A little while back, I posted a review on the latest entry into Michael Bay’s Transformers movies: The Last Knight. I didn’t hate the movie entirely, but it was an absolutely insane shit-show. If I graded the film based on action alone, I would have given the film a solid 10/10. The action was phenomenal. It’s just that the movie surrounding the action wasn’t so hot. The acting, while mostly passable, failed to connect with the audience and the story was just made absolutely no sense whatsoever. So…what’s coming up for the franchise? Paramount has announced a while back that they are planning at least 13 more movies in the Transformers universe, but considering how poorly received The Last Knight was, they may want to rethink that. We are getting a spin-off which is supposed to be due next year. It’s going to be about Bumblebee and is supposed to be set in the 80s. Apparently, they want to give him an actual voice and the design from the animated show. I’m very curious. Is it going to be any good? Hard to say. Michael Bay is only going to produce the movie, not direct it. Bumblebee is an interesting enough Transformer to warrant his own movie, so I’m willing to see how that goes. As for a sequel to The Last Knight? That’s a little difficult to answer.
Based on the current numbers on Box Office Mojo, Transformers 5 has pulled in well over 400 million dollars world-wide. The film bombed in the States, pulling in barely over 100 million dollars on a 217 million dollar budget. If it wasn’t for the international market, The Last Knight would be a complete disaster for Paramount studios. It’s not even performing as well as Age of Extinction. Not even close. What needs to happen for Transformers 6 to be better than the previous effort, is to jettison Michael Bay entirely. He’s a great action director. He knows how to frame it and shoot it. The issue is that he can’t seem to hire proper writers to be able to tell a coherent story or even give us compelling characters. Not only that, the humor almost always falls flat. If you took out all the humor and most of the exposition, you would end up with a 2 hour movie. That’s all we really needed. Now, we know that Unicron is going to make himself known at some point in the next movie or two. There’s no getting around it, since they mentioned him multiple times. How that’s going to happen, I don’t know. Apparently the big guy is hiding underneath our planet, and the Transformers’ creator, Quintessa, wants to destroy him to give life back to Cybertron. What the next movie needs to happen is to focus entirely on the Transformers themselves and their potential battle with Unicron. If you want a good starting off point, check out the original animated Transformers film from 1986. That film introduced Unicron and made him feel like a legitimate threat. This is Unicron, for those who don’t know:
What I want to see from Transformers 6, is Michael Bay completely removed from the picture entirely. I don’t even want him producing the picture. We also need to hire writers that have at least SOME respect for the source material. The people that wrote the last 4 movies have done a major disservice to not only the source material, but also the fans as well. I’m sorry, the only movie that didn’t flat out suck in any way was the first film. Also, we need to get rid of the human characters. Nobody goes to a Transformers movie for human drama. We want to go these movies to see giant shape-shifting robots wreck shit. So far, the only movie that has managed to deliver on ALL counts is the original animated film, and that’s over 30 years old. Michael Bay doesn’t even seem to care anymore, as all he sees is dollar signs. Well, the performance of The Last Knight should tell Paramount Pictures that some adjustments need to be made. I know that Paramount wants a cinematic universe with Transformers, as that seems to be the “in” thing these days, but if they fuck up Unicron and that particularly story-line, a lot of people, including myself, will stop going to these movies.
Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Terminator
Linda Hamilton: Sarah Conner
Robert Patrick: T-1000
Edward Furlong: John Conner
Earl Boen: Dr. Silberman
Joe Morton: Miles Dyson
S. Epatha Merkerson: Tarissa Dyson
You might be wondering: Why is Major Tom reviewing Terminator 2? Several reasons. One: It’s literally been 26 years since the original release of the film, so writing a review on the film makes sense. Two: James Cameron is going to be re-releasing the film to certain theaters next month in 3-D. Three: Because I feel like it. In 1984, a young up-and-comer of a director named James Cameron unleashed a science fiction film onto unsuspecting audiences: The Terminator. Featuring an iconic performance by also up-and-coming actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator etched its way into the minds of film-goers world-wide. A story featuring a time-traveling murderous cyborg was very unique. Written and Directed by James Cameron, The Terminator became an instant classic, combining elements of science fiction, action and horror into one movie. The film launched the careers of both James Cameron, who would go on to direct Aliens as his next movie, which would also become revered, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became one of the biggest action stars of the 80’s and 90’s. The film changed what expectations would be for certain forms of science fiction. That’s nothing to say of the visual effects which were state-of-the-art at the time and for a very small budget. It’s widely regarded as one of the best science fiction films of all time. 26 years ago today, James Cameron managed to do the impossible: He created a sequel that not only surpassed the original film in terms of visual effects, but also crafted one of the greatest sequels ever.
