I Think K’Daffy has been Replaced by an Imposter

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

You know how, when you watch “Mission Impossible” (the original series) there’s this absurd aspect to the rubber masks they would wear. That somehow they would pull on these rubber masks and then the camera would cut away and then cut back and magically the “mask” was an undetectable human face. And of course you knew they simply switched actors because in real life the “face” would just kind of hang there and look artificial.

Well, I’ve been looking at pictures of K’Daffy, and his face looks like a fake rubber mask.

Apparently the LIbyan government has been infiltrated by the IM force. Now I feel better about the end game: Phelps always knew what he was doing (I’m ignoring the movies which had the temerity to paint Jim Phelps has a traitor. No way.) This is going to end with the real K’Daffy coming to in the middle of a square somewhere in Libya, with angry people aiming guns at him from all directions, and in the distance an oversized van is going to be rolling away while familiar theme music plays.

PAD

23 comments on “I Think K’Daffy has been Replaced by an Imposter”

  2. But what if we are looking at a Kadaffy impostor, set up by the real Kadaffy? Someone who shows up and desperately hopes this isn’t the day a cruise missile makes its mark or a disgruntled army general decides to try for a promotion. Worst job ever.

  3. I thought you defended the idea of Jim Phelps as a traitor, Peter. I guess I mis-remembered.

      1. I think I remember you making the argument that since Jim Phelps had based his entire career on deception, turning traitor was a logical progression.

        Or perhaps you were just quoting that argument, and refuting it.

    2. I just looked up PAD’s review of the movie in BID from 1996, and he definitely doesn’t defend it. A good chunk of the column is PAD explaining why it was a bad idea.

      1. I always felt that, if that had to have something like that, they should have used Dan Briggs, the head of the group in the first season. Not only did it avoid immediate anger from most fans but they could suggest his unexplained departure was somehow related.

  4. Or what if it’s actually been Tom Cruise under that Khadaffi mask? Discrediting the name of Jim Phelps and killing him off in the first MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie may have been only the first step in his diabolical masterplan for world domination. Come to think of it, Cruise has been keeping himself under the radar lately, hmmmmmmm….

    1. Given HOT SHOTS, it seems like more of a Charlie Sheen thing than a Tom Cruise thing. ‘Course, then we’d be guaranteed of winning, or so the current wisdom seems to be…

  6. The way I dealt with the whole Jim Phelps as traitor nonsense was I convinced myself that the name Jim Phelps is the name/title/ID IMF gives to their top NOC agent. The Phelps we knew from the 60’s to early 70’s retired or died long before the Voight bozo weaseled his way up the ranks. It could have worked had they tossed in one or two tiny lines of dialog early in the movie and *poof* end the movie with “Ethan” being called “Jim” on the plane. Sigh.

    1. That’s the same theory that has been used for James Bond, funny enough. Lee Tamahori (who directed a couple of the Brosnan Bonds) proposed that theory as for why Bond looked and acted so different when a new actor portrayed him. Given the reboot with Daniel Craig, it lends more credence to that theory- and yeah, having that be why they made Phelps a traitor would have definitely taken the sting from it.

      1. It is true of James Bond. In Casino Royale, the second time it was made- the version with David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen all agents– even Moneypenny and Q were all named James Bond so they enemy would live in absolute confusion. They’d get a headache and need aspirin. They’d take it. Only one of the Bond was supposed to have replaced it with a pill that looked and tasted like aspirin but turned every cell in your body into a nuclear bomb.

        The first time it was made, Peter Lorrie’s character gets shot falls to the ground, dies and is shown walking off camera.

      2. It works fine for Bond, personally I think that’s the only way the series makes a lick of sense continuity-wise and if you’re a secret agent do you really wanna go around broadcasting your name everywhere? Also in Goldeneye, they make references to the “new M” being female, so it establishes at least that M is a codename. Same thing goes for Q when John Cleese took over. So it does fit with the series.

        However, I don’t quite know why, if Bond is a codename and all, why the Roger Moore bond would be visiting the grave of Tracy who died in “On Her Majesty’s…” with the George Lazenbry bond. And then Blofield shows up, looking of revenge on Bond, to confuse the matter even more. Maybe the Moore-Bond just looked into the history of previous Bond’s, which caused the Lazenbry one to hang it up. Sounds like a No Prize to me!

      3. Except that I can provide proof from the first twenty movies (Casino Royale was a reboot) that Jaes Bond is the same character from movie to movie, even if played by different actors. And various references to Tracy are just the tip of the iceberg.

        BTW, I don’t know if Kaddaffi has been replaced with an impostor, but I’m pretty sure a Ferengi is occupying the Elysée right now. All the evidence is there for everyone to see.

    2. But was the Mission Impossible movie meant as a sequel to the series? I just took it as a movie that kept the title, basic concept, and the name “Jim Phelps” from the TV series, but was otherwise unrelated (in the same way, say, the Hulk movies are unrelated to the TV series).

      2. Thanks for that link. Boy, talk about your Dickensian names. Short of, I dunno, Lazlo Stiff or Annie Body, I can’t think of an actor who should have known how to play a corpse like a guy named Tristam Coffin.
        .
        PAD

      3. But even then there’s limits to what the viewers will accept,especially if a character has the name of a beloved hero. For example, the next Superman movie is going to be a complete reboot, but if Superman ups and decides to start killing innocents, excrement will definitely start hitting the fan

  7. I had just watched Conan O’Brien tonight and he had a hilarious dubbing of K’daffy’s speech to his people.

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