Unyielding Commissioning Gets in on the Sunday Action

My new favorite blogger: This is hilarious. I don’t have a ton to add, but I believe it was likely written in response to the two times I posted links to this blog on articles by the AV Club.

I’ll not be back. E! Online is reporting that we have not seen the last of the Terminator, but we have likely seen the last of Arnold’s involvement with the series. The big Schwarzenegger fans I know are appalled, insisting that you can not have a Terminator movie without Arnold. I have mixed feelings. At this point, I consider myself the internet’s eighth most acclaimed Schwarzenegger expert (just a guess). My take is that it’s a Catch-22. Can you possibly have a Terminator movie with Arnold at this point? The guy dyes his hair auburn and has a gait similar to Mike Ditka. The steroids have caught up with him. I wouldn’t be afraid of a T-101 played by Arnold at this point. Would you? I just can’t see him as a killing machine anymore. Plus, if he were included, they would use him to take the campiness even farther (think: “Talk to the hand,” but at every possible moment until we’re in a Terminator parody).

The bigger issue is, will they have Nick Stahl? It would be nice if we could finally get some consistency in our John Connors. He did a fine job in the last film, and if they’re going to pick up from where they left off, it will be crucial to have him involved. That said, I am more than fine with someone replacing Claire Danes. The biggest outlying issue of all – who are they going to get to play Reese? Can any young actor even come close to following in Michel Beihn’s footsteps? I’m skeptical. But I suppose if they found DeNiro to replicate Brando, you never know. Yeah, that’s right. I just compared Reese to Vito Corleone.

In general, this is probably a bad idea – even T3 was against the spirit of the prior movies (“no future but what we make”). Since it is Judgment Day, then we know it’s too late to change the future on that front. All of the time-travel aspects that took the first three movies beyond a basic action flick will likely no longer be present. But clearly the way T3 ended, they were going to make another one. For any franchise, they keep making sequels until they stop making money – no matter how bad the new installment’s script is (see Jaws: The Revenge for the most egregious example).

Contemplate this on the tree of woe. In other Arnold-related news, a remake of Conan the Barbarian is apparently in the works. As I explained Sunday, the original is a masterpiece. The utter disaster that was its sequel has always been a disappointment to me. As director John Milius said, it should have been a trilogy and that trilogy should have been excellent (they had a different theme planned for each movie). The sequel they made totally destroyed the franchise to the point where people are wary of a remake now. In this instance, however, I don’t see how you can adequately make the movie without Schwarzenegger. When it comes to murderous robots, you can always design them differently. Since Conan is an individual character, I don’t see any way he can come in different shapes and sizes. Whoever, they cast in that role will be inevitably compared to 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it’s unfathomable that the actor will measure up. Another thing Milius siad when trying to convince Dino De Laurentiis that Arnold was the right guy for the part was that "if Arnold didn't already exist, we'd have to build him from parts." It’s a project doomed from the beginning (that pun was unintended), even if they do get the Wachowski Brothers to direct.

Death from Warszawa 2007. In Poland last week, I spent some time hanging out with lead growler from Concrete, an up and coming metal band. The man is obsessed with metal, and doesn’t speak a ton of English (although in comparison to my Polish vocabulary, he’s Noam Chomsky), so we mainly discussed music. Check out their myspace page if you dig the heavy stuff. It’s pretty darn good!

Here there be tygers!

E les tigres sont ici!