E. Magill over at Open Salon has made a list of eight suggestions the 24 movie should follow. It’s a great list coming from someone who is clearly a fan of the show and hopefully whoever is writing the 24 movie follows these guidelines.
At this point, it is impossible to get away with killing off Jack Bauer. It would be like killing Dirty Harry, John McClaine, or James Bond. He has simply become too iconic and too strong a character to let him die. Naturally, you can (and should) toy with the audience and make them believe it is possible that Jack could die in the end, but he needs to limp away to reluctantly fight on another day.
Killing Bauer would be like killing a part of America at this point, and it would force the movie to end too bleakly. After all, Jack Bauer is the modern superman who cannot be replaced, so if he dies, there won’t be anybody to take his place and America would crumble under the weight of all the terrorists, CTU moles, and evil government agents Jack Bauer keeps at bay on a daily basis. Besides, I’m sure the execs at Fox want Jack Bauer to live for as long as he remains profitable, so killing him off is a good way to get your script rejected.
Check out E. Magill’s entire blog post at Open Salon.
4 Comments
Comments ClosedCrisis892000
January 27, 2011 at 2:44 amThe reason that John Maclane and James Bond should not die is because they exist in a more cartoonish world than what I believe 24 is. 24 has always felt way more gritty than Die Hard or 007, and their main characters, while compelling, have been established from the beginning as being larger than life. Contray to what the writer posted, I do not believe that Jack Bauer has achieve this status, at least not in the same way as the others. He, to me, is the most human.
In addition, they have already proven themselves to be established movie series while 24 has not.
Travis
January 28, 2011 at 8:19 amSpencer
January 29, 2011 at 2:51 pmThat actually was a good list of suggestions.
Chris L. Harris
January 29, 2011 at 9:49 pm#1- Keep it simple. This may go hand in hand w/ the suggestion of dumping the real-time format, but that doesn’t mean you need to dump the elements that made real-time so awesome on the show, (i. e., the split-screens). In fact, the elements of the real-time format can be played with so that can become more cinematic in nature. Also, instead of finding someone to team Bauer up with, just let JB do his thing, so that the movie doesn’t get bogged down w/introducing new characters.
#2-Running time. We as fans deserve a film that is epic in scope and story. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a Jack Bauer movie that is 2 1/2 hours in length so that I can at least feel assured that the action can be counter-balanced with smart plotting and good acting.
#3-Consequences Jack Bauer has been tortured, shocked, poisoned, addicted to heroin and almost beaten to death during the course of the series. However, he has come back from it all with just a few scars here and there. However, for a JB movie to work, it cannot shy away from consequence. In order for Jack to work as a film character, something physically drastic has to happen to JB that he has to live with. In the end, we know Jack is gonna win the day, but in the process, I’d want him to lose an eye or his shooting hand, so that a second JB movie has fresh material to work with.
Finally, #4-Marketing. Notice that I haven’t used the term “24 movie”, I’ve mentioned it as a Jack Bauer movie b/c at the end of the day, High-Concept entertainment can only work if you have a strong lead character to root for. Therefore, if I was in charge of marketing for this film, I would simply have a picture of Kiefer in a gun-pose with the above tagline ‘Kiefer Sutherland IS Jack Bauer’ and not have the title “24” anywhere near it b/c that’s all you need to get butts in seats, the curiosity factor