Monday, February 02, 2009
They call 'em movies, not "newvies"
I have no observations on the Superbowl itself (game or the spectacle). I have observations on the commercials and particularly on the disturbing worldviews most of them implied (lots of misogyny and selfishness on display there), but I'm not going to bother.
I can't recall all the movies that got advertised last night, but three stood out to me because of what they had in common: Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and Race to Witch Mountain.
Yeah, they're all some form of remake of something old.
Now I'm totally geeked out about the Trek movie, which looks to be a lot of fun. (I'm not a J.J. Abrams fan, particularly, but there appears to be a lot to like there, especially Simon Pegg as Scotty.) And I'm not generally opposed to people revising old stuff. Some of the things I love the most are good revisions of old things. Battlestar Galactica is at the top of that list.
But it does seem like Hollywood is cranking out a lot of re-dos lately. It's not that people aren't making new and original and interesting things. But they don't often seem to come from Hollywood. And I notice that the two big comics publishers have for years mostly been continually ripping themselves off re-doing and re-re-doing etc. the same storylines with the same characters.
So I wonder if you have to be a little out of the mainstream, or a little out of the main money (at least) to do the bold new original and interesting things.
In any event, I wasn't thrilled with what I saw in the trailers for Land of the Lost and Witch Mountain not because they happen to be remakes or revisions, but because they look very much like they don't understand what the original had. You can re-do something old and do it right in different ways. You can remember what the original had and do that well, as we're all hoping Star Trek will do. You can honor what the original had while taking it in a different direction or poking fun, like the Brady Bunch Movie. Or you can discover the potential good that the original didn't fully realize, like Battlestar Galactica.
But Land of the Lost looks like they've thrown away all that was good about the original. Look, I know it had all the limits of Saturday morning 70s television. Acting wasn't winning any awards, and by even the standards of the time it wasn't sophisticated in special effects. But it drew in some serious sci-fi writers, and it was trying to be serious. It had some drama and some surprises. To turn that into a Will Farrell weird comedy vehicle seems like a failure of imagination.
Race to Witch Mountain appears to be in the same mold. While they haven't turned it slapstick, the new version looks for all the world to be a made-for-Vin-Diesel action flick. The original Escape to Witch Mountain was much stranger than that. It was about two kids who didn't fit in trying to find their real family. There was no need to put the whole world at stake (or whatever plot they've shoved on top of things). It was about ugly ducklings, outcasts who didn't fit. I'm not saying it was a great movie: it's actually been so long since I've seen it that I couldn't say. But it had a resonance to it that came from somebody dreaming up something original, something that meant something.
It's possible that either of those movies might be good in one way or another. But I think even so they'll grieve me. Not deeply, though. I know that if I look a little further off the beaten path, I'll find the original and interesting stuff. And one of the joys of our media-drenched age is that the originals of most everything are becoming more and more available.
Stories are becoming more and more important to me, so I'll keep watching for the weird, the original, and the true. I just won't usually expect it to have a big studio's name attached.
I can't recall all the movies that got advertised last night, but three stood out to me because of what they had in common: Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and Race to Witch Mountain.
Yeah, they're all some form of remake of something old.
Now I'm totally geeked out about the Trek movie, which looks to be a lot of fun. (I'm not a J.J. Abrams fan, particularly, but there appears to be a lot to like there, especially Simon Pegg as Scotty.) And I'm not generally opposed to people revising old stuff. Some of the things I love the most are good revisions of old things. Battlestar Galactica is at the top of that list.
But it does seem like Hollywood is cranking out a lot of re-dos lately. It's not that people aren't making new and original and interesting things. But they don't often seem to come from Hollywood. And I notice that the two big comics publishers have for years mostly been continually ripping themselves off re-doing and re-re-doing etc. the same storylines with the same characters.
So I wonder if you have to be a little out of the mainstream, or a little out of the main money (at least) to do the bold new original and interesting things.
In any event, I wasn't thrilled with what I saw in the trailers for Land of the Lost and Witch Mountain not because they happen to be remakes or revisions, but because they look very much like they don't understand what the original had. You can re-do something old and do it right in different ways. You can remember what the original had and do that well, as we're all hoping Star Trek will do. You can honor what the original had while taking it in a different direction or poking fun, like the Brady Bunch Movie. Or you can discover the potential good that the original didn't fully realize, like Battlestar Galactica.
But Land of the Lost looks like they've thrown away all that was good about the original. Look, I know it had all the limits of Saturday morning 70s television. Acting wasn't winning any awards, and by even the standards of the time it wasn't sophisticated in special effects. But it drew in some serious sci-fi writers, and it was trying to be serious. It had some drama and some surprises. To turn that into a Will Farrell weird comedy vehicle seems like a failure of imagination.
Race to Witch Mountain appears to be in the same mold. While they haven't turned it slapstick, the new version looks for all the world to be a made-for-Vin-Diesel action flick. The original Escape to Witch Mountain was much stranger than that. It was about two kids who didn't fit in trying to find their real family. There was no need to put the whole world at stake (or whatever plot they've shoved on top of things). It was about ugly ducklings, outcasts who didn't fit. I'm not saying it was a great movie: it's actually been so long since I've seen it that I couldn't say. But it had a resonance to it that came from somebody dreaming up something original, something that meant something.
It's possible that either of those movies might be good in one way or another. But I think even so they'll grieve me. Not deeply, though. I know that if I look a little further off the beaten path, I'll find the original and interesting stuff. And one of the joys of our media-drenched age is that the originals of most everything are becoming more and more available.
Stories are becoming more and more important to me, so I'll keep watching for the weird, the original, and the true. I just won't usually expect it to have a big studio's name attached.
