Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

That's pretty much how it went. Extended family sent me an email notification of the reboot rumor ...

I remembered seeing some kind of video from a few years ago of what a new version (using modern technology) might look like.
This recent announcement caught me off-guard, especially with a female lead!

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

BTW, I wasn't dis respecting the movie. I liked it then and I like it still. It was well done as far as it went. I just felt, 'let down' by what was missing/left-out of the movie version ...

I especially liked the addition of the Zeppelin scenes even though, I don't remember that being in the GN?
Did you know the big guy with the un-believe able face was based on a real person? He was a professional wrestler from the '30's or'40's, sadly, that really was his face. The real guy as I remember was small of stature, the movie and Dave made him almost a giant!

Again, it just goes to show Dave's love affair with the era. He drew a lot of his characters from real life, even the ones you'd think were not real ...

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

His name was Rondo Hatton. He had Acromegaly which caused Gigantism. He died of a heart attack because of his condition in 1946.

http://i63.tinypic.com/no90xu.jpg


This is him in high school:
http://i68.tinypic.com/1ic38m.jpg


I don't think he was a wrestler. You might be thinking of Tor Johnson.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Very possible that I am mis-remembering ...? I just knew for sure he did exist!

As an aside, the 'Gee-Bee' race plane was real too, as odd and bumble-bee like as it was. Nick-named the 'Flying-Coffin'. It wasn't until Delmar Benjamin built an historically accurate/correct clone of the original Race plane that a largely fatal aerodynamic anomaly was revealed. At landing speeds below 90mph the aileron inputs reversed! It happened to Delmar too, on his maiden flight/landing. The only thing that saved him from rolling up into a big ball was, advanced flight training. His other competition plane was a 'Pitts' bi-plane, very quick handling! That and his military flight experience lead to an instinctive recovery/split second decision. If you had to think about it was too late for you!

When Dave first introduced the Rocketeer, he received some 'less-than' responses from aviation buff's who examined his Artwork for historical accuracy! Really surprised him! Lol
After that, Dave worked at historical accuracy in his Artistic renderings. This played into Dave's O/C toward early Hollywood history. He was driven to 'know'.
Anyone who knew Dave and needed finished Artwork 'on-time' soon found out, that might not happen! If he got 'hung-up', he simply couldn't call the Artwork finished.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

That's correct. It wouldn't be the same character.

The Falcon was always cool the way he was.

And that's my whole thing with changing ethnicities or genders - if it ain't broke don't fix it! You have more chance of screwing it up than getting it right (because it's hard enough to adapt these things to the big screen to get it right without making wholesale changes, but when you add those changes in it just increases the chances of screwing it up exponentially).

It's either political correctness, social justice crusading, or ego (I can do this better than it was done before by doing it my way) when producers make those changes.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

This is a new character though.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

That Falcon is blue.

What if they made him red?

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

I recently watched a really interesting DVD featurette/documentary about him. I think it was in one of the MST3K discs actually.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Tor or Rondo?

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Either one, I'd be interested in watching that documentary.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Regarding Rondo Hatton and Dave's character of similar visage and my recollections, the confusion is mine. No excuse, just age ...

It was more than likely that Dave blended two people into one. This would account for my mistaking Hatton for a wrestler? My memory is vague at best ... (this happened years ago).

My point was, for the Rocketeer Dave strived for characters and situations that were historically possible. That was why Cliff Secord didn't have super-powers, for this story that wasn't possible. That was why Cliff's early flight tests of the rocket-pack were less than predictable, that was very likely to be the result of someone rash enough to strap that thing on!

Just because the Rocket-pack didn't actually exist (that we know of ...) doesn't mean it wasn't historically possible.
With the reboot, I am hopeful that Disney will try to stick to characters and situations that were historically possible. They may not be probable but, the question is could it have happened?

The lead being a young Black female? I guess that would depend on the back-story and how credible it was. Give me a good enough story ..., it has to be believable (if it's a good enough story, I'd like to believe ...). I would hate to see this devolve into just another effects driven script. That would be sad and I hope won't be the case.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

Oops, poor edit on my part. Rondo.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

If I recall correctly, Stevens' Lothar was a circus strong man who Cliff knew before he became the Rocketeer. The Nazis didn't play into this story ("Cliff's New York Adventure").

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

No. However I am open to discussions on making Black Panther white. It worked for Black Widow.

Re: The Rocketeers -- sequel/reboot
 

The Rocketeer set beyond WWII would be the same as if they filmed an indiana Jones movie that took place in the 1950's and he searched for alien artifacts.