A Comic book movie I hope to see listed here one day.............

[respectmeordye3]

It's a tad difficult to find, and is only on VHS from what I understand, but Archie:Return To Riverdale REALLY deserves to be added here.


As a HUGE fan of the G-rated family-based comic book-- I was quite excited when I first heard about this movie a few years ago. I have ALWAYS loved the Archie comics and get a kick outta them---of of course I figured it would keep the characters the way they had always been shown in the comics---but of course I was wrong. The movie has a PG rating but has some rather strong sexual stuff in it for being simply PG. A PG-13 rating would be a better fit--and that's a problem


because adult or not the Archie characters should never be doing something that they wouldn't do in the comics.


If your not a fan of the Archie comics or are not but just never saw this movie---allow me to warn you that this may be the king of all "Comic book based movies that are as different from the comics they are based on as much as possible.

Just an example:

The comic version of our characters:

Archie: Dimwitted klutz with a heart of gold who can never choose between Veronica or Betty.

Veronica: Rich snob who has somehow become friends with the other teenagers of Riverdale.

Betty: Basically Veronica's opposite--funnily enough her and Veronica are the best of friends.

Moose: Dumb, goofy jock who constantly beats up Reggie for trying to steal his girlfriend or trying to antagonize him.


Midge: Moose's girl. She doesn't like his temper but she only has eyes for him.


Jughead: An eating Machine who can eat several tons of food in one sitting and never gains an ounce. The fact that hamburgers are his favorite food and his goofy hat--not to mention that he's exceptionally lazy and brilliant are big parts of his character.

Reggie: Prank-pulling jerk who can sometimes be a nice guy but usually he's causing trouble.

Pop Tate: Owner of the local burger joint and friends to all the kids.

Mr. Weatherbee: The impatient principal of Riverdale High.


Mr. Lodge: Veronica's father. He only reason he ever moved to Riverdale was because he noticed Veronica was getting spoiled and figured she might do better to react with normal people--he doesn't want her to think money is all there is.He doesn't exactly LOVE Archie but even though Archie irritates him most of the time, he is glad Archie was around to help his daughter meld into the real world.




Now the Movie Version:

Archie: Has a fiance and ends up falling in love with Betty and Veronica again.

Veronica:Has never truly cared about money more than her friends.

Betty: Remember the girl that Sandler was in love with in "Wedding Singer" ? Basically her.

Moose: Married to Midge.

Midge: Married to Moose(we learn very little about these two aside from that)

Jughead: Bald divorced loser, who Is no longer a genius,no longer has an insane love for hamburgers and no longer has his unique hat. He does however have a punk son(Jughead Jr.) who acts like Reggie, He gives the Problem Child kid a run for his money.   


Reggie: He and his evil boss hope to destroy Pop Tate's place in order to build a new shop in it's place.


Pop Tate: Old man in hard times.

Mr. Weatherbee: Not much about him.

Mr. Lodge: evil rich millionare who only cares about money and always has. He's Reggie's evil boss. Lodge hates Archie so much that he tries to have him killed!



Obviously the characters were changed. And not for the better either.

[316zombie]

eeeuuuwww!!!!

[respectmeordye3]

whatever.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I caught the very end of that movie when they first aired it.  I do actually want to watch it again sometime since I used to read Archie a little when I was a kid.

[nada]

Archie comics used to annoy me so much as a kid. They'd always have a cover that had nothing to do with the comic inside. But maybe that's just me...

How does this movie compare with the Richie Rich movie with the Home Alone kid?

[respectmeordye3]

Ironically the covers match the first story inside now days.

And the diff between Richie and Archie is that the Richie Rich movie followed the comics fairly well and kept the characters(most of them anyhoo) pretty close to their comic book counterparts.

At least IMHO......