An open letter to those Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey, Jr. that came out forever ago

[Apollo the Just]

Dear those movies,

Jfc. I love the modern detective/mystery genre. I love it so much. I love the genre so much I wrote and ran my own **** homebrew tabletop campaign of one. I love it so much I bought every volume of the Black/White chapter of Pokémon Adventures so I could read it in full. I love it so much I went back and read some of the Sherlock Holmes stories specifically so I could appreciate all of the references in Detective Conan, not the other way around. I love it so much I watched a subtitled playthrough of someone else playing the entirety of Dai Gyakuten Saiban (the Sherlock Holmes/Ace Attorney crossover) because I wanted to consume that story even though it'll never be localized and the fan translation won't be done for years. I have probably watched the Great Mouse Detective more than most other Disney movies. I love this genre. And I love Sherlock Holmes, not because I care all that much about the source stories, but because I absolutely heckin LOVE the genre that has been developed by creators interpreting and expanding on those stories.

And as a result. I get. Very salty. At bad Sherlock Holmes interpretations. That entirely miss the dang point of the source material's appeal.

Yes. That's right. I'm looking at you, crappy Robert Downey Jr. movies that everyone else forgot about because they were forgettable. Guess what??? I haven't forgotten. I'm still mad. I'm up at 2am writing this post because my anger has been re-awakened. You can't just say "OH I TOOK THIS NOTEBOOK FROM YOU OFFSCREEN SECRETLY AND HAVE HAD IT ALL ALONG!!!!" That's not how mystery writing works. You give us the clues beforehand and surprise us with how they're put together. You can't just compensate for bad mystery writing with action scenes. **** you

sincerely me

[ScottyMcGee]

YO.


Yo. . . .


YOOOOO. . .


Listen here. . .


I love the RDJ movies.

I literally just wrote a status on FB the other day about missing them AND PEOPLE LIKED MY STATUS SO HAH


I admit the second one had that BS with the notebook - and they played the Moriarty card WAAAAY too early.

But I've read the books man - and they take direct quotes and quirks of Sherlock Holmes straight from there. Not to say that I only care about adaptations that are close to the source material but I was excited at seeing those things. I love Guy Ritchie. I love that they didn't start right away with some origin story like every other franchise. I don't care if Guy Ritchie makes something that sucks (as long as it's not tasteless which he hasn't done to my knowledge) - his vision is always fresher than 99% of what's in Hollywood right now.


*rips shirt off*

FIGHT ME

There was a rumor on the wiki that the third film will have him pit against Arsene Lupin. If they do that, I will have the biggest nerd boner.

[Apollo the Just]

So, I recognize that I have not seen these movies in like 8 years. It's entirely possible that they were really good and I just didn't like them at the time; I had plenty of awful opinions in high school. So I figured I owe it to these movies to give them a re-watch so I can bitch about them properly.

......Well, I tried, but the movie was so bad I literally couldn't convince myself to get past an hour in. Took like 3 hours to watch that hour because I had to take breaks every 5 minutes to reflect on how bad it was. This is a movie that could have potentially been good if it wasn't entirely contrived around turning Sherlock Holmes - the story and the character - into a Robert Downey, Jr. action flick.

There is literally no reason for a Sherlock Holmes story to be an action movie with gratuitous fight scenes every five minutes and LOGIC DEDUCTION ARENA SMACKDOWNS. The only reason this happened was because that was how the writers felt they should treat a Sherlock Holmes played by RDJ. They couldn't write a compelling enough narrative without throwing in action sequences to keep us awake. The movie does not feature a compelling mystery or crime to solve, but instead has this weird spooky black magic bull - ah yes, evil satanists, of course - and every time Sherlock has to DEDUCE SOMETHING it just comes off like made-up BS because the viewers weren't provided with enough clues beforehand for any reveal to feel satisfying.

Like..... y'all, if you don't know how to write the character Sherlock Holmes or a compelling mystery, you..... you could have made a different movie........... just saying............

Anyway the actor who played Watson is great, and the visuals and audio were neat. These were not good enough reasons for me to sit through another like hour+ of Robert Downey, Jr. fanservice. Lord. I thought I was being hard on the movies but they're actually worse than I remember them being. How did I sit through this in its entirety in theater?? CAN YOU JUST PRESENT ME WITH CLUES AND A MYSTERY THAT IS INTERESTING ENOUGH THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO DISTRACT ME WITH BAD DIALOGUE AND POINTLESS FIGHT SCENES????

