OK, folks, discussion time, something less heartbreaking than recent topics. Let’s say some bagrillionaire comes along and says he has ten million dollars and the legal ability to make a “special edition” of any movie ever. This means that the best available print will be scanned and cleaned and color corrected, and flubs in the sound fixed. More importantly, special effects can be touched up or outright replaced. A few additional scenes can be added, by whatever means necessary. You want to add Humphrey Bogart to Star Wars? It’s possible, though sufficiently dumb that everyone will laugh at you. But let’s say your favorite movie has scenes that were written but never filmed, or filmed, cut and lost… scenes that would fix plot holes or make the film just a whole lot better. You can add five, maybe ten minutes of new stuff, but you can replace as much of the existing special effects as you like. So… what movie(s) do you tackle?
Here are a few off the top of my head:
- “Firefox.” The movie is overall pretty good, and the MiG 31 Firefox full-scale mockup is *awesome.* But if you watch the in-flight scenes shot with models…. yeesh. To the modern eye, wow, they stink. Replace the flight scenes and add to them.
- “The Last Starfighter.” Very much a product of its time. I’m torn about replacing the mid-80’s CG with modern CGI… but, fark it, I wanna see the Gunstar doing it’s thing. Of course a sequel with as much of the original cast as possible is preferred… but so long as they’re doing that, spare a few percent to update the original to go with it.
- “2001.” Yeah, I know, sacrilege. But *some* of the shots of spacecraft are painfully obvious to be simple still images of ships drifting across the screen. I’d be interested in the seeing the Orion III spaceplane done right, with only a few more seconds showing docking operations. Additionally, replace *Earth.* Compare the flat matte paintings of Earth in “2001” with what is on display in “Gravity.” Space Station V orbiting serenely over a modern Earth? Giggity.
Suggestions?