I just named those 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 3-5 years you
wouldn’t otherwise know how much this pisses me off, or how much I love Junior
Mints. But recently I became aware that Warner Bros. is making a CGI-animated
feature film of Thundercats. That’s right, you heard me correctly, the
Thundercats.
"Remakes limit the potential for quality with no regard for
the actual product and total regard for its marketability."
I have no
earthly idea what makes Warner Bros. think that they can desecrate
one of my most treasured childhood memories in the name of profit,
but I will be damned if I am going to sit by silently while the
proud legacy of Lion-O and company is tarnished. Why don’t they just
sexually violate my Teddy Ruxpin? Or MacGyver (verb) my favorite
glowworm into a bong? Actually, that last one might not be a bad
idea…but I think you get my point. 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 TNN, 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 (of Jackass fame) and Sean William Scott (of
Stiffler fame), and was directed by Jay Chandrasekhar (of Super Troopers
fame). Not a bad lineup 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.
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 Poison Ivy 3 is an anomaly.) 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 centered on cashing in on the success of previous
accomplishments and nothing else.
When Stallone set out to make a sixth and supposedly final Rocky movie in
this years’ 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.
In the past couple of months alone I’ve heard about a whole new slew of
remakes that are up and coming outside of Thundercats. I hear there is a
new Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford and Shia Lebouf. They are doing a
Get Smart movie with Steve Carrell. 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 Americana. References to its awesomeness
are ripe throughout modern culture and it’s 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.
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, that’s for sure.
What needs to be realized is it’s not just the shittiness of the subpar
sequel or remake itself, but also the fact that it derides 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.
This all makes me wonder what the fuck is going on over in the Library of
Congress. Isn’t this what that whole institution was set up to do in the first
place? They should be cataloging all these kick-ass movies and television shows
and stopping people from making shitty remakes out of them. End of story. We
have government positions for every imaginable act on earth and we can’t get a
few lazy asses 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. Congress 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.
To summarize, when you
start off with something shitty, and attempt to remake it, odds are high
that it will remain shitty. So next summer when you see Panthro chugging a Red
Bull and driving the Chevy ThunderTank across the field of battle, brought to
you by Nextel, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Do yourself and all Thunderians far
and wide a favor: get yourself a large box of Junior Mints and sit tight,
because the end of shitty remakes and sequels isn’t anywhere in sight.
