Left: the young Tony Stark in high school looking at Kelly LeBrock and realizing that to have any chance of getting her he has to become a superhero. Right: the older Tony Stark appears to look into the future, but in reality is thinking about Kelly LeBrock.
Similarly in the very 1990s Surviving the Game, a film version of The Most Dangerous Game, Ice-T is brought to Rutger Hauer's estate as the unwitting target of a hunt. And the writers missed a golden crossover opportunity. Imagine it - Ice-T is running through the woods to get away from Rutger Hauer, when suddenly Harrison Ford comes running the other way in his future-noir trenchcoat soaked with rain and his fingers broken, saying "Listen buddy, I don't have much time. The key to escaping this guy is just stall until his four-year-lifespan is up, and then he gets all sentimental and lets you live." Ford takes off running, and soon after the bewildered Ice-T encounters a frustrated Tommy Lee Jones, running after Ford, who yells over his shoulder at Ice-T "Why didn't you stop him! He's an alien!" and Will Smith comes along two seconds later and flashes Ice-T so he doesn't remember seeing them.
The best example in any action movie of "bad guy seems about to kill the hero but first coldly explains his vision for the world, and then good guy rallies, says a one-liner that undoes it and kills the bad guy" is in Surviving the Game where Ice-T's pithy comeback is "Fuck that!"
People have been excited about the massive crossover event of Avengers: Infinity War, although I think a little wind is taken out of the sails by the fact that the crossing over was expected well in advance. I thought it was far cooler when in Predator 2, they revealed an oblong Alien skull in the ship's trophy room, or even the ending of this episode of Transformers from back in the day. Although the best actually acknowledged-crossover ever has to be this one from Hotshots 2:
But why wait for the franchises to get around to the crossover? A lot of the experience of watching a movie comes from inside your own head - and you can make up your own crossover by imagining that an actor who's been in more than one franchise is actually the same character, much like Katherine Keener in Get Out and Being John Malgovich. So here are some others suggestions to enrich your franchise consumption experience.
1) Watch Weird Science again, and assume that Robert Downey Jr's character is Tony Stark as a bratty rich kid. I mean they even make a nuclear missile! After the humiliation he receives when not only can he not get Kelly LeBrock, but one of the weird scientists steal his girlfriend, Stark then spends the rest of his life partying and doesn't wake up from the mindless hedonism and materialism that soothed his bruised ego until he is captured by terrorists and sees what his weapons are doing to the people in the countries where they're used.
2) In Westworld, the Man in Black enjoys the immersive experience of the massive park. It turns out that the way he became so rich was when he conceived and directed a similar entertainment, that being the greatest reality show of all time, the Truman show! But this left him questioning the construction of meaning and consensus reality, and feeling guilty at what he did to Truman, he set out to shock the hosts into free will. But his demotion from Truman's god left him bitter, hence his humble contribution as Satan walking to-and-fro in Anthony Hopkins' world. I shouldn't neglect to mention that the Man in Black started out working in real estate, but after the abuse he received from his superiors he swore he would only work for himself. (When he asks Anthony Hopkins about "opening him up" - displaced aggression from when he was told "Always Be Closing"?) Either way when the Man in Black broods, he's probably thinking over his last conversation with Jim Carrey - or hoping that Alec Baldwin is rotting in hell for the way he treated people. Little does the Man in Black know that Anthony Hopkins is a god not just in his own mind, but in reality - called Odin - and Odin recognizes that threat when a rebel Valkyrie posing as an executive shows up to take over Westworld.
