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To avoid comparsions keep repeating,

post #1 of 25
2/10/04 at 10:10pm
Thread Starter 
it's not a remake...it's not a remake...it's not a remake...

It seems that they want to use titles that we all know, Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House Of Wax, Dawn Of The Dead, etc but they call them anything but a remake. Someone once said that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, will I say that a remake by any other name still stinks. Now, I haven't seen any of the above named remakes but the originals are remembered today because they were original. The remakes could be just as good when it comes to story, acting, special effects, sets, music, etc but they can not be completely original. Even if they were completely original stories with an old title it would do a disservice to the new movie because fans would have the wrong idea going in. There are times when it is a good idea to remake a movie.

When silent movies gave way to sound, when black and white gave way to color, these were good reasons to remake movies. However if James Whale had been around and had wanted to remake Frankenstein I would have wanted him to be given the chance. I believe that if Halloween was to be remade that John Carpenter should be given the first shot, if Nightmare On Elm Street was to be remade Wes Craven should be given first shot, if Evil Dead gets remade Sam Raimi should get first shot. I think you get my point.

If someone else wants to remake a movie they should at least have to balls to say it's a remake and to say why they are remaking it. All of this "it's not a shot for shot remake" stuff is bullshit, after all how many "shot for shot" remakes have there been? So as we prepare for the rest of the remakes coming our way know that none of them are REALLY remakes, they are re-this or re-that or re-anything, just not remakes.
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post #2 of 25
2/11/04 at 1:41am
Yeah, Hollywood is going remake-crazy. It's getting worse and worse. I'm tired of people trying to introduce a whole new generation of viewers to a film by just making it over again. I'm not saying that all remakes are bad but there is no need for more than half of them. The only thing that most remakes do is take away from the original.
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post #3 of 25
2/11/04 at 6:53am
Thread Starter 
I don't think a remake takes away from the original. A Dracula fan will seek out Universal's Dracula, Hammer's Horror Of Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula and every Dracula in between, both big and no budget. Twenty five years ago, before video when you had to wait for a movie to come to TV or a rerelease maybe a remake could "reintroduce a new generation to..." but not today. Today any movie fan, of any kind, can go to a Best Buy, Suncoast, or Blockbuster and find nearly any classic film and watch it as many times as they want to. If someone has never heard of Mary Poppins, Citizen Kane, or Dracula they're not much of a movie fan to start with and a remake made to "reintroduce a new gen..." isn't going to change that. You don't have to like any of those movies but a movie fan will know the titles. I'm not against remakes. I own all of the "Dracula" films listed above. I have just as many "Frankenstein" movies. I am sure that I will watch any new remakes of those movies.

I am against some jackass director blowing smoke up my ass. In other words don't bullshit the fans. If you're a Frankenstein fan. If you want to make your own movie based on the book because none of the other movies gave you the feeling that the book did, fine, but say so. Don't tell me that you liked every other Frankenstein movie and don't think there should be another remake. And this isn't a remake...it's a re-this or a re-that...and it's for the fans and...

If you saw Halloween as a kid and it just doesn't scare you anymore, or you thought it was a good idea but it just didn't hit the mark and you think you can do a better job, fine, but say so. Don't tell us that the original was perfect and doesn't have to be remade and this really isn't a remake...it's a re-this or re-that and we're doing it for the fans and...

Because you could just as well say that the fans are stupid and won't know the difference.

If you were going to remake Halloween and you told the fans. I saw the original and I give credit to John Carpenter for writing it but it just didn't scare me. It's a great idea and it may have scared people in '78 but it needs to be updated. I'm going to remake it with more blood, guts and action and I'm going to call it Halloween; The Nightmare Begins...at least you would be telling the truth and I belive the fans would respect you for it.
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post #4 of 25
2/11/04 at 8:22am
Too bad money speaks louder than words and the studios want to be able to claim the general audience as their own little cash-givers.

Hate to say it, but as much hoopla and crap you hear about "the fans", none of the remakes are about the fans at all.


Oh well, I've learned to try to be optimistic about these new films.

No one has done this recently, but sometimes you don't know how a classic can be better until someone actually makes it better. Someone might surprise you.

NOTLD in all its glory is great, but Savinis NOTLD '90 is better, in my opinion that is. Maybe because I saw it first as a kid.

Im not promoting the remakes, I've just learn to not be so down about it, now a Halloween remake w/out Carpenter...I'd be singing a different tune and become a hypocrite.
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post #5 of 25
2/11/04 at 8:45am
Do you feel that the Hammer Dracula and Frankenstein movies are remakes when compared to Universal's?

