CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › CHUD.COM Main › Some thoughts on remakes
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Some thoughts on remakes

post #1 of 31
5/22/03 at 8:05pm
Thread Starter 
I started to say this in the Wonka thread, but it's really a much broader subject. I'm wondering if perhaps we are just thinking about remakes wrong. Maybe remakes are a good thing. There's no reason, after all, why remaking a film should take anything away from the original. The playwrites of ancient Greece, who were perhaps the oldest forerunners of the dramatic performance, basically told the same stories over and over. Everone did there own version of Oedipus, and the audiences, going in, new pretty much what to expect from Oedipus. But yet, each playwrite, or at least the good ones, was able to put his own imprint on the story, tell it in his own way. So let's say, for example...oh, let's take The Seven Samurai, a film which has been considered for a remake recently, and which most Chewers were against seeing a remake of, because "there's no way it could be as good as Kurisawas." But what if it didn't have to be as good? What if it just had to be good, and different? What if you could see, say, Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, and Christophe Gans all release their own versions of The Seven Samurai in one year? What if...hypothetically, let's say we're in an alternate universe where Stanley Kubrick filmed an absolutely perfect version of Dune--wouldn't you still be interested in how David Lynch, Jodorowski, and Cronenberg might have done it? What if you could see FOUR versions of Dune, and compare them, not in terms of which ones work and which ones don't, but in terms of how differently they all work? OK, I'm stacking the deck a little, because these remakes usually get handed to the likes of Paul Anderson or Jan DeBont, but I still think it's an interesting idea. The more I think about it, I'd kind of like to see what Tim Burton would do with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Or what Aranofsky does with Lone Wolf and Cub. Or what Quentin Tarantino's Taxi Driver might look like. Or Tod Haynes' Singin' In The Rain. Or Wong Kar Wai's Godzilla (with G's attacks happening in the background while policemen pine over canned pineapple or something) Or Gendy Tarkovsky's animated Vertigo. Or...

Reply
post #2 of 31
5/22/03 at 8:52pm
I do not care if anyone remakes any of my favorite films, except for The Apartment. I realize I am a hypocrite, but I would just cry if that was announced.
Reply
post #3 of 31
5/23/03 at 8:06am
Quote:
Sean Bateman, Causal Chewer:
I do not care if anyone remakes any of my favorite films, except for The Apartment. I realize I am a hypocrite, but I would just cry if that was announced.
And if they announced that it would star Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, well, remember to slit the wrists longways, not across.
Reply
post #4 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:15pm
That article got me thinking as well.

I usually say that a bad remake is ultimately harmless because we haven't lost the original. If the remake is bad, IT will be forgotten.
Something in this artisle made me think that may not always be the case some day.

The article said the studios want to reintroduce Willy Wonka as a marketing franchise. To do so, they are possibly making a shiny new movie as opposed to rereleasing the old one. I guess the logic is that mainstream dumb-ass society will be attracted to the shiny new version over the classic one.

So what if this happens again. And again. And again.

What if every few years a remake of a classic movie is released to replace the old one and keep the marketing alive. This was a theory as to why the new Superman script was so different from the source material. They wanted to keep it new enough to extend the copyright.

Eventually you could have multiple versions of every classic movie, creating a glut. Retailers with limited space will only stock the most recent versions to coincide with the current marketing tie-ins. This could make the (supposedly) superior originals difficult or impossible to get. Not to mention the fact that it would be a waste of financial and creative resources to churn out remakes instead of producing new works that further the artform.

Paranoid delusion? Maybe.
But it's possible.
Reply
post #5 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:26pm
If you can't make a better movie, then don't remake it.

But I do think there's a difference between remaking a concept as opposed to just directly remaking a film. Is anybody going to make a better "Seven Samurai" than Kurosawa? No, so it's pointless to try. But by using the same concept, both "The Magnificent Seven" and "A Bug's Life" were damn fine movies.

