The easiest way that a movie can leave an impression on
someone is through the title. The title
is the most accurate way to describe a movie and one of the first things that
people think of when thinking about movies.
This is why it is important for the people behind a movie to figure out
the right name for it. The title will be
the most frequent representation of the movie.
Finding the right title for a movie can be a difficult task
and there are numerous ways that directors or producers go about doing it. Sometimes the titles work as a good
representation of the movie and other times they don’t. But what makes one specific title better than
another? That is all up to the opinion
of the person reading or hearing the title.
I can and will hypothesize, however.
If you want to go with a simple title for a movie, you go
with the name of the main character. It
is easy to think up because you already have the name of the character. For people that have seen the movie, it is a
memorable title because there is a face to associate with it. And if the main character survives, it will
be an easy title to franchise without having to worry about the plot fitting
the title, or finding a new title for each installment. An example of a movie that uses a character’s
name as the title is Alex Cross, the 2012 film directed by Rob Cohen and
starring Tyler Perry.
Naming the film Alex Cross makes sense from a production
standpoint. The movie is a reboot of the
franchise made popular with Morgan Freeman in the role. The reboot now had Tyler Perry in the role
and needed a way to get people to think of the character as Perry. Naming the new franchise that way made the
character and actor stand out in people’s minds. The franchise may not have been successful in
rebooting itself, but the name was a valiant effort in creating a new brand.
In a similar fashion to movies that use a character’s name
for the title, there are movies that give both a character’s name and their job
as the title. The reason for this is to
give the facial recognition as well as a hint to what will be happening in the
movie. In most cases, this form of
titling is used for comedies. The
problem with franchising this kind of title comes in the form of the story
itself. There are difficulties in finding
multiple stories to tell within certain jobs.
There is also the possibility of a character losing their job but
needing to get it back for the sequel in order to have the name make sense. This is sometimes fixed by giving an entirely
different subtitle, which alleviates part of the pain of franchising the title.
The movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo is a good example of
this kind of title. It gives the
audience the recognition of Rob Schneider’s character and it foreshadows the
fact that he will be selling his body for romantic encounters throughout the
movie. Franchise titling also worked
fairly well since the sequel used European Gigolo in place of Male Gigolo to
signify that Deuce Bigalow was now in Europe and still doing the gigolo thing. Sure, the first movie didn’t give the
location of Deuce Bigalow in the title.
But if you want to franchise a movie subtitled with a job, it is a
fairly good idea to alter the subtitle rather than add a number after the
subtitle. It keeps you from nearing the
ridiculous with titling the different installments.
Hinting at the movie’s plot in the title does not only occur
in movies where a job description is presented in the title. Oh no.
There are titles to movies that present the entire premise. They lay out what the movie is in the hopes
that the title of their insane plot will catch the eye of an unsuspecting
potential viewer. The more ludicrous the
concept is, the more bizarre the title will seem to someone who stumbles upon
it. It is a simple way to get across
what is about to be seen while also making people aware of its existence.
Snakes on a Train, a knock-off of the equally hilariously
titled Snakes on a Plane, spells out exactly what it is in the title. It is a movie about a train on which there
are snakes. If you saw the title of the
movie, you would think that there were snakes on the train. You would wonder why they were there and how
they got there. You would ask why people
wouldn’t get off the train. You would
think about the different ways that the people on the train could be harmed by
the snakes. There are lots of questions
you could come up with by reading the title, but one that you wouldn’t have to
come up with is what the movie is about.
The title already told you that.
Other movies take a more subtle approach in using their
titles to hint at what they are about.
They take the premise and use wordplay to present the concept in the
title without outright saying what the movie is about. It gives somewhat of an idea but does not plainly
state it. It still gives the story of
the movie in a way, though.
The example of this that comes to mind right away is Hansel
and Gretel Get Baked. Surely, the people
with an interest in the movie have a slight idea as to the story of Hansel and
Gretel. They know that the story is
going to be retold in a new way. The way
will likely be through the use of drugs since the title includes the words “get
baked.” Not only does the movie give a
vague idea as to what the story will be, though. The use of the words “get baked” has a double
meaning as it also alludes to the conclusion of the original story of Hansel
and Gretel. You know, with the oven and
all that? It’s a solid title for a solid
film.
The last kind of title that I would like to highlight in
this post is the kind that helped to inspire the post. This final way to title the movie is to take
some element from the movie that could only be understood by watching the
movie, and put it as the title. It could
be an object. Or it could be a
description of a thing. Either way, you
would only know about it through research or actually watching the movie.
What movie inspired this entire post of ramblings about the
way movies are titled? It was actually
four movies. The Iron Eagle movies, which
each feature “Iron Eagle” in their titles, though the phrase is only relevant
to the first film. Doing some research
into the meaning of the phrase, “Iron Eagle” I found that it means a colonel
that will not be promoted to general.
That describes Louis Gossett Jr.’s character in the first film. In the second film, the character is a
general, making all of the sequels have meaningless titles. The only reason that Iron Eagle even fits the
movies is that they are the same series.
Not that they feel like the same series.
Every movie feels like a movie from a completely different series. And the title does not help to make them feel
more like the same franchise.
The problems with titling mostly come in the form of
franchises, as filmmakers attempt to keep some sort of name recognition while
also growing out their movies. Like I
said, I cannot say for sure what makes a good title or a bad title. All I can do is give you some information about
the different ways that movies can possibly be titled and maybe it will allow
someone with more knowledge and a better writing skill to come in and make a
great think-piece on the topic. And when
that comes out, I will be one of the people excited to read it.
There are obviously going to be a bunch of notes for this
one:
- Louis Gossett Jr. appeared in all four of the Iron Eagle movies. He is the only actor to appear in all of them. Jason Gedrick and Uri Gavriel appeared in Iron Eagle and Iron Eagle II. Jason Blicker appeared in Iron Eagle II and Iron Eagle IV. Those are the actors in multiple Iron Eagle films.
- Mitch Ryan made an appearance in Aces: Iron Eagle III. He previously appeared in two other Sunday “Bad” Movie flicks. They were Halloween:The Curse of Michael Myers, and Ed.
- Michael Alldredge showed up in Iron Eagle after having appeared in the Sunday “Bad” Movie titled Robot Jox.
- Tim Thomerson had a decent sized role in Iron Eagle. He had a small cameo in Evil Bong.
- Do you know F. William Parker? He was in Iron Eagle as well as Jack Frost.
- Another actor in Iron Eagle was Dominick Brascia. He was also in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.
- An actor named Fred Dalton Thompson was in Aces: Iron Eagle III. He was also in the movie Baby’s Day Out.
- And then there’s Phill Lewis, an actor from Aces: Iron Eagle III who made an appearance in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.
- The movies I mentioned throughout this post were Alex Cross for the character name, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo for character name and job, Snakes on a Train for spelling out plot in the title, and Hansel and Gretel Get Baked for the wordplay.
- I know there are some kinds of titles that I left out. Quotes and places are two of them. Are there any more that you can think of? Leave comments with the other types of movie titles that you can think of and I may do a sequel to this post sometime in the future.
- If you have a movie that you would like to see covered in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to leave that suggestion in the comments or contact me on Twitter. I’m always open to suggestions.
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