Movie Idea #386

Okay, here's my latest movie idea.

We saw V for Vendetta last night, and it gave me an idea. Not on the political themes or anything, but in the way it presents V.

I thought wouldn't it be cool to do a typical, traditional style superhero movie (think Spiderman), except you don't get to know who the superhero is?

So you're introduced to a bunch of people, teenage kids, whatever, and the girl keeps running into the superhero, kinda like Spiderman from Mary Jane's perspective. And then, at the end, he pulls off the mask, and you find out who it is as well as the character.

The idea being aside from it being a generic superhero movie, you're also guessing who the hero is, and never quite seeing the whole story (so no origin story or any of that stuff, because you don't see it from the hero's perspective, just from what the other characters see).

I reckon it'd be quite cool to see a movie where the superhero isn't seen through anybody but the other characters around him/her. And you could pull a pretty good twist ending with who it is. Have all the signs point to one person then it turn out to be another.

It'd make an awesome film. Should totally be our summer film project.

A Certain Time...

There comes a certain time in your life when you just have to sit back and say....




Jurassic Park.




What a movie!



I mean, seriously.


No, I haven't watched it again. It just came up in conversation. And wow. Just wow. Anybody remember what it was like to see that film for the first time? Actually see dinosaurs. Like, wow, real dinosaurs! So, sure, they weren't real, but in 1993 when you were six years old, they sure as hell looked it.

Real dinosaurs. A proper adventure, where everything felt oddly real (no stupid over the top stunts, trying to survive, quiet moments as well as fast ones), scary monsters, T-Rexs, those raptors, that suddenly became the coolest thing in existance when you were that age. It was just the best thing in the world, watching that at six.

That's what film making is about! Wouldn't it be awesome to one day make something like that for people? Stupid film course makes you think about films as an art and stuff. But that's not what it's about really.

It's all about Jurassic Park.

And there comes a time in everybody's life when they realise that, yes, Jurassic Park truly was awesome.

Unless you haven't seen it, at which point you suck.

I'd also like to point out that yes, I was very tempted to just finish this blog after "What a movie!" and see what people made of it. It would be funny, at least.

Serenity Top 20 Quotes

Okay. My copy of the DVD is temporarily lent out, but you know, I can still do this! 20 funny quotes from one (non-comedy) film. Should be easy!

1. WASH: "This landing's going to get pretty interesting." MAL: "Define interesting." WASH: "God, oh God, we're all going to die?"
2. WASH: "It's okay! I'm a leaf on the wind!" MAL: "What does that even mean!?"
3. OPERATIVE: "I want to settle this like civilised men. I'm not threatening you. I'm unarmed." MAL: "Good!" (MAL shoots him) .
4. JAYNE: "We can't be thinking on revenge if we're gonna get through this." ZOE: "Do you really think any of us are going to get through this?" JAYNE: "....I might..."
5. MAL: "Do you want to run this ship!?" JAYNE: "Yes!" MAL: "....Well.....you can't!"
6. JAYNE: "Gee, it sure would be nice if we had some GRENADES right now, don't ya think?" (Okay, that one only works in context).
7. JAYNE: "I'll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight. Or if he bothers me. Or if there's a woman. Or if I'm getting paid. Mostly just when I'm getting paid."
8. KAYLEE: "We're going on a year now, and I ain't had nothing twixt my nethers that weren't run on batteries." MAL: "Oh God! I can't know that!" JAYNE: "...I could stand here a little longer."
9. MR UNIVERSE: "I cried like a baby. A hungry, angry baby."
10. MAL: "Remember, if anything happens to me, or if I'm not back within the hour, you take this ship, and you come, and you rescue me." ZOE: "What, and risk my ship?"
11. MAL: "Dear Buddha. Please bring me a pony, and plastic rocket..." (Much funnier when you see him in the costume...)
12. OPERATIVE: "You can't make me angry." INARA: "Please. Spend an hour with him."
13. MAL "...and if I'm wrong, you best shoot me now." (RIVER cocks the gun at him) "...Or we could talk more..."
14. KAYLEE: "I didn't plan on going out like this." SIMON: "I didn't plan any of this. All I wanted to do was keep River safe. I spent so much time on Serenity, denying anything I wanted. And my one regret in all of this...is never being with you." KAYLEE: "You mean to say...as in....sex?" SIMON: "I mean to say." KAYLEE "....To hell with this! I'm gonna live!"
15. KAYLEE: "But how can you be sure Inara don't just wanna see you? Sometimes people have feelings..... I'm referring here to people." MAL "Well, you were watching, weren't you?" (Everybody nods) MAL: "Did you see us fight?" (Everybody shakes their heads) MAL: "Trap."
16. INARA: "We have every reason to be afraid." JAYNE: "What? 'cause this guy beat up Mal? That ain't so hard!" MAL: "He didn't beat me up. Nobody's saying that."
17. MR UNIVERSE: "From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'verse. That's my motto. Or it would be. If I started having a motto."
18. OPERATIVE: "Do you really believe that?" MAL: "I do." OPERATIVE: "You willing to die for that belief?" MAL: "I am." (MAL shoots at the OPERATIVE) MAL: "'course, that ain't exactly plan A."
19. MAL: "Doctor, I've taken your sister under my protection here. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly. There could be tears."
20. MAL: "What was that?" (Another one that only works in context, but a great finishing line).

