The term "remake" when used in regards to film is defined as when a movie uses an earlier movie as the main source material. Remakes make significant character, plot, and theme changes. For example, the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair is centred on a fucking bank robbery, while its 1999 remake involves the theft of a valuable piece of artwork. Similarly, when the 1969 film The Italian Job was remade in 2003, very few aspects were carried over to this version.
And that’s just a start look at all the other shit we’ve had to endure of the last decade and a bit; The Wicker Man, Psycho, The Fog, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Departed, Babes in Toyland, Rocky Balboa, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax, 13 Ghosts, When a Stranger Calls, The Hills Have Eyes, Poseidon and The Karate Kid.
Then there are the TV adaptations The Beverly Hillbillies, Miami Vice, Bewitched, My Favourite Martian, Dudley Do-Right, Scooby-Doo, The Addams Family and Mission: Impossible, The Dukes of Hazard, Starsky and Hutch… What do all of these movies have in common? They suck. Oh, yeah and they’re all remakes of previously successful franchises from a bygone era.
I thought TV was safe from remakes of shows but now there is Battlestar Galactica (Original 1978, Remade in 2003), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (Original 1983, Remade in 2002), Knight Rider (Original 1982, Remade in 2008) and now V (Original 1983, Remade in 2009). All these shows have one very common thread, they’re undeniably shit.
And now we are receiving remakes of shows like The Office and Life On Mars. If you’ve watched the remakes of either of these shows, there are only 3 differences. Accents, Soundtracks and Fashion. That’s it. The US version of Life On Mars was only made watchable by virtue of Michael Imperioli and the occasional pop in of Beach Ball (Lee Tergesen). This trend bothers me the most, the original source material came out no more than 8 years ago, it’s not dated yet, it’s not like new special effects are going to make a difference in the visualisations of the bustling metropolis of Slough.
I mean for fuck sake, even our wars are sequels. Iraq (Original 1990, Remade 2003), North Korea is in pre-production, and I don’t doubt someone is working on a script for Russia somewhere. The Americans even voted in a remake in to office, TWICE!
But now-a-days we don’t have remakes anyway; films are reinterpreted, reimagined or renovated. These terms used by the creators (aka thieves) in the marketing of films and television shows to inform audiences that the new product is not the same as the old one. Ok, Well, change the fucking title then!
Look at Planet of the Apes, Bewitched, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman, Prom Night and Dawn of the Dead. Tim Burton has denied that his 2010 film Alice in Wonderland is a renovation of Lewis Carroll's classic novel; WHAT!? It’s not a remake, that’s for sure the plot line of the film bears very little resemblance to the original or derivatives of it, such as the classic 1951 animated film from Disney.
This reimagining bullshit has also been applied to music releases too, such as Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin. Brian Wilson, the dude most famous for his refusal to release his ‘Smile’ album for over 30 years, until he found the ‘new sound’!? What’s next the Dillinger Escape Plan covers Justin Timberlake... Oh fuck!? That’s happened already? Ok
I just named all these titles off the top of my head, but I think we’re all aware there have been a plethora of shitty remakes in recent times. For some ungodly reason, the people in charge of deciding which movies get made and which ones don’t, keep choosing films that play off of the success of previous movies or television shows. And, most importantly, these remakes consistently suck ass.
I have, up until now, kept mostly quiet about this phenomenon. Quiet in the sense that if you haven’t gone to the movies with me in the past 6-8 years you wouldn’t otherwise know how much this pisses me off, or how much I love Frozen Coke. But now I’ve finally had enough.
"Remakes limit the potential for quality with no regard for the actual product and total regard for its marketability."
It is because of this most egregious violation that I have been called into action to educate the masses about how remaking classic television shows and movies are destroying the very fabric of our society.
When I make the statement that remakes suck, I don’t mean it in the generic sense of "a movie by default has to be terrible because it’s a remake," I mean every remake that has taken place recently has been absolutely horrible. This is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that a lot of the shows and movies that have been chosen to remake sucked themselves to begin with.
