I’m not gonna spend time writing on how ridiculous this news bit I found out about. I’ll say I went to ComingSoon.Net and looked at films in the works with possible release dates through 2012. Stumbled upon one crazy ass piece: a movie based on the Stretch Armstrong movie. I kid you not. Even found a news article for it: Screen Rant.
Seriously?
Holloywood has come down to this. It’s bad enough that when looking at those movie released dates I stumbled on things such as A-Team, another Men in Black, RoboCop (yep, from what I understand, a semi-continuation, set 20 years later, since well, it has been twenty years, so yeah, we need another one?), oh and then there’s a new Footloose, and let’s not forget a new Karate Kid. Are there seriously no other ideas out there? Adapting comic books is one thing, and as long as it’s done right (such as with X-Men) a great thing, but remakes of existing movies, or long and drawn out sequel after sequel with nothing new (seriously, how many Saw movies do we need?), basing movies on previous TV Series (although, this is also not a bad thing, we really need a Veronica Mars movie, seriously. Sex and the City can do it, so can Veronica!), and the new craze: movies based on toys, but ones like GI Joe are workable, Stretch Armstrong? I apologize for how I’m ending the post with a bad pun, but aren’t we stretching it just a little bit?
I just want to make a quick comment to an article I just read from io9.com on the subject of today’s vampires in tv and film are weak and pathetic because of Joss Whedon’s Buffy.
This came up after this weekend’s new YouTube mash-up of Buffy taking on Edward Cullen (Buffy v Twilight). [The YouTube video is at end of this post in case you haven't watched].
I get the whole Buffy is a Vampire Slayer (thus the name of the show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and she is supposed to be doing just that, killing vamps and other creatures that go bump in the night. In the beginning it was all that, with the exception of Angel, whom she was ready to kill (and as we do know, does sacrifice his life in the end of the 2nd season to save the world), but the complication emerges: he’s got a soul. Sometimes, the best way to win is to know your enemy, what better way than to have an alliance with what is your natural enemy (in her case, Angel is a vampire, and vampires are her enemies).
But Angel is not the main attack in the article, it’s Spike. Yeah, he was real badass, and yes, I found it pathetic of him to follow Buffy around with puppy-dog eyes. Nontheless, even when he was still evil, she let him go on a deal she made in order to save the world (he helps her possibly destroy Angel, she let’s him and Drusilla go). Then again, in the 3rd season, Spike returns for one quick episode (interestingly, though, the DVDs for S3 actually has Spike on the disc, despite being in only one episode in that season) wanting a love spell done on Drusilla (another vampire, might I add), but withdraws from it all when he realizes all he’ll have to do is prove to her he is the same badass vamp (I believe to tie her up and torture her, or something to that note). Then he becomes a regular in the fourth season, having had a chip implanted making him unable to feed on humans. He still helped baddies that could defeat the Slayer, but ends up helping them fight demons because those are the only beings he could fight and kill (and he’s still a badass vampire that wants to do some killing).
The whole chip thing only made him unable to kill humans, and it can be seen that spending time with the Summers girls (hanging with Buffy’s mom watching Passions or watching over Buffy’s little sis, Dawn), w/o being able to kill, he gets to know them and finds humanity himself (which is what eventually leads to the end of the 6th season, him fighting to regain his soul).
True, there can be mushy moments, but Buffy giving into Spike in the 6th was her coping with dying, going to Heaven, and being ripped out of there by Willow, Anya, Tara, and Xander. She was lost, and did feel empty, and as she said in the show, he was “convenient,” and was being used.
Plus, she saw no reason to stake him, since he was no threat to humans (chip worked, just not on her, and he had no desire to kill her).
As for all the other shows, such as True Blood, depending on how much of the book does get retained, there’s more supernatural reason behind Bill’s (and also Eric’s) attraction to Sookie, and just from the season two opener, Eric is still very much badass (ripping that dude to bits). Also, in the Buffyverse, our two soulful vamps, don’t feed on humans, while in <True Blood, they very much still do, even if there is an alternative. True Blood also has a more political tone that is practically paralleled to our world today (Highly religious societies close-minded toward vampires is same as same such societies close-minded to homosexuals, using scare tactics to frighten the public (yep, that’s the same too) to get their ‘message’ across).
As for Twilight, yeah, Edward is a wuss. I mean come on, vampires fry in the sunlight, the whole sparkling thing, ehk, LAME. Not to mention the whole “I feel protective of you.” But remember, also, this series is targeted toward more so to young teenage girls, so there’s not gonna be a lot of blood and gore, which is present in HBO’s True Blood.
The point is, yes, vampires have taken a different turn, but doesn’t make them any less cool. Look at the Underworld trilogy, the first movie showed that they too had synthetic blood, and they live in the shadows as a high society, high-class, minimal feeding on humans (only a flashback mentioned anything of humans getting killed by vampires). Most of the killing in these movies, among their own kind (or Vampires killing Werewolves (Lycans) and vice versa). There’s no mention of sympathies to humans, but they do see them as lower beings, not worth their attention (at least, that’s what I got from them).
Okay, no more rambling, so onto the little Buffy vs Edward mash-up:
And a quick note, I happen to love vampire stuff. I was actually named after a Dark Shadows character, which was a popular daytime soap my mom loved as a kid that feature vampires, werewolves, witches, and ghosts. That’s why I love Supernatural, Buffy/Angel, and True Blood so much. I do find it somewhat disgusting knowing that Moonlight would’ve saw a second season, had it premiered a year later (last fall with True Blood and Twilight making their debuts), and because of this Twilight thing, we’re now gonna have Vampire Diaries on CW, and IFC are interested in bringing the Anita Blake series to film (I think as a TV-Movie, though it would benefit more on Showtime or something [not HBO, since they have True Blood, that may be too much]). So, yeah, CBS would definitely had kept Moonlight had it premiered in the 2008-2009 season to benefit from the increase in vampire interest. Now, I’ll end the ramblings.
Ohh, I can’t wait for the Ghostbusters video game. Here’s the trailer for it…
In other Ghostbusters news, there are still talks of a third Ghostbusters film, and apparently all the actors are on board, including Bill Murray (BTW, all the original Ghostbusters do voice in the game). The only actors that probably won’t be available is Rock Moranis, as he retired from acting sometime in the late 90s. One thing mentioned is the idea of a female buster, with Alyssa Milano thrown out there (who does voice in the game), and also, Dollhouse‘s Eliza Dushku.
Eliza Dushku herself recently tweeted that she’d be up for it (seriously, if someone’s schedule allowed, who would turn down a chance to be part of Ghostbusters?).
How cool is this, 25 years after one of the best movies to come out of the 80s (actually, it’s just one of the best movies, period), we get the game, and possibly, the start of a third film (which, if shooting starts this year, then that would mean a film should grace the big screen before 2011, (big rounding, since I don’t really know how long it could take, since movies shoot at different paces).
