By Jason Apuzzo. • The most striking news on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front recently was without doubt the announcement from Warner Brothers/Alcon that they’re going to reboot Blade Runner as a franchise of prequels and/or sequels. As electrifying as the news was, I was not altogether surprised to hear it given the current sci-fi craze and mania toward rebooting older franchises.
The big question, of course, is what precisely ‘is’ a Blade Runner franchise without the involvement of Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford or Philip K. Dick – none of whom are currently attached to any of these future ‘Blade Runner’ projects? (Dick being, of course, long deceased and not having furnished any ‘franchisable’ sequels to his original story). The answer, I’m afraid, is that such a ‘franchise’ is worth very little.
Having read several interviews with the Alcon people (see here and here), three points emerge: 1) they haven’t even contacted Ridley Scott yet; 2) they’d apparently like to work with Christopher Nolan (with whom they have a prior relationship), whose work on the Batman franchise represents the “template” they’re working from (i.e., it made a lot of money), and; 3) they apparently have no idea where precisely they want to take the story.
I’m groaning at all of this. It’s looking like the usual sort of thing: an ambitious group of producers grabs a lucrative ‘property’ they like, without a clue of what to do with it. They flail around looking for a ‘visionary’ (i.e., trendy) director to come in and do the actual work of figuring out what to do, because they never bothered to figure that out for themselves. Years get spent in ‘development,’ nothing happens – or worse, something like the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake happens. And memories of something precious get spoiled.
I have my doubts about this project, in other words. Indeed, I have doubts about whether it’s even going to happen. The likelihood is that neither Ridley Scott nor Christopher Nolan will be interested in doing it, and so who are the producers going to go to? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? God help us – I’d rather not learn what those guys think ‘The Tannhauser Gate’ really looks like. [Sigh.]
• Speaking of rebooted 80’s franchises, George Miller is assuring everyone that Mad Max: Fury Road will be back up shooting in January 2012, albeit apparently now without I Am Number Four‘s Teresa Palmer. Bummer! I’m otherwise looking forward to that film, which will be photographed in some new Miller-designed form of 3D. Also: a trailer has just been released for Tron: Uprising, an animated series that’s part of Disney’s ongoing Tron reboot. The trailer for this series actually looks better than Tron: Legacy, itself – but that may just be because there’s no Garrett Hedlund in it.
• Some other big news of late on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front was that Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers, in its American incarnation), the classic Japanese TV series from the 1970’s and an old favorite of mine, is going to be adapted with Christopher McQuarrie writing the screenplay and David Ellison (True Grit; son of Larry Ellison) producing. This is another project, incidentally, that can be filed away as an alien invasion project – as alien invaders are an important part of the storyline. (Btw, Ellison and McQuarrie are currently the main guys behind the potential Top Gun sequel.)
I like the sound of this project – although admittedly it’s seeming a bit like Battleship in outer space – and on an even bigger budget. Here’s the key thing to understand about Battleship Yamato, though: it’s almost a kind of anti-Avatar, featuring blue-skinned aliens (the “Gamilons”) out to destroy human life on Earth (by way of radioactive meteorite bombs) so that they can repopulate the planet themselves. Earth’s forces have to rally around an enormous space cruiser, built out of the hulking wreckage of the original WWII Japanese battleship Yamato – although at this point, they might want to instead use something like Larry Ellison’s yacht. Anyway, my only requests here would be to re-name the “Gamilons” the “Na’vi,” cast Brooklyn Decker or Megan Fox, and otherwise we’re good to go.
• Check out this new trailer for Attack the Block, a cheeky indie alien invasion project from the UK that’s about to unspool at the SXSW Film Festival. The trailer features one of the better taglines in recent memory: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.” Also on the indie alien invasion front: a new film called Invasion of the Alien Bikini recently won the Grand Prix at the 21st Yubari Fantastic Film Festival, in Japan. Now that film I’d like to see … anybody know if it’s in 3D?
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace will be coming to theaters in 3D on February 10th, 2012. Killjoys of the world now have something more to complain about; I personally, however, am very much looking forward to seeing Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon go at it in 3D.
I thought I would take the opportunity here to share with Libertas readers what I thought about The Phantom Menace: which is that I loved it. Not every aspect of it, perhaps, but on balance it holds up as being a very satisfying epic adventure in the Errol Flynn-swashbuckler mode, with an intriguing storyline that’s like something out of The Fall of the Roman Empire. It also happens to be one of the most visually sumptuous films ever made – sweeping you along from Italy’s Caserta Palace, to the deserts of Tunisia, to the beautiful (digital) cityscapes of Coruscant. The costumes on Natalie Portman are gorgeous, Liam Neeson is really the epitome of what a Jedi Knight should be, John Williams’ score is one of his best … and then, of course, there’s Ray Park’s Darth Maul – easily one of the greatest movie villains of all time, a rival to the best villains ever played by Basil Rathbone in swashbuckler films of this kind.
