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| A Bug's Life (1998) |
A Bug’s Life (1998)
Pixar’s take on Seven Samurai (1954) features a struggling troupe of insect circus performers mistaken for warriors and recruited by an ant to defend his colony from bullying grasshoppers, who return after each year’s harvest to steal the ants’ grain.
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| Three Amigos (1986) |
Three Amigos (1986)
Three out-of-work silent film stars are hired to protect a Mexican village from a marauding warlord by a woman who thinks their on-screen heroism is for real. It’s not until one of the actors is shot that the trio realize they've been hired to fight, not entertain. Instead of fleeing back to Hollywood, the three decide to become the heroes they once portrayed on film. The film contains references to Seven Samurai remake The Magnificent Seven (1960) as well as The Wild Bunch (1969), the funniest of which is Wild Bunch actor Alfonso Arau’s performance as the villain El Guapo.
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| Galaxy Quest (1999) |
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Jason Nesmith, the former star of a cancelled science fiction TV series who makes his living signing autographs at fan conventions and store openings, is approached by what appear to be over-zealous fans about a job. Jason assumes he’s being hired for yet another personal appearance. Instead, he is transported to deep space by aliens who believe the episodes of Jason’s television program are actually “historical documents,” and that Jason is a real-life space adventurer. They present Jason with a functioning replica of his TV spaceship and explain that they are the last survivors of a race that has been hunted to near-extinction by an interplanetary bad guy. Jason convinces his former co-stars to join him in reprising their TV roles for real in order to save the desperate aliens.
