So there’s not much to discuss really unless we want to rant some more about whatever the heck it is WB is doing with the DC movies but we NEED CONTENT AND CLICKS CLICKS CLICKS so I’m suggesting a fun exercise for today’s roundtable: movie do-over. If you could be given free range to remake any movie, what would you do? You go back in time to the first day of production on a movie you felt underachieved. You have to keep the cast, budget, etc, but you can re-do the story however you’d like.
For example
I’d take the exact same cast and basic story (superman origin story and fight
vs Zod) of Man of Steel and just do
it right by launching Zack Snyder into the sun with my trebuchet.
ERIK
I'd replace
Ryan with Nathan Fillion in a heartbeat. I don't have the Firefly Fanboy desire
to make him play every role in every film but I mean... he's already played the
character in the DCAU and also Hal Jordan is Malcolm Reynolds, But He's
Superman.
KYLE
Oh Fillion
could murder that role. Honestly any number of cool guys could have done it.
Reynolds, Fillion, the initial rumor that the DCEU was casting Chris Pine as
Hal could have worked, although nowhere near as well as his shockingly good and
likeable Steve Trevor. Instagram is always trying to cast Armie Hammer as Hal
and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Armie Hammer in anything good.
ERIK
There are
rumors that the Lone Ranger was actually a thoroughly acceptable film, but
nobody who saw it didn't hate it before they walked in the door. I wouldn't
know, I didn't see it and have no intention of doing so.
I didn't
really like Ryan Reynolds for it, to be honest. I actually don't like Ryan
Reynolds in like half the roles he's ever played, because he's just
"Ryan Reynolds" in all of them and I hate when actors do that. He
nails the confidence/arrogance line-walking part of the character, but I don't
need Quipping Hal Jordan.
TRAVIS
One movie I
could get back and do again, eh? This is basically just a list of disappointing
movies, so I’ll try for a movie that I didn’t think was bad, but could have
been much better, Furious 7. It still makes me cry at the end, but the rest of
the movie has a massive shadow hanging over it due to the death of Paul Walker.
The comedy falls flat, the set pieces lose a lot of their meaning because the
story had to be re-written so hastily, and Bryan’s story gets stunted for
obvious reasons.
KYLE
In this
hypothetical are you keeping Paul Walker alive through the end of filming? I’m
giving us a lot of power in these hypotheticals but if I’ve said it once I’ve
said it a million times: I am never giving you the Resurrection Stone, Travis.
TRAVIS
Are we
remaking the movie today? Or are we having them re-do the movie at that
time? At the time I’d have given them longer to re-write the script and
Tarkin’d Paul Walker and his stunt double brothers in there for the extra stuff
you need.
KYLE
Re-making it
at the time. You fire the director on the first day of production, you are now
the director, and you’re like an untouchable director who gets to do whatever
he wants without studio interference. So Paul Walker is still dying here,
you’re just going to delay the premiere and give more post-production time to
fix this?
I should add
I want some specifics here, how would you change the plot to incorporate his
death more organically? Cuz I can definitely give specifics on how I’m fixing
Man of Steel.
TRAVIS
Well, again,
the ending is moving, but I’d lose it as it makes no sense. Even in 8,
when Dom names his son after Bryan it’s like… alright, what does Bryan have to
say about that? Why wouldn’t he be at that rooftop barbeque? I mean we know,
but we only know in an extremely meta way. I’d set up Charlize Theron as a
villain by having a MYSTERY GROUP murder Bryan at the start of 7, then have
Statham be the bad guy who wants to kill them all for putting Luke Evans in a
coma. So they’re dealing with this tragedy, also being hunted down by a guy who
wants to kill them for causing him a personal tragedy, we can get some
stuff in there about how it’s a bit hypocritical, then we make it more
reasonable that Statham would fit into their crew by the end of 8. Maybe our final
set piece in 7 is this MYSTERY GROUP going after Ramsey’s God Eye and Statham
realizes who the true evil is here and saves Dom, thwarting the evil
plans, and being taken into custody. Then the end can be an actual, in movie
eulogy for Paul Walker. |
| Travis will never be OK again |
KYLE
That does
sound better. Congratulations. You have fixed Furious 7, which on Earth
37 now makes 1.516 billion dollars instead of 1.516 billion dollars that
it made on Earth 1.
Erik what
are you fixing? I can go last, because I am the most important person.
