Today's Column: Crossovers and childhood dreams

September's column has arrived:

Column: Crossovers en kinderdromen

Oh boy, did I devour Batman versus Predator as a kid... Even though the subject matter was far more gory and gruesome than your typical Batman story and may not have been wholly suitable for a youngster my age. I think I turned out alright (I don't abide blood sports, for example). Of course, this wasn't your typical Batman story, since it was also a Predator story and those are usually the stuff of R-ratings. If they're not, they fall short of being a Predator story like the fans expect or desire them, which is one of the reasons no doubt the PG-13 rated movie Alien VS Predator was so lamented by the fanbase. But it does present another challenge when adapting crossovers: incompatibility. Batman is one of those characters which can suffer multiple age ratings, though the grittier, harder Dark Knight stories are usually received more fondly by the majority. But Predator, if done right, simply isn't suited for people under 16, or shouldn't be from a social viewpoint (like teenagers under 16 are not going to check out stuff the law says they can't, in the privacy of their own homes). Likewise, King Kong versus the Smurfs seems equally incompatible, though that's more because of the vastly different subject material rather than the age category. I put that in for a joke, but needless to say you can find some fan's home video depicting such a meeting on YouTube easily enough.

Fact is, crossovers are popular, and have always been so. Ancient Greek mythology already got that ball rolling by throwing several notable heroic characters together in the story of the Argonauts, like some Avengers of Classical Antiquity (and again in the Trojan War). Thanks to our contemporary Avengers, crossovers are a hot topic again, which even leads to rival studios teaming up (in itself a bit of a crossover) to bring the fans just the crossovers they want to see (I'm talking about you, new Marvel Spider-Man!). But crossovers are hardly a novel notion in the annals of film. Universal joining its iconic horror creatures together sounds more like they're remaking the likes of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man rather than them mindlessly copying Marvel, though it's likely a bit of both. But this wave of crossover movies will die down soon enough, since crossover stories usually are far from world class material.

Most of them actually are total gimmicks, cashing in on people's own perceptions of chance encounters between notable characters from different walks of popular culture. Not much story is needed really, the idea of two (or more) characters meeting, often fighting, suffices to draw attention. Batman versus Predator got it right at least, but Batman/Aliens proved less stellar material. The original King Kong versus Godzilla was a total dud, a typical Japanese Kaiju movie in which Kong looked nothing like the giant gorilla previously smashing New York. Crossovers are always fascinating, but not many of them are truly good. They're not designed to be, nor do they need to be. The characters meet, the characters part ways again, usually never to meet again. In the meantime, money exchanges hands between audience and producers. That's all there is to it really. Or is Marvel going to change this? After all, the notion of a shared universe that can endure for a few decades is a new thing, at least. And the number of crossovers between that universe's characters keeps growing, but there needs to be more story meat to it to keep the audience from losing interest. Same thing for the upcoming DC Cinematic Universe. But it remains to be seen whether the same will hold true for the Universal Monsters, the iconic Kaiju creatures or other popular franchises thrown in the mix together. You'd kinda need a separate universe for those, to keep these crossovers outside of continuity if needs be. That's how they always did it in the comics, to explain away why superheroes of different companies didn't join forces/clash more often if they inhabited the same realm: they didn't actually, these crossovers took place in other universes, outside of established continuity. A handy loophole, one that Marvel and DC can't seriously utilize anymore at the movies because that might make them lose face. But it works well enough for the likes of Freddy VS Jason (an actual movie), Tarzan VS King Kong (an actual book), or Godzilla VS the Smurfs (pure fiction).

It needs to, to stop fans from contemplating the possibilities to severely. Because if the Fantastic Four once fought Godzilla, Godzilla squabbeled with King Kong, King Kong battled Tarzan, Tarzan fought Predator, Predator warred with Aliens, Aliens plagued Batman and Batman co-operated with Spider-Man, that would mean Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four share the same universe! Now if only I could fit the Smurfs in there somewhere...

Today's (bad) News: Jurassic Park IV put on hold, again

Well, this sucks...:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/146955/jurassic_park_4_op_non-actief

As if the death of Ray Harryhausen wasn't depressing enough, Universal just made my week a helluva lot worse by putting Jurassic Park 4 back into the fridge. Again. Twelve years of pre-production hell apparently wasn't enough for the studio. Things finally seemed to go in the right direction with actual screen writers producing an actual script and an actual director being hired, but now us JP fans get slapped in the face once more, just having to wait a while longer the studio claims. As we have seen in the past, 'a while' can take quite a few years in this particular movie's case, but at least the project hasn't  been cancelled entirely as has also happened before. The gate hasn't fully closed on Jurassic Park 4 just yet.

