Some characters are a long time in coming as far as fans are concerned. Darth Vaders checkered youth, Superman's long anticipated Return...these are stories we waited to see, only to find dissappointment or just outright horror!
So for years and years we are left, as fans, to wonder about a certain character who has found their way into cinematic and pop-cultural legend. These characters are so mythic, entire universes are built around them, characters like Luke Skywalker, Batman, Darth Vader, Superman and Indiana Jones.
Sometimes characters are not even really seen, but instead referenced, OR their origins/youth are spoken of like something out of Greek Mythology, though we rarely get to see such celluloid stories.
On the occasions that we do, it’s hit or miss…but usually miss. Having the curtain pulled back a bit further means that all the smoke and mirrors are out of the equation and we’re left with merely the actor or actress and the writers to do justice to legend. There have been a FEW successes, but most have failed.
What I am presenting to you is a list of some of my favorite and some of my most-hated ICONS REVEALED:
The misses-let’s get this out of the way first. It’s been my experience that typically, Hollywood can’t satisfy the anticipation we have built around certain characters, and these glaring examples of crash and burn prove just that.
1) John Connor-Leader of the human resistance of a world dominated by homicidal machines bent on eliminating their human obstacles, John Connor emerges as the man who saves humanity from destruction. In a last ditch effort to turn the tides of war, the machines send an assassin back in time to eliminate Sarah Connor, John Connor’s mother, prior to her conception of John. The “terminator” is Arnold Schwarzenegger and it sends his career into the stratosphere. However the human resistance is able to send a mortal man back in time as well, someone to save the resistance: Kyle Reese.
Reese and the Terminator clash in a battle fought over the future mother, with Kyle being seriously disadvantaged. Not only does he have weak weaponry at his disposal, he has the human authorities after him as well. It’s difficult to convince Connor of her fate, but eventually Reese succeeds. He tells Sarah that her son will be mankind’s greatest hope to save itself and that she has to be strong to bring about such a man. In a classic twist it is Reese himself who fathers Connor’s child when the two consummate while on the run.
In the end, Reese and the Terminator are both dead/destroyed and Sarah is left to carry on Reese’s mission. Seven or 8 years later, we revisit the saga which now pits two cyborgs against each other…Schwarzenegger returns, this time as Connor’s protector, while Robert Patrick joins the cast as a more advanced killer who can change his shape and assume the likeness of anyone he touches. The movie begins with Sarah in an insane asylum and her son in foster care. Authorities disbelieved her accusations of an impending World War and arrested her after her attempts to blow up a computer company whom she knew to have stolen components of the original terminator.
The focal point however is young John Connor, who instead of being a dutiful soldier, preparing for his rendezvous with destiny, is actually a ten year old, out-of-control brat who torments his foster parents and breaks the law. By movies end he uses his obvious intelligence and disregard for safety, to the advantage of his mother, the Terminator and himself. As for young Edward Furlong, I was personally unimpressed with the effeminate actor finding him to less than formidable and too weak to be a leader, but the movie was actually carried by a now-good Arnold Schwarzenegger who proves his capacity to grow, despite the fact that he is merely an artificial man. The movie also watches Sarah Connor grow past her paranoia and anger directed towards the Terminator because of what he was, to the point of respecting him and acknowledging that he was a better “father figure” to John than any of the men that had been in and out of her life.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines arrived about ten years later, this time sans Sarah Connor who had died of leukemia years before. Instead of Edward Furlong the movie featured Nick Stahl as John Connor, and Claire Danes as his future wife. Schwarzenegger returned again as John’s protector. A more light-hearted (but still R-Rated) movie that marked the departure of James Cameron as director/writer, this film featured more action and special effects but seemed somewhat pointless as the same formula was merely repeated, which was to save Connor and stop the impending war.
But the end gave the audience an unexpected twist. While Connor thought he was going to avert the war in a government shelter called “Crystal Peak” he was actually misled to believe he could do such a thing, by the Terminator, in an effort to ensure his survival. Instead of stopping the war, Connor was a witness to its aftereffects and the turmoil it sent the planet into. The film ends with other world-leaders discovering that there was a “John Connor” who was “in charge” of his location.
