First Draft - 'Warhead'

If I were to explain the full background behind 'Warhead', the infamous unofficial James Bond film that never was and yet eventually became 'Never Say Never Again', this website would crash from the sheer amount of text that would fill the screen.......but I'll try for the cliff notes version.

Essentially, a producer named Kevin McClory was determined, even as far back as the 1950's to make a film that nobody had seen before; a lavish epic which would showcase both the lush beauty of the Bahamas and provide thrilling underwater action photography. Ian Fleming's literary creation of James Bond seemed tailor made for the idea and so the two joined forces to craft the first Bond film screenplay, 'Thunderball'. After the film was initially unable to get off the ground, Fleming rather foolishly took the finished screenplay and turned it into his next Bond novel without the permission or consent of McClory, leading to a plethora of legal battles which dogged the fate of the character on screen for the next four decades as the producers of the official James Bond film series persistently fought off McClory's attempts to create not only a rival Bond film but maybe a whole series as well. Right in the middle of this was 'Warhead'.

In some ways 'Warhead' was just intended to be a remake of 1965's 'Thunderball' (which McClory co-produced with legendary Bond producers Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman). In other ways 'Warhead' was intended to be the Bond film to end all Bond films, an action adventure epic which outdid even the underwater spectacle of 'Thunderball' and brought about the triumphant return of the one and only Sean Connery to the role. There is no doubt that McClory's intent was to make a film that left the official series in the dust and ensure the mass audience would never return to a Roger Moore entry.

The reason it is so interesting to look at the 142 page first draft of 'Warhead' dated September 1978 from the perspective of time is not just because of the film that was never made but also because of the film that it eventually became; 1983's 'Never Say Never Again'. As you may be aware, a rival Bond film starring Sean Connery was released in the same year as an official Roger Moore entry and yet the latter actually made more money overall, the official Bond series did not fizzle away into oblivion and he we are anxiously awaiting the fate of the 23rd installment starring (God willing) Daniel Craig. Clearly, McClory's finished film was not the knock-out punch he intended. Was the finished film dramatically different from the original script? Was McClory's vision hampered by legal or economic constraints? Is 'Warhead' the film that should have been made?

Well having read it and as much as I might like to say otherwise, 'Warhead' (bar a gloriously insane third act) is a film best left unmade.

The script's very first page sets the tone perfectly; an almost blank page with nothing but the words 'pre-title sequence - to be written'. Now to be fair, a great many of the official Bond films probably had the very same page in their first drafts as the filmmakers would research all manner of incredible concepts that could start the latest film with a bang (not to mention outdo the previous movie) and often not make their decision until well into production. As such, 'Warhead's first scene involves a sea plane travelling through the Bermuda Triangle and being the unfortunate victim of a gigantic, but mobile, underwater city called Aquapolis, which rises out of the sea and essentially sits on the aircraft to capture it, one of many which have suffered the same fate. I know what you're thinking. You've seen something like that in a Bond film before.

Bond history tells us that production of the 10th official film, 'The Spy Who Loved Me' was almost halted because of its striking similarities to McClory's script (even though that film was released in 1977 and the first draft of 'Warhead' is dated 1978). Essentially, the only similarity is that the villain in both pieces lives in an elaborate underwater lair, is obsessed with the ocean and intends to use nuclear weapons to deter the rest of humanity from further harming it. This is a major issue to be sure but none of 'Spy's set pieces, locations, actual plot or charm and good dialogue are to be found in 'Warhead'. The edge it does have over 'Spy' is in the triumphant return of arch enemy Ernst Stavros Blofeld and the SPECTRE organization.

As a passionate Bond fan, I was truly hoping that this would be the grand epic finale of the Bond vs. Blofeld storyline which ran across the Connery films. Though Brocoli and Saltzman always made sure to make their films as satisfying as possible for an audience and deliver on expectations, the only time I feel they really failed was when it most mattered; at the climax of that storyline in the official series.

Though out of continuity with the Fleming books, SPECTRE is first mentioned in 'Dr. No' by the title character as the organization he works for and thus setting up its prominence throughout the rest of the series. SPECTRE chief Blofeld is seen (or rather unseen) subsequently in both 'From Russia With Love' and 'Thunderball' as the grand architect of a chess game in which Bond is merely a nuisance and a pawn, and world domination is the goal. In 'You Only Live Twice', Bond finally comes to face to face with Blofeld in all his scarred, cat stroking glory. Blofeld escapes only to confront Bond again in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' where the criminal mastermind makes sure that our hero pays a price for his interference by murdering Bond's wife Tracy.

Heading into the next installment, 'Diamonds Are Forever', the audience was amped up for the potential of a revenge crazed Bond tearing down the remnants of SPECTRE in order to pay back Blofeld. After the spectacle of underwater battles, ski chases and volcano lairs, we expected the biggest set piece in Bond history. Nothing less would do for the final battle between Bond and Blofeld. Instead, we got a piddling skirmish on an oil rig involving some truly awful special effects (helicopters blow up not with pyrotechnics or models but with the explosion painted over the vehicle) and an ambiguous fate for the SPECTRE mastermind who is left dangling from a crane in his private submersible.

'Warhead', unfortunately, is unable to provide that satisfactory resolution either as it seems to exist in some strange state of continuity with the official series. The Bond of this script is mentioned to have dealt with SPECTRE before but has never met or seen Blofeld before. Bond's wife is never mentioned. Even based on the potential of the two characters meeting for the first time, there is no antagonism between them. Blofeld is mentioned early on, in his legitimate facade, to be an expert backgammon player, clearly setting up that classic showdown every Bond film must have between the protagonist and antagonist in a casino/party environment. But Bond is captured on his way to the game and it never takes place. The script delivers that final showdown only in that Bond and Blofeld face off in a very colourful, elaborate climax where the latter is disposed of once and for all.

I know you're wondering why I'm skipping to the climax of the script already when I've barely mentioned the first two acts. That is because there is so little to say. It's an almost beat for beat clone of 'Thunderball'. Locations are changed in that Shrublands (the English health farm where Bond is on R&R and the plot coincidentally kicks off) is now a scuba training school in the Bahamas but the events that happen there are exactly the same. From there, we head back to Blofeld's underwater Aquapolis for a painful stretch of 10-20 pages which almost kills the entire piece.

The scenes of SPECTRE's business meetings and conference calls, deliberately mimicking that of any large corporation, were always fun to watch in the original films because they were straight laced satire but also kept the plot moving forward. The 'Warhead' script gets far too carried away with the idea and drones on for several pages on both Blofeld's convoluted plot to take control of the oceans, destablize the world governments and threaten them with nuclear weapons, as well as quarterly reports from SPECTRE agents across the globe regarding operations that have nothing to do with the main story.

So much of 'Warhead' is spent describing SPECTRE's hi-tech underwater vehicles stealing or destroying other vehicles, planting bombs, moving into position or being built and it's extremely boring stuff. The good humour and character interaction that would propel other Bond films through that is completely absent from this completely mechanical script.

The character of Bond himself has very little personality to speak of. As written, he has neither the ruthless efficiency of Connery's Bond nor the wit and charm of Moore's. He has no particularly heroic moments nor does he take the initiative at any stage to figure out the plot before either the audience or the rest of the characters. For the most part Bond isn't even carrying out the mission by himself, CIA pal Felix Leiter acting as his partner. It certainly makes you appreciate 'Never Say Never Again' more; a film which added the fantastic element of presenting a James Bond seemingly out of synch and touch with the modern world, removed from his former job as a '00' agent, forced to cut down on his lavish lifestyle, put back into action out of his government's desperation and yet still managing to show that nobody does it better.

But it is the female characters who suffer most in 'Warhead'. The first one we meet is Bond's personal scuba instructor who goes by the name of Justine Lovesit (which prompts a response of "does she?" from Bond) and it just gets worse from there. The role of SPECTRE double agent Fatima Blush is a complete black hole of personality, totally devoid, of the unhinged sexual energy which would be brought to the part by Barbara Carrera when she played the part in 'Never Say Never Again'. She swoons over Bond to get close to him but the script never quite makes it clear whether she is an evil assassin ready to stick a knife in him or whether she has genuinely fallen our hero. Most fatally of all, the main heroine Domino is revealed in this script to be Fatima's twin sister who boringly wants revenge on Blofeld, makes out with Bond in their first scene together, gets captured soon afterwards and doesn't show up again until she needs to be rescued in the finale.

But what a finale we get. The big reveal in Blofeld's master plan turns out to be the use of robotic sharks to transport explosives through the sewers of New York. In the space of about 30 pages, we go from Bond chasing after those sharks and playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Blofeld's henchman Genghis, to a military assault on SPECTRE's Statue of Liberty headquarters. Since our mind's would still be intact at this point, Blofeld escapes the statue and onto Aquapolis where Bond engages him in a final duel in the mobile underwater metropolis. The only disappointment is that Bond manages to defeat Blofeld by pure luck, accidentally pressing a button which seals the evil genius in a tube and then shoots him into the ocean.

It is grandiose, it's absurd, it is the kind of glorious action lunacy which we simply do not get on screen anymore, not even in Bond films. But it was not enough to redeem the rest of what I read. If 'Warhead' had been made as intended in the late 70's, I strongly feel, however happy audiences would have been to see Connery return, that the film would have served only as a stale reminder of all the reasons he grew dissatisfied with the series in the first place as well as how the official series never lost sight of the need to move with the times. 'Warhead's is best left as a curious relic of its own time.

First Draft - 'Daredevil: The Man Without Fear'

You need something to take your mind of Superman news this week don't you? Hopefully I have just the thing.

'Daredevil' is one of those comic book movies which still inspires debate over its merits and faults with no clear consensus as to its overall quality. As you can read in my piece from the 'Marveling at the Past' series, I think some sections the film are note perfect while others completely fail in every way. The result is a flawed film but one made with such passion for the character that it actually got me reading Daredevil comics for the first time and beginning my own love for the character. You may look at the film as a Daredevil fan yourself and wonder how they could have screwed up so much, that it would not be possible to make a worse film.

Trust me, it was possible.

Back in the mid 1990's, the first rumblings of Daredevil's long development process began when none other than Chris Columbus attached himself to the project (while hoping to helm 'The Fantastic Four' at the same time evidently). I never knew at the time why his take on Daredevil never got off the ground. Reading his first draft screenplay makes it practically self evident.

The screenplay we are looking at today is the 128 page first draft written by Chris Columbus & Carlo Carlei dated September 18th 1996. It is quite an interesting read in that the basic structure of the finished film is laid here and you assume that Mark Steven Johnson used it as inspiration to craft the final shooting script. It also gives you, whether you like the film or not, a deeper appreciation for what ended up on screen as this draft exposes all of Columbus' weaknesses as a writer.

On the positive side, Columbus in no way intends for 'Daredevil' to be a small scale piece. The action is well written and the set pieces are varied, broad and big. But Columbus also gives us a comic book movie which repeats cliche upon cliche, contains clunky dialogue, characters we don't care about, very little substance and what it does have to say is spelled out for the audience with a speech bubble and an exclamation mark in the true spirit of a cheesy 1960's Marvel comic.

The story begins, not with the dramatic hook of the adult Matt Murdock bleeding to death after his battle with Elektra and Bullseye, but immediately taking us to his upbringing as a young boy in the grimy streets of Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, New York. Within the first few pages, we sense something is not right. The Matt Murdock we meet is a boy who steals a nightstick from a beat cop on a 'dare' (geddit?) from some bullies. That same evening Matt's father, down and out boxer Jack 'The Devil' Murdock returns home. Matt is hoping to keep his unlawful antics quiet from his father but Jack already knows and promptly smacks his son in the face. In the very next scene, this child beating asshole, whom we're supposed to care about in a little while when he dies, gives Matt a speech on integrity, truth and justice clearly being the personification of all those traits.

