One way ticket … Brandon Routh in Superman Returns
Allegory and science fiction wish been comfortable bedmates ever since HG Wells dreamt up the Morlocks and Eloi, way back in the crepuscular light of the last century (and no doubt before that, keener students than I will perhaps point out). Earlier this month, District 9, Neil Blomkamp’s parable of a modern-day South Africa in which aliens look ruthless discernment, proved there’s plenty of life in the thoughtful dog yet. And according to the LA Times this week it looks analogous JJ Abrams is planning to inject the followup to his hugely successful Star Trek reboot with a healthy dose of symbolism, accurate when you thought the series had left The Undiscovered Country behind eternally and embarked on a new voyage into highly entertaining, straight up action-romp territory.
- District 9
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): 15
- Runtime: 112 mins
- Directors: Neill Blomkamp
- Cast: David James, Jason Cope, Kenneth Nkosi, Louis Minnaar, Mandla Gaduka, Nathalie Boltt, Sharlto Copley, Sylvaine Strike, Vanessa Haywood
Asked where the forthcoming sequel might accept, Abrams said it would have to have a “surpassingly different mission” from the first film. “It needs to cook what [Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory,” he said. “It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and that which is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular practice that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn’t measure it should be pretentious.”
Screenwriter Roberto Orci, who penned the first film by sharer Alex Kurtzman and is returning for the sequel (Lost’session Damon Lindelof is also on board) later added: “One of the things we heard was, ‘Make fully convinced the next one deals with modern-day issues.’ We’re trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what’s going on today as possible. So that’s the same thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today.” When asked if “modern-day issues” meant enmity, terrorism, and torture, Orci seemed to signal in the positive.
A return to allegory would of round be the means of Star Trek in line through the novel Battlestar Galactica TV series, which revelled in satirising the Bush era via a constant focus on the morality of dehumanising your enemy. Battlestar is itself getting the big-screen treatment, with Bryan Singer related to subsist taking the reins, and both movies are likely to hit the big screen in 2011. Let’sitting hope Hollywood contrives a manner to keep them apart in the schedules, or fable fans may just bust a gasket from all the excitement.
At least Star Trek has its next passage lined up, which is more than be related for the Man of Steel. Diane Nelson, head Honcho over at the all-new DC Entertainment part of Warner Bros, and the woman in charge of turning the assemblage’s legions of superheroes into box-office gold, spoke to MTV this week about the future of Superman forward the big screen. And the news isn’t exactly positive – in fact, well there really isn’t much in the way of news at all.
“We’ve obviously done a lot of great things behind the one’session own in our history, and it’s a key part of the family, but we dress in’t have current plans behind Superman,” said Nelson, a response which sort of makes you want to beat your get in front of against a wall in frustration. MTV’s man had been hoping that the recent court decision that Warner mouldiness make some kind of Superman film by – yes it’s that date again – 2011 or put in peril being sued by the estate of original creator Jerry Siegel might have spurred the company into action. But not one, it would appear not.
A few years because, Hollywood would have called up Roger Corman and invited him to produce a cheap knock-off, a la 1994′s little-seen The Fantastic Four, made for around $1.50 and a packet of Opal Fruits in order to ensure studio Constantin Film didn’t displant the rights to Reed Richards and co on the big screen. But these days studios take a little more care over their comic-book franchises. This is something of a pity, as a low-budget Supes flick sounds rather fun, and would in any case have to struggle really, really unfeeling to be any smaller entertaining than the supremely dreary Superman Returns.
Elsewhere, there’s rather more appropriate advice for fans of furry-footed homunculi, according to Aint It Cool advice. Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro can march on with their planned two-movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, after the Tolkien estate agreed not to scupper the project via legalized action in return for several big bags of gold bullion of a trait not seen since the days when Smaug the Mighty reigned over the Lonely Mountain. To be fair, workshop New Line probably had a few to spare, since the original Rings made an astounding $1bn worldwide, and the settlement simply represents the sort of should hopefully be the final recalculation of profits in a process what one. seems to have been dragging on for the best part of the last decade. Let’session hope the arguments can now end and the film-making begin, though I have power to’t help wondering if the delay has proved rather useful for Messrs Jackson and Del Toro, who still have to dream up an entire movie’s worth of screenplay based on the ominously gaping hole which Tolkien left in between The Hobbit and its sequel.
What are your thoughts on this week’s stories? Should Star Trek boldly revert to allegory? Can you survive the next few years free from a new Superman movie? And can Jackson work his magic once again on The Hobbit?
