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Weekend Discussion Thread: Good Movies by Bad DirectorsAlert regular Perry suggests…
Your pick? 57 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Good Movies by Bad Directors”Commenting at Satellite News
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The Wild Geese by Andrew V. McLaglen (oh wait he did)
Lincoln by Roger Corman –
Lincoln would have had a wristwatch.
Titanic directed by Larry Buchanan. The ship would still sink, but we just wouldn’t care.
Wizard of Oz by James Cameron wouldn’t have been so bad–Seeing Dorothy in a sweaty tank-top with an automatic rifle, slinging male-bashing dominatrix insults at the real Wizard behind the curtain would have been a change.
Or Disney’s Dumbo, by Tim Burton…oh, wait. ;)
The Lord of the Rings directed by Michael Bay would be… 2/3 of The Hobbit.
Frankenstein directed by Bill Rebane.
Of course, there wouldn’t be a monster. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
LOTR was mentioned but I was thinking of it being made with Coleman Francis at the helm.
black and white, grainy and instead of a trilogy, it’s a Star Wars-esque Nine part slog of Coleman and his pals tromping through New Mexico.
the only way you can tell the orcs from the humans and elves is hmmmm…i don’t know because they’d all be butt ugly.
and of course at some point you’d have Legolas and Gandalf parachute in to save the day.
Bullitt by James Nguyen. There would be frequent parking and pulling back into traffic during the car chase scene. The movie takes place in San Francisco, so it’s a natural fit.
Fargo, directed by Tjardus Greidanus. Margie Gunderson would have been a drunk hapless drifter instead of a cop. And Scotty would have been a whiny teen in a red sweater with a thing for Larry Csonka.
Battlestar Galactica by the late great David Winters:
More railings, more Reb Brown.
Still great special effects, though.
Spoiler: there is life after death, and you’re expected to get to your shift on time. Death is no excuse, Debbie!
STAR WARS
Dir Hollingsworth Morse
Changes name of Luke Skywalker to Winky Skywalker.
Saving Private Ryan directed by Coleman Francis. Seven guys storm Omaha beach, four of them are killed, “Hitler” (with tape-on mustache) grabs a pistol and heads for the fighting. The guys get captured by Germans, eventually escape with the ol’ “water…sick man…water” ruse, forget about the whole search for Ryan thing, and go off in search of tungsten.
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as directed by Ed Wood, Jr. — lots of stock footage of mental patients, flimsy sets, and Nurse Ratched played by Wood in drag. But Tor Johnson shines as Chief.
Avengers by Jerry Warren. There would be a lot more random dance numbers. Thor and Hulk would fight over a horseshoe. And Loki would be after the tesseract in order to listen to telephone calls.
‘First Man’ directed by Coleman Francis. We finally get to see how the flag on the moon got there.
Star Wars directed by David Winters (RIP, sir). The hero wouldn’t be a scrawny guy with such a stupid name as Luke Skywalker; he’d be a big, beefy, action hero hunk with a cool name like Dirk Hardpecs. The heroine would still be named Leia, but her dumb costuming would be replaced with…. other dumb costuming. There would be more explosions inside the big spaceship than outside. The plot would be kind of pointless. And instead of “May the Force be with you,” the instant catchphrase from the movie would be high-pitched, girly shouts for no real reason.
I hope James Nguyen doesn’t read this page. He might get an idea.
The Thing from Another World (1951) Directed by J.J. Abrams.. Everybody knows that Lens Flares appear much brighter in glorious black and white!
The 1994 film “Ed Wood,” directed by…. ED WOOD???
Yipes. It would either erase itself from existence, or be turned into a 15-part mini-series a la Ken Burns.
Star Wars, directed by Arch Hall, Sr. Arch Hall, Jr. plays Luke. He always has his guitar with him and regularly breaks into (dubious) song. Scene with him wandering the corridors of the Death Star, whining “Leeeeeiaaaa! Leeeeeeiaaaa!” as he searches for the princess. Arch Hall, Sr. is a tanned Obi Wan with a pencil-thin mustache who can’t keep his hands off of Leia. (ICK!) Richard Kiel is Darth Vader–bigger, but somewhat less articulate.