In my opinion, Stahl was far better than his predecessor. A better actor and a more-believable role, it seemed like THIS John Connor carried around a tremendous sense of dread, yet had the courage to be the hero fate demanded of him.
Then there was this summer’s “Terminator: Salvation” which followed the exploits of a now 30-something John Connor and the Human Resistance, as he believes he has found a way to incapacitate the enemy but meets with lack of cooperation from his commanders who believe him to be over-hyped. Complicating matters even further is the arrival of Marcus Wright, a convict who donated his body to science, only to be resurrected as a cyborg, though a human-based cyborg complete with parts of his original physiology as well as his true nature.
The movie shows how the two characters converge with a young Kyle Reese in tow as they all fall into a trap, set by Skynet. In the last portion of the movie, Wright battles a T-800 to save Connors life, and then gives his own heart to ensure Connor lives. The movie is left open for a sequel but I hope one never arrives.
This movie suffered from two things (as far as the fans and people on the net were concerned) firstly it lacked Cameron (which didn’t seem to be as big of an issue with Terminator 3, however that movie was set in the present vs. this which was set in the future, thereby taking a lot of creative liberties). Secondly, this time there was no Schwarzenegger (I won’t count that pointless CGI insert because of how phony it looked and how stupid that whole scene was.
While the movie featured a great performance by Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright (though he spoke with about three different accents unintentionally) and Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese, the story was horrible for so many reasons. Among them was the character of Christian Bale. Throughout the whole series we are teased of how amazing this character is in his prime, and then we see this and it undermines the previous installments. For some reason, Connor is NOT in command of the resistance, and is dismissed by his superiors, despite having intimate knowledge and proof of what is to come. Then there is the fact that he seems to be removed from most of the action leaving that to Wright. Also, Bale is simply not very impressive in the role. The character has very little charisma and appears to be more of a scared, reluctant warrior than the leader of mankind. To sum it up, he had very little heart, which is ironic because if you listen to the tantrum he threw on set while filming, you would think he brought a LOT of emotion to the story, but he didn’t.
In the end I regret the movie was even made, however if I could have chosen anyone I would have picked Stahl to resume the role. Reports continue to circulate that yet another installment will be made, perhaps with a battle in modern day England. The biggest indicator of how sorry this debacle was however, is the Box Office receipt which shows that this movie, despite being the first PG-13 installment, thereby more accessible to children who no longer need parent accompaniment to see it, lagged behind the last two installments both here and abroad, when it should have at least tied with T3. Hopefully, the director Jonathon Mostow will take note and abort.
2) Superman: In 1978 the world was introduced to Christopher Reeves as the Man of Steel. With special effects that were cutting edge at the time, and a man who bared an uncanny likeness to the comic book character he played, audiences embraced the film. Besides the young Reeves, the film boasted the legendary Marlon Brando as Jor-El, father of Kal-El who is rocketed to Earth to escape the destruction of Krypton. Upon his arrival, the alien child is discovered by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent in the rural town of Smallville, Kansas.
It becomes clear immediately that the child is something special when the toddler lifts the Kent’s car that had fallen on top of Jonathan. The two raise the child, whom they name Clark, as their own, teaching him to be a good man, and to hide his abilities from the world to avoid exploitation. Young Clark is frustrated by his inability to show how powerful he really is, but does so anyway.
After graduating from high school Clark’s human father dies, crushing the boy who feels powerless despite his overwhelming strength and speed. Subsequently, Clark discovers a remnant of Krypton left in his escape ship. He takes the remnant, or crystal, to the North Pole, where he releases it in the snow, and watches an otherworldly structure form in front of his eyes. It is built to look like something on his home-planet, and it is where he might speak to his birth father who has been presented to Clark in the form of artificial intelligence. Clark spends the next 12 years in the “Fortress of Solitude” learning from his father and honing his amazing abilities. When he emerges he moves to Metropolis and begins working as a journalist. Soon after this Clark is forced to save his colleague (and love interest) from a helicopter crash, and is dressed in his “Superman suit” when he does this. Lois subsequently interviews him and gives him the name Superman.
