# If only they could have made this a good movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2005, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545 "2005-09-07T17:31:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/41 "2005-09-09T14:48:14Z")
My first thought was **Robin Hood: Men In Tights**. I soooo could have made that a good movie. The first thing to do would be totally re-cast it. Dave Chappelle and Megan Cavanaugh get fired, Richard Lewis gets run over by a steamroller. Then I would tighten the action, drop all the “Let’s telegraph every stupid joke I’ve done 80 times before” that Brooks filled the movie with, and actually **make it funny**! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/42 "2005-09-09T15:33:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Day of the Triffids. The novel is a blueprint for a great SF film. One day, they may decide to make it again and do it right. Actually, they already have. The problem is, it’s rarely seen, and hasn’t been released theatrically or on video AFAIK. It was done from Vritish TV, and has run on PBS here in the states. This new version is very faithful to Wyndham’s book: > **[The Day of the Triffids (TV Mini Series 1981) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081850/)** > > The Day of the Triffids: With John Duttine, Emma Relph, Maurice Colbourne, Jonathan Newth. When a comet blinds nearly everyone in the world, a genetically-engineered species of plant takes over. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/43 "2005-09-12T04:56:50Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > My first thought was **Robin Hood: Men In Tights**. I soooo could have made that a good movie. The first thing to do would be totally re-cast it. Dave Chappelle and Megan Cavanaugh get fired, Richard Lewis gets run over by a steamroller. Then I would tighten the action, drop all the “Let’s telegraph every stupid joke I’ve done 80 times before” that Brooks filled the movie with, and actually **make it funny**! The really frustrating thing is that back in 1975, Mel Brooks did a sitcom about Robin Hood – _When Things Were Rotten,_ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072585/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072585/) – that was actually **funny!** What’s Mel’s problem? Why have his powers degenerated so pathetically? Alzheimer’s? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/44 "2005-09-12T05:41:26Z")
**Judge Dredd** : not even a bad film, let alone a terrible one, but it just \*wasn’t \* Judge Dredd, just some amiably forgettable futuristic actioner. It had some nice touches: moving the penal colony from Titan to Aspen was actually pretty funny, Mean Angel and Hammerstein were very well realised, and the setting _looked_ like Mega City One: some very nice production design there. But the main character…wasn’t Judge Dredd: the writers had no idea who the character was supposed to be, and the casting didn’t help matters: he was just every grumpy cop with a soft heart, a “funny” sidekick and a quirky catchphrase from every other Stallone movie you’ve ever seen. The Judge Dredd of the comics is a bastard, a quasi-facist faceless avatar of justice who _is_ his job: when he says “I am the Law”, he means it quite literally - it’s his _raison d’etre_, and he doesn’t exist outside it - no friends, no family, no sidekicks. He judges people. That’s all he does. But the grimness is leavened by the fact that he’s the straight man who doesn’t get the gag: he’s humourlessly policing a giant madhouse, in which everyone is unemployed, bored and stupid, and so amuse themselves by behaving as absurdly as possible while Dredd labours vainly to impose order on this chaos. The one director I think of who could capture that is Terry Gilliam: there’s a lot of that very English absurdist black humour in both **Brazil** and Dredd, and the urban dystopias aren’t too far removed: of course, no studio was going to give Gilliam a huge amount of money to make a grimly ridiculous film of a comic most people had never heard of, and so they neutered it instead. Inevitable, really. Oh yeah, and Bruce Campbell should have played Dredd: he’s got the perfect chin for the part, and _he_ would have got the joke. Bruce Campbell in a Terry Gilliam film of Judge Dredd: fanboy heaven. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/45 "2005-09-12T05:53:23Z")
Seem to be more than a couple Keanu Reeves films listed here. Huh. Wonder why? I’ll add another of his: **Johnny Mnemonic**. I remember reading the book, finishing it, putting it down, and saying, “Wow.” I remember watching the movie, finishing it, walking out of the theater, and saying, “That sucked.” **Dungeons and Dragons**. Call me a fanboy, but I was so hoping for a good movie and not that mindless drivel and testament to bad acting. See, in my mind, if it had been successful, producers would see that and flood the market with other sword and sorcery movies, perhaps even creating a franchise under the D&D banner. In the end, I was hoping it would culminate in Michael Moorcock’s _Elric Saga_ finally being brought to the big screen (especially after hearing Warner Bros optioned the story). But alas, the movie was a colossal flop and nary a fantasy swords and sorcery movie has come out since. I remember thinking, well, it’s got Jeremy Irons in it, that’s a good sign, right? Pfshaw! ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/46 "2005-09-12T05:54:26Z")
