Fuck Akiva Schaffer.

Granted, I’ve never been a fan of The Lonely Island and I didn’t care for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, but I could at least understand the appeal. And yes, Schaffer deserves full credit as a producer on Brigsby Bear and Palm Springs. But then he directed Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), that unholy abomination void of good sense and good taste. Schaffer committed an outright hate crime against the source material, against Disney itself, against the very concept of cinema, and against everyone who loves any of the above.

And now Schaffer is directing another remakequel of another beloved ’90s property with the upcoming The Naked Gun (2025). And he co-wrote the script alongside Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, the same guys who wrote CnD. Based entirely on past history, I’d predict that this movie is stone-cold dead on arrival. But there is one unlikely glimmer of hope worth holding onto: Seth MacFarlane, here exec-producing the project through his Fuzzy Door shingle.

I know Seth MacFarlane has his detractors, and rightly so. But with even a cursory glance under the surface, looking at his interviews, his connections, and his prior work as a producer, there are signs that MacFarlane knows a lot better than he’s letting on. He makes stupid movies and he makes stupid television, but he doesn’t make stupid mistakes.

If nothing else, it was MacFarlane’s involvement that secured Liam Neeson in the lead role. And if we’re looking for someone with the gravitas and the comedic chops to fill the massive clown shoes of the late Leslie Nielsen, this is a fantastic choice on paper. Speaking of casting, we’ve got Pamela Anderson continuing her ambitious career comeback (see also: The Last Showgirl) in the female lead. Considering how Anderson herself probably could’ve played any of the female leading roles in the original trilogy, it’s a surprisingly good fit.

Speaking of which, it’s worth sparing a thought for all those involved in the original trilogy who are no longer with us. Sure, the Zucker Brothers are still alive — and David Zucker has emphatically rejected the upcoming sequel, for what that’s worth — but Jim Abrahams passed away last year. Priscilla Presley is somehow still alive (good for her), but she’s pretty much the only major actor left.

Leslie Nielsen is dead. George Kennedy is dead. O.J. Simpson took his sweet time, but he finally died. In the supporting cast of the three films, we got such legendary talents as Ricardo Montalban, Robert Goulet, Fred Ward, Anna Nicole Smith, Richard Griffiths, Nancy Marchand, Kathleen Freeman, and Earl Boen, all of whom are dead dead dead. Though we can all be grateful that Weird Al Yankovic is still alive — it’d be neat to see him keep the streak going and get a cameo in the next one.

Anyway, after the teaser came online, I took it on myself to take a long-overdue look at the original films. And they still hold up. I’d even go so far as to say that The Naked Gun ranks among the all-time great film trilogies. Over thirty years later, all three movies are still gut-bustingly hilarious from start to finish.

Granted, some of the jokes have aged better than others. There’s an especially prominent case in point during the climax of the third film, involving a trans joke that’s borderline insensitive by modern standards. In fact, the joke is strikingly similar to a controversially transphobic plot point in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, another cop thriller parody released the same year. Though of course it helps that the Naked Gun instance is barely relevant (while the Ace Ventura instance was plot-crucial), and there’s nothing else on par with it until that moment in the closing minutes of the trilogy.

More importantly, the filmmakers seemed particularly fond of leaning on Middle Eastern terrorists as a generic bogeyman. That hits a lot different after 9/11 and all the subsequent fallout. Then again, perhaps it makes a difference that the films don’t lean too hard or heavy on Middle Eastern bombers as the primary threat, and they don’t linger on anything that might be overtly racist or Islamophobic.

On the other hand, this is a movie that opens with Frank Drebin beating the shit out of Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Seriously, this is our introduction to Frank Drebin. Sure, that’s jingoistic USA propaganda. Yes, there’s an argument to be made that it’s insensitive to multiple cultures. (Though really, who cares about being insensitive to tyrannical shitheels?) But then the rest of the movie happens, and Queen Elizabeth II gets slammed.

