novels, and video games left in its wake.
Take a quantum of solace in that fact.
which is probably his point.
I'm not a big turtles guy (I enjoy the first movie and can stand the second, watched the cartoons as a kid) but that's my perception of the issue from... well from like 2 posts in this thread about it.
I mean, the Turtles have a very special place in my heart.
But they belong in the comics. They're at their best, in the comics. As comics.
I'm not drenching myself in gasoline and going fiery effigy if Christopher Nolan doesn't make a worthy TMNT adaptation before I forget about wanting it or anything.
If the turtles come from special eggs from space now or something, I think we'll survive.
That being said, I have no doubt that it's ultimately moot whether or not they come from space orbs or mutagen, but when an arbitrary change to an existing (not to mention heavily rooted in nostalgia) franchise comes from the crowned king of bad, boring, cg-drip action movies based on beloved 80's cartoons, I completely understand outrage.
It also doesn't help when he says that the turtles themselves will be "tough" and "edgy," which, as we all know, has never turned out wrong for reboots of children's cartoon characters.
Heh, good one.
I still disagree with your opinion on this matter though, I think me and Variable are of the same mind on it. As to the James Bond comparison, I never had a problem with any of those changes, nor do I usually have such a strong dislike when movies are expanded upon or tweaked in the interests of making a better film. The Daniel Craig Bond films, while different, are still good, and the directors of the last two films are pretty ok in my book. But Bay doesn't have a history of making good films so much as he has a history of making profitable films, and that's quite different in my opinion. Changes can be made to movies, but I'm just not sure I want him to be the one who gets to make those changes.
I may be a huge jerk for saying this, but these "beloved" properties from our childhoods were largely nothing more than cashgrabs by toy and media companies. They weren't made with an eye towards artistry, or an engaging narrative, or bringing up compelling themes to challenge its viewership.
Simply, they were fabricated narratives, typically quite shoddily constructed, built to give some semblance of order and structure to a universe wherein small children could actualize the series of events that would predicate human-sized turtles having karate skills, or where a robot truck from outer space could be the savior of humanity, or by saying a few words a leatherdaddy with an effete haircut could become a panther-riding badass who would fight a evil skeleton.
These are things we should remember fondly as the icons of our childhood pastimes. These are not, however, narratives and characters of literature worthy of our indignation when those same media companies send them back through the ringer to drain more lucre from the wallets of a new generation.
I'll be right there in the mob with my torch and pitchfork whenever Michael Bay inevitably gets his hands on an edgy new remake of Huckleberry Finn where Huck is played by Channing Tatum and Jim invents hip-hop, or when Brett Ratner makes exactly the version of The Young Man & The Sea (starring Jude Law) that Arrested Development warned us about.
Until then, I'll save my ire for something that matters. I'm getting older now, and the mason jar I keep it in is getting harder to open.
Please go and cite me any example since 1987 that supports an argument that the TNMT franchise has been in search of anything other than profit.
Keep in mind, this. And this. And this.
The general trend toward studios being outright afraid and hostile to new ideas, I'm certainly right there with you.
People bitch and moan that Hollywood is bereft of ideas, but it's really that Hollywood is afraid to lose money. It's all about following the margins and making money on the back end these days.
Michael Bay, I hate you so much
The real tragedy here isn't that Michael Bay will change some element of the TMNT backstory; it's that he's a schlocky hack who will shit out something with explosions and fart jokes in it and it'll dominate the national film conversation for three months.
Everything has the capacity to be excellent, and I'm so sick of waiting for Hollywood to realize that a pre-existing property protects them enough risk-wise that they can hire talented people and give them some creative control. Nobody complains that Iron Man or The Dark Knight are based on comic books and oh why isn't Hollywood more original; that complaint only comes out when the movies are shit. As the childhood love for these properties show, nobody cares about naked cash-grabs as long as they feel they're getting a good experience out of it. When was the last time a studio gave too much control to too talented a director and he ran their popular franchise in the arty, arty ground?
It's true.
Hell. Eastman and Laird originally made TMNT as a parody of Frank Miller's Elektra and Ronin comic books.
Which means I have to credit Frank Miller for TMNT now.
Well, that does happen. Just ask Ang Lee, or Bryan Singer, or Zack Snyder, or (questionably) Frank Miller.
It's a delicate balance. Martin Campbell is a perfectly competent director, and directed two of the six good James Bond movies, but was hired to be the mercenary in charge of a Green Lantern movie no one particularly wanted, and then look what happened.
Truth is, the formula is vague and nebulous, but if you have a great script, good actors, and a director who actually cares about the property and GETS the property (not always the same thing), people won't actually give two shits about the action or the special effects.
And that's awful! Because the getting the script right is the easiest and cheapest part! It's just sometimes the longest to come around. I think I said it somewhere before here, but the old saying is that you can make a movie quickly, cheaply, and of exceeding quality, but you can only pick two.
Actually I remember liking Ang Lee's Hulk, although it's been a long time. And I haven't seen Taymor's Spiderman musical so it could very well be a work of misunderstood genius (I read a disparaging run-down of what happens in Turn Off The Dark and I was like, "okay, that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome, and that sounds awesome," etc. And I'm a huge fan of Taymor's first two movies: Titus and Frida.)
I have a friend in the NYC theater scene that saw Turn Off the Dark several times during previews, and said it was the most spectacular trainwreck he ever saw.
A-goddamn-men brother.
As a guy who's had atrocious 80's cartoons and especially TMNT shoved down his throat as the pop-culture equivalent of the Second Coming, I find this extremely hilarious.
Karma at it's finest!
Just wait until Uwe Boll gets ahold of your favorite franchise. :P
The turtles as mutants are highly resistant to origin story structure, because literally nothing they do is interesting until they're assembled as a team. They begin life as turtles, they slide around in a sewer until they become anthropomorphic, and then they learn karate.
What I don't want, no matter what they do with the characters, is to have Act I follow four nobody characters, Act II feature their first shaky steps as crime fighters, and Act III show off how finally, after their many trials, they are prepared to fight like a team. In the final fifteen minutes.
There's something very arrested about the sensibilities of we Gen X and Gen Y kids, and there seems to be this strong inability to separate themselves from their childhoods, thus resulting in a generation of manchildren (and womanchildren) who have pissed their lives away in defense of things that were crap from the outset.
I have a dear friend that has to keep his clothes on his dresser because his closet in his tiny apartment is filled with G.I. Joe toys. He's turning 40 soon, and (laaaadieeees!) he's miserably single. This is our fate if we can't turn away, or at least pick our battles and take a step back for some objectivity.
A bad Transformers or GI Joe or TMNT or Smurfs or He-Man movie shouldn't be the end of your world, because that shouldn't be your world anymore.
EDIT: And the cartoons and shows from the 90s were pretty crap, too.
I swear, every time I look at this guy I think of Heath Ledger.
EDIT: The thing is Ross, is that i'm fully aware that my 90's television and cartoons were no better than the 80's ones, it's just that i've relentlessly had the 80's dudes beat it over my head on a consistent basis (especially on these boards!), a good chunk going out of their way to say "yours sucks, mine is great!"
No, they were all terrible; I don't ram it in your face, stop trying to convince me yours was some Magnum Opus already.
Some of them them were good; most of them weren't. However, most of them weren't even trying to be.
Sad fact: More people care about Transformers or Thundercats than Calvin & Hobbes or Bloom County.