Get that planet on the phone. Ain't no time to waste. Tell 'em he ain't comin' home. He done joined the human race.

PLEASE say you have video of that outro.  Please. 

A Calvin & Hobbes that hops Calvin on Prozac... that probably leaves you with a really slow, depressing, non-fanciful 2nd act.  And has C&H ever really been about the value of imagination?  Obviously it's the gear that makes the comic turn, but if anything, his escapism causes him to screw up in school and with people.

I'd rather see a movie where C's overindulgence of imagination has led him to neglect a real world McGuffin and is at a crisis point with reality.  The third act would be finding some balance between responsibility and flights of fancy.  Or harnessing his flights of fancy to solve the problem. 

I dunno, sorry.  It's all I could think about once you guys mentioned it.

So yeah.  Howard the Duck.  Was my first time watching.  Won't be doing that again.

EDIT:  The more I think about it, the more I kind of like Prozac C&H - like Clockwork Orange, but with kids.  Clockwork Orange and Black Tail.

Last edited by oTom (2011-09-26 22:09:48)

And Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern should be in it! And Calvin should set traps for them!

There should never be a Calvin & Hobbes film, but there's a way to get there without really pissing people off, I think. Start out doing shorts that are about 5 minutes or less. Animated equivalents of the C&H strips. Follow that up with some kind of C&H half-hour special that would represent one of the longer-format storylines in the strip that lasted for a week or two. After you've got one or two of those under your belt and have gotten people used to the voices and the format, then you could make a movie.

2D, animated in the Watterson style. That is the only way.

Howard the duck isn't a good movie, but there's a good movie in everything I think. If this had been darker, R-rated (for cursing and gore, not for duck porn... eww...), and violent as shit, then it could have been cool. Plot-wise, maybe set it a long time after he shows up on earth. have him get sucked here and then spend a year or two in the spotlight with a comic and movies and shit made about him and starring him, then after a few years he's played out and no one gives a shit anymore. Flash forward another 5 or ten years and he's now a middle-age, jaded, alcoholic jerk that no one likes, when suddenly some other creature gets sucked here the same way and opens up the possibility that Howard can get back home to his family and friends. Then he meets some girl and falls in love and that creates his personal dilemma of 'should I go back home where I fit in, or should I stay here where I'm a joke but love this chick'. Then have the other alien turn out to be some overlord that must be stopped, etc. Plot is kinda the same as the current film but darker and more violent. More gore. Less joking. Same run-time, but less padding.

OR get Terry Gilliam to write and direct and just get really stoned before you go to the theater.

Got a copy of this to watch during the live show with the sound off.  Probably will not go back an re-watch it, but I can see how someone could develop a thing for Lea Thompson.  I'm sure that one scene has led to more than one adolescent chubbies.

That's exactly why Watterson won't allow it. He wants everyone to give them their own voices, not carve anything in stone by having official voice actors.

There's a current US series called Wilfred which has a similar set up, crazy guy speaks to and interacts with a neighbour's dog that to him is a guy in a suit. I'd imagine a C&H film being similar to this, and instead of a depressing Sucker Punch kind of story where fantasy clashes with reality in a psychological escape drama, you could do it more as in Heavenly Creatures where the fantasy is just a joyous diversion.

The problem though is that sort of comic strip doesn't lend itself well to being adapted into a feature length story form.

And to be on topic, I'm a big fan of the closing of Howard the Duck, with the rock concert. It's a pretty happy song (Lea Thompson's voice, if that's really her, is great) and it makes the movie end on a high note (which 80s movies were quite good at doing).

Nobody mentioned it in the episode, but the original Howard the Duck comic book is a important lesson for all you creative types out there. Before he was given his own title to work on, the creator stuck Howard in the background of another comic he was working on for Marvel on a work-for-hire basis. Part of the contract was that Marvel owned everything in that book. Therefore... they successfully claimed they owned all rights to the character and the creator lost control of it. It was one of the events that launched the whole movement for writers and artists instead of publishers to own their creations.

I'm naming my new band "Thieving Weasels".

As far as C&H, Watterson will be dead eventually. What do you think will happen? Who will he leave the rights to? His kids? I bet you in a couple decades someone somewhere will be green-lighting a C&H TV show or movie.