Well. Eh. To answer the question, Star Wars is the only movie I've ever explicitly wanted to see remade, but not because I'm aching for new Star Wars or carrying a little hate-on for George. I laugh along and poke fun at him with everyone else, but I'm not really outraged by the special editions or the prequels, just a little...you know, exhausted by it. (The closest he ever got to hurting my feelings, or anything that real, was Star Tours, and I'm over it. Whatever.)

It's mostly because of another thing, which is I wish the concept of "covers" was more prevalent in movies. I love cover songs, as a concept, and I often enjoy the covers as much as the originals. This has to do with the way I categorize songs in my head, which is not as a system of interlocked artists, albums, and songs - though I'm slightly obsessively interested in maintaining that so I can beat you at guess-that-artist in the car - but as executions of chord progressions and melodies and key changes. I'll hear a song and instantly make an empirical statement about it, if I like it. (Not the other way around; too many slow-burn songs have grown on me.) I heard "Say Yes," and said "that is a melody, yes please." Aside from the fact that Elliot Smith wrote it and sang it beautifully, it really has nothing to do with him. He found a device - a melody - that works like a fucking machine, it's perfect, it's a simple and elegant and timeless melody. And every time I hear someone sing it, in any style, even with varying degrees of technical ability, it does the same thing for me.

I feel that way about stories and settings, they're modular. To give an extreme example of what I'm saying, I wish the system in place would celebrate two directors coming out with the same movie in the same year.

Obviously that makes zero financial sense in this market, but I think everyone would learn a lot about how storytelling works, how films work, and especially how directors and actors work by doing it that way. (And something like it has been going on in the live theater world for ages.) And it would underline the great stories and sift through the original ones for new gems.

I don't know. I don't have a list of movies I think should be remade, I think there should be a massive list of movies being remade. The credit for The Wizard of Oz should remain in the hands of L. Frank Baum and the forty thousand people who directed it, just like the credit of Hallelujah stays with Leonard Cohen, but I don't quite understand the virtue of holding up a seventy year old piece of art and saying "this one will always be better." Obviously that's how it works now, but it's arbitrary. It's not that way with music, why is it with films?

Because it's good for you? Sure. I agree, having a broader sense of culture than current culture is an important value. But what's the virtue in making a kid watch The Wizard of Oz, if an equally engaging, modern version comes out? (Return to Oz is not a part of this or any conversation.) I dunno. I think if Pixar felt comfortable doing The Wizard of Oz, they'd do the shit out of it, and it'd result in a fantastic version of the story, with similarities and differences to the original film, but not necessarily any less enchanting.

I used Star Wars as my answer for the same reason I used Wizard of Oz as an example. In my head, the most immediately important thing would be not getting intimidated by the everlasting megahits, afraid to touch them, but to keep covering them. Keep them in the modern culture, not as modern things, but as timeless things that have existed in various forms for years, like stories, parables, songs, that sort of thing.

Why do we think of films as events in history, not as evolving pieces of culture? Why is it that in a hundred years, just like you need to be an art historian to fully appreciate Van Gogh, will you need to be a film historian to fully appreciate Star Wars? Come on, people, it's a great story, it'll work for centuries - it has worked for centuries - why do we give such a shit about the original? (As compared to the four remakes made in the following decades that I suppose should exist, not the special editions.) We don't give a shit about the original apple pie, or Hansel and Gretel, or Bible, or performance of the Star Spangled Banner.

...

And Footloose, definitely Footloose, that's a movie that will definitely resonate with kids today.

Without looking it up, tell me when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written. I'll help you - the movie came out forty years afterward. The discrepancy of nearly two generations doesn't seem to have had a lasting impact on the timelessness of the movie; you don't, and I don't, know a good 1900 story from a good 1939 story. I'm not saying we need to replace every older version with its newer version, I'm just saying as a thought experiment it'd be cool if we have film versions of Wizard of Oz throughout history the way we have versions of songs and stories.

I should clarify - I don't mean a script-remake, I mean a story remake.

I did? When?