Also, every modern interpretation of Irene Adler is hot garbage. Ah yes, the woman who was one step ahead of Sherlock when HE was investigating HER, who then left, and then spent the rest of her days minding her own business living her life.... what a scheming, cocky wench, am I right. Sigh. That's not an issue unique to these movies obviously but damn is it always embarrassing.

anyway 3/10 movie, a point for Watson, the audio, and the visuals. And for the 3 hours it took me to watch the first hour of it.

[CaptHayfever]

^RDJ's Watson is Jude "wait, him again? at least he's a good actor" Law.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Apollo the Just]

was feelin the "at least he's a good actor" real hard in this one, let me tell ya

[Deepfake]

Characters and visuals were A++ imo, music is some amazing S-rank **** by my favorite dude Diego Stocco, plot is like a C- though. If they could marry the reality and over-the-top characters to a good mystery, it could have been brilliant. I think the issue is that there are tons of properties that have milked the classic Holmes to great effect, and studying them probably led the writing team to decide to take the plot into new territory with middling success.

Bonus points for Occultism being an amazing and period-relevant subject, but it's not really addressed in any useful way. Needed more Crowley to go that route.[DOUBLEPOST=1497488538,1497488284][/DOUBLEPOST]Since he's literally one of the most interesting musicians, and its subject-relevant, here's some Stocco:

[MEDIA=youtube]8NLMqaVYovg[/MEDIA]

[Deepfake]

[MEDIA=youtube]NZY2Ep3BQpY[/MEDIA]

[Deepfake]

[MEDIA=youtube]7PaYc4gRFB4[/MEDIA]

[Deepfake]

[MEDIA=youtube]lhp6P9Ygsoc[/MEDIA]

[Apollo the Just]

Oh yeah agreed the audio and visuals are incredible. I wish the audio and visual guys were hired by good mystery writers to work on a not-garbage Sherlock Holmes story because that would be the best stuff ever.

Like, sure, the property has been milked to death, but that doesn't mean every compelling mystery has already been written. And yo I would have been so down with the Occult stuff being treated with..... any 3-dimensionality whatsoever, rather than being "these spooky bad guys are evil and doing.... vague evil demon stuff, trust me it's evil."

This whole movie is just wasted potential twisted into an action flick because they couldn't write a decent mystery. Disappointment/10.

[Booyakasha]

Incidentally, sorry for the bump. But, like, if [USER=30977]@Apollo the Just[/USER] were to ever start a blog, or website, about trying to ensure no more bad Sherlock Holmes movies or stories in general got made, I think 'No Sh*t Sherlock' would be an amazing name for it. It's so perfect. Like, I kind of want to do something with that wordplay myself, and I don't even have any skin in this game (what can I say, I thought the movies were alright, I don't know or care overly much about the source material-----------it's not like we're talking about something that matters very deeply, like 'Star Wars' or Die Antwoord or something).

[Apollo the Just]

Thank you for your valuable contribution to this topic and to my life in general, Boo. That sounds sarcastic but I mean it sincerely.

This is a good idea.

[Marilink]

Hey [USER=30977]@Apollo the Just[/USER] , wife and I just got done watching Broadchurch on Netflix. Really good mystery writing so far (just finished Season 1). Had me guessing the whole time, but the reveal was completely fair.

[Deepfake]

[QUOTE="Booyakasha, post: 1635452, member: 17381"]Incidentally, sorry for the bump. But, like, if [USER=30977]@Apollo the Just[/USER] were to ever start a blog, or website, about trying to ensure no more bad Sherlock Holmes movies or stories in general got made, I think 'No Sh*t Sherlock' would be an amazing name for it. It's so perfect. Like, I kind of want to do something with that wordplay myself, and I don't even have any skin in this game (what can I say, I thought the movies were alright, I don't know or care overly much about the source material-----------it's not like we're talking about something that matters very deeply, like 'Star Wars' or Die Antwoord or something).[/QUOTE]
That is both delightful and the sort of name that would be hard to really get hits on searches. I'd suggest adding something more unique as a qualifier to it so you're not just pulling any old text with the phrase. Made-up words are good for that but bad for memories unless they're short and natural and you can re-iterate it in a slogan or somesuch. Contextualising new words helps people remember them. Or just making them remarkable to the extent that people have to talk about them.

Source: My brain has a lot of concerns in this regard such as The Damning Moths and I'm constantly fighting with other **** who didn't google my bandname first to see I was using it