The Adventure Movie Countdown - Intermission: Impossible

[Positronic Brain]

This list is becoming a "movies Positronic should have included in his list" List. I am particularly annoted at myself for overlooking The Fifth Element. I saw that movie three times at the theatre, how could I forget? It's a movie so fun it overrides my "wait, this doesn't make any sense" critic circuit. And Gary Oldman chews so much scenery in this movie I'm surprised he still has teeth, good stuff.

I tried not to add half of Disney's catalog in my list, so I picked Moana because I think it's the most Adventure of Disney's movies. Like Johnny highlighted, it has not one but two different characters going through the adventure arc. It's really good stuff, and the only injustice is that Bowie wasn't alive to sing Shiny. This is not a good timeline.

I think How To Train Your Dragon is the best Dreamworks movie. It's probably oneof the best animated movies - it's practically perfect. Not even the seuqles get close. Watching it it's amazing how much density it has - you get a father and son arc, and an enemies-to-lovers arcs, and an enemy-mine arc... There's a shot at the end, where we get shown Toothles and Hiccup walking leaning on each other, each one with their own prosthetic, that breaks my heart every time.

BTW, I'm getting Moana's trailer embedded in the "How To Train Your Dragon" entry, @Johnny Unusual - Moana did have alternate titles around the world because of copyright issues, but I'm sure "How To Train Your Dragon" wasn't one of them =p

 

[jpfriction]

I consciously limited my disney choices as well to prevent making an all cartoon list. Moana is a solid pick, though.

I can’t say I’ve seen a dreamworks movie that wasn’t at least watchable. I tend to avoid the sequels, though.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

44. Aladdin

You ain't never had a friend like me!
57 Points, 3 Lists, #14 4-So
Directed by: John Musker, Ron Clements
Starring: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin​

Aladdin is a young street rat in the city of Agrabah who’s finds himself meeting a charming naïve young woman. He learns too late she’s the Princess Jasmine and imprisoned by the city guard, who believe he had ill-intent. While in jail, Aladdin is given an offer by a mysterious old man to enter the “cave of wonders” to retrieve a single lamp. Nearly dying from the cave, he completes his mission only to be betrayed and is trapped in the cave with the lamp. But once Aladdin investigates it, it releases a powerful Genie who can give him three wishes to make his dreams come true. And Aladdin’s wish is to find a way to meet the Princess and win her over. And the only way to do that is to become a prince. With his old betrayer lurking in the castle, will he lose everything to his enemy’s ambition?

I remember growing up during the 1990s Disney renaissance when the company had a big animated comeback after some flops and a few decent movies. But the Little Mermaid hit like a bomb and they seemed to be striking again and again. Eventually, they’d get into some weird territory; a film about real life person Pocahontas, like Victor Hugo’s massive tragic epic The Hunchback of Notre Dame re-written with talking gargoyles and a happy ending. But even in those there was some amazing success. And as a kid, I felt like Aladdin was the pinnacle of animated adventure, particularly Robin Williams imagination capturing Genie. And the film still holds up and while some of Williams’ shtick doesn’t play so well today in different ways, he isn’t JUST doing shtick and the genie isn’t JUST a joke machine, he’s a full character and his friendship with Aladdin makes the movie, much more than the romance for me (and it isn’t a bad romance either). Disney still makes great movies and had some wonderful animated gems after but Aladdin felt like a real turning point, just as the Little Mermaid was two years prior.


Hero’s Journey: Aladdin learns to be honest with the woman he loves and sees how indentured servitude hurts his friend.

Trivia
Originally, Jafar was more hot-tempered while Iago was a cool, haughty British-type. The filmmakers felt that having Jafar losing his temper too much made him less menacing, so the personalities of the two characters were switched.

Ready, Set, Piece

 

[Purple]

While it's a bit of a long watch, this actually very early take on the whole "Wicked" formula of "what if the villain wasn't actually evil" deals really does work as a great companion piece if you watched Aladdin recently enough. And have 2 hours to kill. And want to kill them with a nerdy musical.

