The Jonah Hex corral has the YouTube link to the Jonah Hex trailer, I watched it on my iTouch and when I tried to watch it online it had been taken down. I then tracked it down on MTV and grabbed the embed code. There may be Spoilers, but you should be able to watch it for yourself tonight. I'll run through the highlights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Turnbull is the one to scar Jonah Hex? Why was the branding of Jonah's face changed from the original? You might ask what does it matter? I'll tell you why. Jonah being disfigured by the Chief that adopted him was one in a long string of rejections this man faced throughout his life. Having Turnbull do it changes a fundamental aspect of Jonah Hex. It allows Jonah to hate Turnbull for destroying Jonah's life when in fact Turnbull has constantly hounded Jonah for 'destroying' his.
I wonder if the change was made because there is too much back-story to the scar? They would have to show Jonah's abusive father, him being sold as a slave, the battle with his step-brother, and the 'mark of the demon'. Or was it changed because it cast the Indians in a negative light?
I feel the loss of the Indian "Mark of the Demon" allowed them to lose a supernatural aspect of Jonah that they clearly are wanting to portary.
Also, having QT branded into your face isn't as scary since a lot of folks in the south know that QT stands for QuikTrip.
* Jonah being tied to the large X is a nice nod to the current series.
* Jonah is married with a kid. But he's married to Cassie (Wainwright) who (on IMDB) appears to be either Indian of Hispanic. I don't think I even need to go into this one.
* I DO like the fact that all of the logos for the companies involved are scarred on the same side as Jonah. Nice touch.
* It appears that Jonah can talk to the dead? Hmmm, that's made out of whole cloth. The crow bit is freaky looking.
* I am liking the gatling gun bit the more I see it.
* Man in bar asking what happened to Jonah's face. Nice comic touch.
* Men kicking in cabin door, it's the military. Hex "Jeez, woman, how many men you see a day?"
Leila rolls her eyes. More stupid than funny.
* So Jonah has his own Morgan Freeman supplying him with weapons.
* Guns that shoot dynamite? Fairly cool, but I doubt the sticks of dynamite would fly without fletching (such as arrows have)
*Hmmm, some of the water has the same level of CG that the first X-men movie had. Not that great.
* Nice train explosion.
* Flamethrower, while not made back then was probably possible with technology of the time.
* Boat explosion, mine explosion, explosion in background of Washington Monument.
* Megan Fox humping. uhhhh, awkward.
* Jonah fighting Fassbender with knives, nice.
* Shot of weird freak possibly choking someone. This one bothered me. With this shot being so close to the similar shot of Megan Fox, it almost looks like the freak is also having sex. Was that the intent?
* Turnbull and Hex in a fistfight.
* Finally, Hex striking back at Fassbender.
* Semi-cute bit with Hex and Leila tied up as prisoners. First time I've seen Megan fox and I'm not impressed. Final explosion didn't look that great.
* Did I see Matt LeBlanc listed as an Executive Producer?!?!
With the possible exception of the changes to the origin and the supernatural powers, I kind of like the look of the film so far. I'm just hoping that they haven't showed us the climax of the film
A weekly review of every appearance of Jonah Hex. We cover Weird Western Tales, Jonah Hex, HEX, the Vertigo minis, the new series by Palmiotti, talk about the Jonah Hex movie with Josh Brolin, old comic book ads, and other junk from my personal collection.
Director Jimmy Hayward explained that Jonah Hex himself may be larger than life, but more in the mythic sense than the actual superpowered one. "I think Jonah Hex, he's been shot so many times, the legend is he's got one foot in the grave and one foot here on Earth, and so we approach it by everybody else's version of who Jonah Hex is," Hayward continued. "At the beginning of the film, we bring out the John Albano (creator of the character and first Jonah Hex writer) quote, 'He's a hero to some, a villain to most, but where ever he goes, they speak his name in whispers.' So at the beginning of the film, he's a scarred bounty hunter, just a horrible guy, this murderous guy. You tear the layers off, you see that there's this normal guy in there, but he's kind of in purgatory until he settles the score."
ReplyDeletehttp://scifiwire.com/2009/07/sdcc-cl...p-the-supe.php
It sounds like he doesn't actually have a supernatural power. And we are told that in the beginning of the movie three old men are siting around a campfire telling mythical legends of Jonah Hex and in the trailer we hear one of the old men speaking of Hex having a power as a rumored legend saying "Some say he..". Jonah Hex being almost mythical with legends and rumors about him as a supernatural demon definitely harken back to the original comics written by John Albano. As you said before, Jonah was almost a personification of the night and the outlaw's fears and own imaginations.
