The Teen Wolf movie from 1985 is chock full of fun scenes that we thought would be great to see in the current MTV series. Here are our top five picks.
It’s Teen Wolf Takeover month on Hypable.com, and today’s article points out five scenes we’d love to see transfer from the original movie to the show. Read all of our TWT articles here and submit your own!
Teen Wolf, the original 1985 film starring Michael J. Fox, is a very different beast (ha, ha, ha) than Jeff Davis’ creation for MTV. Upon first glance, the original movie is almost unrecognisable as the source material for our current favorite TV show.
Aside from the basic element of a werewolf named Scott with a best friend called Stiles, there’s very little of the plot, characters or themes that Jeff Davis has transferred across to the Teen Wolf we know and love today. The crazy-yet-sweet Coach Finstock is one unchanged element that works perfectly in both versions – but not much else seemed to make the transition.
However, if you look closer, you start to notice things in the TV show that do honor and throw back to the movie – from Peter mentioning how, back in his day, they played basketball, to Tyler Posey’s delivery of “give me the bottle of Jack” in season 1, episode 8. If that’s not a direct impression of Michael J. Fox’s “give me the keg of beer” scene, albeit in very different circumstances, we’ll eat our hat.
We’ve compared the basic similarities between the Teen Wolf of today and yesteryear, and even reviewed the movie on Not Another Teen Wolf Podcast, but for Teen Wolf Takeover, we wanted to take a closer look at some more aspects of the original movie that we think could be played into the TV show in some way.
There are some elements of the Teen Wolf movie that should never leave the ’80s, like the hairstyles and Stiles using a gay slur when he misinterprets Scott’s big secret. So, here are our top five ideas for elements of the film that would work in MTV’s Teen Wolf.
5. It’d suit him – down to a tee.
Stiles in the original film is never seen without an in-your-face tee shirt, and this little aspect has already been used slightly in the TV show. Dylan O’Brien’s costumes, often consisting of retro tees bearing slogans or bold graphics, are actually an homage to movie-Stiles.
However, we suggest taking it one step further and dressing our Stiles in shirts directly referencing the ones the character wears in the movie. We’ve come a long way in tee shirt printing and can actually make text designs look cool now, so why not make some awesome shirts displaying the same quotes as the original Stiles?
Dylan’s behind the idea, and while “What are you looking at, Dicknose?” may or may not cross a line as far as the kind of swearing the show can get away with, “Obnoxious: The Movie” would totally work.
4. Add a little more drama?
We’d hope that Scott’s motivations for joining the theater club wouldn’t be the same as those in the movie – a hot blonde willing to get naked in the dressing room, and not just while changing! – but we all know that a range of extra-curriculars looks great on those college transcripts. Given that Scott is all about self-improvement this season, taking part in a school play could help him, and make for some hysterically awkward “acting” scenes.
Alternately, one of the funniest elements of the theater scenes in the original movie is the flamboyant and creepy drama teacher (“More sensual, darling, we need to feel you, want to smell you, hurt me, hurt me!”), and it isn’t as if we don’t have an over-dramatic and sassy adult hanging around Beacon Hills. What if Peter decides it’s time to get a job – at Beacon Hills High, of course – and Scott, Stiles and the others need to keep an eye on him?
3. I mean, they are in ‘high’ school.
Even though it’s also about teenagers, the Teen Wolf movie is a bit more blatantly adult-themed than the TV show – from nudity to swearing and more. Most of those elements aren’t appropriate to use in the MTV show, but there’s a scene in the original movie in which Scott sniffs out a hidden stash of weed for Stiles. Jeff’s Teen Wolf copied the concept of this scene pretty closely in their “Search for a Cure” web series, with Scott identifying the location of the doctor’s (normal) cigarettes.
But, look. Teen Wolf, as a TV show, does an amazing job normalizing teenage behaviour – it’s mentioned sex as something incidental, with no Very Special Episodes here. It’s featured teenagers visiting gay nightclubs and raves. It’s included our main characters drinking alcohol and other young people taking ecstasy, and while, on one hand, violent deaths surrounding those situations might count as a negative repercussion, violent deaths surround everything on Teen Wolf. There’s no scenes teaching the characters life lessons for any of this behaviour, and the show treats it as normal because, let’s face it, it is pretty normal.
This may or may not be a negative thing, but life is not an episode of Glee, and many, many kids go through high school doing these things without any negative repercussions. What we’re trying to say here is that we want a scene in which Scott and Stiles – or Scott and Isaac, maybe, or, like, the whole pack – smoke pot.
There are lots of ways in which this could work, and it could already be considered off-screen canon – remember Melissa getting sassed by Scott? (“It’s not like you’re on drugs or anything.” “Right now?” “Right now? What do you mean, right now? Have you ever taken drugs?” “Have you?”) It could be casual, like Stiles and Scott’s drinking in “Lunatic,” or it could be part of a plot – maybe their stash is laced with wolfsbane! Or maybe Stiles has to go into a trance-like state for some sort of magical journey or spiritual quest. We think this is something the show could really have fun with, without making it particularly controversial.
2. The life of the party.
Jerry Levine’s Stiles is just as confident and uncool as our beloved TV Stiles – that aspect is what Dylan O’Brien calls the essence of both versions of the character. “He’s the coolest uncool kid in school. He’s the kid in high school you don’t realize was pretty cool until like six years later.” From the casual way movie-Stiles calls Scott “babe,” to his outfits, his fearlessness and how little being told “no” outwardly affects him, movie-Stiles is a true individual.
One moment we can see crossing over really well is a party scene – a party which, up to this point, the uncool Stiles has been trying to buy his way into by offering to provide a keg of beer. Midway through the night, however, Stiles is king – the center of attention, the Master of Ceremonies, orchestrating the risque games that the hormonal teen crowd delights in playing. The crowd hangs on his every word.
While we’d be happy to skip the Jello-in-the-boobs trick, we would love to see our Stiles in his element, socially – having fun, being liked and accepted, and feeling as cool as we know he is. Give him the right crowd, and you just know he’d be able to pull it off!
1. Everybody’s gone surfin’, surfin’ Beacon Hills.
One of the most iconic images in 1985’s Teen Wolf is that of the guys – first Stiles, then Scott while wolfed-out – go “urban surfing,” climbing out the windows of a moving van to stand on top of it, dancing and showing off.
The kids in Teen Wolf today have a lot more at stake than anyone did in the Teen Wolf movie, so it’s hard to imagine them doing something so dangerous and reckless for fun, but in our opinion, Jeff Davis simply has to find a way to use this image.
Maybe the scene could take a darker turn. Perhaps Scott or Stiles has to get on top of a car or van to fight off someone – or something – chasing them. But one thing is certain – Jeff Davis needs to get those boys standing on top of a moving vehicle, pronto. Plus, we’d put money on this being the one Teen Wolf movie scene that Dylan O’Brien and Tyler Posey have begged Jeff to re-create for them.