 

[Falselogic]

I'm late but I was sure the trivia for 5th Element was going to be how a huge chunk of it is lifted directly from Heavy Metal...

 

[Johnny Unusual]

43. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.
59 Points, 2 Lists, #2 Johnny Unusual
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef​

Tuco is a brutish bandito hunted by many and wanted for every crime under the sun. Angel Eyes is a clever and deadly mercenary with no scruples. Blondie is a bounter hunter who has found a way to turn his target as a renewable resource. What do they have in common beyond a terrifying body count and no morals? They are all on the trail of a hidden cache of confederate gold that will make them richer than they could ever imagine. Tuco and Blondie, after nearly killing each other, learns that the other each have one half of a clue to lead them to these riches and Angel Eyes, who has been on the trail for a while, wants to use them to get it. Backs are stabbed, alliance are built and broken and Tuco and Blondie even learn a little about each other. But as the men reach their gold, can anyone be trusted? Nope. Absolutely not.

It’s weird how this trailer misidentifies who is bad and who is ugly.

If you thought we were done with cartoons for a while, you are technically right. But spiritually wrong. I was never a big Western fan as a kid. There was an increased interest in the 90s and I caught a bit of that but when I went to John Wayne movies, they never clicked. But the films of Sergio Leone did. No upstanding lawmen, just delightful antiheroes and villains. And more than that, his films are both very cool and also very funny. Blondie is “the good” but it’s a title that is only presented after he does something really shitty. And his relationship with Tuco is a real Bugs/Daffy pairing; both are skilled but for much of the movie, Blondie is one step ahead of Tuco, even when Tuco is one step ahead of everyone who isn’t Blondie or Angel Eyes. And yet, while these guys are amoral criminals whose arc never really lets them be “heroic” (any heroism is simply incidental to their goal of getting gold), Tuco and Blondie become more endearing, particularly Tuco, who gets a backstory that humanizes him and explains him while never making him a better man, just one we can feel for a bit more despite everything. The Good the Bad and the Ugly is a three hour film but I assure you, the time just blows by.

Hero’s Journey: I don’t want to say but pockets that were empty become lined and a grave is filled with a corpse.

Trivia
Because writer and director Sergio Leone spoke barely any English and Eli Wallach (Tuco) spoke barely any Italian, the two communicated in French.

Ready, Set, Piece

 

[Rascally Badger]

I did not really consider The Good The Bad and The Ugly an adventure, though thinking about it I don't know why not. If I had considered it for the list, it would have been high.

 

[Adrenaline]

I think this is my first nomination to make the list. It's as epic and adventurous as Westerns get, and a great example of both genres.

 

[jpfriction]

I’ve seen all of two westerns in my life and clint eastwood wasn’t in either of them.

Not sure why I’ve avoided the genre, I likes em when I sees em.

 

[Beta Metroid]

Echoing that I didn't really consider this one, but totally would have included it. Also that it's one of the few westerns I've been able to get into (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is pretty much the only other one, which I'd heartily recommend but have a hard time labeling as an "adventure").

 

[Issun]

Aladdin was one of two Disney flicks I allowed myself. The story itself is one of the most famous of the 1001 for a reason, and Disney's version is fantastic. I didn't think of Moana though.

I have never seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (need to rectify that someday), but even if I had I don't know whether it would have occurred to me to vote for it.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

42. Seven Samurai

This baby... It's me... It's what happened to me!
60 Points, 2 Lists, #4 Lokii
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Starring:
Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima ​

A small village realize that a band of rogues is planning to attack the village once the harvest season is finished. Desperate, the village chief advises them to find samurai to protect them but with food being the only thing the village can offer, they must find hungry samurai. They find a man named Kambei, an older samurai who takes it on himself to help build a team capable of maybe defeating the bandit hordes. Even he seems unsure, though he believes victory is possible. To this end, five more samurai are recruited; Kambei’s former lieutenant Shichirōji, the naïve and untested Katsushirō, the kind-hearted and witty Heihachi, the terrifyingly skilled Kyūzō and the archer Gorōbei. And also joining is Kikuchiyo, a temperamental oaf claiming to be a samurai. The seven warriors begin plans to save the village but soon it is obvious, seven heroes will not be enough. This is not a battle that samurai can win…

