MovieChat Forums > Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004) Discussion > The genius of Anchorman

The genius of Anchorman

posted 14 years ago by ekveland
2 replies | jump to latest

In all this misunderstanding about this movie people seem to miss the main point on how this shines the light on what REALLY made Anchorman a classic: This is actually the MAIN PLOT of that movie.

Yes, that's right. Think about it. It makes much more narrative sense than anything that happened in Anchorman. Somebody had the COJONES to cut out the very main plot of the movie and compile a movie of just subplots and funny scenes into a cult classic rivalling Monty Python's Holy Grail.

If someone hadn't made that decision somewhere down the path we would have ended up with just another SNL generic yawnfest and Anchorman would have had the 6.1 rating, not WURB - which as an ADDENDUM to Anchorman is quite enjoyable.

[–] clark1-1 13 years ago

I never thought about it before, but that's a great point. Wake Up Ron Burgundy is very funny in its own right, but I totally agree - I can't see Anchorman achieving cult classic status with that plot still intact. Changing from the bank robbery story to Ling-Wong being born probably freed up like 45 minutes for them to use whatever random/hilarious stuff they pleased.

I wonder how long it took to come up with 'a panda is born at the zoo' as the (sort of) replacement.

[–] Gurtinator 11 years ago

It's not the main plot. The main plot still would have been the female news anchor.

It was a subplot that took too much from the movie, so they replaced it with a much smaller one (the panda).

"So it goes" -Slaughterhouse Five