So I m guessing the conversation for the pitch meeting went something like
this. So the movie Seventeen Again that came out in 2000
remember that? That s the skeleton of the vision but make it cringe.
It s Genius.
17 Again. Now when I say that most of you, if not all, think about the movie starring Zac Efron.
However comma. There is one that came before it. We spell it alphabetically. And it stars
Tia Mowry- Hardrict, Tamera Mowry- Housley, and their younger brother,
Tahj Mowry. Now how this movie continues to get swept beneath the rug is beyond me.
Because the thing about it is the same people who have seen one, haven t seen the other or didn t
even know the other existed. I thought, maybe it s a generational thing. But then again maybe not
because they both came out in the same decade. Then I m like well is it the star power? But I
don t think that s it either because both films have pretty notable stars in their own right.
Maybe it s due to one having a theatrical release and the other being a made for TV movie. It s
possible. I won t negate that one. But you know what, I think it really boils down to the plot.
That one part in the numerical version that made it super weird. And as we know controversy can
really put you on the map. Just in case you ve never seen or heard of either of these films and
you re sitting there looking at your screen like Girl, what are you even talking about? Let me
set the scene. Mike O Donnell is a 40 year old loser. Mmmm You know what that came out a bit
harsher than I intended, let me back up. Mike O Donnell is a man dealing with a tough time
in his life. His kids hate him. His high school sweetheart is divorcing him. He s living with his
best friend. And he quits his job on account of some young hot airhead with no experience,
being promoted over him. Despite his 16 years of hard work and dedication. But we all know these
jobs don t care about nobody. They do not care. That s probably the most realistic thing about
this movie. But all of this changes in the blink of an eye by a chance encounter with the schools
janitor. You see old saint Nick from Christmas past can tell that Mike is in
need of a pick me up. The dreadful self-pity seeps from his pours. So he sprinkles a little
voila magic and bam. He wakes up to his old self. Literally. He s 17 again. Which means he can
relive his glory days. No more sponserbilites. He gets to replay the time in his life that he
regrets the most. Heck who knows, this basketball thing may work out this time. He can go off to
college and finally make something of himself. Teen dad where? Young husband where? That is not
in the lineup for Mikes life. So he thinks. Now let s take it back to the 99 and 2000.
Sydney and Willie live in a new town with their dad and stepmother. Willie being the
smart guy that he is, comes up with a formula to stop his dog from aging. The formula goes
awry and instead the dog ages backwards. He is seventeen again. That s the story. Sike,
I m just playing. The grandparents, Kat and Gene, are in town and they have to look after the kids
and under normal circumstances that would be a fun time but you see they sort of hate each other.
Well not sort of. They outright can t stand each other. Its extremely uncomfortable to be around.
Heck I m uncomfortable watching them interact. These people who seemingly have nothing in common
anymore will be forced to have shared experience. That box of soap that was sitting in Willie s lab
has a little extra razzle dazzle. Turning back the hands of time. This is where we meet Tamera
now steps in and she s the younger version of grandma Kat. Identical twins playing grandma and
granddaughter. Puzzling but not really. I think this works because we have all either experienced
being told or even telling someone. You look JUST like your daddy. You look JUST like ya mom.
Spiting image of your grandmother. So it was an ode to that and it s cute to see it play out
onscreen. However comma. One of the problems that I do have with the cast of the grandparents
is that neither pair look alike. It doesn t take you out of the movie but I ve always thought
it was ironic that they put so much thought into family resemblance but didn t carry that
concern to the casting of the older parents. But both Tamera and Mark do an exceptional
job at playing older. Their first encounters with people at seventeen are hilarious. Kat is met
with a group of girls that s about ready to fight her and first she s all afraid and then she s like
Wait a minute, NOBODY puts their hands on me. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Real grandma. She still gets beat up but she nails it. And when Gene is met with the
police for speeding the officer s like is this your car? And Gene goes This is my son s car.
Just dropped he and the misses off at the airport. Like that is such an old man thing to
say. The mannerisms and everything. I love it. And of course when Sydney and Kat see each other
for the first time it s reminiscent of the Sister Sister that girl has my face moment. And Willie
being a scientist is a extension of Tahj s role on his hit show Smart Guy which is pretty dope.
Now here s an issue I have with the plot of the bootleg. When Mike first returns to his
high school and see s his kids, they don t recognize him. And not recognize him like
hey father, how did you get here? No, more like a hey you kind of remind me of my dad,
it s freaking me out a little. I mean not for nothing, Matthew and Zac look nothing alike in
real life but for the sake of the movie, I ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
They are used to seeing their older, tired, stressed out, life-hating dad. Life s been pretty
ruff for him so he s not all bright eyed and bushy tailed. But do you mean to tell me, they
have never seen a picture of their dad when he was younger? I know for a fact he s the type to
whip out a picture unwarranted talking about back in the day. None of this looks familiar to you?
The mom did peep it within seconds. But I m not letting those kids off the hook. But I guess
I have more important things to concentrate on like the relationship between Mike and Maggie.
