Rewrite some really stupid movies

Cafe Society
#1

I should have known better than to watch any movie on SciFi Channel with the word “raptor” in the title, but I was hoping Planet Raptor would be merely mediocre instead of annoyingly stupid. My mistake. It’s pretty bad when myself, a complete amateur, could rewrite the script and get a more plausible, coherent and entertaining movie. Basic plot is that soldiers and scientists are stranded on a planet with raptors, and for some reason are limited to 21st century weapons? I would hav done it like this:

In the XXth century, a habitable planet is dicovered. But exploration of it is hindered by the fact that for barely understood reasons, no form of electric or electronic gear will work within the planet’s magnetosphere. It’s certain that the effect is artificial, but other than that there’s no obvious signs of civilization. Remote reconnaisance is limited by heavy cloud cover. A team dropped by ballistic capsule to secure the end of a space tether to the surface was never heard from again, and the worst is feared. So a special unit of Space Marines trained in the use of “archaic” weaponry is dropped on a “succeed or you’re stuck there” mission. They find a few survivors of the first team, lotsa raptors, still have to complete securing the tether if they ever want to go home again, and well, take it from there.

What really dumb movies would you rewrite?

#2

I’d like to give Highlander a go. I’d just stick to the very core of the concept - certain people are immortal, and they can only be rendered permanently dead by another immortal decapitating them. No references to a quickening. The victor just gets more powerful in an esoteric, ethereal, one-with-all zen sort of way. The focus would be these beings living and effecting world history.

I’d like to rewrite the Predator movies as well. The first is a fantastic piece of jock theater, but the comics did a more imaginative job of exploring the Predators hunting on Earth throughout history - where the films only hinted at it.

#3

I don’t have any input, as I’m not a fan of ‘cinema’, but I anxiously await answers from our more advanced Dopers!

#4

I would love the chance to rewrite Star Trek: Nemesis. Nemesis tried to do for Picard what The Wrath of Khan did for Kirk. Only they forgot the most important part: a legitimate personal vendetta against the captain. Shinzon, the big bad of Nemesis, just happens to have Picard’s DNA and a lust for power, making him essentially Evil Alien #537.

Instead, I would make the villain the holographic Moriarty. When he was last seen, Picard & Co. had tricked him and his consort (the Countess Regina Bartholomew) into believing they had left the holodeck and further left the Enterprise on a shuttle to live out their lives as they pleased. In fact they were still in a computer program stored inside a memory module.

But the Enterprise-D crashed into Veridian III and presumably underwent whatever recycling process they use for wrecked starships. Suppose that the memory module hadn’t been labeled properly, or it was sold off, or whatever, and it ended up on some backwater planet. A rich Orion trader buys this curio, and when he activates it, boy is he in for a surprise. Upon finding out that Picard tricked him again, and he’s been living a lie for probably a decade at this point, Moriarty loses his shit big time and wants vengeance.

Since the return of Voyager, mobile holographic emitter technology has begun to permeate the Alpha Quadrant. Moriarty smooth-talks this Orion trader into getting two off the black market for him and the Countess (or maybe he’s driven so crazy by Picard’s deceit that he deletes her and only needs one) and begins to enact his revenge.

He’ll want to do to Picard what Picard did to him, so he figures out a way to extract Picard’s mind from its body, then implant it in a holoprogram and just leave him there. He either attacks or infiltrates the Enterprise, and he gets Picard back to his own ship. There’s a torture scene reminiscent of the one with the Cardassian Madred in “Chain of Command”, perhaps. Cue verbal sparring of wits, and debates about the rights of sentient holograms.

Moriarty, of course, will have anticipated the Enterprise coming to save Picard, so maybe he’ll set up a distraction for them - cue large space battle. Of course in the end Picard fights/talks his way out and the Enterprise is victorious. Then you can have Moriarty die in the shuffle, hoist by his own petard in some cruelly ironic way.

The whole movie could be laid out like a chess game between the two great minds. It would be excellent, or at the very least better than what they actually did for this movie.

#5

Basic Instinct.

I’d get rid of Michael Douglas, get rid of George Dzundza, get rid of the murder plot, and just have Sharon Stone banging lesbians for two hours.

Now that’s entertainment!

#6

The Truman Show

I always felt the character arc was cut off at the crucial point. I would reduce by half the amount of time in the Truman’s controlled environement and show much more of him trying to adapt to real society.