Why I am going to see the Lone Ranger, Tonto… For those of you who are mono-lingual the term tonto means dummy in Spanish…as in “Eres muy tonto por no hablar or leer Espanol en California.” But I digress. A few years back at one of our many Saddleback High School Class of ’78 reunions I ran into long time friend Terry Rossio. Terry and Ted Eliot are a very successful screenplay writers possibly of all time. We were all on the school newspaper staff together. You may have seen some of their movies Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, 3, and 4, Shrek, Aladdin to name a few. There was a drinking get together at the “Office” on Tustin near 17th. I asked him what he was his next project and he told me the re-imaging of the legendary Lone Ranger. I told him that he was going to have a problem retelling the story of the Lone Ranger because of the name of his Sidekick Tonto. What red-blooded Latino would go to a movie where one of the main characters was named Dummy? And a Native-American at that… If Hollywood is listening, they would start to pay more attention to the Latino demographic as it is now king of the youngsters with disposable income for movies. And yes, Latinos are decedents of indigenous tribes that lived here thousands of years before European colonization and so called borders. In typical Rossio way he started to spin me a little yarn. The Lone Ranger was the sole survivor of a massacre perpetrated by bad guys. They even killed the Lone Rangers brother. Tonto saved the lone survivor. He cut a swath from the vest of his murdered brother where two bullets entered his body. He fashioned a mask out of it for the Ranger to wear has he was to avenge his death. Better to be thought of as dead when seeking revenge. Tonto was a shaman, a mystic in the south west. Whatever he told you was the opposite of what he meant. So Tonto actually meant smart. Can you imagine what Kemosabe means? So that was what he told me a few years back. Who knows how the plot or characters have changed. But I am intrigued by the pretense. So the next day we had a bigger reunion at Aliso Park where I also brought my kids to see Terry. They had already met Ted and Terry the year before. I took them to the Screenwriters Guild Theater in Beverly Hills where they had a Q & A about their new film Pirates 2. He had them at hello. He pulled out his I-phone and shared concept pictures of future films. He talked about some Guinea Pig Secret Agents (G-force) and the Indy 500 set on Saturn’s rings and then of course the Lone Ranger. A day Risa, Rey and I will not forget.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 04:06:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015