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Spell of Cinematic Protection: And the Winners Are…


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?I really thought having such a weird, esoteric contest subject would keep the number of entries lower than usual, but nope. 440 or so entries, all saying which movies should not be made. Now, I will say that I think the odd subject affected the quality of the entries — not that they were bad (although many, many, many people tried to preemptively eradicate Twilight), but most answers were straight-forward, and thus hard to judge. So there’s a bit fewer Honorable Mentions than usual, although, oddly, there are more winners. Both are after the jump, but first, a little exchange that warmed by black nerd heart:

Avecrien said:

Star Wars. This is not a spell of protection. This is a spell of elimination. Only one nerd franchise can reign supreme and Captain Kirk is climbing the mountain!!

bradley547 replied to Avecrien:

Dammit. You beat me to it.
Except I was going to say Star Trek. Because Nerd tears are the sweetest!

Oh, Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans. I hope you never get along.


Let us now Honor some Mentions. These were a bit long, so I’ve summed up in some places:


Adam E. said:

The Wheel of Time series. Don’t want it as a movie (and don’t want it as a mini-series, either, but that may be off-topic). For one, I’d be forced to endure Rob bitching about it on this very website…


Adam Ruining said:

The last of Robert Heinlein’s grand novels, “Time Enough For Love.” On one hand, I’ll never witness a quality rendition of Lazarus Long’s millennia-spanning adventures… on the other hand, I’ll never be subjected to Lazarus Long fucking twin daughter clones of himself before travelling back in time to fuck his own mother.


Zortt1 said:

With the habit of film companies buying up blogs/twitter accounts to make tv shows or movies about them. I cast my spell of protection around this place, Topless Robot.
I wouldn’t want cameras coming in here documenting the goings on around TR, to make it all sensationalized and hollywoodish.
I mean our little nerdy spats would become pithy angst ridden rants against each other, showing hidden rivalries between factions of nerds, and when outside forces try to come in and disrupt our happy little community, we rise up and slaughter them as a family. Not to mention they would probably show a FF in its full glorious detail just for shock factor. I would end up being played by Bill Hader.


Zac said:

Venture Brothers. No good could ever ever come from a live action Venture Bros movie. Nothing.


Jerry said:

Legend of The Seeker. I have no idea what that show is but my girl friend reminds me all the time on how the tv series ruined the franchise… and when she gets pissed I get no sex. So fuck whoever made that tv show.


KingOfDoma said:

Soulcalibur. Simply because the world is not ready for that level of unbridled comedy. I love the game, but seriously, the story is so crazy and convoluted it would make Manos: The Hands of Fate look coherent and well-organized. First, there’s an evil sword! And everyone wants it! And this guy is an evil pirate, and this guy’s a monk, and this girl is the evil pirate’s daughter! But hey, there’s ALSO this GOOD sword! And everyone wants it! And that includes the samurai, the robot warrior… thing, the chick who hates the samurai, the OTHER guy who hates the samurai, and a cute little Thai girl!Oh, and THEN the good sword got infected by the evil sword, and then there’s this king dud-*head explodes*


Mermista said:

No one is going to back me on this, but Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. Know why? Because if it were simply classic literature, I wouldn’t have to fucking see so many goddamned “Sexy Alices” or “Sexy Mad Hatters” every Halloween. It’s not like I’ve ever seen a “Sexy Hester Prynne” flashing her cooter October 31st, and that bitch was known for her glazed donut.

And then there’s a few more I really need to sum up, but were very much worth mentioning and honoring:

? Sherry, for her lengthy and horrifying vision of a Gummi Bears movie starring Jonah Hill, among others
? Xvi for comparing Indiana Jones 4 to Old Yeller and Baby Hitler, in that they all should have been put down immediately
? Prophet for Profit, for using his spell to protect us from a live-action Bible Black movie

? FireKraken, for a lengthy, bitter, but very well reasoned argument why we can’t have good movies based on Greek myths nowadays

And finally, the winners. There are three — well, 3.5. I think you’ll understand.

Benne said:

Calvin and Hobbes. Easiest choice ever.

