1. Why would someone say “Frankenstein. The rumors are true” about a Frankenstein monster? There are no Frankenstein rumors; it was a book. Frankenstein isn’t like vampires; there aren’t old Central European legends about errant Frankensteins living in the woods and hating gargoyles. There aren’t any Frankenstein rumors. There is a Frankenstein novel. The character saying “The rumors are true” does as as he literally pulls a copy of Frankenstein off of a bookshelf.
2. Why is a feud between Frankenstein(s) and gargoyles being presented as one that should be familiar to viewers? I could buy that in Underworld. Vampires and werewolves have sort of generally evolved as being opposed to one another. But to my knowledge, there is no quarrel between Frankenstein(s) and gargoyles. They are not natural enemies.
3. If there is no point during the movie where Aaron Eckhart stops to correct someone, “Actually, Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, technically I am Frankenstein’s monster,” the screenwriters have missed a solid joke opportunity.
4. I have never believed in anything half so strongly as Aaron Eckhart believes in the line “There isn’t. Unless you could animate that corpse.”
5. If the television show Gargoyles taught me nothing else, it is that gargoyles cannot fly while in stone form, much less change back and forth from stone to flesh willy-nilly. What gargoyle continuity is this film operating under?
6. I have no problem with Frankenstein speaking in full sentences; that is an artistic license I am perfectly willing to grant. That is not a question. I just wanted to make my feelings on the matter known.
7. It is clear that the gargoyles (led in some form by Bill Nighy?) are enemies of humanity, but the sleeping army of “tens of thousands” of other Frankensteins would “spell doom for all humanity,” which means they should be on the same side. Why they are they shown fighting?
8. Why can all of the Frankensteins fly
9. You will never convince me that the girl in this movie is not Lena Headey. This is also not a question.
10. Who will go see this movie with me?
Tags: aaron eckhart, i frankenstein, movies, questions, the legendary feud between frankensteins and gargoyles, trailers, when did i become the comic book guy
Why is Frankenstein presented as dreamy? Is he going to bang a lady in this movie? Was he built for that? Do chicks dig scars that much?
(busting out Jon-Stewart-as-geek voice) Actually, in the book, the creature is depicted as very handsome, objectively, but horrifying as well. You know, because of the whole dead thing.
Well, he is meant to be perfect. As I recall, it’s more an uncanny valley effect than patchwork of scars that’s the problem.
This brings up an important question Mary Shelley never answered: did Victor Frankenstein dig up some dead convict’s rotting penis and sew it on there with everything else?
I can never un-imagine that.
I would like to think there was just a good chunk of lower torso that happened to include a penis. I mean, not every bit was separately assembled… (right? or have I forgotten?)
He would have an enormous schwanzstucker.
That goes without saying.
And some lady is going to let him use it on/with her? Ughhhhh frankensex is gross.
Actually, yeah, he did demand Victor make him a wife, so I’m guessing he probably had some working parts down there.
“I would hit that with someone else’s vagina, which is what I’m equipped with, apparently.” – Mrs. Frankenstein, on her husband’s gross parts.
Frankenstein Have A Big Night Ahead Of Frankenstein
I don’t know about the movie, but in the 2011 British National Theater production I just saw (it was a filmed performance) Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein monster most definitely was built for that.
Frankenstein’s Monster speaking in full sentences isn’t really artistic license. In Mary Shelley’s book, the Monster is quite articulate. And really fucking hates gargoyles.
Well, sure, but there hasn’t been a single Frankenstein movie with that trait, right? So it’s pretty well established movie canon?
Movie canon is the only real canon! It’s the reason we can kill werewolves with silver bullets now! Thank you, movie canon.
Um, Mallory. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, duh.
Actually, I should’ve linked this scene because that movie was straight-up insane.
True, but I sort of took this movie to be going off book canon rather than movie canon (as established by the book shot you mentioned, plus that first shot of him trudging over snow – clearly an allusion to the end of the book in the Arctic, and… wait, never mind, I think I’m giving this Frankenstein’s Monster Meets the Gargoyles trailer too much credit).
“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
The Wishbone version!
If you count the Cumberbatch/Miller/Boyle stage version, that Creature was quite articulate, too, after he was taught by the kindly, doomed blind man. Also very well read; he quoted philosophy.
Which raises the question: why no Cumby photo? I guess Nicole had no input. 😉
That sexy chin tho
Mallory! This movie looks beyond ridiculous and yet I kind of want to see it anyway. Perhaps not pay money for it. Can we pay for Frozen and sneak into Frankenstein: Action Hero?