They were never called remakes, but they share many of the same characters (not all of them due to copyright issues) and themes.

Those movies are worlds apart, and looked upon as separate entities.

This new crop of remakes can be looked upon that as the same.


Wouldn't you rather, if you HAD to, see a director's new take on a theme instead of the same shot for shot movie?

I don't get the anti remake hate that seems to go around (not saying YOU Borgosi- I happen to think you make very good points even if we don't always agree- I mean in general)


Everyone needs to remember one thing: We are horror movie fans...we don't control the business. If a remake happens, we have no choice to either support or boycott it.

But if you leave it open for a chance, you might be suprised...

After all, it's just a title attached to the movie.

Go in the movie house in your head and call the remake anything you wish.

This new group of directors that are doing the remake have been very careful in saying that they are improving on the originals. Most of the time they are saying that they just want to do their take on it.

And after all, how many of us have ever had an idea for a movie or story using characters or situations from a movie?

Don't think of it as a remake, think of it as just one more chapter in a story that the original movie inhabits.
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post #6 of 25
2/11/04 at 9:20am
The only "remake" that ever existed is Psycho. Same script. Shot for shot, re made.

All other are reimaginings of the same story. Retelling if you will. And there is no harm in that as long as one thing is constant: quality in the filmmaking in all areas.

And a tip, try seeing the pictures you're talking about before getting all worked up about them. No one was more surprised than I that the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a solid scare picture. And Dawn Of The Dead looks the same.

This tired argument is just that: tired. The original pictures are always there and your devotion to them is admirable and heartwarming. But as The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and countless Draculas have proved, it is possible for two disperate production to coexist years apart and still entertain and delight in equal measure.

Shit original pictures get made all the time. We should be thankful for quality, second, third hand or not.

That's all that matters.

Afterall, many people love the original LOTR Bakshi adaptation, but look at what happened recently.
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post #7 of 25
2/11/04 at 11:44am
Thread Starter 
I don't believe that making 15 movies based on Frankenstein, Dracula, or Lord Of The Rings is the same as remaking an original movie that was not a book or short story. If you and I read the same book we are going to get two different takes on it. If we both read the same book and made a movie based on that book they were be two completely different movies. I'm not against a new movie based on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. I would be against a remake of James Whale's Frankenstein. When Psycho was remade they should have gone back to Robert Bloch's short story "Lucy Comes To Stay". That's what was done with The Thing based on John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" and George Langelaan's "The Fly".

There should only be one book titled "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus", "Dracula", or "The Lord Of The Rings". Some jackass out to make a quick buck shouldn't be able to write a book a get it one of those titles. There could be 15 different call Mona Lisa, about the girl, the guy that painted her, why he painted her, their friends and family but there should only be one painting call The Mona Lisa. If you painted a picture of a girl and called it "The Mona Lisa" and started selling it do you think people in the art world would say "that's ok it's a different girl" or "it's just a re-make" or maybe "it's ok it was inspired by the original"?

Maybe my problem, if you want to call it that, is that I see movies as an art form just as much as writing, painting, music, dance, or anything else. With one difference, movies include all other forms of art. Movies are a union or marrage of all other types of art and in my opinion this makes them more important, not less important. To me when someone says it's just a movie it's like saying a Michelangelo or Bermini are just carvings or that Shakespeare or Shelley were just writers, or that Pollock was just a painter. I think movies, all movies including the ones I don't like, are art and should be respected just as much as any other art is. That means you don't reuse titles just to make a profit.

Here's a question to think about. If someone was going to remake or re-whatever Halloween do you think the fans wouldn't know about it?

