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- EricJ
The "Training village" scene with Steed works much better as an opening (and probably comes closest to capturing the tone of the series), but that missing Evil Peel Twin opening clears up a LOT of confusion at the beginning of the theatrical cut--Osato said:
Like, why is the Ministry treating talented-amateur Emma like a criminal from the start of the movie, why Steed automatically suspects her without evidence, how Real-Peel could know the secret phone password, etc., and just where the heck the robot/clone does show up from out of nowhere in the second half of the film.
The writers had seen the show, and did a thankless job of trying to capture the tone (although Patrick Macnee, in his "offscreen" cameo, still shows us how it was done). Even to the point of putting in that weird tribute to the three "Emma in the Maze" episodes.davidHartzog said:
Problem is, you had entire audiences who had never grown up on the series, thinking it was "some cool 60's spy series" like Man From UNCLE, and registered....nonplussment somewhat at a scene of villains dressed in teddy-bear suits, or grannies pulling machine guns out of their strollers. Kids, that was MILD compared to the series.
Biggest problem was the actors--I'm sure Ralph Fiennes has a sense of humor somewhere, but he remembered Steed as "mannered", and sleepwalked through the role, while Uma Thurman remembered Peel as "sexy", and snarled her way through. The writers capture a little bit of the Banter (and even a friendly swordfight straight out of their first episode), but the tone seemed to be lost on the actors and director somewhat.