The reason Universal suggests for this delay is a matter of time. More time is needed to make a satisfying movie experience, the studio's official statement said. Problem is, insiders' tweets have already proven the real cause is the age old 'creative differences' routine. It had to happen, really. A young talented director (Colin Trevorrow) wants to make an intelligent film with a solid plot, but the studio opts for action over substance, since they deem the general audience incapable of taking in too clever story lines and assume dimwitted dinosaur action is enough to please any and all viewers. Of course, such a line of thought worked out sooo well in the case of Jurassic Park III (back in 2001!), which encountered its similar share of production troubles, when the studio interfered with the established script and changed it drastically halfway through the shooting process, thus making director Joe Johnston struggle to produce a finished film at all. Fun simple dinosaur action it contained in respectable spades given the circumstances, but the story left much to be desired. And now (pre)history seems to be repeating itself, except a younger, more inexperienced director is being bullied and bossed around by the power hungry inconsiderate studio execs just out to make a quick buck. It doesn't bode well for Jurassic Park 4. It seems we'll be lucky if the finished product turns out a decent dinosaur action flick at the very least.

Oh well, fortunately we can still go and see Jurassic Park 3D in theaters at the moment. I went to see this greatest of masterpieces a second time this week, and I really ought to go again at least once more. I saw it three times back in 1993, I might as well repeat history myself a little bit if it helps the box office numbers convince studio suits to kick Jurassic Park 4 back into gear soon...

The Return of the King!

Great news this week for fans of classic cinema and specifically for the Jurassic Park community, of which I am a very very avid member: come July 2013, the first Jurassic Park movie will finally return to theatres worldwide! Fully recognizing its 20^th anniversary (yes, it's really been that long ago and we've all gotten really old), Universal Pictures will re-release it in all its glory, bringing the rampaging dinosaurs back to the silver screen for older generations to fondly remember in an orgy of excessive nostalgia and for the younger generation, which has remaind blatantly ignorant of its awesome power in theatres, to finally re-discover in the way it looks best, on the big screen. It seems the small scale re-release in the UK (lucky bastards!) of late september was indeed, as many JP fans speculated it was, meant to test the waters for a potential full scale re-release around the globe. The waters apparently have been deemed favourable enough, considering JP drew in respectable numbers for a movie which only ran in a limited number of theatres and was withheld a basic advertising and marketing campaign of any kind, so the Brits only knew it was running in their local movie theatres if they stumbled upon it, or if they'd been perceptive enough online to know what cinematic gold they were bestowed upon by the studio executive powers that be. But now the whole world will have a chance to enjoy these animals again in all their glory of old...

...with one slight addition to the whole...

…as it will be a much dreaded 3-D re-release. People who know me will recall I'm not at all in favour of post-converting movies in 3-D, especially if these movies are decades old and were fully compelling to begin with and thus not in need of any extra dimensions. However, in the current movie market, re-releasing a classic without the added 3-D effect (and thus the additional admission ticket costs, which studios and theatres crave so much), is simply 'not done'. So we'll have to sit through JP watching it with an extra dimension, and hope they did a good enough job to make it look better, instead of worse. If we take the recent example of Star Wars Episode I 3-D, it will likely be the latter. That particular re-release was not improved by the 3-D effects at all. In fact, the 3-D was hardly noticeable and severely underwhelming considering all the ruckus with which Lucasfilm had previously announced it. In the Netherlands, it flopped big time, despite being Star Wars (because no matter how disappointing the 3-D turned out to be, seeing Star Wars on the silver screen again still was throughly enjoyable, even in the case of Episode I). Jurassic Park will undoubtedly receive a similar treatment, being a big franchise name which the studio will feel is appealing enough for the general audience, so it won't have to pull out all the stops to make the 3-D really worthwhile as spectators will flock to their theatres anyway, or so the studio hopes. Unless of course, studio executives got the message Star Wars Episode I 3-D delivered, namely re-releasing a big name franchise film with lousy 3-D just won't be enough these days. Even though I hate to compare JP to Episode I, it is the closest example.

Fortunately July 2013 is still a while away, so Universal has ample time left to decide on a potent strategy for making this re-release a success, and maybe even have their effects magicians come up with excellently added 3-D effects after all (though that seems less likely). Let's see how Titanic 3-D does first next month. Maybe the Star Wars Episode I 3-D incident will prove to have been just that, an incident, involving an already much maligned film adorned with less than stellar 3-D post-conversion.

For now, I'm thankful Jurassic Park gets re-released at all (and I sincerely hope it reaches Dutch theatres, since not all re-releases do). Even if the 3-D turns out to be utter trash, it will be very hard to ruin this film, considered by me as the grandest of all motion pictures, for me or my fellow JP fanatics. After all, I haven't seen it in theatres for nearly 20 years... but fortunately Ian Malcolm turned out to be right: life has, again, found a way!