I think the fans of a title will find out if it's being remade. I don't think it matters if other people know the title.
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post #8 of 25
2/11/04 at 12:23pm
What's your stance on cover versions of songs ?
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post #9 of 25
2/11/04 at 12:52pm
There are some pretty interesting thoughts floating around here, far more tolerable than the insanely stupid and venomous talkbacks/messageboards at AICN.
My personal view is that you could put a lot of the bad blood up to a generational divide in filmgoers.
Someone who loved the Robert Mitchum "Cape Fear", may hate the DeNiro remake for a number of reasons, like an old-fashioned aversion to "excessive" violence (for the record I love them both).
Someone who loved "The Fly" as a kid in 58', could very well have been sickened and confused by Cronenberg's beautiful 86' update, totally missing or refusing to understand it's complexity as a "disease parable".
In my own thread "Broke My Promise", I talk about seeing the TCM remake that I initially swore off, and finding it not to be the total clusterfuck that I imagined it would be.
I saw it based on the thumbs up that original TCM fans (like myself) gave it, a friend of mine, whose judgement I usually trust, gave it a try and said that it could've been worse...so I gave in.
He was right, it could've been worse; I remain, in the end, relatively unimpressed, but it's a good film for kids that don't know the original (It's a bit sad that I continue to deride my own generation, I'm only 22).
With that said, I'm done seeing remakes, I'm just done.
Not out of fanboy loyalty, just for the fact that I'm totally f*cking bored with the lack of support for original ideas. They're out there, but unfortunately no one is paying attention.
I don't see any Cronenberg/Carpenter homeruns in the near future, and I'm probably right.
This goes for American versions of Japanese horror flms as well...I knew it was another horrid trend waiting to happen.

p.s., I hate going to the theater these days anyway, damned annoying teenagers, crying babies, cell phones, and those f*cking commercials!
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post #10 of 25
2/11/04 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Crazy Jim
Yeah, Hollywood is going remake-crazy. It's getting worse and worse. I'm tired of people trying to introduce a whole new generation of viewers to a film by just making it over again. I'm not saying that all remakes are bad but there is no need for more than half of them. The only thing that most remakes do is take away from the original.
With the advent of DVDs, a virtually indestructible recordable medium. Remakes are no longer necessary to bring back a film that may have been lost due to deterioration and a whole new generation not getting a chance to see it. Old habbits die hard I guess. That and the all mighty dollar has a bigger say than any DVD with a perfectly preserved original film.
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post #11 of 25
2/11/04 at 4:27pm
I already posted this in the ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 remake thread but it fits here as well so I'll double post ...

I totally agree with those who oppose remakes in a way but you have to realize that most people, those with only a passing interest in horror or films in general, don't bother to go an rent old films, even stuff that is only a few years down the line. If it's not on some cover they don't know about it. I realized this when TCM 2003 came out. A couple of friends told me how fucking intense it was and all that and when I told them it was a remake of a film from the 70ies they were intrigued. We then spent an hour or so comparing the two versions, which was pretty cool and I think one or two of them might even check out the original now that the remake has gotten their interest.

They are not making (or rather remaking those films for or because of us but for the general public. We are a minority, we're geeks. If we mattered in the least bit, if we had the power to vote with our dollars there'd be no remakes. It may be sad but that's how our society treats older films and culture in general. That's life.
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post #12 of 25
2/11/04 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
What do I think about cover songs? Most songs are part of an album, today they're CD albums not record albums but you get the idea. If the rock band "snotbreath" covered the Beatles' Help it would be on a "snotbreath" album. I view the entire album as a work of art and not just a single from it. It would be a part of the whole. Now if "snotbreath" changed their name to the Beatles and released an album titled Help I think that would be wrong. It would be like Wes Craven remaking Halloween and calling it "Wes Craven's Halloween".
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post #13 of 25
2/11/04 at 6:33pm
Thread Starter 
The way I see it our society treats all films, both old and new, as product not as art. That does suck. I just hope that as time passes this will change. I know that the good stuff will last.
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post #14 of 25
2/11/04 at 6:45pm
Thread Starter 
On the DVD box for Day Of The Dead it says "George A. Romero's Day Of The Dead". Would it be ok to remake the movie and use that complete title? Would it be ok for John Smith to remake the movie and title it "George A. Romero's Day Of The Dead"? How would you feel about a remake called "John Carpenter's Halloween"? Why would it be any different than "Mary Shelly's Frankenstein"?
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post #15 of 25
2/11/04 at 8:55pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Borgosi
Why would it be any different than "Mary Shelly's Frankenstein"?
I can appreciate your point of view but thereare important differences.

1.) Marry Shelly is long dead and her book is in the public domain. Carpenter, Romero etc. are very much alive and people still own their films. Often the wrong people but still ...

2.) Writing a book is usually an intimate, personal process that starts with an idea and is then fleshed out into story or novel format. The author does all the work, takes his time, has nobody breathing down his/her neck. A film starts with a script. Not always the script is written by the director. Making a film is, especially now, a very public affair and a collaborative effort. You got actors, composers, make-up, financial backers, set designers, art directors, director's of photography and so forth and so on. You can't compare that to writing a novel and filming a novel again and again is certainly different from remaking a film again and again. If they just took the same script and shot it again (as with Gus van Sant's PSYCHO remake) then the comprison works, otherwise it doesn't.
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post #16 of 25
2/11/04 at 9:45pm
Thread Starter 
Romero wrote Dawn Of The Dead. He is the author. If someone bought the rights to his film, as did Universal, they should be able to call a remake "George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead". I'm not saying that I would be for it but I think it would be legal.
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post #17 of 25
2/11/04 at 9:54pm
I know almost nothing about the US legal system but a lot of things seem to be possible if you have enough money to hire the right lawyers ... But somehow I still don't think that a studio can buy the name of a still living and working director. That would be just sick and wrong.

