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The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: The Crow Reboot Edition
Image Credit: Credit: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate
The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another special edition of The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.
I know I said last time that The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week was coming back for a “one-off special edition” to talk about the Vince McMahon lawsuit/sexual assault/sexual depravity story and then the column would disappear into the fog of the internets again. But then something else happened in the pop culture space that, while not as important as the Vince McMahon story in any way, annoyed me enough to want to talk about it. And so that’s what this special edition is all about.
And so, without any further what have you, let’s get on with it. Who is the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week this week? What the heck happened?
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This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to the uber fans of the 1994 The Crow starring Brandon Lee, for going insane over the just released images of the new The Crow starring Bill Skarsgard. The images, appearing via Vanity Fair, show reboot star Bill Skarsgard in what appears to be his character’s full revenge makeup, as well as a pic of Skarsgard’s Eric Draven with his girlfriend Shelly played by FKA Twigs in a happy moment by a fire or something. The new movie, directed by Rupert Sanders, is set to hit movie theaters in the United States on June 7th, 2024. The reaction on social media by uber fans of the 1994 Brandon Lee movie was apocalyptic.
“Skarsgard doesn’t look like Brandon Lee!”
“Skarsgard doesn’t have long hair? What the hell?” (the director of the 1994 movie, Alex Proyas, apparently complained about this on his social media).
“This new movie doesn’t look emo enough!”
“Why is Skarsgard playing Eric Draven? Eric Draven is Brandon Lee! Skarsgard should be playing a character with a different name! It’s disrespectful of Brandon Lee’s legacy to have someone else play Eric Draven!”
“Skarsgard looks like Jared Leto’s Joker! This reboot is going to suck! Why didn’t they just remake the original movie?”
“Why would they even try to remake the original? I bet this new one is going to have a shit soundtrack!”
The comments, in general, went on and on with similar variations for days after the reboot image reveal (it might still be going on right now over on Twitter).
Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a “vocal fan” of a movie or a TV show or a franchise. Pop culture is filled with fans of just about everything. Being a fan of something is what pop culture is ultimately all about. But losing your shit over a couple of images of a movie that hasn’t come out yet? Getting super mad about a movie we don’t have a trailer for yet?
What the hell are you people doing? Isn’t this the kind of thing that the “cool people” in pop culture make fun of every time there’s a new Star Wars thing that the “incel Star Wars fandom” explodes about?
Yes, it is. It’s the exact same thing. It’s bizarre and weird you shouldn’t do it, regardless of how much you’ve made the 1994 The Crow a part of your personality.
“But the 1994 The Crow speaks to me on a deep level! It’s the first movie that made it okay to be Goth! This reboot clearly shits on the original’s legacy and it’s going to ruin my life!”
What? The reboot isn’t replacing the 1994 original. The 1994 original is still going to be available to buy and rent and stream (I’m sure it will be on TV on some channel around the same time as the reboot comes out in theaters, along with that movie’s sequels and even, maybe, that TV version starring Mark Dacascos). The 1994 original will still have all sorts of cool T-shirts and other merchandise to buy online and at various conventions. The 1994 original isn’t going anywhere. In fact, I would suspect that when the reboot does come out in theaters that general interest outside of the originals’ dedicated fandom will increase quite a bit. So the reboot isn’t going to do anything to the 1994 original beyond make more people aware of its existence. You all have nothing to worry about.
As for the “preciousness” of the original and how it shouldn’t be rebooted or adapted, that’s ridiculous. Popular movies get remade all of the time. Why wouldn’t the 1994 The Crow be up for a possible remake/reboot? The 1994 original was based on a comic book by James O’Barr, and with comic book movies still all the rage in Hollywood, it was only a matter of time before we got a The Crow reboot/remake. No one in Hollywood was going to try to remake The Crow: City of Angels or one of the other two direct-to-video sequels (I remember liking the one with Eric Mabius, The Crow: Salvation). None of this should be all that surprising.
As for “the reboot tarnishing Brandon Lee’s legacy,” how the hell is that going to happen? I will repeat: the 1994 original isn’t going anywhere. The 1994 original is still going to be available to watch and revel in forever. Brandon Lee’s legacy isn’t going anywhere. Brandon Lee’s legacy will still be his legacy after The Crow reboot is unleashed on the world.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with not liking the images of the new The Crow. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking one look at Bill Skarsgard decked out in tattoos and saying “I don’t think I want to see this movie” and then moving on with your life. Nothing is going to happen to you if you don’t go see the movie when it comes out (or when it hits home video or streaming). I’m not all that impressed by the Skarsgard images, but then I’m also not an uber fan of the 1994 original. I thought the 1994 original was pretty good but nothing all that special. I don’t have any great attachment to the 1994 movie (and just for the record, my favorite Brandon Lee movie is Showdown in Little Tokyo). And I will reserve final judgement on whether or not I want to see the reboot until we get a trailer of some sort. That’s what everyone should do. Just wait and see what this new movie is really all about.
And, again, the 1994 original isn’t going anywhere. Brandon Lee’s legacy isn’t going anywhere. And your attachment to the original cannot be ruined by the reboot. It just can’t. You’re going to be okay. We’re all going to be okay. The Crow might be good, it might be terrible, it might just be… eh. It’ll be okay.
Uber fandom just needs to calm down in general. Across the board.
And, yes, I am fully aware that I wrote three things trashing the David Gordon Green Halloween movies. It’s not the same thing.
Halloween (2018)
Halloween Kills
Halloween Ends
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Honorable Mentions
–The people who don’t know that Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is a satire of fascism, for apparently not knowing that Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is a satire of fascism. I saw this on Twitter with my own eyes and couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. Untold scores of people firmly believing that Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers wasn’t a satire of fascism. Some of those people, admitted hardcore right wing yahoos, actually believe that Starship Troopers is pro-fascism because it doesn’t make fun of fascism “enough.” Because everyone in the movie is good looking, and the society depicted “works” (there’s no crime and everyone seems happy and safe and who wouldn’t want to live in a society like that?). And the bugs from Klendathu are ugly and gross and they started the war.
While it’s true that you can watch Starship Troopers and enjoy it simply as a big hooha sci-fi action movie where human soldiers fight and kill giant bugs (I certainly enjoy the movie on that level), how the hell can you not see that director Verhoeven and screenwriter Edward Neumeier are making fun of the “perfect human society” depicted in the movie? The propaganda media moments. The fact that humanity has created a society that’s organized around sending humans into deep space to fight giant bugs. And Neil Patrick Harris showing up towards the end of the movie wearing a goddamn Nazi SS uniform. It’s all right there and it’s all ridiculous and it’s obvious that the movie is not in favor, at all, of the human society depicted. The whole thing is absurd.
And for God’s sake, people, didn’t any of you watch Robocop, another Verhoeven/Neumeier movie that’s both a terrific sci-fi action movie and a rollicking satire of corporate America and big business? Is there a consensus out there that the real point of Robocop is being a cyborg is cool and everyone should want it to happen?
Please, everyone, watch Starship Troopers again. Watch it closely. It’s beyond obvious what the movie is actually about.
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