part 2
Meanwhile, Rudy and Fredo and Golem are getting closer to the volcano, and Golem makes Fredo hate Rudy, and then tricks Fredo into a cave where there’s a giant spider and FUCK that was really scary because even in real life giant spiders are bad news.
Someone told me that all of the spider stuff actually happens in the second book in the series, and that they had to tweak some of the stuff that happens in the books to make the movies work. You know what? Good. Books suck. They used to be good back when people didn’t have movies and TV and dressed like Davey Crockett. People also used to ride horses and drink tea, but now we have cars and Sprite. Move the fuck on. Peter Jackson did an amazing job adapting these books, and now the movies are so kick-ass that some people are going to go back and READ the books, which wouldn’t have happened if he’d just filmed the books exactly as they are. Happy now, smarty?
Let me give you an example of how NOT to make books into movies:
This summer a huge bucket of farts came out called LEAGUE OF ADVENTURE GENTLEMEN. It was about how a bunch of characters from old-timey books got together and fucked up bad guys. And NO ONE SAW IT. Why?
First, they picked a bunch of characters like Invisible Man and Mr. Hyde and Dracula-Woman and Huck Finn. These are all characters from books that were written five hundred years ago. Huck Finn was actually written before writing. These are the kind of books they make you read in summer school but you’re all like, “fuck you, I’m going to play Sonic on my Sega” and you totally complete all the levels by August. So who the fuck is going to go see a movie about characters and people they’ve never heard of (the movie acts like you’re supposed to know who these people are)? Like I said before, MOVIES are the new books, so how about this for a movie (I even thought of a good title):
TEAM 1970’S FOOT-TO-ASSERS
The movie opens: A cult killer tries to assassinate Chauncey Gardiner, the President of the United States. Before the brainwashed assassin dies he gasps the word, “Cyrus” and takes a poison pill.
Senator John “Bluto” Blutarsky forms a super-team to infiltrate New York and take down the “Cyrus” cult. This team is made up of “Bruce” (from ENTER THE DRAGON), “Dirty” Harry Callahan, a now-teenaged Regan MacNeill (who is a stone boner machine and also has devil powers), “Quint” from JAWS, who’s upper torso washed ashore after the shark attacked him, and who has now been made bionic by Oscar Goldman and OSI, and finally Beau “The Bandit” Durville, who’s driving his Trans Am.
They enter New York with the Bandit driving like a fucking maniac, and Dirty Harry shooting people out the window and Regan making people’s heads explode and shit. Wow!
They get to the center of the Cyrus Cult headquarters in the middle of Central Park and confront Cyrus. He’s controlling his subjects with a glowing Chevy Malibu. Bruce goes totally Jackie Chan on everyone while Harry and the Bandit battle their way to the car. Quint dies bringing down all the cult killers, and they drive off with the Malibu. They also find out that Cyrus was trained by the Parallax Corporation.
Back at the White House, they get their next assignment. They must take down the Parallax Corporation, which is being run by Gregory Marmalarde. They are creating an Army of brainwashed super-killers at their facility at Crystal Lake. These new killers are indestructible and a step above the cult killers of Cyrus. For this phase of the mission they are joined by CIA agent Vincent J. Ricardo (from THE IN-LAWS) and off they go.
They blast their way into Parallax Headquarters, only to find their way blocked by the new generation of super-killers – hockey-mask wearing motherfuckers who have all undergone the “Vorhees treatment”. Bruce and Regan take on the killers, while Harry and Vincent go for Marmalarde. That’s when he reveals his newest, greatest killer – New York taxi driver Travis Bickle, who’s undergone the “Vorhees treatment” and is a virtual arsenal of different guns, knives – all of which appear from his wrists, chest, even eyes. Bickle killed Marmalarde’s frat brother Douglas Neidermeyer in Vietnam. Harry dies fighting Bickle, but not before killing Marmalarde. Ricardo searches the Parallax files, only to find that Parallax is only a tiny part of a much bigger, much more evil power – the Thorne Corporation, run by Damien Thorne. He has a huge facility in the Nevada desert, near Area 51.
