"Disney wouldn't allow a Jessica Rabbit-like character these days" - Robert Zemeckis

[therearewords]

Robert Zemeckis says 'there's a good script' for a 'Roger Rabbit' sequel, but it'll never get made because a character like Jessica Rabbit would never be allowed now. https://t.co/E6FMf6V0WP
- Entertainment Weekly (@EW) November 2, 2024
- On a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Zemeckis lamented, "There's a good script [for a sequel]

Comments

[itsme_eloise]

a movie about disney not liking how she dresses isn't interesting and wouldn't push the original further, imo

[my pitch][sorry i got going and this turned into a whole thing]roger and jessica's grandkid (live action actor with special effects like alita: battle angel) grew up knowing they were the descendant of the disgraced and reviled roger rabbit. one day through circumstances they learn that the story the public knows, how roger and jessica became rich and complacent villains since the last time we saw them, is not the truth. they start to dig into the real history of roger and jessica's legacy but keep coming up on dead ends. either the information isn't on the internet, the companies in question don't exist anymore, or the toon characters who might have answers haven't been seen in over forty years.

they follow a thread to mediapedia, an offline site dedicated to finding and preserving lost media. the lady who runs it invites the kid in and the place is overrun with old tech needed to access the media they made. betamax players, old PCs, shelves of CDs and DVDs climbing the walls, old film and an ancient film projector in a place of pride. she introduces the kid to characters from old morning show cartoons, edutainment games, long "retired" corporate characters, etc. it's not just a library- it's a sanctuary for characters that were either forced into retirement so companies would have to stop paying them royalties or were targets for assassination (character assassination, lol) by their companies who would kill off older versions of characters intending to replace them with rebooted versions. it's a safe house for toons the industry hired, chewed up, spat out, and threw away to make a quick buck and their work that was destroyed so that greedy companies could keep their money.

the kid learns that so many characters that the public looks back on with contempt for being problematic, etc. was a plot by the companies to get people uninterested in their work so they wouldn't have to continue to be paid. they were a product of their time and punished for it. better to erase them entirely and make people comfortable than to remember that they existed at all, right? public outrage gets placated and the company saves money. only the toons lost out in the end. between the end of physical media and streaming, companies figured out they didn't even need a reason. they could just make work unavailable and not even say why. so much art was lost. good, bad, it didn't matter - it was all gone. even smaller name characters who got just enough work to make a living weren't safe. and roger and jessica, oh, the rabbits were the best of them. they were painted as an idiot and his harlot, poor fools done in by the very thing the public loved them for. victims of their own fame who, so they say, became overinflated and deluded in their old age. their image as "i got mine" types who abandoned their fellow toons couldn't have been further from the truth. they fought for toons rights as much as they could but the media was stacked against them. they just weren't powerful enough. but they found strength in each other.

with this knowledge and with the lady's guiding hand (the kid doesn't know half of what they need to to get answers, because kids these days are not given the shitty tech to play around in to learn how to navigate computers, i will die on this hill!), they find the records to clear roger and jessica rabbit's names. the toons come out of hiding to lend support to the truth. it becomes a story about the importance of preserving physical media and recognizing the mistakes of the past without erasing them. media literacy, media access, etc. mediapedia opens a museum wing and the retired toons serve as docents, or just wander around the museum causing hijinks. and at the center of it all, roger and jessica, who were madly in love and believed each in each other until the very end.

- who whacked roger rabbit? -

[deerlike]

If I was a millionaire I'd fund this. Instantly.