|

It Should Be A Movie By Now: Silverhawks

 

silverhawks-feature

What would you get if you mixed some flying birds, Daft Punk and the Thundercats together? I can’t go another week mentioning shows that have gone by the way side that should’ve been movies by now without saying something about the Silverhawks. Yeah, that was me slapping a childhood memory out from the cobwebs of your brain!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve brought this show up in the past and no one has a clue what I’m even talking about. Silverhawks is not that old, yet is typically not remembered by my generation until you show them a toy.

silverhawks-toys

The Copper Kid looks freaky!

For whatever reason, once someone from this generation is given a glimpse of one of these toys (especially the little bird sidekicks), their eyes light up and they just grin. It’s like some cartoon enigma happening right in front of you that is phenomenal to watch. It seems that the show was not popular enough to remember, yet still has some resonating feeling deeply embedded in the 80’s generation. If I still haven’t jogged your memory by now, maybe the opening title sequence will help:

If that doesn’t do it then I’m out of options…

SO, it’s blatantly obvious that this needs a movie. Every character in the show (as far as the heroes are concerned) is some kind of human based organism. There are 65 episodes that a screenplay could be derived from and the CGI now-a-days can take care of anything sci-fi you might have worries about. To further justify why this should be a movie by now, I thought I might search for some art that would depict a more modern approach to how they could look and I found this:

silverhawks1

It’s like a woven bionic mech eagle suit of badassness

That right there should be reason enough but I can still sense the doubt looming in your mind. Ok, well consider this – there are sci-fi books such as Ender’s Game, John Carter, or even Starship Troopers that have been made into movies and plenty of just bad sci-fi movies like Battlefield Earth, yet Silverhawks just floats motionless in the unused space of good ideas. These good ideas need to be tackled and put to good use. At least the Thundercats received a remake of sorts and was brought to our TV sets for a short time. Allowing the youth of today a glimpse into what made our childhoods so amazing. If anything, someone at Cartoon Network should read my post and hopefully put Silverhawks back into the limelight … then perhaps a movie would be right around the corner!

Casting:

Quicksilver – Tom Cruise
silverhawks-casting2

 

Steelheart – Carrie Ann Moss
silverhawks-casting1

 

Steelwill – Patrick Warburton
silverhawks-casting3

 

Lt. Colonel Bluegrass – Jim Carrey
silverhawks-casting6

 

the Copper Kid – Monkey
silverhawks-casting7

 

Commander Stargaze – Dean Norris
silverhawks-casting5

 

(bad guy) Mon*Star – Christopher Walken
silverhawks-casting4

 

I particularly like the Monkey casting. I didn’t want to cast Cruise, but by god he makes one helluva an action movie and would be perfect as the lead role for this film. Then there’s Walken … we always need more cowbell.

That’s it folks, Silverhawks … why isn’t there a movie yet? Do you agree or have any memories of this show? Please let me know in the comments and be sure to check Ebay for an action figure or two.

_________________

Hey guys & gals, my name is Lucas Tetrault and if you like this post or any of the others I’ve done – please feel free to venture over to my Blog and take a gander at some other stuff I write about. I promise I don’t intend to waste your time.

I work as a Creative Director and spend time away from my job with my wife and son, writing for Unreality, and trying to be creative with my own personal projects.

Similar Posts

6 Comments

  1. I don’t believe they’ve ever successfully converted animated 80’s cheese into a decent live-action film (maaaaaaybe the first Transformers, if you squint) and Silverhawks definitely isn’t at the top of the heap to try next. I did dig the show as a kid, though. How do you reckon they’d handle the music battles between Bluegrass with his guitar and that villainess with …was it a keytar?

    1. Pretty sure it’s a Keytar … see I’m of the opposite opinion. I feel that it’s not really “animated 80’s cheese” because it was really well done for the time and the technology that we had to produce it. Not only that but it seems like most of these cartoons that I make mention of are well thought out and written ideas that were produced. Not like some of the stuff that we get today.

      I think that Transformers was what paved the way to show that we can take these ideas and build on them. Make them something more tangible than what the cartoons were. Bring the cartoons to life and give us other fun ways to escape in the movies than the typical fare we are always subjected to. If anything, it’s better to do a Silverhawks movie than to make more and more sequels of Transformers. At least we can get something different out of it.

  2. I like the cast picks and I like the artwork, but I don’t see them ever making this old cartoon into a new movie…why bother when then can make awful movies like I Frankenstein!?

    1. Who is to say that it would be awful…that’s the whole point. Take something like this AWESOME cartoon and put some good writers on it and turn it into an epic space sci-fi fantasy action blockbuster … well I think it would be awesome.

      1. I wasn’t saying it would be awful. I was saying they wouldn’t take a chance making this because they are too busy wasting their time making awful movies.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.