Sequels, Monsters, Robots, Heroes and Apes (Oh My!): Year Two of ‘The Next Reel’

A little over a year ago in the 13th edition of The Next Reel, I informed you loyal PopMatters readers of the real facts behind working for this fine and legendary Arts and Culture Magazine. Dogging the ends of the Earth for a story, research, exorcisms, barroom brawls, synchronized figure skating, interviews, digitized consciousness, rescuing Soviet Defectors from Prisoner of War camps in West Memphis (Egypt)… all of this goes into the life and writing of a PopMatters columnist. Fortune and Glory, Short Round. Fortune and Glory.

In that article, bitingly and enticingly entitled “From the Zombie Hordes to the Successfully Bankrupt: The First Year of ‘The Next Reel’” I also took the daring opportunity to fill in the blanks and further the legend of the Next Reel columns of that past year. In that the last five columns within The Next Reel have been multi-part documentaries (signifying that I might be in something of a rut) the need for a sequel is undeniable. In that the article in question was published in August of 2013 when the first Next Reel published in June of 2012, coupled with the fact that this 25th column is publishing a few months beyond August of 2014, the real spotlight might be on publishing delays and moving deadlines. That said, there’s still so much more to say to you true believers.

After all, so much has happened in the past year both in this column and out in the exciting real world. Since last year I’ve been to Argentina (twice), Chile, Panama, Peru, Orange, California and the third ring of Hell where Dante Alighieri and the poet Virgil shared a Crystal Light with me. On the brightest side I also got engaged to be married (in Argentina) to the prettiest girl in the world, but on the dark side, the PopMatters editors have disbanded their Synchronized Figure Skating team. That is depressing, but the silver lining is that they recently hired John Oates to direct their Glee Club and I must say, Sarah Zupko’s duets with Neil Kelly on “Wake Me Up (Before you Go Go)” and “Islands in the Stream” are simply divine.

I was on a camping retreat in the Amazon jungle with Ethan Coen, Ralph Macchio (the comic book editor, not the actor), Prudence Farrow, Lana Wachowski, Chuck Cunningham (yes, the Chuck Cunningham) and the Polar Bear from LOST performing in a team building drum circle when the clouds parted, the sun shined directly upon my forehead, and I came up with the idea for the best possible Next Reel article of all time. At that point my iPhone went alerted me with a reminder that I was missing the PopMatters Editors Glee Club’s first recital. I slapped my forehead (still holding a drum mallet) and knocked myself into a coma, which caused me to forget that incredible idea and I was forced to write “Out of Sequence: The Saga of Hollywood’s Hidden Sequels“.

That is, of course, after the Polar Bear performed CPR on me and brought me back to the land of the living. I was as surprised as you are. The Polar Bear and I never really got along. After that we all watched Fargo. It was good.

But I digress…

“Out of Sequence: The Saga of Hollywood’s Hidden Sequels” was, as the title might imply, all about sequels that most people never realized were actually sequels (including, in many cases, the people who made the movies).

However, there is an opposite trend that is worthy of its own Next Reel column (coming soon to a browser window near you). This trend is usually (though far from exclusively) seen in Italian films and has to do with a completely unrelated film being renamed to cash in on the successes of another film. Alien 2 (1980) was released six years prior to, and had nothing to do with Aliens. Terminator II (1990) was released the year before Terminator 2: Judgment Day and actually was a cheap remake of Aliens. Zombie 6 (1981) was released two years after Zombi 2 and six years before Zombie 5 and was actually an official sequel to a completely unrelated film, 1980’s Antropophagus (which also contained no Zombies).

Even good Italian films aren’t immune to this trend. Sergio Corbucci’s well-done Spaghetti Western Django (1966) starred Franco Nero and was met with critical acclaim and more unofficial sequels than you can shake a six-shooter at. Four Django sequels were actually released in 1966 alone. While Quentin Tarantino’s excellent 2012 “Southern” Django Unchained did feature a Franco Nero cameo, it is neither an official nor unofficial sequel to the original Django, but follows a completely different character in an equally brutal world.