There were samurai movies before but I don’t know if any samurai tale is more influential than this epic. It’s a tale told time and time again with the western the Magnificent Seven, the beloved Star Wars rip-off Battle Beyond the Stars and A Bug’s Life. It’s easy to think you’ve seen these film simply by cultural osmosis but unlike my beloved Sergio Leone films, while both have much mirth and coolness, Seven Samurai is a more emotionally sincere movie and really, though Katsushirō is sort of our point-of-view character, the heart of the movie is Kikuchiyo. Unlike the role his played in Yojimbo, the cool bad-ass killer who would inspire the Man with No Name, Kikuchiyo is an oaf and a joke for much of the movie. But this is also a movie where Kikiuchiyo goes from clueless poser to real hero and the character with the most tragedy. He also has deeper ties to the themes and is sort of a counterpoint to Katsushirō who came from wealth. The movie proves that while there might be good samurai, most of them don’t give a shit about a Podunk town being obliterated. Maybe Kikuchiyo, for his faults, is the kind of samurai his country needed. Because he’s not a samurai at all.

Hero’s Journey: Not everyone gets out alive but some of our naïve friends grow (and in some cases both) and we see the winners in the end are “not the samurai”.

Trivia
Akira Kurosawa's original idea for the film was to make it about a day in the life of a samurai, beginning with him rising from bed, eat breakfast, go to his master's castle and ending with him making some mistake that required him to go home and kill himself to save face. Despite a good deal of research, he did not feel he had enough solid factual information to make the movie. He then pitched the idea of a film that would cover a series of five samurai battles, based on the lives of famous Japanese swordsmen. Hashimoto went off to write that script, but Kurosawa ultimately scrapped that idea as well, worrying that a film that was just "a series of climaxes" wouldn't work. Then, producer Sôjirô Motoki found, through historical research, that samurai in the "Warring States" period of Japanese history would often volunteer to stand guard at peasant villages overnight in exchange for food and lodging. Kurosawa then came across an anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them and decided to use that idea. Kurosawa wrote a complete dossier for each character with a speaking role. In it were details about what they wore, their favourite foods, their past history, their speaking habits, their reaction to battle and every other detail he could think of about them. No other Japanese director had ever done this before.

Ready, Set, Piece

​

​

 

[Kirin]

Ah, I wanted to put some Kurosawa on my list but then I was dithering about what was the most adventure-y (plus there's some serious gaps in which ones I've seen) and it looks like in the end I didn't. I have seen Seven Samurai though, and it's fantastic.

 

[Issun]

Two classics in a row I still haven't seen. Even though I've never seen any of his films, I still know enough about cinema to know that he is one of the most important people in the history of the medium.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

41. Kong: Skull Island

Kong's a pretty good king. Keeps to himself, mostly. This is his home, we're just guests. But you don't go into someone's house and start dropping bombs, unless you're picking a fight.
62 Points, 3 Lists, #9 Beta Metroid
Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman​

1973. The Vietnam War is coming to a close and government agent Bill Randa is convinced that he needs to some expatriates in the area for his own personal project; finding and studying the mysterious Skull Island. Upon arrival, a team of scientists and soldiers begin dropping bombs to study the seismic activity related to the unusual life on the island. But soon that life begins fighting back in the form of a 100 foot tall ape named Kong smacking helicopters out of the sky. Soon the various members of the team are separated and conflicting goals begin to emerge… as do terrifying creatures with the potential to be more dangerous than Kong. Is escape from Skull Island possible?

