The Blog From Childhood

The summer movie season has started, and it looks like yet again comic books and other pre-established properties are the most hyped, and most likely to make money. Now I get why the studios and the public go for these films. These films have a built in fan base, and thus, built in money. But I am surprised that certain other properties from my childhood are not being taken to the multiplex where they can bring in fans both new and old. Here are some of my top pics of old properties that need a cinematic treatment.


DINO RIDERS
Jurrassic park came out in 1993 and the effects in that movie still hold up, so it blows my mind that this 80’s toy line/cartoon series that had humanoid aliens fighting on dinosaurs equipped with futuristic weaponry didn’t get made shortly after. A Dino Riders movie seems like it would be an easy sell to Hollywood. Dinosaurs with laser guns! Done.


VOLTRON
There’s been a Voltron movie in the early stages for the past couple years, so hopefully this one comes true sooner rather than later. If you go back and watch the old show about a team who pilot giant robot lions that connect to become an even bigger robot, you’ll see that every episode is the same. The bad guys come, they try to fight them separately, and then they just form Voltron and take the bad guys down. A Voltron movie plot would follow this pattern pretty closely, just hopefully with a bit more depth.


MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
The 1987 Masters of the Universe movie starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor was the first movie I saw in the theater so I’m a little partial, but most saw it as a failure that didn’t stay true to its cartoon and action figure roots. Right now would be the perfect time to make a sweet movie that would make everyone forget about the old one with the current craze of the new Masters of the Universe Classics action figures selling out every month online. Build a movie universe on the same scale and scope of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, map out the franchise before you start so a trilogy doesn’t just get made as a cash cow, and ‘80s nerds and plenty of others will flock to the theaters.

What other classic properties do you think should be made into big budget blockbusters?