Joe Dante, Director of ‘Gremlins’ Says Grogu Is Shamelessly Copied And Clearly Stolen
If you had Joe Dante fighting with Lucasfilm and Disney on your 2022 BINGO card then I suggest you go out and get yourself a lottery ticket because, at first glance, I did not see this one coming. In a recent interview with Indiewire, Joe Dante, who shaped cinema with his genre-bending films like The Howling and The Burbs has come out against the house of Mouse over their use of a particular character and their similarity to his most well-known movies Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch by stating, “I think the longevity of (the films) is really key to this one character (Gizmo), who is essentially like a baby,” the legendary horror and science fiction filmmaker said with a wry smile…Which brings me, of course, to the subject of Baby Yoda, who is completely stolen and is just out-and-out copied. Shamelessly, I would think.”
Now if you look at the two side by side, there are certainly a lot of similarities between the two characters. They are small, child-like in behaviour, carry hidden abilities that need to be unlocked, and have large ears. But to think that as Dante says Grogu is “out-and-out copied” is definitely a bit of a stretch. Considering the length of time between Gremlins and The Mandalorian so I think this is a bit of a non-starter to begin with but I don’t think his comments should go completely ignored.
RELATED:
When you go deeper into the article we start to see perhaps where Dante is coming from and it rings shades of Martin Scorsese who has been vocal about the MCU and the large-scale movies of its ilk but instead he focuses on the theatre experience and the subtle jab at streaming platforms. “Whenever I host a screening of either of these pictures, I always ask when I introduce it, ‘Raise your hand — how many people haven’t seen these movies?’ There’s always about a third of the audience, usually young, who haven’t seen the movies,” said Dante, age 75. “They’re somewhat different than the run-of-the-mill movie. They’re offbeat in a way that I think is one of the reasons that they’re still popular. The people in my generation who loved movies love them because they saw them with an audience. I’ve seen these pictures over the years many times all over the world, and they always play well in a crowded theater.”
I am sure that everyone is going to read more into this than it needs to be but with Joe Dante having a Netflix series based on the Gremlins series coming up this year, maybe he’s playing a long con game to garner up some interest but only time will tell.
READ NEXT:
Source(s): Variety, Indiewire, San Francisco Chronicle