TBF, Mags, you have been doing a lot of the heavylifting for the quest, so this will be in good hands.
To be clear to everyone, this is just me burning out on imagination of the quest, since my muse has been hitting me over the head a lot with so many different ideas that I just can't find myself too interested in this.
I'll still hang out here, though, since this still does have a sepcial place in my heart.
I'd like to thank you all for making this a wonderful experience while it lasted.
I'd also like to thank @Magoose, @Fluffy_serpent, and @Martin Noctis for doing so much to help prepare and write this quest. I couldn't have done it without you all.
Couple of bullet points:
Being a busy father and the relief it brings us knowing child-friendly programs like Sesame Street, The Muppets, and Mr. Rogers are there to entertain and even educate our kids.
-Kermit-box anecdote. She might get embarrassed down the line but that's adorable as heck.
The importance of having a TV station unbeholden to the whims of people whose only goal is money. Even LU, for all we try to commit to the art, is still at least partially beholden to the allmighty dollar. That lack of influence can be easily seen in the quality, passion, and commitment present.
"...are you sincerely asking me to why this august body should waive the protections of the First Ammendment, and erase the concise and open discussion regarding the realities of the past that is in no small part directly and indirectly part of American History? My dear congressional representatives, have you sincerely just asked me to endorse an act so deeply and utterly un-American, that the USSR and CCP would applaud us for joining them in their cruel and authoritian measures just as they do?"
"...are you sincerely asking me to why this august body should waive the protections of the First Ammendment, and erase the concise and open discussion regarding the realities of the past that is in no small part directly and indirectly part of American History? My dear congressional representatives, have you sincerely just asked me to endorse an act so deeply and utterly un-American, that the USSR and CCP would applaud us for joining them in their cruel and authoritian measures just as they do?"
Ultimately in terms of 3D animations, it just comes down to the genre and Knowing how / when to use them is the key.
Cause if we're able to say...replicate something like Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, level that takes both the strength of both. Don Bluth probably would still grumble but he'll appreciate the art/effort behind it.
The Taxman Cometh Directed by: Paul Schrader
Written by: Dave Allister
Produced by: Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer
Production/Distribution Studio: Lucasfilms
Starring: Mark Hamill (Sammy "The Taxman" Scalia), Shelley Long (Debra Wilson), Keith David (Frank Turner), Rick Moranis (Dexter Lane/Hacker), Danny Devito (Bernie Robertson/Whistleblower), Kurtwood Smith (Ron Jefferson/Disgruntled Taxpayer)
Quality: D100 + 250 => 342
Audience: D100 + 250 => 275
Critics: D100 + 250 => 260 Budget: $10,000,000 Domestic Box Office: $173,189,422 International Box Office: $79,077,440 Total Box Office: $252,266,862
There are two constants in life, death and taxes. Hollywood has made countless movies about the former, but none about the latter. Makes sense as no one wants to see two hours of the protagonist scrolling through receipts and filing 1099s. However, Dave was determined to change all of that after a very stressful filing of his and Farah's joint taxes in their first year of marriage, thus leading him to create The Taxman Cometh, a satire horror/comedy that apparently is just as good as Airplane and will go down in history as one of the alltime great comedies.
The film covers the most evil and sinister criminal cartel in all of history, the Internal Revenue Service, a gang of financial mobsters who prey on the working American through their viscous and diabolical tax codes to take what they want at their victim's expense. One auditor, Sammy Scalia, is a ruthless tax shark who takes whatever he wants and leaves destitution in his wake. One day he checks in on Debra Wilson, a struggling single mother running a bakery who Sammy believes is underreporting on her income. With a cease and desist demand to see her financial records and prepare for a blood-sucking audit, Debra in her desperation turns to an old veteran of the tax struggle, Frank Turner, a legendary accountant who is said to be one of the few who could stand up to the IRS, but retired in disgruntlement after losing his partner to the false crime of tax fraud. Sympathetic to Debra's plight, Frank lends his aid and the two along with a colorful cast of disgruntled Americans who have their own personnel vendettas against the IRS to expose Sammy and bring him to justice, along the way descending into the dark and dangerous abyss of the American tax system, a evil pit from which they may not escape.