_Less Than Zero_ and _Rules of Attraction_ could’ve been amazing movies if they’d been based on the actual books upon which they were supposedly based and cast with people who both were able to act and chose to. The success of the TV version of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ shows that the theatrical version could have been good. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/47 "2005-09-12T05:59:12Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > _Less Than Zero_ and _Rules of Attraction_ could’ve been amazing movies if they’d been based on the actual books upon which they were supposedly based and cast with people who both were able to act and chose to. But Bret Easton Ellis’ “novel” _Less Than Zero_ had no **plot.** And precious little characterization. What director would be up to the challenge of making that work on the big screen? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/48 "2005-09-12T06:42:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But Bret Easton Ellis’ “novel” _Less Than Zero_ had no **plot.** And precious little characterization. What director would be up to the challenge of making that work on the big screen? Andy Warhol? David Lynch? Hell, Paul Bartell’s take on it would’ve at least been funny. Anything other than the deadly _earnest_ treatment given it by…Marek Kanievska?! And I disagree that LTZ had no plot. It didn’t have much of one but it was there, and the movie managed to get every point of it wrong. And the casting was fairly awful, simply because many of those cast couldn’t act wet in a rainstorm (I’m looking at you, Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz!) and those that could for the most part decided not to (Robert Downey Jr? James Spader? You know who you are!). I mean for god’s sake, if you can’t get a believable performance out of _Robert Downey Jr_ and a _drug addict_ then you’re just not trying. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/49 "2005-09-12T14:44:57Z")
**Wild Wild West** , and in general, any movie made from a TV show by people who have NO IDEA why the TV show was good in the first place. I’ve never been a big fan of Will Smith, he plays his action roles much too broadly, with traces of latter-day Stepin’ Fetchit that everyone overlooks because he gets top billing and loads of cash. The guy trying to talk the crowd out of lynching him by deconstructing the word ‘redneck’ is not James West. And that’s before we even see the 80-foot-long mechanical spider. **Mission: Impossible** did the same thing. The series was all about the team; the technical and personal complexity that they’d have to use to steal the oil contracts from the heavily guarded safe of some South American dictator or something. They turned it into a lone-wolf star vehicle for Tom Cruise, with a ridiculous action-movie climax. And they completely, utterly, totally, and in every other way, butchered the theme song. **Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow** could have been great. And my problem isn’t that there was too much jungle. I didn’t like the way Gwyneth Paltrow played Polly. She was clearly supposed to be the fast-talking, pull-no-punches, confident Girl Reporter; Paltrow played her way too wishy-washy. Rosalind Russell would have never second-guessed herself about keeping and hiding those three vials. Secondly, the action scenes fell prey to the trend of hyper-kinetic motion at the expense of everything else. Seriously guys, don’t turn a dogfight into a swarm of gnats; I don’t give a fuck about a gnat. Gorgeous movie to look at, though; I really liked it the first time I saw it, on a big screen in a foreign language. ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/50 "2005-09-12T15:23:17Z")
28 Days When a buddy described the premise, I thought cool. Not anything new, but done well this could be good. Of course for it to have been good we would have had to have…let’s see…main characters acting consistently, or as if they had a frickin’ brain!!! Example (one of thousands) I’m so worried for my daughter’s safety, I’ve holed up in our apartment building and stood guard with riot gear at the top of the steps…what’s the first thing I do when I leave the safety of this arrangement…hmmm, let’s see, drive through a dark tunnel where there are likely to be zombies, and drive over parked traffic in my cab as if it were a monster truck. Come on. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/51 "2005-09-12T15:33:25Z")
