the best movies never made

[CaptainCalvert]

Gremlins
Supernatural thriller set in an unnamed RAF base in east Anglia during WW2.
Bomber crews start to go missing in perfect flying conditions and aircraft malfunctions reach debilitating proportions.
Is this a consequence of over-work and exhaustion, or are the aircrews' worst nightmares really coming true?

Edit. To borrow from The Gremlin off Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters by my infinitely more creative namesake.
Balloons were easy, a simple pin
Or a knife in the case of the Zeppelin

 

[The Ranger]

Grunts-Fantasy film from an Orc point of view, when an Orcish knight and his men need to rescue an Orcish princess because an evil human baron with an Orc fetish has captured her and wants to forcibly marry her.

 

[The Ranger]

The Beach-Harrowing war film about the taking of Omaha Beach in WW2.
Labyrinth-Film about how the nations of Europe blundered into war in 1914.
The Battle of Britian-A film about how Boudicca defeated the Romans and forced them to retreat altogether from Britian, winning the country it's independence from the Roman Empire.
The Crown-Game of Thrones, but from the point of view of the ruler who sits upon the Iron Throne.
Downfall-Political film about the downfall of the Tories in the 2025 General Election.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Appointment in London (2008)

Jock Cambell is the last survivor of the Battle of Mons. Though he's over 100 years old and has been told he has weeks to live he's determined to march in the Remembrance Day parade marking the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI. With the aid of his son (83) and grandson (60) he sneaks out of his retirement home and travels to London.

 

[kaijudirector]

Battle of the Bulge (1969) - A remarkably accurate retelling of the Battle of the Bulge, bankrolled by Darryl F. Zanuck. Based on the Battle: The Story of the Battle of the Bulge by John Toland and The Bitter Woods by John S.D. Eisenhower, the son of General Eisenhower, who came out of retirement to praise how accurate and true-to-life the film was. Directed by Ken Annakin and screenplay by Toland and Eisenhower junior.

(A much, much, better and more accurate Battle of the Bulge movie than the OTL disappointment of a movie. Same cast and crew other than the screenwriters).

 

[Driftless]

Battle of the Bulge (1969) - A remarkably accurate retelling of the Battle of the Bulge, bankrolled by Darryl F. Zanuck. Based on the Battle: The Story of the Battle of the Bulge by John Toland and The Bitter Woods by John S.D. Eisenhower, the son of General Eisenhower, who came out of retirement to praise how accurate and true-to-life the film was. Directed by Ken Annakin and screenplay by Toland and Eisenhower junior.

(A much, much, better and more accurate Battle of the Bulge movie than the OTL disappointment of a movie. Same cast and crew other than the director and screenwriters).

THIS version would have been much more watchable. The OTL BotB, in spite of an all star cast was a real mess. Even as a high schooler, I thought it a dud.

Your coice of Toland and J. Eisenhower as screenwriters could have been great. Both were highly readable historians, so you'd likely have accuracy AND an entertaining plot flow

 

[kaijudirector]

THIS version would have been much more watchable. The OTL BotB, in spite of an all star cast was a real mess. Even as a high schooler, I thought it a dud.

Your coice of Toland and J. Eisenhower as screenwriters could have been great. Both were highly readable historians, so you'd likely have accuracy AND an entertaining plot flow

Plus, Ike's blessing. I would have picked A Time for Trumpets as the source but it was 20 years too late.

 

[pvicente]

Los tres dias del condor

South America, the origin of the hot air balloon and aviation in general, well, the origin and the source of many things, being a prosperous, rich, region that has known how to take advantage of its mineral wealth. The decision to disown the initial wave of conquistadors and turn to native allies to build and consolidate something, anything, in the aftermath of the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires was a desperate gamble for the Spanish crown, but one that paid off handsomely.

The new countries that arose proved to be rich, innovative, and resourceful, and willing to present a united front with Spain against other European powers, in a relationship that one Spanish monarch described as "American gold for Spanish gunpowder and damn the meddling French" . Or maybe the best description would be a couple of popular expressions of the time, "Rich as an indian" and "Poor as Pizarro", which in time was shortened to just "Pizarro" with a meaning of failure, frustration, bad luck, and etc. Power and politics were games that the natives could play too, and they managed to play them very well.

