Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Day-oherewegoagain...

 

Not much to go on in the trailer, but Ortega and Ryder together is major goth cred right there.

The cast list has some clues, though: Monica Belluci as Beetlejuice's (ex?)wife, and the great Willem Dafoe.

Dafoe has previously spoilered something...

Spoiler

...this one is a little different. Dafoe plays a B-movie action star who suffered a fatal accident, but then got a job as a detective in the afterlife police. That doesn't make him either an ally or antagonist to the Deetz family, but I doubt he's buddying up with Beetlejuice. Keaton has also said there's a more involved and emotional plot in this one.

 

Catherine O'Hara returns as Delia Deetz (I think the trailer shows Charles's funeral - though that's no reason Jeff Jones and his fabulous moustache won't show up). Add Burn Gorman (Torchwood, GoT) as a probably-creepy local reverend, and Felipe Cates as Ortega's Goth Ken (well, by the looks of things, anyway. Very... polished). 

 

One thing: neither Geena Davis nor Alec Baldwin are listed as returning, and their attic is empty and dusty apart from the town model. So I guess the Maitlands successfully moved out/on/up. Again, no reason they won't cameo at some point.

 

I'd probably be up for this one anyway, but if there's a proper plot - a reason this film needs to exist, as someone put it in the news lately - that'd make me happy.

Edited March 22 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Panache]

I can think of a few reasons why Jeffrey Jones (or "Jeff" if you know him, I guess) won't show up.

 

(he is an actual sex criminal)

Edited March 22 by Panache

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

*googles*
 

…huh. And yet he’s still working, including on the Deadwood series and movie. 
 

BTW, is it me or is there something VERY odd about Delia’s eyes in that trailer?

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

BTW, is it me or is there something VERY odd about Delia’s eyes in that trailer?

 

It's not you.  They're far more blue than any photo of her face I've looked over.  Catherine's natural color seems to lean more towards a multi-shaded gray, if I can describe it that way.  The character's pupils are very small and the left pupil is off-centered.  I've not seen that in any of Catherine's close ups, even those with enough Hollywood lights beaming on her to make irises shutter.  I suspect colored contact lenses or CGI.  One thought does strike me:  Johnny Depp when playing the Mad Hatter specifically requested colored contact lenses where the pupil of one eye was slightly off-center.  He felt it would add visual impact to the madness of the character.  Perhaps something like that is being done here? Both movies are Tim Burton's work, after all.

Edited March 23 by Techwright

[biostem]

So is Ortega Lydia's daughter?  I wonder if they'll address who the father is/was, if so.  I just hope they don't try to replace Keaton's wit and presence with gratuitous CGI...

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

7 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

It's not you.  They're far more blue than any photo of her face I've looked over.  

I can see that. Just rewatched a clip of the original, and it looks like she's wearing hard contacts in that too. Maybe we just never noticed without the hi-def closeup?

Spoiler

Also, her eyes seem to change colour a lot depending on the role. Maybe it's one of her transformational schticks?

https://www.comingsoon.net/tv/features/1156880-the-10-best-catherine-ohara-faces

 

6 hours ago, biostem said:

So is Ortega Lydia's daughter?  I wonder if they'll address who the father is/was, if so.  I just hope they don't try to replace Keaton's wit and presence with gratuitous CGI...

 

Happily, not this time - and since Tim loves him some stop-motion (which worked well for the weird/creepy in the original), why change?

 

Per Keaton's People interview, it's all practical FX as far as they can get away with it:

 

The one thing that he and I decided on early, early, early on from the beginning, if we ever did it again, I was totally not interested in doing something where there was too much technology. It had to feel handmade.

What made it fun was watching somebody in the corner actually holding something up for you, to watch everybody in the shrunken head room and say, "Those are people under there, operating these things, trying to get it right."

It's the most exciting thing. When you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody's across the way from you, this is just enormous fun.

 

Dafoe's also mentioned that - and says he only signed on for No Way Home because they let him do proper stunts. There seems to be some green-screen fatigue with actors these days, or frustration with not having enough to do (David Harbour just did the AOTD game remake - he's had full mo-cap done for What If S3, but wound up just doing face cap for AOTD, and prefers being able to do the whole thing.)

 

There is also the point that a guy with a rubber glove pretending to be a rogue plate of prawns is gonna cost significantly less than one CGI tech and fifty hours of renderfarm these days. And if your actors don't mind masks, gag blood, wirework, body squibs and props - Keaton clearly loves 'em - go for it.

Edited March 23 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[InvaderStych]

Interesting.

 

Is it weird that I'd like to see more of Burn Gorman than just the funeral scene in the trailer? One of the better baddies we've had lately.