And so Smokey and the Bandit was made fast and loose, outside, on a low budget. In Reynolds’ words, they worked “lightning quick,” with first-time director Needham “reigning over crew and camera with instincts that made him, in my humble opinion, the best action director in the business.” The entire film was shot on location in the South. “We moved all over Georgia. . . It was a screwy chase picture, but Hal’s fun, outlaw, hell-bent-sensibility made it sparkle.”

Needham’s blistering pace also served to instill a certain freedom in his actors, of a kind seldom enjoyed by the more paint-by-numbers Hollywood productions. Critical darlings like Mike Leigh — Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Vera Drake (2004) et al. — are often praised to the high heavens for having actors invent a script during rehearsals. Although Needham doesn’t get anywhere near the same respect for it, he is also an expert practitioner of improvisation. Lots of his footage ends up on the cutting room floor, or in the blooper reels that often run under the credits of his movies (alas, he didn’t start that gimmick until after Smokey). Peeking at those muffed shots gives an idea of what it’s like to film a Needham script: lots of experimentation, lots of laughter.

This brand of seat-of-your-pants filmmaking requires the right talent, and — just like with the other aspects of a Needham production — pretentious people need not apply. Enter Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, a bunch of game amateurs and character actors, and a hound dog.

Field was the good-natured, saccharine star of television shows such as Gidget (1965-66) and The Flying Nun (1967-70), and by 1976 was firmly typecast as, in her estimation, “the All-American syrupy meaningless girl-next-door with no belly button. Just about as bland as you can get.” She took the Smokey role in an attempt to shatter that impression, scarcely aware of what she had gotten herself into. Flipping through her script on the first day, she innocently asked Reynolds why Big and Little Enos, the jolly pseudo-villains of the piece, shared such a strange name. “Because it rhymes with penis!” Reynolds happily replied (and if you think about it, that is exactly why the name is inherently funny). Her acting in Bandit would be nominated for a Golden Globe.

Jerry Reed (1937-2008) was a country music star and a friend of Reynolds and Needham, who had already acted for them in several earlier redneck movies. Originally slated to play the Bandit, he gamely allowed himself to be demoted to the role of Snowman when Reynolds entered the picture. In hindsight, it was a great move — Snowman was the role he was born to play. He also wrote and sang the iconic songs for the film. “Eastbound and Down” took Reed all of an hour to dream up, and looking back it was one of those tunes that perfectly encapsulates a movie and a genre. The fact that it wasn’t even nominated for an Academy Award while the likes of Melissa Etheridge and Eminem have won Oscars tells you everything you need to know about how irrelevant the Best Song category has become in the modern age.

To find a suitable Chewbacca for Reed’s truckin’ Han Solo, Needham held a “canine beauty pageant” down in Atlanta, won by a dog named Happy (who is called Fred in the movie). Many of the sweetest laughs in the film concern the Snowman worrying and fussing over his dog, who Needham carefully includes in the corner of many widescreen compositions, panting contentedly as they motor down the highway. It’s a rare chase movie that makes time for things such as Snowman’s request that the Bandit get Fred a hamburger at the local “choke-n-puke,” or Reed pursuing a playful Fred into a nearby lake. Heck, the damn dog got laughs just from the Bandit and Snowman lugging it across the yard and into the truck. Another movie might have had the heroes leave Fred behind as an impediment to winning the bet on time. Not Bandit. And audiences didn’t need to be told why Snowman brought him along without a second thought, nor why the Bandit doesn’t raise the slightest objection. It’s his dog, man.

If there was one figure who held these disparate elements, characters, and improvisations together, it was Burt Reynolds. His energy and good humor fuels the picture and paces the action. “When I go on the set at the start of a picture,” Reynolds says

I make a nest for myself. I make jokes and try to get comfortable. When I’m doing comedy, I like to get into a rhythm. I begin working in that same rhythm with the crew first. Once I get them laughing, I know it’s working because they’re a very tough audience. Sometimes people on the outside who don’t know my way of doing things criticize me for wasting time or screwing around, not doing my lines. But I am actually preparing for what’s coming up in a scene.

