| Minutemen | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Lev L. Spiro |
| Produced by | Douglas Sloan |
| Written by | John Killoran David Diamond David Weissman |
| Starring | Jason Dolley Luke Benward Nicholas Braun Chelsea Staub J. P. Manoux Steven R. McQueen Kara Crane |
| Music Composer(s) | Nathan Wang |
| Release date(s) | January 25, 2008 |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
Minutemen is a 2008 science-fiction Disney Channel Original Movie. It stars Jason Dolley from Disney Channel Original Series Cory in the House and Good Luck Charlie.
The film is written by John Killoran with a story by David Diamond and David Weissman and was directed by Lev L. Spiro. Andrew Gunn, Ann Marie Sanderlin and Doug Sloan are the executive producers. The movie was originally slated for release in March 2008,[1] however, the movie premiered on Disney in U.S. at 8:00 (ETC) on January 25, 2008.[2]
Plot[]
In this Disney Channel Original movie, three teenage boys who are outcasts, named Virgil Fox (Jason Dolley), Charlie Tuttle (Luke Benward) and Zeke Thompson (Nicholas Braun) build a time machine.
The movie starts out in the first year of high school for Virgil, on September 3, 2005. He is with his two friends, Derek (Steven R. McQueen) and Stephanie (Chelsea Staub). While Derek is trying out for the football team, Stephanie is doing cheerleading, and Virgil is goofing around. Charlie comes in on a rocket-propelled car losing control and going through the football team until Derek throws a football and knocks him off. Virgil goes to defend him while Derek just sits by. Virgil and Charlie then get dressed as cheerleaders and hung on the school mascot's statue, a bighorn sheep horns.
Flash forward to three years later and Charlie and Virgil are still outcasts. As Charlie informs Virgil of his latest invention, Virgil mentions that he would rather have something useful, so Charlie builds the specifications of a time machine. But Charlie can't build on his own, so they get Zeke, a fellow outcast who works on machines during his spare time, to help them build it.
Virgil wants to go back in time and buy a winning Lottery ticket, but Charlie stops him. Eventually they decide to use the time machine to save teens from embarrassing moments, but things don't go according to plan. Jeanette (Kara Crane) helps the trio save outcasts from social embarrassment by providing them with white snowsuits to wear and handles the machine while the boys are time traveling. The school's vice-principal (J. P. Manoux) tries to stop the "Snow Suit Guys", the name everybody knows them by, until the end of the movie when their true identities are revealed briefly, before they time travel back to the point before they started time traveling.
They were known as the "Snow Suit Guys" because of the snow suits and ski goggles they wore while time traveling to save others from humiliation. Most of their classmates saw them as heroes, but wonder how they knew when something was going to happen and prevent it. After they prevented Stephanie from falling off her cheerleader's pyramid, she figured out who the "Snow Suit Guys" were and confronted Virgil about it. Virgil confesses but mentions that they are actually Time Travelers and therefore call themselves the Minutemen.
Their actions have unintended side effects; for example, some of the kids they helped become popular and let it go to their heads. Worst of all, what Virgil and Zeke don't know is that Charlie hacked into NASA's mainframe and stole some time traveling files that NASA never used. The FBI has been watching them very closely. Because of all their time traveling, a black hole was created. Only Virgil, Zeke and Charlie can save the world and close the hole by entering it.
Once they have entered the black hole, they are transported to 2005, their first day of high school. Virgil wants to stop himself from standing up for Charlie, but then he realizes that Derek didn't try to stop the bullies but actually suggested dressing them up as cheerleaders. Zeke and Charlie had already left, and he decided that the incident made him who he was, and without it they (Virgil, Zeke and Charlie) wouldn't have become friends.
They manage to close the black hole and return to the day when they first tried the time traveling machine. Virgil confesses his feelings towards Stephanie (and she for him), Zeke isn't known as the 'big, scary guy' anymore and Charlie starts to think about things other than science (most specifically when he kissed Jeanette in the library).
The movie ends when Charlie comes running, telling Virgil (who's talking to Stephanie at the time) and Zeke that he had found a way to teleport, but they pick him up and carry him off before he can get them interested about his idea.
Cast[]
- Jason Dolley as Virgil Fox
- Luke Benward as Charlie Tuttle
- Nicholas Braun as Zeke Thompson
- Chelsea Staub as Stephanie Jameson
- J. P. Manoux as Vice Principal Tolkan
- Steven R. McQueen as Derek Beaugard
- Kara Crane as Jeanette Pachelewski
- Dexter Darden as Chester
- Kellie Cockrell as Jocelyn Lee
- Molly Jepson as Amy Fox
- Larry Filion as F.B.I. Agent (uncredited)
Notes[]
- Virgil Fox was the name of a celebrity organist and popularizer of classical music, famous for his "Heavy Organ" concerts in popular music auditoriums.
