Sunday, June 21, 2009

Weirdest movie ever? Maybe...maybe.

So I took myself to see Land of the Lost this week. I am not entirely sure I have words to describe it, but I will give it a go. Bizarre is definitely the first one that comes to mind.

So, I was expecting something campy and silly, and just a bit dumb--along the lines of Without a Paddle, or most of what Will Ferrell does. That is not what this movie is. Okay, the original series was a Saturday morning show aimed quite directly at children. I guess the producers were trying to draw in those same, now grown, children by giving it a more "adult" vibe this time around. So what we ended up with was a (rather lame) attempt at a raunchy sex comedy. With dinosaurs. And tachyons. Um. Yeah. Big fail on the part of the movie makers here. Not only did they completely kill anything that would have appealed to a broader child or family audience, they totally did not accomplish their goal to make the transition into adult comedy. The end result is something that can only really be appreciated by boys in the 11-15 age range.

I am a little too young to have watched the original series when it first came out, but I do remember that as a kid I did watch it (in reruns I am guessing) at some point, and I liked it. I don't actually remember anything about the show itself except that I liked it and there were dinosaurs. After watching the movie, I am actually fairly thankful for the lapse of memory. I have a feeling if I had remembered enough to get most of the references and in-jokes I would have walked out of that theater quite irked indeed.

Look, I am not saying I hated it. There were a few entertaining-ish moments. I am just saying that really, if they edited it down so that it was just the story about Marshall versus the T-Rex, everyone would be much happier with the end results.

The trip to the theater wasn't a complete waste though. There was a new (to me anyway) trailer for 9. Man I am so psyched for that it isn't even funny. As soon as my mother-in-law comes back into town I am going to see if I can reserve her to babysit on September 9. I am pretty sure I can't miss this one on the big screen. Seriously, this looks like such a cool movie. Here is the description of the movie from IMDB: A post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all of humanity is threatened.

That doesn't even start to capture the awesomeness, so you should check out the trailer here. It's like some weird reverse kind of Frankenstein. You know, post apocalypse. With puppets. How does that not kick ass? I am trying to decide if I want to track down the original short this is based on before I see the movie, but I am still torn as to whether or not that will be too spoilery.

Finally, I'll close with something else that occurred to me this week. Over the last year or two I've been hearing bits and dribbles about how Pixar is making an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series. This is the guy that wrote Tarzan in all of its original glory. He is a pioneer of science fiction and has been one of my favorite authors since I was in junior high at least. People may roll their eyes at Tarzan because it's been made so campy over the years, but those people just haven't read the books--because Tarzan is actually pretty dang awesome. As is John Carter, the central character of the Mars books.

So now the John Carter movie is finally in full production and I've been getting all kinds of news about it on the web, and I have been getting very excited about the upcoming movie. I noticed something this week that gave me pause though--this film is actually set to be Pixar's first live action film. I had somehow missed that until now. I started to get concerned, because really, with all of the different aliens and landscapes and such, this seems like a perfect film to be all CG. But I gave it some more thought and realized that "live action" is really just going to refer to the more human characters and the rest are probably still going to be largely CG. If anyone can blend the two seamlessly (and with all of the advances in CG over the last few years that's really not a question) without making it a distraction, Pixar should be up to the task. They have never produced anything that has disappointed me, so I am putting my faith in the trend continuing.

But once I started thinking about things that could go wrong with this adaptation, a whole new set of worries came to mind. The first book in the series, A Princess of Mars, was published in 1912. Burroughs shaped the landscape and cultures of Barsoom (the natives' term for the planet) based on the time's current beliefs about Mars. Most of those beliefs have long since been proven wrong. Mostly I am thinking of the "canals" or waterways scientists used to think covered the planet's surface. So now I am starting to wonder how Pixar is going to deal with those discrepancies. We know that the surface of Mars is nothing like it is described in this series. Are they going to update it? I almost hope they don't, and honestly am not sure how they could--the geography of the planet is indeed quite central the the stories. But will a modern audience accept such a fantastically wrong representation of the red planet? It seems like it's going to be much easier for them to handle all of the people and critters running around than the state of the planet itself. So yeah--see people, this is why adaptations aren't always good things. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to hope that Pixar places its trust in the audience's willingness to suspend disbelief and that, in turn, that hope is a justified one.

Anyhoo, that's all I've got for this week. I think I am going to catch the new Transformers flick this week, so hopefully next weekend I'll have my thoughts on that for you.

Till then, peace!


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