And no, the USA isn’t safe either — the second movie begins and ends with the selfsame Lt. Frank Drebin outright assaulting First Lady Barbara Bush. Not to mention this zinger:

President George Bush: “Frank, I’d like you to consider filling a special post I’m gonna create. It may mean long hours, dangerous nights, and being surrounded by some of the scummiest elements in our society.”
Lt. Frank Drebin: “You want me to be in your cabinet?”

On one level, I have to admire the brass studded balls on these filmmakers to take such lethal and uncompromising aim in depicting actual sitting politicians as objects of direct assault and ridicule. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since Kim Jong Un’s portrayal in The Interview, and we all remember how that ended up. Somewhere along the way, filmmakers lost the privilege to burn political figures in effigy, and I have to wonder if we’re worse off for it.

Then again, political satire is still alive and well on YouTube and late night television. There’s a strong argument to be made that faster, cheaper, and more flexible media is a better fit for commentary and parody on current events. But even with that said, the Naked Gun films showed remarkable foresight in their choice of topics. In particular, the second movie features satire about politics, corporate corruption, and environmentalism that’s every bit as funny now as it was back then. And then there’s this little gem from the first movie, just after Drebin gets fired:

“Just think — next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested.”

That was in 1988, folks. A good three years before the Rodney King riots.

It’s an inescapable fact that ever since the Black Lives Matter movement, “copaganda” is now a third rail. And Schaffer should know that all too well, after what happened with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine“. Remember, the show famously starred Andy Samberg — one of Schaffer’s closest longtime collaborators — Schaffer himself directed a couple of episodes, and the show rewrote its entire final season in light of the Summer 2020 protests.

The point being that The Naked Gun (2025) will be in a position to comment on that in a uniquely pointed and scathing way. And calling out police brutality is well-precedented within the franchise.

No, I don’t trust a major Hollywood studio in this day and age to make a film that could piss off the police unions or politicians. No, I don’t trust Schaffer to make anything with the guts or intelligence to be relevant in a post-BLM world. But that’s where the bar is set, by the politics of 2025 and by the original film of 1988.

Perhaps more importantly, the original trilogy succeeded for reasons that are anathema to modern blockbuster cinema. The first three Naked Gun films — as with Airplane! before it — worked so well because it kept hitting the audience with sight gags and wordplay. The jokes were so perfectly timed and fast-paced that if one didn’t land, everybody’s laughing at the next two or three jokes by the time anyone notices.

There was so much effort put into the writing and so much planning put into the practical effects, the exact opposite of modern-day blockbuster filmmaking in which everything gets figured out in post. Moreover, Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker had a prodigious gift for lampooning topics and targets that would still be relevant several decades later. Based on what I’ve seen of Schaffer, I seriously doubt he’s got that kind of foresight.

As for Frank Drebin himself, he was the perfect embodiment of everything wrong with modern law enforcement, but he was too stupid and well-intentioned to recognize it. That’s the key to literally everything that makes him work. Is there anyone responsible for this movie with the intelligence and nuance to recognize that? Liam Neeson, probably. Seth MacFarlane, maybe. I wouldn’t trust anyone else associated with the movie at this time.

By the way, the teaser trailer makes it clear that Neeson’s take is supposed to be the son of Nielsen’s character. Not that this franchise ever let continuity get in the way of a joke, but I seriously doubt this is supposed to be the kid who was born at the end of the third movie — he’d be half Neeson’s age by now. At a guess, this Frank Drebin Jr. was borne of Drebin Sr’s. first wife, who left him shortly before the events of the first movie. She left, took the kid with her, and Drebin forgot all about them as soon as he met Jane. That’s the most plausible explanation I’ve got.

At this juncture, I’d say that the potential upside is great and the potential downside is negligible. Best case scenario, we get a film worthy of the initial trilogy, revitalizes the franchise, and provides some much-needed satire against the current state of modern law enforcement. Worst case scenario, Schaffer loses more credibility and the remake gets sent to the Shadow Realm while the original trilogy remains pristine. I can live with either outcome.

Oh, and if anyone decided against a “Son of a Gun” subtitle, they should’ve been fired by now.

The Naked Gun (2025) is set to come out on August 1st. Let’s wait and see what the damage is.