Rogen GH Revisit

The Green Hornet TV series and related topics

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striker
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Re: Rogen GH Revisit

Post by striker »

GMartin58 wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 4:57 pm
Striker wrote: The real gold mine of Green Hornet story elements are right there in the radio shows, The Green Hornet 1940 movie serials starring Gordon Jones, and the 1941 The Green Hornet Strikes again starring Warren Hull. What the Green Hornet needs most is to focus on the main character who is Britt Reid and explore his character from the beginning. In other words, it needs a very compelling origin story so that the audience can make an emotional connection to the lead. It needs to allude to his connection to the Lone Ranger. Why does he decide to finally put a mask on and confront the mob and their corrupt allies? What is in his character that lets him blend in and pose as the most feared crime boss? How did he get his combat skills? Hopefully David Koepp the new screen writer is looking into all these source materials for inspiration and ideas.

Unfortunately no descent Green Hornet origin story has been created for the small or big screen. The 2011 movie was an excuse for Rogen to play his old, tired frat boy persona and use that as an origin story. How original !!
This would be the ideal situation for GH fans. The sad truth is that "Hollywood" won't really care about that. I have no idea what direction the new script might take but it will be one that they think they can make money on. The Rogen version did a fairly good job at paying tribute to various aspects of the '66 GH, especially the Bruce Lee drawing in Kato's sketchbook but that was about it. Kevin Smith's script idea wasn't too bad but deviated in a number of ways to become a comic book and I really respect the job Phil Hester did transitioning Kevin's script to a comic.

I have to say that as someone who has done some screenwriting, it's a hard job to take something that exists from the past, modernize it and make it salable to the public without completely ruining the history. I've been listening to a lot of the original radio shows and we don't have the same kind of crime these days so the writer has to come up with a completely new threat. Sometimes that's good...and sometimes it just goes down the toilet.

Time will tell! Let's HOPE that Koepp's GH will be worth the wait. We waited a long time and were disappointed once!
I did not mean to convey that they should "copy" the exact storylines in the old radio shows and make a new movie. That type of movie will not be successful and only a few of us on this board will go see it. What I was trying to convey is that if they are really diligent, they can find gold nuggets of story elements from the radio show and the movie serials that they can incorporate into their own story. Elements that are still fresh, relevant and have high drama.

Example: They can start with clearly identifiable names of villains from the radio shows such as The Top Hat Gang. Mr. X, Mr. Big, Oliver Perry and Blackie Norton.

Example: The highly emotional scene where Britt Reid's ally Porter is shot at by the mob and dying in front of Britt Reid.
Britt Reid: Don't worry about that, no one knows who the Green Hornet is.
Porter: I swore I'd find out, Reid. I know who the Hornet is.
Britt Reid: You know?
Porter: You, Reid. You're the Green Hornet.

Example: In one of the movie serial episodes the Green Hornet is cornered by the mob and they want to unmask him and find out the real identity of this mobster boss called the Green Hornet. "Now we will find out who you really are Mr. Green Hornet."

Example: The origin story of the 1966 TV series was written but it was never developed. That origin story is really dark and the chance that this new movie whose working title is "Green Hornet and Kato" will be based on this origin story is very low. Here is a short synopsis of that origin story:
The elder Reid long years ago broke a front page story that imprisoned the leader of one of the organized crime gangs. In retaliation the organization framed the elder Reid for murder. Imprisoned, the elder Reid died of a broken spirit and a broken heart while behind bars. His son, knowing that he could easily share his father's fate, assumed a secret identity to fight the mobsters and their corrupt enablers.

We saw what happened to movie adaptations of The Shadow and The Spirit. Perhaps their main problem was that they tried too hard to stick with the old format of the stories and did not attempt to reinvent them. As you said, resurrecting these old school characters is hard but in the case of Green Hornet it is not impossible. Let's hope that first this new Green Hornet movie gets made, and second it is descent enough to start a series of this two fisted crime fighter of the golden years of radio.
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