Take The Dukes of Hazzard for example. Has anyone out there ever actually watched this show? I’m sad to say that on one or two occasions I caught the original series on the old Foxtel, and like most television from the early 1980’s, it was terrible. The writing sucked, the acting sucked, and the only things that made it worth watching were the car chases and Daisy Duke. The movie starred Johnny Knoxville and Sean William Scott and was directed by Jay Chandrasekhar. Not a bad line-up to be quite honest, but guess what? The writing sucked, the acting sucked, and the only things that made it worth watching were the car chases and Daisy Duke. Go figure.
The point is, when you start off with something shitty, and attempt to remake it, odds are high that said remake will in fact reflect the inherent shittiness of the original product.
When Stallone set out to make a sixth and supposedly final Rocky movie with ‘Rocky Balboa’, was it about expressing himself as an artist? Or maybe filling in the last vestiges of the Rocky story? Fuck no, it was about getting paid. We’ve explored the Rocky phenomenon thoroughly, if not overly so, in the preceding five films. He’s a boxer, he gets the crap beat out of him, and he invariably wins the fight for his wife/trainer/country. But if the same exact movie had come out under any other name, it would have sold a quarter of the tickets that it did. When you remake a movie, you’re essentially hoping that the same people who watched and enjoyed the original will want to see more. You’re limiting the potential for quality at the onset with no regard for the actual product and total regard for its marketability.
The redone version of the Last House on the Left was considered a success by the studio because with a budget of $20million it pulled in a total of just over $4omillion. That is the definition of a successful film now-a-days? I mean, congratulations it made its budget back at least but compare those figures to something like Casablanca, which had a budget $ 1,039,00, and don’t kid yourself it was a fuck of a lot in 1942, and to this day has grossed over $10,755,000. Over ten times its budget and during war time!
The Nicholas Cage version of Gone in 60 Seconds had a budget of $90 million; it’s cleared just over twice of that. Once again, yes, it doubled its budget. But what about 1962’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ which had a budget of $2 million, which as we speak has grossed in excess of $20,629,846.
The remake of the Hills Have Eyes cost $15 million dollars to make; it brought in a total of $41 million dollars. Compare that to say, Lawrence of Arabia. Which cost $15 million dollars to make also, and in 1961 alone this film brought in $75,000,000.
The only MAJOR success story to come out of this horrible trend is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which with a budget of $9.5 million dollars brought in a whopping $107,071,655 dollars to this day. . How many people pick up the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake today, just a few years after its release though? Nobody cares about it, if anything; they get Tobe Hooper’s original because it has something unique about it that can't be recreated, even with the same Director of Photography.
There is a new Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford and Shia Lebouf, a Get Smart movie with Steve Carrell, Wall Street with Michael Douglas, Shi Lebouf (again) and even OLIVER STONE.. I even heard there’s a Welcome Back, Kotter movie in the works.
What the fuck is going on in this sick and twisted world we live in?
Indiana Jones is a tried and true part of cinema history, but really, again? Wasn’t ‘The Last Crusade’ enough? Indy is a prime example of the simple fact that sometimes you should just leave well enough alone.
Get Smart was a popular television show back in the 1960’s—50 fucking years ago. The odds of a single person being a fan of that show and even knowing who Steve Carrell is at the same time are in the quadrillions to one.
Oliver, Oliver, Oliver. Natural Born Killers, Wall Street (the first time around), JFK, Platoon, Any Given Sunday, W… I mean the list goes on. I thought you of all people wouldn’t have problems expelling an original thought.
Welcome Back, Kotter? Are you fucking kidding me? Where the fuck are they going to go with this script? What the fuck is left to be explored in the universe of Mr. Kotter and the sweathogs? Oh yeah, that’s right, Ice Cube just signed on to play Mr. Kotter. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? That’s edgy! It’ll keep me on the edge of my seat for a solid 120 plus minutes, that’s for sure; on the edge of my seat ready to pounce toward the nearest exit.
What needs to be realized also is it’s not just the shittiness of the subpar remake, but sequels as well. The fact that sequels and remakes deride the quality of the series as a whole, It’s The Godfather III phenomenon; not only did that movie suck fat wang in and of itself, it brought down the respectability and relative enjoyability of the previous two movies by attaching itself to an otherwise unfettered pedigree of excellence.
