this rant was written by brandon - a great friend of mine. when it comes to the dukes of hazzard, he knows what he's talking about...trust me.
If you lend me your ear, I have a rant. I am going to begin my rant by saying.... there are lots of people that have been saying things like... "I've been a fan of The Dukes of Hazzard for a long time...... I've been a fan since blah blah...." Well, let me say this... since the Dukes have become popular again, the "long time" fans seem to have come out of the woodwork... I'm here to tell you this fact... I was a huge fan of The Dukes of Hazzard long before it was cool and trendy to be a fan of the Dukes. I liked it back when you got made fun of for liking it.
With that said, I shall delve into my rant. The Dukes movie was ridiculous. I'll start with this.
In today's world of acceptance and political correctness, I can't think of a better way to address the issue of the confederate flag. They could have really used this movie to help support the fact that some people like the confederate flag because it's part of their history and heritage. For those of you who are still poor saps buying into the hype that the Civil War was all about slavery, I'd advise you to try doing some non-liberally biased research. The confederate flag stands for a way of life, ideals and a throw back to a more simplistic form of life and pursuit of happiness. If it had anything to do with just hating certain minorities, trust me, there are much more effective and creative ways to show such. I thought this would be a good time to show that not every person who has a confederate flag deserves to be looked down on with single minded prejudice. But alas, what do we find in the movie... we find Bo and Luke being shot the finger and called names just for having the flag on their car, and there was no retort at all, they just seemed to expect it. And when they were confronted with angry black people, the movie just implied that they deserved it. I've heard rumors that the original script even had the Dukes replacing Cooter's confederate flag with an American Flag later on. At least they didn't take it to that level.
All right now, lets move on. If there had never been a Dukes of Hazzard television series to compare this movie to, it would have pretty well rocked.... but that's just not the case... not only was there a television series to compare it to.... there's a freakin awesome television series to compare it to... (well, the earlier seasons were awesome). I met the director in person, as Casey and I were actually in the movie. He was a pretty cool guy, I'm not taking direct shots at him as a person, but his decision to include inside jokes from Super Troopers did nothing but dilute the movie itself.
Moving on... the car stunts were spectacular...amazing.... awesome camera angles were shot.... but... some weren't used. I have seen much of the raw footage... I'm not sure who edited these scenes, but believe me, they could have been put together in a much, much better way...and it would have rocked several people's faces clean off.
Lets talk about Uncle Nelson, because that's who he was. Willie Nelson made no attempt to act at all, and apparently they were so enamored with Mr. Nelson himself, they didn't have the heart to tell him he was just being Willy Nelson calling himself Uncle Jesse... all the way down to smoking the mary jane. Which is completely ridiculous and completely not needed. The show had very well developed characters.. characters which all complemented each other and caused the show to flow with a believable realness... but they chose to not even try to capture the slightest bit of any of the characteristics we've come to love about the Dukes.
The simple fact is, the reason this movie was made was that fans have gone crazy about the reruns of the television show. This movie is not like Starsky and Hutch in that it was simply just made from an old TV show because it would be cool to do, the entire reason this show was made was because of the rebirth of the show's excitement caused by the reruns... the entire demographic for this show is drawn from the existing shows fanbase, and they hope to pull in the rest from people who simply remember the show from when they were smaller.... if you realize this, you would THINK they would try to capture the feel of the original show, since that's what everyone has proved to enjoy, but instead, they chose to make their own foul mouthed sex and drugs jokes, appealing to the Jackass and American Pie audience. The movie has something for everyone, fast cars, attractive women..... it would have been nice to have seen the movie cater to those behind the reason for the movie in the first place.... the fans of the show .... but then again...what do I know... I'm just a stupid southerner who enjoys owning a confederate flag....