Who Needs Kill Bill: Volume 3? So apart from Uma Thurman’s manager? Quentin Tarantino has been teasing the sequel for years, but when his next and possibly last film was announced last week, neither “Kill” nor “Bill” was in the working title. Fortunately. Because The Movie Critic has the prerequisites for the ideal conclusion of Tarantino’s directorial career.
Kill Bill 1 and 2 are almost perfect – a 3rd part is conceivable but redundant
No one can rule out the possibility that Tarantino might have an idea for Kill Bill 3 that would produce the greatest movie of all time, or at least a juicy martial arts extravaganza. But the general desire for a sequel to the action double triggers only one question in my mind: Didn’t you learn anything from the Star Wars sequels? For over 20 years, Hollywood has been mired in a maelstrom of sequels, legacyquels, re-imaginings, requels — and scream movies that mock it.
From one of the few remaining filmmakers producing original material on a big budget, why would you ask for a sequel? For his presumably last film?
studio canal
Kill Bill
Since I don’t understand Tarantino’s announcement that his 10th film will be his last as an empty threat, I react a little irritably. But even if the theater owner, author and podcaster made 10 more films, Kill Bill 3 would still be lower on my wish list.
The Bride’s Revenge Story has been completed. With the potential In revenge, little Nikki (Ambrosia Kelley), whose mother is killed by the bride, received a narrative sword of Damocles. In a way, it hangs over the happy ending. The story is closed and still remains open in the minds of the audience. It’s a perfect ending that needs no clarification.
The Movie Critic has the makings of a great career ending
On the other hand, in The Movie Critic, anything could come our way, but at least not a sequel. Not much is known about Quentin Tarantino’s 10th film, except:
There is already speculation that the film could be about the critic Pauline Kael, but first of all this has not been proven and secondly it is not relevant at this point. Let’s stay with the halfway secured key points.
Biographical upheavals in Tarantino
With his last film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Tarantino told of the (transfigured) era of his childhood, which he also talked about in his book Cinema Speculation reported. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Tarantino’s penchant for exploitation and other more or less popular genre goods emerged.
Sony
Just Dudes being Bros
If The Movie Critic is set in the late ’70s, that would also represent a different phase in Tarantino’s development. At the age of 15 he dropped out of school in 1978 and worked odd jobs (for example in a porn cinema). Childhood (read: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) was followed by a coming of age experience, so to speak, and the first steps on the way to becoming an author (= The Movie Critic).
At the same time upheavals in Hollywood
At the same time, Hollywood was changing. At the time of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood there was a spirit of optimism, the old cinema was in crisis. The studios cried out to young, challenging voices who were breaking the rules of previous generations. The so-called New Hollywood was born in these years. It produced filmmakers like Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola. By the time Tarantino left school, it was already breathing on the last hole.
In 1977, Star Wars hit theaters and opened up a new form of blockbuster to producers as a money-making machine, complete with sequels and merchandising. Two years later, the shooting of Heaven’s Gate began – the gateway to heaven, its fateful failure as symbolic nail in the coffin for the creative freedom of the New Hollywood generation. (For home cinema: this Quentin Tarantino horror film is finally (again) uncut *)
The Movie Critic is set at the end of an era Tarantino worships
Tarantino himself did not think much of the decade that followed. In a podcast last year he explained:
Although I probably saw more movies in the 80’s than at any other time in my life, […] I think 80’s cinema combined with 50’s is the worst era in Hollywood history.
It remains to be seen whether Tarantino is correct in this assessment. The Movie Critic is set (perhaps) at the end of an era in the Hollywood cinema Tarantino came to love, and at a defining moment in the development of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
For someone who obviously thinks as much about the impact of his body of work as Tarantino does (like imagining all 10 of his films side by side on a video store shelf), it seems The setting of his last film is as poetic as it is consistent. With The Movie Critic, Tarantino could not only say goodbye to the craft of directing, but also to the film era that he admires the most.
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