In The Year 3000

Here’s a funny story that offers a glimpse into how I find some of the more unusual links I post here.

• There’s a random Friends episode on in the background. They make a reference to a fictional character who’d performed in a Macbeth movie. They then pin it in time by saying, “They showed the trailer before Jackass.”
• Well off I go to IMDB to see if there’s any interesting Macbeth adaptations that came out right around a year after Jackass (2001).
• I find this weird 2003 version that is supposedly set in a surreal fantasy world where reality keeps changing.
• Random browsing gets me interested in whatever happened to the Romeo and Juliet: The War movie that was supposed to be coming out.
• It’s still in development so IMDB won’t let me see any details. I go googling and find this Variety article from 2015. There’s a comment on the bottom of that article from a guy named John Schnurr saying, “I just filmed this same plot, please don’t make this movie.”
• <shrug> Sounds like a unique enough name.  Found him!  I look for Shakespeare credits (amid the pro-wrestling credits, strangely enough).
• Sure enough, look what I found!  I give you… Romeo 3000.

This looks *so* bad. I don’t mean the acting or the special effects. Got to love everybody rocking the Borg eyepiece, the oddly out of place steampunk villain, and Romeo with the Winter Soldier arm.  Those are all straight out of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (oooo, the irony of making things sound sci-fi by adding 3000 at the end….)

No, I’m talking about the painful “This sounds like Shakespeare” writing. In the trailer alone:

• “This be the year 3000…”
• “This be not the story of star-cross’d lovers…”
• “Romeo be the last of his line.”
• “Romeo, Romeo, where arst thou Romeo?”

I’ll give them this, it looks like they sure went for it with whatever budget they had.  It’s actually a good trailer, with a nice quality video that shows it wasn’t shot on a potato. The fight scenes look like they could be fun.  Everybody’s acting their damnedest. And there’s some money left over for special effects.

Keep an eye out for the full-length version and report back if you ever get to see it!