The Shameless Self Promotion of Team Smith.

Have you heard that someone is planning to remake the original Star wars trilogy? Jaden Smith will be playing Luke Skywalker.

Sound farfetched? I would have thought so too, but then I saw Karate Kid at the movies the other day and I would not be at all surprised if that was the next step in the shameless promotion of Team Smith.

Karate Kid, the remake, ends almost identically like the original. Right down to the broken leg and miracle move that wins the young hero the tournament. Infact the whole premise of the movie is the same, albeit in a different location with different characters.

Which is okay, if you’ve never seen the original, but who hasn’t seen Karate Kid? Seriously, I reckon it’d be a fucken long road you’d have to travel before you found someone who didn’t know that Cobra Kai Never Die, that sweeping the leg is a killer move or what the transcendental meaning of ‘wax on, wax off’ is.

So why, I wondered, in the cold hard light of the day and mere moments after I realised I had just wasted most of my World Cup Sweepstake winnings, would someone pour millions into making something we all know the ending of?

Then it dawned on me; this is a Smith family joint produced solely for the promotion of Will Smith Junior, Jaden. No it really is. Mom and Dad are producers on the movie and the closing credits have stills from the movie; some of scenic China, some of co-stars enjoying a rare break in filming and a whole heap with the whole Smith clan, three of which weren’t even in the movie!

Talk about living the dream through your children. You would think Will Smith had all the success a man needed in a lifetime, but no. I used to like Will Smith, really I did. I loved his cheeky black ass in Fresh Prince and I still know all the words to ‘Summer Time’. I loved Bad Boys and if you were to grab, squeeze and twist my plums till I admitted it, I loved him in the first Men In Black too.

But then he started to get a bit predictable and well, boring. Every movie role started to be Will Smith: The Greatest American Hero and it’s a script he’s never stopped reading from. Think about all the Will Smith movies you’ve seen for a moment and try and pick out the ones where he hasn’t been in a boys wet dream role.

What happened to the comedy? Or the catchy Caucasian friendly rap? Clearly they didn’t make the same amount of money that boring fucken movies do. He’s a hell of a nice guy, is Will, granted, but he reminds me of the kind of guy who keeps telling you the same damn story every time you see him.

And now we have Jaden lining up for some more of the same. I can only imagine the discussion that must have taken place when the family decided on just what role they would pick for Junior:

“What’s the coolest role for a 12 year old?”
“Luke Skywalker?”
“Nah, too white. Someone who knows Kung Fu maybe?”
“Well when I was ten I wanted to be like the Karate Kid?”
“Fuck yes! Let’s do the Karate Kid! He kicked ass!”
“And he was Hispanic, that’s close enough”
“Fuck yeah!”

Thus we have Karate Kid, the remake of the movie of the same name and almost identical plot. Visually, it’s a better movie and Jackie Chan is very cool, but Jaden Smith is no Karate Kid, not in my book anyway. Ralph Macchio may not have been a Chuck Norris himself, but at least he looked like he could make the transition from geek to kick ass geek.

One thing is for sure though; with Team Smith calling the shots you can bet we’ll see much more of Jaden. Maybe even in a remake of Star wars.