Does almost everyone really have to be killed off??

lumphammer2

I for one am sick to death ... forgive the pun ... of this recent trend of killing almost everyone off in films ... first it was Han Solo ... then Luke Skywalker ... then James Bond ... then Tony Stark/Iron Man ... and then Toy Man (well, I will admit that I was glad to see the back of him although his alter ego is inflicting himself on London in the new year!!) ... who next? Batman? Spider-Man? Superman (...well at least they did kill him but brought him back later...)? Ethan Hunt? Mad Max? ... Thank god they went down a different route with Indiana Jones ...

Often the new characters come along to replace the older characters in franchises like Star Wars ... but none of the new characters could replace the iconic characters that were Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, etc. ... I don't know but franchises seem too happy to kill off the main characters and replace them with weak and insignificant ones ... resulting in many of these franchises ironically dying because no one wants any of this ... the reason Bond lasted so long is because Bond was always front and centre and survived ... until now when he was killed off unnecessarily ... alt version could have been Bond lived happily ever after with his wife after defeating his enemies ... then reboot with new actor ... but no that was too much to ask ... maybe Dallas, Bobby and that dream season wasn't so daft afterall ....

Flinty997

Cheap shot to add some some drama into a lacklustre script.

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444594#Comment_121444594

True ... apart from the demise of Toy Man (one of the classics of all time but never to be shown again!) all the others that saw the death of an iconic character were anything but entertaining ... they were among the worst of their franchise imo ..

Flinty997

... they already did Bond happily married...

Movies find it hard to break out of tropes. While you want your hero to survive sometimes it's good to do something different.

Sad Professor

It's the result I guess of trying to write a particular character out of a franchise so that new characters can come to the fore and that the franchise can stay fresh. When your legacy character is basically a legend and/or superhero and your story regularly involves the fate of the universe, it's kinda hard in fairness to write them out without killing them. Otherwise you have to constantly explain where Luke, Iron Man etc was while the planet was being nearly destroyed for the 1000th time. The alternative is the franchise just ends which I would greatly prefer tbh but fanboys are such a huge revenue stream and so exploitable.

Flinty997

Keep making the same mistake.They keep breaking the rules of the world in which the character exists. Which then requires them to write even more implausible arcs. Until all logic is lost, and the world itself has no rules and it all becomes nonsensical. So they they do a do-over with a reboot and repeat the cycle.

No one would brink an eye at Bobby Ewing storyline these days.

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121444874#Comment_121444874

It is but not when all these heroes start being killed off ... it is like one franchise does it the others have to copy it ...

Bond was never happily married for long ... OHMSS was never ever meant by Fleming or by the films to be a finale ... Bond was to return and him happily married to Tracy would not have allowed that so Tracy had to die in order for Bond to stay On Her Majesty's Secret Service ... Bond happily married to Madeleine on the other hand could have been the exit for Craig's Bond but they instead copied what Star Wars etc did ... they already copied Star Wars too in Moonraker !! ...

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445135#Comment_121445135

Agree very much ... for example I very much like Daniel Craig's Bond and he was great in the first 3 ... yes I like the unfairly maligned Quantum of Solace along with the other 2 which are better loved ... but his last 2 ruin it ... SPECTRE sees a Blofeld that never was meant to be and No Time To Die seemed to have one message only .... anyone even James Bond 007 can die of something like Covid 19 ...

I feel guys like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Indiana Jones and Bond are meant to come out on top at the end of a film .... only one of these did survive ... it is ok in TV series like Love/Hate, Breaking Bad, Kin, Peaky Blinders, etc. to kill off characters who often are main such as Nidge, Walter White, Frank & Brendan Kinsella, etc. ... but Thomas Shelby was spared ... as these series are about gangland figures and are meant to be realistic ... Bond and the others are not meant to be realistic and are escapism ... until recently no one even questioned Bond's age for example ... he went from film to film ageless despite Roger Moore being replaced by Timothy Dalton who was much younger ....