So with all that, who cares about Jar-Jar Binks, thin dialogue, or a little too much cutesy-pie time with young Anakin? The movie’s a blast – a huge box office hit (adjusted for inflation, it would’ve made about $680 million domestically in 2011) – and you’re all going to be there next February, anyway. So stop whining.
• More to the present, Battle: Los Angeles is coming next week – and I’ll be saying a lot about that in coming days. In the meantime, many new clips of the film have been released on-line (see here), as well as some behind-the-scenes pics (see here), images of the aliens (see here), the film also has a new poster out, and we’re also learning that the film was not, for the most part, shot in Los Angeles – but instead in Louisiana. So I suppose the title Battle: LA has a double meaning. (This reminds me: why do movie aliens always look like seafood these days?)
• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News & Notes: Michelle Rodriguez says that Avatar 2 will be set for the most part underwater; Apollo 18 has a new trailer out (see my opinion about it here) and a new Russian poster; David Koepp (Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) will be doing a rewrite on the already-in-production Men in Black 3D; J.J. Abrams talks Super 8 and Star Trek; many new rumors are trailing Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (see here, here, here and here) and there’s more casting news on that film (see here and here); more Transformers 3 trailers are coming; Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies alien invasion TV series has new promos out; the Total Recall remake featuring Colin Farrell now has a release date of August 3rd, 2012; the SyFy channel recently featured an Area 51-related movie; and Louis Leterrier, who is responsible for the wretched Clash of the Titans remake, will soon be doing something called G – which is apparently about “a father who has to search for his lost child as the world stops spinning and Earth begins to lose its gravity.” Let me tell you, Louis: if the Earth stops spinning, you probably won’t have much time to search for family members. Trust me on that one.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the pretty and slightly strange Jennifer Lawrence is apparently the leading candidate to star in The Hunger Games, which, for brevity’s sake, you can imagine as something like The Running Man for teens – i.e., a sci-fi future dystopia featuring televised gladiatorial-style games. Since the story takes place in a world plagued with food shortages, it seems like perfect Obama-era sci-fi – doesn’t it?
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion front!
Posted on March 4th, 2011 at 6:45pm.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Nolan directing a “Blade Runner” film? Haven’t they handed this guy enough franchises? He’s completely over-hyped and not as smart as he thinks he is. I’m sick of the guy. Give this to someone new. Better yet – don’t do it all. Just for once leave this “property” alone.
It might actually occur to someone, at some point, to do simply something original instead. I’m not counting on it, though.
I’m confused. Isn’t Yamato done already, and already released in Japan? They were showing the trailers a year ago.
This will be a completely different, Americanized version as I understand it.
I’m interested in seeing The Adjustment Bureau. The way I look at it at least someone is actually trying to do something NEW/semi-original and not just cannibalizing other franchises. And We’ve gotten past the North end of a south bound skunk period (January, February) of new movie releases. HALLELUJAH!
We have a review coming of The Adjustment Bureau. You’re not going to be happy about that film.
I saw Blade Runner in its initial run when I was ten years old. Begged my father to see it after my brother renegged. He hated it. I loved it while it was called “turkey of the year” along with Megaforce on Entertainment Tonight.
Agreed that without Scott or Ford, I do not care and think it should be left alone. Realistically, what we will get will be something along the lines of Peter Hyams’, 2010. Not a horrible film by any definition and sevicable in context of the sci fi of the time. But absolutely no classic and something that cannot touch the original and is ultimately forgotten. What I am afraid of is that they will find a legal loop hole like with the Bond film Never Say Never Again. Now I like that film a lot but they found a legal loophole that essentially made it a remake of Thunderball because of the rights to the plot of that.
Glad to hear your defense of Phantom Menace. It – IS – fine film and better than most sci fi epics. Flawed yes, but the final battle is exhilarating.
Really have no interest in a Gibsonless Mad Max but Hardy is growing on me. We’ll see.
I had the same experience seeing Blade Runner. My father took me to see it, and he and I both LOVED it – and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t doing better at the box office.