Firstly, Jack's function in the Daredevil mythology is to act as the inspiration for everything Matt does later in life. Jack teaches his son the importance of never giving up, of faith, of sticking up for the little guy, and never lets him forget that he can really become someone important no matter his upbringing. His introductory scene in the finished film accomplished all of this in a grounded way. Jack encourages his son at every moment to be a better human being than his father is. In that sort of self loathing, we find something endearing about the character. We understand why Matt loves is father and we understand why Daredevil comes to exist. The Jack of this script serves no function save the cliche found in so many other comic book movies; to send his son into the world to fight evil for no reason. Though he is meant to be a bum from New York, Jack's pompous little sermon to his son smacks more of Jor-El or Uncle Ben Parker.

Jack's other function in the script is to get brutally murdered in an alley to set his son on a course of vengeance but this is handled even worse. As I think I've made clear, we don't care about Jack and we don't care about Matt much either. You would think that Matt's fatal accident with radioactive waste which blinds him would create some sympathy but he adjusts so ridiculously well to it in this script, as though it is the best thing that ever happened to him. He even says as much at one point. You are reminded of that scene in 'The Mask' where Jim Carrey says "with these powers I could become....A SUPER HERO".

As in the comics, the script has Jack allying himself with brutal mobster 'The Fixer' who promises to personally ensure the boxer's rise to the top but is actually controlling the fights, making sure the opponents take a fall and then demands the same of Jack. As it plays out in the comics and the finished film, Jack refuses to take the fall, knowing full well he will die for it but willing to do so to continue to be an example to his son and ensure he continues on the right path. Jack is murdered in a back alley by 'The Fixer' and his goons, most notably chief henchman Wilson Fisk, the man who will become the Kingpin of crime and Matt Murdock, a scared and helpless blind child is left completely alone in the world. As an audience, you can really admire Matt as a character for the simple reason that he pulled himself out of that nightmare, managed to survive and make his father proud.

In this script, however, it doesn't quite work that way. When 'The Fixer' reveals how staged Jack's amazing comeback has been all along and that he must now throw his next fight, the character seems to reject it more as a matter of personal pride than duty to his son. Again, Jack's character is so badly written that we just do not care when he dies. Worse than that, his death does not take place until Matt is in college, having already met soon to be best friend Foggy Nelson. We are robbed of even the pathos of a little boy cradling his dead father, of that desperation, isolation and utter loneliness......because he isn't alone and he isn't a child.

Nor are we afforded a moment of grim realism and mourning as Matt, having discovered his father's body, practically runs into the nearest phone booth and puts on the original yellow Daredevil costume for the first time to hunt down 'The Fixer'. The following sequence is almost identical to that in the finished film where the more established Daredevil hunts down rapist scum bag Jose Quesada and corners him on a subway platform. Though they both contain the exciting concept of portraying the character literally as a devil stalking his prey and knowing its every move, practically enjoying taunting it, only the finished film shows us that blurred line Daredevil walks as a ruthless vigilante not afraid to truly punish evil. Instead of a dramatic scenario where a young man looks his father's killer in the eye, having hunted him down by abusing the powers he has been given, and questions whether he can show the same ruthlessness as was shown to Jack, the script cops out and has 'The Fixer' die of a heart attack having been scared to death by the devil (the fact that Matt is wearing the yellow Daredevil costume only makes this more absurd).

This scenario does, however, provide a good set-up for the Kingpin. The idea that he was the henchman that killed Matt's father was a poorly explained afterthought in the finished film. Here, Wilson Fisk's rise to power is given almost as much exposure as Daredevil's crime fighting career. In fact Fisk is probably the only character in the script that really works and honours the source material. Though it has no time to delve into the stories which really gave depth to him in the comics such as his relationship with his wife, the Kingpin of this script is exactly as he should be; ruthlessly efficient, smart, focused and five steps ahead of everyone else in his organization. To be fair, the Kingpin of the actual movie has barely any screen time so anything would be a step up from that.

Don't be thinking that Kingpin is perfectly handled though. As you can tell, there is a running theme of botching things in this script. Kingpin's ascent to power is described in the script as a montage similar to 'Rocky III' intercut with Daredevil's continued war on crime as he dons the classic red suit. The only montage that came to my mind while reading it was the one in 'Dick Tracy' where Al Pacino's Big Boy Caprice takes control of the city and rolls around in money to a jazzy Stephen Sondheim ballad. Secondly, though he is meant to be both a legitimate businessman and the secret top crime boss of Manhattan, there is very little distinction made between Wilson Fisk and the Kingpin in the script and very little evidence to show that precautions are taken to protect him from the law. Finally, as a crime boss in the broadest sense, you name the cliche that would come with that and you get it here. Of course Kingpin loves dollar bills. Of course he smashes his desk in anger. Of course there is a scene where Kingpin assembles his mob lieutenants and one of them is an old school hood who disagrees with the way Fisk handles business for no reason at all save that we can see our man villain kill him right there and then.

Bullseye, however, is a different matter. His character is so completely mishandled that you grow tired of him the second he appears in the script. He is both completely insane and yet totally dull at the same time as he has no actual personality and very little is made of his actual talent for killing with deadly accuracy. His function in the script is actually to provide its message and moral centre, what painfully little there is. Bullseye arrives in the second act, blows up a building and is promptly defeated, but not killed, by Daredevil. In an absurd scene following this, Bullseye is put on trial but found innocent due to purely circumstantial evidence (the fallibility of the justice system being rammed down our throat) and walks free only to kill again. This time his target is Elektra's father Nicholas Natchios and the pain and separation Matt and her endure after this leads to the question of whether Daredevil should have killed Bullseye to avoid it. It is an uninteresting question and no answer is provided regardless.

You'll notice I haven't even really mentioned Elektra yet. That's because she feels like an afterthought in this script. She comes in about half way through and while Columbus appears to have read 'The Elektra Saga', he clearly has no idea why it resonated with readers. I've said it before but it bears repeating. Elektra's story is one of violence, vengeance and hatred corrupting the soul beyond repair. Matt and Elektra's love was built to last but torn apart by one devastating act of violence towards her father which drove them apart. When she comes back into his life it is at the exact moment he has managed to put her in the past and while he desperately wants to bring Elektra back to the light, Matt is now fighting someone beyond recognition. In the finished film, Elektra serves as a ray of light in Matt's life at the exact moment that he needs it, only making the moment when it is stripped away all the more painful. Both versions work very well.

The way Matt and Elektra meet in this script, the way they interact and the way they hint at each other's double identities feels like a pale imitation of the Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle relationship in 'Batman Returns' except that there is no hint of chemistry, sexual tension or even the slightest appeal between the two. If you don't have that, 'The Elektra Saga' is not going to work. The script's biggest misfire is saved for her character. The most vitally important thing about Elektra was always that she made her own choices. Even as she walked away from Murdock, chose violence and death over love and companionship, stayed on that course even as Matt tried to pull her back, and went so far down the path of no return that she agreed to be the Kingpin's top assassin and take out Foggy Nelson, they were her choices.

In this script, we are first treated to a bizarre scene where the Kingpin proposes marriage to Elektra, during her father's funeral no less, and then drugs and kidnaps her. When Elektra storms into the third act as the master assassin we think we recognise, she is only fighting Daredevil because she has been drugged and brainwashed, both weakening her character and taking away the most interesting thing about watching the two former lovers fight - that they both know who they are fighting and why. Even before this stunning turn of events I had actually given up on the script. As it desperately tries to shoe-horn in a little of the storyline from probably the most highly regarded Daredevil comic storyline 'Born Again', in which the Kingpin finds out the secret identity of Matt Murdock and brings his life crashing cown on him piece by piece in the most beautifully orchestrated revenge plot, we are choked with exposition on the secret backgrounds of both Elektra and Wilson Fisk.

More than being quite a mess of a screenplay, Columbus' take on Daredevil is mostly a long and dreary read with all sorts of bits and pieces stolen from the ten comic book movies he must have watched before writing it. Most of what makes the character interesting has been stripped away. Beloved comic book storylines are butchered in ways that make 'X-Men: The Last Stand's adaptation of 'The Dark Phoenix Saga' feel reverential in comparison. And it has nothing to say. It is a film about nothing. It is a 90's comic book movie in the worse way; the reason why the genre was so derided before films like 'Blade' and 'X-Men' made us believe again.

You might just want to pop Mark Steven Johnson's film in your DVD player this weekend and thank heaven for small mercies.

First Draft - 'King Conan: Crown Of Iron'

Well, we ran out of Marvel movies for the time being so I'm here to welcome you to a brand new series of articles on TMT. If there is a running theme in every piece I write it is that of lost potential, of a single film or series that delivered only a fraction of what it could have been. Though I have had many problems with the Marvel movies, at least they actually got made. You are able to appreciate the fact that, with the truth of how hard it is to make any film, a studio was able to put the comics of your youth up on the silver screen.

Far more frustrating is the potential of a film unmade, something that is so well written you can conjure the movie in your head and drown in its awesomeness, only to open your eyes and accept the truth that the film you wish existed only does so as a stillborn PDF document on your computer. In this new series of articles, we shall explore some of the great un-produced scripts of the action/sci-fi/fantasy genre. We shall ask ourselves whether they still hold up today, whether there is still hope they could be produced, and in some cases how they compare to the finished film. Looking back, I think I was far too angry throughout my Marvel series (a byproduct of having to sit through rubbish films I suppose). This new series, I hope, is going to be one of passion, love and hope.

So there is no better subject to start with than, most likely, the film I wish to be made more than any other; 'King Conan: Crown Of Iron'.

I absolutely adore the original 1982 'Conan The Barbarian' and have been pleased to see that the audience appears to grow for it as the decades go on. The film was an ironic victim of its own huge success in that it was followed immediately by a slew of lesser sword and sorcery movies (though I confess myself a guilty admirer of a few of them) which Conan was then lumped in with. A fair few people probably confuse the first film with its deeply inferior sequel 'Conan The Destroyer', a lighter, sillier movie which might as well have taken place in a different universe than the intoxicating, gritty world created by director John Milius in the original. We have never seen a return to the Conan I fell in love with.

It looked as though this was going to change back in 2001 when Warner Bros. was gearing up to produce a proper Conan sequel with Schwarzenegger returning, the Wachowski Brothers producing and, most importantly, John Milius writing and directing the film. Milius' first draft of the script was completed in May 2001, went through subsequent revisions and then vanished without trace. But the movie gods were not even kind enough to simply pitch the project back into the fires of development hell. Thanks largely to Arnold's movie into politics, any chance of the film being made was obliterated there and then.

All we can do is read, weep and curse Crom that we were denied something that, I believe, would not only have been a worthy successor to the original but would have gone beyond it as well as redefine the concept of what a 'sword and sorcery' film can be and maybe even bring that whole genre back from the dead.

Though I am reliably informed that Milius' subsequent drafts of the script were much improved, I have chosen to focus on the weighty 167 page first draft. It's overly long, has a lot of unnecessary scenes, a few too many characters and lacks a proper three act structure. But it is also pure, unchained John Milius poetry. Like the original film, this is an epic which takes place over decades. Like the original, this is a film with something to say. Actually it has a lot to say. You get the feeling that Milius has been crafting this story in his head for the entire twenty year gap between the first film and this. He throws everything into it. Every theme he wants to explore, every line of dialogue, every twisted image, every action sequence he didn't put Conan through in the first film, is here.

Though conventional screenplay logic equates one page equal to a minute of screentime, Milius' clearly does not submit to it. This is a three and a half to four hour juggernaut to rival the grandest epics of the 1950's, only with a lot more cleaving and whores.

And I would not have it any other way.