Like John Wayne a generation before him, Reynolds worked damn hard to create the charisma he projected on the screen. It takes a certain courage and talent for an actor to just be, and to make “just being” something that possesses its own depth and meaning. “What is it about acting that grabs hold of us and won’t let go?” Reynolds once asked. “Acting! Why, it’s nothing but make believe. . . pretending to be something you’re not. Or is it a chance to be something you really are? A chance to transfer an emotion, like joy, to someone?”

That transference explains perfectly the appeal of guys like Reynolds and Wayne, and it serves as a rebuttal to the method excesses of all the De Niros and Streeps and Penns out there with their tiresome array of tics and quirks. The “charismatic hero” school of acting is designed to appear effortless, but in fact it takes a lot of work and concentration. “You’ve got to like the people in the picture for it to be successful,” Reynolds maintains.

Smokey and The Longest Yard, I think, were terrific films, better than most critics gave them credit for. When the gross is over 100 million dollars, a lot of people must like them. And in both of them, I was making a really conscious effort to have the time of my life in front of the camera. I think that’s what came through. . . the fun we had on the film was, I think, infectious to the American people who saw it.

Creating that sense of fun was easier said than done, given Reynolds’ precarious physical condition. He was then suffering from years of undiagnosed hyperglycemia, so bad that he would often faint dead away for no discernible reason. One of the reasons he looks so thin in Bandit is because he had lost a lot of weight. “It got to the point where they would just prop me up and put on more makeup because I’d turned white. I’d think, ‘We’ll, this is a good time to die. I have number-three Desert Tan on, and I’m nice and thin’.” If the role hadn’t allowed him to spend most scenes sitting in the Trans Am, he might not have finished the picture at all.

But it’s often the case that physical illness brings out the best in actors. Think of Gene Kelly doing his famous Singin’ in the Rain dance while running a temperature of 103, or Harrison Ford chasing Nazis and Arabs through the streets of Cairo in Raiders of the Lost Ark while racked with dysentery. And so it was with Reynolds — his sickness kept any pesky “Look at me — I’m a big star!” temptations in check, and gave him a down-to-earth, sympathetic streak that winningly offset his brash cockiness. Reynolds usually projects an anger simmering under the surface of his characters, but that quality is nowhere to be found in Smokey, leaving the Bandit far more endearing than he might have otherwise been.

Like Reynolds creating his “nest” and getting into a comedic rhythm, Needham also saw value in having a certain vibe course throughout his set. “Dailies were a big thing with me and my company,” he says today. “I would set up a bar and have some finger food, sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and things, big table of it. I’d pay for it, not the company. I invited everybody on the crew. If we were on location, they could bring their wife and kids, I didn’t care.” Guys like Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron shroud their sets in secrecy, but Needham’s viewings of the previous day’s work were family affairs. “Everybody’d get a drink,” Needham explains. “We’d put a reel on. That reel would go off, everybody’d get another drink. Hell, about five reels into it, we thought it was funny as hell whether it was or not.”

Perhaps it was this family-skewed audience that reminded him to keep the film relentlessly joyous and light on its feet. Like most other filmmakers in the 1970s, Needham easily could have added a bit of “the old ultra-violence” to Bandit, shocking the audience but ruining the movie’s charm. But like his mentor John Wayne, he would have none of it. “I think there’s a big difference between violence and action,” he says emphatically. “In any movie I ever directed, you’ll never see violence. You’ll see action but never violence. Never in all my movies was anybody ever killed. And I did a war film, for Christ’s sake. But that was my theory and my thinking, and I chose to do it that way.” Throughout Smokey and the Bandit, every time a stunt results in a crashed car or motorcycle, Needham is careful to include a shot of the occupants getting out of the wreck without any injuries. Little touches like that frequently escape the attention of Hollywood executives, but audiences notice and appreciate them.

