Your Reboots and Remakes

[CConn]

I think it was the bloated nature of the script that ruined it for me.

Yeah, it had other issues too, but if it had been a fast paced 2 hour actioneer, it would've been much more enjoyable than the 3 hour waste or time that it turned into. The story itself just doesn't need 3 hours or screentime for any reason.

 

[Octoberist]

It's not meant to be an epic. it's a monster film.

 

[CConn]

Exactly. Jackson just didn't get that.

 

[Thundarr]

Hmm, that all works pretty well. And Robert would likely do it in a flash. Though I think the reason why I used Freddy's Dead is because there is so much they could have done with the flashbacks. So, why not fully invest in a Elm Street movie where its about Freddy rising.

I like the idea of fully investing in an Elm Street movie about the rise of Freddy Krueger. I just think making him a father was a bit much. Just have him be married, or have a serious girlfriend. She becomes suspicious of him somehow (maybe there is a report of an ice cream truck in the neighborhood of the last abduction, and she knows Freddy drives an ice cream truck to make extra cash). She goes looking through his house and finds something (maybe his infamous glove or his scrapbook of missing and murdered children). Freddy catches her, kills her, then disposes of the body. Then without his window dressing, his facade of being a friendly and helpful elementary school janitor and part time ice cream truck driver begins to crumble. He gets sloppy and makes mistakes, which lead to his arrest.

That's how I would write it anyway. And I'd make Freddy less of a wise ass. No bad puns or anything. Just good old plain & scary Freddy. Like he was in the first movie, just not dead yet.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I think the biggest problem with KK was that Jackson was too in love with the original, and he tried to make his version as big as he imagined the first film to be.

 

[Octoberist]

An example where a filmmaker is 'too close' to the project.

 

[Gianakin_]

I disagree. Look at the various versions of Dracula that were remade numerous times I the 20th century. They all stuck to the same story, but each one had its own spirit and focus that distinguished it from all of the others, and made each version worthwhile.

The good versions did, at least.

I'm guessing you were referring to the last part of my post, about remakes in general?

If so, then I get you and I also understand that without the concept of remakes we wouldn't have gotten some great films (Scarface), but to be honest I still disagree with the entire notion. In my opinion it's better to do something that you came up with but let other works of art affect you while doing it, than remaking something.

The Dracula thing is tricky, however, since one could argue they're not reamkes, but adaptations of the Bram Stoker book.

 

[Gianakin_]

I think the biggest problem with KK was that Jackson was too in love with the original, and he tried to make his version as big as he imagined the first film to be.

An example where a filmmaker is 'too close' to the project.

Or too close to his Oscar(s).

 

[CConn]

I'm guessing you were referring to the last part of my post, about remakes in general?

If so, then I get you and I also understand that without the concept of remakes we wouldn't have gotten some great films (Scarface), but to be honest I still disagree with the entire notion. In my opinion it's better to do something that you came up with but let other works of art affect you while doing it, than remaking something.

The Dracula thing is tricky, however, since one could argue they're not reamkes, but adaptations of the Bram Stoker book.

So, by that logic you could remake things like The Lord of the Rings, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or countless other movies simply because they were books or plays first?

That kinda doesn't make sense.

 

[Gianakin_]

So, by that logic you could remake things like The Lord of the Rings, or To Kill a Mockingbird, or countless other movies simply because they were books or plays first?

That kinda doesn't make sense.

Why not? I didn't mind Sleuth. Nor the Batman films. I know it's a fine line between adaptations (especially multiple ones) and remakes, but there is a line.

 

[CConn]

There really isn't.

A movie script is little different than a stage play script. If you can remake one, why can't you remake the other?

Not to mention, there's numerous ways in which you could even do a remake. From following the first film closely, to merely taking a premise or concept from the original, and going in a totally new direction with it.

 

[Gianakin_]

Well, I completely disagree that a movie script is only a little different than a play script. Cinema and theatre have different limitations and freedoms and their respective script writing processes almost always reflect that. In that sense, something like Equus or Sleuth is an adaptation and something that personally seems much more challenging and creative to turn into a movie, than to make a movie into another movie.

 

[CConn]

Well, that's a matter of the story itself, not the script format.

I mean, Arsenic and Old Lace or Dial M for Murder were pretty much carbon copies of the stage versions.

I dunno, it honestly seems like to me you reached a conclusion ("I don't like remakes") and built a bunch of logic around it, rather than have logic form your conclusion itself.

 

[Gianakin_]

And the story itself is what I'm talking about and what's important to me. Whether the director of the movie chooses to keep it identical to the stage version or not is exactly the point, that it's an adaptation, not really different from comics or video games.

And you would be wrong in your assumption about my opinion on remakes. I have studied the tendencies of Hollywood and cinema in general (ie. remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels, requels) and have accepted the merit in each and every one of them except for remakes, due to the fact that the creation of a movie in that case does not include another format/medium, hence making the entire effort, in my eyes, completely lazy.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Or too close to his Oscar(s).

Peter Jackson had been trying to make the film since the early 90s, and he's often said that the original inspired him to become a film maker. I genuinely think the flaws of the 05 film were because he saw the original as this huge, Gone with the Wind type of film when it was really a more humble action/adventure type. I don't think it was his greed or ego that cost the film, It was probably his high esteem of the original.

 

[Gianakin_]

Doesn't mean that his '05 vision was identical to his 90s one. I'm sure the Oscar and appeal had something to do with the bloating of the vision. The same bloating was in Lovely Bones, too. And I'm seeing signs of it in the Hobbit, but obviously I'll wait to pass final judgement on that one.

 

[CashforStash]

If Ridley Scott can make a film about the Space Jocky (a 30 second appereance in the first Alien film) then I can one hundred and fifty percent support a film about Quint from Jaws on the indianapolis boat.

That'd make one HELL of a movie.