Okay, the frigging gloves are coming off. This habit of Hollywood remaking things has gone beyond insane as of late. Okay, it started off in the 90's where we had one here and there with debatable quality. In the 2000's it got way worse, but now it seems nothing at all is safe. What won't they remake?! Is nothing sacred? For frak's sake.
I'd heard that they were going to remake Poltergeist, which is literally the only haunted house/ghost movie I've ever actually liked. Most of those kinds of movies just don't work for me. Poltergeist however was a gem that was delivered by the immortal Stephen Spielberg and stands up just as well today as when it was made. It's bloody awesome and a movie I can watch over and over again. But then I saw this heresy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdnsO_e5pDs
Okay, allow me a moment to hyperventilate into a paper bag.
Okay, done.
Yeah, I'm kinda mad over this. This sodding trailer looks like every other ghost movie that's come out in the last five years. Unseen forces yanking someone away sharply? Yeah, never seen that before.
Folks, there are only two reasons to remake a movie that I can conjur up.
1. If the original movie had interesting ideas, but just plain wasn't much good. I'd actually like to see a remake of Valley of Gwangi. As mush as I enjoy that movie, let's face it, the only part that really stands out well is the stop motion dinosaurs. There's plenty of movies out there that are just kinda meh that you could improve upon if you actually have some decent writers.
2. If you want to do a very different take on the story. The Thing from Another World is a really darned good 1950's horror movie and one I still enjoy, but when it was remade as John Carpenter's The Thing is was dramatically different, yet still superb. Rather than a plant monster of the original movie, Carpenter went back to the original story Who Goes There, and delivered a fantastic comparison that still stands proudly today as one of my favorite horror movies.
The Poltergeist remake fits neither of these. The Speilberg version is perfect. There is nothing wrong with that movie. So it's not like it was a cool concept that got messed up during the execution.
It doesn't really fit the second bill either. They say that they are trying to make it more into a kid's movie with more focus on the brother than Carol Ann.
You know what? Screw that. There is no reason to remake this movie other than plundering a classic for cheap bucks. It just isn't going to measure up. I'd be willing to bet every cent I own that this won't measure up. I mean, I won't because I don't gamble, but crap's sake, it's not exactly a secret that most remakes frigging suck.
I don't know what it is, but it seems like there's been a writer's holocaust in Hollywood. They either belong to a handful of good director or have vanished off of the face of the earth. It staggers me that with these gigantic budgets rivaling the gross national income of most countries they can't afford to hire a half decent writing team. I'm rendered speechless at how these movies keep failing at delivering on even the most fundamental aspects of storytelling.
And while I'm in my angry chair, I might as well rage about a few other remakes I've heard of, such as the intended remake of Forbidden Planet. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1317479/
For those of you who don't know, Forbidden Planet was one of the best scifi movies ever made, and holds up even under modern scrutiny. It even has my favorite robot of any form of fiction I've seen, Robby the Robot. I almost had a coronary when a friend of mine mentioned this thing to me.
My only hope is that it gets stuck in development limbo and never sees the light of day.
I hereby officially declare war on Hollywood. For every half good movie they put out, a dozen crappy remakes are forced out of their grotesque orifices for extraordinary sums of money. I'm done with them. I don't think they can economically support themselves much longer actually. The amounts of money they spend for movies compared to what they get back just shouldn't be working.
Of course, I somehow doubt that they'll mind one tiny blogger yelling at them. Rather this is more of me simply venting my frustrations. Rawr. My little squeaks won't affect them in the least bit, but I might as well get my opinions down to channel my rage.
Hopefully I'll have something better to talk about later.
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