Movie Nerds

I consider myself a movie nerd. But I am hopefully not a bad movie nerd. I go to my movie dork sites (aintitcool.com chud.com etc) and people just get… into it. For instance, a Beverly Hills Cop movie just got announced, and people are already up in arms. “They better not fuck this up! They better not fuck up Beverly Hills Cop!” Really? Beverly Hills Cop? Do you even remember that movie? It had Balky from Perfect Strangers as a gay art dealer. It’s not that sacred. What memories do you have of this movie? The only way it would be sacred is if a vhs copy of it stopped a bullet that would have killed your dad. That’s the only thing that can explain the kind of reactions that this announcement has elicited.

I remember when the Transformers movie was coming out, people were livid. Livid! “Optimus Prime has lips? What? Optimus Prime shouldn't have lips! Why did they give him lips?!?” Pick your battles guys. There are better things to get angry about.

Just a couple of days ago, rumblings of a He Man movie started surfacing, and I have already heard people getting ready to rip it to shreds. “They better be riding giant cats in this one. That’s all I’m saying. If they’re not riding giant cats, I’m not in. It better be true to the artistic vision of giant cats being ridden.” Artistic vision?!? The only artistic vision was the dollar signs they saw from you buying the toys. The only reason they rode cats was so that they could get you to buy plastic versions of them. They really really just wanted your money, and now you are attaching all this emotional significance to it? Do these guys also get really attached to airline change fees? “They better charge me $100 for it man. They better do it. Otherwise I’m out.”


Some movie dorks have this weird fanatical obsession with consistency between the original products and their movie counterparts. But the fact is, most of the time the original just does not hold up. Have you tried watching a He Man cartoon recently? It’s close to impossible. I dare you to get through one episode, alone, without the aid of substances. What the hell would anything in a He Man movie look like anyway? What would Orko look like? Can you imagine him interacting with actual human actors? How can you make that not look like the goofiest thing ever? I’ll tell you this though. If this movie does happen, I will be there opening night. Unless they give Orko lips. Then I'm out.