Sunday, November 7, 2010

Rejection of Regurgitation, Part 05

Awright, let's wrap this puppy up...

Just like anything else, remakes can be solid business - and solid works - if done right. Regardless of what the last four parts of this series would tell you, not every remake ever is terrible. Or a terrible idea. Hell, one remake spawned a film franchise so big it's become the cultural touchstone of our generation.

Okay, we'll get this out of the way as to avoid confusion as well as any arguments from those who have spent their lives analyzing every detail calling me out - Episode IV: A New Hope the very first Star Wars is not a proper remake. George Lucas actually borrowed from several sources - Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, "Dune", and several other classic science-fiction stories influenced Lucas's first movie. However, the plot itself owed much more to Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress - so much so that Lucas considered buying the rights to that movie in order to make a more faithful version of it. In space.

We all know how that turned out.

So many other remakes - be they good, bad, or indifferent, could be discussed but it comes down to a simple point. Put in a little time, a little imagination, and give the public either another angle to the story or a different version of it altogether, and a remake can be very viable. It doesn't always take as radical of a departure as a Star Wars; merely something new brought to the table and maybe a little actual work in making sure the project is worth the ticket-buying public's time and effort.

What's not working anymore is a misleading sense of thinking people will buy a carbon copy just because it looks newer. People fell for that trick at first, but they're starting to see through the facades. The hardest facts of all - the numbers - are starting to prove that you can repackage an polish a can of Spam all you want to, but it's still a disgusting by-product that the public no longer sees as fit for consumption.

And that goes double for The Crow (you know, what started all this in the first place?) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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