Mediocre Movies That Could Have Been Great

And My choice would Be League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

You got one of the coolest ending in Comics with Moriarty Men vs the Devil Doctor men in the Sky Over London. It would be so cool to see in the movie.
Instead they don't do the comics ending and have everyone running up and down dark corridors for a ending. WTF?
 
Green Lantern - Use John Stewart instead of Hal Jordan.
Does that entail changing the overall plot? A simple substitution would not be able to save the film.

Even so, I would still have Parallax freed from captivity in the movie but place him neatly in the background so his influence would slowly raise tensions and paranoia throughout the universe. Then I could concur with what Mr. Korsgaard suggested in another thread and focus on John Stewart's tour of duty with the Marines (and maybe have one of his fellow Marines be a redheaded smart-ass named "Gardner" ;)) and play up the PTSD angle.

I guess Hector Hammond use still be usable, but I would personally like to use an even more obscure GL villain. Why not Sonar? He could be terrorist (which could tie into Parallax's influence) from a rogue state who has a history with Stewart and gains access to some sonic weaponry for an attack on Coast City/wherever.

Just for a few more mythology gags, I would have Kyle Rayner be the artistic neighbor of Stewart, and keep the planned Clark Kent cameo to possibly tie in with "Man of Steel."
 
Does that entail changing the overall plot? A simple substitution would not be able to save the film.

Even so, I would still have Parallax freed from captivity in the movie but place him neatly in the background so his influence would slowly raise tensions and paranoia throughout the universe. Then I could concur with what Mr. Korsgaard suggested in another thread and focus on John Stewart's tour of duty with the Marines (and maybe have one of his fellow Marines be a redheaded smart-ass named "Gardner" ;)) and play up the PTSD angle.

I guess Hector Hammond use still be usable, but I would personally like to use an even more obscure GL villain. Why not Sonar? He could be terrorist (which could tie into Parallax's influence) from a rogue state who has a history with Stewart and gains access to some sonic weaponry for an attack on Coast City/wherever.

Just for a few more mythology gags, I would have Kyle Rayner be the artistic neighbor of Stewart, and keep the planned Clark Kent cameo to possibly tie in with "Man of Steel."

Pretty much this - switching it to John Stewart makes switching the story a default :D You got the story down right though.

Please do. :p

As you wish ;) OOC, is it only mediocre movies, or turds too?

The Forbidden Kingdom - Really make the fight scenes memorable, espeically anything with Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

X-Men 3 - Keep Brian Singer as the Director, and let him use his orginal plot for the movie.

Unbreakable - M Night moves the end twist to the middle, and have a final confrontation between Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis

Eastern Promises - Less Nicole Kidman, more Viggo Mortensen and Russian Mafiya

The Butterfly Effect - Edward Norton was considered for the main role - have him accept, and Ashton Kutcher will not ruin this movie

Conan the Destroyer - Make it less comedic and far more similar to the prior film. Keeping Milous as the director/screenwriter would also help.

More on the way!
 

DaveH

Banned
Subtly recut "Dune" and rerelease it as a "Fargo"-esque dark comedy. :rolleyes:
 
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Mediocre that could have been great? Let me step into the wayback machine to the days of black-and-white (film, that is)...any film that Orson Welles didn't have the creative freedom or the money to release as he wanted. One of my first wishes in heaven is to view the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. But I still find Welles' mediocre to be beyond a lot of others best.
 
The mess of the Tom Clancy "Jack Ryan" books as converted to film. While the Hunt for Red October was a passable adaptation, the rest suffer from bad mis-casting, massive alterations to the stories that impact subsequent ones.

Could have been a good series, but needed to be filmed around the time the books were written and with proper casting!
 
Godfather III if it had the original, hinted at in the previous films, plot of Tom Hagen finally having enough of Michael's "I want to leave but naaaah" shit and it becomes Tom Vs Michael instead of what we got.
 
The Forbidden Kingdom: Make it a straight-up retelling of Journey to the West without the addition of Shia LeBeof as was originally intended, instead of Warriors of Virtue meets The Karate Kid. If there's a Western narative entry, have it be the shopkeeper read the story to Jason a-la The Princess Bride or The Neverending Story.

The planned merger of Studio Ghibli and Don Bluth Films goes ahead in 1984 without a hitch. This in of itself isn't a specific cinematic event, but it would mean that the rest of the world would have been exposed to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa; Castle in the Sky, and Grave of the Fireflies, and My Neighbor Totoro through official channels fifteen years early and without the terrible Disney first dubbs (The redubbings with the likes of Patrick Stewart and Anna Paquin were the second attempts at it), while An American Tail and All Dogs go to Heaven aren't Disney-style musicals, Rock-a-Doodle is closer to the source material, and Anastasia and Titan A.E. aren't forced to be the artistic compromises OTL. Plus, no Land Before Time or exerable direct-to-video sequels to it and An American Tail.

The Wes Craven Swamp Thing movie is allowed a bigger budget, and is based more off the Alan Moore era.
 
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The Dark Knight Rises

Rename the movie: "The Caped Crusader"

Make Talia Al Ghul the main villain from the start. Take Catwoman out of the movie, or at least downplay her role (she really didn't serve much of a purpose imo).

Rework Bane's storyline to have him be a hired henchmen of Talia's, with the use of special steroids called Venom that give him near-superhuman strength.

Have the story center around Talia rather than Bane looking to avenge the death of Ras Al Ghul by destroying Gotham.

Also, don't have Batman be retired for 8 years, but instead have him continue to be Batman in secret, with him running from the police while trying to fight crime.

