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Monsters vs. Aliens: Other Genre Mash-Ups We'd Like to See
This weekend, the 3-D computer-generated spectacle Monsters vs. Aliens comes out in theaters, and the concept seems exciting and new, despite the long film history of its component parts. After all, the "monsters" of the title are all tributes to 1950s horror and sci-fi movies -- the Blob, the Fly, the 50-Foot Woman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon -- and the alien, with his giant robot, is a fairly standard Mars Attacks type. But together, in a Dirty Dozen-style story, it's like a whole new idea! Hollywood seems to like this math, too, if the in-development Cowboys and Aliens is any indication. We came up with a few genre crossovers we'd like to see, using established character types, in the hopes that Hollywood will finally return our phone calls.
Wrestlers vs. Zombies
With The Wrestler snapping up accolades left and right, we're hoping for a return to the glory days of the 1980s, when a movie about professional wrestlers was perfectly legitimate. Our idea has a zombie outbreak happening at a massive, Wrestlemania-type event, where a locker room full of up-and-coming grapplers and washed-up legends have to team up in order to get out of the arena alive. Luckily, their array of finishing moves includes brain-destroying maneuvers like the piledriver, the swinging neckbreaker and the old-fashioned "steel folding chair to the head." The grand finale would pit an over-the-hill fan-favorite against the reigning champ, who is also a zombie, in the first-ever human-zombie no-holds-barred wrestling match.
Gremlins vs. Nazis
When U.S. troops ambush a Nazi column heading for Berlin, they make a strange discovery -- a small, fuzzy creature who sings the most beautiful songs, a gift from the emperor of Japan being delivered to Hitler himself. The creature is dubbed a "gizmo" by the Marines who find it, and the young private who brings it along with them pays close attention to the rules that he found nearby, which promise "chaos" if they are not followed. But when the whole squad is captured by the Germans, the private decides that maybe a little chaos is called for. So he gets Gizmo wet, creating more of the creatures, then he feeds them after midnight, and unleashes the resulting monsters on an unsuspecting Nazi fortress. The Gremlins tear into Nazi machinery and Nazi eyeballs with equal relish.
Hobos vs. Vampires
Nobody believes Bobby "Hooch" Hutchinson most of the time. Sure, he's a hobo, traveling from town to town in box cars, and sure, sometimes he's drunk, but he never lies. ...Well, hardly ever, anyway. So when he spots a dapper-looking stranger biting the neck of his traveling buddy Roger in a train yard, he goes to the police. Unfortunately, the cops not only don't believe him, they toss him in the slammer, where he's visited by the mysterious bloodsucker in the night. It seems that Hooch has jeopardized the vampire's existence (and regular hobo feedings), so the vamp kills all of the cops in the station and frees Hooch, framing him for the crimes. Now Hooch must enlist the help of the other hobos in the train yard to help him stop the predator who's been killing their hobo brothers.
Dragons vs. Dinosaurs
Since most of these ideas have been pretty scare-oriented, we thought we'd come up with one for the kiddies. This CG fantasy would take place in medieval times, where a horrible dragon is terrorizing the countryside. The king finally summons a wizard, and asks what they can do, and the wizard tells them that once upon a time, there were dragon-like creatures who roamed the earth, but they weren't pure evil like dragons. So the king sends his best knight on a mission -- with a time-portal and a translation amulet provided by the wizard, the knight is to enlist the help of several dinosaurs to come back with him through the portal to help defeat the dragon. The knight has some wacky adventures in the Jurassic Period trying to find dinosaurs crazy enough to volunteer for the mission, but he finally puts together a motley crew of a Tyrannosaurus, a Pterodactyl, a Triceratops and an Apatosaurus. Can these four prehistoric reptiles put aside their differences long enough to save the kingdom? (This is a kids' movie, so yes.)
Knights vs. Terminators
When John Connor's mother, grandmother and great-great-grandmother prove too difficult to kill, the Terminators decide to simply send a whole team of Terminators back to medieval England, to wipe out John Connor's distant ancestor, as well as the ancestors of most of the North American colonies. But what they don't count on is John's thousand-times-great-grandfather, a young squire named Arthur who's obsessed with tinkering and gears and sees the mysterious strangers for what they are -- artificial men! Arthur convinces a motley group of knights that these strangers are not what they seem, and must don a suit of armor to help take them apart piece by piece. In the climactic confrontation, Arthur must joust against a black-armored Terminator endoskeleton, riding atop the first-ever cyborg horse.
What crossover battles would you like to see on-screen? You vs. the comments section below.
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