Keeping it real!

In The Fanboy Dictionary I made a definition of "realism".

*REALISM: n: the addition of horrible acts of violence in comic books to reflect how terrible the outside world really is

Now, of course I was mocking certain trends in comic books, but now there's a bit of it popping up in new movies. There's a lot of old ideas getting new treatments. There's multiple movies based on comic books every year. Old cartoons and TV shows are getting remade. Old movies are getting remade. There is a need to update some of these movies for a newer audience. Sometimes the need is due to outdated pop culture references, but sometimes the thing being updated is a pop culture reference.

THE KARATE KID is opening soon and has indeed been updated to not including any Karate whatsoever. This project has not been bitten by the realism bug in that it seems to maintain the same spirit as the original. We're not seeing a bunch of kids kicking each other to death the mean streets. The training is rigorous, just as the training of Ralph Macchio's character was. No trouble here aside from the movie being horribly misnamed.

Moving on to a movie that I really want to see: THE A-TEAM. Mister T ain't happy about it. I was a huge fan of the old TV show. There was plenty of action and laughs. However, there was also a big lack of sex and bloodshed. Mister T was offered a cameo role, but declined it for fears that the movie was going to be too graphic. He watched the movie at the premier and said that the movie was what he feared it would be.

I love Mister T. He's done a lot of great stuff. He's a cancer survivor. He's genuinely a good guy. I fully support his position and him not wanting to be a part of something he's not comfortable with. I understand him not liking a role that he made famous being taken in certain directions. However, as a fan of the show, I am eager to see the movie, because to me it looks like a lot of fun. I don't shy away from big action flicks with guys getting shot and blown up. I grew up watching Schwarzenegger flicks so its not a big deal to me.

The movie does get hit a bit with the realism bug in that people do get shot and killed in the movie. The movie is going to be an absolute farce of over-the-top action and in this generation of movie goers I don't know if you could pull off this type of movie with this type of action and everyone stumbles away alive and intact. One thing that could be a little bit of consolation to those who loved the show and have a problem with the violence is that the old show is available to buy on DVD. Its still a really fun show, so go check it out.

This brings us to this little nugget which I found out about via Phillip DeFranco's Like Totally Awesome show. WARNING!!!! This video is very violent and downright brutal. Don't come crying to be if you scared the kids.



MORTAL KOMBAT. The horrendously violent video game that sparked quite a bit of controversy when it was released and then produced a fairly tame, yet enjoyable, movie and even a cartoon series that was kid friendly. This short is fanboy realism to the extreme. No otherworldly interdimensional shenanigans. It's brutal twisted serial killers and they're beating each other to death. Now, I can't sit here and say, "Oh my God! They took a violent video game in which characters fought and then gave players the option of brutally killing their opponent, and turned it into a short film in which the characters are really scary and brutally kill their opponents! have they no morals, standards, and values?!" If anything warranted a dose of fanboy realism it's freakin' Mortal Kombat. I doubt there's any fans of the game that watched this and griped about the level of violence. It's not STREET FIGHTER or another of the cartoony anime-type games. Now, if one of those games had gotten a treatment like this, it definitely would not have been in the spirit of the source material.

And really, that's a key thing: is the source material being sufficiently honored. In the three cases I pointed out, I'd say yes. Now if we turn around and see Batman and Superman turned into a couple of hardcore, take-no-prisoners badasses in their films, then you'll see examples of fanboy realism screwing things up.