Movies I Wish They Made

The summer movie season is upon us with a rivarly betweeen two comic hero classics. The Fantastic Four is the third attempt but this one has the right retro future look to it and stars Pedro Pascal. The other one is Superman with David Corenswet After the darkness of Snyder’s Man of Steel this version, directed by James Gunn, is much brighter.

I’m not into blockbusters but I love movies and -cliché ahead- they don’t make them like they used to. Classic films are classic for a reason, good writing, direction, and acting, not the sloppy drivel of endless sequels, a franchise ( I hate that word) rather than artistic entertainment-I’m looking a you Disney Inc.

Disney made the best animated film ever with Snow White but instead of simply reissuing it to theaters and introducing it’s glory to a whole new generation, they made a live action version that bombed. A remake is not a guarantee of a good profit.

There is plenty of classic sci-fi literature that would make excellent films- if they stay true to the original like Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter. For example, I Robot Isaac Asimov’s story that introduced us to robots ( Karel Kopek coined the term) was turned into another cop movie with Will Smith and bombed. Studios don’t know how to make good sci fi but they sure know how to ruin it. Alien- good horror movie, now derivative, Star Wars and Star Trek-ditto.

Robert Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit Will Travel would make a great Disney flick. Adventurous, smart kids, a friendly alien and oh yeah Pluto-come on. He wrote great dialogue- which will be easy transferring for the mediocre screenwriters and the characters are movie quality.

Since studios love to crank out the same stuff- Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would make a fine Netflix series. Terry Pratchett’s Ring World series is ripe for a video game -which it resembles. Mercedes Lackey’s Valdameer chronicles would be spendy but magic and a medieval setting- oh yeah.

Instead of yet another Dracula, how about Barbara Hambley’s Those Who Hunt the Night with a great vampire and a heroic couple in Victorian England. Pretty much anything she writes is good material.

The way we watch movies has also been affected by streaming and DVD’s which rob us of the communal experience of sitting in a dark theatre with a group of strangers and transported to another world, whether it’s the desert of Arrakis, King Arthur’s knights in Excalibur or the thrilling chariot race from Ben Hur. Let’s make movies fun again.