And there you have it. 20 comical lines from one movie that isn't even a comedy. You'll notice I renamed my blog after one. I just thought it was a good title for a blog.

Now that I've completely ruined almost every funny moment in Serenity for people, and probably forgotten some of the obvious ones, I can take a break. Maybe I should do a list of Firefly quotes too...

This Is One Dull Entry

So, it's been a while since I bothered writing anything on here. Mainly because I haven't had much to say of interest. I've finalised my house now and paid the deposit. So it's ours. That's nice. Need to set up a shared bank account to pay the bills but that won't be a problem. I have to pay for it over the summer too which is a bit of a pain, but it means I can come up here whenever I want, which is quite neat.

In other news, Serenity is finally out on DVD in this country. Two and a half months after the American release date, but there you go. And it really is a fantastic film. Better than most of the crap released in 2005, and in my opinion the best film out that year. Of course, not that it gets any recognition, it doesn't seem to be overly popular. Which is a shame. Means we won't get any more Serenity movies.

(Urr, if you don't care about Serenity, skip this!)

Funnily enough when we first watched it we said (me and Cooper) how it was just like the TV series was carrying on, and the cast were just back doing a feature length episode. At least at first, before the second half. Watching it again I noticed this isn't really true. It's interesting, but they really evolved the characters like a long period of time had passed. And I actually found it interesting some of the reasons for this. People who know me know I always dream of being a writer of some kind, so it's nice to find out why they make these writing decisions.

Turning Mal moodier for example they give the reasoning that it won't make a good movie if he starts the hero and ends the hero. Since he was already pretty heroic in the TV show, they decided to make it like in the time between the show and the movie he had been pushed a lot harder, so was much more on edge. Makes the evolution into a hero at the end better, see? It's the kind of thing you can forget when writing (hell, Hollywood forgets often enough, heroes seem to rarely develop these days in action films). And I thought it was pretty interesting they come up with all this reasoning behind why they do things.

It also taught me a strange contrast between TV and film. Or Fox and Universal. When they made Firefly, if you listen to the commentaries, they say how Fox felt Mal was too cruel, and asked Joss Whedon to make him funnier to make him more likable (interesting that he wasn't originally funny, since his humour is kinda key to who he is...). So obviously they did this. Universal on the other hand told Whedon to cut out scenes (which are on the DVD) where there are too many jokes in a row at Mal's expense, and they say nobody will give him credibility as a hero after that.

Since I said I was interested in writing, I kinda took this as interesting. And dare I say it, 'cause it scares me to do so, I agree with Fox, not Universal. I can't see people not taking him seriously because of the funnier scenes (and I really wish they kept them in). I'm certain the humour of Firefly is what lifted it to being such a fantastic series. And it's what makes everybody love it (and love the characters). So I reckon from the story writing perspective, I'd go with Fox's ideas, I think people would him more with even those extra funny scenes.

Little things like this make me think about how I write though, and how different people will take things differently. I mean, how can you write for production studios when they differ what they think? I think I'm only just beginning to appreciate the complexities of writing in real life. Which is why I'm kind of glad I didn't really think of taking it as a career. I'd hate that kind of meddling, even if they were right.

'course, I'd have to be good first anyway, but the point remains.

I also find myself appreciating some of the awesome shots in Serenity. You know they're awesome when they're hard to notice they're done so smoothly, but when you spot them you think they're great.

Oh, and sorry for this blog, which is just very very dry, to be honest, but I just wanted to update so yackled on about some stuff I was thinking about. And I'm too tired to do something witty. So sorry for the dryness. I'll do something amusing soon.