Directly remaking a movie--reusing the same characters, set pieces, and some or all of the same dialogue, very rarely works. When it's done with a little-seen movie like "Ringu" (yeah, it was huge in Japan, but a *very* small percentage of the American public saw the original), it can be successful. When you remake an extremely well-known property, especially one that's hailed as a classic, you're just asking for Gus Van Sant's Psycho.
Reply
post #6 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:35pm
Which is why I agree with Roger Ebert's take.
Remake the bad movies. They're the ones that need it.
Remake the ones with a good story but flawed execution. Not Willy Wonka. Not Psycho. Not King Kong.
Reply
post #7 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:48pm
Quote:
BobClark:
What if every few years a remake of a classic movie is released to replace the old one and keep the marketing alive. This was a theory as to why the new Superman script was so different from the source material. They wanted to keep it new enough to extend the copyright.
Seeing as Warner Bros owns DC Comics, and therefore Superman, they don't need to "extend the copyright". It's theirs.
Reply
post #8 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:51pm
Quote:
BobClark:
Which is why I agree with Roger Ebert's take.
Remake the bad movies. They're the ones that need it.
Remake the ones with a good story but flawed execution. Not Willy Wonka. Not Psycho. Not King Kong.
Agreed as well. I'd probably pay $10.00 to see Battlefield Earth done correctly. If that's even possible.

But, I think it's pretty sad when Hollywood has to mine the old classics for ideas.
Reply
post #9 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:53pm
Quote:
Dan Whitehead:
Quote:
BobClark:
What if every few years a remake of a classic movie is released to replace the old one and keep the marketing alive. This was a theory as to why the new Superman script was so different from the source material. They wanted to keep it new enough to extend the copyright.
Seeing as Warner Bros owns DC Comics, and therefore Superman, they don't need to "extend the copyright". It's theirs.
I thought I heard something about DC having to tinker with the old characters to keep them from falling into the public domain. Same with Disney.

Or maybe I'm on crack. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's the crack.
Reply
post #10 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:56pm
Quote:
SHIFT_marv:
Quote:
BobClark:
Which is why I agree with Roger Ebert's take.
Remake the bad movies. They're the ones that need it.
Remake the ones with a good story but flawed execution. Not Willy Wonka. Not Psycho. Not King Kong.
Agreed as well. I'd probably pay $10.00 to see Battlefield Earth done correctly. If that's even possible.

But, I think it's pretty sad when Hollywood has to mine the old classics for ideas.
The saddest thing is they don't have to mine the classics for ideas. There are plenty of original ideas out there. They're just afraid to invest in them. They'd rather invest in a proven commodity. Of course we all know how short-sighted that is.

I would pay $20.00 to see a quality version of Battlefield Earth. It would be the greatest accomplishment of the 21st century!
Reply
post #11 of 31
5/23/03 at 12:57pm
I don't think remakes take anything away from the orginal. Actually I think they bring the original back out into the limelight. Take Oceans 11 or Solaris or Psycho for instance. All 3 of those movies made people seek out and rewatch the originals. That's not a bad thing. I gotta agree with Z-man here.
Reply
post #12 of 31
5/23/03 at 1:19pm
For me, I really have no opinion overall on remakes. It depends on the movie and the creative team involved.

I consider 1933 King Kong a classic, but I expect amazing results with Peter Jackson's version. I consider Dawn of the Dead a classic, but I have bad feelings about the writer of Scooby-Doo penning an updated version. As for the Manchurian Candidate, as much talent as this thing has attracted, something inside tells me that the finished product isn't going to be very good.

Agreed on Ebert's take of remakes. Remake the bad ones to make them more spiffy.

However, there is one phrase that makes me cringe at the news of remakes - "updated with a more urban style".
Reply
post #13 of 31
5/23/03 at 1:27pm
In a lot of ways remakes are unneeded. I think a good example of this is the new "Manchurian Candidate". Its one of my all time favorite films, and holds up extremely well. It doesn't need to be remade, but I'm very interested to see it. Denzel, Streep, the Gulf War? Could be very good, but again, that is not a film crying out to be remade.

I agree with most people in that you should remake the bad movies. The strong concepts that either just didn't work out or are ripe for a contemporary update. "Ocean's 11" is a great example of this.

But I don't understand people really hating remakes. When they actually attempt to remake a classic, its usually a failure that makes you appreciate the original even more. I can't think of a single time when a classic remake had a negative impact on its original or diminished its stature.
Reply
post #14 of 31
5/23/03 at 1:33pm
Quote:
Stew:
I can't think of a single time when a classic remake had a negative impact on its original or diminished its stature.
Actually, a lot of the reviews for Van Sant's "Psycho" mentioned how the shitty remake made them realize how many things were wrong with the original.