The Conan we meet at the start of the script, travelling the barren wilderness of the land of the Picts, is certainly an older and wiser one. He is wise enough at least to understand the mortality of man and the seeming futility of everything he does while the gods allow him to walk the Earth. This world is a dark and merciless place where men and women seem to emerge from the womb and straight onto the battlefield. We fight, we suffer, we hurt, we lose the ones we love, and that's if we are lucky enough to live that long. Then we can only hope that others will tell our stories after we are gone and that those stories are worthy to tell. Conan is looking for something to leave behind after he is gone, something to pass on.

This is why, in what would seem an utterly bizarre scene coming from anyone else's typewriter, Conan meets a mysterious temptress in the very first scene referred to as the daughter of the snows who offers to bear Conan a child. Conan immediately accepts but is told that he must first 'bring her the jewels of an empire' before he can claim his son. Conan begins a career of piracy and pillage before his talents bring him to the attention of the mighty Aquilonian Empire and its tribune Gaius Metallus with an offer to fight for them.

Years pass by in a matter of pages and battle montages as Conan rises through the ranks of the Aquilonian military machine and they conquer what is left of the free world. Eventually, not only does Conan have the wealth he requires, but his success in battle has made him well known and respected throughout the empire and allows Metallus, whom he now has a strong and respectful bond with, to rise in rank as well and become the right hand to the Emperor. Out of that respect, Metallus allows Conan to return to Pictland to claim his son confident that he will return to the empire afterwards having now been given command of his own legion.

Even though it is not a great shock that he turns out to be one of the major villains of the piece, Metallus comes across as a very well defined character and we really enjoy the time we spend with him. Rather than trying to replace or top James Earl Jones' Thulsa Doom, Milius presents us with a much different villain. The enemy in 'King Conan' is not a sorcerer or a demented cult but the unstoppable tide of civilisation itself. The Aquilonian Empire not only consumes but seduces and transforms Conan from wild and untamed savage into civilised politician and patsy, and Metallus is its instrument.

Over the course of their years in battle, Metallus slowly bestows rank and privilege upon Conan, getting him used to the idea of power. Like Conan, Metallus was an orphan of common blood who battled his way to success but, thanks probably to his imperial upbringing, is far more inclined to accept prestige. In Metallus we see what Conan would have become if he were so easily tamed. But in their scenes together we do sense the beginnings of what could have been a very powerful friendship had Metallus not put his empire before anything else. He says himself to Conan's face that he has lost his soul to Aquilonia and the way their bond disintegrates over the course of the story is quite effective. Metallus' character challenges the very meaning of honour and loyalty as, despite his betrayal of Conan, he actually holds true to his people and his empire right till the end. His last words to Conan (yeah he gets stabbed, are you shocked?) are not to beg forgiveness or spit in the face of his enemy but merely to state that. Conan offers the merest hint of understanding and respect which allows Metallus to die.

Conan returns to Pictland with the riches for the daughter of the snows and even gives up his dearest treasure, the eye of the serpent (the last memento of his lost love Valeria from the first film), so desperate to claim his son. The daughter of the snows hisses that the boy is not really Conan's but he does not listen. In the eyes of Crom, Conan now has a son whom he names Kon. As Metallus knew he would, Conan returns to the empire to take command of his own legion and the bond between father and son strengthens amid the constant clash of bone, blood and steel.

Though we don't get to spend that much time with them (an admitted problem with this first draft), the relationship between Conan and Kon is quite fascinating. Conan passes the same lesson onto his son that his own father taught him. Nothing in this world can be trusted other than the sword in your hand and one day Kon will have to break his father's sword (just as Conan eventually did in the first film) and rise above him. The only way Kon will outlive his father is to be stronger and more powerful than he ever was, something that Conan actively encourages. You begin to question exactly what were Conan's motives in taking a son. His heart has hardened from a lifetime of pain and loss and he does not seem capable of love. We at least get the impression that he respects his son and believes he has the potential to be greater. Unfortunately so does the Aquilonian Empire which really sets the story off.

Practically without any choice, Conan is chosen to be ruler of the kingdom of Zingara while his son is taken far away to the empire's military academy to be properly trained. Kon immediately stands out in his class but this only leads to him being ostracized by the rest of the students, in particular the Emperor's son Tisus Fortunas. The son of Conan has to learn very quickly to survive and live for himself. He constantly writes to his father and vice versa but these letters are intercepted and destroyed by Metallus, determined to keep the two apart.

The allure of a crown and all its power loses interest for Conan very quickly and he realises the mistake he made in letting Kon go. His situation now mirrors exactly that of the character of King Osric as played by Max Von Sydow in the first film. Osric was a lonely soul with golden halls and bottomless wells of treasure whose daughter had been taken by Thulsa Doom's snake cult. Offering Conan the treasure of an empire to steal her back, Osric told us that one day the gems lose their sparkle, the gold loses its lustre and the only thing left is a man's love for his daughter.

Whatever hopes the Emperor has for Conan to cause little noise are quickly quashed when he actually starts using his title and makes peace with the savage tribes of Pictland, sworn enemy of Aquilonia. The fact that it is Conan they make peace with, not the Emperor, makes Conan an instant threat to the empire but his enemies take their time in plotting his downfall.

No sooner have Kon and Fortunas left the academy than the Emperor dies and the latter takes the throne, leading to one of the script's main weak points. I'd really hate to think it but Milius might have been playing the DVD of 'Gladiator' while writing some of the script. Fortunas, our main villain technically, does come off as Commodus-lite. I mean he doesn't throw as many temper tantrums which is a good thing but he is still not a particularly strong villain. Milius at least allows us to spend a good amount of time with the character growing from teenager to man to emperor and the realisation that he never learns, grows or matures in all that time. His hatred for Kon is completely two dimensional and just from the way he is written you conjure this image of a skinny little despot who has no chance of survival in the eventual showdown between the two characters. Indeed, at the climax of the story Kon defeats Fortunas in a single paragraph of the script (with a spear to the face no less).

Back in Zingara, the most interesting part of the story starts to unfold. With help from 'the wizard (Mako)', Conan disguises himself as a commoner to escape the confines of his throne and interact with the regular citizens of his kingdom. At this point in the script, Conan is almost full of self loathing. He feels a complete fraud that has lost touch with his true nature. One particularly touching moment has Conan coming across a street vendor selling all manner of sinful barbecued meats, food clearly too good to be served in his kingly estate. Conan takes out his gold to pay before thinking better of it. He then pretends to be a penniless beggar who offers to work for food. The vendor sets Conan to work chopping firewood all night and right into the morning and for the first time in what must be fifty pages, our hero comes alive again. A man with the keys to a kingdom, with untold riches, with his pick of daily concubines, and who never needs to lift a finger, spends the entire night chopping wood to earn food, just to feel normal again.

These undercover visits become a nightly occurrence (or addiction) for Conan during which he brawls with thugs, listens to what the people really think of him as a king and even talks to a particular group about the possibility of assassinating himself. Things get to the point that the wizard tells Conan that he no longer requires a disguise. The king of Zingara has become so invisible to its people that he could wander its street completely unnoticed. Worse still, if Conan is still destined for Valhalla in death, Crom will probably not recognise him either. Any legacy Conan intended to leave on the physical plain has passed him by. At this point in his life nobody will tell tales of Conan the king, least of all his son who, unaware that his letters never reached his father and out of contact with him for years, has grown fiercely independent.

As a final cherry on top of this legacy of misery, Conan meets a beautiful innkeeper in the city called Aledra, the spitting image of Valeria, and they begin to fall for each other. Their eventual coupling is beautifully written and almost bittersweet. Conan confesses to Aledra what happened to his lost love and how he always believed his reward in the afterlife from Crom would be reuniting with Valeria. Now he has drifted so far from his roots and his beliefs that he does not care to wait any longer. In accepting Aledra, Conan turns his back on Crom. As he embraces temporary love and companionship, he knows he has resigned himself to his fate. When Conan dies he will go into the ground and there will be nothing but shadows and darkness waiting for him.

The plot kick into high gear when Conan murders one of the imperial guards and brings the might of the entire Aquilonian Empire down on his head. Kon arrives in Zingara and finally reunites with his father though he has no love or respect left for Conan. Metallus charges Kon to find the man who murdered the guard, seemingly part of a rebellion within Zingara that needs to be crushed. At the same time, Metallus hires a band of mercenary assassins to kill Conan in his chambers. In a surprising turn, Conan is told of the plot beforehand by Aledra and rather than fleeing he walks right into it so he may 'get what he deserves' in his own words.

In the massive battle that follows Kon comes to the rescue and stays loyal to his father, forgiving him for his ignorance and stupidity, even though Conan will not forgive himself. Conan begins to embrace his political and military tactician side by orchestrating his own plot to fight back against the empire. Firstly he forces Kon to flee Zingara and then willingly drinks poison (which the wizard has been training him to build a resistance to for months) to give the illusion of his death. Conan's body is dumped in the river outside of Zingara and Fortunas takes power there. Just as Conan planned it seems, he allies himself with the Picts he previously made peace with and rallies them to battle. The stage is set for a final battle between the civilisation that sought to imprison Conan and the savage tribe he has always truthfully belonged to.

Oh, and there is a whole sub-plot involving Kon fighting an ice worm that claims its his real dad.

So like I said, this is pure, undiluted Milius. It's completely insane and quite self indulgent at times but every beat of this script has a message or strong character development to propel it through. Rather than a predictable quest to fight some evil sorcerer or retrieve a magical object which will allow him to become king at the end of the film, Conan wins his crown on page 25 and the real focus of the story is the consequences of everything that comes with it. It is a story primarily about identity; about our upbringing and what that makes of us, what the fates and/or gods will allows us to grow into and what they will prevent us from ever becoming. Conan is an untamed barbarian who becomes civilised and corrupted, who becomes a king but spends the rest of the film learning how to be a man again. Kon is brought into a world where opposing forces, both Conan and the empire, attempt to forge him into the man he will become as well as facing the truth of his parentage. And everything is wrapped in a blood soaked cocktail of loyalty, betrayal, lust, glory, victory, power, shame, fraud, revenge, and politics.

There is absolutely nothing on screen at the moment which compares to the world Milius conjures in this script. One interesting thing to note is that the script is filled with Frank Frazetta's iconic artwork. Even though the original film was made intentionally as a believable pre-history story grounded in as much reality as possible, Milius may have intended to use modern technology to really bring those images to life in 'King Conan'. That only makes the fact that it was never made even harder to bear.

As it stands, 'King Conan: Crown Of Iron' joins an elite pantheon of un-produced Schwarzenegger films such as 'Crusade', 'Commando 2', and his versions of 'I Am Legend' as directed by Ridley Scott and 'Planet Of The Apes' as directed by James Cameron. Would it shock you to find out that I consider 'King Conan' to be the greatest of them all? In order to prove it I may just need to take at closer look at those projects too.

Marveling At The Past - 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' (2009)

"I was just the fool that got played."

'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' represents everything that is wrong with prequels. We knew going in that it was a mistake to devote an entire film to Logan's origin. You were not only going to completely undermine and damage the first two X-Men movies and the time they spent developing the character and his back story but also create a film completely devoid of surprise, suspense or tension because we already know what happens.

I resigned myself to that. I expected it. But 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' also represents perhaps the point where the comic book movie genre has, for the most part, become truly stale. The film shows all the symptoms of a film series' fourth time at bat, the point where it has nothing original left to say and falls back on a proven but utterly creaky formula. It also throws in a fair few elements from other films of the genre and, in one case, downright plagiarism (that would be the scene where Logan is taken in by Ma and Pa Kent for five minutes, just for those of you who managed to purge that atrocity from your minds).