But about the movie, yes, it's a documentary following a project to build a replica of the first hot air balloons, ending in a three day series of test flights. There were some concessions for safety but the team tried to stay close to the original construction methods, surprisingly primitive and simple stuff, keep in mind that these early craft were built in the late 1600s and tried to save weight everywhere, featuring just the bare minimum to lift up one or two people.

In the end the project and the documentary where quite successful, even if, as some pedants pointed out, the figures on the envelope were anachronistic, the very first experiments used plain unadorned envelopes, and the first balloons to use decorations stayed with a simple cross or a geometric figure, more complex decorations and full blown drawings took a while to show up and even then only on craft used for festivities and spectacles with most balloonists aiming for simplicity and lightness above all.

 

[kaijudirector]

Los tres dias del condor

View attachment 774451

South America, the origin of the hot air balloon and aviation in general, well, the origin and the source of many things, being a prosperous, rich, region that has known how to take advantage of its mineral wealth. The decision to disown the initial wave of conquistadors and turn to native allies to build and consolidate something, anything, in the aftermath of the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires was a desperate gamble for the Spanish crown, but one that paid off handsomely.

The new countries that arose proved to be rich, innovative, and resourceful, and willing to present a united front with Spain against other European powers, in a relationship that one Spanish monarch described as "American gold for Spanish gunpowder and damn the meddling French" . Or maybe the best description would be a couple of popular expressions of the time, "Rich as an indian" and "Poor as Pizarro", which in time was shortened to just "Pizarro" with a meaning of failure, frustration, bad luck, and etc. Power and politics were games that the natives could play too, and they managed to play them very well.

But about the movie, yes, it's a documentary following a project to build a replica of the first hot air balloons, ending in a three day series of test flights. There were some concessions for safety but the team tried to stay close to the original construction methods, surprisingly primitive and simple stuff, keep in mind that these early craft were built in the late 1600s and tried to save weight everywhere, featuring just the bare minimum to lift up one or two people.

In the end the project and the documentary where quite successful, even if, as some pedants pointed out, the figures on the envelope were anachronistic, the very first experiments used plain unadorned envelopes, and the first balloons to use decorations stayed with a simple cross or a geometric figure, more complex decorations and full blown drawings took a while to show up and even then only on craft used for festivities and spectacles with most balloonists aiming for simplicity and lightness above all.

Let me guess: Robert Redford is the narrator.

 

[pvicente]

Let me guess: Robert Redford is the narrator.

I like that idea, so, yes he is. 😁

And if someone says that he would have been butterflied away, well, another butterfly flapped her wings in the right direction and made Robert Redford instead of a hurricane. 😁

And thinking about him...



Three hours of the sparrow

Meet Joe Turner (Robert Redford) , a bookish translator recently hired by the CIA for a dull desk job in the US embassy in London, his boring Tuesday is about to become much more interesting...

Things kick off as he receives a seemingly arbitrary order "from above", to purchase a specific book at a specific second-hand bookshop and stop for a moment outside while he examines it and browses the first few pages, and that must happen three hours from now.

And so the journey begins for the newly activated "sparrow" to cross London and dig up a particular book at a messy bookshop is on, along the way we will overcome several comical incidents and enlist the help of the equally bookish bookseller Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) to search the shop's shelves. It could be, and in some ways it is a light-hearted comedy.

And yet, there is a serious undertone lurking underneath, someone must be watching to see if a man comes out of the shop with that particular book at that particular time, it must be a signal, it could be a warning that will save someone's life. Likewise, are the setbacks, the strange situations that he runs into on the way there just bizarre incidents, or are there enemy agents working to stop the signal?

And if you stop to think and look closer into the slapstick comedy of scenes like the taxi, the piano gag, or the bookshop ladder, the dark undercurrent becomes stronger as you realise how easily they could have become lethal accidents, or maybe "accidents"?

As his handler puts it, "Nobody will shoot at you, that would make things too simple and straightforward.".

