Tonight's marathon is all about protecting the one's assigned to you to guard, and in some cases, also means you fall in love with them. This marathon is all about playing one role: To be a bodyguard. Being a bodyguard means you never let the person you're protecting out of your sight, never let your guard down and most importantly, never fall in love. We have on our menu for this evening:
The Defender 1994, The Bodyguard 1994, The Terminator 1984, Star Wars Episode ll: Attack of the Clones 2002, The World Is Not Enough 1999, and The Fifth Element 1997
Not all of them may seem like bodyguard and forbidden romance movies, but once you do the math and start to think about the storylines in each one, the reasons behind their addition to the lineup becomes more obvious. All of these movies present the formula of a guy sent on a mission to protect an important female character, and do so with the understanding that they will sacrifice their lives if necessary to protect those individuals. But what each and everyone one of the male figures in this lineup didn't expect to do in the course of playing the vital role of the protector is to establish an emotional connection with their client. Sometimes getting too close to someone with that kind of job title can be a bad thing and allow complications to arise. Jet Li's The Defender starts this formula and introduces all the complications of guy protecting girl, falling for girl, and ultimately realizing that they can't keep a relationship going if they wish to protect that person. The Defender begins the theme of tonight's marathon with a corrupt businessman who commits a murder and the witness of such an event is the girlfriend of a businessman who has close connections to the Chinese government. In order to protect her so she can give her testimony, a bodyguard from Beijing played by Jet Li, is dispatched to help two Hong Kong cops protect the witness. What follows after are complications that arise when the bodyguard and the witness both fall for each other, and must deal with their growing and intense feelings for one another. The next film The Bodyguard is very similar in storyline with an ex Secret Service agent taking the job of protecting a pop singer, whose the target of an obsessed fanatic or secret assassin. Like The Defender, complications arise when the agent Frank Farmer played by Kevin Costner, begins to fall for his client, pop singer Rachael Meredith played by Whitney Houston. The two clash egos and want to be seen as the one in charge of the other, but can't cope with the fact that their intense passion for each other is interfering with Frank's job to protect her. The Bodyguard juggles these themes very well, making you understand the issues that the other films characters wrestle with. The third film Terminator, takes the bodyguard angle to a new level of excitement. This storyline takes place in the future with two soldiers sent back through time travel, one a soldier from the resistance named Kyle Reese whose mission is to protect a woman named Sarah Conner, whose unborn child will lead the resistance against the machines that threaten to destroy mankind. The second soldier is a machine called The Terminator that is a cyborg wearing living human tissue, whose mission is to seek out and destroy Sarah Conner, so that mankind will have no leader in the war against the machines. The Terminator may appear to come off as a science fiction monster movie, but it also can be read as a romantic drama. The bodyguard theme is present here with Kyle Reese protecting Sarah Conner to the point where if necessary, he will sacrifice his life for her. It later gets revealed in the film that he not only volunteered for the mission, but he is the father sent back through time to ensure that John Connor is born. He falls in love with Sarah by studying a picture of her that was given to him by John Connor in the future war. His only moment of salvation during the battles is to sit in a corner in a basement with the rest of the nuclear blast survivors and gaze at a picture of Sarah Connor that was folded in his pocket. The Terminator may be an iconic Scfi movie but it also remains one of cinemas greatest love stories. The next film is a James Bond film titled The World Is Not Enough. Like the previous three films before it, this Bond movie deals with Pierce Brosnan's Bond being assigned to protect an oil heiress from her former kidnapper, who plans to carry out a scheme involving a nuclear threat to wipe out Europe. Bond begins to fall for the seductive charms of Sophie Marceau's character Elektra King, who doesn't seem to care to much that her life is being threatened. Much like the conflict between bodyguard and client as shown in The Defender and The Bodyguard, Bond sleeps with his client, only to discover shortly afterwards that she may not be as helpless as she appears to be. The final two entries in the marathon are the same type of conflict but have now turned into space operas. Star Wars Episode ll: Attack of the Clones, introduces a teenage Anakin Skywalker whose been assigned by the Jedi Council to protect senator Padme Amidala from an assassination attempt plotted by the separatists. The conflict that arises is Anakin, though a whiny young apprentice to his master Obi Wan Kenobi, has developed an emotional attachment to Padme since he last saw her ten years prior in The Phantom Menace. During their private moments together where he serves as a bodyguard for her, they begin to express their intimate feelings for each other. Like how Frank Farmer and Rachael Meredith had different job professions, Anakin and Padme experience a similar dilemma with Anakin studying to become a Jedi master, and Padme a senator. Their situation means a relationship between them isn't possible unless it's kept hidden from public view, something both are afraid to do because it would destroy their lives ultimately. Episode ll may not be the best written romance involving the bodyguard theme (it won a razzie for worst screenplay), but it's essential to this marathon in terms of driving home the message that sometimes it's difficult to love somebody because of the boundaries that society places upon them. The final film in the evening is the Fifth Element. Bruce Willis finds himself in possession of mankind's greatest weapon against it's own demise, a woman with extraordinary power that can obliterate a ball of fire heading towards Earth which represents the ultimate evil. Willis character is revealed to be a lonely cab driver whose down on his luck, until this one person falls into the back of his cab while evading the police. He easily falls for her, and during the course of the movie protects her, with her doing the same in the ultimate twist at the end. She not only protects him but ends up saving the world from total annihilation by using her powers to destroy the ultimate forces of evil. It's a perfect finish to a great lineup of movies that explore the theme of a guy protecting girl then falling for her. It raises some pretty ethical questions such as whether you should date the person you're protecting, or if a relationship like the ones presented in the film could ever work under those circumstances. That's what tonight's lineup is all about exploring.
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