And of course, someone off-camera would yell out “Watch out for _____” (fill blank with some Star Warsy-named creatures).
Star Wars Episodes 1-3 directed by George Lucas: Bad casting, even the simplest of scene done in front of green screen, endless talk of midiclorians and Jar Jar Binks. Oh wait it happened.
Can I do the opposite of this topic? How about Episodes 1-3 but with a good director. Irvin Kershner should have been brought back!
Greydon Clark directs Slingblade with Joe Don as the titular character. however, insted of being endearing and saving the kid and his mother, he just sits around all day eating some ‘french fried potaters, mmh hmm…’
Vivian Schilling of ‘SOOO-OOOOULLLL TAKER!!’ fame writes and directs LOTR. the unfortunate part is that you have her appearing in almost every frame of film…not unlike Liv Tylerrroops! didn’t say that, did not say that!
Lord of the Rings directed by David Hills. One of the big differences would be that many of the characters (especially Arwen and Eowyn) would wear considerably less.
As opposed to the Peter Jackson trilogy , of which 1/3 was from The Hobbit?
Nah, I’d rather go for the Baz Luhrmann version, where Nicole Kidman plays Galadiel, and all Rivendell parties down to Beyonce’. For the entire trilogy.
Ha! How could I have overlooked that? “Watch out for Sand People!” “Watch out for ewoks!” “Watch out for Jar Jar Binks!”
Also, the famous Cantina scene would have come later in the movie, and would have involved Luke and his band playing original rock songs at a pool party while various weird alien teens frugged away and Leia shook her torso. The climax would’ve been Darth Vader falling dead into the pool, with a final shot of his light saber and cape floating around.
Yes! The chase would proceed VERY slowly, with a long line of cars backed up behind it. They pass lots of signs saying “Imagine Peace”, and at the end of the chase Bullitt walks awkwardly to a dull board meeting about solar panels, stock options, and environmental propaganda.
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” directed by: Rick Sloane.
Hallucinations of pig goblins dance in the air.
What a trip.
We will be doing quite a bit of crack from the salt shaker tonight.
I think that was the point. Most of the first third of The Hobbit was from Del Toro’s interpretation of the book, while a large part of the latter 2/3 was forced on Jackson by the financiers.
While not actually directed by Bay, it comes from the same cynical attitude towards the audience.
My favorite movie of all time is a tie, so…
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – directed by R. Winer. Of course, instead of animation coexisting with live action, the cartoon characters would be actors in badly made head-to-toe animal costumes. Those characters’ appearence would probably be as similar to the classic cartoons as illustrations for PD cartoon VHS tapes.
Forrest Gump – Directed by Roger Corman. Needless to say, the title character would be played by Tor Johnson. And he’d just be killing people with his bare hands. And in the “Run, Forrest, RUN!” and jogging in the late ’70s scenes, he’ll just be… walking. A lot.
The Sound of Music directed by Spike Lee –
It is set in Detroit.
If ALIEN had been made as a 1950’s sci-fi B-movie, you would get IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051786/ (It’s actually pretty good, for what it is.)
(Speaking of ALIEN, I would have loved to see that high school play that a bunch of kids in New Jersey put on.)
Avengers Endgame by Ed Wood. Tor Johnson would play Thanos, and watch for Ed Wood’s cameo as The Wasp. Instead of mind blowing sfx look for stock footage and some weird cut-ins of Bela Lugosi.
The Seven Samurai directed by Greydon Clark. Wait, that did happen. Let’s try again. The Seven Samurai directed by Noriaki Yuasa.
Napoleon by Roger Corman (instead of Abel Gance)
The Seven Samurai, as directed by Eijiro Wakabayashi (Prince of Space). The samurai would incessantly declare that their opponents’ weaponry would be rendered ineffective by their samurai skills. Children would somehow be part of every battle scene. And, of course, there would be no budget for undergarments.
Alien directed by Roger Corman would be… um, actually was… Galaxy of Terror.
don’t encourage him.