The threat of the movie is that of Lex Luthor who is played like an obnoxious clown instead of anyone with true menace, by Gene Hackman. Hackman hams it up on screen and eventually traps Superman in his mansion where he attaches kryptonite (a DIFFERENT kind of remnant from his home-world, one that he is allergic to) to Superman’s body. He explains to Superman that he has sent a missile to hit the San Andreas Fault line in California in an attempt to break the state off of the continent. A second missile is on its way to Jersey. Eve Teschmacher (Lex’s girlfriend) saves Superman, but makes him promise that he will save her mother in New Jersey.
Superman obliges and stops the first missile on the East Coast, but is too late to stop the second missile on the West Coast. An earthquake ensues and among the resulting casualties is Lois Lane. Superman bellows in pain when he sees this and decides to ignore Jor-El’s advice not to interfere with human history he flies around the world at such a speed that he reverses the direction of its spin thereby rewinding time and saving Lois.
While there was no enemy to post a danger to Superman, the movie did set the stage for Superman 2, which featured three Kryptonian criminals, suspended in the Phantom Zone by among others, Jor-El, who arrive on Planet Earth and are freed. They then begin their quest to rule earth meanwhile wondering why the “Superman” they hear of, is not opposing them. The reason for this is that Clark Kent, through the use of Kryptonian technology, forfeited his powers to become solely human so that he might be with Lois, who has recently discovered his identity. Lois and Clark consummated the relationship but are off to a rocky start as Clark has difficulty adjusting to being a mere mortal.
Once Clark becomes aware not only of the dangers of being vulnerable, but the existence of the three Kryptonians, he begs his mother (or the artificially intelligent representation of her) to give him his powers back, which she does. Superman then engages the aliens in combat and ultimately defeats them in a showdown that has still proven to be one of the best many years later. In the end Superman uses some power (unknown to us) to make Lois forget his identity, with a kiss.
Three years later, Superman faces off against a new set of thugs led by multi-millionaire Ross Webster. Webster hires Gus Goreman, a computer genius, to create a supercomputer which nearly kills Superman (rumors state that this was supposed to be a version of Braniac). Though there are no protagonists who pose an equal threat to Superman as such, there is a scene where Clark Kent battles his Superman persona, which has been corrupted by botched Kryptonite. There is also a scene where one of the henchwomen is turned into a cyborg and battles Superman. Ultimately Superman prevails again.
Four years later, Superman appears in his last outing for nearly twenty years in “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,” in which Superman lobbies for world powers to eliminate their nuclear arsenal by giving them to him so that he might hurl them into the sun. However Lex Luthor reemerges in this film after his absence in the previous installment and he clones the Man of Steel. The clone is dubbed Nuclear Man, and he and Superman engage in battle, however their combat is far from epic and the film’s poor reception lead to the franchise’s extended hiatus.
After many stops and starts over about twenty years a myriad of directors and actors were supposed to take up the cape and tights to bring Superman back. Among them was Christopher Reeves who was supposed to appear in yet another installment, however that never materialized. Among other players in the new installment was Kevin Smith who has been very vocal about his displeasure both with the way he was handled, and also more recently, with the last Superman film: Superman Returns.
Brian Singer was signed on to direct and had come up with the concept of an absentee Superman returning to Earth, as well as his illegitimate son sired with Lois. Apparently Lex Luthor had created a false story about Krypton having survived and consequently Superman left to investigate. Returning 5 years later after seeing that there was nothing left of the dead planet.