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121445135#Comment_121445135

Bobby Ewing caused a huge stir at the time ... he emerges in the shower to a shocked Pam ... apparently Patrick Duffy wanted out of Dallas but then desperately not only wanted back in but wanted to be back in only as Bobby ... they had tried to return him as other characters but he did not want that ...

It was not the only time a dream was used though ... there was an episode of MacGyver which was based around a dream about the Wild West ... and I seem to remember some 1980s cop show that had a weird dream episode where everyone was in some sandy post apocalypse landscape ... some sort of cheap Mad Max rip off no doubt ...

But Dallas was the only I remember where a whole season for a dream ... I saw Dallas on TV a few years ago and the dream season was very James Bond-ish with JR and a cousin donning the role of a Texan 007 type and Pam meanwhile was teamed up with an Indiana Jones type who was really a conman JR had hired to lead her astray !! ... it was all fake though just like Bobby's death ...

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447849#Comment_121447849

No one needed to kill James Bond before now, a new actor just appeared. But now they made it so anyone can be 007. It's no longer an infamous character, it's simply a staff number.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447859#Comment_121447859

Yet no one these days blinks an eye when half of existence in the cosmos disappears at the snap of a finger. But it's ok because there is a giant undo button.

https://youtu.be/_qIkXfxyB-8?si=zA_qXU0gyP2VePEp

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447877#Comment_121447877

True ... there is this push for 007 movie not James Bond ... but that for me anyway is the moment I lose interest ... the plan could be a series of 007s who could be killed off if the producers tire of them ... the essence of what once was James Bond then is dead and buried quite literally ... I don't think anyone wants these new ideas replacing Bond ... have their own franchises all you want but in addition to Bond ... and it is better to get back to a proper BOND film something we did not have since Skyfall ...

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447844#Comment_121447844

Moonraker, Star Wars you'll have to explain that one.

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447886#Comment_121447886

Moonraker came out in 1979 after 1977's Star Wars .... called just that then later called A New Hope .... Star Wars was massive ... The Spy Who Loved Me was big too in 1977 but For Your Eyes Only was planned next in regard to Bond films .... then it changed to Moonraker .... complete with ray gun shootout at the end ... very similar to the ones from Star Wars .... it is clear the end of Moonraker is 100% 00 Jedi !! .. as all was needed was Bond undercover using the code name Luke Solo !! ... or Lucas Solitaire ... to be more inventive with a Live and Let Die ref ...

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447883#Comment_121447883

Red Dwarf ... that sent up all these things ... and did for a laugh what would be done seriously later on !!

pixelburp

To be fair on the original point, Leia died because Carrie Fisher herself passed on between Episodes VIII and IX; no idea what the infamous Trevorrow script had in store but I'm not aware Leia was meant to die in the original script?

As to the rest, it's a side effect of the Legacy Sequel: we're dealing with millennial pop culture suddenly ageing into retirement so you got all these actors looking for one more paycheque while being far too old to play the characters. Add into that the fact western pop culture has ossified into endless nostalgia and reboots - the new IP is dead as a dodo in Hollywood.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121447892#Comment_121447892

That makes no sense. The novel was written in 1955. Was changed to include going into space due to the success of Star Wars, but actual Space Shuttle Launch was around the corner. Media was full of it at the time..

Can't see any plot similarities at all.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448062#Comment_121448062

The big space laser battle, multi coloured FX n all, was probably the largest hat tip that the producers were trying to cash in on post Star Wars hype; not so much plot as the general theme and iconography configured to be as "Star Wars" as possible without going full galactic battles.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448062#Comment_121448062

I dont see it either, You Only Live Twice came out in 1967 2 years before the Moon landings, Moonraker came out in 1979 , 2 years before the Shuttle launch, that explains it. No kid watching Moonraker would have made any connection. The Shuttle was current, Space stations were current, coincidentally Skylab crashed in 1979 about 2 weeks after the movie came out.

Flinty997

As a kid when this came out my memory was of wanting the Moonraker Shuttle toy because it was like the real shuttle nothing to do with Star Wars. There was lots of interest in space at the time, TV shows, Space 1999, Blakes 7,  Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers.

Its clear they wanted "space" to cash in on Star Wars, they state it in the documentary, but very clearly stated in the documentary its more about interest in the real Shuttle and real space exportation of the period. "Science Fact" not "Science Fiction" as Broccoli himself says. They also say the space station from 2001 influenced the style of the space special effects. I certainly can see that. But not Star Wars. There was a lot of talk about the militarization of space at the time. Regan's Strategic Defense Initiative was only around the corner.

https://youtu.be/8ynLGeR74Yk?si=qczCPqrZKZP-UFI_

magicbastarder

sure it's cheaper to kill off the character played by the expensive actor, and hire a new one who will cost a hell of a lot less, but continuing the franchise.

cf. star trek - didn't chris pine get locked into a contract of something like 50k per movie for three movies? use a well known franchise which will bring the fans in, but with an actor budget a fraction of what it otherwise would have been.

Flinty997

That said if people enjoy the idea its bond and star wars mash up, go for it. Its valid as anything else subjective is.

Love Moonraker.

Flinty997

When you talk about characters being killed off, my head goers to Game of Thrones. But thats done for an entirely different reason. More genuine I feel.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448397#Comment_121448397

The risk is it will kill the show. Be interesting to see how the new Witcher works out.

Last Bond, they've open the door that Bond can be anyone. Which is a good thing, I guess. The older movies (perhaps Cinema and TV in general) perhaps haven't aged well in that regard.

magicbastarder

apart from killing off actors, how many movies have had the guts to kill off dogs? dogs are usually guaranteed to survive till the end. except perhaps in 'the thing' and 'marley and me' - perhaps the only reason to mention those two movies in a single sentence.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448461#Comment_121448461

John Wayne - Big Jake

Flinty997

Spoiler Warning

I Am Legend

Riddick (kinda)

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448461#Comment_121448461

I am Legend did it: was a broadly good adaptation til the end that was completely effin' terrible - but they killed the dog there.

And The Thing technically doesn't count cos ... well. It wasn't a dog 😜

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448461#Comment_121448461

actually, wouldn't it have been great in 'marley and me', if when they injected the dog to put it to sleep, its ribcage ripped open and a spidery alien climbed out?

i've actually not seen 'marley and me' and appreciate that this might not fit with the general theme of the movie.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448579#Comment_121448579

I would pay money for that movie, if only to hear the iconic drawl of Owen Wilson go, "aww gee you gotta be fúckin' kiddin"

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448410#Comment_121448410

I love Moonraker ... and that type of Bond film ... too ... there is nothing in my view wrong with Bond films being influenced by Star Wars or anything else ... everything influences everything else ...Moonraker and these films all entertained and you got what it said on the tin ... plus the villains for me felt more real too ...

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448461#Comment_121448461

Mad Max 2 sometimes called The Road Warrior .... from 1981 .... did it ....

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448461#Comment_121448461

It's used a bit in genre movies as a surefire instant way to heighten the stakes or make someone super-evil, like Funny Games, Badlands, American Psycho, The Fly, etc. And it's the whole driving force of John Wick of course.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121455007#Comment_121455007

It remains funny to think that the entirety of what became a rather operatic, lore heavy franchise launched off the back of a scumbag killing John Wick's dog.

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121459106#Comment_121459106

John Wick is yet another example of someone who was killed off ...

Sleepy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448914#Comment_121448914

Done in Rob Roy too: after you'd already seen him lie, cheat, murder and rape the title characters wife, killing the dog was the bit to let us know just how evil he really was....

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121448510#Comment_121448510

I don't think anyone could accuse I Am Legend of being a film you'd get emotionally invested in, but the first time I saw it I genuinely had to pause it for 20 minutes of outright sobbing after the dog died.

In recent memory, only Bing-Bong in Inside Out got me that bad.