Skull Island feels like a movie they put the Kong name on reluctantly. Not because they didn’t love Kong but because it feels like out of all the Kong films, this is the one where they wanted to really explore Skull Island. With the possible exception of the 70s Kong (which I’ve never seen), Skull Island just a really cool fictional location, teaming with monsters. Jackson’s Kong took full advantage of that, perhaps to its detriment of the last act. But this one is very much “why would we ever leave the playground”. It’s also a murderer’s row of great actors as playmates, too. Yes, it’s a crime that the actual human leads, the always great Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson, actually get lost in the shuffle (sad really), but the film makes up for it by essentially making Kong a superhero (albeit one who will smoosh you if you look at him funny) who fights monsters. There are a lot of neat set pieces not involving Kong, too. The long-legged spider scene is pretty cool. I feel that while the Monsterverse never quite came together the same way the Marvel Universe did, those films really did have some cool stuff in them.

Hero’s Journey: Tom Hiddleston… learns something about environmentalism or something? Kong eats a squid.
Trivia
Samuel L. Jackson said on a talk show that throughout filming, he and his co-stars didn't know just how big Kong was supposed to be. Whenever they asked, they got conflicting answers.
Ready, Set, Piece

 

[Purple]

I am amazed you managed to write that much about Skull Island without even mentioning John C. Reilly once. But yeah, it's very much "what if the weird sorta horror-y island full of monsters part of King Kong was just the whole movie" and that is great. That is a great thing to be. I feel like it ultimately exists purely because they needed to do one of those setup movies for Godzilla Vs. Kong (which I JUST realize I somehow still haven't seen!?) like how so many Marvel movies are "well we need to establish who this even is because he's gonna be in the upcoming team-up thing" and specifically they needed to establish SOME version of King Kong where that sort of faceoff even slightly resembles a fair fight. So, way way bigger than usual depictions, let's get a fight with some clever tool use. And then they just had a bunch of runtime left and filled it with rad deadly monster setpieces. I love it and it'd rank higher if that was the criteria I was going on.

And it still to this day just absolutely blows my mind when I look at the date any given Kurosawa movie came out. Just the shot framing, the camera movement, how comfortable everyone seems in their character, it all feels like it's a good 20 years ahead of it's time. Like... Creature from the Black Lagoon came out the same year as The Seven Samurai. Godzilla too for that matter. Those are what I think of when I think of movies from the 50s. Very stiff, very focused on lighting this one shot just so and making sure not to move the camera at all and ruin it. Then bam, stuff like this.

 

[Adrenaline]

There are definitely a lot of better looking movies from the 50s than Creature from the Black Lagoon and Godzilla. Kurosawa was definitely great, but he was one of many people pushing the medium forward during that decade.

 

[Torzelbaum]

There were samurai movies before but I don’t know if any samurai tale is more influential than this epic. It’s a tale told time and time again with the western the Magnificent Seven, the beloved Star Wars rip-off Battle Beyond the Stars and A Bug’s Life.

And the anime series Samurai 7.

Also in Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture there's a line that references the title. Which I still remember some 30 odd years later...

 

[Issun]

There are definitely a lot of better looking movies from the 50s than Creature from the Black Lagoon and Godzilla. Kurosawa was definitely great, but he was one of many people pushing the medium forward during that decade.

Bridge on the River Kwai and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof both come immediately to mind, though those came a few years later.

 

[Falselogic]

I feel like you have to mention Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It's a stunning piece of work that has gone beyond the movie and the genre. You can find covers of the Ecstasy of Gold in all sorts of genres.

 

[Rascally Badger]

So I guess we're in the part of the list filled with movies that for whatever reason it did not occur to me to put on the list, but fit and are excellent.

The bit in Skull Island where Shea Whigham's character attempts a noble sacrifice only for it to turn into Looney Tunes is great.

And Seven Samurai is just an excellent film (that I haven't seen in like a decade).

 

[Torzelbaum]

Oh no... Are we all going to have to go on an adventure together to find where Johnny got all of those from?

Argh... As an RPG character I just can't resist the Call to Adventure. So let's do this. But we should try to avoid using reverse image search. Knowing what I know about adventures I'm sure taking shortcuts like that will just lead to nothing but trouble.