Considering how everybody and their mother has seen both The Terminator and the sequel, I don’t feel that it’s necessary to go over the film’s story. Don’t get me wrong, the story for Terminator 2 isn’t awful. It’s great. It’s just that considering how well-received this film was/is, I would rather go over the elements that made this film so damned good. The story is obviously a continuation of the adventure we saw in the original film, but taking place a decade later. The story for T2 feels like a very natural extension of what we saw before. We see young John Connor as a rebellious youth while his mother is incarcerated in a mental facility. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character shows up to protect the child from the film’s new villain, the T-1000, played by Robert Patrick. Because of a much larger budget, the story and characters are given time to grow and evolve. Even Schwarzenegger’s character evolves. The story makes sense and is paced well enough to keep things going, but it also allows time for the audience to connect with the characters.
Speaking of characters, they feel like real people caught up in very unusual circumstances. John Conner is an understandably troubled, but intelligent young kid with no respect for authority. Of all the people who played John Connor over the years, Edward Furlong is easily the best. Because he was a kid at the time of filming, he infused the character with his own levels of rebellion and attitude. Young John Connor behaves like a real kid. Sarah Connor is no longer the meek and weak young woman that we saw in the first film. Here, she’s a battle-hardened warrior-mother that generally knows how to take care of herself. Linda Hamilton really upped her game for this one and underwent weeks and weeks of training to sell the character as she’s become. Even the side-characters are fleshed out to a certain degree. Miles Dyson, who is the creator of the chip that would eventually lead to the creation of Skynet, isn’t doing it for world domination, but to try to make the world a better place. When he’s told that his work would be responsible for the deaths of 3 billion people, you can see the distress. Joe Morton really infuses the character with a bit of naive humanity that makes the character someone you would want to survive. The Terminator himself evolves over the course of the film, and this has more to do with the extended version of the film, which is the version I’m reviewing. In the extended version of the film, we see John and Sarah open up the T-800’s skull to try and reset the switch that would help the Terminator learn more about people. There’s a lot of interesting character interactions throughout the film that are surprisingly relevant. John’s relationship to his mother is probably the most organic that I’ve seen in years. We see these two estranged characters drift apart and finally come back together as family by the end of the film, and that’s one of the movie’s key themes: Family. It’s fleshed out in a way that’s not cheesy or over-the-top.
James Cameron has always been known for trying to push film technology to the limit, and as some of his more recent films have proven, tend to take a long time to make. Cameron really first dabbled with CGI in a movie called The Abyss, in which a water tentacle, piloted by aliens, would imitate the likeness of some of the characters. This was an early attempt at “morphing.” This was eventually perfected in Terminator 2, and was featured with a villain called the T-1000, a liquid metal assassin that could assume the form of anybody that it killed. For a movie that’s 26 years old, the visual effects and CGI still hold up very, very well. Watching the T-1000 shape-shift is a thing to behold. Don’t believe me? Check it out:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, if that’s any indication. It’s not just the CGI that’s incredible, but also the make-up effects, miniatures and the actual designs of the T-800 Terminators that you see at the beginning of the film. The visual effects team at Industrial Light and Magic need to be commended for how seamless their effects blended with the rest of the film.
Since this IS an action movie, let’s talk about the action: Holy. Shit. Terminator 2 features some of the craziest and incredible action sequences that I’ve ever seen. When you ask people what their favorite action scene in T2 is, they tend to not pick out just one. Honestly, the opening future sequence is brilliant. It’s bleak, it’s explosive and it’s bleak. The first car chase is between the T-1000 in a semi and John Connor and small motorcycle through a massive canal. No CGI here, ladies and gentlemen. The stunts they did, they did for real. Granted, there is some obvious use of wires, but that’s to be expected in a film this old. Every action sequence escalates. The assault at Cyberdyne is one of the most iconic sieges I’ve ever seen in a movie. Watching Arnold Schwarzenegger handle that mini-gun is awe-inspiring. The explosions are big and the gun fights are second-to-none.
The music by Brad Fiedel is definitely another one of the film’s strongest elements. It’s definitely has that electronic vibe, but also feels orchestral at times. But throughout the film, the music weaves an emotional fabric over the whole experience. The main theme is one of the most iconic music themes in cinema. The music also helps punctuate the relationships between the characters, and makes for a very emotionally gratifying experience, especially during the ending.