I resigned myself to that as well. For the first hour or so, the film was what I expected it to be; lame, unoriginal, confused and dull. I was expecting to walk out of the theatre saying that the film was crap but 'Ghost Rider' and 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' were worse……

..…I think the movie might have heard me at that point and cried back "you wanna bet?". Because the movie then proceeded to become as utterly stupid and retarded as those two films but topped off with the most atrocious special effects I’ve seen in a $100 million movie in a long time. At least Ghost Rider and the Silver Surfer looked good. Wolverine couldn’t even manage decent computer animation in a bathroom scene where he’s just looking at his new adamantium claws in a bathroom mirror. It isn't as though this was something that had not been done before. We've seen Wolverine's claws done quite successfully in three previous films, in large scale action sequences no less. It just defied belief.

When it comes to comic book movies, I will admit that I can be quite shallow regarding my criticism at times. If the film provides that spectacle and fun then I am willing to forgive it a lot. What stunned me the most about 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' was how damn cheap and small scale it is as a film. Director Gavin Hood, whether intentionally or not, stages the film as if it were a play being performed on stage with the most minimal of set decoration, backdrops and extras. The world of 'Wolverine' never feels alive or lived in. This only worsens towards the back half of the film when it starts to resemble a live action beat 'em up video game as Logan travels from one colourful location to another to fight a bizarre collection of characters. By the time Gambit gets pinned down, you are tempted to yell "YOU WIN" at the screen.

Things could have been different. If we follow on from my article on 'X-Men: The Last Stand', where I re-concieved that film into an epic two parter which would have ended with Logan heading out onto the lonely road again, the Wolverine movie would have certainly been a sequel. Although I personally do not hold the Wolverine solo comic series penned by Frank Miller in as high regard as some, there is certainly something to be said for doing a solo sequel movie for the character. Wolverine, being a mutant whose power is to slice and dice people to pieces with razor sharp claws, is a rather ridiculous character to be constrained by a PG13 rating. If the studio were able to take a risk on making a lower budget, R rated Wolverine film with a completely different tone and style to the X-Men movies then we would certainly have something worthy on screen.

The original Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine comics are not particularly dense. They are a simply story told well. Logan travels to Japan, falls in love with the daughter of a powerful crime lord and fights overwhelming odds just to be with her. Though Miller's intention is to re-mould the Wolverine character slightly to give him more of a Japanese sensibility, the story is really just a very cool excuse to see him fight ninjas, samurai and Yakuza. It is the perfect pitch for a straight forward action movie. It might actually be one of those rare cases of the source material working better on screen than on paper.

By having the story set after the X-Men films, they would have had the creative license to do whatever they wanted. We would have felt for the character. We would have feared for his life. We would have no idea where his journey was going to take him. As a prequel story we are robbed of all of this. Wolverine is going to lose his memory. There is no point trying to create any tension over the possibility of Logan not surviving the adamantium bonding process as we know he does. There is no point having any final face off between Wolverine and Sabertooth as the latter's fate is already pre-determined and he must show up in X1. There is no point having Logan threaten to rip Stryker in half because he has to show up in X2. The moment Logan's love interest Kayla Silverfox shows up on screen she has a sign growing out of her reading 'dead meat' in big neon letters.

In fact the reason the final act of the film is so painful to watch is because it finds itself without the freedom to tell its own story anymore and so constrained by the need to make sure the continuity of the series ties together. Even though the studio is intending to get back on our good side by setting the prequel sequel in Japan, those handicaps remain. Logan is still going to have to end up back in that shitty Canadian bar fighting people for money.

The character himself is barely recognisable as the Wolverine that I know and that we have been told about in the previous X-Men movies. What glimpses we got of his backstory in the first film was perfectly satisfactory. When Bryan Singer delved back into it with the second, he wisely upped the ante for the character by bringing him face to face with his past and the realisation that he may not want to know where he came from or who he was beforehand. Stryker taunts that Logan was always an animal and he just gave him claws. Maybe there was the intention to really delve into that origin based on that tantalising line and show the real Logan. But that is not what we get. The Logan of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine', or little Jimmy if you like, is an adorable little kid with sibling issues who endures several lifetimes of violence and kills countless people.....but only in the service of his country. As a result, those first two X-Men films are completely undermined.

Even sweeping aside the film's problems simply functioning as a prequel, it is still a confused mess that does not know what it wants to be about. I love the fact that the filmmakers wanted to try and make an X-men movie that deals exclusively with character relationships and doesn't feel the need to explore concepts of prejudice, tolerance and teen angst once again. But you still have to pick a theme and stick to it. 

The film initially appears to be the story of two brothers being torn apart by circumstance and a lifetime of violence, and the consequences which come as a result. It isn't particularly original but it would have held our attention. The film looses this angle after the first reel and by the climax you would be forgiven for forgetting that Wolverine and Sabertooth are brothers. It seems to have no bearing on the proceedings. The film tries for an angle of betrayal by love akin to 'Casino Royale' but there is too little of the romantic relation ship for it to be potent. The film tries to be a quest for revenge for a little while but ends up being so confused about who Logan is really angry at between Sabertooth and Stryker, not to mention the realisation that neither of those characters can be killed as they show up in future, rendering it pointless.

The icing on the cake of course is the treatment of Deadpool. I don't know very much about the character myself but I think it is fair to say that when Wade Wilson is revealed at the climax of the film in his mutated form, we are supposed to be freaked out or at least mildly spooked. Instead we are just left scratching our heads about yet another character that is supposed to provoke a reaction from the audience but has not spent enough time on screen to resonate. We are, however, truly freaked out when Patrick Stewart shows up a little later as a as a soulless, dead eyed, expressionless CGI corpse.

But you know something? After twenty articles and revisiting every Marvel movie, things like that don't hurt anymore. I'm not angry about a bad comic book movie made by Fox anymore. I'm just fed up. We deserve better. Whether we get it or not as Marvel Studios attempts to take greater control of their properties and Fox lets Bryan Singer back into the X-Men franchise, 'Marveling At The Past' will continue with each new release. I hope you'll join me.

Marveling At The Past - Punisher: War Zone (2008)

"Did you know that kidneys and apple sauce are a delicacy in Sweden?"

I'll start by telling you a little story about 'Punisher: War Zone'. I am a Punisher fan. I've been desperately hoping that a sequel or reboot to the 2004 film would happen and Frank Castle would be given the proper cinematic treatment he deserved. With the origin story out of the way, it was time to give us a real high-octane Punisher film set in New York with maximum violence and a really cool villain. It appeared that 'Punisher: War Zone' was going to be that film. The problem was it flopped so badly in the States that it appeared it wouldn't be getting a theatrical release in the UK.

So I watched it online. Yes, I confess. Take me away. Faced with the prospect of waiting another four to six months for a DVD release, I downloaded the film. Even worse, I didn't like it at all. Then I found out that the film was getting a UK theatrical release. To atone for my sins I decided, even though I had already seen the film and knew it to be bad, to pay to see it on the big screen. As it turned out, my local theatre was playing it for one week at midnight showings only. I decided I would rather say a few Hail Mary's at home than share a theatre with the type of people who would go and see 'Punisher: War Zone in the early hours of the morning..........oh, and buy the DVD as well. I believe my soul has been cleansed. Or at least it will be once this article is finished and I can rid myself of this terrible movie once and for all.

Though it makes me sound as though I am impossible to please, 'Punisher: War Zone' joined what is becoming a pantheon of films which failed to capture the true essence of the character. The film certainly does an admirable job of showcasing the most glorious and implausible violence seen outside of a Paul Verhoven movie. The world of 'Punisher: War Zone' is one where fists can turn heads into craters, the wives of mob bosses get the same treatment as the criminals and nobody escapes with 'just a flesh wound'. The film is set exclusively in New York and features a villain ripped from the pages of the comic book. It should work.

But it also has the most unbelievably banal plot which strips the film of any momentum, its villains of anything interesting to do, and betrays the very spirit of the Punisher himself.

During an operation which virtually destroys an entire crime syndicate and sends Billy 'the beaut' Russoti head first into a glass crusher which turns him into Jigsaw, the Punisher accidentally kills an undercover FBI agent. With millions of dollars unaccounted for, Jigsaw sets his sights on the agent's wife and daughter to retrieve it as well as recruiting an army made up from the rest of the city's criminal element to take down the Punisher. Meanwhile, Frank Castle himself is determined to protect the deceased agent's family and then retire from his career of vigilantism because he feels........guilty.

The Punisher I know does not feel guilt. The point of the character is that he has become completely dehumanised from a lifetime of violence and retribution. He has gone too far down that path to recognise either himself or differing subtleties in the criminals he hunts. They are simply targets to be lined up against a wall and shot. Sure, he occasionally recognises that there are good people out there but if one of them got killed, even by his own hand, his only reaction would be to kill more people. The idea that the Punisher would throw in the towel after accidentally killing one agent of the law is not only banal, it is ridiculous. If the Punisher had been this far into his criminal killing career, you can be sure there would be plenty of bodies from the right side of the law left in his wake. The Punisher does not stop because of this. He does not compromise.

I don't know whether it was the studio or the filmmakers who felt the need to remove Frank Castle's edge as though a mainstream audience would not be able to connect with him otherwise. Whoever made the decision misses the point of the character. You do not connect with the Punisher. He is an lonely soul who shuts you out of his world. This is not helped by the fact that Ray Stevenson, though not through lack of trying, is completely miscast as the title character. The great thing about Thomas Jane's approach to the role was that you could see the death of Frank Castle on his face after the death of his family. You have no doubt that this is a man that cannot return to a normal life someday. He has lost his humanity. Stevenson portrays Castle as a man who is simply doing what he feels the need to do to protect the people rather than satisfy his own anger and bloodlust, and with the hope that maybe he can hang up his guns someday.

The actor is not helped by a script which requires him to almost openly sob as he realises the mistake he has made in taking an innocent life. We as an audience realise that the hard edged, uncompromising Punisher film we were hoping for has gone down the toilet. Just to rub salt in the wound, they throw in scenes of him visiting a widower and watching her child draw pictures.

Surely though we can rely on the film's villains to give it a shot in the arm. Can we rely on Warner Bros. to stop converting their blockbusters into 3D? Can we be assured that 'The Hobbit' will get made. Of course not. Jigsaw is portrayed as a figure of fun, ashamed of his horribly disfigured face and as a poorly concealed clone of Jack Nicholson's Joker. Just to hammer it home, we get the scene where he proclaims that "Billy is dead, from now on call me Jigsaw". And just because this film is so stupid I believe that the character is only referred to by that name once or twice more and is addressed as either 'Russoti', 'Billy' or 'brother' for the rest of it. Speaking of which, I cannot understand why Jigsaw's brother 'Loony Bin Jim' gets more screen time, personality and memorable moments that the main man himself.

At the end of the film, the Punisher spits out the line "let me put you out my misery" to Jigsaw before killing him. At that point I realised that the hero and villain have had practically no scenes together up to this point. There is no antagonism between the two characters. There is no exciting face off that the film has been building up to. This is just one of a list of mistakes 'Punisher: War Zone' makes as a basic action film.

Mainly, the problem stems from the fact that most of the film's scenes are completely recycled from a hundred other films of the same ilk. We get the obligatory scene where the villain has a business meeting with a fellow mobster which ends with the latter getting graphically killed. We have the plot thread of a vigilante on the loose with one lone bungling cop on the trail of bring him down. We have said cop being given a straight man for a partner. We have the hero confiding to a priest at church. We have the villains invading the damsel's home. We have the damsel and child being brought to the hero's lair for protection only for them to be left defenceless while said hero runs an errand. Our villains easily find the hero's laid and kidnap the wife and child and leave nothing but a mess and a sacrificial lamb sidekick to cough, splutter and die at the exact moment hero arrives to find out what happened. If you combine all of this with the film's bizarre lighting scheme of casting everything in neon blue, yellow and pink (making it look as if it were shot from inside Joel Schumacher's underwear) and you have an shockingly boring and painful experience on your hands.