This is another example of a colossal let down. Superman returns to this dreary world and movie, both which take themselves far too seriously. A child that Superman never had in the comics is introduced in the film (which is a sequel to Superman II, and ignores the two films in between) despite the fact that Lois is supposed to not remember her tryst with him. Then there is the idea that Lex got out of jail (according to the book) because Superman didn’t testify at his trial…that makes sense, right? Furthermore, Lex’s grand scheme is exactly the same as in the first film, to make a killing in real estate by destroying pre-existing land. Furthermore, as I said, this installment directly follows number 2, in which Superman promises the President that he’ll never be derelict in his duties again, but then disappears for five years. Luthor manages to find the Fortress of Solitude which apparently has ZERO safety features, and by the way, the execution of his plan just HAPPENS TO coincide with the return of Superman. Perhaps the most ridiculous scene in the film is where Superman literally LIFTS this entire Earth/Krypton hybrid off the planet and sends it into space, then falls back to Earth and is taken to the Emergency Room….yes, the ER.
Of course however, he is revived and flies around the planet, just as he did in the first film, waving to the camera.
Now while the movie itself was pure rubbish, Routhe did receive a lot of grief that he didn’t deserve. He was an unknown who was hired to essentially imitate Christopher Reeves, which he did perfectly. There are a great many factors that go into the development of a movie and so his lack of screen presence and lack of charisma can’t be put squarely on his skinny shoulders, the writers came up with such a far-fetched maddening tale that he didn’t have much to work with. As a matter of fact, it seemed like Superman and Clark Kent both have very little dialogue in the movie at all. The plot focused far too much on an overacting Kevin Spacey and a not very convincing Kate Bosworth. The only redeemable aspects of this film really were James Marsden and Parker Posey who at least broke up the monotony of this 1978 rehash.
To put in perspective how much of a turkey this was, it grossed only $20 million more total than Terminator: Salvation.
3) The Son of Indy-The archaeologist/adventurer’s last outing was with his father played by Sir Sean Connery, and wowed critics and fans alike. Though Connery stole the show, Harrison Ford did an outstanding job as a seeker of the Holy Grail. After a long hiatus between films, The Beard (Spielberg), Uncle Georgie Lucas and Harrison Ford reunited for a 4th installment in the Indy Franchise.
Now while many people may have sensed as soon as a CGI gopher popped up from the bottom of the screen that the movie was doomed, most of those who were still hopeful lost said hope when Indy survived a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. In the grand scheme of things, neither moment was unforgivable, but what IS unforgivable is the ridiculous story which is basically Indy meets E. T. and along the way finds out he has a meathead son played by Shia Labeouf. He is supposed to be maybe a teenager, which seems odd considering his father is pushing 70. The action is often times left to his son “Mutt” (awesome name huh?), as opposed to Indy himself.
Now I can’t go on and on about this because I was never a HUGE fan of the series therefore can’t provide much background info, but what I can tell you is that I enjoyed every bit I saw in the previous movies, but when I saw this crapfest, it was obvious that whatever magic was originally conjured to create this franchise, it had long since been pawned by aforementioned Uncle Georgie. The movie lacked a sense of fun and adventure, and this would-be legendary character, THE SON OF INDIANA JONES was such a generic let down it could have been John Travolta’s understudy for the “Grease” movie, not the seemingly talented young Labeouf.
Ironically I remember about ten years ago when “The Mummy” came out, writers saying how John O’Connell had seemingly taken up the whip from Indy, and funny enough, they were onto something. O’Connell was a young, fun adventurer whose charm charisma would have fit perfectly with the Indy franchise. Similarly to Indy, O’Connell didn’t take himself too seriously. His ambition was to find the treasure and that’s it. Unfortunately, much like the Indy movies, “The Mummy” franchise fizzled with poor writing and ridiculous stories AND the introduction of a son who seemed radically out of place.
4) Hulk-The TV series of the late 70’s and early 80’s employed the same formula as “The Fugitive” for the series about the Green Goliath: a man on the run from the law, who is looking to right a massive wrong, while performing heroic deeds in the meantime. The premise was cool, though it wouldn’t work today since you don’t see many people drifting from town to town with ambiguous work histories getting easy jobs. That said, the show was well received and had that memorable transformation scene that was initialized with Bill Bixby’s eyes turning light green. The action was a bit one-sided, but it was still cool to see Hulk running around growling, putting bad guys in their place. The last installment in the television universe was “The Death of the Incredible Hulk” where he died from a high fall (he’s weaker on TV). But prior to his 1990 demise, the Hulk was featured in multiple TV movies featuring in them Marvel characters like Daredevil, Thor, and Kingpin.