However, the unofficial Django clones (many of which were existing films quickly that were renamed to cash in on the successes of that movie) never stopped or even slowed down and are rumored to now number in the third digit. When that first film was finally old enough to drink legally an official sequel most certainly was released in the form of Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno (1987). While the film was directed by Nello Rossati, it did star Franco Nero as the man with the big machine gun once again. Jaded Western fans might have mistaken this one for yet another fake sequel, after “Wolf!” had been cried so many times, thus, ironically, the sole official follow-up to Django might actually qualify as a “Hidden Sequel” in itself.

Fun fact about me: It’s a bane of my existence that everywhere I go to shop I am somehow mistaken for employee of that establishment. Now I am not talking about walking into a Foot Locker wearing a vertically striped black and white Jersey and then idiotically being angered when people assume I’m selling shoes. No, I mean with no sign whatsoever of my employment at these stores, people somehow assume (making an ass out of all interested parties) that I work there.

A woman walked up to me in a seafood store and asked if I had crabs. Needless to say I was offended until I realized she thought I worked there. A girl sprinted up to me in a movie theater lobby and demanded “WHERE IS YOUR BATHROOM?” I responded “Across the hall from my bedroom, why?” People ask me where they can find canned peas in the grocery store (while I’m pushing a cart, mind you) and are indignant when I tell them I have no idea, as if I’m the one with the problem for having chosen the wrong career path and not having tipped the dominoes that would have made me an employee at the local Safeway subsidiary, simply for their pea-consumption convenience.

Please take a long, hard look at my byline photo, memorize those features and if you see me in a store, realize that I have no idea what aisle the Doctor Scholl’s Foot Powder is located on, kay? ‘Kay!

Sometimes I get tired of such behavior and I simply play along. Like the time I was in a store that specializes in Robotics and a guy walked up to me and started asking questions about different models of Panda Bear shaped Robot Vacuum cleaners. I figured, hell, I am the guy who wrote “Celluloid Androids: The Big Screen’s Fascination with Robots“, I must know something, right?

After taking his money and using it to fund my April trip to Argentina (he “bought” the pink vacuum panda, he thought), I began to muse over the original definition of “Robot” as introduced in the science fiction play R.U.R.(Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech playwright Karel Čapek. Those robots weren’t the product of plastic and steel but of factory fabricated flesh and blood, much like (as I said in the article) the humanoid Cylons from the reimagined TV Series Battlestar Galactica (2004).

However, this is not the first time that humanoid Cylons were featured in the Galactica universe. In the two part episode “The Night the Cylons Landed” of the short-lived sequel/ spinoff series Galactica 1980 (1980, natch!), two humanoid Cylons were shown accompanying the standard silver centurions on a recon mission to Earth on Halloween, of all days. When their ship is shot down, the destroyed humanoid is shown to have been constructed not of flesh and blood but something more akin to the inside of your average guitar amplifier (or Panda vacuum cleaner, if you will). The poor guy never even got a chance to say “Trick or Treat!”

For a weird tangent (as if this article wasn’t already all over the map), footage from Galactica 1980’s inaugural episode “Galactica Discovers Earth, Part I” is used in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1982 rock video for “You Got Lucky”. In the video, Tom and the band ride across a desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland up to an abandoned then-modern arcade in their crazy Mad Max-esque futuristic vehicles. At one point, Tom himself turns on a television to see Cylon Raider starfighters attacking an Earth city.

Petty immediately gives a pained and regretful look. The implication is, of course, that the reason the land is, in fact, at once desolate, wasted and post-apocalyptic is that aliens attacked and destroyed the world Tom knew, hence the pained expression. However, I vastly prefer to imagine the look of hurt is because Tom turned on the television and immediately thought “UGH! Galactica 1980… I HATE that show!!!”

