Big Trouble in Little Hollywood

Have Hollywood writers lost all of their creativity?  In this age of the Redo, Re-Make, and the Re-Hash it seems that Hollywood has done it yet again.  The original 1986 movie Big Trouble in Little China that starred Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall will be Hollywood’s next victim.  To make matters worse the movie isn’t even thirty years old yet and here we are being subjected to another movie that someone has decided to reinvent instead of trying to invent a movie on their own.  Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is in talks to star in the move taking the role that Kurt Russell played in the original movie.  If you’ve forgotten or haven’t seen Big Trouble in Little China it’s a movie about a trucker named Jack Burton who goes to Chinatown to visit his friend Wang and gets pulled into rescuing Wang’s fiancé from the ancient and evil Lo Pan who wants to make her and her reporter friend his brides. 

The movie was failure in the box office but quickly became a cult classic as it becomes a tale of when mysterious East meets the modern West.  The character Jack Burton represents the atypical American trucker jock who talks big and loud and backs everything up as the best he can with his fists.  Then he realizes that the men he must fight use martial arts and they are led by monsters and the sorcerer Lo Pan.  I only know of a handful of people who did not fall in love with the machine gun mayhem met the martial arts Kung-Fu fest that resulted in action and comedy that everyone who is a fan loves.  Not to mention the memorable bad guys the Three Storms that stood out and stole the movie.  There’s the powerful and muscular Thunder who was able to expand his body at will, the elusive Rain with his swords that flash faster than bullets, and finally there is the unforgettable Lightning whose image of the lightning wielding shogun that inspired the Mortal Kombat character Raiden. 

So admittedly, yes I wouldn’t mind seeing a re-imagined vision of the movie with those unforgettable characters brought back to life.  Let’s face it Dwayne Johnson is also a name that the people recognize and will go to the movies to see.  I’ll admit I saw Hercules and San Andreas mostly because of the “People’s Champion”.  Unfortunately just because you throw the Rock at the movie doesn’t make it a good idea to make it.  In this instance I don’t like the idea of re-making this movie so soon.  They re-made The Thing by claiming to make it a prequel and they couldn’t even do that right.  I mean all you had to do was right a movie based on the facts of the John Carpenter’s The Thing and what happened?  The screwed the pooch.  Don’t get me wrong I still like the prequel but I’m disappointed by the fact that they could have done so much better.  It’s a clear example of why it is not always a great idea to re-make movies. 

Major Fan Favorite Universes will be Reset this Summer

Creativity.  It’s always shifting and constantly changing and if you’re person with a good imagination you should easily be able to adjust to new stories being told.  Now easily adjusting and liking are two completely different things when we’re talking about stories that make sense or stories that are good.  Being creative means that you’re capable of imagining a great deal but only you will know if you are able to accept what has been created.  Sometimes we are given great ideas that make us believe in the impossible. And sometimes we are given ideas that don’t inspire us and oftentimes the consequences to those uninspired ideas are re-writes and ret-cons that are force upon us. 

Take for instance DC comics and their “New 52” which they started over 4 years ago.  They were able to revitalize all of their characters by giving them all new origins and it allowed new readers to pick up and fall in love with characters that they never knew existed or could never follow before because their history was too convoluted for them to follow.  We saw a new Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman emerge who had traveled different paths to where they finally joined together as the Justice League.  Somehow the Green Lantern history was merged into the new universe and when sales began to slip DC decided to converge all of their universes causing another reset once again.  This time they are making all of their past restarts and crises relevant by allowing the convergence to continue. 

Marvel has also decided to reset their own universes by having all of them die so that something new can be born.  The launch of the Ultimates line boosted sales for Marvel which helped propel the company out of bankruptcy.  The Ultimates also helped influence their successful movie franchise.  The Ultimates line saw a more realistic modern storytelling for comics and also saw a fresh new look for the characters.  This helped Marvel turn things around in their main comics’ branch making the stories more modern and streamlined.  Now the alternate universes that exist are being destroyed and a free-for-all has taken place which will see a new Marvel universe emerge when the dust finally settles.

Even the Star Wars universe has recently been reset to only include the movies and the Clone Wars and Rebellion television series.  Once George Lucas sold his property to Disney they found that they had twenty years of history and back story from the “Expanded Universe” that the fans knew and loved.  With their determination to make more movies Disney felt that the only way that they could do this was to practically make all of that history disappear and start fresh.  This move of course angered many fans such as myself at first as I had fallen in love with the Expanded Universe and it was there for me when I was going to through a tough time in my life.  To hear that they were now saying that it was non-canonical was shocking but afterwards I realized that this was the only way they could make the new movie freely without tripping over everything else that had been written before it. 

