Highlander 2: Connor MacLeod wakes up in a cold sweat- the whole movie was just a dream. And yes, that would improve the movie.
The Phantom Menace: Make Aanakin 17-19 years old when we first meet him. That gives us A) no Jake Lloyd and no “yippee!” B) another paralell with Luke in the Original Trilogy C) a more believable love story with Padme D) a possible love triangle with Padme, Aanakin and Obi Wan, thus deepening Obi Wan’s internal conflict in Episode III E) we don’t have to change actors in mid-trilogy F) 17-year-old former slave who is a great pilot saves the day is more believable than 9-year-old former slave who is a great pilot saves the day.
I am convinced that one casting choice destroyed Phantom Menace much more than the inclusion of Jar Jar.
The Shadow: Lose the prologue set in the opium fields of Tibet; open the movie with the second scene: Shadow’s rescue of Roy the Physicist on the Brooklyn Bridge. Tell the background story in flashbacks or maybe even not at all.
Office Space: Our hero gets the President’s codes by some implausible computer-hacking scene and calls in a nuclear strike on the office. (Okay, this is over the top, but the movie needs something; it started out strong and ended lame.)
American Beauty: Our hero does the nasty with the underage cheerleader; the movie closes with a sweet scene of her smiling and pregnant.
Moulin Rouge: Decide not to make it.
Okay, I know, I know… but God I hate that movie.
Phantom Menace: Have Ani simply be strong in the force, instead of getting into a bunch of nonsense about midichlorians and immaculate conception.
Godfather III: Wait for Winona Ryder or anybody else to be ready for the film instead of bringing in Sophia Coppola at the last minute.
I love that music!
thwartme
I’d change lots of this, sadly. I went into it watching the lead character do his scientific bit and COLLECT CLUES… Tried to piece it together with him… Then it just becomes, “Oh, no, it’s all magic. None of it has to have internal logic.” Frosted me for the rest of the film.
Wizards: Make the wizard look like Christopher Lee, not an animated garden gnome.
Explorers: Repalce silly aliens with stately aliens with lots of gravitas.
Kiki’s Delivery Service: Make the heroine 18 instead of 10.
It should be Milton who suggests to our hero to do this. Replace “set office on fire” with “nuke the office” for what he will do if his red Swingline stapler is stolen.
Tim Burton’s recent remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
Take off that sappy, stupid ending. Make the last fifteen minutes of the movie vanish forever. Please!
OK, my pick is an Aaron Spelling TV pilot movie called “Velvet.” It was about a team of foxy female superspies who worked for a govenrment agency under the cover of a chain of aerobicize studios called “Velvet.” If you’re thinking big hair and spandex, you’re on the right track. Now, the only remotely creative bit of thinking that went into this flick was the design of the aerobics studios. They have a central office ringed by aerobics workout studios. One wall of each studio adjoins the central office. The wall is made of glass, so people in the office can watch the workouts and signal the instructors, and vice versa.
They just made one mistake with this design: they should have given it to the bad guys, not the good guys. And they should have made the glass wall one-way glass, so the people in the office can see out, but the aerobicizers can’t see in. And the bad guys are white slavers, who invite customers in to watch the aerobicizers and pick out the likely prospects. So you’d have a scene where a bunch of guys in towels bid on Mary Lou while she does some toe-touches with her back to the one way glass while wearing a thong, then you have a subsequent scene where a terrified Mary Lou is left chained to a post in the center of the office, desperately trying to signal her former aerobicizer classmates whom she can see clearly thorugh the glass, but of course, they can’t see her.
Qelle drammer, as they say down here.
You misspelled “Rip apart with a rusty hatchet”
Apocalypse Now - replace Marlon Brando with Jack Nicholson… or practically anyone.
Full Metal Jacket - use the book ending instead (it’s far more bleak)
Saving Private Ryan - get rid of the bookend cemetary scenes.
Bambi - let Bambi’s mom live.
Wait, wait, let me get this straight. You watched a movie, liked 120 out of the 124 minutes you watched it, and when the filmmakers chose to use one of the most important pieces of music that the entire Western musical tradition ever produced in an entirely appropriate context to heighten the sense of loss and mourning the character felt, it ruined the entire move because you thought it was anachronistic?!?!?!