All of this — the energy, humor, pace, improvisation, charisma, and action — paid off in spades. Smokey and the Bandit was first released in New York to terrible reviews and lukewarm box office. Needham told Universal that they were doing it all wrong — they needed to debut this picture among the people it was made for. So Universal changed tactics, opened the movie down South, and it took off like a rocket. Once the word spread, the movie was re-released in the cities and caught on there as well. It ended up being one of the biggest grossing movies of all time, an amazing feat given that it didn’t have any expensive special effects to buoy its must-see factor. What it had was humor, inventive stunts, a dash of romance, and a deep love of the South. And that was enough.

In between the critics panning the movie as crude, lowbrow, and racist/sexist/homophobic, a few managed to take the film’s proper measure. Writing in the Washington Post on July 29, 1977, critic Gary Arnold made an early case for Needham as a cultural throwback to a more optimistic era in our popular culture:

Needham seems to possess a comic outlook and timing extending beyond his erstwhile specialty. The prevailing mood of the film is cheerful and witty. Every element seems to be in balance, from the flirtatious exchange of Reynolds and Field, who make an endearing romantic comedy team, to throwaway bits of business, like the moment when Field begins practicing a dance step on the inside of the Trans Am windshield.

Needham also demonstrates a form of comic-poetry rabble-rousing talent that reminds one of Frank Capra at his most affectionate and, thankfully, least mawkish.

Affectionate. That is an adjective seldom attributed to Smokey and the Bandit, yet it gets much closer to the truth of what the movie was really all about than all the scathing reviews combined.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we conclude our look at Smokey and the Bandit by addressing the movie’s cultural impact and its recapitulation of oft-derided American values.

Previous posts in the series “Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Smokey and the Bandit”:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

ANOTHER LOOK AT SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT: Here’s a very nice look back at Smokey from John Pearley Huffman at the Edmunds Inside Line website. Lots of clips, quotes from Needham and other principals, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Definitely worth a read.

THE COOLEST SMOKEY REVIEW EVER: Check out this hilarious appreciation of Smokey and the Bandit by a clever Austrian dude.

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We’ve heard a lot in the last few years about how American films now need to appeal to a broad international audience, and so they must tone down their American patriotism and values. The Austrian guy narrating the above video is a walking advertisement for the other point of view: that an America secure in its image is far more attractive to international audiences than the reverse.

The video is around ten minutes long, the narrator has all kinds of appreciation for and understanding of American culture, and it’s well worth watching until the end. Lots of laughs, and light-years better than what passes for film criticism on domestic TV these days. I especially enjoyed his takedown of those silly American Film Institute lists that come out each year.

BURT BUILDS A BANDIT: Netflix subscribers can rent a DVD containing a five-part miniseries from the cable reality show Celebrity Rides, wherein Burt Reynolds watches a modern car shop give his old Smokey and the Bandit SE Trans Am a hot update for the new millennium. Along the way he tells lots of fun, behind-the-scenes stories, such as learning that Alfred Hitchcock adored Smokey and the Bandit — his daughter told Reynolds that toward the end of his life he would watch it again and again and mutter “How did they do those things!”

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Slash Film:

“Some guy named Mike from Milwaukee, WI put together a 70-minute video review discussing the many reasons why the movie was horrible. And this isn’t your usual fanboy rant, this is an epic, well-edited well-constructed piece of geek film criticism. In fact, the way I learned about the video was from Lost co-creator and Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof, who said “Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it.” Watch the video review embedded after the jump.”

You can see the remaining parts here.

Will we have to wait ten years for the 70-minute review explaining why “Avatar” sucks?

Not to go an analogy too far, but Sarah Palin seems to be taking a page from the Hollywood playbook of George Lucas.  She has just completed her own introductory trilogy, and it was an astonishing success.  

First, she was a fantastically successful conservative governor lurking beneath the mainstream media’s radar.  Next, she was a vice-presidential candidate who, even though she lost, still did more to electrify the base than the headliner.  Third, she has now drawn the curtain on her post-election career as a sitting governor, a period that saw her deftly turn the tables on mainstream haters like David Letterman.   Like “Star Wars,” she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but her fans are rabid and chomping at the bit for the next installments.  And as to these future installments, the question is whether the next step is going to be “The Phantom Menace” or something that doesn’t suck.

