from the director of "bullitt" and the writer of "the ice pirates"
Tonight, Jessie and I went and saw a film print of the 1983... uh, classic... Krull. Dude, I grew up on this movie. It's pretty rad, even now... except when you're watching it.
What I mean is, it's really only been like, an hour? hour and a half? since I got out of the theater and looking back, it's full of what I can only describe as radness. But the whole time I was watching it, all I could do was fantasize about remaking it. At first, all I was thinking was I could keep the exact same structure, scene to scene and just write better dialogue, flesh out more solid characters, make emotional transitions and motivation a little tighter. Then, I realized I wanted to change one detail -- a major one, I'll admit, but just the one. I had an idea about what I'd do to the villain(s) of the story, the Beast and his Slayers, that would give the film a whole new twist, while still feeling oldschool, kind of 60s sci-fi-y. But before it was over, I was full-on daydreaming about taking my New Krull idea and writing a multi-season finite-run television show, something akin to Carnivale or (my understanding of) Babylon 5. Each season could end with a twist, a new part of the epic, and each episode could be one more step on the hero's journey which Krull already is so formulaically that it comes off like a bit of a Tolkien/Star Wars rip-off.
Man, my New Krull would be awesome. I'm serious. If only I was in a position to sell a reasonably budgeted sci-fi/fantasy character-based adventure show... then I might try my hand at writing it. I'm deliberately not telling you the ideas I came up with in case I find a way to actually use them. Because (right now) they feel like good ideas.
Lately, I've been reacting really arrogantly to movies I watch. The filmmaker in me takes it apart even while I'm trying to enjoy it, and I can't help but make a mental list of the places it stepped off the path, of the tiny (or major) things I'd change to improve the existing story or to "fix" it. As if everything I watch is flawed and just waiting for someone with My Masterful Talents to come along and doctor it (though I do sometimes think I'd be fairly decent at script-doctoring). I try to turn that off, to enjoy a thing, at least once before I dissect it. Sometimes I can, often I can't. I guess the instances where I'm able to do that are the films I think are so great or complex that I couldn't improve upon them, but still: I make a poor audience member because in my head, I'm always creating my own thing out of it.
Rampant. Egomania.
Anyway Krull was fun. Good, cheesy, rad fun.
And if you don't like my still from the Krull video game, here are a couple of real stills to remind you of the radness...