Surrounding the Robots article, there were two non-Next Reel columns that I wrote and PopMatters was strong armed into publishing (with my great thanks and compliments). Those two are, of course, “Bruce Lee, Boxed: Safety Goggles and Crash Helmets Required” and “Vincent Price: The Poe Cycle“. In these articles I detailed Bruce Lee’s amazing career as a martial artist and how he battled everyone from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Chuck Norris while Vincent Price faced off with everyone from Mark Damon to The Red Death itself.

However, one matchup we never did see was Vincent Price vs. Bruce Lee. Who would win, the Master of Kung Fu or the Master of Horror? Next question: Where do I sign?

I had recently been released from a Turkish prison after clearing my name for a crime… that I did not commit… when I wrote the Next Reel column “The Icons of Fright and the House That Spawned Them”, an article about the Universal Studios Classic Horror films that have proven to be the most influential of all time (so far at least). Full disclosure: I was wearing a funny hat when I wrote it.

In the article I alluded to a latter-day monster mash-up called The Monster Squad (1987), which featured pastiches of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy and Gill-Man. While Monster Squad was not a Universal film (it was released by competing company Tri-Star Pictures), it was directed by horror veteran Fred Dekker and co-written (with Dekker) by the popular action writer Shane Black.

This reimagined team-up of the famous monsters echoed a 1980 Hanna-Barbera animated TV series called Drak Pack, which centered around descendants of The Wolf-Man, Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster as villain-fighting superheroes. Although not a huge success in its initial run, the series has enough hilarious in-jokes that adults who grew up with the films will find an awful lot to laugh about. Although Hanna-Barbera is now a subsidiary of Warner Bros., the series never forgot the company that gave its characters (recognizable) life.

The tributes come full circle in the 12th episode, “A Dire Day at Dredfulland”, in which the Drak Pack visits a theme park created by their arch enemy Dr. Dred. With its horror themes and unmistakable tram-ride based studio tour, there is no confusing the fact that the terrible teens are actually invading Universal Studios Hollywood. Way to go, Drak Pack! Your multi-leveled parody was ahead of its time.

I was sitting in a palm tree with Benny and Bjorn of ABBA drinking spiced rum and jamming on an acoustic rendition of “King Kong Song” when a giant monster’s foot almost crushed all three of us. At least we think that’s what happened. There was a lot of rum involved. Be that as it may (and I doubt if it was), this foggy incident gave rise to the next Next Reel, entitled “Cinematic Kaiju: A Worm’s Eye look at Filmdom’s Biggest Monsters“.

The future of Giant Monster films seemed, at the time of that writing, to be centered around the new version of Godzilla (2014). Godzilla was reviewed positively and made back over three times its budget at the international box office. The “big” news (almost enough to outshine the granddaddy of Kaiju creatures) is that director Guillermo del Toro of Pacific Rim (2013) has signed on to direct and co-write Pacific Rim 2, set for a 2015 release. The new distributor and benefactor for the Pacific Rim franchise is no longer Warner Bros. but Universal Studios themselves. All the Monsters know where their home is and ought to be.

“Instantly Familiar: Hollywood’s Great Duopolies” was published the very next month, which is appropriate, considering the fact that The Next Reel is, in fact, a monthly column. Next Reel fans might occasionally compare the trend of new Next Reel entries to the trickle of new Moonlighting episodes back in the mid-’80s. The great duopolies or “twin films” show no signs whatsoever of stopping or even slowing.

However, as mentioned in the article, there’s an entire subculture of Hollywood dedicated to creating twin films strictly for the sake of confusion and ill-gotten profit. These films are not real competitors, but “mockbusters”; cheap-ass films created to cash in on the successes of their big-screen betters. The Asylum is the main “studio” (and I use the term loosely) that has made a fortune naming its horrible movies after bigger and better movies, and thus cashing in on their successes! Not too long ago Asylum released a joke called King of the Lost World (2005) directly into video stores the day before Peter Jackson’s King Kong hit theatres. When a Killer Calls (2006) hit shelves 25 days after the remake of When a Stranger Calls hit theatres. Hillside Cannibals (2006) went straight to video 18 days after the remake of The Hills Have Eyes visited the silver screen.