Dimension paid Wes Craven a sizeable ammount of money so he would allow them to use his name on all those "Wes Craven presents" DTV shitfests. Or at least they made that part of a pretty extensive multi-picture deal he signed with them after SCREAM ...
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post #18 of 25
2/12/04 at 3:16am
Quote:
And a tip, try seeing the pictures you're talking about before getting all worked up about them. No one was more surprised than I that the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a solid scare picture
Alright, the Man comes forward, Atta Boy! I too loved the remake and yet still find room in my heart of coal for our beloved original. Even if the new "Dawn" sucks donkey dick, I'll take it in the spirit it was intended (as long as ol' George makes a buck from the deal of course). Love it or hate it, THE THING was a remake and is in my opinion one of the greatest horror films of all time. Think of it this way, if all of us lads reproduce and want our spawn to love horror as much as we do, chances are they'll like the remake since it represents their style of film (modern sensibilities). Pending further appreciation, unleash the original on them to identify the source material one day. Remember this, there's a kid I know who saw the remake of PSYCHO before the original, when I presented him with the Hitchcock film the kid "clicked" and wanted nothing more than to study Hitch (the little fuck rented five movies in one weekend to study).

Next week I’m going to play a roll in said "kid's" first film. A horror film if you might ask and a cool one at that, He's 14 years old and loves horror more than almost anyone I know.
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post #19 of 25
2/12/04 at 7:32am
Borgosi, I still don't really get your point - a film is always the work of an "author" (screenwriter, director, both). It's therefore always a "story" as an independent entity.

Why, therefore, isn't it acceptable for someone to want to reimagine that story in a different time or place, with different performers, different aspects accentuated.

In the main this means The Texas Chainsaw Massacre directed by Tobe Hooper becomes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre directed by Marcus Nispel. But it can also mean The Seven Samurai becomes the Magnificent Seven becomes A Bugs Life. Or Rio Bravo becomes Assault On Precinct 13

This all comes back to the whole title debate again. Which is pointless - because that's just marketing. Why would a film not want to get the most press possible ? Yes, it's not desiranble, but the picture is what matters. If it's good, even more so. Your complaint is logged, though.
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post #20 of 25
2/12/04 at 11:10am
Thread Starter 
The U.S.A. network has made a movie about the Lacy Peterson murder case. Lacy Peterson's family was/is against this film. Some of the lawers are against this film. They use real names and the real, living, people could do nothing to stop it. If this legally be done I don't see why a living director's name couldn't be used in the title of a movie. Even if he/she had nothing to do with the film. My guess is that someone could make a movie called "Wes Craven's Nightmare" if they wanted as long as they had the statement in it somewhere that say it's fictional.

This isn't JUST about the Dawn, TCM, or anyother remake. It's about film as an art form and what is crossing the line.

Straxboy - My point is that we all have a line that we think should not be crossed. I ask you this question, what is that line for you? To some people it's killing real animals in a movie like some of the cannibal films. I'm ok with that as long as the animals eaten. It is acceptable to be influnced by a story or to write a NEW story or director a NEW film based on those ideas. What I find unacceptable is to not do everything you can to set the NEW story apart from the original. I don't have a problem with Hollywood saying "that guy made a movie and it made money, let's make on like his!", to me it becomes a problem when they say "let call it the samething" or "make a poster that looks like his".

I place a very high value on art. I would be against a remake using the poster art from an original film. I think the Blair Witch Project is the worst movie ever made but I think it would be wrong to use the title for another movie as long as the original filmmakers are alive, unless they are for it. George Romero wrote a book titled Dawn Of The Dead so it should be legal for a director to make a new movie based on it and call it "George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead". I would be extremely against it but it should be legal. Legal doesn't mean it right. To me that would be crossing the line.
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post #21 of 25
2/12/04 at 12:22pm
Never, ever get a job in film marketing.