Well, at least in the end he gets the assurance from his handler that he accomplished "something", maybe he did send a signal, or maybe it was all a diversion to hide something else, who knows? Still, alive and with a date with Kathy assured he goes back to a boring normal week and a life of desk jobs and translations, but for how long?

Quite a successful and fun movie, if quirky and not the kind of thing that Redford would usually star in, it also led to spiritual successor\reimaging with Bill Murray in Escape from New York, which dropped the dark espionage undertones for a bank heist story while staying as quirky as the original.

 

[pvicente]

Battlestar Galactica

One of the, or maybe the most successful of the Star Wars competitors, conceived as a pilot for a TV series that could be aired as a couple of episodes or shown as a movie in theaters, it went through some revisions until it finally landed, but it did pay off.

The first concepts would have featured a huge, impressive spaceship (the titular "battlestar") leading a fleet of refugees in a desperate search for Earth, fleeing from a crushing defeat at the hands of an alien enemy, the dreaded "Cylons". There would be an "ancient astronauts" subtext with many characters having classical or mythological inspired names and Earth being referred to as a "lost planet" and being occupied by primitive civilizations when found, implying that the characters would be the origin of the gods and heroes of several classical myths.

That storyline ended up being shelved, the massacre and near destruction of the protagonists civilization was thought to be too dark and the writers just couldn't come up with a satisfying way of having the fleet discover a primitive Earth while also defeating the Cylons, a suggestion to use a modern day Earth as also discarded. Finding Earth after all the mystery and anticipation would always be underwhelming, it seemed.

So, the whole thing was rethought, since they were raiding the classics for character names and such, why not look to them for a basic plot, maybe something like the... Odyssey?

And so a new plot was put together, a lot of things carried over from the earlier iterations, humanity being split in 12 nations named after the zodiac, the classic and mythological character names, the Cylons, the starfighters, but the plot took a whole new direction...

Humanity has long fought a terrible war against the Cylons and now victory is within reach as the last enemy space fortress is under siege by a united human fleet. But the Cylons play a last card with the help of a traitor (John Colicos), triggering a super-weapon that destroys the human flagship, thankfully some quick thinking by one of the human captains, Adama (Terry Carter), enables the humans to exploit a vulnerability in the weapon and the fortress is captured, the Cylons are crushed, a huge number of prisoners is freed and the victorious captains meet to discuss the return home...

But there's a problem, the destruction of the Cylon super-weapon caused a "hyperspace disturbance", the human ships will have to take some circuitous, hazardous routes to reach their homes, and the path of Adama's Capricans will have to cross some of the wildest untamed regions.

Still, needs must, and the journey begins, Adama will have to lead his forces and a convoy of freed Caprican prisoners through the many dangers that stand between them and their homes, thankfully he will have the help of two excellent subordinates, "first spear" Apollo (Richard Hatch), and "master of the ship" Nestor (Lorne Green). Also the fleet's first stop will bring Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) on board, a skilled mercenary and scout, free spirit, jokester and gambler. Two action heroes to take care of most of the action scenes, a commander always ready to come up with a stratagem to overcome the problem of the week or to encourage the fleet at a critical moment, and a grey-haired advisor with the bits of wisdom that will lead to a solution whenever things appear hopeless.

Along the way they will run into assorted aliens, dangerous spatial "maelstroms", the "Cyclops" a forgotten (but still active) Cylon super-heavy cannon, and other problems. Also, Baltar the traitor will show up a few times to stir up trouble, leading a ragtag band of Cylon remnants and having turned to piracy and banditry to survive after his escape. Another recurring guest is the mysterious Circe (Anne Lockhart), a scientist at the controls of her own incredibly advanced spaceship, sometimes she will put the Capricans in danger with her experiments, some other times she will help them against a troublesome alien or anomaly.

All of this went into making a successful, if expensive, series (the two pilot episodes where indeed put together and released as a movie, but most people nowadays remember the series), the original series ran for three seasons and was quickly followed by another two spin-off series that reused models, props and actors of the original, one set in the Human-Cylon war, and the other following further adventures of Starbuck. The models in particular became a very familiar sight to viewers as they would find their way into several sci-fi productions, recycled and tweaked in many ways, with the powers that be being determined to get the best mileage out of them.

