Spoiled Cocoa - Riddick

Welcome to a new feature of Cinema Cocoa, where I make a little post about old and new trailers.
That's right, the double-edged sword of marketing where these days the studios whet our appetite yet almost always spoil the entire film at the same time. Remember the days when teaser trailers were exactly that? Remember when you went to see a movie without knowing the final scene?
These are the sorts of things I'll talk about in these special servings of Cinema Cocoa.

What inspired me to this? Why, the recent trailer for the new Riddick film.


If you don't know what Riddick is about, allow me to briefly recap. In the year 2000, Pitch Black was a cult science fiction film where our hero was not a dashing patriot but a sinister, brutal murderer. It catapulted Vin Diesel's career, but the success of the film was a mix of good tension building, subtly, and excellent gritty visuals.

Of course, Hollywood wanted to capitalise, and while I won't go into the animated feature or the video games based on the character of Riddick, but in 2004 we saw The Chronicles of Riddick release in cinemas. Designed, even in its title, to be the first part of three.

Yeah... That didn't happen.

Chronicles expanded upon the first film's shadowy, only mentioned universe, but for many of us it went completely overboard with an overuse of CGI, elaborate set and costume design, a massive amount of exposition, they even had Dame Dudi Dench in there. Suffice to say, the tone of the original film was totally forgotten about, and Riddick's subtle characteristics were lost.

It was quite a feat in missing the point.

Now we have Riddick, which has opted for the simplest titling method, which from the trailer is suggesting we forget everything that happened in Chronicles of Riddick. In fact, it looks almost like a remake of Pitch Black. 

Huh...
Now, I don't mean to be cynical.... but I am.... but is it possible the studios are frantically back-pedaling from the financial flop of the second film while at the same time unimaginatively ripping off the cult favourite that perhaps less people have seen?

If you have seen Pitch Black you will see a lot of similarities. So many its almost comical. Are the studios turning the Riddick franchise into a sort of sci-fi Rambo? (the first Rambo, that is)
Don't get me wrong, I love Pitch Black and a sequel to it is good... but surely the damage is done after the very deliberate and bloated second film?? Can we really ignore everything that happened and just settle for an effective remake?

For starters, why not have this film set on a different planet, or at least a different theme of planet? Like a jungle world, or an ice world... or... anything that isn't a carbon copy of Pitch Black? (yes, yes, I'm sure there's a contrived reason why they are on the planet they are on...)

We will have to wait until September this year to see if I am completely overreacting. Between now and then, I will get reviews of Pitch Black and Chronicles out. I highly recommend watching Pitch Black though if you haven't already!