I’m betting on “A New Hope.”  Sarah Palin has taken every hit the left and its smug media lackies can dish out – from bogus ethics claims designed to bankrupt her to attacks on her kids.  Some of the haters seem to think they drove her from office, and are congratulating themselves that they have somehow driven her off the stage forever.  Not quite. 

Again, a “Star Wars” analogy:  Remember when Darth Vader faced off with Obi-Wan Kenobi?  “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine?”  She’s now immune from bogus legal claims and her book will not only raise her profile but set up her family financially for life.  Now Sarah is unbound, freed from the need to be up in Juneau and able to network, fundraise and even (maybe) campaign without limitation.  And the modern media environment will let her do these things without even a nod to the mainstream media (Do you think Katie Couric will ever get to ask Sarah another question?  Ha!) 

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Lefties, if you were responsible for her doing this, you just unleashed your strongest opponent and made her immune from your strongest attacks all at once. Ouch. It must hurt to know a woman you pride yourself on seeing as a drooling Neanderthal nitwit so thoroughly out-maneuvered you. You do see it, right?

There’s plenty of talk out there about her somehow being a “quitter” for only serving as governor for three years, as if resigning as the Chief Executive of Alaska was like cutting to the head of the women and children’s lifeboat line on the Titanic.  Personally, I was unaware of the urgent moral imperative of serving out one’s full term as governor but, if it makes the lefties feel better, when she’s elected president I’m pretty confident she’ll serve a full term.   Maybe even two.

Note:  Part 1 of this 4 part interview can be found here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

J.R. Head:  I felt that one of the most important things about the film was that it allows the folks that are left behind, the friends and loved ones, to get a glimpse of a soldier’s everyday life.  I served during relative peacetime but, even for me, it was difficult to explain what my day was like to my girlfriend, to my family… They were always imagining something bad happening.  And, let’s face it, peacetime or wartime, sometimes bad stuff happens.  We train hard, there are accidents and sometimes people die but for the most part you’re just doing your job.  I felt like “Brothers at War” gives folks a good look at what really goes on and allows them to relax a little bit.  Y’know, there’s not, say, a mortar attack every five minutes. 

“Brothers at War” Director, Jake Rademacher:  It’s a great tool for a soldier to allow loved ones a window, a good look at what life is like for them during a deployment.

JRH:  Exactly. That being said, why should someone who doesn’t have a family member serving see this film?

JR: Because they are going to gain insight that you can only gain from being on the frontlines or in the middle of a family living this war on a daily basis.  I had an advertising executive in New York say, “What I loved about “Brothers at War” was that you allowed me to ride shotgun on your journey and you never told me how to think or feel about anything.  I just got to take it all in and make up my own mind.”  I’ve had so many people thank me for not making it political.

When coming to see “Brothers at War” someone from outside the military family is coming in with a number of assumptions whether they know it or not.  As an audience it is always delightful to be surprised, to make discoveries, to be able to have your perspective challenged and informed.

In “Brothers at War” they get to dive right in and meet these guys, as they are, while they are doing this life and death work, creating relationships that will hold a special meaning for the rest of their lives.  For someone who wants to understand camaraderie and the special humor that comes out of living in this alien environment, this film is a good way in.

Insight and the intimate look into the inner relationships of a family is something that everyone can relate to.  In “Brothers at War”, Isaac comes home from war and his daughter doesn’t recognize him.  That happens in real time.  This one guy told me, “You had three grown men crying back here.  We all have young kids.  I go away for a week and I miss my kids like you wouldn’t believe.  I never really understood what those guys do until I saw your brother come home to his daughter after seven months.  I finally got it.”

My agent at William Morris, Erik Seastrand, saw the film and asked me all these questions about my brothers and about my relationship with them.  I mean, he really grilled me.  Finally, I said, “Come on, Erik, you know what it’s like.  You’ve got brothers.” He said, “No.  I don’t.” The film was a way for him to better understand brotherhood. In the end, it’s a film about brotherhood set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq.

It’s also a film about an American family facing the crucible of war.  I think anyone who wants to know more about who is fighting the war, the impact that it has on their families… I think they’ll find “Brothers at War” very interesting.  