The 'warzone' in the title is not particularly accurate either, referring only to a tenement block where all of New York's gangs are recruited to ambush the Punisher at the climax of the film. If you wanted to tell a story that was true to the character and to that title then it should not have been any harder than the following; the Punisher slaughters the most powerful mafia family in the city shattering the balance of power within New York's criminal fraternity. As a result of the Punisher's actions, every smaller criminal outfit take to the streets in a 'winner takes all' fight for control creating a war zone where nobody is safe and millions of innocent people are caught in the crossfire. Rather than a well structured plan that allows him to take on the criminals he hunts one at a time, Frank Castle must face the overwhelming odds of all of them at once in order to put an end to the chaos that he has this time created. At the end of the film, the gangs are eliminated save for one which takes the mantle of power. Crime still exists. The Punisher still has a cause. The circle of life continues.

It doesn't matter of course. Even though Marvel Studios have taken back the rights to the character, it does not have enough in its favour to risk another attempt at a Punisher film. R rated comic book movies seldom make any money. It has had three times (including the Dolph Lundgren version) at bat and failed. Perhaps the character is better suited to short films. And, sadly, perhaps that breed of avenging bad ass vigilante cinematic action hero is an archetype which we left behind us in the 1980's, never to be let back into mainstream acceptance. At least Frank Castle doesn't come back then I don't have to write any more of these.

Marveling At The Past - The Incredible Hulk (2008)

"HULK..........SMASH!"

It all starts with the alternate opening sequence. We are introduced to Bruce Banner as a forsaken and dammed soul. The scientific project he has devoted his life and career to has destroyed them both. The love of his life has been critically injured. The monster that lurks deep within him is ready to escape at the merest sign of anxiety or anger. He is on the run from a military machine intent on capturing him to snare that very monster. Living off the grid and yet feeling completely cornered, Bruce does not even feel that he can continue living in the hope of discovering a cure for the Gamma poisoning which is the cause of it all. Just his existence as Bruce Banner alone is putting the world in great danger. With nowhere left to turn, Bruce travels to the most desolate regions of the Artic for the express purpose of committing suicide in a place where his body will never be located or recovered. With his last memory to be of the loved one he hurt, Bruce pulls out a gun and gets ready to shoot himself. Before he can pull the trigger, the inevitable anxiety and fear that floods his system immediately succumbs to the beast within and triggers the transformation into the Hulk. The Green Goliath holds the puny mortal weapon in his hand and smashes it. The Hulk triumphs once again and when Banner regains conciseness all he will remember is that even death by his own hand cannot provide an escape from his nightmare. His only choice is to cure himself and rid the world of the Hulk.

This one sequence is, in my honest opinion, one of the greatest to ever grace a comic book movie. In three minutes of screen time the audience is told everything they need to know about the tragedy of Bruce Banner. The one image of the Hulk's gigantic hand crushing Bruce's gun tells us everything we need to know about his character and his relationship to Banner as well. And we cannot help but empathize with Banner. From this point on, we will be on our hero's side as he embarks on his quest for a cure. We are under no illusion that it might be cool to be the Hulk. We feel for him.

But the problem is, of course, that the sequence does not appear in the finished film and is just one example of a crucial element that is missing from 'The Incredible Hulk'; soul, drama, pathos, tragedy, emotion. You can take your pick from those words but it still leaves us with the conclusion that, in editing, the film had its heart and soul ripped out and all we were left with was a decent, but completely hollow, film.

We have talked about director's and extended cuts of Marvel movies over the course of this series, specifically in the case of 'Daredevil'. But in the case of that film we were still left, no matter which version of it you choose to watch, with a flawed filmmaker making a flawed film and telling a flawed story which did not best serve the source material. 'The Incredible Hulk' is a different story. There is nothing worse than really talented filmmakers, who really do understand the source material and why it works, actually setting out to make a truly great movie. Worse yet, they actually film that movie and then take it away from us in post production.

That is what happened with this film. I've felt very passionately about this ever since I bought the DVD and watched all of the deleted material. To give Marvel their dues, they were gracious enough to include these scenes on the DVD release, especially in the light of the controversy surrounding Edward Norton's refusal to do promotion for the film following his failure to preserve a longer cut of the film more true to what he signed on for in the first place (failing to get screenplay credit under WGA rules can't have helped either). I can't support Norton being a whiny bitch but, as far as his argument is concerned, I am on his side of the fence. I see very clearly the film he was trying to protect. I see 'The Incredible Hulk' the way it should have been.

But first let us talk about what we actually got because there is a lot to like in the finished film. 'The Incredible Hulk' is a classically structured film with a simple but effective plot driving it forward, four distinct main characters with real motivation and complexity and three distinct acts in three distinct locations.

I think one of the problems you can have in adapting the Hulk for the silver screen is that there is not much complexity to its story. Bruce Banner has the curse of the Hulk inside him and travels around the world while being mercilessly pursued by the military and occasionally by Gamma induced supervillains as well. Perhaps one of the reasons that Ang Lee's film was so heavily dosed in psycho-drama, dysfunctional family relationships and other such completely un-Hulk elements was to mask that lack of plot. 'The Incredible Hulk' chooses not to see this as a hindrance and instead uses its simplistic plot to catapult the audience straight into the story with very little catch-up needed and choosing instead to focus its attention on character dynamics. The issue of whether this second film is a sequel or a reboot is quickly rendered irrelevant.

The first act set with Bruce living off the military radar in Brazil is pretty damn perfect. Initial quotes from director Louis Letterier stated that we would see the Green Goliath within the first few minutes of the film and some Hulk-Smash action would not be far behind. In truth, the film takes a good 15-20 minutes before we get our first glimpse of him and even then only in shadow. The irony is that the film is at its most interesting when Hulk is not on screen.

Even without the alternate opening, the first act does a fantastic job of establishing just how hard it must be to live the life of Bruce Banner. He is one of the greatest scientific minds on the planet but is forced to work as a mechanic at a bottling plant. He needs to live as low-key as possible and yet needs to use the internet to communicate with the mysterious Mr. Blue in order to discover a cure. He lives in a scrappy apartment yet needs elaborate scientific equipment to synthesize that cure. His Gamma contaminated blood is so dangerous that a single drop of it could be, and is, used by the military to discover his exact location. On top of which, the direction and cinematography present Brazil as such an immersive, unique and intoxicating environment that you feel almost sad to leave it. It is so much harder these days to transport jaded audiences to places they have never been before and this film does just that.

Where things fall apart slightly is in the second act where Bruce returns to America to try and retrieve the lost data which he needs to have any hope of synthesizing a cure but unexpectedly reunites with Betty Ross along the way. Saying things fall apart is slightly harsh but certainly this stretch of the film is the one most damaged by the scenes which were cut from the film. Seemingly desperate to get to the next action set piece as quickly as possible, the film rushes through Bruce's infiltration of Culver University, reunion with Betty and our introduction to her current boyfriend (and comic mainstay) Doc. Leonard Sampson. It seems that all this material passes us by in the space of a few minutes before the military ambush Bruce and Betty on the campus grounds and the Hulk is unleashed again.

As a result of the cuts, the relationship between Bruce and Betty is not given time to find its footing. The audience is not given enough time to understand it and as such, that emotional disconnect and hollowness begins to set in. The deleted scenes set at Betty and Leonard's house are extremely important in that sense. Having established itself as a reboot, you cannot take for granted that the audience will just accept Betty basically abandoning Leonard for her first love. How does Betty feel about Bruce now? How much does she understand of Bruce's condition (given that she spent a fair amount of the initial accident unconscious)? What is her relationship with her father General Ross at present? How does Leonard play into all this? These points are completely glossed over and it severely hurts Betty's character and led to some unfair criticism of Liv Tyler's performance I felt.

At least she is in the film to a substantial degree. Leonard Sampson however, and despite some great scenes, is reduced to practically a cameo and used only as the cliche plot device of jealous boyfriend. The wonderful thing about the character's deleted scenes is that they establish he is not a jealous 'other guy'. Sampson is a phyciatrist who sees Bruce's return as extremely beneficial to Betty, who has not been able to fully move on knowing he was MIA. But as well as caring about Betty, he also gives away Bruce's location to General Ross out of a misplaced fear sense of fear. This only backfires at the end of the film when he confesses this to Betty leading to forgiveness but the unspoken promise that they will not be getting back together, or at least it would if the scene had not been cut from the film. Sampson is presented as an interesting and flawed human being and his cut scenes are almost certainly the biggest casualty of the film.

Finally, one more important scene is cut right before the action sequence on the campus, where Bruce tells Betty that he cannot possibly understand, after everything that they have been through and how much it has cost them personally, what scientific breakthrough they hoped to achieve could be worth the price they have paid. Bruce finally realises that the experiment which created the Hulk was, in a way, deserved. That everything he has endured has been a lesson in humility. This one scene reveals the whole theme of the movie. If anything, 'The Incredible Hulk' is about the abuse of science and the need for those that wield its power to respect natural evolution rather than accelerating or toying with it.

The theme of the film crystalizes in the third act when Bruce and Betty travel to New York to meet with the mysterious Mr. Blue who turns out to be eccentric anarchist college professor Samuel Sterns, the man who silmultaneously could hold the key to curing Banner as well as being the harbinger of the Hulk's greatest challenge. What Sterns comes to represent is the kind of scientist Banner probably was before his accident; a man possessed of genius intellect but far too eager to go beyond nature's boundaries without a second of consideration as to the implications. As he says himself, "I've always been more curious than cautious".

In one wonderful moment, Bruce is confronted with the realisation that Sterns has used the Gamma infected blood based on the one small sample he took the risk of sending from Brazil, and replicated it into countless samples. This is especially potent since the first act of the film does such a good job of conveying how dangerous a single drop of Banner's blood is and how careful he has been to isolate himself from the world. Now he finds that the one person he trusted with his secret and his infection has turned Bruce's misfortune into a virtual chamber of horrors. As Bruce stares in horror, Sterns naively rants about all the world's ills that will now be cured as a result of what he has done, clearly not understanding that he just made the planet a lot worse for wear.

Oddly enough, very little material is cut from the third act of the film and the cynic in me has to believe this is due to the fact that so many of the scenes in the last 30 minutes are merely set-up for either a Hulk sequel or the Avengers movie. The Hulk himself is still at large. Emil Blonsky is transformed into 'The Abomination' but is left alive at the end of the film. Sterns recieves a dose of Gamma blood to his already large enough cranium, setting up his transformation into arch enemy 'The Leader'. There is the admitedly cool idea established that Sterns still has a plethora of 'Hulk formula' at his disposal to create an army of super beings with.

And, of course, Tony Stark shows up for an end scene so vague and non-accessible to an audience that has never read a Marvel comic that its presence in the body of the film (as opposed to being an Easter egg scene at the end of the credits) severely hurts it. By ending the film with Stark, the message is given to us that 'The Incredible Hulk' was seemingly never about its main character. The film cannot stand on its own legs.

Even though a longer cut and re-edit of the film would have certainly improved it, 'The Incredible Hulk' contains one major flaw regardless of its length. There is no real progression in the saga of Bruce Banner by the end of the story. The character begins the film on the run searching for a cure with the Hulk raging inside him. After everything that happens, the film ends with the character on the run with the Hulk raging inside him. The only difference is conveyed in the intentionally ambiguous final shot of Banner which suggests that he may not care to find a cure for his condition anymore and, having gotten a taste for it, is content to either control the Hulk or let it take him over. These are interesting ideas but they exist in the finished film purely as an afterthought or, even worse, as if the entire film was just a set-up for further installments of the Marvel Film Universe.

