Smokey the Magnificent

One of the neatest things about living in a media-saturated world is media referencing media.  Whether it be a throwaway pop culture reference (Willow confessing to writing Doogie Howser fanfic in Buffy) or a blatant see-how-this-encapsulates-the-theme-of-the-movie quotation (Marianne reciting Sonnet 116 in Sense and Sensibility), it’s cool… at least, as long as one is familiar with the reference.  And it’s a savvy thing for a filmmaker to do.  References say a lot of things - “I’m consciously anchoring this world in a specific time and place”, “This film is deeper than you think it is because Shakespeare said it first”, and “I’m so attuned to my fanbase that I know if you’re watching this you’ve seen The Matrix“, for instance.  Nor is it a recent phenomenon - a couple of centuries ago no respectable novelist would dream of starting a chapter unbolstered by the support of a few choice snippets from The Iliad, Canticles and/or John Bunyan.

But occasionally, through some marvellous alchemy, the reference is so perfectly placed within a film that it transcends the original source material.

Moby Dick in Star Trek: First Contact

It doesn’t usually take much to get me reading a classic, but starting Moby Dick cost me some trepidation for the very simple reason that I have a pathological fear of whales.  No, really.  I had nightmares for years after watching Free Willy… OK, in the interests of full disclosure, I still get nightmares from having watched Free Willy.  Horrible, ghastly film.

Nevertheless, I eventually came to the point of shrouding the cover in brown paper and diving in.  How?  What convinced me was Star Trek: First Contact, rightly hailed as the only Star Trek film a Trekkie can show to a non-Trekkie without apologising.  First Contact borrows thematically and literally from the Great American Novel, and the spine-tingling certainty of Picard’s Captain Ahab-esque “The line must be drawn here!  Thus far; no farther!” convinced me that the novel must be an emotional tour de force indeed.

Only it wasn’t.  Unless you’re into spermaceti.  Yep, the most elegaic and emotive parts of the book revolved around the joys of squeezing whale blubber.  And, while I have as many sensory issues as the average Aspie, I was really hoping for something a little more epic.  Like, say, a tortuous lifelong feud between Moby Dick and the slavering Captain Ahab?  But nope.  The fearsome Ahab turned out to be your common-or-garden grumpy old codger, and anything which could remotely be described as action was limited to the last page and a half of the book - the rest of the novel being occupied with more pressing narrative devices, such as describing in detail the inside measurements of a whale’s skull.

It was a disappointment, to say the least, and I’m torn as to whether or not Herman Melville can really be blamed.  One can imagining him whining “I didn’t expect this would have to live up to Jean-Luc Picard”, and he would be right.

(Warning: video contains bad language.  Star Trek bad language, but still.  Mother, you have been warned: this may offend your delicate tympanums.)

Put On Your Sunday Clothes/It Only Takes a Moment in Wall-E

I know Hello Dolly has its fans, but to me it belongs squarely in the “You had to see it as a kidling” camp.   But the clear-as-a-bell “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” is perfect juxtaposed with bright galaxies and neat garbage piles, and the helpfully pared down “It Only Takes a Moment” becomes a poignant and beautiful love story when used as EVE and WALL-E’s “our” song.

Jor-El in Superman Returns

Marlon Brando’s original performance was rather on the cheesy side: smooth, smug and spit-curled.  Superman Returns took his performance, digitally altered pretty much everything and made it into a grainy hologram; and in doing so, it gained lashings of class.  Superman Returns also improved on the original John Williams opening credits score… sadly, the new parts of the film weren’t as good as the recycled!

For a vaguely interesting look at how the effects guys did it:

“Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths” (W.B. Yeats) in Equilibrium

Now, I have nothing against this poem.  It’s one of my favourites.  But the reason it’s one of my favourites is because of a little scene in Equilibrium, in which Sean Bean reads the poem aloud from a forbidden book of censored poems.  He gets shot, of course, which is a bit of a downer; but still.  Boromir reading Yeats. In a movie about dystopian Fascist rule and gun-slinging martial arts.  Whoda thunk.

(Mother, this one might offend your delicate retinae.  Mebbe.  Difficult to say, I’m sure you have seen a lot more gunplay than I give you credit for.  But you didn’t like Firefly, so, well.  Don’t blame me.)

Circle of Life in Doctor Who

The opening song of The Lion King is good in the movie, better on Broadway and when quoted passionately by the last of the Gallifreyans, well, “That’s brilliant, that is!”, as the Doctor would say.

So, then.  Any other contenders?  I briefly considered Death of a Salesman in the Buffy episode Restless and Worf’s “Captain, I must protest.  I am not a Merry Man!” as being far more corking than the original works, but decided neither reference was sufficiently close to the source material to warrant inclusion even within my fuzzy rules.  I also think the transformation scene from Shrek beats the one from Beauty and the Beast, but I couldn’t find the appropriate YouTube clips (surprising, no?  A music video of The Phantom of the Opera set to “True Love’s First Kiss”, yes; the clip itself, no.  I love YouTube).