After screening the film at Notre Dame, (fellow ND alum) Brandon Tuley said to me, “I learned more in sixty minutes of watching your film than I did in four years of watching the news.” So, save yourself four years of watching the news and come watch “Brothers at War” (laughs).

JRH: That’s good.  We should close with that (laugh).

JR: Before we do, I want to tell you a little about some of the folks without whose help we would not be sitting here discussing Brothers at War.  First, my producing partner, Norman S. Powell, was really a mentor to me as a director and producer.  As a filmmaker, he really coached me, taught me to trust my instincts, challenged some of my choices, and put a lot of love and time into making “Brothers at War”.  His expertise and tutelage were a tremendous boon.

Many have commented on the excellence of “Brothers at War,” and a lot of credit needs to also to Bob DeMaio who did a great job editing the film.  He understood what I was trying to accomplish with the footage, and his sensitivity and taste allowed all the layers of emotion and meaning to exist, bubbling under the surface of the film.

We have received repeated compliments regarding the cinematic look of the film.  Sony featured “Brothers at War” at their kickoff event for NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) this year alongside Michael Mann’s upcoming “Public Enemies,” George Lucas and the Dallas Cowboys.  Conor Colwell who shot some of the startling, beautiful, and at times poetic images in the first third of the film deserves much credit for the unique look.  Marc Miller was instrumental in teaching and coaching us both in coverage and look.  His years of expertise were invaluable.

Finally, there would be no film, without the courage of a number of small business owners from my hometown of Decatur, IL.  After I had gone through my own finances, I had to raise a lot of money fairly quickly to fund the making of “Brothers at War”.  I went back to my hometown and approached small business owners, family and friends to see if they would invest in my idea.  These small business owners, family and friends voted with their pocketbooks to make “Brothers at War” a reality.

JRH: That’s outstanding.

JR: It’s true. The majority of the financing for “Brothers at War’ came from Heartland families. 

JRH: My hat’s off to them.  And to you, Jake.  Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.  You’ve got a great film.  Good luck with it.

JR: Thanks. It was my pleasure.

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I recently went to see “Brothers at War” again, while it was here in Los Angeles. The film has lost nothing in the months since I’d last seen it. If anything, it’s gotten better. Get out and see it. Asses in seats, people. That’s how we get more films like “Brothers at War.”

Semper fidelis,

J.R. Head

“Brothers at War” opens today in Peoria, IL, Shreveport, LA and Oakdale, MN.  It will be coming soon to Carlisle, PA.

Of course, should Ewoks arrive to aid John Connor, all bets are off.

My love for “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2003) puts me in the minority, I know, but you have to embrace how different the three installments are from each other to truly appreciate it. “Terminator” (1984) is a brilliant piece of storytelling, but also a gloriously 80’s action film from soundtrack to clothes to hairstyles to mandatory gratuitous sex scene. “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” on the other hand, is arty and existential, with mind-blowing, big budget action scenes. But let’s just admit out loud that a certain viewing mood is required in order to avoid using the word “overlong.” Finally, the third chapter shakes off everything that made two so special, but not necessarily in a bad way. The action scenes are still outstanding, but the plot is simpler and had the casting of John Connor been stronger, people might have warmed up more towards the Governor of California’s final starring role.

What “Terminator 3″ deserves enormous credit for is honoring the time logic and mythology that came before. In that respect, screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris wrote an ingenious script that hit with a huge surprise at the end that not only pulled the whole story together but the whole franchise, brilliantly setting up  4 – and the good news is that these guys are back for 4.

Telling a compelling, exciting story while respecting what came before is crucial to the survival of the series. The moment we feel the filmmakers cheated, it’s over. Oh, we may still drop our ten bucks like the lemmings we can sometimes be, but we won’t respect ourselves for it, and this act of paying for movies you know you’ll hate is known as George Lucas of the Caribbean Syndrome.

Until “Terminator Salvation” hits May 21st, if you’re hungry for a timeline franchise that never dropped the ball, check out the original five “Planet of the Apes” films. 1, 3 and 4, are just damn fine films, 2 is salvaged by James Franciscus, and 5 is admittedly weak though entertaining in a TV movie kind of way,  but taken as a whole the way the series moves around in time telling different pieces of a larger, over-arching story is amazingly innovative storytelling.

Here’s hoping we can say the same after May 21.

I got more and I didn’t want it. 

Why don’t sequels do well? Obviously, I’m not alone in feeling the way I do about Raiders or Star Wars or Jaws or any other great character-rich, dynamically set film that pulls you in and doesn’t fully let go even after the end titles trail up and we see that film certification symbol fade out. So, why is it that more of what we love, we hate? Well, maybe not hate, but not love quite so much. What’s going on here? 

Perhaps like many of you, I get excited when I hear shooting has started on a new installment of a film series I enjoy. Back when I saw the first leaked images of Jones on horseback going up against a German tank in the employ of the Afrika Corps, I was “giddy as a schoolboy.” I couldn’t wait to for that thing to be in the can and out in the theaters. I was thrilled, anxious and ready for the journey. But then another feeling took hold. Again, like many of you, when mention of a sequel or prequel leaks out, a small fear creeps up the back of one’s neck that somehow curiosity will lead to a deep regret, rivaling that of John Hurt’s as he poked his nose over that egg in Alien. And, like John, our feelings are often very well justified. Because many times, almost always, if anyone’s counting, sequels fail to capture the magic of the first film. “You just can’t repeat it,” many repeat.  Well, I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think it’s that the filmmakers are not trying hard enough, I think it’s more that they’re trying too hard. 

People change, and so should characters, right? Well, not quite. I have been wondering for a long time now, why it is I can’t fully enjoy Return of the Jedi, Aliens,  Alien 3,  Alien Resurrection,  any Rambo emptying a SAW past First Blood, or any Rocky beyond the bell where an out-of-breath voice gasped wisely, “No rematch!” And where an equally wise one gurgled out, “Don’t want one.” Well, a little voice, similarly exhausted, tells me this could be said of Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John, Radar, Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan. Of the cast and crew of the Minnow, and that other ship, where some rogue muttered, “Look, I’m not in this for your revolution, sister. I’m in it for the money.” 

What am I talking about here? It’s what has been defined as Character Development. Somewhere along the way character development, the arc or course a character’s actions, words, and behavior take along a story line has been replaced with something different, something not-so-natural, not-so-healthy, something very formulaic. The increase in depth of a character’s personality, is, we are told, a sure sign of good writing, good acting, and lot’s of other good stuff. It signals to us that the characters are being fleshed-out, are growing, just like us. Changing, just like us. And doing the things we normally do, like becoming superhuman, multi-dimensional, and, best of all, not at all in it for the money.

I’m here to say that it isn’t working. Not for me, anyway. Using Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces as a tuning fork, Lucas played the characters of Star Wars with perfect pitch and tone. He hit every note right. Yes, I happen to like Luke Skywalker as an innocent, awkward, and yes, sometimes dopey farm boy, a kid out of his element fighting a huge empire. I don’t know many farm boys who have much experience fighting huge empires (though that’s no reason to deny them the job). I also happen to like Han Solo looking out for number one, and of course, also watching his trusty sidekick Chewie’s back. Sure I want Han to come to the rescue every now and then, saving everybody and maybe the universe, too.  But not as a full-time job! And I want him complaining about his predicament with every discharge of his blaster all the way down the celestial pike. What I don’t want to see is his transformation into a benevolent, altruistic, selfless stick figure, volunteering for the toughest assignment without so much as a quip, an insult or at least a good joke. In Return of the Jedi, his character became flat and blocky, more inert than when he was frozen in carbonite. 

