"Taking" was a fine flick the first time (after being a fine book.) The line where Walter Matthau says, "go play with your trains" was priceless.
I can't imagine how they could improve on this, but I'll bet that the optimists (producers) involved have some crazy idea that we want to see more blood, guts and violence, rather than a well told story.
In general, it speaks poorly for the movie industry that they feel they have to remake anything. Do they not have any new stories?
Some things it makes sense to remake with newer technology -- relatively few people want to watch black&white films with no sound, for instance, especially as few cinemas and almost no homes have a cinema organ and someone to play it. Or they may want to bring them up to date, look at the way opera and play productions often do modern adaptations. Or for that matter just because the producer looks at the original and thinks that they would like to tell that story in their own way.
You could say exactly the same about plays, musicals, and opera. Why are people still putting on their own adaptations of Shakespere, don't they have any original ideas? Or books for that matter, as discussed in other threads there are almost no 'new' stories which haven't been done before (for that matter Shakespere's plays were "old stories" which he adapted; so for that matter were most of the Greek plays a couple of millennia earlier).
The practice which I deplore is not "remaking" but using the name to attract the crowd and then providing something quite different. For example, the film of "Mission Impossible" was a passable Tom Cruise action flick (if one likes Tom Cruise action flicks) but the only thing it had in common with the series was the name, the "this tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds" hook, and parts of the theme tune: the series was all about the IM team (and started every episode with the leader Jim Phelps picking who he wanted for this mission) whereas the film had the team gone and the leader a criminal and Tom Cruise on a solo mission. It was not the same, and I consider it to be fraud (strictly "bait and switch", it promises one thing but delivers something different). Remaking a film using the same story (in essence; "Charlie's Angels" used the same concept but with different girls, but that was OK because the team changed throughout the TV series anyway), or as a continuation (new "Battlestar Galactica" is actually a continuation of the series, not as first appeared a remake) is fine as far as I'm concerned.
There are way way WAY too many re-makes of movies whose first versions were just FINE, thankyouverymuch. Willy Wonka was one of those.
OK, I LOVED the old Taking of Pelham One Two Three and I had your reaction - what, why?
There are lots of plays that have never been adapted to movies that they could try. Or books. Book adaptations are doing well (Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, Oil, etc).
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Why are they remaking The Taking of Pelham One Two Three?
Date: 2009-02-27 12:23 am (UTC)I was surprised at that
Date: 2009-02-27 04:16 am (UTC)I can't imagine how they could improve on this, but I'll bet that the optimists (producers) involved have some crazy idea that we want to see more blood, guts and violence, rather than a well told story.
In general, it speaks poorly for the movie industry that they feel they have to remake anything. Do they not have any new stories?
Re: I was surprised at that
Date: 2009-02-27 09:26 am (UTC)You could say exactly the same about plays, musicals, and opera. Why are people still putting on their own adaptations of Shakespere, don't they have any original ideas? Or books for that matter, as discussed in other threads there are almost no 'new' stories which haven't been done before (for that matter Shakespere's plays were "old stories" which he adapted; so for that matter were most of the Greek plays a couple of millennia earlier).
The practice which I deplore is not "remaking" but using the name to attract the crowd and then providing something quite different. For example, the film of "Mission Impossible" was a passable Tom Cruise action flick (if one likes Tom Cruise action flicks) but the only thing it had in common with the series was the name, the "this tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds" hook, and parts of the theme tune: the series was all about the IM team (and started every episode with the leader Jim Phelps picking who he wanted for this mission) whereas the film had the team gone and the leader a criminal and Tom Cruise on a solo mission. It was not the same, and I consider it to be fraud (strictly "bait and switch", it promises one thing but delivers something different). Remaking a film using the same story (in essence; "Charlie's Angels" used the same concept but with different girls, but that was OK because the team changed throughout the TV series anyway), or as a continuation (new "Battlestar Galactica" is actually a continuation of the series, not as first appeared a remake) is fine as far as I'm concerned.
Re: I was surprised at that
Date: 2009-02-27 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-27 03:08 pm (UTC)That was MY reaction!
Date: 2009-02-27 11:41 pm (UTC)There are way way WAY too many re-makes of movies whose first versions were just FINE, thankyouverymuch. Willy Wonka was one of those.
OK, I LOVED the old Taking of Pelham One Two Three and I had your reaction - what, why?
There are lots of plays that have never been adapted to movies that they
could try. Or books. Book adaptations are doing well (Slumdog Millionaire,
No Country for Old Men, Oil, etc).
Lauretta
Constellation Books