Anyway, I didn't say we need anything - aside from not mention Return to Oz - I was just floating why I'm philosophically cool with the idea of remakes, and would like to see more of them made for more worthy properties, and less made from poppy, obvious franchises like The Flintstones and The Dukes of Hazzard.

Really?

A new version would have as much fantastical story of a girl going to a magic world where she learns the value of friendship, courage and smarts, just, less dust bowl.

I'm definitely not advocating a script remake of The Wizard of Oz, where they adhere to the original document written for a 1939 audience. It would make more sense to modernize the circumstances for the audience at the time, and have more value as a cultural yardstick to say "crazy, in 1939 it was the dust bowl and in 2025 it was evacuated Mexico."

Right, yeah, I just gathered that Maul might not be taking it as a given, because otherwise I can't make sense of this:

Anyway. In the spirit of your question, I say Harold and Maude.

I don't see the value in remaking a good film, which is what they seem to do most of the time, but there are quite a few old genre films that tell a compelling story but fell a little short on the execution.

The Black Hole - this is a fun Disney movie with cute robots that sort of makes it family fare, but it has some dark undertones (one being a mad scientist) that I believe would make for an excellent premise in a harder and more adult-targeted sci-fi setting.

Saturn 3 - I find the story here to be really engaging but the film has unfortunately not dated well at all.

Transformers - this really needs a full on reboot. Hopefully the 4th film we're getting is going to be one.

That's because you missed my point entirely. I'm not talking about the script. I'm not even in the vicinity of talking about the script. What I'm talking about is the MOVIE. The actual frames of film that are projected on to the screen and the actual sound that is piped through the speakers.

My point is that they, in and of themselves, are tiny little snapshots of that era. Judy Garland in her gorgeous heyday, the types of sound effects they used in that period of filmmaking, the makeup they used for the wicked witch all of that is so utterly iconic of that era, that I can place it instantly, because 10 years down the line, they were doing something different. That's what people latch onto, even if you get the best team behind a wizard of oz remake and it's got an amazing story and everything is perfect. It still won't be Judy Garland or those sound effects or that makeup. For some movies, those elements are as much an element of what makes them so great and memorable that they are in many ways inseperable from the story or characters when people think of the movie. Just as people won't be able to think of Transformers without think of hyper colour teal and orange.

And yes I agree, I would love to see a Wizard of Oz with today's visual effects budget behind it. But I'll still love the Wizard of Oz because of all those things about it. I believe that one of the many reasons why theater and music never had to go through this phase is because there was no record of it, the entire medium was based around single serving dollops. You go to a concert or performance, you watch it, and you go home. If someone else wanted to put on that show or perform that piece, then it was instantly a "cover", but with film you can't do that; just by it's very nature, it is a static thing.

Do you get me? Has this made it any clearer?

Teague, have you seen any of Steven Moffats 'Sherlock' ? It seems to be the sort of thing your talking about. taking the Holmes character and putting him in a contempary setting just as films in the forties had him going to fight Nazis.

Most people seem to agree that there's just not much point in remaking a story that has been told in a definitive version (which I think is what Maul is perhaps overemphasizing), because you're either going to end up aping Curtiz's Casablanca (for example) or self-consciously re-imagining it. But there are TONS of stories out that that have been done well but could be done better or even just done well again.

I, of course, would start with Bugsy Malone. The kids should do the singing.

Here's the practical problem, tho: audiences aren't interested in seeing the towering masterpiece you created using the building blocks of Biodome because Biodome sucked. But they are interested in seeing the steaming pile of dung that you created out of the building blocks of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was great but just had a few little problems. So the money in remakes is remaking good movies that aren't awesome movies.

Also, I think AI was a terrible idea for a movie, and The Island wasn't much better.

There is a difference between what should be and what is.   You're correct in describing what is.

But you're very incorrect about AI and The Island being bad ideas for films.  Both are loaded with opportunity for conflict and drama.  We should start a podcast and argue the finer points.

EDIT:  Do I want to see Parts?  This is the first I'm hearing of it.

Last edited by oTom (2011-09-21 20:56:05)