“The numbers are the key to everything.”
The Scoop: 2009, PG-13 Directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury and Rose Byrne
Summary Capsule: MIT professor happens upon a sheet of numbers that predicts major disasters, including possibly the End of the World.
In the never-ending struggle of good versus evil, an eternal balance must be constantly maintained… at least as far as fiction is concerned. Conflict is the essence of drama, so for every power-hungry evil genius, there must be a muscle-bound monosyllabic gun-toting hero with a mysterious past to foil his elaborate plans. But in this miasma of heroes and villains, it’s the mirror image counterparts that stand out; the evil versions of our favorite heroes, possessed of all the abilities and strengths, but without the things like a sense of responsibility or compassion to balance them out. In a heroes world there’s nothing more disconcerting than to watch a darker version of yourself; the villain you might have become had you made different choices, wreaking havoc on the populace…but darned if it doesn’t make for some awesome stories… such as:
The topic for today’s Saturday Roundtable is this: If you could go back in time and be in charge of running the three Star Wars prequel movies (episodes 1-3), what would you do different? This is assuming that you HAVE to do them as prequels, you have to do three, and you can’t give a dismissive comment like “throw them in the trash”.
Start the discussion!
KYLE: First off, I certainly would NOT have wanted to see any of the cherished Original Trilogy characters as kids or anything ridiculous like that. But that doesn’t mean I would have cast Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as young action heroes. Each prequel film would have taken place in a different era, ranging from thousands to finally maybe a hundred years prior to Episode IV. I would have been a lot more interested in the very beginning of the Jedi and Sith orders, early on as prophecies are made and tenets to operate by are devised. That way you can still have occasional hints towards what will come later (”No one will EVER make this Kessel Run in less than 18 parsecs!” and “One Sith will walk openly, his master will remain in shadows; no one will suspect their identity until it is TOO LATE!” and so on). I would be a lot more interested in the universe at large versus the origins of the handful of heroes and villains that decided the fate of their galaxy. I’m sure to play to the fans slightly that third prequel film would namedrop a couple lineages, or more likely show the origins of the man who would become Emperor Palpatine. Lots more moral gray areas and suspicious motivations, rather than the bland ineptness of the Jedi Order and far-too-easy manipulations of the Sith. How about you?
The topic on the table today is this: What movies were so cool to you as a kid, but now you are embarrassed to be in the same room as them?
Let’s hear what the Mutants have to say!
Mike: It’s funny, a friend of mine actually coined a term for this phenomena: Darkman Syndrome. It’s a weird category here. Mortal Kombat at the time it came out was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and upon seeing it more recently I literally cringed at the crappy CGI, atrocious dialogue, and wooden acting, but alternatively, Howard the Duck has only improved in my estimation. Go fig.
“I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
The Scoop: 2008 PG-13 Directed by Pierre Morel and starring Liam Neeson and Famke Janssen
Tagline: They took his daughter. He’ll take their lives.
Summary Capsule: EX CIA spook goes on a 90 minute killing spree to get back his kidnapped daughter.
It will come as a surprise to no one that’s known me for more than five minutes that I love movies. I watch them repeatedly, it bothers me when people get movie quotes wrong (particularly when I do it myself), I practically foam at the mouth at the prospect of a midnight premier and I even love the trailers for upcoming films as much as the feature presentation sometimes. What most people don’t really guess about me is the magic that encapsulates movies for me. Growing up semi-poor I didn’t get to go to the movies very often, so it was a special treat. I vaguely remember seeing The Jungle Book and Return of the Jedi when I was 5 and 6 respectively, but the first movie I vividly remember seeing was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 4th grade, age 9. I was hooked. To this day, whenever I sit down in a theater and the lights drop, and the screen lights up and the music rises, I get a chill and there I am, 9 years old again, about to get taken away to another world.
“None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!”
The Scoop: 2008 R, Directed by Zach Snyder, Starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.
Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?
Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.