Speaking of endings, everybody knows all about the sequels that came after T2, but quite frankly, the story was properly wrapped up in the second film. The follow-up movies were nothing more than cash-grabs. They attempted to try and cash in on the popularity of the first two movies without understanding why these movies existed and why they are so damned good. Terminator 2: JudgmentDay is not only one of the best sequels ever made, it is one of the best movies EVER. I remember seeing it in a local drive-in theater back in 1991, and I was totally blown away by it. There is a very strong message throughout the film that’s not just about the importance of family, but in how not to let technology destroy our humanity. It’s a good message, but I feel that only Sarah Connor could really sum up the message in this film:
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been toying with the idea of a new kind post for my website. The idea that I finally settled on was something called, “What’s Next?” So, what’s “What’s Next?” It’s a new series about what I think needs to happen in a follow-up to a film that I think could either use one, or one’s pretty much going to happen, but hasn’t been announced yet. I’m also going to go over stuff that I would really love to see in a follow-up film. These posts are only going to cover movies that have the potential for sequels or some kind of follow-up. So, movies like 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot aren’t going to count. Also, movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe are out of the question, because it’s almost guaranteed that any movie in the MCU is going to be getting a follow-up. Star Wars is out, too. The movies I’m covering in this new series are ones that aren’t necessarily ultra-successful. So, with that out of the way, let’s get into our first pick for “What’s Next?”: Power Rangers.
I have to be completely honest: When I heard that they were going to do a film reboot of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers tv show, I was a bit skeptical. What route were they going to go down? Who would they cast as the teenagers? Were they going to use Rita Repulsa as the main villain? What would the suits look like? When the first concept art of the film started coming out, especially Rita, I was rather intrigued. It was definitely going to be a different look for sure. Then they announced the cast. You have a bunch of unknowns such as Dacre Montgomery as Jason, Naomi Scott as Kimberly and RJ Cyler as Billy with bigger names like Bryan Cranston as Zordon and Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa. Interesting. I’m starting to get sold. Then the trailers start coming out, and I’m cautiously optimistic, but unsure. When the film was released in late March, I was genuinely surprised at how well the film came together. The cast was very solid and the writing was actually pretty sharp. These kids felt like teenagers with real attitudes, which was more than I could say for the show. They all had their own real issues to deal with. I was rather surprised at how menacing Elizabeth Banks was as Rita. She’s far more intimidating in this film than anywhere else. She gets down and dirty, because she used to be a Power Ranger. THAT’S interesting. While the film had its problems, I was on board throughout the entire film. It was very good.
Unfortunately, the film didn’t perform as well as Lionsgate had hoped, but it was not really a flop. It was not the kind of performance that would guarantee six films like Saban had wanted. Now, the word is that Lionsgate is conducting negotiations with Saban on how to proceed with at least one sequel. If the sequel can do better than the original film, we may see more films in the franchise. There are a few things that need to happen, though. First of all, lower the rating to a PG. Don’t get wrong, I’m glad that Power Rangers was PG-13, but it probably scared away a lot of potential business, because the film get pretty damn dark. There were a few visuals that would’ve scared the youngsters. Those are the kinds of people you want to try and attract to your movie. However, a PG rating does not necessarily mean you have to be as cheesy as the 1995 Power Rangers film, but you have to take into account the audience you’re trying to reach. Next, you need to have more Power Rangers in your Power Rangers film. I mean, you need to have more action with the kids in their suits before escalating the fight with Zords. You also need to have more action. The action in the film wasn’t bad, I rather enjoyed it, but it took an entire movie to get to that point. They could have done a little bit better. With the stinger in the end credits, it’s guaranteed that Tommy Oliver is going to show up as the Green Ranger. For that to work, don’t try to copy what the original show did with the “Green With Evil” story-line. You won’t be able to improve on that story arc. Also, bring back Dean Israelite as the director. He did a fantastic job with what he was given, so I think he deserves another shot.
Let’s talk about what I want to see in Power Rangers 2. For one, I want to see Lord Zedd. Now, Mr. Israelite says he wants to bring in Zedd for the sequel, because that’s the next logical step in terms of the villains. For those of you who don’t know who Lord Zedd is:
The only question is, is what will he look like in the next movie? At this point, it’s going to be at least another year before we see anything. So, why bring in Zedd? What, aside from the fact that he is the strongest and most devastating villain that the Rangers have ever encountered? This guy managed to destroy the Dino Zords and eliminate the Green Ranger entirely in the show. Seeing Zedd would be totally awesome. Obviously, we want to see the Green Ranger in a new film. We briefly saw the design of the Green Ranger at the very beginning of the film when Rita was a Ranger. Some people want to bring in Bulk and Skull as the bullies. I don’t. They worked for the show, but they would feel a little out of place in the new film franchise. I would also love to see the Ultrazord at some point. Music-wise, Brian Tyler was a good choice for the film, so bringing him back as the film’s composer would make sense. Also, I would love for them to close out Power Rangers 2 with this:
Yeah, it may be a bit cheesy, but it’s epic and absolutely perfect for a Power Rangers movie. Also, no more post-end credits scenes. I loved the new movie, but I think a follow-up has to be a little bit more action-packed. Now, that they’ve established the world and the characters, they can focus on what really makes Power Rangers….well….Power Rangers. Also, the putties need to be redesigned. I’m not saying they should be the lame cannon fodder from the original show, but they need to feel a little bit more like they are actually there. So, some of the CGI needs to pulled back a little bit. So, in a lot of ways, Power Rangers 2 needs to be bigger, but in some ways, it needs to be a bit smaller. There’s a real potential for a film franchise, if they can get it right. This year’s film proved that they can, we just need to be able to get more people to see it.
