Zorro

Dr Bones

New member
Love Zorro....not sure of the simliarities between him and Indy other than the great action and he wears a hat!

I always thought Zorro inspired Batman...the later comics gvie a nod to this (Dark Knight Return and Year One in particluar)

I never read any of the old pulps but I loved the old style action and stunts as well as the character....this probably influenced my love for Batman and Indy etc etc....

I guess my tastes evolved on a similar chronological line to the actual pulps and movies etc.

I have fond memories of watching old B&W Zorro movies and TV series as a Kid at my grandmothers.

I had a mask and sword....the sword had chalk at the end and I got in trouble for all the Z's on the walls!

I watched a lot of old movies and Tv shows in the 80's as I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house...people are surprised at how I have an affection and know about old films and songs that most people my age don't.

Back on track....Zorro was a bit of a trail blazer for me and probably a lot of others.

Other than Batman, I always found Tony Stark reminded me of a ultra modern Zorro. Mabe it's just the moustache and millionaire lifestyle?

I liked the recent film although didn't see the sequel.

I actually believe Zorro is a great character Hollywood should revisit instead of some of the other rebooted dross they are recently churning out.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
But are there any Zorro fans here? What's your favorite Zorro film or series?
You'll find more Zorro fans in this thread (which you've already particpated in).:p:whip:
Zorro
 

roundshort

Active member
I love the Guy Williams Disney Zorro. I have both seasons "tins" and Love them! The best bargin for pure watchable programing ever!
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Bump...
What did you guys think of Anthony Hopkins as Zorro in the Mask of Zorro? Personally, I think he played Zorro second best to Guy Williams, in a tie with Tyrone Power, and that he shouldn't have been killed in the end. Zorro is my favorite movie character next to Indy.
 

kongisking

Active member
Raiders112390 said:
Bump...
What did you guys think of Anthony Hopkins as Zorro in the Mask of Zorro? Personally, I think he played Zorro second best to Guy Williams, in a tie with Tyrone Power, and that he shouldn't have been killed in the end. Zorro is my favorite movie character next to Indy.

Like many of my past posts, I think I came across as way too fanatical in my interests. So I apologize for sounding so childish a few posts back. But I still adore the Zorro character and his mythos. And yes, Hopkins was a fantastic de la Vega. But I disagree with your opinion that he should not have died at Mask's end; that was the film's most emotional moment, next to de la Vega speaking to Elena in the barn, and was a fitting way to pass the torch (yeah, yeah, I know a lot of you hate Banderas, but I find him wickedly funny and charming in these films).
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
kongisking said:
Like many of my past posts, I think I came across as way too fanatical in my interests. So I apologize for sounding so childish a few posts back. But I still adore the Zorro character and his mythos. And yes, Hopkins was a fantastic de la Vega. But I disagree with your opinion that he should not have died at Mask's end; that was the film's most emotional moment, next to de la Vega speaking to Elena in the barn, and was a fitting way to pass the torch (yeah, yeah, I know a lot of you hate Banderas, but I find him wickedly funny and charming in these films).

Yeah, but it's really a depressing ending. Think about it. De la Vega spends his life defending the innocent, and how does fate reward him? His wife gets murdered before his eyes, his daughter gets stolen from him and raised by his mortal enemy, and he dies just after he finally defeats the man who took everything from him, just after finally getting his daughter back. It's a very down ending.

The original ending of the film was to have the film end as it began before everything went to hell, with De La Vega telling stories of his adventures to his grandchild, just as he did to Elena when she was a baby.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
kongisking said:
And yet no one seems to remember the fact that ZORRO was the one that started it all! The Batcave? Zorro's secret lair. Wayne's multiple Bat-hicles? Tornado. Dressed (for the most part) all in black? Zorro. Acrobatic skills? Zorro. Mastery with a sword? Zorro. .

You must know how us Scarlet Pimpernel fans feel.

Well.

I suppose it was only fair that Zorro end up with a musical if the goddamn Batman gets an arena spectacular. Yes, a musical. Apparently Zorro: The Musical has been burning up the stage in Europe, and is finally making its debut Stateside before possibly heading to Broadway.


With a professional flamenco dancer in the titular role, the French production looks pretty impressive. The fight scenes look equally impressive, and I hope the North American productions will live up to the potential.

zorro.jpg


One of the perks of living in an area with a sizable Hispanic population is access to Spanish-language television, specifically Telemundo & Univision. Everybody needs to sit through a full-length broadcast of Sabado Gigante once in their lifetime!

