Angels Have No Memory!

Hi everybody!
There is a report that a reboot of BARBARELLA is in the works, and that Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie are interested in this movie.
My goodness!
BARBARELLA was based on a French comic strip, and was clunky as a sci-fi film as well as timid as freshly-scrubbed erotica. Directed by Roger Vadim in 1968 and starring his then-wife Jane Fonda, Vadim was trying to capture lightning in a bottle as he had done with Brigitte Bardot in AND GOD CREATED WOMAN in 1957. But whereas Bardot played an uncomplicated sexual opportunist in a recognizable world, Fonda played a guileless sensualist in a fictional universe. The Bardot film anticipated the sexual revolution of the 1960s while the Fonda film celebrated the sexual utopia proposed by the concurrent Woodstock generation.
BARBARELLA was an unapologetically goofy film even by contemporary standards; let us remember that Antonioni's BLOW OUT came out in 1966 (!) and that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY came out the same year of 1968.
Let us also remember that in 1969 Fonda starred in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? and in 1971 won an Oscar for KLUTE, which I consider to be the best modern performance by an American actress.
What BARBARELLA demonstrates was that as intelligent a performer as Fonda could play submissive and blank-eyed as well as Bardot but that this same sexuality could be turned to a more complex purpose in KLUTE, where she invested that nascent sexuality into naked self-protection, a trick that Marilyn Monroe was never able to perfect on screen or in life. Fonda never went back to playing a sex kitten without a clue, instead becoming a performer to be reckoned with.
As a second-generation performer, Fonda had the star quality of her legendary father Henry and the business acumen of her equally-counter-culture brother, Peter (EASY RIDER; which he produced; was the most profitable picture of 1969), becoming the most successful producer of her own films since the heyday of Katherine Hepburn. But where Hepburn was able to sustain her stellar career over 4 decades, Fonda was only able to manage it for a decade as a top performer.
A key component of Hepburn's success was her skills as a comedienne, which Fonda had a deaf ear for. Also, while Hepburn had a successful partership with Spencer Tracy, Fonda never had an acting partner with whom she could repeat screen-time with. Hepburn was able to skillfully foster long term business partnerships, while Fonda had to start from scratch with each new project.
There are additional factors which hobbled Fonda, but the fact remains that a performer like Harrison Ford had parlayed his early success with STAR WARS in 1977 into a hugely successful 3 decade-long string of box office blockbusters that he also enjoyed a producer's profits, from.
All that being said, what tweaks me about BARBARELLA being remade goes beyond that! Angelina Jolie should be past using her sexuality to propel a movie project, while Megan Fox should be calibrating her sexuality into projects that are more of a challenge dramatically. I can't imagine how a BARBARELLA movie would be watchable, let alone profitable.
As a now part-time movie actress, Jolie is no longer able to do (a full-time actors') 3 movies a year to sustain her audience, so for her to squander her (parentally and politically-limited) screen-time on a project as sociologically-backward as BARBARELLA is simply another unnecessary nail in her career coffin.
As a rising star, Fox only has so many chances at the Brass Ring of box office gold, and would be better served improving her comedic skills (ala Kate Hudson, who has erred more on the gossip side than on the box office side) instead of leaning entirely on her looks. Fox should take a hard look at what Anne Hathaway is doing in the trenches, navigating between the fluff of BRIDE WARS and the toughness of RACHEL'S WEDDING. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER did not do anything for Kristy Swanson's career, and playing the vampire in JENNIFER'S BODY is a questionable move; we'll see how much money it makes.
Which, circuitously, brings us back to the WONDER WOMAN project!
WONDER WOMAN has more integrity in her little pinkie than BARBARELLA has in her entire body, and requires a performance equal to that integrity. The fact that BARBARELLA might get a big budget remake before WONDER WOMAN gets her own movie made makes me madder than a hornet's nest!
There's a campaign at DC Comics to start renumbering the WONDER WOMAN comic #45 at the historically-accurate #600. I'm all for that!
If you support my idea for the WONDER WOMAN movie and you have an extra postcard in your pocket, you can always write to: Dan Didio, c/o DC Comics, Inc., 1700 Broadway, New York, NY, 10019 and say PLEASE READ WonderWomanMoviebyBrad@blogspot.com! I need your vote!
Don't do it for me, do it for WONDER WOMAN! Woo, woo!
The last line in BARBARELLA is, "Angels have no memory." For the everlasting and enduring memory of WONDER WOMAN, let us get this WONDER WOMAN movie made! Thank you!
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad