Can you imagine?..

[Martoto]

On these and other film discussion boards, decisions made by studios and filmmakers, particularly in the context of franchises, sequels and remakes, are constantly critiqued by us from our armchairs, like sports fans on a Monday morning. "OMG that will ruin the franchise!!!! What were they thinking?" etc.

Maybe in this thread we can highlight things that should have been an omen of inevitable failure, if we applied the same acumen that makes everybody online an unqualified expert in studio leadership and movie production.

Exhibit A: The Longest Day (1962) : This movie features future Bond star Sean Connery and villain of the often poll topping Bond film, Gert Frobe. Nothing remarkable about that, you might say. But have you seen them in it?

Can you imagine if Amazon announced tomorrow that the new James Bond actor was going to be a guy who, in the biggest war movie made to date, performed like a vaudeville act. Pratfalling off the landing craft and onto the beach. Then complaining about being all wet and so on. Red Buttons is more understated in this movie! Given the performance, the role could have gone to someone like Jamie Kennedy, if made this century. Yikes!

And can you imagine if they said that the villain in an upcoming Bond is going to be played by a guy last seen as a bumbling, Hogan's Heroes type, corpulent caricature of a German soldier. Leading a donkey hauling canteens no less. The kind of role that Jack Black would not look out of place in.

Can you imagine, if fandom was of the nature and of the voice that it is today, how that would go down?