We went to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie recently. It was okay. Not as good as the first one, a bit too ridiculous to handle at some points, but it was good eye candy. One of the things that pleased me about the first movie was how surprisingly good it was - I say 'surprisingly' because it is, ultimately, a movie about an amusement park ride. Yet the story they concocted for it not only was a fitting paen to that ride it was also a fun story in its own right.
Which is unusual, for Hollywood. Sometimes one gets the impression that somewhere on Sunset Boulevard there is a giant creativity black hole, that pulls creative people and fresh ideas towards it and sucks them down, crumpled into nothing, and leaving hack writers and insipid remakes in its wake. Witness the trajectory of M. Night Shyamalan's films, which form pretty much a straight-line descent from 'brilliant' through 'well, okay' to 'eye-gouging suckitude'. It's the same man, right? Why can't he think of something new?
It's that creativity sucker, I tell you.
Or Kevin Smith. His last feeble push at something new was 'Jersey Girl'. And he followed it with... 'Clerks II'. Yes, he had to go back and make a sequel. Because that Sunset suck-engine has finally drained the last iota of 'fresh' right out of him.
In addition to the Sequel, one of the other proud traditions Hollywood's idea vacuum has given rise to is the Remake. In a lot of cases, these are stupid because they are remaking already good movies. Witness the remake of 'Psycho', which was in essence a frame by frame re-filming of the original. Talk about a waste of resources. Who the hell thought 'yeah, Hitchcock was okay, but if we got someone new to tell the story...'. I expect a 'Casablanca' remake any day now.
Sometimes you can remake a classic and add something - the latest 'Night of the Living Dead' was remaking a classic film, but brought a lot of new twists and nuance to it. The remake of 'The Poseidon Adventure'... uh, well it had better special effects. Okay, that one was also a waste of resources.
What irks me is that there are a lot of films out there that could use a remake. Old movies that had a worthwhile core which could resonate with modern audiences, but that need freshening up to do so. Movies which are worth seeing but could also stand improvement. Movies for which the studio won't have to pay royalties.
Allow me to give some examples:
1) Logan's Run. A classic dystopian future. Simple, elegant, chilling. But it's also stylistically hopelessly trapped in the future of the 1970s, with 'Star Trek' levels of special effects, and the ending is a confused muddle. A sharp director could really make that film his/her own, and have another generation of children shouting 'Run, Runner!' on the playground.
2) Westworld. Same as above. Yes, Yul Brynner would be hard to replace as the Gunslinger, but this is another tale of technology gone awry that is stripped down to its essential core. Could use new special effects, could use a more compelling subplot. But it would also bring in an audience - I mean, hell, Aeon Flux did and what was the point of that?
Leaving the science fiction genre for a moment, the 1970s were also a time for police crime films. I don't see a reason to reissue any of the Dirty Harry or Death Wish films (the former because it would be hard to do them better, the latter because who in their right mind would want more Death Wish movies?), but I do think that 3) The French Connection would be a good candidate for a remake. Yes, I know it won the Academy Award. But I've seen it, and it's not only dated, it's boring and stupid. Yet at the core there's an interesting story there.
So that's three. I'd like to throw the topic open to suggestions. What films, prior to, say, 1990, do you think would be worthwhile movies to remake and reissue? Come post about it on our forum!
- Sun Ra