Ten Movies That Will Never Be

[Treblaine]

I count at least 4 that the extreme religious people )that give good religious people a bad name) would attack. All of these movies would push the boundaries, and possibly not make money. I would hate that, if only because we would have to hear you whine and complain about it with your Anti-Expendables stamp for a couple weeks.

Who cares about money when it could Oscar Bait!

THAT sells films, because when the producers then whore out the same cast and crew it won't just be:

"From Director John Smith"

rather

"From ACADEMY AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR John Smith"

That will really help make them money further down the line. The problem is that at the moment, "while woman motivating dumb black guy" is more of an Oscar bait than self-motivated black characters.

(though it is a dilemma, as the civil right movement IS precipitated by white people, how many racist white people subjugated and segregated society along racial lines.)

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

I'd definitely go see the last one - only if it didn't have Jackie Chan in it though.

If you haven't seen it yet, that's almost the exact plot of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. He doesn't sell the sacred MacGuffin at the end though, but he does wreck many, many people's shit in a very brutal fashion along the way. Full contact fighting too. The acting and writing is....well, pretty crappy, but nobody watches action porn for Oscar caliber performances. It's definitely worth checking out.

 

[Stall]

Okay Bob... we get it: you're a bitter cynic. Would you mind if I asked you to stop rubbing it in our faces every waking second you get? Do you mind actually contributing something meaningful, insightful, or humorous instead of spewing bile and hate?

 

[seiler88]

Here's another twist for your scientist movie Bob.

The scientist has a Christian co-worker who helps him accomplish his work by making sure that the scientist's ego/drive doesn't get away from him. He dose this by making sure safety rules are followed because of the patience granted by his religious background. He is also Bible- literate enough to realize that the "God's domain" argument is a load of crap. Oh and said co-worker provides plenty of scientific help on his own as he's about as good as the main scientist.

Also won't happen because Hollywood believes that every Christian is a Corrupt Catholic or a Protestant Jack Chick Clone. Combined with the fact that they refuse to do biblical resurch means that my character will never make the screen.

 

[BeAuMaN]

Yep. Moviebob was feeling bitter today (or more so than usual). So, he went and wrote down the movies that pissed him off lately, came up short, then added the usual tripe that pissed him off, went over to tvtropes.org, and re-formulated the movie tropes into an article, taking at most an hour to complete.

Generally I agree with Moviebob of course, but that's what this feels like.

Pro Challenge to readers: replace all pitches in Moviebob's article with hyperlinks to tvtropes articles of where this all applies.

Also:
"A brilliant scientist is conducting a radical experiment that brazenly defies societal taboos and moral boundaries. Some say he is a genius ... others say he will bring ruin by tampering in God's Domain! As the minutes count down and results are unveiled ... it turns out that the 'tampering in God's domain' folks were 100% wrong! He was right, the experiment was a success and the results will help untold millions of people and make the world a far better place."

Not a scientist (and not Hollywood), but Code Geass, anyone?

 

[Woodsey]

God that was pretentious. You aren't being creative Bob, you're just taking the same tired stereotypes and adding "AN UNEXPECTED TWIST" to them. Frankly I wouldn't want to see them made because I'm sure Hollywood would just make them as boring and plastic as the standard UNTWISTED stereotypes.

Crikey, they weren't meant to be serious creative pitches.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Could we combine these movies:

"A portrait of a young gay man making his way through his life and career in the early 21st Century. In a shocking twist, he is not employed in the fashion or music industry, has a best friend who is not a high-strung narcissistic young woman who regards him as a "girlfriend," has a healthy relationship with his parents, and has many, many conversations involving topics other than body issues, workout regimens, trendy foods, clothes shopping and other things that heterosexual movie writers assume are all that gay people talk about."

"Portrait of a man (or woman) of Asian descent living and working in the early 21st century. They have a series of escapades leading to sundry moments of personal growth ... none of which involve high-level computer hacking, superhuman mathematics skills, mastery of the martial arts or stereotypically strict, tradition bound parents. Also, his/her skills at speaking English are flawless, naturalistic and do not involved inexplicable lapses into heavily accented hip-hop slang."