Telenovellas, however, are their bread and butter. These soap operas are epic in length, running hundreds of episodes, and once they've run their course they end. A few years ago while flipping through channels, I came across something that seemed very similar to Zorro.

Turns out that something was El Zorro: La Espada y la Rosa. The 122-episode series ran from February through July 2007, and vaguely followed Isabel Allende's re-telling of Zorro's story. It also featured characters from Guy William's famous take on the character.

Unfortunately the episode I happened to catch was number 27, so I opted not to continue watching much to my chagrin. It doesn't yet exist on video yet, but check out the snippet below. Rumors abound that it periodically airs on Telemundo still. Check it out if you get the chance!


And for old times sake...

 

kongisking

Active member
You know that awful embarrassment you feel upon seeing old posts of yours that display how childish you used to be? I'm feeling it in spades, looking at mine for this thread...:eek:

But I digress. On topic: Zorro is still awesome. :cool:
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
kongisking said:
You know that awful embarrassment you feel upon seeing old posts of yours that display how childish you used to be? I'm feeling it in spades, looking at mine for this thread...:eek:

But I digress. On topic: Zorro is still awesome. :cool:

You're just getting older. We all go through it.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Le Saboteur said:
I suppose it was only fair that Zorro end up with a musical if the goddamn Batman gets an arena spectacular.
Here in Europe, I saw advertisements last year for the Buttman arena show but didn't know about this Zorro musical. Colour me intrigued, Sabo.

Recently, I got the very first Zorro film, the 1920 version of "The Mark of Zorro" with Douglas Fairbanks and Noah Beery. Haven't watched it yet but will soon. (Stephen Jared said that it's good and I respect his opinion immensely.)

markofzorro-donqsonof.jpg
 

kongisking

Active member
Stoo said:
Here in Europe, I saw advertisements last year for the Buttman arena show but didn't know about this Zorro musical. Colour me intrigued, Sabo.

Recently, I got the very first Zorro film, the 1920 version of "The Mark of Zorro" with Douglas Fairbanks and Noah Beery. Haven't watched it yet but will soon. (Stephen Jared said that it's good and I respect his opinion immensely.)

markofzorro-donqsonof.jpg

Aw, you lucky dog! I've been looking for this film for ages! And yes, it's supposed to be ridiculous fun. Hope you like it, and tell me what you think. :hat:
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
News about Zorro pops up at the oddest times it seems. While rooting out any further details on Zorro: The Musical and its chance of making it stateside, I found this blurb.

The Hollywood Reporter said:
On Wednesday, a lawsuit was filed that asserts that Zorro is in the public domain, that trademarks on the character should be canceled and that the company currently professing rights on Zorro has perpetrated a fraud and that the masses should be able to exploit Zorro as they wish.

According to complaint, "Defendants have built a licensing empire out of smoke and mirrors."

The lawsuit, filed in Washington federal court, comes from Robert Cabell, who says that in 1996, he published a musical entitled "Z -- The Musical of Zorro," that's based upon author Johnston McCulley's first Zorro story published in 1919 and the Fairbanks film that was released the following year.

Full article: 'Zorro' Rights Challenged as Invalid & Fraudulent

It looks like Señor de la Vega is headed to court once again.

It also looks like that often discussed post-apocalyptic take on Zorro's legend will indeed be released by 20th Century Fox in 2014. Gael Garcia Bernal is supposed to be filling out the spurs of the titular role, and some Peruvian director has been tapped to helm the feature.

The director's original short "Raven" can be viewed below. Not hard to see why the studio tapped him for the project based on this.


El Zorro: La Spade y la Rosa

Still no word on a home video release, but I have found a few episodes available to view here.
 

Henry Jones VII

Active member
Well I must say I'm a big fan of the character. Love the movies with Mr Banderas, the first one is terrific but the second is a bit weak in some aspects.

I grew up with the cartoon tv series, also I always loved swashbuckling adventure stories like Zorro, The Three Musketeers,etç.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Henry Jones VII said:
...but the second is a bit weak in some aspects.

No, it was truly awful. Not even the above par sword fighting could save that train wreck; a sad fact, too. It would be Bob Anderson's penultimate flick. Fortunately, he had the chance to redeem himself with Alatriste's blistering duels.

Anyway, the **** poor performance of The Legend of Zorro was why Banderas wasn't allowed to don the mask for a third outing. Also sad, because The Mask of Zorro was such a great movie. It struck nearly* all the right notes and Banderas & Ms. Zeta-Jones rose to the occasion with with believable and charming performances.