 

[Ogrebear]

Battlestar Galactica

Wow, that was impressive work - really like this Alt version here.

Was it released at the same time as OTL?

 

[pvicente]

Wow, that was impressive work - really like this Alt version here.

Was it released at the same time as OTL?

Thanks , first I thought of an alt-Ulysses 31 (a sci-fi version of the Odyssey in animation, wonder if anyone remembers it), but then I started thinking about Galactica and how it would work well with the Odyssey, a great ship wandering across space trough dangers and enemies, hoping to reach home (you can say that Earth would have been a kind of "home" in the OTL Galactica too)...

And the first episodes (at least) do fit nicely, you can have the humans destroy the Cylon's worlds instead of the way around, the fleet of refugees turns into a fleet of freed prisoners and soldiers heading home, and then we can do the space casino works as a version of the island of the lotus eaters and the show is on. The basic plot works very well as a way of having the characters defeat a space monster (or whatever else) of the week until you say it's time to end and then they can simply reach their home.

Also, while we're at it, why don't we give Tigh a good place in the spotlight?

I didn't think of specific dates, but let's say that it happens at the same time as in OTL or a little later, the difference being that someone asks "But what happens when they find Earth? Can we do anything good with that?" as the show's storyline is being discussed, this leads to some reflection with the answer being "No, searching for Earth isn't a good idea", and the story is reworked as development goes on. The end result has most of the same cast (but reshuffled), spaceship models, etc, but follows a different storyline.

Also, no Galactica 1980 at the end, let's say that management wants to get good mileage out of those expensive models and props and orders a couple of solid spin-offs.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Thanks , first I thought of an alt-Ulysses 31 (a sci-fi version of the Odyssey in animation, wonder if anyone remembers it), but then I started thinking about Galactica and how it would work well with the Odyssey, a great ship wandering across space trough dangers and enemies, hoping to reach home (you can say that Earth would have been a kind of "home" in the OTL Galactica too)...

Isn't that the basic plot for Star Trek Voyager?

 

[Mister Abbadon]

Battlestar Galactica

One of the, or maybe the most successful of the Star Wars competitors, conceived as a pilot for a TV series that could be aired as a couple of episodes or shown as a movie in theaters, it went through some revisions until it finally landed, but it did pay off.

The first concepts would have featured a huge, impressive spaceship (the titular "battlestar") leading a fleet of refugees in a desperate search for Earth, fleeing from a crushing defeat at the hands of an alien enemy, the dreaded "Cylons". There would be an "ancient astronauts" subtext with many characters having classical or mythological inspired names and Earth being referred to as a "lost planet" and being occupied by primitive civilizations when found, implying that the characters would be the origin of the gods and heroes of several classical myths.

That storyline ended up being shelved, the massacre and near destruction of the protagonists civilization was thought to be too dark and the writers just couldn't come up with a satisfying way of having the fleet discover a primitive Earth while also defeating the Cylons, a suggestion to use a modern day Earth as also discarded. Finding Earth after all the mystery and anticipation would always be underwhelming, it seemed.

So, the whole thing was rethought, since they were raiding the classics for character names and such, why not look to them for a basic plot, maybe something like the... Odyssey?

And so a new plot was put together, a lot of things carried over from the earlier iterations, humanity being split in 12 nations named after the zodiac, the classic and mythological character names, the Cylons, the starfighters, but the plot took a whole new direction...

Humanity has long fought a terrible war against the Cylons and now victory is within reach as the last enemy space fortress is under siege by a united human fleet. But the Cylons play a last card with the help of a traitor (John Colicos), triggering a super-weapon that destroys the human flagship, thankfully some quick thinking by one of the human captains, Adama (Terry Carter), enables the humans to exploit a vulnerability in the weapon and the fortress is captured, the Cylons are crushed, a huge number of prisoners is freed and the victorious captains meet to discuss the return home...

But there's a problem, the destruction of the Cylon super-weapon caused a "hyperspace disturbance", the human ships will have to take some circuitous, hazardous routes to reach their homes, and the path of Adama's Capricans will have to cross some of the wildest untamed regions.