> [@SolGrundy](#): > > Yes, it was an awful movie, but have you read the book? Stinky. The beginning was very gripping, and then it kept escalating, and then it just falls apart and becomes completely stupid. I’m surprised they got a movie out of it at all. Best course of action for that would’ve been to just nuke it from orbit. I liked the book and the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/52 "2005-09-12T15:36:58Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > 28 Days > > When a buddy described the premise, I thought cool. Not anything new, but done well this could be good. > > Of course for it to have been good we would have had to have…let’s see…main characters acting consistently, or as if they had a frickin’ brain!!! Example (one of thousands) I’m so worried for my daughter’s safety, I’ve holed up in our apartment building and stood guard with riot gear at the top of the steps…what’s the first thing I do when I leave the safety of this arrangement…hmmm, let’s see, drive through a dark tunnel where there are likely to be zombies, and drive over parked traffic in my cab as if it were a monster truck. Come on. ☹ I think you mean **28 Days _Later_**. **28 Days** was the one with Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen in rehab. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/53 "2005-09-12T15:44:05Z")
Aliens3. There was SO much source material they could have drawn from…there were so many ideas they could have used that would have made this an excellent movie, first of which and best would have been the aliens reach earth. But nooo…they hired an MTV video director, killed off two of the main characters before the credits and made what looked like a straight-to-video horror flick that sucked. And of course Starship Troopers. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/54 "2005-09-12T15:47:37Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Aliens3. > There was SO much source material they could have drawn from…there were so many ideas they could have used that would have made this an excellent movie, first of which and best would have been the aliens reach earth. But nooo…they hired an MTV video director, killed off two of the main characters before the credits and made what looked like a straight-to-video horror flick that sucked. It is a BAD movie, but that “MTV video director” turned out to be one of the best and brightest (or I should say DARKEST) Hollywood directors, David Fincher: a guy with an amazing visual style and an innovative, risky feeling to every movie he’s made since (_Seven_, _Fight Club_). ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/55 "2005-09-12T15:53:32Z")
> [@Big Bad Voodoo Lou](#): > > It is a BAD movie, but that “MTV video director” turned out to be one of the best and brightest (or I should say DARKEST) Hollywood directors, David Fincher: a guy with an amazing visual style and an innovative, risky feeling to every movie he’s made since (_Seven_, _Fight Club_). Well, that’s if you LIKED those movies…I didn’t particularly care for either one. Both were well made but Se7en was anticlimactic and murky and Fight Club, although intriguing and engrossing, was in the end a letdown for me. ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/56 "2005-09-12T15:57:45Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > I think you mean **28 Days _Later_**. > **28 Days** was the one with Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen in rehab. Ahem. Yeah, that’s what I meant. Pisses me off so bad I can’t even remember the title. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/57 "2005-09-12T16:20:06Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > I think you mean **28 Days _Later_**. > **28 Days** was the one with Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen in rehab. But _that_ movie would have been better with Sandra Bullock driving a taxi over parked cars like it was a monster truck. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/58 "2005-09-12T16:25:23Z")
**Mists of Avalon** , although that may need to be a mini-series because it’s such an involved story. What? What’d you say? TNT? Sorry, I can’t understand you. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/59 "2005-09-12T16:25:41Z")
> [@Sean Factotum](#): > > But _that_ movie would have been better with Sandra Bullock driving a taxi over parked cars like it was a monster truck. Or Sandra Bullock being attacked by rage-fueled zombies. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545/60 "2005-09-12T16:56:48Z")
**Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles** would have been much better if the smuggling mystery had been dropped in favor of doing a send-up of the entire movie-making business. It should have been like **Last Action Hero** but focused outward instead of inward. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-only-they-could-have-made-this-a-good-movie/320545.md?page=4)