A lot of "concept remakes"--especially in the horror genre--beat the concept to death, and I think the originals often suffer the backlash (the slasher subgenre is a prime example here).
Reply
post #15 of 31
5/23/03 at 2:15pm
Quote:
Slater Cancels Christmas:
Quote:
Stew:
I can't think of a single time when a classic remake had a negative impact on its original or diminished its stature.
Actually, a lot of the reviews for Van Sant's "Psycho" mentioned how the shitty remake made them realize how many things were wrong with the original.
I don't think any reviewers were complaining that there was anything wrong with the original. What they were saying was that the script that was written for 1960 doesn't make sense in a modern setting. Joesaph Stefano's script didn't pack a punch because everyone knew what was coming. Plus, the performances felt flat. I highly doubt there were any reviews that criticized the original.

As for remakes, I'm open to them as long as they do something different with the story, and different in a sense that doesn't have the screenplay take the plot and plunk it down into a modern setting. THE ITALIAN JOB looks awful. It's not even set in ITALY anymore (except for an opening heist). I guess the LA JOB wasn't a good enough title, huh? THE SEVEN SAMURAI has been made so many times and each time there has been a different spin on it, but the story structure remains the same. So, I guess what I'm saying is a remake has to be the same and different at the same time.

I look at all the remakes that are out or coming out and it makes me kind of sad. THE IN LAWS, THE ITALIAN JOB, THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE (CHARADE), THE MANCHURIAN CANIDATE (THE IRAQI CANIDATE?), DAWN OF THE DEAD, WILLY WONKA... Where's the originality?

But then I think, there were always remakes. And there used to be a lot less films made than there are now, so I guess it's only fair to assume we'd have to deal with more. I agree with Eberts "remake bad films" idea, but studio's don't want to buy that. They want to remake movies that have a built-in audience. It's just another example of studio's assuming the masses are stupid. If you remake a good movie, people will assume you're getting a good movie. If you remake a bad one, why should anyone expect it to be good?
Reply
post #16 of 31
5/23/03 at 5:51pm
I don't mind that they remade Psycho. It didn't take anything away from the original and atleast around Dec. of 98, more people were talking about Psycho.
Reply
post #17 of 31
5/24/03 at 12:06am
remakes can be wonderful, amazing, horrible or tragic. King Kong can be remade lots and not really be any different. It is perfect for a special effects overhaul. It was remade before and i don't see a problem.
If they remade Superman it would be no different then when they did the 4 different TV shows. Each have their value and faults.
Romeo and Juliet is a great remake and a bit different.
But some just should never be touched. Would it be right if Schindler's List or Fight Club was remade or Reservoir Dogs or Monty Python's The Holy Grail? Anyone who wants to remake Citizen Kane has no business making movies but taking something like the Day The Earth Stood Still could do wonders.
Reply
post #18 of 31
5/26/03 at 10:29am
Until the day that there's a shortage of good unfilmed stories out there, I will continue to regard any unnecessary make-overs of good original movies as, at best, a flagrant waste of resources.
Reply
post #19 of 31
5/26/03 at 10:39am
Hollywood is in the business of wasting resources. What amazes me is that we see any original movies at all.
Reply
post #20 of 31
5/26/03 at 10:48am
Quote:
Dan Whitehead:
Hollywood is in the business of wasting resources. What amazes me is that we see any original movies at all.
The fact that we're amazed by that these days pretty much sums up the nature of the problem.
Reply
post #21 of 31
5/26/03 at 11:56am
And then there's the issue of Freaky Friday...*shudder*
Reply
post #22 of 31
5/26/03 at 6:16pm
Generally I take remakes with a pinch of salt; there's enough good (certainly - average) fiction in existence to keep Hollywood going well into the next century as things stand – so why the need to remake anything?

That said, without the ubiquitous 'remake' we'd be bereft of cinematic treasures such as Ben Hur, and the world would indeed be a poorer place.
Reply
post #23 of 31
5/26/03 at 7:34pm
Movies aren't special to the studios... hollywood doesn't see movies as important slices of storytelling and art... to them, movies are recyclable marketing tools... the latest "thing" used to sell t-shirts, happy meals, toys and tv spinoff series. As soon as it shows any signs of age (outdated actor/title song/visual fx/subject matter) they toss it out and make a new one. This is what the studio wants.

