I recently just finished watching the entire Miami Vice series and it is one of the greatest shows I have ever seen in my life. Miami Vice was so ahead of it's time, it was innovative and influential with its fashion style, colourful imagery, its use of music capitalizing on the MTV generation, the cinematography. You 80's kids should be so lucky to have something so special like this show grace your decade. Before I watched Miami Vice, I watched Nash Bridges...yeah, I've been on a Don Johnson marathon for the past few months, lol. He's become one of my new favourite actors. Nash Bridges was great too but I was surprised at how different Miami Vice was to it in terms of Nash Bridges being a lighthearted fun cop show and Miami Vice being a dark intense but cool cop show though Nash Bridges does copy some things from Miami Vice in that the main duos of Bridges/Dominguez and Crockett/Tubbs have their CI's in Boz/Izzy, Bridges/Crockett's relationships with Caitlyn/Gina, Crockett and Bridges both driving flashy convertible cars etc. I really enjoyed both shows a lot but Miami Vice is the more famous show, so I wanted to make a thread on Miami Vice and get people's thoughts about the show.
As I mentioned above, one of the things Miami Vice is most remembered for is its use of music, mainly Pop and Rock songs that came out at the time, and I've discovered a lot of awesome 80's songs from this show I've never heard before that went great with the scenes in Miami Vice and made the scenes look like music videos. A few I will post below...
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The iconic music video like scene from the first episode of Miami Vice playing to Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight".
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Miami Vice used a lot of Phil Collins music in their show as I guess he was hot during the show's years. My favourite Collins song that played in the show was "The Man With The Horn" which was re-written and renamed "Life Is A Rat Race" for the episode Collins himself guest-starred in called "Phil The Shill". He played the host of a game show called "Rat Race".
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This isn't actually the final montage that played to Terry Kath's "Tell Me" in the last episode of Miami Vice but some of the clips in this video are pretty similar to the clips used in the final episode's ending montage.
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And there was the wonderful music composed by Jan Hammer in season's 1-4 before he left and Tim Truman took over as composer in season 5.
The Miami Vice theme, which was a #1 hit on the Billboard charts and is only one of two TV themes to achieve that honor along with the Peter Gunn theme.
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Crockett's theme, which was another hit in the charts.
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Even if it wasn't officially his theme, I always thought of this as Tubbs' theme.
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And not that this has anything to do with the show but both Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas tried embarking on singing careers but weren't successful at it. Call it ego, celebrity hyperbole or whatever but I have heard some of their songs and I do like them tbh. But that's just me, I'm sure everybody else finds them cheesy and bad. I appreciate them trying to follow their dreams and achieve more in their careers even if people find them egotistical, mainly Philip Michael Thomas who has been criticised the most for being egotistical during the show's years with some of the outrageous things he has said like comparing himself to Ghandi etc. Coining "EGOT" and wanting to win it. Shame he never did win it as I think he is an underrated actor, not just for Miami Vice but for his previous performance in the film, Death Drug, where he plays a plumber with dreams of making it big as a music artist and who has a family but gets hooked on PCP/angel-dust, which leads to a drastic change in personality and his demise.
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The characters of Miami Vice are all great. My favourites are the cool Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs obviously. Another favourite character of mine is their Lieutenant, the serious taciturn, Martin Castillo, played by Edward James Olmos, but there is the rare occassion where you'll see him smile, laugh or comfort someone as he really is a caring individual. He does have the iciest staredown ever though. The other supporting cast members were great too and everybody brought something to the table. Stan Switek and Larry Zito, who brought humor, although Switek turns serious and dark in season 5 after Zito's death in season 3. Gina Calabrese and "Big Booty Trudy" Trudy Joplin, who were eye candy but were also great detectives like Crockett, Tubbs, Castillo, Switek and Zito. Izzy and Noogie, Crockett and Tubbs' informants, who also brought comedy to the show, though Noogie only lasted the first 3 seasons but he was played by Charlie Burnett, who was Dave Chappelle's mentor.
Another thing that surprised me about Miami Vice is the amount of celebrities that guest-starred on it. There were hundreds, it was like every episode you'd see a famous face pop up. They had past, present and future stars guest-star from actors/actresses to singers to comedians to sports athlethes, even wrestlers though the only wrestlers that guest-starred on the show were Afa and Captain Lou Albano. Mr. Fuji and Don Muraco did do a famous parody of Miami Vice on Tuesday Night Titans called "Fuji Vice" though. A lot of future stars seemed to have gotten their start on Miami Vice, names like Bruce Willis, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Dennis Farina, Stanley Tucci, Ben Stiller, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jimmy Smits, Julia Roberts, Ving Rhames, Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Viggo Mortenson, Michael Madsen, Bill Paxton, Wesley Snipes, John Turturro and many more up & coming actors. There were current star actors/actresses who appeared on the show like Pam Grier, Dean Stockwell, Clarence Williams III. There were popular singers at the time who guest-starred on it like Phil Collins as I already mentioned, Sheena Easton who married Crockett in season 4 and played his wife for some episodes until her death later in the season, Ted Nugent, Willie Nelson, Gene Simmons, James Brown, Little Richard, Frank Zappa, Miles Davis etc. Sports athletes like Roberto Duran, Danny Sullivan, Randall Cobb etc. Comedians like Chris Rock, Tommy Chong, Penn Jillette. Just so many celebrities on it. I've never seen that many celebrities guest star on a show before and they had a hell of line up of stars appearing on their show. Was amazing to see.
As far as the film adaptation goes...yeah, I didn't like it. There were no odes, tributes, connections to the TV series, not even a cameo from any of the original cast. Michael Mann just took the title name of his TV series, his original characters' names and that's where the similarities end. Why bother making a film adaptation of Miami Vice? Could've been a different movie with a new title and new character names instead.
Anyway, I've done enough talking about Miami Vice. Some questions.
Who were your favourite characters on Miami Vice?
What were your favourite episodes?
Favourite season?
What were your favourite songs that played on Miami Vice?
Favourite guest-stars?
Thoughts on the film adaptation?
Thoughts on Nash Bridges and do you prefer it better than Miami Vice or not?
Thoughts on Miami Vice overall?