3) In the first Star Trek reboot movie, to save his crew and family, George Kirk kamikazes into the Romulan ship. But he remains heroically calm, and why not - he has faced world-destroying foes before as part of the Avengers! He may even believe (incorrectly) that his Valhallan ancestry will save him from the explosion. (This theory also explains why his half-human son James Tiberius can hold his own in fist-fights with Klingons.) Meanwhile, Dr. Strange succumbs to the temptation to abuse his mystic powers, has a dalliance with dictatorship, and ends up hiding with his genetically enhanced followers in suspended animation - and his knowledge of Eastern culture leads him to change his name to Khan. He just acts superhuman while hiding all the fancy spinning light nonsense. ( You can see the Dr. Strange hints they dropped in that Star Trek movie! Those hints are...er ah...come on people with narrative pareidolia, I know you can do it!) And Professor Xavier, made immortal by (fill in technobabble - think that's lazy? pro writers do it all the time), thinks that Thor and Strange had the right idea and hangs around long enough to become a Star Fleet officer himself, quickly rising to the rank of captain, though he almost accidentally reveals his mutant powers by continuing a telepathic link to the Borg after his near-permanent assimilation. Generations in the distant future would remember these repeated destructive encounters with an overwhelming machine race as the Butlerian jihad, and Professor X knows he must survive because he learned through Cerebro that one day in the distant future, there would arise a messiah called the Kwisatz Haderach.
4) When Neo first woke up out of the Matrix, he was actually thinking "Whoa...Bill and I saw this place once when we went far enough into the future! Totally bogus!" Any incomprehensible plot holes can be explained by Neo waiting for Bill and younger-himself to show up at any moment, and they can even remake the Matrix movies with the time travel finally fixing things.
5) The cyber-infected John Connor jumps timelines and creates a new one where he cannot salvage the rise of the machines, but at least he can still make the human race go extinct - by interfering with the recovery of the human race in post-simian-virus San Francisco, helping the apes, and setting up the events of the third POTA movie. (The character does seem a little too earnest doesn't he?)
6) The Hosts from Westworld go to a new level - not Eastworld (or whatever they call the Japanese one) but rather - Medievalworld. As they move about the castles and kingdoms they soon recognize that the guests on this level are made immortal and called "White Walkers". If the guests spend a lot they even get to be kings and queens (although unlike in Westworld, in Medievalworld these story lines allow or even ENCOURAGE the guests to kill each other in-game.) One guest however is given a permanent special title for free, to honor her for having protected us in the real world against the killer robots from the future. Her real name is Sarah Connor but in the game she is called "Daenerys Targaryen."
7) Mace Windhu survives the fall inflicted by Palpatine, uses the Force to save Queen Amidala's life and travels to a distant galaxy. Due to time dilation the seemingly brief trip takes a long, long time, and they arrive on early 21st century Earth. Amidala immediately finds herself a god to date and Windhu knows that there are evil beings all over the universe, so he starts gathering the most remarkable humans he can find. By coincidence Saw Gerrera also escaped the Empire and came to Earth, to a country called Wakanda to serve as a warrior there. Darth Maul survives Obi-Wan and uses his powers to serve evil on Earth calling himself Toad. Both Maul's and Windhu's light sabers long ago ran out of charge, although when the Avengers are fighting, from behind the scenes Windhu occasionally uses the Force to deflect a shot the Avengers don't see coming. Somehow, none of them realize that a man who started merely as a master lock-picker long ago in a galaxy far away (Benicio del Toro), somehow also landed in our galaxy - to become a collector.
(As I compiled this list, I was utterly amazed at how many actors had been both in Marvel Universe and Star Wars roles. Both of these franchises are now owned by Disney. My estimation of the likelihood of a near-future - within a decade - Star Wars-Marvel crossover is going up as a result. Since the characters that cross over early are generally peripheral which makes them more flexible for future writing purposes, my money is on Benicio del Toro.)
8) Captain America often thinks to himself during battles "You know flying was cool, but I'd rather just have a ripped torso and throw a shield around than have to be on fire all the time."
Above: Special Agent Smith, having taken his Vendetta mask off, passes the torch by giving Aragorn a light saber, so he can cross post-apocalyptic America and avoid cannibals.
