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WHY DO THEY RUIN CLASSICS


K-Gun10

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http://www.movieweb.com/news/40/29740.php

 

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

To answer your question: because they can, and they want money.

 

Interesting trailer. I like the last shot with Gort. But Keanu Reeves as Klaatu? :thumbsup:

 

To be fair some re-makes turn out quite good. Peter Jackson's King Kong & Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds were outstanding.

But I know what you mean K-Gun10.

I agree with Roger Ebert when he said:"Instead of re-making classics, how about re-making the terrible movies and try and make them better?"

 

I guess with classics like Day the Earth Stood Still & War of the Worlds having been re-made, and When Worlds Collide being prepped, then Forbidden Planet wo'nt be that far off either.

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To answer your question: because they can, and they want money.

 

Interesting trailer. I like the last shot with Gort. But Keanu Reeves as Klaatu? :wallbash:

 

To be fair some re-makes turn out quite good. Peter Jackson's King Kong & Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds were outstanding.

But I know what you mean K-Gun10.

I agree with Roger Ebert when he said:"Instead of re-making classics, how about re-making the terrible movies and try and make them better?"

 

I guess with classics like Day the Earth Stood Still & War of the Worlds having been re-made, and When Worlds Collide being prepped, then Forbidden Planet wo'nt be that far off either.

Are you kidding me? That movie was barely watchable. Another horribly overhyped Tom Cruise vehicle.

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It's not just remakes of old movies that ruin classics

 

I was watching Empire Strikes Back on TV yesterday. All the crappy touchups they've made in the last couple years have really watered it down.

 

Case in point:

Vader kneeling before the Emperor hologram. The original Emperor hologram has been digitally enhanced to look exactly like Palpatine/Darth Sidious from Episode III

Boba Fett's voice has been redone with the voice of Jengo Fett/Clone troopers

The Cloud City Walls which used to be ugly white 70s sci fi plastic have been replaced with slick CGI background animations

They even had the arrogance to change one of Vader's lines "Bring my shuttle" to some longwinded sentence like "Inform the blah blah blah something about shuttle and some more blah blah blah". Of course the voiceover sounds nothing like Vadar either

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Are you kidding me? That movie was barely watchable. Another horribly overhyped Tom Cruise vehicle.

Thank you. When I watched it, I kept waiting to see something I recognized from Wells' book. Didn't happen very often ...

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Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how a remake "ruins" a classic film. All it does is produce a crappy version of a classic, which you can decide whether or not to watch.

 

Now when you're talking about touching up a film, like what George Lucas has done with Star Wars (Han shot first, damn it) then I agree. (I like some of GL's touch-ups, dislike some and couldn't care less about others. I do like the update of Palpatine's hologram, since the original was the image of an old lady combined with chimpanzee eyes. I prefer continuity in the story and characters whenever possible.)

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Thank you. When I watched it, I kept waiting to see something I recognized from Wells' book. Didn't happen very often ...

I take it you never saw the trailer to WOTW before you saw it?

 

BTW, you did see the alien tripods right? That was from Wells' book.

 

May I also add that you never saw anything from the book in George Pal's version of WOTW either.

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I take it you never saw the trailer to WOTW before you saw it?

Wrong. I had a pretty good idea what it was going to be like, which is why I didn't pay to see it in the theater.

 

BTW, you did see the alien tripods right? That was from Wells' book.

 

May I also add that you never saw anything from the book in George Pal's version of WOTW either.

True on both counts, and I never said I was inordinately fond of Pal's treatment. I'm a words person, inclined to take the writer's side whenever stuff gets changed for a movie or TV show.

 

Ever read Harlan Ellison's original script for "City on the Edge of Forever"? Case in point. They should have shot that ending instead of the one they used, but we couldn't have Capt. James T. Kirk coming off as anything less than a hero, could we?

 

Same deal with Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley." Fine short story, mediocre novel, flat-out horrible movie. I got the chance to talk to him about it when he was the GoH at Balticon 21. (Good God. That was 21 years ago ??!?) He said it made a little money for him, but if he'd had it to do over again, he never would have sold the rights.

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Klaatu barada nikto!!!

 

I actually like the idea of this remake. It goes well with today's climate just as it did 50 years ago.

 

I usually have an open mind, but the original movie fit the 1950's so very well. IMO, the current "world" social and political climate is NOTHING like the immediate post WWII, hydrogen bomb, Cold WAR, ICBM, and birth of the space race mood.

 

Some people were scared shitless that world was dooooomed and others arrogantly looked at our technology and assumed we were in control of everything we surveyed in an Ozymandias way. Then this ship landed from another world and made us see we were children.

 

Today so many are fatalistic. A completely different climate.

 

Oh crap, gas is up to $4.20

Damn I dropped my cellphone

Did you hear a-Rod is seeing Madonna

Oh yeah, a space ship landed in Central park and this big robot got out

<pause>

Christ did you see American Idol this week?

So, wings or pizza?

 

:wallbash:

 

They will have to redo it as a different story.

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