If you want to keep the part about the nuclear bomb in there, then fine, but have it serve a different purpose. I would have had it introduced as a new energy source developed by Wayne Enterprises. Then, at the intro party, the new League of Assassins crashes it and steals the core, planning to set it off in Gotham. Then, Batman is in a race against time to find and stop the detonation.

The climax deals with Batman and the police storming the bomb's locaiton, leading up to an epic final battle between Talia and Batman, where Batman defeats her.

Also, if you're going to have Talia and Bruce fall in love at some point, then find a way to make that work. Perhaps Talia wears a mask or something while she's in Super Villain mode but falls in love with Bruce Wayne. At the end, they could find out each others' secret identies (which would make for a very awkward moment, though considering I don't like awkward moments, perhaps not.)

Series ends with Batman having improved relations with the GCPD, but vowing to continue to be Batman until he has eliminated crime in Gotham.

The thread is called Mediocre Movies That Could Have Been Great. ;)

In Time has really great potential.
 

DaveH

Banned
"Starship Troopers" with Jude Law and Ashley Judd as Johnny Rico and Carmen Ybanez. De-emphazise the Bugs' ASB aspects,dial back a little on the violence and bring up the wartime domestic psyops...

Or else subtly recut the OTL film and you have another "Fargo"-esque comedy. :eek:
 
The mess of the Tom Clancy "Jack Ryan" books as converted to film. While the Hunt for Red October was a passable adaptation, the rest suffer from bad mis-casting, massive alterations to the stories that impact subsequent ones.

Could have been a good series, but needed to be filmed around the time the books were written and with proper casting!

Agreed. Killng Dan Murray in Clear and Present Danger creates rather awkward continuity problems since Murray becomes the Director of the FBI in Executive Orders, and there were some alterations to Sum of All Fears that it basically became a completely different story in comparison to the book. If they had wanted to reboot the cinematic Ryanverse, they should have gone with Cardinal of the Kremlin. It wouldn't have been that hard to spin it into a modern film centering around Afghan terrorists and Russian laser weapons.
 
The modern version of The Mummy was a thoroughly entertaining blockbuster, but I can't help but thinking it would be better (and thus near-great) if it were made ten or more years earlier. The Mummy Returns definitely falls into this category, though. The CGI, camerawork, and editing are all quite bad, and one of the highlights of the first film - Jerry Goldsmith's score - was missing. I haven't seen the recent sequel, but I can't imagine that ranks any higher than mediocre. Not sure if it has greatness in it, though.
 
Rewriting of the Karate Kid Reboot

The Karate Kid reboot recast with Chuck Norris and actually involve Karate, not Wing Chung.

The story should be rewritten instead where the Karate Kid as being a kid who has a distrust of male authority figures because his father left his mother and his mother in turn had to send him away to a foster home because she couldn't take care of him. Dana also has Autism, which makes him say a few inappropriate things. At the foster home, he's picked on because of his name (Dana Lipchitz) and because of his mannerisms. Dana then gets into a fight at the foster home after he's tired of being picked on. He hits the lead bully over the head with a large block of wood, hospitalizing the bully. Dana's sent over to the psych ward where he meets the physical therapist. The PT sees Dana's lack of coordination and his anger, and takes pity upon him. He then trains Dana during his commitment, and then when Dana's sent to the day treatment program, Dana becomes quite good at Karate-jutsu. Chuck Norris' character takes pity upon Dana and then adopts him, even though Dana still distrusts male authority figures. However, because of a quirk in the state law, Dana has to go back to the orphanage. The bully, now more determined than ever, attacks Dana again.

Dana then gets a lucky shot on the bully after Dana whiffs his newly learned karate moves on the bully. Dana now has a target on his back. Dana then runs away from the orphanage and tries to take up residence with Chuck Norris' character. Chuck Norris lets Dana stow away for 2 weeks before he sends him back, but not until Dana trains day in and day out in karate.

Chuck Norris' character then does some research on Dana's family. It's later found out that Dana's mom has borderline personality disorder and the dad fled the country because Dana's mom was trying to use her connections to kill him. Dana's left without any family because his mom's family is on the other side of the country and his dad's a foreign national who went back to his home country. Dana needs to trust Chuck Norris' character.

Chuck Norris' character sends Dana back to the orphanage where Dana quickly regains the target on his back. Dana then kicks all of the bully's butts.

Dana then finds out that David Woodman has a few skeletons in his own closet. David Woodman lost his family after his wife divorced him and took his children, claiming domestic violence. David cleared his name, but it was too late. He lost his young children. Later, he found out that his ex wife and children became lost at sea and presumed dead. He is trying to come to the grips that he will likely never see his children again. Dana then gives David closure...

Dana then becomes adopted by Chuck Norris' character, where his name is changed from Dana Lipchitz to Dane Woodman.

Dane and David then go 200 miles off the Florida Coast and leave flowers nearby the place where Dane Woodman, Deborah Woodman, Daniel Woodman and Dre Lipchitz-Woodman by the buoy marker which marks where they were presumed drowned.
 
And My choice would Be League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

You got one of the coolest ending in Comics with Moriarty Men vs the Devil Doctor men in the Sky Over London. It would be so cool to see in the movie.
Instead they don't do the comics ending and have everyone running up and down dark corridors for a ending. WTF?

<spoilers>the arm coming out of the grave SERIOUSLY didn't help<spoilers>

From what I read, the script was based on a completely different storyline whose rights were bought before the comics was even made. That being said, I get the feeling considering its still a Alan moore thing that characters were toned down anyway.
 
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