Ten years later, Marvel began its first wave of movies with the likes of Blade, Spiderman, X-Men, and X-Men 2. It seemed natural to bring the Hulk to the big screen, but there were a few hang-ups. For one thing, Special Effects a mere 6 years ago were not ready to create a CGI character that was going to be in a good 40-60% of the movie. The Hulk they created look completely unreal and made it very hard to get into the movie. Furthermore the story was convoluted and highly deviated from basic hulk-lure, throwing casual fans off. It took a long time before we even saw the Hulk and the action was lacking at best. While most comic-book movies are supposed to be fun and someone lighthearted this one was anything but, and weighed the viewer down like a ton of bricks. The cast was decent with Jennifer Connolly as Betty, Sam Elliot as General Ross and Eric Bana as Bruce/Hulk. Though Bana may not have been the best choice to play Banner as he was a rather tall and cut actor, not smaller and mousy (like Edward Norton), it was still beneficial for his career, garnering him recognition and seeing him get many subsequent movie roles, so all was not lost.
However it cannot be denied that this was a HIGHLY disappointing way to see one of Marvel’s biggies brought to the big screen, and most can argue that it probably damned the far-superior reboot that was made five years later, as people refused to give the film another chance.
5) Star Wars-Episodes II/III-So back in ’77 the viewing public is introduced to Darth Vader and he instantly becomes an icon. Large, dark and imposing Vader is an expert combatant with the added bonus of psychic powers (The Force). When audiences see his ability to kill enemies without laying a hand on them, and his willingness to destroy entire planets for fun, they knew the man was a force to be reckoned with.
In the second movie we find out that Vader used to be a good guy named Anakin, who was the father of Luke Skywalker, the hero of the original trilogy. We eventually find out he also fathered Leia, Luke’s twin sister. In the final installment, Luke manages to redeem his fallen father which leads to a selfless act of heroism and then his own death. We see in the last scene the spirit of Anakin, looking human again, watching over his children.
From then on there are talks of further installments and the people merely wait. Then in 1999 we get our first taste of an all-new Star Wars that shows us how Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi met…apparently they met when Obi-Wan was a hot-headed Jedi-apprentice and Anakin was a short, porky terrible actor who ruined every scene he was in. Critics panned it but fans ate it up (with heavy hearts mind you) and waited it out for the next installment, knowing that it would feature an older, hopefully less-annoying Anakin. Then in 2002 we watch “Attack of the Clones” and find Anakin to be a tall, good looking young man who looks like he just walked off the Dawson’s Creek set, complete with hissy fits, tears, and lots of angst. The writing was horrible, the acting was worse. What’s funny is that if you see Hayden Christiansen’s earlier performance in “My Life as a House” you’ll see just what a gifted actor he is and the caliber of performance he is capable of.
The third installment in the second trilogy is considered by most to be the best, but Anakin is still just as annoying, crying, sulking and whining as much as he did in the previous two films, the highlight of the movie was the last fight scene between Anakin and Obi-Wan, though the WAY OVERDONE CGI takes much away from the scene.
In the very end we finally see the familiar Darth Vader in black suit, worn actually by Christiansen. Sadly, the nostalgic sight it not enough to remove the pain viewers endured watching the would-be legend of Anakin Skywalker butchered by horrible movies, killing an icon before he was ever truly realized.
In the end we can see that certain characters are highly anticipated to be seen in movie theaters, but sometimes, they can disappoint fans, and damage the pre-existing movies that made us want to see them in the first place. The easiest way to make sure that doesn’t happen is
A) To have a story already in place before shooting…don’t write a movie that will interfere with continuity if you don’t know where it’s going (Georgie)
B) Have good writers take on the chore. A concept may be great, and it may have built in fans, but without a decent story and entertaining dialogue, it will RUIN potential legends before the credits roll!
Next up, my list of legends who SURPASSED our hopes when we finally see them onscreen!
*Some info and pictures from Wikipedia and Photbucket
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TheDurkinKnight
10/2/2009
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