EVERYONE IS TELLING ME
THAT IT'S WORLD WAR II
Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J.
Published: 10/27/2002
Syndicated by Gannett News Service

It's not that I don't understand the movie concept that the U.S. government is pitching to me: Modern America is actually reliving World War II. Saddam Hussein is Hitler. The Ayatollah Whatever of Iran is Mussolini. What's-his-teeth in North Korea is Emperor Hirohito. Conservative commentators keep quoting Winston Churchill; columnist Cal Thomas calls the similarities between the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the first anniversary of Sept. 11 “striking.” I get it. I get it.

It's just that the details are all off.

But I'm starting on a negative note, which is bad form in a pitch meeting. So let me begin with what works in this film concept.

First of all, I do love that kind of time-traveling, Back to the Future fantasy, where you meet your parents when they were your age and help them defeat Hitler by using, say, a PlayStation. The idea definitely has legs, as they say in the movie biz. Do they say that in the movie biz? I've been out of Hollywood for awhile. But I really am a legitimate movie producer. Honest.

Oh, and you've got a real Hitleresque villain with Saddam. He says one thing, does another and doesn't pay attention to anything except blunt force. Then, of course, President Bush has the new “Axis of Evil” set up as a ghost portrait of the old one: Two countries that are close together on the same continent, and one more thrown in from Asia. Now if only someone would actually introduce them all to each other. But there I go, after I swore to start off on the positive.

Also, it's not that I haven't noticed how others have picked up on the concept. The Turner Classic Movie Network keeps having World War II theme evenings. It seems like it's never Vietnam or Korean War films, just Hitler being defeated over and over, usually by Bugs Bunny. No question, the crowds already are lining up for this. The kids like it because the plot is simple. And it's Technicolor nostalgia for the old folks. Normally, we in the entertainment business care only about that prized consumer market of males age 16 to 25. But in the theater of the voting booth, old people buy the most tickets.

And do I even think the war is a bad idea? Who knows? I leave international relations to the interns and the key grips. I'm more of a high concept man. I've even got the title for this war: World War II 2: This Time as Farce.

But if we're really going through with this, a few inconsistencies are muddying the concept:

  • The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, so we declared war on the Japanese. A bunch of Saudi Arabians with links to a regime we later wiped out in Afghanistan attacked us in New York and Washington, D.C., and American citizens are turning up in a terrorist cell in Buffalo, so we're declaring war on … Iraq. You see what I mean? Have a script doctor do something with this.

  • Once we march into Iraq, we'll replay our occupation of Germany. It's got to resemble the Marshall Plan. So could we make it look less like none of Iraq's neighbors even want us there, and that a nation of gas hogs and its presidential administration of former petroleum executives just happen to be taking over a major oil reserve? I know an audience is supposed to suspend its disbelief, but come on. Roger Ebert is going to retch.

  • You know what would really help get people jazzed? Some new kind of canned meat. You know, like the way Spam got so popular during meat shortages in the 1940s. Maybe this new war could bring us a processed lamb loaf.

  • We should revisit some of the casting choices. I don't quite buy Dick Cheney as Gen. Eisenhower. You don't have to make a decision now, but let me just say two words: Ed Harris.

    One last thing: It's hard to compare Saddam's expansionism with Hitler's when Iraq hasn't actually marched on another country in over 10 years. Would someone go to Iraq and tell them to get with the program? Otherwise, the whole film deal could fall through, and we'd all hate to see that. Everyone loves a beautiful story.

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