MAGNUM'S BACK IN A 308!

Just like 007 - always comes back to his DB5 despite his access to current day exotica.

 

The difference is, the DB5 belonged to James Bond (modified by Q branch, but still his own personal car) - The 308 GTS did not belong to Magnum!

And in that trailer, we see "Magnum" destroy two Ferrari's that do not belong to him! - So Robin Masters would have no issue with one of his staff members completely destroying two of his Ferrari's? Hmmm...... I'm struggling to believe that one!


Let's be honest here, the inclusion of the 308 GTS in this new series is simply a desperate, cynical attempt to give this new show some credibility as being Magnum PI, by giving it a link to the original, much loved TV show.

Without it, there is no reason to see this as Magnum PI at all - In the same way that, the only way the Starsky and Hutch film really links to the original TV show, is the car, and the same is true of The Dukes of Hazzard. In both of those films, without the iconic cars, the films could have been about any random characters.

I think Tom Selleck himself sums it up perfectly in this interview from two years ago (@ 1:42):

At the end of the day, there is only one Thomas Sullivan Magnum - And that's Tom Selleck!

Hopefully this new series will quickly die the death, because, just like the Pontiac Fiero kit-car 308's, it can only ever be a poor quality replica of a wonderful original!

 

I saw the trailer a couple of days ago. I turned to my wife and said "I have NO idea what I just watched".

It was basically a 4 minute Ferrari snuff film.

 

A Ferrari snuff film... GOLD !!

 

Wow, just saw the trailer...looks like it's going to suck big time.

The actors and characters seem OK, but the over the top stunts were just too much...jumping from the 308, as it was t-boned over the cliff, onto the vehicle that hit him, THEN jumping from that onto the skid of TC's chopper...give me a break. I heard that the director has done a couple of the fast and furious movies...so proud that I've never seen a single one of those.

I'll probably still have to check out the first one though.

 

"...jumping from the 308, as it was t-boned over the cliff, onto the vehicle that hit him, THEN jumping from that onto the skid of TC's chopper...give me a break"

The motto of TV/movies is to never allow the laws of physics to interfere with a story!

 

I'm going to give it a shot, and I'm glad the destroyed Ferraris are fakes.

 

To make a good movie, you need basically a good story or a good plot; good to great characters, with depth and interaction between them, and a bit of action. Some great actors might help.
For a serie, which includes more episode, its the characters and their interaction that prevails, and that's were the original Magnum P.I was strong.
If you put the emphasis essentially on action, well, that doesn't bode well, because more and more action means ther is nothing happening between the characters. You can always jump farther, destroy more cars, etc...but at one point, more is no longer effective.

Rgds

(I have to say that I am usually against new version of some movie, with exception, such as "The Three Musketeers"; being french helps probably, but here we have a great story, a great plot; great characters, intrigue and action.
And what I find fascinating in each successive version is the choice of actors, and the fact that they fit, or not, what I think the characters should be: for instance, Charlton Heston was a great Richelieu, even if Richelieu was physically very different: he was a very small man. Faye Dunaway was a great Milady, etc...but I digress slightly)

 

You need good direction, cinematography and editing for both movies and tv. Those three elements are just as important as your list. The very best TV series from the past decade have these; eg, off the top of my head, Breaking Bad. There are many other examples. All far superior in terms of direction, editing and cinematography to Magnum PI.

 

I think they put the 308 in there to get people talking about it and destroyed it to get it behind them so they could move on. But who cares what I think?

With the people from the 'Fast and Furious' franchise in charge, I would expect lots of overblown and unrealistic action sequences done in cars that could never actually perform the action in those sequences, followed by near-complete overnight rebuilds of said cars and a way oversimplified 'family is to die for even if you hate them'' theme for the main characters. We've had 18 hours of that so far in the FF movies, with another one on the way PLUS a spin-off movie. All they've done here is borrow the name of a winner and poured it into the FF molds. Not saying that the original show is art or wasn't planned for profit, mind. Just saying it's business as usual across the board.

For the record, Magnum PI is one of the most-played syndicated US one-hour dramas ever, world-wide. It's currently syndicated for broadcast in over 100 of the 195 recognized nations in the world, and has been shown in more than 50 countries worldwide in each of the 27 years it's been syndicated. It's essentially the bar that all the other shows are trying to reach, syndication-model-wise.

The new show wasn't made for you, you know. They aren't dying for the approval of any Ferrari owners. They're looking for the people dreaming of owning them some day.

 

I'm sure at some point they will figure out that Casablanca needs to be redone and modernized...

