Forgotten Movie Ideas

Written by Lord Hart

Ever since I first started to peer into the endless void known as the internet, I have read up on movie news and shit of that nature. Alot of rumours crop up because of the vast interest in the industry, and alot of them are unfounded, and never eventuate.

What ever happens to the news items that you read about, think "that's fucking horrible", and then you see it fade away into the distance, never to see or hear of them again? What about the ones that make you cum in your pants? Let's go onto a journey into my memory and we'll see what interesting forgotten movie ideas I can dig out, and how you could possibly make them better... if possible.

The Good

Watch The Skies (aka ET)
The Details: Imagine this. A farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, it's dark, and aliens are trying to get into your house after dissecting your livestock in an attempt to figure out which Earth species is sentient. They're trying to get into your house, and they will try to do the same to you. This is ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Let's set the wayback machine to the late 70's-early 80's. Steven Spielberg is making 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', and had begun plans to make a sequel to 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind'. Featuring a family being terrorized by aliens, whilst one of the family members, a young boy, strikes up a friendly raport with one of the aliens that is inherently harmless and benelovent alien, the movie was to be a completely different route to what the previous movie had been.

Generally tired of the killing from the movie he was shooting and in the script, and not to mention also from the hot Tunisian sun, he began having doubts about the sequel, when a friend commented that the idea of a young boy becoming friends with an emotional, tender alien was beautiful. He then proceeded shortly after with rewriting the story into what became 'ET and Me', which we all now know as ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.

The initial and basic premise was later reused for various things like Poltergeist and Gremlins, and various other things that Spielberg wasn't involved in, like Critters (a Gremlins rip-off) and Signs. It was also brought up when they discussed making a sequel to ET called 'ET II: Nocturnal Fears'. Sure, people who loved ET want to see him and other aliens tearing apart some frightened people... yep.

How To Fix It: Fucking make it! 'Watch The Skies' is one of those movie ideas that you hear and think, man that would have been awesome. Too bad M. Night Shyamalan did it, and fucked it up royally.

The Bad

Karate Kid
The Details: This one is quite recent actually, only being mentioned in the trades a few weeks back, and to be dismissed a few weeks later. Apparently, Will Smith had purchased the rights to make a remake of the Karate Kid series and was set to put his son into the title role, and Jackie Chan as Miyagi. Never mind that his son is something like 9 years old, and I find it unbelievable that a 9 year old needs to know karate to stop bullies that are riding his ass.

Throw in Jackie Chan, who doesn't seem to even DO martial arts in his movies anymore, and the whole thing is completely absurd. Besides... Jackie Chan is chinese, and they don't DO the inferior martial art of karate.

How to Fix It: If they were serious in making this movie, there could only be two things they could do. For one, they can't remake the series. They didn't have the freaking star and they still made a fourth one, because of one thing, Pat Morita. He returned as Miyagi, and therefore the karate wisdom he possessed could be passed onto another.

Secondly, make the movie a sequel, and either have Ralph Macchio reprise his role as Daniel LaRusso and have him teach a young kid the finer points of Bansai... or just hire David Suzuki.



The Ugly

Friday The 13th: Origin Of Jason Voorhees
The Details: It's become pretty much the current fad in the film industry to make prequels, telling the "origin" story of certain characters from certain movie franchises. Let's forget about continuity in regards to a long line of movies, and go back and make a prequel setting up everything you already know about certain characters. They've done it a fair amount, and a few years back they wanted to make a movie detailing how Jason Voorhees became the killer he ended up becoming.

I could just imagine the studio executives thinking the idea of a retarded child flailing about in a lake, almost drowning to death whilst some teenagers have sex, and somehow ending up in the forest trying to survive is a good idea for a movie, but I certainly don't. Especially not for an "origin" movie for one of film's biggest badass horror icons.



Apart from the fact that they revealed in the first and second movies the early details about his life, let's just do it again in vivid detail, because people who are interested in the character never saw or knew about the earlier plot details.

How To Fix It: Instead of doing an origin movie about Jason, why not go back and detail more about Pamela Voorhees going nuts and killing off the kids that let her son drown. Seriously, by the first movie, she's gone insane talking in character AS Jason! Make it nothing like the other movies, and focus on her, and end the movie just after she has killed her first victims.

Make it more a character driven piece, and if they really wanted to make it right, do it in the vain of the first Death Wish movie. Bad shit happens to her, she becomes ever more aggressive, and BAM! She takes revenge. We know what becomes of her, but if you do it right, you could make for one hell of a movie.

Note: Bloody hell it is hard to find a picture of Jason Voorhees drowning as a child. I had to settle for a 3D artist rendering of it... uh, yeah... thanks to Friday The 13th Films.

The Oh My God! I'm Being Raped!

Superman V
The Details: Before the recent 'Superman Returns', a new Superman movie had been in development hell for many, many years. Some of the ideas that the people Warner Brothers hired to make the movie were an absolute kick in the nuts to the massive fanbase that Superman enjoys, destroying the backstory, making Supes not be able to fly, have daggers... alot of shit.

When Bryan Singer came aboard to make the movie, the movie had already had $50 million spent on it's production, that is just from hiring people, doing pre-production concept art and writing scripts. No sets were made, no film was shot. Nothing was done at all. Alot of this had to do with producer Jon Peters.

Peters asked for alot of stupid shit from the people hired to write the scripts. No flying, no blue suit... a giant spider battle (which ended up in his 'Wild Wild West' movie). Kevin Smith was one of the people hired to write a version of the script, and you can still get a copy of Kevin Smith's version of the script online, and it's fucking horrible. For a comic fan, he really let Peters fuck him and Supes over.

Some of the worst choices for directors couldn't have helped either, like Tim Burton who I cannot imagine making a Superman movie. Sure, he did fine with the Batman movies, because Batman is supposed to be dark. Superman, no. Other directors, like McG and Brett Ratner, are just pitiful.

One of things I remember most throughout the 90's was when Nicolas Cage was signed on to star as Superman. The newspaper had an edited photo of Nicolas Cage's head stuck onto the body of Christopher Reeve in the Superman outfit (the photo on the right is not it, I couldn't find the one I'm talking about, and this one looks like he has padding). It was fucking hilarious, as up until that time, Cage had always played rather weak characters and at the time, was pretty thing... not muscley at all, not even Christopher Reeve muscley.

I can't even begin to say all the crap about this possible movie I had heard, and let's just say that I was quite happy that Singer ended up doing the movie, and making it a continuation of the old Richard Donner movies. People were disappointed with 'Superman Returns', but not me, because I know how bad it could have been. If you read up on a lot more info about how bad it could have been, you too would probably appreciate the movie more.

How To Fix It: They already have, they didn't make this version in any of it's incarnations. All they need to do now is kill Jon Peters, kneecap Brett Ratner, and go back in time and wipe any trace of this version from the face of the Earth.