But one no one else thought of (even the many, many people who didn’t read the comments before posting), and one many people agreed with. Bill Watterson has protected the strip’s legacy for years, and part of its wonder is because of that protection — there’s absolutely no way a movie could do Calvin & Hobbes justice, and it would do irrepairable harm to it at the same time.


BadNflu3nce said:

I am going to go ahead and nominate Beast Wars. Dear God, can you
imagine what a live action movie of that would be like? How would they
do the half talking animals, half robots? Either the animals would be
part live action, with trained animals doing the action and the mouths
animated with CG “babe” style, or they would just be entirely CG. In
which case, in order to cut down on the effects costs, the story would
revolve around human characters, with the robots getting minimal screen
time. Except there are no humans in beast wars, except for maybe three
cavemen, two of which are childeren. So you would basically have the
worst of the live action flintstone’s movie, combined with the worst of
the talking animal dreck Dreamworks animation spits out, and as for the
giant robots? Well, we all know how Bayformers managed to fuck that up
to.
As for the plot? we would first be introduced to our favorite Caveman
family, Hammer, Jak and Una. This would continue for about 30 minutes
while we experince painful caveman humour, like fart jokes and stone
puns, then two ships crash land! …

This entry is actually twice s long, but I appreciated BadNflu3nce’s envisioning of a movie that manages to combine the worst of Transformers and Avatar. Thus I thought his was a magnificent choice.

SpiderHyphenMan said:

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Not only did the film suck and
turn a bunch of people off a very good series, but it put Alan Moore
through an exhausting and idiotic legal battle due to some guy who sued
Fox over the similarities between the film and an unreleased script he
presented multiple times to Fox during the 90’s. Alan Moore was called
in to testify, and was accused of plagiarizing this script no one had
heard of, with one of the quoted similarities being that Tom Sawyer was
in it. Now apparently that dipshit never read the original book, as Tom
Sawyer does not appear in the book, only in the stupid ass movie. In
fact, only Victorian Literature characters appear in the book, and the
fact that the studio added Tom Sawyer showed both their complete
disregard for the source material and their contempt for American
audiences by assuming that no one would recognize anyone from
non-American Literature. The ordeal had Moore swear Hollywood off
forever. So yeah, I’d like it if that didn’t happen.

Other people suggested LoEG, but none did it better than TR‘s hyperactive SpiderHyphenMan. To imagine an Alan Moore who hadn’t given up on Hollywood — what he might have achieved with other adaptations of his works, past and future — well, SHM’s spell would have avoided a tragedy far bigger than just the crappy LoEG movie.

And now, there’s one entry that didn’t play by the rules, but is still worthy of more than just mentioning. Whether you count this an Extra Honorable Mention, or a Slightly Shameful Winner, this dude is getting a shirt for his entry:


Boyle said:

Someone should protect the life and times of Roger Ebert. Everyone who
loves movies knows how truly badass that man is. Many people consider
him as synonymous with movie critic hackery. However, the man has his
own Pulitzer; he writes constantly despite being unable to eat, drink,
speak or sit in one place for long without discomfort; and he’s fucking
funny, intelligent and goddamn insightful.

But soon, very soon, someone will have the bright idea to make an
Oprah-approved pile of sentimental drivel wherein he overcomes his
Cancer to keep on writing and yada, yada, yada. We’ve heard it all
before.

That man deserves so much better than some modern-era-Mitch-Albom-“When I
Consider How My Life Is Spent”-a-thon. His story should involve a
secret career as a CIA taste-tester (he was pretty damn fat), an
inspiring yarn about he and Siskel’s interstellar travels to battle the
evil Gleborgs, a scintillating look at his hard-core romance with
Casablanca-era Ingrid Bergman (he travelled through time to protect her
from a rogue Christian Bale!). In short, he deserves a totally bat-shit
crazy lie.

Ebert would appreciate this central truth: legend is sometimes far truer
than fact. The only movie appropriate for the man who has seen all
movies would be a movie unlike any other. Until the man willing to make
that movie steps forward…he should be off limits.

Well said. And 100% true. This is very much the movie which Ebert deserves, although tragically, the hour he dies studios will be fighting over the rights to his life and trying to cast Kevin James as Ebert. You broke the rules, Boyle, but your entry was too damn good to ignore. Well done — and thanks to everyone who entered.