This movie sounds awesome.
A couple of months ago I went to the cinema screening of the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein with Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. That was also awesome.
Now I’m trying to come up with convincing backstory as to why the wild frankensteins would be the natural enemy of the gargoyles. Maybe the gargoyles envy the frankensteins because their human creator made them out of flesh and not stone, so they don’t have to transform?
Maybe the gargoyles are mean to the frankensteins, like saying things about how frankensteins are just poser monsters, because they were people before they became monsters. Like, maybe gargoyles are the hipsters of monsters, “we were creeping people out before it was cool.”
“Ohh, you come from graves, how scarrrry. Dude, we loom over your asses from the dusky heights of Gothic cathedrals. Stonemasons fell to their motherfucking DEATHS creating us. Who died making you, Frankie? Who?”
I so want to see that Frankenstein production with Jonny Lee and Camberpatch, but I’m afraid my head will explode from all the gloriousness.
That production of Frankenstein was my introduction to Mr. Cumberwumble: rolling naked and slimy around the stage and yelling incomprehensibly.
I saw it the other way round! I’d be tempted to go and see it that way though, just to mess with my own head.
Another argument for Benny’s participation in a live-action worm film.
The Cumberbatch/Miller Frankenstein is the only true Frankenstein. I went and saw it both ways (on screen) and it was fantastic. I went back and read the book after that and it seems to be the only adaptation that has taken the time to understand the actual relationship between the creator and his creation.. (also cumberbatch either writhing on ground or dressed up as Victorian gent but I digress).
it is indeed absolutely beautifully done, and really nicely faithful to the book. I am hoping they might bring it out on DVD eventually.
I wish I could take credit for this but I’m about 99% positive I read it on Twitter first – I, Frankenstein has got to be a result of Aaron Eckert saying to someone, “Hey, are we gonna do anything with the fact that I look like Frankenstein’s monster, only somehow conventionally attractive?”
I’ll go see that monstrosity with you.
I think Q1 is easily answered: if you’re positing a universe where Frankenstein and his Monster were real, then of course Mary Shelly never wrote a novel about them! Instead, one assume’s that there were persistent dark rumors about that crazed Romantic-era scientist and his terrifying handiwork, rumors confirmed by the book we catch a glimpse of. Said book is obviously NOT Earth-Prime’s famous novel (which our angel-thing could’ve have easily purchased at any used bookstore or indeed downloaded the full text from the Gutenberg Project), but Earth-Frankenstein’s Forbidden Tome of Corpse-Animating Knowledge, presumably written and profusely illustrated by Victor Frankenstein himself, which is why it needs to be hidden away in a steampunk locked library thingie.
No, the real question posed by this trailer: have the producers of Underworld finally managed to come up with a film so shitty that Kate Beckinsale refused to appear in it?
Not to quibble, but they pulled that off with the dreck that was Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, in which the director couldn’t even convince his WIFE to appear.
ETA: I stand corrected – that movie was not directed by Len Wiseman. Still, it was shitty enough that she refused to appear in it, and it’s saying something. (And I loved her wholeheartedly in Serendipity so this is not just Kate-bashing.)
Yeah I think that book was actually supposed to be Dr. Frankenstein’s journal and not the novel.
Wait, as an ancient and medieval historian, I have to say that in stone form, Gargoyles can’t fly, plus they keep away evil spirits. (That’s why they are above windows and on roof tops, where evil spirits have been known to congregate.) Also the tale of Frankenstein is meant to be a cautionary tale about man and science and playing God. So the way you describe it, this movie is about the anti science Republican conservatives, or Gargoyles, against the pro-science Frankenstein monsters/ Democrats? It’s an allegory, right?
“as an ancient and medieval historian”
Good lord, woman, just how old are you?
You astonish me; one does not inquire a historian’s age!
Oh my god Mallory, it’s like you were in my brain while I was watching this trailer. I also spent some time wondering why this was a legit big screen movie instead of the SyFy movie its plot so clearly deserves, and just what bills Aaron Eckhart’s gotta pay to make him agree to be in this.
I was watching the trailer going WHAT?? about every three seconds, and also wondered the same about Bill Nighy.