So what do you do?  You accept that you aren’t going to be able to change the minds of a multi-billion dollar company when they already have a plan set in motion.  Or you can go back and enjoy all of the things that you made you love the comic books and Star Wars so much and read them over again.  Either way no matter what happens you have to realize that unless you become a writer or artist who will one day effect the creative processes for these enterprises you have no say in what’s going to happen so you might as well enjoy the ride.  Whatever you do don’t give up on what you love.  You may not like the fact that your favorite mutant is now gay or your favorite lantern has been killed.  This is the world of fantasy fiction.  Enjoy it while you can.  

Flash Season Review

The first season for CW’s The Flash has come to an end and the question now is did the show live up to its expectations?  I have to say honestly as a fan of the Flash the show did not disappoint.  Of course it had its campy moments and bad acting where you’re looking at Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) and asking why is he here but other than that the season was phenomenal.  From the very first episode to the last one the season has shown the progression of Barry as a forensic scientist trying to solve his mother’s murder to when he becomes the Flash.  After that the brakes were kicked off the ride and let go.

From the special effects to the rogues who emerged to take center point as villains this season I was hanging onto the edge of my seat.  Now anyone can talk about how great the action and the special effects were but let’s discuss the drama of this show that’s based off a comic book.  The best drama of this show was between Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) & his father Henry Allen (John Wesley Shipp).  The chemistry they produced as a son trying to redeem his father and a man who has never raised his son but is proud of the man he’s become is an essential part of the plot to the story driving the Barry’s need to solve his mother’s murder and find the Man in Yellow or the Reverse Flash.  Even the fatherly way Professor Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanaugh) acted when he interacted with Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) & Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker).  When the realization that Professor Wells was the Reverse Flash came to be each of them had a hard blow to deal with knowing that the man who was responsible for shaping them into the scientists that they were was a murderer did not sit well.  It tugged on the ol’ heartstrings to watch Professor Wells play everyone like a fiddle yet you had to like the guy as he encouraged Barry to push himself beyond his limits. 

So what else made this show great was the amount of characters that was introduced throughout the season.  Old fans were mesmerized to see Gorilla Grod that the screen and new ones were blown away as the Firestorm was revealed to be Caitlin’s fiancé who was presumed dead.  I geeked out with Professor Wells used his Flash Ring to put on his Reverse Flash uniform and run into battle against the Flash, the Arrow, and Firestorm.  Oh, and to find out that Cisco himself did not escape the particle accelerator explosion unphased was a last minute bonus.

However, to top it all off when the helmet of the Golden-Age Flash Jay Garrick emerged from the wormhole at the end of the show I was practically jumping up and down.  By creating the wormholes Barry has opened the doorway to the multiverses which will probably see Jay Garrick come running through some time.  Earlier this season when the writers were talking about a second speedster for the 2^nd season most people thought it would be either Bart Allen or Wally West.  I know have my suspicions confirmed about Jay Garrick.  In the comic universe Barry Allen’s first encounter with another speedster was with the Golden-Age Flash Jay Garrick when he crossed the dimensional rift and found Keystone City.  So what’s in store what next season.  Rumors are they will explore the multiverse and with the DC’s Legends of Tomorrow jumping off next January there’s no telling where The Flash will go next.  

Mad Max is a a Monster Action Hit

Okay so if you want to take your girlfriend out to go see Pitch Perfect 2 to keep her happy go ahead and do that.  Then after you're done tell her you have to meet up with the boys purchase a ticket to Mad Max:  Fury Road and enjoy.  If you like me grew up in the 80's and loved everything Mad Max because of the vehicular destruction, mayhem, chaos, and absolute Car-nage that comes with the name then you will love this movie.  From the moment it starts it is non-stop action from the beginning of the movie to the end.  It's a race for blood and survival and if this movie doesn't get your blood pumping then something is wrong with you.  Do you have to be a Mad Max fan to enjoy this movie?  No.  But it won't hurt.  Director George Miller topped himself with the crazy insane stunts that were performed in this movie.  Granted our hero Max doesn't say a lot of words but let's face it, when you're Mad Max you don't rely on words you rely on your actions.  The Motorcycles, dipping left and right in the middle of a sea of cars.  With apocalyptic tornadoes and sand storms the special effects are just as spectacular as the stunts.  Charlize Theron does an amazing job as Imperator Furiosa as she tries to save the brides of Immortal Joe from being his breeding sows.  They run trying to find a place where they will be able to have a better life and along the way Max gets dragged into the middle of the situation and has no choice but to either help or be enslaved.  Now that's all you're going to get from this Mad Max-ian.  So until someone gives me a truck with a reinforced chassis a lifted suspension giant dune buggy wheels and a snow plow on the front...go get yourself a ticket and enjoy the ride.