- When Chester comes upstairs naked, there is a "Wanted" sign behind the bullies for the Minutemen, or Snowsuit Guys, even though they aren't the Snowsuit Guys until after they go back in time to help Chester.
Back to the Future allusions[]
- Charlie's pet cat is named after Albert Einstein, which is close to Dr. Emmett L. Brown's dog.
- Albert Felinestein (Charlie's cat) becomes the world's first time traveler, and his clock is one minute off when returning, alluding to how Doc Brown's dog was in the exact same situation in Back to the Future.
- When Felinestein returns from the first time travel, he is covered in frost. In Back to the Future, when the DeLorean returns from its first time travel with Einstein, it is also covered in frost. It is explained in both films that time travel creates big temperature variations, prompting Virgil, Charlie, and Zeke to wear the snowsuits.
- The club Virgil, Charlie, and Zeke created to get a place to build the time machine in is named the "Back to the Future Fan Club".
- The band at the school dance performs songs similar to "Johnny B. Goode" and "Earth Angel".
- Also the school dance is a fifties theme, which could perhaps be a throwback to the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance"
- Vice Principal Tolkan is named for actor James Tolkan, who played the Principal Strickland in the trilogy whom was also bald. On an additional note, Vice Principal Tolkan's character is very similar to Vice Principal Hacket from Phil of the Future. They are both vice principals, they both don't do much to help their schools and they try to find the secrets of the main characters.(And they are both played by J.P. Manoux.)
- When the Minutemen go back in time to keep the football team from losing, Jeanette, their friend who helps them, watches a newspaper article change from a losing team to a victory. In Back To The Future Part II, Marty McFly watched the article of his father's death change to his father's honor as an author and Doc Brown watched the newspaper article change from his committing to the institution to his honor.
- Virgil's last name is Fox, the same as the actor who portrayed Marty McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy, Michael J. Fox.
- The film involves disrupting the space-time continuum, like in Back to the Future.
Scientific inaccuracy[]
- When Albert Felinestein, Charlie Tuttle's pet cat, is let into the portal on a leash, and then pulled back out, they check his clock and their clock and find that his clock is one minute behind theirs. However, as the cat existed the whole time he went back in time, and then came back, the clock would have continued to run just as theirs had, so as long as both clocks had been set at the same time, they should have continued to match up exactly.
- The movie fails to address a version of the Grandfather paradox in that when something bad happens, they go back and fix it, and then return to their time. However, what should have happened was that since whatever accident they were fixing was fixed, they wouldn't know that they were supposed to go back in time, so they wouldn't, so the problem would exist, so they would fix it, so there wouldn't be a problem, etc. Though some argue that the failed address to the grandfather paradox may be the cause of the "Black Hole" that appears in the ending portion of the film. However, this is simply incorrect, as the "Black Hole" created during the movie follows no laws of physics known to man.
- While in the film the black hole that is created takes an inordinate amount of time to consume the planet, an actual black hole would have taken in the entire planet and would have caused all living beings on the planet to have died via the process of spaghettification. Just as well, actual black holes are not created from any sort of "rips" in the time-space continuum, but generally come into existence following a supernova and collapse of the star.
Production[]
Disney Channel first released an official press via its press release website DisneyChannelMedianet.com on July 14, 2007 to confirm the production of Minutemen. The lead star, plot, writers, director and executive producers of this movie was also announced in this press. In addition, another 2008 DCOM named Camp Rock scheduled to begin production in August 2007 was also confirmed in the same press.
Location[]
Minutemen was filmed at Murray High School. Murray High School was also the set of: Take Down (1978), Read It and Weep (2006), the auditorium scene of High School Musical (2006), and High School Musical: Get in the Picture (2008). Filming also took place at Highland High School located in Sugar House.
Featured music[]
The first single of the movie, "Run It Back Again" by Corbin Bleu has been released and the music video can currently be seen on Disney Channel. The song was released January 22, 2008 on the album, Radio Disney: Jams 10, as part of the series. Another single from the movie began airing January 19, 2008 around the world, as a music video on Disney Channel, titled "Like Whoa" from Aly & AJ. The song can be purchased on their newest album, Insomniatic. These songs are viewed as a tie-in with the plot of the movie and contain lyrics pertaining to the movie as a whole.
References[]
- ↑ 'Cory in the House' Actor Leads New Disney Movie
- ↑ [1] It premiered with 6.48 million viewers.
External links[]
- Official website
- Minutemen on Internet Movie Database