Dude, Bill Nighy is in like every shitty movie ever – c.f. the Underworld legacy. I love him so.
i saw this trailer this weekend as well and had a very similar set of questions. this movie would make so much more sense in every way if they just didn’t use the word (name?) “frankenstein.” the clip you posted only raises more questions; is Aaron Eckhart not actually even the Frankenstein of the title? Has he yet to become a Frankenstein, and all of the patchwork stitching on his face is of an unrelated origin? Is this like a Bourne Identity deal where he’s on a quest to discover his true self only to be faced with the horrific revelation that he is, in fact, a Frankenstein? did he really just stab someone so hard that they exploded into a shower of embers?!
Boris Karloff is rolling over in his grave.
So you can animate that corpse!
According to Wikipedia, the gargoyles are fighting demons (which I guess have to use the bodies of deceased individuals, so says the trailer).
i no longer understand anything about the moral alignment of this universe.
Wait, then who are the Frankensteins fighting??
The Frankensteins are fighting the gargoyles because the demons are inhabiting their bodies (which are brought to life by Victor Frankenstein’s mechanization. Hence the book, I guess?).
But Aaron Eckhart is going to save the human race, so Aaron Eckhart is … not … a Frankenstein? I mean, he is a Frankenstein, right?
I should probably go read the Wikipedia article.
Honestly, it probably won’t help.
Logic? Common sense?
Oh, Eowyn.
I think what happened here is that someone accidentally funded a movie when they thought they were funding a video game.
You need to make your Kickstarter videos more specific, people.
I can just imagine the pitch meeting : Remember how we did werewolves vs Vampires? Like that only Frankenstein mutants versus transforming Gargoyles.” “Awesome, here’s 10 million dollars!”
I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE YOU GUYS
And yet we still have no Werewolf Bar Mitzvah: The Movie.
I tweeted a gentle gibe about this film and the I, Frankenstein twitter immediately followed me. It conjured up a weirdly protective guilt in my cockles, like the moment when you spray a misbehaving kitten with a squirt bottle and it runs to you for protection.
(I have not overlooked the possibility that I, Frankenstein is using Twitter pity as a marketing device.)
That is superb.
The same happened to me! I am confused and delighted.
In response to question 10, me.
Good, I haven’t seen you in forever!
I don’t understand why the whole thing looks like a video game, except maybe they just pre-animated everyone to make the transition easier when it hits the consoles?
I saw the trailer for the first (only) time before Catching Fire. It horrified me until I saw the next one – for Noah. Now that movie looks ridiculous.
Wait, there’s a Noah movie? “…and the Flood” Noah? Why is this a thing that is needed?
Well this movie has abs and Miranda Lawson in it, that’s enough for me.
Also what, the other gargoyles that were flying around were actually Frankensteins? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. It does kind of make sense that the monster would learn how to talk after 200 years, at least.
Hold up:
It is clear that the gargoyles (led in some form by Bill Nighy?)
Consider my interest officially piqued!
Wow, this is the first time the thread hasn’t answered my question, which is: Why is it called “I, Frankenstein”? Are they trying to get people who are nostalgic for ‘I, Claudius’ to misremember it as being full of gargoyles? Or is it like, “I, Frankenstein, do solemnly swear…” In which case, what is he swearing to? Good lord, I might actually have to go see it just because I’m so irritated.
I think it’s supposed to make us think of “I, Robot” since robots are also non-human yet humanlike creations of science? That’s the connection that I drew, anyway.
I comma am sold.
I really want this to not be as terrible as Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Also, until just right now I was convinced that Him, Frankenstein was played by Thomas Jane.
From now on referring to all eponymous protagonists of “I, blah” as “Pronoun, blah”, thank you kindly.
I really want this to not be as terrible as Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Also, until just right now I was convinced that Him, Frankenstein was played by Thomas Jane.
Another argument for Benny's participation in a live-action worm film.
I think that might be the most well turned out and respectable looking I’ve ever seen Bill Nighy.
Also, the whole “alienated male finds redemption through killing lots of creatures even more vicious and anti-social than himsel with a little help from a good womanf” trope is getting a little wearing. I guess that’s why I’m so excited about the upcoming Captain America 2.
Everyone involved in making this movie deserves to be haunted by the ghost of Mary Shelley. I feel the same way about Kenneth Branagh and Peter Ackroyd.
Everyone involved in making this movie deserves to be haunted by the ghost of Mary Shelley. I feel the same way about Kenneth Branagh and Peter Ackroyd.
In the Spanish-speaking world, wouldn’t this movie be titled, “Yo, Frankenstein”? This gives it a sort of jaunty, Stallone-esque feel.
just why is it called i, frankenstein? unless he adopted his makers name… which would be entirely stupid since he hated him. argh and his handsomeness anoys me, like what happened to the black hair and yellow eyes ahha