I have an idea. It might even pass for a theory. It goes something like this:

In Ridley Scott’s Alien, Ripley made a interesting heroine because we didn’t expect her to be the heroine. Let’s face it, Tom Skerritt had higher billing and thus, a greater chance of coming out of that pickle with a heck of a lot more than a highly lubricated pile driver alien jaw through his head, or worse. So did John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, and Ian Holm. Sure, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, by rising to the occasion and becoming the hero achieved the unexpected, it’s true. Yet her actions were not out of character. Why not? Because we had already been shown hints of her strength. No, not in any oiled-muscle, gearing-up scene – as in Aliens,  and now almost every other film which has a David on the way to slay a Goliath – but in her behavior toward Ian Holm’s Science Officer Ash. When Ash makes the rash decision to violate quarantine protocol and let the landing party re-enter the ship and mind of Conrad’s Nostromo, she’s pissed. He blatantly disregards her authority. Soon after, she confronts him and lays down the rules. That’s all that was needed.  Hints are what we like. Not HITS, as in ‘…over the head.’

Aliens changed things. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this film, as I do many of James Cameron’s. But it’s another good example of writing going past the point of believability that is more distracting to me, and maybe others, than an audio pop, a jump cut, or violating the 180 rule. With this sequel the filmmakers decided to develop her character into a somewhat neurotic and unstable fusspot, suffering from insomnia, and having to still feed the same moody cat after 57 years. This is fine and understandable, and, very much in keeping with her character and what she’s been through, but it doesn’t really explain the superhuman strength and Delta Operator focus we see in her later on in the same film. Where did her fear go? And where did those skill sets mysteriously come from? Hicks? Spunkmeyer?  

Surrounded by goo-oozing aliens, pulsating eggs, and god knows what else, she charges back into the breech and certain death to find that darn cat again. Well, no, not really. But it might as well have been the cat. Instead, it’s the little girl, Newt, perhaps the most obvious in a long list of Cameron tributes to Gordon Douglas’ original “bug hunt” flick Them!  Ripley crawls into the growling belly of the beast with little more than a souped-up pulse rifle and spare magazines. And all through this mission, which would make John Rambo pause, she’s not even breathing heavy. While in the first movie, Alien, just one of those creatures hiding somewhere on a ship the size of Greenland made her hyperventilate into something resembling sheer panic. Justifiably so. But here, she calmly, and very professionally goes about her new task of rescuing a small girl from amongst several hundreds or maybe thousands of “Ripley’s bad guys”. Let’s not forget, this is within the dark, dank depths of a burning nuclear power plant that is about to do an impression of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst. Sure, the mother instinct is a crucial element of the theme here, mother vs. mother and all that. But, still, her behaviour takes on a super hero quality that transforms the story into more science fantasy than fiction. Where the original rules set down by the writers are being violated by who else, but the writers, in situations where anything, even the absurd is possible and to be expected. This is not to be confused with a suspension of disbelief. Rather, this is an expelling of belief that the setting and situation the writers have created for us is being transformed into a veritable Westworld run by renegade deus ex machina. 

Alien Resurrection displays more character development with our hero Ripley going gothic with touches of  arcade Street Fighter and left-over marine grunt mixed-in. Granted, to be fair she is merely a shadow of her former self, quite literally. She’s a clone. This time, an off-the-rack Ripley with a shelf life much longer apparently, than a synthetic Bishop, Ash and, while we’re at it, a Zhora, Priss or even Rachel could ever hope to get from the original manufacturer. But this unreasonable facsimile is just that, unreasonable. She’s not a whole lot of fun, either. Because we can guess rather confidently from the opening shots of her determination, that here sits our hero. This isn’t character development. This isn’t even a character. Unless you happen to be considering the cartoon variety.

