Was that supposed to be a sequel? A friend of mine showed it too me the other night and I was like, "What a waste of film!".

That was worst than "Under the Cherry Moon". Actually, "UTCM" is my "PR" when it compares to "GB"

What a horrible movie?

What ever happened to the girl that played the angel?

Who is she?
[Edited 5/9/05 20:26pm]

PurpleKnight said:

Finally somebody else that "gets" this movie...thanks 4 sharing

MidnightFunk said:

Wait! People actually get this movie?

Well, maybe I should view it again, but I don't want to be brainwashed into seeing what others see.

What you both said doesn't come over as easily as you would think.

There is alot going on there...the search 4 the Better Man and how ONLY unconditonal love can bring him out...it's a timeless tale....it's just the fact that people went 2 the movies 2 see a Purple Rain sequel that it took us off guard..If u know the back story..it don't hurt either

Didn't the whole 'sequel' idea enter into the picture late in the game, as a way of getting people to come to the movie?

Either way, somebody around here said it best: don't think of Graffiti Bridge as a really bad feature film - think of it as a really good high school musical!

batmanx said:

Ingrid Chavez.

She is credited on the Lovesexy album as The Spirit Child, contributing the opening words:

Rain is wet and sugar is sweet
Clap your hands and stomp your feet
Everybody, everybody knows
When Love calls, U gotta go

Prince is reported to have met Ingrid at a Minnepolis nightclub the evening he is said to have decided to abort 'The Black Album' in 1987.

Chavez recorded an album, 'May 19, 1992', released on the Paisley Park label in 1991, and to which Prince partly contributed.

She also asserted her claim for payment in respect of uncredited lyrical contribution to Madonna's 'Justify My Love'. The songwriting credit had previously been in the name of her former acquaintance, Lenny Kravitz.

Shortly after leaving the Paisley stable, Ingrid Chavez embarked on a whirlwind romance with musician, David Sylvian, resulting in their marriage in 1992. They continued to live in Minneapolis for a while, before moving away and starting a family.

.
[Edited 5/9/05 23:15pm]

eyewishuheaven said:

I think of GB as a supersize music video. The music was the only bright side of THAT film.

PurpleKnight said:

Nice theory but doesn't add up.

The above all falls apart when he's at Graffiti Bridge with the gun in his hand. If he was already dead, he wouldn't have to do this.

Also Morris would say 2 Jerome "I Seeee Dead People....Yesssss"

I always thought 'Graffiti Bridge' was a sad sequel to 'Purple Rain'.At the end of the first movie,Prince sings "Baby I'm A Star" and it looks like he is finally on his way to superstardom...bigger and better things,right?


But in the "sequel",we discover that Apollonia has apparently left him,forcing him to shack up with the blonde waitress (Jill Jones) whom he ignored in the first film....we learn that his father is dead,and that his mother went crazy,and is being treated....we learn that Billy is dead...and worst of all,we learn that he and The Time have failed to reach the big time.They're still in Minneapolis,playing at small nightclubs.

sad,isn't it?

DavidEye said:

MidnightFunk said:

I like the big music video viewing style.
There was a lot to this movie and Prince didn't take advantage of any of it. I knew this wouldn't be PR 2. Everyone was reduced to a cartoon characters within an unabelievable setting. The one part where he's on the bike with Ingrid was like fresh air of reality. It's like he had an opera in his mind and performed with a synthasizer and the game boyz.

I get mythic themes, but he wasn't mature enough as film director to pull this off. I kept wanting to say, stop freakin' pouting!

batmanx said:

I think the fact that this is a fantasy film and not intended to be a real word setting is quite obvious. Just the look of the film - the obviously fake buildings and soundstage sets look more like an elaborate stage play than a real live movie set. The angel character immediately requires some departure from reality and the musical format - where the characters just bust out with a fully produced song and dance performance - let any viewer who is smart enough know this is actually a fantasy musical - not a real life drama like Purple Rain was. I do believe that if this was the chosen format, it would have bee better to come up with a new story and not transform the Purple Rain storyline into a fantasy. Pop music does play to the lowerst common denominator and it simply was lost on most of the fans.

DavidEye said:

There not in Minneapolis - there are in Seven Corners (a mystical fantasy place where everybody is funky and all they do is go to nightclubs.)

After UTCM, I don't think WB gave him squat to work with. The interesting
story gets lost in the horrible production.

langebleu said:

Nice update. Ingrid has appeared on some of Sylvian's work since she left the Purple Camp, and before that, she appeared on others' work that Sylvian produced. One of my favorites is a song called "Cloud #9" with Ryuichi Sakamoto from his 1992 album HEARTBEAT.

