This news is a couple of weeks old, but there was a story going round that Disney is planning a new Rocketeer movie, and with the lead being an African-American woman. Fortunately, I guess there aren't enough dudes with an unhealthy childhood attachment to The Rocketeer, so it hasn't led to the eruption of stupid bullshit we got when the recent Ghostbusters film was announced and which continued all the way up to. . . what time is it now? Maybe the film is too far away to get that response, or maybe it'll never happen at all. Fingers crossed.
I like the first movie quite a lot, as well as Dave Stevens' comics which were the source material (although I didn't read them until many years after the film came out), and at least some of the mini-series IDW released over the last half-dozen years. I'm curious about how it will play out. Will the new one be set during the late 1930s/early 1940s like the first film and the comics, or will they move it to the modern day? Or somewhere in between? I think it could still work in the present, seeing as we don't have any jet packs on par with what's in the movie. Will the lead, whoever ends up playing her, also be a top-notch pilot, or will they maybe build the rocket pack themselves? There are black women who fly planes and are engineers now, and there were back then as well, so whichever.
I'm wondering how similar or different her personality will be from Cliff's. Part of the reason he keeps the rocket pack is insecurity and jealousy with regards to his relationship with Betty (or Jenny in the movie). He does love using it, but he's also excited at the prospect of making big bucks and being a success because he worries her head's going to get turned by some pretty-boy actor. You could go that route in the new version, although when guys get portrayed as jealous, it usually makes them look like jerks, while ladies seem to get jealousy run through a "crazy" filter. A lot of screaming, throwing stuff, generally presented as being unreasonable, but in a different way from jealous guys. Not always, and the film wouldn't have to do that even if they did want that sort of relationship conflict in there, but it doesn't really seem a great direction to go. I definitely hope the new character has a similar impulsive nature, though.
The film is probably a couple of years away, at least, if it even gets made. So I'll have to wait and see.
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2 comments:
I had not heard of this! It would be hard to top the original...I loved that movie. But heck, it could also be a lot of fun.
Let's cross our fingers for fun.
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