Posted by Neil at 209.245.186.150 on August 07, 2001 at 18:20:41:
To avoid hassling with every putz who comes along to screech about the horrors of Burton, his movies, his gall for speaking or whatever, I'm going to attempt to spell out my feelings in this one lovely post.
Tim Burton is a very, very talented man. He has made a movie, ED WOOD, that qualifies easily for my Top 10 movies and a handful of others that wouldn't be troubled to make it into the Top 100. He's in a bit of a slump, I admit. SLEEPY HOLLOW has a nice mood, but just never quite gets anywhere and his PLANET OF THE APES just flat-out sucks.
Kevin Smith is a very, very talented man with a much different kind of talent. He has a movie, CHASING AMY, that probably slides into my Top 10. As far as I know, he's not in a slump. I enjoyed DOGMA, I'm enjoying his "Green Arrow" series, and I am anticipating enjoying JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, but even if I don't, one bad game does not a slump make.
Both have their own struggles. Burton is weak at developing screenplays that don't hold back his creativity and work against the film. Both Batman films, SLEEPY HOLLOW and POTA all suffer from major script problems. Smith suffers in the opposite manner. He often sacrifices vision for idle chat, realism for an easy chuckle and kinesis for a kind of naturalism.
Reasonable men can disagree on the above points, I understand.
I seriously doubt that Tim Burton thought of the ending to his POTA remake. The basic gist of it is simply taken directly from Pierre Boulle's "Monkey Planet" and the other part the specific aspect that the little non-controversy going on here is in regards to is kind of obvious as a way to reference the ending of the Franklin Schaeffner film without using the same detail. That said, it was probably conceived by William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner or Mark D. Rosenthal, since they are the credited writers.
I'd go dollars to donuts that it was on the table even before Burton was involved.
But it is a fun coincidence. Those who laughed over it and moved on were totally justified. Kevin making a joke about it here and even playing on it, that makes a lot of sense, too. Who wouldn't do that?
So, is Burton's comment wrong somehow? I don't know. To be honest, we don't know how he was asked about the matter. If someone paraphrased Kevin's comments without irony, then I'd think he'd reasonably be miffed and his comments would then be justified without explanation. Maybe he intended an irony that wasn't perceived.
And then, even if he was just being contentious, well, I think most of us here have rightly defended Kevin's right to be a little bit contentious at times. It would be more than a little hypocritical of us to use a completely different set of standards to judge another filmmaker's comments.
So, all I'm saying is
Have at! Man, I'd love to see this board covered top to bottom with juvenile insults of Burton and his mother and the color of his nut sac. Go crazy! It's been a good two days since the last round of hysterics. What would we be without a knee-jerk reaction to a bogus perception of attack to unite us in outrage?