"When crooked thieves steal an ancient religious artifact from a primitive rural village, their greatest warrior must travel for the first time to the strange and unfamiliar world of The Big City to retrieve it. He fights many, many elaborate battles and succeeds in locating and defeating the sinister thieves, but ultimately does not bring back The Artifact. Instead, he discovers that in 'The Big City' people do not die constantly from common germs and minor injuries as they do in his primitive rural village on account of having access to modern medicine, health-standards and communication. He then sells the damn artifact at a huge profit so as to bring life saving medicine, superior farming equipment, food and a phone/internet connection to his people."


Gay and Asian; martial arts student looking for place in the world does so by pleasing his home village by going to big city to recover stolen sacred artefact.

Ends up convincing elder to sell the artefact to museum to set up a business in London (America not centre of the world) selling tourist holidays, and lives happily ever after with their same sex partner.

(PS: I have a sneaking suspicion this film may already have been made)

as an American i must protest!!

>.> I'd have gone with somewhere in Italy over England, over all neater place

OT: interesting, i take note all are against the normal stereotypes, which would be refreshing to see actually

 

[malestrithe]

Bob, these are movies are not going to be made not because Hollywood does not have any balls, or because they are too prententious, but because these movies are too low concept to be worth the studio's time.

As a critic, you should know the difference': high concept can be described in one sentence, while low can take two or three.

Basically, Diehard is high concept "Terrorists take over a tower, and one cop tries to stop them." All of the Oscarbait movies of the last 25 years are low concept.

I know that the line is kind of thin between high and low concept, with a tighter script, Titanic could have been a high concept work. Instead, it is a low concept one.

 

[Callate]

The last entry on page one is pretty much the premise of "Kinsey", isn't it? Or does it only count if it's entirely fictional?

"Double Happiness" comes pretty close to filling the "Asian movie" docket, but it does, of course, have the traditionalist parents.

 

[Sepiida]

Yeah, we've heard most of this from Bob before and it's getting a little boring. While I agree that some of those wouldn't be made due to the nature of hollywood, mostly the ones involving non-white actors, most of these are just you sounding off on stuff you don't like. Again. We get it, you don't think science should be held back by "pesky morality" (thus negating the entire field of bioethics). We get it, you think that so called "middle America" is a bland and ultimately soul crushing place. You don't need to remind us every chance you get.

I will admit though that last one made me laugh out loud.

 

[twistedmic]

"A man of spiritually devout persuasion is critically injured in a terrible car accident. Though he is brought to the hospital in time for doctors to save his life, his injuries are such that he is actually 'dead' for several minutes on the operating table, during which time he experiences ... nothing. No tunnel, no light, no angles, no dead pals, nothing. In a shocking twist, his newfound sense that the life he has is quite definitely all there is does not turn him into a bitter nihilist, but rather spurs him to become an infinitely better, freer and happier person who's determined to make the most of whatever time he has."

That idea strikes me as a way of saying 'See? Atheists are better people! Religion is stupid, become an Atheist!'. Though it can work if you add a second perspective to the movie. Have a bitter nihilistic atheist be in the same accident, receives equal injuries (spends the same amount of time 'dead') yet experiences some of the typical 'near death' things. After his/her recovery, they have a new found sense/belief that there is a higher power/afterlife. You won't have to get into specifics of the religion, maybe even make the atheist an agnostic theist (believes there is a god, but doesn't know for certain). Each person comes away from the accident with differing opinions yet they both go on to live much better, happier lives. Have the movie show that atheists aren't inherently better or worse than theist.

 

[Animyr]

So basically, make fun of cliches.

 

[Hitchmeister]

Okay, half of those pitches would be rejected because they're marginally less boring than two hours of paint drying or grass growing.

How about we replace them with a standard movie featuring a standard white male protagonist and making the main character anything else without lapsing into cliche and making it seem like this is groundshakingly innovative. The main character is female, or gay, or any non-white ethnicity but that's not important.

 

[Sylocat]

Could we combine these movies:

"A portrait of a young gay man making his way through his life and career in the early 21st Century. In a shocking twist, he is not employed in the fashion or music industry, has a best friend who is not a high-strung narcissistic young woman who regards him as a "girlfriend," has a healthy relationship with his parents, and has many, many conversations involving topics other than body issues, workout regimens, trendy foods, clothes shopping and other things that heterosexual movie writers assume are all that gay people talk about."

"Portrait of a man (or woman) of Asian descent living and working in the early 21st century. They have a series of escapades leading to sundry moments of personal growth ... none of which involve high-level computer hacking, superhuman mathematics skills, mastery of the martial arts or stereotypically strict, tradition bound parents. Also, his/her skills at speaking English are flawless, naturalistic and do not involved inexplicable lapses into heavily accented hip-hop slang."