Did it occur to you that what the audience hears on a soundtrack is not what the characters hear? You may as well object because the filmmakers didn’t have an orchestra in the field to provide the music we hear on the soundtrack when Elizabeth is informed of Queen Mary’s death. For that matter, why not object to all of the other pieces of music on the soundtrack that were composed for the symphonic orchestra, which could be called equally anachronistic.
Seriously, I think you need to lighten up about little things like this. If the presence of the that piece alone spoils the movie, there were far worse transgressions of the historical record earlier that you let pass unnoticed.
Uh, the OP said improve the movie.
At the end, where Hooper and Brody are holding onto the flotsam and swimming back to shore: have the camera track behind them and go wide, revealing a large dorsal fin breaking the surface and closing in…cue the ominous music…fade to black. :eek:
Vanilla Sky.
DING!
Roll credits.
15-minute point-by-point explanation of the movie for morons and tacked-on moral that has nothing to do with the rest of the film? WHAT 15-minute point-by-point explanation of the movie for morons and tacked-on moral that has nothing to do with the rest of the film? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yes, that’s exactly what I felt. That’s why I said it in my post. In answer to the OP it’s the one thing I’d change about the film. For me it completely screwed up the film. And not just for me either. I’ve heard several other people make the same comment. It actually featured in one of the reviews in the papers here at the time the film was released.
I’m not sure that I understand your point here. The characters don’t exist. They don’t hear anything. The film is a piece of fiction. As a member of the audience I do hear the soundtrack.
Yes, there were plenty of historical solecisms in Elizabeth. But the OP was asking for the one single thing you’d change, and as I said earlier, that would be the music in the final scene.
Didn’t you know that “mute” is short for “mutilate?” All the kids are saying that now.
Trading Places- moments of comic brilliance with Eddie Murphy at his best in some scenes, but dump/rewrite the stupid Franken/Davis/gorilla subplot. Anybody can tell the difference in a gorilla and a guy in a gorilla suit.
Merchant of Venice- I never really understood why Portia donned drag and became the judge, or why the real judges let her and didn’t notice she was a woman in drag; it would have made more sense for her either to speak as a woman (a “from the mouths of babes” comment on sexism) or let it be just an actual clever judge do the “pound of flesh but no blood” thing.
Speaking of Shakespeare, Iago totally needs more backstory in Othello- just why does he “hate the Moor” so?
Schindler’s List- many will disagree, but it should have been filmed in color. (One of the people portrayed said this also- “The newsreels are in black and white, but my memories are in color”.)
The MUSICALS wing:
My Fair Lady- restore Audrey Hepburn’s singing at least on the Cockney Eliza numbers. She wasn’t bad and it would be a lot better than the bad lip synching.
Oliver- I don’t know if this counts as recasting, but- choose somebody- anybody- else to do Oliver’s singing voice. It’s way way way too high a pitch for that kid.
Oklahoma- get rid of or at least shorten the nightmare ballet number. Always my least favorite part of the movie. (Of course I also always thought Poor Jud is Daid was a horrifying number that made Curlie one of the most unlikable heroes in American theater, but in a different way, so I’d keep it.)
Annie (the first version- Finney and Burnett et al)- far far less choreography. The dancing was way too overblown.
Annie- the remake- shelve it and forget it ever happened (or at least add a scene to explain why Warbucks goes from “get her out of here” to “Gee I can’t live without that kid” in one quick song- it’s almost disturbing ala Natalie Portman’s inexplicable “love scene” with Jake Lloyd.
Evita- oh, so much was wrong, but if I had to pick one thing… completely reshoot Rolling On Out to include more train footage and reinclude the lines about “Thank God for Switzerland”.
Phantom of the Opera- again so many things, but if only one, the Phantom needs to have a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more gruesome deformity. (If allowed two things, I’d cut or change his backstory flashback- it’s totally different from the book and just not believable even for escapist musical melodrama.)
Make that three dorsal fins and you’ve got a winner!
Titanic- restore the scenes of Mr. & Mrs. Strauss. They were two of the ship’s most heroic passengers.