This system is bound to fail... sooner or later it will all come crumbling down. Movies are far too compelling an art form to be butchered, packaged and test marketed by a focus group forever... the visual image transcends that. Hollywood studio chiefs are expendable... they come and go, they live and die. The image lasts forever. One day someone will realize motion pictures deserve better than the ass-raping they constantly get from the major studios and the system will come crashing down. Just as soon as the internet connection speeds become fast enough to DL a 2 hour movie with high-def picture quality and digital surround, people will say "fuck the theater... fuck the crying babies, constantly ringing cell phones, goofy, giggling teenagers and annoying commentators", and they'll just watch movies from the comfort of their own homes. Steven Spielberg will be competing with Jimmy Johnson, a 19 year old visual and narrative genius from Cleveland, Ohio. Meet Jimmy... he has no studio deal, no agent and no publicist... all the profits from his latest picture will go straight into his back account. He wont be paid in "installments", and he wont be begging for his non-existant net profit points from the studio. He wont even be thinking about selling happy meals or toys... his movie is what matters. His story is what matters. Welcome to the next generation of the motion picture.

Reply
post #24 of 31
5/26/03 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Colt45:
Movies aren't special to the studios... hollywood doesn't see movies as important slices of storytelling and art... to them, movies are recyclable marketing tools... the latest "thing" used to sell t-shirts, happy meals, toys and tv spinoff series. As soon as it shows any signs of age (outdated actor/title song/visual fx/subject matter) they toss it out and make a new one. This is what the studio wants.

This system is bound to fail... sooner or later it will all come crumbling down. Movies are far too compelling an art form to be butchered, packaged and test marketed by a focus group forever... the visual image transcends that. Hollywood studio chiefs are expendable... they come and go, they live and die. The image lasts forever. One day someone will realize motion pictures deserve better than the ass-raping they constantly get from the major studios and the system will come crashing down. Just as soon as the internet connection speeds become fast enough to DL a 2 hour movie with high-def picture quality and digital surround, people will say "fuck the theater... fuck the crying babies, constantly ringing cell phones, goofy, giggling teenagers and annoying commentators", and they'll just watch movies from the comfort of their own homes. Steven Spielberg will be competing with Jimmy Johnson, a 19 year old visual and narrative genius from Cleveland, Ohio. Meet Jimmy... he has no studio deal, no agent and no publicist... all the profits from his latest picture will go straight into his back account. He wont be paid in "installments", and he wont be begging for his non-existant net profit points from the studio. He wont even be thinking about selling happy meals or toys... his movie is what matters. His story is what matters. Welcome to the next generation of the motion picture.
Jimmy, these problems will always exist as long as whiny filmmakers decide to make movies with other people's money.

Once they can finance their own movies, they'll have the ultimate creative control. Good luck getting it distributed.

Anyway, back to remakes.

Gus Van Sant's Psycho. The dirty little secret is that it didn't work because the script no longer works. People blame Van Sant's/Hitchcock's direction but thats not it, barring Heche's performance. People blame Chris Doyle's cinematography but thats not it either. Of all the films he shot, this is his one failure? No. Its in the script. A script that works in 1960 does not mean it will work in 1998.

Although it was a great idea to use the original script, the film was inherently a failure. Not because its a bad script, far from it. Its just not suitable for today's audiences. I mean c'mon, an 8 page dialogue scene? Not in today's market.

Atleast they didn't rerelease Hitchcock's Psycho instead. That would've made less then Van Sant's version in '98.

Quote:
Colt45:
This system is bound to fail... sooner or later
Maybe but we'll probably both be dead before it does. wink

Edited for cleverness...

Reply
post #25 of 31
5/26/03 at 9:33pm
Quote:
Once they can finance their own movies, they'll have the ultimate creative control. Good luck getting it distributed.
Distribution? Get a server.

My name isn't Jimmy.

Reply
post #26 of 31
5/26/03 at 9:44pm
Quote:
Colt45:
Quote:
Once they can finance their own movies, they'll have the ultimate creative control. Good luck getting it distributed.
Distribution? Get a server.

My name isn't Jimmy.
Sorry, thought you were plugging yourself there.