"When crooked thieves steal an ancient religious artifact from a primitive rural village, their greatest warrior must travel for the first time to the strange and unfamiliar world of The Big City to retrieve it. He fights many, many elaborate battles and succeeds in locating and defeating the sinister thieves, but ultimately does not bring back The Artifact. Instead, he discovers that in 'The Big City' people do not die constantly from common germs and minor injuries as they do in his primitive rural village on account of having access to modern medicine, health-standards and communication. He then sells the damn artifact at a huge profit so as to bring life saving medicine, superior farming equipment, food and a phone/internet connection to his people."


Gay and Asian; martial arts student looking for place in the world does so by pleasing his home village by going to big city to recover stolen sacred artefact.

Ends up convincing elder to sell the artefact to museum to set up a business in London (America not centre of the world) selling tourist holidays, and lives happily ever after with their same sex partner.

(PS: I have a sneaking suspicion this film may already have been made)

I'm wondering if we could combine ALL these movies with an ensemble cast, and make a stylized action comedy like the early Guy Ritchie movies, but with Kung Fu...

 

[Riobux]

11th idea: The Mountains Of Madness.

I still think what happened is the film industry equivalent of a tragedy.

 

[MorganL4]

The problem with those films is that none of them have controversy. And lets be honest, not a single film has ever made it to the big screen that didn't have some element of controversy.

 

[BonGookKumBop]

I don't know if all of these suggestions would qualify as pitches. Many of them seem to be nothing more than "I hate this stereotype and would like to see it inverted like this . . ." The inversion of the stereotype could be done in several different genres and doesn't necessarily outline the plot of a movie.

Personally, I often turn to international movies when I want to catch a quality movie that doesn't cling to Hollywood stereotypes. It can be difficult to get a movie that is made in America and doesn't have an American perspective. My favorite directors are Akira Kurosawa, Zhang Yimou, and Hayao Miyazaki.

Many of the suggestions that actually give a plot seem to be a statement of "this is what I believe and more movies should share my beliefs." That's fine, people can use film to share ideals and beliefs, but this goes both ways. Many discussions with my family center on how the popular media is pushing people away from belief in God and towards immoral lifestyles. A couple of my siblings turn to independent media sources to find entertainment that doesn't undermine what they are trying to teach their children. I am sure that many independent producers make the types of movies you want.

Another problem might be that some of your suggestions mix theme and genre. RomComs are generally aimed to get people thinking about how much they want to stay with the people they love. Why would a couple see a movie that tells them they wasted their money because they could be just as happy if they had gone to work alone instead? Some people find it hard to be inspired by the idea that they have nothing to live for. If you really want a high budget movie that mixes these themes and genres, however, I'd go back to suggesting Zhang Yimou. "Happy Times" is a romantic comedy where the main character realizes that all his poor attempts at finding love have caused more unhappiness than happiness in life and that he should just accept himself as a single. "Raise a Red Lantern" and "To Live" are realistic looks at people that are faced with living this life to its fullest because there is nothing else.

 

[Ghengis John]

My my but we're full of ourselves today Bob. Very preachy. Very opinionated. As though all atheists were over achievers, as though what these rural villagers need to improve themselves is to start adopting our way of life. Though I did love the one about the upper-middle class rebel. I'd make it in a heartbeat if I had the money on hand.

Okay Bob... we get it: you're a bitter cynic. Would you mind if I asked you to stop rubbing it in our faces every waking second you get? Do you mind actually contributing something meaningful, insightful, or humorous instead of spewing bile and hate?

Also, this. I'm nearing my yearly allotment for smug cynicism and it's only September. I think getting to use your podium to launch attacks on things you hate is starting to have a destabilizing effect on you. The more people listen to you, the less inclined you seem to be to listen to others and to consider other points of view. In short, much like a prison guard it seems like the longer you stay at your position of power the more of a jerk you're becoming.

 

[Atmos Duality]

So in no particular order...

"No meddling Americans. Especially white people."
"God is dead and we will all be happier without Him"
"No social, racial or sexual stereotypes, please"
"Politics is fucked, brother"

Hit or miss material for me. Eh, it was good for a laugh.

 

[ultimasupersaiyan]

Ok so these are pitches opposite to some current movies and a few different ones. I think all of them would make interesting anti Hollywood movies, especially the warrior in the big city one.