EDITORIAL: Age of the Remake (Reflections of a Heirophant)
I grow weary from a lack of originality in Hollywood. It seems, now more than ever, that it is considered “cool” to remake and reboot movies and franchises.
Remakes wouldn’t be so bad if they were done sparingly. But, as soon as one studio does a remake, then another studio answers with a rushed product. One that doesn’t even resemble a true attempt to make a decent movie. Look at the horror movie situation. In 2003, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was remade, with an impressive amount of success. From there, it snowballed, disgustingly. We got remakes of “Dawn of the Dead,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “The Amityville Horror,” and, naturally, “Halloween,” and countless others. I’m not saying that they weren’t god, but this is just in the span of 4 years. That’s a bit on the incessant side, right?
In the case of “Halloween,” the reasoning for a reboot was a good one. Rather than try to salvage the wreck that the original “Halloween” franchise had become, Dimension decided to wipe the slate clean. They(Rob Zombie included) felt that the story had went too far off-course, and the only way to correct it was to start over. That might be true(I disagree), but how can they possibly continue to recycle that reason after they released that atrocity, “Rob Zombie’s Halloween II?” That movie went way farther off-course than any of the “Halloween” releases after the original sequel. I’d rather watch “Cats” for the rest of my life while a real cat used my nuts as a scratching post, than to be exposed to that movie for just a moment. A reboot is supposed to give new life to a franchise, not destroy it faster than an earthquake could a house of sticks. After that, they couldn’t possibly green light ANOTHER sequel… right(Halloween 3D)?
What about that “Spiderman” reboot? Simply because Sam Raimi didn’t want to rush the project, while Sony only sought to make a movie that they knew would be successful, whether it was a quality film or not. This isn’t so much of wanting to, “start fresh,” or, “make it better,” but more like, “you’re a poopy-head Sam, we’re going to pretend your movies never happened.” Definitely a child-like sense of revenge.
ON A SIDE NOTE:I recently watched “The Social Network,” and Andrew Garfield is an excellent actor. One who will definitely play Peter Parker very well.
“The Blob” is even getting a remake. Can you believe that? A crappy movie that saw an Extra Terrestrial case of Silly Putty rolling lazily about, devouring people. Why is that even popular? You’d think it was written by Stephen King with a plot like that. You’d think that with such a poopy plot, the acting would at least be good, right? But it wasn’t, “The Blob” was filled with sh*tty acting, save Steve McQueen, but even he had trouble convincing me to finish watching it.
Another movie that’s one of my favorites is “The Crow.” But, as with any movie made within the past 20 years, it is getting rebooted. I understand that the series failed epically with its insistence of producing WAY too many sequels. Maybe that was one movie that should have just been left at one entry, especially if they really are intending of casting Mark Whalberg in the lead. Don’t misunderstand, Marky-Mark is a fine actor, but an Eric Draven he’s not.
I’m not going to even dignify why remaking “Frankenstein” is a terrible idea. Ahh… screw it. Haven’t they learned from “Wolfman?” What a gag-inducing movie that was. It had so much promise, such a huge amount of hype behind it. I’m not sure how this movie should’ve sucked. They had plenty of time for it, and had Benicio Del Toro. Besides that, didn’t they already attempt a remake for this particular monster? Yeah, the one with Robert DeNiro playing Frankenstein’s Monster. What a low point in his illustrious career.
In closing:
I know that this is probably not the best place to post this particular editorial, since my argument centers around how uncreative Hollywood has become, and Comic Book movies are, largely, not creative. I was just curious what your opinions are? Let me know in the usual spot.