While some may claim that the Marvel Studios line-up of comic book movies began to decline in quality this summer with 'Iron Man 2', we have to be honest and state that it had already started to wobble two years earlier. While I continue to admire Marvel Studios for its lofty goal of crafting the most awe inspiring comic book movie of all time, the very characters that will star in 'The Avengers' are suffering because of it. If 'Thor' and 'Captain America' turn out to be as compromised in finished product as 'The Incredible Hulk' then the only enduring legacy the studio will have created is more bitchy ranting articles from yours truly.

Marveling At The Past - Iron Man (2008)

"Jarvis, sometimes you've gotta run before you can walk"

And with that, Robert Downey Jnr. becomes Iron Man and soars off into the night sky on his first test flight. This was an important moment for me in the film because it was when I decided, no matter what, that it had me from this point on. The test flight sequence proved to be the epitome of something that has been lacking from far too many comic book movies, something which it meant a lot for me to see; the joy of being a superhero, the joy of flight.

It is fair enough that films such as the X-Men series are about social issues and oppressed characters with powers they view as a curse. It is fair enough that the Batman, Hulk or Daredevil films deal with deeply troubled or disturbed characters with no happiness in their lives. It is fair enough that the Fantastic Four films never seemed to have the money to show their super powers in full swing no matter what.

That still leaves us with movies such as 'Spider-man'; a film about the underdog being blessed with extraordinary abilities, films that attempt to place us in the shoes of the protagonist and ask the question 'what would you do?'. Most likely, we would go on a crazy all night web swinging binge across the city. We would be on a high. We would never want it to stop. This is why, no matter what some people tell me, I will always maintain that a Superman film, when done right, will be as big if not bigger than any other recent comic book movie. The joy of flight is something we can all relate to as the ultimate representation of freedom from everything in our own lives that tethers us to the ground. If you are looking out of a window as you're reading this, wishing you could open it, soar into the air and go wherever you wanted, I think I've proven my point.

Jon Favreau clearly understood this because, even though most of us cannot relate to the multi million dollar California penthouse, Tony Stark does exactly this. Even though his goal is to use Iron Man to tackle a global problem, he first instinct once the suit is complete is to give it a whirl just for the fun of it. He has been slaving away in his basement for endless days and weeks building this technology and this is his reward; the ability to, for a brief moment, forget all the problems and responsibilities he has and.......soar.

This is why, when Downey Jnr. is cheering himself on as he flies, it isn't cheesy, it gives you goose bumps. We are right there with him, sharing that joy. It meant a lot to me because this is exactly the sort of sequence I was expecting to get in 'Superman Returns'. Although I enjoyed the film a great deal, nothing disappointed me more than the sight of CGI Brandon Routh flying across Metropolis in some pretty pedestrian shots. 'Iron Man' breaks free of badly done CGI. It breaks free of the need most comic book movies feel to show heroes as tragic, lonely souls 100% of the time. And it broke free of certain clichés which were really starting to show their age in the comic book movie genre by this point.

Getting back to that test flight sequence for instance. In a lot of other directors hands, a crime fighting montage would immediately follow. Do we need to see the invincible Iron Man being a friend to the working man by saving a construction worker from falling off a girder? Do we need to see him through the eyes of a terrified lowlife criminal as he stops a mugging? Jon Favreau, thank goodness, believes that we do not.

How refreshing it is to have a hero whose goals are on a far more epic scale. Tony Stark's own weapons manufacturing conglomerate is dealing arms on the black market to terrorists around the globe and Iron Man functions solely to hunt them down and destroy them, wherever they may be. How refreshing also that Iron Man has no issues with dealing harsh justice to said enemies. Finally we have a superhero (in a PG13 movie) that kills people, free of any self imposed ethical code that prohibits it.

How great, after three bouts with Mary Jane Watson and her penchant for being kidnapped in the 'Spider-man' movies, to be presented with the character of Pepper Potts; a mousy but quietly confident, considerate, charming and likeable character. So often the support that our hero needs to get through adversity, the 'rock' if you will, comes in the form of a parental figure, deceased or otherwise. 'Iron Man' smartly places that function on the shoulders of the token female love interest and, as such, stops Pepper Potts from being just the token female love interest. Rather than being shoe-horned into the climax as bait for the hero, she actually brings about the climax by exposing Obadiah Stane for the criminal mastermind that he is.

The only cliche the film does fall pray to is with the villain himself. The only time the film slows to a crawl is during the five minute sequence where Stane needs to steal Stark's arc reactor powered artificial heart and does so by using a sonic paralysing gadget and then monologuing about he is behind everything and how Tony can do nothing to stop him. Though it may appear that Stane feels the need to eliminate Stark so that the company he is just as much an owner of can get back to making weapons, something which the latter has forbid and as such has become a liability. But the film clearly states that Stane conspired with the terrorists who captured him well before the events that happen later in the film which gives him the appearance of a slightly one dimensional power monger. Actually, come to think of it, that does kind of make Stane an original villain amongst all the jealous boyfriends, father figures and generally flawed people who have strayed from the light but are good deep down inside, which seem to populate the rest of the Marvel movies. It is refreshing to have a villain who is just a son of a bitch.

So that is really all I have to say on the subject of 'Iron Man'. I just wanted to explain what I responded to most in the film. Even if the planned Marvel Film Universe does completely unravel over the next few years, we can always look back on the first Iron Man as a self contained, untainted, glorious bout of fun. Speaking of that film universe, the first misstep came just a month after the release of 'Iron Man' in the form of 'The Incredible Hulk', a film that I do have a lot to say about. I hope you'll join me next time for that.

Dream Specs - The Siskel & Ebert Collection

The title of this article has never had as much meaning as today's subject. Following on from a conversation we had on our 'movie moan' podcast this week, the subject arose of what we are still waiting for a DVD release of. The only thing I can thing of, dare I say obsess over, is the idea that someday it may be possible to release 'Siskel & Ebert At The Movies' on DVD in some shape or form. But since this article is called 'Dream Specs', we shoot for no less than the moon when we speculate.

You have to understand that this obsession comes from the perspective of a Brit. I never grew up with Siskel & Ebert and yet my love and passion for their work is, I would like to argue, as strong as either my own personal film discuss partner Jamie Williams' or the wonderful people who started my obsession in the first place by posting clips of the dynamic duo on Youtube.

I fell under Roger & Gene's spell for the same reasons as anyone; two addictive personalities with chemistry that could not be replicated and a passion for film that was truly infectious. They sold the idea that having a proper discourse about a film, no matter how highbrow or trashy, was something to be embraced by everyone. As opposed to letting movies just wash over us, forgotten after a week. The shows they did and the features they included were really a precursor of the internet film podcasts we hear today. I would go so far as to say that every web based movie pundit out there, whether consciously or unconsciously, has been influenced by Siskel & Ebert (it is certainly true in my case). We are all in their debt. As such, the Siskel & Ebert programmes should be treated with the same commitment to preservation and release as any American film classic.

Now before we discuss the actual dream specs themselves we do need, sadly, to acknowledge some unshakable truths. Firstly, it is believed that a great many of those early shows from their days on PBS Chicago have been lost forever, not even saved by the television station. The only shows which have been retained are the very programmes that loyal fans (or geniuses with precognitive powers) recorded and later posted online. The idea of a complete compendium of every show seems impossible. Secondly, we would want the shows to be presented uncut which would involve including the clips of the very films they reviewed. This is not something which can just be cut from the shows. Most often, the pair would specifically use those clips as a point of reference as to the subject film's strengths or weaknesses. This unfortunately means that the amount of legal issues that would be involved in obtaining the rights to all those films from all those studios would be insurmountable. In some cases we may well be talking about really obscure titles whose copyright holder proves impossible to track down.

But assuming miracles can happen, here is how I would like to see a DVD release of Siskel & Ebert be broken down.

The Siskel & Ebert Collection vol. 1 - 'Opening Soon At A Theatre Near You'

Although we know the show as 'At The Movies', Siskel & Ebert began their partnership with a series entitled 'Opening Soon At A Theatre Near You' which ran on PBS Chicago from 1975 to 1977. This was the FIRST film review/discussion television programme. That makes it an important milestone in TV (and film) history. The format of the show for these two years had it being shown once a month, which means we are talking about roughly twenty programmes to be released. If the studio that produces these DVD sets wanted to just dip their toes in the water to see if there was a market out there for them, this would be the way to do it. They can release the first volume as an affordable teaser rather than a complete boxset which nobody could afford to buy. Truth be told, I imagine Siskel & Ebert were a little rough around the edges in those early shows, still full of competitive and vitriolic hatred for each other and not yet settled into the chemistry that would make them national institutions. But at least they have the hypnotic power of Siskel's moustache to keep us watching. Most of us have never seen those early shows and can only imagine their reviews for films like, oh I don't know, friggin' Star Wars.

The Siskel & Ebert Collection vol.2 - 'Sneak Previews'

So if the first release were successful (and it would be because Jamie and myself would just buy every copy), the second volume would comprise Roger and Gene's tenure as hosts of 'Sneak Previews', the show which was arguably the real beginning of the Siskel & Ebert we know and love.

From 1977 to 1982, the duo continued the show on a bi-weekly basis making for a much larger quantity of material to compile. This is also where Siskel & Ebert branched out into special themed shows which often comprised their best work. Take for example the well known 'women in danger' episode that is thankfully preserved on Youtube:

 

This is a prime example of how the duo can be as engaging to an audience when they are in total agreement as when they venemently disagree over something. It also presents a fascinating look at a particular cinema trend and an intelligent dissection of it, rivalling any retrospective documentary that could be produced as a piece of DVD/Blu-Ray supplemental material today.

The Siskel & Ebert Collection vol.3 - 'At The Movies'

Siskel & Ebert left 'Sneak Previews' in 1982 over a contract dispute but were immediately back on the air with the show that made them America's resident critics for the next 17 years; 'At The Movies'. There isn't much more to say except that this set would comprise all of the shows which ran on PBS from 1982 to 1986.

The Siskel & Ebert Collection vol.4 - 'The Balcony Archive'

And in 1986, Siskel & Ebert found their permanent home with Buena Vista Entertainment. The final volume would contain every single episode the duo did together up until Siskel's death in 1999 and not just reviews but all of the specials that they delivered every year; memo to the academy/if we picked the winners, reaction to the Oscar wins, the anniversary episodes, the best and worst films of the year etc.

Believe it or not though, Siskel & Ebert does exist on DVD in one small form. The Criterion DVD release of the highly acclaimed feature film documentary 'Hoop Dreams' contains a special feature collecting every single segment of Roger & Gene's own discussions about the film. This is a fascinating compendium which includes their initial review, both choosing it as their favourite film of 1995 at the end of the year, their memo to the academy demanding that it win the Oscar for 'best documentary', their later shock at it not even being nominated, the resultant controversy which led to Academy voting reforms and Ebert reflecting on the film as his personal favourite of the entire decade. I was interested in watching 'Hoop Dreams' purely on their recommendation but the fact that Criterion included the Siskel & Ebert material ensured that I immediately bought and imported the DVD. If my article is making you long for a little Roger and Gene then do seek 'Hoop Dreams' Criterion DVD out.

The good thing about their shows from 1986 onwards is that we can be rest assured that they have all been preserved and archived. I would just hope my some miracle that we could have even a fraction of it given an official release. And if it were possible to release every episode of Siskel & Ebert in one gigantic boxset. I can guarantee that there is at least one person in the world who will buy it..............and after I've bankrupted myself the box will make a nice place to live.

Once again, thanks to Mac for the image and thanks to you for reading.

Marveling At The Past - Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007)

"We will never have normal lives as long as we do what we do."

Well no kidding Sue Richards. That is just the kind of penetrating exploration of superhero psychology that makes the Fantastic Four film series stand apart from all others.