Still, needs must, and the journey begins, Adama will have to lead his forces and a convoy of freed Caprican prisoners through the many dangers that stand between them and their homes, thankfully he will have the help of two excellent subordinates, "first spear" Apollo (Richard Hatch), and "master of the ship" Nestor (Lorne Green). Also the fleet's first stop will bring Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) on board, a skilled mercenary and scout, free spirit, jokester and gambler. Two action heroes to take care of most of the action scenes, a commander always ready to come up with a stratagem to overcome the problem of the week or to encourage the fleet at a critical moment, and a grey-haired advisor with the bits of wisdom that will lead to a solution whenever things appear hopeless.

Along the way they will run into assorted aliens, dangerous spatial "maelstroms", the "Cyclops" a forgotten (but still active) Cylon super-heavy cannon, and other problems. Also, Baltar the traitor will show up a few times to stir up trouble, leading a ragtag band of Cylon remnants and having turned to piracy and banditry to survive after his escape. Another recurring guest is the mysterious Circe (Anne Lockhart), a scientist at the controls of her own incredibly advanced spaceship, sometimes she will put the Capricans in danger with her experiments, some other times she will help them against a troublesome alien or anomaly.

All of this went into making a successful, if expensive, series (the two pilot episodes where indeed put together and released as a movie, but most people nowadays remember the series), the original series ran for three seasons and was quickly followed by another two spin-off series that reused models, props and actors of the original, one set in the Human-Cylon war, and the other following further adventures of Starbuck. The models in particular became a very familiar sight to viewers as they would find their way into several sci-fi productions, recycled and tweaked in many ways, with the powers that be being determined to get the best mileage out of them.

for the edgy 2000s continuation/reboot/ whatever they could do a space Aeneid for the Cylons who survive the battle slightly based on the original concept.

 

[CountDVB]

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

A 2011 direct-to-DVD film that would become a cult classic among animation fans and fans of DC Comics. The film focuses on an original iteration of the team, focusing on lesser known characters: Aquagirl II (Lorena Marquez), Blue Beetle III (Jaime Reyes), Miss Martian and Kid Devil (Eddie Bloomberg), led by Stephanie Brown back in her time as Robin IV.

The film has the team struggling to live up to their predecessors and begin looking for a missing kid, later revealed to be a kidnapped Kid Eternity,. last seen at a theater. His powers are hijacked to try and summon people from the movies and the team ends up going through films to save him and stop the villain, revealed to be none other than the crazed Mr. Nebula, a cosmically powered individual obsessed with image and aesthetics, wishing to remake the world into more “conventional” fiction and serving as a scathing rebuke to the lack of variety in Hollywood, the pretentious bias in film awards and critiquing both how animation is viewed by "serious" Hollywood along with a subtle jab at Western "adult animation" for thinking violence and innuendos are enough to have it be considered "adult." The Teen Titans would manage to score a win as they save Kid Eternity along with the Justice League from Mr. Nebula and resulting in a massive confidence boost and unity in the team.

The film would become more fondly remembered over time for the usage of lesser known characters and satirical yet still serious nature. It would also launch the various heroes into the relative mainstream, most notably Blue Beetle III and Stephanie Brown (along with her romance with Tim Drake/Robin III). It would garner more attention by airing on Cartoon Network.

 

[AHFan]

Threads (drama). The US and Japan rebuild the nation of Japan and restore the fabric of a new economic powerhouse

 

[pvicente]

Isn't that the basic plot for Star Trek Voyager?

Thinking about it, yes, it could be. But I always had the feeling that Voyager never took advantage of it's premise and was more of the "same old Trek".

That could be an idea to explore too? An alt-Voyager that diverges more from the usual Trek formula?

 

[Hammerbolt]

Deadpool - 2022

A group of pool players who never made it to the big league are offered a chance to play in a game where the winner wins 5million dollars. The catch? All the loosers die.

 

[SomeGuyOnline]

Battlefield Earth - A post-apocalyptic film set in the future where the only two major civilizations left standing get into a major battle with each other over control of the Earth.