Editing 1164: Home Alone

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
''{{w|Home Alone}}'' is a popular 1990 film in which the child protagonist Kevin McCallister (portrayed by {{w|Macaulay Culkin}}) is accidentally left alone in his house when his family goes on vacation, and has to thwart a burglary all by himself. In the movie, McCallister comes up with a variety of ingenious traps and schemes (usually involving {{w|jury rig|jury-rigged}} toys and household items) to harass, injure and eventually incapacitate the burglars, which was the film's defining feature. On a more general level, the films revolve around the classical trope with an {{tvtropes|UnderdogsNeverLose|underdog defeating a much stronger opponent}} (the burglars), through his own ingenuity. The film spawned a {{w|Home Alone (franchise)|series of sequels}} (4 as of 2012, the first of which also starred Culkin) all with a similar premise to the original.
+
''{{w|Home Alone}}'' is a popular movie 1990 film in which the child protagonist Kevin McCallister (portrayed by {{w|Macaulay Culkin}}) is accidentally left alone in his house when his family goes on vacation, and has to thrwart a burglary all by himself. In the movie, McCallister comes up with a variety of ingenious traps and schemes (usually involving {{w|jury rig}}ed toys and household items) to harass, injure and eventually incapacitate the burglars, which was the film's defining feature. The film spawned a {{w|Home Alone (franchise)|series of sequels}} (4 sequels as of 2012, the first of which also starring Culkin) all with a similar premise to the original.
  
This strip, however, proposes a {{w|Reboot_(fiction)#Film|reboot}} of the franchise, with the main change to the film being that of an age-reversal, so the story is now about an adult man setting needlessly harmful traps to hurt defenseless children breaking into his house. This would likely be seen as distasteful at the very least, and would probably lead to a negative reputation for the film. The title text adds another punchline when it is revealed that the reboot also stars Macaulay Culkin in the same role. This may suggest that the age-reversal gimmick was done to allow for him to star in the film as the same character despite growing up since the beginning of the franchise. This would be a rather misguided attempt to revive his career, and would probably just prevent any further success.
+
The scene depicted in the strip is an adaptation of an iconic scene from the first movie which was used heavily in advertising where McCallister hangs two paint cans from string above the staircase and when the burglars try to climb up and get him, he lets the cans swing down and hit them in the face.  
  
The scene depicted in the strip is an adaptation of an iconic scene from the first movie (used heavily in advertising) where McCallister hangs two paint cans in strings above the staircase, and let them swing down to hit the burglars in the face.
+
The films represent a classic story of the underdog (in this instance, a child) defeating a much stronger opponent (the burglars) through his own ingenuity. In this strip, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] suggests {{w|Reboot_(fiction)|reboot}}ing the franchise (where a new film is made that begins a series fresh, ignoring the previous continuity of the series, and usually with some changes to update or improve the series), which has become very popular and successful over 2004–2014 (with notable {{w|Reboot_(fiction)#Film|examples}} in Bond and Marvel franchises). Randall suggests that the reboot "reverse" the ages so that the protagonist is an adult and the burglars are children. This obviously wouldn't work well as a movie because it would mean an adult man using his much greater strength and abilities to harm children. Randall also suggests that, as it has been more than two decades since the original film, Culkin could again play the protagonist in the reboot, as he is now in his 30s.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
Line 19: Line 19:
 
:Child on floor: Waaaaaaaaa!
 
:Child on floor: Waaaaaaaaa!
 
:Rejected movie ideas:
 
:Rejected movie ideas:
:Age-reversed ''Home Alone'' reboot.
+
:Age-reversed ''Home Alone'' reboot.  
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)