Something I probably should’ve mentioned up above is that Blade Runner is also, to some extent, an ‘art’ film – and for that reason seems like a difficult one to ‘franchise.’ In the same way that they needed James Cameron to make an Alien sequel viable, they would need someone of similar stature to make a Blade Runner sequel work – and I don’t think that person is currently out there.
The Phantom Menace back on the big screen, and in 3D? … I’m already there. Jason, I’ve told you before that your reviews of the Star Wars prequels are BY FAR the best I’ve ever read. They’re dispassionate, fair, and extensive … and I happen to agree with them.
Great call on the Fall of the Roman Empire. You may have noticed a shot at the end of Attack of the Clones that’s the same exact shot from a scene in Fall of the Roman Empire, which is pretty powerful.
As for Blade Runner, why doesn’t just someone make another version of the book? It seemed to work for True Grit, and there’s a lot in the novel that wasn’t touched in Scott’s film, if I remember correctly.
I like Christopher Nolan, but I’m not a fan — I just think he’s a capable filmmaker. It is sad when he’s considered head of the class, though. Now, Louis Leterrier … that guy has nothing to offer.
Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games, huh? Not bad. I didn’t care for the book, she would really work — especially after seeing her in Winter’s Bone.
There’s more invasion news, too, Jason. Governor Kasich announced that The Avengers will film in Cleveland. It was also announced that the villains will be the Skrulls, extra-galactic invaders who seek to infiltrate society and gather humans into their collective … not kidding.
Thanks for the kind word, Vince! I really appreciate it.
That’s interesting about The Avengers. I don’t cover the superhero stuff here because that’s really it’s own world – but yes, I’ve seen this trend there, as well. For example, we’re going to see aliens threaten to invade in Green Lantern, as I understand it.
As for Phantom Menace and the prequels, my sense is that people are going to be more forgiving toward those films as time goes on – especially as the crap from other trendy filmmakers piles up in their wake. This is actually what happened with the original trilogy – which took a lot of abuse from people during the 80’s (something that’s been conveniently forgotten), only to be canonized after nobody did anything to match them later on. The wealth of imagination on display in those films is breathtaking; I’m still, basically, in awe of them – even though there’s a certain amount of high school drama in the films that one has to put up with.
Have you watched the multi-part Red Letter Media reviews of the Star Wars prequels? I’m not exactly a member of the “Lucas raped my childhood!” brigade but Mr. Plinkett (the whack-job character who narrates the reviews) brings up several points worth considering.
No, I haven’t seen those. In general, I think it’s fine for fans to have their say and hold filmmakers to account for what they do wrong. That’s part of the business. At the same time, I think that Lucas has had to endure an almost psychotic level of criticism from people who – from what I can tell – seem to have very little understanding of how difficult it is to remain innovative over long periods of time. Suffice it to say that if it was easy to do what he does, everybody would be doing it – but they’re not.
ScottDS:
I’ve seen those reviews of which you speak. In my opinion, they’re a study in confirmation bias — that guy clearly WANTS to hate the films. He even got a couple things from the films wrong, if I remember correctly.
For example, he criticized the title “Phantom Menace” because he, nor the heroes in the film, knew who the Phantom Menace was. I mean, Darth Sidious was all over the film, and even if you didn’t see him, how many more queues in the dialogue or the score do you need. The fact that the heroes didn’t know who it was was part of the mystery and the tragedy.
I love the film, but I know it’s not perfect. But that dude is just a hater.
I have the kind of emotional, psychotic relation to Blade Runner – a film that shaped my inarticulate sense of great cinema for most of my childhood – that so many people have for Star Wars. So this news saddens me indeed. Honestly, I wouldn’t even trust Scott to do more Blade Runners these days, with all the hamfistedness that’s come to characterize his work.
Just throwin’ this out there: Isn’t it ridiculous that the same dude directed Alien, Blade Runner, Black Rain, and Kingdom of Heaven? It must take some sort of genius to be THAT good at one’s best and THAT bad at one’s worst. Black Rain has to be one of the cheesiest movies I’ve ever seen. I seem to recall Scott having made another pretty cheesy film in that mid-80’s era with Tom Berenger. Oh yeah, and Legend was pretty cheesy too.
As for the Star Wars Prequels, I am in the minority of people who never “got” Star Wars in the first place. I hear what everyone says about the original films and it makes sense, but on the level of “Does it do it for me or not?” when I watch them, I confess I’m mostly just bored out of my mind. Even when I was a kid. Some people are just tone deaf for some tunes. (I.e., I defer to expert opinion on this and will concede it’s a shortcoming of mine that I react to Star Wars with such indifference).