9) Rocket the bioengineered raccoon actually is from Earth and knows damn well what a raccoon is, but doesn't want to let on to the Starlord. Why? It kind of sucks that he used to be human, had such a great bachelor party and his brain ended up getting uploaded into this form. Dave Bautista is human too, but disguises himself and plays dumb for a different reason - he'd rather the Starlord think he's an alien than a Nexus-7 replicant. He tried going back to Earth to farm and came very close to being retired by a Blade Runner, and he's not making that mistake again. Finally the Starlord finds himself captured by the Grandmaster, who is more bemused than usual and tells him (important to read in smiling Jeff Goldblum's voice) "So after all this is over you're planning on working on Earth resurrecting dinosaurs? I don't recommend it son - they brought me in once to observe and it didn't go well."
10) Obadiah Stane was...changed by his time inside Tron, and after he comes out and becomes an executive at Stark Industries, people can see his erratic behavior, but won't fire him given his insights into the virtual world.
11) Richard Riddick was not always human. Long ago he was a plant-alien named Groot, but constantly getting caught in wars hardened him and he finally had his brain (and voicebox) transplanted into a human body. Vaako thinks Groot-Riddick is naïve to retain even this much morality; despite Vaako's near-sacrifice to defend Valhalla, and despite his service to Starfleet as a physician, he was constantly ignored, so he said screw it, and became a Necromonger henchman.
12) Zoe Saldana in Guardians of the Galaxy is actually an Orion. Many years later at Starfleet academy, for fear that she would be discriminated against, she had her skin surgically changed from green to brown, but when she saw another out-of-the-closet Orion got into the Academy she requested to be her roommate.
13) In the Exorcist, when Max von Sydow sees the girl, he knows he can only be dealing with one thing: a Sith. He remembers Kylo Ren who left him for dead on Jakku, and uses some very basic Force tricks he learned from Luke. It's not enough as he soon discovers...but they should have compelled her with the power of Yoda!
14) Recall the Chancellor prior to Palpatine, who looked crestfallen at Palpatine's vote of no confidence. That was all for show, because the former Chancellor set it up for Palpatine, then gladly stepped down, and returned to Krypton, where they call him Zod.
15) Gandalf seems so world-weary because he was cast into this other strange dimension by a mutant's powers, and he tries to hide his true nature from hobbits (if you look closely, all his tricks involve manipulating metal in some way.) He thinks he recognizes Galadriel, who was similarly banished and briefly reveals who she really is - but the time is not right to go back to the mortal plane and re-take Valhalla.
16) There's an ongoing effort at an Alien-Blade Runner cross-over, which is predictable (both originally directed by Ridley Scott) but depressing, because the last couple Alien universe movies have not been great, and in any event no actors cross over between the two. But what if Hicks in Aliens seems so world-weary because he's actually an android - one designed to look and think like Kyle Reese?
17) After getting very little support from Sauron, Saruman barely escaped with his life to the stars. It doesn't take much for him to rebel against the Jedi and his master Yoda, who reminds him too much of those damn hobbits that were his undoing. And he certainly wasn't going to fall for another dark overlord, and rebels against Palpatine. But it was all part of Palpatine's plan...hence the incredulous look in the moments before it all goes finally and terrible wrong for him.
18) Deckard might be a replicant but he was engineered from a genetically superior human, and retains some of his memories - which explains the flashes of ark-hunting that come back to him and possibly his inexplicable enmity for Aryan-looking guys like Roy Baty. When K. find Deckard, he spots among his possessions a plain-looking cup. "Don't drink out of that one," Deckard cautions. (Note: Edward James Olmos thinks Blade Runner could be a sequel to Battlestar Galactica. No really. The intervening movie, from the end of BG to the beginning of Blade Runner, would be interesting. It's too bad they won't make it - but then again who does?)
19) On Girls, Hannah's ex-boyfriend lapses back into alcoholism and he and Hannah have a major fight. Suddenly Hannah finds herself choking without her ex touching her, and objects hurtling toward her face.
The bottom line: once you're in a science fiction franchise and have name recognition, you're set for life.
No comments:
Post a Comment