Spoilers Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

[Paul Farquhar]

Tom Cruise was the recast during the move from TV to movie series

Not technically correct. Ethan Hunt was a new character. Original character Jim Phelps was recast (John Voigt replaced Peter Graves).

 

[Zardnaar]

Tom Cruise was the recast during the move from TV to movie series.

The problem is there aren't really that many better-known young action stars to replace the aging ones.

TV show was 40 years ago. T9m Cruise is now the iconic face imho.

 

[Stalker0]

Not technically correct. Ethan Hunt was a new character. Original character Jim Phelps was recast (John Voigt replaced Peter Graves).

Oh wow, so they took the OG character and turned him into a traitor? I wonder how the OG watchers of the tv show felt about that one.

 

[trappedslider]

Oh wow, so they took the OG character and turned him into a traitor? I wonder how the OG watchers of the tv show felt about that one.

That's why Peter Graves ( who attended the University of Minnesota ) declined to come back as Mr. Phelps

 

[GreyLord]

Oh wow, so they took the OG character and turned him into a traitor? I wonder how the OG watchers of the tv show felt about that one.

Many of them did not like it. Some even said it was extremely out of character and the OG would never have done anything like that.

Some have gotten over it through the years, some have not.

It was an interesting twist though, and one that none of them probably saw coming due to how out of character it was.

Sort of similar to how many people didn't like the Star Wars Sequel movie "The Last Jedi" because of how out of character they felt it portrayed Luke Skywalker.

Look at that and figure how long it may be until those audiences get over that change to the character and how many will get over it and you will probably have a similar idea of what happened with the OG audience of the Mission Impossible TV shows.

Edit: Personally, it didn't bother me, but I was also never a hardcore fan of the TV Show.

Also

Spoiler: Light Spoiler for MI:FR

They sort of hand out an olive leaf to those fans who were upset about it in this Last Movie

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Fandom is...Funny.

I grew up watching the original show with my dad on WNYW here in NYC. It used to come on after Drive in Movie (which was the program that aired Shaw Brother Kung Fu movies).

I liked the show quite a bit as a kid but I'm also a rational human being with common sense who understood upon seeing the movie in 1996 that the Jim Phelps portrayed in the movie WAS NOT the same Jim Phelps I'd known from the series. And I was fine with that. Much in the same way the Elliot Ness in the movie version of THE UNTOUCHABLES (also directed by Brian DePalma) was not the version made popular by Robert Stack in the TV Series. The reveal of Phelps being still alive after the presumed near TPK at the beginning and Ethan working through what must have happened is my favorite scene in that first film.

 

[Rabulias]

I enjoyed the movie, though I think the last one was better. My personal faves are MI: Ghost Protocol and MI: Rogue Nation. I was glad to see Donloe's return, After the last film, I was expecting him to show up in some way when they were dealing with the arctic.

Minor complaints:

• Where did Luther's medical issue come from? That came out of the blue. Is an underground hideout the best place for medical care? And yeah, how about getting a hideout with more security than just a "Condemned" sign out front.
• I was expecting more details on Ethan and Gabriel's past, and the woman who died. Sure it is effective shorthand to establish their history, how Ethan feels about Gabriel, and what led to Ethan being given "The Choice," but it seemed more than that. The woman got billing in the main credits in the last one, IIRC, so it seemed like she was being set up for a larger role. As an aside, in MI: Dead Reckoning, when Degas called out Briggs' really wanting to catch Ethan, I speculated that the dead woman was Briggs' sister or wife.
• Speaking of Briggs, the reveal surprised me, and while it was a big "whoa!" moment, it did not hold up to scrutiny. Kittridge would have been instrumental in testifying to the elder Phelps' guilt, along with the arrested Max. The evidence would have been pretty damning, yet Briggs still believes his father was framed? And he still happily works for Kittridge? People have believed stranger things in the face of facts, but this seemed off.

Overall, I am glad to see they have built up a new IMF generation. As I have speculated elsewhere, they could go with Ethan taking the Phelps role in future installments, but I don't know if Cruise would be willing to give up all the stunt work.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Saw this today, finally, after some friends recommended seeing it on the big screen. We had seen the immediate preceding film when it came out, though I think I've missed some of the franchise.

It was OK. Just OK.

It had the traditional MI over-the-top action sequences; unfortunately some of them are so over the top I was actively having to tell my brain to stop analyzing and just let it go, because I was getting jarred out of suspension of disbelief.

Plus I found the editing in the first 2/3ds of the movie to be very difficult to follow, between quick cuts, jumps between sequences with no continuity, and the annoying technique of trying to give exposition via two parts of the story and two sets of characters simultaneously. Thirty minutes in I was wishing we'd picked the new "How to Train Your Dragon" instead. It improved later.

I might have enjoyed it more had I remembered some of the characters and could bask in the nostalgia ... but on the other hand a film shouldn't require member-berries for buy in.

6/10