Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning (2025)
- Thread starter Kai "the spy"
- Start date
Similarly, most of Steven Seagal's theatrical flicks were very well-cast when it came to their character-actor heavies. I always came for THEM, not Stoneface Slowpants. Eventually, SS went straight to video when the good actors bailed out on his projects, or got tired of being killed. His last decent flick featured Belker and Tara King.
Voight had second billing, but Leigh had extra-large last with an ''and'' in front of her name. Just like the ads for Sam Jackson in DEEP BLUE SEA. A slight tip-off. But if you've got a talented Oscar winner like Voight getting killed so soon, some might feel ripped off. If you have Brando's Jor-El, it's common knowledge he's toast and it's only Brando, after all.
Presumably you were waiting for Steven Seagal to come back from the dead in Executive Decision?
See above while I recover from that. But in truth, I was spolier-alerted SS's death from a reviewer in the Washington Post that morning, thus it was no surprise. I thoroughly approve of that death, though I wanted to see more blood---while the Leigh-style credit indicates he's another special guest starGosh, yes. Didn't Hitch die just days before DRESSED TO KILL came out? Now THAT was a PSYCHO remake if anything was. With a stolen unrelated older title to boot.Damn weird for someone like DePalma to try to emulate Hitchcock in any way.
The beginning too, last in the cast, at least in the original version on opening day. Unless he got offended and had his name removed out of spite.
Functionally, those are approximately the same thing. Last billing with a special notation is effectively considered just below top billing. (When Michael Shanks left Stargate SG-1 for a year and came back, they couldn't demote the two actors below him who'd moved up one slot in the billing, so they put him last with an "and" as the equivalent of second billing.)
Also, credit order has exactly nothing to do with how much screen time an actor gets, and everything to do with how much they get paid. So an actor having high billing doesn't promise anything about how many scenes they'll have. It just means they have a good agent.
But they might feel satisfied if the twist had been worth it. There is more than one factor involved in the experience of seeing a movie.
Genre fans always overestimate how much laypeople know about genre characters and storylines. There were fans of Smallville in the early seasons who had no idea it was connected to Superman in any way, because they didn't know the significance of the names "Clark Kent" and "Lex Luthor." So don't assume that your average moviegoer who took their date or family to the theater in 1978-9 to see the new Brando/Hackman movie had ever heard of Jor-El or had any idea what was going to happen to him.
Also, of course, Brando did come back later in the film, and in the Donner version of the sequel. That movie introduced the idea of Jor-El living on as a recorded consciousness in the Fortress. So Jor-El dying early doesn't necessarily mean the actor's part is over. Heck, Jor-El's ghost was more the protagonist of Man of Steel than Superman was.
I saw it opening night. He wasn't in the opening credits and I overheard a few people in the audience wondering why. He is prominent on the poster in some other countries though.
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He was featured prominently on the original US posters too, to help sell the idea that he was the co-star and not a fake-out guest star. The poster originally had his face and his main credit, they just dropped both once the initial surprise period was over. ...IIRC, that is.
Other sources confirm your no-credit comment. The bizarre thing is that I saw it opening morning, and I could swear I saw Seagal's name when Kurt Russell was sitting down and opening his briefcase. Of course, EXECUTIVE DECISION is not CLUE with alternate elements (and this is not to say they are plottily similar in any way), so unless there is a long-lost opening morning extra-credit cut like no other movies generally have ever had, this seems similar to my seeing Merle Haggard's obituary in a national newspaper 16 years before he actually died.*
One thing is still true: I do see 1950s black-in-white TV shows in semi-color whenever I rouse myself from a nap.....without the aid of THEY LIVE-style glasses.
(*Oops.)
I think the Smallville example may-sadly-be in no small part to how much comic books, including Superman, have faded from public consciousness. I guess that because, growing up, including in 1979,, pretty much everyone (heck, even my mom, who was so much a non-genre person it was 2020 before she finally figured out that Star Wars wasn't a movie version of Star Trek) seemed to know that Clark Kent was Superman who came from a planet that exploded and killed his parents and everyone else. Probably because the George Reeves TV show had been on in syndication for twenty years.
Also, IIRC, Brando's role in Superman was big news precisely because he was being paid so much for so minor a role and the news stories played that up.
Did I see the guy who played Milchick in Severance in this trailer? That's pretty cool if that's him. Overall, great trailer. Looking forward to going to see it.
Not familiar with the show, but I looked it up on IMDb, and yes, Tramell Tillman is listed as a cast member in M:I -- The Final Reckoning, though his character name isn't listed yet.
Ooh, and it's also got Katy O'Brian and Indira Varma.
Didn't know Nick Offerman was in this. LOTS of call backs to the first movie
The CIA agent from the first movie who got deported to Alaska is back
“I want him manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day. Just mail him his clothes.”
and it looks like we are going to Alaska. Nice callback
The actual premiere date of the first movie plays big part
Looks like Ethan enters the Entity and gets to view all the possible outcomes
Benji- How many did we win?
Ethan- One........
The CIA agent from the first movie who got deported to Alaska is back
“I want him manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day. Just mail him his clothes.”
and it looks like we are going to Alaska. Nice callback
The actual premiere date of the first movie plays big part
Looks like Ethan enters the Entity and gets to view all the possible outcomes
Benji- How many did we win?
Ethan- One........
Each of the McQuarrie films has referred back more and more to the film series's history, although they have yet to make any acknowledgments of the second film. I wonder if this film will change that. I hope not, since I consider it apocryphal. (Heck, I consider it a self-aggrandizing fantasy that young Ethan Hunt scribbled in his notebook margins in spy school.)
Luther's in it, so it's canon.
Yeah really. Come on, guysAh Ethan's doing a Dr Strange
Canon is not something binding on creators of a fictional series, it's something defined by them. There are plenty of canons that ignore their worst installments and try to forget they ever happened -- for instance, the Highlander franchise has ignored its second movie in every subsequent sequel, as far as I know.
Each of Christopher McQuarrie M:I films has relied more and more on the series's past continuity, and yet the second film is the only one he's never made a reference to, which suggests he's content to ignore it. It's not referenced in the trailer either, as far as I could tell, despite the focus on the series's history. So I'm curious whether that omission will continue, or if the events of MI2 will finally be acknowledged in some token way just to be thorough.
Yeah I heard rumblings that Tom Cruise butted heads with John Woo a bit so maybe he want's to not really remember that one
Aside from Luther there isn't really much continuity or purpose to it.
Part 3 is when they started to reference back
Luther-The Shanghai pendulum move is going to be more difficult to crack than Langley was..."
Then you have Ethan's wife introduced and subsequently followed up in part 4
Part 5 I don't remember any callback to previous movies.
Aside from Luther there isn't really much continuity or purpose to it.
Part 3 is when they started to reference back
Luther-The Shanghai pendulum move is going to be more difficult to crack than Langley was..."
Then you have Ethan's wife introduced and subsequently followed up in part 4
Part 5 I don't remember any callback to previous movies.