I saw Episode 1 in the theatre on opening day, and it gave me a massive headache. I had no idea what was going on. I have to say Plinkett’s review struck me as being mostly right, though I agree with Jason’s remarks about psychotic fans. On the other hand, given my psychotic love of Blade Runner, I can kinda sorta understand their anguish.
P.S. – that commenter above who said that IF they are going to reboot Blade Runner, they should do it by going back to Dick’s short story and re-imagining the text, gets it right. The director to do it would be someone way outside the box, like P.T. Anderson or Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
I appreciate your thoughts, SeeSaw. I am in complete agreement with you that Blade Runner is great cinema. I’m curious as to what your thoughts are, however, as to the many different cuts that Scott has now made of the film. I must confess to being somewhat undecided on which I prefer; I never really had a problem with original voice-over, to begin with.
As for Star Wars, if it doesn’t do it for you, I won’t try to argue you into it. I’ve been quite unsuccessful at that endeavor, for example, with my friend and colleague David Ross.
Yeah, and besides, I’m a minority of a minority – not only does Star Wars not do it for me, but I will concede that that doesn’t license me to say it is objectively crap. Just on principle, I try to maintain a distinction between how a movie affects me and how “objectively good” it is (it’s just a standard to separate personal feelings from aesthetic judgment – never perfect, but in some cases justified. I think the consensus of knowledgeable people, and the way it has affected the average filmgoer, justifies the separation in this case. So I defer to your judgement and concede I just don’t “get it”).
Regarding Blade Runner “director’s cuts”, at first I hated the removal of the voice-over. I was so used to it, that the movie seemed empty and devoid of character without it. Upon repeated viewings, however, I have come to prefer it, even though I still have no problem with the original voice over. It’s a case of almost two different “moods” for the film. The director’s cut version is indeed much “emptier” and, if this is the right word, bleaker – Deckard is much more mysterious, and I find that the complete lack of any “externalizing” of an inner life is perfectly consistent with the world Scott is presenting. Part of the point, I think, is that in such a world we are all human and we are all replicants, and that blurriness raises profound questions which the film doesn’t answer.
The unicorn stuff didn’t bother me, though it isn’t better one way or the other – again, I think Scott should have left it out, because to be consistent with the removal of the V.O., the point would be to purge the film of “inner life” directly witnessed by the audience. All humanity is mediated, and the visualized dream of the unicorn is unmediated. So, whatever. It’s great in all cases, and sometimes I’m in the mood for the V.O. version, sometimes the “bleaker” version (I watch Blade Runner maybe two or three times a year).
Thanks so much for your reply. We seem to be pretty close in our evaluation of the cuts. I like both of them – as you say, they really represent different ‘moods’ of the film. Personally, I don’t think that the unicorn sequence need necessarily be tied to the V.O. – but your point is well taken, in that both represent the ‘privileging’ of Deckard’s private perspective on the story. There are also complications having to do with whether or not he himself may be a ‘replicant,’ although I’ve never really found such speculation very important. The film works wonders, whether he is or isn’t.
As for Star Wars, I happen to rate it very highly both personally and ‘objectively’ – although many of my favorite films don’t fare quite as well along ‘objective’ standards. I just happen to think George really knocked that one out of the park.
One final note – as I understand it, from listening to the commentary, Scott always intended it to be clear that Deckard was a replicant (I completely agree with you that it isn’t really important). That I suppose is the reason he put the unicorn-dream in the director’s cut. The clues he’d put in the original evidently weren’t enough for viewers to get the point, so he decided to match the tin-foil unicorn at the end with a vision of Deckard’s. 1+1 = Replicant.
Been keeping up with V?
Pushing Deckard over into the category of being a replicant is certainly an interesting conceit. I wonder, though, whether it actually undermines the big payoff at the end: which is that Deckard learns what it is to be truly ‘human’ from a dying replicant, Roy Batty. I’ve always thought that was the special genius of the film. Deckard, as a human, feels somehow smaller than the ‘replicant’ who has lived his life to the fullest – and exhibited compassion for another being at the very end. The contrast between Batty and Deckard at the conclusion is the key thing: the replicant shows compassion, while the ‘human’ is merely out to kill. I think that Scott’s focusing on Deckard as a replicant is weirdly missing the whole point.
As for V, no I actually haven’t had the time to follow it – but I’m planning to read the plot synopses so I at least understand where the show is going. Probably I’ll just do what I did before – which is buy the season on DVD, and watch it all at one time. If you have any thoughts on where it’s going, though, feel free to share them – I’d love to know what you think.