* - I never cared for Anthony Hopkins as Don Diego de la Vega. For the Strokers, just imagine Sir Hopkins hauling that paunch up and onto Tornado's back one more time.

zorro2_1.jpg


While I have a personal fondness for the Guy Williams show, The Mask of Zorro just might be, as Ebert once wrote, the best Zorro movie ever filmed. It definitely has the best costume.

That said, it looks like Sony's finally getting their remake of Zorro out of the corral. Don't applaud just quite yet. The two worst words in modern movie writing -- gritty and dark -- were used to describe the tone that the studio wants to take with the new picture. It gets worse, too! They've invoked Zorro's heir, The Batman, as the model the want to follow.

According to the folks at Deadline who broke the story, the new picture will be "less traditional swashbuckler, and more of a Dark Knight-style unveiling of the character with a new backstory, gritty realism and emotional core."

The question then is "if Don Diego de la Vega has a different backstory, is he still Zorro? Does the world really want El Deprimido Zorro? One needn't lose Zorro's mirth in order to achieve a level of moral complexity and/or historical realism.

The martial aspect has potential, but I wish Hollywood would learn that one of the absolute hardest things to achieve on film is a believable sword fight. You can tell when somebody know what they're doing.

In the meantime, do check out Puss in Boots for that third Zorro movie we never got.


And there's always that anime Zorro that came out a while back.

 

Henry Jones VII

Active member
Yes, the Legend of Zorro was disapointing I know, even Banderas seemed bored with it.

And this new update about the new one being less traditional swashbuckler is not good at all. Zorro is supposed to be a good fun swashbuckling action/adventure.


I used to watch that anime Zorro back in my youth days, it was pretty good. :whip:
 

kongisking

Active member
Count me as one of the few who really enjoyed Legend, though only a fool would state it's better than Mask of Zorro.

And even though I'm all for different takes on classic characters and am an admitted fan of Dark N' Gritty tales...no. Just no. No, no, no, no, no.

Though, to be fair, most of my disgust for this concept comes from the claim Zorro will not be as dependent on swordsmanship and whips in favor of hand-to-hand combat....which strikes me as 1) not nearly as fun to watch, and 2) totally pointless. If they were keeping the basics of Zorro around, but just plopping him in a darker story, then awesome. Wonderful. I'd really be thrilled for it.

This? My reaction amounts to:

frodo-is-really-disgusted-reaction-gif1.gif
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Henry Jones VII said:
Yes, the Legend of Zorro was disapointing I know, even Banderas seemed bored with it.
I've never seen the Antonio Banderas movies because I'm too happy with the old stuff. Por favor, HJVII, tell us about your favourite Zorro films, amigo!:hat:
kongisking (in August 2012) said:
Aw, you lucky dog! I've been looking for this film for ages! And yes, it's supposed to be ridiculous fun. Hope you like it, and tell me what you think. :hat:
Not sure if you'd like it, Kong. The 1920 movie is pretty much 100 years old and "cringe-inducingly cheesy" with "awful production values". In my opinion, the film's only lasting appeal is as a showcase for early Hollywood talent (rather than a must-see Zorro movie). It is a cinematic curiosity for enthusiasts of film history (& Zorro fan completists).

Personally, I found it laborious to watch. I have several *silent* films in my collection but this is one which I will probably never watch again.:(
 

Henry Jones VII

Active member
Stoo said:
I've never seen the Antonio Banderas movies because I'm too happy with the old stuff. Por favor, HJVII, tell us about your favourite Zorro films, amigo!:hat:
Not sure if you'd like it, Kong. The 1920 movie is pretty much 100 years old and "cringe-inducingly cheesy" with "awful production values". In my opinion, the film's only lasting appeal is as a showcase for early Hollywood talent (rather than a must-see Zorro movie). It is a cinematic curiosity for enthusiasts of film history (& Zorro fan completists).

Personally, I found it laborious to watch. I have several *silent* films in my collection but this is one which I will probably never watch again.:(

My favorite is The Mask of Zorro. a great action/adventure thrill ride. :whip:

I've never seen the old ones, which ones do you recommend amigo? :hat:
 

Montana Smith

Active member
In serials:

Zorro?s Fighting Legion for a more traditional period based setting.

Zorro Rides Again for a 1930s setting.


Both containing Yakima Canutt's fine stuntwork in scenes that found their way into Raiders of the Lost Ark.
 
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