I came up with a theory while recently watching The Crow late one night, a 1994 movie that has been a favorite of mine ever since a scrawny, much skinnier 17 year old me watched it in theaters. While watching it, in which I may or may not have had a glass of wine or two or three, it dawned on me that this movie as much in common with a certain Rip City team from 1977.
To begin with, I love The Crow. It was the first movie based on a comic book that I really identified with, because if there is one thing I really identify with, it’s mystical crows. I watched it over and over again when it came out on a little relic known as a VHS tape, placing it up there on my list of re-watchable classics such as The Shawshank Redemption, The Empire Strikes Back and Transformers: The Movie, the 1986 cartoon version (don’t judge!). Perhaps it was the visual style of the film that stuck with me, a fever dream of visuals in a universe that never strayed too far from our own. Maybe it was the revenge-minded spirit of the film, where you rooted for every bad guy to be killed off as gruesomely as they were because they all deserved it. Or, maybe it could have been the subtle, fatherly performance of Ernie Hudson or the not-so-subtle villainous role played by Michael Wincott, whose raspy voice made for the perfect villain you really felt needed a good skewering from a rooftop gargoyle. Then there was the leading man, Brandon Lee, whose presence in the movie is as haunting and tragic as any fictional character put to film, brought to more realism due to his tragic death while filming the movie (more on that later). Perhaps, more than anything, I loved The Crow for everything it was while it was around and everything it could have been afterwards, but was never realized. To put it in basketball terms, The Crow is to the movies what the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers are to the NBA, a moment in time that ended just as it began.
For those unfamiliar with The Crow, Lee portrays Eric Draven, a man who walks in on his fiancée being assaulted in their apartment by a bunch of pyro-lovin’ hoodlums. Eric is gunned downed by the assailants, falling several stories to his death as his future bride later dies in the hospital. Eric is later resurrected from the dead to seek revenge on those who wronged him and his girl, a single crow being his power between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Lee walks and runs through the movie like an actual spirt caught on film. He is menacing when confronting his killers, but shows compassion to a young friend whom he knew while he was alive and to the man (Hudson) who stood by his fiancée while she was in the hospital. To me, The Crow is the perfect comic book movie, hitting all the right notes that today’s special effects driven spectacles fail to even attempt.
I’m sure just about everyone is familiar with the story of the ’77 Blazers and their march to an NBA title. The 1976-’77 season for the Trail Blazers was their first ever winning season in only their seventh overall as a franchise. Parallel to that, it was their first venture into the playoffs and nobody expected the Blazers to advance far, much less win the whole thing as questions surrounded the team about health and overall chemistry. Portland (49-33) finished second in the Pacific Division behind the Los Angeles Lakers, who had a league-best record of 53-29 and also had one of the best players in the game in center/co-pilot Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. Nobody saw any other team toppling the Lakers out west, especially a Blazers team that had never even sniffed the postseason before.
Similarly, nobody was expecting much from The Crow while it was being filmed. The movie was made for a measly $23 million dollars and at one point was expected to be a straight-to-video release. Instead, maybe in part due to the tragedy surrounding the film, it became a sleeper hit. The Crow grossed twice its budget and continues to be a cult favorite among film lovers today. Its success helped usher in a new era of comic book adaptations that were far darker than previous incarnations.
During the 1977 NBA playoffs, The Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls in the first round, then beat the Denver Nuggets in six games of the semifinals before facing off against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. To most everyone’s surprise, in a showdown of two of the game’s most dominate centers, Bill Walton and the Blazers swept past Abdul-Jaabar and the Lakers in four games to advance to the NBA Finals. In the championship round, Portland fell behind quickly before storming back from 0-2 series hole to beat Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers to win its first and only NBA championship. The Blazers appeared to be a team of destiny, an organization on the brink of a dynasty.
Likewise, The Crow should have been the beginning of a juggernaut film franchise, the first in a succession of hit movies, leading the way for a new revolution of comic book films. The Crow was one of the first adapted comic book movies that wasn’t catered to just kids and 40-year old virgins. It was dark, violent, and tinged with a hint of humanity and emotion. It swore and bled like no comic book movie before it. But, like the Trail Blazers of ‘77, it never had a chance to reap what it had sewn.
The similarities don’t end there. The Blazers had Jack Ramsey leading the way, a future Hall of Fame coach who was only in his first season of coaching the Blazers in 1977. The Crow had an up and coming director at the helm in Alex Proyas, who would later go on to direct Dark City and I, Robot and who has a new film out this week titled Gods of Egypt. The Blazers had a rising star in Bill Walton and a strong supporting cast with the likes of Maurice Lucas (the team’s leading scorer) and Lionel Hollins. The Crow had a rising star in Brandon Lee and a supporting cast that fit perfectly around him. This was Hudson’s best movie, showing more depth and emotion than he ever got to show in either Ghostbusters movies for which he is most famous for. Wincott was both sinister and twisted, especially when it came to family matters. But, just as The Crow’s greatness would go no further than 1994, Portland’s greatness stalled in 1977.
The season following Portland’s banner year was derailed when Bill Walton went down with a broken foot. Portland limped into the playoffs after dominating the first 60 games of the season and its playoff run ended in the second round to the Seattle Supersonics. From there on, the team was never the same as Walton was later traded and the team fell into mediocrity, not returning to the Finals again until 1990.
Tragically, for Brandon Lee, the magic would end before it even began. Lee was accidentally shot and killed near the end of filming The Crow from a defective blank that was fired on set. Production of the film became delayed and was uncertain to continue as the tragedy left The Crow in limbo. But, the film was finished, thanks to some last minute re-writes to help deal with Lee’s unfinished work and with a new distributer, Miramax, who helped finance the completion of the film. The Crow opened to No.1 at the box office and received mostly positive to enthusiastic reviews from critics. But, it would never have the promising future after the loss of Lee, who was signed on to play in two sequels if the movie was a hit. And it was. Brandon Lee was just four years younger (28) than when his father, Bruce Lee, passed away.
Eventually, because money talks, there were three sequels made to The Crow, but none of them were near as good as the original and none of them had a lead to match Lee’s persona. All three sequels did poorly at the box office, Lee’s death effectively ending the would-be trilogy before it could take off. There is currently talk of a reboot in the works, but time will tell if The Crow can be resurrected once more.
The Crow and the ’77 Blazers were, once upon a time, destined for more than what was given to us. However, The Crow was released and holds a special place in my movie fandom heart. The Blazers did win a championship in 1977, giving the city of Portland and all its fans a moment to remember forever. We only wish we could have seen both at full strength once more. We wish we could have seen the Blazers march through the 1978 playoffs with everybody healthy, potentially winning another NBA championship and fulfilling the label of destiny. We wish we could have seen more of Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, and in other roles as well, maybe teamed with Alex Proyas again to direct those two sequels as they were originally meant to be.
Of course, the death of Lee far surpasses the injury to Walton in terms of tragedy and misfortunes, and it’s not even close. But, you can’t help but wonder what the fates of both franchises might have been without either incident. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if mystical crows really did exist to put the wrong things right?
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