Best Defense (1984)

[SlidePocket 707]

From the director of Howard the Duck comes Eddie Murphy's first career mistake and one of many misses for Dudley Moore, 1984's Best Defense!

 

Originally, the movie only had Moore as the lead, but due to poor test screenings, Paramount chose to add then-rising star Murphy into the mix and with that, both actors' plots are completely unrelated to the whole movie! It underperformed so badly, that Murphy would eventually poke fun at the movie when he hosted Saturday Night Live a few months after its release to promote Beverly Hills Cop. I wonder what the original version was like?

[sillstaw 414]

It's already a bad sign when you're called a "guest star" in a movie. When you're listed as a "strategic guest star?" That's every red flag, dipped in blood to make them even redder. It's just never a good sign when the studio invents a credit for you.

 

The thing is that, although I haven't seen the movie, I can't imagine the non-Eddie Murphy movie being all that compelling. The story would basically be a guy who's kept from fixing a design flaw by his employer. How unbelievably boring of a movie does that sound?

 

Also, one of the most redundantly-phrased bits of trivia ever, from the movie's IMDb page:

 

One of three 1984 movies that Dudley Moore starred in that were released in the year of 1984.

[dlo burns 129]

 

Also, one of the most redundantly-phrased bits of trivia ever, from the movie's IMDb page:

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ａｎｄ ｔｈｅ ｄｅｃｉｍａｔｉｏｎ

ｎｅｖｅｒ ｃａｍｅ

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Pretty fucking surprised this one hasnt been mentioned before on here. This was originally a Dudley Moore led movie, but had famously terrible screenings. So someone had the bright idea to write a role for Eddie Murphy for the movie because he was just emerging as a huge star.

 

One problem, the movie had already been filmed. Rather than let that deter them, they invented a new plot and role for Eddie Murphy and then just edited in his scenes concurrent with the already finished movie with Dudley Moore.

 

The end result is fucking awful.

 

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

haha the search function fails again my bad, nothing showed up under defense for some reason. Im just glad I wasnt the first one to suggest this horrible movie.