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Go, Speed, Go!
Just got back from seeing Speed Racer. While pretty much any scene focusing on Spridle was as painfully bad as you'd expect, and there's a couple places where they shouldn't have tried to copy visual signatures of the old cartoon, I generally enjoyed the movie. Do be warned, though, the melodrama sliders are cranked up pretty high in a LOT of scenes.
I didn't have a problem sitting in the front row, but I also mentally filed several sequences away as "I'll figure out what happened there later when it's on DVD".
Oh, and Richard Roundtree's part was small but significant and well-played.
Okay, while they don't worry too much about background, it is established that this is a "counterfactual". At the dawn of motor racing, a group of industrialists established the World Racing League and conspired to consistently fix the races as a way to manipulate stock prices (i.e. "I'll throw the Grand Prix so that my company's stock will fall and I can buy back a controlling interest, in exchange you'll form a strategic partnership with me once I have those pesky stockholders off my back."). This led to some corporate alliances that ramped up technological development, resulting in the hyper-tech neon retro-future world of the movie.
The thing that nags at me is the question of what year it is. Some cues indicate it's an alternate 2008: references to "the turn of the last century" and the fact that it's the 107th (or thereabouts, the number flashed by pretty quickly) Grand Prix. Other cues suggest it's an alternate 1960s or 1970s: Richard Roundtree (the actor being born in 1942) plays the winner of the '43 (they never say 1943 in full that I noticed, further muddying the waters by suggesting 2060s or so) Grand Prix. That would make him looks 20 or more years younger than his character, pretty well-preserved all told.
Now, the strongest argument in favor of Alternate 1960s is simply to make it a retelling of the original cartoon, same era and all. However, the tech in the '43 Grand Prix is still real-world, it's as much as stated that the post-'43 corporate alliances were responsible for the big tech boost. And by the time Rex Racer first made it big 10+ years before the main action of the movie, that tech was fully in place...there's no qualitative difference between the old Mach 4 and the Mach 6, and the track record Rex set in the Mach 4 was still unbeaten at the time of the movie's start. So there had to have been enough time between '43 and Rex's racing years for things to stabilize, with only minor improvements still available. If the movie takes place in the 60s, then Rex was active in the 50s, and you'd practically have to invoke alien tech to get things moving that fast.
So, maybe Rex's racing career was in the 60s, and Speed's started in the 70s. The decor is still apt for 1970s kitsch, and instead of looking suspiciously young, Roundtree would look a touch too old, something you might expect from a hard-living celebrity sports star. On the gripping hand, it's also possible that the various spinoff tech has let the racing magnates get their hands on age-retarding treatments, which they'd provide to their favorites.
Yes, like I said on the cut text, WAY too much thought here. And it's probably something that's already been answered in an interview somewhere.
One last thought: several of the cars that got toys were literally "blink and you miss it" stuff. So I'm hoping that the line does well enough to get a second wave...I want the three "headhunter" teams from the rally race to get toy love. Especially the Thor-azines, viking-themed racers who use the ball and chain weapon seen in the ads (and on one of the toys).
I didn't have a problem sitting in the front row, but I also mentally filed several sequences away as "I'll figure out what happened there later when it's on DVD".
Oh, and Richard Roundtree's part was small but significant and well-played.
Okay, while they don't worry too much about background, it is established that this is a "counterfactual". At the dawn of motor racing, a group of industrialists established the World Racing League and conspired to consistently fix the races as a way to manipulate stock prices (i.e. "I'll throw the Grand Prix so that my company's stock will fall and I can buy back a controlling interest, in exchange you'll form a strategic partnership with me once I have those pesky stockholders off my back."). This led to some corporate alliances that ramped up technological development, resulting in the hyper-tech neon retro-future world of the movie.
The thing that nags at me is the question of what year it is. Some cues indicate it's an alternate 2008: references to "the turn of the last century" and the fact that it's the 107th (or thereabouts, the number flashed by pretty quickly) Grand Prix. Other cues suggest it's an alternate 1960s or 1970s: Richard Roundtree (the actor being born in 1942) plays the winner of the '43 (they never say 1943 in full that I noticed, further muddying the waters by suggesting 2060s or so) Grand Prix. That would make him looks 20 or more years younger than his character, pretty well-preserved all told.
Now, the strongest argument in favor of Alternate 1960s is simply to make it a retelling of the original cartoon, same era and all. However, the tech in the '43 Grand Prix is still real-world, it's as much as stated that the post-'43 corporate alliances were responsible for the big tech boost. And by the time Rex Racer first made it big 10+ years before the main action of the movie, that tech was fully in place...there's no qualitative difference between the old Mach 4 and the Mach 6, and the track record Rex set in the Mach 4 was still unbeaten at the time of the movie's start. So there had to have been enough time between '43 and Rex's racing years for things to stabilize, with only minor improvements still available. If the movie takes place in the 60s, then Rex was active in the 50s, and you'd practically have to invoke alien tech to get things moving that fast.
So, maybe Rex's racing career was in the 60s, and Speed's started in the 70s. The decor is still apt for 1970s kitsch, and instead of looking suspiciously young, Roundtree would look a touch too old, something you might expect from a hard-living celebrity sports star. On the gripping hand, it's also possible that the various spinoff tech has let the racing magnates get their hands on age-retarding treatments, which they'd provide to their favorites.
Yes, like I said on the cut text, WAY too much thought here. And it's probably something that's already been answered in an interview somewhere.
One last thought: several of the cars that got toys were literally "blink and you miss it" stuff. So I'm hoping that the line does well enough to get a second wave...I want the three "headhunter" teams from the rally race to get toy love. Especially the Thor-azines, viking-themed racers who use the ball and chain weapon seen in the ads (and on one of the toys).