[Olli]

[Alex]

[Daikaiju]

[4-So]

[Issun]

[Beta Metroid]

Here's what I was able to find using the available clues:
Olli - That's the character Oliver from the 1988 Disney animated musical adventure film Oliver & Company

Alex - That's Alex Rider from the 2006 teen spy film Stormbreaker (titled Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker in the US)
relevant image

Daikaiju - That's King Caesar from the classic kaiju film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974).

4-So - That's Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards from the live-action Fantastic Four movie. And I don't mean the 2005 version or its sequel. And I also don't mean the 2015 reboot either. That is from the unreleased version that was made in 1994 and "executive-produced by low-budget specialists Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger". (If you want another adventure then you could learn about the production of that movie - which has its own documentary.)

Issun - That's Herbie the Love Bug and crew from Disney live-action comedy The Love Bug (1968). Not sure why he's the wrong color. Could that be a mistake, a clue or maybe just a yellow red herring? (Also, not quite sure what that has to do with Issun.)

Beta Metroid - That's from the 1957 sci-fi horror comedy movie Invasion of the Saucer Men (U.K. title: Invasion of the Hell Creatures; working title: Spacemen Saturday Night),

[Lokii]

Darn... I'm really stumped by this one.

Edit:
I have just found another piece of the puzzle.

[Positronic Brain]

I think this is a personal photo of Positronic and Mrs. Brain out on a date. Or possibly from their wedding.

It's either that or it's from the 1954 sci-fi film Tobor the Great (a.k.a. Tobor).

 

[Issun]

Issun - That's Herbie the Love Bug and crew from Disney live-action comedy The Love Bug (1968). Not sure why he's the wrong color. Could that be a mistake, a clue or maybe just a yellow red herring? (Also, not quite sure what that has to do with Issun.)

Issun in Okami is often misidentified as a bug, and my original handle was Issunbug before I shortened it.

 

[Positronic Brain]

I think this is a personal photo of Positronic and Mrs. Brain out on a date. Or possibly from their wedding.

Goddamned paparazzi…

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Sorry for the delay in my own personal adventure but I've been really busy. That should return sometime tonight.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

40. Big Trouble in Little China

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail."
63 Points, 3 Lists, #12 Bulgakov
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring:
Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun​

Jack Burton and Wang Chi are on a simple errand to pick up some bet money and Wang’s girlfriend from the airport. But things go sideways when Wang’s girl is kidnapped by a dangerous Chinatown gang and a mission to get her back ends up getting them embroiled in a dangerous gang war. One gang is controlled by the mysterious millionaire Lo-Pan, who it turns out is a powerful sorcerer. Soon, Jack and Wang must travel to the heart of Lo-Pan’s empire, where they must battle his army of soldiers and monsters and destroy Lo-Pan before he achieves his goal of conquering the universe.

Big Trouble in Little China is an interesting beast in a lot of ways. It definitely utilizes some Chinese stereotypes that are a little more unfortunate today, complete with a Fu Manchu-type supervillain at the centre. This kind of stuff was sadly not uncommon and the treatment of Asian characters was often pretty rough (Sixteen Candles being a particularly infamous offender but far from the only one). But this is also a movie that, despite marketing it’s Caucasian as the lead, is a movie where the majority of the stars are Asian and many of them get to be funny in a way we aren’t laughing at them (James Hong is great as the villainous Lo-Pan), cool, bad-ass heroes and the secret leads of the film while Jack Burton, though completely loveable, is basically the wacky sidekick and most of the day saving is done by Egg Chen and Wang Chi. Oh, it’s still far from flawless in terms of representation and I don’t blame anyone from being turned off by it (there’s one more) but John Carpenter clearly has a love of Shaw Brothers films that is on full display, as well as throwing pretty much anything he thinks will be fun into the film. Great cast and a rollicking fun movie.

It's nice to see Kurt Russel take a supporting role for once.
Bulgakov

Hero’s Journey: Jack Burton triples his gambling earnings. Wang Chi kicks a lot of ass and saves his girl.

