An excerpt from my script review for Roger Rabbit 2: The Toon Platoon which will be available 09/15/25:
2.) Plot Stability
Admittedly I did minimal research before reading this script so as not to persuade my judgment.
(Mainly when I look into these projects for the What Could Have Been series, it’s mainly to make sure they’re definitely not in development at any stage.)
Here though, one of the Disney wikis mentioned that the reason Steven Spielberg didn’t sign on for this is because there were Nazis in it.
Ummm…half of the Indiana Jones films are about nothing other than Nazis.
Maybe the argument was using Nazis in a humorous setting…who knows.
More likely what happened was that Steven Spielberg didn’t sign on because Toon Platoon just isn’t a good story. Going a step further, I’d even say it’s pretty lackluster and this was a later draft that was reviewed.
For me the project was devoid of any real passion that fans of the original would have enjoyed. The writers just slapped Roger Rabbit on the title page and expected audiences to throw money at them.
(How’s that working out for Kathleen Kennedy and most of the new Star Wars stuff?)
Simplifying this story down it’s like a generic Indiana Jones plot mixed with that Howling Commandos portion of Captain America: The First Avenger.
There’s a top secret widget that gets stolen, and the Nazis need it to stop the Allied invasion on D-Day, thus winning the war.
Roger and his new (to us) friend, Gordy, have to save their gals when they accidentally get mixed up in it.
Read the above as Indy storming the castle in Last Crusade but in the style of the Howling Commandos trying to stop the Red Skull.
Oh, and it’ll be Roger Rabbit and all of his slapstick saving the day, not any cool action.
On top of the less than stimulating plot, let’s look at the comedy.
It was bad. Like really bad.
I know there’s supposed to be a lot of puns, but right from the get go (page 5) I knew we were in trouble when Gordy is rounding up a bunch of cartoon coffee cups and says, “C’mon you mugs,” presumably in a bad Cagney impression.
If the writers could hear the mental sighs of their readers, they’d have better understood why this thing never took off.
Kitchen sink gags…a “Who’s on first” style bit but with Sleepy the dwarf…a recurring gag where Roger’s always somehow molesting a woman in the back of every bus he rides only to get thrown off…the group magically finding the castle Gretchen and Jessica are being held out with zero prior knowledge…
Let’s just say this one couldn’t finish fast enough for me.
That’s a major issue.
Now, I will say there is one (semi) humorous bit to the story, as it’s like an origin story for the original characters, and that’s where Jessica becomes her sexy self for the first time.
It’s been hinted at all along in the story, and the big reveal is teased out, with cuckoos bursting from their clocks…embers igniting back to full flames…and ice cubes melting in their container…
The whole thing was a funny way to visually say, “Jessica’s hot.”
Lastly, there was this origin story for Dip, the liquid that actually kills toons, but it didn’t really go anywhere and felt shoehorned in.
I mean, Pee Wee (a biplane that is afraid of heights or can’t fly for some reason) falls into it, but magically shows up at the end to save everyone because only his top wing gets burned off.
Find what I just said a bit confusing?
Yeah, then this story probably isn’t for you either.
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