So yeah....the premise is really goofy and silly, but that's kind of the fun of it. Taking such a normally boring and serious topic and taxes and making a really fun comedy through the lens of satire, driving up the threat of the IRS by making them into some sort of omniscient and omnipresent mafia who operate in the vein of the Godfather, and having the central conflict of the film be solely a woman's need to do her taxes and not get screwed by the audit. Fortunately it didn't make the movie by itself ridiculous, the comedy along with the action doing an effective job keeping viewers entertained and engaged while the script works in some brilliant satire.
You had assigned Paul to direct Taxman Cometh mainly because he lacked the motivation for a specific script and from the reports of The Boys, he had done a great job directing that so you thought a similar script in tone from Dave would be good with him. Paul did a great job juggling the three seemingly at odd genres of comedy, crime and horror and made a masterful casserole that used each elements to their absolute best. There was a lot of clear inspirations from other greats of the separate genres from the blocking and camerawork of Godfather, to the dialogue delivery of Airplane and even your action scenes in Batman. By mastering the individual components, Paul made for a greater work that was heavily entertaining and a brilliant dissection of the American tax system.
As for the cast, having front billing as the devilish Taxman is none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. Mark's film career since Star Wars has been interesting. While he was an A-lister who was in high demand by all the studios, everyone specifically wanted him as the great and amazing hero, the Luke of whatever type of action-adventure movie they wanted to do. Mark didn't mind playing to the trope for voice acting like Gundam and Pacific Rim, but he wanted more challenging and diverse roles for live action. Such was how he starred in Corvette Summer and then got the titular role of the Elephant Man for which he got an Oscar nod. Now, Mark is trying his comedy laurels and somehow he manages to blow everyone away as a frightening force of nature for an antagonist, somehow managing to deliver some of the funniest lines and yet be a genuinely disturbing and terrifying villain like the great slashers of recent years.
The rest of the cast was also pretty great as well. It's nice to see Keith David doing some live action work for Lucasfilms where he played a tired and grizzled veteran accountant really well in both the humurous and dramatic aspects and had some great chemistry with Mark. It was also really funny for Pacific Rim fans to see Stacker and Chuck be at odds in a cat and mouse comedy-thriller so to speak. Shelley Long was enjoyable as the relatable everywoman hero who you couldn't help but root for as she overcame the odds and grew empowered in the tax system. You'd like to use her for more stuff but apparently she's committed to some bar tv show on PTVS. Lots of really great comedians doing their best in supporting roles such as Rick Moranis as the nerdy and eccentric hacker who engaged in life or death computer duels, Danny Devito as the oddball whistleblower who sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theorist but everything he says as true. Kurtwood Smith as the disgruntled taxpayer who is a man on a holy mission to get back his deductible at all costs. Really amazing larger than life characters brought to the screen by talented actors.
Leading up to the premiere, Mike seemed to have a lot of fun with the advertising, playing up the horror aspects in a really hilarious way with the first teaser trailer being edited by Marcia in a manner that parodied the famous Alien trailer with the cast on the run from a terrifying monster that was out to destroy them, only for the monster reveal to be an IRS agent. There were other great promotional materials like presenting the movie in other veins such as Psycho, THX 1138 and 1984. This caused audiences to be heavily intrigued and hooked on just what the heck kind of a Lucasfilms movie was being made on taxes and got people's seats in the theaters.
Overall audiences seemed to really enjoy it with strong universal reception across viewers. Considering the topic, it was obvious that it was going to be more impactful and better performing in America, which was true as more than 2/3rd's of the box office gross came from the US in a resounding 180 million. Anyone who watched the film and paid their taxes could relate to the horrors of tax season, even if presented in a really exaggerated and fantastic fashion, and it was easy to root for the cast while people were left surprised by the extremely high quality that reminded them of Airplane along with the genuine horror and high thrills action scenes that made sure people got more than their money's worth for what they thought would just be a dumb and goofy movie, which you think played a role in success thanks to hype via word of mouth. It did generally good across the international box office with the highlight being Romania who had a 25 million dollar gross. Apparently the Romanians very much enjoyed a movie where the evil authoritarian arm of government was defeated by a band of plucky heroes, and the fact that it starred Luke Skywalker was a nice bonus.