Which brings me back to Luke, Leia, and Han (sorry Chewie). Principle players in the original Star Wars, they had their respective characters fleshed-out in fine form by the third act, the battle. We loved it, as did most of planet Earth. Which doesn’t really explain why the creators of the third installment, Return of the Jedi, would want to change that. Of course, we want change, but not at the expense of the things we have loved which connected us to it in the first place. I don’t want to see new facets of a character if I feel the filmmakers are showing me these new facets, these changes, these twists because they’ve exhausted all their original ideas in earlier installments and are now resorting to drastic means to keep the gravy train rolling, with add-ons that are more a product of meetings with merchandisers than anything else. If that’s the case, if in fact the characters are out of ammo, fleshed-out as far as their flesh will go – inevitable no matter how rich the character is written initially – then give us a new character or another adventure. For example, look what was done with the exceptional Leigh Brackett and Larry Kasdan penned Empire Strikes Back,  a rare winning sequel. It had taken the original idea, expanded on it and led us to places undreamed. Yet, all the while, retaining the character traits of all in attendance and firmly anchoring us to the original franchise without so much as a hiccup in believability or anything that a healthy smack on a cockpit control panel couldn’t fix.  That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how you do it. You don’t pervert the characteristics of each member of a story, transforming them beyond believability, simply to get more mileage out of them or to justify a production, an episode or a sequel. Lovers of the original film, the fans, will rebel against that. They want to see more of what they love. They don’t want to see entirely new characters masquerading as the old ones for no other reason than to reel-in a duped loyal fan base at the box office. Not a good idea. 

Which leads us to Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Certainly, it was no Raiders, no Last Crusade nor my and many others’ least favorite, Temple of Doom. Simply, it just didn’t measure up. But, with that said, I did enjoy it and was happy to see the settings and the characters, well, some of them, again. I missed Sallah, and Marcus. Who didn’t? I wasn’t crazy about the time period, though I’m a big fan of cold war anything. But for me, Indy belongs in a pre-atomic age, when leather satchels, whips and dusty bomber jackets were worn by men other than those without a cause to rebel against. That’s a change that didn’t need to be. “Yeah but it’s twenty years since they made Last Crusade!”, they cried. So? Harrison Ford is an actor, so are the other people in the film who call themselves actors. Hollywood makes magic, doesn’t it?  Now, more than ever, we’re constantly told. There is no reason why we couldn’t have had this fourth Indiana Jones installment, and most likely the last, set in the mid-forties. In an attempt to make the story more ‘real to life’ they made it too real, and lifeless.  Was this another mistake by Spielberg? Judging not by the reviews, which I never judge anything on anyway, but by the fans and of course, my own feelings, that humorously understated line by Last Crusade’s last Templar knight comes to mind:  “He chose poorly.”  

Before I forget, I want to mention one other thing about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that bothered me. Something on the poster, something about Indy was missing. His smile. Indy wasn’t really smiling. They continued the poster style, keeping it consistent with the serial nature of the cliffhangers that Raiders re-pioneered, if I can say that in mixed company. And I applaud that with gusto. But they changed the illustrated Indy too much by leaving out that cockiness, even after 20 years. If he’s not going to smile, not going to be displaying that adventurous grin, not going to display that false bravado, that winning lovable mixture of Joel McCray, Bob Hope, and yes, Han Solo that made Indiana Jones come alive for us, making even the most harrowing situation and death defying stunt seem fun and something we’d like to try at home, then why bother? They missed it with the poster. So, right out of the gate, they went in the wrong direction, with the wrong approach. Sure, he’s 20 years older, so what? Ever hear of people like John Glenn, Malcolm Forbes or Michael Korda? There are plenty of examples of men and women in their middle and senior years pursuing endeavors that healthy college kids would run from. So, for a character like Indiana Jones to run out of steam, it’s disappointing to say the least, and certainly not a topic for a sequel. Frankly, I think they played on the age element far too much in order to introduce a new angle to Indy. A big mistake. They didn’t need a new angle. I think even a poor story – and this one was not up to par with the previous three by any stretch of the imagination – could have been a heck of a lot more fun and much better cinema if they retained the Indy that we knew and loved in Raiders, felt a bit distanced from in Temple of Doom and re-united with in Last Crusade.  That’s my feeling. But heck, I’m making this up as I go along.   

Here’s a plea to budding writers out there: 

If you want to write such huge character changes, don’t experiment with an existing, beloved creation, adding-on simple shock value and steroids or fatigue and a lack of collagen. You may hit on a winner, and you may not. In the meantime, though, you’ll be changing irrevocably the things from the original that we grew with and held close to our hearts. Don’t do it. 

Start with a new, original story. There, you can experiment with a clean slate and see for certain why the lines are forming, along the story arc and around the block. In the meantime you may find quite unexpectedly that the big screen isn’t the only place where your character is being developed.