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Originally posted by Evil Dead
I think Affleck was the worst person they could have possibly chose to play Jack...........I think Sum of All Fears is a good movie, just could have done a better casting job.
Ditto. And I don't know if they were real stingy on continuity, but casting a 30 something in the role of a 50 something doesn't quite make for a smooth transaction.
On a side note, I had absolutely no idea that "Hunt" was a Jack Ryan movie, and worse yet, I never got a chance to see it. I'm ashamed.
Cinemaddiction..........you pointed out one of my biggest gripes about Sum of all Fears. They didn't cast Affleck to play a 50 something.......it's like they started a new saga.
In Sum of all Fears Jack Ryan is a young guy who has only been with the CIA for 18 months. He has just started dating his future wife. His future wife isn't even a doctor yet, she is still interning at a local hospital.
The movie is however set in the present (2002). This means it's not a prequel for if it were, it would have been set in the 70s. They basically took the character of Jack Ryan and started a new saga about him.......from the beginning, ignoring the other three previous movies.
I watched all four movies in the order they were produced. This is probably why I'm so partial to The Hunt for Red October. In The Hunt for Red October, Jack Ryan is just an average CIA analyst. He works a desk job. He is the one who proposes that the Red October isn't actually going to attack....but that the captain simply wants to defect. This leads the brass to say, "okay Jack, since it's your theory......you go make contact with the sub and find out for sure".......
This was my first introduction to the character. The way Jack Ryan is portrayed in this movie is how I knew the character to be. He was just a desk jocky sent out into the field. When Patriot Games came along......they casted a much older Harrison Ford to play the character and gave the character a lot more balls. The Jack Ryan in Red October wouldn't have just jumped into a gunfight with terrorists to save the cousin of the Queen. He was a desk jocky. He would have wet himself in the situation.
They changed the character so much from Red October to Patriot Games it isn't funny. Then Clear and Present Danger comes along.......by the end of that movie Ryan is going into South America to single handedly rescue service men left behind? Not the CIA analyist I know. I love Harrison Ford as an actor and I think he did a great job on both movies..........my problem lies in the change the put upon the character of Jack Ryan. All of a sudden instead of a pencil pushing geek who analyzes data for the CIA we have a chock full of machismo bad ass who doesn't hesitate to jump into dangerous situations, even when uncalled for.
You really need to watch Red October. It is just so great....you will imediately notice how different the character was.
P.S. You mentioned that Affleck should have been playing a 50 year old.........incorrect. They had Harrison Ford playing a guy in his late thirties in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. In Red October, Jack Ryan is in his early thirties........his daughter is 3 years old. Five or Six years pass between it and Patriot Games.......all of a sudden we've got a 50 year old guy playing the character.
Yup, Sum of All Fears is absolurtely in a seperate continuity.
And Evil Dead, I have to very much disagree with you. Ryan might moan about being put on a field job when his career is analysis, but you make him out to be a pure bookworm.
This is not true- when someone protests as much in the film, his ex-Marine background is pointed out. His evolution back into action hero is taken from the books. In HFRO, he was still a tough guy, he just THOUGHT he would not need to dot hat kind of thing any more.
"And Evil Dead, I have to very much disagree with you. Ryan might moan about being put on a field job when his career is analysis, but you make him out to be a pure bookworm."
I wouldn't know Ush........I've never read any of the books. All I know of Jack Ryan are the film adaptations focused on his character. In The Hunt for Red October....Ryan is not a hero. He was a marine......nothing special, who had gotten injured and could no longer be a marine.....so he went to the C.I.A.
The character may be developed quite differently in the books.......I don't know........since we are only talking about the Ryan movies, any insight contained in the novels is irrelevant.
In The Hunt for Red October Jack Ryan is in no way, shape or form made out to be a hero. He is an ex-marine who now holds down a desk for a living. The only brave act Jack does the entire film (before the end) is when he does the helicopter to sub transfer. Even then he did not do it because he was brave......he did it because he believed so strongly that the October was going to surrender he did not want it to be shot down and lost w/o the U.S. learning the secrets of it's propulsion system. He had no choice......he had to jump. The end is very much like this........when he has to go after the rogue cook who's shooting at them. Nobody else could do it.....they all had jobs to do. Ryan being the only one who didn't know how to operate the submarine, he had to go get the guy with the gun. Nowhere in the movie is he made out to be a former hero nor a present hero.