Movies play better on screens, not servers.
Reply
post #27 of 31
5/26/03 at 11:23pm
Quote:
Whispering Smith:
Quote:
Colt45:
Quote:
Once they can finance their own movies, they'll have the ultimate creative control. Good luck getting it distributed.
Distribution? Get a server.

My name isn't Jimmy.
Sorry, thought you were plugging yourself there.

Movies play better on screens, not servers.
Yes currently that is true... but more and more movies are being "beamed" digitally to a giant hard drive at the theater and projected digitally... it's all becoming digital information. In 20 years uploading a 2 hour high-def movie to a sever will be like programming an alarm clock... anyone will be able to do it if they have the means. I like going to the movies, but more and more people are skipping it and waiting for the dvd release... they're buying widescreen TV sets and surround systems that continue to fall in price. And just wait until high-def DVD takes over... home theater will pretty much rival the best movie theaters. There's still something special about seeing a movie projected on a 50 foot screen with wall to wall dynamic sound, and a bunch of strangers going nuts as they munch on their popcorn and candy. No home experience will ever equal that.
Reply
post #28 of 31
5/27/03 at 10:04am
Don't hold your breath, Colt45.
In the 50's people said television would be the death of cinema.
In the 80's they said home video would be the death of cinema.
Just last year someone told me digital cable and large flat screens would be the death of cinema.
All the home theater advancements in the world will not kill cinema.
If my seven year tour of duty in the movie theater business has tought me anything, it is this- People like to go out.
They like the social affair of meeting friends at the theater, getting snacks at the concession stand, and sharing a film in a room full of like-minded folks.
We are social creatures that enjoy mingling together at the watering hole.
Movie theaters are here to stay.
Reply
post #29 of 31
5/27/03 at 12:02pm
Quote:
Whispering Smith:
Not because its a bad script, far from it. Its just not suitable for today's audiences. I mean c'mon, an 8 page dialogue scene? Not in today's market.
Of course, what you're really saying is that "today's audiences" aren't suitable to watch anything that would challenge them to process what they've seen and think for more than five seconds at a time. And this logic, a logic peculiar to the advertising industry (and now, it seems, creeping insidiously into corporate mindsets in both film and publishing), therefore justifies the shitty condition of the nebulous beast commonly known as "today's market".

That is, keep serving them pablum on a shiny platter, and keep telling them that they can't digest anything harder on their system than that, and soon enough they won't want anything more than that. Because all they'll know is the taste of shitty pablum, and thanks to this conditioning they'll be unable to digest any harder foods.

Great logic. Manufacture limited expectations that you know you are capable of catering to, easily and with little fuss or expense, time and time again. Then keep serving up the same old shit every time, and voila! you've set yourself and your buddies up for life.

Mind you, this doesn't mean I think the Psycho re-make was anything but a lousy idea from the get-go.

Reply
post #30 of 31
5/27/03 at 12:56pm
Quote:
In the 50's people said television would be the death of cinema.
In the 80's they said home video would be the death of cinema.
It wasn't likely that a 19 inch box displaying low-rez black and white images was going to replace cinema... same for a VCR that displayed resolutions INFERIOR to television.

The resolution of the DLP cinema projector in alot of theaters nowadays MATCHES that of ones you can buy in the home. The problem with those people in the 50's and 80's is they took the resolution of those devices for granted. The resolutions seen in the cinema and the one's soon to be possible at home (HDTV, High-Def DVD) are going to be pretty neck and neck. Of course there's a pleasing visual aesthetic to watching film, but that will always be different from digital cinema... which I'm specifically speaking of. With more and more theater chains adopting the digital projectors, and the same resolution being possible at home, NOW people can start talking about NOT THE DEATH OF CINEMA, but the advent of HOME CINEMA.
Reply
post #31 of 31
5/27/03 at 1:53pm
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a home viewing format evolve into the standard medium for small indie films.
Just as drive-ins were synonimous with cheapo B-grade flicks, direct home-viewing could become synonimous with quality indie fare that would never get distribution otherwise. This makes sense to me since the audience for these films is more select.
Ahh, that's just wishful thinking. Any direct home viewing format will turn into nothing but porn.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: CHUD.COM Main
CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › CHUD.COM Main › Some thoughts on remakes