Movie Preview: Land of the Lost

I was thinking about the upcoming movie Land of the Lost earlier today. I had been flipping channels and saw that Sci-Fi had a marathon of the episodes on. I watched a few, reminding me of my youth some time ago.

Now the thing is that the children’s television show used to appear in the 70’s on Saturday mornings. It’s campy, unrealistic, and done in stop animation – which looks bad compared to the effects of say Jurassic Park. That doesn’t even cover the bad make-up jobs on the Sleestac creatures that abound the show. But it was entertaining, and even moreso today.

Then I saw trailers for the Will Ferrell movie remake. The first thought I had was instantly ‘revisioning’. Those that follow my movie reviews know that this almost always means a crappy movie. When you add in the fact that this is a television show to movie conversion, well the odds of it being a crappy movie go up exponentially. Perhaps the only way you could be more sure this will be horrendous was if 2 or more rappers were in the film.



The trailers really don’t have any of the campy charm of the original show. From what I’ve seen it looks like it will be a running gag of how wrong, and stupid, Will Ferrell’s character can be. Add in a couple of bits of CGI, and there you go. To say I’m underwhelmed at this point is an understatement.

But this film will draw an audience. Not a big one by my bet, but it might just break-even. Which is a shame as that means Will Ferrell will likely continue on the path of mediocre films he has been doing for years now. He was funny in Elf. But by the time I saw Ricky Bobby, the joke was old. Now it’s as ancient as the dinosaurs are supposed to be.

Let me share a known secret about movies, specifically movie trailers. The editors of any film have one huge job when it comes to the movie trailers, which is to make the film look good. Any halfway decent editor can make the worst film look like a $100 million dollar blockbuster. They tend to grab the best 2 minutes of a film and cobble it together, so viewers will rush in expecting a far better film than they get 9 out of 10 times.

Look at some of the worst films you have ever seen, and check out the trailers of that film. In almost every case you will see a great (relative to the final product) movie trailer.

When I watch the trailer for Land of the Lost, I am immediately drawn to the fact that the writers almost definitely never saw the show. Not as kids or adults. I can also see that a huge chunk of the below the line costs of the film were spent on CGI animation. But what I don’t get are really funny jokes. Or any hint of a plotline beyond the one joke that is obvious (as stated above).

The film makes me think of the revisioning of Dukes of Hazzard and Lost in Space. Or perhaps Starsky & Hutch. Films that no sober person ever saw before, or even maybe after, they hit cable. And they hit cable fast, as the DVD sales sucked as well. They were bad films, remakes of far better television shows, and completely revisioned.

Of course Land of the Lost, and other shows of this ilk, are not targeting my dollars. They know that I remember the show. They know that I would see the trailer and think it was crap. Nope, they are targeting an audience of 25 and under. Because it’s all new to you. And since it’s new, the younger audience is not expecting better.

Hollywood has become a land of low expectations, and lower performances. Movie studios won’t spend the money on an original script – especially when they can revamp someone else’s idea. They slop together a half-thought out idea, and bang there is a movie. They will keep doing this too, until audiences stop paying to see this warmed up refuse.

I’m sure Will Ferrell got paid well for this film. Good for him, honestly. He didn’t have to work hard and got his money up front. I don’t blame him. But I will say that based on the trailer, the running joke, and the plot if you see this movie you will be wasting money.

Looking for a plot

Last night, while at my Monday 8-ball pool tournament, a discussion came up about movies. The differences between old classics and great films and modern films. This focused mostly on sci-fi films.

It all started with the horribly wrong movie Dragon Wars (please don’t see this, not on DVD or cable, its pitiful). It was part of a line up of ridiculous terrible sci-fi films from none other than the SyFy Channel on Sunday. Not that much more should be expected from that cable network.

But from there we discussed how movies these days, especially those in sci-fi, now rely on special effects as opposed to plot. This is most evident in the worst of sci-fi movies. Like the extremely low budget Raptor Island (starring Lorenzo Lamas – your first clue of how bad it was). It was a CGI rip off of Jurassic Park, with about 1/5th the budget and 1/10th the plot. Virtually every scene in the movie conflicted with some other part of the film. But there was plenty of bad CGI to try to keep you occupied.

Which is why it cannot compare to other films. In fact, those of us a bit older on the team, were recalling the first movies we ever saw. I had the original King Kong (1930’s), another teammate had Frankenstein, another was Nosferatu. Overall we could name several films from our formative years that we had seen and still remember. This was compared to our youngest teammate, who couldn’t recall any film older than Bladerunner, which he saw on television.

Because without a real plot, what is there to remember? Honestly, there is nothing to pay attention to. Movies these days are so dependant on CGI and explosions (which can be great things) that the concept of a plot goes out the window. Thus the increasing number of movies ripping off or revisioning older plot-driven movies. And each has almost completely been a failure.

Hell, even the remakes of slasher horror films have been complete let-downs. The budgets for films like Friday the 13th were exponentially larger than the original film, and the result was deplorable. Because acting, and plots, are substantially reduced in the new versions as opposed to the old – even in movies where little plot was involved.

Or the trend to have movies steal multiple ideas from successful movies, cobbled together in the hopes of making a passable movie. Like the latest John Cena movie, 12 Rounds. The pitch had to be something like ‘Take Cena, who is popular in wrestling, put him in a Die Hard situation with a bit of Speed and Terminator thrown in, and we have a great movie.’ Except movie-goers had the option of DVD’s and Tivo, both of which are superior to such efforts.

Why are there so few films that are compelling these days? Ultimately that was the question being asked last night. Simply because there is no plot in films anymore. And without that you have nothing more than a string of explosions and CGI graphics strung together in a hodge-podge that even a cartoon can do better.

[Oh, for those wondering. My 8-ball and 9-ball teams are leading our league, likely to win both with room to spare. My match last night took 15 minutes total; 4 games with each game taking one turn of me and my opponent. Essentially I ran to one ball or the 8 and then he ran the table and it was time to rack in each game. Talk about 2 players being on fire.]