Tom Clancy's: Without Remorse (2021)

[Diamondback]

Don't get me started on Dale Brown killing off every-one! But I still love his books. I burned through Clancy and Brown novels in high school and college.

Make me feel like a whelp, whydon'cha? Same from late elementary to high school, in fact my ENGL 103 final argument paper was on the feasibility of not just Old Dogging a B-52, but pushing the concept to the limit of available technology. Mom forwarded it to somebody she knew at Wichita, and got us an invite as the only non-gov/B-52 Program civilians at the BUFF 50th Birthday party.

Not as farfetched and fantastical as Clive Cussler (RIP, old gearhead), who was actually a required read to join my fraternity. LOL

[Diamondback]

Season 2 - Lessons Learned (I worked on the show for 11 years). Good episode and easier to write on the subject at the time because of what was going on in the world at the time. Same with the subway killings a couple of seasons later.


Sent from 80ms in the future

Funny thing... my psych profs actually ASSIGNED me to watch CM as part of studying Behavioral Analysis. This should probably go to a different thread, but any fun on-set stories you might feel like sharing?

[Aries144]

Hard to believe that Afleck, who was so good in Argo, was so f'ing bad in Sum of all Fears, but honestly once they made it about neo nazis, I didn't care that they screwed everything else up to.

As far as "black guys", Denzel Washington took an 80s movie called "Man on Fire" and blew the original out of the water. The original was about wealthy Italian families needing bodyguards against the threat of kidnapping. Scott Glenn played Creasy, Joe Pesci played his former partner and buddy and it was slow, dull and nobody saw it.

Denzel Washington and Christopher Walken came along and slam dunked it. Nobody cared that he played a white character in the original.

I get Clancy books are a bit different, if we made Chavez Norwegian it wouldn't work for many of the same reasons. It's because when we read the books, the characters were defined and set in memory and if you stray from that, it becomes a problem. Hell the relative ages of Clarke vs. Ryan in "Sum of all Fears" was a problem.

By the same token if you did the story of Malcom X starring Jackie Chan, it would be a problem. If you do the Bruce Lee story starring Michael Jai White, it would be a problem. And it's not that Michael Jai White doesn't actually have an impressive level of martial arts skills. It's that people care about Bruce Lee, Malcom X and Clancy characters and how they are presented.

Now if you are making Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer, and you want Lincoln to be portrayed by Jackie Chan or Michael Jai White...go for it. I might even watch that POS if you put Jackie Chan or Michael Jai White in it, they might be able to save that stupid shit.

And that is the part I think Hollywood just doesn't grasp. The problem isn't the black guy being in the movie, the problem is the role. And the problem isn't making sure they don't have too important a role, because I don't think anyone is going to do a better James Greer anytime soon. I will always see James Earl Jones in that role and god help anyone who has to try and fill those shoes in any future production.

If Greer isn't black you are going to throw up the accepted Clancy definitions of the characters but even if he is black, he better be really good and able to step up. Maybe if Denzel is really old and has really filled out he could pull it off. But imagine he's played by an intrepid lesbian like Rooney Mara just to be fashionable, it's going to be a disaster.

I personally want to do the Amelia Earhart story starring Zhang Ziyi because why not?

Then I want to do the Katherine Hepburn story starring Joe Exotic because why not?

Then I want to do the Meryl Streep story starring Margaret Cho because why not?

Then I want to do the Martin Luther King story starring Jack Black because why not?

Then just maybe a few people might start to "get it."

Exactly. They are making decisions based entirely on nutjob post religious dogma rather than a focus on good story telling.

[Renegade]

I recall reading that the DOD/DIA's curiosity was piqued because they thought Clancy had access to classified information, when in reality he had gotten it from some war games at the time.

As most from that era know, Hunt took off when a reporter asked Ronald Reagan what he was reading. SECNAV John Lehman wanted a leak investigation when he read Hunt. Clancy was invited to speak at CIA in 1986. He said he got most of his tech system info from Janes Defence. But most of the info that was classified in the book was already publicly known. Other classified info he got from interviewing retired Russian submariners.

[pag23]

DAMN IT!! I love the Wire and totally didn't recognize him, I feel like an idiot, but good on you for pointing that out.

Me too..I didn't recognize Wallace as Michael B Jordan until now.....

The Wire was a great show....I hoped they would have done one more season....

[pag23]

I agree, he embodied Clark perfectly. It was one of the GOOD things about the movie version of CPD. For that matter, Ford was a great Ryan.

But this......see, thing is, if I'd never read WR twice, and known the story....I'd say, looks like a decent movie. Ex-SEAL out for revenge, looks fun.

But fuuck this virtue-signalling BS. There is ZERO reason to make him black.

And for that matter, changing the whole storyline to fit modern times is nothing more than pandering to the modern short attention span public.

I've been pining for a big screen WR for years, and this ain't it.

Might as well give it a Steven Segal type title, like "Hard to Rub Out", or "Steel Fingers of Vengence", or something.

Yup. Harrison Ford really brought the character to life...

[chadbag]

Hard to believe that Afleck, who was so good in Argo, was so f'ing bad in Sum of all Fears, but honestly once they made it about neo nazis, I didn't care that they screwed everything else up to.

As far as "black guys", Denzel Washington took an 80s movie called "Man on Fire" and blew the original out of the water. The original was about wealthy Italian families needing bodyguards against the threat of kidnapping. Scott Glenn played Creasy, Joe Pesci played his former partner and buddy and it was slow, dull and nobody saw it.

Denzel Washington and Christopher Walken came along and slam dunked it. Nobody cared that he played a white character in the original.

I get Clancy books are a bit different, if we made Chavez Norwegian it wouldn't work for many of the same reasons. It's because when we read the books, the characters were defined and set in memory and if you stray from that, it becomes a problem. Hell the relative ages of Clarke vs. Ryan in "Sum of all Fears" was a problem.

By the same token if you did the story of Malcom X starring Jackie Chan, it would be a problem. If you do the Bruce Lee story starring Michael Jai White, it would be a problem. And it's not that Michael Jai White doesn't actually have an impressive level of martial arts skills. It's that people care about Bruce Lee, Malcom X and Clancy characters and how they are presented.

Now if you are making Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer, and you want Lincoln to be portrayed by Jackie Chan or Michael Jai White...go for it. I might even watch that POS if you put Jackie Chan or Michael Jai White in it, they might be able to save that stupid shit.

And that is the part I think Hollywood just doesn't grasp. The problem isn't the black guy being in the movie, the problem is the role. And the problem isn't making sure they don't have too important a role, because I don't think anyone is going to do a better James Greer anytime soon. I will always see James Earl Jones in that role and god help anyone who has to try and fill those shoes in any future production.

If Greer isn't black you are going to throw up the accepted Clancy definitions of the characters but even if he is black, he better be really good and able to step up. Maybe if Denzel is really old and has really filled out he could pull it off. But imagine he's played by an intrepid lesbian like Rooney Mara just to be fashionable, it's going to be a disaster.

I personally want to do the Amelia Earhart story starring Zhang Ziyi because why not?

Then I want to do the Katherine Hepburn story starring Joe Exotic because why not?

Then I want to do the Meryl Streep story starring Margaret Cho because why not?

Then I want to do the Martin Luther King story starring Jack Black because why not?

Then just maybe a few people might start to "get it."

Amen. Greer is James Earl Jones, as you said, and if someone else fills the shoes, he better be the equal. Just want to AMEN this 1000%

I am an avid Tolkien fan and for that reason -- even though they are not doing the really stupid stuff -- I don't like the movies. They change things from what is expected by people who know and understand the story -- things that don't need to be changed. I get it that some things need to be left out, to make a book into a 3 hour movie. But you don't need to totally change stuff. Same with the Clancy stuff. Fans know the story so give them the story. Fans know the characters, so give them the characters. It is not about race, or ethnicity, or anything. It is about the characters and the expectations that come from knowing the original story. This ain't some new story where you have a clean slate -- it is a known story.

[BoringGuy45]

Amen. Greer is James Earl Jones, as you said, and if someone else fills the shoes, he better be the equal. Just want to AMEN this 1000%

The only actor I can see replacing James Earl Jones in the role and pulling it off well is Lawrence Fishburn.

[SteyrAUG]

The only actor I can see replacing James Earl Jones in the role and pulling it off well is Lawrence Fishburn.

I think Fishburne will always be "too cool for school" and that wasn't Greer. Greer was an Admiral and there wasn't any "hip hop be bop" about him so that pretty much rules Fishburne out. Been a fan of Fishburne (mostly) since Apocalypse Now when he tore up the Sampan with the M-60 and he's done some impressive stuff since then, but I don't see Greer.

Washington is a really strong actor, in fact so good he made Grade A POS scumbag drug dealer Frank Lucas come across as "dignified", so I think maybe he could pull it off. But Jones has a lot of roles under his belt and "the voice", I mean he was Darth Vader fer ****s sake. But maybe plays characters too slick when Greer is by the book and doesn't have to hustle because he's already arrived at the answer. He was the only one in the building more ahead of the game than Ryan. Ryan was something of a protege to Greer.

As an aside, while everyone is doing "Strong Black Characters" month and "Spotlight on BLM" films, nobody thinks to show the Clancy trilogy with James Earl Jones as Greer. But try and find a stronger black character in film, they keep showing me BS.

[Diamondback]

As an aside, while everyone is doing "Strong Black Characters" month and "Spotlight on BLM" films, nobody thinks to show the Clancy trilogy with James Earl Jones as Greer. But try and find a stronger black character in film, they keep showing me BS.

Excellent point. Problem is Greer, while he's the right skin color for them, is what they'd call an Uncle Tom or Oreo and *I'd* call a good role-model for anyone regardless of demographics. (ISTR Leftodouches really don't like JEJ much because he's not only conservative but a former Army officer... so when he's depicting a leader role on the screen it has that un-fakeable quality of someone who's done it for real.) Same could be said of Samuel L Jackson's depictions of Nick Fury in the MCU and Gibbons in XXX, or Denzel Washington as the big-screen Equalizer... (Setting my objections to the complete gutting of the original Robert McCall character aside, DW's Nu-McCall is a well-written and well-acted character who again is a positive example.)