This is complete speculation, but I would bet that the sequel will not have Deckard in it at all, but instead will focus on the off-world story of Roy and his crew. It actually could make a very interesting story, to see how Roy et al come to learn of their inception dates, longevity problem, how they live, how they make the decision to rebel, and ending the story with their escape to Earth. Roy Batty's story could still be a great, great movie...if it were done correctly.
My bigger concern is that Blade Runner was so marvellous because it was an uncoventional, edgy movie that would stand almost no chance being made by a major studio today...not when the budget would probably end up in the $150mill range, teams of writers and rewriters will be crawling over it, and production heads will be making sure safe decisions are made and the all-important trailer has plenty of shots in it that'll make you want to pop for the 3D viewing. I fear that a prequel will significantly up the action, have lots of cool spaceship battles, whiff on the character development, make cheese out of the dilemma of the central "what is human" question of the original, and have no soul. If Michael Bay is directing, I'm heading to Hollywood with a torch and pitchfork.
Are you talking smack against Michael Ironside?
A remake of Total Recall could be interesting, but can't compare to the original, nearly flawless film. An Arnold film cannot be improved without Arnold in it, and even then, a younger Arnold is almost always better than an older one. Fact.
Give this people airrrrr!
"Something in my vicinity is Carolina blue and this offends me." - HPR
I really liked Batman Begins, Indiana Jones, and Casino Royale. There were a bunch of the other prequels that I didn't like (or didn't see) for movies that I did see and didn't like. The fact that I knew Batman, Indiana, and James would survive weren't impediments--since they are the kind of guys who can't die anyway.
Batman Begins and Casino Royale were not prequels. They were reboots with a new storyline for an established character. Of course Batman and James Bond cannot die, but we do not know where their character is exactly heading because there is no known future for them, other than the fact that they will likely live. In a true prequel we already know where the characters are heading because they must do certain things we saw in the earlier film. That is waaay different from a reboot.
I am not sure what you mean by "Indiana Jones" but I am guessing you mean the second film-- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Frankly, I consider that to be far, far worse than Raiders and not as good as Last Crusade either. It was polluted by the wretched Kate Capshaw (aka, Mrs. Spielberg) and featured some horrid action sequences including the flying raft stuff at the beginning and the hokey mining car chase at the end. BAD! It was not quite as hokey as Crystal Skull, but was not a shining light in the Raiders series. I think many fans agree with me and even Spielberg himself has said that he made Last Crusade because he wanted to make up for some of the mistakes he made in Temple of Doom.
--Jason "Prequels = bad film at least 80 or 90% of the time" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Early reviews for Rise of the Planet of the Apes are making it seem that this one will be in the 10% of the good ones. I really hope so, this is one I may go see in the theaters. The first Apes prequels, Escape and Conquest were pretty bad, but as a kid I loved watching them.
P.S. Andy Serkis is getting rave mentions. He is hollywood's favorite ape..lol.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
I tend to agree with Jason that the majority of prequels are not particularly good movies. Is that a question of the inherent limitations of a true prequel (same major character(s), story set temporally ahead of the original movie), or is it merely part of the tendency for hollywood re-dips into a lucrative cookie jar tending to be lower quality than the first trip?
As for ToD vs. Raiders...I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but IM(H)O, Raiders is so far above ToD in quality that there's simply no room for argument. I actually enjoy ToD a great deal despite Kate Capshaw and think it was a worthy prequel, but Raiders, in some ways, captured lightning in a bottle. I'm sure part of my delight in the movie was my age when I saw in it the theater (11), but it's just a movie that hits all the right notes and has great scenes, one after another, beginning to end.
(Minor point of contention with Raiders: The staff of Ra is six kaddam high (about 72 inches, Indy tells us gravely, so I guess a kaddam is a foot), but take back one kaddam to honor the Hebrew god who's arc this is, making the staff 5 feet high. Then we see Indy standing in the map room and the staff is a good foot taller than Indy. I had no idea Indy was a hobbit. That kind of thing just bugs me...a completely unnecessary error that takes you out of the movie for a minute. I know it's a quibble, but wasn't there one guy on set who said, "Wait a second, either we need to add one kaddam to honor the Hebrew god or cut about 2 feet off the staff, Mr. Spielberg.")
That's quite interesting.
I do enjoy ToD, and don't mind watching it at all, but I don't think it's on the same level as Raiders or Last Crusade (I personally prefer the latter, but still think they're neck and neck, and can see how many people would put Raiders first).
Part of it is that Raiders and LC deal with Indy fighting Nazi's, and trying to prevent them from dominating the world through religious artifacts. Ultimate bad guys, extreme stakes.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I'll expand on that. Since the original was made 40 years ago, any "Apes" movie is going to be considered a reboot. But this is the prequel to how the planet became the ape's to call their own. Also, you can say it's a reboot of the first prequels since it has Caeser as it's main character, but it is still a prequel nonetheless.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Ok, it is a prequel, but it is not a prequel that involves any estabilshed characters we already know nor do any of the events in the story directly lead to any story of which we have a pre-concieved notion aside from the fact that this is a story about apes taking over planet Earth.
The type of prequel I have been talking about in this thread is one where we are seeing the same characters as in an original film and where the characters are heading in a direction that will take them to where we saw them in the original. For example, X-Men: First Class was a prequel... and a rarity as it was a darn good one too.
Let me ask-- would you consdier next summer's The Amazing Spider-man to be a prequel or a reboot? What about Batman Begins? Hollywood considers both of those to be reboots. Can you explain the difference in how those films are reboots but Rise of the Apes is a prequel?
--Jason "We are laregely arguing semantics at this point... not sure it realy matters" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Agree on your sig. I would consider those to be reboots since they aren't actually leading up to an actual established story. That is the fun thing about the comic book movies (and by the books themselves, happens all the time), is that new stories can be told countless times with the same characters, including their origins. But since Planet of the Apes (with Heston, not that crappy definite reboot by Tim Burton) is an established story (that even Burton pretty much followed the same story line) and it's not being retold by Rise, then I don't consider it a reboot. As I said, I think Rise does both. It's a prequel to the original story, and yet reboots the franchise. Some can be both.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
My .02c at an official ruling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conques...et_of_the_Apes
Considering the story of Caesar's origins has already been told a prequel to the Heston series, I think this would be considered a reboot. In those, Caesar was the child of Vera and Cornelius, who escaped to human Earth in "Escape from the Planet of the Apes", not the result of some genetic experiment. So, in this case, JasonEvans would be correct.
However, if you consider this part of the Burton thread, then I think it's a prequel. But since Burton's movie was, in an of itself, a reboot, then this movie is a prequel to a reboot. In which case, both CameronBornAndBred and JasonEvans are correct.
"There can BE only one."
I just perused the wiki onplanet of the apes (2001).
This made me laugh:
That's got to be a joke.Fox studio executive Dylan Sellers felt the script could be improved by comedy. "What if Robinson finds himself in Ape land and the Apes are trying to play baseball? But they're missing one element, like the pitcher or something." Sellers continued. "Robinson knows what they're missing and he shows them, and they all start playing."[14] Sellers refused to give up his baseball scene, and when Hayes turned in the next script, sans baseball, Sellers fired him.