ERIK
I'd take
Revenge of the Sith. First change, the entire movie takes place over the course
of a couple weeks. Clone Intelligence tracks Grievous directly from the battle
over Coruscant, and Obi-Wan is sent after him after a day or two. Padme doesn't
reveal to Anakin that she's pregnant immediately and he finds out from
Palpatine, instead. With Obi-Wan gone and unsure of how much he can trust his
wife, especially given the end of Clone Wars, Anakin's vulnerability makes much
more sense. Everything happens quickly, and Anakin is forced to make difficult
choices with no clear good outcome rather than Bioware-style "GOOD or
EVIL" binary choices where he picks the objectively bad one. Yoda and Mace
actually figure it out in time, but are intercepted on their way to inform the
Senate. Order 66 occurs as Palpatine and the Royal Guards engage those two, and
Mace sacrifices himself to get Yoda away. Anakin never goes to the Temple and
murders a bunch of children. I could go on for hours, but really the timeline
thing is the worst part of that movie by far. The fact that everyone is just
kinda dicking around for 7-8 months while two characters do everything hurts it
so much.
KYLE
Those are
all improvements but I feel like that is a band-aid on an overall weak story. ERIK
Well I mean if you let me take a crack at all the prequels I'd do that, but if I have to work with the constraint that I, II and Clone Wars all happened, I did the best I could.
KYLE
I do think the Padme/Anakin thing works better given the way Clone Wars left things, where they are actually sort of broken up. Anakin’s already stressed and stretched to the limits, he and Padme have had their relationship broken, he sees the kid chance to make everything right, and makes all of the wrong choices from there.
For Man of Steel I’d borrow even more heavily from Superman: Birthright than the movie did. I’d keep everything the same from the krypton scenes to the oil rig rescue and even the school bus rescue. Instead of chiding him for helping Pa tells Clark he’s right to help, and that people should always help the less fortunate, but tells him he needs to find a way to be more careful so he doesn’t draw suspicion. We see a montage similar to the one we got of Clark going from location to location helping people, but forced to re-locate every time he gives himself away. Eventually with help from his EARTH PARENTS AND NOT JOR-EL he comes up with the idea of Superman and introduces himself to the world. Then Zod shows up and tries to undermine the planet’s new champion by saying “he lied to you, he’s an alien and an advance scout for our invasion” in an attempt to turn Earth against Clark and also force him into having no choice but to submit to Zod’s rule, a strategy that has a better chance of actually getting Clark to join him than I WILL KILL EVERYONE YOU EVER LOVED right off the bat.
I do think the Padme/Anakin thing works better given the way Clone Wars left things, where they are actually sort of broken up. Anakin’s already stressed and stretched to the limits, he and Padme have had their relationship broken, he sees the kid chance to make everything right, and makes all of the wrong choices from there.
For Man of Steel I’d borrow even more heavily from Superman: Birthright than the movie did. I’d keep everything the same from the krypton scenes to the oil rig rescue and even the school bus rescue. Instead of chiding him for helping Pa tells Clark he’s right to help, and that people should always help the less fortunate, but tells him he needs to find a way to be more careful so he doesn’t draw suspicion. We see a montage similar to the one we got of Clark going from location to location helping people, but forced to re-locate every time he gives himself away. Eventually with help from his EARTH PARENTS AND NOT JOR-EL he comes up with the idea of Superman and introduces himself to the world. Then Zod shows up and tries to undermine the planet’s new champion by saying “he lied to you, he’s an alien and an advance scout for our invasion” in an attempt to turn Earth against Clark and also force him into having no choice but to submit to Zod’s rule, a strategy that has a better chance of actually getting Clark to join him than I WILL KILL EVERYONE YOU EVER LOVED right off the bat.
Superman
eventually fights off Zod’s forces (and discovers the Kryptonian ship/has his
speech with Jor El ghost over what he means and how to stop Zod then), goes to
great lengths to save people and take hits while doing so, till we see the
people of Earth truly embrace him as their champion. He eventually imprisons
Zod in the phantom zone just like he did the rest of Zod’s army. Unfortunately
as Superman is busy saving the world, Pa Kent has a heart attack. Superman gets
to his side just in time for a tearful goodbye and an actually great speech
from Pa Kent about being a hero and being proud of his son.
Anywho, that’s
all for this week’s roundtable, hopefully next week there will be some spicy
news or something to digest.
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