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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Remakes, remakes all around, but not a script to be ummm scrupt?

06:35 / 07.01.05

Just saw the trailer for the Assault on Precinct 13 remake, which of course is a homage to Rio Bravo. It seems that the remakers have gone for the interesting twist of having the attacks a bunch of dirty cops trying to take out a prisoner who may testify against them.

I'm a huge Carpenter fan, and love the original, but this remake has something in it that makes it interesting enough to make me want to see it. And anyway, the Thing was a remake, and that's his best film, so I'm sure he won't be complaining.

As I was looking at trailers this morning though, there was a lot of remakes.re-imaginigs coming out soon - Pink Panther (looking as terrible as it should) and Guess Who (a clever spin on the Guess who's coming to dinner 'but your boyfriend's black' sctick, by having Bernie Mac the dad, and Ashton Kushter the fiance - ha, hilarity ensues...christ!)

I know there are threads on remakes on the board - this one was more about the precinct 13 specifically, and also to get people to say what 'changings' of originals they think work, what could work (so come up with some ideas of what you'd like remade, and how you'd do it differently) and what really doesn't.

06:47 / 07.01.05

It's funny I clicked on the Assault trailer last week thinking God this is going to be crap but it looks like fun in an over the top action for of way.

But your right about the Pink Panther is looks truly awful.

We also have Charlie and the Chocolate factory on its way and a whole shit load of horrors have been remade in the last year or too.

And then there's the remaking of Japanese movies, there's a trailer for the American version of Dark Water on the apple site at the moment.

I think it's those that bother me the most, the films they're remaking aren't even a few years old and there's nothing wrong with the original versions.

I wonder if I could get funding to remake the Matrix trilogy.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:59 / 07.01.05

bear- just remake the first one. Please.

I'll be interested to see P13...

I think a lot of it comes down to WHY films are being remade- if it's because of the makers being too lazy to come up with a new idea, then there's a fair chance the laziness will carry through to other elements of the production, and it'll be shite.
I'm looking forward to Peter Jackson's King Kong, because of his well-documented love of the source material (and also cos it should be tons of fun).

Interestingly, I was reading yetsreday (in SFX, so it may well be bollocks) that Sam Raimi has plans to remake Evil Dead with the original production team and, of course, Bruce Campbell.

07:10 / 07.01.05

I'd love to remake the Matirix sequal, the thing that never sat happy with me was that it was about someone who had worked out the rules of the programme - so, unless the system had a complete remake, Neo should have no trouble constantly breaking the system. The one point raised in the first film not taken up in the sequals was that there are some people in the matrix, who know what it is, and just want to keep the status quo. A far more interesting take on the sequal, for me, would be to ditch the whole upgraded agents/stupid french accented werewolfs nonsense, and have Neo and co going against a group of humans equally adept in the matrix that are trying to stop them. I'd keep the scene with the architect though, I really liked that.

09:34 / 07.01.05

I was only using The Matrix as an example of a recent movie, thing is though I bet people would go and see it again and again - maybe 5 different versions in a year, you could use the same script and set and change the director each team and the actors. I think there might be money in that!

Point being that Dark Water was released in 2002 and now it's getting it's new release in 2005 (made in 2004) that's only 3 years. I guess it's the subtitle thing, although that wasn't a problem with Hero. Remake Hero with Steven Segal.. I'm not really adding here.

Haus of Mystery

09:45 / 07.01.05

Bearing in mind I know sod all about the remake of Assault on Precinct 13, every single cell in my body is screaming 'PLEASE GOD NOOOOOOO!!!' in unison. Leave it alone, it's perfect.

09:58 / 07.01.05

The orginal doesn't have Ja Rule, so not quite perfect enough.

10:04 / 07.01.05

a) i think the original's badly lit: 'moody', no, rather an obstruction to the narrative - 'what happened there?' is a question i've always had to ask watching this film.

b) fucken ja rule yeeeaaah boiyee - as someone who's made a special point of watching all of steven segal's hiphop co-star movies, jr is definitely the best, because he's feakier-looking than dmx.

11:02 / 07.01.05

As an adjunct to this one: a previous thread on pointless remakes.

Interesting ideas to be gleaned from there:

—remake vs. template
—remaking good films vs. remaking bad ones
—the strategy of simultaneous video release of foreign original and Hollywood remake
—directors remaking their own earlier films: why?
—screenplays vs. stage plays as reinterpretable sources

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:14 / 07.01.05

So, what sort of money do remakes bring in? Considering crap like 'Planet of the Apes', 'Psycho', 'Get Carter' etc etc, I am amazed that they make it monetarily worth remaking an old film rather than making a new one.

Haus of Mystery

11:29 / 07.01.05

I guess it's an easy sell. You don't have to even give the high concept.

Good remake/remodel:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman 1978 version)

12:02 / 07.01.05

Even the Abel Farrerererrrr version isn't too bad, mainly because the theme changed with the tone shifting to suit contemporary issues - 50's - threat of Commies, 70's - distrust of the Man 90's - faceless consuming yuppies.

Precinct 13 has actually tried to attempt a new twist on the old film, which is actually quite a good idea.

Re-making of subtitled horror films is just a way of getting a decent idea over to a lazy, low common denominator demographic that studios probably feel they might miss out on making some money off of.