Trivia
Kurt Russell confessed on the DVD commentary that he was afraid of starring in the movie because he had made a string of movies that flopped at the box office. When he asked John Carpenter about it, he told Kurt that it didn't matter to him - he just wanted to make the movie with him.

Ready, Set, Piece

 

[Issun]

If anyone ever came up to me and tried to tell me that James Hong isn't the hardest-working man in showbiz, I would tell them that they are wrong and dumb and smell bad.

I didn't vote for this one, but it is a wonderful romp, if a bit unfortunate in places, like Johnny said.

 

[Purple]

So there's a thing where like... progress+time=discomfort. To someone who grew up on (or somehow discovered prior to this) a bunch of actual classic wuxia movies BTiLC comes across as like... the American Dragonball movie or something. But the whole reason it exists, if I recall, is that John Carpenter was really putting pressure on people to bring those classics to America and throw them in theaters. People at the time were like "no, nobody wants to see a bunch of Chinese guys doing weird quasi-magical stunt fighting, shoo," and he was like "that is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said, I'll prove there's a market for this stuff" and made this movie, trying to get as many actors onboard from the real thing and keep the number of white people down to a bare minimum for marketability.

And you know, then he threw a beholder in there just as an extra little bonus treat.

He was of course completely right in there being a market for the good stuff, and almost certainly deserves some credit for helping open the door, so, that's cool. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure the movie itself actually largely flopped, and I only know it inside and out because I just gravitate towards weird stuff.

 

[Daikaiju]

Lo Pan Style!

This movie is also an excellent D&D style dungeon crawl.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

39. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - tie

Every one of us relies on water from the wells, because mankind has polluted all the lakes and rivers. but do you know why the well water is pure? It's because the trees of the wastelands purify it! And you plan to burn the trees down? You must not burn down the toxic jungle! You should have left the giant warrior beneath the earth!

66 Points, 2 Lists, #2 Dr. Nerd
Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring:
Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda​

In the distant future, the Seven Days of Fire has resulted in a terrifying toxic jungle and a world were giant insects roam the Earth. But humanity is still not done with war as the Kingdom of Tolmekia plans to use a vast bio-superweapon to destroy the toxic jungle and the insects. But Nausicaä, a young Princess of the Valley of the Wind, has made discoveries about the new life humanity has created, in particular the massive Ohmus, and has become empathetic toward them. With Tolmekia’s destructive plans in place, can Nausicaä save those she loves from the mistakes of humanity’s past?

Hayao Miyazaki’s second feature, based on his own manga, is him really speaking to his own themes, at least the big ones; environmentalism, the folly of war, people doing bad things for what they believe is a good cause and how it all ties together. It’s a truly visually arresting movie and I’m curious about much it is inspired by European science fiction and how much European science fiction is inspired by creators like Miyazaki. 80s was the era manga discovered formulas like shounen (and I love shounen) but also seemed to be a prime era for science fiction, building off of what creators like Osamu Tezuka and Leiji Matsumoto started and created epics. But unlike the much more brutal, defiant and cynical Akira, Miyazaki’s science fiction adventure feels like defiance should be in rediscovering our humanity, specifically the good stuff. It’s an adventure into hope, even 1000 years after the end of the world.

Hero’s Journey: Nausicaä gets to learn and teach others about the nature of their environment and world and the film ends with the promise of a more holistic understanding of humanity’s place in it.

Trivia
Writer and Director Hayao Miyazaki was still so upset by the truncated "Warriors of the Wind" version of Nausicaä, that when Harvey Weinstein approached him to discuss the distribution to Princess Mononoke (1997) and insisted on a similar heavily cut version of the movie, Miyazaki angrily left the meeting. Several days later, Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki sent a katana sword to Weinstein's office with "NO CUTS" embedded into its blade. The movie was later released in the U.S. in its uncut version. During a later interview, Miyazaki commented on the incident by smiling and stating "I defeated him."

Ready, Set, Piece