Aside from the whole GB embarrassment, Ingrid was definitely one of the more interesting artists that Prince introduced.

...Oh, and screw the apologetics. GB sucked caribou ass.

The whole sequel thing was completely tacked on at the end, the original concept of Graffiti Bridge was not as a sequel to Purple Rain.

The earlier scripts is floating around on the net, they make interesting reading, but the earlier versions show 1) the evolution of the project and 2) that it made even less sense earlier on in it's development.

Of COURSE GB was supposed to be a sequel... Same characters basically...
Anyway I wanna see a Purple Rain PREQUEL, ala Star Wars!! Prince as a teenager in the 70's, OR better yet, a story about Prince's Anakin, John L. Nelson. A story about Prince's Dad. Of course I am half joking, but also, I am curious as to Prince's Dad's work.

It's definitely a sequel. The same characters are in it. It was just a very weird and confusing film. With so-so music in it. You know what is really sad is that it shows that "The Kid" and The Time never became superstars and were still fighting all those years after Purple Rain happened. I like to pretend that film does not exist. It makes Cherry Moon look like The Freaking Godfather.

I particularly like the bit where he almost sexually abuses her whilst she is drunk and asleep...classy!!!!

ZeroZero said:

Sorry, but you are completely wrong. Graffiti Bridge was originally a completely individual and separate entity from Purple Rain. The initial script has completely different characters and situations.

It's only later when the Time was brought in that the sequel idea was tacked on. Graffiti Bridge went through so many changes, the original idea/soundtrack/script bares hardly any resemblence at all to the finished product.

I loved GB I thought that UTCM was a mess. I never though GB as a sequel to PR. Too many plot holes.

Supposedly the original script of "Graffiti Bridge" was about Prince (or "The Kid") on some search looking for God..only to find out God was a Kim Basinger lookalike. That idea was scrapped (Entertainment Weekly back in 1990 printed that story). The original sequel to Purple Rain was supposed to come out in early 1986 and the movie was going to be called "The Dawn". The movie was supposedly going to go into the relationship with Prince and his father.I remember hearing that on a New York radio station back in March of 1985. I know somewhere there's a fan site where someone (probably a fan) wrote an excellent, imaginary sequel to Purple Rain. It's been posted here a few times. It would have made a great movie.

SPYZFAN1 said:

You're getting your wires crossed a little.

The original Graffiti Bridge concerned Camille (Prince) and his relationship with a 'Ruthie Washington' (at point, Prince wanted Madonna in that role) and featured Prince's band at the time, Cat, Sheila etc. This was the follow-up project to Sign O' The Times, but as we know, the side-project of The Black Album/The Funk Bible was halted, which led Prince to record and tour with Lovesexy, further halting GB, then along came the proposition of a Batman soundtrack, which Prince took up, again delaying Graffiti Bridge.

No doubt the length of time Prince had to wait to get Graffiti Bridge made caused many of the changes to the idea/script/soundtrack, but it does stand as a testament to Prince's devotion and belief in the project and ideas expressed in it, which did stay pretty much the same till the end - Spirituality.

Earlier versions of the released movie were different, and had a larger role for Prince's girlfriend (Jill Jones) and the angel/Aura (Ingrid) - Kim Basinger was up for that role, this was obviously at the time of Prince and Kim's romantic relationship.

The Dawn project you are referring to was not a sequel to Purple Rain, but the idea of battling rival bands DID make it's way to the released Graffiti Bridge, which is probably where you are getting confused.

PurpleKnight said:

Sounds good. However, it was so poorly executed this interesting story gets lost in the translation so to speak.

to me that movie really needed Apollonia. If she looked as hot as she did at the Family Jamm show, I'd watched it over and over!! dayammmmm!

I don't see it as a sequel, more like the same characters in a different dimension sort of thing. Kind of like comparing the Batman TV show to the movie - same characters and places but within a totally different context.

I think I read in The Vault book how one of the original ideas was for Prince to play two roles and it would be revealed at the end that it was actually the same person who had multiple personalities - kind of like "Fight Club" or "Psycho"!

Anyway, I think I've only managed to watch GB twice right through. I've tried a few other times but I get 20mins into and get bored with it

8up said:

Prince has said that he made this movie on a shoestring budget---$7 million.

MetroArea said:

Uptown magazine printed one of the early scripts to the 'Graffiti Bridge' movie (I think it was dated September 1987).It was absolutely horrible,even worse than the completed film!