“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” arrives on disc today in a pretty spiffy package, and I’m all over it at MSN Movies — covering the film itself in this week’s DVD column, and talking to director Brad Bird in a separate interview piece.
That was the reason for my visit to Washington last week — I mentioned that, right? Because it was a lot of fun, even if it was a really quick trip. And “Ghost Protocol” is a lot of fun, too, even if I’ve been semi-compulsively calling it “Goat Patrol” for the past month.
Come to think of it, have we ever seen any goats in the movies? Maybe there’s something to this.
You listen to the Doug Loves Movies podcast, right? He’s lately become obsessed with adding the suffix “Ghost Protocol” to all of the movies he’s seen. He told Simon Pegg to ask J.J. Abrams if they can call the Star Trek sequel “Star Trek II: Ghost Protocol.” I kind of think that would be awesome.
I do listen to Doug Loves Movies, and the Pegg/Wright/Micucci episode was great — especially the bit where Pegg revealed that Tom Cruise is so competitive that the two of them got locked into a Michael Caine mirroring exercise.
I also agree with Doug that “Ghost Protocol” can be added to anything and everything; I’m just waiting for him to hit on “Ocean’s Fourteen: Ghost Protocol” …
There is a film called Goat Patrol: Final Refuge (2005) from Turkey, about a band of militant Nordic Hudu Goats who take offense at the misuse of their milk and exert punishment on dairymen by invading a town and leaving it a wholly paperless society. They also devour all shielding on the wires, creating massive electrical shorts, isolating and pushing the town of Pastouafa back into the Dark Ages. As the tagline says, “No paper, no electricity, no internet. They’re totally F**ked.”
All of this is 100% true. (Ahem)
So, one of the readers of my blog completely flipped out about the Ghost Protocol aspect ratio issue yesterday. I’ve been directing people to your interview with Bird for his explanation.
I’ve also cooked up a little graphic to illustrate the framing differences:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/mission-impossible-ghost-protocol-aspect-ratio-poll/
Glad I can be of some help! And I get where your commenter is coming from — he’s basically arguing that he wants the BD to represent his specific experience of seeing the movie, although he’s making that argument in the most incoherent fashion imaginable.
For the record, I saw “Ghost Protocol” projected in a proper IMAX split-format 1.44/2.39 presentation, and it was pretty amazing. But Bird is right; that presentation, viewed within a smaller 1.78:1 frame, would work against the intended experience. A consistent scope frame, which is the way the film was seen in most of its theatrical engagements, makes sense at this scale.