Their final mission is to deliver the Chevy Malibu to Area 51. The Chevy contains a weapon which can defeat Thorne’s final plan.
Thorne’s compound is patrolled and protected by driverless trucks from DUEL and a bunch of those devil limousines from THE CAR. Two teams are sent in – The Bandit, driving his Trans Am with Regan and Bruce, and another driver named “Kowalski”, who will drive the Malibu along with Ricardo.
They battle their way through the devil trucks and demon limos until they penetrate Thorne’s headquarters. He’s got every character from every boring-ass indie film in the last twenty years strapped to posts in this huge chamber full of leather-y ALIEN eggs. The eggs are hatching and putting face huggers on the douche bags from WALKING AND TALKING and SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPES and CHASING AMY and everyone from every Henry Jaglom film ever made and killing them.
There’s nothing anyone can do – they have to stand and watch while all of these characters are slowly and horrible killed before our eyes, and they hatch into Aliens. That’s when “Kowalski” opens the trunk of the Malibu to reveal: ROY NEARY, JR. This is the half-human/half-alien offspring of Roy Neary from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and he starts going outer space whup-ass on the aliens along with Bruce Lee. The Bandit looks at the camera, winks, and smiles. (There can be a lot of shots during the closing credits of The Bandit cracking up).
Ricardo and Regan work their way to Thorne’s headquarters where there’s this huge demon battle between Regan MacNeill and Damien Thorne that will make the audience go, “We need new words for ‘HOLY FUCKING SHIT’”.
See? Use characters from movies thirty years ago, instead of from books five hundred years ago. And by the way, that’s only using characters from 70’s films. I also have plans for an 80’s team of ass-kickers and a 90’s team. Everyone who was into movies from before 1969 is dead, and we’d actually better hurry with the 70’s thing, now that I think of it. Also, I totally copy-wrote this with the Writer’s Society, and I also know a 400 pound man who will man-rape anyone who makes this movie without me.
Okay, back to HOBBIT-MAN, although at this point it’s just wall-to-wall awesome. The Battle for the White Mountain City has trolls and elephants and catapults and a battering ram that looks like a dragon head on fire. Also, earlier Gandalf scares off the flying bats-things with his glowing staff. In the battle for the White Mountain City Gandalf just runs around giving orders. How about turning the bad guys into babies or something with his staff? But that would actually cut down on the ass-kicking so, actually, fine.
The I Don’t Want to Be The King Guy gets a bunch of ghost warriors to fight, and that’s just awesome when it happens, and also the elf chick with the bow takes down an elephant all by herself, and the Giant Midget keeps killing people with his axe.
Then when THAT battle’s over and you’re thinking, “Just air comes out when I spooge now” they stage a whole OTHER battle at Evil Town to distract the orks so Golem and Rudy and Fredo can get to the volcano. And I won’t reveal what happens in the volcano except to say it involves Fredo and Rudy getting right to the very edge, but at the last second Fredo turns evil and decides not to throw the ring in, and puts it on instead so he turns invisible, buy Iggy shows up and bites off Fredo’s finger and Iggy falls with the ring into the lava and Evil Town is completely destroyed. You will have to find out the rest for yourselves. I hate spoilers.
You can totally leave at this point but there’s an extra half hour of everyone relaxing and going home and being happy and I guess they put that in so you can realize your pants are choked with poop from all the battle scenes, so thanks.
There’s also an Annie Lennox song over the closing credits. ??? How about Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”, which is where they got the name Golem, or “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love” by Van Halen?
Peter Jackson has proved with these films that he is the man to bring A-TEAM to the screen. Five stars. Best movie of the next four years.
BTW, MK, what are the underlying themes of Star Wars? Why does it take 6 films to convey those themes completely? Can you glean those themes within 1 or 2 of the films? If so, are the rest superfluous? 