The other problem with remaking a movie is that almost by definition, the remake can never be better than the original. Quick, name a sequel that was better than its predecessor? (The Godfather II doesn’t count—both movies were taken from the same book—and Evil Dead II and Poison Ivy 3 are anomalies.) You can’t, because a sequel (or a remake) is premised on the success of its predecessor. And that’s really the central point of my opine here today: remakes and sequels are centred on cashing in on the success of previous accomplishments and nothing else.
It seems of late that horror films are the major point of Hollywood interest. With one of my all-time favourite horror films, Last House on the Left being shat all over in the name of the all mighty dolomite. Watching this remake I’m thinking, I have seen this before. But it’s not Last House on the Left. It’s every other film I’ve seen over the last 10 years. Here is an anatomy of a horror remake.
In the first 20 minutes or so you get to meet the cast. You know their faces; they are on the most popular of television programs or perhaps the latest teen angst movie. They talk about mundane things that teens can relate to and spout clever pop culture references as well as the occasional innuendo or pot joke.
These remakes are saturated with stupid characters. Instead of putting in clever writing, the screenwriters make the characters perform clichéd actions that put them in danger. This makes the audience not care about the fates of the people on screen because if you are going to be a fool, you get what you deserve. That 40 minutes of suspense becomes boring dead air and every remake out is following that formula. The only clever thing about any of these movies is the make-up and gore, and once you've seen a head explode once it becomes uninteresting.
The key to horrors success is longevity. Cleverness, style, fun, originality, and inventive antagonists to keep horror fans coming back to horror again and again. That is why the Friday the 13th movies on VHS/ DVD/BLU RAY sales have grossed $300 million over the years. These remakes make big bucks in opening weekend, and the special additions on DVD score big too, but if you compare the box office sales to Critical acclaim, the two rarely match up.
In 1969, the watershed year that produced “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Wild Bunch,” the year’s top-grossing movie was Disney’s “The Love Bug.” In 1955, the year of James Dean’s dynamic double bill, “Rebel Without a Cause” and “East of Eden,” a forgotten ultra-wide-screen travelogue called “Cinerama Holiday” captured the attention of the largest crowds. Are you serious?
The best picture Oscar winner of 1949, “All the King’s Men,” did not place among the top 20 for its year. 1977’s best picture, “Annie Hall,” couldn’t begin to compete at the box office with its chief competition for the prize, “Star Wars.” 1955’s best picture, an expansion of the television play, “Marty,” played to fewer moviegoers than another television-inspired movie, “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.” WHAT!?
Eventually this low-budget trend led to the period that is often cited as the golden age of cinema: the 1970s. One reason the period is so widely regarded as a watershed is that several of the films were stupendously popular. “The Godfather” (1972), “Jaws” (1975) and “American Graffiti” (1973), all produced for relatively little money and created by fresh young directors, set new attendance records.
Yet for every 1970s hit, there’s a trail of commercial disappointments. Robert Altman was lionized for “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971) and “Nashville” (1975), but neither film came close to the popularity of his breakthrough movie, “MASH” (1970). Between his first two “Godfather” epics, Francis Ford Coppola directed the brilliant “The Conversation” (1974), yet it never found much of an audience. Steven Spielberg followed up “Jaws” with the disastrous comedy, “1941.”
20 to 30 years ago, new movies were coming out all the time, some were money makers and some bombed, but they are being rediscovered today because people want something unique, and this creates a horrible cycle. Cinema now is so horrible that people are watching films like Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre because they need something new. A film from 36 years ago gives you a sense of originality? Wow. That’s saying how stale things are.
But the studios see this resurgence of interest in these films and decide to make a “renovated” version, then folding the original in to this stagnant box of shit that is 21st century sin-ema thus far.
There really needs to be some kind of enforceable law. We have government positions for every imaginable act on earth and we can’t get a few lazy pricks to screen new movies and bar the ones that desecrate the very story they seek to continue? How many people do you need to tell you the remake of War of the Worlds sucked ass? About one. Thank you. You might even be able to train some sort of primate. Canberra should get off their lazy asses and start making a veritable contribution to society instead of writing checks for the war and sucking dick in the bathroom.
04/12/10