The Da Vinci Treasure (2006) insulted audiences exactly a week after The Da Vinci Code’s box-office miracle. 666:The Child (2006) possessed the shelf on the exact same day as the remake of The Omen hit theatres (which, incidentally, was the date of 6/6/6). Pirates of Treasure Island (2006) sank into video stores the week before Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest took its bow. Then the Tuesday before Snakes on a Plane (2006) slithered to the silver, my least favorite studio, including Troma, released the seat-stain known as Snakes on a Train! In later years, The Asylum is better known for creating films like Sharknado and Sharknado 2: The Second One which shows that the studio has become more original in its maturity… but absolutely no better whatsoever.

I had already addressed the hidden sequels and the twin films, both concerning the movies that were united in not-so-obvious ways. Thus my next trick was to discuss the “Drastically Divergent: The Sequels That Strayed Far Too Far” all about the linked movies that seemed to be united but proved to be, well, drastically divergent.

Horror Holds the Crown for Aberrant Aftermaths, as I stated in that article, but I only made a minor reference to a certain drastically divergent horror sequel called Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge (1985). Saga creator Wes Craven refused to work on this sequel as he intended the original Nightmare (from 1984) to be a standalone feature film with a happy ending (in which Freddy Krueger is defeated once and for all). Nevertheless the first sequel went forward for New Line Cinema and changed the premise of Freddy almost completely. (Note: This did not stop Craven from returning to the franchise twice more, first to co-write 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and to write and direct 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.)

Moving into the same house that Nancy Thompson inhabited in the first film Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) soon experiences Freddy as something of a poltergeist who desperately wants to possess Jesse’s body and push him toward committing his murders outside of the dream world while everyone is wide awake. However, this drastic divergence isn’t what sets Freddy’s Revenge up as a bizarrely hilarious experiment in film.

The thing that makes this second film so very strange is that the demonic possession angle is one of many elements that is used as a springboard for the film’s remarkable homoerotic subtext. Note, this reporter is approximately as “homophobic” as Harvey Milk and Liza Minnelli, thus there is no derision in my words here. Instead, I’m simply enjoying the camp value seen in every third scene of this film.

Openly gay actor Patton’s character is caught by his “girlfriend” simulating masturbation with a party toy. He and Freddy encounter his gym teacher in an S&M Leather Bar, then kill him in the showers (but not before spanking his bare ass a few times with a rolled up towel, while giggling). Most tellingly, he abandons a make-out session with the aforementioned girlfriend to spend the night with his hunky best buddy, complaining (and I quote) “Something is trying to get inside my body.” When said best friend responds “Yeah, and she’s female, and she’s waiting for you in the cabana. And you wanna sleep with me,” that doesn’t change Jesse’s mind.

Had the theme song been the Rick Springfield parody “I Wish That I was Jesse’s Girl”, the innuendo couldn’t have been more obvious. I would call this drastically divergent sequel “progressive”, if it truly seemed that the film’s creators (outside of, perhaps, Patton himself) truly seemed to be “in on it” at the time. Interviews with director Jack Sholder indicate that he never had this intention during the making of the movie. Screenwriter David Chaskin admitted that he intentionally included homosexual themes, but the remainder of the cast and crew affirm that they were unaware of these during filming. Sholder confirms that he was not self-aware enough to realize he was making a gay film at the time and even Mark Patton confirmed in interviews that he does not believe that Jesse was originally written to be gay, but that this happened serendipitously along the way. These statements seem to contradict those of Chaskin, therefore only Freddy knows for sure.

“Drastically Divergent” was the last “individual” column idea I had within the last year. When writing “The Rise Fall and Rise of Marvel Comics on Film Part 1: Origins and Eternities“, I realized that I had enough material for not one, but three individual articles on Marvel Comics. In short: “Nerd Alert!”

Thus, that first column was followed by “The Rise Fall and Rise of Marvel Comics on Film Part 2: The Road Out of Development Hell” and “The Rise Fall and Rise of Marvel Comics on Film Part 3: Our Universe(s) at War“. Hey, I’m not exactly allowed to make every article I write about my fiancée (and yes, I did ask).