Automatic weapons, car chases through the crowded streets, knocking over carts, shopping stalls, etc. Rick will be running across rooftops and jumping impossible distances from roof to roof as he engages Nazis while trying to protect Lisa and Victor from Major Strausser and his killer Nazi robots. Sam does his rap DJ act nightly at Rick's with topless dancers backing him up. Lisa pleads, "Play it Sam... Play 'Ice, Ice Baby'! "

At the end, Lisa and Victor arrive safely in New York using the exit visas that a group of teenage anti-Nazi agents have obtained from Strausser's HQ by stealing the documents off his desk while delivering pizza and escaping the subsequent chase by using the city's sewer system. Luckily the Nazi robots are extremely bad shots. Lisa and Victor plan to devote themselves to promoting the vegan lifestyle, outlawing private ownership of guns, and the philosophy that war is wrong and we should all love one-another. Rick and Louie steal a U-boat, discover there is an Enigma machine onboard and give it to Sam, who, using his contacts in the underground rap scene, heads off to personally deliver the device to England and encouraging the government to establish a group of code breakers at a manor house he once performed at called Bletchley Park. Rick and Louis are last seen as the U-boat heads through the Pillars of Hercules, out into the stormy Atlantic. The words, "CASABLANCA II COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!!!!" appears while the theme song, written/sung by Katy Perry plays louder than a Who rock concert.

 

That is an interesting comment. Are you critiquing the original Magnum or the new trailer?

Regarding editing, I recall seeing interviews with contemporary directors and editors who state that their goal in shooting and editing is to reduce the time of each shot from a given camera angle to less than one second each. It seems now that it is the only way movies are shot. The Magnum trailer is a good example of this. It seems to me, it must get in the way of actors trying to develop complexity in the character they have been assigned.

In contrast, I recall Alfred Hitchcock describing his experiments with a filming technique where scenes were “cut” only when the camera ran out of film (15 minutes?). His stated goal was to stress the actors as they focus on getting through the entire long scene just like on a live theater stage. Needing a second “take” would be a serious problem.​

Wow! That says a lot.

 

I guess you never saw a James Bond film.

 

​

I was describing the original. Modern trailers are usually extremely fast edits and give far too much plot away. It's difficult to judge the final product from a trailer (eg I can't tell if it's featuring one episode or multiple) but I guess the Fast & Furious franchise is indicative.

Rapid cuts are nothing new - Eisenstein kicked that all off in the 1920s. There is no correct way to edit a movie. Things come together or they don't & that's down to so many variables.

 

Nor “Duke of Hazard and Knight Rider”

 

Well they remade Battlestar Galactica and the new one was a thousand times better than the original so if they do it right it can be pulled off. In this case, I don’t think so.

 

Well, it's an interesting comparison about rapid cuts. I mean, I do like Eisenstein very much, but it's like a very stiff drink, isn't it? Not too much at one single time. There is so much of everything into his work that it leaves you a bit dizzy after each movie. Which is exactly the same with some of the modern movies or series, except that is because there is almost nothing into this: action apart (always more, always faster) many are empty, or hollow.
Rgds

 

I hope "they" (Whomever "they" might be...) will not even dare to start to think about a remake. Ditto for "The Maltese Falcon", etc...I would be extremly upset.
Rgds

 

I wasn't comparing Battleship Potemkin to Fast & Furious I was merely pointing out rapid montage is not at all modern; it's almost as old as cinema itself.

If we are to compare, I'd say Eisenstein was masterful at using montage as an intrinsic narrative device, whilst a typical action movie uses rapid cuts to present action sequences from multiple angles, eg slowing an explosion or a cliff falll whilst not making these appear languid to the audience (multiple cameras are cheaper these days & software editing much easier).

 

Guys
When is this program going to be aired??
And
When will we get to see it in the UK any ideas??

 

Yes, indeed, but the outcome is that Eisenstein had a lot to say (perhaps too much, sometimes...see what happened to the last part of "Ivan the Terrible") whereas most modern movies or series do not have enough to say, and hollow (= predictable) characters. As we say in french: "c'est téléphoné" (meaning, you can predict it all along). So these resort to action and editing, but the truth is you forget most of them about ten minutes after viewing them. I'm afraid this is what I see in the trailer for the new "Magnum P.I".

Not to say that "everything was better in the good old days", which is not always true of course, but "the brain is like a parachute, it works better when opened", and most modern movies do not require you to use your brain.
Of course the question remains about the balance between using or brain and/or letting only your senses work ("All works and no play makes John a dull boy") but I like to be treated as if I have at least a modicum of brain.
Rgds

 

In the US: on CBS, this autumn "on a date yet to be revealed".
In the UK, well I don't have the foggiest idea. Neither for the rest of Europe...

Rgds

 

There was plenty of junk filmed in the 20s, too. Like architecture over time, only masterpieces are preserved, remembered and talked about. The 308 will be talked about long after any Magnum PI show disappears from collective memory.

 

As for architecture, if you ask me...there are still too many of the sixties' and seventies' crap around; I mean, crap already certified as such, no use to wait...time could be, and should be accelerated sometime.
(We are even rebuilding new crap these days, such as the "Tour Triangle" in Paris, but that would be derailing the thread)
Rgds

 

Shoot, think of all the times T.C. showed up in the Hughes 500 just in time to save Magnum! While I surely wish that Selleck would have been chosen to reprise the roll of Thomas Sullivan Magnum with a grown up Lilly doing the hard work, I will give this one a shot. The Hawaii Five-Oh re-boot has been pretty good even if its only link to the old series has been names and location.