Jamie
What a combo. The Flintstones and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. I’ll save what sets Viva Rock Vegas (or TFiVRV as the kids call it) apart in BMT history, but The Flintstones is more just personal history. It came out at kind of the perfect time. Did I know what The Flintstones was as a kid? Somehow, yes. That and The Jetsons had maintained a presence in the culture far past the 60’s when it aired. I remember watching episodes on TV… that seems crazy now. I don’t even know what the equivalent would be. Maybe kids throwing on some 90210 or something? I don’t know, but when the movie came out it was a big thing. Do you want to know what the emotional feeling I connect with The Flintstones movie is? Sadness… that tells you something about where they might have erred. I just remember the plot being very sad.
To recap, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are best buds. They work at Slate & Co. together and when Barney needs some money so he and his wife Betty can adopt a child, there is no question he and Wilma will help out. Thus we get the whole gang together as Bamm-Bamm joins the fray and becomes best friends with Fred’s daughter Pebbles. Meanwhile at Slate & Co., Cliff Vandercave and his secretary Sharon Stone (nice) plan to swindle the company out of money, all they need is someone to pin it on. To find this person they hold an aptitude test for a promotion. Fred freezes with anxiety and Barney, feeling indebted to Fred, switches his test with Fred’s. Ultimately, Fred finds out he had the highest score (wait, what?!) and get the promotion. Unfortunately Barney gets fired for having the worst score. Soon things start to really fall apart. Barney moves in with them for the money, but the snobbiness of Fred with his newfound wealth grates on them. Meanwhile Fred, being a dope, does everything Sharon asks and soon has fired half the workforce. When confronted by Barney, and it being revealed that Barney switched the tests, everyone is at each other’s throats. Fred tries to reveal Cliff’s treachery but the crime is pinned on him. Obviously this leads to a hilarious scene where the fired workers catch Fred and Barney and try to lynch them (stop! My sides are splitting!). Fortunately Betty and Wilma arrive and Fred’s dictabird saves them. Cliff, aware of the dictabird, kidnaps the kids and offers an exchange. In the scuffle Fred and Barney inadvertently invent concrete and Cliff is killed (naturally). In the end they all get their jobs back and we return to status quo. THE END.
My memory of this was not incorrect. Barney switching the tests and then having his life fall apart is kinda sad (this was the thing I remembered the most). The crux of the plot being a scheme that results in Fred having to fire all of his friends is kinda sad. Barney and Betty becoming indebted to Fred because they need money to adopt a kid is kinda sad. Fred becoming the scapegoat and everyone chasing him and threatening to lynch him is quite literally the worst idea I’ve ever seen in a children’s movie. Who in the world thought that was a good idea. It makes me sad to think that no one stopped that from happening. Children are being kidnapped. People are being killed by having concrete poured on them. It’s all just saddo stuff for saddos. Anyway, besides all the decisions about what this film would be about, this film is hilariously gorgeous. It looks so good. Unbelievable set design and puppetry and costumes. A great big saddo beautiful mess of a movie. I love looking at this movie, just not watching it.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Is it wrong of me to kind of think that Barney still had the worst test and Fred had the best somehow? Evidence against: Fred literally freezes and we see that he thinks he did terribly. Evidence for: Barney is dumb. Evidence for: Why would the bad guys use an aptitude test to find the smartest person to then prop up as their scapegoat? Don’t they need the dumbest person so that he would not look closely at what they were up to? And wouldn’t they fire the smartest person to make sure he couldn’t get in the way? I don’t care if there is some explanation given for this in the film and I’ve just forgotten, I don’t buy it. So did Fred still get the highest score (because the rest of the employees are literal cavemen) and Barney, by switching the tests, inadvertently save the day? Hot Take Temperature: The Ice Age.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *gif of me sliding down a dinosaur’s back and screaming Yabba Dabba Do!* Let’s go!
I’m with Ebert on this one: The is a good movie. In a way you can tie this directly into the bizarre Altman Popeye and just shrug your shoulders and go “they don’t make them like they used to.” The casting is perfect, the sets are incredible, it really it what it used to be to go to the movies. This is a genuine good movie. Well …
The only bad thing is the story. It is like they took a wildly different movie and supplanted the story directly into a Flintstones cartoon. In a way that jives a bit with the often rather odd parodies of sitcoms / other television programs that things like Flintstones was. But really, wouldn’t the film have been better if it was all about Fred trying to learn how to be there for his friend going through a tough adoption after Fred, say, wins the lottery? You get essentially the same story without having to have a nuts B-story that kids don’t care about.
Good. This movie is good and it is a travesty that it will forever be in the records as a BMT film.
I’ve been messing around with Google AI Studio a bit. It’s fine, I’m mostly trying to work out the best way to use it to generate data sets of data that would be otherwise quite difficult to arduous to gather. For now that is focusing on posters. In the meantime I figured I might as well mess around and see what else could be interesting. Here is the result in asking it to guess at the plot based solely on the poster:
The movie likely centers around the everyday life and comedic adventures of the Flintstone and Rubble families in the prehistoric town of Bedrock. It suggests a lighthearted, family-oriented film where the characters will navigate typical domestic situations and humorous challenges while embracing the unique aspects of their stone-age environment. Given the prominence of the characters riding together in their stone-age car, there might be a road trip or adventure that takes them beyond their usual surroundings. The use of Fred’s catchphrase “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!” implies a feel-good narrative filled with silly situations and light-hearted fun. Overall, I’d expect a story that’s more about the characters and their relationships within a wacky and whimsical prehistoric setting than a complex or serious plot.
… I have no words as to how banal that is. But there is an interesting bit in all that slop: “[T]here might be a road trip or adventure that takes them beyond their usual surroundings.” Interesting and astute observation AI Slop Machine. This movie is not, in fact, a road trip film, but what an understandable mistake that could be. Possibly a question I could ask an AI would be something like “Based on this poster, do you think this film is a road trip film?” to generate well … off-kilter keywords I suppose. I’ll keep the AI analyses to a shorter section in the future.
I’m sure there was plenty of Product Placement in the film, but I’m going to highlight an incredible Movie Tie-In (What?) for the RocDonald’s tie-in which is still rather famous, mainly for the fact that for the movie McDonald’s reintroduced the McRib nationwide! Crazy. Obvious Fictional Setting as a Character (Where?) for the town of Bedrock. And sure, a Period Piece LOL (When?) for prehistory I suppose. There is a very weird MacGuffin (Why?) throughout the film where Fred is signing off on bogus spending authorizations in a very noir-ish story. I think this movie is a bonafide Good movie.
Read all about … cavemen? I don’t know. Read about something in the quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 