Gremlins‘ Joe Dante is picking a fight with Baby Yoda
Dante has issued a quite possibly tongue-in-cheek condemnation of Grogu as "shamelessly" copied from Gremlins' Gizmo
Aux News Unknown
Joe Dante has never shied away from a little cultural iconoclasm, skewering a whole Brazilian steakhouse’s worth of sacred cows—John Wayne! The apocalypse! Unusually diminutive military personnel!—over the course of his cinematic career. Still, there’s “speaking your mind,” and then there’s “Going after Baby Yoda,” and the Gremlins director has apparently decided it’s time to challenge that particular genre throne.
This is per a conversation Dante recently had with The San Francisco Chronicle, in which he promoted an upcoming double-screening of the original Gremlins and his absurdist masterpiece, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. (While also, of course, pouring a little promotional fuel onto his upcoming HBO Max kids show, Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai.) When the topic of Gremlins’ longevity came up, Dante attributed it to just one factor: Gizmo, the adorable Mogwai protagonist of the films.
“I think the longevity of (the films) is really key to this one character (Gizmo), who is essentially like a baby,” Dante stated with what the Chronicle called “a wry smile,” before launching into a cheerfully unprovoked attack on The Mandalorian and the Star Wars brand: “Which brings me, of course, to the subject of Baby Yoda, who is completely stolen and is just out-and-out copied. Shamelessly, I would think.”
We should, of course, note that Dante is not above a little huckster-style shit-stirring for the sake of promotion—this is, after all, a guy who directed a love letter to the master of the artform, William Castle, in the form of 1993's Matinee. The upshot is that it seems to have worked: All the major trades have covered Dante’s comments, and “Gizmo” is currently trending on Twitter. (Also, we can’t help but note that Dante’s estimation of the two characters is functionally dead-on; sorry, Grogu.) Whether any of that will translate to more eyes on Secrets Of The Mogwai—which co-stars the voice talents of Ming-Na Wen and James Hong—when it debuts later this year, remains to be seen.
32 Comments
Well this is Star Wars who “inspired” by Kurosawa. Disney also known using a version of trademark/copyright from other properties. Remember Kimba the white lion?
Except the only thing Kimba and Lion King have in common are that they both have young lions with similar names (and Simba is simply Swahili for “lion”), their fathers dying early, and both having a baboon and bird as supporting characters. The story, tone, rest of the supporting cast, character personalities, etc. are completely different. Especially since Kimba’s main goal is to make all the carnivores vegetarian so that everyone can live in harmony.
And meanwhile, The Lion King’s story is just straight up Hamlet. If Disney was ripping anyone off with that movie, it was Big Billy Shakes.
In that it felt like it was about four hours long.
And ole Billy apparently got his story from the same tale that inspired The Northman. The main character is named Amleth!
Whereas Simba’s goal is to perpetuate a system of aristocratic hegemony, wherein the upper classes EAT the lower classes.
A Baloo is a bear.
Which one’s Kimba?
Oh god that chest hair…
I think there’s only way to get to the bottom of this:
We’re going to have to shave Gizmo.
Well there’s a kink I thought I’d left behind and never thought would be reignited.
I hear kids these days aren’t into shaved gizmos. They don’t want a 70s Gizmo so some grooming is expected but they don’t like a clean and smooth gizmo either
Hearing him in interviews and commentaries, this seems more like laid back smack talk. Fun rivalry. George Lucas could respond that 1984’s Gizmo and the Gremlins were just completely stolen and is just out-and-out copied 1980’s Yoda. Gizmo being the furry cuddly version of Yoda and the Gremlins being a demonic version of Yoda.
This’d maybe hold more ground if he said the female gremlin from the sequel.
Joe Dante be like…
You’d think he’d want to be distancing himself a bit from Gremlins 2 these days, given its, shall we say, rather naive view of Donald Trump as a loveable, well-meaning manchild.
What?!
Hey, Joe Dante is no John Hughes! The Daniel Clamp character in Gremlins 2 is really a cross between Trump and Ted Turner, and he does redeem himself by the end of the film.
Clamp was basically supposed to be Turner, with a few 80s annoying Trump elements thrown on (Clamp Tower). Even if it was a pure Trump character, that would not diminish a great movie any more than Sam Rockwell doing Zaphod at George W. Bush in Hitchhikers.
Evidently this was due to John Glover’s performance (https://consequence.net/2020/06/gremlins-2-oral-history/):The developer of Clamp Towers, we were also thinking of initially as, “He’s just the bad guy. He’s like Donald Trump.” And he’s even like Ted Turner who was kind of a bad guy because he was colorizing movies at the time. So we thought, “Well it’s a combination of those two guys.” And when John Glover came in — and we saw a lot of other people for the part, and they were fine, and they did the standard interpretation of that character — he was so enthusiastic and so brash and just exuberant that we hired him.
Then, as we started shooting the movie, the character shifted and he became lovable in his boundless, energetic way. And even though he’s essentially the instigator of the bad things that happen, he’s one of the more memorable characters in the picture. And he did a lot of ad-libbing in character — and it was always to the good of the show. He was one of the big surprises of the movie when our villain turned out to be more sympathetic of some of the other characters.
As others have pointed out, Clamp is more Turner than Trump, but let’s also remember that the Trump of 30 years ago was a very different style of asshole than the Trump of modern times. The Apprentice really supercharged everything about how much he sucked.
Old Man Yells At CGI?
Talented Guy Pokes Fun At Obvious Swipe
GIZMO > BABY YODA
Disney steal? The hell you say!
Come to think of it, we have never seen the Mandalorian feed Baby Yoda after midnight, or get it wet.
Part of the reason Baby Yoda has the same kind of ears as Gizmo is because Gizmo had the same kind of ears as Old Yoda. Did you know there was an Old Yoda who predates Gremlins?
I remember a shit ton of people making that exact comparison when the first season came out. And it is blatantly obvious and true.
Except that Yoda also exists? Baby Yoda is arguably meant to look like Yoda which just so happens to make it look like a Gremlin.
I always thought Lilo and Stitch was Disney’s take on the Gremlins/80’s “a child and their pet monster/alien” story. Kid finds alien monster, it’s initially scary, but actually friendly, wacky shenanigans happen, the creature becomes part of the family.
Watching The Sea Beast in another window as I’m typing this and it seems very much like that formula mixed with Monster Hunter.