Close Encounters as done by Ed Wood would basically be Plan 9 shot in that new fangled color film.
i would like to point out that Highlander 2 the Quickening would have been vastly better if done by Ed Wood or Coleman Francis.
Goodfellas, reimagined by Coleman Francis. Tony Cardoza instead of Ray Liotta, CF himself in the Joe Pesci role, Tor Johnson as Murray the wig guy. (“SEE? Wig no come off in water!”) When Tommy Devito gets whacked, it’s with a sniper rifle from a Piper Cub.
Oh, thought “Directed by Bay” meant we’d get a solid hour of goofy sitcom humor in the Shire, before the dwarves or wizards even show up and the plot even remotely starts.
“Star Wars”, directed by Roger Corman.
No way can we afford to film in Tunisia. Check if Bronson Canyon is available, and maybe we can do one day in Death Valley.
Grand Moff Tarkin? I think Boris Ksrloff still owes us a couple days of work.
OK, Han Solo is a tough-talking, gunslinging cynic who won’t take guff from anybody. If we could make the character a woman, Beverly Garland would be a great choice.
Darth Vader? Vincent Price won’t want the mask, but that’s OK.
The guy who gets strangled for insulting Vader? Let’s give it to Jonathan Haze.
Ben Kenobi? Is Basil Rathbone available? He can still fence, and he’s got the dignity for it.
Computer-assisted motion control cameras? No way! Just make sure the wires don’t show too much.
Chewbacca? Is that monster costume from “Teenage Caveman” still good? No? Get a gorilla suit; we’ll make it work.
Now, would this be as good as the original? Nope. Would I still like to see it? Sure!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tommy Wiseau. Oh hi Leatherface, who’s for lunch?
That would count as period authenticity.
Another Coleman Francis classic: No Country for Old Men, with Tor Johnson as Sigur, Tony Cardoza as Llewelyn Moss, and the auteur himself as the sheriff.
Hero gets a phone call. After extensive one-sided discussion, he gets in his car, takes a long drive over to the office of the boss, followed by 30 seconds of pulling into the parking space. Walks into the office, greeted by Mr. Big. They put on a pot of coffee, sit at a bare table drinking coffee and smoking. Cut to woman and much younger man in a spartanly furnished house, standing around talking.
Cut back to Hero and Mr. Big, who that he has a job for Hero, but describes it so vaguely that we’re not quite sure what it’s about. Hero accepts because, of course nobody knows his way around. Hero goes home to say goodbye to wife, who turns out to be woman in earlier scene. They sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, while she beats around the bush about something, we’re not sure what, but it seems mysterious.
Hero drives over to space port, with close up of pulling into parking space. Gets out, goes into metal building, meets assistant, who it turns out was the guy at the house. Assistant asks where they’re going and how they’re going to get there, Hero grunts and points at the sky. Interior of the spaceship looks an awful lot like an abandoned fire station. Looking out the window, Hero points out the planets, R, S, T, V.
Long scene of spaceship landing on Planet, looking a lot like two pie plates stuck together landing somewhere in Bronson Canyon. ‘Well, we’re arrived on Planet X,” says Hero. “Let’s get to mining.” Long scenes of Hero and Assistant swinging a pickaxe and shovel. Alien wearing a funny helmet arrives. Hero gut shoots him. Hero and Assistant spend five minutes of screen time loading up ore into space ship.
Meanwhile, back on earth, Wife and another man are in the house. He strangles her just as space ship arrives back. Man runs out back of hero’s house, hero gives chase, opens side door of space ship, pulls out bolt action rifle and fires at shots at assailant, gut shooting him with the twelfth shot. Assailant stumbles, falls to the ground and dies. The end.
And there you have it, Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half Century, directed by Coleman Francis. Running time 63 minutes.
Nice info White Sunshine
Hot Fuzz by Sam Newfield(Lost Continent). Instead of a great, tightly written “Buddy cop” sendup, you get a slow plodding mess, with lots of padding and no character development.
“Danger: Death Ray”, directed by the Coen Brothers.
B… because.. Fargo.
My mom says I’m funny…
Gare