These MARVELous columns detailed the history of The House of Ideas’ adaptations on the small and big screen and the now three competing Marvel Comics Universes that now dominate the big screen (three of the top ten films in May 2014 alone were based on Marvel Comics). The final of the three columns published on 16 June 2014, just about a month and a half prior to the release of Marvel’s riskiest film experiment yet: Guardians of the Galaxy.

Based on a relatively obscure comic book (at least as compared to, say, The Avengers and Spider-Man), Guardians of the Galaxy is a spacefaring adventure with a ragtag group of misfits facing off with a galactic warlord bent on a jihad of murder and destruction.

Did the risk pay off? Absolutely. At the time of this writing, Guardians of the Galaxy has made over $750 million (based on a budget of $170 million). The film has now outsold X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier to become not only the biggest comic book movie of 2014, but the third-biggest movie of the year, behind the #2 film Maleficent and the (incredibly inexplicable) #1 movie of the year Transformers: Age of Extinction. With a haul of $757.4 million, Maleficent may have a Guardian target on her back, but with over a billion dollars propping up the fourth Transformers film, the Autobots and Decepticons seem to be safe from the onslaught of Starlord and friends. That said, the Transformers mythology was largely created in the ’80s Marvel Comics and the animated series from Marvel Productions, thus money or no money, Marvel is owed a bit of credit for that victory.

On Arbor Day of 2014 I used my lottery winnings to rent out the entire Hollywood Bowl and proceeded to fill every seat with nothing but rock stars and other professional performers, many of whom cost a pretty penny to include (especially Tom “I hate Galactica” Petty). Before you ask, no, Kenny G. never did call me back. As the clock struck 9:00PM the spotlights were cast and I took the stage before the biggest Rock Stars and professional performers from the world over.

I picked up my guitar, approached the microphone and proceeded to suck. And I’m not even kidding about that. I totally laid an egg up there. After 50 excruciating minutes during which many of the famous audience members attempted to deafen themselves via various means (both crude and scientific), I grabbed the mic from the stand, pointed to the crowd and screamed “See? Now YOU know how it feels!” before throwing that same mic to the ground, turning on my heel and smugly exiting stage left to the sound of both electronic feedback and angry boos.

Perhaps forgetting that they had not only gotten in for free but were, in fact, paid for this humiliation (we should all be so lucky) the crowd angrily stormed the stage and attempted to tear me limb from limb before I escaped in one of their stolen limousines. Tawny Kitaen was the driver, so my guess is that this was originally Whitesnake’s car.

The entire violent event reminded me of something out of a Planet of the Apes movie and thus the idea for my next two columns germinated. Thus was created “Origin of the Species: ‘Planet of the Apes’ from Page to Screen“, which discussed the saga’s rise to critical acclaim and fall to the realm of unintentional comedy, and “Origin of the Species: ‘Planet of the Apes’ from Laughing Stock to Box Office Gold“, which detailed the now spoof-worthy franchise as it clawed its way back to the top with Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

In those articles we discussed the myriad Apes projects that ranged from the inspired to the inexplicably ridiculous. If you think that’s something, you should read about the Planet of the Apes films they almost made, as written by your humble servant… J.C. Macek III!

Your favorite adventurer and film historian is not done serving up the thrills, chills, derring do and amazing movie revelations that you’ve been eating up over the past 25 monthly installments (which have taken 30 months to reach publication). At this rate I’ll be producing the next hilarious “Next Reel Year In Review” article in around April of 2017.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get this work of biting satire into the greatest editor the world has ever known, then cruise my convertible over to the performing arts center. The PopMatters Editors Glee Club is headlining a peerless concert tonight complete with a rumored synchronized figure skating demonstration during which Sarah and Neil will perform Jim Steinman’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in its entirety. If you think I’m going to miss out on that, you’re very clearly high. I just hope the Polar Bear isn’t there. I understand that Tom Petty will be, though. After that, I’ll see you in the Next Reel, true believers!