Sigh, I apologise for my sarcasm but I find the only way to tolerate this film is to attack it with sarcasm. Truth be told, I am more angry with myself for actually believing the sequel could be a better film than the first. I just reasoned that, logically, 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer' had everything in its favour. It was no easy to task to tell the outlandish origin story on film. The story they told was about the characters becoming the super team we know and love. The filmmakers had a limited budget to tell that story. This time out, the team were fully formed and the action could start right from frame one. There was a larger budget and the confidence of coming off a successful first film. They were adapting perhaps the definitive Fantastic Four storyline.

They shouldn't have bothered. Because of its advantages and how it threw those opportunities away, 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer' will forever wear the cap that reads 'biggest underachiever'. It really is the laziest of the Marvel movies.

For starters, the film makes the exact same mistake as the first film in assuming that the audience is aware of the F4's fame when it was never earned. A scene early on in the film sets the totally misguided tone for the entire piece. We hear several news reports of unexplained phenomena across the planet; the sea of Japan has frozen over, the pyramids of Giza are covered in snow, there is a 50 block power outage in New York. Rumours persist that the end of the world may be nigh........but far more importantly, Reed Richards and Sue Storm are getting married and the film makes it clear that this is all we should care about. Even more amazingly, this event is all that the principal characters themselves are written to care about. Richards, the only man on the planet with the know-how to build a sensor which can track the Silver Surfer, turns the job down so he doesn't have to reschedule his wedding again (even though he secretly decides to take the job two minutes later rendering the previous scene utterly pointless). Sue has at least five scenes where she complains about how the forces of evil have no consideration for her wishes of a happy homemaker lifestyle (just one more example of how so few writers are able to write decent female characters in comic book movies). The definitive shot of the piece is not the Silver Surfer soaring through the heavens, nor Galactus first descending upon the Earth to feed, but Sue on her knees weeping as she surveys the destruction of her wedding ceremony.

There is also a scene early on in the film were Sue talks to Reed about a bill the F4 have received for wrecking two police cars during a high speed pursuit with some bank robbers which points out something else that has been completely absent from both movies. We have never seen the F4 fighting a single enemy besides Doctor Doom or stopping a single crime. Not just a Spider-man type crime fighting montage; not one friggin' scene. We complain about other comic book movies which lose focus on showing action and super powered people fighting to deal with relationships and romance instead, but at least they show some. This series is pretty much despised because it showed us nothing.

Characters that were bearable in the first film become totally annoying in the second. Poor old Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm is predictably reduced to comic relief but with the added insult that his Thing make-up seems to have gone back five steps and looks far worse than it did in the first movie. Apparently, the make-up was changed so Chiklis had an easier time removing it every day. I'm sorry Michael but pain is temporary, film is forever and you will forever look like an amber turd in this movie. Chris Evans, the undoubted highlight of the first film, wears on us pretty quickly in this one and coming across with a performance akin to the annoying college roommate in a teen comedy. It is painfully apparent that Evans himself is bored to tears. Then we have the character of Doctor Doom, cut free of his ridiculous jealous boyfriend/millionaire industrialist roots in the first film and able to be unleashed as the real supervillain we remember from the comics. The problem is that he is still being played by the horribly miscast Julian McMahon who seems to come to the piece with an agenda to give an even worse portrayal of the character second time out. In the perfect example of how badly the filmmakers misunderstood the character, Reed pleads with Doom, his supposed intellectual equal, that he must surrender the Silver Surfer's board as it is bringing Galactus closer to Earth as long as it is in use. Doom's reply is basically equivalent to a ten year old child blowing a raspberry, immediately followed by the line "lets all go for a spin". Indeed!

At least there is the smallest amount of momentum to the film at that point. The preceding 80 minutes flail around killing time, practically shouting out to the viewer that what we are watching only exists as a cash-in rush job. Despite its title, the Silver Surfer appears for about a quarter of the film's total ninety minute running time, apparently too cool a character to be allowed to make the entire movie visually interesting. When the surfer does appear, he trots around the globe making large potholes for Galactus to dip his cloud fingers into and our heroes put on a pathetic show of trying to stop him (not helped by idiotic military characters who disregard everything Reed Richards says, lock up the F4 after they help capture the Surfer and allow Doctor Doom to wander free and steal the power cosmic). A sub-plot regarding the possibility that Reed and Sue will disband the team in order to have a normal life is tacked onto the film is order to give the characters something to do. The only problem being that the audience needs to care about the characters in order for that idea to resonate. Yet how on Earth can we care whether the Fantastic Four stop fighting crime and what a loss that would be to the world when we never see them prevent a single one?

Despite the potential of the story that is being adapted, the film has nothing to say about anything. The original tale of Galactus and the Silver Surfer is a classic fable of Gods and fallen angels. Galactus is a figure akin to the Gods of Greek mythology; a character of both immeasurable power and callous disregard for other life forms and anyone's needs other than his own. Yet he is also a slightly tragic figure, born with an insatiable hunger which forces him to destroy entire planets and galaxies in order to simply stay alive. His herald, the Surfer, is similarly tragic. A man who made the ultimate sacrifice to save his home world from Galactus and whose identity has been slowly chipped away by an eternity of servitude to the point that he has no conscious recognition of the amount of lives he has helped eradicate. His only consolation is the tremendous power he is afforded as the servant of Galactus. By fate or chance, the Surfer comes to Earth and through his experiences there regains the better part of himself, remembers why he sacrificed himself in the first place and does so again by defying Galactus in order to protect a planet worth saving. Ironically, the person who opens his eyes to the beauty of our planet is a blind girl; Alicia Masters.

If I had my druthers, I would have liked to have seen that story. And rather than the Silver Surfer viewing our planet as nothing more than a chocolate treacle covered fantasy land full of laughing children and lovers in Central Park, he would also witness the worst parts of humanity as well. The surfer would discover this after Alicia has shown him the goodness to be found on Earth, making his descision to save us all the more profound. Meanwhile, to avoid the character completely hijacking a film with 'Fantastic Four' in the title, Reed Richards is given the opportunity to experience a little humility as he learns there are some problems even his magnificent mind cannot solve simply through science and technology.

Most importantly, I would keep Doctor Doom out of the piece completely. Not only to avoid the 'two villain' comic book movie curse but because the finished film has enough problems just dealing with Galactus.

Which, of course, brings us to 'the cloud'. Am I stating the obvious to say we were utterly dismayed and destroyed over this adaptation of the character? Does it make any storytelling sense to build up the appearance of a super being who is powerful enough to kill us all right up to the climax of the film only for it to be a cloud? Does it make any sense from a production standpoint that the design of Galactus had not even been finished up to April 2007 (with the film being released in mid June of that year)?

I say nay! I do not deny that Galactus is a hard character to translate to film. I was never adverse to a redesign but you have to remain basically true to what the character is. If not a giant dressed in purple then change it to some other sort of huminoid. You cannot create a character, especially a villain, out of a cloud. You cannot create any sense of menace or foreboding with a cloud. You cannot tell a story, even one as outlandish as a Fantastic Four tale, with a cloud.

But perhaps that is the point. These films have not been an accurate representation of the Fantastic Four. They have been limp and lifeless rush jobs designed for the smallest of children (or the smallest of minds). In the ultimate sign of defeat, Fox is not even attempting to make a third installment but rebooting the franchise, clearly recognising that the property has some potential and that they totally missed their shot the first time around. If 'Fantastic Four Reborn' turns out as bad as this one though, I will be quite content for the real Galactus to devour the Earth, cloud or otherwise.

Marveling At The Past - Spider-man 3 (2007)

"Surprisingly, the sequel fell short of the box-office standard established by the original, even though it had garnered accolades and reviews that put it above its predecessor. This reality, coupled with our need to re-energize and re-invent the saga, would make 'new' and 'different' the guiding imperative throughout the creation of Spider-man 3."

That is not a quote from the film but from producer Grant Curtis in his book 'The Spider-man Chronicles: The Art And Making Of Spider-man 3'. Even though I'm sure this wasn't intentional, the book turns out to be a remarkably honest and telling account of how hubris, arrogance and greed can destroy a franchise. How greedy? The first film grossed $403 million domestically. The second grossed $373 million. That is what Curtis calls falling short. The studio began down the slippery slope to series ruin over a piddling $30 million dollars.

In the world of the comic book movie, the word 'reboot' is becoming synonymous with 'defeat' and, just as with the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, Sony has decided that the only way forward is to start from scratch. I cannot believe that this was their intention when production began on 'Spider-man 3'. Sony cannot spin this. 'Spider-man 3' killed their golden goose before its time was up. Reportedly, Sony Chairwoman Amy Pascal wanted six Spider-man movies. It made sense to me. Sam Raimi would finish his trilogy of movies inspired by the comics of the 60's and then a new filmmaker more in-tune with the darker comics of later decades would step in for future films and tackle such material as Venom.

But Venom would not wait and its our fault apparently. Producer Avi Arad beat Raimi over the head with the idea of including Venom because WE could not sit through another one of these films without him. The fans did want Venom, no question. What Arad failed to understand is that the fans wanted Venom handled by someone who gives a shit about the character and that was clearly not Sam Raimi. Once again, the filmmakers jumped the gun, refused to let the story develop properly and subsequently lost the interest of the very fans they were trying so hard to please. And this was pretty hard to take barely a year after 'X-Men: The Last Stand'.

Of all the Marvel movie sequels 'Spider-man 3' is perhaps the most offensive. The film had the advantages of talented, passionate people working on it, a gargantuan budget, and the support of its studio. Yet the people involved still managed to make an incompetent film which fails at the most basic level of storytelling. Most serious of all, it actually forgot it was a Spider-man movie.

It has been fascinating watching the symmetry between the Spider-man movies and the Christopher Reeve Superman films. The first was a lovingly faithful adaptation of the character's origin, large in scale, true in soul, but really about two kids trying to get together. The second was about the hero's struggle to maintain the balance between their own needs and obligation to others. The third was about a crisis of identity where the hero is mutated into a villain care of an external corrupting force while ironically losing its own identity as a film. While 'Superman III' features Richard Pryor doing stand up comedy in a general's outfit in front of the man of steel and you realise you are no longer watching a Superman film, Tobey Maguire starts dancing on table tops at a jazz club and you realise you are no longer watching a Spider-man film. It is certainly not the Venom saga, one of Spidey comics' greatest storylines.

I think the 'emo Peter' sequences hit hardest because we were in no way prepared for them. The trailers showed us none of it. To be fair, the trailers didn't show us black suit Spidey ripping criminals in half or being chased by the cops either so we shouldn't have assumed anything. I just remember watching the first trailer which showed Peter ripping off the black outfit in a church bell tower, like pages ripped from the comic, and just assumed Raimi knew what he was doing with the Venom saga. I wondered what horrible tragedy our hero had just endured before that sequence which brought him to the decision that the symbiote needed to be gotten rid of. Had he killed Sandman? Had he killed Mary Jane? Was Aunt May dead? As it turns out, Peter had just gotten into a fight with MJ at the jazz club and realised he was a douche. The fact that he goes to a church bell tower to remove the costume is totally random. He is not even aware that the symbiote has an aversion to high frequency sonics until much later in the film. The only way to have done a worse job of the storyline would have been to make the symbiote orange.

So it goes without saying that 'our' revised version of 'Spider-man 3' would cut the symbiote/Venom storyline completely from the film. You can tell the story of our hero having his life destroyed, both through external forces and his own arrogance, without it. In a perfect world, Raimi would have been free to tell the story he initially pitched. We can never know whether it would have been a better film but we can be assured, at the very least, that Venom would have been left unused and unmolested. It would have been a film with a clear theme running through it and villains that Raimi knew how to handle. Our 'Spider-man 3' is a story about forgiveness; about angry and wounded people falling into the abyss of despair and finding a way to pull themselves back and heal the wounds, not to mention the consequences of being unable to do so.