Now they save this bit for like the last 30 minutes of the movie because
let s face it if they opened with it, only a certain type of crowd would be interested
in finishing the movie. Maggie going through her teen breakup stuff. Her dad tries to be there for
her. Comfort her in her time of need. She leans into it. I mean leans into it. She s got the
hot s for him. And now that I m thinking about it- I guess they couldn t have either of the kids
think he resembled their dad because that would make this moment even worse. But my question is
was it really worth it? I think I can speak for the audience and say we could ve done
without exploring this. Right? God, I hope I m speaking for all of us. Then fact that the family
synergy is completely off bothers me. Like I get not gelling with your younger brother.
But dating his bully? That s a whole different level of sibling sabotage. I don t even think
the brother and sister had any dialogue with each other. What is that about? The only good thing
about this bully situation is that it prompts Mike to change his trajectory. Maybe old Saint Nick
didn t want him to go back to change his life. Maybe he wanted him to be a better dad? A 17
year old raising teenagers. This should be smooth sailing. I do like that the mom Scar, she kept
the same energy the whole time. Like there s no way you re not my husband. Real life baby daddy.
Their little connection was need to drive the point. I don t know why they threw that Maggie
thing in there. We did not need to go there. The family dynamics, aside from the grandparents,
are much better in the 2000 s film. For example any love interest that transpire occurs outside of
the family bloodline. I mean the opportunity was right there and they decided to not go the cringe
route. How lovely is that? Of course there is a certain level of friction being as though
Kat goes out with the guy that Sydney likes and then the grandparents are supposed to be
looking for her after she catches the two of them dancing, they lose her and end up walking
into a club talking about I wonder if she s in here. Breakout with a full dance number. Like
excuse me! Your granddaughter is going through it right now. And you in there cutting a rug.
Focus please! There s also a popular mean girl who has her eye out for Gene but of course
that doesn t get too far because Kat wasn t going for that. Gene becomes friends with these two
young guys who are girl crazy, and the white has this dumb malibu s most wanted blaccent the entire
time. That was annoying. Which I should probably mention that Kat is my favorite character. I
mean it s not necessary to mention that but I wanted y all to know. Tamera has always been
good at comedic timing as well as delivering the drama and in this film she does it well.
Favorite character in the 17? Ned. He is the nerdy kid who grew into- the nerdy adult. How lovely.
No but I think it s cool to see that. Because being a nerd is cool tool. He s happy playing his
video games and collecting his action figures. And his wallet is stacked. I m not mad at it.
Comedic timing was always on point. From when he first saw teen Mike,
to when he took up for his doppelganger Clay Aiken. And definitely when he met
Jan Maybe I should tell you I never don t. not. Date. the principal of my child.
Like sir. Please go away. Hilarious. Tom Lennon was cast perfectly for the role. Awkward makeshift
dad. And I do have to mention Zac Efron playing a 40 year old in the body of a 17 year old.
He gave dad vibes. Authoritative. Controlling. Over-bearing. I believed it. It gave what it
needed to. In the end. Both films get their happy ending. Sydney gets her guy. She and
her grandma become even closer. Willie finds a cure. The grandparents get back together.
Maggie concentrates on her studies instead of boys. Alex makes the team with a girlfriend
on the side. Ned finds his sci-fi match made in heaven and Mike gets
the life he never knew he always wanted. How lovely is that? Seventeen Again and 17 Again.
Have you seen either? What do you think about the plots and the characters? Which do you like
better? I wanted to do this video, not to give some deep analysis didnt even know what I was
going to talk about honestly but just wanted to chat about some movies I came up watching.
They are fun family films and I noticed that most people who talk about the Zac Efron film
don t bring up the Mowry film. And it is definitely deserving of it s flowers as well.
Also this video is the first of a new series that I m starting. It s going to be called
You can get with this or You can get with that which are actually lyrics to an old song.
I was going to put it in the beginning of the video, how I do the Blush Bunnies present. But
I m always changing my mind on something so I m like let me not do it just yet. Because the other
name that I thought of was Analyze This, Analyze That. Which are two films came out in the 90 s,
early 2000 s I believe. But the whole concept of the series is to take two or more films- they can
be remakes, same title but different plots, ummm movies with similar plots or themes
Speaking of, I have two video ideas that I want to do regarding similar plots. I already told
instagram about one of them a few weeks ago. And the other one came to mind because I watched
You ve Got Mail for the first time a couple of weeks ago. But let me know if you guys would even
be interested in this series. I may be getting ahead of myself. I don t want to start thinking
about all of this and y all be like oh uhn, uhn just stick to what you were doing chile.
Oh, also. Even though I will continue to do voting polls on the community tab,
I ve been doing them on instagram more recently because for some reason YouTube shows
your polls to casual viewers or even people who ve never watched your channel. But I mean they
do it a lot. And I d rather people who actually watch my content to have a say on what direction
we re moving in instead of randoms. And of course as soon as I decided to actually start
using instagram they went full force into being the bootleg tiktok. Like why can t we just post
pictures and you actually show them to the people who want to see them? But anyways,
so I don t post often but I do like to do polls over there. Sigh. Well that was an ear full.
Stop by the Blush Bunny Merch store. Grab you some gear, we can be twins like Tia and Tamera. I know
that was corny, leave me alone. Don t forget to follow the podcast. Also linked below.
With all of that being said. If you haven t done so already be sure to click like,
and hop on over to that subscribe button and hit the bell. Otherwise YouTube will never
show you my video s. As always. I m all ears. Until next time. Bye.