Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink R.I.P.D., mostly focusing on the large number of missed opportunities. Also mentioned: what Batman and Superman should do in their movie together; reclining seats in movie theaters, and these kids today making it out.
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I personally wonder how the RIPD how manages the problem of conflicting temporal sensibility. Their whole work force is a mash-up of lawman from various era with probably conflicting values.
I mean you could have a wacky buddy-comedy where the best lawman of protestant of Elizabethian England and the best lawman of 11th century papal state have to work together.
Then again at some point you must lose your ethnical background as time goes by and you are more or less the only representative of your background left.
Yeah, like, he was a black cop from 1980s LA who took a drug kingpin’s bullet two weeks from retirement — and his partner was a fugitive slave tracker from 1850 who died of pneumonia in an Appalachian mountain pass. In the afterlife, they are told to solve crimes, but punch each other forever instead!
Think all the crap Mary-Louise Parker must tendure on a daily basis just for being a woman in a position of authority.
Did the movie (or does the comic) indicate the criteria for being chosen for the RIPD?
At least in Ryan Reynolds’s case, he’s presented with a choice: either take your chances with judgment, a risky proposition because, spoiler alert, he pocketed some gold from a drug bust (you know how those drug dealers love their bullion!), and of course the gold ends being important to the plot, or serve a term in the RIPD and get into heaven for free.
This suggests to me that one of the criteria in selecting officers is leverage. Can the department somehow manipulate the person into service with, essentially, the threat of eternal damnation?
This seems to favor certain kind of character which might not be desirable in eternal law enforcement.
I suppose a sympathetic spin on it would be that the RIPD recruits good-hearted people with a little bit of dirt on them, who might otherwise be a close case when it comes to Heaven/Hell. Motivated by a desire to do a good job and earn redemption, perhaps they have the right combination of willingness to break the rules and willingness to remain committed to the mission.
I was wondering how long it will take for Pete to throw Bleach callback into the mix. :-) I was just watching it again, the first arch, I mean. The movie itself didn’t sound that bad but I hold eternal grudge against Ryan Reynolds for showing up in an episode of Mythbusters trying to push Green Hornet. What a waste of episode that was.
Well, in actuality, that wasn’t Ryan Reynolds, who was in Green Lantern, but Seth Rogen, who was promoting Green Hornet. While I agree his presence wasn’t necessary, I thought the myths were good in that episode. I mean, they drove half a car!
D’oh! Thank you for “wellactuallying” me!
Seth Rogen being mistaken for Ryan Reynolds? Wow.
Though it does inspire the question of whether Rogen would have made a better Green Lantern, and Reynolds a better Green Hornet.
I’m horrible when it comes to “face/name” matching.
Regarding your Green Lantern/Green Hornet conundrum, I have to abstain from giving an answer. Both series are almost unknown to general public in my part of the world so I didn’t even bother to watch them.
But from what I gather my American friends didn’t like both movies very much. So maybe swapping them would be reasonable like in “We’ve failed, let’s try something different.”
My answer to the question of the week:
(Int: Daily Planet)
“Clark, we need you to go undercover as a pledge and get the scoop on this drug ring that’s based in a fraternity house at Metropolis U.”
(Int: Bat-Cave)
“Alfred, I’ve traced that new super drug back to my old fraternity house at MU. I need to go back as an Alumni to find out what’s going on.”
(Drunken Old-School/Hanover style shenanigans ensue. BUT WITH SUPERPOWERS.)
End of the movie:
“I knew it! The drug lord was the Dean! He was the mastermind all along, and trying to use the scandal to get us kicked off of campus!”
“And I woudla got away with it, if it weren’t for you pesky, meddling kids!” (That’s for the Batman-Superman-Scooby Doo crossover.)
You guys mentioned that the movie doesn’t really dive too deep on the “Heavenly Beuracracy” idea, despite the potential for a lot of interesting stuff to talk about there. I’m reminded of Clarance in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, who is an “AS2 – Angel, Second Class”, and is seemingly just part of a different wing of the afterlife’s beauracratic structure.
Yep! And the movie I mentioned kinda sideways in the podcast is “Defending Your Life” with Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep and Rip Torn. In those cases, you literally go on trial after you die, and everything is institutional — white trams and sorta-jumpsuits and stuff — and who your lawyer is is kind of a big deal.
I always liked that movie. It used to be in the regular rotation on WPIX, “New York’s Movie Station.”
Well actually, atheism is… No, not going to go down that route.
Speaking of the implications of the afterlife in these movies, what about the morality of imprisoning souls in the Ghostbusters universe? The movie treats it as pest control but this was a person and based on the library ghost some of them retain at least some of their personality.
Well actually… don’t get me started. Don’t even get me started. I’d have to ban both of us from these threads :-)
Yeah, Ghostbusters as far as I know never establishes what the ghosts are “supposed” to do — like what the natural state of things is with regards to an individual ghost. We know usually levels of activity are suppressed, and now they’re a huge Twinkie, but I don’t think the movies ever address whether putting the ghosts in containment does them harm or hurts them, or whether it is a good thing from their perspective for them to be in libraries in the first place.
It’s a lot like the homeless problem in New York City pre-Giuliani and then into Giuliani — New Yorkers prefer to remain ignorant of where the homeless come from, and when they disappear, they prefer to remain ignorant again of what happened to them or where they went, so long as they are gone.
BALEETED
ALSO BALEETED
Another accent! Why isn’t Boston/Irish listed on your acting resume, Matt? Also, I know you dropped it from TFT but I was waiting for you to mention that Mike O’Malley also plays Burt Hummel on Glee.