That’s it for my first edition of “What’s Next?” So…what do you think?
My last post covered some amazing films that really didn’t need sequels at all, but got them anyway. That’s not to say that all the sequels were bad, but they were generally inferior to the original production. For this post, I’m going to be specifically talking about certain movies that deserve a sequel, but haven’t gotten one. I’m also going to be including movies that while the film may not have been overly successful, a sequel is still a real possibility. Let’s give it a go, shall we?
Power Rangers
When Power Rangers showed up in March, I was very surprised at how good the movie actually was. My expectations for this film were understandably low. What we ended up getting was a very compelling coming-of-age story with teenagers that actually felt like real people dealing with real problems. The teenagers were very 3-dimensional and were very likable. I also liked the fact that they had to earn the right to become Power Rangers. This new film served as a film reboot of the highly popular Power Rangers franchise, and I feel that it did a really good job. The suits were awesome and surprisingly NOT CGI. Certain elements of the suits were, but the suits themselves were built from scratch. The film didn’t exactly flop in the box-office, but the international response was not what the film-makers had in mind. It has yet to open in Japan, from what I understand, but the future of the film franchise is up in the air at this point. It’s a shame, because it is a very good movie. It’s got a great story with fantastic characters and visuals that are pretty decent. The word on the interwebs is that Lionsgate Studios and Haim Saban, the creator of Power Rangers are in talks to try and get a sequel made. It looks very possible that we might get a Power Rangers 2. The original plan was for at least 6 movies, but I’m not entirely sure that will happen. We may get lucky with a trilogy, but I don’t see it progressing further than that if they don’t address some of the problems that the first movie had. I’m actually fairly optimistic about this one, though.
Dredd
This one’s a bit of a heart-breaker, because we know this one WON’T be getting a sequel. It’s too bad really, because the 2012 adaptation of Judge Dredd is a surprisingly visceral and brutal experience that underscores how brutal the character is. This one hurts because the film was universally praised for it’s unflinching and violent take on the character, who was brilliantly portrayed by Karl Urban. They took everything that was great about the character and the world that Dredd inhabits and gave it a very stylistic and bloody look at the world. It was very simple story that had some very extraordinary characters. Unfortunately, the film bombed at the box office. People were rightfully wary that the film was going to be too much like Sylvester Stallone’s film, so that had a lot to do with it. Home video sales didn’t really help much, either. It’s a shame, because it’s such a fantastic action film that pulls no punches.
Warcraft
Here’s another one that I feel needs a sequel and one that may eventually happen. Warcraft, based on the popular video game franchise by Blizzard Entertainment, was met with mixed to negative reviews in the states and was considered a massive flop here. In China, though, the film was a major success. It’s entirely possible that because of the film’s international success, we might see another one. I would certainly hope so. Warcraft was a surprisingly decent movie that was faithful to the game. The sets, the costumes and the character designs all look like they came out of the video game. Now, Duncan Jones, the director of the film, has ideas on where to take another Warcraft film if Universal decides to go for it. I’m not as optimistic about this one as I am about Power Rangers, but I’m secretly hoping that Universal will go for it. There’s so much more story to be told.
Willow
Willow is one of those movies that manages to set up a very interesting movie, but didn’t do much to get a sequel. It’s a shame, because this is a very good fantasy film. The best films are character-driven and it’s no exception here. The characters in the film which include Willow himself, Madmartigan, and even the evil Queen Bavmorda are memorable. Unfortunately, the film was met with a lackluster box-office performance and mixed reviews by both critics and audiences alike. It’s sad, because there was a lot of stuff they could have done with the world of Willow. The movie had it all: Excitement, adventure, comedy and drama. It was a good old-fashioned fantasy film. The effects were stunning and the music by James Horner was truly wonderful. Unfortunately, money talks, and Willow didn’t make enough to warrant another entry. The film did end up with novels that take place after the film, but they were not particularly well-received. It’s tragic, really.
It’s funny: I was expecting to have a lot more movies on this list, but when I started to really think about it, there aren’t a whole of movies out there that need sequels. Some people would argue that most movies don’t need them. That’s a fair enough statement, but sometimes a sequel can open up a film’s world quite a bit more and delve more into certain character backstories. How does one judge that a movie gets a sequel or not? Ultimately, it comes down to money and how well-received a film is, but mostly money. In an industry that is peppered with sequels and remakes, these are the movies that I feel need to get sequels.
