BIG TROUBLE in little china: C/D?

dude is already doing a jack burton imitation in a lot of movies anyway

also this movie wasn't remotely a hit when it came out - is the rock dying? is this his make-a-wish foundation request?

you'd think the smarter road if you want to make a nu-carpenter remake with the rock would be snake plissken

Escape From Witch Mountain

haha yeah i did realize after the fact he's already done some VERB FROM A PLACE movies. But still, remaking a cult dystopia hit makes a lot more sense today than remaking a cult camp kung fu flop

Dr. Casino otm, loveable goofery and gleeful ridiculousness are v apt.

the key to the movie is that wang rules and if they miscast him/diminish his importance nothing else will matter

When is the buckaroo banzai remake happening

The thing is, an an Escape to Witch Mountain reboot hardly makes a ton of commercial sense either! Though apparently it did pretty good. Maybe the rock has just committed himself to using his stardom to force forgotten properties of his youth back onto the American public. Buckaroo Banzai not so unlikely really.

The lamest thing about remake-topia is that it never actually enables a proper do-over a movie to bring out its best ideas. Like, I just watched D.A.R.Y.L. recently (dunno why I'm picking that, maybe witch mountain made me think of it), and it's got many charms but many faults, and I just caught myself thinking "why can't the Rock remake D.A.R.Y.L. instead?" which is crazy because obviously it would just be awful and certainly missing everything I found really lovable out it (mainly: gentle early 80s woodsy suburban milieu, kids dressed exactly like me at that age).

otm about Wang. Also Egg.

also lo pan

i dunno, seems kind of like trying to remake rocky horror (which it seems is also happening)

maybe they can make it funny and exciting this time

Dr c, the original escape to witch mountain was a hit with two sequels. Remaking that makes a lot more commercial sense than this.

Second sequel was direct-to-TV, but yeah, true, hit. But it still has to be one of the more obscure big-studio properties to get a remake in the last decade, right? Up there with Dark Shadows at least - I can't recall one time in my adult life that anybody has ever brought up the original films to me or anything, they had basically zero pop-cultural presence when The Rock's movie was greenlit. Darby O'Gill, your number's gotta come up soon!

Excuse me; I am of course thinking of Merlin Jones.

Well dark shadows was 100% a makeawish foundation movie the Depp burton brand spent some cred on, but Disney is always looking to revive kiddy properties. Escape from witch totally fit in with their steez.

Disney also made a witch mountain TV movie in the 90s

all the more argument for corporate synergy to bend The Rock's revival of Snake Plissken into a Witch Mountain followup, is all I'm saying

I hope Carpenter and W.D. Richter get as much money as they can from this and release their own Rifftrax-style alternate commentary track.

the dark shadows thing was kind of out of nowhere. the last time that show had much currency was when, well, it was briefly (unsuccessfully) revived in the post-twin peaks era. i guess they thought "vampires! twilight!" a greenlit it? the tone of the film had basically nothing to do with the old TV show, anyway.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/08/dwayne-johnson-john-carpenter-big-trouble-remake

“I loved reading the reactions from the fans, that they were so polarized – I’m the same way,” the star told EW at Saturday night’s taping of the Spike TV Guys Choice Awards. “My response is: know that I come to the project with nothing but love and respect for the original, which is why we want to bring on John Carpenter.”

...“I loved the original when I was younger and I loved the main character – all the characters,” said Johnson, who will fill the role Kurt Russell played in the earlier film. “It felt like if we surrounded ourselves with the right group of people, the right writers who loved the movie too and wanted to honor it, bring on John Carpenter in some capacity … If we did that, then we have a shot at hopefully making something good.”

“Let’s see what feels good, what we can come up with and then go from there,” Johnson said. “And as we write it, if the whole thing starts to stink up, then we thank everybody for their efforts and accept this just couldn’t make it.”

points for admitting the possibility of this stinking up

chris pratt would be a better choice for jack burton

nah too obviously a doofus

i mean chris pratt basically ~is~ jack burton

Trade paperback of the boom studios comic is coming out today. Has anybody kept up with it? I only read the first issue and wasn't into it at all.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Trouble-Little-China-Vol/dp/1608867161

I know, there's a problem with your face

The thing is to make them drop their guard.
I'll Try
The thing is to look stupid.
He does!

Boring

This perfectly illustrates the problem with overly abbreviated communication. Yes, it may save time and keystrokes to say "Boring", but more accurately, what you meant to say was, "Personally I found this to be boring." This kind of amplification and expansion, while time consuming, also has the effect of removing the idiocy from what you said and replacing it with a measured and true statement of fact.

oh

Maybe they found the BIG TROUBLE part to be boring, because yeah, the BIG TROUBLE is maybe a little boring, but the rest of the movie rules.

We gotta run
Run into the mystic night
Run until they take us away
Take us away!
Taaaake us awaaaaaay!

This perfectly illustrates the problem with overly abbreviated communication. Yes, it may save time and keystrokes to say "Boring", but more accurately, what you meant to say was, "Personally I found this to be boring." This kind of amplification and expansion, while time consuming, also has the effect of removing the idiocy from what you said and replacing it with a measured and true statement of fact.

Yup. Love ILX most when it's a discussion board, not Comic Book Guy terse opinions.

This movie's a regular rewatch for me, and I still laugh/marvel at bits I've seen a dozen times before: Jack shooting the ceiling in the big fight and knocking himself out, lipsticked while facing Lo Pan, Egg at the opening when lightning travels around his hands, etc.

Re: the first comic trade, I liked it a lot, once I got used to the exaggerated art. BTiLC ending with the beast clinging to the truck always bothered me, preferring resolution, so it was nice to have that settled. There are 3-4 later trades listed on Amazon. I'll be buying those eventually.

Thought I found about the Funko Pop BTiLC figures here, but didn't run across a mention, rereading this thread. So FYI. There's a glow-in-the-dark Lo Pan that's not shown on that page, but might still be available elsewhere.

It played last night at the Senator theater in Baltimore. I didn't find out about it until too late.

https://media.giphy.com/media/hUgYyZwFNvr4A/giphy.gif

OTM

I take every evocation as an invitation, and you're welcome

https://youtu.be/D03E9kUTTtQ

lol i knew exactly what that was gonna be before i clicked the link

Here's some good news: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-05-10/james-hong-star-hollywood-walk-of-fame-ceremony

His "Indeed!" is one of my favorite sound bites from this film.

So happy to see him recognized. I'll have to check out that Everything Everywhere All at Once movie. I think the last thing I "saw" him in was Kung Fu Panda.

Love that he has a prominent and very memorable supporting part in a successful, buzzy film at this same moment. Dude is a living legend.

As soon as I heard his voice at the beginning of Everything Everywhere All at Once I knew it was him... he pops up in so much of the schlock that I enjoy watching. Look at his IMDB credits, dude has been in everything. Most underrated role: the Jeweler in Diablo III (a video game).

James Hong with BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA costars is all I care about today, and always. pic.twitter.com/KFKiSipZdr

— Jon Abrams (@RealJonAbrams) May 12, 2022