Craig H Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Dominic Toretto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 The Terminator, maybe? I dunno if it counts since we're really talking about half a dozen different robots, but he basically stays the same over the course of five different movies. James Bond is close. Daniel Craig tried to make him a bit more complex, and of course there's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but for the most part he tends to be played as the same guy from film to film within the tenure of each actor. I think John McClane in the first and third Die Hards is probably in further-apart psychological places than Bond ever gets in different films. And of course there's all the various horror villains who never fuckin' change over the course of a dozen different films, but I don't think it's really fair to count Pinhead or the Leprechaun for purposes of this question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 The Terminator isn't actually the protagonist in any of those movies, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Dominic Toretto IMO, he becomes more open and less narrow-minded as the franchise went on. By Furious 7 he's openly admitting that a former turncoat cop is probably the best friend and closest thing to a soulmate he ever had. Dominic Toretto in the first film would have been quite horrified by this. He didn't change a whole lot. But he changed a bit. He appreciated everyone more and realized it wasn't mainly about him and his wild living and adrenaline rushes anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Toretto is like McClaine. They both grow up a bit during the course of their respective films. It's subtle, but it's there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 The Terminator isn't actually the protagonist in any of those movies, though. What? Did you not watch Arnold in Terminator 2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 The T-800 is a good guy, but John is the protagonist of T2. He literally tells Arnold what to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colonial Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Warner Bros. is looking at bringing back "The Cannonball Run" ... http://deadline.com/2016/03/cannonball-run-etan-cohen-directing-cannonball-revival-of-80s-films-1201720830/ I'll admit it ... the original was my go-to "bad movie that's good" film growing up. Still watch it at least once a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Saw this subject on twitter and thought it was interesting: Who are the main protagonists of cinema who never went through a proper character arc? Barney Ross in the Expendables. Blade in the Blade films. The guys in Pineapple Express, maybe? They go from being people who sort of know each other to being best friends... and Saul and Red are technically out of work because they're drug dealers and their suppliers all just died in a big gunfight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Warner Bros. is looking at bringing back "The Cannonball Run" ... http://deadline.com/2016/03/cannonball-run-etan-cohen-directing-cannonball-revival-of-80s-films-1201720830/ I'll admit it ... the original was my go-to "bad movie that's good" film growing up. Still watch it at least once a year. Somewhere, Phil Brooks says "if only vince had listened to me..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawful Metal Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Given that we're going caving tomorrow, we had to watch "The Descent" tonight. Perfect horror movie. Gonna be terrified in that cave tomorrow!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLowe Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Given that we're going caving tomorrow, we had to watch "The Descent" tonight. Perfect horror movie. Gonna be terrified in that cave tomorrow!!! That movie terrified me before all the really weird things started happening, what with the constant jump between claustrophobia and fear of heights. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwoy2j Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Saw this subject on twitter and thought it was interesting: Who are the main protagonists of cinema who never went through a proper character arc? One popular opinion offered was John McClaine, but I'm not convinced. Eh, one theme of the whole franchise is him realizing he was a shitty father and husband and making some efforts to change. In general, though: Tank Girl or Dredd were arguably the exact same at the end of their films as they were at the start. Axel Foley. Maybe Obi Wan. He started out good and honorable and focused on doing the right thing. And he ended the franchise the exact same way. He was never tempted. He was uncorruptible. He didn't change. He never had to. (You could perhaps argue he toughened up and became damaged and rageful from his experiences, but I'm still not sure the young guy we met in TPM isn't basically the same as the old man we see in a ANH.) What about The Dude? He doesn't grow up or start acting responsibly at the end of the Big Lebowski. He had a lot of crazy adventures throughout the movie but he's like, still The Dude man. Or El Doodarino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Jack in Speed? He was a nice, polite cop with a slight risky streak trying not to get anyone innocent killed. And by the time the credits roll he was still just a nice, polite cop with a slight risky streak trying not to get anyone innocent killed. Oh, but he had a new girlfriend now. I remember some interview with Joss Whedon, who wrote most of the dialogue, saying they deliberately set out not to make him a stereotypical cop in an action film who goes through the usual "personal journey." Jack was originally meant to be a drinker who had problems with women, but Whedon didn't want to go that route because it was too cliched. Instead, Jack just ended up a normal, regular guy. Albeit one played by Keanu Reeves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(BP) Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 McClaine was only really portrayed as a washed up alcoholic in With a Vengeance. Was that just something that was already in the original spec script before it became a Die Hard movie? That's the only one where he's drastically different by the end of the film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 McClaine was only really portrayed as a washed up alcoholic in With a Vengeance. Was that just something that was already in the original spec script before it became a Die Hard movie? That's the only one where he's drastically different by the end of the film. IIRC, one of the writers (the guy who wrote the third one) suggested that McClaine was deeply fucked up by the events of the first three films. It took a lot out of him and maybe led to the drinking. Presumably his divorce didn't help. Which might explain why, in the fourth and fifth films, he's more mellow and stoic. I mean, he's still McClaine, of course, but the swagger and jokiness has been toned down. He's realized being a hero doesn't mean that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I don't think it's fair to count characters who were only in one movie, that's way too easy and there's countless examples. Let's keep it to protracted franchises. As for the Die Hard discussion, McClane also becomes a much more polished generic-action-hero-guy as the movies progress. -In the first movie, he didn't want to be there, at all. He was forced into playing hero because there was literally no other choice, and only did so after he repeatedly tried to