A science fiction Zorro?

There are times when I think every idea in science fiction has been tapped.

Then I realize it's just Hollywood.

This link from io9 has since been "sanitized" by the money-grubbers at Fox who were apparently unhappy that a trailer from their Development Hell got out to the hoi polloi.  You can, however, at least watch the trailer at YouTube but Fox has removed the sound.

The proposed but aborted idea was simple: reboot Zorro with a science fiction sensibility.

Now I'm okay with the pulp character of Zorro.  He's not one of my favorites, but nonetheless I'd say he's pretty solid and many characters I love (e.g. Batman) would not exist without him.  So what would a masked vigilante out for justice in old California look like rebooted to a futuristic setting?

Well for one thing, it's in an overpopulated dystopia that sort of looks like Elysium.  Of course it is.  What other form of future would contemporary producers pursue?  Or maybe that's just our cynical nature, expecting a dystopia because already pretty much live in one?  Only this one may be worse as an asteroid hit has destroyed most of California and Mexico.  That's the bad news (or the good, depending upon one's political perspectives, I suppose.  Not mine, but perhaps someone else's. But I digress...)

The good news is that the asteroid brought with it an ore that can be transformed into in a powerful new energy source.  That means big money.  That also means big corporations and an exploited workforce.  Thus there is ripe ground for the rise of Zorro.

Unfortunately you can't tell much more than that from the trailer.  Well, that and he can kick the hell out of a tactical team but isn't that the trite, "par for the course" requirement of most action heroes these days?  Oh wait, I see the difference.  This Zorro has a lightsaber.  That is what he's holding in the promo poster above, right?  That and wearing a mask fitted with goggles that no doubt have all kinds of IR, nightvision, and "cool tech" whatnot?  He's also wearing a leftover suit from Tron.

While the issues such science fiction raises are important and Zorro is very much a story about a man fighting injustice, I just...don't know. It all becomes old after a while.  These slumgillions of dystopias with greedy corporations and destroyed environments all become bland and redundant at some point.

Maybe because they're too much like everyday real life.

Or is that the point?




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