Critics for the most part enjoyed the film but there was a very vocal minority who were disapproving because they found the whole premise stupid and ridiculous on how taxes were presented in such a cartoonish and one-sided manner with no nuance or grounded drama. Admittedly, you can kind of understand where they were coming from but the film wasn't meant to be a serious and gritty Oscar contender, it was a fun movie which satirized the most hated part of Amercian government and satire works best when there's heavy exaggeration to sell the point. Thankfully many critics agree with you thus it got generally positive ratings, but you don't think it'll be a Oscar contender like Emerald Pimpernel.
Throughout the runtime, there was an important question left unsaid on what kind of real life impact Taxman Cometh would have. After all, Dave had the infamy of being the writer of Dracula which caused the Romanian Revolution. Would Taxman Cometh be so bold and daring as to destroy the IRS, or even overturn the 16th amendment altogether? Well you were a Republican who was the leading man at the RNC last year and thus many Liberals saw the film as some sort of secret weapon to enshrine Reaganomics as an eternal American gospel, even though Dave wrote the script well before Reagan even announced the start of his campaign. As the film's popularity spread, many Americans kept in touch with the news or CSpan for the latest developments on Capitol Hill and Reaganomics to see if the revolution would come with the more unhinged John Birch weirdos heralding 1981 as the year "The Taxpayer Cometh" and the great Ronald Reagan would slay the IRS.
Movie Impact: 59
Thankfully it seemed that with Taxman at least, rational governance would triumph over emotional cinema. By the time the film released, Reagan's highest priority legislation in the Economic Recovery Tax Act had already passed committees in both houses and what was left was a debate in both houses for any additional amendments and what exactly was in the fine print. In general, the Republican Senate and Democratic House were in favor of tax cuts, the question was would would be the exact composition of the tax brackets and where they'd be indexed at.
From what you learned via the Republican party, while there was some more motivation and pressure to get the tax bill passed after Taxman Cometh, the composition itself didn't change save for one major provision. An amendment was introduced by California Club Republicans in the House who were inspired by your activism and argued that extraordinary charity should have extraordinary rewards. So charity deductions for personal income tax were raised to 75% and 20% for corporations. However, at the same time the IRS was given greater powers to investigate charitable actions and organizations for fraud as well as levy greater punishments to ensure that the wealthy and corporations are kept in line and direct their charitable money to actual usage instead of shuffling it around. With this plus the top tax bracket lowered from 70 to 50%, you and Carrie were going to see a lot of your income stay at the bank.
Lastly was any lingering concerns that the release of this movie may have created an unbeatable foe in the IRS. Sure, you're happy to put old farts in their place over censorship but you know well that without divine intervention you can't beat the IRS. Fortunately, Reagan assured you that the IRS actually liked the movie. They thought it was a funny gag with Luke Skywalker as the evil taxman and embraced the sort of financial mob reputation the film gave them as it meant that tax cheats were more easily intimidated to file their tax sheets or else they'd face the same fate as Al Capone. Even still, you're making damn sure to have Jack quadruple check your tax returns just in case some real life Sammy wants to play games.
Ultimately in terms of 3D animations, it just comes down to the genre and Knowing how / when to use them is the key.
Cause if we're able to say...replicate something like Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, level that takes both the strength of both. Don Bluth probably would still grumble but he'll appreciate the art/effort behind it.
Lastly was any lingering concerns that the release of this movie may have created an unbeatable foe in the IRS. Sure, you're happy to put old farts in their place over censorship but you know well that without divine intervention you can't beat the IRS. Fortunately, Reagan assured you that the IRS actually liked the movie. They thought it was a funny gag with Luke Skywalker as the evil taxman and embraced the sort of financial mob reputation the film gave them as it meant that tax cheats were more easily intimidated to file their tax sheets or else they'd face the same fate as Al Capone. Even still, you're making damn sure to have Jack quadruple check your tax returns just in case some real life Sammy wants to play games.
Good Christ man, are you trying to make the IRS more powerful then they are in our timeline... Whats next, we're going to give auditors pistols and tell them to get cash like actual mobsters?
I think the Don Bluth Hates 3D is a bit overplayed. Sure he prefers 2d over CGI because he thinks 2d brings drawings to life while CGI is more puppetry, but it's not like he's been vocal in demanding that Pixar burn at the stake for its movies OTL and he did make Titan A.E, a film which blends 2d and 3d animation. He admits the film wasn't for him but he still did his best to make it as good as he could. Don also worked on Dragon's Lair 3D, a 3D platformer. Sure, Bluth just did the 2d cutscenes, but if he was so offended by the concept of 3d animation he wouldn't have worked on it.
