And I suddenly realized that maybe we should be grateful for the fact that the only thing wrong with it was the plot.
That may sound odd, but consider: It wasn’t all that long ago that the TV version of Daredevil had no horns because of concerns over devil imagery and his costume was black instead of red. And Thor wasn’t allowed to be a god for fear of offending the religious right.
Just consider the studio notes that they COULD have gotten for “Ghost Rider”–
“Okay, we’ve gone over the script and we have some concerns. First of all, he can’t be ‘Satan’s bounty hunter.’ This is our hero, and he simply can’t be connected to Satan. We’ll get killed by various conservative Christian organizations. So find a way to make him work without the whole ‘Mephistopheles’ thing. Also, does it have to be a blazing skull? We don’t understand the need for his head turning into a skull. We’ve got Nic Cage for this, who’s a name star: Why are we making his face disappear? It means we can’t have him in action as Ghost Rider on the poster. Kills maketing. Let’s have his face visible even when he’s in action as Ghost Rider. And he can’t have his head on fire in any event. If any kids set their heads on fire in order to imitate him, we’ll get a butt load of bad publicity. So just have Nic Cage’s head glowing a little, maybe, suffused in light. Oh, does it have to be ‘Ghost Rider?’ Technically it’s not even correct since the protagonist isn’t a ghost. Plus ghosts get us more flack from the religious right because they don’t like the whole concept of dead people walking. Plus we tested the name ‘Ghost Rider’ and it’s confusing: People think that it’s about someone who rides ghosts. We’ve taken the liberty of testing various alternate names and have found that “Death Rides a Cycle” is the best.
Please implement these changes and we’ll talk later.”
All things considered, we may have gotten off lucky.
PAD
• 
If I remember correctly, Daredevil wore a _blindfold_ over his eyes in _Trial of the Incredible Hulk_. So, the problem wasn’t that his mask had no eye holes, it was that he was telling the whole world he was blind.
Or a very adept Jedi, whichever.
Rick
>It can almost always be worse. Remember the Doctor Strange made-for-TV movie in the 70s…
OK, so I was in lust with Morgan le Fey, but I honestly didn’t think it was all that bad for a TV-movie. And I’m not even really a fan of the character. Give them a decent budget to work with, and a little critical review of the script before starting shooting, and it could have been quite good. As it was, friends who were fans of DR STRANGE were sorry to see it get trashed by ROOTS in the ratings, such that the proposed series never materialized.
I suspect it hasn’t aged well, but I really liked the DR. STRANGE tv-movie when I was a kid. Unlike all the other CBS tv adaptations of that era, it didn’t try to play down the more fantastical elements of the original comics: it had demons and magic and astral projection and weird Ditko-esque alien dimensions–as opposed to the tv HULK or SPIDER-MAN who were usually stuck dealing with mundane gangsters, drug smugglers, and teenage runaways. Despite taking some liberties with the Doc’s origin, the DR. STRANGE movie at least tried to capture the feel of the comic books. (I still remember one particular shot: a winged demon silhouetted against that weird skylight on top of the Doc’s Sanctum. Very subtle and suggestive.)
Then again, I haven’t seen the flick in years.
PAD, I love your work, but man… Ghost Rider is Úš.They totally shilled the character, and it’s worse because all he fought were pûššìëš. Pretty much 3rd tier villians from frickin Buffy, who got taken out way to easy. The first 40 minutes almost killed me, especially the lame ášš love story. Please, for the love of god Hollywood, if your going to do a love story, dont hire a pair of latina breasts that cant read her lines off a cue card!
And in the “scary politics that will only be covered by THE DAILY SHOW (maybe) is the article, below, out of Texas. This was reported on the Steve Jackson Games website, and check out the site http://www.sjgames.com for the links in the article.
Personally, I’m not sure what is worse: If this politician was looking to score some quick convervative votes, or if he really believe this dreck. As Tom Petty put it so beautifully, I can’t decide which is worse.
* * *
February 18, 2007: Texas Takes Up The Torch of Ignorance
An influential member of the Texas House of Representatives circulated a bizarre letter to the rest of the Legislature last week, claiming that it is unconstitutional to use public funds to teach evolution, and citing a crank website as authority.
The memo reads like something straight out of Illuminati. “Indisputable evidence–long hidden but now available to everyone–demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion. This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”
Executive summary: This site says that the Earth does not move around the Sun, and that there’s a crypto-Jewish conspiracy to teach that it does. This religious conspiracy also teaches evolution. Therefore evolution is a religious belief that may not Constitutionally be taught with public funds.
Really.
When the reaction hit the fan, the legislator (Warren Chisum, of Pampa, chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee) quickly tried to distance himself, pointing out that the memo had originally been written by a Georgia representative and he had just copied it. Chisum did admit that perhaps he should have looked at the Web site before he recommended it.
You’ll find links to Chisum’s memo, the original Georgia letter that he endorsed and circulated, and a more detailed explanation of their attempted reasoning, in this blog.
As time comes for this to post, it appears that the Georgia legislator is now denying responsibility for the memo, Rep. Chisum is “willing to apologize” if he has offended anyone but has not repudiated the actual content of what he sent out, and the blogosphere is having a field day.
Aaannd
Ghost RiderM/b> sets a box-ofice record for the President’s Day weekend!
IMDB.com says:
” It was the most ever earned by a movie over the first three days of the President’s Day holiday and was the most earned by any film in its debut this year. The film is expected to earn an additional $7 million today (Monday). The previous three-day record for the holiday was held by 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, which took in $39.9 million in 2004.)”
Posted by Mike Weber:
IMDB.com says:
” It was the most ever earned by a movie over the first three days of the President’s Day holiday and was the most earned by any film in its debut this year. The film is expected to earn an additional $7 million today (Monday). The previous three-day record for the holiday was held by 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, which took in $39.9 million in 2004.)”
With all due respects to IMDb.com’s figures and reporting, the site is wrong. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, in 2003 Daredevil had a 3-day opening of $40,310,419 in 3471 theaters while 2004’s 50 First Dates had a 3-day opening of $39,852,377 in 3591 theaters. It was the 4th day (the holiday itself) which pushed 50 First Dates into the holiday weekend lead, and even then the difference between the two is less than $75,000 (DD, $45,033,454; 50 First Dates, $45,107,871).
I won’t argue that 50 First Dates was the 4-day record holder, but IMDb.com doesn’t differentiate between a regular 3-day weekend and a 4-day holiday weekend in their box office figures (except for the daily news bites). BoxOfficeMojo.com, however, does list both 3-day and 4-day weekend box office takes.