pass responsibility off to the LAPD to come in and save the day for him. McClane spends most of that movie running and hiding; almost every single fight scene is instigated by the bad guys finding him, rather than him seeking out a confrontation. If suddenly Arnold Schwarzenegger had kicked down the door and massacred all the terrorists, John would've been all like "THANK GOD" and gone home a happy man, rather than the usual macho hero horseshit of being peeved at not getting the action and the glory. -Now in Die Harder, John technically has the option of saying "fuck this" and just abandoning the whole thing. Yeah, his wife and a buncha other people would die, but he wasn't literally physically imprisoned in Dulles Airport the same way he was trapped in Nakatomi Tower. He repeatedly instigates violence by poking his nose into the bad guys' business, starting right from the beginning when he follows the suspicious character with the Glock through the employees-only door. There's still a little bit of "enough of this bullshit, let somebody else handle it" when the special forces team arrives, but of course we all know what eventually happens there anyway. -Part three STARTS with John being forced into things, but John quickly tires of being a pawn in a larger game and decides to sabotage the whole thing from the inside. The whole "McClane must solve Simon's puzzles" subplot is dropped by the halfway point of the film, and the rest of it is John continuing to pursue the villain out of sheer altruism and personal anger. This is especially apparent at the end, when the conflict is technically over; the plot is finished, Simon's gotten away with it, and there's no longer any ticking clock or innocent lives in jeopardy to make it completely necessary to stop the villain. John is just so goddamn pissed off that he can't stand to not end the movie with a vengeance, and he chases Simon to hell and back out of sheer spite. -Live Free or Die Hard is aptly named, because McClane COULD have chosen to live free. For once, he's got absolutely no personal stake in the conflict which motivates the plot (remember, his daughter doesn't get personally involved until the last act). There's no real reason why he can't just hand Justin Long off to the FBI and then go have a drink. By now, John's become accustomed to seeing things through out of sheer habit. Killing entire armies of terrorists is what he expects of himself. "With great die-hardiness comes great responsibility", I guess. -And finally, the less said about A Good Day to Die Hard the better, but: at long last, this is a movie where John isn't even involved in things against his will. He literally flies all the way across the planet in order to go looking for a fight. And it's not like he could've expected to help; when he travels to Russia, his son is currently in prison on charges of attempted political assassination. There's absolutely jack shit that McClane Sr could do to aid McClane Jr in this situation, he's a street cop with absolutely zero experience in international diplomacy or Russian criminal law and he doesn't even speak the local language. So, it's a good thing that suddenly a whole buncha gunfights just so happen to occur and put John back in his comfortably familiar element. (And by god, he is COMFORTABLE in this film; he barely even seems like he cares that people are shooting at him again.) Also, he becomes more of a total dick over the course of the series. Remember how cool he initially was to random sidekicks like Argyle the limo driver? By the time he's dealing with Kevin Smith as a brilliant hacker who is risking his life to give McClane priceless information which is vitally necessary to stop the villains and which he couldn't have gotten from any other source, John is acting so inexplicably sour and hostile that you almost wish that Silent Bob would just tell McClane to fuck off and go save the world by his damn self if he's going to be such a whiny bitch about everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 RE: the McClaine is an asshole point. One interesting thing about the third film is that McClaine seems noticeably more keen on tracking down Simon and the gold and settling a grudge than, you know, the whole "bomb in the school" thing. Which, of course, didn't really exist, but that's besides the point. He didn't know that at the time. Per the DVD commentary, even Willis complained about this aspect of the plot. Because, well, who cares about some bars of gold when children could die? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 The hardest thing to buy in the later movies is that John McLane would still be a cop. There's no chance he wouldn't have become a major player in the Department of Homeland Security roughly five minutes after it was created. And no way in hell the FBI blows of John "I've personally stopped three major terrorist attacks virtually singlehandedly" McLaine when he says "this looks like terrorism" in part 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Dom changed after his racecar driver father was put into the wall by a janitor who takes the bus to work everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 RE: the McClaine is an asshole point. One interesting thing about the third film is that McClaine seems noticeably more keen on tracking down Simon and the gold and settling a grudge than, you know, the whole "bomb in the school" thing. Which, of course, didn't really exist, but that's besides the point. He didn't know that at the time. Per the DVD commentary, even Willis complained about this aspect of the plot. Because, well, who cares about some bars of gold when children could die? I think part of it is that Die Hard 3 wasn't written as a Die hard movie, and became one only because the creators said why not make it a die hard movie. I also remember that some law enforcement authority interviewed the writers of DH3, because that was a robbery scenerio that could have actually worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I think part of it is that Die Hard 3 wasn't written as a Die hard movie, and became one only because the creators said why not make it a die hard movie.Yep; and the really funny thing is, almost ALL of them were like that. The first two movies were adapted from novels... by completely different authors, involving completely different characters. (The original book was a sequel to The Detective, which was itself adapted into a Frank Sinatra movie back in the late sixties.) With a Vengeance was indeed written as a script called Simon Says (no relation to the godawful Dennis Rodman flick, to the best of my knowledge). The fourth movie was also an original non-Die-Hard script which was eventually rewritten to star McClane. Part 5 was the only one to be specifically written as a Die Hard project; and considering the results, shee-yit, let's hope they never do that again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Dom changed throughout the movies, IMO. Like, he still knows he can't be like Brian and Mia and have a nice white picket fence life in the suburbs. But he also doesn't want to break the law all the time and be constantly on the run or in and out of jail, either. Because he does truly care about his family and wants to see them as often as he can. So, he's stuck now trying to operate his own way in the world. Admittedly, getting called on every 2 or 3 years to save the world by the government likely helps assuage his adrenaline junkie tendencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Tomorrow: Alien marathon! I can't wait! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts