Agreed, but at the same time…you know how people say there’s no such thing as a bad story, just bad storytelling? Sometimes the amount of effort to make a less-than-stellar concept play out in a great way is more than these big studios are willing to use. I agree about context and execution, and I actually am really pulling for a dream/possession sequence because, like you said, that’s not a bad way to work in the ‘stalgia reference, but we are wary nonetheless.
Oh, absolutely. Wariness is more than justified. I am cautiously hopeful, because I have gotten far more of a vibe of respect for the source material from this film than I did from Sony and Feig with GB'16. I know the old crack about how there are only seven stories in the world, and all that changes are the details. I remember the first time I met Peter David back in '93 and I told him Imzadi was one of the best books I'd ever read. He said I must not have read much. I countered that I had over a thousand books and had read many more than that (yay libraries), not counting comics. He said, "I'm just a hack!" And I said, "Yes, but you're a
good one!"
That he could appreciate. *heh*
I would much rather someone do a very good job with a formulaic story than a mediocre job with something more original (or, worse, a sub-par pass at a formulaic story). Just because it's formulaic doesn't mean it's
bad. The formulas exist because they work. We know from the history of storytelling, though, that there's "safe" and "daring". These day's we'd consider safe to be "rated G". Nobody gets hurt, they all live happily ever after. At the opposite end is stuff that's excessively dark. Everybody dies, or the hero gets the girl only to have her die, or the main characters have to pick between two awful outcomes... A lot of non-American storytelling hews to this. Especially East Asian. So many stories of noble sacrifice and self-abnegation and such. I think the better stories lie somewhere in between -- there are stakes, there are unintended consequences... It's neither bleak nor rosy.
I won't know until I see this 1) What Jason & Co. set out to make (serious homage? camp fest? half-assed cash grab?)... and 2) whether the end result was that, more than that, or less than that.