So let us launch into our revised 'Spider-man 3', what should have been the grand finale of the Raimi '60's trilogy', without a glimmer of the black outfit. Bear in mind that this storyline follows on from the revised versions of the first and second films that we discussed in my previous articles on the left hand side of the page. So just to keep you up to speed. Mary Jane has not yet been introduced into the series and Gwen Stacey has been the love of Peter's life. Gwen's father, Captain George Stacey has died in 'Spider-man 2'. But most of the story beats have been retained. Most specifically, Harry Osborn is out for blood.

Heck, I like the Harry amnesia angle, if not its actual execution in the finished film. I think it is a rather interesting way to re-introduce the friendship between Harry and Peter rather than just assuming the audience is aware of it. It makes the journey they go through in the film more potent and allows the story to be more self contained than sequels usually are. Where the idea falls apart is in the story telling convenience that Harry has only forgotten specific key events relating to his father's death that would otherwise cause him to stick a knife in Peter. The way Harry receives 'total recall', as it were, courtesy of his father's ghost (implying that Harry is indeed insane) is worse. And as the Ebert to my Siskel, Mr Jamie Williams says, Harry's retarded facial expressions throughout are unbearable.

The solution would be for Harry to actually fake his amnesia. He thinks of nothing but revenge but those feelings have been bubbling inside of him for so long now that just impaling Peter on his glider is not going to be enough. This revenge needs to be sweet. Harry concocts a plan to systematically destroy every stable element of Peter's life; his love life, his career, his Aunt and finally his alter ego. The objective is to bring him down to nothing, make him wish he were never born and then grant his wish, in true Green Goblin style. What better way to accomplish this than by emotionally disarming Peter by repairing their friendship so he can get close to his target? While Harry is able to handle Peter and Gwen himself, he decides he needs help to destroy Spider-man and recruits two recently incarcerated criminals, both with their own reasons for wanting to squash the spider; Flint Marko and Adrian Toomes.

Unlike the presentation of Harry, I loved not only the concept but the execution of the Flint Marko/Sandman character in the finished film. The only problem of course was that the film pretty much abandoned him half way through to make way for a dozen other storylines, bringing him back for the finale almost as an afterthought (and with his wife and daughter completely forgotten). It made sense after facing millionaire industrialists and genius scientific minds, Spidey would go up against an average, down and outer with a pathetic existence and a wrecked home life. Thomas Hayden Church makes us care about this guy in his very first scene with just a pained glance at his daughter. The costume is note perfect. His action sequences, albeit brief, hit every visual note we wanted to see in a Spidey vs. Sandman smackdown. And the actual birth of Sandman sequence, where millions of grains of sand form together into a super being who has to deal with the realisation of what he has become, clearly both seeing it as a curse and maybe a blessing as he now has the tools he needs to help his daughter, is one of the most beautifully crafted scenes in comic book movie history. That one scene is the reason I bought the DVD. It shows the magic that can be created when a filmmaker like Sam Raimi is totally committed to the material and passionate about the characters.

But there is the small matter of Flint Marko being the real, however accidental, killer of Uncle Ben. There is no way around this. The idea should never have come to fruition. The origin of Spider-man is sacred ground and was handled to perfection by Raimi in the first film. Any alteration of the facts afterwards only serves to totally undermine the impact of Uncle Ben's death in the first film, the subsequent confrontation with the mugger we thought had killed him and the lessons Peter learns as a result. Then there is the unbelievably lazy writing that has the police still investigating Uncle Ben's homicide all these years on and pulling Peter and Aunt May into the local precinct for no reason other than to explain Marko's backstory for the audience. Its only function is to bring out the darker side of Spider-man for one brief revenge fueled battle. I am not adversed to this at all but it holds little weight when we know Spidey's actions are as a result of the black costume. It would be far more interesting to see the red and blue Spidey we know and love beating the hell out of the Sandman, fully in control of his own actions. The evidence that Marko is Uncle Ben's real killer is completely fabricated as part of Harry's elaborate plot to destroy the very core of Spider-man.

The filmmakers behind the Spider-man movies seemed to be obsessed with the idea that every single villain Spidey faces should have some close connection to him personally; that without such an element the villain will not be memorable or worthy. If they had bothered to look across the great pantheon of screen villains they would have realised that there is nothing wrong with creating a character who is just plain evil. Which brings us to Adrian Toomes aka the Vulture.

What Toomes would represent in our 'Spider-man 3' is how our hero is viewed by the common criminal and how their lives are destroyed by him. Toomes is a law abiding citizen who, when we meet him, has been secretly plotting an illegitimate business endeavor for years, one which he has planned to the last detail. In the opening action sequence of the film, Toomes teams up with his 'muscle' Flint Marko to pull off the crime and, in the blink of an eye, is captured by Spider-man. Toomes is the kind of criminal that Spidey steps on without even noticing, on a daily basis, with no regard for the fact that he is ruining the lives of human beings. As he becomes the Vulture, Toomes is singularly obsessed with ruining Spider-man's life in the same way. As Flint Marko becomes the Sandman, Toomes constantly resents the power and success that is granted to everyone but him and it poisons his soul beyond redemption.

Harry helps to bust Toomes and Marko out of prison but they each go separate ways as they escape to avoid being traced back to him. Just as in the finished film, rather than partaking in some seedy activity, Marko risks his new found freedom all for the opportunity of to see his daughter again. Harry plants fabricated evidence which leads Peter to believe that Marko was Uncle Ben's real killer and our hero tracks him down, not to an evil lair, but to a run down apartment. In a furious rage, Spidey tears the place apart and beats the hell out of Marko there and then in front of his daughter. Their fight leads outside and across the city which eventually leads to Spidey depositing Marko into the scientific molecular test chamber and seemingly killing him (as opposed to Marko just being chased into the place by the cops), but actually causing his transformation into the Sandman.

As the film goes on, the trinity of Harry, the Vulture and Sandman create havoc across the city to the point that only the Spider-man part of Peter Parker's life is able to exist as he tries in vain to put out the fires they start. With Gwen completely neglected, Harry is able to move in and seduce her and the only stable element left in Peter's life is Aunt May, which immediately makes him think something is going to happen to her. In what could have been the most memorable moment of the film, Peter races home to Aunt May's place in the hope that the villains haven't gotten there first. Aunt May opens the door perfectly unharmed and very happy to see Peter because now she can introduce finally him to her gentleman caller. Who does Peter find sitting on May's lounger than Adrian Toomes with a cup of tea in hand and a sadistic grin on his face.

One of the story points that the filmmakers were unable to include in their own Doctor Octopus storyline in 'Spider-man 2' was the idea, straight out of the comics, that he was dating Aunt May at the exact same time as being one of Peter Parker's deadliest enemies. Peter arrives at the house suitably exhausted from a brutal battle with Ock and ready to bury his double life for the day only to find the good doctor entertaining his only living relative. I just love the idea of Peter being brought to paralysis by the dilemma of wanting to protect Aunt May more than anything and warn her about the man she is sitting next to and yet unable to put her in danger. It also really sells the idea that the villains Spider-man encounters are extremely vicious minds that play for keeps. If they happen to know our hero's secret identity, they won't just go after him, they will take the fight to his closest family members. Finally, there is the agonizing thought that Aunt May has been seduced by Octavius and is now, for the first time since the death of Uncle Ben, happy and content and now Peter must take that away from her in order to save her. It makes perfect sense to include something with that much dramatic weight in our 'Spider-man 3' and Toomes would make a great substitute.

As Aunt May sits down with Toomes and Peter confronts this reality, he also puts the pieces of the puzzle together and realises that Sandman and Vulture have been specifically placed as pawns in a game to totally destroy every stable element of his life and the only way they could do that is with the help of someone who both knows the secret identity of Spider-man and has a definite grude against him. Harry Osborn is, sadly, no amnesiac. He has personally manipulated Gwen Stacey to turn her against Peter which has worked like a charm. The evidence that Flint Marko was Uncle Ben's real killer has been completely fabricated and the man himself has been unwillingly set up as bait to drive Peter to give in to his worst instincts and become the thing he fights against. Even though Marko has not died as a result of Peter's actions, the damage to our hero's soul has been done. Finally, Adrian Toomes is sitting in Peter's home ready to stick a knife in his Aunt May.

Unable to think straight anymore, Peter does exactly what Harry was expecting and confronts his best friend at the Oscorp building, a broken wreck of a superhero. Now, at the final exquisite moment of the plan, Harry is able to see the same look in Peter Parker that he had during his father's funeral. Just like Harry, Peter has had his love, his guardian and his reason for living taken away. He has made Peter wish he were never born. He has made Peter beg for death and is now ready to grant his wish. The only problem is both the small semblance of a good person that still remains within Harry (which has been discovered through his interactions with Gwen) and that the Vulture wants the pleasure of Spider-man's death to be his alone. Oh, and Sandman returns in an even more powerful form.

The action fueled finale of the film would play out through, around and on top of the Oscorp building with a few of the specific beats retained from the finished product. Sandman does grow into a humongous sand monster to swat the spider. Harry does convert back to the light and sacrifices himself to save Peter from the combined might of Vulture and Sandman. Though the kidnapped girl is a cliche, Gwen does take part in the action as it is important for her, Peter and Harry to be together at this cathartic moment in their lives. I really do love the perspective that the climax of the finished film provides that, for all the action and absurdity, this trilogy has really been about the rites of passage of these three friends and how they become the people they will be for the rest of their lives (which is measured in minutes for Harry).

Unlike the finished film and rather than a non-descript construction site sealed off from the public, the battle royale takes place in a finished building providing far better opportunity for spectacular property destruction. By placing Spidey inside a claustrophobic environment where he is unable to web swing away from the villains, having to dodge the giant arms of Sandman as he smashes through the walls in a typhoon of sand, brick and glass, the jeopardy is that much more increased. The destruction of the Oscorp building can represent the destruction of Harry's entire life, all brought about through his own actions. The Vulture, too far down the path of no return, is killed as he is unable to let go of his hatred. At the end of the battle, it is Peter who asks for forgiveness from Sandman for his actions and is even able to help repair the relationship between the Marko family. The relationship between Peter and Gwen, however, cannot be fixed as easily.

I have a theory that the original ending of 'Spider-man 3' was very similar to the one I am suggesting. If you watch the way Harry's funeral scene is reduced to a silent montage with the audience being given the slightest glimpse of MJ walking away from Peter, seemingly for good. The film fades out and then in to the, again silent, reconciliation between the two characters and it feels almost tacked on as if it were a reshoot. I am firmly of the belief that Peter and MJ originally had a full dialogue scene at Harry's funeral where they both decided to part ways for good, almost mirroring the final scene from the first film which took place after Norman Osborn's funeral. The powers that be (whoever they really are) decided it was best to keep the characters together at the end despite the fact that any rational audience member knows that there is no way they should be given everything that has happened in the story by this point. In our 'Spider-man 3', that wrong would be set right. It makes far more sense that, just as the hero told the girl that he could not be with her at the end of the first film, the girl tells the hero that she cannot be with him at the end of the third. The relationship between them thusly comes full circle. Gwen leaves New York for pastures new and, though Peter is alone for now, the audience takes comfort knowing that Mary Jane Watson (the stunningly hot actress/model/firecracker version we know and love from the comics) is going to be turning up on his doorstep in 'Spider-man 4'.

I hope none of this sounds too arrogant as if I know more about making successful comic book movies than the producers of the Spider-man films. I certainly do not. I know about as much as any fan of the series on this matter. That is what makes the finished 'Spider-man 3' and what has become of the franchise as a result so much more frustrating than practically any of the other Marvel films we have covered in this series. All of us could see exactly why the film didn't work. The only people who appeared to be blind to the obvious were the ones who made it.

Next week, we will discuss a motley crew of filmmakers who were certainly not blind to the fact that they were butchering one of Marvel comics greatest storylines, they just didn't give a shit; 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Storm Cloud'.