It's not like Don is going to direct Toy Story and Shrek, but I think he'll begrudgingly accept it so long as 2d animation is still given its love and 3d doesn't monopolize our animation like OTL Dreamworks and Disney. Plus even he can't deny a work of pure art like Spiderverse or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
I don't know about you guys, but I never want Dreamworks, Hanna-Barbera or Sunrise to ever get rid of 2d animation. 2D can depending upon the right artists be superior to 3D and 3D is only at its best when it's got a fat budget.
Damn, the state propaganda must've worked if you're that worried about the fictional version of the Dems getting slack cuz of their fictional incompetence
Damn, the state propaganda must've worked if you're that worried about the fictional version of the Dems getting slack cuz of their fictional incompetence
What? I'm sorry if I said something that have ruffled your feathers I'm just enjoying the quest.
I'm having fun at how the Dems are incompetent inquest believe me, I hope Bruce influences can make sure non of the parties fall to the toxicities and polarization of OTL America.
I hope this was just an misunderstanding and that we can continue to enjoy the fuckery of Bruce the goose and his misadventures of Hollywood.
"...are you sincerely asking me to why this august body should waive the protections of the First Ammendment, and erase the concise and open discussion regarding the realities of the past that is in no small part directly and indirectly part of American History? My dear congressional representatives, have you sincerely just asked me to endorse an act so deeply and utterly un-American, that the USSR and CCP would applaud us for joining them in their cruel and authoritian measures just as they do?"
The thing is about Don, is that like some other people in the industry, he is set in his ways, and thinks his way is superior.
However... it won't change him.
Good Christ man, are you trying to make the IRS more powerful then they are in our timeline... Whats next, we're going to give auditors pistols and tell them to get cash like actual mobsters?
"...are you sincerely asking me to why this august body should waive the protections of the First Ammendment, and erase the concise and open discussion regarding the realities of the past that is in no small part directly and indirectly part of American History? My dear congressional representatives, have you sincerely just asked me to endorse an act so deeply and utterly un-American, that the USSR and CCP would applaud us for joining them in their cruel and authoritian measures just as they do?"
What? I'm sorry if I said something that have ruffled your feathers I'm just enjoying the quest.
I'm having fun at how the Dems are incompetent inquest believe me, I hope Bruce influences can make sure non of the parties fall to the toxicities and polarization of OTL America.
I hope this was just an misunderstanding and that we can continue to enjoy the fuckery of Bruce the goose and his misadventures of Hollywood.
What do you say?:
[X]Write in: Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress,
I stand before you today as a humble storyteller, one who has dared to delve into the rich tapestry of Norse mythology that, to your apparent dismay, features what you so eloquently term "bloodcurdling violence."
But if you would, allow me to marvel at the audacity of this question. Are you genuinely, and with absolute sincerity, asking me to explain why this august body should waive the protections of the First Amendment, and erase the realities of a most fascinating past?
My dear congressional representatives, have you sincerely just asked me to endorse an act so deeply and utterly un-American, that the USSR and CCP would applaud us for joining them in their cruel and authoritarian measures just as they do?
But I digress, allow me to begin by addressing the rather perplexing inquiry as to why I included such elements in my portrayal of Norse mythology. Authenticity, Ladies and Gents, authenticity is paramount. To twist the narrative of Norse mythology, to sanitize it for the delicate sensitivities of a few, would be a disservice to the very essence of storytelling. Can you imagine the absurdity of presenting the tales of Thor and Odin without a hint of the battles they waged, the challenges they faced, and yes, the blood they shed? It would be akin to presenting a watered-down version of American history, void of all its complexities and harsh truths.
And let us not forget the importance of staying true to canon. Norse mythology is not a fairy tale; it is a saga of gods and giants, of honour and betrayal, of life and death. To dilute it for the sake of political expediency would be an insult to the legacy of those ancient storytellers who crafted these tales with such care and reverence.
But perhaps the most absurd notion put forth today is the idea that a little violence on a children's TV show will somehow harm our youth. Have we forgotten the power of imagination? Children are not so fragile that they cannot distinguish between reality and fiction. Moreover, a well-told story can teach valuable lessons about courage, resilience, and the consequences of one's actions. Please, let us not succumb to the misguided notion that censorship is the solution.