And having Turnbull burn the right side of Jonah Hex's face for the death of his son Jeb, rather than an Apache chief burning the right side of Jonah Hex's face for the death of the Apache chiefs son, weaves Hex's scared face into the films storyline with Turnbull and could work better within the film and serve to make things more personal between Hex and Turnbull. Most movie adaptions take some liberates with the source material. As long as they are differences that don't change the essence of the characters. As long as he's former Civil War Confederate Jonah Hex who's face was scared and is now a legendary bounty hunter, etc.
* Shot of weird freak possibly choking someone. This one bothered me. With this shot being so close to the similar shot of Megan Fox, it almost looks like the freak is also having sex. Was that the intent?*
ReplyDeleteYou mean they WEREN'T having sex?
I'm still iffy on this flick, but I was thrilled that Jonah sounds exactly like he does in my head. :)
I showed the trailer to three friends who have no idea of who/what Jonah Hex is.
ReplyDeleteThey liked the Gatling guns, are not wowed by Megan Fox, all three said they would see the movie based on Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and it being a western.
They laughed at the "What happened to yers." line. Basically they gave it a thumbs up & wanted to know when it was going to be released.
Anon, I remember the comments about men talking about Jonah having supernatural powers and making him into more myth than man. I hope that's where the 'raising the dead' and the crow bit come in.
I also understand the change in the origin to accommodate a film, but I think it does change the underlying motivation of the character, more on that in a later article.
I like the look of the film as well as the soundtrack, so far.
On a final thought, I;m not sure John Albano wrote the "He's a hero to some, a villain to most, but where ever he goes, they speak his name in whispers." tag line. That first appeared in a Michael Fleisher scripted story, but I haven't been able to determine if Albano penned that, even though it is often attributed to him.
Thanks for your input folks. Keep it coming.
There are about a thousand ways that this JH will be different from Fleisher-Albano-DeZungia- et al incarnation that we all know and love. That's what Hollywood does: stews it all down and even though the original recipe was for tacos you wind up with chocolate chip cookies. You just hope what ever they come out with is palatable. Trailers are deceptive (I work in TV, and used to be an editor) and what I see here doesn't look bad, but I know that it probably is the best they had. The music helps. Brolin looks good. Megan Fox is um...attractive. But Jules Verne weapons? Jonah Hex can talk to the dead? Why?'cause he's ugly? Huh? The real frustration is that they had a great character and a great opportunity to make a film more in line with Sergio Leone than "Wild Wild West". If done well, I think audiences would respond to it, and would have been far truer to the original character.
ReplyDeleteI'm still buying a ticket.
Sigh. Oh, well. Maybe in ten years someone will reboot.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe we will get Caleb Hammer.
CALEB HAMMER!?!?! I thought I was the only one that bought that issue. Now I have to dig it out & review it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Slees!
Well...it's didn't look as bad as I thought it would. In fact, it looks a bit...interesting. Although they could lose Megan Fox completely, and I wouldn't mind.
ReplyDeleteThe "cut myself shaving" line is a classic.
Wow. I have Caleb Hammer too. Talk about obscure.
ReplyDeleteThe "Damn, woman, how many men do you see in a day?" line has been running through my head all day!
ReplyDeleteCan't say I liked the changes. The Apache angle is too good to pass up and I rolled my eyes when seeing Turnbull doing the scarring. I guess when Custer and co. get massacred if they remake a Little Big Horn film, it'll be blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavians doing the killing.
ReplyDeleteAnother annoyance with recently-made "period pieces" is how the women are always so "contemporary." They look, act, and sound like they're 21st Century people.
Oh well, if the movie's a smash hit perhaps we can finally get a full-color omnibus series of the old comics.
See? Optimism! ;)
I'm not sure John Albano wrote the "He's a hero to some, a villain to most, but where ever he goes, they speak his name in whispers." tag line. That first appeared in a Michael Fleisher scripted story, but I haven't been able to determine if Albano penned that, even though it is often attributed to him.
ReplyDeleteFleisher himself says in his Back Issue magazine #42 interview that he himself came up with the intro:
"I think that was inspired by the TV show Gunsmoke, that starred James Arness. There was some sort of opening line about the acrid smell of gunsmoke. Now, the first part of that is all mine, but the phrase, acrid smell of gunsmoke,that I picked up from somewhere. It was very good."