Films rely on audience identification with a property to sell tickets. horor pictures with a built in, impressionable fan base, even more so. So any kind of short hand to market the picture to the largest audience with the minimum of fuss is the ultimate aim for mainstream cinema. To not capitalize on an existing picture's popularity would be irresponsible in the extreme in industry terms. It's the reason they make sequels afterall (very often different writers and directors used by a producer or studio who owns the rights to make more money out of a franchise). It is absolutely no different to remaking a film based on an existing property, be it play, book or musical.

Look at it this way if they made about a band of survivors a picture set in a mall while a zombie horde was ravaging America and they didn't call it Dawn Of The Dead there'd be a whole other set of disgruntlement. They're being up front and retelling the story. And from The Inspector's review, retelling it in a fresh lively manner.

There is no intellectual copyright on ideas - hence 28 Day's Later's existence. Which, you recall, stupidly got a tonne of flack for not up frontly acknowledging its debt to Romero til after the fact.

I also place a huge value on art. My education and career thus far has been consumed by it. But I don't make any quantative distinction between high or low art. Both can be enthralling or disappointing in equal measure. Yet both are seperate things that require separate coding both in their creation and their consumption. And it all comes down to this: is the creation any good.
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post #22 of 25
2/12/04 at 3:57pm
Thread Starter 
For you and I the bottom line is if it is any good.

For the studio it seems that it all comes down to money not if the movie is good or even if the fans like it. That's way first weekend ticket sells are so important. Get as many people in the theater before word of mouth can hit the streets.

If it's a good movie fans will find it. The original Dawn made over 55 million in it's first year. Not bad for a low budget movie that was released unrated, very little newspaper or TV promotion but it still found it's way into the hearts of fans.

I've never said that I won't see this movie. There's a good chance I'll buy the DVD. I don't know if I'll see it in a theater. I know I won't be opening weekend, I'll wait for both fan and critic reviews. The last three films that I saw opening weekend were all Lord Of The Rings movies. I simply don't like theater crowds.

When I was younger remakes never used the original title. Times had changed. I can't help but think that the next generation won't have a problem call the second Dawn remake "George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead". Today's fans will be against, that I think. IMHO film is high art. The best of it will be around in 500 years and will be studied in schools as art. By the way, if you look back at the early days of film, both silent and early sound films, there is one kind that has out last all others.
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post #23 of 25
2/12/04 at 11:27pm
I believe in a remake if you can make a better movie the second time around.

Hence, MUTE WITNESS remake, good.


HALLOWEEN remake, bad.
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post #24 of 25
2/13/04 at 7:21am
Then the last three pictures you saw on opening weekend were both remakes (of an animation, but still a relatively beloved one in film circles, as much in the mainstream eye as Dawn Of The Dead at any rate) and the very definition of using the inbuilt marketing that a cachet name brings - the very thing you rally against with regards to Dawn Of The Dead.

Of course tickets should be sold on merit of the picture, but the more people that see it, the more the word of that merit will spread.

You have an ultimately admirable, but still highly idealised, view of the industry process, I think.
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post #25 of 25
2/13/04 at 11:04pm
Thread Starter 
If I remember right the animated films were call "The Hobbit", "J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings" and "Return Of The King". Rankin / Bass made "The Hobbit" for TV. Ralph Bakshi then made "J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings" based on Fellowship and the first half of Two Towers with plans to do a second film. His movie didn't do very well at the box office so his second film was never made. Later Rankin / Bass would finish the series. The second two films were based on the three books that the new movies were based on. The titles were different and they do set the different movies apart from one another. As I said before, if we read the same book we will both get to different visions of the story in our minds eye.

If we watch a movie we will SEE the same movie. We can read different things into what we SEE but the images on the screen that we see will be the same. We could then make our own verson of the story. We could take it to a new level. However I would hope that all three versons would be original enough to have their own title, or at the very least a sub-title.

You are right in that I have a very idealised view of what I wish the industry would become. I wish that movie directors and all other artist did IT for the art not for the money. I also wish that doctors did IT to help people and not for the money. I wish that lawyers did IT for what is right and not for the money. I KNOW that about 99% of the time they all do IT for the money. That doesn't stop me from wishing. If I do find that rare director, artist, doctor, lawyer, etc that does do IT for the right reasons. I will fly his flag and support him in any way that I can. If that pisses some people off, not you, so be it.

At some point I will see all of the remakes. Some I will like, most I won't. Either way, I will always believe that the creators of the remakes should love and be proud enough of their creations to give them their own name, even if it's a sub-title. This is a place to share ideas and viewpoints. I know I can't change the world, or even the movies.
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